"A Tired Old Song"

The title of the article by Jonah Goldberg is a clue that any positive word about the Grammy Awards or the winners is meant to be ironic.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 12 Unit 4's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: How the Media Twists the News, Why Partisans View, Bush's Address on Iraq Invasion, The Dixie Chicks, Keep the Heat, Chicks Reap Whirlwind, No More Whistlin' Dixie, America Catches Up, Speaking Up and Speaking Out, Esteemed Outlaws, A Tired Old Song
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. coveted
    greatly desired
    Bill Clinton actually won two Grammys back to back in 2004 and 2005, the first for his memoirs, My Life, sharing the second with Mikhail Gorbachev in the coveted Best Spoken Word Album for Children category.
  2. politics
    the activities involved in managing a state or a government
    Politics has nothing to do with the selection process.
  3. straightforward
    without evasion or compromise
    This was a straightforward judgment
  4. merit
    any admirable or beneficial attribute
    based solely on merit, damn it.
  5. fascist
    an adherent of right-wing authoritarian views
    The Dixie Chicks won five Grammys in the Stick It to the Fascists category
  6. poignant
    keenly distressing to the mind or feelings
    their Best Song, "Not Ready to Make Nice," a poignant reminder that the Chicks weren't going to be cowed by the war-lusting American public.
  7. jingoist
    an extreme bellicose nationalist
    When this didn't improve sagging sales among the bloody jingoists who made them rich in the first place, the Chicks decided to appeal to a different audience.
  8. grasp
    an intellectual hold or understanding
    Of course, the "people" in question were members of the record industry, and only someone with a thumbless grasp of free speech would think it was at issue in the first place.
  9. criticize
    find fault with; point out real or perceived flaws
    The people who criticized the Dixie Chicks in the first place were people too, exercising their free speech.
  10. adjudicate
    hear a case and sit as the judge at the trial of
    They just weren't the ones who mattered--at least to those nonpartisan adjudicators of raw talent who award Grammys.
Created on Sat Mar 07 18:38:14 EST 2015 (updated Sat Mar 07 19:06:32 EST 2015)

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