Election 2000 and a little extra

[FrodeauxB at aol.com]

The WSJ "Washington Wire" says the comedy troupe Gross National
Product has Dick Cheney explaining his Head Start and similar votes
this way: "Because of my medical condition, I try to use my heart
as little as possible." 

Und for our German friends:
Word Wars I: The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung announced Wednesday
that after a one-year experiment, it would abandon the use of new
spelling rules in its German edition. The revised system, which was
intended to modernize written German and to minimize mistakes that
"purportedly revealed class differences," cut the number of rules
from 212 to 112. However, according to the paper, its publishers
"determined that the new system was doing more harm than good." An
editorial claimed that rather than simplifying orthography, the new
system has led people to avoid: 

terms and phrases that might conceivably be subject to the new
spelling rules. In other words, many people no longer write what
they wanted to write. A new language, a language of avoidance, has
been created, and it is not a pretty one.

There will be order, but not too much.

Of course, where words and the Empire are involved, we can't forget the 
English:
Word Wars II: In the Times of London, Geoffrey Wheatcroft reflected
on the new place names that South African cities have proposed to
replace designations imposed by Europeans during the colonial era.
Durban would become iThekweni, Port Elizabeth would gain three more
syllables as Nelson Mandela Metropole, and Johannesburg would lose
one as eGoli. To Wheatcroft, the African "rebrandings" are
illogical because before the arrival of Europeans the region had no
cities and therefore no city names. He claimed:

[T]he ability to accept one's history is a sign of political and
national maturity, and frenzied renaming a sure mark of insecurity.

TTFN

frodeauxb