A few months ago we gave our readers a phonemic test about the distinction between pen and pin.  Now we will try our second, on a much newer shift that is obscuring a distinction that most English speakers used to be able to make.

Try these sentences:

Don and Dawn practiced la-la law in La La Land.

The caller told me to fix my collar.

I got to meet Mr. Lawther’s father.

Carter Hawley Hale sold a lot of holly bushes.

I got it at Otto’s Auto Parts.

Supposedly this distinction is being lost in Canada, most of the Western United States, and around Pittsburgh and the Connecticut Valley.

There’s another distinction that’s more widely made; some Texans have trouble with it:

He was formerly a farmer?

I gave her part of the bottle of port?

To me, the first contrast is there, but the two sounds aren’t that far apart.  I suspect Read the rest of this entry »

What these war veterans do for each other models what the Body of Christ, especially in smaller groups, is supposed to be like.  These vets are “moving from a highly disciplined environment where violence is normal to an unstructured environment where violence is prohibited.”  So they are their ‘brother’s keepers’ in a way rarely seen in our world.

Related: “Convicted Combat Vets Watch Each Other’s Backs to Stay Out of Prison” by Michael Phillips at WSJ.com

New York City, much to my disappointment, has discontinued its transit one-day unlimited ride ticket.  [You can still get such a ticket for a week, but I’m never in town that long.]  What you can get is cards with $10.70 worth of rides for $10.00, $21.40 for $20.00, or $53.50 for $50.00.  This sounds like a bit of a bargain, and I suppose it is.  But each individual journey costs $2.25.  None of these cards are evenly divisible by $2.25.  I did the math and figured out that if one adds 55 cents to the $10 card, $1.10 to the $20 card, and 50 cents to the $50 card, it will all come out even and the value of your card will be divisible by $2.25 and no odd cents are left over.  But it seems to me that they could sell a card in an amount divisible by $2.25, or raise the price to $2.50 and eliminate the ‘bonus,’ and it would come out even.

Transit pricing has a tradition, in America, of being in uneven amounts and not making a whole lot of sense.  Especially when bus systems require ‘exact change.’  I often don’t venture on buses, unless I know that they are on the same tickets as the rail systems, for this very reason.

[I apologize that I have not gotten pictures for this post, unlike the one about my San Andreas road trip two years ago.  That I took with three friends; this one I went by myself.  So I took very few pictures.]

During the last week of March of this year, we had been through some major events including my mother-in-law’s death, my son was back at college, and my wife was traveling.  So I decided to take for myself a little paddleboarding spring break.  Interestingly enough, the two places I chose to stay were both ‘planned communities,’ of a very different nature than Irvine, The Woodlands, Reston, or Columbia.

Lake Havasu City was built from scratch according to a plan starting in 1963.  On maps older than that, the place is called Site Six.  The plan was made by Robert P. McCulloch, a successful millionaire who made airplanes and boats, but actually made most of his money on chainsaws.  Then, of course, in 1968, McCulloch arranged to buy the London Bridge and have it shipped over, and dug the Bridgewater Canal to make a peninsula into an island, and put the bridge over the canal.  A lot of people were a bit disappointed, because Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent post, the one on the fire pits [which turned into a website and a Facebook page, I’m told] I used an eight letter b-word which pushed the Kennel Kode to the limit.  I thought it justified in view of the outrageous acts of the City Council.  Then I read in Ephesians 4:29-5:5,

Don’t let any foul words come out of your mouth.  Only say what is helpful when it is needed for building up the community so that it benefits those who hear what you say. . . . Put aside all bitterness, losing your temper, anger, shouting, and slander, along with every other evil. . . . Sexual immorality, and any kind of impurity or greed, shouldn’t even be mentioned among you, which is right for holy persons.  Obscene language, silly talk, or vulgar jokes aren’t acceptable for believers.  Instead, there should be thanksgiving.  Because you know for sure that persons who are sexually immoral, impure, or greedy – which happens when things become gods – those persons won’t inherit the kingdom of Christ and God.  [Common English Bible]

Oops.  I had been thinking in terms of Read the rest of this entry »

[Note:  This post is taken from a short address I made to legislators in Sacramento on April 16, 2012.]

I was first politicized by this issue perhaps 33 years ago, when an attempt was made to run the Orange County Rescue Mission out of Santa Ana by declaring it to be ‘blight.’  Well, what kind of people does the Rescue Mission, and other religious and charitable agencies of that kind, serve?  By that standard, all such agencies are ‘blight.’  It struck me that the right to own and use land is one of the most basic of all rights, because if you do not have the right to exercise your constitutional liberties of religion, speech, press, and also the economic liberties that conservatives hold dear, in a place, then these rights are theoretical at best.  There is a lot of talk today about ‘society’ or ‘the community.’  I believe in the importance of ‘the community,’ but if all places ultimately belong [in terms of who decides the use of places, not just the right to buy and sell land for profit] to the ‘community,’ what does that mean?

My religious tradition likes to talk about giving special attention to the ‘least of these,’ the poor, the lame, the sick, and the marginalized.  And yes there is a lot of selfish individualism nowadays that tends Read the rest of this entry »

The latest local government outrage is the attempt of the Newport Beach City Council to tear out the fire rings at Big Corona and other places.

Fortunately, they have to seek the approval of the Coastal Commission to do this.  There is a petition online here directed to both the city council and the Coastal Commission.

I can testify that the reasons supposedly given for pulling out the rings are utter bullshit.  I have never smelled any offensive odor from those rings.  My wife, who is one of the most persnickety people I know, has never found anything to complain of.  If anything, we enjoy the spectacle!  Is it that the wrong kind of people use them?  When I’ve walked down there at night I’ve heard lots of evangelical groups singing.  If you want a private beach, you should live in Emerald Bay not Old Corona.  Or, better yet, Woodbridge.

In response to: “Petition Surfaces in Response to Newport Beach’s Vote to Extinguish Fire Rings” by Nisha Gutierrez-Jaime at CoronaDelMar.Patch.com