2001-07-17 - 8:08 a.m.
As we were brushing his teeth last night, I noticed that Zack's molars have started to cut through! No wonder he's been so cranky and up all night. And, now that we're closing on our houses and there's nothing left to stress over except moving, I can now worry about why his molars are coming in before the last of his front teeth have appeared. He has 7 of them. (Front teeth, that is.) The last upper right is still missing and Zack bites me if I try to feel for it in the gum.
He's napping at the moment - after a long stretch from 4:40 to 7:30 this morning of doing anything but sleeping. He was also up for 1/2 hour at 12:15 am and another time somewhere inbetween. I don't think I was cognizant enough to read the clock at the time.
But here come the county recycle guys with their big, loud truck. I think naptime is about to end... He's missing Teletubbies, anyway.
And now for something completely different.
Zack's nap is also giving me a chance to scan through the news, a rare treat for me. And I've stumbled across a very humorous (and slightly disturbing) article on townhall.com about one of my favorite subjects - poking fun at political correctness. Like many things gone bad, the PC language was well intended but quickly got out of hand. And I wish it were that harmless. But any PC advocate will tell you that words hurt (contrary to the old "sticks and stones" saying my parents taught me) and I won't disagree. Entirely. My parents also taught me not to call names because it's rude. I just don't think eliminating name calling is going to cure the social ills. And the extremity to which PC is taken only redistributes the insults.
Some of it is ridiculous. Last winter I read an article (and I'll add a link if I can find it again) about a school system mandating that teachers could wish their students a "Happy Sparkle Season" rather than risk offending them by mentioning "Christmas." Happy Sparkle Season? That doesn't even mean anything. And that brings me around to the disturbing part of political correctness - that it does not strive for equality by eliminating crass or vulgar terms. It strives for equality through leveling everything with a verbal wrecking ball in hopes of rebuilding a new, "just" lexicon devoid of any reference to previous traditions that, by PC definition, must be corrupt and preventing us from obtaining Utopia. And therefore it creates a language devoid of anything at all - including respect from the people who are supposed to use it. Some time ago someone announced that the word "history" was sexist because it came from the combination of "his" and "story." Bullshit. History comes from the Latin "historia," which they took from the Greek for "inquiry," akin to Greek "eidenai," which means "to know." But then I suppose someone could counter with the argument that the Greeks were a bunch of sexist bastards and we shouldn't be using their words anyway...
Enough. My son's awake and there's much to do today.
