What are we teaching our kids?
"First-grader suspended for sex harrassment"
Talk about poorly defining a term that is too important to ill-define. This story also makes me worry that in 20 years we will find an entire generation of children that have never known the touch of another human because adults have created an unbearable atmosphere of fear.
Appreciation for Scribes of Yore
This last weekend I worked on a project that required hand lettering text by using a simple nibbed pen and dipping it in a bottle of ink. The task was tedious. After awhile at it, my back and shoulders began to ache, my hand cramped up and would shake, and my fingers were permanently (seemingly) dyed the color of the ink. It made me appreciate even the most basic of inventions that have come our way (e.g., converters for fountain pens, ink cartridges, printers). And it made me appreciate those scribes and monks who devoted their entire lives to painstakingly copying text so that letters and books and the bible may exist for future generations; hunched shoulders and black fingertips hard at work with only the light from the window or a candle to guide their hands. The process also made me reflect on how carelessly we use written words today, both in manners of style and comprehension. Every letter's importance takes on new meaning when a simple mistake means beginning that page anew.... Of course, the fascination of contemplating each individual letter ended as soon as I arrived at work this morning and began working my way through my inbox.