Consequences

My friend is a historian, especially the history of science.  He and I were interested in the book "The Limits to Growth" in 1972.  It was about coming problems on earth and among its humans.  From that, we moved to the idea of having a college course at UWSP on aspects of the future and on the question of how well people had predicted their futures.

From preparing, teaching and reading for that course, I concluded that basically humans have been poor at predicting the future. As I thought about why, I came to the idea that things we do have consequences that we can foretell.  Factors such as your actions and my actions have consequences that combine in ways that we could not have foretold.

When my daughter gave me a year's worth of Storyworth's questions, the power of unforeseen consequences came up.  I remembered several decisions and actions in my life that I could see how consequences that affected me that I could not have seen beforehand.  When I was in the 8th grade, I was asked to choose a foreign language to study for 2 years.  The choices I was given were French, German, Latin and Spanish.  I thought that decision might be my only chance to study an old and influential language so I picked Latin.  

I had no idea of the string of events that decision led to.  I found I had to go to a particular all boys high school, way across the city, for the 2nd year of Latin.  No other public high school offered a 2nd year.  That high school was male only at the time, which led, temporarily, to meeting few datable girls.  My homeroom teacher and my guidance counselor both explicitly advised me to go to college.  I told my mother about their advice and she suggested I check out going to the nearby teachers' college.  I did, I could afford the fees and I went there.  Something like 75% of the students were women, one of whom has been my wife for 65 years.  The fees were very low because of state support but I have to agree to teaching for at least two years.  I taught for four years and enjoyed it.  My school system required me to work for a master's degree and shortly after beginning, my grad advisor told me about a PhD scholarship that seemed made for me.  I applied, was accepted and studied fulltime.  When I graduated, I applied to a school of education and taught there as a faculty member for 37 years.  

If you are like me, and you probably aren't since I am weird, I say "Choose Latin."

By 13th century

This paragraph caught my eye.  It is from the book A Place for Everything by Judith Flanders

By the 13th century, knowing how to search through a book for a particular piece of information, rather than reading it from start to finish, had become commonplace for clergy and scholars. How to search for a book, however, was something that had yet to be addressed. Until this date, it had been a question that had barely needed a solution.

"A place for everything" p. 133 by Judith Flanders

"A Place for Everything" is subtitled "a history of alphabetical order".  You might think that such a history would be boring.  But I am married to a professor of school librarianship and I am a former library page, a lowly employee that replaces books that have been left out back where they belong.  It was from this book that I learned that

Your best hope for finding a particular book at one time was to ask the librarian where to find it.

It took years to move from arranging books by the first letter of their last name to also using the 2nd letter, so that "Kaplan" came before "Kirby".

Professor Arthur Herman

Yes, it can be a shock when an important person in your life dies.  It can happen unexpectedly, of course, but as we age, there is more and more concern about death. Prof. Arthur Herman of the UWSP philosophy department died recently. He was in his mid-90's so his death was not unexpected.

Some years ago, Prof. Herman gave a talk about the basics of Buddhism.  He specialized in Eastern thought and was able to read the language Sanskrit.  His talk gave me an introduction to religious ideas that are not based on the idea of an all-powerful supreme being.  He wrote several books including "The Ways of Philosophy".

Blogging

My wife is a potter and belongs to a co-op of artists who work together to maintain a gallery where their work can be displayed and offered to the public.  I have mentioned to her that they might want to include a writer, a blogger, a poet or other types of artists who put words together.  I enjoyed the book "Civilization" by Kenneth Clark which gave me a good idea of the shock people experienced when what I call "modern" art appeared. When we visited the Tate art Gallery in London, I learned they had had a show of art about people's reaction to various modern art works.  That show was called "A Child of Six Could Do It". Babies put words and word-like sounds together.  There are many word arts and I feel that by some definitions, all of us who speak or write are artists using whatever language we know to create little works of art daily.

Charging

I began teaching graduate students right during the beginning of the computer age.  I think the US is more into the AI and the smartphone stage now.  I just searched for the percentage of US adults that have only a smartphone and no other digital devices.  Because of my poor hearing and advice from my audiologist, I bought a smartphone but I rarely use it.  It is terrible for creating documents, including blog posts.  The keyboard is much too small.  An external keyboard connected to an inexpensive computer such as an Asus is much easier to use.  I make fewer mistakes with a slightly bigger layout than on my smartphone.

The last few days, I have seen an ad explaining how I can lessen the number and size of power strips with multiple cords connected to them.  The ad classifies such nests as "eyesores".  I admit that charging this and that makes for complex arrangements of chords and little lights.  Having adopted the idea of charging devices to only 60 to 80% of their capacity makes for more charging around the house.  I am urging the adoption of a new, pro-charging aesthetic.

My friend died

It happens more often as I age.  A good friend, a wise and knowledgeable man, died.   Each time, of course, I am reminded of mortality, of the fact that life, including mine, can be long and glorious but is temporary.  Quite often, thinking about life, I get the urge to be extra-alert to beauty and love, to not waste a crumb of the many pleasures and beauties. 

Ebooks from Amazon

I have been using Amazon's ebooks since 2008.  To me, the large selection and the nearly 0 weight of ebooks makes them superior to paper pages.  I admit that webpages these days are chockful of distractions, interruptions, and irrelevancies.  But I can still get a book in electronic form in, say, two minutes.  I can learn of a book, read about it, buy it and be reading it in a total of five minutes, much faster than driving to the library and back.  Of course, if you are a dealer in precious old books, you may not want to deal in ebooks.  You can read an Amazon ebook that you have online at read.amazon.com.  On the main Amazon website, one of the dropdown menus under "Account and lists" has a choice of "Content Library' which lists the ebooks you have purchased access to.  The additional Kindle Unlimited deal allows many books to be "borrowed" for Unlimited Time and the deal includes many up-to-date magazine issues.

There are other ins and outs to ebooks that you can get to know as you use them.

Clock-watching

I seem to be more aware of what the clock says than many people.  My wife recently mentioned that I am a clockwatcher. It is true that I am usually aware of the time of day.  I don't like not knowing the time and I look at my wrist watch or the clock in the room often.  I seem to be convinced that it is almost time for the next thing on my schedule.  I have to watch myself or I will arrive too early.  I am a fan of the website "time.gov".

George Washington birthday

Growing up in Baltimore, Maryland, Feb. 22 was always a holiday.  It is George Washington's birthday and we always had no school that day.  Sometimes, Boy Scout troop 30 had an overnight trip walking the Appalachian Trail that day, depending on how the holiday fell in the week.

A previous blog post tells how the Eagle patrol managed to spill supper into the coals and ashes.  (Blog post for 2/22/2023)

As time goes by, we get new presidents added to the list and it becomes inconvenient to try to celebrate for each one.  Not to mention our Justices, Speakers of the House, leaders of the Senate, administrators of government departments.  And what about state governments, and city managers?

2/3 of winter over

In a month, a short one, too, it will be spring.  Actually, not only a short month but the first "day of spring" is on March 20, not the 21st.  Not only that but the equinox is early in the day.  All to the good.