This weekend, of course, was Carry-Out's wedding in the Cities. I drove to Minnesota on Friday with Will, Sockless Pete, and Tall Claire (not my invention, Lawrentians use the moniker to distinguish her from the "Pregnant" and "No-Personality" Claires) and actually ended up turning on the air conditioner because it was freakin' 90 all weekend. I miss you, fuel efficiency.

On both car rides I had a few arguments with Sockless Pete, one of those rare people who's not afraid to stand up for his beliefs no matter how little basis in fact they actually have. Some stubbornness on both sides notwithstanding, as the arguments went on we tended to get flabbergasted with each other rather than frustrated, so there was no harm done.

Sample argument: The lyrics to The Kinks' "Lola"

When "Lola" started playing on my iPod I immediately skipped it. It's an OK song, just not to my taste. The only reason I have "Lola" on there at all, in fact, is because Jubb and I had an argument about the lyrics, and their ramifications, and I had to download the song to prove my point.

Sockless Pete was not convinced by my story of how we listened to the last line over and over and over at all sorts of volume settings, and while I maintained that the lyrics are "I know what I am and I'm glad a man and so's Lola," no one in the Deathtrap agreed with me. Sockless Pete couldn't hear the "glad," an omission which would turn an ambiguous lyric into a pretty direct statement.

According to "The Kinks," by Neville Martin, the "definitive biography" of the band: The upshot of the story is that the young man -- sung in the first person by Ray -- consummates his relationship with the worldy-wise Lola and the song ends with the gloriously ambiguous line, "I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man and so's Lola." now the question is, is Lola glad he's a man or is he glad Lola's really a man? (pg. 106)

Our Bold Hero: 1, Sockless Pete 0

But of course I'd also claimed that it wasn't about a transvestite, when in fact Davies refuses to clear up the ambiguity, at least as far as authorial intent is concerned. So even though Pete thought it definitely was about a transvestite, I'll give him a point for being potentially right.

OBH: 1, SP: 1.

It would be beyond tedious to go through everything we said during the more than eight hours we spent in the car together this weekend. I really only wanted to come out against the BBC anyways.

At one point Sockless Pete praised the BBC for what I thought was a rather craven editorial policy: its decision to cut back on the use of the word "terrorist." It didn't bother me much at the time, but when I saw it again in this article at Hit & Run, I was too annoyed not to blog something.

Heed my shrill and feeble voice!

Now, as those of us who paid attention to the Beslan school siege last year remember, the BBC has been allergic to the word "terrorist" for a while now. Daniel Pipes had a good run-down of euphemisms for "terrorist" back way back.

As a (now former) copy editor I'm all for using descriptions when they're more accurate, and some of the suggested terms would certainly by useful for variety's sake, but it's strange that the news service decided to eschew "terrorist" rather than provide an official definition of when the term would be acceptable.

(And while we're on the subject I'd say the same thing about "genocide," a term that actually does get overused.)

Surely they aren't denying that terrorism exists? It can often be a matter of perspective, it's true, but I'd like to believe that there's a point -- like, say, holding a school full of children and their families at gunpoint and making demands -- where an act could objectively be considered terrorism and anyone who disagrees is clearly wrong.

I can understand that the BBC doesn't want to be seen as taking sides, but I think that terrorists, regardless of what disadvantaged group they claim to represent, have earned a label that might prejudice us against them. Rather than refuse to call a spade a spade (and no, Sockless Pete, that's NOT a racist saying), the BBC should figure out what a spade is and work from there.