My first encounter with a tyrant was in 1952, in Miss Rutherford’s second grade class.
Imagine the class bully standing in front of the blackboard. [Dear me, a blackboard was a slab of slate used in the olden days, before sterile white boards whitewashed the earth.] Said chunky kid grasps an arsenal of virgin white chalk in his chubby fist. He has been ordered to write ten times, in cursive, “I am sorry I flushed Holly, Mike and Ted’s lunches down the toilet during recess”. [Dear God, no more cursive in the second grade? What’s next, no Moby Dick in the seventh?]. The bully manipulates the chalk on the upward swing of the capital “I” so its edge caresses the board in one, violent aberration. Not unlike the squeal of pigs at the slaughter, the screech could have interrupted a zombie’s brain-eating binge. As for the living, Molly O’Hare’s to front teeth dropped out of her mouth.
The bully turned to face the class and announced, “I ain’t sorry”, ending the sentence with a juicy raspberry that sprayed three students in the first row.
The ‘ain’t’ had the same effect on my as the squeal had on my classmates. I realized, at that moment, that my mother had raised a grammar Nazi.
Sound and Furry
Several decades later, I listened to Chris Christie’s me-too-run-for-president speech. I cringed at the sixth paragraph. “They raised my brother and I and brought us here to Livingston when we were four years old and two years old.”
I don’t know where to start. Did Christie’s parents start raising him and his brother after they were four and two years old? “They raised my brother and I”? Was refusing to place himself as the object of the verb ‘raised’ and ‘me’ intentionally egotistical? Perish the thought.
"I told you that my parents moved to Livingston and they moved to Livingston to make this part of their fulfillment of their dream.” How many times did his parents move to Livingston? Which part of dream fulfillment?
Less is More
“Of their version of the American dream. They both lost their fathers at a young age and were raised by extraordinarily strong women under really difficult circumstances.”
One is either strong or not strong. Extraordinarily is unnecessary, considering that you’ve only got a few moments on the podium.
Next, “women under really difficult circumstances”. Disturbing scenes play in my brain – women on wrought iron beds, sweating under corpulent men. With each thrust, the box springs screech, as did the chalk violating the blackboard in the hands of the class bully.
Right-wing political foolery has taken center stage, in this, the first year of a three-year slog through the presidential election process.
Take Justice Scalia’s jiggery-pokery, Please. Some have likened ‘jiggery-pokery’ to a revival of an order of Palin word salad, with dressing on the side. Bad analogy. Sarah Palin is incapable of letting “interpretative jiggery-pokery” or “Platonic golf” slide off her cerebellum and onto a pen.
Foggy Bottom
Bottom line [another disturbing image]: I will give equal emphasis on the gaffs of candidates, judges and the like on the left side of history when hear them. Or see them.
I’m waiting. I’m waiting. The stage is empty. Wait? Do I hear Joe Biden in the wings?