At least that is the jury decision in regards to Robert Blake, who was just found not guilty of killing his wife.
Now I haven’t been following the case because, unlike the OJ case, it hasn’t been splashed all over the newspapers here. So I don’t know if the prosecution truly failed to prove its case or if what went through the jury’s mind was, “We really don’t want to convict Bobby Blake on evidence any less than five people seeing him empty a gun into her, and besides which the victim was a skank.”
However, I feel fairly confident in saying that the defendant kept his eye on the sparrow when the going got narrow.
PAD
• 
I probably shouldn’t admit this, but even tho I had heard of the name ‘nuremberg’ I had no idea who they were until I read “Gnuhopper’s” post. But that shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows me. I have no interest in day to day news. I do not read any papers, watch any news stations. In fact, I had no idea that the 9/11 attacks happened until two days later when I went to my parents house for dinner.
But Joe, how much tape stays on the cutting room floor to make those”Jaywalking” segments? You know they don’t show you the ones who answer all the quesstions correctly. It’s not really a fair segment, but I know what you mean…
Tim Lynch wrote:
“”No. Nuremberg has a pretty good shot at being the Trial of the Century. Some ex-football star hacking up his wife doesn’t qualify.”
“Said student turned to me and asked, completely seriously, “Who was Nuremberg?”
“The series of “wham” sounds my head made on the blackboard apparently registered on Caltech seismometers a few seconds later.”
Tim, did you take the opportunity to expand your class’ understanding of history by assigning them a report about Nuremberg? Personally, I would have. Say a five page paper on what it was and why it was important.
Of course, if you were teaching math, that might’ve been difficult; but I hope you at least had the opportunity to actually educate your students about Nuremberg, however briefly.
Rick
Bladestar wrote: “But Joe, how much tape stays on the cutting room floor to make those”Jaywalking” segments? You know they don’t show you the ones who answer all the quesstions correctly. It’s not really a fair segment, but I know what you mean…”
While it’s probably true on “Jaywalking” that not only the editing, but the “Walkee” selection process, makes it seem like the average joe is ill-informed about a lot of stuff one would think they should know, there really ARE some significant holes in our education system.
I was talking recently to the project director of a major museum which is planning an exhibit revolving around World War II. His original plan was to hire young people — aged 20 or so — to wear 1940s period attire and act as guides for the exhibit. The thinking was that’s how old many of “The Greatest Generation” were when they were plunged into World War II.
But during the interview process, none of the dozens of 20-year-olds interviewed could name even one “Axis” or “Allied” power, and seemed oblivious to almost everything else pertinent to that era. It was almost like the interviewer was asking them about some obscure event from 2,000 years ago.
After it was all over, the director had to go back to the drawing board. Either he is going to have to provide some extensive training to the initial group of young candidates (and repeat such training whenever they have guide turnover), or he’ll have to look for older, more knowledgeable people who will only require a nominal amount of training.
And, since I doubt any of these young people were Jaywalk All-Stars, this incident is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the effectiveness of today’s U.S. education system.
R. Maheras wrote: And, since I doubt any of these young people were Jaywalk All-Stars, this incident is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the effectiveness of today’s U.S. education system.
While I’ll agree that we have problems with our public education system in this country, I’m not ready to let those “20- year olds” off scott free.
They have access to an incredible amount at their finger tips, the internet, then any other generation in U.S. history.
Blame the education system? Jow about laying some of the blame on those “20-year olds” who just don’t give a dámņ about anything that ever came before.
R. Maheras, yeah, I knew what you were getting at with it, just thuoght a TV show featuring an un-funny host was a ba example…
RJM, true, but why should these kids care about WWII?
How relevanmt is it to them today? The world is a completely different place and the rules and tech of warfare are all different too. Between working to support themselves, trying to find a job one can support themselves on, and having a life, how many really have time to scratch any farther below the surfac than what they learn in school/college?
Bladestar wrote:How relevanmt is it to them today? The world is a completely different place and the rules and tech of warfare are all different too. Between working to support themselves, trying to find a job one can support themselves on, and having a life, how many really have time to scratch any farther below the surfac than what they learn in school/college?
Well, how relevant was WWII to me?
How more difficult is it for them than it was for me to find a job or having a life?
How relevant, say, was the Civil War to me? The world was a completely different and the rules and tech warfare was different yet that diddn’t prevent me from reading about it, learning about it. And that was after I was out of school.
