Opinion: New Year 21: clichés look out

While believing we are the masters of our own destiny, let’s reference some often-used clichés, such as, “No person is an island. It takes a village. If at first you don’t succeed… or sticks and stones may break my bones…”

There are at least hundreds, or even thousands, of similar clichés. I don’t know if there are millions of them, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were.

Clichés are a writer’s worst frenemies. Remember that friend you once loved but the one your mother disapproved of? The bad influence she and Dad warned you about? You might someday become their fallback alibi and they would cover for you, even at their peril. The rare type of friend that is loyal and will go down fighting for you, even when you stop believing in yourself. The type of salesperson who refuses to take no for an answer.

The over-worked exclamation point is a type of cliché. It is the darling of people on social media in many ways.

Saying no is a powerful action, too. It’s used along with other words to indicate all sorts of negatives on the part of the speaker.

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A few Christmases ago, at our Pretty Girl lunches, a member of our clique missed the time she was supposed to return her mother’s car. Mother called and told her she missed her curfew. She was embarrassed that it happened in our presence. I laughed my silly head off. I told her it wasn’t really a party until somebody got in trouble with their mother. A throwback to the days of our youth when we all swam together daily, in what we found out was a very small pond.

COVID-19 stopped being a cliché about the time those first infected patients died in China. As one theory states, the Chinese were infected by eating bat soup. Another states China developed and launched the virus for population control. Another notion has the lawmakers and the military creating it to discredit President Donald John Trump and his administration.

All the while Trump haters will never acknowledge his bright and shiny accomplishments.

Rather, he is portrayed as a lunatic out to ruin and terminate life as we know it. Every four years, January 20 is the date when presidents take the oath of office.

“I do solemnly swear, I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, from all enemies, both foreign and domestic... The last line once was, “So help me God.”

The “all enemies, foreign and domestic,” isn’t part of the presidential oath but it’s in the military oath. He is Commander and Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.

The oath issued to Trump by U.S. Chief Justice, John G. Roberts Jr. of the Supreme Court, where he and his fellow justices remain the definers and upholder of laws, at least for now.

Much to my dismay, it looks like Joe Biden gets to sit in what I like to call the Big in a few weeks.

His promotion from senate to president was assisted by most of the various media outlets. This week at the grocery store check-out line, where the tabloids and magazines encourage impulse buys, there wasn’t one cover-shot of the Trump family. It never ceases to amazes me how negatively bias the mainstream media plays this.

I wonder if Joe Biden’s future acts of sexual misconduct will be watered down to the tired clichés of “Boys will be boys, or no harm intended, I was paying her a compliment” or others applied to the assault statue for the rich and famous.

George Washington is credited with being the first POTUS to say the phrase, “So help me God,” when our presidents took the oath of office.

Like too many things, the reference to God has become unfashionable, embarrassing, insensitive, and has been omitted. The pledge of allegiance is another supposed victim of those who have way too much time on their hands. They have found a way to profit and gain power over what they hope is the rest of us. The more they get, the hungrier they are. They are addicted to the adrenalin intoxication gained by the spoils of the never-ending conflict.

In the movie “Air Force One,” with Harrison Ford as POTUS, he says of his adversaries, “Always remember, if you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll want a glass of milk.”

Long days and pleasant nights have a great weekend.

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Readers may contact Tami Jo Nix by emailing tamijonix@gmail.com or following @TamiJoNix on Twitter.