Karen Kovaka -

Words and gardens: two things which, perhaps, you would never have thought to put together. But, suppose they have a lot in common. Suppose that words and gardens, speaking and farming, land and language, are connected to each other and to humans in strange and powerful ways. What difference would it make?

Speech acts and agricultural acts are deeply intertwined human tendencies, and uncovering the correspondence between the two will help us see them and ourselves in fresh ways.

Words and gardens are connected by virtue of the ways that people relate to both of them. First of all, there is a relationship of dependence between people and their land and between people and their languages.

After all, human society can’t get along without either. Though individuals can get by without ever weeding a garden or uttering a word, people in general need both agriculture and speech in order to sustain and express themselves. While it’s difficult to imagine a world without clothing or sports or machines, it’s impossible to imagine a world without speech or agriculture that is still a human world.

To balance this relationship of dependence, there also exists a relationship of power. The story of humanity’s power over the earth is an old one, often re-told, and it mirrors the story of humanity’s power over language. These two cultural lynchpins upon which our lives and societies depend are also our playthings, cultural products which we build and shape and control.

The fact that dependence and power are coexistent with and basic to human interactions with land and language means that our relationships to these two things are (1) very rich and complex, (2) easily overlooked, and (3) formative for all of us, even when we don’t know it. We can’t take a step or a bite of food without manifesting dependence upon and power over the earth. We can’t greet a friend or turn on the TV without demonstrating that we constantly inhabit the “space” of language, that we are acted upon by words and that we creatively act upon them to express ourselves.

From this starting point, you can argue all kind of symmetrical relationships between people and land and between people and language. For instance, through “words and gardens”:

● People living in the present exert influence over the future. From the hanging gardens of Babylon and the Epic of Gilgamesh to poisoned soil and the silver tongue of Adolph Hitler, few human endeavors are more enduring than works of agriculture and language.

● People express love and care for one another. (As evidenced by Valentine’s Day staples: candlelit dinners, bouquets of roses, love letters, poetry, and boxes of chocolates.)

● People demonstrate their capacity for either responsibility or destruction. Aside from certain basic physical limitations, the only thing that limits human exploitation of agriculture and speech for destructive ends is our choice to care for the words and the places which we inhabit.

The list could go on for pages. What does it all mean, though? This new view of words and gardens also amounts to a fresh view of self, and I am wondering what it means to think of humans as the kind of beings whose existence is deeply connected to words and gardens.

Most people don’t give much thought to being a person of the land or a person of words. This connectedness doesn’t get much attention or consideration – and perhaps a lack of focus on things which are so fundamental results in an incomplete and skewed perspective on what it means to be “me.” If we gave more thought and attention to speech and agriculture, is it possible we would come to a truer understanding of ourselves?

Michael Mullin -

When it is all said and done, history has a way of writing itself. For the last couple weeks, the incessant drone of the relatively uneducated were proclaiming Peyton Manning as perhaps — wait for it — “the Greatest of All Time.” This label, innocuous to some (hysterical to me), was dependent on a Colts victory. Thankfully, a full scale uprising of Peytonites was avoided, but the dye had already been cast. Thousands of football fans had coalesced and decided history before the fact.

This phenomenon — call it the CNN complex — has effortlessly and unassumingly either empowered or enraged the talking head tendencies in opinion holders across America. The dominance of 24-hour news cycles and punditry on cable television has unsurprisingly created a niche for talented oracles, like Glenn Beck and Charles Barkley, and their utterly incomprehensible rants. Diatribe and the outlandish prediction have replaced real sports commentary, real political commentary, and real news.

That is not the problem. It’s business as usual for Fox News, as Beck, apparently readying himself for a future in amateur cave diving, has been loading his pockets with scammed gold (though we know this is because he managed to scare off all his former advertisers).

I watch the NBA on TNT every night, and the best part is easily Charles Barkley. Out of cable news rubble have emerged Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert as fairly reli¬able and consistently entertaining news sources. The talking head is here to stay, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Issues arise when opinionators start toying with history. I wasted 30 minutes of my life (30 minutes!) Saturday night before the Super Bowl, listening to the ramblings of an incoherent android. By the end of it, the filth spewing from his mouth, like the spray off a Mark McGwire back pimple, had contaminated guys like Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, and even Joe Montana. Dismayed as I was, I could not find among the ostensibly dwindling crowd of uninterested listeners one person who would back me. First of all, Peyton Manning is still playing, so the jury, should recess until he hangs up his cleats. Second, the argument is moot because of Rex Grossman and a 9-9 playoff record. Lastly, the guy is still playing, for crying out loud.

Why does this matter? In the midst of an awful financial situation and earnest attempts to push necessary health care and job measures through a broken Congress, the collective American body politic, including President Barack Obama himself, only seem concerned with one thing: history. The buzzword for the Obama administration, “unprecedented,” is draped upon every piece of its agenda: unprecedented health reform, unprecedented financial stimulus, unprecedented Republican obstructionism. The only precedent Obama is following is his predecessor’s penchant for legacy mongering, though more subtly, like a professor assigning the textbook he wrote for required reading. Or is that Glenn Beck’s scheme?

Maybe the CNN complex is not to blame. Maybe, as one would expect after a, historically speaking, brilliant campaign, the daily conclusions arrived at, by political junkies and the casual cable news watcher alike, on Obama’s place on Mount Rushmore come with the territory. Maybe, after so many record-breaking regular seasons, Manning deserves to at least be in the conversation. Nein, I say! You don’t start a land war in Asia with winter on the brink, and you don’t call history until it is done happening.

I love Obama. I think I always will, even if his approval ratings drop to Dubya-esque levels. He’s just my guy. But if he, and the rest of the administration, cannot find a way to shift their focus from the historical implications of the reform on the docket to pushing effective reform initiatives through Congress, he is going to end up looking less like Kurt Warner in the playoffs (a methodical, pragmatic leader) and more like Manning in the playoffs (a choke artist).