Rant #3,116: Words

... and furthermore ...

Names like “The Chiefs” and “The Warriors” have kind of morphed into generic terms, so those who are so upset about their use as school athletic team names … can you rightfully say that you have never used these terms yourself in general conversation?

Yes, I am getting back to yesterday’s Rant, where I bemoaned New York State’s new law that state school districts cannot use any athletic team names related to Native Americans.

This is all so ridiculous, and is already wasting time—and soon, a lot of money—to put into force.

Several school districts, including Long Island’s Wantagh and Massapequa, have already said that they will fight this nonsense—which they should—and I am sure that there are other school districts in the state that will do the same.

What makes the entire thing so laughable—and so sad at the same time—is that the one “out” that the state has given these school districts is that they can keep their name if they get approval from a recognized indigenous tribe … and on Long Island at least, there is only one such recognized group, the Shinnecocks, who wholly support this ban, so there isn’t really any true “out” on Long Island.

(And the Shinnecocks, by the way, are, as an indigenous tribe acknowledged by New York State, is allowed to, among other things, sell tax-free cigarettes to the public, which not only is a public health hazard, but perpetuates the high and early death rates of its own people.)

Some of the affected schools are going to fight this ban, and I would not be surprised if this entire argument eventually makes its way all the way through to the Supreme Court.

The Wantagh School District has said that It wants to keep its Warrior name, and will soften its logo to meet the new standards of the state removing anything considered to be offensive in its depiction of Native Americans including ceremonial feathers used in the depiction.

The Massapequa School District said that the Chiefs name is used to celebrate the Massapequa Indians, a group that does not exist anymore, and that the use of the name is celebratory, not blasphemous.

And looking back over recent history right in the environs of Long Island, St. John’s University—based in nearby Queens—about 20 years ago or so changed its team name from the Redmen to the Red Storm.

Now, I can see where the name Redmen could be considered offensive, because remember, American Indians were known for their “red” faces as much as white Americans were known as “pale faces” way back when … so how were they allowed to keep the “Red” in the name—an obvious negative American Indian connotation—and become the Red Storm?

Yes, the whole thing is completely ludicrous, but we have become a nation where we are more concerned with things that are trivial rather than things that are important.

I mean, look at the recent handling of the pandemic by our nation, which would need about 100 Rants to discuss fully.

Since we are talking about the use of words today, I want to focus on the use of a single word in reference to the pandemic, which is the word “vaccine.”

Prior to the pandemic, the word “vaccine” meant, in layman’s terms, a serum either injected into you or taken by mouth that completely protected you from getting whatever virus it was earmarked for, i.e., measles or polio.

Once you got the vaccine, you were pretty much protected from ever getting those dreaded diseases.

During the pandemic, our scientists during “Operation Warp Speed” started to put into motion, in record time, what was soon called a “vaccine” to prevent us from getting COVID.

The problem was, while the “vaccine” was successful in mitigating the effects of COVID, it did not fully prevent anyone from getting the virus.

That is all fine and good, because it has been a lifesaver for many of us, and I have taken three shots, gotten COVID, but ever so mildly that I do believe the shots helped me.

But the very definition of the word “vaccine” has changed, now defined in most of the prominent online and printed dictionaries not as a preventative to getting a virus or disease, but as a mitigater.

And that new definition is because our government decided to classify the shots as “vaccines” to make more people get them, even though that term was wrongly used, and primarily used for political purposes.

I spoke about this back in Rant #2,781 (December 2, 2021), where I said the following:

“But I guess there is going to be some politics involved in this discussion, and that is only because Merriam-Webster has fed into the media’s obsession with the shots not by its choice of the word as “the word of the year,” but by tweaking the definition to fit the current narrative of what a "vaccine" is.

So if you are looking for the real, true and actual definition of the word “vaccine,” don’t buy any new dictionaries put out by the company, nor buy into their current definition.

Let me explain …

With an expanded definition to reflect the times, Merriam-Webster has pretty much changed the definition of the word to not only reflect the status of the coronavirus vaccine, but to garner the publisher some extra press coverage.

Earlier in 2021, with the “vaccine” being made available to adults of just about all ages, Merriam-Webster added to its online entry for “vaccine” to cover all the talk of mRNA vaccines, or messenger vaccines such as those for COVID-19 developed by Pfizer-BioNTech PFE and Moderna MRNA.

And by doing so, it pretty much allowed people to misuse the word. Including every politician and supposed infectious disease “expert” who came down the pike.”

Focusing on words—“vaccine,” “Warriors”—rather than focusing on real problems takes the spotlight off those real problems and puts it on trivial things, and I do believe we have more problems with our educational system than the use of certain names for our public school teams.

But as long as our leaders put the focus on nonsense, we will continue to skirt the real issues of our time …

Which I do believe is thru true reason we are focusing on this truly unimportant nonsense rather than on real, honest to goodness issues that face us all.

Personally, I am more upset with gas moving up to the $4 level as it is right now than about the team name used by my local school system, but have you heard one single, solitary word from our politicians lately about rising gas prices?

The key word here, or really the key term here, is also made up of words, and they are the following:

“Fed up."