Vocal Fry Whining

People complain about the strangest things. Sometimes I think that people complain for the sake of complaining just so they have something to talk about. Wait, is that what I'm doing?

...

Anyway, the other morning, I saw a segment on a news program where the commentator was complaining about young women and vocal fry. What is vocal fry, some of you may have just asked? Well, try to talk with as little air as you can, and your voice will come out somewhat gravel-y, almost like a growl. It's not your normal voice, but almost what you have first thing in the morning before you wake up enough to push enough air to gather your regular voice. That's vocal fry.

The woman on the program went on and on about how it's basically stupid and lazy. She had clip after clip after clip of women dropping their voice into this "vocal fry range" as they spoke on interviews or in movies or whatever. I didn't really hear any valid reasoning behind not wanting to hear this particular vocal tone; she (and quite a few others) simply don't like it. What I heard in her examples was women speaking, and at the end of some statements, they voice inflected down into this "fry" range.

Now, my favorite part of this entire segment, after she has gone on about the hatred and condemnation of vocal fry for a good five minutes, was at the end of one of her own closing arguments (yeah, it was a closing argument), her voice dipped down into fry range, and she vocal fried. It was only for a second, but that was the length of the clips she liked to loop to make sure we were aware of how "annoying" this "practice" is.

Like I said, I have no problem with it, and complaining about it seems like a slow news day. I've seen a lot of slow news days recently. If this was the best thing they had, I feel for their futures.

Just Really Dim

You know, sometimes, I feel like I go on a rant about people, but in my defense, this is my blog, and I'm in charge here, so there. Honestly, there is no better way to get something off your chest than to communicate about it in some way, so this amounts to therapy...in a way.

What I'm on about (this time) is the sheer bewilderment on y part about how some people manage to survive in our modern world. Yes, my job at present is one that is a little specialized, but what throws me for a loop is when people cannot handle or comprehend what should the simplest of concepts (relative to what they do). I'm not talking about the finite principles of writing a program or even working some of the finer intricacies of Windows (like the fact that right-clicking anything anywhere pulls up a relevant context menu ... someone's mind was just blown).

I give you two real world examples for what I'm walking about. First, logins and passwords. Everyone has a login for everything they do. Have email? You have a login. Have voicemail? You have a login. Have internet access? You have a login. With every login comes a password. Now, a quiz for you. What does a password do? Anyone? If you said, it keeps the login secure, you would be correct. If you said it controls the level of access for the user, I would look at you funny. Yet, on a very regular basis, I get asked this question. A lot.

You see, one of my specialties is making sure that our product that navigates Medicare's DDE system continues to successfully navigate said system. Part of my job is interpreting error messages. Very, very few of those messages actually relate to a bad password. Yet, it seems people ask with every other error they get if it is a password problem. One question: did it log in? If the answer is yes, then it is not a password problem. Real simple. I can't fathom where anyone would get the idea that a problem accessing certain data would be a problem with the password. Now, it's almost certainly a problem with the login and its individual setup with rights and such, but the password? Eh, never.

Honestly, who would be actively using a program, get an access denied error, and think, I must have a problem with my password? And on a pause, I have to admit probably a large number of people. *shakes head in dismay*

The other one has to do with people and the Internet. The first time I got onto the Internet was in 1994, I think. I was a late bloomer, I know. Don't hold it against me. There is one thing I've known about the Internet from the very beginning. It isn't on my computer. I have a program that I use to navigate through the world wide web, but none of the content is actually on my machine. This was back in the days where looking at pictures was almost out of the question. You wanted information, you got a text based page of info. If you wanted pics, you just run and grab and sandwich while that 350Kb pic downloads through your blazing 14400 bps modem. This is almost twenty years ago.

Yet, only a few days ago, I was speaking to someone and told her to go to a website we use for remote access. She said, "Oh, is that on the internet? I'm not sure it's installed on this computer." This is where I close my eyes and realign my chi with the universe in the hopes I don't say something to insult the questionable intelligence I've just encountered. After all, I'm not deal with a patient in a nursing home here. This is someone who works with computers (granted not in a technical capacity, but she has a job using them) every day. Here's a fun fact about Windows. If you have Windows installed on your computer, you have an Internet browser. It's integrated into the operating system. And if that computer can't access the Internet, there are a lot of things it shouldn't be doing right now that I understand it is.

Wow. Just ... wow.

