War on Useful Language

But this is a language game, and I am playing the role of the futile prescriptivist holding the line against a huge tide of people who would prefer that “terrorism” simply be a synonym for “doubleplus-ungood”. A perfectly accurate phrase like “heinous criminal violence” is simply not enough for these people: they demand that the T-word be deployed. And in the end, descriptivism is the correct school of linguistics, and thus in the long run I will inevitably be wrong. Eventually, terrorism will be a synonym for “doubleplus-ungood” and a useful tool of thought will have been blunted into uselessness, like a scalpel bashed repeatedly against a brick wall.

This reminds me of how we now call everything “war” — war on drugs, war on poverty, war on women, war on Christmas — except when we pay our armed forces to shoot at another nation’s people, in which case we call it “kinetic military action” or whatever.

— Are “lone gunman” school shootings terrorism? — if they are, “terrorism” is useless as a concept.

Headbrick

Look, we can’t just change the whole system every single time someone’s mommy says “brain damage.” And for lots of poor kids, getting bashed in the face for the amusement of wealthy alumni is the only path to college success.

— Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal’s incisive analysis of college football. See also Pro Football’s Violent Toll. I am increasingly skeptical of college sports in general, and football in particular.

Configuring a Fedora Media Server

I thought first of asking…

I thought first of asking whether you meant to describe the President as someone who was bullied as a child by people like you, but rose above it to find a way to succeed in life as many of my fellow Special Olympians have.

Then I wondered if you meant to describe him as someone who has to struggle to be thoughtful about everything he says, as everyone else races from one snarkey sound bite to the next.

Finally, I wondered if you meant to degrade him as someone who is likely to receive bad health care, live in low grade housing with very little income and still manages to see life as a wonderful gift.

Because, Ms. Coulter, that is who we are – and much, much more.

After I saw your tweet, I realized you just wanted to belittle the President by linking him to people like me. You assumed that people would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an insult and you assumed you could get away with it and still appear on TV.

— Down Syndrome sufferer and Special Olympics athlete John Franklin Stephens responding to Ann Coulter calling President Obama a “retard”.

Criticizing Automotive Transportation

Transportation takes up a huge portion of a family’s annual income. Behind housing and food, transportation is the third largest expenditure of most Americans. Many Americans live in places where having access to your own car is a prerequisite for getting a job or getting to food. Those that cannot afford a car, are usually left no other option but to use under-funded public transportation that is ill-adapted to the existing physical environment. An automobile-human cyborg quite often requires a normal-functioning human body. Anything from ADHD, vision problems, paralysis, or limited dexterity make it more dangerous -if not impossible- to drive a car. This leaves the elderly stranded in their homes, and turns neighborhoods into deadly obstacle courses.

— Criticizing Other Things Like We Criticize the Internet — an inversion of certain critiques of the Internet’s impact on society to apply (rather aptly) to automobiles and their related infrastructure.