Spin-erama #72

Morning Friend,

For over 30 years, Lake Superior State University in Michigan has been publishing its’ annual “List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse Over-Use and General Uselessness”.

Since its’ first New Year’s Day release in 1976, people from all over the world have nominated hundreds of words and phrases to be purged from the language and among them are such infamous nuggets as: “outside the box”, “24/7” , “user-friendly”, “at this point in time”, “at the end of the day”, “my bad”, and on and on it goes.

A nicely placed cliché or catchphrase, is a spokesperson’s best friend; be they a politician, newscaster, team manager, legal representative or corporate mouthpiece.

Like a catchy “hook” in a song, a contemporary catchphrase may add a certain familiarity and conviviality to what are often banal and sometimes “bad news” messages.

A dull or even dim-witted spokesperson can be seen to be at least somewhat clever through the use of trendy sayings and colloquial buzzwords.

Politicians – the Lords of Linguistic Largesse – use the clichéd language of pop culture in such a manner so as to speak, without actually saying anything of substance.

Listening to a politician is like watching a bad mime...something is happening, but no one is really sure what it is?

The mime’s occasional smile at least tells us that whatever it is, it’s not all bad; comforted perhaps by the common belief that politicians are “monitoring all situations on an ongoing basis”?

This year’s L.S.S.U. list includes a few nuggets I’m sure you’ll recognize by their hackneyed regurgitation if not their downright nausea-inducing familiarity.

Surely we’ve heard “too big to fail” , “transparent/transparency”, “czar”, “stimulus” and “toxic assets” far too many times and clever novelty words like “bromance”, “tweet”, “chillaxin’” and “sexting” at least the one time that is one too many?

One phrase which didn’t make it this year – through some miraculous oversight surely – and one which quite frankly I am sick and tired of hearing is “moving forward”!

Apparently everybody and everything nowadays, is “moving forward”.

A sports team on a ten game losing streak is moving forward in an effort to turn things around.

A company just filing for bankruptcy has done so moving forward.

A celebrity is moving forward, taking back some drunken words said at an awards show.

The solution to the country’s economic downturn is being addressed by effectively moving forward more effectively and more forwardly.

Tiger Woods has cut all extra-marital ties and is moving forward at a sexual addiction clinic. ( and backward, and forward, and backward....*just kidding)

An automobile manufacturer whose cars have defective transmissions with no forward gear, are moving forward by recalling them.

It’s a pleasant enough concept... being on the move, and in a forward direction connotes positive action, but the trouble lies in its’ multi-contextual nature.

It truly is a spin doctor’s dream phrase...applicable to virtually any situation and effective in even the direst of circumstance.

After the first 500 or so hearings of the phrase, it dawned on me that you can pretty say “the whole world and everything in it is moving forward” and be exactly correct!

It seems to me my friend, that the whole world has jumped upon the “moving forward” bandwagon, rendering the phrase a blight upon the Queen’s or anyone else’s English!

Every action between one to another – no matter how mundane or even factual - has become a forward move.

“While asleep in bed last night I made a significant rollover and found a different position moving forward in my restfulness.”

“While walking backwards today I hit a tree branch with my head moving forward in reminding myself not to be so foolish.”

“Comfortable footwear with a good sole for changeable weather helps me moving forward in all conditions.”

Surely a phrase as“...misused, overused and generally useless.” as this one deserves inclusion on next year’s banishment list ?

Otherwise I fear society’s ongoing evolutionary process will be like a mime behind a pane of glass....unable to move forward.

A “good” mime anyway.

love tImMy :/

Laugh as much as you breathe...
Love as long as you live (on the move)

One For the Books #71

Morning Friend,

I’m not what you’d call a “History Buff”.

I never excelled in the subject at school....too many dates to remember and too many Royals with the same name but a different number after it; Charles the Second, Isabel the fourth, Otto the EIGHTH!? etc.

It’s not a memory issue because I can remember jokes I heard as a child, but as far as what year “...did Hercules sail the Magna Carta into Boston Harbor setting off the Seven Day War?”....I haven’t a darn clue?

Creativity was never a problem; if I had to, I could “make stuff up” that would make the real story as lame as a lost homework excuse, but alas, no History teacher I ever dealt with gave points for “style” or validated a “poetic license”.

From what I understand, History – particularly Canadian – is not a Big Ticket item in the curriculum of today’s schools which seems kind of a shame.

A good number of High School respondents in a recent survey on “Canadiana” identified Sir John A. MacDonald as “that guy on the twenty?”, while several even went as far afield as crediting him with the invention of haggis.

Even as poor a student of History as I, knows good old Sir Johnny founded our nation’s largest tobacco company! ( check the name on your pack of “Green Monsters”....duhh!?!! )

I would think it valuable to know where we came from and how we got to where we are, especially in terms of planning for where we want to go and the best way to get there?

If nothing else we can a least avail ourselves of the opportunity to aspire to some of the greatness and to avoid the mistakes of our adventurous ancestors.

While I am admittedly “a tad off” when it comes to the nuts and bolts of history – the names and dates and such – I am nevertheless enthralled by the grand tales of gallantry, sacrifice and victory against seemingly impossible odds which adorn the tapestry of our Pioneer Heritage.

Just the thought of a brave and wary Lenny Riel ( no doubt pining for the fjords of his Nordic homeland) and his trusty Inuit guides forging the mighty Niagara river through the rugged untamed peaks of southeastern Manitoba in the 1500’s with electricity only in its’ infancy, is pause for reflection and awe. ( and perhaps a fact check or two?)

I often marvel at how afar afield of their beloved birthplaces must many a bold explorer stray in the course of discovery, conquest and adventure!?

