It’s not easy speaking or writing for public consumption. Here are recent examples that stopped me cold when I read or heard them:
After Yevgeny V. Prigozhin and his Wagner troops’ mini-revolt against the Kremlin fizzled, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said his country would be “stronger and more resilient.” “If someone in the West has doubts about this, then that’s their problem.”
He also said, according to The New York Times, Ukraine’s supporters were “misguided if they hoped that ‘the facade of the Russian government had cracked.’”
Perhaps his adherence to the Putin party line would have been more convincing if he had not used the word “facade,” which is defined by Oxford Languages as “an outward appearance that is maintained to conceal a less pleasant or creditable reality.”
He might well have been better off substituting “foundation” for “facade” if he wanted to convey stability.
Perhaps I am the misguided. Maybe facade is the meaning he intended as it would be what Westerners believe Russia’s government is, just a facade for a dictatorship.
I doubt I will be able to get clarification from Lavrov.
Second Example: In rejecting race-conscious admission practices in higher education, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said, “The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.”
How, in all credulity, could Roberts not appreciate that the “experiences” of Blacks and Latinos as individuals are almost exclusively grounded in their race? Stop and frisk tactics were disproportionally leveled against Blacks compared to whites. When seeking jobs, Blacks and Latinos often are judged even before they are seen because of their names, names they were given to honor their culture and ancestors. Pre-college education for most Blacks and Latinos occurs in schools that are not comparable to those of whites. They are underfunded, understaffed.
You get, or should get, the message, so on to the next example.
Third Example: Listening to Sirius Radio’s Broadway station recently I heard what can only be described as a showstopper.
At the conclusion of the song “The Battle of Yorktown” from the musical “Hamilton,” the Sirius host took a few moments to comment on her origins in the theatre in Yorktown and other regional playhouses in the Hudson Valley. She even wondered if the region north of New York City thad any historical places commemorating the colonial’s victory over the British at Yorktown.
Sounds nice until one realizes that she conflated Yorktown, NY, with Yorktown, VA.
Am I asking too much for intelligence about our nation’s founding?
Fourth Example: As sure as the sun rises in the east—even if you cannot see it given the haze descending on us from Canadian wild fires—any verbal or physical gaffe by Joe Biden will be highlighted by Fox News and other right wing media, even by some liberal outlets, as proof he is unfit for office and definitely too fragile and senile to be given another four year term as president.
I don’t read or listen to most of the news or gossip about celebrities so I ask in complete earnestness—was there a hue and cry for Bruce Springsteen to retire after he fell off a stage during a recent concert in Amsterdam? He is, after all, in his eighth decade. Should a man of his age—73–be trusted to be singing and sweating and strutting around a stage without fear of imploding before our very eyes?
I am not surprised that calls for Springsteen’s retirement never arose.
Bruce means as much to millions as Biden does, though the gravitas of the presidency is more than a tad greater in importance to the health and welfare of our country and, by extension, the world. Yet when Biden stumbled at the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony—admittedly not his first slippage (where’s SNL’s Chevy Chase when we need him?)—his detractors couldn’t wait to certify him unfit for office, much less for an encore four years.
Media ignored Biden’s commencement address to focus on his tumble which, it should be noted, happened because someone put a sandbag in his direct path off the stage where he had stood for two hours in the sun saluting and shaking the hands of graduates.
