Bear Awareness Week

Yes friends, it's that time of year again.
Bear awareness week.
I don't really know what to say about bears.
They're out there, and I guess we should all be aware of that.
Here are a couple of bear facts.
Black bears are found naturally in my part of Ohio - the hills.
If you encounter a bear you should NOT:
Try to outrun it.
Climb a tree to escape it.
Hide under a log.
Play dead - they will still maul you.

What you should actually do is spread out your arms and make yourself look as big as possible and make a lot of loud noises to try to scare it.
I personally doubt the effectiveness of this method, as I don't think I can make myself look big enough to scare a bear.
The best method is probably make peace with God if you have not already done so, and then run. I know I can't outrun it, but I'd personally rather die while running than die while flapping my arms and yelling at a giant, furry man-eater.

The dangerousness of bears has caused me to wonder why exactly we offer stuffed bears to our children to cuddle with as they sleep. Isn't that like giving them stuffed guns, or stuffed daggers. Just one of the many points to ponder during Bear Awareness Week.

In other animal news, snakes should all be wiped off the face of the planet. They're eerie. I did however find an animal that lives on Phuket Island that eats snakes - the Water Monitor. It even has an impressive name. I guess snakes should be allowed to exist if only to feed these much cooler reptiles/amphibians (I don't think there's a real difference between the two - zoologist conspiracy).

Some more animal fun. My friend Dave's dog, I learned by experience this week, is sexually attracted to my right leg. I actually learned this 3 times, and all the while, Dave was promising me that he had never seen that happen before. Whatever dirty Dave.

Well, be aware of bears everyone, and be aware of Dave's dog. They're both out to get me.

The dying art of language

I like English.
I like like other languages too, but English has a really special place in my heart. This can probably be explained by the fact that it is my mother tongue. It is also an extremely convenient language, since pretty much everyone in the world at least knows someone who's pretty fluent in it.
There are people in the world that can do crazy things with our language, too. Shakespeare, Poe, Swift, King James, and the list could go on for quite a while could so manipulate their tongue as to stop people in awe of word combinations. Not bad at all.
Furthermore, comparatively, English has some great words. "Home" comes to mind. The French at least have no equivalent. You can go to your house, your fatherland, or your personal part of the planet, but you can never go home. "Home" is such a great word because it can communicate a geographical location and a feeling all in one. The French also lack words for cheap (you just have to say "not expensive") and a host of other words that are currently escaping me.
I'm straying from my point.
Here it is.
We (as Anglophones, which I can safely assume you are if you are reading this) have a really great language.
That being asserted, why does it seem that only a small percentage of the American population has any clue what to do with it?
Why is it that I am impressed when words such as "they're, there, their, who's, whose, to, too, two, it's, its, ad nauseum" are spelled correctly?
It's not that hard!!!
If you attended 12 years of public grade school in the state of Ohio, I am sure you've had 12 years of English.
I'm sure you've had at least a few spelling tests.
I'm sure, if you're above the age of 18 right now, you remember the days of writing with an actual pencil on an actual paper, and physically handing in your cursive book reports to teachers who actually cared about your spelling and grammar, because they knew that in the future people would take you more seriously if you could communicate based upon the rules of the English language.

This isn't meant to be a rant. I'm not ranting. I'm not claiming perfection either, because I know I force commas to work overtime, and I systematically end pretty much all sentences in periods, and I'm sure I mispell a lot of words. This is a challenge to all of you in the blogging/message-boarding world. Please don't blame the lack of a spell checker or grammar checker for bad spelling or grammar. Let's not dumb ourselves down to dependence on heartless, artless machines for communication. Let's use dictionaries. Let's read more. Let's not make our 3rd grade English teachers feel like their lives are complete failures. Let's use English well. Let's end our adverbs in -ly when appropriate. Let's make our subjects and our verbs agree whenever we possibly can. Let's learn to differentiate "definitely" and "defiantly" (two very different words).

We really do have a great language, and I know I'm not the only one whose little heart is blessed by the proper usage of it. I'm not talking about diagramming complex sentences and identifying gerunds. I just like to hear my language as it would want to express itself if it had the faculty to will.

Much love and grace to you all.