Thank You Rand Paul

I have long been disheartened by our failure as citizens in these United States (I include myself in this) to respond to attacks by our own government against the very things we say are most dear to our very identity – particularly the Bill of Rights.

Parts of the Patriot Act contain provisions that allow for the labeling as a terrorist activity actions by people like me who teach others the ways of non-violence, if those being taught are ‘terrorists’.  So to teach people who use violence to achieve their ends other ways, non-violent ways, to show ‘terrorists’ how not to be terrorists, it turns out, is actually terrorism.

Guantanamo Bay.

Rendition.

Waterboarding.

Suspension of due process of law.

Denial of the right to counsel.

Cruel and unusual punishment.

Denial of equal protection under the law.

Free speech turned into costly speech, even treasonous speech.

Assassination of American citizens.

And the press was largely silent on them all – even the drone program – until someone got ahold of a piece of paper, as if paper proved the reality more real than the bombs from the sky.

Democrats and Republicans alike are guilty of these massive infringements and fear is their weapon of choice to coerce our assent.

Filibuster scene from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

So yesterday, Rand Paul, Senator from Kentucky, did a rare and wonderful thing: he filibustered on principle, the daring principle, fundamental to our form of government, that no person, including a president, is above the laws of this nation, the most fundamental of which is our Constitution.

For those who claim it was pointless, consider:

1. Words are never ‘only’ words.  Words matter.  Words have power.  Words can and have changed a world.  If you doubt it, read Gandhi, Jesus, King.

2. People are paying attention to what we have so long ignored.  People across political divides are asking themselves and others if this is who we really are.

3. Journalists are being shaken from their power-bound lethargy to ask challenging questions of the powers that be.  Some have been all along (Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and Al-Jazeera in English come to mind).  But finally, so-called mainstream media are asking too.

4. I’m glad it’s a Democrat this time.  That way, Republicans, formerly so loathe to question anything President Bush did along the same line are freed to challenge the political opposition for a just cause and Democrats are forced to think about whether their indictments of President Bush were merely political opposition or whether they’re actually questions of fundamental justice.

So hats off to Rand Paul.  As an American citizen, I thank you, sir, for your service.

Tomorrow we may and probably will disagree.  But yesterday, you stood for us all.

Fun with Words

From The Writers' Almanac for Monday, January 27 (shout out to Laurie McKnight for sharing)

It was on this day in 1754 that the word "serendipity" was first coined. It's defined by Merriam-Webster as "the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for." It was recently listed by a U.K. translation company as one of the English language's 10 most difficult words to translate. Other words to make their list include plenipotentiary, gobbledegook, poppycock, whimsy, spam, and kitsch.

Given that these are so hard to translate, I thought I’d offer up some (very silly) examples.  Here goes, with all due apologies to Merriam, Webster, et al.:

1. Serendipity.  A very cool coincidence.  An event whose happening is somewhere between fate and chance.  Something that happens to you that’s good and always happens when you’re looking the other way, like when mothers tell their daughters that they’ll find the man of their dreams when they stop looking for him.  Every romantic movie features the element of serendipity: the pair meets (or meets again) in the strangest of ways, totally unexpected (to them).  Sleepless in Seattle doesn’t count because they were looking for each other.  The number one rule of serendipity is that you can’t look for it.  My nomination for most serendipitous movie of all time: Forrest Gump.  

2. Plenipotentiary.  I can pronounce it (I think), and know it has something to do with governing, but without resort to the web, have nothing much to say.  I googled the word, learned (or relearned) that it means one invested with full power – one who can come to the negotiating table with the power to speak on behalf of the principal.  It took two pages to even find a reference to actual usage and wouldn’t you know – it’s from the United Nations, whose ITU (International Telecommunication Union) has a Plenipotentiary every so often.  Presumably this is a meeting of representatives who have the authority to make decisions on their nations’ collective behalf.  Of course, I’m only guessing, never having been.  The next one, should you wish to join in, will be in 2014 in Busan, South Korea’s second largest city.

3.   Gobbledegook (which I always thought was spelled gobblygook - shows how much I know).  A hodge-podge.  A mish-mash.  Now you see the problem of trying to define something hard to define: all its synonyms are equally obscure.

4. Poppycock.  A nice way of saying ‘bull shit’.  Synonyms: nonsense; not true; wrong; insupportable; bull shit.

5. Whimsy.  Silliness that’s sort of romantic or cute.  A teenage girl who dresses like she’s 4 is whimsical.  A 60-year-old woman who does is creepy.  One is cute; the other is wrong.  The cute one is an example of whimsy.

6. Spam.  I’m guessing this refers not to the internet phenomena of being hit with a snow-ball of an e-mail or other mass event, but rather to the meat-like product of same name.  No wonder it cannot be explained – who would do that to meat?  So to my friends around the world, the best I can explain spam is this: take every part of a land animal you find most disgusting, throw them together, grind them into mush, squeeze it all together in a small container until it forms a solid and call it ‘spam’.  We don’t understand it either.  And I have yet to meet anyone who admits to eating it, although I have heard rumors of fried Spam and it does continue to appear on grocery shelves, so unless those cans on the shelf are post-WWII relics, some of you are lying to me.

7. Kitsch.  Shout out to law-school friend Anna Norton, who first introduced me to the concept of kitsch and even loaned me a book dedicated to examples.  However you define kitsch (tackiness, appropriating important cultural icons for the basest of pop culture purposes), giving the Mona Lisa a big toothy grin is definitely the best example I know.  And given the season, pretty much anything sold for Valentine’s Day is kitsch.