The Daily Babble

A Modest Proposal

I propose a one year moratorium on politicians and TV babbleheads beginning sentences with, "Look..." It's ubiquitous and more than annoying. As an obvious claim to expertise, or more specifically the truth of the matter, it is as offensive as it is vain. LOOK--I'm cutting through the clutter of everyone else's bullshit, and giving you the true view of what's really going on, what really happened and what's really going to happen.

Humans use hearing to monitor the environment and warn of potential threats, but if you sense a threat and you need to know where it is exactly and how fast it is coming at you, you look. That gets our attention. But as a rhetorical device, "Look--" has been ruined by overuse. Now it just signals membership in a pack of chattering primates, swinging through the trees of Washington, DC, with the ability to board airplanes and look into cameras to chatter elsewhere. Look--they often talk nonsense and tell lies, which you can verify for yourself if you just listen.


On something that really matters, Constitutional lawyer and respected blogger Glenn Greenwald encapsulates what the new wireless wiretapping law really means: it enables the Bushites to legally “listen to our conversations, read our e-mails, with no connection to terrorism, with no proof that anyone has ever done anything wrong.”

The Think Progress blog has also provided summaries and links to editorials denouncing this law in major newspapers, including the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today and LA Times.