• Failure to communicate

“The failure of voters to pass our school budget has significant meaning,” said the teachers union president.

That might seem like an innocuous statement, until one looks at the spin created by use of the word “failure.”

In truth, there was no failure involved. The voters in this particular school district achieved their desire by rejecting the budget proposal.

Of course, this is a common misuse of language. And it’s often common among those in the education industry just as it is with those in the communications field.

The current upheaval in the New York State Senate is a good example. Right from the start, the voting shift of two ne’er-do-well Democrat senators to wrest control from their party and hand it to the Republican side was immediately labeled by both print and electronic media a “coup.”

There was no armed insurrection, no physical misbehavior, no takeover of buildings and radio stations. None of that banana republic or third world activity we often hear about. It was nothing more than a bunch of petulant, greedy, self-serving politicians — redundant, I know — and a behind-the-scenes billionaire twisting procedures around for their own benefit.

Just two examples of mis-use and corruption of our language in a universe of such things.

• Here, horsey horsey

I’m going mad. Two color image postings in a row!

I normally use black-and-white images on blog posts. I like the cleanliness of the lines and the minimalist look they help give the design of this site. However, you have to use color occasionally, such as now.

How many horses do you see?

• Sex with ducks

A novelty music video by “Garfunkel & Oates” (Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci) is a hoot. Or a quack.

It’s prompted by a Pat Robertson quote that legalizing gay marriage would lead to legalizing sex with ducks.

Pay particular attention to the chorus.

If you like this duo, you can see more of their videos here.

• State of ignorance

The Empire State? Hah!

New York is, at best, in a state of disarray. And, that’s on a good day, which we don’t have very often.

The latest calumny is the State Senate, where a couple of sleazeballs got elected by a constituency as unaware or unintelligent as has ever been seen. They’re in the do-little governing body despite one of them being indicted for slashing his girlfriend’s face with a bottle and the other one — who probably doesn’t even live in the district he represents — adamantly refusing to pay $60,000 in fines he owns the New York City Campaign Finance Board. He already was shone up for what he is by getting caught trying to steer a bunch of taxpayer dollars — several hundred thousand of them — to a company he operates and would use that money to pay him.

Meet Hiram “Slasher” Monserrate (left above) and Pedro “Deadbeat” Espada Jr.

The two Democrats cooked up a plot with the minority Republicans in the Senate — and the backing of billionaire, failed gubernatorial candidate Tom Golisano — to throw their votes to the GOP side, thus returning the Republicans to their long-held majority by a 32-30 vote count. If everyone keeps his word. Given the record of many of our utterly useless state legislators, expecting everyone to stay true to a pledge is laughable.

A judge who the Dems asked to overturn the Senate deal recommended that instead of one branch of government telling a co-equal branch what to do the two sides spend the weekend working out their internecine squabble. Slasher and The Deadbeat promptly swung into action — by heading for plush seats at Yankee Stadium to watch the Yankees vs. the Mets while the chaos they helped create was left behind them.

Interesting that Espada doesn’t pay the money he owes, but he can afford to treat he and his buddy to cushioned reserved seats in the Legends Suite section of the new stadium, which offers in-seat wait service, concierge and exclusive access to a restaurant with an all-inclusive buffet, top-shelf liquor and private restrooms. Face value of each ticket is $650.

Espada says he was lucky enough to come across tickets for $150 each. He didn’t say how he got 77% off, if he was even telling the truth. Legislators are not supposed to accept gifts, discounts and the like. But then, we’re talking about a guy who has shown he doesn’t give a damn about rules or public opinion.

I’m not sure what Golisano was doing over the weekend while the pot he stirred by using his money and influence to manipulate an elected government boiled and bubbled. Or what Dean Skelos, the Long Island GOP incompetent who succeeded the arrogant Joe Bruno as Senate Majority Leader then dropped to Minority Leader after the last election, was doing. But they’re smaller fish in this stew of avarice, sloth and stupidity even if their names are better known around the state.

There is a rather simple solution to the embarassing mess that has made New York State’s government a national laughingstock. It will come at the next election, or the next several elections. Vote out virtually everyone now in office, and their staffs along with them. You know, those unelected and anonymous people who stroke their bosses’ egos and stoke the fires of plots and ploys.

Forget the bullshit campaign rhetoric the incumbents will toss around about the need for experienced people at the wheel. Given the ride they’ve taken us on, it would be refreshing to let some amateurs navigate. Their road map could be reading the state Constitution and the various laws and rules by which the state is supposed to be governed, and ignoring what the current incumbents have done.

It could not possibly work worse than what we have today.

