The Middle of the Road
And the fragile world of homonyms
The world we live in is a very scary place. I’d rather not imagine that the entire human civilization is closer to extinction than it’s ever been before. But, sadly, it is. It’s extremely difficult to ignore the obvious signals that nature itself provides for us. They’re like that sign language interpreter who is always seen directly standing beside a solemn looking world leader. The leader is speaking with great urgency so it must be important, right? I can’t be sure though because, while our leader is sternly addressing the nation, my attention has been captured by this other guy waving his hands frantically about and making weird faces!
We all acknowledge such altruistic consideration and the required efforts that ensure the deaf community remains informed. Being deaf should not exclude them from any pertinent information that may impact their very lives. However, at the end of the day, it’s highly likely that the sign language interpreter has the complete opposite intended effect.
I think we can make a safe assumption here that any deaf people that are even marginally interested in politics can already read. Of course there are going to be exceptions when considering the format of the all inclusive society we currently live in. We must acknowledge that being disabled does not exclude one from potentially being stupid as well. Hence the term “deaf and dumb”. This, of course, is attributed to the opinions of some of our less-than-scholarly citizens and therefore must be taken into account.
Has not a single solitary soul suggested that subtitles or even a ticker below might actually be less of a distraction. I’m dumbfounded that this concept has not even been considered.. The deaf might enjoy it too, unlike those of us less fortunate folk that have to actually hear the bullshit that comes from the leader’s mouth.
Mother nature is no different than the sign language interpreter. You’d have to be suffering from that other disability to not notice him! Nature is even harder to miss when she wants you to take notice of her. Forget the downer that a thunderstorm presents to you on the 4th hole of your golf game. Or the fall of snow that may require your unpaid physical labour. We’re talking about such things as earthquakes, tsunamis, wild fires that rage out of control, and entire towns being wiped out by landslides after they’ve already been flooded. These are cataclysmic events that are extremely hard to miss and they’re occurring all the time! It’s a sad fact that there are actually world leaders who deny this is true. American president Donald Trump is one of these people. Trust me, my deaf friends, you wouldn’t want to hear what this guy says. It’s downright appalling!
On the surface it would appear that there’s very little that I would be in agreement with when it comes to Donald Trump. Although I will honestly concede, unlike Trump, that there is common ground to be found here. I’m in full agreement on some of his policies. As I just mentioned, I too think the sign language interpreter needs to go! There’s probably many democrats who would support this motion if he could only consider some of theirs.
He won’t though. This is because these democrats that we speak of are liberal! And everybody knows that they can’t be right. Because they’re the left and that’s the opposite of right. So therefore they must be wrong! This is the presidential rationale. He pushes it like an overzealous Amway sales rep trying to sell you eight years of toothpaste in bulk.
While there are a number of things that we can agree on, there’s just a lot more that we don’t agree on. This is the fact that we agree on the most. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t faze him as I’m Canadian and I can’t vote for an American president anyhow..Not presently, but that could change if this tool gets his way.
He’s really pissed off Canadians recently with this preposterous notion of making our home and native land a really large part of his land of the free and home of the brave. He speaks of his 51st state fantasy with the whimsy of a distant,drunken uncle at a family gathering. Eventually you grow up to realize that he’s not “eccentric”, as your parents led you to believe when you were young. Eventually you come to realize there’s a much darker reason as to why your father lost touch with his brother.
I expect there’s many Americans that share the same sentiment as us. It must be refreshing for them to know that they’re not the only responsible parents who want to spank him and send him to his room. If there were to be a registrar where folks could volunteer to whip his ass the imaginary line of disgruntled world citizens would be in the billions.
The mere fact that this miscreant is the actual president of the free world says a lot about our tenuous political climate. Taking into consideration that he’s a convicted felon and the whole world has already seen his desperate attempts at overturning the 2020 election, why the hell would a majority of Americans vote for him? Maybe I am crazy!
Here’s a guy who defends the right to bear arms like it was told unto him by a burning bush. He speaks of the 2nd amendment like it’s an actual part of the biblical 10 commandments. Does he even know what the word amendment means? It literally means “a minor change or addition designed to improve a text, or a piece of legislation”. The American founding fathers meant that changes to their storied constitution were to be acceptable as the times dictated.
