I’m going to give out the candy this year. For the past few years I haven’t been able to get home in time to participate, so this being a Saturday event, I can’t pass it up. See you next week.
I’m going to give out the candy this year. For the past few years I haven’t been able to get home in time to participate, so this being a Saturday event, I can’t pass it up. See you next week.
When I was in first grade, the teacher told my parents not to let me read ahead in the textbook because it would make me non-conforming. Imagine: here is a whole book full of excitement and education, and the teacher said don’t read it! Of course, today the reply from most parents (including mine) would have been a flat out refusal of that idea, or even a more coarsely worded version of “Get lost.” But back then teachers were on a level with superhuman demigods whose words were law, especially if they wore the impenetrable mantle of tenure. It didn’t mean they were right: a few years later we all fell victim to the black hole of New Math, from which it seems the education system and millions of children have never recovered.
Curiosity is usually held back from our children. Sometimes it saves lives to step in and stop something like stepping into traffic or touching that nice red stove burner, but if we aren’t curious, we don’t discover anything. We don’t evolve. We go stagnant.
For a time, I was so afraid to read anything that might cause a life-altering event like removal from school, I didn’t read much beyond what I was instructed to cover for assignments. What I didn’t know was that some other students were reading on their own time and the teacher ignored it. But I’m digressing. We should not be afraid to inquire, explore and ask questions. A man once looked at mold on bread and wondered what it did, and had my first grade teacher intervened, we would never have had the benefits of penicillin. Sure, we would have conformed: we’d have all been wiped out by disease, and dead bodies all look alike in the grave.
Why are students not enrolling in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math)? They are not being encouraged to be curious. They’re being plucked not only from music–which teaches math skills–and sports which keep the body (including the brain) in great shape, but from the laboratories and shops and taught how to take tests which measure nothing. In New Jersey, some forty percent of students did not do well in the current version of proficiency tests. Why does that not seem surprising?
I was in a think tank meeting recently, to determine what to do about some website content which is referenced by departments across several areas. A participant indicated that nobody knew what was in much of the linked content on a particular page by its label. Having worked on the content as a project participant some years ago, I was ready to reply that we had been restricted by content size, page capacity and approval issues, so labels were not particularly wide-ranging, but all it would take was a click on a link to see what was in the content.
Don’t look any further than you have to. Conform and don’t make waves.
Conform, my white middle-aged posterior!!! Conformity has its place, but not in human discovery. It doesn’t mean to lock up the brain and close the door on knowledge itself. I’ll be damned if I’ll not read ahead, go ahead, plow ahead and take the head of anybody who stands in my road and ram it into the cream pie in my other hand and call them whipped cream face. I will not stop learning until the brain hits the off button.
What did you learn today? Did you read ahead?
At least once a week I come across a traffic accident. These days fender benders (more like crushers) seem to involve three or four vehicles at a time. The days of a dent in the front of one vehicle and the rear of the one in front of it are gone. In its place are mutilated tin foil masses with tires on them.
On a major highway the most common problem is simply going way too fast. Second place goes to misjudgments in timing when changing lanes or watching for sudden stops. Auto manufacturers have discarded the good, sturdy metal bumper for a sleek fiberglass thing which should be relegated to the Ferrari on the Autobahn. This is why crash tests measure how the “cabin” holds up in a collision; they know everything sticking out of the main passenger portion of the vehicle is doomed in a crash, so as long as the sitting space is protected, they can feel they have done their part to keep drivers safe.
Once vehicles have been compromised by running into each other, the passengers who can exit their rides have the ignominious distinction of standing off to one side with their faces set in the “I never saw this one coming” expression. The cell phones come out and calls are made to expectant parties to inform of pending lateness, while the police and tow trucks and flatbeds seal off the area so it can be stared at and notes taken.
This all results in what traffic reporters on the rush hour newscasts call the Gaper Delay, because people actually slow down to look at the scene and gape with mouths open at the results. It’s probably an instinctive “there but for the grace of God and my good driving ability go I” kind of moment. In order to properly gape, one must get to the point of passing the area of the accident. This can take anywhere from ten minutes to two hours to accomplish.
A properly run Gaper Delay consists of each vehicle in the traffic jam yielding to the principle that, if every vehicle lets another squeeze over into the reduced field of open lanes, everybody can move somewhat faster. This one I just experienced did not run properly. The lucky folks riding in the left lane against the infamous “Jersey barriers” (which is technically against the law) loved having clear passage and would not let vehicles to their right merge. I was in lane three, so I had to drive for about half a mile before I got into lane two.
What also bothers me about these delays is that people in accidents exit their vehicles while other cars are driving by at normal speed (which is about ten miles per hour higher than posted). If all vehicles would stop the minute an accident happens, the victims might be able to get to the median or the side of the road (whichever is closer) quicker. Instead of gaping, we would be acknowledging that life has been slightly disrupted, and that those involved matter. Then we can navigate our way around so the police and rescue teams can do their job. Of course nobody thinks about that while rushing through life, but when you think about it, our mouths gape open for all of us at least once: when the last breath of life is through.
Over the past year I’ve been creating videos with a site called GoAnimate. It’s been fun to publish humorous videos and flex my creative muscle on a project other than flat-out writing. It looks like the fun is about to run out. The site has become a platform for business videos instead.
So the bohemian animators have been rejected.
So what is a customer to do? Complain. I’m going to fire off an email to GoAnimate and tell them they are losing a whole client base by eliminating the fun factor (which, as a hobby, I willingly pay for). I’m also going to upload my videos for viewing until my account expires, after which I’ll cancel and my work will likely disappear into the no-zone of dead Internet material.
It was fun while it lasted.
I haven’t been in the best of moods lately, but my spirits were lifted earlier today by a young man well on his way to being a future person of great character.
I was in the market, running at what Mel Brooks would call ludicrous speed*, trying to finish my grocery shopping in time to pick up my mother from an appointment. Approaching the pickle barrel for a much-needed addition to our upcoming sandwiches for lunch, a young fellow of about eight or nine was standing by while his mother awaited her deli number to be called. “Pickle?” he asked. I looked over, smiled and replied, “Pickle,” in the affirmative. He proceeded to hand me the tongs and raise the lid so I could select my purchase.
I was nearly moved to tears by this simple act. “I’ll tell you something, young man,” I said to him; “If more adult men treated me as kindly as you did just now, I would be a happy person all of the time. Thank you very much.”
I had to leave then, or I might have lost it.
His mother should be proud.
*(That was from Space Balls.)
 | Eden on Getting the Message |
| Eden on The Unasked Questions |
| Eden on And Her Shoes Were #9 |
| Eden on The Poison Field |
| Eden on Final Tally |
Susan's Scribblings the Blog 