Quilly's Three Word Challenge

Thursday is the day for Quilly's Three Word Challenge. This week's words and their definitions are:

paladin - a trusted military leader, a leading champion of a cause

intransigent - uncompromising

invidious - tending to cause discontent, animosity or envy


The insidious hate and fear-mongering engaged in by the extreme right wing of the Republican Party (the only voice they seem to have at present) and the equally insidious penchant for fear-mongering (and outright "dis-informing") by almost every "news" outlet is profoundly destructive to the well-being of our nation. Whether it be "we don't mean to frighten you, but..." news reporting on the swine flu, the repeated airing of politicians and ignorant "men/women on the street" distorting the truth by asserting that Obama is raising taxes, minute by minute obsessing about the state of the economy... most of what alleges to be news is closer to gossip and ends up spreading more fear and confusion than information. It is invidious as well as insidious.

(Just as an aside: when someone announces that they don't want to frighten you.... know that indeed they do in fact mean to frighten you. It may or may not be a conscious intention, but those kinds of apologies are red flags that tell you to be frightened and at the same time try to deny responsiblity for the impact of their behavior. My demented brother used to start many of our conversations with the phrase, "I don't want you to worry, but..." It took me a while, but I eventually realized that he did in fact want me to worry. That was the whole point. People who don't want you to worry find non-worrysome ways to tell you things. People who don't want to frighten you present information in ways that doesn't sensationalize it. )

But I digress. I used to consider myself an independent voter. I've always been liberal, more likely to vote Democratic, but I wasn't always a political bigot. I am now, though I have, on rare (and even fairly recent) occasions, voted for Republicans who seem to be capable of thought rather than intransigently spewing the party line. That they have driven a life-time moderate Republican Arlen Specter from their ranks with their intransigence seems not to have given them pause for thought. Some of them actually seem proud of themselves for it.

One thing that really bugs me in the discussion of Obama's budget is the failure of those on "my" side of the aisle to answer the questions (or perhaps pose the counter question) about the burden Obama's "rash spending" (on things like education and health care and the environment) will put on our children and grand children. Why doesn't anyone mention the burdens that the continuing deterioration of our health care system, the continuing decline of our schools and our educational system, the continuing rape of our environment, the contuing neglect of our infrastructure will put on the shoulders of those same children and grandchildren. Ultimately, fixing these massive problems - which are profoundly expensive in both dollars and human life - will pay for itself. Letting things continue to spiral down costs us in both the short and the long term. Part of the reason these problems require such expensive fixes now is because they have been continuously put off for decades. If we don't tend to these problems and soon - even if the put us deeper in debt for the moment - we will face much more expensive fixes down the road and many will suffer as well. It's much cheaper to fix a leak before your ceiling collapses from it than after. Obama - who is usually so articulate and eloquent - has sort of said this but has not said it with true clarity. What is WRONG with Democrats?

I think President Obama is a man of vision, a paladin of sorts for the rights of the average person and the poor. I love that he is doing more than just talking about the rights and needs of the poor and middle class, he's taking steps to help us. And I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that he doesn't assume we're a bunch of morons who aren't capable of understanding complex concepts and must only be spoken to in 20-second sound bites. Granted, it has only been 100 days, but I think this is another reason that he remains popular; he's telling us what he thinks and why he is doing what he's doing. He's explaining economic and political concepts in depth. How cool is that!

Anyway, guess I'll stop here except for....

I ran across this on Huffington Post this morning. It has gotten little (no) coverage on any news I've listened to... Last night President Obama stepped almost to a place he doesn't want to go to and said the words that "waterboarding is torture." It's an area where I'm disappointed in him, though I understand that to pursue trying people when he already has so very much on his plate must feel nightmarish. We aren't a nation that likes holding our leaders responsible for their crimes. It's uncomfortable. These people violated international law, though. They twisted the law to justify torture and they lied about it... It shouldn't be swept under the rug. I didn't want the boy who stabbed my sister to death executed, but I sure wanted him tried. Would it bring my sister back? No, but maybe it would protect someone else's sister. Torture violated the Geneva Conventions and it violates human decency. Ok... I'll stop ranting. Here's the video. It features Condalesa Rice saying it wasn't her fault and that since the President said it was ok, it must have been legal. Hmmmm.

Day late addition : Check out Dianne's (Forks Off the Moment) post on Swine Flu.

That's it from me for now. Sorry I'm so ranty today.

Quilly's Three Word Challenge

Thursday brings us Quilly's three words you may never heard of before challenge. This week's words were: comity, sublunary, and specious. Here are the definitions:

Comity: a friendly social environment; loose, a wide-spread community based on common social institutions; avoidance of proselytizing members of another religious denomination.

