Language Matters

I've been recuperating from ACL / Meniscus surgery thank you very much soccer the sport I don't totally understand and kinda hate but nonetheless played until I tried to prove my athletic prowess to the youthful forward of the other team.  Prowless indeed.  Knee surgery physical therapy gives you plenty of time to waste while sitting on your tookus so indubitably.........long, drawn out movies are in order.

I am quite fond of a movie entitled Master and Commander starring Russel Crowe as Captain Lucky Jack Aubrey.  The film is based on one of 20 fictional books authored by English Author Patrick O'Brian about the escapades of Lucky Jack's illustrious career.  What makes the movie so great is its detail to accuracy and more specifically language accuracy.  He painstakingly attempts to recreate the language of the Royal Navy in the early 19th Century during the Napoleonic War, something I respect exceedingly.  Accuracy and precision matter in so many things in life.  I couldn't care less that this accuracy and precision involves a movie about a country not my own and a war that truthfully has no actual connection to me as a Citizen of the United States....it matters nonetheless.

Vulgarity, or common as its English way would properly imply, has so much gotten out of hand.  My least favorite thing is a WWII film in which they curse constantly. Guess what?  Those films are historically inaccurate; those boys didn't actually speak like that even in time of battle.  Why not?  It simply wasn't a major part of their vernacular, or any part of their vernacular truthfully.  Directors then say they do it to invoke the feeling of war into a modern audience.  So you're telling me that people getting blown up and dying in terrible, horrible ways isn't good enough to invoke the feeling of war?  The only way for a modern audience to get it is through vulgarity?  May God Save the Queen.

Why does all of this matter?  Far too many people have not stayed the path when it comes to looking at the details and speaking properly.  People curse all the time.  It's in their blood like a virus.  The IdunnowhatelsetosaysoIcurse Virus.  Crutch words are what they have become so much so that the new like is like, you know.....F-Bomb! People cannot think of the most precise word to say so they simply say one of the 7 words you can't say.   Figure them out for yourself....or just search the brilliant George Carlin.  Simply put, I am sorry but bovine fecal matter has nothing to do with matronly intercourse my friend.  Inaccuracy abides Dude.

Who's actually right in the Middle East?

Truthfully, this is what I really wanted to say when I started this blog thing.......

Middle East.  Yup.  I want to talk about the Middle East pertaining to The Palestinians and Israel due to the fact that I am an idiot.

Here's the thing.  I see tons of posts about this region from all kinds of people.  I try to read whatever is written carefully so that I can really get the feel for the region. What conclusion did I come up with?  They're all right.  Or all wrong for the pessimists out there and that's the way you swing.

I find it interesting that generally liberally minded people are pro-Palestine, and conservatively minded people are pro-Israel.  Now before you say "blah, blah, blah, I'm a Liberal/Conservative and I'm unique in my thinking, blah, blah, blah."  I know....I get the whole causation / correlation thing....let me write already.
 
The thing is, nobody is smarter or more open minded about this issue.  Star Wars helps us here.  It all depends on a certain point of view.  The halves vs. the halve-nots.  Conservatives are not always the halves, but they think they are or think they will be and they approach so many things in life with this perspective.  Liberals are not always the halve-nots, but they think they are the champion of these people and they approach so many things in life with this perspective.  Case in point:  The Mexican Border....but that's another post.

Israel are the halves and so it makes sense to most Conservatives that they are in the right.  They currently rule the land, therefore they get to make the rules.  That's life and nothing is going to change that.  Hamas shoots missiles at Israel.  Lots of them.  None of them hit anything due to the fact that these missiles are terrible, but they are still shooting missiles.  Imagine your neighbor who rents the house from you keeps throwing his blind, toothless, mange covered pitbull Nero into your back yard every day despite your protests.  You would throw him out....but you can't due to the fascist H.O.A.  Conservatives commiserate with the halves and they always will.  I get it.

Palestine are the halve-nots and so it makes sense to most Liberals that they are in the right.  They got the shaft years ago by the rich landlords and it blows.  They have no say, and when you have no say, you break things.  I'm pretty sure if I personally had no say in the way I got to live my life, I would break things.  That's just how I'm wired....apparently so are the Palestinians.  Israel left us with some land, and some stores.  Nice stores.  Screw them!!!!  I don't want handouts from them due to the fact that they have already taken so much.  They shoot and they hit pretty much anything they aim at.  Imagine the neighbor next door who owns your house you are renting actually got the land from your family land owned for centuries.  I'm going to throw Nero over into his back yard to take a dump and maybe mess up his shrubbery.  I get it.

The fact of the matter is, people are dying in this area and that's a tragedy.  It breaks my heart every time I see a story of death from the region or anywhere in the world for that matter.   I wish things could get fixed and they just can't.  What is interesting though is who supports who even though they have no actual stake in the conflict.

I can't write, therefore I should write

I truly appreciate well formulated writing.  Writing that brings you in, makes you feel what is being written, and gives you a mental picture of what is going on.  I cannot do this and I know it.  I am not too bothered about this situation though due to the fact that it's actually pretty rare among the regular non-book writing public.

Mike Williams and Chauncey Lindner are two guys who have this gift and I respect fully this attribute about them.  They don't try to show you how good of a writer they are, they just write.  The antithesis of pretentiousness as well which I appreciate.  Too often, English teachers seemingly are the worst "reads" due to the fact that they are trying to wow the reader with their awesomeness.  Awesomeness which apparently is lacking.

It is my contention that good writing is birthed from practice and reading.  It is clear when I see people posting on the inter-web when someone is not a reader due to the evidence of their ineptitude of the written English language.  If you read, you should have some ability to write.  If you write, you care enough about your writing in some capacity therefore there should be some ability within.  I am a big believer in good practice makes better so I have decided to start writing for pleasure as much as possible.

As I said before, I don't pretend to be a good writer but I do like using fun language.  I like interesting words....hopefully I use them correctly.  I am not trying to impress anybody with my writing; rather, I am just interested in honing my skills as a thinker.  I often sit on my back porch and think about how the world should be run, and why things are the way they are.  I have ideas in my head, I am just thinking that perhaps it is time for me to put those ideas down somewhere so that when I am an old man, I may remember what I once thought and laugh at how foolish I was when I was a younger man.