TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY HAS BEEN AND GONE

September 19th was 'Talk Like a Pirate Day'. Google, feeling it needed to add another language to its list, has added Pirate talk. Just type in, for example, I'm thirsty. Pour me a drink, please? The trusty translator immediately replies in translation with: "Arr, I'm thirsty, Gar." Next I typed: This beats listening to McCain and Palin telling their lies. The reply: "Arrr, this beats listenin' t' McCain and Palin tellin' their lies. Aye, me parrot concurs."

"It gives your conversation a swagger, an elán, denied to landlocked lubbers. The best explanation came from a guy at a Cleveland radio station who interviewed us on the 2002 Talk Like a Pirate Day. He told us we were going to be buried by people asking for interviews because it was a "whimsical alternative" to all the serious things that were making the news so depressing. In other words, silliness is the holiday's best selling point." A quote from this site.

Given the general mood of the world right now, it is refreshing to have a diversion from McCain/Palin lies and the heartbreak of knowing how many people believe them. But, like many things that start in fun and acting, there are real criminals and pirates out there today...no longer the movie variety made famous in books by Raphael Sabatini, acted by Errol Flynn and the handsome Tyrone Power, that made a previous generation fantasy being kidnapped and ravished by them. Today's pirates are not adding to the aesthetics of the Caribbean, they are terrifying the rich and touristy yachters. Elsewhere, in real life, pirates are stealing fish as if it were gold from the sea. Officially it is what is known as Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing.

Once again, Nero is fiddling while Rome is burning. It seems that criminals are everywhere, pretty undeterred by a society that squanders billions on everything but protection from them. As the world economy gets more desperate, we can expect more letters telling us to send money to Africa so that they can send money back to us; more empty promises from our Republican politicians so they can continue their reign of figuratively further thumbing their noses at our middle class and poorer workers and citizens; and all the multitude of scams perpetrated on us by society that has grown up to believe that anything is acceptable as long as you don't get caught at it.

Maybe the Rapture doesn't look so bad anymore, if only it were true. We can, at least, dream of a better world or state of being.