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More adventures in linguistics

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Speaking of misuse of language (see the previous post), a few weeks back I mentioned that the Oxford English Dictionary was so far holding firm against McDonald’s attempts to redefine the term “McJob“. Here at home, corporate America, in the form of Anheuser Busch in this instance, is finding that Bushco is more accommodating when it comes to perverting the language.

In tihs morning’s Times there’s a very short article (not on the web) about the Administration’s decision to redefine the term “organic” to make it more corporate friendly. The article I read is not on the web, but I found a similar article, which is, unfortunately, on Times Select.

The rules provide that something is organic if it is made of 95% organically grown ingredients, with the other 5% made up of approved non-organics. A substance can get on the approved list only if it’s unavailable in organic form in sufficient quality or quantity. It seems the Budweiser folks want to sell organic beer, but they don’t want to use organically grown hops. It says here that beer consists of four ingredients: water, malt, hops, and yeast. It also says there that water comprises 90% of beer, so hops may in fact be less than 5% of the volume of beer. Of course, you know without having to check that the Bud folks just don’t want to put out the coin for the real stuff, nor do they want to be bothered with encouraging organic production. Far easier to redefine the term. Afer all, is it really so important that the ingredients in organic labelled foods really be organic? It isn’t only hops:

The latest battle over what can be called organic involves beer and gelatin, food colorings and casings for sausage. The Department of Agriculture, the final arbiter of all things organic, is poised to approve a list of nonorganic ingredients that can be used in food stamped with its green-and-white organic seal.

The list includes hops for beer, dill weed oil for flavoring pickles, and elderberry juice coloring for making foods bright red to blue purple. There is also chia, an herb from Central America that is used in some baked goods, and fructooligosaccharides, a bulking agent that adds fiber.

I have to admit I believe there’s a shortage of organic fructooligosaccharides.

The industry had two years to petition for the changes; the public has seven days to object. Seven whole days. Bushco is getting soft.

Maybe the Country Time folks can get their product labeled organic lemonade, on the theory that it’s expensive to buy organically grown lemons and the product is 99% water anyway. (Just as an aside, since water is in no sense “organic”, shouldn’t it be excluded in computing the percentages?)

It seems to me that this sort of linguistic legerdemain has all kinds of possibilities. Why not allow Ben and Jerry’s to call its ice cream fat free on the theory that it is made with all fat free ingredients, except for those that are not available fat free in sufficient quantities?

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Talking lesson from George (Orwell, that is)

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Further proof that Bushco considers Orwell’s 1984 a How-To book.

Yesterday, I read this post on Josh Marshall’s site, in which he showcased a comment that noted the fact that the people fighting us in Iraq are now being called Al Qaeda by the media. In this morning’s Times the observation is borne out:

The operational commander of troops battling to drive fighters with Al Qaeda from Baquba said Friday that 80 percent of the top Qaeda leaders in the city fled before the American-led offensive began earlier this week. He compared their flight with the escape of Qaeda leaders from Falluja ahead of an American offensive that recaptured that city in 2004. (Emphasis added)

I have a nifty little program, in which I store newspaper articles and other things of interest in various electronic notebooks. I spent a little time today to verify my recollection, which coincided with the commenter’s, that the folks in Falluja were not identified as members of Al Qaeda in 2004. As an example there was this article in the Washington Post, in which a Fallujah resident expressed support for the fighters:

Karim speaks fondly of the insurgents, many of whom are Fallujans themselves, saying they were defending the city against non-Muslim troops

Some might remember that what is now Al Qaeda was known once as “insurgents”. In fact, there is a group in Iraq that has called itself Al Qaeda is Iraq. However, as Billmon, reporting on a lecture by Juan Cole in 2005 remarked:

Juan Cole doesn’t claim that Zarqawi and his group are complete fictions, although the “Al Qaeda in Iraq” label appears to be a flagrant violation of Bin Ladin’s intellectual property rights, possibly perpetuated by some Internet wannabes who don’t have any connection to either crew. But Cole does make the case that the strength and influence of “foreign fighters” in Iraq has been even more exaggerated than I assumed, and that the key underground networks sustaining the insurgency are all probably run by remnants of the old Ba’ath security services.

