National Guardeners

26 October—In observance of National Day of the Deployed, we’re delighted to note that the National Guard troops power-crazed Donald Trump and his lackey warlord Whatshisname have deployed to Washington DC to clean up the “crime emergency” are actually cleaning up the District by picking up garbage and keeping Trump’s “beautiful city” beautiful by doing landscaping.

To update Isaiah for the occasion, then, “They shall beat their pistols into shovels and their assault rifles into rakes; nation shall not lift up arms against nation, neither shall they learn war any more (in their dreams).”

Tangential to National Day of the Deployed, Donald Trump’s taxpayer-funded firm of personal injury shysters formerly known as the Department of Justice has just announced that it will be sending its goons and thugs to New Jersey and California to make sure—by hook or by crook—the election results in November favor the Trumpublican agenda . . .

Murder and marketing

25 October—If you’re keeping count, as of yesterday it was ten little boats blown to smithereens and at least 43 people murdered (and two rescued, surprisingly) in the illegal war being waged by Donald Trump and his ass-kissing warlord Whatshisname on alleged—what they insist without any proof are—narco-terrorists. Five of the mass-murder victims in two boats were dispatched in the Pacific Ocean (soon to be called the American Ocean West) but most of the action has been in the Caribbean Sea (soon to be called the American Sea West).

To compound the felony that will never be punished and keep the body count growing so he and his criminal don can continue to boast about breaking the law, ass-kissing warlord Whatshisname has redirected the world’s biggest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, from the Mediterranean Sea (soon to be called the American Sea East) to the future American Sea West. Evidently the pickings are riper there than in the American Ocean West. And the Ford won’t have to negotiate a canal to get there.

The rubble from the destruction of the White House’s East Wing is piling up even faster than the bodies in Trump’s illegal war on innocents. So what’s going to be done with all the rubble? We’re told some will be used in the construction of Trump’s monumental (to him) superfluous (to everybody else) imperial ballroom, presumably as fill, though you wonder why it would be needed if existing underground facilities are to be increased; and some will be used as fill in a public golf course in D.C., which of course Trump has never played on.

But some East Wing rubble could be used to help alleviate the absurd, unconscionable humongously-multi-trillion-dollar national debt inflicted on us by Democrats and Republicans alike. Or to add even more tastelessness to Trump’s garish ballroom: Sell the rubble as souvenirs.

Remember the Berlin Wall that President Ronald Reagan (in a speech written by Peter Robinson) brilliantly beseeched Mr. Gorbachev to tear down in 1987? Well, it came down in 1989 and bricks, concrete, and fragments thereof have been sold ever since. They’re priced by size and decoration on all the usual websites—with certificates of authenticity, of course.

Since Trump would have to get a substantial piece of the action to make it worth his self-dealing while, by (illegal) executive order he’d sell all the rubble to some iteration of himself for a dollar or so and then market it for millions or even billions. And it’s not just his MAGA morons who would buy the souvenirs of the White House East Wing, built by Theodore Roosevelt, enhanced by Franklin Roosevelt, demolished by Donald Trump. With certificates of authenticity, of course . . .

The Great Dictator

24 October—It would appear that Donald Trump and his family and friends weren’t invited to join the ring of beneficiaries of professional basketball and high-stakes poker cheating. That’s why the firm of unqualified and disqualified shysters he has on retainer—formerly known as the United States Department of Justice—and its subsidiary Trump Bureau of Incrimination (TBI)—formerly known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)—has gone after the alleged participants (a.k.a. conspirators) in the developing scandal. More on that as it develops. Maybe.

So last night Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 film “The Great Dictator” was shown on Turner Classic Movies. Chaplin wrote, produced, directed, and starred in it. It was his first film with dialogue, which he also wrote. And this is his final speech:

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone—if possible—Jew, Gentile—black man—white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness—not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men—cries out for universal brotherhood—for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world—millions of despairing men, women, and little children—victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say – do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed —the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…

Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes—men who despise you—enslave you—who regiment your lives—tell you what to do—what to think and what to feel! Who drill you –diet you—treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men—machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate—the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man”—not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power—the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then—in the name of democracy—let us use that power—let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world—a decent world that will give men a chance to work—that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world—to do away with national barriers—to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

British by birth, Charlie Chaplin never became a U.S. citizen. So, being very liberal, he was naturally blacklisted and banned from the country during the red scare of the forties and fifties. The more things change, the more they stay the same . . .

