One step forward, another giant leap back

Three-D movies have come and gone and come back. This time they seem to have staying power. Did I see Four-D advertised? If the dimensions continue we'll be seeing movies performed live. 

E-mail is evidence that nothing says "new idea" like repackaging old-hat in a new wrapper. The Founding Fathers who wrote letters to friends in the colonies and across the seas.  Abe Lincoln was a born a letter writer and died a telegrapher in 1865. Telegraph messages were short--maybe 140 characters, and sentences left off unnecessary words: "SEND MONEY stop OUT OF WORK stop HOME BY FOURTH stop LOVE BILLY.  By 1870 work was progressing on a means to talk to people you can't see, which I witnessed perfected last night on State Street by a man who appeared to have no permanent address or living friends.  Letter writing, our most personal connection to our past, was dieing a slow death by 1927 when the first trans-atlantic conversation was held. Telegraphs held on though. I know that to be true because I saw James Stewart reading one in It's a Wonderful Life. stop.

War has a way of giving us the most insight into man's humanity and the letters of soldiers and loved ones, written by people with high school educations, are some of the best written words in American History. For example: "I may not get the Purple Heart for being wounded but if they give them out for being scared as hell I certainly rate one." from the American Experience Belgium 1944 Carl Schluter. PBS Link

Letter writing didn't end with WWII but it soon was pushed to the side with the advancements in telephone service. Penmanship was still valued in the 1960's, at least by the black linnen clad, earing pulling, ruler slapping of the hands, Sisters of St. John Grade School. I suppose they were getting us prepared to serve the war in Southeast Asia. The Green Bay Diocease must have had a directive from Secretary McNamara in the Pentagon: "Sisters, JFK  needs you to build a fighting man who is driven to kill the black pajama dressed enemy, and write a nice letter home to Mom letting her know the war is going fine and the chow is great, or vice versa." 

Today we don't worry much about penmanship. We have returned to letter writing over phone calls but we "key" the letters---I'm not sure if anyone is taught cursive. I didn't know what cursive meant until my sons were in grade school. I knew the difference between writing and printing but never paid attention to the name for the flowing and connecting of letters. Just as we put a name to the art we put the art on hold and went back to pounding out letters instead of calling. Email is filled with long letters and rambling comments. I suspect email is the cause of more heartaches than U.S. Postal mail; it takes more thought and time to address an envelope, stamp a letter, and trudge t to a post office box. The time and effort difference between that chore and hitting SEND is just enough pause to reconsider angry and hurtful words. Imagine the world if Krushchev and Kennedy had email: Kennedy: "tap tap tap, tippity tap: Go to HELL!! (SEND). Krushcheve:"tap tap bang bang bang: идти к черту. (SEND) Twenty minutes later we all would have seen  Bert the Turtle's light "Duck and Cover".

Isn't the text message just a combination of telegraph and telephone? (stop and SEND)