Category Archives: Social Rules

09052014 Who Put the “Curse” in Cursive Writing?

09/05/2014 X Teri

This is the logo used when I was kid. Dolly Madison is now owned by Hostess Foods. I wrote them many years ago, telling their marketing department that their logo sparked my ability to write words.

For those of who know me, I love the style of cursive writing. Writing “longhand,” as we can archaically call it, is a peaceful, meditative thing – at least for me. I wrote letters long after my contemporaries abandoned the practice.For those who had to attempt to read and comprehend my writing, I apologize! My handwriting resembles the scrawls of a man being forced to write at gunpoint, while receiving random electrical shocks. It’s that bad – regardless of the time I spent trying to do it better.

But (and there is always a “but” in these essays), as a left-handed person, cursive written was indeed a cursed activity in school. I remember the first cursive letter I ever wrote. It was an “L.” I was living with my grandparents at the time and they had a small black and white television, so we gathered around it to be entertained. It was either Friday or Saturday evening and we were watching a show sponsored by Dolly Madison. In rural Central-Eastern Arkansas back in the very early 1970s, being able to get even 3 stations was a miracle. Much of the programming was very tame by today’s standards, too. Putting an antennae up was also a necessity but it increased the chances of a lightning bolt to the house, too.

If you look casually at the logo above you can see that the “L” that my grandma showed me how to draw was essentially the bonnet in the logo. I was so proud of myself.

I learned a lot of letters from my grandparents. What is amusing is how relatively uneducated they both were, but they loved the time they spent showing me words. In fact, the way grandpa taught me to read words caused me considerable trouble in 1st grade. My teacher ultimately assigned me special help. I was regarded as a little simple. I simply didn’t know how to sound out words in the way preferred in the alleged modern teaching method. Grandpa had taught me to recognize an immense list of words. I could pronounce them and use them in sentences correctly, but it set me back compared to other kids my age, as I could not break down words into syllables and sounds distinguished by letters. My favorite thing to use to learn new words: the TV guide. In grandma Nellie’s house, the TV guide had more stature than the bible. As I progressed, learning how to sound out the alphabet in pieces instead of whole words, the truth is that I actually learned how to conceal the fact that I was still learning much, much more by learning entire words than I was by sounding them out. I’m still convinced that I can read so quickly precisely because I learned how to read the wrong way. (If you believe that there is a wrong way to learn.)

Before I forget, I didn’t go to kindergarten. Due to mom and dad moving to Northwest Arkansas between school years, I skipped having to go. I went from reading TV Guide to 1st grade at John Tyson Elementary. It is now considered highly unusual for a kid my age to have skipped kindergarten. Back then, though, there weren’t any stringent truancy laws to exact revenge on parents who didn’t enroll their kids in kindergarten or other programs before elementary school.

Later, in school, I had the terrible misfortune of having to deal with a couple of teachers who stupidly insisted that writing with my left-hand was wrong and needed to be harshly weeded out of me. Naturally, I resisted them. My grandpa had insisted that I learn to write and draw with whichever hand was comfortable. He wasn’t progressive in any sense of the word – but he did make an effort to be sure that I enjoyed writing and drawing, even if I did it poorly. And make no mistake about it, my drawing and penmanship were terrible. Unlike other kids, though, I never learned to loathe writing or to be embarrassed about my notable lack of skill. Even as my left hand left huge smears on the paper as I wrote, I didn’t let it dampen my enthusiasm. Even when those very few teachers were asses to me about writing left-handed, I knew they were wrong. One of them in particular tried vainly to shame me for my horrible penmanship. I didn’t care, as I knew that no matter how hard I worked, my penmanship was never going to be great. Some teachers just couldn’t get it through their heads that, as a left-hander, their methods of instruction were exactly backwards to me. Even in the 6th grade, I had a teacher treat me like an ape over my lack of concern over writing with the “correct” hand. She never missed an opportunity to tell me my handwriting was atrocious. Little did she know that my dad had already provided infinite training in the ability to ignore a lot of harshness being directed at me. She was a child in an adult’s world, at least in my mind. I do wonder sometimes whether she realized how horrible she seemed to me then.

Now, seeing that the tide is turning regarding cursive writing, I would like to weigh in and say that I admire cursive writing. It’s elegant and evokes times past. It does enhance motor control and acuity. But so do many other activities, ones more anchored in our ever-changing world.