Poor Kosta. Yeah, right

23 October—Would you believe that Norm Pattis, Kosta Diamantis’s high-profile mouthpiece, called the high-profile all-counts verdict against his high-profile client—who’s a lawyer himself, by the way—a “disappointment”? Seriously, though, did Norm really think that Kosta’s obviously and laughably cock-and-bullshit defense would or could possibly be taken seriously by anybody? On second thought, Trump got elected.

So poor Kosta Diamantis was found guilty on 21 counts of bribery, extortion, conspiracy, and lying to federal investigators. (Frankly, charging any criminal defendant with lying to investigators or destroying evidence is a bit much and is intended only to pad the docket in order to increase the penalty. Why shouldn’t an alleged criminal do everything possible to conceal his guilt, after all?)

Kosta himself put the verdict this way: “It was a clean sweep, I was just hoping it would go the other way.” Hope sprung eternal in the Diamantis breast, as Alexander Pope didn’t write. But Kosta obviously knew it wouldn’t go the other way.

Atty. Norm reckons that Atty. Kosta faces a “catastrophic sentence” and would be “lucky to get out of this with 10 to 12 years.” Sure, but it would be at a minimum-security slammer. But of course Norm looks forward to post-trial proceedings and an appeal. And Kosta is facing another federal corruption trial in February, before which he’d do well to plead out.

Should the Second Circuit take the Kosta case on appeal, which is by no means a given, it’s doubtful any of the appellate judges would find any grounds to reverse or vacate and remand. And the Supremes won’t touch it.

That’s where Trump’s Bountiful Clemency Emporium comes in: pardon after conviction and preemptive pardon for upcoming conviction. That may even be part of a plea deal.

Of course, Connecticut Republicans couldn’t wait to get their digs in. House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, for instance: “The conviction of Kosta Diamantis is yet another example of corruption in state government that erodes public trust in those who profess to be public servants. . . . Given the recent developments and public disclosures of grand jury activity, and ongoing federal investigations, it is surely not likely to be the last.”

Sadly, he’s absolutely right. Irregardless of party.

And irrepressible Senator Rob Sampson: “Another day, another Democrat scandal. Connecticut deserves leadership that serves taxpayers, not insiders.

“This isn’t just one bad actor—it’s a glaring example of how the revolving door between political power and personal profit keeps spinning in Connecticut. Under the watch of the Ned Lamont administration, we’ve seen a succession of scandals pointing to a culture where public service becomes personal gain. The trust of taxpayers is on the line and accountability should start at the top.”

Rob should give it a rest, but he isn’t wrong by any means. And he could just as well be bitching about the Trump administration and virtually all others at all levels. And—just a reminder—in government it’s not only taxpayers who must be considered.

But—just another reminder—some readers may remember John Rowland’s criminal convictions, the first for corruption while he was Connecticut’s pretty damn good Republican governor. And of course, in May Trump’s Bountiful Clemency Emporium pardoned him for his two federal convictions . . .

Thick as thieves

22 October—After a full day of deliberating on the guilt (or, it must be added, innocence) of Kosta Diamantis, incredible as it may seem, the federal jury sitting in Bridgeport is still out. Is Trump’s Sharpie poised to pardon him?

In other news, then, when Donald Trump sprung George Santos on Friday, he also relieved his fellow con man of paying over half a million dollars in restitution and forfeiture. No surprise there. And what else can we expect Trump to do for his eager young protégé?

Also no surprise, Trump is about to order his justice department to pay him $230 million, supposedly to reimburse—compensate—him for his expenses in defending the crimes of which he’d surely have been convicted had he not been elected last year to a second term screwing the country and had not his Supremes given him carte blanche to do whatever he damn well pleases with immunity and impunity. Not that it matters, to be sure, but Trump being Trump, there’ll be nothing to substantiate his claims and there’s sure to be considerable personal profit for him.

