Struggling against the almighty tides of eventuality

Karl Rove thinks that the President is too self-centered. Or something. Contextually, it’s difficult to know what about that number he thinks is important, other than the fact that we all know now that he can count the number of words in a text.  I’d have liked some follow-up information, but I think that fruit wasn’t low-hanging enough for his stubby hands to grasp.

Yeah, that's mature. The Twice-Divorced Savior of Marriage, everyone.

Fortunately, I did some number-crunching for him. President Obama did, indeed, say “I” 96 times in his State of the Union speech Wednesday night. This is contrasted with President Bush, who kept it at 32 occurrences during his first State of the Union (the link Karl Rove used may not have been counting lexemes, such as “I’m” or “I’d”). The percentage of words between the differing speeches (Obama’s was 7,184 words, Bush’s 3,785) was 1.33% “I” for Obama, and 0.86% for Bush, or a difference of 0.47%. It was definitely an increase of almost 55% in the frequency of that word, but we’re still talking about less than 2% of the speech, assuming “I” is an equivalently powerful word as, say, “mandate” or “bailout.”

But I noticed something else that was interesting. Bush’s percentage of selfishness-induced verbiage decreased over the course of his Presidency. That’s not because he talked about himself less, but because he talked about other things more. While his first State of the Union speech clocked in at 3,785 words, his later ones were all above 5,000, and yet his “I” incidence remained at a steady average of 33, going for its zenith his last year at 37 times.

Given that it’s important to at least one person, I wonder if there was a busy little highlighter in the weeks before the previous President’s addresses, going through and counting the appearances of “I” and yelling at his cohorts to remove them. I won’t name names about whose highlighter I think it was. It does make sense, though: rhetoric about “our” country certainly feels like it should sell better than that about “my” country, especially with the President.

Tangentially, President Bush used, on average, 24 lexemes of “terror” (“terror,” “terrorism,” “terrorist(s),” “terrified,” and “terrorized”) in his speech. He talked about “terror” 73% as frequently as he talked about himself, compared to President Obama, who only did so 3% as much. He said “terrorism” once and “terrorists” twice. Take from that language lesson what you will.

As always, feel free to check for yourself:

• State of the Union Transcripts and Videos – C-SPAN

• Word Frequency Counter – Rainbow.Arch (I don’t think it’s that rainbow)

So, Baratunde suggests we need a #NewHate – Race, gender, sexuality, etc. are all “played out.”  Of course, I can see where he’s coming from; we’ve got plenty of high-profile people of various demographics now, and only the lunatic fringe (less fringe-y in some parts of the world/country than others) really has a huge problem with it.  I take it that the fires of irrational hate take energy to keep stoking and with Americans’ attentions being distracted by such activities as getting fatter by the second, we just don’t have the vitality for our old hatreds.

Of course, his solution is to hate people who wear their scarves differently.  That’s silly.  No, I don’t mean it’s not a valid reason to hate someone, I’ve seen some atrocious scarf-mountings in my day and I was this close ( |—| ) to calling Pat Robertson up to spew a vitriolic stream of moronic faith-based hate on them.  Rather, I think he’s missing one of the following two key points of irrational hatred: that it be something people have little choice in being part of, and that it be completely and utterly a stupid reason to hate someone (points for the latter, Baratunde).

My theory is this: let’s hate people based on the number of vowels in their names.  Personally, every one of my names has two vowels in it (even my nickname does, since “y” is only sometimes a vowel), and I think that’s the way it should be.  It keeps things simple, and that’s the way God intended it (he gets off the hook cause he’s God and all).  So join me, my two-vowelled brethren, as we take the world back for the righteous and the proud!

So, I have mentioned my “partner” before in the scant few posts I’ve had thus far.  I should clarify this by saying that, yes, I do mean this in the semi-politically-correct sense of he’s my long-term significant other.  Allow me further clarifying leeway in stating that I hate this term to describe our relationship.  It feels like a watered-down version of a real term of endearment.  I’d be (marginally) less uncomfortable sticking to “boyfriend,” though there seems to be some consensus that “boyfriend” denotes something less serious.

In the heterosexual world, there’s clearly delineated levels of a relationship: dating, boyfriend/girlfriend, engaged, and married.  Due to the fact that people get married faster than they switch toothbrushes these days, they’re watering down their own meaning of the last two, but I digress.  For gay couples, it just stops after the boyfriend or girlfriend stage.  We’ve been left to come up with our own terms for what follows, given that marriage between us is being treated as a bigger threat to the institution as a whole than people getting married before they’ve decided to which college they’re going.  “This long-distance marriage thing just isn’t going to work out, you’re going to the University of Pittsburgh and I’m going to the University of Philadelphia.”

This isn’t to say I want to be able to call him my husband, or for him to call me that.  I’m aware of where the term comes from, and it just doesn’t seem appropriate in this day and age.  So, where does that leave me?  Well, I use, with great disdain, “partner.”  We’re not in a business together, we don’t chase down criminals together; we share a home, a bed, and our lives.  Companion seems better, though it has an unfortunate feeling (to my mind), that one person is the dominant entity in the relationship.

Honestly, I try to avoid labeling things like this anyway, as I feel it’s like trying to catch the wind and stick it in a bottle, to contain it in something less than it already is.  Unfortunately, it becomes a problem when communicating the idea to others.  So here I am: stuck, trying to label something I don’t want to label; hating the terms I’ve been given, and thinking I should come up with a new one; and terrified of coming up with something absolutely, unequivocally awful like “brights.”