THE DAILY BLADE: Reality Check: Part VI
Speaking before a crowd of thousands chanting "Death to America," Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei brushed aside President Barack Obama’s videotaped message to Iran to mark the Persian New Year (Nowruz), telling them that the “change” Obama promised was just “a slogan.” (Gee, now he tells us?) The Associated Press reports:
"He (Obama) insulted the Islamic Republic of Iran from the first day. If you are right that change has come, where is that change? What is the sign of that change? Make it clear for us what has changed." …
Khamenei enumerated a long list of Iranian grievances against the United States over the past 30 years and said the U.S. was still interfering in Iranian affairs.
He mentioned U.S. sanctions against Iran, U.S. support for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during his 1980-88 war against Iran and the downing of an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf in 1988.
He also accused the U.S. of provoking ethnic tension in Iran and said Washington's accusations that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons are a sign of U.S. hostility. Iran says its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes, like energy production, not for building weapons.
"Have you released Iranian assets? Have you lifted oppressive sanctions? Have you given up mudslinging and making accusations against the great Iranian nation and its officials? Have you given up your unconditional support for the Zionist regime? Even the language remains unchanged," Khamenei said.
Editorial Note: Meanwhile, Venezuela’s president (for life, apparently) Hugo Chavez imitated South Park (video link), calling Obama “ignorant.”
[Hat Tip: The Heel, an Ivy-educated attorney with a prestigious New York firm, and occasional contributor to this blog.]
Putting The Cart Before The Horse: Part V
The Associated Press reports that black lawmakers “angrily stalked out of the GA House” because House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R) wanted to revise a resolution making President Barack Obama an honorary member of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, objecting to wording suggesting the chamber unanimously regards the honoree a man with an "unimpeachable reputation for integrity." Supporters of the resolution say the diss is racist, but The Stiletto thinks it’s merely prudent. Obama is a Chicago pol, after all, so it’s premature to declare him unimpeachable.
Well-Chosen Words: Part XI
† For better or worse - many say for worse – the global economic meltdown has created a bull market in jargony words and phrases, one of which is “decremental,” reports The Wall Street Journal:
Decremental is a … negative increment, or the linguistic inverse of incremental. And it has long been part of Wall Street's financial lexicon.
But the use of decremental to describe today's declines in corporate profitability has become so prevalent that in the first eight weeks of this year it has appeared in 531 research reports, according to Thomson One Analytics. That almost equals the number of mentions in all of 2008 - and is nearly double the number in 2007.
The word ultimately translates into shrinking earnings power, which is a big factor in stock-market declines that have driven share prices to their lowest level in more than a decade. …
Though "decremental" is showing up most frequently in reports on U.S. stocks, it is also popping up abroad, particularly in Europe.
In London, Deutsche Bank analyst Peter Reilly used the term in an early February report on Britain's Cookson Group, a material-sciences company. He calls it "an ugly word," and says it's "just a fancy way" of measuring the degree to which earnings decline with each dollar of sales lost.
“Decremental” is just the sort of word that Britain’s Local Government Association (LGA) may want to do away with, reports Reuters:
Fed up with the babble, waffle and impenetrable jargon beloved of politicians and middle-managers, Britain's local government association has drawn up a list of 200 words it wants public bodies to avoid if they are to communicate properly.
"Why do we have to have to have 'coterminous, stakeholder engagement' when we could just have 'talk to people' instead," said [LGA chairman] Margaret Eaton.
The banned words, taken from documents issued by the central government and public sector bodies, is being sent to council offices around the country to try to get everyone to be clear together, otherwise known as "consensually transparent."
[T]he LGA says there's a serious point to simplifying language, believing that many people miss out on government services because they don't understand what's on offer.
"Unless information is given to people to explain what help they can get during a recession, then it could well lead to more people ending up homeless or bankrupt," said Eaton.
† Several critics note that President Barack Obama’s rhetorical bag of tricks includes several slippery sleights of speech. For example, in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed former Bush 43 strategist Karl Rove accuses Obama of advancing his arguments through use of “straw men”:
Mr. Obama … routinely ascribes to others views they don't espouse and says opposition to his policies is grounded in views no one really advocates.
[I]n an ostensibly nonpartisan speech marking Lincoln's 200th birthday, Mr. Obama used a straw-man argument, decrying "a philosophy that says every problem can be solved if only government would step out of the way; that if government were just dismantled, divvied up into tax breaks, and handed out to the wealthiest among us, it would somehow benefit us all. Such knee-jerk disdain for government - this constant rejection of any common endeavor - cannot rebuild our levees or our roads or our bridges."
Whose philosophy is this? Many Americans justifiably believe that government is too big and often acts in counterproductive ways. But that's a far cry from believing that in "every" case government is the problem or that government should be "dismantled" root and branch. Who - other than an anarchist - "constantly rejects any common endeavor" like building levees, roads or bridges? …
Continually characterizing those who disagree with you in a fundamentally dishonest way can be the sign of a person who lacks confidence in the merits of his ideas.
