Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for April 24, 2010 is:
hale • \HAIL\ • adjective

: free from defect, disease, or infirmity : sound; also : retaining exceptional health and vigor

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Women in my family have strong longevity genes, remaining hale, alert and enjoying life to their late eighties or early nineties, except for my mother, who smoked all her life and succumbed to lung cancer at 75.

Did you know?

When you need a word to describe someone or something in good health, you might pick “hale” or a synonym such as “healthy,” “sound,” or “robust.” Of those terms, “healthy” is the most general, implying full strength and vigor or simply freedom from signs of disease. “Sound” generally emphasizes the complete absence of defects of mind or body. “Robust” implies the opposite of all that is delicate or sickly and usually suggests muscular strength as well as the ability to work or play long and hard. “Hale” applies especially to robustness in later life. The phrase “hale and hearty” is often used to describe an older person who retains the physical qualities of youth

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for September 15, 2009 is:
sternutation • \ster-nyuh-TAY-shun\ • noun

: the act, fact, or noise of sneezing

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Obsessed with cleanliness as a guard against disease, the perpetually sanitizing mother could be driven into extreme agitation by outbreaks of sternutation.

Did you know?

"Sternutation" comes from Latin and is a descendant of the verb "sternuere," meaning "to sneeze." One of the earliest known English uses occurred in a 16th-century edition of a book on midwifery, in a passage about infants suffering from frequent "sternutation and sneesynge." The term has long been used in serious medical contexts, but also on occasion for humorous effect. In 1850, for example, author Grace Greenwood observed that U.S. senators from opposing political parties would often come together to share snuff: "And all three forget their sectional differences in a delightful concert of sternutation. No business is too grave, no speaker too eloquent, to be ‘sneezed at.’"

Uncivil Discourse

Unlike a number of parliamentary governments in the democratic societies, the Congress of the United States almost always preserves orderly and mostly polite behavior on the floors of the House and the Senate. There was that rasslin’ match forty or so years ago between Texas’s Ralph Yarbrough and South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond. Thurmond, a fitness wonk, whipped Yarbrough’s ass. That was all in fun, however, and occurred in the doorway of a committee room. Both senators laughed and went on about their business.

Another  South Carolinian, Representative Joe Wilson, last night engaged in verbal assault, this time on the floor of the Congress, targeting the President of the United States, calling out in the middle of President Obama’s speech on health care reform, “You lie!” Pressured by his leadership, Wilson apologized promptly, while maintaining the untruth of assertions by the President regarding illegal aliens being excluded from receiving health care.

While the leadership of the Republican Party acted promptly to correct a faux pas by Wilson, I suspect that Wilson is now the darling of the right-wing blogs and talk radio militants who have so influenced political debate in the past thirty years. After all, Joe Wilson was just showing solidarity with the town hall shouters who have dominated the debate on health care over the past month or two.

The fight over health care reform, like most every issue dividing the parties in Congress, appears to me to be advance campaigning for the elections of 2010 and 2012, especially on the side of the party that is “out” at the moment. The business of politics is getting and keeping electoral dominance, a power search far more absorbing than seeking solutions to issues that affect all the voters, not just those who can be counted on as one party or another’s “base.” It’s all about the patronage and PAC funds, baby.

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for September 02, 2009 is:
inflammable • \in-FLAM-uh-bul\ • adjective

1 : flammable

*2 : easily inflamed, excited, or angered : irascible

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Simmering anger flowing from deep fear made many commenters at the health care meeting highly inflammable, needing very little to start them shouting and abusing those speaking, or trying to speak, in favor of reform.

Did you know?

“Combustible” and “incombustible” are opposites but “flammable” and “inflammable” are synonyms. Why? The “in-” of “incombustible” is a common prefix meaning “not,” but the “in-” of “inflammable” is a different prefix. “Inflammable,” which dates back to 1605, descends from Latin “inflammare” (“to inflame”), itself from “in-” (here meaning “in” or “into”) plus “flammare” (“to flame”). “Flammable” also comes from “flammare,” but didn’t enter English until 1813. In the early 20th century, firefighters worried that people might think “inflammable” meant “not able to catch fire,” so they adopted “flammable” and “nonflammable” as official safety labels and encouraged their use to prevent confusion. In general use, “flammable” is now the preferred term for describing things that can catch fire, but “inflammable” is still occasionally used with that meaning as well.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Political Venom

The outpouring of sympathy and expressions of loss on the death of Edward Moore Kennedy this week have been much in evidence on the news networks, newspapers and magazines. In the blogosphere, there have been many similar expressions of admiration and regret. There have also been appallingly nasty, vitriolic and apoplectic rants against Teddy, Jack, Bobby, their father, and all “Dems,” “leftists,” “socialists,” “Marxists” and “libs,” in an orgy of hatred.

I am not surprised. The past twenty years have marked the ascendancy of scorched earth commentary, sometimes even spilling over from the internet to more mainstream venues. There have certainly been such excesses from both ends of the political spectrum. But the electoral success of the Republican Party in relying on the most extreme elements in the body politic has been much more pronounced.

The campaign for reform of health care has seen such disregard for the truth and pandering to town hall bullies on the part of the Republicans that even overly partisan Democrats like Nancy Pelosi look statesmanlike. The Obama administration seems mired in defensive rhetoric which does nothing to advance their causes, on health care or anything else.

