Persiflage (n)

One of those words that doesn't represent itself. People who use persiflage, are probably bad at persiflage because no one else will know what they just said.

Verdigris (n)

The skin of Lady Liberty is entirely verdigris. So is her dress, book, and torch.

Gammock (n)

The favorite pastime of a jackanapes is just a little gammock. The war on children is the attempt to ban all gammock.

Jackanapes (n)

A healthy kid. Everyone complains about them, but what else should they really be but a jackanapes?

All Children Left Behind

Since passing the 'No Child Left Behind' act, it can be shown that the rate of progress measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress has slowed (especially in math) for just about everyone. SAT scores have declined, and PISA scores have also, and (somehow) ACT scores haven't. But they haven't gone up, either. And it didn't really do what it was supposed to do: decrease the gaps between demographics. (for a lot more information, see this: washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/03/10/no-child-left-behind-what-standardized-test-scores-reveal-about-its-legacy/)

It's not surprising if you know what's happened. We worried, and fretted, and decided that testing to evaluate competency and progress and effectiveness all the time would help. Instead of actually doing the work. Instead of teaching, we are testing. And then we wonder why our students aren't learning as fast.

Administration is somewhat necessary. But it should be minimized. Administration and oversight is not actually doing work. As strange as that may sound.

Emportment (n)

The feelings I get as obstinate people gibber.

Gibber (v)

How people talk, because we're all obstinate.

Obstinate (adj)

People. Since nearly everyone makes up their mind emotionally and then rationalizes their point of view, nearly everyone is obstinate.

Why people are dumb.

Primaveral (adj)

If you suffer primaveral allergies, then 'primaveral' is a good word to know. Just to sound smart.

Zephyr

Like the Wicked Witch, Zephyrs are from the west.

Prestidigitator (n)

A wizard!

agra (n)

To me, Ellie Fortune.

Brogue (n)

If taken generally, he variety of life that makes it so much fun to talk with people different than yourself.

If taken specifically, a wildly fun accent to my ears.

Huckster (n)

The leaders of the American and increasingly global economy. Chiefly, those to be dethroned.

Companage (n)

The good part of the meal.

Mythomania (n)

A thing these definitions are well-neigh aimed to incite.

Spondulicks (n)

An evil power.

Headphones Suck

I hate iPods. Not just Apple's, but all iPod/Walkman like things stuffed into the ears of everyone. The very existence of ubiquitous personal electronic serenading.

Ok, that's a bit crotchety. Antagonistic. A mean way to start any conversation. But they really make life a lot harder for those around who aren't part of the concert. Also on the audience-of-one of said concert. If you've got those little buds plugging up your ear holes, how are you gonna hear that speeding car when it knocks you off your feet? For once, I have a hard time blaming the car.

Lucrative (adj)

Remunerative. Or, probably dangerous for your immortal soul.

Nice Nelly (n)

According to Oxford, everyone in the book Gone With the Wind except Scarlett and Rhett (at least for most of the story).

Personhood

There is a recurring push to broaden the definitions of things such as "person" or "vegetable". It is a bizarre thing. Define a word? Legally? I wonder if government is really the place to be making dictionaries. It already does a lot. A lot of things it shouldn't, and a lot of neglecting things it ought to be doing. This might be just me, but the making of dictionaries shouldn't really be on the list.

To me, "Person" means a a human being. Usually referring to a more or less full grown person. But really just amorphous word encompassing just about everyone in the Homo sapiens genus and species. Vegetables grow out of the ground, are usually plants, and offer lots of nutrition. If someone uses these words for a radically different purpose (like a collection of people such as a corporation, government, or little league team; or lamb) they are either not speaking English anymore or just lying creatively. We've already rather cluttered ourselves by calling mushrooms vegetables and wondering if potatoes and tomatoes can be included.