There’s more than one way to be dishonest, and syndicated columnist Mona Charen has noted Obama’s “troubling habit of denying what he is doing”:
For example, in his speech to Congress he said he asked for the stimulus bill "not because I believe in bigger government - I don't." And in recommending a bailout of mortgage holders, he denied that any relief would go to "speculators" or those who "bought more house than they could afford" but that is exactly what the package will do.)
In another example of what Charen is complaining about: In FL last month, Obama said this: “The days where we’re just building sprawl forever, those days are over.” But The New York Times points out that “to ensure that the money is spent quickly, the law leaves decisions of how to spend some $27.5 billion in transportation money up to the states - and quite a few are using their shares to build new and wider roads that will spur development away from their most populous centers.”
Rove calls this the old bait-and-switch:
Barack Obama won the presidency in large measure because he presented himself as a demarcation point. The old politics, he said, was based on "spin," misleading arguments, and an absence of candor. He'd "turn the page" on that style of politics. …
Mr. Obama didn't run promising larger deficits - but now is offering record-setting ones. …
Nor did Mr. Obama run promising more earmarks. Instead, he said he'd reform the earmark culture and "scour the federal budget, line by line, and make meaningful cuts." Now he wants to wave through a $410 billion omnibus spending bill with about 8,500 earmarks. …
Mr. Obama pledged "no tax hikes on any families earning less than a quarter million dollars." What he didn't draw attention to was $600 billion in higher energy taxes he wants to impose through a cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions. These taxes will hit everyone who drives, flips a light switch, or buys anything manufactured, grown or shipped. …
Packaging Mr. Obama's proposals is easier than rigorously defending them. Team Obama will find this out as the details of their budget and other plans are scrutinized.
Here’s how The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel decodes Obama:
Out of the early chaos has emerged an administration with a set of talking points. The president is now honing these explanations of what went wrong, and how he will make it right. …
So here's a handy guide to the larger meaning beneath Mr. Obama's more frequent lines. Hang it on the fridge for easy reference.
‡ "We are not going to get relief by turning back to the very same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin." Translation: Blame Republicans, and tax cuts. …
‡ It's time to "make hard choices to bring our deficit down." Translation: Hello, higher taxes.
‡ "The only way to fully restore America's economic strength is to make the long-term investments that will lead to new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability to compete with the rest of the world." Translation: Big government. President Obama loves the word "invest." … It sounds so modern and free market, and, most important, not like what it really is - "spending." …
‡ "We need to make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy." Translation: Your utility bills are going up. …
‡ "If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime." Translation: For now.
† Others are focusing less on what Obama says than how he says it. Politico’s Nia-Malika Henderson recounts this exchange between Obama and a cashier at D.C.’s Ben’s Chili Bowl:
President Barack Obama was asked by a cashier if he wanted his change back.
“Nah, we straight,” Obama replied.
The phrase was so subtle some listeners missed it. The reporter on pool duty quoted Obama as saying, “No, we’re straight.”
Henderson says it’s an example of “dog-whistle politics”:
[M]any other listeners did not miss it. … there was a clear moment of recognition among many blacks, who got a kick out of their Harvard-educated president sounding, as one commenter wrote on a hip-hop site, “mad cool.”
On matters of racial identity, many observers in the African-American community say he benefits from what's known as “dog-whistle politics.” His language, mannerisms and symbols resonate deeply with his black supporters, even as the references largely sail over the heads of white audiences. …
Dog-whistle politics was hardly invented by Obama. One of its most deft practitioners lately was President George W. Bush. He regularly borrowed the language of evangelical Christianity and the anti-abortion movement to signal he was simpatico with their beliefs, even as he often avoided obvious displays of support that might turn off middle-of-the-road voters.
“The code words matter, how you dress matters, how you speak matters; it’s all subliminal messaging, and all politicians use it,” said Michael Fauntroy, an assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University, who specializes in race and American politics. “Ronald Reagan used to talk about making America the shining city on a hill, which is about America as divinely inspired, and it has a deep vein in the evangelical conservative movement. It goes on all the time, and there are so many circumstances when only the target people get the message.”
Obama – who is half black – is apparently “mad cool” in a way that GOP chair Michael Steele – who is all black – is not, according to the WaPo, which recently referred to him as “Sir Mixes-It-Up-a-Lot” for “trying to sound like a homie, circa 1995, calling for an ‘off the hook’ party makeover.” So it would seem that Steele’s critics are still throwing Oreos at him.
† Euphamisms and nomenclature are making news again. For instance, in a New York Times op-ed, author and social critic Caitlin Flanagan takes issue with how Sara Jane Olson (née Kathleen Soliah, a member of ‘70s militant group the Symbionese Liberation Army, perhaps most notorious for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst) portrays herself to the world, as well as to the courtesies being extended to her by CA parole officials:
The first time I encountered the word “kleptomaniac,” I asked my mother what it meant.
She said, “That’s what they call it when a rich person steals something.”
