Jeff Roche emails that CNBC’s program, The Closing Bell, will have a segment on the new commercial space race (show is on at 4 PM Eastern).
An Overrated Skill
In my opinion, any way, is what cursive handwriting is. I knew how to do it, once upon a time, but I quit in junior high school, when I realized that I could write more legibly and quickly by printing. I understand the theory that things go faster when you don’t have to pick up the pen, but I never found that it went that much faster, and it was unreadable, often even by me.
Now comes an old-school teacher who wants to revive the skill, which is apparently dying out among the nation’s youth, because many teachers can’t do it themselves, and if they can, don’t want to take the time to teach it, or have the students practice.
In high school and college, any student without a 24/7 laptop cannot hope to keep accurate notes on a lecture course. Kate Gladstone, a handwriting specialist based in Albany, estimates that while a student needs to jot down 100 legible words a minute to follow a typical lecture, someone using print can manage only 30. “That’s fine for class,” she said, “if the class is first grade.”
Sorry, but I just don’t buy the necessity of this in a world in which keyboards cost five bucks and laptops continue to drop in price and size. Committing thoughts to paper with pen or pencil is pure drudgery for me. If I hadn’t had access to a typewriter in high school and college (this was before word processors, which would have been a godsend), it’s quite possible that I’d have flunked out, so extreme is my aversion to handwriting in any form. And in fact, I can only think of one time that my inability to write script has had any noticeable impact on my academic or professional career. In 1981, when I took the GRE, I had to write on the front of the book an honor pledge of some sort that I wouldn’t cheat. It said that it must be written, not printed. I dredged up out of memories of elementary school how the letters were formed, and carefully and laboriously dragged the pen across the page to write the words. That was the first time I’d done so since about eighth grade, and I’ve never done it since.
And I don’t buy her speed estimates. As already noted, there was little difference in speed between printing and cursive writing for me, and a huge difference in legibility.
I absolutely disagree with this statement:
Once you learn to walk, you won’t go back to crawling again.”
Perhaps not, but the analogy is poor. For me, cursive writing is stumbling along, printing is walking (painfully), and typing is running like the wind, in which my thoughts simply magically and effortlessly appear on the screen, with no intermediary between. If it be dying, I refuse to mourn the loss of handwriting, or support efforts to revive it.
[Update at 1 PM EST]
One more point. I also disagree with this:
“…you’re probably going to be taking notes for the rest of your lives. I don’t know anybody who works on a computer and doesn’t also have a pad nearby.”
This must be like Pauline Kael’s famous comment that Nixon couldn’t have won, because she didn’t know anyone who voted for him.
In fact, I work extensively on a computer, and have no physical notepads nearby, and haven’t for years. That’s what text editors (e.g., Microsoft Notepad) are for.
Works For Me
I’ll be that a lot of mothers, wives and girlfriends are going to be emailed copies of this story:
“We know that mites can only survive by taking in water from the atmosphere using small glands on the outside of their body.
“Something as simple as leaving a bed unmade during the day can remove moisture from the sheets and mattress so the mites will dehydrate and eventually die.”
More Crushing Of Dissent
Errrr…except that the dissenter is getting his story out in the Washington Post. I’m always amused by these major newspaper stories about the brave dissenters who think that they’re being oppressed, and that the public isn’t getting the “truth.”
But the article contains a couple of key nuggets:
“I’m strictly trying to understand the Earth as a planet,” said Hansen, who started his career studying the clouds around Venus but switched in 1978 to climate modeling.
Great. Go for it. But what makes you think that renders you a policy expert, particularly on matters that affect the national and global economy?
John Marburger, the president’s Science Advisor is quite pithy on this point:
“I take his work seriously. His work has had a big impact on this administration’s climate-change policy,” Marburger said. “But he’s not an economist. The fact that he’s a good scientist does not necessarily make him the best person to formulate policy that would affect the economy.”
