Today’s been an off-day, starting with a bad migraine. Headaches are a pain, but aren’t scary. The news, now that is scary. Here are a few frightening things I’ve seen:
- Nailing It. If you look at anything enought, you can find a way to embue it with meaning. So let’s start small. A rabbi in Westchester NY has found a way to apply midrash to manicures, working with her students to capture lessons from the Torah on their fingernails in patterns and polish. Perhaps this isn’t all that scary, although it does relate to costumes.
- Overseas Threats. Perhaps costumes don’t scare you, but the threat of China does. Here’s a new one: China has unveiled a new supercomputer… built with Chinese designed and built supercomputer chips.
- The Pain of Boarding. So China doesn’t do it. Perhaps it is flying. For me, it is the boarding process. Will I get in on early enough to get space for my carry-on. Guess what? That process is taking longer and longer, and airlines are tweaking it in ways that make it longer. They do this by selling the early boarding advantage. Sayeth the airlines: The airlines do not mind if boarding takes a little longer because all the extra fees have been a major benefit for their bottom lines.
- Used Car Dealers. Perhaps it is buying a car that scares you. In the first part of a three part series, the LA Times looks at buy-here, pay-here dealers. These are the car dealers you see on every corner promoting easy credit and that anyone can buy a car. That’s because they don’t intend for you to keep the car. They sell it at exorbitant interest rates with no credit checks, repossess it (by trickery, if need be) when you can’t pay, and turn around and sell it again. That’s scary.
- Our Future. Ultimately, what is the scariest thing is our future. The LA Times is reporting that California teachers lack the resources and time to teach science, especially science laboratories. This, my friends, is the scariest thing of all, especially when you combine it with the article on China. What makes this country great is our ability to innovate and come up with great scientific ideas and inventions. If we can’t teach the science, where will we be?