What, trying to find a job and working to support myself was easier, let’s say when I was in my 20’s, in the 1980’s??? Are you kidding?? I had to move from my hometown, from my home state to search for work.
Easier then?
If I wanted to find information about anything thathappened (well) before I was born I had to really work to find out anything.
Today? Click…Surf… there you go.
Quit making excuses.
Yers, but who cares about them?
There is limited time to waste dwelling on and living in the past.
If you get yopur jollies studying the Civil War and WWII on your own time. Be my guest, I have a life.
So…. learning about what’s happened in the past, to understand how we got where we are–is “dwelling”.
And studying history, learning something “on your own time” (your words) is getting jollies? Is (again your words) doing that means you don’t have a life? Since when is learning anything mean not having a life???
Besides, you lost the whole meaning to what my post was saying.
(I’ll try one more time)
Because of the EASY access to so much knowledge via the click of a mouse, there’s no excuse for being stupid. The easy answer “Blame it on the school system” when the real answer is right in front of us.
Blame the ignorance of those who didn’t know what Nuremberg was on them selves. Let’s stop making excuses for dumb people.
Michileen Martin says:
I’m assuming you weren’t there. If you weren’t there, then it’s kind of difficult to claim ACTUAL guilt. Sure, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion, but unless you see someone pull the trigger, there really will never be any way for you to KNOW, will there?
And if you accept what I just said, then there really can only be one reason that you assume he’s guilty, that reason being that he was accused and people who are accused of crimes must have necessarily committed them.
And it’s precisely THAT kind of thinking that our legal system is supposed to protect us from. No, you’re not a court of law, and you’re not responsible to look at such incidents without bias as a judge or jury are required to do. But I think there’s a problem with our society when most people see someone brought into a court room and they don’t think “Is he guilty?” or “Is he innocent?” They think, “He’s guilty and I hope they prove it.”
OJ’s a perfect example. Yeah, he did it and we all know it, but I think if the people who were calling for his head actually told the truth, they’d admit that they didn’t assume he was guilty because of their own following of the case and careful consideration of the evidence. They assumed he was guilty as soon as the handcuffs got slapped on him.
Okay, let me see if I have this straight; we both agree that I was, in fact, not there. You then say that the ONLY reason I could believe Blake to be guilty is because he was accused. You find this kind of thinking to be wrong. You then say that you know that OJ was guilty.
Since I know you would not make this conclusion based on the only other possible reason I can only conclude that you were, in fact, a witness to the murder of Nichole Simpson and Ron Goldman. Well, what the hëll took you so long to come out of the woodwork? A fine lot of good it does now!
PS- Thanks Luigi! 🙂
There is limited time to waste dwelling on and living in the past.
Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.
Or should it be a surprise to someone like you, Bladestar, that the current state of affairs in the US (Patriot Act, Gitmo, ie, the general threat of terrorism)) is often being compared to the McCarthyism of the 50’s (the general threat of Communism)?
The ill-informed nature of today’s High School and even college students no longer surprises me. In a College Civil Liberties course the professor mentioned Jim Crow laws — one student in all seriousness asked (and many nodded their heads in agreement) — what “tugging on Superman’s cape” had to do with election laws.
Tim, did you take the opportunity to expand your class’ understanding of history by assigning them a report about Nuremberg? Personally, I would have. Say a five page paper on what it was and why it was important.
I teach physics. Awfully hard to justify your approach given those circumstances. (I believe I did say a few words about Nuremberg, but not much.)
I did, however, let the history department know. 🙂
TWL
Craig, I’ve compared the the Bush admins “If you don’t support us and dare to question us” stance as McCarthy-esque in the past.
Expecting kids to study WWII when they have no reason to is silly. There’s TOO MUCH history for anyone to know/study it all/ Just because a “kid” doesn’t know about the history YOU consider important does mean they don’t know any history…
Expecting kids to study WWII when they have no reason to is silly.
Yeah, it’s downright silly to at least know who were the Allied countries, and who were the Axis countries.
Apparently it’s also too much to ask kids to know how to tie their own shoes and how to wipe their own áššëš, as well, according to Bladestar.
Bladestar wrote: “Expecting kids to study WWII when they have no reason to is silly. There’s TOO MUCH history for anyone to know/study it all/ Just because a “kid” doesn’t know about the history YOU consider important does mean they don’t know any history…”
Oh, c’mon. I learned who the Axis and Allies were 20 years after the fact just by watching Three Stooges reruns and Bugs Bunny cartoons, for Pete’s sake!
