I'll Trade You My Potential Mental Illness

… for your bad teeth:

  • Sarah Palin's "refudiate" has been named Word of the Year by the staff of the New Oxford American Dictionary. (Once again, my "Barackrobatics" was ignored.)

    But presumably this means the field is open for 2011. My submission:

    euphemasia

    Definition: emission of a thick rhetorical fog to avoid using the term "death panels." Especially if that's what you're advocating. Exhibit A is Paul Krugman, who did, bless him, use the phrase on the TV show This Week:

    Some years down the pike, we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes.
    … but he quickly took to his blog to "clarify":
    … not really death panels, of course, but consideration of medical effectiveness and, at some point, how much we're willing to spend for extreme care
    I. e., a bunch more words that amount to the same thing. Now that's euphemasia.

  • P. J. O'Rourke observes:
    I think we lost the election on November 2. Every race was won by a politician. True, we elected some angry nuts. These are preferable to common politicians. Their anger provokes honesty, and their mental illness prevents honesty from being obscured by charm. (What a loss -Barney Frank would have been as an exemplar of the furious, insane left!) We also elected some amateur politicians. However, politics is like vivisection--disturbing as a career, alarming as a hobby. And we may have elected a few reluctant politicians. But not reluctant enough.
    I have P. J.'s new book on my Christmas list, but if someone out there wants to buy it for me right now, I won't gripe.

  • And I don't want to turn into a full-time Reason shill, but I thought their dead-trees interview with C-SPAN's Brian Lamb was surprisingly good, and it's now online.
    reason: If you could put on a different mask right now, what would it be? If you could live your life over again?

    Lamb: I'm not anxious to live it over again, but if I had to live it over again I'd be a drummer. Full time, on the road. Yeah.

    reason: What kind of music would you play?

    Lamb: I would be in the backup band for Merle Haggard or Willie Nelson. Either one. And if I couldn't do that, I'd be a roadie with Brenda Lee.

    Brian Lamb is interesting. I did not know that.


Last Modified 2022-10-05 4:48 AM EDT