Re: OT More pens (was Re: Phoneme winnowing continues)

    To this day I can't write cursive. I asked the teacher, "Why should I
bother to learn cursive if I am gonna be asked to print the rest of my life?"
    The teacher was a lil miffed that I had _a certain problem_ with
Authority and that my attitude was not exactly what she thought an Asian's demeanor
was suppose to be like. She brusquely sent me to the principal's office.
    Reaching for his aspirin, the principal immediately groaned and muttered,
"Ohno! Not Mister Chang again..."

    Penmanship went out with the end of the Victorian Age and with the rise
of the typewriter and the increasing bureacratic use of paper documentation
around the turn-of-the-20th-century. Calligraphy is now an "art."

    Soon - hopefully - even paper documentation will also go into the trash
heap of history (or, better yet, the recycling bin or archives depending on the
nature of the contents).
    It is seemingly unlike that the bureacracy will also go (does the word
"technocracy" ring any harbinger bells?), but one can always hope... meanwhile
commiting small random acts of resistance ;)

---
Hanuman Zhang
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    "Those at the top of the social order are apt to preach benevolence and
righteousness to those at the bottom. Yet those at the top have typically
stolen their position from others. They are the greatest thieves, because they have
stolen the greatest amount of land and other property. So words about
benevolence and righteousness are usually the fruit of robbery." - Chuang Tzu/Zhuangzi

"O wise humanity, terribly wise humanity! Of thee I sing. How inscrutable is
the civilization where men toil and work and worry their hair gray to get a
living and forget to play!" - Lin Yutang, _The Importance of Living_

    "...So what is life for? Life is for beauty and substance and sound and
colour; and even those are often forbidden by law [socio-cultural conventions].
. . . Why not be free and live your own life? Why follow other people's rules
and live to please others?..." ~Lieh-Tzu/Liezi, Taoist Sage (c. 450- c. 375
BCE)

"...we may be able to prove conclusively that all men are born with
potentially brilliant intellects...and that the source of cultural creativity is the
consciousness that springs from social cooperation and loving interaction...the
majority of us live far below our potential, because of the oppressive nature
of most societies." - John Blacking

    "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more
violent.  It takes a touch of genius --- and a lot of courage --- to move in the
opposite direction."
 - E. F. Schumacker

    "Excess is excrement. Excrement retained in the body is poison." - Ursula
Le Guin

    "A man's character is determined by how hard he will fight for what he
believes in." - Aben Kandel

=> To Thine Own Self Be True <=

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