I’m running out of things to say to introduce the OpinionList. I know I said this before, but this time I really mean it. Seriously.
The Birthiot Strikes Again: Birthiot is the term that I came up with for all those birthers who not only made the President’s birthplace an issue, but that even after his long-form birth certificate was released were still not satisfied. The biggest birthiot of all is, without a doubt, The Birthiot, otherwise known as The Donald. His latest idiotic move is to suggest that President Obama is involved in the lawsuit filed on Trump University for defrauding consumers. It seems that The Birthiot is fixated on President Obama. Meanwhile, somebody should tell him that President Obama is just not that into him.
Guns Don’t Kill People?: CNN reports that an 8-year old boy in Louisiana shot and killed his grandmother after watching video games. He thought that the gun was a toy. Thankfully, the boy will not be charged (since he is younger than 10 years old), will remain living at home, and will be provided with psychological counseling. Still, I wonder what kind of emotional scars he will carry with him for the rest of his life. As for the NRA’s “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” slogan, do we have to explain to those idiots that a toy gun would not have killed the little boy’s grandmother? We really don’t. They’re not really idiots, what they are is unforgivable.
She Came, She Twerked, She Set Tongues Wagging: Well, she started it! Except that her tongue was wagging at a really weird angle, and it looked so white. Maybe it was my TV. But anyway, I know that I don’t need to tell you who I’m talking about. Miley Cyrus shocked live and TV audiences everywhere with her twerks at the MTV Video Music Awards. I don’t know what shocked people more, her actual movements or the fact that she’s Hanna Montana from the Disney Channel and that she’s only 20 years old. Or maybe, it was that manicured foam finger. For the sake of full disclosure, I had no idea what twerking meant until I read the articles on Miley. Normally, I don’t read articles about Miley, but there were just so many of them. Speaking of full disclosure, I hated her performance. Anyone who discloses what they probably look like when they have sex doggy-style is just giving way too much information. Really, I don’t need to see that. I don’t want to see that. I can’t help being nostalgic about Madonna’s 1991 Oscar performance when she sang “Like a Virgin” dressed in a wedding gown. Back then, she also set tongues wagging. However, it can be said that in hindsight, and in comparison to Miley’s, her performance was pretty virginal.
Twerk At Oxford?: I’m pretty sure that they do twerk at Oxford, although probably behind closed doors. But that’s not where the link will take you. “Twerk” has been added to the Oxford dictionaries. However, only to the online ones, collectively known as ODO (Oxford Dictionaries Online) and not to The Oxford English Dictionary. ABC reports, “Christian Purdy, the director of publicity for the Oxford University Press-USA, said that they’re fundamentally different from one another. ‘The dictionary content in ODO focuses on current English and includes modern meanings and uses of words. It’s not telling you what the language should be. It’s all about how [words] are used.'” That’s the polite way of saying that The Oxford English Dictionary is not happy at all with twerking, albeit for its own [literary] reasons.
Zimmerman Wants What?!: NBC News reports, “George Zimmerman will ask the state of Florida to reimburse him for as much as $300,000 in expenses he racked up successfully defending himself in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin,” and he will probably get them. According to The Orlando Sentinel, “Zimmerman’s request would be based on a Florida law that says a defendant who’s acquitted isn’t liable for costs associated with his or her case.” If he ends up getting reimbursed, I’d say that would be adding insult to injury death.
The March On Washington: 50 years ago Martin Luther King told a huge crowd that he had a dream which consisted of little black boys and black girls joining hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. 50 years later an interracial President, by his mere presence, shows how far we have come, but also tells us with laser-like precision how far we need to go. We were blessed to have Martin Luther King light the way for us, half a century ago. We are blessed to have President Obama leading us in these difficult times. We must not forget both men’s message of unity and freedom. Regardless of what many do today to plant division and hatred, to bind us to outdated ideas and failed policies, we must not lose faith that “the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight…” because freedom cannot be contained. The freedom of self-determination, the freedom to love and marry as we wish, the freedom from ignorance and intolerance, the freedom to worship or not…
We must not forget that Reverend King said, “And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
Note: Original Publication Date: 8-30-13. Publication date has been changed exclusively for display purposes.