Friday, May 16, 2003

We Want to Pump... You Up! In an interesting article on the usurpation of the State Department's role by the Pentagon that I found through Monster Limo, I noticed another instance of the right-wing bias that has crept into the language of even generally evenhanded journalists under the constant barrage of neo-con newspeak. Here's the phrase that jumped out at me: "President Bush's national security strategy calls for a forward-leaning, muscular foreign policy...." That makes the administration sound like a well-oiled bodybuilder posing for a competition. Shouldn't it read "President Bush's national security strategy calls for an aggressive, militaristic foreign policy...." That would be factual. If you wanted to get truly partisan, it would read "President Bush's national security strategy calls for an antagonistic, bullying foreign policy...." 1:55:30 PM    Put your John Hancock right here!

Postscript A postscript to my thoughts earlier today on testing in education: I'm pretty sure that private schools aren't tied to the same testing requirements that public schools are. That means that kids whose parents can afford to send them to private school are taught to think while kids in public school are taught to fill out forms. I'm exagerating, of course (I hope). I went to public school, and got a pretty good education, but then I went to the best public high school in my city, and got into the advanced track within that school. Also, this was before the current anti-intellectual fervor had reached such a fever pitch. 12:01:10 AM    Put your John Hancock right here!