War and Culture

First, a confession: In my previous essay I made a mistake; I wrote that the Red Sox used pink bats, wore pink wrist bands, pink satin bows on their jerseys and that the MLB logo and bases had pink decals, etc. I forgot to mention that they also wore pink plastic necklaces with large, clunky pink beads, — actually, both teams did. If you don’t like the pinking of baseball, pod people scream that you don’t care about breast cancer or motherhood.  
(more…)

“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words…don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end there won’t even be any need for reality control.” [1]

“There was a growing coarseness of articulation… [a] jabber multiplied in volume but less and less comprehensible. Imagine language, once clear-cut and exact losing shape and import, becoming mere lumps of sound again.” [2]

My prediction last summer was a bit off: the Red Sox did not wear pink uniforms for their Mother’s Day game this May (nor did they win: this time their 9^th inning rally fell short). But their bats were toned far more deeply pink as if dyed in liquid lipstick. They wore pink wristbands, pink satin ribbons in a bow on their chests. There were pink decals on the bases and a pink “MLB” (Major League Baseball) logo by each foul line. “Wait till next year…”
(more…)