The use and abuse of words — an old subject, and a favorite of this column. Consider “woke.” A useful word — but weakened by abuse. George F. Will has spent a life with words. He has made a damn good living from them. He cares a lot about them. And this is a marvelous column from him: “Woke word-policing is now beyond satire.”

(A memory: At least once, Bill Buckley referred to writing as “playing with words.”)

Last year, Donald Trump was ticked at Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota. The senator’s offense? He had said that the 2020 presidential election was “fair.” So Trump took pen in hand — or whatever it is we do now — and wrote, “‘Senator’ Mike Rounds of the Great State of South Dakota just went woke on the Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020.”

If acknowledging the truth about the election is “woke” — “woke” is a joke.

On Tuesday, the New York Post had a headline: “Woke movie-goers say ‘Cocaine Bear’ not for kids, ‘encourages drugs.’” The article says,

The movie — which is rated R for for bloody violence and gore, drug content and language throughout — is loosely based on a true story. . . .

One controversial scene in the movie shows 12-year-olds doing cocaine . . .

I have not seen the movie. And I am a square, true. But if thinking this movie is not right for kids makes you “woke” — then “woke” really is a joke.

Can the word “woke” be saved? If it is abused out of recognition, we will need another word . . . (In olden days, we spoke of “political correctness.”)

• An editorial from National Review is headed “Keep the SAT.” It begins, “Last Wednesday, Columbia University formally announced that it would no longer require SAT/ACT scores for its applicants.” I have two thoughts for you. First, now is really a good time for me to apply to Columbia. The second is not so much a thought as a memory.

In 2001, the president of the U-Cal system proposed doing away with the SAT. I called up Abigail Thernstrom and said, “What do you think?” (She had done a lot of work on education, including the question of standardized tests.) She said, “This is a dagger aimed at the heart of Asians.”

Those words are hard to forget.

• “How a civil war erupted at Fox News after the 2020 election.” That makes for darn interesting reading. (Go here.) Some Fox people were furious at other Fox people for . . . you know: trafficking in facts. Sean Hannity said, “You don’t piss off the base.”

Bless all of those journalists — journalists of any kind — who realize that, to do your job properly, you have to “piss off the base” from time to time (if you have a “base”).

(My “base” is composed of about nine friends, family members, and colleagues.)

• I have a funny thought for you: With these Dominion filings, Fox News is experiencing a Project Veritas in reverse.

• Will it make a difference? Will any Fox devotee care? Will it shake anyone’s confidence? You know, I don’t really think so. People have compared Fox, and other such TV endeavors, to pro wrestling. In all likelihood, the people in the audience — the pro-wrestling audience — know it’s fake. But they want it anyway.

They do know, don’t they? Come to think of it: I’m not sure of the answer to that question.

(I once had a co-worker — intelligent, if quirky — who was utterly devoted to pro wrestling. I never asked him whether he was simply entertained — or a true believer.)

• One thing I wish MAGA would decide on: Was Jan. 6 a laudable protest by patriots? Or the despicable work of Antifa, BLM, and the FBI? I have heard these contradictory lines for two years now. People say whatever seems more convenient in the moment.

• This article from Axios quotes a “Trump confidant,” talking about Ron DeSantis, a Trump rival: “There’s a pre-Trump Ron and there’s a post-Trump Ron. He used to be a Reagan Republican. That’s where he comes from. He’s now awkwardly trying to square his views up with the populist nationalist feeling of the party.”

I know many, many people — in politics and in the media — of whom that is true.

• Concerning Trump and 2024, I want to try something out on you: He could win the nomination. Also, he could withdraw before the primaries and caucuses begin. You can cry “Rigged!” only so often, I would think. And if it looked like he would lose . . .

Gonna be interesting, regardless (and “interesting” is often a euphemism for “a cluster-you-know-what”).

• I had never heard of this congressman whom the Texas GOP has censured. But the mere fact of the censure speaks well of him. He is not a party robot, in an age of robot behavior. And every congressman, every politician, ought to have an independent streak.

Republican U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas was censured Saturday in a rare move by his state party over votes that included supporting new gun safety laws after the Uvalde school shooting in his district.

(Article here.)

Stay true to yourself, Tony. And if you lose at the polls — big whoop.