We’re not talking about a war between Ancient Rome and Carthage here. We’re talking about a historically recent war where more than 50 million people died; a war that shaped today’s global political landscape; a war that launched the atomic era, a war that signaled the end of thousands of years of colonialism; a war where the brave exploits of the Tuskeegee Airmen and other black military units kick-started desegregation in this country; a war that made the U.S. and the Soviet Union into superpowers; and a war that put one of the final nails in the coffin of governments run by monarchies. There are a lot of other reasons why World War II is an important event for current and future generations to understand, but I’m sure you get my point.
And wouldn’t it be nice for young Americans to know that while the U.S. was once bitter enemies with Germany and Japan during World War II, when the war was over, and at great cost, we rebuilt both countries, helped them establish working democracies, and now, both countries are stable and important friends of the U.S. If anyone thinks such “ancient history” has no relevance to today’s world events in, say, Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s not because the parallels aren’t there, it’s just that they don’t KNOW they are there. And that’s a dámņ shame.
Blake’s been acquitted, so get over it. Of course you are entitled to your opinion. What bothers me is “news reporters” who insinuate that Blake got away with murder. At least try to appear to be objective when reporting the news folks. OJ was acquitted too.
Let’s stop assuming those who have been acquitted are guilty just because you get off on it. You weren’t there and don’t know what happened.
As a writer, you should be more responsible and realize – more than most – the penalties for libel. You can’t write about somebody being a murderer who got away scott free when he beat the rap.
A working knowledge of WWII and major concepts involved (the dangers of nationalism, war of attrition, geography, bordering countries, treaties, moving against world opinion, etc) is more relevant today than at any time since that war ended, IMO.
Fred
Blake’s been acquitted, so get over it.
I don’t think any of the people here who think he committed the crime are exactly losing sleep over it. YOU, on the other hand, seem awfully worked up.
Let’s stop assuming those who have been acquitted are guilty just because you get off on it.
Talk about assumptions.
You weren’t there and don’t know what happened.
I don’t think that anyone has claimed otherwise.
As a writer, you should be more responsible and realize – more than most – the penalties for libel. You can’t write about somebody being a murderer who got away scott free when he beat the rap.
Actually, you pretty much can. It’s hard to win libel cases unless you can show malicious intent and monetary harm. Similarly, the Bush haters in the crowd can and do make all manner of bogus claims, ditto the Kerry haters-it’s that pesky free speech thing. And with Blake one actually can make a reasonable good case (as opposed to saying that Bush/Kerry etc are war criminals/commie spies).
The assumption of innocence does not apply to individual thought or opinion. Juries can be and have been wrong or, perhaps more accurately, have been unable to deliver a verdict that matches the truth of the case. You are free to disagree with any verdict you want. (or do you think it’s wrong to examine the cases of those who may have been convicted of crimes they may not in fact have committed?).
I will be the first to say that one must take individual responsibility for one’s own lack of knowledge, but I think it does still say something about the state of the US school system… but even that speaks more to parents who don’t demand a better school system.
As for 20 year olds in ignorance of WWII, man, don’t they at least watch movies?
Robbnn wrote: As for 20 year olds in ignorance of WWII, man, don’t they at least watch movies?
This reminds me, in 1998, of an actual conversation I heard in the theatre as the credits ran at the end of “Saving Private Ryan”.
A boy (looked to about 14yrs.) said to his father (looked in mid 30’s)
boy: ” Wow, I didn’t know that they had automatic weapons way back then. When was World War II?
father: Oh, I don’t know, um 30, 40 years ago?
There was so much wrong with that conversation I just stood there stunned.
That reminds me of when I first saw the first X-men movie, and the group of younger people in front of me (late teens and early twenties, at my guesstimate) who were thouroghly confused by the opening, when young Magneto is being seperated from his parents as they’re being taken away to the concentration camp. They appeared to have no idea of the context of the scene, and as I recall, were wondering quite loudly about why they were all ‘dressed so wierd’….
But Robnn, how much can they REALLY learn about WWII from movies? Aren’t most WWII-based movies set more in a combat troops perspective?
That doesn’t really teach much about other aspects of WWII.
So if Shields ever killed Yarnell, Blake could tell her “Don’t kill the mime if yu can’t do the time”
Since when is it a crime to kill a mime?
