:: Spinspeak Letter ::

Exposing Deliberate Pollution of the English Language: Spinspeak Rots the Mind.

:: Friday, March 21, 2003 ::

Codetalk from Islam

Here for puzzled readers are some definitions of Islamic codetalk much favored in colorful spin from Saddam Hussein and the sword-swinging mullahs of the religion of peace:

Filastin Akhbar = a reference to a land of milk and honey also called Greater Palestine, a territory stretching from Egypt through a large slice of Jordan north to parts of Lebanon and Syria. Presumably the occupants of what Saddam Hussein refers to the land of “criminal Zionism” will be treading water somewhere in the Mediterranean.

Lost Andalusia = The lands of southern Spain from which the Muslim conquerors were expelled by the Spanish armies 500 years ago.

Crusaders = Primarily Americans who were not around 1000 years ago when European Catholic armies went on Crusade to take back holy shrines in parts of the Byzantine Empire that the Muslim armies conquered some 400 years earlier.

:: James Baar 3/21/2003 01:14:00 PM [+] ::
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Cutespeak Cheers the Troops

Cutespeak is a special variety of military spinspeak for various threatening aspects of war. The military feels it cleans up reality among well-protected sensitive minds back home. And it has an understandable black humor appeal to combat troops in the field who are known to take umbrage at people trying to kill them. For example, a soldier who operated a flamethrower in the Viet Nam War was called a “Mr. Zippo.”

Here, as American forces proceed against Iraq, are three military cutespeak definitions to keep in mind:

daisy cutter for an enormous 7.5 ton “conventional” bomb found quite effective in disturbing terrorist caves in the mountains of Afghanistan.

mother of all bombs for the new 10.5 ton MOAB conventional weapon -- largest conventional bomb in the U.S. arsenal.

Meantime, Saddam Hussein and his ilk should keep in mind that if their thoughts ever were to turn to weapons of mass destruction, there is:

crowdpleaser for the B-53 "citybuster," a 9 megaton nuclear bomb reported to be the largest in the U.S. arsenal and that was in the late '90s.

And above all take heart from the most popular political spinspeak of the moment:

support the troops = political fuzzball for no matter how we sneer at the foreign policies of our political opponents we stand behind our brave boys and girls (women) in uniform out there on the fighting line and assume they won’t be listening when we say they didn’t have to go to war in the first place.

:: James Baar 3/18/2003 02:31:00 PM [+] ::
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:: Sunday, March 16, 2003 ::

Dems Spin St. Patrick

Mangle your facts, stir in some large non-sequiters, add a dash of anti-war cliché, glaze it all with spinspeak and you have a "Statement on St. Patrick's Day" news release from Terry McAuliffe, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

McAuliffe says it is "truly fitting" that Spring coincides with St. Patrick's Day because the Irish came to America "in search of new beginnings."

Then McAuliffe says the "American Dream" is an Irish "trademark" as shown by such Irish-American patriots as: John F. Kennedy (of course), the "Fighting 69th" in the Civil War, "thousands" of Irish-American Medal of Honor winners, Audie Murphy "who celebrates being Irish-American with thousands of others," and Fire Chaplain Mychal Judge who on Sept. 11 was “the first to perish while pursuing the Irish American love of public service."

Finally, McAuliffe says he is proud of his Irish heritage and (with a lyrical leap of logic) that somehow makes him “thankful for the work so many Americans have done to continue to make progress in the peace process.”

Now ethnically heartwarming as all of this is, McAuliffe should know:

-- St. Patrick's Day may coincide (almost) with Spring , but as most Christians are well aware the idea of renewal and Spring is normally associated with Easter.

-- Veterans and current warriors of New York's famous "Fighting 69th," which in the last 150-years has fought in American wars from Europe to Okinawa, will be surprised to hear that McAuliffe limits its battle record only to the Civil War.

-- Although many heroic Irish-Americans are among the total of 3,427 warriors awarded the Medal of Honor during the last 150 years, any objective eyeballing of the official list indicates they do not number in the “thousands.”

-- If Audie Murphy "celebrates being Irish-American," he is doing it at that Great Pub in the Sky where no doubt he has had the opportunity to hoist a glass or two for the last 30 years.

-- When Father Mychal was killed in what McAuliffe's Party shies away from correctly calling the Islamic terrorist Sept. 11 attack on America, this hero priest was pursuing his vocation as an instrument of God, a rather higher calling than McAuliffe's "love of public service" which is how so many government layabouts and pols like to describe their daily rounds. (Father Mychal, McAuliffe’s “first to perish,” was reported to be giving last rites to a dead fireman when fatally struck by falling debris.)

-- “The peace process” pursued so ably by the Fighting 69th, Audie Murphy and Irish-Americans awarded the Medal of Honor is quite similar to the “disarmament process” that President George W. Bush has in mind for Iraq.

The Spinspeak Detector™ scores the language pollution level of the news release on McAuliffe’s St. Patrick’s Day Statement to be “effectively infinite.” The communication is deemed: “Critical Saturated.”

:: James Baar 3/16/2003 10:27:00 AM [+] ::
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