ON MY BEST DAY

  A former classmate (sixty-some years ago) spent all his adult lifetime preaching evangelical, Pentecostal religion, laying on hands, people speaking in tongues, moaning, falling down: my dad called them, “Hoot & Holler” Christians. Recently I learned he cannot preach from the pulpit anymore. I don’t know if he can’t meet the physical demands or if his followers found a younger champion to keep them coming back. You know, hootin’ & hollerin’ through a two hour sermon can leave an old man too weak to collect the offering and shake hands at the door. He said he misses his connection with the congregation. I believe him but also think he misses the sound of his own voice and the righteous authority it presumes. So now he writes his religious views and political opinions, trying to grow an online following. 
I can identify to the extent that for years I had a captive audience, 120 young people for an hour, five times a week. Teaching  biology doesn’t rise to the level of righteous authority but I do miss contact with teenagers. Add to that, I write a blog, several posts a month now for over 12 years and have kept a dedicated journal for decades before that. Where we truly part ways is that he believes his message is vital to both the salvation and proper prejudice of everyone who hears it. I believe objective, open ended communication is better than propaganda. Flogging a dead horse is bad business and whatever I believe about knee-jerk issues, it’s a dead horse: who really cares? One of the best life lessons I've learned is to not take myrself too seriously.
I tend to get stuck on issues but not the ones that make headlines. I keep trying to unravel Human Nature and the complications it precipitates; the perception of free will, decision making, neuro plasticity, confabulation, etc. I can write about it for my own sake (better understanding and rationale) but if I try to frame that story for others, all I get are long, blank looks. It still feels important and I sympathize in some small way with my old classmate in that regard. Still, sleeping well is its own reward and I don't have to sell anything. At my age it is easy if not troubling to dig in the same hole too long. So I try to not do that anymore, content to file those ideas away in my journal now rather than scroll them out in my blog, sounding like a conspiracy theorist. On my best day I will never save a soul or influence the Supreme Court but I do like to play with words and ask well thought out, relevant questions. 

PET PEEVE

  By definition, a ‘Pet Peeve’ is something one finds particularly annoying. I didn’t think I had a pet peeve but thought about it for a while and there is one thing that annoys the hell out of me. That is; people who pronounce the state name, Missouri with a long (ē) ending and ridicule others who learned to drop the (ē) and substitute (uh), “Missour-uh”. It is the self righteous ridicule that annoys me, not the pronunciation.

I am a writer and when I write I follow certain rules with an appropriate dispensation for creative license. When formality is required, the rules of grammar and syntax are clear. Writing the word “Colonel” is one thing, misspellings are bad news. But when spoken, an (r) sound comes out of nowhere. “Kernel” is another word that is spelled different but pronounced the same, but a single seed has no reference to a military officer. I know many native Mississippians who pronounce the name of their state, “Miss-ippi” a convenient shortcut and nobody takes them to task for it. 

Children frame their language from their role model’s accent, phrasing and vocabulary. Before they can read and write, their spoken language has no rules, it just has to work. The oral tradition has only one measure; is the message received the intended message? Urban street slang is almost another language but you seldom if ever see it in print. English is unforgiving once it is on the page. The spoken word doesn't leave any tracks and, if it doesn't conform to rules for writing, it can be easily forgiven. Even then, language is a dynamic construct, constantly evolving, changing, adding new words. Being gay in 1950 was not the same as being gay in 2020. The word ‘Bad’ used to mean just that, bad. But now it can mean; really good. 

When I was a little kid we lived in Missour-uh and when we spoke, nobody mistook it for some other place. When we put the return address on envelopes it was spelled, Missouri. Writing vs. Speaking, they use the same language but do not dance to the same tune; different cats from the same litter. But all this ranting only gets us to the fundamental issue. Missour-uh people don’t care, they never raise the argument. The wannabe intellects use a spelling gimmick to fake a higher IQ or to gain altitude in the pecking order. It is a condescending insult agains someone they consider to be inferior, and use the Mississippi precedent (ends with an (i) and the (ē) sound) to make their case. It is an insult; it may be subtle but an insult none the less. 

Somewhere in the argument the baiter will introduce the word, ‘Wrong’. “You are just wrong!” It has always been about right and wrong. There is a big difference between (Correct-Incorrect) and (Right-Wrong). In the first case the point is about whether or not there is an error. But (Right) expands linguistically into righteous which has moral consequence and (Wrong) is defined first as an immoral or unjust act and then, as they can be interchanged synonymously, intent is easy to identify. Context, body language and tone speak clearly to the intent; well intended correction or smug judgment.  

