Thinking it Through

Our State Legislature Has Gone Fishing

OMG. I live in the dumbest state in the union. Proof? The people of my state elected idiots.

In yet another effort to draw attention away from their continuing failure to address the state's budget shortfall, state legislators have proposed another meaningless bill--this time a proposed constitutional amendment to remove wildlife management authority from AZ Game & Fish and hand it to the Legislature. I can list a number of reasons why this is a bad idea, but I'll just give you one:
Hunting and fishing licenses bring the state revenue a.k.a. as money. For 2010, a hunting lic costs $32.25 and a fishing lic costs $23.50. And, there are all sorts of additional kinds of fishing licenses, stamps for hunting different game, and even higher fees for non-residents.
What our legislators can't seem to get is, to quote Bill Clinton, it's the ECONOMY stupid! Proposing bills to allow professors to pack heat on campus, passing bills that enable customers to carry guns in bars and restaurants, and providing tax credits to private and not public schools does nothing to address our budget shortfall.

Arizonans are facing massive cuts in state and city services, while our legislature does nothing to address the budget crisis. Instead, they decide to go fishing.

I sometimes think the Grand Canyon is here to represent the empty space in our citizens' heads where their brains once resided.

Purring Juror

Sal Esposito, a neutered domestic short-hair living in Boston, has been summoned. WHDH-TV, Boston reports that Sal is due to appear at the Suffolk Superior Court on March 23rd. Seems when filling out a municipal census, Sal's person, Anna Esposito, listed him under “pets,” and now Sal has to go to court. The jury commissioner has rejected Ms. Esposito's request that Sal be disqualified from serving.

Geez, can't a cat great a break? I hope for Sal's sake it's a cat burglary case, so he'll be dismissed for cause. Then again, maybe it'll be some sort of case about fishy dealings, and Sal will be elected to serve as foreman of the jury. Imagine how nervous the perp will be sitting there and watching as Sal stares right at him, then leisurely cleans himself and stretches out for a nap.

I hear Sal is one tough kitty.

Hunk a Hunk a Burning GOP Love

He, he, he. . . . . .

The Republican vying for the late Ted Kennedy's US Senate seat, Scott Brown, posed nude for the centerfold of Cosmo when he was a 22 yr old Boston College law student.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't have any problem with this. However, I am not a member of the party that claims the mantle of "family values." I can't wait to see how they spin this. Perhaps he was practicing abstinence when he took it all off? Or, maybe he took it all off in the name of Jesus? No, wait, he was nude, but after three weeks of intensive counseling with Ted Haggard and the ministers who made him go straight, Brown put on a 3-piece suit and was never seen nude again.

Oh Noes!

Just when I am able to own-up to a technological generational shift, I come across "Text Generation" at Inside Highed. Seems even academic libraries are giving into text-based communication:

College libraries have offered channels for text-based queries for some time through their Web sites or instant-messenger clients. But with more students using mobile devices rather than personal computers as their gateway to the world of networked communications, some libraries have been compelled to go along.

Now, I am not among those who are worried that texting will be the demise of standard English. In fact, I think the more students write the better--blogs, twitter, email, texts, status updates, bring 'em on. If their friends are writing, they are reading and writing themselves. Talking about how writing for the screen differs from writing for the page helps students think about audience, rhetorical situation, medium, etc.

And I don't fault libraries for using different communication technologies to reach their patrons, and while I love poking around in a library, I don't think the fact that the digitization of collections and the movement toward remote communications with library staff might mean that students will stop visiting the physical structures I think about as libraries is a terrible thing. Yes, I would love for all my students to share my passion for dusty old books and cramped bookshelves, but I am as likely as they are to be pleased to find something I need online.

What bothers me is that I can imagine a future in which I'll be grousing about the "old days" as new technologies and ways of doing things have left me behind.

Well, It's Time I Admit It

I consider myself a pretty adaptable person, and someone who's not afraid to try new things. And, for the most part, both those things are true. I rarely teach the same materials or assign the same projects in a course; I like to mix things up so I don't get bored, and I like to tweak assignments or to try something new. I love all different kinds of food, and for the most part, I am happy to try dishes that are new to me. My tastes in movies, music, television, and book are pretty eclectic, and I am always looking for new stuff to read, watch, and listen to.

But more and more I am finding things that, welI, I just don't get. Like texting. I text every so often when I need to, but I don't get why people text each other all the time or why my students can't seem to survive without their phones. Perhaps it's a generational thing, but I use my phone to make calls, check my email when I am away from my computer, make and keep appointments, and that's about it. I would rather make a quick call than to text someone, and I like being able to turn off my phone. In fact, I often leave it at home and don't even realize I've done so unless I need to make a call.

Then there is twitter. I have a twitter account, and I have tried using it, but I just don't get the point. I suppose it could be a useful resource for asking questions about what airport to take, about HTML/CSS issues I run across when I’m designing websites, or what movie we should rent because if people follow me (and I get notices all the time that so-and-so is now following me on twitter) I would almost be guaranteed a response. But, I don't even know most of these people, so I can't really evaluate their responses. Sure,I don’t have to take the time to sit down and write out an email, but I am not good at saying what I need to in 140 characters--perhaps that's why texting doesn't work for me either. I generally think and write in full sentences.

Maybe I am wrong about this, but it seems to me that most of twitter is pointless babble. I know it can be used to advertise/market businesses & organizations, and that it can be an amazing way to get news out to the world (think #IranElection). But for me, conversations on twitter seem like a lot of people talking past each other. I suppose the same might be said about Facebook, but if that's the case, at least it's the babble of people I know, care about, and have chosen to hear babble.

Perhaps the root of my problems with texting and twitter are the same: I am not in the habit of always using a phone for communicating with others, nor am I accustomed to following and participating in a discussion 140 characters at a time. And while I used to easily adapt to new habits/technologies, I don't anymore. At least not when they're radically different from what I am accustomed to doing. And frankly, that makes me feel what I am: middle-aged (typing that was even more painful than I imagined).

Of course, there are lots of other things I haven't fully adapted to such as using the picture-in-picture feature on my TV, entertainment passing as news, the absence of civility in public debate, students who get younger and younger each year, and so on, but texting and twitter are a different. Because I am a techie, I feel like ought to use these technologies, and because these are the first "new" technologies (yes, I recognize these things aren't exactly cutting edge) I haven't adopted, I am beginning to recognize how easy it is to feel left behind.

Then again, I do HAVE a twitter account :-).