Talk about self-dealing, Trump’s specialty. Certainly there are ethical and legal problems with paying himself out of public funds that are under his ultimate control. And Trump acknowledges, “It’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.” But when have silly things like ethics and legality ever stopped Trump from doing anything he bloody well pleased? Does he even know the concepts?

Any settlement with Trump would have to be approved by senior DOJ functionaries. But most of them used to be the con-man-in-chief’s personal defense shysters. And if any employees at all refuse to do their master’s bidding, out they go, to be replaced by uncompromisingly compliant lackeys. And Trump made it clear that he’d have final say on any payout. Or payoff.

Trump’s humongous gilded ballroom is being criticized by people with scruples and taste as an unneeded affront to the architectural integrity of the White House, inter alia. Of course, integrity of any sort isn’t only a foreign concept to Trump, but a dirty word. But he rhapsodizes in his customary narcissistic, superlative-heavy rhetoric that his garish ballroom is “the most beautiful ballroom you’ve ever seen.” And he probably believes it. At least he’s not indulging in execrably traditional—and traditionally execrable—Halloween-seasonal punning and calling the ballroom “bootiful.” Boo-based puns, above all other paronomasia, are once again contaminating all media. There’s no escape from that. Either . . .

Ballroom, metaphor, and cholesterol

21 October—First question: How long will it take the federal jury sitting in Bridgeport to convict Kosta Diamantis?

Second question: How long will it take Donald Trump to pardon Kosta Diamantis?

Third question: Is Donald Trump’s White House ballroom a metaphor?

Answer: Of course it is. To be clear, the East Wing, most or all of which is being demolished to make way for Trump’s ballroom—like everything Trump, the specifics of the project are somewhat opaque—was added to the White House only at the start of the twentieth century. Before major renovations were done to the main residence during President Harry Truman’s second term, however, the only time the White House had suffered any damage to speak of was when the Brits torched the interior in 1814.

But just as America has evolved, the White House has evolved. And the demolition—destruction—of the East Wing is thus an apt metaphor for the destruction of the republic. It’s been observed that Trump’s mob of beautiful, peaceful rioters, thugs, and vandals (most of whom are convicted criminals he pardoned and/or rewarded in some way) attacked the Capitol on 6 January 2021 for the first time since 1814 and now Trump is doing more damage to the White House than the Brits did when they torched it that same year. Governor Gavin Newsom of California has opined the obvious, “Ripping apart the White House [is] just like [Trump is] ripping apart the Constitution.”

Adding insult and more injury to injury, there’s the ballroom itself. What little we know about it is that it’s to be grand, gilded, and glitzy. It’s Trump, after all, whose taste isn’t even in his mouth. And rather than republics on democratic principles, that ostentation is typical of parvenues and other show-off’s, monarchies, and non-monarchical dictatorships.

On the subject of Trump’s lack of taste even in his mouth, Dr. Saud Anwar, a pulmonary specialist and Democrat state senator, is being mercilessly pilloried by legislative and other Republicans because of this picture, taken at a No Kings rally in Hartford and posted on social media. The mostly partisan reaction is to be expected from Republicans who just haven’t got the scrotal content (speaking of ballroom) to admit their Führer is a total scumbag, among other things:

Although the sign, which he may or may not have created, bears no specific reference to Donald Trump, the allusion to the big bully’s gluttony and elevated cholesterol is pretty clear. What about his high blood pressure? Obesity? Senility? Mental instability? Sociopathy? Anyway, Dr. Anwar doesn’t deny the implication. But he says the sign was a joke.

Shame on Dr. Anwar. Not for the sign or the picture, mind you. But for claiming it was a joke. We all know better. And he should stand up and take credit for being involved in expressing what good people think, feel, and hope.

Incidentally, mention of Trump’s gluttony brings to mind all the so-called seven deadly sins. And—wouldn’t you know it?—the scumbag-in-chief is a prime exemplar of all seven: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. Think about it. And he’s doubtless proud of it . . .

Signs of the time

20 October—Local Election Day is just two weeks away. Just? It’s a virtual lifetime for candidates who use the final fortnight effectively. In all events, lawn and yard signs have been planted on and uprooted from public and private property since at least two weeks ago and others have been left in place but defaced.

