The Editorial Cartoon
I’m not necessarily a fan of editorial cartoonist David Fitzsimmons—I think he’s a little smug and kind of boring—but last week (I’m always behind) he offered an opinion in the Arizona Daily Star in which he asserted the historical significance and the modern importance of American editorial cartoons, and lamented the dwindling of their artist-creators in the nation’s newspapers. “Searing visual satire is as American as an apple pie in the face,” he asserts of the medium that stretches from Thomas Nast to Gary Trudeau, “A cartoon doesn’t bother to carefully prosecute the accused with arguments. That is the realm of the editorial writer. A good cartoon condemns and executes on the spot”. And all this, Fitzsimmons affirms, in the space of the size of a Pop-Tart.
American political satire of all forms has a storied history, and finds its modern expressions in programs like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, probably the most popular among others in the television field, and we’re fortunate that we have the liberty to speak and criticize publicly. New Zealanders aren’t so fortunate: recent legislation was passed that effectively banned the use of images in media to satirize of political figures. And of course, editorial cartoons can lead to more than bruised egos as we witnessed last year with the publication of satirical images of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in the Netherlands.
What think you? Leave a comment by clicking the link above.
The Power of Words
A few days late on this one (as are most of my posts surrounding current events), but this was too vital not to post. Judge Jeffre Cheuvront declared a mistrial in a sexual assault case after he deemed media attention and protests surrounding the proceedings had tainted the potential jury pool. The trial received much attention after the judge banned the use of certain words during the court proceedings, words he deemed loaded, that is, simply, not neutral. The words Judge Cheuvront banned? ”Rape”, “sexual assault”, “victim”, “assailant, and “sexual assault kit”.
These words were potentially profoundly connotative, decided Judge Cheuvront, and, citing fairness, didn’t want such presuppositional vocabulary to color jurors’ objectivity—the judge didn’t want the prosecution to have an unfair advantage. And further, jurors weren’t to be informed of the proscription.
Hmmm. Justice?
Luther Campbell, of 2 Live Crew, famous for his obscenity controversy in the late 1980s and early 1990s (when I was in high school), said “Words are just words”. Alternately, Samuel Beckett, playwright of the 20th absurdist Humanities staple Waiting for Godot, said “All we have are words”.
What think you? Leave a comment by clicking the link above.
Read the Fallacy Files entry on loaded words for more.
Sure to Offend English Purists
Of course this news is bound to perturb those who laughed at the last post about jedimasterwendy, language warrior for the preservation of English, but the cats at Merriam-Webster have decided to update the latest edition of the Collegiate Dictionary with some creative, recent additions to the our lexicon. Among the new entries we can look forward to are “crunk”, “smackdown”, and “ginormous”. Beautiful. Excellent.
As Merriam-Webster president John Morse points out in the article, language snobs are not going to be happy. Therein lies the irony of the attitudes of those who’ll snicker at the audacity of jedimasterwnedy, not just for her mechanics errors, but for her ignorance of the evolution of a language in contact, and the snickerers’ own exasperation of “the decay” of the English language with the inclusion of the several neologisms in the latest Collegiate Dictionary. English, as much as any other language, changes. Without going into deep history (that’s something we can cover in class), English has experienced a number of periods of growth and change, with shifts in lexicon and syntax. Yet, even in its so-called modern, deteriorated state, English remains the lingua franca, and, as is evidenced in the dictionary’s expansion, is in no danger of settling into a static existence (there really never was any danger).
What’s unfortunate is how eager some are to pass-on this lingusitic pretentiousness to the next generation. I don’t necessarily expect to see words like those to be included in the new Collegiate Dictionary in a student’s academic paper, unless they were used for some stylistic or rhetorical purpose, but (any) language is too dynamic to straitjacket into a monolithic (and mythic) Standard.
If you want to investigate English language history, you can go to HEL.
Word.
Ridiculous
This is really too funny not to highlight: “The Spoils of Linguistic Piracy”, from the Language Log. Some people are just ridiculous.
A Growing Problem
On the heels of the news of the death of Badour Shaker from a botched surgery that was supposed to make her a more “manageable” wife to a future husband comes the following: “Concern grows in Britain over female genital mutilation”. Of course, this isn’t the only trend gifted to the West from developing nations on the rise. Although the recent stories of the Jordanian man sentenced for killing his pregnant sister in Amman and the stoning death of 17 year old Dua Khalil in Iraq, both so-called honor killings, may seem remote (Apart from the small headlines buried in the “World” sections of some periodicals, did they receive much attention?), the case of 20 year old Banaz Mahmod Babakir Agha in England is more immediate. Of course, before casting stones, it’s important to look at the United States’ own problem with violence against women.
Check out these resources for more information:
- Violence Against Women at WomensHealth.gov
- Stop Violence Against Women at Amnesty International
- International Campaign Against Honour Killings
- Female Genital Mutilation Education and Networking Project
Leave your thoughts by clicking the link above.
Update: Here’s a recent CBS article on the continuing problem in the UK, “Mutilated Girls; U.K.’s Ignored Secret”.
Update: Skaters Take It to the Streets
In response to the reinstatement of Office Joey Williams, accused-then-cleared of brutality against several teen skaters in Hot Springs, Arkansas, skaters have taken to the streets in protest: “Protesters carry boards as they oppose officer’s reinstatement”.