One of the other recent segments on the Tonight Show highlighted recent examples of candidate’s SAT essays. The level of competence displayed, not to mention the lack of basic grammatic structure illustrated exactly how serious the educational deficit in North America really is.
Some asides: Note, I said North America, because I’m including Canada in this equation. Also note, you may think that I’m a Tonight Show junkie. At our house we have the luxury of multiple feeds for many programs, so I get to watch some of these shows on delay from the West Coast. There is a certain perverse fascination attached to being able to lay in bed at 2 am and indulge one’s self in purely vacuous entertainment, not that I’m trying to pass myself off as an elitist….Peter will tell you that I am anything but an elitist.
Back to the thesis at hand. I believe that the root of the problem is that we have become too dependent on technological substitutes for basic skills, most notably the ability to read and write. Years ago one would have submitted an assignment in handwriting. The use of a typewriter was occasionally allowed for more complex endeavours. Now it’s unheard of to see anything but word-processed text. The result? Poor penmanship. Poor penmanship leads to other deficiencies with regards to the language and subsequently to the thought processes that go with that language. The preponderance of on-demand technology is also an invitation to laziness on the parts of those who need to benefit from the unprecedented accessability to information in today’s world. In fact, it’s very likely true that there is so much “information overload” that it causes many people (and many students) to “shut down” when confronted with the amount of material that they should be absorbing.
Thus the “Jaywalking” segment on Tonight will have years of material to draw upon, and the graders of the SAT tests will have an extremely difficult time judging some of the low level material being submitted. Never mind the admissions committees at the university level. It’s truly a serious problem and yet at the same time it’s both ironic and pathetic.
And, just to show my disregard for the language, that ought to be “candidates'”, and my second last sentence wasn’t one, but merely a fragment. Sigh…..my apologies.
“Poor penmanship leads to other deficiencies with regards to the language and subsequently to the thought processes that go with that language.”
Joe,
I like most of what you said but I don’t agree that poor penmanship is the source of subsequent problems. penmanship is an art and like most arts, you have to have a talent for it. It’s like saying that if you can’t sing it will lead to you having a difficult time giving speeches.
And it’s not just because I have always had incredibly bad handwriting and, in fact, the only D I ever got in a subject was in handwriting. Not that I’m still bitter. No. Not at all…
http://www.courttv.com/trials/blake/
In reality, the past of Bonnie Bakly and that of the supporting witnesses to the crime, did great harm in proving a case against Robert Blake.
The jurory foreman told the press “I wouldn’t trust a drug addict”, referring to a key witness, Ronald “Duffy” Hambleton, a stuntman who claims Blake asked him to “snuff” his wife. The foreman also stated defense expert Ronald Siegel, who testified about the long-term effects of methamphetamine and cocaine use, was one of the most compelling witnesses to take the stand.
That is an ironic set of statements for the foreman to make, since Robert Blake has confessed at many times to have been a former drug addict and alcoholic.
The defense did their job, by defending their client and pulling out no stops to make sure the jurors would find fault with all of the witnesses for the prosecution, including the victim, Bonnie Bakly herself.
From that standpoint, it was completely in the prosecution’s court to find evidence that would either sway the verdict or disprove more of the statements and credibility on the side of the defense.
The jurors re-read testimony on more than one occassion. Some statements were asked to be read more than three times, proving there were questions in their minds that had not been answered adequately. However regardless, the law says if you cannot find fault without a shadow of doubt, you must acquit.
It no longer matters whether there was guilt or not, because obviously the jurors weighed things heavier on the defense side and had doubts. Neither side had a markless past, but one side managed to slip past the accusers without being seen.
pulling out “all” stops, sorry, preview wasn’t workin’
heh heh
That doesn’t really teach much about other aspects of WWII.
Why would you care about whether anybody learns anything from movies?
WWII isn’t important to you anyways.
I’m sure Vietnam, Korea, and the Gulf War aren’t important either.
Who cares if we keep making the same mistakes, eh?
Poor penmanship leads to other deficiencies with regards to the language and subsequently to the thought processes that go with that language.
Sorry, Joe — I’m with Bill on this particular point, though I too agree with most of the rest.
Poor penmanship is a sign of poor penmanship, and not much more.
