Word of the Week #78:
I remember sitting in my father’s study one day, towards the beginning of this millennium, rummaging through the cupboards, looking for something.
What I sought there must have been something ridiculously inconsequential, like a stapler or such, and what I happened to find was anything but that.
If I remember correctly, and I think I do, I stumbled upon a large, yellow notebook, uglier than most I have seen to this day. On the very first page, written in the familiar italic scrawl was a quote.
“Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.”
― George Gordon Byron
Of course, I did not understand this the first time I read it. I was barely 7 or 8, after all. I did have a dictionary at hand, though, and I had at least managed to teach myself a new word.
I would not come to truly understand the full measure of human depravity for another couple of years or so.
You know, 2002…
15 years have passed since then, and while one would expect the world to have learned quite a few things over this span, the reality forces you to pause for a moment, and try to understand just what went wrong. Just a brief scan of the news is enough to make you cringe.
How did we start the week?
Well, at supposedly one of the finest educational institutes in our country, students protesting sexual assault faced physically assault.
Yeah, you can’t make this stuff up…
And on the other side of the globe, a bloviating buffoon created a man-made disaster immediately after a series of natural disasters had just subsided, essentially declaring that protests against intolerance will not be tolerated.
The irony…
Looks like in the time I grew up, the world has gone completely senile.
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