Island Passage

People who love words must seem strange to people who are indifferent to words. I am fascinated by word origins. (I sometimes dream that I have traveled back in time and learned to speak Proto-Indo-European. ) This is the source of bemusement to my long-suffering wife. I am reminded of Fred Pohl's comment, "Number theory is like religion. It's either of no interest or of transcendent interest." David Crystal pens this installment of the Wall Street Journal's opinion page's "Five Best Books" series with the Watch Your Language , giving his list for the top five books of the history and use of English. Four more rare, out-of-print books for me to track down. Happily, I have read and reread the fifth book of his list: Mother Tongue , by Bill Bryson. Subtitled, "English and How it Got That Way," this book should be on the reading list of every high school student. Anyone who enjoys Mother Tongue will enjoy Mr. Bryson's follow-up volume, Mad...

Over at the Weekly Standard , Dean Barnett reviews Red! Blue! , D. Quinn Mill's novel about a civil war between Democrats and Republicans. He concludes by pointing out how politically aware people are completely clueless about the rest of the population's indifference to politics: BUT WHERE MILLS STUMBLES is in his assumptions about American political passions. If you're reading this story, you're strange; strange in a good way, but strange nonetheless. You're by definition a high-end consumer of news. Few Americans have ever heard of, let alone often read, political magazines or websites. Most Americans maintain an attitude towards politics that is best described as benign indifference. Even when the Bush-Gore battle hung in the balance, concerned partisans did not take to the streets in significant numbers. When the Supreme Court put an end to that struggle, there were some delirious Republicans and some despondent Democrats. But most of America shrugged its sho...

I've pointed out in earlier posts how Democrats lost the Evangelical vote and are still losing it today, both locally in Washington State and nationally . In the Wall Street Journal's editorial content, Naomi Schaefer Riley points out how some on the right can be as tone-deaf as those on the left. Tomorrow morning, Sen. John McCain delivers the commencement address at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. Conventional wisdom has it that Mr. McCain is trying to win support from the religious wing of the GOP for a presidential run. The decision to appear at a university founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell has not gone over well with Mr. McCain's fans on the left. "You're killin' me here," Jon Stewart told the senator when he appeared on the comedian's "Daily Show." "I feel like it's a condoning of Falwell's kind of crazymaking." Mr. McCain's advisers probably saw this reaction coming but felt it was worth the hassle if...

I'm currently sitting in a room of the Paris hotel on the strip in Las Vegas. You cannot imagine the cognative dissonance that this situation ring in my head. I am a much more down-home, guy-next-door kind of person and being here seems to require that you channel your inner Rat Pack character. It's OK, though. I'm here attending the 53rd annual convention of my professional society . First impressions: The Paris hotel is gaudy, overdone Chateau de Versailles with lots of people in shorts and halter tops wandering around with drinks. It is kind of weird walking down the sidewalk, crossing the street and being surrounded by people with cocktails. But, enough for now. Tomorrow is a big day. First session "Using Dita to Develop XML Documents!" The fun never ends!

Here's why I often comment on the missteps of political machines and people when those missteps are within the field of the Christian faith: I am a Christian. By this statement I mean more than I was born in a country that was predominantly Christian (though it was), to parents who were practicing Christians (though they were), or that I attend the church of my choice on a regular basis (though I do.) What I mean is that I take my religion straight---no chaser. I have experienced things that do not make sense in a materialist worldview. (My atheist friends would say that that statement shows a lack of imagination.) I have examined both the materialist and supernaturalist worldviews and find myself on the supernaturalist side. This is not to say that I have only supernaturalist friends. Many are far from my beliefs. Many friends are supernaturalists with views that I consider ill-formed to heretical. The only thing I require is that if you are going to honk on about "faith iss...

One of the things that I encounter again and again is people's surprise that I'm a fairly nice guy. I mean this in the context of my political propensity to conservatism and my party affiliation to the Republicans. Why would a nice guy like me associate with those horrible, mean, puppy-kicking Republicans? How can a person who can count to 20 without taking off his shoes fall for all their lies? Attention, Democrats. The reason that I am not a Democrat is because you have drawn lines that leave me no possibility of considering your party. Caitlin Flanagan has been able to hold out, but it seems as if the author of To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife encountered all the casual contempt and even open hostility that make the Democrat Party inhospitable to me. ...there is apparently no room for me in the Democratic Party. In fact, I have spent much of the past week on a forced march to the G.O.P. And the bayonet at my back isn't in the hands of th...

I've been watching the Battlestar Galactica first-season DVD set (thanks to Taleena and Todd ). I am enjoying it hugely. I've heard some nationally published television critics call it "the best television on television," and I agree. One of the elements of the show that is so striking is fact that they are addressing several big issues. But because they are operating in an almost cartoon-like setting (and it is cartoon-like in the best sense), they can take up themes and motifs that would be very difficult in a more mundane setting. (Of course doing those themes successfully in a mundane setting would be high art. Battlestar Galactica settles for being great television.) The theme that I love most, that fills me with glee, is the handling of religion. The only other show that dealt with religion in such an engaging way was Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . And it turns out that Battlestar Galactica's creator, Ronald D. Moore, was a staff writer for Deep Space Nin...

The Constant Reader will remember my earlier remarks on the remarkable journey the Democratic Party has taken in my lifetime. The goo-goo campaign of George McGovern could only have taken place in the wake of the Democratic Party Convention riots of 1968. The riots of 1968 could only have taken place in the wake of the convention seating conflict of 1964 . Now, James Piereson , in Commentary Magazine , focuses on the JFK assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. In Lee Harvey Oswald and the Liberal Crack-Up , Mr. Pierson reminds us of how vital and central the Democratic Party, and Liberalism in general, were to the American scene. And motes how the political left and right have swapped places. Liberalism entered the 1960'’s as the vital force in American politics, riding a wave of accomplishment running from the Progressive era through the New Deal and beyond. A handsome young president, John F. Kennedy, had just been elected on the promise to extend the unfinished agenda of reform. Liberali...