Today I Learned...

Right. I misinterpreted what TLW was saying. I seem to be doing that more often these days.

Today I learned that I need to put a filter on YouTube for the computer my son has access to.

I just acquired the box set of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" a couple of weeks ago and have been watching episodes of that whenever I've had the chance. It's a family friendly show, so there was no reason Boy couldn't sit and watch it with me. After all, he's learning English right now, so the more input he gets, the better.

Well, turns out he thinks Will Smith is about the coolest thing to hit the planet Earth since the last Ice Age, so he takes to YouTube to find some more stuff with him.

Now, normally I feel like Boy is pretty safe surfing YouTube, because I've taught him from the first time he was allowed access to it that he needs to remember that once he's seen something, he can't unsee it. It's stuck in his head and we can't remove it. I also told him that while there are lots of people who post fun, interesting and helpful stuff on YouTube, there's also about a ton of crap for every ounce of quality and there's a lot of that crap that he doesn't need or want to see. He understands that and tries to steer clear of anything that at first glance might not look like it's either appropriate or interesting for him to look at. He even comes to me every once in a while and asks me to come look at the title and picture of a clip before he clicks it, just to be sure there won't be anything in it that'll give him nightmares.

When he told me he was going to try and find more stuff with Will Smith on YouTube, I just thought, "Meh... What's the worst that can happen? He'll find some music videos, both from his days with Jazzy Jeff and some of his solo stuff and probably some clips from "The Fresh Prince" and a few movie promos. It's Will Smith. He's about as wholesome as Barack Obama and at least 10 times as fun."

BIG MISTAKE!!!

After Boy's been at the computer for about two hours, he comes into the living room, sticks out his hands like he's holding a gun and goes, "FREEZE MOTHERB*TCHES!!!", like it was the most natural thing in the world to say!

It took me a moment to process, but after a second or two, I knew exactly where he had that from. Someone had uploaded the entire movie "Bad Boys" to YouTube and he'd been watching that for the past two hours. I was not aware of that when I let him go surf YouTube to find stuff with Will Smith!!!

Right now it's just curse words. He's going to learn those eventually anyway. The only damage control necessary is to teach him when those are okay to use and when they're not.

I'm just glad I caught this before he finds himself watching amputee midget horses doing unmentionable things to poor defenseless watermelons

As I said, once it's seen, it can't be unseen.

so today I learned I still bollix up CW & CCW on occasion.

I must admit, after having slept on it, even though he shouldn't be saying stuff like that, I'm still kinda proud that his pronounciation was close to perfect

I learned that there is a possibility that a battery charging problem can be caused by a bad transformer on the power supply.

Today I learned something I find profoundly important.

I was watching the 200th episode of "Inside the Actors Studio", a special episode where host James Lipton submits to switching chairs and letting someone else (Dave Chapelle) interview him for a change. Lipton is an incredibly insightful person and I find that in general, most great actors, writers, directors and even comedians are (yes, Dave Chapelle too). They know the human mind so much better than most people, because they have to get into someone else's mind every time they do their jobs. That's what they do. They convey the human experience. Gaining an insight into their way of thinking is what I watch the show for.

Anyway, as those of you who have ever seen more than one episode of the program will know, the guest is turned over to the audience for questions at the end of the interview, but just before that, Lipton has him/her answer a series of questions from a questionnaire designed by his personal hero, French talk show host Bernard Pivot.

I've thought about what I would answer to all of those questions on more than one occasion and I've more or less got my answers down at this time, but there's always been one that's bugged me. Not because I don't have an answer for it, but because up until today, I didn't have a clear definition of why my answer is what it is. I know for all the other questions, but this one was never completely clearly defined for me.

That question is: What is your least favorite word?

Lipton is usually the one asking the questions, but this time he was the one answering. His response to that question was this:

"My least favorite word is the N-word. No matter who says it, what context it's said in, I've known for all my life that it was a word that was only meant to do harm and I hate it."

That struck home with me. I now know why my answer to that question is what it is.

I don't have a least favorite word, but I have a least favorite sentence:

"Because that's what we've always done."

If I could only sum it up in one word, I guess that word would be "tradition", but I don't think that paints the right picture. There are a lot of traditions that are grounded in sense. There's a reason behind why they exist and the people who uphold those traditions know why they're doing it. My problem is with tradition for the sake of tradition. Mindlessly mimicking what came before for no other good reason than that it came before. When you no longer know why you do something, but you still do it, “because that's what you've always done”.

That sentence, to me, sums up a way of thinking that’s just lazy. You’re not doing what you’re doing because it’s the best solution or because you’ve tried other ways and found that you like “the old way” best. You’re just accepting at face value that it’s the way to do it. There’s a complete lack of individual and critical thought in that sentence.

Not only does that mindset completely put a stop to any type of development, innovation and progress in terms of the practical things of day to day life, but – as Lipton’s answer made me realize – if it’s allowed to seep over into the more abstract elements of your thoughts about the world, it can allow for hatred and bigotry to thrive and even be passed on from one person to the next or one generation to the next.

A culture of racism, for example, spanning multiple generations, will largely be based on this mindset. Some time in the past, one person probably had some sort of reason for hating the people he or she hated and then passed that on to their children. The reason may have been passed on as well, but as the older generations disappear and new ones come along, the reason fades away. All that’s left is the hatred and the people harboring that hatred don’t even know why. But they keep it going anyway, completely devoid of any critical thinking, any opinions based on their own experiences and without any hope for reconciliation, “because that’s what they’ve always done”.

I’ve always known it was my least favorite sentence. Today I learned why and I thank James Lipton for that.

I think in an interview the why would be "because that's how I've always felt" - as long as it could be delivered with a perfectly straight face.

I'm not so sure I have a least favorite word. While I understand the sentiment about the "N-word" I would point out there are other racial epithets that are also intended only for harmful use. the thing that irritates me is the abuse of words. and by that I mean redefining a word that is in common use so it has a meaning much different from what it means to most people; or turning a perfectly good word into verbal filler. it shows a profound disrespect for language and communication.

because why should ethnically differenced people get to claim all the offense. personally, I would think if I was a short statured person I would find "little person" to be more offensive than midget. - because to me it sounds patronizing.