The value of campaign signs to anybody but the people who produce and sell them is questionable. Demonstrations and protests certainly allow people to express themselves positively or negatively. Knocking copy—negative advertising, whether truthful or defamatory, aimed at candidates and ballot issues—in all media, including signage, is known to be effective.

But virtually all candidate signs are explicitly or implicitly positive or provide nothing but candidates’ names, perhaps political affiliation, and sometimes portraits. So do they actually have any effect on election outcomes? Probably very little at best. There’s increased exposure of candidates’ names, of course, which may have value for newcomers and “stealth” candidates—those who have better things to do than campaign. And people get to know how their neighbors and others they respect or whose businesses they patronize feel about candidates and issues.

By and large, though, lawn and yard signs are a waste of time, effort, and money. Still, in Connecticut and most other places stealing and defacing political signs is a crime: in addition to trespass on private property, it’s criminal mischief, vandalism, and/or larceny in all cases. But it’s seldom treated seriously by police. Eyewitnesses to sign vandalism might just as well keep it to themselves. Everybody does it, after all. And most sign thieves and vandals don’t even bother lying about it.

In Connecticut, despite the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment and the Connecticut Constitution’s Article 1, political and other non-state or otherwise authorized signage is not permitted on any state property, including but not limited to state rights-of-way. Crews from the Connecticut Department of Transportation are supposed to pull up signs from state rights-of-way for far-fetched “public safety” reasons and deposit them in back of ConnDOT garages. Suffice to say, sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t—pull up and/or deposit.

In the sanctimonious Borough of Litchfield, whose charter and bylaws supersede the federal and state constitutions, no signage or decoration of any sort (without the imprimatur of the blessed BOLBOWAB) is permitted on the green, which has in fact been consecrated by the blessed BOLBOWAB.

On the other hand, who needs:

Cornwallis: the good soldier

19 October—After a disastrous battle, on this day in 1781, in what’s now known as Surrender Field in Yorktown, Virginia, Lieutenant General Lord Charles Cornwallis, commander of British forces in the southern theater of the revolting colonies, surrendered his troops to General George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Forces, thus effectively ending the Revolutionary War. Well, not quite.

First, it must be noted that Cornwallis, an hereditary peer but a Whig (the liberals of the day, who favored Parliament’s power over the monarchy), had been one of the few in the House of Lords to vote against the 1765 Stamp Act (which placed direct taxes on the colonies) and the 1766 Declaratory Act (which asserted Parliament’s right to legislate for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever”).

The Whigs were generally sympathetic to the colonists before the War of Independence and most supported full independence. Not that it mattered much, because the majority Tories pretty much got whatever they wanted, including the dreadful and dreaded so-called Townshend Acts, among whose abuses were:

The Revenue Act which imposed duties on necessities like glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea; the New York Restraining Act which suspended the New York Assembly until it complied with the Quartering Act of 1765 (which required colonies to house and feed British troops and led to the Constitution’s Third Amendment); the Vice Admiralty Act of 1768 which moved trials of accused smugglers and customs violators to courts without juries—usually located far from where the accused people lived.

Kind of reminds you of the abuses of the Trumpublican trifecta, doesn’t it?

Back to Lord Cornwallis, although he was consistent and constant in his support for the colonies and opposition to the Tory government’s reprehensible policies, he was a career soldier, so he put his duty to king and country above his political principles and once hostilities broke out he volunteered to serve in America. (Cornwallis was only one of many British generals and other officers who disapproved of the war but nevertheless fought honorably for king and country in America.)

After the war, Cornwallis went on to have an illustrious career in politics and colonial administration.

Cornwallis having been noted, then, it must also be noted that he didn’t actually surrender to Washington. He didn’t even attend the ceremony. And you can’t really blame the poor guy, even if he wasn’t really under the weather. Instead, he sent his second-in-command, Brigadier General Charles O’Hara, to hand over his sword to General George Washington, who was to accept it on behalf of American and French forces, the latter commanded by the Marquis de Lafayette and the Comte de Rochambeau.