I’m not going to try to document this anymore, because for anyone actually following what’s been going on in Iraq, this is old news. What is new news is the decision on the part of someone (Karl, are you there?) to start calling one party in the Iraq civil war Al Qaeda. One would think that we would want to avoid giving Osama more credit than he’s due, but as was observed in another context, everything these Mayberry Machiavellis do is done with an eye toward domestic political consumption. If Osama’s reputation is unnecessarily burnished, then that’s just collateral damage hardly worth a thought. What’s important is that we ratchet up fear at home and attempt, by any means possible, to buttress the idea that we are fighting them there to avoid fighting them here and to reintroduce or reinforce the idea that the war in Iraq is connected to the “global war on terror”.

What’s distressing, of course, is that the media has accepted this terminology without breaking stride. Nothing in the article appears to question the use of the term. Once again, despite its editorial policy, the Times is the willing enabler of Administration policy and propaganda.

Update: This subject is treated exhaustively be Glenn Greenwald here.

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Late Friday night music from the dim and distant past

Friday, June 22, 2007

I downloaded some old Lovin Spoonful songs today. I will admit without shame that John Sebastian et. al. were among my favorite groups back in the Sixties. Anyway, I went to youtube to see if there were any Spoonful songs. I found this, which is far better, because, for all the bizarreness, it exemplifies what was so great about those times. Imagine a television show today in which you had the equivalents of Sammy Davis Jr, the Lovin Spoonful, the Supremes, and Sonny and Cher sharing the same stage at the same time, covering songs by the Beatles, the Beatles, the Four Tops, and the Stones, in that order, followed by the whole ensemble covering Herman’s Hermits.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDp38qNVuPQ[/youtube]

I will, by the way, freely admit that the world could have done without Sonny and Cher (or at least Sonny), and Herman’s Hermits to boot, but they were the price we paid for an embarassment of riches.

While I was previewing this I noticed that after the video is over, a little dock like menu appears toward the bottom, and you can view related videos. There’s a couple of the Spoonful singing their own songs, and one of Sammy Davis, Jr. and Nat King Cole singing a duet, with each imitating the other. Great stuff.

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One less farm, one more big box

Friday, June 22, 2007

This article in the Norwich Bulletin caught my eye this morning as I dutifully trooped off to the Y to put in my daily mile of swimming.

The Northeast Corner of Connecticut, the so called “Quiet Corner” is apparently well suited for distribution centers. Lowes just built one, and now Home Depot wants to follow suit. The article concentrates on the tax benefits (corporations (Gannett) helping corporations), the comments to it, at least those on the front page, mainly take the tack that anyone who opposes this new tax and jobs bonanza is a former city dwelling elitist who wants to drive taxes for everyone else through the roof.

Naturally, Home Depot wants to put its new distribution center on what is now farmland, and there’s the rub as far as I can see. That area of Connecticut, quiet corner or no, is chock full of abandoned mills and land that comes already pre-raped. For some reason, these corporations are allergic to the idea of using used land. Nothing but the virgin stuff will do. These corporate titans must have wet dreams about running bulldozers through national forests. And, of course, they are also totally allergic to the idea that any building should have more than one story. The land in question is 118 acres. Since it will be a distribution center it will need parking only for the trucks that will be coming in and out, and the poorly paid employees. 118 acres is a lot of land. Is that kind of acreage really necessary?

As one small example, the last I heard the Plainfield Dog track is sitting empty or nearly so. (Maybe they have an unneeded betting parlor there-a way station on the way to the casinos) It’s got a parking lot half the size of Rhode Island. Why not put it there? You can halve the foot print of a building without sacrificing storage area by making it two stories high. It wouldn’t take an architectural genius to design it so that trucks could load directly from each story. And, while you’re at it, require them to install a green roof.