Campaigns

So after my last post about signage, I'll come into what sparked that discussion. you know that stuff only comes into existence when someone out there acknowledges that there is some kind of a need for it. When the need is some kind of "awareness", that would mean that someone acknowledges based on personal knowledge or some kind of study or statistic that there is a wide need for people to know that something needs to be known. I know I'm smarter than the average bear, but sometimes, I really wonder about people when I look at some of the campaigns that have been run over the course of history for people to know something. Realize that these are things upon which local, state, and/or federal governments have spent millions of dollars. People toss around the phrase millions of dollars like it's nothing, but I personally don't have millions of dollars, and most of what they're putting out people have got to know about by now. I'm talking about things like:

Do Not Litter

 

I see trash on the side of the road, sure. I've never put any there myself because I know better, but clearly some people don't understand this concept to the extent that things like this have to be conducted every once in awhile to make them aware that they shouldn't toss that cup out their car window. And don't get me started on smokers tossing their butts all over the freaking place.

Thing is that when someone is going to do something, they're going to do it no matter what you tell them about benefits or penalties. It's a case of laws only affecting those who follow them, and really, those who litter will do it no matter what you threaten. I remember in the 80s there was a song (that for some reason, the Engineer will still sing if you queue him up just right) about litterbugs. You can watch the Donald Duck cartoon short containing it right here for now.

That's a lot of money just put out there just to tell people the same thing we've been telling them since kindergarten. Put your trash in the trash can.

Buckle Your Seat Belt

Back in the 80s, again, there was a big push for buckling your seat belt because all the studies had finally come back showing everyone that wearing a seat belt was safer than not wearing one. When I was in school, something called a swatch was popular, so they came out with these seat belt looking bracelets they referred to as sbatches. I tried to find an image, but no dice.

Of course, there are signs everywhere:

And of course, there was a music video going way, way back. Who can't recite some version of the lyrics for "Buckle Up For Safety"?

Again, we're talking about millions upon millions of dollars here spent to tell people to buckle their seat belts. Once upon a time, seat belts weren't commonly worn, and some cars didn't even have them. Today, however, they are required in every vehicle and buckling up is the law in every state (probably, I'm not a lawyer). Yet, we still have to put out all this dough to remind people to buckle their seat belts. The generation that didn't have seat belts laws from the moment they started driving is dwindling, but I'll bet we're stuck with this campaign expenditure for years to come.

Abstinence

This applies to so very many things. Millions spent on sex education (sex being something that our species has successfully navigated for thousands of years (for the creationists) and millions of years (for the evolutionists)). They promote awareness that not having sex will prevent sexually transmitted diseases:

Actually, this one's much better.

Good time girls... heh, heh. Anyway, seems obvious, but ok. 

My personal favorite is the promotion of abstinence to prevent pregnancy. This campaign rests on the very obvious notion that not having sex will not get you pregnant. People pays tons of money to get this message out there, and have lots and lots of support to do so.

Apparently, some people found it too obvious to fund.

Maybe I'm just jaded about it, but you know, if you know the least bit about how reproduction works in any mammal, you know it takes two of them doing something to make another, so making sure that everyone is aware that sex can create children seems like a campaign to make everyone aware that grass is most commonly green and roads are to drive on. (I'll bet there's a campaign out there somewhere about not letting kids play on highways.)

I could only find signs giving them the right of way.

Here's the thing, though, that all those people throwing all that money around miss. In THAT moment, the brain chemistry warps right out of the reason zone to where all logic ceases to function, and that's why when explanations are demanded, the only thing you get back is "It just happened." Unfortunately, the campaign can't address that.

Equality / Inclusion

This was about the only generic one I could find.

Talk about big category. I googled both equality and inclusion, and got a zillion different things that people want YOU to be aware of so they can be included and equalized. Two companies I've worked for have people hired for this one purpose: to ensure that everyone feels equal and so the company adheres to whatever policies it put in place to make sure the government and the myriad of groups out there know they accept everyone.

Unlike the previous entries, I can understand that there are a lot of people out there who hold certain prejudices against other people to the point that people with a variety of personal characteristics feel excluded, but the fact that so very organizations have so much traction points to just how sad our society really is. The other side of the coin is that these groups make it their mission to not only make sure everyone likes them and their cause, but also makes sure no one ever says a foul word about anyone they cover. This applies not only to direct insults, but words that they think might possibly apply to them or those that they've heard before in reference to them.

A direct example is if you call something retarded. Somewhere, someone just got offended that I placed that word in this article and will tear me up one side and down the other just for it being there when all I've done so far is mention it as a sensitive word. Now, ritard is a musical term. It's based on the italian word ritardo that means delay. In music, it means to gradually slow something down. The spelling retard is actually French  and means exactly the same thing. Over time in English, it has also come to mean stupid and in reference to a person, it is considered an insult.

Here's the thing. It wasn't always that way. If a person was retarded, it simply meant they were delayed, which is actually a valid assessment of their mental state, since the people to whom that term is usually applied are actually developmentally delayed (the politically correct term at this point). As these things tend to go, the word has degenerated into what it is to where it is better not applied to people at all since it is generally taken as an insult, and honestly, it generally is.

