I really hope I never piss off James Wolcott. I’d hate to find myself eviscerated in a similar manner to Dinesh D’Souza.

D’Souza has written… something… entitled “The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11”. Yep. If you’re liberal, you’re responsible for 9/11. Nothing’s ever their fault, is it?

I doubt I could add anything to Wolcott’s post, but I’ll try. If I understand correctly, D’Souza’s point is that the Left is responsible for 9/11 because we’re too liberal and Muslims hate us for it.

“There is no way to restore the culture without winning the war on terror. Conversely, the only way to win the war on terror is to win the culture war. Thus we arrive at a sobering truth. In order to crush the Islamic radicals abroad, we must defeat the enemy at home.”

So we need to turn into the kind of people Muslims like so they won’t attack us? Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s institute sharia law. They’ll never attack us then!

Talk about an appeaser. Forget that. I like the idea of a liberal secular America, like the Framers intended.

You may not know Frank Luntz, but his work forms part of your mind.

You know how everyone gets so upset about ‘global warming’, but not so much about ‘climate change’? That phrase is Luntz’s handiwork.

Or have you ever had an immediate visceral reaction to the screaming meat of a ‘partial-birth abortion’? Luntz again.

His grubby fingerprints are all over the political discourse. Do you think he ever feels bad about using his linguistic gift for evil and not for good? Well, he’s hacked up a sort of non-apology in the pages of Time. Check out this lede:

In 1994, pollster Frank Luntz helped congressional Republicans sweep into power. Now he says the G.O.P. has become everything it once swore to destroy.

Having aided and abetted the most damaging administration of the last two centuries, it now seems a little late to be hairshirting. But better late than never. Let’s hear what he’s got to say.

What went wrong? Why do Democrats finally appear to be heading toward electoral success and Republicans back into the political wilderness? In a word, fatigue. Americans are tired of the war, tired of watching illegal aliens race across our unguarded borders, tired of high energy costs, tired of wasteful Washington spending, and tired of story after story of political corruption and misbehavior.

Ooo, this sounds good. I love a good redemption story. But wait! the guy’s a linguist, and therefore not one to underestimate. He may just be getting our trust so he can sneak in his poison. Warily we continue:

The leaders of the Republican Party in 1994 were bold, passionate visionaries with the courage to go to the people with a clearly defined agenda. Issues and principles drove them. Today, their agenda stretches no further than the next election. The same people who were elected on a platform of change have become the establishment bulls who fight change today. The 1994 Republicans advocated balanced budgets. Today, they defend deficits. The 1994 Republicans wanted to eliminate government programs. Today, they propose and create them. The 1994 Republicans held themselves and Congress to a higher ethical standard. Today, they seem more interested in protecting their jobs than protecting the people they serve. They came to change Washington. Washington won.

Um, wait a minute. Isn’t this some of that good old anti-Washington crap we’ve heard from the Republicans for years? Pity those good souls — they just wanted to make a difference in the world! And what did Washington do? It destroyed those noble-hearted boys! (Sniff) I’m sorry. I’ll continue.

It is therefore not surprising that in a recent national poll we conducted, 10% of the electorate that traditionally votes Republican, won’t. This time, these Republican leaners (disproportionately older women) will split their tickets. For while Republicans are frustrated with their party, they’re not happy with the Democratic alternative, either.It is therefore not surprising that in a recent national poll we conducted, 10% of the electorate that traditionally votes Republican, won’t. This time, these Republican leaners (disproportionately older women) will split their tickets. For while Republicans are frustrated with their party, they’re not happy with the Democratic alternative, either.

Interesting, but I’m waiting for the exact moment that he tries to stick in the knife.

And make no mistake — the Democrats are no better.

There it is! Thanks for playing — you spotted the real point of the article: ‘They’re all a bunch of no-gooders.’ Which is secretly what inattentive voters think anyway. Why not vote Republican — it doesn’t make any difference anyway.

They have launched a hundred criticisms but offer no meaningful solutions.

Fred: I’ve got an idea. Let’s start wars, destroy the government, enslave humankind, and take all the money for ourselves!

Ned: What are you, a psychopath? That’s a terrible idea.

Fred: All you do is criticise my ideas. You never come up with any of your own.

When you’re the minority party, and the other party locks you out of negotiations, there’s no point in coming up with ‘meaningful solutions’.

They rebuffed efforts to introduce a party platform because they felt they could gain more seats by attacking Republicans rather than explaining what they believe.

See above.

And on and on. This is not a confessional. It’s a fake retreat. Now you see his game.

Meet the real Frank Luntz. Linguist. Republican. Asshole.

How stupid are you? Depends on which of these truly loopy notions from recent opinion polls you agree with. If you go all the way to the bottom, please back away from the computer and call a professional helping person.

The rest of you may find this list fruitful when discussing notions of Rock Bottom on opinion polls. Some posit a relationship between Rock Bottom and Absolute Stupid, but Rock Bottom is believed to be issue-specific, whereas Absolute Stupid is assumed to be more or less constant.

• People who approve of the job Bush is doing: 36%
• People who think abortion should always be illegal: 24%
• People who think that America is ready to elect an atheist as president: 14% (Not that this is a terrible idea. I’m for it, but is America ready? Crazy talk!)
• People who think gas will cost ‘a lot less’ by the end of the year: %9
• People who say the war in Iraq is going ‘very well’: 6%
• People who say that the Foley scandal (where the Republican leadership tried to cover up a Republican pedophile senator) would make them more likely to vote Republican: 4%

Data from Polling Report.

