streams of email

     I don't really mind getting "junk" email--the ads and catalogs I have signed up for at some time or another. What is sometimes disturbing is the way the "junk" email arrives--one every 5 or 10 minutes throughout the day. Real junk mail only arrives once a day--in the mailbox, from the postal service. I prefer "junk" email to arrive this way, too. I wish it all would--in one great pile in the morning, so that I could really deal with it according to my interest in it, or lack of interest, instead of checking all day to see if it is actual correspondence.

a place for a point system

     Pennsylvania once had a "point system" for driver's licenses. Moving violations meant "points'--a bad thing. Drivers got one point for a very minor infraction, more for a serious one. If the driver accumulated ten points his or her license was suspended.
    We could use  a new point system for other minor infractions, such as failing to clear the walk or put the trash out properly. Instead of getting a citation or not getting a citation, properties could be given points for violations. A property owner could be cited if enough points accumulated, without any recourse to luck or drama.

a reason to vote

     Can we at least have a little sticker that says "I voted" handed out at the polls? The kind they use when someone gives blood?  Employers could give anyone with a sticker an hour, or some other perk. Restaurants could offer a deal to anyone with a sticker.
     And remember, if you don't vote, you don't get to complain.

help! scary stuff

     Another scary thing someone said--

"It's not that way in the world in my mind."

teaching "to the test"

     For all the complaining on both sides about "teaching to the test", there is something worse--not teaching to the test--meaning having wonderful conversations ( or not ) that take up all available class time, and then expecting students to pass a test on material not covered--or not even mentioned.

Rome's decline

     " A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste."
Gibbon

written words

     I recently read a comment by a young woman who said that she didn't like to chat, because her friends often misunderstood what she wrote and became annoyed with her. The main reason to learn to write clearly is that your words, once written and sent or published, go alone into the big wide world, without you present to explain or qualify ( except, but ) them. If you're not sure that your words can make it on their own, get a friend to read what you've written--to proofread it for you. Then you can be sure that your words say what you intended them to say.