31 August—Because Elon Musk’s social networking site X has failed—make that quite rightly refused—to comply with a Brazilian high court judge’s totally unreasonable order to censor content, the popular public platform has been shut down in that chronically corrupt country. So Brazilians presumably will no longer be able to post anything on X.

In, recognition thereof, then, here’s the Last Post, the most appropriate bugle call in the circumstance. It may again be in order in the near future, when TikTok is forced to shut down in the United States.

ɸ ɸ ɸ ɸ ɸ ɸ ɸ

Remember when people who were incarcerated, up the river, in stir, in the slammer were referred to as prisoners, convicts, or inmates, among other appropriately descriptive nouns? Ah, the good old days, you’re thinking. Now, of course, in the politically correct bad new days, calling people people is just unacceptable, so people must be referred to as persons or individuals. And the kicker is that persons or individuals doing hard time must now be referred to as residents of the slammers.

Calling inmates residents certainly isn’t inaccurate, since convicts definitely are residents of whatever penal facilities they may be serving time in. At least they’re not persons experiencing homelessness or unhoused individuals. But the politically correct predilection for euphemism is absolutely nauseating wherever we find it.

Come to think of it, why are prisons called correctional facilities? That euphemism predates political correctness and has always been more wishful than realistic thinking. No states call their agencies that run prisons what they really are. Correction is in the titles of the punishment agencies of all the states except North Carolina, whose Department of Public Safety runs the slammers; and Texas, whose Department of Criminal Justice does it.

Some states even add rehabilitation to correction in naming the agencies that actually deal in incarceration and punishment. Sounds friendlier . . .