Hmm. It seems Angelina Jolie has signed on to the film version of Atlas Shrugged.

I’ve read Atlas Shrugged. Twice. (Shut up. I was nineteen. I outgrew it.) The plot: Socialists and collectivists are evil and hamper the truly brilliant in their efforts to make money, which would somehow benefit us all. John Galt, the epitome of all human virtue, convinces the best and brightest people in the country to go into hiding so that society collapses under the weight of its own bureaucratic incompetence. The plot sort of grinds down as the society does, so I imagine the screenplay will need some punching up.

There are lots of things to hate about the book, so I’ll present them as a Top Ten list.

10. No one would ever say “Oh, who is John Galt?” in frustration.
9. The pace is glacial.
8. Like any good demagogue, Rand scorns university education. One young metallurgist approaches Hank Rearden and says something like “Can I work with you? I have a degree from university — I know it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on…” All the education you need comes from the School of Hard Knocks!
7. If anyone ever has any altruistic motives in the book, they’re portrayed as craven weaklings.
6. Ayn Rand disses soy! How could she?
5. The love scenes are excruciating. I seem to remember one between Dagny and Hank where Hank gives her kisses that leave a ‘trail of bruises’. What?
4. John Galt’s climactic speech is Sixty. Pages. Long.
3. In the book, the rich are the only ones who produce anything useful; that’s why they’re rich.
2. There were hardly any environmentalists in 1957 when the book was published, but Rand finds an opportunity to bag them. “They’re just the kind of people I hate,” says noble Dagny.
1. Printing 1,100 pages of “Greed is good” over and over again would have been cheaper and easier, and only slightly less tedious than the actual plot.

So if the film adaptation is any good, it will provide even more philosophical justification to ignore those ignoble souls who just can’t make it in this world and shouldn’t exist. Also there will be more Objectivists on the net. Listening to music by Rush. Just what we need.

On the other hand, it’s going to be a three-parter, so perhaps the first one will be sufficiently grim that the rest won’t get made.

One of the great things about being an aspiring academic is that people think you have information that they don’t. This is somewhat true. And lately I’ve gotten the opportunity to design my own courses and present them to intelligent and nice people through the magic of UWA Extension.

The latest course of my own designing is a four-week unit called “Swearing: The Wild Side of Language”. I’ll be talking about taboo language — why people swear, what the worst words in English are, what swearing is like in other languages, and where swear words come from (besides Hell).

It’s an interesting topic, and not one that a budding linguist would shy from. Plus I don’t really like using filthy language, so my discomfort at saying (e.g.) ‘motherfucker’ out loud will no doubt be a source of mirth for the studentry.

Did you know that:

• the worst phrase in Russian is “Deliver yourself to the devil”?
• the f-word comes straight from Proto-Indo-European?
• 3,000 French people rioted at the premiere of a Beckett play that contained an obscenity?
• the King James Version of the Bible contains the word ‘fart’?

If you didn’t know all that, it’s because zero percent of these things are true. I just made them up. I’m going to actually have to do some research to bring up the fact ratio. But when I do, there will be factoids, history, and pragmatics aplenty.

And swearing. Oh, yes. There will be swearing.

(Warning: angry Sunday post)

I read a truly distressing article about a multiple homicide involving children. I won’t dwell on the details — I could have picked any atrocious story. But get this:

On Sunday, the community turned to prayer to understand the slayings at a service for the slain family.

“This is an opportunity for people to turn to God,” said Debra Kenton, a member of the New Life Community Church. “Who else can explain things like this?”

An opportunity? You mean you see this kind of thing happening and you think, “Hmm — maybe this’ll bring people in the door”? Sometimes Christianity seems blissfully ghoulish.

Well, if God can explain this, I’d sure like to hear the explanation. He watched the whole grisly spectacle and didn’t do squat. Why would you turn to prayer? Why wouldn’t you instead say, “Hmm — maybe we’re on our own here”?

Another thing. I don’t think we’re getting the results we should be from an omnipotent being. Can we vote him out? Is there an ombudsman process in place or something?

I used to dismiss the ‘problem of evil’ argument by saying that protecting people directly isn’t God’s job, and he allows people the agency to do even horrible things so that they can be appropriately judged. But if he can help affluent Christians find their car keys and direct his Church on the earth, couldn’t he spare a thought for the children when they were being killed? I’d at least do that if I could, and me being evil, surely God would do more. (I borrowed that argument from Jesus. Bread and stones. Check it out.)

You know what — I think I want this God job. You can have all the power you need, let awful things happen on your watch, and no matter what, the faithful will defend you despite there being no evidence that you’re doing anything at all.

Then I realised that this is the kind of setup George W. Bush has.

Then I realised: this is why the Religious Right are Bush’s strongest supporters. It takes very little energy to flick their irrational support for God over to another authority figure.

Unless George Bush is God. Come to think of it, they’ve never been photographed together. And even though I like a lot of things about the world, there are enough piles of corpses in recent history to make me think this place is controlled by someone who could be doing a lot to help, but mysteriously doesn’t give a shit.