Tag: wordplay
"Homeland" sucks
Note to everyone in the United States:
Can you please… pretty pretty please with cream and sugar on top (and oil if you’re driving an SUV) stop calling the United States the “Homeland”?
Since 2001 — before or after 9-11, I forget which — every time I’ve heard the word “Homeland” associated with America, I’ve cringed. The name invokes memories of Stalinist Russia, or perhaps Nazi Germany. I don’t want to get into how I feel about the “Office of Homeland Security” in general (that’s another post I made years ago) but the term “homeland” — that’s a basic lack of using a thesaurus.
“Homeland” is the nation, it’s internal part of the country (or interior), It’s domestic. It’s considered the state as well. So why the hell are we using “Homeland”? Cripes, the DEFENSE DEPARTMENT is supposed to defend the United States, why do we need another agency to begin with? Why not fix the focus of the first one…?
OK, I’m going off topic. The fact is the “Homeland” is the country. It’s the US. It’s the nation… Referring to the country as “our homeland” makes things feel even more like we’re living in a fascist state. Dissenting activists should be able to recognize this… Everyone else in the population (especially patriots) should be wary of this.
If you want something done
I feel real weird sometimes when I accomplsih things for myself and by myself. Especially when it isn’t somethign that I have an official say over. Calling over cable problems a few weeks ago while my father ignored the problem and tried tos et up a phone line was one example of it. Today was another example of it.
For months – maybe longer – there’s been a lingering problem in the front of my yard – the water gutter has been cracking. Not just cracking but raising to such a degree it stops water from flowing down the gutter and to the drain. I’ve talked to my parents aobut it a few times and they have shrugged mostly at the problem. “Yeah, we need to get that fixed…. But what am I supposed to do about it?”
That attitude is something I’ve taken with me in life and being disabled to one degree or another, that attitude does not help me accomplish things I need to accomplish or SHOULD accomplish.
So Wednesday, before another bout of rain that we have had a good deal of here in Florida so far this year, I emailed the county about the problem. I expected to be ignored or hav emy problem lost in beauracracy and red tape.
Maybe it still will be but this morning it looked like somethign was actually going to be done.
First off, I get an email from someone with the North County Operatiosn center here in Pinellas. Standard wordplay with my complain being forwarded to appropriate parties and la-de-da. I thought this was proof of red-tape in the making.
…Up until someone showed up at the door a few hours later, asking for me.
A woman with the highway department had shown up and had talked to me briefly about the problem, I showed her the drain and how the water was being blocked by the rising concrete, which was being demonstrated while rain fell around us. SHe told me that they woudl be able to make the repair within a month and they woudl be in touch.
That’s mroe action on the problem in 24 hours than anyone in this family has had, besides talk, in several years.
