hunter
hunter's JournalI own my language, it doesn't own me. I use my language as I please. I recognize no authority.
Language evolves. I'd rather be on the cutting edge of my language than be trapped in the fetid backwaters of some dictionary or middle school grammar text.
The meaning of the phrase "Politically Correct" has been destroyed by assholes I have no respect for. The phrase is dead to me. Useless.
Anyone who uses the phrase "Politically Correct" today, especially as right-wing code-talk, is speaking dead fish.
I don't speak dead fish.
If I'm uncertain what someone means when they say "Politically Correct" then I'll ask them to clarify.
If they are simply being right wing assholes then I won't be shy telling them what I think.
The language of the streets, especially in my community, is always evolving. Minority communities are always bringing something new to the language table. One of the most remarkable things about the English language is its ability to assimilate words, grammars, pronunciations and cadences from other languages.
I live in a community that is a hotbed of language evolution. Forty percent of the kids in our public schools do not speak English at home. The English speaking black community has many gifted ways of storytelling too. The average high school "English" accent in my community incorporates much from other languages, especially those of Mexico, Asian, and African origins.
My wife and kids are language chameleons adapting their own language to the situation. Full academic Ivy League and Stanford English, West Coast "Spanglish," to generic wherever-you-are-from California Spanish. My wife and one of my kids also do a very good Missouri/Southern Illinois and Irish English too. Not consciously. They simply adapt to their audience. I'm always astonished by this innate skill. I sit quietly, invited spouse or dad at the conference table, wondering what sort of beings these are as languages shift about.
A few family friends, and my father-in-law, can do simultaneous translation in multiple languages. They've made good money for that too. Alas, my own listening and spoken language skills are utterly, hopelessly, fossilized into mushy mid-twentieth century American Television English with a slight Wild West twang.
My own language is watered down vanilla Dennis Weaver, except when I write.
Dumb-ass first world nation problems all around.
The house under construction is plenty visible on google maps if you want to be a voyeur. (Zooming in made me feel dirty...)
It seems entirely possible the property once belonged with the previously existing house and was later sub-divided out and sold.
Nevertheless, overhead power lines running through backyards are long obsolete.
Most weird about this story, there's a fucking freeway in the backyard. That can't be good for property values. Power lines seem trivial in comparison.
I think if we went back in time to the 1930's and showed some San Fernando Valley resident this article they'd probably hang themselves in utter despair for the future. Where are the flying cars? Where is the glittery emerald city lit by electricity too cheap to meter, with lush gardens irrigated by unlimited desalinated seawater? "
It's simply not possible to pick sides in this story. There's just too much 21st century world-gone-mad in it.
Disclaimer: I've lived in the San Fernando Valley. I escaped once, then returned briefly, and then escaped again. My parents and all my siblings have similar stories. My parents are hard-core isolationists now. They live in a tropical rain forest and drink and bathe in water that falls on their roof. They eat local pigs, goats, and produce. If this civilization ends they'd first notice their telephone wasn't working, their internet was down, and there was no mail in their Post Office Box. Other than that, life would go on.
That's my own imaginary refuge. My wife's sailing skills are much better than my own, and maybe I could learn too, but I do own an accurate plastic sextant and a few very robust timekeeping devices for navigation.
Our family was in the San Fernando Valley because some of my ancestors liked horses and Hollywood. Later, one of my grandfathers was an aerospace engineer who built titanium stuff for the Apollo project using skills he'd somehow absorbed by osmosis from the bad-boy geniuses of World War II. His World War II job, as an officer in the Army Air Force, was keeping "eccentric" people deemed essential to the war effort out of jail.
Eccentric was the "nice" word for alcoholics, drug addicts, homosexuals, non-whites, non-Christians, uppity brilliant women, socialists, people with suspect national loyalties, and any other non-white-male-protestant who could do science or technology or be a pretty face in war propaganda.
I've never voted for or supported Nader because he isn't electable, nor is he leftist.
I express my displeasure with the current political system in different ways, and I do it quite openly... my use of Linux and Open Source software is just a small part of that.
But no way in hell do I think there is little or no difference between the political parties. Obama is a competent leader for this train-wreck of a nation. If John McCain or Mitt Romney had been elected the consequences would have been catastrophic; not for the uber-wealthy, but for the people who struggle day-to-day all over the planet.
The world is still cleaning up from the wreckage of the Reagan-Bush-Bush looting of the world economic system.
I do not care for Jerry Brown's or Barrack Obama's gritty "realistic" and Democratic style of politics and management, which hearkens back to FDR's saving capitalism from itself, but that's better than the kleptocracy of the modern Republican party or the false consumerist "Progressivism" of Ralph Nader. (Or, let's just say, Apple Computer and Tesla automobile.)
I divert my own cars, clothes, and computers from the salvage stream, and I rebuild them to do what I want them to do.
My television is strictly a movie player, Many of those movies I find in thrift stores, trade with friends and family, or rent from the RedBox. I do pay for movies at the theaters, and I do purchase new DVDs of excellent movies, so I am not a total deadbeat when it comes the movie industry.
I rarely see television commercials unless someone reposts them here on DU. I NEVER watch television "news" because it's a waste of time.
If a person doesn't exercise an ability they lose it. I exercise my Freedom of Speech and Association regularly.
I know the NSA has many photos of my naked ass and they can kiss those.
Profile Information
Name: HunterGender: Male
Current location: California
Member since: 2002
Number of posts: 38,311