This Just In: Language, Grammar, and Kamala’s Deal

(Dedicated to Anthony Esolen for his excellent phrase to describe the character of lies, which is “to supplant propagation with propaganda.”) 

In my hometown of Chicago, supporters of Hamas recently protested in front of the Israeli consulate, where they burned American flags. (Why not Israeli flags? Can demonstrators have burned so many that there is now a shortage?)

Lovers of theater should note the quality of the protestors’ dialogue:

Protester: “So let’s go to those war criminals and make them f***ing pay for their crimes against humanity!”

Protester 2: “Free, free, free Palestine!”

Crowd: “Free, free, free Palestine!”

Protester 2: “F*** the pigs!”

Crowd: “F*** the pigs!”

Protester 2: “This is what we think of your f***ing rag! This is what we think of your f***ing rag! You are all responsible.” 

Protester 2: “Shut down the DNC [Democratic National Committee]!”

Crowd: “Shut down the DNC!”

As to the latter point, we should observe that it is seldom that anyone is always wrong. 

As to the linguistic impoverishment on display, well, the protesters likely went to the same public schools and suffered from the same illiteracy as everyone else in town. After all, only 21 percent of Chicago’s 8th graders in 2022 were proficient in reading. 

I think the key issue becomes: can the protestors read the signs they are carrying? Remember, some of the early pro-Palestinian youth protestors carried posters saying, “From the River to the Sea.” Unfortunately, even if they got the reading part right, they didn’t know which river or which sea. Just because you can read a sign doesn’t mean you can read a map. 

In fact, I think demonstrators should be obliged to take a literacy test before being issued a permit. 

There was also some Clint Eastwood-style macho talk in Chicago. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel had a pointed message to anyone on the U.S. Supreme Court or otherwise, who might be thinking about reversing same-sex marriage protections.

“You can pry this wedding ring from my cold, dead, gay hand,” said Nessel, in a speech she gave in support of Vice President Kamala Harris. Is this a statement for, or against, gun control?

There was another gaggle of women in Chicago who dressed as abortion pills to advocate for free abortion drugs. They chose poetry to convey their message. They chanted, 

F*** the courts, 

f*** the state, 

you can’t make us procreate. 

This may not get them an Academy of American Poets prize. It seems to suffer from the same paucity of vocabulary as the pro-Hamas crowd. However, it might entice an abortion pill company to subsidize them under the cover of supporting liberal arts. After all, they have almost everything theater: song, poetry, and costumes. In fact, the best move might be to apply for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

———————

Speaking of attention-getting street theater, get a load of this. A 20-foot inflatable IUD, dubbed “Freeda Womb,” has been making a cross-country tour, including a Chicago visit sponsored by Americans for Contraception. Apparently, its purpose is to generate opposition to “politicians who want to control people’s bodies.” 

I thought that the whole problem behind the need for “reproductive freedom” is that so many people can’t control their bodies. Therefore, there’s no telling when they might have to copulate. The giant IUD is not a symbol of freedom but of compulsion. “Freeda Womb” frees people from self-control. It, like all contraceptives, frees them to be unfree.

By the way, these celebrations of infertility could not have been more different from the ancient classical world or that of many African tribes. The Phalliphoria processions in ancient Greece, which featured giant erect phalluses, were held as symbols of fertility and germination. Likewise, outside an African chieftain’s tribal hut would often stand a large abstract carving of a male with an erect phallus. There was not the slightest thing about it that could be considered pornographic. Fertility was considered the guarantee of progeny.

Sex is so often considered pornographic today because its tether to reproduction has been severed by contraception and abortion.  

———————

A recent feel-good story in The New York Times was headlined, “Happy Birthday, Dear Frozen Eggs, Happy Birthday to You.” Celebrating the third birthday party for her frozen eggs, Lauren Martinez of Brooklyn “set out a tray of deviled eggs next to syringes filled with confetti; there were Eggo waffles, egg salad sandwiches, a quiche and onion dip with roe.” 

Is this beginning to sound faintly cannibalistic, or is it just me? It’s not exactly what I want to think about when I’m having an egg salad sandwich. But that’s all right. I didn’t get invited to the party.

—————–

Now for the ubiquitous grammar problem. Former First Lady Michelle Obama recently declared: “Demonizing our children for being who they are and loving who they love, look, that doesn’t make anybody’s life better.” 

Neither does bad grammar. Here we have the usual confusion. “Loving who they love” is incorrect because “who” is the object of the verb love. So, it should be “whom.” Calling Michelle Obama—good grammar will make somebody’s life better. Perhaps your own.

—————–

I am trying to get this to Kamala Harris’ speech writers as an explanatory expansion of her favorite phrase, “What can be, unburdened by what has been.”

Here it is (sent to me by a friend): 

We will go into the future unencumbered by the past, to the community which is tomorrow because it is for Americans of the future which is tomorrow not yesterday. And in yesterday’s future which is the past we will have opportunities which means doing something new that is not of the past, but of tomorrow because tomorrow is yesterday’s future.

——————–

See if you can pick up the theme from this Kamala Harris interview with CNN’s Dana Bash. In case you’re having trouble, I highlighted the key word in bold.

We have got to get a deal done. We were in Doha. We have to get a deal done. This war must end. And we must get a deal that is about getting the hostages out. I’ve met with the families of the American hostages. Let’s get the hostages out. Let’s get the ceasefire done.

Bash interjected, “But no change in policy in terms of arms so forth?”

Harris said “no.” “I—we—have to get a deal done. Dana, we have to get a deal done.”

And the winner is: deal!

———————

If you have ever wished the Our Father to be longer than it is, you can join the Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the sometimes parish of Gov. Tim Walz. There you will be invited to “pray the prayer that Jesus taught us.” It begins, “Our Guardian, Our Mother, Our Father in heaven…” 

In my Biblical Concordance, I couldn’t find “Our Guardian” or “Our Mother” anywhere. Maybe that’s because Jesus didn’t teach this.

———————-

Try to keep a dry eye reading this one. (I have cobbled together parts of a much longer article so you don’t miss the essence of why the world mourns.) 

The New York Times informs us that “Sphen, Penguin Whose Gay Love Story Earned Global Fame, Dies.”

Sphen, a male gentoo penguin whose enduring partnership with another male penguin in the colony led them to become international queer icons, has died, according to the Sydney aquarium that housed them. He was 11.

In a colony of young, flirty penguins at Sea Life, the two had eyes only for each other: bowing, singing, and bringing each other pebbles for a potential future nest, according to penguin keepers. Young gentoo penguins can take some time to choose their partners, but Sphen and Magic did not waste any.

Their courtship, which came soon after Australia legalized gay marriage (Were they waiting for this?) in a protracted battle that brought up personal, religious, and political tensions, offered a symbol of optimism for the queer community and its supporters. Their likenesses were memorialized on floats at Pride celebrations in Sydney, and their story was retold in documentaries. In 2023, teachers in New South Wales said that their story would become a resource for primary school curriculums as part of a unit on family and relationships.

——————

Another light of reason from the Middle East with his summer reading list, Lebanese Journalist Pierre Abi Saab said on Hizbullah TV: 

You know, in the wake of October 7, one likes to revisit some reading from the past, so I bumped into Hitler’s book Mein Kampf…I don’t care at what price, there should be a knockout blow [against Israel]. I’m not trying to look down on anyone, but the way I personally feel—bring me Netanyahu’s entrails, like in the wars of the Middle Ages. 

How is that for sentimentality, including a rare salute to the Middle Ages? If you ever get misty-eyed about a mass murder, keep around a copy of Mein Kampf that you can just “bump into” for inspiration and happy memories.