Porthole

Want a handwritten postcard? Send me your address.

30DBC: Yesterday celebrated National Handwriting Day in the USA. How often do you still hand write anything substantial? Do you think the decline in children learning cursive writing will be a hindrance to their generation?

No. No more than learning how to write by hand is a hindrance to chiseling in rock.

What they are thinking about though will be lost to future generations. But consider how many books, journals, letters, documents written on paper have been forever lost.

The knowledge of the Mayans comes to mind. (Thank-you, Spain... NOT) Stone endures unless blasted away like Napolean and the Sphinx or the Taliban and Buddhist treasures.

Nothing I write will endure unless I have it etched on metal or chiseled in stone.

So much for allusions of grandeur...

Is handwriting important? Yes! I will send postcards from Taiwan, entirely hand-written (more than just a scrawled "howdy"). And I write my journal in cursive (my cursive is nice, better than my printing), now on page 5099.

Cursive is a poor man's calligraphy. Like popular art or graffiti it's a personal expression showing thoughts and emotion. The graffiti of the Romans and Egyptians tells us more about their culture than their statuary in the same way that a farmer's journal tells us more about daily life than essays written by elitists.

Should children be taught cursive? Should children be taught how to sing, paint, draw ... ART is one answer. Another is the law of redundancy. I have photos/writing at spacebook, on my SD card, in notepads, hard printed copies, here at WDC.

If one fails, I have backup.

So, yes, Everyone should know how to write. For the lazy or smug: computers are not forever. Everyone should know how to write with a stick as backup.

BY THE WAY ... ANYONE WANTING A POSTCARD SHOULD SEND ME THEIR ADDRESS. I HAVE MANY BUT NOT ALL.

1.125