Category: Do the Right Thing

Posted on

They’re Killin’ Me. . .

No, not my dogs (although my feet to hurt a bit. . . but then I’m getting old, so what do you expect? :-)) People who are fairly literate who nevertheless allow Crap Media (A/K/A the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, badly-edited poplit, etc.) have far, far too much influence over their own vocabularies–spoken and written.

OK, so I engage in quite a bit of “pop-speak” from time to time here. That’s fine. It’s casual writing, and I’m not getting paid to do it. But even “casual” writing should be correct if someone’s getting paid for the words they casually and, all to often–unfortunately–carelessly toss out.

Several times, recently, I’ve seen such abortions as a noun (such as “workout” or “logout”) used as verbs (“work out” or “log out”). Enough lazy, subliterate, immoral idiots do this and you can bet such things will become widely used enough to blur and then eliminate the useful distinctions between noun and verb forms in print.

It’s appalling. . . and as I said, immoral for people to take money to do a job and then do it badly. It’s theft. (It’s also a crime against the English language, but I don’t know of any statute that would apply. *sigh*)

N.B. I do cut a few professionals some slack in certain circumstances. I read a lot of Advance Reader Copies of books, books that are in the penultimate stage of editing before publication. I expect a few errors in such books, because ARCs usually serve as final proofing copies that will see another read-through before actual publication. So I cut those authors/editors some slack if only a few problems crop up. Example: last night I read a (~400-page) ARC that had three glaring errors: “then”for “than” three times. It’s a form of mental typo that sometimes crops up in even the most literate writers’ works, and is almost always caught at one stage or another of the proofreading/editing of a book issued from a good publisher and apparently almost NEVER caught, in my experience, by “Indie” (self-pub) authors whose proofreaders are of an uneven nature. Unfortunately, traditional publishers are more and more drawing authorial, proofreading and editing staff from a pool of college grads who are themselves essentially illiterate, so some ARCs from trad-pubs are littered with all sorts of crap. . . that makes it into the final, published, books. *sigh*

Posted on

“Rubber Bumper” Society Encourages Stupidity

The way so many people have been reared in virtual bubbles in the last few decades has led to all too many people wandering through life apparently feeling invincible.

Not so with me. I was a slow learner, but I have–slowly–learned both prudence (well, in matters of physical safety) and gained confidence in my genuine abilities through a process of exploration of things that weren’t always. . . safe.

No room here to detail all my childhood adventures and play, but they were more risky than most kids seem to experience nowadays (No, I’ll not explain the rules of Dodge-Rock. I’ll just say that we didn’t have nice soft balls to play with and leave it at that. . . :-)) By the time I reached junior high, I had had a major gash in my left foot dealt with by stitches, a bigger HOLE in my left hand, suffered unconsciousness from a fall (only about 20′ but not bad for a seven-year-old kid), broken arm (left again. . . Hmm. . . I see a pattern), broken leg (AGAIN, left, but other assorted head and limb injuries slightly disguised the trend :-)) and had twice been hit by cars while (properly!) riding my bicycle (the worst injuries came when the driver had to actually LEAVE THE ROADWAY to bash me off a shoulder *heh*). Later, in college, as a more wary bike rider, I was still struck twice by daydreaming drivers, although I saw them coming and was almost able to avoid them, resulting in only minor injuries–bruising and whatnot.

That I am not comfortable with heights probably helped me I avoid falls while free climbing during my college years. BY “free climbing” here, I mean I was wearing street clothes every time. Sneakers, jeans, etc. No falls, because b y that time I had learned some of my limits and when to push them, and practiced what safety measures I could.

Now, what did I see today that spurred these thoughts? A father pushing a tandem stroller (with the expected two kids) down a narrow street, moving WITH the traffic. I see this a lot around here, though. Folks walking–and often pushing strollers–down a highway that goes through town, a highway that is as narrow as legally allowed and is traveled by a great deal of 18-wheeler (and other) traffic. . . and, from my limited observations (I can’t set up an observation post and man it 24×7), most of the 18-wheel traffic speeds through town and much of it minds the lanes about as carefully as Bill Clinton observed proper behavior in the White House. Just sayin’. It has NO shoulder and NO sidewalk. And yet people walk down the highway assuming they are immune to stupid drivers approaching them from the rear.

