RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/jamie-wilson/2025/08/25/the-war-on-words-how-manufactured-euphemism-corrupts-our-common-language-n4943009

Words are code for the mind. Change the word, and you change the thought; change the thought, and you change the action that follows.

This was the logic behind the “person-first” language that emerged in the nonprofit world. A disabled person became a person with a disability. A homeless man became a person without shelter. At its best, this reminded us that individuals deserve dignity. At its worst, it twisted language into unwieldy shapes. But even in this early form, the seed was planted: words were not just descriptions, they were instruments of perception.

From there, the seed grew into something else entirely. What began as a courtesy metastasized into a strategy. Illegal alien became undocumented immigrant — later even person without papers. Crime was reframed as a clerical mishap, trespass as missing paperwork. The reality did not change, but the story around it did.

Examples abound:

Insane became mentally ill, then mentally challenged, then differently abled, then neurodivergent — until autism and psychosis were jumbled together in one soft word.
Poor became underprivileged, then disadvantaged, then at-risk.
Prisoner became inmate, then justice-involved individual, then returning citizen.
Prostitute became sex worker, and in some corners, even entrepreneur.

This is the euphemism treadmill. When one term wears out — when the public begins to hear the fact beneath the phrase — a new one is minted. The old word is declared harsh; the new word is declared humane. Yet within a few years, the cycle repeats, because the reality has not changed. What wears out is not the word but the illusion.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/defending-savagery-in-the-name-of-multiculturalism/

What’s not to like about multiculturalism? After all, isn’t diversity our strength? Don’t cultural influences from around the world add spice and flavor to the bland, Eurocentric West, which some people even say has no culture of its own? Take food, for example; as everyone always points out when this topic comes up, different cultures bring a smorgasbord of vibrant cuisines to the West! Also rape gangs, no-go zones, and machete attacks, but that’s a small price to pay for a corner kebab stand.

Many years ago, when I was a musician paying no attention to politics, nothing excited and inspired me more than the mix of multicultural influences that rockers like Sting, Peter Gabriel, and Talking Heads frontman David Byrne incorporated into pop music. My favorite section in record stores was labeled simply “world music,” where I immersed myself in exotic artists like South Africa’s Johnny Clegg and Savuka, Senegalese superstar Youssou N’Dour, avant-garde Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, and the drummers of Brazil’s Olodum, all of whom found crossover success in America and Europe. That’s all the word “multiculturalism” meant to me.

I didn’t learn until many years later that multiculturalism also referred to a subversive movement, born of political correctness, that swept through academia, where so many stupid and destructive ideas are born and nurtured, and from there out into the culture at large. Multiculturalism takes the relativistic position that all cultural expressions are equally valid, that all cultures should be equally celebrated rather than judged – except for Western civilization, which is viewed as the fount of all oppression, exploitation, and genocidal violence in world history. In fact, as Keith Windschuttle wrote in The New Criterion, multiculturalism is “entirely a negation of Western culture and values.” Its raison d’etre is not to promote tolerance and diversity but to undermine the West.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/broadway-baby/

Two years ago, a new 12-foot-high bronze statue by British artist Thomas J. Price was installed outside Rotterdam’s main railroad station. It’s called Moments Contained, and its subject, to quote Guardian reporter Senay Boztas, is “an ordinary-looking black woman” – a plus-sized black woman, I might add – in “tracksuit bottoms and trainers.” When Boztas visited the statue, she encountered a middle-school art class that was there because the statue was part of its “colonialism and slavery” curriculum. One of the students told Boztas that it was “nice to see something other than a white man in a suit.” Boztas also quoted Rotterdam mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb’s praise for the statue: “She’s not a heroine, a character with an illustrious past….She is the future, our future, and this city is her home.” And she quoted Price’s own explanation of the statue’s purpose: “to challenge our current understandings of monuments, to critique this idea of status and value within society: who gets to be seen, to be represented.”

When I read the other day that another 12-foot-high statue of a black woman had been placed in Times Square – in the very heart of New York’s theater district – I figured it was Thomas J. Price at work again. (These days, after all, no artist worth his salt does anything just once.) Of course it was. To be sure, the two statues differ somewhat. The one in Rotterdam seems to be somewhat at ease – leaning back slightly, her hands in her pockets. The one in New York, which is called Grounded in the Stars, is standing up straight, her hands on her hips, and looks as if she’s about to spit on somebody or let loose a string of expletives. She’s even more overweight than her sister in Rotterdam, and her hair is in cornrows. Times Square’s website (who knew that Times Square had a website?) says that the statue “foregrounds the intrinsic value of the individual and amplifies traditionally marginalized bodies on a monumental scale.” You know, the usual. Price, for his part, says that he wants the statue to inspire “deeper reflection around the human condition and greater cultural diversity.” As for the bronze woman herself, “both her stature and her unbothered gaze are markers of status and authority; this is a figure who understands her worth.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/halftime-at-the-super-bowl/

President Donald Trump became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl, and his presence was flashed on the jumbo screen. It’s always a crapshoot when a politician attends a spectacle like this. Attendees will let him or her know exactly how they feel. When the big screen showed him, fans cheered. But when the big screen showed the hyper-woke Trump critic Taylor Swift, fans booed.

So far, so good.

What to say about the halftime show performed by the popular rapper Kendrick Lamar? USA Today wrote: “The Grammy-winning rapper took the stage … for an exhilarating medley performance that paid homage to the Compton emcee’s eclectic catalog.”

“Exhilarating medley performance”? OK, call me biased, and I’m certainly not in his age demo. “Artists” like Lamar could not care less what I think. But I lean toward performers who can sing, dance, play an instrument or, heavens, do all three.

Nearly 50% of voters in a poll conducted by Darren Rovell gave the performance an F.

My nephew, Eric, loves rap. While driving and listening to a popular “song,” I said, “Eric, I don’t understand a word.” He proceeded to translate each line as it was recited.

“How many times did you have to listen before you were able to figure it out?” I said.

“Figure what out?” he said.

“The lyrics.”

“Once.”

So maybe it’s me. During Lamar’s performance, I failed to understand all but a few words. Before the game started, a couple of songs were performed before the national anthem. A beautiful, well-dressed woman used sign language for the hearing impaired. Where was she during Lamar’s performance for those of us who suffer from rap lyric comprehension impairment?