Monthly Archives: March 2006

loco

It’s the Effing Zeitgeist!

Warning! I hope anyone can enjoy most of my site. I do feel that written profanity is a little harsher than spoken, but this entry is about profanity and may require some. I can’t bring myself to write “frick” or “f-word” beyond this sentence.

A poll about profanity is bound to inspire lots of jokes and a fair amount of swearing.

I don’t remember my mother or father swearing much. My Mom said “damn” when she was really frustrated — I find myself doing the same thing and long considered that the most powerful curse.

I remember the first time I said “fuck” in front of my Mom (I was about 16). She covered her ears, winced as if struck and cried, “oh, my virgin ears!” I don’t think she ever got comfortable hearing it.

One thing that stung in comments with the survey was the claim that swearing indicates a limited vocabulary. Well, fuck that! Even allowing for some self-delusion and ego-inflation, I’m a pretty fucking articulate guy — no shit! And I don’t need a god-damn thesaurus, thank you very much. I enjoy expressing myself in many ways, some subtle, some coarse. I wonder what those who think “it’s the vocabulary, stupid!” think of the ubiquitous cool — enjoyed by all ages — one of the few exclamations I use more than “fuck.”

I’m really surprised that age predicts swearing, or more specifically, that 35 is the dividing line between foul and fair. Remember the Simpson’s Geriatric Profanity Disorder. I’m over 50 and I’m certain I say fuck many times a day, as do my wife and many of our friends (though I never write it as much as I have here). It’s just what we say. What the fuck happened to our peers — how did so many people grow up to become their own grandparents?

The Bill Bennetts and like-minded puritans will see this as further evidence of the decline of civilization. Obscenity may be a symptom, but so is burning abortion clinics and shooting doctors or judges. Evil sometimes wears nice clothes and a smile.

I’m not saying the world is a better place because of swearing. The real issue is one of anger and potential violence, which has risen immensely in my lifetime. I’d rather get cursed at than shot at. “Jerk!,” screamed at you may actually be worse than “asshole” said with less venom. Just as a thrust finger is harsher than a “what the fuck?” It’s tone, don’t you know.

Still, as the Mothers said, “it’s fucking great to be alive.” mjh

Results of AP-Ipsos poll on profanity

The Associated Press-Ipsos poll on public attitudes about profanity is based on telephone interviews with 1,001 adults in the United States from all states except Alaska and Hawaii. The interviews were conducted March 20-22 by Ipsos, an international polling firm.

Results were weighted to represent the population by demographic factors such as age, sex, region, race and income.

Demographics and details of profanity poll

Some demographics and details about the AP-Ipsos poll on attitudes about profanity.

alBAHquerque, other voices

Cell Hell

We’ve probably all witnessed behavior similar to that which is described below: people being oblivious because of their cell phone addiction.

Of all the many bad examples, the ones that disturb me the most are like what I saw in the grocery today. A mother was on her cell phone. Her son pointed to a product and said something. His mom responded with “I’m on the phone!” Nice lady. God forbid you spend a moment in real contact with your child.

A few months ago, I saw a father pushing a cart around the store with his daughter riding facing him. He was glued to the phone. She was staring dully. Think she’ll remember fondly those trips to the store with dad?

If your kids hate you, won’t talk to you, or won’t get off the god-damned phone themselves, you only have yourself to blame. mjh

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor
Locals Worship Their Cell Phones

CELL PHONES have officially taken over the world, and nobody has even noticed yet. Mostly because they are all too busy talking on their cell phones. If only they could see the irony of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” playing as their ring tone.

I work at a local retail store, and the ratio of people that I check out who are on their cell phones during the entire transaction is two-to-one. I feel as if I need to call them in order to ask to see their identification when they hand me their credit card.

I drive home from work, which is only a few blocks from my house, and someone who is busy yakking away at their cell phones cuts me off at least twice a night. The obscene amount of cell-phone usage has reached the point of becoming an epidemic.

When people are having a conversation with an actual human being, they should have the decency to unglue their cell phone from the side of their face for five seconds.

When they get in their car, they should have courtesy and respect for others’ lives and call them back later. They are not the center of the universe. Their cell phone is not God. If they don’t answer it, but rather call the person back later at a more convenient (time), the cell phone will not smite them. They will not die. I promise.

ANGELA BINGHAM
Albuquerque

I oppose cell phone towers as dreadful visual pollution. I oppose most public cell phone use as auditory pollution. I oppose most public cell phone users as selfish loud-mouths.

Wireless Action Network, NM concerns itself more with the ill health effects of cell phones. If you want to give yourself a brain tumor, fine. But those nasty towers may be spewing poison to all of us.

Gotta go — phone’s ringing. [Kidding — everyone knows I hate all phones.] mjh

other voices

ABQjournal: Speak Up!

ABQjournal: Speak Up!

IT WAS amusing to watch the hypocrisy during the war protest. The protest was not about the war, but a rally for the hate-the-president crowd. If it is human life that is your concern, why weren’t you protesting the old regime in Iraq that murdered tens of thousands of its own— or do you think an American life is worth more than an Iraqi’s?— C.C.S.

I WOULD THINK a report of 1,000 people marching in Albuquerque would warrant being on the front page.— M.S.

