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Archive » 2010 » January

Ablativus Absolutus

By Cyberquill • 01/27/2010 • 30 Comments

My previous post contained the following sentence:

Weapons of mass destruction or no weapons of mass destruction, Iraq, being located smack in between Iran and the Saudi Arabian oil fields, with Saddam and his murderous Oprichniki removed as a regional stabilizer of sorts, I guess there’s little chance of pulling out of there until such time as we’re all driving solar vehicles.

A former-sort-of-coworker-turned-Facebook-acquaintance of mine (not the gentleman pictured above) kindly yet forcefully lamented that something was “very wrong” with this sentence and that it made “no sense,” grammatically speaking.

Yet I contend that my sentence works just fine, as it is structurally modeled upon the Second Amendment:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

This antiquated construction is called … (Read More »»)

The First Year: A Glimpse at the Barobameter

By Cyberquill • 01/25/2010 • 12 Comments

On one of the late-night talk shows, rocker Jon Bon Jovi referred to Barack Obama as the “coolest” president in the universe.

BoAgreed. We do have the coolest president imaginable, the classiest First Lady, two adorable First Daughters, and the most hypo-allergenic First Dog in history. More importantly, with the exception of Bo (left), less than one average human lifetime ago this entire beautiful family would have been relegated to the proverbial–as well as the literal–back of the bus in certain parts of the very country whose executive mansion they now rightfully inhabit. In spite of its flaws–which may be due to imperfections in human nature itself rather than the American system of governance–we live in a great nation with a moral arc bending towards justice in many respects.

Who can forget the expression of joy mingled with a sprinkling of disbelief in the teared-up eyes of older African-Americans, who had witnessed segregation firsthand, as they watched a black man delivering his acceptance speech and subsequently being sworn in as, yes, president of the United States of America? And irrespective of whether or not one agrees with Mr. Obama’s policies, who could possibly fail to delight in the notion of a bunch of knuckleheaded drips banging the deranged contents of their goofy-looking … (Read More »»)