The Lost Angeles Times and the Evil Within

Those of us who have cast the legacy media of printed newspapers behind can, for all the advantages of electronic news, miss out on certain crimes against the language that are being committed every day. Crimes so disgusting that I for one believe the perps should be sought out and given a long swing on a short length of knotted hemp.

This morning my wife, who for parenting purposes still believes in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and printed newspapers, brought a two disturbing examples of the Lost Angeles Times' continuing felonious assault on the English language to my attention -- a misdemeanor and a felony.

The misdemeanor headline can be seen online:

Bringing Serious Bling to Colorado Boulevard

But the deeper shame is on the continued or jump page from that story where the innocent and utterly unprepared reader is greeted with the overwhelmingly awful headline:

Rose Queen Will Bling in the New Year

I knew that there would be no stopping the penetration of the spoken language by "bling" more than a

year ago when my step-son and his 9-year-old posse was reported to have used it on a field trip.

I made my peace with "bling" in the whitest realms of pop culture when it was announced that the next Paris Hilton / Peanuts Christmas Special was to be called "Give Me All Your Big Bling-Bling, Charlie Brown!" (Special guest appearance by Anna Nicole Smith as Schroder.)

I am one with Gary Snyder's Zen-moment that as far as the whole culture goes, "Aristotle's in the outhouse. They're up to the part on Ethics now."

I accept that the "Official Commercialized Underclass of America ®" is compelled to assault the language in order to keep up the payments on the Ferrari and any number of random children.

I can even see the deeper linkage between Hip Hop and its predecessor Cockney rhyming slang.

But when I am assaulted by

Rose Queen Will Bling in the New Year

in the morning paper, I think it is high time to cancel not only my subscription, but the vast number of medical marijuana prescriptions afflicting the Lost Angeles Times newsroom. Perhaps we should move them all to a more palliative medicaton -- a flagon with a dragon, or, at the very least, some People's Temple Jonestown Punch. Just for the holidays.

Posted by Vanderleun at November 27, 2004 08:52 AM | TrackBack