Blame: responsibility for a mistake

To take the blame (= to acknowledge that one is to blame for doing something; to admit that it is one’s own fault) is the hardest thing to do. Maybe that’s why www.ehow.com offers four different techniques how to do it:

Step 1: ALL MY FAULT! - Just say it; you don't have to mean it.
Here is how this sounds: "I made a boneheaded mistake yesterday. Comparing the tactics of the Nixon administration -- which bugged and intimidated and harassed journalists -- to that of the Obama administration was foolish, facile, ridiculous and, ultimately, embarrassing to me. I should have known better and, in fact, I do know better. I was around during the Nixon years. I am fully cognizant of what they did and attempted to do. I apologize for a dumb comparison" (Ken Rudin, NPR).

Step 2: SO WHAT? It's easier to take the blame for something that really isn't your fault. This is not about justice, it's about letting go of the blame syndrome.
Of course, one subtly can let people know that the blame is not really one’s own. This is called sharing the blame (= to accord a share of it to others), and it’s done by suddenly switching from the pronoun “I” to “we.” "All the Toyota vehicles bear my name. For me, when the cars are damaged, it is as though I am as well. I, more than anyone, wish for Toyota's cars to be safe, and for our customers to feel safe when they use our vehicles. We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization and we should be sincerely mindful of that" (Akio Toyoda).
Even though the vehicles bear “my” name, they are “our” vehicles and “we” must be mindful. But who are these “we”?
The management team, Chuck Prince of Citigroup says before he goes one step further. “I’m sorry that our management team, starting with me, like so many others could not see the unprecedented market collapse that lay before us.” Prince tries to share the blame not only with “our management team” but with “so many others.” Honestly, how can somebody be at fault who simply did something so many others did as well?
Tiger Woods is even smarter. Although he begins by blaming himself for transgressions, he soon deflects the blame altogether. “I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart. … For the last week, my family and I have been hounded to expose intimate details of our personal lives. … Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn't have to mean public confessions.” Suddenly, not his transgressions but those who made them known deserve the blame. Moreover, Mr. Woods uses the passive voice, cleverly avoiding to declare anybody in particular guilty for such misdeeds.

Step 3 : YEAH, SO? Accept responsibility. If it really is your fault, don't wallow in it. Accept responsibility for your actions and move on …
… as does Michael Steele, who, too, first blames some obscure “they” before he decides to just move on: “They love nothing more than for us to keep pointing fingers at me and others, instead of their radical un-American agenda, and we shouldn’t fall for that trap. I’m the first here to admit that I’ve made mistakes, and it’s been incumbent on me to take responsibility, shoulder that burden, make the necessary changes and move on.”
Tiger Woods and Michael Steele attempt to shift the blame (= to transfer it from one person to another), but they haven’t mastered the final strategy, which is

Step 4: Lighten up. What does blame have to do with anything? Who cares who is at fault? Choose an attitude of 'oh well, that's okay' and see how much pleasanter [sic!] life can be.
“At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought “ (Pope Benedict 9/12/06). The Pope is not sorry for his words, just for the reaction they provoked. And a little bit like Adam, who first blamed God for giving him Eve and then blamed her for giving him the forbidden fruit, the Pope first blames the Muslims’ sensibility (= their way to feel about or react to his statement) and then some medieval scripture that doesn’t even reflect his own beliefs. See how much more pleasant life can be!

