Okay, without offering any editorial comment one way or another about whether I think Rev. Tony Alamo is "suffering the little children" or not, I have to protest at the description of his little Jesus Camp. That's right, the legacy media is already calling it a "compound".
Now, as best I can tell, there are no guard towers, rabid dobermans, or machine gun nests, so its only qualification as a "compound" is that sometimes some people live there whose religious views might be a few bubbles off plumb, like Rev. Tony Montana. By that definition, the Southern Baptist church retreat at which I spent the idyllic summers of my youth, getting sunburned and making awful braided lanyards for... well, whatever it is that you attach awful braided lanyards to, was a "compound".
I'm sorry Mr. Reporter, but unless you can turn up the ammo bunker or the fallout shelter, Rev. Tony Cacciatore's little collection of holy double-wides is a few Kalashnikovs short of a compound, no matter how many times he may or may not have read kids "My Weekend With Uncle Badtouch" as a bedtime story.
I'm going to start calling our house Roseholme Compound. Lord knows we've got better chops for the accolade than Tony does.
It's not a tower, it's.. uh.. A bird watching platform! Yeah, That's what it is!
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How is it that these same reporters see nothing wrong with urban high schools (like one I attended) sporting three strands of barbed wire on the fenceline and doors secured with padlocked chains?
ReplyDeleteAnd anyone who visits an elementary school these days can only be impressed at the way that access is controlled and all visitors are monitored. One almost expects to see a tac-team on standby in the teachers lounge.
It doesn't sound like Mr. Alamo had his kids behind barbed wire in hallways patrolled by police dogs sniffing for drugs.
So, which one's a compound again?
I fail to see why words get stigmatized such as this. A compound is just a property with multiple buildings on it.
ReplyDeleteIt's getting so that a man can't feel gay as he laces up his jackboots and liberally marches in lockstep with his cult, er, to the media.
(I'm missing a few buzzwords, here. Uh, Violence! Uh.... dissidents!)
I dunno, Tam. Maybe we just have to go with the language-change flow. So what if words cease to have actual meanings?
ReplyDeleteI mean, for instance, I have a wooded acre with two semi-squalid cabins, one I live in and one for guests ad other hobbies. My neighbors delight in calling it -----'s compound, Even the ones who don't know it houses a veritable arsenal.
Eh. My buddies and I have been talking about setting up a compound for years. 'Tis no different from the way most Europeans farm, actually...several buildings together, surrounded by (strike)ranges(/strike) farmland.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny. The Kennedys' have a compound. GHW Bush has a compound in Maine. But Dubya has a ranch. How'd that happen?
ReplyDeleteSo compounds are apparently okay as long as they are in New England.
Now compounds may be alright for most of y'all. But my wife and I are saving our sheckels for something a little bit lower...www.missilebases.com.
Unless the graboids attack, we'll be o-Tay! Valhalla Sector, here we come.
Hey, nothing wrong with the word compound! It's a cool word. If I were at all able to, that is what I would call the place I live!
ReplyDelete"Yeah, come on over to the compound, I've got the new Michael Mann movie on DVD."
"Nah, I'm not busy. Just hanging around the compound."
"You know the way to my compound, right? Oh and pick up some Dr Pepper on the way if you can."
Oh yeah... Some day, maybe some day...
Remind me - a compound is when the ions combine into new molecules, but a mixture is when all the components remain in the suspension as their original molecules, right?
ReplyDeleteI tend to think of compound as 'self contained living faciliy', and some of them are 'armed compounds' such as where Al Quaeda trains and where people want to form ghettos where their own laws apply.
Campus, I think is a group of buildings for a related purpose, but doesn't imply and enclosed lifestyle.
Or was that one mole of sale, and one mole of water, and you get .. no, that was one mole of oxygen, and two moles of hydrogen, then you stick a garden hose in the hole and wait for the bugger to pop up .. no, that still doesn't come out right. Besides, I like those wire traps for gophers.
Actually a compound is a fenced or walled area.(Implied is a fence or wall to keep humans, rather than livestock, in or out.)
ReplyDeleteSo if it has a six foot fence around the trailers, it's a compound.
" A compound is just a property with multiple buildings on it."
ReplyDelete"Actually a compound is a fenced or walled area."
Err..... so...... if I get me a shed for the garden tools and put up a fence to keep the neighbor kids off the lawn, I got me a "compound"? I was thinkin' it would be a whole lot more financially burdensome to live like the Kennedys...... (sings) Movin' on up! To the Top!......