EXTRA: A political language lesson

It's lawn-sign time, and most of the ones we'll see in coming days will be rather ordinary, if not downright dull. So I couldn't help but get a kick out of this one that I stumbled across on the Internet.

Personally, I think this sign's meaning goes beyond needing to know Spanish. Although this weblog does offer a translation function, if you feel compelled to look up the word.

A double-blow, en Espanol

MY EXPERIENCE IS that this was one of those words for which my mother would have slapped me across the face, if she had heard me using it as a child. Of course, that didn't stop her from often using the word to describe people who were behaving in a particularly stupid or annoying manner.

Political payback for Trump trash talk?

Just as here's another word that would have got me in trouble when I was a child, but I also recall it being one my grandmother would use -- fi she thought I and her other grandchildren weren't listening closely to her.

The scary part? Donald Trump probably thinks HE'S the one being unfairly picked upon by people expressing such thoughts about him.

Although trust me, none of it is nowhere as bad as any of the rancid remarks Trump has made about the nation's Mexican-American (and Latino in general) population.

  -30-

Vulgar? What the f@#% else is new!

When I first learned that President Donald J. Trump went about spewing obscene trash talk about select African nations, I can’t say I was surprised.

'Da winnah' among front pages

Heck, when I first heard he was using a phrase related to caca to describe them, my first thought was that Trump was on another one of his nonsensical rants about Mexico. It would have been totally in character with his line of stupid talk.

SO I DO find it a little interesting to learn that Trump, in talking with Congress members earlier this week about various issues related to immigration policy, let his inner potty mouth run rampant.

Seriously, I’ve lost count of the number of newspapers on Friday that felt compelled to put Trump’s vulgar rant on their front pages. If you question use of the word “vulgar” to describe the president, it was in the front page headlines of the Chicago Tribune and the State Journal-Register of Springfield, Ill. – just to name a couple.

Which makes me wonder why people feel compelled to make an issue out of political use of profane terms. Such as the New York Daily News putting “S**t” on its front page Friday to describe what it was Trump felt compelled to say.

Trump 'vulgar' in both Chicago ...

But very few would dream of going that far in expressing what it was Trump said.

IT’S THE OLD-SCHOOL attitude toward profanity in the newspaper – all that talk of a “family newspaper” that we’re supposed to pretend people don’t speak crudely – even when they happen to have crude thoughts and behave in a crude manner.

Which causes us to dance around with the English language when describing what happened. It may be the one time reporter-types think it appropriate to fudge with the facts.

... and in Springfield, Ill.

Personally, I’m of the belief (I’ve argued with editors about this many a time) that if a profane word is really essential to a story, you ought to just spell it out. Otherwise, just delete it altogether. Find other quotes to flesh out copy.

That wouldn’t work in this case, because there’d be no story to report IF NOT for the profanity. The idea that Trump thinks in derogatory ways toward nations that aren’t of a white racial mix is so in character with our president.

I WOULDN’T BE surprised to learn that Trump backers are totally supportive of their political idol for further reiterating he has the same crude way of viewing the outside world as they do.

Which is why the rest of our society is thinking these days what a rube Trump is. The man who thinks his garish casinos, hotels and other overbuilt structures around the world somehow equate with class and sophistication.

The lede story in D.C.

The Daily News, with its cartoonish pile of poo emoji on its front page, may wind up becoming the “collectible” image from this particular moment. Although perhaps it should be noted that the Washington Times and New York Post – a pair of newspapers that pride themselves on providing a conservative spin to the world’s happenings rather than straight reporting – managed to ignore this issue for their own front pages.

Down in the corner in Gary, Ind.

I’m sure they’re spouting high-minded rhetoric about not peddling trash by reporting news based on profanity. Although I’m sure they’d eagerly report the story if it reflected their news biases.

SO WHAT SHOULD we think of Trump’s trash talk – the one that has inspired Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, to name a couple, to respond critically?

Like I’ve already written, he’s made so many hostile comments about foreign lands that my original suspicion was to think this was another Mexico rant. I’m sure he’ll find an excuse to add our neighbor nation to the south to his list – which does include El Salvador and Haiti along with parts of the African continent.

It reiterated his belief that is shared by many of his ideological allies that certain types of people have no business thinking they have a place in our country. A part of me wonders if Emanuel has a point when he compared Trump’s talk to the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler during Germany’s Nazi era when it came to Jewish people.

