By: Paul S. Marchand
Sometime Chief Justice Warren Burger used to write short concurrences or dissents to opinions of his Supreme Court colleagues. Though most of them were never filed, he wrote them to let off steam. He called them “little snappers.” Sometimes, we all need to let fly with a little snapper or two. These are a few of the things that have pressed my buttons of late.
SANTORUM’S SWIPE AT CALIFORNIA
Earlier this week, Rick “Google him” Santorum took a swipe at the University of California, and by extension at California, claiming --falsely, of course-- that he had heard somewhere that at one or more UC campuses American history was not taught.
While a number of bloggers have predicted -- and perhaps rightly -- that Santorum is actually seeking to launch a new war, this one on public higher education, my objection to the Google Man’s comments is founded on my irritation at having my state once again held up as a scapegoat for all the things the right wing considers wrong with America.
You don’t even have to be a Californian patriot to be very concerned that a man who wants to be President of all of the United States thinks it okay to attack any of the United States. If, which God in His infinite mercy prevent, Rick Santorum is ever elected President, will he try to read California out of the Union with bell, book, and candle?
We know that many in red state America apparently feel a deep, even visceral, dislike for California, and wish us ill. A President of the United States ought to be above such sentiments. Santorum again disqualifies himself by playing to sectional hatred.
PRESIDENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS
In a CNN op-ed piece published earlier this week entitled “Three New Rules for US Presidents, columnist LZ Granderson proposed, among other things, requiring “military experience” as a precondition for eligibility.
Three words come to mind: damn fool notion.
The idea that only persons with so-called military experience should be allowed to be President would have prevented some of our greatest Presidents from ever seeing the inside of the White House.
Granderson would do well to remember that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who led this country through the dark days of the Depression and to the brink of victory in World War II, never served a day in the armed forces prior to becoming commander-in-chief. Granderson should also remember that neither John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, nor James Monroe, ever served a day in uniform, yet all are counted among our better Presidents. Indeed, so ahistorical is Granderson’s view that he tends to forget that those Presidents who have come out a lengthy military experience, such as Grant or Eisenhower, have not been ranked among America’s greatest Presidents.
Moreover, for a self identified gay man to urge the policy Granderson urges is unacceptable. Given that we have only recently seen the end of the ban on open service by LGBT members of the Armed Forces, does Granderson seriously believe that we should build a barrier to the possibility of a highly qualified GLBT candidate going to the White House simply because he or she was deterred from military service by either 123 Words or DADT?
Sometimes Granderson gets it right, but on this one, he got it grossly, egregiously wrong, and in so doing managed to insult the queer nation of which he is a member. He owes us an apology.
Dr. KING, 44 YEARS ON
Yesterday was the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. His shooting was one of the earliest events of which I have a clear memory. Since then, we seem to have made a few strides in the direction of that goal he so famously articulated, of judging one another not on the color of our skin but on the content of our character.
Yet for every step forward, there seems to be a step sideways, or worse, a step back. As I had feared, the conversation about the shooting of Trayvon Martin has begun to split along predictable red/blue, left/right lines, racially-charged. Worse, the process of demonizing a dead 17-year-old boy with nothing worse on his record than having possibly smoked a joint at some point in his life, has become a full throated right-wing juggernaut.
As this process unfolds, we must begin to entertain the possibility that there may have been widespread, systematic obstruction of justice within the very institutions that exist to enforce the law. Without relitigating the matter further, one must still ask why, after an admitted killing, no proper independent investigation was undertaken immediately after the shooting, why there seems to have been improper ex parte communication between law enforcement and prosecutors, and whether there has been some inappropriate communication between George Zimmerman’s father (a retired judge) and either police or prosecutors. Something does not pass the smell test here.
Sadly, it seems that in Sanford, Florida, judgments were reached on the basis of skin color, and not the content of character. Dr. King’s hope for a better future remains unrealized.
THOSE DAMNED APOSTROPHE’S
If you saw the apostrophe in the catchline above, and knew it was wrong, kudos to you. Let’s review something we should all have learned in basic English grammar: an apostrophe is a punctuation mark, used to indicate a contraction, the omission of a letter from a word (as in punk’d), or possession. The only time an apostrophe should ever be used to indicate plural when numerals or single, individual letters are being pluralized (as in 1950's or Q’s, for example). Even then, better style is not to use the apostrophe when numbers are being pluralized.
Unfortunately, we often see the apostrophe being used to designate plural when a simple “s” will do the job: boats, not boat’s, unless of course one is speaking of something belonging to a particular boat, as in “the sailor stood at the boat’s helm,” not “the sailor saw many boat’s in the harbor.” Yet far too often, we see the pluralizing apostrophe being used by those who ought to know better, or been taught better.
In fine, the use of the apostrophe to designate plural immediately undermines the credibility of whatever point a writer is trying to make by calling attention to that writer’s weak command of grammar and punctuation.
With that, I’ll get off the soapbox, and if there are typos (not typo’s) herein, I’ll fix my own humble pie, thank you.
