Saturday, May 21, 2016

Gate-Ghazi or is it Ghazi-Gate? We Be Lazy

I have long been annoyed by the lazy way in which every new scandal gets a -gate attached to it.  Yes, there was Watergate, but that was more than forty years ago.  Can we move on?  Oh, -ghazi?  Hells, no!  For one thing, it is not a scandal.  For another, it is just -gate in slightly new clothes.

How about we come up with new words to describe each new scandal or story?  How about some creativity, media folks?  It is not that hard.  For instance, the big story in Canada is that Justin Trudeau grabbed the Conservative whip (the guy responsible for organizing the Conservatives in parliament) to drag him to get a vote started, and he bumped into a female MP from the NDP party.  Instead of elbow-gate, how about parlia-mess?  Far more descriptive, IMHO.

So, here's my plea: how about we move on from 1973 and develop story-specific names.  We have all kinds of meme-skilz sharpened by a decade of twitter and facebook.  So, let's deploy these skilz to come up with more creative ways to label the latest political controversy.  And, by the way, if Trump were to win, we would need a damn near infinite supply of labels.  


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