Sublunary: relating to the terrestrial world.

Specious: having a deception attraction or allure; having a false look of truth or genuineness.


Listening to the news coverage of these specious, supposedly "grass roots" tea parties around the country is enough to make me spit tacks. We have outraged citizens protesting higher taxes just when the taxes of 93% of us have gone DOWN. We have the Republican governor of Texas threatening to secede from the Union. Texas is that gave us the evil dim-wit George W. Bush wants to leave the union because of big government. Oddly they weren't bothered when GWB spied on us, took us into a war we shouldn't have entered, gave us a record deficit, stuck his finger into personal matters like a family's private decision about pulling the plug on a brain-dead woman or the right of gay people to marry one another.....

I really don't like being a bigot, but Republicans bring out the worst in me. They are continuing to try the route they used when they had power... to keep the country divided and fearful. Commity - in it's best sense - is their enemy. In Republican eyes, in Republican parlance, the social welfare of the bulk of our citizens is "wasteful spending." They seem to have no shame about simply repeating old lies and half truths over and over and pulling in the gullible and unhappy with fears of freedom lost. It's ugly, insane and short-sighted.... not that I have strong feelings on the subject.

Then there's the issue of government spending. Republicans had no trouble spending money on rich people and bombs and spying. That, I guess isn't big government. For people who are supposed to be fiscally conscious they also seem incapable of grasping the idea that sometimes you have to spend money to save money. They continue to ignore the long-term impact of some of the projected expenditures. Our current failures in health care are costing us tons of money and lives both. Sometimes being thrifty is smart. Sometimes it's self-destructive. Sometimes it's not so much thrift as choosing who to help. Republicans don't so much like helping poor people. If anything is a testimony to the need to improve our educational system it's the fact that Repubicans (whose fingerprints and money are all over these tea parties) can get people to protest tax hikes in a year when their taxes have gone down... using the theme of taxation without representation when that too is patently absurd since if they voted they are being represented... and even if they didn't vote they are being represented by the person they chose by non-action.

When I lived in New York I was blessed to live in a complex called Stuyvesant Town. They ran the complex wisely. They took care of problems as soon as they arose. They didn't wait for the little leak to turn into a ceiling collapse. They fixed it while it was a little leak. It cost them money to keep a staff around to do this, but in the long run it saved them major expenses and it made Stuyvesant Town a nice place to live in. A country where bridges don't collapse, where roads are maintained, where schools aren't toxic and students have books and computers is a better country to live in, even if it costs a little more in the short term to catch up from all the neglect we have experienced in past years. This neglect lies at the feet of Republicans and Democrats alike, but it's time to turn it around. Doing so will bring us into the 21st century in terms of our power grid, which will make life better for all of us. It will be a step toward educating more children to be qualified for better jobs and so that they can live better, happier lives. Taking care of health care will save lives, keep people working, prevent catastrophic illnesses, and make us a better democracy in the long run.

This isn't pie in the sky. It isn't talk. It's keen attention not to misty realms of "tomorrow" but to true care and attention to sublunary issues.

I've long said - before I became truly poor myself - that something people with money don't understand is that poverty is expensive. Of necessity,, the poor often have to buy cheap because it's all they CAN do, when buying better quality goods would last them longer and ultimately cost them less. Cheap clothes, cheap furniture, cheap toys, cheap washing machines don't last as long and don't work as well. This is kind of off topic.... but what made me think of it is that we as a nation have too often gone for cheap rather than good. Whether it pans out in the end only time will tell. Hopefully, we can keep the forces of the status quo from hackin the vision and substance out of it, from spewing specious nonsence about burdening future generations for "frivolous" causes (like health care and education and modernizing our world).

I guess that's enough of a rant for today. I got the three words in.

It's beautiful here today. The sun is out and the temperatures are truly Spring-like. Yippee!!!!

This is Princess.... Shannon's new Webkins critter.
She is the pet of the month which is a big deal at Webkins.
Like Angel, looks like she is longing to go out and play.

Autism Awareness Meets Quilly's Three Word Challenge

It's Thursday, which means that it's the arrival of Quilly's dreaded Three Word Challenge. She gives us three obscure, look-em-up-in-the-dictionary words and asks us to use them. Agh. Today's words (and their meanings) were:

propinquity - Kinship or nearness
susurrus - whispering sound
nescience - ignorance

Unfortunately, it is usually only when we are brought into propinquity with a child or children with autism that interest and concern begin to whisper in our ears, to be a susurrus, awakening our consciousness and breaking through our nescience, our ignorance and lack of concern. Today is Autism Awareness Day. Two of my favorite bloggers who put a human and tender face - who put heart and tender honesty - onto this subject are Linda at These Are the Days and Michelle at Full Souls Ahead. I hope you'll take the time to visit them and learn a bit about what it's like to have a child or children with autism and what it's like to BE a child with autism. Or an adult....

