Four Dead in Ohio

No matter what the context is, when I hear the name "Ohio," my first thought is Kent State.

I have a friend who went to Kent State many years after May 4, 1970 and part of me can't figure out why. Maybe by the 1980s the impact was different, but to me Kent State will always be, well, Kent State.

It was the defining "where were you" moment of my generation.

So, the name of a state with two perfectly respectable baseball teams, the hometown of Corporal Klinger from M.A.S.H., the setting of Glee and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is never just "Ohio." It's always "four dead in Ohio."

It was the moment the war, which was never far away, came home.

The Death of PC

A friend of mine was trying to describe the lunch ladies at her kids' school and couldn't find the proper adjective that met the current politically correct criteria.

That was because there were no PC adjectives.

The lunch ladies in question had passed a size point at which kind words like "heavy" or "chubby" or "plus-sized" no longer had any meaning. My friend settled on gargantuan, although it calls to mind the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Her other choices were Moby Dick, Shamu, massive, gi-normous, hu-mongoid. . .

Unfortunately, it is also an un-PC choice to use the most truthful description: unhealthy. As in "you are increasing everyone's health insurance premiums." Or, more to the point considering these were the ladies serving lunch to elementary school students: "Look at the example you're setting."

The Death of "Died"

Nobody died anymore.

Oh, they stop breathing. Their hearts stop. Their brains cease to function. But they don't die. They "pass away."

"Pass away" was once the preferred euphemism of aging morticians with round wire-framed glasses and gray suits. At some point, people started turning into smarmy insipid morticians.

It doesn't hurt less to hear "passed away" or "passed."

The grim fact is that grief and sadness aren't assuaged by euphemism. Often enough, euphemism belittles that grief.

We are supposed to be sad when someone we love dies. We are supposed to grieve. It's ok. It's ok to talk about it, too. It's ok to grieve in your own way. And, it's ok to call it what it is.

Integrity

Lawrence Pitts is my hero.

He writes columns about the necessary integrity of journalists. He's not shy about pointing out that bloggers, post-ers, tweeters (twits) and other random people who see themselves as journalists are just random people who erroneously see themselves as journalists.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating. Journalism is a craft more than a profession. It may even be a calling. It's not a hobby. It's not something you do in your spare time. And it's not something you do without even a nod to ethics.

Thou shalt not ambush. Thou shalt not lie. Thous shalt not impersonate someone. These are basic rules no real journalist would ever think of violating. The denizens of the blogosphere don't seem to think at all.

Students?

So the City University of New York and its Community College are inundated with students who need remedial help.

NYC isn't alone in this problem. A shocking (at least to those of us who learned something in high school) number of young people who graduate high school don't seem to have high school skills. Some of them barely have elementary school skills.

I'm sure there are myriad culprits, including social promotion, overcrowded classes, language barriers, lack of motivation, learning disabilities. . .But the point is not everyone SHOULD go to college. Who's telling these kids they should be in college.

Why are they even walking through the door.

In high school, there used to be college prep, business and general courses. Kids who weren't going to college took classes that would help them get jobs. Granted there are fewer jobs now that don't require a college education, but still, there are tech schools and apprenticeships and if a kid can't make it in college he or she should take advantage of those. If even half of the kids who don't qualify for college don't actually go, that would save the schools enormous aggravation and lots of money.

As for them not being ready in the first place, that's fodder for another blog.

Profiling

I discovered something fascinating about Facebook.

No, I'm not going to talk about the privacy (or lack thereof) thing, or how Mark Zuckerberg plans on taking over the world -- and probably will.

I'm talking about the "edit profile" pages where it asks for your interests, which is fine, but it keeps asking who you enjoy doing things with -- like I only enjoy playing tennis with one person or horseback riding on one horse??

It even asks who you like to read with. Really? Sure, with a cat on my lap, but you don't exactly read WITH someone. I guess Facebook's creators think if you are on Facebook it's because you just can't stand to be alone.

Dusting for Prints

I have a garden variety flip-phone cell phone. It has little buttons on which I find it ridiculously hard to send a text message.
Sometimes I watch people with iPhones and other "smart" phones use their touch screens and it really grosses me out.
Those touch screens display, along with "apps" for calculating tips (it's quicker to have a tip cheat sheet next to your credit card), sending stupid photos and, my personal favorite, amusing your cat, smears of grease, dust and good enough fingerprints to get a 12-point match.
I hope those touch-screeners keep the phone close at hand and don't commit any crimes.
Since colds are spread from germs through handshakes, I bet zillions of germs live on those nasty screens.
Plague anyone?