Formal writing has well defined rules for everything but they do not apply to creative writing, where wiggle room (creative license) allows for coloring outside the lines. Verbal communication only has one rule, it has to work. It allows for a wide range of cultural influence (accent & vernacular) and intentional anomalies. For someone to stand up in front of others and tell anyone 'Missour-uh' is wrong, is both stupid and wrong in itself. Certainly it is different but wrong? Take, ’aluminium’; in the King’s English they change the accents, add a vowel to give it five syllables (āl-ū-mīn-ī-ūm). North America is the only place in the world that doesn’t. Is someone wrong here?

I have not researched it thoroughly but I read it somewhere, once upon a time: In the early 1800’s, backwoods settlers from Kentucky were the first Americans to venture west across the Mississippi into present day Missouri. (Daniel Boone, etc.) Their pedigree and backwoods ways were deemed inferior and undesirable by the elite French culture around and south of St. Louis. It has been suggested that (Missour-uh speak) came west with the Kentuckians. They also dropped the letter (y) from Kentucky all together and it works. No less, it is generally agreed that the boundary between Eastern and Western Culture in this country is somewhere between St. Louis and Columbia, MO. Times change but some things don’t. That Eastern sense of patronizing, snobbery can still be found, especially in Greek organizations on college campuses all over the state. It would not be a far stretch to make that comparison; wanting to prove oneself superior to uncultured, wrong spoken, backwoods ne’er-do-wells. But I am an uncultured, backwoods, . . . and my pet peeve is self righteous, wannabe experts who make up rules as they go. 

LATER DOWN THE ROAD

  I like to read David Brooks (NY Times). An excellent writer to begin with, he writes on timely, relevant ideas and issues that affect everyone. He researches, separates fact from fiction and makes the distinction. I don’t always like what he has to say but I trust him to be thorough, open ended and fair. He wrote a piece back in 2012, another election year. Both candidates had given (not taken) credit for their success as well as their potential to lead the nation - essentially; If not for many others I wouldn’t-couldn’t be here. It prompted a letter from a disgruntled reader who believed the wannabe wisdom; “All of your successes and failures are the direct result of the decisions you make.” He challenged Brooks to take up a position. 
I think it common for critics and disputers to ask questions calling for an (either-or) answer and feel cheated when they get a (this-and) response. Brooks acknowledged, we need to believe and proceed as if the premise is true; our decisions are the catalysts for whatever happens to us. But later, down the road when hindsight and backstory are credible and compelling, we realize we got more & better than we deserved and that we don’t live in a vacuum. Much if not most of our struggles and outcomes are shaped by forces and people beyond our control. 
I have gone back and reread the article several times. Perhaps the critic had a crystal ball that sorts out the good decisions from the bad. If you have enough reliable information and can interpret complex data sets you can come up with a fairly strong probability. But random chance is a fickle mistress and sometimes the sure thing goes belly up. I knew a man who advised me; There are neither good nor bad decisions. There are only decisions. In other words, to know for sure, good or bad, revisit the question in 20 years and reflect on the outcome. Even then, there will be those who disagree. 
Recently, David Brooks wrote an article titled, “I Was Wrong About Capitalism.” His message wasn’t as much about capitalism as it was about how people (himself) trust attitudes and principles that seemed appropriate at the time,  but times change and we (himself) are slow to get the message. The world changes and its best interests change along with it. So it is a 1 - 2 punch: If things change enough or too fast, that new world calls for different, better policy and practice. But we (himself) remain entrenched in an old (if it was good then . . .) no longer effective or equitable process. Add to that, we are slow to see the new need and even slower to adapt. 
Capitalism had been on a long running hot streak where profits and employment were setting records. It couldn’t be better. But then it became evident (too much to ignore) that the wonderful “Ism” had produced a society that was not only inequitable but more and more wealth is controlled by fewer and fewer people. The question is, what is so good about what we’ve got if it only prospers a minuscule fragment of the population. Brooks thinks he was stuck in the zone between the world changing and him noticing. 
I think people (myself) do a pretty damn good job at economics and government for self aware, high functioning monkeys. The idea that humans are more special than humming birds or monkeys is a form of self medicating Hubris (my opinion). I suspect David Brooks wouldn’t judge the species so harshly but I bet it has crossed his mind. But then I don’t have millions of regular readers (high functioning monkeys) to satisfy.