But it is still wrong to continue to require it. The arguments being made for continuing to teach it are usually based on not understanding where cursive originated.

The world has moved on and those who would shout to the heavens to require this antiquated way of writing are wrong to insist on their stubbornness to require it. Focus on regular writing and leave cursive writing with calligraphy, which once was an admired and respectable means to write. Like it or not, the world has shifted to block lettering, preferred by computers and keyboards. Try as you might to anchor written communication to the past, it is not going to be successful or even necessary. It is the way of the world to claim remorse over the changing ways we live our lives and to seek to keep elements of our past alive, long after the necessity or even the utility of it has passed. I can understand the appeal toward maintaining old customs, even when they are no longer relevant.

Remember, I love cursive writing, even though it was very difficult for me to learn. Part of it might have been that everything looked backwards to me in my hard-wired left-handed world. As much as I love the idea and essence of cursive writing, it is already an elective art.

It is time for schools to acknowledge the antiquated status of cursive and use the immense time involvement on something much more useful, such as reading. One of my personal prejudices is the belief that reading in and of itself is one of the most redeeming and intellectually valuable pursuits of anyone, at any age.

Sidenotes:

If you are interested, you should google “Writing in Cursive,” or read the link here: Click Here for Cursive Wikipedia Article Cursive was used for informal writing, while what we might call block lettering was the preferred and more esteemed way to write. Cursive was considered to be more illegible. Interesting? I think so. If you only read the Wikipedia page in the leak, I’m certain that you will discover that the issue is a little more convoluted than those arguing about it would admit to.

Cursive writing also originated from the necessity of compensating for quills and other antiquated writing utensils. Not lifting one’s writing utensil not only provided for greater speed, but also mitigated limitations of the method used to write. Please note that people arguing in favor of mandatory cursive training in school are in fact making an argument based on aesthetics over obsolescence.

Personal, Social Rules

Johnson Police Department: Thank You?

08/27/2014 X Teri

Need a laugh? Read this needlessly long anecdote. The only ticket I received in Johnson in my life was a warning for speeding down the hill (on a ten-speed bicycle) that connects Main and goes over the railroad tracks to hit Johnson Road. (When I used to run and walk, I did get a “stop-and-greet-who-are-you” kind of thing several dozen times, though.) I lived there many, many years and have always been extremely careful, given that there are 3,457 cops in Johnson at any given time. (Some statisticians have stated that Johnson has more police than citizens, although I think they might have been drunk when they postulated this…) I’m not a good driver, not really, so when it matters, I have to pretend I’m not an idiot. I drive to work at 4 a.m. so I don’t do anything to draw attention to myself. I drive past Johnson police to and from work and in my daily life a few dozen times a week, waving to most of them as I pass.

I bought a used car from Ford on College last year, so the police have seen me drive past them in my lovely 2007 Ford Focus no less than 500 times in this last year. Before that, I drove a beige Honda and they knew that car very well, too. Important to this story is that this car is UGLY. I bought it solely based on price and that I needed a car with working wheels and a motor. There are so many defects on this car it might as well have been in the demolition derby. I haven’t done anything to it. I don’t even wash it. I don’t care about the appearance of my car, whether it gets reception on the radio (the antennae is broken), or even if there are spiders in it. It’s ugly and only intended to get me to work and back. Dawn will get a laugh out of this story because she loathes this car. She would rather have to ride a donkey than be in it. What is really going to confuse her is that I came home and ate lunch without mentioning this incident today. She’s going to be really happy that my ugly Ford Focus resulted in a ticket. (As happy as she was that fine Sunday morning when we for some reason drove past the Johnson police department on the way to church, doing 23 mph and got blue-lighted, even though there was no other traffic anywhere on the planet. Have you tried driving 23 mph? It’s like explaining physics to your cat.)

