Intolerance, insensitive, incapable.
Likely we can offer improvement as individuals in at least those three areas. Perhaps it is easier to see those flaws in others than in ourselves.
In these highly-political days, too many of us see society through our own lens and fail to understand more thoroughly another side, or, more than one way of considering nuances. That can lead to an intolerance because a focus on being right and not wrong can lead to intolerance.
Intolerance can lead to being insensitive to others and their concerns. If we are intolerant and insensitive we can become incapable of moving beyond our self-interest. We can be firm in our beliefs and still be tolerant, sensitive, and capable.
These times call for greater understanding and more wisdom than in previous years. A person’s view of the COVID-19 pandemic which has taken more than 150,000 lives in the U.S. can generate a skewed view. We must learn to understand another person’s concern.
• According to Capitol News Illinois, a nonprofit nonpartisan news service provided by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, governor JB Pritzker’s executive order 47 n 2020 allows for the opening of school for in-person learning n the Fall term in accordance with the Illinois Department of Public Health Guidelines. The guidelines include limiting the number of persons in one place to no more than 50; compliance with physical distance requirements, temperature checks, and proper hygiene, to name a few aspects of the COVID-19. Unfortunately the COVID-19 situation in our country causes greater division than it should for some individuals. Understanding is essential.
• Making a better effort and seeking better understanding of the virus in our country would be helpful. Masks are a start in seeing beneficial steps in a community setting, both in giving confidence to others that we care and that we protect ourselves from infection. Nothing is 100% safe.
• School districts will open in various ways and at various times. The Voice report is on page 11 in Students’ Voice.
• Aurora University shows it cares by settling with the decision to hold classes strictly through an online platform for the Fall semester. The school administration spent weeks in discussions on how to offer in-person classes, but, determined it could not be done. “The optimism of June now gives way to the hard reality of July, Aurora president Rebecca Sherrick said in a letter to students and parents.
• There were another 1,076 confirmed cases Tuesday this week. We must be more careful!
Clear and concise, week 30
• Put it to bed is a term often heard or seen in print. The derivation is in newspaper work, based on hot-type construction of the pages of a newspaper. When the printers who received information from the newsroom they used the blocks, often of wood, under the lead type from the machine which produced the type. The printers arranged the blocks with lead type in a bed (flat on a table). When the page in blocks was complete the printer had put it to bed. Except for The Chicago Tribune, the hot-type method disappeared for construction of pre-press material in the Chicago area by the middle 1970s to late 1970s. It was the passing of technology which moves forward each decade with improvements. Often cutting costs and speed are parts of the reasons for evolving technology. Next time a person is overheard to say “putting it to bed,” the origin is not about pillows and sheets, although there is a logical sequence. The finished product is the meaning.
• In week 30 of using clear and concise, the genesis simply was help in the language, written and spoken. We do better and feel better when we communicate more precisely and are understood more thoroughly. The curator of this column is well aware the impact has limited reach with an audience that is wider than it should be of those who are secure in their ways of communication and think help is unnecessary.
• The three most heinous improper uses? Widespread use of noun as a verb. The two are distinct parts of our language. The recent trend in the last five to 10 years likely is using partner as a verb when it is a noun, a person.
• Perhaps we can soothe with candy-wrapper sayings: Be(you)tiful; be the sculptor of your dreams; live your life every day with no regrets and be worth it; hands are meant to be held; a smile is the brightest beam in the room.