Letters to the Editor
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This is probably a lost cause, but please don't call me "Nimrod" . . .
. . . unless you mean to say that I'm a mighty hunter. Bugs Bunny called Elmer Fudd a "little Nimrod," and every little kid who saw the cartoon thought "Nimrod" meant "idiot" or something like that. Ever since then, "Nimrod" has been misused to mean something negative. Kids can be forgiven for misunderstanding, but when Bugs called Elmer "Nimrod" he was using sarcasm. He meant to demean Elmer, by drawing the audience's attention to what a poor figure Elmer cut compared to the legendary King Nimrod. Unfortunately, this misunderstanding has perpetuated itself to such a degree that the original positive meaning of the word is in danger of extinction. Future audiences will hear the "Nimrod Variation" from Sir Edward Elgar's "Enigma Variations," and they'll puzzle over why the music for an "idiot" should be so majestic.
So please remember, calling someone a "Nimrod" is a compliment (PETA members might disagree with this assertion. But, maybe someone could be the "Nimrod" of bargain hunters.) Don't use it as an insult. And please, if you catch someone else using it incorrectly, make sure to school them in the correct use. Only through constant vigilance can we keep Saturday morning cartoons from ruining our language.
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I watched CNN to see their coverage of the Pat Tillman scandal...
I thought for sure CNN would report on the Pat Tillman hearings especially Jessica Lynch. I clicked to CNN several times throughout the evening.
What I saw instead was non-stop coverage of the Alec Baldwin phone message. They brought on Larry King to show excerpts from his interview with Baldwin last November. They brought on Dr. Phil to dispense whatever bogus wisom Dr. Phil had. Then, over on CNN 2, they had Nancy Grace dissecting the phone call.
I clicked over to Fox News and Baldwin's call was also their big story.
Several times I came back to CNN to try to find their coverage of the Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch hearings, but I found nothing. Anderson Cooper had Baldwin as his top story.
In conclusion I think CNN is useless. Fox News has always been useless, but CNN used to have real news. What the hell happened to them?
It figures: Anderson Cooper is a former CIA applicant who may or may not have actually worked for them (it would be classified if he did). He is also allegedly a closeted homosexual. Nancy Grace was an opportunist lawyer who has lied about her own victimhood and who has been wrong on many of the things she's reported. Larry King is a 5-times-married interviewer who asks softball questions and has been convicted for fraud. Wolf Blitzer is a former AIPAC lobbyist.
If you watch CNN in the morning you are treated to that foxy chick who sits on a couch so you can see her legs and f*ck-me shoes.
Not that their credentials matter. I am sure whoever pulls the strings at CNN would make even the most reputable journalist into a puppet in minutes flat.
Baldwin's phone call should be non-news. It should be laughed out of the news meeting at every reputable broadcaster and publication except as a little sidebar on page 16 or something in the entertainment program. Why is it the top story? That fucking sickens me.
I just saw a documentary called "Iraq for Sale" about how private contractors have been screwing American taxpayers every which way since 2003. Blackwater, Titan, CACI, Halliburton, KBR, SAIC, those are just beginning. Most of them have CEOs who are former Pentagon brass and who have received no-bid contracts to do important jobs incompetently for outrageous amounts of money, often with the result being that our troops suffer or die.
Why isn't this sort of information on CNN?
Why did CNN completely avoid the Pat Tillman/Jessica Lynch hearings today?
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I really hope this article was satire
I think that most people defending Alec Baldwin’s behavior either had lousy parents or are lousy parents.
My dad would never call me a rude little pig. My parents did not speak to me that way when I was a child, and they wouldn’t now that I’m an adult. If they called me a name it was my first name followed by my middle name. It’s the middle name that means you’re really in trouble.
But the “rude thoughtless pig” comment is just the tip of the iceberg in the Alec Baldwin tirade. He complains he’s made an ass of himself because he had to find a phone and she didn’t answer. How hard can it be for Alec Baldwin to find a cell phone? Why is it humiliating that she doesn’t answer? Why is it her fault that he is humiliated? “You made me feel like shit,” he tells her. Why is she responsible for his feelings? That’s a fine lesson to treat your children – that it’s their fault if you’re upset, and their responsibility to make you happy. (I’m being sarcastic about that being a fine lesson, by the way.)
In addition, has anyone read Alec Baldwin’s apology? Most of it is about how it’s normal for parents to lose their temper, how much he has endured in custody negotiations and how people will understand once his book is published. He certainly doesn’t sound like someone who thinks he did anything wrong.
I do believe that kids should learn the mantra of sticks and stones and learn that words can’t hurt them, because everyone will encounter some name calling at some point in their life. But I think parents should leave the name calling to the mean kids on the playground and help their kids deal with it, instead of engaging in the name calling themselves.
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Incidentally, my mother called me unnecessarily rude names...
...and it made me hate her for years after the fact.
If she had merely been disciplinary and expressed her anger directly, I would have respected that.
But having her call me mean-spirited names, which in part stemmed from her anger toward my father, but which also seemed rooted in an element of sadism toward me, made me resent her for YEARS -- and I mean DECADES.
Call your children names at your own peril. Believe me, it is NOT THAT HARD to come up with a better way to vent your frustrations.