Talk Like a Pirate Day
Ahoy, maties. As most of ye likely know, today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. So put on your eye-patch, pour yourself a pint of grog and drop anchor at http://www.talklikeapirate.com/howto.html to learn more about talking like a proper pirate.
Also, well-known landlubber, Dave Barry, wrote about this seafaring event. An excerpt below:
To prepare for Talk Like a Pirate Day, you should practice incorporating pirate terminology into your everyday speech. For example, let’s consider a typical conversation between two co-workers in a business office:
BOB: Hi. Mary.
MARY: Hi, Bob. Have you had a chance to look at the Fennerman contract?
BOB: Yes, and I have some suggestions.
MARY: OK, I’ll review them.
Now let’s see how this same conversation would sound on Talk Like a Pirate Day:
BOB: Avast, me beauty.
MARY: Avast, Bob. Is that a yardarm in your doubloons, or are you just glad to see me?
BOB: You are giving me the desire to haul some keel.
MARY: Arrrrr.
Shiver me timbers, me hearties.
Monday, September 19th, 2005Catastrophe in New Orleans the latest wakeup call for the “world’s last superpower”
It only took him (Bush) four days to make a plan. . . . Unfortunately it is a faith-based plan that includes getting two of every animal on a big boat.
–Bill Maher
Anarchy reigns. Armed thugs roam the city looting, raping and killing. Hundreds of cadavers lie rotting in the streets. The elderly and infirm are left to slowly expire in hospitals and nursing homes. Citizens are herded through contaminated waist-deep water into coliseums where there is no electricity, no security, no waste disposal and little food or water. No, this is not Haiti, Darfur or Fallujah. This is New Orleans, a city destroyed and its citizens scattered to the four winds by the ineptitude of city, state and federal government officials; at least a decade of criminal neglect of its infrastructure; and dereliction of duty by our highest elected officials including the president. Our trust in government–already severely weakened by the spectacle of members of both political parties greedily gorging themselves at the trough of big business–has taken a hit from which it may take longer to recover than the reconstruction of the city of New Orleans itself.
I watched a lot of CNN, MSNBC, PBS and even a little FOX cable news in the week after Hurricane Katrina struck, sickened by the unfolding events in New Orleans yet unable to turn away. Here in the United States of America poor (mostly black) folks had been left behind in the wake of the worst natural disaster in this nation in the last century. They were hungry, thirsty and they were dying in front of our eyes while the whole world watched.
As the usually well-groomed, detached reporters lost their cool and broadcast the human suffering in excruciating detail, the facade of American exceptionalism, of our superpower status, of our credo that “all men are created equal” was ripped away exposing the underclass, the 37 million people who perform behind-the-scenes tasks, who aren’t sought-after consumers, who have few spokespeople, and who are thus typically invisible. But no more. (more…)
Thursday, September 15th, 2005