To leave ones’ town, ones’ country, ones’ continent behind – to uproot from the very soil from whence ones’ life germinated and sprouted – and soar like a feathered seed in search of unbroken ground and unwritten history is the hallmark of many who heed Adventure’s siren call.

“Go West Young Man!” was such a call that spurred the taming of West; luring many unwary but determined souls on a migration of dreams into a nightmarishly alien land.

“The New World” beckoned a wave of bold humanity leaving their birthplaces an ocean behind them.

“The Call of the Wild” can be ascribed to many whose place of birth serves merely as a “starting block” in their life’s race of discovery and fulfillment.

While the world may be known geographically, contemporary explorers must still re-locate to specialized global regions far from home in search of history-making adventure.

Ahh what a sweet and blessed moment it must be for those lucky enough after many years abroad to complete the circle of their endeavor and to go home again.

To immerse again in the familiar fragrance of the Fatherland....to say – not like a practiced daily litany but like an announcement to Heaven and all of Nature within earshot – from the bottom of a tread-worn heart and jet-lagged soul.... “I’m HOME!”, is surely a moment worth etching in time.

In the course of examining my own journey I discovered two important but not necessarily historically significant things.

Firstly, I have come a “long way”; some might say a WORLD away from the drunken life I left behind. ( while it might not be earth-shattering stuff to you my friend, with the Good Lord as my guide I am making “discoveries” on a daily basis that ROCK my world and those in it! )

Secondly, I presently live across the street from the hospital where I was born.

From that blessed day in January some five decades ago, I have come....about 45 feet.

Christopher Columbo I guess I’m not.

Alexander Marilyn Bell did a lot of his work “out of the house” didn’t he?

Hello?.........

love tImMy :/

Laugh as much as you breathe...
Love as long as you live (leeward)

Brush With Life #70

Morning Friend,



Late this past Friday afternoon, two cars crashed in the intersection I was in the process of crossing; one of them actually came sliding to a smoking crumpled rest in the very spot I had been standing and watching from, seconds earlier.

Two cars coming towards each other on Westminister, one of them suddenly tries an ill-advised/badly timed/dumb? left turn at Maryland and BOOM....pretty much head-on into the other guy.

Now I can go all dramatic on you and say I seized my bike in one hand and a pregnant woman with the other and LEAPT headlong into a crusty snow bank and no uncertain fame.

But in all honesty there was no one else to “save” and because it happened in slow motion, there was no leaping required.

In fact, I’m happy to report that while both cars were certainly totaled, no one was seriously injured. ( at least until the lawyers get involved I imagine?)

“Slow motion” you ask?

That’s exactly how it all seemed really....a few seconds stre-e-etched out into a moment of pristine clarity.....

“Oh oh, those cars are going to......WHOA!.....here comes one toward me....it’s horn is blaring.....I think I should move OUT of the way......”

Despite being astride my bike holding a bag of groceries, I was able to somehow jump backwards enough that the old “Green Hornet” and I were buffeted by nothing more than smoke from the car’s exploded air bag.

Funny what goes through your mind at a time like that.

Funnier than what doesn’t anyway...

My life didn’t “flash before my eyes”, I didn’t cry out “I love you Mother!”, and I certainly did not suddenly feel an old familiar craving for a strong distilled beverage.

I was actually staring at the poor fellow dazedly shaking his head in the driver’s seat a few feet away and thinking, “Man did your Friday Night ever just Go South on you ya poor bastard!?”

I was then pondering that the guy’s horn was going to continue to blow probably until the tow truck driver or somebody cut the battery cable when a woman’s voice behind me said, “You almost got hit there”.

Had I not been in such a fog I might have cavalierly replied, “Just the facts Ma’am”....or “All in day’s work my dear”....or even “A miss is as good as a mile”, but all that came to mind was a much less classic, “Yes I did”.

At that point the acrid smoke from the exploded air bag ( I had NO idea that was how they worked? ), broke my reverie and I wondered if there wasn’t a fire starting.

Now I could “embellish” a might and tell you about smashing the side window with my fist and hauling three nuns out of an inferno to safety, but there were no passengers in either vehicle and no such heroics called for.

Laying my bike and groceries on the snow bank, I opened the driver’s door and helped the poor shaken fellow out of the car gasping and cursing and onto unsteady legs where he was soon joined by the profusely apologetic and less worse for wear driver of the other vehicle.

With help on the way, and seeing that there was hardly a need to get further involved as a “witness” to such a cut and dried mishap as this, or to further the ruination of these poor fellows’ weekend by berating them for “almost” putting a damper on mine, I grabbed my grub and the “Hornet” and moved on. ( into the sunset – cue closing theme)

Pondering... from then until now, why I didn’t at any point look heavenward and pronounce my thanks to God?

Was it because I was “dazed”?

Am I taking God’s gift of new life for granted?

Have I become ungrateful?

Did I think I was just “lucky”?

In actuality, I’ve come to learn that besides strokes of luck ( sometimes Big ones), near misses lurk at every intersection of life.

Does the Good Lord intercede at every mishap on every street corner?....I’ve heard he does if there’s a “drunk or a small child” involved!

What about an “ex-drunk” with enough wits and physical well-being about him to turn a near miss into a “field test” of his serenity and an invaluable learning experience?

Could I have been too caught up in the sudden misery of those two “poor bastards” to be offering up prayers of thanks?

Doesn’t empathy grow best in the rich soil of a grateful and humble heart?

When your first instinct becomes “others”, that seems like all the thanks God might need?

But just in case.....(whew!) Thank You Lord....again.

( cue credits)

love tImMy:/


Laugh as much as you breathe...
Love as long as you live ( safe)