Michelle today wrote about a woman she knew in nursing school who was "different" and how she wished she had known then what she knows now. (She's much more eloquent. Please read her own words). It made me think about people who have passed through my own life. When I lived and worked out in the world I was always a magnet for odd people. They seemed to find me and glue themselves to me, probably because I was kind. I would listen and talk. I would make an effort to include them. Truth be known, though, much to my shame I wasn't always very sincere. I often resented it. In those days nobody knew what autism was. I didn't, anyway. Maybe some of these people were autistic. Probably they were. In retrospect, instead of resenting them, I should have been impressed that they were out in the world working and functioning. There was a woman at my church who nobody could stand. I was pretty much the only person who talked to her and she hung around me a lot. She was brilliant but she had trouble communicating. I used to try and help her find better ways to talk to people. Thinking back, I suspect she was autistic. Should I have had to know that to feel more compassionate about her? I've always thought that when we reject people because they seem different, we re-enforce their differentness. It has always bothered me but I won't claim that I'm above it. Part of me resented this woman's intrusion into my life. My own insecurities screamed to attention when all the odd people in the world glued themselves to me. Would people think I was one of them? (Was I? Was that why they liked me so much?)

In Arizona, I met my friend Sue and her son Nicholas. Nicholas has Asperger's Syndrome. He was 7 when I moved out there. Sweet and smart and articulate. And ever so slightly odd. The kind of differentness that makes the rest of us when we are at our worst move aside. There isn't necessarily any kind of cruel shunning (though there well may be that as well), but there is still an instinct in all of us to move away. Because we don't know any better. Because we are afraid as children and as adults of being judged. Nicholas is probably 12 or 13 now. I haven't been in touch with his mother as much as I used to be. I know they decided to start home schooling him as he moved into puberty because they thought the social problems at school might be too devastating for him. Nicholas has a wonderful imagination and a big heart and a sweet sense of humor. People who don't get to know him don't know what they are missing.

I don't know what my point is. I wish we lived in a world where we were able to be kinder to one another. Whether the differentness is autism or obesity or blindness or some other disability, I wish we were actively taught to reach past or initial impusle at rejection. We are too often ruled by the susurrus - the whispering voices of wanting to fit in, of not wanting to be bothered, of not wanting to be different by association.

I hope that somehow Autism Awareness will not just knock down walls but will also build bridges, not just teach us what autism is and how autistic children (and adults) are different, but also - maybe more importantly - teach us how those who live with autism are the same and how we can reach across what seems like a chasm but is often only a crack in the sidewalk.

I hope the day will come when people like my friend Nicholas and countless others will be less isolated by their condition because the rest of us will know that they are not so different after all.

Quilly's (Hitonious) Three Word Challenge

It's Thursday and Quilly has confronted us with three rare, look-em-up-in-the-dictionary words to write into a story. You can find the meaning of hitonious in last week's challenge. For this week we were confronted with: sternutation; zoilist; anopisthograph



The irate professor ruffled angrily through the dusty old manuscript, growing angrier with each turn of the page. Just because something is old, Martinson, does not make it valuable. This anopisthograph is not the precious masterpiece you seem to think it is. While many of the pages are, I will admit, quite beautiful, the writing, the grammar is.... well it's a crime against the language... against any language. Call me a zoilist if you want, but this whole thing is incoherent dribble. And stop that annoying sternutation. Get a hanky. Take a pill. Take this out of my sight.

Young Martinson stood gazing at the professor in between sneezes with a blank look on his face. Finally he asked in a meek voice. "Professor, do you speak English? I mean I know what you said was English... could you tell me what you said in words I could understand? You seem angry. I got that part."

"Young people today," muttered Professor Mungford. "Your educations are a tetteromous failure. Hitonious!"

"Professor, I still don't understand half of what you're saying," He sneezed miserably. I think I'm allergic to that manuscript. It makes me sneeze."

"I noticed," the professor grumbled. "Your repeated stenternation is very annoying. You must have noticed before that this anopisthograph makes you sneeze...."

"Ok... so stenternation is sneezing?"

"Of course, you ignorant idiot," grumbled the angry educator.

"And an anopisthograph is....???"

"A manuscript or parchment having writing on only one side of the leaves, of course..."

"Of course, professor.... but why did you say I could call you a zoologist?" "Not zoologist, Martinson, zoilist."

"Oh... uh... what's a zoilist?"