Now, word-processing assignments does go hand in hand with something that I think DOES lead to language deficiencies, namely the over-reliance 95+% of the population has on spell-check features to catch their errors. First, people assume spell-check is infallible (which it isn’t, homophones like there/their/they’re being the most obvious examples); and second, due to that assumption people never bother to check their own work, assuming that spell-check will save them.
As a result, a large number of my students really can’t spell worth beans. It’s led to the occasional really humorous misspelling (‘assfault” being high on the list, though my officemate and I, Trek fans both, also enjoyed “tribble beam balance”), but more often it means that I spend a lot of time correcting spelling when I’d much rather just respond to the content. [The kids always object when I do make notes on spelling and grammar: “this isn’t English class.” “True, but this also isn’t English prose at the moment…”]
Me, I turn that “check spelling while you type” feature off entirely, because it’s entirely too Big Brother-ish for my tastes. (I do use spell-check after finishing a long document to check for typos, but that’s about all.)
I’m with you on most of your points, Joe — there are lots of cases where people are not only able to avoid thinking, but amazingly proud of the fact that they don’t do so. Penmanship, however, really doesn’t seem to connect to this from where I sit.
[And like Bill, this claim is entirely unrelated to my own chicken scratchings…]
TWL
Ok, my penmanship sucks to an amazing degree. One might even say that it’s off the scales.
The dependence on spell checking is worse than Tim suggests. I read alot of novels and I notice more and more that while the spelling is generally correct (there are exceptions) the grammar is sometimes… just whacked. That leaves me with the impression that proof reader positions have either been outsourced to penguins in the far FAR south or those positions are being filled by the lowest common denominator. In either case it’s something that I notice more often in newer books. All of which leads to my theory that publishers and/or authors are relying too much on spell check technology.
As for our education system…. Yes, it’s bad. As a junior in high school my nephew had an english teacher with an art degree. As a result the assignments were more art related. This kind of thing troubles me for alot of reasons. Of course if our education system would stop cutting art and music programs this teacher could teach art in an art class and someone with proper credentials could teach english.
I should stop now before I get lost in my own tangent about how valuable art and music are to education.
Hi gang. “Penmanship” is a term that refers not just to the style of one’s handwriting. It generally refers to the overall style with which one uses that handwriting to compose a (hopefully) lucid piece of writing. So to Bill and Tim and Mitch, you can have illegible writing in the literal sense. The fact that you write in whatever style you use means that your brain is taking an active part in the creative process of transferring thoughts to paper in a collective act of “penmanship”.
Tim is absolutely correct when he states that spellchecking is a source of part of the problem. Why learn to spell when you can leave it to the machine? It sort of confirms what many themes in SF over the years have used as a plot basis, namely that the society forgets the nuts and bolts of how to do something leaving it to the machines, so either: a) the machines take over, or b)the machines break down leaving society with no safety net.
It’s like the lost art of compounding in Pharmacy (I am a Pharmacist by profession.) Why compound something with a formula when there’s a premanufactured prep available? So compounding is becoming a lost art.
And in mathematics it’s the calculator. Who ever heard of taking a calculator into an exam not too long ago? Now it’s commonplace. So what are students learning? To solve the problem using their heads or to punch a sequence of buttons to get the right answer? What if there’s a pulse caused by a nuclear accident and all the calculators go to hëll in a handbasket? Will mathematics become largely a lost art?
Let’s couch things in a bigger picture: Could there be a possible correlation with all of these things and the quality of the governments and leaders the population elects? Now there’s food for thought I’ll bet!
Just an afterthought: You can have what you think is the absolute WORST handwriting in the galaxy. Being a Pharmacist, I guarantee you that a) I will be able to read it 99% of the time, and b) there are many physicians out there who have far worse handwriting!
(Now all you physicians can come and yell at me.)
Joe Krolik:
“The fact that you write in whatever style you use means that your brain is taking an active part in the creative process of transferring thoughts to paper in a collective act of “penmanship”.”
Hi Joe,
Ok, I can see your point.
“Let’s couch things in a bigger picture: Could there be a possible correlation with all of these things and the quality of the governments and leaders the population elects? Now there’s food for thought I’ll bet!”
An interesting hypothesis, Joe, but I don’t think it pans out. If you are refering to the leadership in the USA I think it’s more likely that the Democrats and Republicans have effectively agreed to share power and actively keep the population divided (and thus conquered) by the use of “issues” that neither camp makes any real effort to solve. Meanwhile if a third party candidate exists the two major parties willfully attempt to keep them out of the picture.
