Which sort of implies that one side is not, and I'm not so certain, actually.
- I be very confused now. Certain members of even the Conservative Party have indicated a lack of confidence in the Prime Minister. But that's linguistically impossible, because Boris the Spider is the greatest UK-based confidence man of the last decade!
Or, as Deep Throat so memorably said (as reported later third-hand, and more to the point — to most, anyway — via a film script), "Follow the money." Not just in the present day, either; understanding tainted or otherwise-dubious origins matters. And not just across The Pond.
- Which sure beats trying to eat if you're a musician. For the nonheadliners in the arts, though, this shines a disturbing light into the corners of our "system" for funding the arts. It's a lot easier to make choices on principle when they don't create uncertainty over one's next meal. One can assert that that's the true test of principle, true enough; but there's a further principled difference depending on whether the stakes are "Do I get my name put on that exhibit at the museum/building at the local university," "Do I make my kid take out a loan for a more-expensive college education," or "Do I divide that off-brand box of macaroni and cheese into three or four servings?" The immediacy of the stakes matters, too.
- And that, in turn, is a lot more reputable than college sport announcers. Or high school sport announcers. (And having been stationed at the latter location, I suspect at least some of the embarassment in that community was at getting caught and not at the sentiment.)
- Which beats outright censorship and other distortions, like glossing over that the named protagonists in R&J are in all probability below the age of consent… and, in Shakespeare's time, would both have been played on stage by individuals with Y chromosomes. But I guess that's just another fire to put out (the cause of the fire matters, too).
- But then, I was never one of the popular kids, so my perspective is obviously severely warped. OK, so it is, but for other reasons, too.