Monthly Archives: May 2006

The art of cussing.

There is an art to cussing, and most people do it wrong.

Cussing is best used sparingly, to add emphasis at critical points. It’s also essential to make sure word placement and grammar don’t render it into a joke.

An example of bad cussing that sticks out in my mind is from the “clasic” Dr. Dre “song” “Keep their headz ringin.” Now this is a classic bad rap song: It’s the artist talking about how cool and how down he is, how he’s so much better than everyone else (don’t tell us Dre, show us!)

But when he belts out this line:
“The motherfuckin D-R-E, will keep their motherfuckin headz ringin”

I just start cackling madly. For those who have forgotten, the slang word “motherfuckin'” actually has a definition: it refers to a man who engages in sexual intercourse with his own mother. By referring to himself as “The motherfuckin D-R-E,” Dre is unwittingly admitting to an incestuous relationship with his mother.

I heard another “good” one at a bar tonight. A man’s female companion was accusing him of flirting with the waitress, a charge he denied with the witty rejoinder “No, I know her man, she’s my fucking babysitter.”

Oh yeah. Solid defense there, guy. It was all I could do to keep the Mountain Dew from spewing out my nose.

Used properly, cussing can add force or even meaning to a sentence.Cussing every other word without thinking about what the words might mean in context just makes you look like a fucking moron.

The “Immigration” Debate

I have been trying, with some considerable success, to avoid the media coverage of what’s being called the immigration debate. It’s not that I don’t care, I just don’t want to hear it.

I’m not sure what bias it is the media has exactly, but they’re only interested in presenting one side of the story. A side with a certain spin. A spin that is as wrongheaded as it is stupid.

But that’s often the case with the media. They’ll take one side of one issue, a different side of another, or both sides of the same issue. Their participation is fickle, hard to predict, and (as much as we on either side of the aisle hate to admit it) largely apolitical.

No matter how hard they or I try, though, a few nuggets of truth will occasionally slip through. Some even make it as far as my closed-off, inattentive brain.

One came especially to me tonight “Now you know what the Native Americans feel like.” That’s an interesting point of view. Let’s follow that up.

Of course, I’m going to insert a huge caveat here. I object to the PC term “Native American.” The word “Native” does not create the distinction the phrase tries to suggest. A Native American is anyone who was born here, while the PC term refers to any of the diverse and sundry peoples who were here before Europeans began to arrive.

I prefer the term “Aboriginal,” as it specifies the group of people who were “here first.” The first wave of colonists if you will, Asians who came over the Bering Strait some many thousands of years ago.

But yes, now we know how they felt. Having already colonized the continent, they saw Europeans (some of them my ancestors) doing the same. Bringing strange ways and strange diseases. Outcompeting them, eventually outnumbering them. Establishing a great nation in spite of them.

Today we are the native americans. I was born here, as were my parents and their parents. Most of my great-grandparents were either American or Canadian. Some of my ancestors number among the founders of Rhode Island. Others of them are more broadly known to history. It’s a fine lineage, highly distinguished and closely tied to the birth and the life of this great nation.

Which puts the lie to something else I heard “We’re all immigrants,” one girl stated. No dear, some of us are immigrants. Some of us are natives. Some of us are aliens. That’s the word they used to use for what they’re now calling “Illegal Immigrants.” Illegal Aliens. Citizens of a foreign power, here to live on our land, to live off our economy, in spite of our laws.

Another quote I keep hearing “These people aren’t criminals.” Of course they are. Being a criminal is no harder than breaking the law. If they weren’t breaking the law, they wouldn’t be here. QED.

But the one that really burns me is “There are some jobs Americans won’t do.” I have news for them. America is a nation founded by Colonists willing to go into the great unknown, to found cities and lead productive lives far from the sheltering umbrella of civilization. America is a nation raised to greatness by immigrants who came here with nothing and worked the worst jobs available to make a better life for their children. America is the most industrious nation in the world, by any meaningful standard.

So this contention doesn’t make sense. It’s made even worse by the fact that “American” does not describe an ethnicity, but rather a nationality. Anyone who is a citizen of the United States is an American. Does this mean that if we gave Mexicans now living in the US an automatic path to citizenship, that our needed unskilled workers would disappear? Don’t be ridiculous.

The truth is that there are some jobs that Americans are not allowed to do. In some cases, this is because Americans are entitled to a minimum wage. In other cases, this is because jobs are assigned through a pro-Mexican cabal that only employs workers with Mexican origins. If you’re a native American like me, you’ve likely seen these cabals in operation. If you’ve not, you’re probably too far from the unskilled labor market to realise that these cabals are often funded by our own government. America does not need foreign laborers, she needs only to give her own a chance.

America is, once again, being Colonized by a foreign power. People with no desire to be Americans are living here, working here. They are bringing their friends and families and establishing ever-growing communities. They seek to impose upon us their language, their values, their culture and show no interest in joining in the great American melting pot. They agitate for looser borders, to further compromise our nation’s identity and security.

The good name of immigrants must not be used to secure legitimacy for foreign infiltrators. Sneaking across our borders should never be a qualification for citizenship. Merely wanting to live or work here cannot ever be enough — after all, in this day and age, who wouldn’t?

No matter how hard or how impractical it is, the colonization of America must end.

Regional IT Day

Well, I went to Lockheed Martin’s Regional IT Day today, and it was an amusing, if seemingly pointless excersise. I have a few business cards and other links I should follow up, but the general message seemed to be (for potential employees anyway:) No Bachelor’s Degree? SOL.

PNNL and Lockheed Martin are still looking like real possibilities. I think I probably have to keep bugging them though…