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Apatheic

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Is this language erosion or language evolution? Or neither?

Is it another chink in the armor of the English language, which seems to be perched upon the edge of a cliff waiting for that final push to plunge it headlong into decay, death, and finally oblivion?

Is it the natural process of language evolution, which is present in every living language and absent in all dying languages; humanity adapting a language to suit the present and the future, so that it has a future?

I’m undecided. Okay, more like apathetic. Although I do have an opinion on words being “birthed” in an episode of “The Simpsons”. But I don’t really care to share with the class. Maybe another day.

North and South

For those not familiar with the title, North and South is based on the book of the same title written by Elizabeth Gaskell in 1855. Although it was first published between 1884-1885 as a weekly serial in Household Words, a magazine edited by Charles Dickens. The movie and book have to do with the social divide in England between the industrial north and the more affluent south. The story centers around Margaret Hale, a minister’s daughter who is uprooted from the comfortable south she has known her whole life and thrust into the tough, divisive north. It follows her through her struggles as a lady to uphold her principles and fight against injustice.

This movie was an unexpected treat. If I had to pick a favorite period drama, I think this just might win out over Pride and Prejudice (1995), although I am still conflicted about it. This isn’t just a love story, although that is part of it; this is also a social commentary on class struggle and is quite historically accurate. Having read other reviews of the movie, many were quite critical of the character of the female lead (not the actress’ acting or portrayal, but the character she is playing). I actually found her quite to my liking; strong but feminine, orthodox but also radical in some ways, principled, virtuous but having faults, compassionate and caring. The lead male character was much to my liking also, but definitely the more flawed, in my opinion. It is great to see them chastise each others faults and then come to realize their own faults.

This movie is more exciting than Pride and Prejudice but definitely not as witty or amusing. The characters are warm and realistic and the movie has a “profound” feeling to it. I think both Richard Armitage and Daniela Denby-Ashe do a wonderful job acting in this film, although I do have to agree with the many others when they say that Armitage steals the show. He does, but in a good way. One of the things that I loved about this movie that isn’t always the case with period dramas is that the love story doesn’t dominate. We get to explore the many other important and deep relationships that the lead characters have aside from each other. And this makes their romance the more engaging and special.

If I had to criticise this movie, it would be for not having enough of a good thing. By which I mean that the beginning develops so well but the end is so rushed. Which happens to be how the book is written, something Gaskell lamented, but had no control over. I understand and applaud the director for staying true to the text, but I think it would have made both the book and film better if the ending was able to develop as adeptly as the beginning and middle. Another thing I would have wished for is a more thorough look at Elizabeth’s relationship with her mother and with Bessy. Again, that would have made the film much longer than would work for a film, but is something I would have preferred no matter the length.

I would give it 4.5 stars out of 5.

I Interrupt

…this very productive workday to make an announcement:

Cubicles suck all that is good and creative and living out of this world.

Thank you.

Whistle While You Work

This is quite an interesting study. It looks at people and their satisfaction in their professions. Interestingly lawyers and doctors are not to be found, at either extreme.

‘”The most satisfying jobs are mostly professions, especially those involving caring for, teaching, and protecting others and creative pursuits,” said Tom W. Smith, director of the General Social Survey (GSS) at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, in the report.’

I’m sure if Mother had been a listed profession that would have come-in in the top five. Since it is caring, teaching and protecting others. And it requires many creative pursuits. Like knowing how to remove gum from 27 different types of surfaces. Honestly, we women have been cheated by society into thinking that motherhood isn’t a profession, but only a pass-time. Truly duped.

Slaughtering the Fatted Calf

…or not. I’ve read several articles since the election describing the pride and joy of Kenyans over the election of Obama. One even saying that some Kenyans were preparing to slaughter bulls if Obama was elected. Well, this Kenyan is far from happy, and he isn’t doing any celebrating. He has some sharp words for Americans who voted Obama into office.

“We in Kenya know him (Obama) as a person who is anti-family,” Dr. Karanja said. “A person who would support abortion. In America they can do all right killing their babies. But they must not associate us with the people who would want our babies to be killed.”

Dr. Karanja sets us right. Here we are thinking that we are the civilized and enlightened culture, all the while skeletons pile-up, not in our closets, but in our yards, as we freely display our perverseness.

“This is something that a lot of people don’t realise, that what these Americans do affects innocent people thousands and thousands of miles away.”

I fear that someday we will know. We will know the full ramifications of every abortion that has taken place; here in America and abroad. Obama was elected by the hand of people too ignorant and slothful to know what he really stands for and by those too callous and wicked to care.

“And that is what Americans are bringing to us: an abomination.”

“And this administration of Obama, is going to be a nightmare for our people.”

No One Knows

as Melville Knows.

“Were I the wind, I’d blow no more on such a wicked,

miserable world. I’d crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink there.”

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

I love Moby Dick. I do not always like it, but I always love it. Melville’s twenty paragraph tangents are so worth reading, just for the fact that they illustrate the point that for every unbreakable rule of grammar, there is a Classic that breaks it. Who cannot love a man who imagines what he would do if he were the wind; and whose thoughts match my own exactly.

No One Knows as Melville Knows

“Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief.”

‘Moby Dick’ by Herman Melville

The plaintive cry of a soul who has discovered one of the bitter truths of life; that what we most dread may in fact be the way to our salvation. Or that trial which would tax us the most is most necessary for our redemption.

