Random Notes from a Crank

My daughter came home a couple of days ago talking excitedly about how they're learning about fables in her second grade class. She began lecturing us on the major components of a fable: the characters are animals, there needs to be at least two of them, often there's a problem and a solution, there's a moral to the story, and so on. She says she's going to write her own fable called "The Fox and the Chipmunk." Last night on our ride back home from dance practice, I told her that maybe we could both write fables and then compare them. Mine might be titled "The Grouchy Turtle, The Wolverine, & The Blue Jay." I'm thinking about starting it out this way: "A turtle, a wolverine, and a blue jay walk into a bar..."

That reminds me of one of my favorite tales by Twain: "Jim Baker's Blue-Jay Yarn." Some people think the tale reflects Twain's experience about how he wasn't humorous at all at an event for Whittier's 70th birthday. He told a story about Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Emerson being drunk at a miner's cabin, and the tale went over like a lead balloon. I tend to think the tale is a commentary on human nature, however.

Writing a fable might be a way for me to start her overt rhetorical education since that genre is the first part of the fourteen part gauntlet of the progymnasmata from classical rhetoric. Maybe something to start this summer ... her summer school. Vituperation could get nasty though. But as the Roman educator Quintilian said, I aim to help her become "a good person speaking/writing well."

There are a couple of meetings I go to regularly at work where what I like to call "administrative-speak" is fully displayed. At least they're not throwing around the despicable, horrible word "incentivize," but I am sure tired of "leverage" being used as a verb. All kinds of stuff is always needing to get "leveraged." We need to do this to "leverage" that. We need to think how to "leverage" this or that in the future. And so on. LEVERAGE... Leverage... leverage. So "leverage" might be the new "incentivize" (the "new black"). And I hate it. Then I read this one very expensive report where a consultant recommended that we need to "incent" people. That @#$% might be even worse than the overuse of leverage. And while we're at it, we also need to "streamline efficiencies."

Because we had a freakishly warm March like much of the US, I got sucked into buying three bell pepper plants and a Poblano pepper plant. It has been cold here in East Central Illinois recently, and now I think those plants are dead. I was in the garden watering this afternoon, and they didn't look good at all. Damn you Rural King for having them available and damn me for having a false sense of security.

Today I had both of the starting pitchers in the Brewers-Cubs game going on my fantasy game. Greinke got shelled. Garza almost pitched a complete game shutout. Bitter. Sweet.