Today, as I turn off of Main Street heading up the hill, a Johnson police car is about to exit the church parking lot on the left-side. He pulls part of the way out of the lot into the street, stopping suddenly, having to yield to me as I come up the hill. “Great,” I tell myself, “now I have to ride the brake all the way down the long side of the hill with a cop behind me.” Which I do, because I’m not stupid. I ride that brake so hard that I can feel the car getting angry at me. So, with no traffic in either direction, I ride the brake, the cop literally on my bumper. Almost at the bottom, the blue lights come on. Incredulous, I immediately pull over in the grass in front of the railroad tracks, excited to hear what heinous crime I must have committed. In my mind, I’m more curious than concerned, because I knew I hadn’t broken any laws. Was my license plate stolen? Did I have a flat? Maybe the policeman was going to tell me something helpful? Since it was Johnson, my optimism at such an outcome was less than high, to say the least. I would’ve taken Vegas odds against this being a positive encounter.

I of course have my window already down, the car off, and all my papers ready. Due to my ridiculous name, I don’t take any chances. Trust me, if your name were X, you would be quite careful in your interactions with police. I don’t mind being shot; I just don’t want to see it coming. The officer walks up to my car and after asking where I work, tells me that he noticed that my windows looked awfully dark. I told him, I bought this car used from Ford on College last August and had asked them directly if the tint was perhaps too dark. Ford told me “no.” I didn’t care whether the car had tinted windows and that I don’t care if any of my vehicles do. Since the day I bought the car, I’ve never once thought about the windows on this car. That’s not what a car is for me. It’s a box to get in and drive. The policeman returns with a photometer and shows me that the windows are in violation. He could have used a Star Trek device for all I know, as I’m ignorant about tint – or anything on a car that isn’t necessary. He said, “Yes, the legal limit is (insert whatever imaginary number applies in this blank) and your windows aren’t legal.” (Nerd joke, all I could think of what that I was using pirated software on my Windows computer.)

When the officer presented me a ticket, he was very pleasant. I’m in no way faulting his presentation, dress, demeanor or ethic. Who wouldn’t be nice? He was the one writing the ticket and making me have a terrific afternoon by giving out involuntary autographs to people with guns. I was very polite in my entire interaction with the officer. I’m certain he would agree that I was nothing but pleasant and respectful to him. Nothing I said or did lead to him writing the ticket. He had decided immediately to ticket me, no matter what the circumstances. That is what really, really bugs me. I asked him (paraphrasing): “So, even though I acted in good faith and asked about the tint of the windows, and don’t care about the windows being tinted, I’m getting a ticket? Even though no one was harmed and even a verbal request from you right now to go pay and have the tint stripped at my own cost would result in me doing so immediately?” “Yes,” he answered, “your tint is too dark.” He then showed me on the ticket where to call if I had questions. I was puzzled. I would have had the tint removed, immediately. He didn’t have to warn me or even talk to me in a helpful manner. But he could have – and it would have fixed the problem. No, he was nice and can’t be faulted for his demeanor. But the decision to give me a ticket requiring a court date or prepayment is counterproductive.

Instead of teaching me a lesson, it is only going to make me make incredibly funny remarks at Johnson’s expense. I will no longer pretend to defend the countless remarks I hear all the time about the “speed trap” mentality that most people think that motivates Johnson. While I didn’t get a speeding ticket, the one I did get was just plain dumb.

Granted, he must be absolutely right to have given me a ticket. It was his right to do so. Please note that I agree whole-heartedly that he had the right, assuming he wasn’t playing a prank on me with his Star Trek photometer. He’s also right- it doesn’t matter that I asked Ford to make sure that the tint wasn’t too dark or that I could care less about having tinted windows, or that it is my responsibility even after all that. But I’m also right that no real progress was made here today, other than to the Johnson City’s coffers once I pay the fine. The officer could have told me, “Sir, get this fixed immediately and please remind those people you know to be aware of the tint laws.” I would have agreed totally and driven off and done exactly as he told me, probably directly to the nice dealer who apparently misled me about the tint not being too dark. The fine from the ticked is not important to me. I don’t care. It doesn’t serve to deter me from further crime, because I didn’t commit one in the first place. It’s not going to impact my ability to eat at Subway’s or cause me to be homeless.

