Then I became a part of it. When they weren't talking about sports or how awesome sports were or who was the next big thing in sports or why sports did the sports or football football football totally-non-latent-homosexual-football, they were talking about politics. I was quickly made aware that I was very alone in this group, perhaps feeling even more alone than I did before being invited into a group of people who were so dissimilar from me.
I asked to be removed from the email list, and I thought I had been removed, as I didn't get any emails for some time. Then, suddenly, I was re-included. I was doing okay, just ignoring their emails, deleting them before I actually read them. But sometimes things happen and I end up reading what they are saying.
And since I'm not alone because I have YOU, blog, I'm going to share with you what they shared with me. Aren't you lucky??
From my email chain:
From: [1]
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 4:06 PM
To:
Subject: joke?
https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/students-protest-after-principals-racist-comment-113972837367.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma
Was he joking?
From: [2]
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 4:20 PM
To:
Subject: RE: joke?
Just more of someone’s 1st amendment right lost, being taped secretly in a private conversation.
Okay, let's take a second, since we're here.
No one has had their 1st amendment rights taken away. If you read the article, the man was clearly allowed to say what he said, so he retained his freedom of speech. What is happening is something called "consequences", which happen because of actions. Or, if "consequences" is too negative for you, what is happening is "re-action". One man said something, and some others re-acted to what he said. 1st Amendment still in tact. Then, "being taped secretly in a private conversation" goes completely against what the article says when it says it's unclear if the principal who uttered the racist comments knew he was being recorded or not. It is also unclear if he was joking or not. He was also with a group of students. It certainly wasn't private, and it might not have even been recorded secretly. So his entire response is to empathize for, at best, a man who made a crass joke and, at worst, a racist in charge of the education and mental stimulation of our children. Let's continue, shall we????
From: [1]
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 4:26 PM
To:
Subject: RE: joke?
He was on school property. There are no private conversations on school property. He wasn’t thrown in jail, so his 1st amendment rights were not lost. It’s no different than if you decided to go cuss out [our boss] in her office. They could fire you but they couldn’t throw you in jail unless you threatened her. 1st amendment rights are a legal issue.
From: [2]
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 6:27 AM
To:
Subject: RE: joke?
wrong
What kind of horseshit response is this??? First the guy emails something entirely incorrect, then he's corrected by 100% correct information, and then he comes back with "wrong", without anything else?????? What the fuck, are we in kindergarten here?! Who fucking does that?! These are all supposed to be adults who have some kind of schooling!! What is this fucking shit??!!
From: [3]
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 6:57 AM
To:
Subject: RE: joke?
You right [2] I agree a BIGOT has every right to be a Bigot,,,,,, It is what this country is about. The pursuit of happiness. But the Racist idiot don’t have the equal liberty to spew his vile ideologies over others in a captive audience. Hate who you want on your own time and Dime. We have the right to shun this Bigot also it is our First amendment. Which by the way is not a Free pass of idionism.
This is closer to what I would call an intelligent response. But it still isn't an intelligent response just because I *want* it to be intelligent. "...a BIGOT has every right to be a Bigot,,,,,, It is what this country is about." Our country is about bigots having the right to be bigots? I suppose, in a limited kind of way, sure, we all should have the right to be what we want in this country, as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others, so perhaps that was what he was trying to say. "The pursuit of happiness". Um, what? If anything, having the right to be a bigot would fall under the "liberty" part of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". And racists DO have equal liberty to spew vile ideologies over others. Now, if his audience is, in fact, captive, then no, he doesn't have the same rights. But as long as there's a door and the freedom to walk out that door, technically, nobody is captive there. And while I admire the creation of the word "idionism", it's hard to say, hard to read, and even though the intention is clear, there are other words that he could have created which would've gotten that intention across better. No points off for the attempt, though.
**Worthy Of Note: while looking up "idionism" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idiotism), a video popped up on the side of the page on the dictionary website and asked me what the longest word in the Merriam Webster dictionary was. I turned into this video, because as a child my father would impress me with his knowledge when he would tell me that the longest word in the English language was "antidisestablishmentarianism". When asked what it meant, he would kinda hem and haw about it's definition, but he was certain that it was the longest word in the English language, and I was impressed with his knowledge as well as this big word. When I asked him about "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", he would tell me that didn't count, because it wasn't a word. I bought that answer. Years later I've come to realize that most of the knowledge my father passed down to me was wrong, really wrong, or statistics, and much (if not all) of what he taught me has done more harm than good, and I have been better off throwing away much of his musings rather than holding on to any of it. So when this video popped up, I was eager to see what somebody on the dictionary payroll had to say about my father's knowledge. Turns out, according to Merriam Webster, "electroencephalographically" is the longest word in their dictionary. I'm making this a point because my father told me that "antidisestablishmentarianism" was the longest word in the English language, not in the dictionary, and Merriam Webster makes it a point to differentiate between the two. According to their video, a word will be entered into their dictionary based on 3 criterion: 1. widespread usage; 2. sustained usage; 3. meaningful usage. Antidisestablishmentarianism falls short on the third point, as it's widespread and sustained usage are almost solely based on it's length, and the way in which the word is most often used is as an example of a long word, which, according to the dictionary people, isn't "meaningful". Over the last 100 years, they could only find 3 examples of anyone using the word for anything other than an example of a long word. So, according to the video, if people simply would use the word in a meaningful way, it would be added to the dictionary and then become the longest word in the dictionary. Unless, says the video, people do the same thing with "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", in which case, that will become the longest word in the dictionary. So yeah, "antidisestablishmentarianism" might be the longest word in the English language, but only if you count words that have no meaningful usage, in which case you really should count "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious". So if you include "antidisestablishmentarianism", you must also include "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", making "antidisestablishmentarianism" no longer the longest word in the English language or dictionary. So if you include my father's word you need to include my word, making me right and him wrong. And if you don't include my father's word, he's still wrong. So he was wrong no matter which way you look at it. And yet he walked away from that encounter cocky and self-important, like he walked away from just about every encounter, high on his own stupidity. So, I guess what I'm trying to say here is that my father is an idion, always has been, and I'm best without any of his idionisms.**
I have sent another email to my group asking them to remove me from their reindeer games. Hopefully this will work and you won't have to sit through another one of these entries, Blog.
Blog.
Blog.
blog.
what a horrible word.
ugly.
stupid sounding.
you're deserving of a better word to label you.
Maybe someday I'll care enough to give you a better name.
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