Women’s Issues
Two media texts last week highlighted women’s issues in the United States, Great Britain, and Burkina Faso. The first from the Online NewsHour, examines the changing role of women of the in the ranks of the American military and emphasizes progress female service members are making in responsibility and job equity: “Women’s Combat Roles Evolving in Iraq, Afghanistan” (RealAudio, video available on the site).
The second from the BBC World Service covers two stories of teen pregnancy and motherhood, and highlights the differences in personal and cultural, modern and traditional attitudes between two expecting girls and their families. One girl lives in England, the other in Burkina Faso. Their stories are interesting and at the same time unbelievably frustrating: “World Stories: Teenage Mums”.
Listen and then leave a comment if you have something to say by clicking the link above.
Note: The last latter story is part of an ongoing series from the BBC World Service called World Stories. Some recent pieces have been particularly timely and engaging. I recommend listening to “Muslim Army”, “A House in Jerusalem”, and “In Prison without Hope”.
Abuse of Power?
It’s not my habit to watch the O’Reilly Factor on Fox News, but as I was folding clothes tonight I happened upon segment of the show with guest-host Michelle Malkin discussing President Bush’s commuting Lewis Libby’s prison term with Jane Hall and Bernard Goldberg (Google them). The latter insultingly seems to think the American people don’t care about the story and doubts most even know who Lewis Libby is. If you don’t know the Libby case, you should familiarize with it a little.
Some commentators have reacted scathingly; witness this scorching piece of rhetoric from MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann. For another, more sober assessment of the story, listen and/or watch this discussion between the NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff and former Whitehouse legal insiders (RealAudio, video available on the site).
It’s worth looking at the rhetorical effectiveness of each. We’ll be looking at texts like these in AP Language throughout the year, which, with the early and continuing electioneering by Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls, promises to be quite a mess of persuasion, accusation, defamation, and stratification. Remember, if you’re not paying attention then you’re part of the problem and not part of the solution.
Wanna weigh in on the rhetoricity or style of the commentators, or the story content and its implications themselves? Leave a comment by clicking the link above.
And yes, in the preceding paragraph I wrote wanna, which is a standard modal auxiliary verb in, at least spoken, English; and if you don’t trust Wikibooks, see Professor John Lawler’s comments on the verb, or, if you can stomach heavy grammar, try Professor Grant Goodall’s brief paper on contraction. Score it!
Justice Served?
Resourceful skaters captured the following video on June 21, Go Skateboarding Day, in Hot Spring, Arkansas. Be warned that it contains some harsh language and it’s violent (but the level of violence apparently wasn’t a problem for police officials as you’ll read).
Ostensibly, Officer Joey Williams was enforcing laws prohibiting skating on downtown streets; some details were revealed after the video was posted online: “Officer Accused of Choking Skateboarder”. The video led to an investigation of the incident, “Cops vs. Skaters: Video of Skater Arrest Leads to Investigation”, but today it was reported that Officer Williams was cleared of any wrongdoing in the incident and the skaters are still set for trial: “Ark. Cop Cleared of Choking Skateboarder”.
Regardless of the skaters’ actions or attitudes, some have argued that their behavior didn’t merit the officer’s reaction. What do you think? Leave a comment above. Better yet, even though this is a local issue in Hot Springs, if you’d like to share your opinion of the incident and how it was handled with the Hot Springs Police Department, why you can find contact information on the department homepage, and you can share your opinion of the incident and how it was handled with the mayor and city officials with using the contact infomation on the elected officials’ homepage.
Pluralism, Tolerance, and Relativism
It’s very popular to state that there exists no universal truth or moral code which governs or guides individual and corporate behavior; rather, we act and react within particular conventional, social systems of morality, and therefore culture is relative. Philosopher James Rachels summarizes the very fundamental claims of cultural relativism in The Elements of Moral Philosophy:
- Different societies have different moral codes.
- There’s no objective standard by which we can judge one social code better than another.
- Our own society’s moral code had no special value; it’s one among many.
- No universal ethical truths exists, thus no moral truths exist that govern all people at all times.
- Actions within a particular culture are deemed right or wrong by consensus.
- It’s disdainful to judge another society’s conduct by our own standards.
Adopting a culturally relativistic perspective then is seen as a mark of tolerance in pluralistic societies. How then should we react to the practice of female circumcision? Most recently, twelve year old Egyptian girl Badour Shaker died in June after the procedure was performed on her by a physician for the equivalent of a mere $9.00. Startlingly, 97% of married Egyptian women reported to UNICEF in 2003 that they’d undergone genital mutilation. (An ancillary, but no less important, story was under-reported last week: “Turkish boys circumcised at a local butcher’s shop”.)
So, what think you? Are group and personal morality relative? Is it supercilious to judge others’ cultural practices through the lens of our own? What then are the limits of tolerance? If there are limits to the tolerance of corporate cultural and individual subjective practice, can relativism be valid? Leave a comment by clicking the link above.
What’s Your Line?
Here’s piece from NPR on the Bulwer-Lytton Ficton Contest, “Honoring the Very Best of the Worst in Fiction”. This contest honors Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who famously began his novel Paul Clifford with the iconic “It was a dark and stormy night”. Contestants compete to pen the silliest opening lines to their non-existent stories; here’s a list of winners from years past.
Got an opening line for your story?