But since the ceremony was supposed to be between commanding officers, Commander-in-Chief General Washington refused to accept the loser’s sword from a subordinate officer. Protocol is protocol, after all. So Washington passed the buck to Major General Benjamin Lincoln, who had a year-and-a-half earlier surrendered to the Brits—to General Sir Henry Clinton, Cornwallis’s superior officer, in fact—at Charleston, South Carolina. So forget that Major General Lincoln still outranked Brigadier General O’Hara.

After accepting Cornwallis’s sword, Lincoln immediately returned it to O’Hara. Military courtesy and precedent, if not protocol.

Contrary to popular legend, by the way, it’s unlikely—unsubstantiated, at any rate—that the British band present at the Yorktown surrender played “The World Turned Upside Down.”

And the No More Kings demonstrations yesterday were appropriate and laudable. But a bloody waste of time—except as pressure valves that allowed demonstrators to vent the immense hostility that Donald Trump and his corrupt flunkies have done everything in their abusive power to provoke . . .

No surprise: Trump springs Santos

18 October—Donald Trump is still looking for an ambassador to the United Nations and a deputy treasury secretary. The question is, which position will he name former Long Island Republican congressman George Anthony Devolder Santos to? Remember George? He’s the ballsy young con man who was convicted of mucho fraud and aggravated identity theft in June and sentenced to seven years up the river. Only seven years after the plea bargain. He was bloody good at his cons, too. Until he got caught. And after, it seems. He’s only the sixth congressman to have been expelled from the House.

Trump clearly admires his admirer and doubtless was impressed by the artifice and success of George’s colossal scams. Because—if you haven’t heard—yesterday the grifter-in-chief commuted George’s sentence and the enthusiastic Trump apprentice was released last night from the medium-security federal slammer in Fairton, New Jersey. (He reported on 25 July. That’s less than three months. Steve Bannon served four months in Danbury for contempt of Congress.)

For the record, earlier this week, Santos published a “passionate plea to President Trump” in a Long Island newspaper asking to be pardoned and given “the opportunity to return to my family, my friends, and my community.” He wrote that he had been threatened with death and kept in solitary. And of course he apologized for his actions. Even to Trump.

Here’s how Trump put it on his website: “George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated. Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!”

You wonder why Trump didn’t give Santos a full pardon, the young con artist is so good. But it’s never too late for a pardon. As long as Trump rules over the country, anyway.

Long stretches in solitary indeed. As it happens, George himself had requested only last month to be put in protective custody in a “special housing unit”—what he called solitary confinement —for his own safety due to what he claimed was a death threat. Trump’s nonpoliticized and nonweaponized FBI was reportedly investigating the alleged death threat at the time of George’s release, hoping to find or intending to frame a Democrat to pin it on.

But consider that George Santos is an irredeemable and irrepressible con man. And Donald Trump, besides being an irredeemable and irrepressible con man and ignoramus, hyperbolizes everything. For instance, he said that Democratic lawmakers have done much worse than Santos: “George Santos was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison.”

“Rogue” has positive and negative connotations, mind you. Negatively, then, Trump must have been alluding to himself.

In his commutation post, Trump the celebrated draft dodger specifically cited Senator Richard Blumenthal for lying about his military record: “This is far worse than what George Santos did.” Well, at least Blumenthal has a military record, even if it didn’t take him to Vietnam. And only a rogue (in the scumbag sense) like Trump could equate what’s really an inconsequential political prevarication with the major cons perpetrated by George Santos and Donald Trump.

And former Democrat Trump also credited George Santos for having “the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!”

Everybody knows, incidentally, that Republican lawmakers are incapable of doing much worse than Santos or—God forbid—anything illegal at all.

So even though George Anthony Devolder Santos still has a criminal record (which, however, could be deleted with a little pardon), it shouldn’t keep him from working for Donald Trump. In fact, it’s a definite positive for a Trump appointee. Figure, then, that George will start out as deputy treasury secretary. And then, when the Federal Reserve chair becomes vacant next May, he’s Trump’s obvious boy . . .

Murder and the Imperial White House

17 October—If you’re keeping count of the murders in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela being committed by the United States Navy on orders of Donald Trump and his equally villainous warlord-flunky Pete Hegseth, it’s now five boats allegedly transporting narcotics that have been blown to kingdom come (destroying evidence) along with at least 27 people Trump and his mob insist without proof are narcoterrorists.

