I get mail from a concerned citizen of Bloggerville, and am willing to help (within the boundaries of my idiom, of course).

Responding to one of my Religion of Peace updates, Mr. Michael Vidikan writes

Can I ask what you meant by the following:


Religion of Peace Update

...or, Happy Ramadan, kiddies! The rather unfortunately named Steven Stalinsky, (of course, that wasn't his real name) writing for JewishWorldReview.com, reminds us we are smack in the middle of The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.



Are you just making a joke, or calling the person that wrote this “Stalin”?

Michael Vidikan
Director of Communications & Technology
www.memri.org
www.memritv.org
mvidikan@memri.org


In an attempt to help him get it, I replied to him thusly:

Dear Mr. Vidikan,

I meant precisely and only what I wrote: Mr. Stalinsky is rather unfortunate to have that particular surname, as are people named Hitlery, Excrementos, Shamalamadingdong, Pusmaker, et cetera.

Obviously, this does not reflect negatively on Mr. Stalinsky or anyone else unfortunate enough to have what I consider to be an unfortunate surname. I, sir, am no surnamist.

In fact, in some quarters, Garibaldi is considered a curse.

I know it is increasingly difficult to resist the temptation to read things into the things we read, but resist it we must. I blame Jacques Derrida and the Deconstructionist mafia for this terrible affliction, but, then again, I am a rather old fashioned guy.

If you care to peruse my humble and idiotic blog, you will quickly realize I do indeed know the difference between the arch murderer who fancied himself "Stalin" and any Stalinsky I might happen to meet along the way. If not, you will just have to take my word for it.

Sincerely,
Fyodor Garibaldi

Memri.org is a very serious organization that provides translations of Middle Eastern media for people like you and me, kiddies. (So folks over there can't conceal themselves in the Tower of Babel's rubble.) I can only assume Mr. Vidikin is a serious man as well.

More than probably, my idiom does not translate well into real-worldese, but I believe there is a serious and important point in my reply to Mr. Vidikin.

What are you doing when you read a text, kiddies? Are you trying to really understand what another man was trying to communicate to you, or are you imposing your ideas on the defenseless author?

Please think about this for a minute. This has frightening implications.

If the Deconstructionist dodos are correct and words are not knowable in and of themselves, then there is no meaning anywhere. (Stupid, I know, but that is the kind of nonsense taught these days.) Even more dangerous is the possibility of these thought-fascists convincing people there is no meaning independent of that which the individual reader imparts to the words he reads.

Perhaps I am overreacting to what I perceive to be Mr. Vidikin's overreaction. Perhaps I am overreacting to what I perceive to be a veiled charge of anti-semitism in Mr. Vidikin's e-mail. (Let me break this one down for you, kiddies: 1. Stalinsky's probably Jewish, writing in a Jewish publication. 2. Vidikin's probably Jewish, working for what is probably a Jewish organization - ooh, and endorsed by The Weekly Standard! 3. Jews are often defensive when reminded of the fact that a lot of the Bolsheviks were (nominal) Jews and became leaders of the USSR - at least until Stalin murdered most of them. 4. Jews also are often defensive when reminded that a lot of Jews today are idiot leftists. 5. If you are unfairly labeled as an anti-semite, you are never allowed to remove the label. Think Pat Buchanan. 6. Wait a minute. I don't hate Jews. Why am I doing this?) Perhaps I do not write well enough to get my points across.

BTW, I don't know if Jacques Derrida was Jewish.

I know, I know. All this is rambling and poorly written in an idiot's idiom. Let me attempt to wrap it up.

Stalinsky's not Stalin. Heck, Stalin was Djugashvili. (Anti-Georgianism, anyone?) And as someone once said, "The Trotskys make the revolution, and the Bronsteins pay for it." (Trotsky was born Lev Bronstein, see, and then...Oh, never mind.)

The bottom line?

Words have meaning, kiddies, the meaning their author intended. If you don't get it, you and/or the author may just be idiots, not evil men.