One of my favorite websites has recently changed its appearance. I missed the chatter running up to the overhaul on why it was happening and what was supposed to be in it for me, so all I have is the site, itself, and the necessity to relearn where the buttons are and what the new and improved features are all about. We ALWAYS say "new and improved" together. Whether it's a laundry powder, dentifrice, deodorant or automobile, despite the lack of logic in that assertion. A thing that is new, cannot, (yet) be improved. And things that are improved are, of necessity, old upon which improvement has now been inflicted. It's not oxymoronic (jumbo shrimp) so much as mutually exclusive (a hip-hop country singer; a born-again atheist) and it's all a part of this 'bright and shiny is always better' mindset that causes me to grind my teeth (thank goodness this blog doesn't have a sound card, I wouldn't be able to hear myself typing).
When I was in (parochial) grammar school, Mrs. Hilge's Third Grade to be exact, back before the last Ice Age when dinosaurs roamed the earth, there were fifty something of us in the classroom and just Mrs. Hilge. I have NO idea how many, aside from me, had some form of hyperactivity or Attention Deficit Disorder, and it didn't matter. There was no such thing as Ritalin and you got a 'timeout' when, during recess, either Juan or Jerome Johnson, the (fraternal) twin brothers, literally and physically knocked you out. When you came to, there was no one asking you or one of those thugs, 'and how did that make you feel?'. You plotted your vengeance for the rest of day, while trying to ace a spelling test or master fractions. Then you went home and came back the next day and did it all over again. Survivors got to graduate. Our parents had their own struggles and left us in splendid isolation when it came to the days of the old schoolyard.
As parents ourselves we, in turn, sent our children to schools with color coordinated classrooms filled with ergonomic furniture and infused with integrated learning objects (to this day, I have NO idea what an integrated learning object is, but I have a suspicion that neither does the oh-so-sincere twenty-something teacher). When they came home at the end of the day and/or the school year, almost none of what they had learned seemed to stick. What we did provide them were counselors to tell them it wasn't their fault (our generation had learned this on our own after having been raised by parents who grew up in the Great Depression and World War II where everything had been their responsibility) and that it would all work out. Now, all of us pretend to be surprised and hurt that it didn't.
Half a lifetime on, and we have aging and aged infrastructure we can neither afford to rebuild nor replace-garages filled with vehicles whose mechanical functions we don't understand in houses and households crammed with technology that talks, but sadly like us, doesn't think (at least not very often or very well). We've reinvented ourselves as a species who devotes more time to studying the take out options when calling the pizza joints than in understanding the positions and the effects those positions have on our lives of those who seek our vote for President.
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. There's nothing in the street looks any different to me. And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye. And the parking on the left is now the parking on the right. And the beards have all grown longer overnight." You need to try my razor, it's new and improved.
-bill kenny
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