WARNING! GRAMMAR-NERD POST!
An appositive is a word or phrase that directly follows the noun it modifies. As a rhetorical device, an appositive allows a writer to condense clauses into shorter phrases, thus adding a touch of sophistication to what could otherwise be flat, boring prose. Consider, for example, the following:
Wombats are adorable. Wombats carry leprosy.
If I want to combine those two independent clauses, I have a few options. I can make one compound sentence, either with a coordinating conjunction:
Wombats are adorable, BUT they carry leprosy.
Or with a semi-colon:
Wombats are adorable; they carry leprosy. (I would probably add a conjunctive adverb there--"however," most likely.)
I can make the two clauses into one complex sentence by turning one of the independent clauses into either an adverb clause:
Although wombats are adorable, they carry leprosy.
Or an adjective clause:
Wombats, which are adorable, carry leprosy.
All of these options are grammatically correct and perfectly acceptable (except, perhaps, to zoologists and wombats). But if I want to "zazz" things up a bit, I could also combine these clauses by means of an appositive:
Wombats--adorable creatures--carry leprosy.
Or, depending on which aspect of the wombat I wish to emphasize:
Wombats--virulent leprosy carriers--are adorable.
(NOTE: The use of dashes is a stylistic preference; I could just as well use commas or parentheses to set off the appositive.)
The point is that the appositive allows me to add a bit of extra information without writing a whole 'nother clause.
Today's New York Times, in an article about the ongoing budgetary squabbles on Capitol Hill, featured an interesting appositive:
"By Friday, both the House and the Senate had closed for the Christmas break, and soon after his statement Mr. Obama left with his family for their annual holiday trip to Hawaii, his native state."
Catch that? "His [Obama's] native state" is an appositive modifying "Hawaii." When I saw that, I couldn't help wondering why it was there. Strictly speaking, it isn't necessary--no appositive is, of course; almost by definition, the information an appositive conveys is "bonus" information. In this case, the sentence could simply end after "Hawaii," with no significant loss of meaning.
Conceivably, the Times' editors felt it necessary to provide additional information to assuage readers prone to indignation: How DARE the President go on vacation when the nation's economic future hangs in the balance! Except, this appositive doesn't offer such consolation. That objection has already been blunted by the preceding information: that Congress has already adjourned for the holidays and that President Obama is not jetting off on some spur-of-the-moment getaway but is, rather, leaving for an "annual holiday trip."
On the other hand, maybe the editors felt that ending the sentence after Hawaii might give the impression that the Obamas were enjoying too luxurious a getaway for their "annual holiday trip"--that, in a time of economic strife, Barack and the girls should, I don't know, spend Christmas in a soup kitchen pretending to wash dishes. I think that's what the Paul Ryan family is doing. Maybe.
I, however, think something else is at work here. I can't help but think the editors saw an irresistible opportunity to ruffle the feathers of inveterate Birthers, those small-minded sore losers who still can't accept the fact that President Obama was, in fact, born in Hawaii. (See, I can dash off a decent appositive, too.)
Well, Times editors, if that WAS your intention--if, at this solemn time of year when we should all seek peace and harmony with our fellow man, you just couldn't pass up a chance to tweak these poor benighted fools--well, all I can say is: Good for you! Appositively!
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
Does Wayne LaPierre TRULY Speak for the NRA?
A few months ago, during the dog days of election season, I posted about my despair at the continuing offenses of the Republican Party. I mentioned that, up to that moment, I was willing to give my fellow citizens who happened to support the GOP the benefit of the doubt: I had assumed that the vast majority of Republicans were basically good and decent folk who shared a worldview with which I disagreed. But with the seemingly constant drumbeat of Republican offenses to common decency--from talk of "legitimate rape" to expressions of contempt for 47% of the American public--I questioned the good intentions of those who would willingly allow such people to speak for them.
I now ask the same question of NRA members.