That’s what most people in the policy debate miss. Kyoto and CO2 reduction enthusiasts complain that the people making the decisions don’t understand the science. But what makes them experts on all the other aspects of policy that would be affected by their nostrums?
Having Trouble With The Concept
I haven’t said anything about the latest flap with Larry Summers, but Steven Pinker says it all:
First, let
Pot, Kettle, Obsidian
When I telephoned a man named Ali Fadhil in Baghdad last week, I wondered who might answer. A C.I.A. operative? An American posing as an Iraqi? Someone paid by the Defense Department to support the war? Or simply an Iraqi with some mixed feelings about the American presence in Iraq? Until he picked up the phone, he was just a ghost on the Internet.
Well, isn’t that precious?
Can anyone play this game?
Let’s see…
When I considered telephoning a woman named Sarah Boxer in New York, I wondered who might answer. An Al Qaeda operative? A Saudi in a burkha posing as an American? Someone paid by the Iranian or Syrian defense agency to oppose the war? Or simply an American with some mixed feelings about the American presence in Iraq, and determined to see it, and America, fail? Until she picked up the phone, she was just a ghost on the NYT internet website…
I’m just sayin’…
[Update on Wednesday morning]
N. Z. Bear has picked up the ball and run it all the way into the end zone.
[Another update at 10:30 AM, eastern]
My, oh my. A commenter has tracked down the perp, and found out that she’s a book author.
Sarah Boxer
Death Of The Dinosaurs
The species Pompositasaurus Rex, anyway. Les Moonves may be admitting that Roger Simon was right.
Moonves, who will ultimately select Rather’s replacement, said he believes many young viewers are turned off by a single “voice of God” anchor in the Internet age.
He spoke publicly about his search for the first time since Rather announced in late November that he was stepping down from the “CBS Evening News.” Moonves stressed that he’s still considering all possibilities. It’s unclear whether a new format would be ready for when Rather leaves in early March, or whether an interim successor would be named.
“Those days are over when you have that guy sitting behind the desk who everyone believes to the `nth’ degree,” Moonves told reporters. “It’s sort of an antiquated way of news telling and maybe there’s a new way of doing it.”
And if he is, to stretch the analogy, they were wiped out by an asteroid called the Internet and the blogosphere, that they never saw coming.
Red Staters In The Mist
Iowahawk has a new, thrilling adventure story about a frightening journey deep into the heart of Jesusland:
After crossing the muddy mud-colored mud of the Missouri river we had finally arrived in Omaha, the last stop before our maps became strictly conjectural. From here on out, until we reached Austin, we would have to rely on our wits and our training in journalism to navigate through hostile red enclaves.
Luckily we stumbled upon a primitive university in Lincoln. We were surprised to encounter a native maiden, Heather, who had taken graduate studies in Lacan and Franz Fanon. She directed us to the cinderblock hut of a kindly Semiotics missionary, Professor Mintz.
“We may be doing the Lord’s work here, gentlemen, but the local tribes do not always look kindly on it,” he warned. “Last month one of our tenured friars merely told his students that Bush was the anti-Christ, and he was viciously attacked by counterarguments. He was so traumatized he had to report the student to the disciplinary committee.”
Blast From The Past
Ed Driscoll has an interesting review of what looks to be an interesting new DVD series detailing the history of Apollo.
Those Who Know Him Best…
Michael Moore can’t get no respect from his homies:
“Would you want him as a role model? Would you want your son or daughter to be like him?” asked Don Hammond, a member of the Hall of Fame selection committee. “I haven’t talked to anybody yet who’s for him. The word to describe Michael Moore is embarrassing. He embarrasses everybody.”
(And note that, contra popular myth, he’s from Davison, not my home town of Flint).
[Update at noon eastern]
Speaking of Michael Moore, Bill Whittle describes a recent encounter of the third kind with him, with some thoughts on celebrities and politics.