What happened next is somewhat obscure. It would appear that a chimp escaped
from the zoo, scrambled up behind the bench and, playing dress-up in the
judicial robes that had been left on the seat, gibbered something that probably
related to bananas but which the
recording secretary took to be a decision ordering the taxpayers of
Massachusetts to pay for the dick-lopping operation. (The chimp has since been euthanized.) An amusing misunderstanding, save that, right now in the Bay State, that is the law of the land.
But none of that concerns us here. With supernal calm, we contemplate the infinite,
pausing only now and again to cast a saddened glance at the slowly rotating
blue-green globe below. No passions stir our breast as we (our
own lease on life perhaps nearing its term, and not subject to sublunary
renewal) behold the human comedy, interspersed with tragedy and farce. Yet as a licensed linguist (I always
carry my linguist’s license with me, in case a cop pulls me over), I cannot but
comment upon a bit of pronominal legerdemain, committed by the Los AngelesTimes as it reported on the story:
Robert Kosilek strangled his wife
in Mansfield, Mass., in 1990. He appeared several times during the trial
dressed as a woman.
So far so good -- a bit of self-expression so dear to the
deconstructionists (Louis Althusser, one of the French heroes of “the
deconstruction of the subject”, likewise strangled his wife). But suddenly:
Kosilek sued the state Department
of Correction in 2000, arguing that her
constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment had been violated
when the state refused to pay for the sex-change operation.
A nodding acquaintance with biology suffices to remind us
that the sinister farce of “reassignment surgery” in no wise creates any
daughter of Eve, nor sister of the Madonna, or of La Pucelle: but
simply, a eunuch with misapplied chemicals in his veins. Yet here, even before the offending
member has been whacked off and tossed into the garbage (or -- Recycle! Think green! -- served up for an appetizer at a gala dinner
for the fashionably degenerate, as happened here:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2012/05/japanese-artist-cooks-serves-own-genitals-at-banquet.html)
-- even before he can prance around, pretending
to be what he is not -- even before some surgeon has sodomized the Hippocratic
oath with a scalpel and
perpetrated the sordid outrage -- already the lapdog media (panting, its tongue
hanging out, on its little legs) is awarding this murderous pervert the
feminine pronoun. Merely
as a grammarian, I must frown.
Ladies, it’s up to you; but you might consider demanding that pronoun back.
~
Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, some pushback:
[Update, 22 November 2012] The French left denounces ‘freedom of conscience’:
Nouvelle marche-arrière de François
Hollande. Le président a décidé de «retirer» l'expression «liberté de
conscience» qu'il avait utilisé mardi devant les maires de France pour leur
laisser le droit de refuser de célébrer des mariages homosexuels, a indiqué son
entourage. Sa déclaration avait provoqué un véritable tollé à gauche, du PS aux
Verts, en passant par le Parti de gauche de Jean-Luc Mélenchon et le Parti
communiste.
*
Si cela vous parle,
savourez la série
noire
en argot authentique
d’Amérique :
*
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