Random comments on random topics
Introduction: How difficult is it to read a composition or article in the paper? This question is not asking how skilled one might be in knowledge of words or expressions as the words are placed together to form sentences and statements.
What is being asked is what makes some material much easier to read and digest as opposed to other selections. An obvious conclusion about the works any of us read is that some material is much easier to read than others. The last sentence refers to the format or layout of printed material on a page.
Without great discussion, just let me say that long selections of narrative laid out in continuous lines page after page without subheadings, breaks or change of pace quickly turns this old reader off. That thought gives meaning to my liking an article with sections with different headings with obvious direction to a specific slant on a given subject.
Using that method of arrangement is what one largely sees in my columns. There is an effort to give attention to different subjects or various aspects of the same subject divided into sections. That thought leads to a reflection on the Reader’s Digest. An examination of that long popular magazine offers such diversity in its contents that there is surely some offering that would interest any reader. As a side note, I still brag I remember the first Reader’s Digest I ever saw. I know where I was as a 12-year-old when I picked up what I thought was the most boring looking magazine I had ever seen. That was in the middle 1940s and the magazine had no advertisement, no pictures and the table of contents was the front cover. The magazine comes to my house until this day and will long be a pleasure to examine each month.
With the above said, let us take a look at some random topics with selected comments and quotes.
Social Security and the situation on entitlements:
No subject treated in the past programs are hugely needed and beloved by just about everybody but are themselves unsustainable without change.” And I say without apology only an ignoramus will not recognize and acknowledge that fact.
The aim or purpose of the entitlement programs are worthy in their ambitions. Words written decades ago and in this column today are not designed to say this writer is against any program that helps those who are in need and who deserve compassion and help. The key words of this whole section are “cannot be sustained” and “without change.”
A feeling of vindication is entertained in my heart when I realize what I said nearly five decades ago is being said by many today. Again, I wasn’t trying to take the Social Security benefits away from anyone. Weather and one-session days: This section is motivated by the inconsistent weather of the past two or three months.
It was long before Calhoun City Schools operated school buses to transport students to and from school; It was before the families of students furnished their child with a car at age 16; Lunch rooms (cafeterias ) were a non-entity. School days were divided into two sessions – morning and afternoon sessions generally made up of three periods each.
Adverse weather at 10 o’clock demanded a one-session day. First and second period was always part of the day with two other periods chosen from the other four periods. School was dismissed at 1 o’clock and students went home in the adverse conditions only once instead of twice at lunch and again when school was dismissed for the day.
This explanation has been brief. I deleted a whole paragraph explaining the detailed explanation of the whys and wherefores of onesession days. I will only say that those were good old days filled with fun, mischief and other activities in the long afternoons not favorable to the educational endeavors of young people.