How many innocent lives have to be lost to senseless gun violence before that time has been finally dictated? It is time for a change. I think the president knows that he should amend that amendment but he won’t. There’s waaay too much money involved and a huge chunk of it goes towards his political party. Another alarming statistic worth pondering is the sheer number of gun-lovers that are already out there, armed and ready to take action in defense of yet another misinterpretation of “right”. There’s no doubt that they too, just like their deaf counterparts, have a proportionate amount of stupid in their ranks.
You can see that I’m not a gun enthusiast and that would be yet another reason that Trump probably wouldn’t want me to be an American. As mentioned I suppose I am, what he refers to with such disdain, a liberal. It also happens that I share some ideas and philosophies with, as he’d have you believe, a terrorist group called the left.
It is actually very disturbing to consider the potential consequences that can result from his deliberate misrepresentation of mere words. It’s terrifying because his rhetoric is not just reckless, it’s a literal threat to your life. This is especially true when you consider the landscape we live in today. Our planet is saturated with mass media and words are everywhere to be seen or heard. When the words become weaponized it is very easy to spread propaganda to the masses. There is an endless stream of patrons to the global village and finding a market for a particularly malicious product has never been easier.
There are 8 billion separate minds scattered throughout every region of this planet and it’s not unreasonable to suggest that some minds burn brighter than others. Unfortunately an education is not automatically in the cards for everybody. Out of necessity, some have had to miss out on honing their minds for the future in order to perform gruelling physical labour for the present. As a result, many of these poor folks are illiterate. While they may very well be in possession of a very distinct worldly wisdom they are still not able to read and write. They have a legitimate excuse.
And, yet again, we come to those who are just flat out, shamelessly dense! Not those with an obvious mental illness or severe head injury, but those that are completely comfortable with being an idiot. Even the dimwitted have many among them who are kindhearted people with pure intent. They at least make an effort to think but, sadly, they are unable. They’re worthy of love because they do try. They can take consolation in the fact that there’s apparent bliss to be had in their ignorance.
I cannot excuse those that are just intellectually lazy. Like an obese person’s ass, their brains will become soft and mushy if not properly maintained. This is because, like the fatty, they have not even remotely considered the benefits of staying in shape.
I’m fat enough myself and I now make time every single day for the treadmill. I have to in order to survive. Fortunately I have exercised my brain enough that I was able to take note of this fact and act accordingly. If I’m able to reach a satisfying conclusion then I’ll gladly settle for plump or even rotund. At this stage of my own life being seen as chubby intellect is considered a win!
Growing up in southern Ontario, I’ve always had an affinity for America.
The advent of cable television presented American culture to us as an exciting alternative to our own monotonous programming. It was like seeing another guy’s hot, horny wife at some swingers party in the 70’s. Of course you’re going to be intrigued! (It’s years later that you finally understand how detrimental the path to instant gratification can be. You may even find yourself living in a random apartment complex, instructing your kids to, “Shut up and eat your kraft dinner and chicken wieners!”)
I spent a summer living with my American cousins in a suburb of Detroit during my parents’ divorce. In the early days of my ill-fated marriage, my wife and I travelled all over the country. Las Vegas, New Orleans, Chicago, you name it. Up until recently, I’ve felt like America had been a part of my family. I wax nostalgic about her just as I do with my ex-wife. We had some good times.
Admittedly, I have never been comfortable around guns. Just knowing that it’s even acceptable for a civilian to be packing heat has made me jittery. Still though, I was always willing to take my chances in any place that offered me cheap cigarettes, booze, and gambling. I had started becoming a little more apprehensive when the first invasion of Iraq failed to provide evidence of those alleged weapons of mass destruction. At that point I had become mature enough to reconsider the war in Vietnam. This was made all the more convenient when Hollywood began to flood the movie market once it was no longer deemed taboo for discussion in the U.S.A.
My love affair with America officially ended with the election of Donald Trump. That was basically the jumping off point for me and any kind of previous adoration that I may have dissipated rather quickly after that. Donald Trump and guns are two things that I don’t like about my American cousins. They seem very foreign to me. When I say foreign, I really mean unCanadian.
Sure, we’re not strangers to unfortunate gun violence here ourselves by no means. Like any other country we have our own fair share of crack-pots. However, unlike the U.S., we don’t elect crack-pots to the highest office in the land. There’s 340 million people over there and more than half of them voted for Donald Trump. Twice. Once after a failed coup attempt and a number of felony charges. I would’ve thought that a soup can or a bag of potatoes might have made more sense. But this guy? Really?
