European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 13, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse The culture of figuring out s in Vogue William Safire on language e have slipped seamlessly into the analysis of Vogue words notice How everybody who used to talk about the politics of whatever is now profoundly discussing the Cul Ture of whatever when surgeon general Joycelyn elders blasted the Sale of toy guns As contributing to the culture of violence a columnist Colin Campbell exploded at the to Guisness of it All citing Book titles from Lewis Mumford s 1938 the culture of Cit ies a usage then fresh and appropriate to the recent the culture of addiction and the culture of time and space. They re not talking about the practical cultivation of organisms the culture of oysters " Campbell wrote in the Atlanta journal and Constitution or of real societies the culture of ancient Egypt. The new cliche refers instead to subgroups problems values jobs notions and statistical abstractions As they were species tribes and i would argue and if i would then Why Don t i of i argue that when a subgroup like English teach ers or Beauty parlor operators or the mafia has a in Side Lingo a set of agreed upon moorings and a secret handshake that can be defined As a culture. It de scribes As Campbell notes a closed system. But the phrase is getting abused by the culture of title writers. Could we deep six downsize asks Irv Molotsky weekend editor of the new York times in washing ton he cites my own 1989 abjuration to Mikhail Gorbachev to downsize the Empire More recently corporations describe layoffs to increase productivity As downsizing. The smithsonian institution looking around for a euphemism s euphemism has come up a ii rightsizing. The Good news in the Vogue word watch is the decline of caring. The word not necessarily the practice and the simultaneous slump in its com Panion sharing caregiver after a fast Start is sink ing and hardly any with it politician says i want to share my thoughts with you shebang in Shirley lord s new novel my sister s keeper the scion of a cosmetics Empire on the Trail of an anti wrinkle Cream which i presume is the holy grail of skin care says i can t see How i could Ever take Over from dad and run the whole in a new York times Book review of Michael Crichton s reverse sexist novel disclosure Maureen Dowd wrote when you merely switch the roles making a woman act exactly like a Man you give up the most intriguing element of the whole Megillah we Deal Here with the language s attempt to cop with totality. The whole is evidently never enough colourful speech demands a whole something. A shebang in novelist lord s usage is an entire corporation. As the late etymology is William Morris once recorded a possible source is the Irish word shebeen a lowly tavern that sold drinks without a License from this the word became associated with cheap real estate giving Rise to an offer of a pittance for the whole Mikhail Gorbachev downsized the Empire after All. Megillah is the hebrew word for scroll though you do not often hear the dead sea Mcgil Lahs the Book of Esther is one of the detailed Mcgil Lahs which Drew yawns from some scholars whose irreverent friends expanded the term s coverage to prolix prose and ultimately to anything too Long and complicated the yiddish go Netzch Mcgil Tah is the whole Megillah now ensconced in English and sometimes used by impatient readers of this column to describe its exhaustive research. Then there s the whole kit and caboodle with a a meaning set of equipment and Boodle possibly from the dutch bold cd estate and Madison Avenue s whole Ball of Wax the construction Industry s whole nine Yards and California s whole enchilada. Pass the anti wrinkle Cream a Lexie could grow old running Down the whole bit. The new York times too Many holes in these sour scientific theories. Tony Kornheiser i his just in scientists in Colorado working of course with a government Grant Are going to take 20 people and Drill holes in their Heads for no reason. Behold the intrepid March of science used to be if scientists drilled holes in your head they would at least be trying to find out say if the drilling of holes in one s head produces head but now even that feeble pretext is unnecessary. In this new study of a treatment for Parkinson s disease 20 people will receive injections of fetal tis sue into their brains but the other 20 the control group will receive Only holes in the head. This is deemed necessary to eliminate the Placebo this raises several questions which in deference to the scientific method i will Label a through c a so like Are you kidding me or what b just How bad could the Placebo effect bal c could you make Jeff Gillooly part of the control group in general science is worrying me. As a Parent the one thing i know for sure is to keep my kids away from sugar particularly late at night. You give a kid sugar and you re putting All the wallpaper at risk. One Small halloween size bag of a is and Boom they re running through the House Crayon ing the Walls trying to put the cat in the microwave beating the dining room table with a Ball Peen Ham Mer. Giving a child a twinkle is like pointing a can of Spray paint at your $2,000 chinese Rug. A generation of parents has raised its children on the belief that Almond Joys cause hysteria. In the True Yuppie House it s easier to find a bowl of co Caine than a bowl of sugar. You won t find sugar smacks or Lucky stars or count Cholula at my House i have my kids eat Oatmeal the old fashioned european Way so it tastes like it comes from a paste pot. I make them eat it from tin soup ladles sprinkled with Muesli and Pencil shavings. Sugar is bad. Bad. Sugar Baraad. This is the gospel of Post Vietnam America. Along with you keep doing that son you la go Blind this is something that has been spoon fed to us like Well like sugar. Scientists have assured us of this. Now this week comes a slight revision from the american scientific Community sugar Good. Good. Sugar goo Good. A study published in the new England journal of Medicine concludes that sugar docs not cause hyperactivity in children. Of sure and the Earth is round right Chris one group of kids was fed Only Tofu and Rose hips or some other hideously Bland deck and a second group was Force fed giant sugar canes. A third group had holes drilled in their Heads. Just kidding. Pure sugar Cane can t be digested. Anyway they showed no difference in hyperactivity sugar groups and no sugar groups. I have an 11-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son and the other night i left them alone for less than two minutes i was in the basement switching the Wash to the dryer and when i got Back up stairs not Only was she crying that he had Gill Oloyed her in the leg but also there was a Hole the size of an Orange in his bedroom Wall where she had pushed the Doorknob and she was holding one of his ears and threatening to shove his head into the Radiator and slice it like an egg. I immediately looked around for a telltale Milky Way wrapper. How could this not be sugar How can i Tell myself it s just.,. Them i be based my entire parenting repertoire on the belief that sugar causes lunacy in children. On Hal Loween i Tell the kids to throw away the Candy and break open the milk Carton and cat the pennies for Unicof if medical research can Tell us sugar in t the cause of children s hyperactivity today what will they Tell us tomorrow flossing promotes constipation Richard Lewis is funny third alarming science fact this week it became known that a new super growth hormone has be come available for cows. Many stores have said they will not sell the milk produced by cows treated with this hormone. The hormone s technical name is Bovine Soma Tropin a latin term that loosely translates into humongous cow As i understand it the testing of this hormone took place in a study of 40 cows. Twenty of the cows had the growth hormone put into huge open holes that were drilled into their Heads by people from the cast of Good fellas. In order to eliminate the Placebo effect the other 20 cows were Shotgun cd and made into attractive belts the cows that had been treated with the new growth hormone showed no effects at first. But within a week Kraft was filling or Ders on its new mile Long american cheese the tests were conducted in secret but word that something astonishing was taking place leaked out when paperwork revealed that the entire Cream cheese order for the famed Catskill resort hotel Grossinger a was being filled by a particular cow named big Alice. I look Forward to the Day when i can Send the Chil Dren to the store to pick up a snickers bar in the Shaquille o Neal size and the convenient 40-Li or bottle of half n half. The Washington Post february 13, 1994 sunday Page 21
