Saturday Evening Post

iced coffeeWhat a wild and wonderful week! Grab a cuppa and snuggle into a rocker. Clyde has his dander up about reading. Yes, reading. The rain seems to have stopped for now, so I’ll turn on the fans. Let’s talk.

FLASH!

Flashes from the BistroFirst Hoozah! goes out to twenty-six authors who poured at least 50 words of themselves into Flashes From the Bistro. It is live and beautiful. The cover was a huge amount of work ton of fun. It is just as quirky and twisted as the contents.

If there is anyone who has read them all, you know it is me. Another person I know who has read them all send me a first impression:

I must say some of the these people are in need of serious help; they are warped.”

I do not think we have gotten a better compliment! Nothing is as cool as getting intrigue, mystery and wonder in a flash of 150 words or less. Grab your copy today! (Click the cover.)

M3

I have come to realize asking for what you want is overrated. The straw poll I did with some of the occasional and regular visitors to M3 rendered the result:

Less is more.”

I listened. I shortened the posts and stopped posting everyday. The SIB is full of emails wondering when we are going to get back to regular posts and the kind where we discuss all manner of things pertinent to life. Since I only have three manuscripts on my desk, the answer is soon.

Personal Aside

I want to say thank you to a few people. My inner sanctum has been very helpful in the last few weeks as I deal with changes with Little V secondary to the research study and the immense intrusion of more than a handful of therapists six days per week.

Happy 4thCoping with what amounts to having three new roommates is tough. We three (Little V, Man Cub and I) have been a unit for all the years since Russell died. To say having regular, daily visitors from the fringes of The Third Circle of Hell after years (all of Man Cub’s life) where months spanned between visits is unnerving is sublime.

The irony I chose unnerving may be lost on you. I am agoraphobic. I do not take to FAB strangers. They make me nervous (try anxious to the point of a stroke).

Thank you for the tele calls and email in support. They mean more to me than I tell you.

Right Turn, Clyde!

Red Dwyer's Books

I would be out of business.

Everyone in the blogosphere should know how important reading is. Were it not for the people who read, we would have no audiences. What has the orang scratching his ear this week? People who read.

No, not those who are bibliophiles or blog surfers or even cereal box readers. He is perturbed by the people who read for a living.

For many, a dream job would be to read all day long. (Pick me! Pick me!) However, there is a rather large group of people who are charged with reading aloud to their clients.

I’m illiterate.

The assumption (Herein lies the problem.) is those to whom information must be conveyed need to have the information translated from English (legalese) to English (American monosyllabic terms). Their jobs require they convey all information verbally before contracts are signed. The premise is to be certain the TOS were actually read and understood.

In the over-protection of those who reach adulthood with no grasp of their native language, they finish paragraphs with standard addenda:

Did you understand that?” OR

What that really means is…”

What’s the harm in making sure clients understand, right?

Wrong.

Meme I can read

More than a few of them speak to their clients on a level of condescension which is borne of the resentment in having to read to those assumed too ignorant to understand the services for which the clients have applied. In short, the clients are too oblivious to know for what they have asked.

Disparity

Humans claim to communicate better than any other species. For all of our advanced language, we make very little effort to ensure the equity of such language. We make nearly no effort to create a level playing field of vocabulary or understanding and often create substrata of understanding which resembles a caste system.

Large portions of the language are segregated to those who need to know the meanings of such words and phrases. Tangential learning is forgone in a cost-benefit analysis which renders the learner bankrupt.

In what could charitably described as a salve to this compound fracture, we institute special dispensation for those who are illiterate at the hands of the education system, immigration or disability. Those charged with dispensing the language are trained to do so with the assumption all to whom they provide it are illiterate; ergo, all consumers of their services are only consumers by right of illiteracy.

Facts

responsibilityDespite read-to-client policies being standard in all government-related programs, the majority of such programs are nothing more than pork. For example, this policy is in force for all healthcare which is administered through government subsidy (Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, waiver programs). In more than 80% of cases, the patient is not the one procuring the healthcare, and the carer who does is not in need of having the information read to them.

At local offices of motor vehicles, instructions are read to applicants for licenses ranging from personal vehicles to motorcycles to tractor-trailers. How frightening is it to imagine an illiterate driver of a 65-foot, 200-ton vehicle? More than 25% of applicants for driver’s licenses cannot read the tests which as such questions as:

What is a safe distance to travel behind another vehicle?

How far does it take a car traveling 45 mph to stop?

What does this sign mean?

One Way Sign Right

Enter Ape

Right turn, Clyde.

Right turn, Clyde.

Regardless of the reason, well-intentioned or otherwise, such policies exist, the recipients of such services do not all fall into the pools of people they are meant to help. Those charged with such duties do not have a firmer grasp of the language than those who should be reading it for themselves. Condescension is not part of the policy.

Even though you may be paid to insult others’ intelligence, the money does not entitle you to a position in the caste system above those to whom you deliver.

It is enough to make an ape wonder.

Until next time,

Red Signature


Do you see a connection between our conditioning to not ask for help and the requirement help be given when it is not needed? What is the simplest solution to this epidemic? Why do we create job environments which belittle?

Hashtags: #responsibility #reading #help

Thank you for sharing The M3 Blog with hashtags and spending a Saturday evening with me.

© Red Dwyer 2013
One Way Sign compliments of WP Clipart
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  1. How come all of the sudden I get 5 posts in my RSS reader but haven’t seen these before today??
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