Because Trump talk certainly doesn’t have anything to do with the “American Way” of viewing life.

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Who offends you says more about your sensibilities than what was said

I don’t doubt there are some people out there who are more bothered by Stephen Colbert these days than by Raul Labrador. Although if you’re one of them, I’d argue you are what is wrong with our society these days.
 

Who bothers you more -- Colbert ...

For those of you who don’t pay attention to details, Colbert is a late-night television host who last week made a wisecrack on-air – the one that says President Donald Trump’s mouth is only good for servicing Russian Premier Vladimir Putin in a sexual manner.

WHILE LABRADOR is the member of Congress who tried justifying his vote in favor of the Trump-desired American Health Care Act last week by calling it a “lie” that anybody dies because of a lack of medical treatment.

I’ll be the first to admit that Colbert phrased his thought in a particularly crude manner; one that probably would appeal to those whose mentality never advanced beyond the level of a 12-year-old when it comes to sexual issues.

But the people who want the Federal Communications Commission to crack down on Colbert for broadcasting profanity and perversion over the broadcast airwaves are just being ridiculous.

Colbert is guilty of the offense of telling a lame joke. Considering that he’s not a newscaster or commentator but an entertainer and comedian, that can be considered a “high crime and misdemeanor” of the celebrity world.

DING HIS LATE-NIGHT show a few ratings points, which will hurt the bottom line of how much money can be charged to advertisers whose spots air during his show. Anything more is overkill. Particularly since trying to censor him in any manner will only make him into a heroic figure for those people who think Donald Trump is a twit.

 

... or the Idahonian Labrador?

Considering that the whole Trump persona is based off a ridiculously pompous and absurd image, it is hard to believe that Trump himself would be bothered by this. He certainly has had more harsh criticism made about himself during his public life.

Or is it just that the particular image offered up by Colbert was a homosexual one? Whereas if people had implied Trump slept around with as many women as he could, THAT would be okay to the ideological right.

The people who voted for him despite the image that came out during the campaign last year of a guy who thinks it’s appropriate to reach out to women by literally REACHING OUT and grabbing them by their genitalia. While perhaps also planting a Tic-Tac-laced kiss on their lips without their consent?

 

PEREZ: Speaking the truth?!?

PERSONALLY, THIS WHOLE matter sounds less like reality and more like an old Beavis and Butthead sketch. Think about it?

BUTT-HEAD: “Heh, heh heh, heh heh, Beavis, you’re such a cock holster (the actual term Colbert used to describe Trump).”

BEAVIS: “Shut up, you butt-munch! Heh, heh heh, heh heh.”

I feel more stupid just for having written those lines. I’m sure you’d like to get back the seconds of time you took to read them. It’s all so trivial.

BY COMPARISON, THERE is that moment expressed Friday at a Town Hall forum by Labrador, who has served in Congress from Idaho since being elected in 2010. When questioned about how GOP ideas about health care reform would result in some losing medical treatment, Labrador tried to go on the defensive, but failed miserably.

Is our society now reduced to Trump's level...

“No one wants anybody to die, that lie is so indefensible,” he said, before moving on to the part that gained him national attention and probably will be the most memorable thing he’ll ever say in public life. “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.”

Actually, that’s exactly why some people will die if we try to make it so bureaucratically complicated for people to get treatment without putting themselves into life-defining debt. And if you argue they can just turn to hospital emergency rooms, keep in mind that such a circumstance is exactly the problem that would be resolved by reforming the way healthcare is paid for.

... or are we now Beavis & Butt-head

The man is just too clueless to comprehend what he’s talking about. Which bothers me more than Colbert or Democratic National Chairman Tom Perez, who in recent weeks has been criticized for using profane language when talking about the healthcare reform debate.

AS PEREZ PUT it during one Democratic rally last month, “I have a name for (Republican healthcare reform), it’s ‘I don’t care,’ because the Republican leadership doesn’t give a shit about those who are suffering.”

The sad thing is that Perez’ potty-mouthed talk may be the most honest comment we’ve heard about the issue, and that’s the intellectual level we’ve dropped to as a society.

One that the ultimate morons of the 1990s, Beavis and Butt-head themselves, could comprehend!

  -30-

When is profanity too stupid to use?

When I wrote a commentary Wednesday night concerning the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s admission that he’d like to commit a particularly intimate act of bodily harm on Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, I didn’t use the actual word of “nuts.”

