Armistice

On this day in 1918 the most appalling war to date ended in mutual exhaustion.  It seems like a good day to endure the unendurable, as the Japanese emperor said after an even more appalling war.  I hereby lay down my arms.  I will no longer correct, and will try not to wince at, people who say "nucular."  I have decided to accept it as a regionalism, as when people say "ax" for "ask."  (Southern US and northern England, in my limited experience.)  It's over.  Finished.

I will fight to my last breath, however, against "coronate."  It's not a word and it never was and we're going to be assailed with in the runup to King Charles's coronation.  The verb is "crown."  The act of crowning is "coronation."   The former derives from Anglo-Saxon (kroun), the latter from Latin via Anglo-Norman French (coruner).  The English language just is like that.  (The famous example is "sheep" and "mutton."  One you have to guard in a rain-soaked field because Harold lost at Hastings, the other is served to you on a platter because you're a big-deal Norman.)  Anybody who says "coronate" is getting this air horn right up his nose.  

So I was looking on Amazon for the plays of Arthur Schnitzler (see how I'm adjusting to people who start every sentence with "so"?) and the "Products related to this item" offered me Learn Welsh For Intermediates.  I know "bore da" is good day and "pliss" is police and "dim ysmygu" means no smoking, but I may not be ready for intermediate.

Why does Trump hate Glenn Youngkin?  Certainly not because he's pushing abortion restrictions.  Maybe because he made a tasteless joke about Nancy Pelosi and then apologized.  Probably because Youngkin got elected governor of Virginia by pretending he never heard of Trump.  Let's go with that, and also that silly lock of hair he drapes across his forehead.  How do you get from that to this:  "Young Kin (now that's an interesting take.  Sounds Chinese, doesn't it?)"  WTF?  Just another symptom of mental collapse from a level that was never that high.  By all accounts the election put him in a carpet-chewing rage not seen since Hitler heard Goering was trying to call Eisenhower, and the Adderall shortage pushed him beyond recovery.  If he does the reporters-getting-prison-raped gag at Tif's reception and follows up with an impression of John Fetterman having a stroke, we'll know more.

He incriminated himself some more today, boasting of how he sent the FBI to Florida in 2018 to make sure the vote-counting stopped and Ron DeSantis became governor.  If it's not another delusion (and it's pretty much what Jeb did for George in 2000), it's an egregious case of interference in a state election through misuse of the Justice Department.  I believe Jeff Sessions was attorney general at the time -- anyone seen him lately?  I know a committee that would like to talk to him and Director Wray.  Trump's lawyers are pretty useless but Clarence Darrow couldn't get him out of this one.

Today is the hundredth birthday of Kurt Vonnegut.  Be kind, damn it!