The Misuse Of Language

The misuse of language induces evil in the soul" -  Socrates

Socrates wasn't talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean.

I wish we were only talking about grammar. Grammar is easy. It has clear, indisputable rules, but if you misuse them it won't be catastrophic. Whether you do it on purpose or because you aren't aware of the rules, it won't impact your  livelihood or your neighbor (unless she's a grammarian!), and you can still be an honest, hardworking, good person, and a good neighbor. 

The deliberate misuse of langauge is another animal. As in Orwell's 1984 with its Newspeak, Doublethink, and  Thought Police, we have the same authoritatian decrees popping up like chickweed, by different names but hiding under the same cloak. Orwell's fictional world had banned books, control of news outlets and intimidation of the press, government control of universities and curiculums. When 1984 first came out I thought it was creepy but bizaare and ridiculous and could never happen here.

But truth is hard to discern when it is under constant attack. Is that an apple or an apricot? A spider or a cockroach? How long will we have three branches of government, separate but equal? How long before the pillars cave under the slow grinding down of the truth? What about freedom of speech and peaceful assembly? Separation of church and state? 1984 incarnate by the end of 2025? 

Federal agencies tasked with guarding the Common Good—food inspectors, for instance, (that can of tuna you've never worried about opening) are being shackled and dismantled. Cuts to our Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) with firings of thousands of food inspectors to be replaced by sycophants or by nobody is the latest blow to food safety protections and incredibly dangerous.

The latest insult is the gutting of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the agency responsible for distributing federal funding to libraries. Four of the Big Five publishers just sent a letter to Congress, asking them to reject the executive order signed on March 14th calling for the elimination of the IMLS and rescinding the library grants appropriated by Congress. More about that on Nathan Bransford Blog. 

Why would I write something so bleak when spring is knocking at the door and the daffodils are up? I write it for my ancestors who immigrated to this country because it embodied all of the before mentioned freedoms, none more so than freedom of religion, which if we would have it, also means freedom from it. 

If you want a prescient glimpse of what our world might look like with a ruling billionaire class, read I Cheerfully Refuse by Lief Engler, set in a not-too-distant America.  

Historians have said, "When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving the cross.” Will we let it in?

Wheelbarrow in the Snow

My short story, Maybe in The Milkhouse, a rural writing collective. 

Chemical farming catches up to these flawed characters who struggle with the difficulty of being human. 

Pushcart Prize Nominees

It's cold this morning with snow fog blanketing the land but I'm wrapped in an old afghan with a hot cup of coffee, warm with the news:

Pushcart Nominee

I hate tooting my own horn but you know what they say.

Thanks for reading this blog especially those of you who have put up with me all these years!!

The Greatest of Lakes If We Can Keep It

 

Sand gives way under my feet

as I bend to the effort

of climbing a dune

on the sweetwater sea.

 

Beyond waving fronds of seagrass

water to the horizon heaves and hurls

plumes of foam that pound the shore.

It polishes stone

and whittles driftwood

burnished and smooth as a baby’s sole.

 

With sand in my shoes

hardpack underfoot

I fill my pockets.

Clouds scurry happily overhead

as gulls ride the waves

like surfers in wet suits.

 

Where water meets sky

the stars and the moon live in the depths

while on a rush of wing

eagle eats gull and feathers fly—

            ferocious predator

            rules the sky

while fox of the bayou

trots over the sedge

to circle his den of many rooms—

            intrepid hunter

rules the beachhead

as Superior turns herself

inside out to bring in treasures

whittled to size by the push and pull

of the big shining sea.

For dVerse, the Poet's Pub, and their Open Link Night, Poets and Storytellers, what does "low battery" mean to you, and how do you recharge?  and What's Going On the writer's blog that asks us to think about the personal nature of homemade gifts, and while they're the best, I think gifts washed up on the shore of Lake Superior might be their equal