Sun AM

Whew!  The NY Times Sunday puzzle was the toughest one in a while, well, other than last week's when the clues and the puzzle itself didn't match up!  In fact, today's might have been as hard as yesterday's Saturday Stumper, which is saying something.  The clues that "stump" me most often are those involving recent (the last 30 or 40 years) television, movies, and hippy rock music.  I still, though, refuse to do the puzzles in pencil; ink it is!

I admit to being a bit of a language snob.  Some might dispute "a bit," though.  In the past week I came across these no-nos, at least to me, in print:  "grinded out" instead of "ground," "There was calls" instead of "were," "children living their life," instead of "lives," and "...will bare upon..." instead of "bear."  OK, I suppose I am a little too much on this (There's another word, "anal," I don't like to use in this context.), but I would like to think that people who make their livings with the printed/written word should know how to use words properly.  Maybe I should just get a life??????

Karen was watching some boob tube shows all day yesterday while I was working--reading and writing--in the dining room, really an extension of the living room.  I wasn't paying a lot of attention to the show, but did hear, on quite a few occasions, some pretty vivid, shall I call it, language.  Let's put it this way:  I'd have never used those words at the dinner table when I was a kid or even as an adult, not if my mother was there--or my dad!  There were no "f-bombs, " but pretty explicit language, esp for network, not cable, television.  Do the producers use such language just because they can, that is, can get away with it without repercussions?  Certainly our moral culture has changed and, as regular readers know, in my opinion not for the better.  Is it merely that the producers think we can no longer use our imaginations, that we can't figure out a bad hombre wouldn't really use the word "fudge?"  Not often, but in discussions in my classes a student will use one of these words.  And why shouldn't he/she?  They are on television.  But I take time to explain I don't want such words used in my class(es).  I suppose a few students might roll their eyes at me, but I haven't seen that yet.

The Detroit News had a couple of interesting editorials this AM.  Nolan Finley had some good advice for Don Trump, "shut up and lead."  Trump must stop all this twitter/tweeter (or whatever it's called) stuff.  Who can take such a person seriously?  Again, I'm not at all a Trump fan and don't need to rehash my disdain for him (or for Clinton), but if he wants to get things done starting Jan 21, maybe he should grow up a bit and stop acting like a junior high kid.

I also enjoyed the lead editorial.  It rightly criticized what some have claimed as Obama' legacy accomplishments.  (I suppose they are "accomplishments," just not good ones.)  They include, among others, Obamacare, foreign policy, etc.  (BTW, I haven't received an answer to my retort to Congressman Levin about the misnomer, "Affordable Care Act."  I pointed out how, for millions of Americans, health care is no longer "affordable" or, at the least, premiums have take a far larger chunk out of their disposable incomes.  I might also have mentioned--heh heh--higher deductibles and co-pays have made it even less "affordable."  Nah, I won't get an answer and don't expect one.  In fact, I've never received any reply from the Democrats in DC about the possibility of getting reimbursed for the five or six thousand dollars, that's five or six thousand dollars more, Obamacare has cost me since its implementation.)  The News' criticism of foreign policy, Obamacare, etc. is right on the money.

But I was disappointed that, perhaps as a palliative in the final days of his Presidency, the editorial claimed Obama "was a president of high character and his personal conduct was beyond reproach."  I guess if we dumb definitions and ethics down enough, we can make such statements.  Obama was no Nixon or Lyndon Johnson in those regards, but to make such statements brings question to the legitimacy of the rest.  And I suppose it's a matter of preference, but I still don't see (or hear?) that Obama is "a fine talker," an "eloquent" one.