Hey! Thanks to CB for comments, for getting in this crickety boat and rowing with me (see yesterday's comment)
I suppose I'm getting crotchety. They say (who the Hell are THEY, anyway) that Old Folk get to be more of who they always were.* Words are getting to me more than they once did. Gettin' cantankerous. Oh! I have long-been annoyed by words. Bill Maher was criticized and lost his show, as I recall, for questioning the use of COWARDS applied to all the 9/11 killers. I guess I've been crotchety before ... never really liked Bill Maher, anyway. He was too flip for me. Ach! I even stopped watching Saturday Night Live when Eddie Murphy made fun of Mr. Rogers. Can you imagine a cheeky bastard like me being annoyed by Eddie Murphy in a sweater. Lotta nerve! ................ Any case, back to words. I get upset by calling people on our side HEROES for dying doing what any decent virtuous person does. You stick your head out the window and tell a killer to stop killing Kitty Genovese and you get labeled a HERO! ...................... Today, I was listening to the House Oversight Committe ripping a new one into three IRS leaders over the latest attempt to demonstrate that the First Family that I said, yesterday, warmed my heart .... into scheming devils who play nasty politics. The ex-head of the IRS, some clean-cut middle-ager appointed by Bush the Younger, was being crucified by both sides. Tammy Duckworth kept pressing him to take RESPONSIBILITY for the failures that presumably occurred in TARGETING certain Tea Party groups in having them demonstrate their right to Non-Profit status or something. A tempest in a Tea Party, if you ask me ... but that's for another day. What got to me was that word RESPONSIBILITY. He kept sayoing that he was sorry these things happened on his watch but he was the head of a 90,000 person organization and he didn't sign off on every transaction and didn't himself peruse every letter. .................... RESPONSIBILITY, I suppose, means the ABILITY TO RESPOND. Am I responsible for the way my kids turned out? No! I can no longer respond to every gliche in my middle-aged kids! Is it my fault? I suppose so (I wonder if my kids are reading ... oops!) ............................... I remember the Iran-Contra Hearings, too. Not only did everyone seem to cite Thomas Jefferson for what they did but they all claimed RESPONSIBILITY .... not that they could do a blessed thing to RESPOND ... nah! but they were RESPONSIBLE. ................... Words! I hate the misuse of words. .................. Last Summer, I was sitting for the second time waiting for my Podiatrist. After an hour (the previous time she was an hour and a half late), I asked when I would be seen. "Oh, Doctor is very busy and there are still three patients ahead of you." I explained that I had someone coming to my office and would need to leave. "Would you please return my check." The receptionist explained that she couldn't do that, as I was not keeping my APPOINTMENT. Much to the chagrin, perhaps, of my wife, I quietly explained that the word APPOINTMENT was built on the word APPOINTED ... as in a meeting at an APPOINTED time. "I was here at the APPOINTED time and if you don't give me my check back, the Brooklyn in me would hold court as I made a bloody scene in the waiting room." The receptionisist called the Doctor and I kindly re-explained the origin of the word APPOINTMENT. To avoid a scene, they did return my check and then sent a note to my Primary Care Physician explaining that this Old Man was no longer welcome in her PRACTICE. ........................... WORDS, CROTCHETY OLD FOLKS ... and the vagaries of PLAYING IN THE LAST QUARTER. ........................ I've got two words for the House Oversight Committee!
................. and they ain't Argh and Hrrumph! .......................... Old Man LOL
* Lifted from Jim Hillman's book on getting old ... The Force of Character written as he was getting on in years.
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