This quote seems to encapsulate the redemptive mission in the life of Christ, which could just as rightly be called the mission of Christ. That one’s greatest calling or ultimate purpose can be found in living through one’s ultimate suffering. ‘Make your misery your ministry‘. Melville seems to suggest here that perhaps God gives us our misery in order for us to find our ministry and/or to carry it out more faithfully. We can redeem ourselves and save others by turning our suffering into a catalyst for holiness. By climbing the mountains of suffering that rise up in our lives, we can reach the summit of holiness. Through and by suffering we are renewed and recreated. As if suffering is a crucible in which we are melted down and molded into a new creation, a redeemed creation.
It may very well be that our purpose in life can only be realized through our suffering. The idea can be an obnoxious, or even a fretful reality to us who flee from suffering as from death. When really, suffering can be so cleansing. It can set us upon the path of righteousness and lead us unto the gates of heaven. There is no path to heaven that does not intersect with suffering. And for those whose path in life seems to be the path of suffering, it might just be that suffering will carry them to the gates of heaven.
And so for some of us suffering may be more than just a catalyst to holiness. For some there will be an ultimate period of suffering where God gives us the grace to shine forth in true color;  a test to show to which world we cling to ultimately. The martyrs each experienced such a opportunity. For each of them it was probably their topmost grief and yet also their topmost greatness. They each gave witness to the transcendent reality of God and to the existence of an objective Truth. They could not separate their greatness from their grief, and that is what makes it so great. They knew the consequences of being witness to the reality of God, and they strode forward anyways. As Christ himself attests, the greatness lies in the grief. Verily, it is the grief that makes it so great.

Talking them to Death

In a new twist on suicide counseling hotlines, Compassion and Choices of California is offering terminally ill patients suicide counseling. Except on this hotline patients will be told how and why they should kill themselves. Literally counseled into killing themselves.

[Compassion and Choices] has decided to focus on advising terminally ill patients how to kill themselves…Volunteers with health care backgrounds will screen callers to a toll-free telephone number for mental competency before spelling out options for a peaceful death that include how to end their lives quickly.

For those that may not know, Compassion and Choices is a newly christened name for two organizations that promote suicide, euthanasia, and mercy killing. In 2004 Compassion in Dying and End-of-Life Choices (formerly the Hemlock Society) merged to form Compassion and Choices. Since Compassion and Choices’ business is suicide and euthanasia, and because California will not legalize assisted suicide, they’re trying to find ways around the law, and still promote their cause.

But if suicide is illegal, wouldn’t counseling someone to commit suicide be illegal? When you are giving them the knowledge and directions to kill themselves, how is that different from assisting them in suicide? You are facilitating a crime, which would be illegal. But Compassion and Choices doesn’t see it that way:

Compassion & Choice’s legal counsel say that, although California law is murky about aid in dying, they believe their consultation service is legal.

In fact, they don’t call terminally ill persons killing themselves suicide. The see it as “the choice of acting to provide the time of death”; like a couple inducing labor to have their baby delivered on New Year’s Eve, one should be able to “pop-off” whenever one sees fit. But suicide is suicide, right? Wrong, according to Compassion and Choices. Suicide is “an irrational decision” and when a terminally ill person kills themselves, that it is a rational decision, thus not suicide. Or so goes the logic of Compassion and Choices. California law defines murder and manslaughter, but unfortunately does not have a definition of suicide.

How will these “volunteers with health-care backgrounds” screen callers to make sure they are terminally ill, and are rational? Will they all be psychiatrists, or qualified to make such prognoses? No, says Compassion and Choices, but they are “experienced in palliative care and are intimately familiar with the progression of diseases.” Experienced and intimate with death and disease. How does that qualify anyone for anything? Wesley J. Smith rightly calls the idea an outrage:

Think about this! These “counselors” will not be licensed mental health professionals giving mental health advice. They will not be doctors but will be giving medical advise as to prognoses. What an outrage. And yet some in the media have editorialized in favor of such counseling. And by the way, I have a friend who was told his lung cancer would kill him within three months–seven years ago!

Again, this isn’t suicide according to Compassion in Choices. It is just “hastening death” and “choosing the time of death”. But they don’t deny the fact that it could be considered suicide, and their involvement could be considered illegal. They just think it isn’t. Just like they think suicide by terminally ill patients isn’t suicide. And just like the think assisted suicide should be legal, even though California doesn’t think so.

In the end, Compassion in Choices volunteers will cover their butts, and put the onus on the terminally ill person. They won’t administer the means of death, nor provide it. However, they will be counseling people into committing suicide, giving them options and directions on how to kill themselves, knowing they are going to kill themselves, and will do nothing to stop it. Not only will they do nothing, but they will be present with them when they kill themselves, and will continue to give directions and counsel them until the end, when they have finally killed themselves.

If preying on the vulnerable and difficult position of terminally ill people isn’t a crime, I don’t know what is.

NOTE: All excerpts have been taken from Wesley J. Smith’s blog article, which you can find here. He excerpts from the Daily Journal, described as California’s leading legal newspaper. However, there is no link available to the article.

In Praise of the Hyphen

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It doesn’t say the hyphen has died, as some people seem to think. Before such an event happens, we’d have to create a replacement or somewhat drastically change our usage of English. It is true that the use of the hyphen has steeply fallen off. The old adage,

When in doubt hyphenate!

has fallen by the wayside, and instead the prevailing attitude is

When in doubt, make it two words! (And what the heck is a hyphen?)

Though I don’t use the hyphen as often as I would like, nor understand how to use it as much as I would like, I have always really liked the hyphen. Whenever I can incorporate a hyphenated word (and it occurs to me), I try to do so. I’m impartial, I’ll admit it. I like ice-cream a lot more than ice cream.