In the wake of last week's atrocity in Newtown, CT, the leadership of the National Rifle Association was conspicuously silent. A curious nation wondered if the NRA was engaging in some long-overdue soul-searching, perhaps reconsidering its knee-jerk response to any suggestion of increasing restrictions (however minimal or easonable) on the right of private citizens to own guns. Maybe some good could come of this tragedy if the premier firearm advocacy organization could be convinced to join a productive conversation about increasing public safety.
We should have known better.
Today, NRA Vice-President Wayne LaPierre broke the group's silence at a news conference. The official NRA response to Newtown calls not for new restrictions on guns, but for the stationing of armed police officers at every school. LaPierre went on to blame Hollywood and the makers of violent video games for the senseless violence displayed at Sandy Hook Elementary, along with the government's failure to adequately enforce existing gun laws or to create a national registry of the mentally ill.
Does Wayne LaPierre listen to the words that come out of his own mouth?
The NRA's raison d'etre is to defend gun owners' (theoretical) Second Amendment rights against governmental overreach. Yet here is LaPierre, stating that the solution to gun violence is to garrison armed governmental representatives at our children's schools (not to mention creating a national database of the mentally ill). By the NRA's logic, wouldn't the presence of armed governmental forces at a school turn Adam Lanza into something of a liberator? And since when is the NRA in favor of national registries?
I've also had it with the NRA's disingenuous claims that if the government would only enforce existing gun laws, it would prevent psychopaths from building themselves arsenals. Does it escape the notice of LaPierre and others like him that most of these mass slaughters are carried out with legally obtained weapons? When the NRA whines that increased gun restrictions only keep law-abiding citizens from having guns, we should point out that keeping "law-abiding citizens" like Adam Lanza, James Holmes (Aurora, Colorado), Jared Loughner (Tucson, Arizona), Dylan Klebold (Columbine), etc., etc., etc. from having guns sounds like a pretty good idea! Seems to me it's the "law-abiding citizens" we mostly have to worry about. The NRA can talk all it wants about keeping high-powered weapons out of the hands of gangbangers, and I'm all for that, too. At the same time, it seems like gangbangers mostly want to use their guns on other gangbangers--not on random strangers at malls, movie theaters, or elementary schools.
The NRA has millions of members. I'm sure some of them agree with every word LaPierre spews. But I don't believe that a majority of NRA members--most of whom are probably decent people who like to hunt or who own one or two guns for self-protection--actually support his views. Maybe I'm wrong about that. I hope not. The time has come, though, for the rank and file of the National Rifle Association to make their voices heard. Repudiate Wayne LaPierre. Vote him out. You are either reasonable people who care about, and are willing to work constructively with, your fellow citizens to improve everyone's safety, or you are the followers of a socioopathic demagogue. You cannot have it both ways.
I now ask the same question of NRA members.
In the wake of last week's atrocity in Newtown, CT, the leadership of the National Rifle Association was conspicuously silent. A curious nation wondered if the NRA was engaging in some long-overdue soul-searching, perhaps reconsidering its knee-jerk response to any suggestion of increasing restrictions (however minimal or easonable) on the right of private citizens to own guns. Maybe some good could come of this tragedy if the premier firearm advocacy organization could be convinced to join a productive conversation about increasing public safety.
We should have known better.
Today, NRA Vice-President Wayne LaPierre broke the group's silence at a news conference. The official NRA response to Newtown calls not for new restrictions on guns, but for the stationing of armed police officers at every school. LaPierre went on to blame Hollywood and the makers of violent video games for the senseless violence displayed at Sandy Hook Elementary, along with the government's failure to adequately enforce existing gun laws or to create a national registry of the mentally ill.
Does Wayne LaPierre listen to the words that come out of his own mouth?
The NRA's raison d'etre is to defend gun owners' (theoretical) Second Amendment rights against governmental overreach. Yet here is LaPierre, stating that the solution to gun violence is to garrison armed governmental representatives at our children's schools (not to mention creating a national database of the mentally ill). By the NRA's logic, wouldn't the presence of armed governmental forces at a school turn Adam Lanza into something of a liberator? And since when is the NRA in favor of national registries?
