We Thank The Cook.

It is time to look to the future. It is time to stop all gun-related rhetoric. I read an article in the L.A. Times today criticizing Palin. I quote, "In saying her critics "manufactured a blood libel" Sarah Palin deployed a phrase linked to..." You know the rest.  (The emphasis is mine.)  While I am NOT defending Sarah Palin, I do have to say that I was taken aback by the word "deployed." When trying to articulate the inordinate incivility this country is enduring right now, to use a word like "deployed" feels ill-advised. One deploys troops, not words. Words are spoken or written or used. Sarah Palin used a phrase or said a phrase... She DID NOT DEPLOY a phrase. This is exactly the kind of war wordage and violent rhetoric most of us want to see taken out of our national dialogue. (I could have said "slashed out of our national dialogue" but, again, English offers us far more less inciting words that communicate equally well. I could have used "exorcized" or "edited", "removed" or...)

Our language is rich, truly. We have many choices, so many creative metaphors. Perhaps, as a people we need to find language that is just as strong, but with fewer references to utter destruction.

We are all Americans and we are all people of the Earth. We need to learn to disagree and still love. Surely you have someone in your family who does not agree with you politically. Do you want to kill that person? Of course not! Republican parents have long loved their liberal offspring and Democrats love their right-leaning young. We are children of each other. We grew up together... so... why don't we actually grow up. We can disagree, vehemently. We all do, nearly every Thanksgiving. But we still hug and kiss and thank the cook at the end of the evening.

We argue, sometimes loudly, we sit down to eat, we pray and we hug. We thank the cook.

I deployed no words in this blog. And yet, I was still able to speak my mind.