Chain Email and Other Tidbits

Monday is a rough day, even when one does not wake to find that somehow the abysmal Pink Panther has become the #1 movie in America.  Forgive the lack of hard financial information today, or at least this morning.  You know if somethng critical were going on, I'd tell you.

You know those chain emails that are going around?  The ones that purport to give you the origins of common phrases like "big wig" and "and arm and a leg"?  Right, those.  I got one the other day from my mother-in-law that was sent to the entire family.  As I usually do, I responded by essentially ripping the origins to shreds, mostly on the basis of them defying all common sense.  Perhaps I was a little harsh (I have a problem with that, I have to admit), because my 15-year-old nephew in Maple Valley, WA (posh suburb of Seattle, for those not acquainted) wrote back a scathing email accusing me of everything from arrogance to cultural blindness.

The great thing about the First Amendment is that it makes it possible to distinguish between competing claims, since you actually get to hear them both.  This blog is not really about this sort of discussion, so I won't reproduce it here, but the link to the entire exchange is here, in case you're interested, with the entire text of the email and the assorted responses.  If you're actually interested in whether "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass money" is a bawdy phrase, you might want to take a look.

Apropos of the First Amendment, Al Gore spent the weekend apologizing to the Arab world by deploring American "abuses" of those of middle-eastern descent in the days following 9/11.  According to the Father of the Internet (yes, I know he didn't really say that), the US "indiscriminately rounded up" people with a light tan and "held them in deplorable conditions".  Please allow me to say that I thank Heaven this man failed to become President of the United States.  And that I ferevently hope he himself is discriminately rounded up when he returns.

It is one thing to have the opinion that the US is doing the wrong thing in Iraq.  I've been known to have my doubts my own self.  It is quite another to start tossing out accusations as if they had some validity, to do so on foreign soil, and to do it with the express purpose of giving aid and comfort to the enemy.  This used to be called treason.  Now it is called "patriotism".  You can look it up.  This is why I try so hard not to get re-involved in politics on any but the most local of levels. 

Many of you know that I once ran a presidential campaign.  Al Gore was, in fact, a candidate in that campaign.  I debated his daughter, who is a lovely lady and a smart cookie.  I debated (on Al's and Bill Bradley's behalf) the late Senator Paul Wellstone.and the feisty and interesting Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas one cold January morning at the University of Iowa.  It was fun, as far as it went, which isn't very far.  After the initial rush, it was just depressing.  Stuff like this speech in Saudi Arabia remind me forcibly how depressing it actually is.

Really scrounging today, folks.  If you have some good news, I'd love to hear it.

Cj