The second “street rule” I learned as a kid (the first was the Stop, Look BOTH WAYS, and Listen before crossing ANY street) was “Whenever there is no sidewalk, walk AGAINST traffic”–so you can see what’s coming. It’s common sense that is very, very UNcommon nowadays, from what I see. Nope. Apparently, people just assume they are invincible and DO NOT THINK. (They don’t have to. After all, it’s everyone ELSE’s responsibility to look after THEIR welfare, isn’t it?)

Of course, timidity is another stupid problem fostered by a “rubber bumper” society, but detailing even one example of that would make a too long post even “too longer”. *heh* Just take it as given that I could list many, many other behaviors I witness daily indicating that folks are either too stupid to use ordinary,common sense safety measures or too stupid to take action when nothing dangerous threatens (Common around here: “COME ON! IT SHOULDN’T TAKE 5 MINUTES TO MAKE A SIMPLE RIGHT HAND TURN! Sure, there’s a bar ditch on the right and ya should avoid “ditching” your car, but COME ON! MAKE THE FRIGGIN’ TURN ALREADY!” *heh*).

Scairdy Cats and The Invincibles (Legends in Their Own Minds)–sometimes even in the same persons! It’s enough to drive one to despair. How can our society survive these weenies?

Posted on

*sigh* I Just Hate This [Stuff]

Oh, Shiite.

Just had a call from someone whose computer I cleaned a month ago. They have re-infected themselves. Key question: “Are you still using Internet Exploder instead of the browser I installed and configured for you?”

“Yes.”

I wanted to say, “Here’s your sign.”

*gagamaggot*

Why do folks ask me for help and then ignore my counsel and expect things to turn out differently next time? This will be the THIRD time for this guy to have infected himself with THE SAME THING via the SAME VECTOR using the SAME BROWSER while ignoring the practices and tools I installed and counseled him on to prevent such a thing.

Why do they do these things? Self-induced stupidity and “helplessness” I suppose. (I use here a definition of stupidity articulating a stubborn refusal to learn or change one’s self-destructive behaviors. . . when learning is clearly within the individual’s capabilities.)

Posted on

Let’s Think That Through, Shall We?

Went to Lowe’s to buy another $40 gallon of paint and maybe a new paint sprayer (long story on the old one ;-)). Bought neither one. Did buy a new paint brush, though.

Got home. Rechecked the paint. Glad I held off, because I almost bought another can of trim instead of the color I needed for the walls. Back tomorrow (well, today now that it’s the wee hours) for the right color (and taking the paint can, not just the label from what I thought was the right paint can pasted in my notebook. Yep. I referenced the wrong paint label to the sales clerk. Oops. *heh*).

Still not getting the paint sprayer, because the can label says “Nope. Don’t do it. You’ll be sorrrrrrry!” Or words to that effect. *heh*

Posted on

Wandering Around in “Blue Sky” Territory

Here’s a wild and crazy idea for one arrow to add to the “educational reform quiver”:

Vouchers for home schooling. . . with a twist.

Preconditions: pubschools have achievement testing at end of year for EVERY GRADE, no exceptions, no excuses. Period. Kids pass to the next grade based on test scores. No exceptions, no excuses.

Vouchers provided parents who wish to homeschool equivalent to whatever the district spends per pupil for ALL expenses. BUT, the vouchers cannot be redeemed unless the student for whom they are issued passes, IN A FORMALLY PROCTORED SETTING, the SAME achievement test as their pubschool counterparts must pass.

In other words, equivalent expenditure of public funds for what must be assumed to be an equivalent public good, except that homeschooled kids wouldn’t be spending most of their childhood in a prison environment.

