As the nation sits for hours, nightly numbed by political ideologies that offer no choice, products to buy that offer no purpose, and feeble entertainment for the modestly moronic offering no value, we vegetate. We cannot make decisions about the governing of this country if spoon-fed garble by paid advertisers posing as moderators. In order to be a part of the world one needs to be in it and not idly watching it slip by.
Most young people have no idea where Yemen or Bahrain are. They have no idea where or even what the Indian Ocean is, where New Zealand is, or what a fault line is. Words created for abbreviated text messages, a peculiar recombinant hybrid of vernacular terms emanating from memes, are winding up in an urban dictionary and finding their way into job descriptions from corporate hiring agencies. We are now living in a world entirely comprised of typos. To a writer, it is unnerving to say the least. More to the point, I’m not sure I can say that I can read and write English anymore.
Our political system has turned into a popularity contest played out on television like a lotto drawing. Fear and loathing are everywhere you look, to the right and to the left. Animal Planet gets its viewing audience and ratings predominantly by airing 24 hours of the atrocities perpetrated on innocent animals by ignorant humans. Housewives with mammoth wealth and nothing to do keep viewers enthralled with their outrageous lifestyles and picayune problems. America greedily gobbles it up like consumer cookie monsters. My Dad, rest his soul, would be chagrined by this pathetic pall suffocating the ability of free association. As it was then, much is forever lost in the television translation process.
Rather than sitting on the sidelines observing the world as viewed by corporations, perhaps taking some of my father’s suggestions would assist in getting America moving and thinking, which would create a stronger economy and nation. Reading something that stretches the mind could not only teach some additional vocabulary words but broaden our thought patterns. When my son was five, instead of Dr. Suess I read him Macbeth. Not exactly kindergarten curriculum I know, but it spawned an avid reader with a strong imagination and a wide vocabulary, so that by the age of nine he was into Ayn Rand‘s Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. The pictures and ideas in his little head pushed him to go on to film school.
Article comments
1 - Alan Kurtz
"We are now living in a world entirely comprised of typos," you write. I see you've pitched in with your share, to wit:
Huntley-Brinkey [Brinkley]
Newshour [Huntley-Brinkley Report;
its running time was first 15 minutes and later 30 minutes but never an hour]
Snideley [Snidely] Whiplash
droning [drowning] out the mindful thinking processes
Dr. Suess [Seuss]
2 - Summer Said
Oops. It wasn't the innocent,accidental,I can't see well typing errors I was referencing. Thank you for being so observant. I really did mean "droning" and not "drowning" though Mr. Kurtz.
Ewwww....
3 - Summer Said
Oh, I get it now. Muzzled...
4 - Alan Kurtz
Are you suggesting it is the reader's responsibility to somehow distinguish between what you call "innocent, accidental" typos and … what, typos that are guilty and deliberate?
Or perhaps I misunderstood. I thought you were bemoaning rather than extolling the notion that our world is "entirely comprised of typos."
And incidentally, your use of comprised is idiomatic. It would be more grammatical to say "entirely composed of typos."
Funny how you spend so much time boasting of your vast erudition acquired through TV avoidance, but then fail to actually demonstrate much in the way of basic literacy skills.
5 - Summer Said
Mr. Kurtz,
I wrote an opinion piece and although you are entitled to disagree with it and I suppose even rip it to shreds for accuracy and grammar, take note that this was written also in memory of my deceased father. Perhaps he was your professor at Yale or NYU or maybe you traveled with him when he saved Panama, Jakarta, Iraq and other areas from despots. However, have you ever considered the old adage, if you haven't anything nice to say then don't say anything? Perhaps you are the The Grand Inquisitor of editorial writing but it would behoove you to take a class in diplomacy and ethics. Please refrain from your insults. I do not intend to spar with you.
6 - Keren Hoy
Summer, I now don't feel so alone in my tireless efforts to get my son (7) to do other things than watch TV! I enjoyed your article - you obviously spent time and thought on it, choosing your words carefully and at times poetically. Yours in the fight against mindless drivel, Keren (first-time commentee, just dipping my toe in the blogging waters, as it were...)
7 - Summer Said
Thank you Keren. I'm dipping my toes as well. I'm glad you got the main gist of my article. Good job keeping your little boy away from TV as much as possible. It really is mind numbing. The map "thingy" really works! Although my daughter still curses me...