"Ignorance..." muttered the professor. "Zoilus was an noted Greek grammarian and philosopher. He was noted in part for being rather harsh and critical. The term "zoilist" has come to mean 'a rude or nasty critic who gets pleasure finding fault in others.' I get no pleasure at all from it," he smirked, "it's just my curse to be surrounded by fools."

"Ah. A hitonious fate indeed, professor."

"Hitonious, Martinson? Well done. Perhaps there's some hope for you after all. Let's have another look at your manuscript."

The End

Quilly's Three Word Thursday

Well, it's time for Quilly's hittonious challenge to use three impossible, obscure, weird words in a story or paragraph. I think of it as a braniac's wordzzle. So this week I'm getting rid of one of the words (hittonious) by using it right away. Hittonious means "beyond horrid... horrid, hideous, and horrendous combined," so maybe calling Quilly's challenge hittonious is a touch unfair. Maybe it's fairer to say it's teterrimous, which means "most foul." Ok... you guessed it. That's the second of the three words and it's probably not fair to call her challenge teterrimous either, though that word does have a lovely mellifluous flow to it, doesn't it? Yeah... mellifluous was the third word... and it means "having a rich, smooth flow"... or alternately "filled with something that sweetens." I've always like that word. So that's my teterrimous, though hopefully mellifluous submission to Quilly's hittoniously difficult word challenge for this week. Who said cheaters never prosper....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Haven't been taking many photos lately, but thought I'd share this sweet face that hides the teterrimous heart of a creative doer and hittonious deeds. She looks innocent, but she is plotting destructive feline terrorist activities. Tara Grace (below) is much less naughty but nobody could say she has a mellifluous voice. One of Tara's nicknames is The Dread Pirate Tara the Gray because she sounds so much like Long John Silver from the old 1934 Treasure Island movie.

Quilly's Three Word Challenge x Four

Quilly - over at her Pacific Paradise - I guess, felt the need of a tough mental challenge for us to chew on and she has come up with a new (well it's a few weeks old, but I was sulking in my cave so it's new for me still) word challenge. She comes up with three words we often have to look up in the dictionary and asks us to use them. It's like a mini wordzzle for braniacs. Lucky me, I missed the weeks when all three words had totally obscure meanings. This week there's was only one that left my brain whirling with the cogs not connecting. So here's what I have to say about apanthropinization; paucity & zither.

Ok... Once I got started, I decided to try and use the words from the previous weeks as well: isangelous, volvigant, cynicocratic, opprobrious, quondam, casuistry, fracas, numismatics, perspicacious Whew! I'm exhausted... but victorious!


"Harold Manglewitz, I don't know what your story is, " Miranda intoned in frustration. "I don't mean to be opprobrious, but when I married you twenty-five years ago there was no paucity of words between us. Your current state of apanthropinization is breaking my heart. You used to be interesting. Challenging. Now you just sit around all day strumming that stupid zither with a bemused look on your face like you're some angel on a cloud. Personally, I don't find you very isangelous and I miss your quondam kindness and connection to life. Now, it's more like you have become king of all the cynicocratical bastards I've ever met... and I've met too many... I know that horrible fracas at the church last year shook you to your core and I thought I'd give you time to recover. You are - or were - one of the most perspicatious people I have ever known. What you are doing - pushing everyone away and sitting here pretending to be a mystic isn't noble; it's a failure to honor your true self, a kind of pathetic casuistry that is heart-breaking and shameful both. And it's beneath you. But I see now that you aren't willing to come back to the world even for me, so I'm leaving you for Charlie Cashuary, the local numismatics expert. You may think he's just one of the volvigant masses, but at least he's alive, at least he listens to me and talks to me. I loved you so much, Harold, but you have left me and now - if I'm going to survive - I have to leave you. I hope you find peace."

Had she seen the tear that slid down Harold's cheek, Miranda might not have left, but he had turned his face in the zither. He too had made his choice.


Definitions (in no particular order)

volvigant - Of or pertaining to the uneducated masses
cynicocratical - Pertaining to or a reference to a ruling body of cynics
zither - The zither is a musical string instrument
isangelous - an obsolete word meaning equal to the angels
apanthropinization - withdrawal from human concerns or the human world
numismatics - Modern numismatics is the study of the coins of the mid 17th to the 21st century
opprobrious - Expressing contemptuous reproach; scornful or abusive
quondam - at some time, at one time, once, heretofore, formerly, on a time
paucity - Smallness of number, scarcity, dearth
fracas - A noisy, disorderly fight or quarrel; a brawl
casuistry - a resolving of specific cases of conscience, duty, or conduct through interpretation of ethical principles or religious doctrine 2 : specious argument, rationalization
perspicacious - Having or showing penetrating mental discernment; clear-

sighted

Whew! I did it! This is one scary challenge, Quilly!