Are we being taught not to think? In my opinion.... yes! We are slowly being dumbed down and here is a good example of how it is happening.

John Staddon, in his article Why stop signs and speed limits endanger Americans, presents a good argument as to why traffic signs and lights are dangerous, causing more harm than good. By putting up traffic signs for every possible scenario we have been trained to follow the signs and not our judgment. The remedy for this; remove the signs, remove the speed limits. He makes a good argument for it and I am on board.

Here are a few good quotes from the article.

"A particularly vexing aspect of the U.S. policy is that speed limits seem to be enforced more when speeding is safe. As a colleague once pointed out, “An empty highway on a sunny day? You’re dead meat!” A more systematic effort to train drivers to ignore road conditions can hardly be imagined.By training drivers to drive according to the signs rather than their judgment in great conditions, the American system also subtly encourages them to rely on the signs rather than judgment in poor conditions, when merely following the signs would be dangerous."

"But this is emblematic of the sort of signage arms race that has become necessary in the U.S. When you’ve trained people to drive according to the signs, you need to keep adding more signs to tell them exactly when and in what fashion they need to adjust their behavior. Otherwise, drivers may see no reason why they should slow down on a curve in the rain."

"The dominant motive in the U.S. traffic-control community seems to be distrust, and policies are usually designed to control drivers and reduce their discretion. The British system puts more responsibility on the drivers themselves"

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200807/traffic


 

How factual are the things we read and watch today? In my opinion...not very. Here are two examples:

Example 1:

Is the memoir you are reading really true? James Frey just fries me. It is my hope one day to have a memoir published but after his antics, how many people will ever truly believe a memoir again? I know I have my doubts. Now he has another book out. grrrr.

I love this quote from the reviewer:

"After publishing two best-selling memoirs, “A Million Little Pieces” and “My Friend Leonard,” which proved upon examination to be insufficiently factual, James Frey has brought forth a novel, “Bright Shiny Morning,” whose greatest problem (though not its only one) is that it’s insufficiently fictional."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/books/review/Kirn-t.html?ref=books


Example 2:


Now we all know that the news is not always factual and here is a good example of it in the form of a boast. It would seem that Iran wanted to "impress" the world with its capabilities by sending out photos of their missile launches to the press. But it seems that they have self-esteem issues because they did what amounts to stuffing their bra with Kleenex by using photoshop to alter the original photo.

Apparently after publishing the pictures a news paper 'retracted its four-missile version this morning, saying that the image was “apparently digitally altered” by Iranian state media. The fourth missile “has apparently been added in digital retouch to cover a grounded missile that may have failed during the test,”'

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/in-an-iranian-image-a-missile-too-ma...


And then when we find out we have been duped it becomes just plain fun:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/photoshop-frenzy-on-iran-missile-tes...

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/10/iran-you-suck-at-pho.html#comment-230360


 

So for my first blog entry here on writing.com I had intended on a simple introduction but I have something on my mind.

SMOKE, SMOKE, SMOKE!

The smoke I am talking about is from the California wildfires. It would seem that the wind has changed because the smoke has rolled in again like a fog bank. It is so thick tonight that my throat is sore and I have been indoors all day.

Enough said. So back to introductions. Hi, I'm Ellee. I am currently living in Reno, Nevada but my roots are in Virginia. Reno is cool because it is such a short distance from Tahoe and there is so much to do outdoors. My favorites are hiking, scuba diving, and camping. I don't get to do them too much though. I spend most of my time working. I am a systems analyst and spend most of my time writing use cases, UISD's, and the like. It's not the writing I would like to spend my time on but it does pay the bills. So my intention for signing up here on WDC is to start exercising the creative side of my writing instead constantly exercising the logical side of my writing. So once I post something, fire away. The only way I will get better is if the flaws are exposed.