Archive for the ‘Ponder’ Category

A Driver’s Ed Open Letter

Alpha has his permit for driving. Our state requires a gradual phase-in of driving permissions, not quite as much freedom as we used to have but it seems to be safer. Imagine your son is about to start driver’s ed. He has been wanting to drive for a while and is pretty excited to start. Here is an example letter that might be good to set his expectations.

Dear Son:

You are now old enough to start driving. You will soon have the freedom to go places by yourself. You will be controlling a powerful piece of equipment and you need to learn to use it well. There will be other people around you who may or may not behave themselves, and you need to be ready for them. You need to learn the rules of the road, and remain in control of your driving. You will need to be careful, because it will be very easy to cause a lot of damage very quickly. That’s what driver’s ed is about – to ease you into driving. At first you will be able to drive only if we are with you. Then, once you have demonstrated enough knowledge and responsibility, you will be able to drive on your own. Don’t be frustrated or impatient with the long drawn-out process – it is there for your own good.

Signed, your loving parents.

I think it’s a fine process. But a lot of parents just do whatever the government requires. What if there were something that could cause as much emotional and spiritual damage as a car can cause physical damage?

Let’s replace “driving” with “using the internet” and see what happens.

Dear Son:

You are now old enough to start using the internet. You will soon have the freedom to visit sites by yourself. You will be controlling a powerful piece of equipment and you need to learn to use it well. There will be other people around you who may or may not behave themselves, and you need to be ready for them. You need to learn the rules of the road, and remain in control of your browsing. You will need to be careful, because it will be very easy to cause a lot of damage very quickly. That’s what online ed is about – to ease you into the internet. At first you will be able to browse only if we are with you. Then, once you have demonstrated enough knowledge and responsibility, you will be able to browse on your own. Don’t be frustrated or impatient with the long drawn-out process – it is there for your own good.

Signed, your loving parents.

Or you could replace “internet” with “Facegram” or “Instachat” or whatever. My point is that kids need instruction and oversight when they start poking around the internet. Sure, it is easy to use. But that doesn’t mean it is safe.

There are programs you can install that will block bad websites and limit what users can access. I’d say that’s a good thing for younger kids, but it should not replace a parent’s supervision. One reason being that those programs are not perfect. And the other reason being that it doesn’t prepare the child for the real world. Going back to the driving analogy, it would be like limiting the car to first gear. Sure the kid might stay safer, but he also wouldn’t have the right experience to drive wherever he may need to drive once he’s out of the house. So for older kids (middle school on up), I suggest having very few restrictions, but make sure they know that you check on what they are doing. And even middle schoolers know to delete a browser history, so be sure you have a program that logs the sites regardless.

The point is to let him have to make choices. And know that he will have to account for those choices. Such as why he chose to click on that ad (“Son, never click on any ads”) or why Google image search is not always a good idea. That’s what raising kids is all about – make sure they know what good habits and choices are so they are prepared for life.

For this reason his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

John 9:23

Spelling Bees

Do other countries need to have spelling bees? Specifically, non-English-speaking countries.

I took Spanish in high school, and I have some experience with German. It seems that other languages have much more consistent spelling and pronunciation rules for their languages.

What would be the point of a spelling bee in a sensible language? If you can pronounce the word, you can spell it. Unlike English, where one pronunciation can have 3 different spellings, or one spelling can have 3 different pronunciations, and not much is consistent.

Even better is a language like Chinese, which has characters for each word (generally). I imagine a Chinese spelling bee to be something like this:

Judge: Spell ‘boat’
Kid: Symbol for ‘boat’
Judge: Very good.

So he sent letters to all the king’s provinces, to each province according to its script and to every people according to their language, that every man should be the master in his own house and the one who speaks in the language of his own people.

Esther 1:22

Watch Your Phraseology Again

A few years back, I wrote about phrases that are wrong. I now have one more to add to the list:

I lied.