What's my point? It's kind of like being too sensitive. If someone uses the term "retarded" to apply to a thing they're engaged in, they aren't insulting a group of people. That group would argue it should not be used at all, but seriously, you can't control anyone's language. I think that's another campaign entirely.

Why do I find this sort of thing pointless? It's a matter of "why can't we all just get along?" I don't have any problem with anyone, and I really don't care about who you are or what you're doing as long as you're not forcing your agenda on me. Just be a person and let me be me, and we'll be fine. If everyone approached everyone else with an open mind, the world could save a lot of money on "let's be excellent" campaigns.

Drugs

I'll finish out with this one.

In the 80s, again, it was Nancy Reagan that made "Just Say No To Drugs" her mission. Everyone got to know "Just Say No," and these days, it's more of a joke than anything, yet, the campaigns and money spent on anti-drug stuff is as high as ever. How necessary is it? Well, I suppose the world has a very short memory when it comes to everything under the sun. The day changes and suddenly everyone forgets what they learned yesterday, so it becomes a constant battle to re-educate people on what is a bad drug.

You can never truly say no to drugs because pharmaceuticals are legal drugs. Truly saying no to all drugs means no more Tylenol for you. Yes, yes, it's no to the illegal or dangerous ones, but you know what the Just Say No campaign accomplished? It educated everyone about the existence of drugs, so the curious types sought them out having made aware of stuff that they may never have heard of otherwise.

That little ad up there lets you know about five drugs, but little else. If you research what these things are, you might or might not be able to identify them when they arise. But it is my understanding of these things that you'll end up primarily doing said drugs under two circumstances: socially with friends which is where that brain chemistry thing starts acting up again or you're already there and actively seeking them in which case you are past saying no to anything.

In the end, why does this or any other campaign really exist? Awareness. Someone decided that someone needed to do something to make sure people knew about some aspect of all of this. Usually, it's in response to some big horrific tragedy that would never have happened had the person involved only known better at the time, so people seek to make sure everyone knows what their loved one didn't.

I suppose there is a sort of catch to my list. I say these things are unnecessary because they should all be very obvious to everyone. But they're obvious to everyone because of all these awareness campaigns. I, personally, am kind of tired of hearing about them all the time, and think the money could be better spent on something else (like, perhaps, world hunger or education). Education already includes bits about drugs and sex and seat belts and litter. I guess I think it's sad that it must be drilled into our heads for the rest of our lives, and even then, people still won't get it.

Signs

So while we were out of town, we got to talking about signs. It started with a sign that implores people not to litter (find me someone who doesn't know this is considered a crime, even if they do it anyway), but then went into completely pointless signs. At least, they're pointless from my perspective.

The Queen's personal favorite is the public library sign. Sure, you want to know where the library is, but public is a wasted word when you think about it. Would you have a sign directing you to a private library? Even if you're going into someone's private collection, that would be something they'd chosen to make public, but any time you see this library sign, it is for a government-owned, public library.

One I noticed sometime ago as being a complete waste of money (though I know these things are out there for a reason) was in Kansas. Now, if you know anything about driving rules, you might know that the lines on the road mean something. Solid line means do not pass while a dashed line means it is ok to pass. Kansans apparently have some difficulty with this concept since they labeled every single one of these line changes with a corresponding sign. "Do Not Pass" for the dashed lines and "Pass With Care" for the dashed ones. Every. Single. One.

Traffic lights have a couple that I've seen most of my life, so apparently, Oklahomans have issues with figuring out traffic light meanings. Most left turn signals say "Left Turn Yield on Green." This fact is very easy to figure out when there is traffic coming from the opposite direction. Some lights only have a green arrow without that yield on green option, so they helpfully label it as "Left Turn on Green Arrow Only." You know, even though there is no other option there other than the green arrow besides the red and yellow lights, so it's not hard to screw that up. Someone must have, though, or it wouldn't be there. The final traffic light, and apparently left turn signal specific, sign is the one that says "Left Turn Signal" right up there next to the ... wait for it ... left turn signal. Didn't see that one coming, did you?

Of course, you have the myriad of construction signs that don't provide any useful information such as "Yield to Flagman." This would be as opposed to running him over entirely, I suppose, as if the dearth of orange signs and such didn't clue you in to something going on. I'm from Oklahoma where the orange construction cone is our state tree. There's the classic "Men At Work," with the unspoken and chuckled acknowledgement that this clearly won't apply to everyone out there since every site will have at least half a dozen standing around. Naturally, there won't be women out there cause they're too smart to get mixed up in that sort of job.