The naval engagements (maneuvers?) in the Caribbean in typically Trumpish defiance of international and domestic law are being executed (so to speak) by forces of the navy’s Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), whose boss is Admiral Alvin Holsey (not to be confused with Admiral Bull Halsey, who died 66 years ago). One wonders how Admiral Holsey and USSOUTHCOM personnel feel about following the scumbag-in-chief’s illegal orders.

It’s possible, perhaps even probable, that Admiral Holsey has had enough. Because just this morning Hegseth announced on social media (of course) that the four-star admiral would be retiring by the end of the year. After only about a year on the job. It’s also possible, perhaps even probable, that Hegseth fired Admiral Holsey for not kissing his and Trump’s despicable asses, as is required under the current dictatorship’s rules of engagement. Admiral Holsey was promoted during Joe Biden’s administration, after all.

* * * * * * *

On the subject of Trump’s dictatorship, he threw a dinner party on Wednesday for the 130 schmucks who’ll be helping to pay for the inappropriate and lavishly tasteless gilded ballroom the scumbag-in-thief [sic] intends to desecrate the White House with. He’s already had most of the Rose Garden paved over.

Given Trump’s blatant monarchical pretensions and tendencies as well as his conspicuous lack of taste, one wonders why he hasn’t suggested dressing up White House guards like European palace guards.

Grown-ups may remember that Tricky Dick Nixon did just that during his reign. Here are pictures of the Nixon’s White House anything-but-Secret Service guards in 1970. The Ruritanian uniforms, designed by D.C. tailor Jimmie Muscatello, became a laughingstock, so they didn’t last long; the caps disappeared within weeks and the entire uniforms were abandoned by mid-year. The government surplus shmattes were eventually put out to bid in 1980 and Iowa’s Meriden-Cleghorn Community High School marching band’s bid of ten dollars per uniform beat out Alice Cooper’s bid.

Couldn’t the holsters have been a little less conspicuous?

Irregardless of Webster

16 October—Noah Webster was born 267 years ago today in the Western Division of Hartford, known today as . . . guess what. After Yale, he briefly studied law in Litchfield, but not at Tapping Reeve’s Law School (probably because he couldn’t afford it), and—after continuing his law studies in Hartford—eventually passed the bar exam. Did you know they actually gave bar exams back then? But law wasn’t his thing. So he went big-time into teaching, writing, editing, and publishing.

Noah Webster is best known (most well-known, as semi-literates would have it) as a lexicographer and compiler-author of the momentous and monumental “An American Dictionary of the English Language.” It followed Samuel Johnson’s momentous and monumental “A Dictionary of the English Language” by 73 years and isn’t as much fun to read.

While Johnson’s and Webster’s dictionaries were descriptive in presenting examples of historical usage, both were prescriptive in instructing people on proper spelling, pronunciation, and usage. Johnson sought to preserve the purity of English wherever she was spoke and to fix the language by ridding it of irregularities. Similarly, Webster sought to establish standards for the language on this side of the Atlantic.

These days, for better or worse, most dictionaries (of all languages) tend to be purely descriptive, showing examples of how words and phrases have been used while not attempting to tell readers how words should be used; they thus record the evolution of language. The “Oxford English Dictionary,” for instance, was originally called “A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.”

So a nice volunteer who’s begging Connecticut Public Broadcasting listeners for money says “irregardless” in some context. At the very least, it grates on a grammarian’s sensibilities. We don’t want to think how Johnson and Webster would react to “irregardless” if they were alive. But you’d of thunk that someone at Connecticut Public would of caught it. Irregardless of them, Rosenberg ain’t happy with it. (And ain’t is a disquisition unto itself.)

For the fun of it, then, here are Johnson, Webster, and OED on “regardless” and OED on “regardless” and “irregardless.” “Irregardless” hadn’t even occurred to Johnson and Webster—or anybody else before 1912, according to OED. And even the descriptive dictionaries that dutifully record that abominable word call it nonstandard (American spelling) or non-standard (British spelling).