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Curbing Bearers of False Witness in Politics

Separate truths keep Americans at odds. I’ve always been a devotee of fact checking, especially in the political climate that has overwhelmed us since the political campaigning that prefaced the 2016 presidential election. It wasn’t just the presidential candidates themselves, but the congressional races where everything was divided into us-versus-them rhetoric and the campaign ads were replete with exaggerations and lies. Social media was a traffic jam of people who didn’t know what they were talking about [...]

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What Makes Trump Tick? “I Just Gots to Know”

Will a closer look at the words of Donald Trump help us understand? I’m trying. I really am. I’m trying to look at the humorous side of things. It was easy at first, with a president who could play himself in a Saturday Night Live skit. He can’t be serious, right? And yet there is so much to make fun of— ratings gold for the pundits. He’s a living reality show and, at the same time, so [...]

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Laughing at Our Scary Clown Prince

Insult comic or harmless clown? Donald Trump has become the Clown Prince of American Politics. I’m talking about the entire history of American politics. This is a jester who elicits few laughs and, like the modern breed of clowns, is more scary than humorous. He looms in some of our nightmares as something out of a Stephen King novel. For others, his brand of humor is a confirmation of pent-up animosity, fear, frustration and intolerance that allows [...]

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Our Language Connects Us to Our Past

We say a lot of things without thinking much about them. And so it is with sayings and phrases we all use— many with ancient origins. A surprising number come from various translations of the Bible and, not so surprisingly, the Bard himself, Shakespeare. Some are regarded as clichés, but that only means that they are durable and we feel comfortable using them. There are so many of them that I can only randomly pick and choose my examples. [...]

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By |2022-01-24T09:10:39+00:00June 8, 2016|Bible, Euphemisms, Language, Sayings|
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