• Russia’s saucer of crazy

Back in the Cold War days, when the United States was feverishly facing off all around the globe with the Soviet Union, we were always hearing whispers about flying saucers that actually were secret warplanes.

Our black ops researchers aren’t saying much about what actually went on then, not about the Soviet weaponry or our own. However, Pravda, the “official” government newspaper we never trusted then but might as well now because, as you may know, pravda is the Russian word for truth, has decided to tell the world what had been going on.

Photos of the aircraft shown above have been posted on the newspaper’s Web site. On the home page, the headline was blunt and forceful:

USAF designed flying disk
to bomb Soviet Union

Clicking on that verbiage took me to a series of photos and this news brief:

Secret documents, declassified since 1997, reveal development of a USAF “forty foot ‘flying saucer’ designed to rain nuclear destruction on the Soviet Union from 300 miles in space.”

The American saucer was called the Lenticular Reentry Vehicle (LRV).

According to the documents the bomber was designed by engineers at North American Aviation in Los Angeles under contract with the United States Air Force. The project was managed out of Wright-Patterson AFB, utilizing German engineers who had worked on WWII German rocket planes and flying disc technology.

The unique craft would have landed much like a space shuttle, re-entering the atmosphere and gliding to a landing on a dry lake, utilizing skids, instead of heavier wheeled landing gear.

I found this all very interesting and was beginning to think the journalists at Pravda had actually begun to produce a true newspaper. Until, that is, I took a look at the headlines on other stories. A sampler:

• Doctors do wonders with amputated penis
• Alien and human skulls found on Mars
• Doctors grow man’s micro-penis on his arm
• Large brothel for gay pedophiles found in St. Petersburg
• Bad girls are fun in sex, but boring in family life
• Healthy diet of Russian cosmonauts ruins NASA’s space toilets
• FBI proudly arrests Santa Claus and Easter Bunny
• Foul language leads to impotence
• Men become impotent because of women’s bare legs
• Invisible poisonous skyfish fly at 300 km/h all around us
• Women rape men when they have no one to have sex with
• Atlantis found under Antarctica
• Man marries Thai prostitute who turns out to be former man later
• Creatures living deep under Earth’s surface came from space

Those really are the Pravda headlines. You can’t make this stuff up.

Then again, maybe you can.

• Gordon F***king Ramsay

Anyone who has been subjected to Gordon Ramsay’s famously foul tirades, or merely watched them on TV from a comfortable chair, probably has wondered why people don’t call him to account for his behavior.

I know, I know. Much of it is acting out for the TV cameras to increase controversy and drive up ratings. Anyone who has seen his slightly calmer British shows compared to his flaming U.S. versions knows that. But Ramsay is not that good an actor. Much of it has to be his real vinegar-y personality.

Thus, it isn’t terribly surprising that the prime minister of Australia has labeled him a “low life.” Here’s how it came about.

Ramsay was in Australia for a set of personal appearances. He was a guest on the popular talk show “A Current Affair,” hosted by Tracy Grimshaw. He apparently made insulting remarks to another host and a member of the studio’s cleaning staff. The next day, at a food-and-wine tasting event in front of a crowd of several thousand, Ramsay is alleged to have held up a photograph of a naked woman on all fours, with multiple breasts and a pig’s face, and commented: “That’s Tracy Grimshaw. I had an interview with her yesterday. Holy crap. She needs to see Simon Cowell’s Botox doctor.” He also called Grimshaw a lesbian.

Ramsay, 42, at first claimed the insults were “tongue in cheek,” but then issued a public apology. That hasn’t done anything to lessen the furor, especially since unbroadcast footage of Ramsay in the studio makeup room popped up in the Australian media. In it, he makes cutting comments about several staffers, including a make-up artist, a cleaner, and a weather presenter. He is heard to say: “F***ing breath stinking of caffeine. … Christ almighty. … Turn around the other way. I don’t want to see your fat a** that way.”

Grimshaw, 49, described the celebrity chef as an “arrogant narcissist” and a “bully.” She also said, “Obviously Gordon thinks that any woman who doesn’t find him attractive must be gay. For the record, I don’t and I’m not.”

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said, “All I could describe his remarks as reflecting is a new form of lowlife. I just drew breath when I saw the sort of stuff which was said about her, I just think that’s offensive. Good on Grimshaw for giving him a left upper cut.”

This isn’t Australia’s first run-in with the salty Scot. Last year, when an episode of his “Kitchen Nightmares” show was broadcast, showing Ramsay using a four-letter expletive more than 80 times in 40 minutes, a flood of complaints prompted a parliamentary review. That resulted in instructions to TV networks to review the way they rate programs.

