From the Sublime to the Ridiculous...

What he said… “he” being Victor Davis Hanson… in his essay “Ten Random, Politically Incorrect Thoughts.” A couple of excerpts:

6. Something has happened to the generic American male accent. Maybe it is urbanization; perhaps it is now an affectation to sound precise and caring with a patina of intellectual authority; perhaps it is the fashion culture of the metrosexual; maybe it is the influence of the gay community in arts and popular culture. Maybe the ubiquitous new intonation comes from the scarcity of salty old jobs in construction, farming, or fishing. But increasingly to meet a young American male about 25 is to hear a particular nasal stress, a much higher tone than one heard 40 years ago, and, to be frank, to listen to a precious voice often nearly indistinguishable from the female. How indeed could one make Westerns these days, when there simply is not anyone left who sounds like John Wayne, Richard Boone, Robert Duvall, or Gary Cooper much less a Struther Martin, Jack Palance, L.Q. Jones, or Ben Johnson? I watched the movie Twelve O’clock High the other day, and Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger sounded liked they were from another planet. I confess over the last year, I have been interviewed a half-dozen times on the phone, and had no idea at first whether a male or female was asking the questions. All this sounds absurd, but I think upon reflection readers my age (55) will attest they have had the same experience. In the old days, I remember only that I first heard a variant of this accent with the old Paul Lynde character actor in one of the Flubber movies; now young men sound closer to his camp than to a Jack Palance or Alan Ladd.

10. The K-12 public education system is essentially wrecked. No longer can any professor expect an incoming college freshman to know what Okinawa, John Quincy Adams, Shiloh, the Parthenon, the Reformation, John Locke, the Second Amendment, or the Pythagorean Theorem is. An entire American culture, the West itself, its ideas and experiences, have simply vanished on the altar of therapy. This upcoming generation knows instead not to judge anyone by absolute standards (but not why so); to remember to say that its own Western culture is no different from, or indeed far worse than, the alternatives; that race, class, and gender are, well, important in some vague sense; that global warming is manmade and very soon will kill us all; that we must have hope and change of some undefined sort; that AIDs is no more a homosexual- than a heterosexual-prone disease; and that the following things and people for some reason must be bad, or at least must in public company be said to be bad (in no particular order): Wal-Mart, cowboys, the Vietnam War, oil companies, coal plants, nuclear power, George Bush, chemicals, leather, guns, states like Utah and Kansas, Sarah Palin, vans and SUVs.

I found myself nodding this ol’ gray head north-south as I read the ten things that tick Mr. Hanson off. There’s an assumption in that last sentence, but I feel pretty safe in saying VDH doesn’t look upon any of the things he mentions as a “good,” with the sole exception of his proposal that we (re)introduce Latin as a compulsory subject in public school. Yes… Latin. I can see the wisdom in Mr. Hanson’s proposal, even though I never took Day One of Latin. I did, however, take seven years of French… and that’s reasonably close. I really, truly feel my love for the English language (and my competency, too… such as it is) is directly related to the fact I was once fluent in French. That and the fact I had competent teachers back in the day (see VDH Item Ten, above).

As far as VDH Item Six goes… yes, I have had similar experiences. But NOT since I moved to New Mexico, not locally, at least. I personally think the feminizing of the Young American Male’s accent and manner of speech is mostly a metropolitan phenomenon, which VDH admits is a possibility. I encountered it all too frequently while living in the San Francisco Bay Area Soviet Socialist Republic, and that was six years ago. OTOH, the guys with the suspect accents I ran into just might have been gay. I’ve heard there are a lot of gay guys there, but have no personal experience in that space. (Added, later: the foregoing was said in jest. Of course there are lotsa gays in SFO, we all know that. The point I was trying to make... and badly, at that... was my GAYDAR sucks, for the most part. I can recognize blatant gay-ness nine out of ten times, like the stuff one sees in the Castro district. Otherwise? Hard for me to tell, if I even thought about it. Which I usually didn't.)

Nonetheless… I agree with VDH, especially when it comes to really old movies. But here’s yet another thought: all the guys in those really old movies, particularly war movies, smoked. And we all know what smoking cigarettes does to your voice… or at least we should. Think on that for a moment, Gentle Reader (whilst shedding a metaphorical tear [if you’re male] for those smoky female voices of yesteryear… like Suzanne Pleshette or Tallulah Bankhead. If you’re female you have lotsa male voices to choose from — see above).

Mr. Hanson closes his essay with a simple statement: “Well, with that done—I feel much better.” I’m sure you will, too… if’n ya read the whole thing.

―:☺:―

Signs o’ The Impending Apocalypse… (part of an on-going series)

“Obama collectibles:” Results 1 - 10 of about 2,210,000 for obama collectibles. (0.22 seconds)

“Obama commemorative:” Results 1 - 10 of about 659,000 for obama commemorative. (0.14 seconds)

“Obama collectors items:” Results 1 - 10 of about 364,000 for obama collectors items. (0.26 seconds)

“Obama collectors items” (images): Results 1 - 21 of about 256,000 for obama collectors items. (0.10 seconds

“Obama collectible magazines:” Results 1 - 10 of about 59,200 for obama collectible magazines. (0.17 seconds)

“Obama collectible coins:” Results 1 - 10 of about 24,100 for obama collectible coins. (0.21 seconds)

God Save Us.