And now, thanks to Sara Jane Olson and her return to the spacious house and gracious life she’s made for herself in St. Paul, we know what it’s called when a rich, white woman gets convicted of trying to kill cops and robbing a bank: “idealism.” …
Ms. Soliah robbed a bank in Carmichael, Calif., during which a mother of four was murdered, and a young pregnant bank teller was kicked in the belly and later had a miscarriage. … it was Ms. Soliah who did the kicking. … [B]ullets found in the dead woman’s body … matched a gun found in a dresser drawer in Ms. Soliah’s room in the S.L.A. safehouse. Ms. Soliah was also part of a plot to murder Los Angeles police officers by placing pipe bombs packed with nails under two squad cars. …
In the courtroom, Ms. Olson was a real prize, changing her plea so many times that the frustrated judge asked her, “Were you lying to me then, or are you lying to me now?” Eventually she was convicted and sent to prison, but not before making it abundantly clear that while she admits guilt to a variety of charges, she does not feel remorse for her actions: she chalks them up to idealism and to the fact that - O, sweet bird of youth - she believed herself to have been “saving lives.”
She served seven years and was released last week, and that’s when her long story came once again to the national fore: her lawyers persuaded California officials to let her serve parole back home in Minnesota.
For her part, The New York Times’ Daphne Merkin does not think it is accurate to call people who got fleeced by Bernard Madoff “victims”:
[W]hat is lost amid the fury of some of those who handed their money over to him is that theirs was a voluntary - nay, eager - association. No one was holding a gun to anyone’s head, saying sign up with Mr. Madoff or else.
Far from it: people scrambled to find a home within his financial orbit, auditioning for the role of Madoff client the way you would try out for a place at an Ivy League college, nudging connections to put in a good word, calling in favors to get in on a piece of the Madoff action. (Although those who were duped are referred to in the press as “victims,” it seems to me it would be more accurate to define them as casualties. Victims are specifically sought out; casualties are an indirect consequence of some larger action.)
† “To move away from any niche identification the channel harbors with the science-fiction genre,” come July NBC Universal will rebranding the Sci Fi Channel “Syfy.” But first, NBCU had to purchase the rights to the name from Web site SyFyPortal.com, which focuses on science-fiction TV and entertainment. But that’s not the story that NBCU told The New York Times, according to Media Daily News:
The New York Times reported the "Syfy" name was "developed by an internal team at Sci Fi along with Landor Associates, a corporate and brand identity consultancy." And an NBCU representative wrote in an email that the brand was conceived "completely independently." …
[SyFyPortal founder Michael] Hinman says claims from NBCU that its executives conceived the brand name individually are spurious. "There's no way that they can even sell that to anybody - that they came up with (it) all on their own," he says. "They know who we are."
Media Daily News opines that if NBCU did come up with the name, it’s either “a heckuva coincidence” or “telepathic transmission.”
Meanwhile, no one knows where Microsoft came up with “Kumo” as the name for the redesign of Live Search, reports The Associated Press:
Online dictionaries reveal kumo to mean "spider" or "cloud" in Japanese (but also the Swedish word for a Finnish town). Kumo.com, as depicted in the screen shot, offers few hints as to the definition Microsoft has in mind. …
Matt Rosoff, an analyst for the independent research group Directions on Microsoft, said Kumo is a better name than Live.
"I think Live meant too many things," he said. "At least Kumo is weird."
So weird, in fact, that The Stiletto somehow free associates “Kumo” with “Cujo.” Maybe Vic Trenton came up with the name.
† After laboring five decades, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is nearing completion of the Dictionary of American Regional English, a “collection of regional words and phrases is beloved by linguists and authors and used as a reference in professions as diverse as acting and police work,” reports The Associated Press:
The dictionary chronicles words and phrases used in distinct regions. Maps show where a subway sandwich might be called a hero or grinder, or where a potluck - as in a potluck dinner or supper - might be called a pitch-in (Indiana) or a scramble (northern Illinois). …
In awarding the two-year, $295,000 grant that will get the final volume into print, National Science Foundation reviewers called the dictionary "one of the most visible public faces of linguistics," and a "national treasure."
The concept dates to 1889, when the American Dialect Society was formed. But the project did not start in earnest until 1965, when English professor Frederic Cassidy dispatched workers to 1,000 carefully chosen U.S. communities to interview residents and make audio recordings of their speech. …
After the final volume is published, the next phase of the project will be to put the dictionary online.
Words and phrases found in the Dictionary of American Regional English include: "flannel cakes" (what pancakes are called in parts of Appalachia); "sky blue" (what kids in Chicago play, that the rest of us know as “hopscotch”); and "flea in one's ear" (a whispered warning in the Northeast).
The Stiletto Scoops Arianna Huffington (Again)
- “Obama Has Foot-In-Mouth Disease,” The Stiletto Blog, March 20, 2009
It was painful to watch Obama, just hours after Geithner had admitted his role in the Dodd/bonus loophole affair, go on Jay Leno and say that Geithner is doing an "outstanding job." Even before Frank Rich's Sunday column was titled "Has a 'Katrina Moment' Arrived?," Obama's assessment had more than a whiff of Bush telling Brownie he was "doing a heck of a job."
- “Take The Steering Wheel Out Of Geithner's Hands,” The Huffington Post, March 23, 2009
In Memoriam
“Battlestar Galactica,” January 14, 2005* – March 20, 2009
* Relaunch of the 1980 series in the US.
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