Dump Duhbya

Former DeLay Aide Enriched By Nonprofit

This latest story is really just “business as usual.” It shouldn’t be very hard to run against these greedy influence peddlers and money launderers. mjh

Former DeLay Aide Enriched By Nonprofit
Bulk of Group’s Funds Tied to Abramoff
By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer

A top adviser to former House Whip Tom DeLay received more than a third of all the money collected by the U.S. Family Network, a nonprofit organization the adviser created to promote a pro-family political agenda in Congress, according to the group’s accounting records.

DeLay’s former chief of staff, Edwin A. Buckham, who helped create the group while still in DeLay’s employ, and his wife, Wendy, were the principal beneficiaries of the group’s $3.02 million in revenue, collecting payments totaling $1,022,729 during a five-year period ending in 2001, public and private records show.

The group’s revenue was drawn mostly from clients of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to its records. …

The group’s payments to the Buckhams — in the form of a monthly retainer as well as commissions on donations by Abramoff’s clients — overlapped briefly with Edwin Buckham’s service as chief of staff to DeLay and continued during his subsequent role as DeLay’s chief political adviser.

During this latter period, Buckham and his wife, Wendy, acting through their consulting firm, made monthly payments averaging $3,200-$3,400 apiece to DeLay’s wife, Christine, for three of the years in which he collected money from the USFN and some other clients. [mjh: this is money-laundering] …

Wendy Buckham was not the only spouse of a DeLay staffer to benefit from the USFN revenue stream sustained by Abramoff’s clients. A consulting firm owned by the wife of Tony C. Rudy, DeLay’s deputy chief of staff, was paid $15,600 by the group in 1999 and another $10,400 in 2000. Rudy resigned to work with Abramoff in 2001. It could not be determined what the payments were for. …

Before the U.S. Family Network folded in 2001 under pressure from an FEC probe, it became involved in other controversial political matters.

In 1998, the group lobbied Congress against new regulations on cigarettes and collected a $100,000 donation from the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. It also spent $75,863 that year on radio ads that called for President Clinton’s resignation and attacked Democrats, according to the group’s ledger and transcripts of the ads.

The following year, the National Republican Congressional Committee gave the USFN a $500,000 check to finance additional radio ads in the districts of vulnerable Democrats.

Dump Duhbya

The Few, The Proud, The Republican Guard

2 Comments

On Sunday, the Albuquerque Journal published the views of veteran Shawn Bryan as a counterpoint to those expressed by veteran Anthony Thomas Garcia last week. I suggest you read both (links below) and draw your own conclusions about the mental health of our veterans.

My general reaction to Shawn Bryan’s views is shock and sadness. This man is full of anger. Having survived a hellish experience I would not want to be able to imagine, he’s still in combat mode — and half the country is his new enemy. I feel sorry for those nearest him until the adrenaline and testosterone drop below toxic levels.

While Bryan says he has no interest whatsoever in what people like me think, I am quite interested in his deeply disturbing thoughts. At first, I thought his views belong on a blog or talk radio, not in a real newspaper, but I might never see them if not shoved in my face. We all need to know these dark thoughts.

Bryan can’t stand “the ungrateful war protesters who continually plague the free streets of America.” They are “people who will never fight for freedom but are the first to use their right to protest and stir up trouble.” Further, whether you stand in the streets or not, “if you are not wearing a uniform and serving there, your opinion does not matter. Sorry, but it just doesnt matter.” That’s right — your opinion does not matter. Doesn’t this actually mean that the opinions of the entire Bush administration and the leaders of the Radical Right don’t matter — few of them have ever been in uniform and fewer are in Iraq.

“New Mexico Democrats: Wake up. You guys should realize not only does New Mexico not care what you have to say, but I think that the president has a lot more to do than worry if the New Mexico Democrats are happy with him— he is a Republican.”

In a state where the Governor is a Democrat and more than half the state legislature is Democrat, where 2 out of 5 federal representatives are Democrats, Bryan believes “New Mexico [does] not care what [Democrats] have to say.”

I wonder if one should conclude that the toxically divisive tactics of the Radical Right, the dividers-not-uniters, has turned America’s armed forces into the Republican Guard. All Hail Augustus Bush! It is not hard to imagine someone saying, “We can’t allow those trecherous Democrats to seize power — we must stop them to save America.” And thus begins the military coup. I’ve always heard the military is devoted to America, but Bryan’s America is divided between decent people and Democrats. Would he stand against or for a Republican tyrant?

This is the fruit of Karl Rove’s evil genius. Bush doesn’t have to care what Democrats think — he’s a Republican, stupid! I thought the President of the United States had some duty to all Americans (oh, but Democrats are only nominally Americans); I thought he had a duty, as this soldier does, to the Constitution, which Bush has called “just a god-damned piece of paper.” All Hail Augustus Bush! mjh

As an aside, notice the interesting alternative headlines from the Journal. In print, this column is entitled: “Marine Just Wants Respect for the Nation” (a respect he does not have for half the nation). On the Web, it is: “The Few, The Proud, The Republicans.” Clearly not the same hand at work.

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ABQjournal: The Few, The Proud, The Republicans By Shawn Bryan, United States Marine [Sunday, March 26, 2006]

I am a United States Marine who in recent months has returned from Iraq….

ABQjournal: Iraq Vet: This War Is Wrong By Anthony Thomas Garcia, Iraq War Veteran [Sunday, March 19, 2006]

I have served my country in three wars.