Or perhaps the problem lies with politics being populated with politicians.
That might be food for thought as well.
I don’t know if I agree. My sense of things is that if you “dumb down” the larger percentage of the populace, it leads to a reduction in that percentage of the populace’s expectations and hence a lower quality of elected leader if the percentage of the populace is large enough to swing the election.
Hence we have your current administration, and here we have the entrenched Liberals who are nothing short of a joke.
It confirms the possibility that you can indeed fool most of the people most of time.
Sorry…most of THE time. yes, once again his deft maneuvering over the keys at lightning speed proves too much for the technological marvel of the modern…..ahhh shaddap Joe!
“Just an afterthought: You can have what you think is the absolute WORST handwriting in the galaxy. Being a Pharmacist, I guarantee you that a) I will be able to read it 99% of the time, and b) there are many physicians out there who have far worse handwriting!”
I hear ya. It amazes me that more people don’t drop dead from getting the wrong medications due to the pharmacist misreading the hieroglyphics that pass for many doctor’s writings. In comparison, cracking the enigma code would be a piece of cake.
Speaking of which, and briefly getting back to the discussion on teaching history…I find that people who have a good knowledge of history are just plain more INTERESTING people and you can have more interesting conversations with them. They can crack funnier jokes, as can you, without having to explain why it’s funny (which really kills the humor right there). Look at a group of folks at a party and often you’ll have 2 or 3 who are dominating the conversation, a few who look on, amused, and a couple who just smile with that slightly panicked look that indicates that everything is flying right over their heads.
Whenever my students ask “Why do we need to learn this?” I just tell them “Because it makes you a more interesting person and better looking people will want to have sex with you.” You should see how they suddenly take a new interest in meiosis.
Whenever my students ask “Why do we need to learn this?” I just tell them “Because it makes you a more interesting person and better looking people will want to have sex with you.” You should see how they suddenly take a new interest in meiosis.
See, now I bet if more teachers used that explanation, the nations aggregate test scores would shoot up so fast it would make the testers head spin! *g*
Any takers…?
Whenever my students ask “Why do we need to learn this?” I just tell them “Because it makes you a more interesting person and better looking people will want to have sex with you.”
And you say I’M the one with balls the size of a Chinese gong? Wow.
(Of course, I teach in a girls’ school, so me saying that might be construed as a bit more unsavory.)
Completely agreed with your main point, though. I remember some relatively arcane joke coming up in my department meeting once. Everybody chuckled, and I observed, “y’know, it’s really nice to be in the company of people who understand that joke.” Explaining it is just no fun.
On the other hand … a few weeks ago I told my students I was leaving come summer, and one of them said she was glad to know now, “because we don’t want to come back and say ‘where’s Mr. Lynch, the best teacher ever?”
I looked at her, at the rest of the class, at her, at the rest of the class … then bent down to pick up an imaginary object, handed it to her, and said, “Here … I think you misplaced your shovel.”
The kicker came two minutes later, when 3 hands went up on that side of the room. “Can you explain the shovel reference?”
“Um … well … no.”
Gotta love kids.
TWL
Poor penmanship leads to other deficiencies with regards to the language and subsequently to the thought processes that go with that language.
One of the effects of Asperger’s Syndrome (with which, I believe I mentioned once, I am afflicted – well, more accurately, those around me are afflicted; I get by just fine) is poor gross motor control. As a result, my penmanship is nigh unreadable. This is not a reflection of my clarity of thought, merely my ability to communicate with anything outside my own brain (including my body itself).
And in mathematics it’s the calculator. Who ever heard of taking a calculator into an exam not too long ago? Now it’s commonplace. So what are students learning? To solve the problem using their heads or to punch a sequence of buttons to get the right answer? What if there’s a pulse caused by a nuclear accident and all the calculators go to hëll in a handbasket? Will mathematics become largely a lost art?
cf Isaac Asimov, “The Feeling of Power”.
I blame my poor penmanship on the nuns that didn’t think a left-handed person shouldn’t write with their left hand…
I blame my poor penmanship on the nuns that didn’t think a left-handed person shouldn’t write with their left hand…
Yeah, yeah, and doctors once thought cigarettes were okay to smoke.
Yeah, yeah, and doctors once thought cigarettes were okay to smoke.
*blink* And this amazing non sequitor would mean….?