I've also had it with the NRA's disingenuous claims that if the government would only enforce existing gun laws, it would prevent psychopaths from building themselves arsenals. Does it escape the notice of LaPierre and others like him that most of these mass slaughters are carried out with legally obtained weapons? When the NRA whines that increased gun restrictions only keep law-abiding citizens from having guns, we should point out that keeping "law-abiding citizens" like Adam Lanza, James Holmes (Aurora, Colorado), Jared Loughner (Tucson, Arizona), Dylan Klebold (Columbine), etc., etc., etc. from having guns sounds like a pretty good idea! Seems to me it's the "law-abiding citizens" we mostly have to worry about. The NRA can talk all it wants about keeping high-powered weapons out of the hands of gangbangers, and I'm all for that, too. At the same time, it seems like gangbangers mostly want to use their guns on other gangbangers--not on random strangers at malls, movie theaters, or elementary schools.
The NRA has millions of members. I'm sure some of them agree with every word LaPierre spews. But I don't believe that a majority of NRA members--most of whom are probably decent people who like to hunt or who own one or two guns for self-protection--actually support his views. Maybe I'm wrong about that. I hope not. The time has come, though, for the rank and file of the National Rifle Association to make their voices heard. Repudiate Wayne LaPierre. Vote him out. You are either reasonable people who care about, and are willing to work constructively with, your fellow citizens to improve everyone's safety, or you are the followers of a socioopathic demagogue. You cannot have it both ways.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
The Last "Solipsist"?
I suppose I should use today's post to settle accounts, what with it being the LAST "Solipsist" ever and all. I don't really have anyone to settle accounts WITH, though--except maybe Canadians. I don't really think this whole Mayan Apocalypse is going to happen; from what I can tell, the end of the Mayan calendar means the end of the world in the same way that the end of the calendar hanging next to your refrigerator means the end of the world. Still, if there's any bright spot to the potential end of everything, it's that if I go, then those maple-sucking beaver-lovers go down with me!
Hm. I guess I DO have some accounts to settle.
Hm. I guess I DO have some accounts to settle.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
A Brief Post
I'm bushed today. Hope to have a lengthier post tomorrow. Suffice to say, giving haircuts to guinea pigs is not half as much fun as it sounds.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Not to Beat a Dead Horse, But. . . .
. . . I'm just tired. Really, really tired. It all just hit me today when I saw Sarah Palin's relatively benign (for her) comments on the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. Essentially, like Mike Huckabee before her, she insinuated that the shootings could be attributed to the fact that Americans have lost focus on what's truly important--the main thing that's truly important being, apparently, God.
For the record, I am an agnostic: I don't know whether God exists or not. I feel reasonably certain that if there is some supreme being, He takes little to no interest in what's going on here on earth.
(EDITORIAL NOTE: I use "He" for simplicity's sake; I capitalize because I'm a slave to convention.)
That being said, I don't begrudge anybody else his or her belief in God. I'm certainly not about to argue it: As I say, I don't know. I'm a fairly logical sort of guy, and belief in God is, in the most literal sense, irrational: It must be taken on faith. And that's cool! If your faith helps you live a better life and provides you with solace in the face of tragedy, more power to you--or, to it, as the case may be. But I cannot abide self-righteous proselytizers who blame society's ills on insufficient fealty to God-as-they-see-Him.
For one thing, the idea that God has been "systematically removed" from public schools, as Mike "This-Guy-Was-Once-Considered-a-Legitimate-Presidential-Candidate?!?" Huckabee proclaimed, is ludicrous. Isn't one of the tenets of faith that "God is everywhere"? More to the point, while courts have declared prayer in public schools unconstitutional, nothing stops individual children or teachers from praying quietly--by and for themselves--while they are in school. I suspect every time a teacher gives a test, quite a bit of praying occurs. On a more serious note, I imagine many people at Sandy Hook Elementary were praying on Friday. Which brings me to my second and more profound problem with the Gospel According to Huckabee.
