Dictionaries are important. When dictionaries change there can be wide repercussions. For example, when the standard reference point for American English back in the day, Webster, changed their basic approach, their lexicographical theory, as it were, from being being proscriptive (saying what a word means and ought to mean) to being descriptive (saying how a word is being used), the ground for the meaning of words and communication started to get squishier.
Back in the day when I was studying German, I learned about the differences in the definitions of the same word in dictionaries made in West Germany (in the free West) and East Germany (under Communist domination). Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a particular term that had disparate meanings on either side of the Iron Curtain, but imagine how commies would want to have certain political and economic terms tilted in a favorable or unfavorable direction.
Today I read an entry on Life News:
Wikipedia May Redefine Term “Pro-Life” in Every Abortion Entry
by Ryan BombergerYesterday, official discussion ended in Wikipedia’s effort to possibly redefine the abortion debate according to its contributors’ worldviews.
Wikipedia, which ranks 6th in the United States and globally as the most accessed website, is not known for its accuracy nor impartiality. [On the other hand, if a printed book gets something wrong, it will still be wrong tomorrow. Wikipedia can be corrected.] From reporting people dead before their death (Ted Kennedy, Miley Cirus, Sinbad) to defaming the famous (Bill Gates, Rush Limbaugh, Fuzzy Zoeller) to contributors posing as authoritative figures and then being debunked (supposed professor of religion exposed as 24 year old college dropout) the online encyclopedia is a constant source of controversy.
Wikipedia’s bias toward abortion is nothing new. Conservapedia (which itself reveals bias and incomplete information) lists a handful of examples that only scratch the surface of Wiki’s glaringly evident pro-abortion advocacy. A more recent example of the absurdity of contributor-bias is Wikipedia’s Maafa 21 entry. It asserts that the film “has been praised by pro-life activists and condemned by historical scholars, pro-choice activists, and other writers…”
Apparently, pro-life activists are not historical scholars, or medical professionals, or professors, or other types of educators…just nebulous “activists”.
The article then avoids any of the actual substance of the thoroughly researched documentary and instead relies upon mostly unattributed assertions or feelings about Planned Parenthood. Most noticeably, however, is the ratio of Support versus Criticism in the entry with 5 sentences supporting the documentary and 20 criticizing it. Nowhere in any of the criticism is any actual assertion proven wrong in Maafa 21. [Perhaps more people with credentials should get involved with Wikipedia?]
The closest the pro-abortion critics come to denying anything specific is in the false accusation that the Negro Project was cast as an abortion initiative, when clearly the documentary (if any of the contributors actually watched the film) presented the initiative as a failed birth control initiative.
Within its official “discussion”, numerous options are provided in changing the vernacular Wikipedia will pursue in addressing abortion in the United States. Its bias toward the ever genteel sounding “abortion rights” is summed up in one assertion found under “Arguments regarding Support for the Toleration of Abortion/Opposition to the Toleration of Abortion”, stating: “virtually no one is in favour of abortion per se”. Yes, Wikipedia, there are many who are in favor of abortion-on-demand for any reason and at any point in a woman’s pregnancy—Planned Parenthood, NARAL, NOW, International Planned Parenthood Federation, ACLU et al.
Wikipedia never opted to include the labeling choice “Opposition to care for both women and (born/unborn) child” versus “Support for care for both women and (born/unborn) child”, pro-abortion and pro-life respectively. It goes to show how myopic a Wikipedia worldview of abortion is and continues to be. Liberals always define the pro-life side as “in opposition” to or “anti” something. These gatekeepers of voluminous misinformation have the audacity to point to mainstream media’s depiction of each side of the abortion debate as proof that they should follow suit.
Invoking the AP, NY Times, CBS News, NPR and other blatantly biased news networks’ use of “anti-abortion” and “abortion rights” to define each side apparently doesn’t immediately strike these self-described “neutral administrators” of the inherent bias.
Bias is the natural result of agenda-driven funding. Wikimedia Foundation’s short list of major donors includes two of the largest population control organizations: the Ford Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation. Both of these organizations have poured hundreds of millions into population control efforts including the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the International Planned Parenthood Federatio–the world’s largest killers of the unborn. In fact, Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, is a recent Board Member of the Ford Foundation.
Funny. Like so many other crucial and relevant details, that fact isn’t mentioned on Wikipedia.
In my native place of the Twin Cities (St. Paul and Minneapolis) there is a parish whose patron is St. Augustine, a favorite of mine, where both Ordinary and, above all, Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite are used. The pastor there, a friend of decades – all around good guy who, in his copious free time, is also a military chaplain – has done a good deal to support ministry to Catholic men, to help them build their identity as Catholic men in a society which seems pretty hostile to masculinity.
EAW on Continue the Rome shot posts? I dunno.: “Yes, please continue the Rome shot posts! They have become one of the things I always look forward to. TC…”
