The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

To The Eagle:

Whaddaya call a chicken that quacks? Bilingual! We have a parrot with a male name, Zacharia. She lays eggs. No, she’s not a cross-gender bird. She was just named before her gender became fully apparent. It happens. She has an extensive vocabulary of one word- her name.

She can clearly enunciate her name, in about 50 different ways. Having had her in the family for 20 years, we can tell by the modulation, pitch, intonation, emphasis, or tone of that one word whether she wants to snack- or go to bed- or play on her perch- or that I’ve spent enough time on my computer and wants my attention- or the dog has spent too much time in my lap and she wants her turn.

Buster is my 25 pound ‘lap’ dog. I might as well call him ‘Velcro.’ He’s that attached and shares me reluctantly with the rest of the family. He has an expressive ‘one whine’ vocabulary. Its timing, tone, warble and ascending or descending pitch inform me whether its lap time- chow time- play time- pee time- or time for his arthritis meds, and he’s quite aware and accurate almost to the minute about his scheduled dosage.

Some people seem to have one word vocabularies too. It’s always f**k that, or fu**ing liberals, or fu**ing politics! or, ow! I smashed my fu**ing finger! It makes me want to scream “use your words!” Our language has 4800 other adjectives to use!

Similarly, Republicans seem to be at a loss for proper words, having substituted intelligent communication with a one word stutter- wokewokewokewoke. Woke this and woke that, or too woke, etcetera, ad nauseum.

Woke. The all purpose insult, description, or complaint, the actual meaning of which Republicans seem unable to accurately define yet constantly use, because they’re either too mentally lazy, or ignorant, to use adjectives to properly describe all the issues they’re constantly lying about.

C’mon Republicans. Use your words! Explain to us what frightens you about social justice in America. Bet’ya can’t do it without using ‘woke’ even once.

JB Bouchard

Puget Island