No, it encourages me to look at this interaction with a very humorous and snarky eye. I guess Johnson does need the revenue. I didn’t commit any other alleged offense other than buying a car with windows that are too dark. I then proceeded to drive this in front of Johnson police, day in and day out, a few hundred times, in both total dark and high noon sunlight. But today, for some unknown reason, I drew the attention of this police officer who wanted to write me a ticket. Hundreds of times Johnson police officers sat and watched me wave at them, and wave back at me, without a hint of an issue with my windows being too dark. Yes, it’s my fault for believing Ford when I asked and they told me my windows were fine. Yes, it is my responsibility. I’m not arguing any of that. I guess paying fines that serve no purpose is good civic practice. But an even BETTER civic practice is getting on Facebook and being snarky about it. I pray that Johnson has no law on the books that prohibits talking about this. But if there is and I don’t know about it, then I am automatically at fault for that, too.

(Maybe I have a fan on Facebook who saw me warning everyone to get out and push their cars instead of driving them to avoid a speeding ticket on the new road by Johnson Mills? If so, hey dude, what’s up? Send me a friend’s request.)

Based on the confidence of this officer to write me a ticket for something that should have not went past the warning phase, I would go so far as to say publicly that in reality, all those Johnson police officers, day in and day out, who waved at me as I passed them in my illegal 2007 Ford Focus should be called out and given a harsh lecture about public safety. How dare they allow Mr. X to drive past them for an entire year without being issued a ticket? Don’t they know that Johnson needs dollars to pay for those cruisers? Don’t they know that in matters of good faith, it is always better to punish the driver?

Before I forget, the joke is that this ticket was issued to me on the very same hill I was ticketed on back in the early 90s, riding my ten-speed bike. Granted, the previous ticket was the on the opposite side of the hill. For years, I had that warning framed. I should have kept it. For those of who aren’t familiar with the reputation that the Johnson police once had, you can suffice it say that they weren’t on the “Let Jesus forgive them” side of the equation.

Now, of course, I want nothing other than to get in my highly dangerous 2007 Ford Focus and drive up and down the Johnson roadways going exactly the speed limit. You read that right. The best revenge is driving the speed limit and making all the other motorists put their heads out their windows and shoot me in the face as they drive by in anger at moving so slowly. I guess my illegally tinted windows will help me evade the shots as they ring out? The Johnson police will be so busy investigating me getting shot at that they won’t have time to get creative with the ticket writing.

I’m not going to go to court and explain to Johnson’s judge that I didn’t know. I spend enough hours of my day at work, explaining the obvious to my own bosses only to watch their eyes roll back into their heads. I see no need to be prattled at for something as stupid as this. But it was worth a long facebook rant. Remember, you will never get these moments back, the ones you spent reading my goofy story.

An old joke: If you ever feel un-noticed or like no one knows you are alive, then drive through Johnson.

Later, I wrote the Chief of Police an email. While I’m glad he eventually wrote me back, it made me shake my head in bewilderment at what he wrote. His response was that he couldn’t teach his officers to do the right thing and to always be sure to not do something simply because they can. It wasn’t written even that plainly – it was disjointed and not focused. But that’s the argument: he couldn’t teach his officers to do the right thing. I had a couple of other smart people I trust read the letter to ensure I wasn’t imagining. “4th grade” was the response. Oops.

I did pay someone to remove all thee tint from my windows, every bit of it. It damaged the windows and defroster, among other things.

Since then, many people have told me their Johnson Police Department stories, engaged with me on social media, and universally told me that they routinely avoid driving in Johnson thanks to the police force there.

Business, Social Rules

08252014 Basic Human Dignity

08/25/2014 X Teri

Warning: Negativity and person opinion expressed here.

Yesterday, my wife and I went to buy groceries in Springdale. I made my first round for heavy items and went through the register to pay for them. An older lady was at the register and I could tell she had probably seen her fair share of issues in life. I did what I always do and got her to chit-chat. After I took my ton of groceries to the car and came back inside and finished up the other round with my wife, we ended up at the exact same register. The cashier had called over and gestured a couple of kiosks away, calling toward a younger person by her name. “Do you want me to ask her to come over here?” I jokingly asked. She said “Would you?” to me, and told the younger person several feet away “I still need to go to the bathroom.” The younger person could see that I was looking so she took a few steps toward the older cashier (without getting close enough to maintain privacy) and the cashier told her “I desperately need to go to the bathroom.” The younger person pointed toward the other kiosk and brusquely said “NO. I can’t leave him here, he is training and I have to watch him.” She went back over to stand motionless, in place, and watch the trainee, leaving my cashier to squirm in discomfort, her line now having 4 people behind us and no hope for an obviously necessary bathroom break in sight. I can only presume that she didn’t start screaming in anger once I left or storm off the job she obviously needed to survive.

