I stumbled onto conservative radio host Vicki McKenna’s Twitter account after someone retweeted her undemocratic views regarding our supreme court and the recent election. I have not thought about her for years, but what I soon discovered is that she likes to toss around the ‘F’ bomb. In fact, she lobbed it again today.
But at least today she used it only once as opposed to December 10th where in the allocated space of 280 characters she got it in print twice. We all have a skill, I guess.
I call this out not as one who wishes to censor language. But I do feel it is a duty of ‘the rank and file’ to call out activity that undermines our society. She has a professional job as a radio show host and with that comes a responsibility to behave as others are always paying attention. Because of that, I left the following comments for her.
We can disagree on the topic at hand, but your word usage is one we all can agree not to be professional. If wrong when used by a segment of the UW-Madison student section during Saturday football games in past, then wrong here, too.
No doubt level of vulgar speech and ease which it is dispensed has increased over decades. No one can lay claim to living in perfect times where cursing was never heard, but no one can honestly state that our discourse has not become harsher, more profane.
I grew up watching each Sunday afternoon Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.; without doubt one of the nation’s most erudite conservative political writers and thinkers of the 20th century. I recall being in awe that someone could have such a rich and diverse vocabulary. He was unlike anyone else on television. With the way he used his words an ordinary sentence was almost poetry. While listening to his program I would try to learn new words for my own usage. Never once did I hear him curse or use profanities. But then he was not an insecure person.
What I found very concerning about the word choice of McKenna is that conservatives often, and correctly, call out the coarsening of our society. Part of that comes with the nasty tweets, the bluster, and bombast that so many of them claim not to be in line with their values. And yet…….
Just two months ago I read a book by Simon Winchester about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. As of November 2005, it contained approximately 301,100 main entries. In other words, there are scores of ways to convey our sentiments about every topic we encounter. We can choose to show self-respect, or we can take the opposite path.
For the record, this blog has called out John “Sly” Sylvestor, Congressman Mark Pocan, and others for cursing in ‘the public square’. I just firmly believe that the grain of good taste and decency needs to be planted by those who have chosen careers that place them as public people.
And so it goes.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 