My Thoughts on Changes

Nobody takes my feelings into consideration...

The Palin-McCain equation...

Has anybody noticed how Palin is the one that talks for 20 minutes, get's the crowd into a frenzy, and then passes the mic to McCain, he repeats his mantras like an obsessed for 5 minutes and then is over? The other day I commented that I thought that it was actually McCain the Trojan Horse for Palin (or Palin alikes) into the White House. If that is the "change" they propose, placing a Christian fundamentalist in the W.H. isn't the kind that should be welcomed by anybody. Yes, the whole thing is "mavericking" (*) their way into the W.H.

The sad part is that they openly keep repeating the mantra of "maverick this," "maverick that," and nobody has noticed anything or even care by their choice of words. I'm sure the GOP strategists must be having a private blast of laughter...

(*) M-W definition of 'mavericking': 2 West : to obtain by dishonest or questionable means

Lou Dobbs, the "Independent"

This is hilarious. Lou Dobbs paints himself "independent" only because not even the most rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth conservatives have a place for him. He's so far to the Right that he qualifies as "infra-" or "ultra-" something, yet to be defined but definitely over the far reaches of the Right's ledge.

In my opinion, he shouldn't appropriate the "independent" adjective all for himself. I'm almost certain that most "independents" do not share his views, or come even close.

Lou Dobbs: Issues, TV, Radio, and Books - CNN.com

"Word Magic" and mavericking votes

While feeding my Yijing OCD of reading all I can get my hands on related to it, I found the following passage in Richard Smith's latest book, "Fathoming the Cosmos and ordering the world":

A certain "word magic" gave early hexagram line statements social and psychological power. Long ago the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski pointed out that word magic could be found not only among so-called primitive peoples such as the Trobriand Islanders, whom he had studied, but also among Westerners in his own time. Advertising slogans, political campaigns, and legal formulas, for example, al provided illustrations for Malinowski of the magical power of words. They represent, more or less, what more modern scholars describe as "performative" utterances, statements that have the ability to create what they refer to, such as the seductive phrase I hereby promise.

Word magic, as Malinowski observed, can describe conditions that are "objectively" false but subjectively true. That is, language is capable of reflecting a kind of "pragmatic" truth that is "reasonable" in terms of addressing certain psychological needs of the individual and "sociologically true in the sense that it affects intentions, motivations and expectations." Much of the appeal of the Yijing as an explanatory device can be understood as a product of this sort of word power, specially in a society such as traditional China's, where plays on words were so powerful and where the written language exerted inordinate social influence by virtue of its seemingly intrinsic magical qualities.

All of a sudden, "maverick," "9/11," "terrorism," "change," "country first," "fight with me," "McCain," "Obama," "Biden," "Palin," started making a different kind of sense to me.

By the way, it was interesting to find out that "maverick," as a transitive verb, means:

1 West : to brand and take possession of (an animal) as a maverick
2 West : to obtain by dishonest or questionable means

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