Corporations like Home Depot just love the way land use is regulated in this country. Sure, every once in a while they run into a bit of trouble, but for the most part, they get to play off one town against another and flood the country with ugly concrete boxes that destroy the landscape. Any town that wants to try to impose a little rationality risks losing those precious tax dollars. Here in Connecticut, with our completely insane tax structure, it’s even worse. Towns court these ugly behemoths because they represent a quick short term fix. The long term problems come later, and they can be dealt with by the politicians of the future. If we could end the ridiculous local dependence on the property tax, towns like Plainfield could tell Home Depot to stick it.

There’s a reason why Home Depot wants to build along 395. You can figure it out by looking at a map. That corridor is ideally located to reach all of New England, and it even includes easy access to the Mass Pike to head west. If there were reasonable restrictions on where development took place and the manner of development-i.e., outlaw the big box, the corporations would work within them. Those restrictions can’t be imposed by localities. It’s about time that this state, and all states, started thinking in terms of statewide zoning and building requirements that go beyond structural integrity. We need to discourage these giant footprints, and we need to encourage re-use of existing sites. Do we really need to turn Eastern Connecticut into a poor man’s version of Fairfield County, with miles of ugly faceless big box distribution centers instead of miles of shopping malls?

Perhaps it’s trite, but it’s also true. Joni Mitchell was right. You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.

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I’m in-to the Charter Revision Commission that is

Thursday, June 21, 2007

I learn from the Mystic River Press that I have in fact been appointed to the Groton Charter Revision Commission. The split is 5-4 Republican, but in my experience Groton is one of the few places where party affiliation doesn’t tell you that much. We have some reasonable Republicans and some loony Democrats (I’m not referring to any Commission member as being in the latter category). Actually, this commission appears to have a far higher average IQ than the one on which I served years ago.

This marks my return to the political arena, in a limited way at least. I have been grappling with the question of how and whether I should write about the Commission on this blog. If I do, I’d have to be fairly circumspect. It makes no sense, for instance, to strongly criticize commission members, since that would only diminish whatever effectiveness I might otherwise have. On the other hand, last time around I was effective precisely because I managed to piss off so many wacko members that they all quit. This group is different though. There don’t appear to be any wackos.

I’m inclined toward writing about it, but I’ll likely restrict myself to the issues that come up. It’s the closest thing I’ll come to being a Founding Father- in this case not all that close, more like a Refurbishing Uncle. Still, it is sort of fun to have a hand in shaping the fundamental law of any political entity, even if it is the Balkanized town of Groton.

Anybody interested in making suggestions for Charter improvements should feel free to write me. You can read the Charter on the Town of Groton website, or view it in PDF format here.

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Moveon tops Joe

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Moveon says that it has raised $280,000 for Tom Allen, already topping the $200,000.00 Joe is expected to raise for Susan Collins. There looking to double Joe’s take. If you haven’t donated, think about it and go here.

Update: As of June 21st, according to My Left Nutmeg, Joe has raised $355,000 for Tom Allen. Moveon is inviting Joe to raise money for other anti-war Senators.

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Digby revealed

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Yesterday I learned that the incomparable Digby, of Hullabaloo, was-of all things-a woman. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, and led to what we Catholic school kids remember as an examination of conscience. Why, after all, did I presume she was a man?

My conscience was somewhat comforted, however, by the fact that Digby’s gender was not common knowledge even in the upper reaches of the blogosphere, as this post by Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake demonstrates, It also proves that her gender came as something of a surprise to that august personage. Nonetheless, it is rather sad that in the absence of any external clues, one tends to default to an image of a white male.

In my defense, the logo on her homepage doesn’t help:

network-howard-beal.jpg

Apparently Digby had been anonymous, until she agreed to accept the Paul Wellstone Leadership Award from Take Back America. Here’s a video of her acceptance:

[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=860546376283859020&q=digby+%22take+back+america%22&total=1&start=0&num=100&so=0&type=search&plindex=0[/googlevideo]

It’s long, but worth a listen.

In my humble opinion the award was well deserved. There is probably no progressive blogger who combines great writing skills, a deep fund of knowledge, and profound insight better than her.

There’s an old New Yorker cartoon showing a dog in front of a computer, telling another dog: “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”. There’s a lot of truth in that. People are judged by the quality of their minds, because that’s all you “see” on the internet. Digby is just an ordinary looking person, which of course completely disqualifies her from any role in the mass media, stuffed as it is with bubble brained babes. On the internet she’s a star because only her brains and talent matter.