Think this through to its logical conclusion: If these children were slaughtered because of laws restricting officially-sanctioned prayer in public schools, then that means the God we are all supposed to pray to is some kind of petty-minded, insecure narcissist who will allow children and their devoted teachers to be massacred simply because we have failed to give Him his "props." I don't know about you, but I don't think that kind of God is much worth worshipping.
Don't even get me started on those who claim this whole thing could have been avoided if teachers--who a few months ago were gleefully derided as lazy moochers leaching off the public teat--had just been armed!
During the 2008 campaign, then-candidate Obama caught much flak for saying that certain people "cling to guns or religion. . . as a way to explain their frustrations." Quod erat demonstrandum.
For the record, I am an agnostic: I don't know whether God exists or not. I feel reasonably certain that if there is some supreme being, He takes little to no interest in what's going on here on earth.
(EDITORIAL NOTE: I use "He" for simplicity's sake; I capitalize because I'm a slave to convention.)
That being said, I don't begrudge anybody else his or her belief in God. I'm certainly not about to argue it: As I say, I don't know. I'm a fairly logical sort of guy, and belief in God is, in the most literal sense, irrational: It must be taken on faith. And that's cool! If your faith helps you live a better life and provides you with solace in the face of tragedy, more power to you--or, to it, as the case may be. But I cannot abide self-righteous proselytizers who blame society's ills on insufficient fealty to God-as-they-see-Him.
For one thing, the idea that God has been "systematically removed" from public schools, as Mike "This-Guy-Was-Once-Considered-a-Legitimate-Presidential-Candidate?!?" Huckabee proclaimed, is ludicrous. Isn't one of the tenets of faith that "God is everywhere"? More to the point, while courts have declared prayer in public schools unconstitutional, nothing stops individual children or teachers from praying quietly--by and for themselves--while they are in school. I suspect every time a teacher gives a test, quite a bit of praying occurs. On a more serious note, I imagine many people at Sandy Hook Elementary were praying on Friday. Which brings me to my second and more profound problem with the Gospel According to Huckabee.
Think this through to its logical conclusion: If these children were slaughtered because of laws restricting officially-sanctioned prayer in public schools, then that means the God we are all supposed to pray to is some kind of petty-minded, insecure narcissist who will allow children and their devoted teachers to be massacred simply because we have failed to give Him his "props." I don't know about you, but I don't think that kind of God is much worth worshipping.
Don't even get me started on those who claim this whole thing could have been avoided if teachers--who a few months ago were gleefully derided as lazy moochers leaching off the public teat--had just been armed!
During the 2008 campaign, then-candidate Obama caught much flak for saying that certain people "cling to guns or religion. . . as a way to explain their frustrations." Quod erat demonstrandum.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Cy No More
This past season, R. A. Dickey provided the best story for the New York Mets--and possibly for all of Major League Baseball. At the age of 37, the journeyman pitcher led the National League in strikeouts and complete games, finished second in the ERA race, won 20 games (for a team that won only 74), and, finally, was awarded the National League Cy Young Award.
So naturally the Mets traded him.
From a business perspective, the Mets probably did the right thing. As dominant as Dickey was this past year, there's no guarantee he will repeat this type of performance. Dickey is a knuckleballer--the first knuckleballer to win the Cy Young--and while he seems to have mastered this pitch, the pitch itself is notoriously "unmasterable." What makes the knuckleball so hard to hit--its utter unpredictability--is also what makes it hard to catch and, indeed, to throw: Even the pitcher has only a rough idea where the ball is actually going to end up. Dickey could easily be a dominating pitcher for the next several years, but he could also easily lose control of the pitch. So, yes, the Mets made the right choice, trading him at the height of his value and receiving some solid prospects from the Toronto Blue Jays.