Laws in America should be written in an American language. Most of the time, that's English, though I'm open to some being written in French, ASL, or Spanish, as those are languages we actually speak. Redefining things from English to, what, "Governese", doesn't fulfill the purpose of enforcing or creating laws. How would anyone be able to trust anything said? If we started down this path, someone could say, "I believe in freedom for all", and that could actually mean "Most people should be told what to do for their own good. That's just fact." Which would be a really dumb thing to say.

What does the word "person" mean to you? 

The Dreaded TPP

The Trans-Pacific Partnership.

I just want to put this out as an example of my scrying abilities: the TPP will be an even worse decision than NAFTA. Coagulating more power for the powerful and making some big strides toward making transnational corporations the monarchies of the future. It is not about democracy, or people, or anything wholesome and good. It is about power. Greed (which is not and never has been good). A brilliant example of human stupidity and monstrosity. In a time when the wisdom of transition towns and local independence is being recognized, this will make the global economy more cohesive. So that, when it fails as it must inevitably do some day, It will fail magnificently.

If there is any way for the true power of this world to stop this (and that would be collective action of the masses), it would be a good idea. Up there with stopping the danger of Tar Sands, even.

It would be as bad a mistake for Obama as Woodrow Wilson signing the Federal Reserve Act.

Deer Migration

Here's what we know: mule deer migrate. We know basically where they go, we know that they cross state, federal, and private lands with no regard to ownership or taxes, and they don't tell us their state of residence. We know that they could not get enough food without migrating, so hindering it might mean no more deer. We know that development puts a damper in their plans. We know it's important to keep recreational vehicles away from them because they are pretty easily frightened.

We know all of this. And yet, somehow, it is really crucial to tag and track these deer, with whatever effect that has to their social order (something we don't know), and with whatever effect to their personal health (also something we're not too sure about), so that we know where they go.

Which we already know.

Probably, it has something to do with putting together a PowerPoint presentation on the effects of development and traffic on deer so that we can tell everyone just how much we know, to minute and tedious detail (which is easy to tune out if you're not really up to date on your deer and wildlife data, which means you'll already know this stuff, right?). Because PowerPoint is vital to the universe. So that we can, perhaps, not develop quite so much where the deer are, or drive our cars on the roads specially crafted for the them, rather than through the deer route.

Probably it also has something to do with people needing something to do. Needing something to learn all the nuance of before it slowly disappears.

But, hey, I can't complain too much about it. If it does help the deer maintain their corridor relatively free of people being mean, then do it.

Competition To Aggregates

A consequence of phrasing the economy in terms of "competition", "competitors", "rivals", "fights", and so on, is that it implies an eventual victory.

For a successful system, there is never victory. It just continues. But power tends to coagulate. To concentrate. And that leads to things like monarchies, monopolies, and our current situation of monopoly capitalism. Because that fight happens. It is not a well oiled system, it has a victor, who then goes on to bigger and bigger tournaments. Coagulation has been justified to us as a natural phenomenon not to be questioned. And when someone looses that fight, all (or at least most) of their economic clout gets rolled into the victor's clout, thus making them bigger and badder, and more unbeatable.

This is something that can't happen in a real fight. We aren't anime characters who can devour someone's essence. The victor may become more confident, but they don't level up. A hunter does, in a way, but it doesn't make that hunter so much better a hunter, it just keeps them alive. But eventually, the tempering effect of age makes the hunter slower and more noisy, and they eventually can't stay the best hunter in the world.

Corporations and companies and governments don't do this. They just grow. Continually destabilizing the resilience of the economy around them. It becomes more and more like a building with an eroding foundation. Almost as if stones are taken from the foundation to put on the top of the tower just to say, "See! See how great I am! No one has a tower as great as mine!" Somehow, we take this to mean growth is good. Forgetting to consider that for one thing to get more powerful, something else has to lose it as surely as the conservation of mass and energy. The real world, the universe, never gets any bigger. Whenever one gets more, that mean someone else gets less, even if we don't know who is being jilted.

We can't all get more.

Sastruga (n)

The greatest of snow sculptures. Beautiful on endless planes.

Oxpecker (n)

It's a bird!