For one thing, the audio I initially heard was so poor and garbled (which is why Jesse Ventura refused to comment on the matter when questioned Thursday morning on MSNBC by former Chicago newswoman Tamron Hall) that I wasn’t sure which slang term for the male sexual organ the long-time civil rights leader used.

HENCE, I WROTE around it, and made general references to the act of committing bodily harm. Now that I have heard slightly improved audio and can pick out the actual word, I can say that everything I published Thursday stands as written.

I wouldn’t change a single thought. And in pondering the issue in my mind, I would not have used the actual word in copy. People who get obsessed about hearing the actual profanity on tape have too much of “Beavis and Butthead” (“you said butt, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh…” ) in them.

In short, I would have followed the old wire service rule of only using profanity as, “part of direct quotations, and there is a compelling reason for them.” (That’s the stylebook entry for United Press International, my one-time employer).

As I see it, Jackson made a physical threat. Conveying that meaning was what mattered. Which naughty word he used to do so is nothing more than political trivia not much more important as when Rolling Stone magazine recently let us know the contents of Obama’s personal I-pod.

NOW I NOTE the two major metro newspapers in Jackson’s hometown differed on the issue. I can’t say I agree fully with either of them.

The Chicago Tribune suffered from potty-fingers (if someone who says naughty things is a potty mouth, then someone who types them has, well you get it) and gave us the word “nuts” while the Chicago Sun-Times gave us “n---.”

I can already hear the little old ladies of Pontiac and Oswego and all the other rural Midwestern communities where the Tribune is the newspaper of choice when the locals want to know more about that Gomorrah known as Chicago.

They will get all worked up over the fact that The Tribune used a naughty word. Some may even threaten to cancel their subscriptions, all because Rev. Jackson quoted Gen. Anthony McAuliffe’s response to the Nazis at the Battle of the Bulge.

THIS IS A case where I think the actual word detracts from the story, getting everybody all worked up on a side issue. The serious issue in this case is that Jackson expressed the thoughts of some black people that Obama is willing to sacrifice them with condescending talk in order to get white voters come the Nov. 4 elections.

You may disagree with that premise, but it is an interesting issue to be considered as this presidential campaign progresses. It is definitely more important than talking about whether Rev. Jackson has a dirty mouth, or whether his namesake son, the congressman from Chicago’s south suburbs and Far South Side, was justified in trashing him so vehemently on Wednesday.

But at least the Tribune decided to use the actual word, rather than going to the old tricks (used a lot these days when writing sports stories and trying to convey the crude, often juvenile tone of athletes’ speech) of implying obscenity.

That is what the Sun-Times gave us, reducing the naughty word to a puzzle, by which readers would have to fill in the missing blanks.

THE OTHER COMMON trick is to come up with some sort of word that rhymes with the obscenity so that people can mentally figure out what was really said. I hope there wasn’t anyone out there in the world who really believed that Dick Cheney and George W. Bush back in 2000 referred to a New York Times correspondent as a “brass mole.”

I have always believed (and have argued with many editors, particularly the ones whom I used to work with at the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago) that if one is going to imply an obscenity, one should just come out and use it.

If for whatever reason, one does not think the naughty word should be spelled out, then it should not be used at all in copy.

I stand by my vague writing around of the slang term for the male sex organ on the grounds that what mattered about Jackson’s comments was that he was making a threat (facetious as it may be) of physical harm.

THAT THREAT WOULD have been just as intense had Jackson said he wanted to punch Obama in the face. (What would really be interesting would be the Secret Service detail’s reaction to Jackson trying to do anything to harm Obama).

The implication of a physical threat is what is important. Getting hung up on the naughty-sounding slang term does nothing more than feed the mentality of the Buttheads and Beavises of the world.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Is public attention to the Rev. Jesse Jackson having a potty mouth (http://www.illinipundit.com/2008/07/10/state-american-political-discourse) stealing attention away from discussion of more crucial issues.

When is non-use (http://dingesgang.com/blog/?p=382) of a “profanity” responsible, and when (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-garry-/what-is-it-that-jesse-jac_b_111909.html) is it just lame?

Barack Obama is accepting Jackson’s apology. Somehow, I suspect the reverend’s (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hTPPM5eyoWa5PgeObNcWP0chAopQD91QVB9O2) invitation to the inaugural ball in January still will get lost in the mail.