Sometime Chief Justice Warren Burger used to write short concurrences or dissents to opinions of his Supreme Court colleagues. Though most of them were never filed, he wrote them to let off steam. He called them “little snappers.” Sometimes, we all need to let fly with a little snapper or two. These are a few of the things that have pressed my buttons of late.
SANTORUM’S SWIPE AT CALIFORNIA
Earlier this week, Rick “Google him” Santorum took a swipe at the University of California, and by extension at California, claiming --falsely, of course-- that he had heard somewhere that at one or more UC campuses American history was not taught.
While a number of bloggers have predicted -- and perhaps rightly -- that Santorum is actually seeking to launch a new war, this one on public higher education, my objection to the Google Man’s comments is founded on my irritation at having my state once again held up as a scapegoat for all the things the right wing considers wrong with America.
You don’t even have to be a Californian patriot to be very concerned that a man who wants to be President of all of the United States thinks it okay to attack any of the United States. If, which God in His infinite mercy prevent, Rick Santorum is ever elected President, will he try to read California out of the Union with bell, book, and candle?
We know that many in red state America apparently feel a deep, even visceral, dislike for California, and wish us ill. A President of the United States ought to be above such sentiments. Santorum again disqualifies himself by playing to sectional hatred.
PRESIDENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS
In a CNN op-ed piece published earlier this week entitled “Three New Rules for US Presidents, columnist LZ Granderson proposed, among other things, requiring “military experience” as a precondition for eligibility.
Three words come to mind: damn fool notion.
The idea that only persons with so-called military experience should be allowed to be President would have prevented some of our greatest Presidents from ever seeing the inside of the White House.
Granderson would do well to remember that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who led this country through the dark days of the Depression and to the brink of victory in World War II, never served a day in the armed forces prior to becoming commander-in-chief. Granderson should also remember that neither John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, nor James Monroe, ever served a day in uniform, yet all are counted among our better Presidents. Indeed, so ahistorical is Granderson’s view that he tends to forget that those Presidents who have come out a lengthy military experience, such as Grant or Eisenhower, have not been ranked among America’s greatest Presidents.
Moreover, for a self identified gay man to urge the policy Granderson urges is unacceptable. Given that we have only recently seen the end of the ban on open service by LGBT members of the Armed Forces, does Granderson seriously believe that we should build a barrier to the possibility of a highly qualified GLBT candidate going to the White House simply because he or she was deterred from military service by either 123 Words or DADT?
Sometimes Granderson gets it right, but on this one, he got it grossly, egregiously wrong, and in so doing managed to insult the queer nation of which he is a member. He owes us an apology.
Dr. KING, 44 YEARS ON
Yesterday was the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. His shooting was one of the earliest events of which I have a clear memory. Since then, we seem to have made a few strides in the direction of that goal he so famously articulated, of judging one another not on the color of our skin but on the content of our character.
Yet for every step forward, there seems to be a step sideways, or worse, a step back. As I had feared, the conversation about the shooting of Trayvon Martin has begun to split along predictable red/blue, left/right lines, racially-charged. Worse, the process of demonizing a dead 17-year-old boy with nothing worse on his record than having possibly smoked a joint at some point in his life, has become a full throated right-wing juggernaut.
As this process unfolds, we must begin to entertain the possibility that there may have been widespread, systematic obstruction of justice within the very institutions that exist to enforce the law. Without relitigating the matter further, one must still ask why, after an admitted killing, no proper independent investigation was undertaken immediately after the shooting, why there seems to have been improper ex parte communication between law enforcement and prosecutors, and whether there has been some inappropriate communication between George Zimmerman’s father (a retired judge) and either police or prosecutors. Something does not pass the smell test here.
Sadly, it seems that in Sanford, Florida, judgments were reached on the basis of skin color, and not the content of character. Dr. King’s hope for a better future remains unrealized.
THOSE DAMNED APOSTROPHE’S
If you saw the apostrophe in the catchline above, and knew it was wrong, kudos to you. Let’s review something we should all have learned in basic English grammar: an apostrophe is a punctuation mark, used to indicate a contraction, the omission of a letter from a word (as in punk’d), or possession. The only time an apostrophe should ever be used to indicate plural when numerals or single, individual letters are being pluralized (as in 1950's or Q’s, for example). Even then, better style is not to use the apostrophe when numbers are being pluralized.
Unfortunately, we often see the apostrophe being used to designate plural when a simple “s” will do the job: boats, not boat’s, unless of course one is speaking of something belonging to a particular boat, as in “the sailor stood at the boat’s helm,” not “the sailor saw many boat’s in the harbor.” Yet far too often, we see the pluralizing apostrophe being used by those who ought to know better, or been taught better.
In fine, the use of the apostrophe to designate plural immediately undermines the credibility of whatever point a writer is trying to make by calling attention to that writer’s weak command of grammar and punctuation.
With that, I’ll get off the soapbox, and if there are typos (not typo’s) herein, I’ll fix my own humble pie, thank you.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California. He has pet peeves (not peeve's), and while the views expressed herein are his own, and not those of any other person or entity, if you have the same pet peeves, good for you. The views expressed herein are not intended as, and should not be construed as legal advice.
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