I. Make America Bathe Again?
Even when I don't agree with them, the Economist makes me laugh, with its smart British snarkiness. Having looked more closely at the candidates now, I do agree with their endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president.
And with their using sanitation history as an example of how life in the United States has improved:
Life without indoor plumbing, 1930s >
Question: "And how did you get water to it?"
Stan Jensen: "We had carried it in, had a boiler thing that we heated the water in on the stove, the cook stove.
And we used that water.
Everybody used the same water, you know. [Laughs.] You didn't change water between baths."
via Living Farm History
II. Here are snippets from the Economist article, "America's Best Hope", November 5, 2016:
"Many Americans would willing undergo [a presidential campaign] all over again––with two new candidates. Of course that is not on offer: the next president will be either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.
"That alone would stop us from casting a vote, if we had one, for Mr Trump. As it happens, he has a set of policies that go with his personality.
[more examples…]
We would sooner have endorsed Richard Nixon––even had we known how we would later come to grief.
"Our vote, then, goes to Hillary Clinton. Those who reject her …because they detest the Clinton machine are not paying attention to the turpitude* of the alternative.
Although, by itself, that is not much of an endorsement, we go further. Mrs Clinton is a better candidate than she seems and better suited to cope with the awful, broken state of Washington politics than her critics will admit. She also deserves to prevail on her own merits.
"Mrs Clinton has campaigned for an open, optimistic country. She can take heart from the fact that, outside Washington, there is more bipartisanship and problem-solving than most Americans realize, and from the fact that popular pessimism has far overshot reality. Around 80% of Trump supporters say that for people like them, American is worse than it was 50 years ago.
That is false:
half a century ago 6million households lacked a flushing lavatory. It is also a most unAmerican way to see the world.
"To hope that any good can come from Mr Trump's wrecking job reflects a narcissistic believe that compromise in politics is a dirty word …
"Hence our vote goes to Mrs Clinton... Partly because she is not Mr Trump, but also in the hope that she can show that ordinary politics works for ordinary people––the sort of renewal that American democracy requires."
[end of Economist clips]
Pikachu agrees.
As for Hillary being no better than Trump, Tumblr had a nice response---I posted it in the Comments to this post [because it's getting too long].
III. Fun with Etymology: turpitude, turnip, trump
Not entirely unrelated to turnip!
Even when I don't agree with them, the Economist makes me laugh, with its smart British snarkiness. Having looked more closely at the candidates now, I do agree with their endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president.
And with their using sanitation history as an example of how life in the United States has improved:
"Around 80% of Trump supporters say that for people like them, American is worse than it was 50 years ago.
That is false:
half a century ago 6million households lacked a flushing lavatory. It is also a most unAmerican way to see the world."
Life without indoor plumbing, 1930s >Question: "And how did you get water to it?"
Stan Jensen: "We had carried it in, had a boiler thing that we heated the water in on the stove, the cook stove.
And we used that water.
Everybody used the same water, you know. [Laughs.] You didn't change water between baths."
via Living Farm History
II. Here are snippets from the Economist article, "America's Best Hope", November 5, 2016:
"Many Americans would willing undergo [a presidential campaign] all over again––with two new candidates. Of course that is not on offer: the next president will be either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.
[more examples…]
We would sooner have endorsed Richard Nixon––even had we known how we would later come to grief.
"Our vote, then, goes to Hillary Clinton. Those who reject her …because they detest the Clinton machine are not paying attention to the turpitude* of the alternative.
Although, by itself, that is not much of an endorsement, we go further. Mrs Clinton is a better candidate than she seems and better suited to cope with the awful, broken state of Washington politics than her critics will admit. She also deserves to prevail on her own merits.
"Mrs Clinton has campaigned for an open, optimistic country. She can take heart from the fact that, outside Washington, there is more bipartisanship and problem-solving than most Americans realize, and from the fact that popular pessimism has far overshot reality. Around 80% of Trump supporters say that for people like them, American is worse than it was 50 years ago.
That is false:
half a century ago 6million households lacked a flushing lavatory. It is also a most unAmerican way to see the world.
"To hope that any good can come from Mr Trump's wrecking job reflects a narcissistic believe that compromise in politics is a dirty word …
"Hence our vote goes to Mrs Clinton... Partly because she is not Mr Trump, but also in the hope that she can show that ordinary politics works for ordinary people––the sort of renewal that American democracy requires."
[end of Economist clips]
Pikachu agrees.
As for Hillary being no better than Trump, Tumblr had a nice response---I posted it in the Comments to this post [because it's getting too long].
III. Fun with Etymology: turpitude, turnip, trump
- turpitude (n.)
- "depravity, infamy," late 15c., from Middle French turpitude , from Latin turpitudinem (nominative turpitudo) "baseness," from turpis "vile, physically ugly, base, unsightly," figuratively "morally ugly, scandalous, shameful," of unknown origin. Klein suggests perhaps originally "what one turns away from" (compare Latin trepit "he turns").
c. 1500, turnepe, probably from turn (from its shape, as though turned on a lathe) + Middle English nepe "turnip," from Latin napus "turnip.
- trump (v.2)
- "fabricate, devise," 1690s, from trump "deceive, cheat", from Old French tromper "to deceive," of uncertain origin. Apparently from se tromper de "to mock," from Old French tromper
"to blow a trumpet."
Brachet explains this as "to play the horn, alluding to quacks and mountebanks, who attracted the public by blowing a horn, and then cheated them into buying ...." The Hindley Old French dictionary has baillier la trompe "blow the trumpet" as "act the fool," and Donkin connects it rather to trombe "waterspout," on the notion of turning (someone) around.
