Speak Up

Last year's words belong to last years language and next year's words await another voice.

T. S. Eliot
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Think of this. You, yourself may be the voice of the next decade. We certainly need one. Too many people are adamantly committed to old ways of thinking and old ways of expressing what they think. I envision a herd of humans inside a large mental corral, with a lush pasture and no need to challenge the fence, or a woman washing out the same old rags over and over again and calling it fashion. You might as well keep a buggy whip in your Toyota, just in case.

I love some old things, old gadgets, old works of art, old tools, old ideas. It's fun to go into the museum and look at them, or see them show up on the Antiques Road Show or to consider them in my mental historical society. And it's true the "new and improved" aren't necessarily improved. There's nothing much we can do about that except to hold the manufacturers and purveyors of the new accountable for quality. But where, oh where, is it written that we must take the old and worn out idea, dust it off and try to use it again.

I recently heard sa woman say that the new, proposed health care plan is one step closer to Marxism. What this woman doesn't know is that this nation passed Marxism many years ago and left it in the dust.

TV is no help here. Most shows are still stuck in the myth of good and evil, characters in white hats and characters in black hats, except for a few programs in which all the characters are in black hats. (Keep the pasture clean.)

The nations who can afford it are building bigger and better attack weapons and calling it "defense." We have car alarms to frighten the dog when it pees on the wheel. Unregistered guns are killing people in class rooms and churches. People are still beating the broken drum about this being a Christian country. (I wonder how many of those people would go to the stake if it came to that.) Many people still believe, because they believe the TV commercials, that big business really has the consumer's interests at heart. Some folks think the exploration of space is a waste of time and money and a few still believe we've never been to the moon. (And the holocaust never happened and will never happen.)

The world is changing very fast and most of our brains are not keeping up with it. The "Naughties" are over and we are fast approaching the "Teens" and where is the voice to speak for it, the voice that will speak the truth and be listened to by those who are still listening and hearing?

We are going to need a new voice, with new words and a new language. So speak up.

DB - The Vagabond
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I'm getting a lot of interesting mangled cliches so I'm leaving the quiz up for another day.

"A stitch in time is worth two in the bush."

Your assignment is to take two or more grand old sayings, cliches, sage saws or famous quotes and cobble (clobber) them together to make a new and wiser adage or utter nonsense as in the above.

Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased judge is final. Actually if this keeps up I may need some help judging. Any volunteers?

Good luck.
DB
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