Seems like he should be the perfect candidate to have at the helm of a vast nuclear arsenal and mighty military. Of course I mean that in the most sarcastic way. I get sarcastic when I’m afraid and I’m afraid now. When you hear this guy blathering away about making Canada a 51st state, how can you not be?
It’s not like this guy was even remotely involved in politics prior to his own “miracle on ice”. He’d never been a governor, a senator, or an ambassador. A town councilor in any dusty little town in America would have had more experience than him yet somehow he got elected to the White house. I suppose it’s no coincidence that he came from money and would’ve surely been able to “grease a few palms” if need be. Oh wait, I guess he would have had some political experience then.
His curious obsession with the words “liberal” and “left” make even less sense than the poor sign language guy. It’s so cut and dry that it makes you wonder if Donald Trump has ever had any real friends. Can he not see past himself? He seems to think that he is smart and that’s the most telling tragedy of all. Surely if he had friends one of them would try to break the news to him gently with a compassionate arm around the shoulder and a, “Sorry buddy, we have to have a little talk…” But no, everybody’s afraid. You can blindly storm the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima and yet you’re unable to take care of your grandfather’s dementia.
His speeches contain so much fabrication that I’m actually surprised he hasn’t threatened to sue himself. “Fact check” is yet another new buzz word that’s been introduced to us through the world of Donald J. Trump. Although he’ll credit the “Fake news” with that while his hand picked propagandists tell us the “real truth”, reminding us of what a great leader he is.
Trump throws the word “liberal” around like he’s describing some horrible debilitating disease. As if being liberal requires you to shamefully put up posters in your own neighborhood so that parents can be made aware that you live among their children. They voice their protest to the local city council and nervously urge their kids to “Stay away from that house with the yellow fence. Liberals live there!”
Perhaps some Americans would be interested to find out what the word liberal actually means. The Oxford dictionary defines liberal as: 1) Willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions that are different than one’s own.
Geez, that doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?. The same dictionary also defines liberal as: 2) Relating politically to a social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy and free enterprise.
Of course those are the adjectives and when Trump babbles on he probably is referring to them in the noun form. 3) Supporters of policies that are socially progressive and promote social welfare.
No doubt he would try to weaponize the word “welfare”, not being aware that it literally doesn’t mean “money for freeloaders”. It is actually defined as “the health, happiness and fortunes of a person or group”. I can’t see anything particularly alarming in that. Perhaps the Oxford dictionary is fake news.
What I do find weird in American politics is how people seem to be more passionate about a political party than the country itself. There is some of that here in Canada now unfortunately and its presence has no doubt been influenced by Trump’s arrival. I wouldn’t even be surprised to learn that much of this ill mannered political bile has been introduced to us through some CIA black-ops smear campaign in an effort to divide an otherwise strongly united Canadian population. We’ve already heard this lunatic rant about the “51st” state so it would hardly be surprising. Hey, he used Facebook to get elected, didn’t he?
Perhaps that too was fake news because a $725 million dollar fine was levied against Facebook for illegally sharing its subscriber’s personal information. Did anybody actually receive any of that $725 million? I have yet to hear of any stories regarding such a potential windfall. Seeing as how often Trump is on social media the money probably somehow went to him. I mean, if the money was to be divided based on the amount of posts then he’d be entitled to the lion’s share.
The point that I’m trying to make here is that I don’t think people should be divided into these ridiculous clans. There is an infinite depth and complexity to the human soul. I’m hopeful that most folks understand this enough to recognize that it is impossible to define their existence with such meaningless terms. Left and right do not indicate the love you may have for your children. Red and blue is neither an excuse nor a compliment towards the feelings we may have towards a particular issue. Conservative or Liberal should have no bearing at all on how you may react to a given circumstance.
I think we can all agree that we are all one as the human race. Whether or not we choose to accept this fact respectfully or begrudgingly is where we become individuals once again. For me, I accept the fact that I am a part of a collective but I also do enjoy that I am able to find some alone time within it. Finally, I try to be a good person because it seems to present a much more rewarding life experience. America, maybe I’m just missing you, ol’ gal!