At its face value, there is nothing wrong with that statement. I mean, the action it is describing is morally wrong, but the statement is fine.

But people, more and more I’ve noticed, don’t say it when they’ve lied.

They say it when they are merely wrong.

Lying requires an intention to deceive. You think something is A, but you say it is B. If you think something is A and you say it is A, you are not lying. If it really is B, you were just wrong. Please don’t call it lying. That dilutes the wrongness of lying and promotes (or demotes?) it to being a mistake.

You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another.

Leviticus 19:11

Cough into Elbows

At first, people just coughed into the air.

Then someone realized that was spreading disease to people in the area, so it became polite to cough into one’s hand.

Then someone realized that was spreading disease to people who touched things that hand touched, so it was taught to children to cough into their elbows.

Now I’ve realized that’s fine for children but bad for adults. So now when this generation of kids grows up and instinctively coughs into the elbows, it’ll still cause problems.

Why it’s a problem is that adults use their elbows more than kids. Have you ever seen an adult go very long without crossing his arms? And where are that adult’s hands when his arms are crossed? Fully in contact with his elbow, that’s where.

Picture it – someone sneezes or coughs into his own elbow. Then, just seconds later – before any germs have a chance to die – that someone puts his hand right into the thick of the most germ-intense place around. Are we as a society saying that’s an improvement?

Okay, maybe it is a little better, but it doesn’t quite solve the problem. There are two ways to solve the problem. One is to train people not to cross their arms. The other is to pick a better spot into which one may cough or sneeze.

I’d like to go with the second option. Some possibilities: the inside of one’s shirt (as my brother is wont to do – just pull your collar up and lean your head down slightly and all the germs are contained. This is not a possibility if you are wearing a necktie.), higher up on one’s arm (gives the germs a landing place but doesn’t contain them well), or a handkerchief (that no one carries anymore, but I suppose a hat would work).

Any better ideas?

He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you.

Deuteronomy 28:60

Tension Rod

I was shopping around for a new curtain rod for the shower and I noticed that they were all titled “tension rod”.

They were titled that because they are held in place by pressing against the walls, rather than by being fastened to the walls.

But from what I learned in college, that’s wrong.

The curtain rod is pushing against the walls so it is being compressed. It should be a compression rod.

A tension rod would be somewhere that needed to prevent two walls from spreading apart.

Maybe a better way to do this is to picture a spring in the middle of the bar. To get the curtain rod to stay in place, you wedge it in place – what happens to the spring compared to its normal state? It is compressed. When a tension rod is in use, it is experiencing compression.

Whoever named that thing a tension rod has some explaining to do.

You shall break them with a rid of iron, You shall shatter them like earthenware.

Psalm 2:9

Wreaking Something

No object other than havoc is ever used with the verb wreak, and vice-versa it seems.

Why not get rid of the apparently redundant word wreak and just say “havocking”?

That should make sense.

Because what else do people wreak other than havoc? Does anyone wreak peace? Wreaking order?

Although havocking for some reason does sound friendlier than wreaking havoc.


Bonus grammar/etymology question: shouldn’t someone have to furl something first before it is unfurled? Yet I never hear of anything being furled.

The city of chaos is broken down; Every house is shut up so that none may enter.

Isaiah 24:10

Noise-Cancelling Headphones

I was near someone who was listening to headphones. Not earbuds, but full headphones. And I could hear his music fairly well, even though I didn’t want to.

And that got me thinking.

Why don’t they make noise-canceling headphones which the mechanism turned around? In other words, instead of cancelling the outside noises for the headphone wearer, have the headphones cancel the noise they’re making to the outside world.

You may be trying to answer that question literally, and your answer is probably “because no consumer would pay for that feature”. If someone could find a way to market and sell that, the world would be a better place.

When Eli heard the noise of the outcry, he said, “What does the noise of this commotion mean?” Then the man came hurriedly and told Eli.

1 Samuel 4:14