I’m ashamed that I didn’t lie down on the floor and commence to screaming in protest. The cashier could have been anyone’s mother or grandmother. (Except mine – my mom would have thrown a can of tomatoes at the young supervisor, as well as taught her a few new curse words.) The way the older cashier was treated with disregard lingered in my mind during the evening, while I was trying to sleep and then still bothered me this morning again.

If you missed the word “still” in my story, the cashier had asked previously, well ahead of time and then been ignored. She tried to make the best of a bad situation and was polite to her “supervisor.” She had to be humiliated and was forced to mention her need in front of several people, without being given any chance at privacy. After all that, she had to grimace and writhe instead of being allowed to go to the bathroom.

I got angrier and angrier at myself because I failed to intervene. I’d like to think it was because I didn’t want to create a scene that escalated to the older cashier being in trouble, even though she had done nothing wrong and any reaction would have been on my shoulders, both as a human being and as a customer.

For all of you who have jobs which would never put you in this kind of situation, please stop and think for a moment that there are a lot of people in jobs where the basic need to go to the bathroom is questioned. I worked at a place like that for many years; several of my jobs required “permission” to walk away. Absent permission, you could and would be disciplined or fired if you dared stray from you position. Not all the stories about people losing control and soiling themselves were urban legends. For people with great jobs, this might be difficult to accept as truth. I saw it directly more than once myself, as well as being involved from a H.R. standpoint later.

If you are a supervisor or own a business, please stop and think that staffing to a level which allows and encourages people to know that they are human beings and are valued as such is paramount. Please raise your prices if that is what it takes to ensure that everyone can exercise basic human liberty. I will gladly buy less stuff if it guarantees that people are afforded more dignity.

Taking the comparison to another level, to all the businesses who think that you are saving money by compromising the safety and health of your employees by forcing them to behave in unsafe ways or to treat other human beings as interchangeable cogs to be discarded, I hope that karma is just a concept with no real-world teeth to it. Shame on this harsher outlook toward employees. Saving money to stay and grow in any business with this attitude is a disservice to society. Compete intelligently and remember that at each step employees are human beings who would otherwise tell you to jump into a molten lake of lava for forgetting their humanity – if they could do so. If you can’t remember that people always trump process and profit, you aren’t doing anyone any favors by employing them.

Social Rules

Quote on Privacy From Dilbert Blog

08/03/2014 X Teri

“We tend to fear losing our privacy until it’s gone. Then we wonder what all the fuss was about. It turns out that the bigger challenge than retaining privacy is getting anyone to care about you at all…” -Scott Adams

Although not strictly related, here’s a facebook post from a while back:

“Facebook is one of the biggest technological marvels in the world. It is often the equivalent of an email, a phone call or a visit all in one package. Yet, we vainly try to use it to ‘control’ the array of positive and negative happenings in their lives. Use it to share with those you respect and love; otherwise, I will have to find you and yank out your nose hairs for vague-posting. Instead of hinting, share. If you can’t share openly it is best to post nothing and thereby quell the potential for inquiry. Everyone close to you already knows both the joys and sorrows of your life. Share or silence are the 2 available options, at least in my opinion. Amen.”

We can hide well as individuals in a mass of people but anyone is easily uncovered in 30 seconds or less, for free, on the internet. If you don’t mind paying a little, you can uncover anyone in 5 seconds. Where do you live? Do you own a house? Who are you related to? What’s your phone number? Date of birth? Where did you go to school? Who were your friends? Who are your friends? No matter how private you think you are, I can find the answers to all of these questions incredibly easily. Most of it is information you’ve willingly provided. You don’t need the NSA to snoop, intercept, or do surveillance to get this information.

Everything you do everyday reveals your life. Your phone tracks you, your car tracks you, cameras at ATMs and on roadways track you. Other people’s movements help track you. Your friends and coworkers assist in your every move.

It’s easy to go to bed, convinced that you haven’t added to the invasion of your privacy. If you are alive in this modern world, you can be certain that your life added to the database today.

If you know that your life is being scrutinized, even anonymously, why not share the meaningful bits with the rest of the world? It is just as viable an option as being superficial.