Given Ramsay’s rampant boorishness, it probably would be better to investigate why people annoyed or offended by such behavior — real or enhanced for show biz — bother watching any of his shows in the first place.

• Paper Wait, Part 4

Have I mentioned recently my experience with the U.S. Census Bureau?

[If you've missed the saga, read Paper Wait, Paper Wait 2 and Paper Wait 3. I'll hang on 'til you get back.]

Well, I dutifully mailed out the completed American Community Survey form, which I have been told I must do under penalty of law, about 10 days ago. So, I was surprised when I got a phone call the other day from someone representing herself as being with said Bureau.

She asked me some identification questions — address, phone number, etc., which was interesting considering that the Bureau had mailed me all paperwork I’ve been discussing, and she had, after all, reached me by phone. After satisfying her curiosity that I was indeed at that moment in the abode she was curious about, she launched into a prepared spiel about the American Community Survey and its legendary special qualities.

After several attempts, I was able to insert a verbal wedge and get her to stop blathering on.

“I mailed out the completed survey about 10 days ago,” I informed her.

“Oh, well, it’s not marked down that we’ve received it,” she replied.

I felt like saying, “Well, I did,” but I decided to simply wait, silently.

“Maybe it’s still working its way through our intake system,” she offered.

I remained mute.

“Well, I’ll just mark it down that it’s in the system and we’ll wait. We might have to call you again if there’s anything we can’t read on any of the answers.”

I couldn’t maintain silence.

“Virtually all the questions were multiple choice, so all I had to do was make a check mark in the appropriate box. Do you think that would be hard to read?,” I noted.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I’m not involved in that part of the survey.”

Oh, how I wish I wasn’t either.

• Restaurants a go-go

For months, now, I’ve been sensing a disconnect between the news reports that tell me people are cutting back on dining and drinking out because of the bad economy and the daily sight of crowded parking lots and even lines at the front doors of many restaurants, restaurant/bars, wine/tapas places and the like.

Now, The Harris Poll has released the findings of a new study of 2,681 U.S. adults surveyed online between May 11 and 18 by Harris Interactive that explains what I’ve been observing.

It says that while majorities still are inclined to decrease spending on eating out and entertainment, the numbers are better than they had been two months ago.

I find this survey a comforting one. As a person who has had a lifelong affinity for the restaurant business — as bus boy, dishwasher, line cook, sous chef and restaurant critic — I have become increasingly annoyed at the “how to cut costs” lists disseminated in print and online. Inevitably, one of the suggestions is to stop going to restaurants. Nothing like telling the populace at large to, in effect, boycott an industry that is a huge employer in this country.

It’s one thing to tell people to order wisely — from both financial and nutritional standpoints. It is another to try creating a trend toward harming the cooks, waitstaff, cleaning people, launderers, food and drink vendors, truck drivers and myriad others who have a share in the world of dining-out.

In March, three-quarters of Americans said they were decreasing spending on eating out (74%) and entertainment (74%). Now, two-thirds say they are reducing eating out at restaurants (66%) and 64% say they have reduced spending on entertainment.

Americans are cutting back on their spending over the next six months. Specifically:

• Similar to last month, two-thirds of Americans (64%) say it is not likely they will take a vacation away from home lasting longer than a week while 36% say it is likely they will vacation away from home. In March, 35% of Americans said they would be likely to take a trip;

• Large purchases continue to suffer as more than three-quarters of Americans say it is not likely they will buy a new computer (79%), move to a different residence (81%), buy or lease a new car, truck or van (88%), purchase a house or condo (91%), start a new business (92%) or buy a boat or recreational vehicle (95%). These numbers are all very similar to March so people are still not ready to spend on the big-ticket items;

• One quarter of Americans (26%) say it is likely they will have more money to spend the way they want in the next six months which is up from 21% in March; and,

• People are slightly more likely to say that they are going to be saving or investing more money. Just over half of Americans (53%) say they are likely to save or invest more money while 47% are not likely to do so. In March, Americans were split on this as 50% said they were likely to save or invest and 50% said they were not likely to do so.

The pollsters note, “As people get ready for summer vacations, it seems as if the trips may be getting shorter and closer to home — more [damn, I hate this word] ‘daycations’ and [I hate this one even more] ’staycations.’ But, even if summer vacations may be changing this year, there are small signs that things may be getting better, at least in terms of spending. More people are eating out and spending money on entertainment, something that the studios for the big summer blockbusters will be happy to hear, but the big ticket items are still not seeing any type of rebound. Those may take a little longer to see the slight recovery that the smaller expenses are seeing.”

Full data tables and methodology are available online.