(Edited to correct misplaced sentence)

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Not a good day for Rudy

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Some days it doesn’t pay to get up. It must be one of those days for Rudy Guliani, or, as he likes to think of himself, “the hero of 9/11 because I was Mayor then”.

First, we hear that the terrorist fighter couldn’t be bothered to attend meetings of the Iraq Study Group, of which he was a regular member.

Rudolph Giuliani’s membership on an elite Iraq study panel came to an abrupt end last spring after he failed to show up for a single official meeting of the group, causing the panel’s top Republican to give him a stark choice: either attend the meetings or quit, several sources said.

Giuliani left the Iraq Study Group last May after just two months, walking away from a chance to make up for his lack of foreign policy credentials on the top issue in the 2008 race, the Iraq war.

Josh Marshall is all over the story at Talking Points Memo, there’s a number of posts, so I suggest if you’re interested you go to the home page and just start scrolling. Josh thinks it’s a campaign killer. Every time Rudy talks terror his Republican opponents will shove this down his throat. Rudy’s trying to say that he quit when he decided to run for President, but the facts say differently.

Then, on a minor chord, so to speak, the news comes out that Rudy’s South Carolina has a coke problem-not just using-selling.

Being an old man, I can remember the days that you could look at the Republican presidential candidates and pick one or maybe even two that you could stomach as president of the United States. Not support, mind you, just stomach. Those days are gone. If Rudy goes down it just means someone just as bad or worse will go up, but that doesn’t diminish the schadenfreude one feels when an arrogant anal orifice like Rudy gets his just desserts. Here’s hoping Josh is right.

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Help make Lieberman toxic

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

More than likely, most or all of my readers get emails from Moveon, but I can’t resist passing on the message of the latest email. A while back I posted about fellow Bowdoin alum Tom Allen, who is going to run against Lieberfriend Susan Collins up in Maine.

Lieberman is going to Maine to raise money for Collins, proving yet again, if it needed proving, that he has abandoned any pretense of being a Democrat. Hard to believe that just one year ago he was questioning Ned Lamont’s Democratic bona fides because Ned agreed with some Republicans about where Greenwich should put stop lights.

Lieberman has made himself a pariah among Democrats. There’s one sure way to make him a pariah among Republicans-by making sure that every dollar he raises for one of them is matched by a dollar and more given to his opponent by way of an anti-Lieberman gesture. That’s precisely what Moveon is trying to do. Lieberman won’t be going back to Maine, or anywhere else to help his Republican friends, if they know that his appearance will net their opponents more than them. He’s expected to help raise $200,000 for Collins. That’s big bucks in Maine, but Moveon’s campaign should be able to match it and more if we all give just a little.

We (my wife and I) have put our money where my mouth is. I donated to Allen right after I got back from the reunion, and my wife just added another donation through Moveon’s site. You can rub Lieberman’s nose in it by donating at this link.

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The definition of hubris

Monday, June 18, 2007

From Thinkprogress:

In March, J. Steven Griles, formerly the no. 2 official at the Interior Department, pleaded guilty to “lying to the Senate about his relationship with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.” Griles asked the lobbyist “for many favors for close female friends and in exchange helped Abramoff’s clients at the government agency.”

As part of Griles’s plea, he is supposed to receive “10 months — five months in jail and five months in a halfway house or in home detention.” His lawyers are now arguing that Griles should receive no prison time and instead be allowed to perform “community service.”

But one of the two organizations he wants to do “community service” for — the American Recreation Coalition (ARC) — is actually a major lobbying firm that apparently benefited under Griles’ tenure in the Bush administration. ARC leads the “Wonderful Outdoor World” (WOW) program, which has close ties to various federal agencies and the Walt Disney Co. Griles helped ARC set up WOW during his tenure at the Interior Department. Greenwire reports:

….

In his “community service” role with WOW, Griles “would raise money, develop new public and private partnerships and conduct outreach to the government and media.” Bottom line: Griles is asking that his punishment be to perform the same activities that landed him in jail.

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