The trade still sucks, though. In an otherwise dismal season, R. A. Dickey gave Mets fans something to cheer. And he's the kind of athlete you can't help but root for. Unlike some freak of nature with a 100-mile-an-hour fastball or other God-given talent, Dickey struggled to stay in the game by mastering a pitch that very few before him had mastered. Perhaps more importantly, in this day of ever-falling sports idols, he provides the kind of role model we all wish our celebrities to be. He works hard, speaks softly, and was even willing to give the Mets a "discount" for them to re-sign him. And he writes! Not just about baseball, either: He wrote a series of articles for the New York Times about a mountain-climbing expedition to Kilimanjaro! WHY DID THEY TRADE THIS GUY?!?!
I know, I know: The nature of the business. Still disappointing.
Anyway, I wish R. A. Dickey the best of luck. I hope if/when he comes back to New York, he pitches a no-hitter. Preferably against the Yankees, but if against the Mets, it'll serve 'em right.
So naturally the Mets traded him.
From a business perspective, the Mets probably did the right thing. As dominant as Dickey was this past year, there's no guarantee he will repeat this type of performance. Dickey is a knuckleballer--the first knuckleballer to win the Cy Young--and while he seems to have mastered this pitch, the pitch itself is notoriously "unmasterable." What makes the knuckleball so hard to hit--its utter unpredictability--is also what makes it hard to catch and, indeed, to throw: Even the pitcher has only a rough idea where the ball is actually going to end up. Dickey could easily be a dominating pitcher for the next several years, but he could also easily lose control of the pitch. So, yes, the Mets made the right choice, trading him at the height of his value and receiving some solid prospects from the Toronto Blue Jays.
The trade still sucks, though. In an otherwise dismal season, R. A. Dickey gave Mets fans something to cheer. And he's the kind of athlete you can't help but root for. Unlike some freak of nature with a 100-mile-an-hour fastball or other God-given talent, Dickey struggled to stay in the game by mastering a pitch that very few before him had mastered. Perhaps more importantly, in this day of ever-falling sports idols, he provides the kind of role model we all wish our celebrities to be. He works hard, speaks softly, and was even willing to give the Mets a "discount" for them to re-sign him. And he writes! Not just about baseball, either: He wrote a series of articles for the New York Times about a mountain-climbing expedition to Kilimanjaro! WHY DID THEY TRADE THIS GUY?!?!
I know, I know: The nature of the business. Still disappointing.
Anyway, I wish R. A. Dickey the best of luck. I hope if/when he comes back to New York, he pitches a no-hitter. Preferably against the Yankees, but if against the Mets, it'll serve 'em right.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Manatee Break
The last couple of days have been pretty heavy, what with the Sandy Hook shootings (rough year for people named "Sandy"; sorry WOFOS), ongoing budgetary stalemates, and the growing likelihood that the Mets will trade R. A. Dickey. Time to change the subject.
I am, of course, no creationist, but it occurs to me that fundamentalist Christians have taken the wrong approach in trying to disprove evolution. No need to posit ludicrous theories about the age of the planet being younger than certain cave-paintings and arrowheads found thereon. In order to throw a monkey wrench into Darwinian theorizing, one need look no further than the manatee. Survival of the fittest? These things aren't fitter than ANYTHING!
By the way, from a Republican/Tea Party/Willful Embracer of Ignorance standpoint, this is a win-win: Manatees are often found near Florida. So, if Marco Rubio needs to explain away his recent, um, questionable remarks about the true age of the Earth, he can always claim to have been distracted by thoughts of the utter incompatibility of manatees with natural selection. You're welcome, GOP.
I am, of course, no creationist, but it occurs to me that fundamentalist Christians have taken the wrong approach in trying to disprove evolution. No need to posit ludicrous theories about the age of the planet being younger than certain cave-paintings and arrowheads found thereon. In order to throw a monkey wrench into Darwinian theorizing, one need look no further than the manatee. Survival of the fittest? These things aren't fitter than ANYTHING!
By the way, from a Republican/Tea Party/Willful Embracer of Ignorance standpoint, this is a win-win: Manatees are often found near Florida. So, if Marco Rubio needs to explain away his recent, um, questionable remarks about the true age of the Earth, he can always claim to have been distracted by thoughts of the utter incompatibility of manatees with natural selection. You're welcome, GOP.
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