At least it wouldn’t provide an incentive for those lame brains who count the daily trip to WallyWorld as a “field trip” for their (fake) “homeschooled” kids. . . unless they required the kids to read and (intelligently) discuss nutrition labels, do math to determine “best buys” and be quizzed on geography based on place of manufacture of different goods, etc.. *heh*

Here’s the post that spurred the thought:

Alternative Education

Posted on

Pubschool=Prisons for Kids?

[UPDATE: See, “Last Thursday, I Lied”. be sure to Read the Whole Thing®.]

[Note: I have family members who are REAL teachers and know at least a few more REAL teachers. Heck, I have even known three–THREE–pubschool administrators who were actually worthwhile uses of the oxygen they consumed. Really! Still. . . ]

Pubschool isn’t entirely “prison for kids”. . . but it’s usually the next worst thing. Pubschool certainly was no picnic for me. People kept interrupting my learning to “teach” me things that were on THEIR schedule. . . *heh*

From a Salon article, School is a prison — and damaging our kids:

“. . .the more scientists have learned about how children naturally learn, the more we have come to realize that children learn most deeply and fully, and with greatest enthusiasm, in conditions that are almost opposite to those of school.”

Well, especially for boys, for whom pubschool is often a kind of prison camp designed to make them into girls 1, or ANY kid who’s in the second standard deviation above the norm or better on any standard IQ test. “Odds” of all kinds find pubschool to me mind-numbing torture as they are REQUIRED to fit into the box. . . and find the box to be far, far too small.

But. . . the problem is this, though: how can a society educate 2 its population in such a way as to maximize the number of useful, productive citizens? Assembly line “prisons for kids” has been the answer for many years, though good teachers–REAL teachers–do everything they can to minimize the “prison” and “assembly line” aspects and encourage real learning. Oh, but that’s another problem: where does one find REAL teachers in numbers great enough to overcome the disadvantages of the system itself, the “millstones” of pubschool administrators *gag* and the plethora of remote-educrat-meddling they implement?

Education 2 ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. . .

1Christina Hoff Sommers, The War Against Boys. From a review:

“Sommers, a philosopher by education and a mother of two boys, shows that the trend she identified in the late 1990s to see boys as defective girls and therefore somehow in need of retooling has continued, and its effects have spread.”

2“Educate” has come to mean, more and more, simply “propagandize, brainwash.” Real education leads from darkness to light. What is created by the system of remote educrats promulgating rules for pubschool administrators to use cutting oxygen from the brains of teachers and students alike being implemented in a system of regimentation, indistinguishable from a prison regime, INTENDED (see Dewey, et al) to turn children into useful little cogs in an industrial machine is a kind of software lobotomization that seems to be designed by a conspiracy of dunces to make the lowest common denominator universal. *sigh* I am in awe of teachers–REAL teachers–who can do battle against this monstrosity day in and day out–actually bringing light to some students!–without going out of their everlovin’ gourds. Such people are amazing.

Posted on

Check Different Angles Out, First

I occasionally see/hear frustrated people writing/muttering (or louder) about revolution as the solution the “feddle gummint” seems to be pushing its citizens subjects towards.

Better think long and hard on that, is my first council. We’re a loooooong way from needing a “solution” that, urm, revolutionary. Besides, as a “Dwarven Rifleman” (interesting fictional character) observed,

“It may seem a fine thing in song or story to be ankle-deep in the blood of your enemies but in reality it’s slippery, smells bad and is nearly impossible to get out of your socks afterwards.”

Yeh. Think long and hard before electing to pursue a course that would likely ruin every pair of socks you own. . . Just reconsider, mmK?

Posted on

Memo to The Zero: Put up or shut up

Rep Stockman requests subpoena of NSA’s White House, IRS phone logs

“Obama assures the public he only collected this information to uncover wrongdoing and protect civil liberties. Clearly he would want us to use it to investigate this case, because otherwise he’d be lying,” said Stockman.

“If Obama has nothing to hide he has nothing to fear,” said Stockman.

About time at least one Republican located a workable testosterone therapy.