In recents days, a couple of odd news items crossed my path and fell subject to my cutting scrutiny. More specifically, each story revealed the humourous heedlessness of its subjects and/or storytellers. See for yourself.
Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode, as you may well know, wrote a letter in December to John Cruikshank, detailing his opposition to the swearing in of Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison. Goode's beef with Ellison is that he made his oath on a copy of the Koran rather than the Bible. I've selected some of the most significant quotations from the letter to make my point:
"The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.
"I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped."
Other than the glaring dismissal of Ellison's American citizenship, Goode's rhetoric mirrors the U.S. government's approach to fledgling democracies in other parts of the world - namely, Algeria in the 90's (the Feis party vs. military) and Egypt in the early 2000's (Muslim Brotherhood vs. Mubarrak). Unfair comparison, you say, but Goode's message is clear, even if he disguises it in an argument about immigration. Basically, we don't want Muslims, radical or not, to gain too much power in these governments, even if they're democratically elected - and now Virgil Goode is afraid of it happening in our own country? I don't want to argue about whether it's beneficial for Muslims to be elected to Congress or for Muslims to immigrate to this country - personally, I think both are fine - but the humor of the story is that American foreign policy has morphed into American domestic policy, albeit unofficially and only through Goode's words. Given the negative reaction to Mr. Goode, I don't think we're in danger of his underlying argument becoming policy.
The other news irony, a little less serious and more intentional, is an AP story from Friday's Metro about a University of Calgary study on procrastination in America. Apparently we consider ourselves chronic procrastinators more than we used to. TV and the Internet are to blame (heck, I'm not gonna argue with that). What is university professor Piers Steel's answer, according to the AP? "Something has to be done about it, sooner rather than later...." Well, I'll say. We mustn't procrastinate trying to fix our procrastination problem! I'll give the Metro credit, though, because even though it's not a bastion of fine, admirable journalism, it can manage some humorous self-awareness in its more serious sections (the ones not labeled Entertainment, Weekend, or Opinion).
Finally, I want to add my own phrases to Lake Superior State University's list of banned words for 2006:
"We are social creatures."
"I'm a people person."
"I'm a visual learner."
"Grey's Anatomy."
"Grey's Anatomy in hi-def."
"We're gonna watch Grey's Anatomy in hi-def!"
Too late for 2006...I'm pushin' for '07.
How in the world is "Now Playing in Theatres" a phrase worthy of condemnation? The phrase is informative: not all trailers are currently in theatres, and I want to know which are available for my "viewing pleasure," and which I will have to wait 4 years to see. A better phrase to ban would have been "Have a nice day," which just seems annoying.