“Stammering Children, Laughing Clinton, and Nonsigning Cops”
Isn’t that a lovely title? I bet you clicked on this just to see if there could possibly be a connection between all of them. And yes, there is.
The connection is this: I can’t believe how stupid people can be. Now you may be shaking your head and thinking, “whoa, slow down a bit there, Julie, aren’t you getting a bit too worked up over the stupidity of the world of which we have no control over and never will?” Yes, I know you, O wise one, are right. But still!!!
Okay, so you ask in a placating manner, “tell me, Julie, what’s with the indignation against stupidity? Let’s start with the stammering children.” Okay well… I got this email from a friend who got this email from an acquaintance who got this email from some random travel encounter’s sister. (There’s got to be a word for that… “random travel encounter.” You know when you’re standing before that time schedule in a train stop in some country and you’re trying to decipher the way from here to there and this person standing next to you has the exact same dilemma, so you smile gingerly at one another and then you start talking and marvel at how you’re going to the same place and why not sit in the same train compartment and you have hours and hours of scintillating conversation so you vow, upon departure, to never lose contact and to meet up again should you be in the same place. What’s the word for that?) This person who sent the email wanted to do a thesis on stammering children and/or children who use sign language in Kenya. She felt the need to explore the development of a sign language for Kiswahili (the spoken language in Kenya). First of all, you can’t “and/or” stammering children and children who use sign language. That just gets a stunned gaping look from me. How can you possibly say the two groups are the same? Second of all, “the development of sign language for Kiswahili”? First off, sign languages aren’t based on (or aren’t supposed to be based on) spoken languages. Second off, there’s a perfectly healthy signed language already in use by the deaf people of Kenya and has been for over fifty years. If this person would have already visited Kenya and met a few deaf people, she would know this. But no, she relies on her own good intentions (and not a lot of knowledge) to save the stammering children and/or signing children.
Now to, quite a big transition I know but bear with me, Laughing Clinton. This past Sunday, I retrieved my New York Times Sunday edition from the porch, thanking whoever there’s to thank that it wasn’t stolen once again. I sat down with a cup of steaming coffee and opened the newspaper. On page something or other, there’s this article about Hillary Clinton’s laughter. Pausing for your astonishment. Yes. It’s about her laugh. Apparently she’s too sarcastic for the general public’s good (the woman’s from Chicago after all! We Chicago girls know our sarcasm). Basically, it’s a serious article examining the hows and whys of her laugh. Now, I ask you, would any self-respecting journalist write the same about a male political candidate? I really doubt so. She laughs! You laugh! He laughs! We all laugh! How the heck can that be a valid piece of evidence towards whether she’d be a good President for America or not?
Finally, nonsigning cops. Now that’s not really stupid in itself. Who said that cops in Washington DC, the home to the world’s only liberal arts college for the deaf, should know any functional sign language? But when it becomes stupid is when there’s a bomb threat at Gallaudet and no cop guarding the gates can tell people why they can’t come in or out. Instead the cops are reduced to pointing, very effective communication for pacifying an increasingly growing crowd who’s anxious to know what’s happening and what’s being done about it.
See the thread of stupidity in all this? Yeah… me too.