Skip to main content

In the morning pledge, what did Stargirl speak of?

Like the quirky child of nature that she is, Stargirl changes the words of the morning pledge so that they are about turtles, fruit bats, the planet earth, and black bean burritos.


That is, instead of saying "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America," Stargirl says "I pledge allegiance to United Turtles of America," then goes on from there to discuss the other animals, our planet in the Milky Way, and the burritos. Note that she mentions that the planet is "incredible," and that she leaves the word "justice" in the pledge--it must be important to her, something that she sees as not necessarily tied to nationalism.


On the surface, Stargirl's behavior here is just odd and silly. The other kids at school think it's funny (they're not offended or anything, since the narrator describes them as somewhat less than patriotic) and they start to say the pledge in this way, also. You can see Stargirl's influence on the student body, then, when you consider how the other kids repeat her odd words and behavior.


When we dig into this situation a bit deeper, Stargirl's new words for the pledge reflect that she loves and appreciates animals, and that she thinks of humanity as belonging to something much bigger than just a political nation. The bit about bean burritos might just be Stargirl's sense of humor, or it might reflect that she actually believes that delicious food is just as important as (or even more important than) our national unity.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more