Common Parlance

This morning began with Jean struggling out of the bed to fix her breakfast.   

A creature of habit, my mother always gets up at 5:00, something left over from when my father was alive & she got up to fix coffee & eggs & toast & bacon for his breakfast.  It has never left her, all these years after his death.

My body wants to go to sleep when the sun sets & awakens when the sun rises.  For years, I have fought that response to reality.

But on Sundays, I get up & watch Fox News Sunday, sun or no sun, then what used to be Meet the Press & then what used to be This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

Then I read the New York Times online.

So this morning, on FNS, Brit Hume defended Sarah Palin’s use of the term “blood libel” by claiming that it meant something different in “common parlance”.

Such a common parlance that most of the intelligent people I know had no idea of its supposed current use or its etymology.

Not to mention those out there, listening to her, who have no clue that words have history & that history affects current meanings.  Words matter.  Words have meaning.

So, Brit Hume, I wonder, how many times in the last ten years has the term “Blood Libel”  been used in political discourse?

You send me those quotes, I will research them & perhaps we will have a dialogue.  

Otherwise, I stand firm.  This term has no current or modern meaning.  Sarah Palin needs to hire a better speech writer.

Common parlance, my ass.