Among the other journalistic memoirs of Ted Kennedy is a Newsweek article by Elsa Walsh, telling of Kennedy’s counsel helping Bill Clinton come back from the debacle of the 1994 mid-term elections. Kennedy successfully urged  Clinton to stick to his basic political agenda, especially raising the minimum wage and a scaled-down partial reform of health care. The Senator urged the President to carry the fight to the Republicans, hammering them on insensitivity to the poor and working class  citizens. The strategy worked, Clinton won re-election and some seats were regained in the 1996 elections, although the Republicans retained legislative dominance.

It seems to me that attacking the Republicans on the same points would be effective this time, as it was in 1995-6

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for August 24, 2009 is:
proffer • \PRAH-fer\ • verb

: to present for acceptance : tender, offer

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Every version of a public option in healthcare proffered by the administration or its progressive allies in Congress has been attacked and in many cases deliberately misrepresented by opponents of reform.

Did you know?

You may notice a striking similarity between “proffer” and “offer.” Are the two words connected by etymology? Yes, indeed. “Proffer” comes from Anglo-French “profrer,” which itself is an alteration of the earlier “porofrir.” That word in turn combines “por-” (which means “forth” and is related to our “pro-”) and “offrir” (which means “to offer” and is an ancestor of our word “offer”). “Proffer” entered English in the 14th century. A more literary word than plain “offer,” it adds or puts stress on the idea of voluntariness, spontaneity, or courtesy on the part of the one doing the tendering.

Hearts and Children

We are looking forward to keeping our grandchildren from mid-day today until tomorrow morning, part daily child care for their working parents, part giving the parents a night to themselves, and all for our own delight. The grandchildren, as I often say, have our hearts in their keeping.

Trading Costs

The collapse of the economy in many areas has affected budgets private, corporate and governmental. Lack of money is an absolute, making cuts across all strata of society necessary, so hard choices and reduced standards are inevitable. All reductions in costs, especially in those levels of society with the fewest resources and greatest needs, are not necessarily actual reductions. Sometimes cuts in services by government simply shift the costs into areas not as recognizable as taxes or fees.

Last Call – Again

The heat of summer is beginning to lose a little of its punch, as August has given way to September, leaves are beginning to turn, and in this long-running drought, to fall a bit earlier than normal. As I do in these weeks every year, I remember my friend the late Billy Phillips, actor, comedian, raconteur. Sometime in the small hours of August 26, in 1983, Billy died in his sleep. The following October 10th would have been his fortieth birthday.

He was four days out of the hospital, after a three-week stay following a cluster of heart attacks which required two rounds with a defibrillator. Billy had arrived at the hospital emergency room a month earlier, feeling the onset of something very wrong, barely had time to tell the admissions clerk that he thought he was having a heart attack, and at that moment collapsed. The emergency staff hustled him into the nearest treatment room and began the intensive care that prolonged Billy’s life for three weeks and four days.

Friends and family gathered, and once Billy was moved to a room, that room became “Club Billy” for the rest of his stay. Billy entertained his callers, in his element, able to forget his looming mortality doing what he did best, telling stories, making jokes, putting on a few of his many characters. He was a performer. He may have suspected that this was the last play, and when this particular performance closed, his personal theatre would go permanently dark.

Since the patient was without family in town, or funds, friends volunteered to house him and watch over him in his convalescence, which officially commenced on a Monday. His father went home to Pennsylvania, and the first watch went on duty. Calder, the husband of the host couple, had been practically a brother to Billy when they were young. Calder’s family had given the young Billy a home, so that he could finish high school in Chattanooga, following his father’s transfer out of town. Billy was home, again.

Friday came, and the second shift of friends were on deck to take Billy in. The night before, his first shift had stayed up late with Billy, who had other old friends visiting that night, telling old stories, remembering good times and laughing much. Billy mentioned that he had a toothache starting, and was pretty tired. The friends wished each other good night, and so to bed.

The next morning, Calder and Betsy, his wife, went to work, careful not to wake the sleeping Billy. Betsy prepared Billy’s lunch, covering the plate and leaving it in the refrigerator, with a note reminding Billy of a follow-up doctor’s appointment that afternoon.

Betsy called to check on Billy at mid-day, and there was no answer. She called again. still no answer. Uneasy, she called her son who worked close to the house, and could get there quickly. A short wait which seemed long to her, and her son called back to say that Billy was in bed, blue and cold. Sometime after taking his toothache to bed, Billy had died.

Twenty-five years ago, and I remember hearing of his death as clearly as if it were yesterday. The news rippled out through the extended network of Billy’s friends, and funeral plans were made and carried out. A memorial service in Chattanooga at the funeral home, and burial the next day in Augusta, Georgia, the home of Billy’s mother’s family, where the family plot in an old cemetery had room for another member.

This upcoming October 10th, Billy would have turned 65. He would have had witty things to say, jokes at his own expense mostly, and mordantly funny references to mortality. But on that August early morning long ago, his own last call stopped age and decay and all the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Billy usually finished his many evenings on the town at David’s, a bar now defunct, a few blocks away from his apartment. As the bartender called “last call” Billy would down his final beer, and with a lopsided, confiding sort of smile wend his way into the darkness. I have always thought it was probably around that same time, two-thirty a.m. on August 26th, 1983, that he made his final exit.

Selah.