David Rodeback's Blog

Monday, August 07, 2006

Acronyms

In case some of the acronyms I commonly use are unfamiliar, here is a guide to them.

Some of these acronyms are of my own devising (or distortion), and others are in more or less frequent use in the blogosphere.

ACLU: Anti-Christian Liberals Union. I know it's officially called the American Civil Liberties Union, but I like my version better. If it walks like a duck . . .

ACORN: Association of Community Organizations For Reform Now. (More recently, perhaps something like Association of Criminals Overthrowing the Republic Now would suit better.) A nationwide organization funded partly by federal grants; located in numerous large cities; pursuing a liberal, sometimes radical social agenda in behalf of the poor; and known for large-scale voter registration fraud. Senator Barack Obama has worked with them and, at times, for them. They endorsed his 2008 presidential candidacy, and his campaign gave them over $800,000 during the primaries for get-out-the-vote efforts.

BANANA: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything. This is a more extreme version of NIMBY (see below).

BMA: Big Media Acronyms. As far as I know, I'm the only one who uses this. MSM, meaning mainstream media, is more common and roughly equivalent. I have in mind ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and so on. Yes, the slightly derisive tone is intentional.

CESM: Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys. Though used more generally here at the blog and elsewhere, I applied it specifically to the Iraq Study Group during and shortly after December 2006. The term comes from Groundskeeper Willie of The Simpsons but also has gained some currency in politics in recent years. It is intentionally derisive.

DTM: Dead Tree Media. Newspapers are made of paper, and paper is made of dead trees. So DTM in common Web usage refers to newspapers, magazines, and books. For my part, I am not hostile to any of these media. I simply like using the acronym.

LBB: Life Beyond the Blog. The chief characteristic of LBB is that it interferes with blogging, so some bloggers try not to have any LBB at all. Others, such as I, resort to it as an explanation or excuse for not blogging about something as quickly or thoroughly as we might have wished to.

MFCC: My Favorite City Councilor. In other words, my wife, who currently serves on the American Fork City Council.

NIMBY: Not In My Back Yard. This is a standard acronym for the familiar attitude of people who use or favor all sorts of government and other services and institutions (e.g. a landfill, a low-income housing development, a homeless shelter, a nuclear waste disposal facility, Wal-Mart), but insist that it, whatever it is, not be located in their neighborhood. NIMBY isn't always reasonable, but it's not always bad, either.

NOTE: Not Over There Either. This is a close cousin to NIMBY and BANANA (see above).

(Updated Friday, October 17, 2008.)

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