Sustainability that doesn't sound so good

Let’s go green, starting with the way we eat. Buying at local farmers' markets is the prefect first step since “there are many organic offerings that forgo the use of harmful pesticides.” Never mind that organic offerings can neither use nor not use pesticides. The farmers growing the produce, however, may indeed forgo the higher profit conventional farming can generate. Yet, “eating fresh, natural food tastes good.” Surely, eating tastes good, doesn’t it?
Anybody who doesn’t like to cook, should find a green certified dining joint, where “the meat is an eco-friendly option. At B.L., it attains sustainability status with its menu and atmosphere.” A joint where the meat has menu and atmosphere indeed must be a true eco-gourmet’s pick.
Of course, to get to this joint, a hybrid car is the best choice, maybe the compact “Honda Civic Hybrid [which] provides a perfect compliment [!] of practicability.” Please, return this compliment by washing your Hybrid Honda often. After all, California now has “water restrictions such as landscape irrigation and vehicle washing,” car washing itself evidently being a rule rather than California having a restriction on it.
Yet promoting hybrid cars is not enough. California also must develop alternatives to “fossil fuels when our geographically rich country has so much clean, renewable energy to harness.” Geographically rich?
Not only does California need alternatives for energy but also for sweet water supplies since some lawmakers object the further exploitation of the Colorado River, thus “essentially closing off another import outlet.” Since an outlet is “a pipe through which liquid can flow out,” an “import outlet” must be a very ingenious circular conduit. Or is it a new form of recycling?
Finally, buildings must become more environmentally friendly and “have re-used demolished building materials.” A true commitment to sustainability requires that “all of these qualifications are met with the final product.” While it would indeed be more desirable that the final product meets the qualifications or that these qualifications are met by the final product, it most likely will never happen. After all, completely destroyed building material won’t be re-usable, not even for the most eco-friendly house. (Source: The Daily Aztec, “Sustainability – Feeling Truth At You [sic!]”)

circuitous sentences

The movie Goodfellas offers a great lesson on how to send forth a torrent of words without saying anything. Some politicians obviously have been watching attentively:

"He is one of the very few people who can sit in on anything he wants to sit in on" (Anita Dunn about Robert Gibbs).

"If all you do is get focused on what this does to this, and what this does to this, you will be so paralyzed that you will never make a decision. It's not easy. If you take the long view, you have to take it" (Robert Gibbs).

"To be a competitor, it will have to be able to compete" (Nancy Pelosi on the public option).

"I think if you were to look forward a year, I expect I will be where I am" (David Axelrod).

up and down, back and forth, in and out

“E-Books Explode” (Daily Finance.com) – duck and cover! – and Yahoo News asks if the ipad is “over-hyped,” creating sort of a hyperbolic tautology, not quite inappropriate after all the build-up to the release of this new tablet computer.
Since gadgets sell and "Online Ads Show Signs of Pickup" (The Wall Street Journal) – which one? F 150 or Tacoma? – the economy seems to be on its way up again. Or perhaps not since “Economists broadly agree that the recession probably ended last summer” (Yahoo News). So, the downtime is over – just as likely as not.
While the economy may be up or down, education remains stable with “teachers who neither drag their students down nor pull them ahead” (NYT). Teachers may neither drag students down nor pull them up, neither hold them back nor pull them ahead, but education is at least at an equilibrium, unlike some buildings which, during the April 4th earthquake, were “swaying from Los Angeles to Phoenix to Las Vegas” (Yahoo News), obviously swinging back and forth at an amplitude of more than 200 miles.
Similarly lopsided is Nancy Pelosi's rhetoric. After declaring that "We have to pass the bill, so you can find out what's in it," now that the bill is out, she compares health care reform to “the back of the refrigerator. You see all these wires and the rest. All you need to know is, you open the door. The light goes on. You open this door, you go through a whole different path, in terms of access to quality, affordable health care for all Americans" (KCBS radio, San Francisco). I, for once, open my fridge to take something out and so far did not have to go through whatever terms to access its contents. Although Aristotle called the metaphor “the greatest thing by far,” when the comparison is crooked, it looks more like “bad optics.”

like-minded

NPR’s Robert Smith interviewed “recent graduates,” who share an apartment, about the census. Here is what they had to say:


Mike: Did we get the forms?
Nate: Yeah.
Mike: We did. I didn't see any yet.
Nate: We still get mail from the past 30 people that have lived there [sic]. So it's like who knows if people are getting these.
Smith: Well, actually the census knows. These few blocks around Wythe Avenue and 6th Street have about a 36% return rate.
Nate: I guess it's laziness and like what's the point? When it comes down to it, nobody wants to fill out like another form that's just like getting sent to your house that really relatively has nothing to do with your life. I mean people would do it if they got like five bucks.
Smith: Five bucks?
Nate: Yeah. Or if there was like more than just like a piece of paper that's like you have to do this or you could get in trouble, which no one will get in trouble; that's why they don't do it.