• George W. Bush is a Texas Republican — although I’m not sure that the Texas GOP would claim him today. Or that he would claim them.

I was interested in a bulletin, from earlier this week:

Today, the George W. Bush Institute formally opened applications for the 2023 Lindsay Lloyd North Korea Freedom Scholarship, designed to help North Korean escapees and their children pursue higher education and build productive, prosperous lives.

Some more:

This scholarship would not have been established without the work and dedication of Lindsay Lloyd, who had been with the Bush Institute for more than a decade and was the principal architect of the program. Lloyd . . . died Aug. 1, 2022 in Dallas. The scholarship has been renamed in his honor.

Lindsay Lloyd was a wonderful man. And this is a wonderful program.

• One more Texas Republican? Okay, here is Ronny Jackson:

Colin Powell used to say, “We need to restore a sense of shame in America.” He is the last person I ever heard speak about shame — the necessity of it, the loss of it. An interesting and important topic.

• Arnold Schwarzenegger has made another video — this one deploring antisemitism. I love these videos, and I love this one. Arnold is performing public services. But, for me, the videos are spoiled by music — by their soundtracks.

Videos such as Arnold’s don’t need music. The words — and occasional images — are potent enough. The music can only distract and cheapen, I think.

I have harrumphed about this before. I’m harrumphing about it now. I’ll harrumph with my last breath . . .

• Did you happen to see this? “First evidence for horseback riding dates back 5,000 years.” (Article here.) I was fascinated by something an archeologist, David Anthony, said: “When you get on a horse and ride it fast, it’s a thrill — I’m sure ancient humans felt the same way. Horseback riding was the fastest a human could go before the railroads.”

It was a long time — wasn’t it? — between horseback riding and railroads.

(Hang on, what about sailing on a ship?)

• Speaking of ships — I loved a line in this obit. Highly interesting obit, all around. Ian Falconer had several gifts. Among them were stage design and children’s books. He was the creator of Olivia, a piglet who stars in book after book. Listen:

For Christmas 1996, he made his 3-year-old niece, Olivia, a book with the piglet character . . .

In 1998, Anne Schwartz of Simon & Schuster was looking for an illustrator for a book and approached Mr. Falconer, having noticed his New Yorker covers. He wasn’t interested in the assignment, but he showed her the book he had made for his niece.

“I looked to the heavens,” Ms. Schwartz told USA Today. “I knew my ship had come in.”

I love that. May all our ships come in!

• Do you know about Noah Song? This article will tell you. He was a good baseball player in high school — a pitcher. He went to the Naval Academy. There, he became a really good pitcher. But, of course, there is the duty of military service. Now he is a prospect for the Philadelphia Phillies. Get a load of this:

And so, at 25 years old, he was headed to his first spring training. He asked his roommate in Pensacola to start playing catch with him and told his friends in the military that he was leaving to try to be a pitcher for the Phillies.

One of them pulled up a picture of the liberty bell logo. “That Phillies?” they asked.

“Yeah,” Song said, “that’s the Phillies.”

Do you love it?

• Let’s do some language: “One of them pulled up a picture of the liberty bell logo. ‘That Phillies?’ they asked.” So, the “they” is supposed to be one person? Ay caramba. I’ll never get with it (and don’t want to).

• And now, a little music. For my “New York chronicle” in the current New Criterion, go here. For a review of the Vienna Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall, go here. For a review of another Vienna Phil. concert, in the same hall, go here. For a review of Hilary Hahn in recital — a solo-Bach recital — go here.

Ms. Hahn is a violinist. I interviewed her when she was 21, as I recall. That was a little over 20 years ago. Brilliant woman. Maybe I could quote the last couple of paragraphs from my latest review:

Hahn has lived with Bach for a long time. Her whole life. She made a Bach album in 1997, when she was but seventeen. “Promising,” critics said of her. “Nonsense,” I replied. “This girl is not promising; she has arrived.” Even at that tender age, she did justice to Bach.

I heard Milstein, when I was a youth. I am glad — equally glad — to have heard Hilary Hahn this week. And all these years.

• What do you think of this courtyard, in NYC, swirling up to the black night?

There was something about this red that I thought was — just great:

This is not your everyday graffito — but there it was, on a sidewalk:

I wish you a pleasant weekend, my friends. See you later.

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