One of my favorites is the classic "No Trespassing." Yeah, that's not a street sign, but it's got to be one of the most pointless and most ignored signs that has ever been created. First of all, from a courtesy standpoint, property belongs to someone, and these signs are usually accompanied by nasty fences and such, so the act of putting up what amounts to a wall is already telling someone to "Keep Out" (which is another popular and equally pointless sign). If someone wants to cross the line, they'll do it whether you have a sign there or not. Your sign only wastes your money and validates your need for control. Now, don't confuse this with a "Beware" sign of some kind, which I acknowledge to be valid since you don't want to break the law AND get hurt.

There are good signs out there. Actually most of them are fine. Occasionally, you just have to wonder about people since there apparently arose a need for some of these to come into existence. Like, what exactly happened to make this one a reality?

Again, this one should be obvious.

Silly ones like that aside, I will leave you with one that I acknowledge is a completely valid sign.

Medication Encouragement?

So while looking over the articles on the home page at work before I clicked off to look at something else, I caught a byline that said some program was essential to encourage patients to take their prescribed medications. It also had the title of "Putting the E in Adherence," but I just figured the editor was high when he allowed that to pass. I had to go ahead and click on it since I figured the main reason people would take their medicine was to get better. Why else would they have gone to the doctor to begin with? A friendly chat?

Apparently, somewhere along the line, someone decided that the pharmacist is accountable for what the medication is supposed to accomplish, so the electronic health records are supposed to do something to help pharmacists and doctors make sure people take their medicine. This electronic reporting is nothing new or mysterious, but it remains a fact that you can't force someone to do anything they don't want to do. If the person wants to take their medicine, they will. If they want to give the doctor the finger and move along, they also will.

The whole thing reminds me the seat belt law. We feel the need to legislate everything, including safety. People get hurt in car accidents because they don't wear their seat belts, so the government passes a law to require seat belt usage. People get killed by maniacs with guns, so townships pass law to prevent people from carrying...wait, the towns that got shot up already had anti-carry laws. Well, I'm sure they passed another law just for good measure. That'll show 'em.

So someone somewhere figured out that people were failing to take their medicine for economic, therapeutic, disease, or social related reason, and so they made something up for medical type people to track this and make sure people did it. Wonder how that's gonna work out for them. I don't want to spoil the ending, but I don't see it going the way they want. And if you consider the reasoning they "uncovered," let's just examine those reasons.

Economic: So you're telling us that they don't take their medicine, not because they don't want to, but because they can't afford to buy it. I guess your tracking will reveal that single mom of three with the two jobs just doesn't want to buy the $500 medicine then? Good luck encouraging her.

Therapeutic: I decided to look up this definition to make sure that I hadn't mis-remembered what it means, but no, it means health or healing. I'm trying to comprehend this as a reason not to take something. Maybe they won't take it because they feel like they are healthier without it? I had a medicine like that once. When I was taking it regularly, I felt loopy, had super lucid dreams, and couldn't stay awake. Seriously slept for 2 days on it. I stopped and felt 100% better. Seems like a solid reason to not take it.

Disease: If someone has a disease that is actively preventing them from taking a medication, you really should have prescribed something better catered to their situation. Who compiled this list?

Social: Well, if you're dealing with a social reason to not take a medicine, no amount of "encouragement" is going to fix that. That is a person who feels some kind of shame for what's going on, and you really should have taken that into account when you made the prescription. Maybe a little follow up will help that one.

In the end, you can't make someone do something they don't want to do. That's the bottom line. Perhaps following-up will give insight to their reasoning, and maybe you can assuage some of their fears or concerns, but to think this record thing will completely solve all of the problems with someone refusing to take their medicine is misguided at best.

Children Are Reflections

Whether you're a parent or not, you've seen children running about the landscape. These smaller versions of ourselves are not quite clones though they share genetic material with their parents, but what a lot of parents don't realize is that these little people are shameless reflections of their parents' lives. Kids do say the darnedest things...provided they heard it somewhere else first. Sure, sometimes children out think their parents and come up with ideas that their parents never dreamed of, but what I'm referring to are those awkward moments where junior does something, and mom's face turns a bright, brilliant shade of red.

What inspired this particular writing was a post someone popped on Facebook where they had communicated the movie title of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to their three year old. Now, the word "chitty" would be unfamiliar to anyone who has never heard of this movie or the Ian Fleming novel that inspired it. They're both kind of a head trip, and the film even includes a child molester, though there are no explicit references to this character being one, but I digress. This child responded to the title by repeating it using the best language he could match up to what he just heard: Really Sh*tty Bang Bang. Naturally, a good laugh was had by all.

What this person doesn't realize is that the one post communicates to the entire world exactly the type of language they tend to use around their child. After all, to come up with that, he would have had to have heard the words before, if not that two word phrase proceeding the Bang Bang.

If you watch children as they go about their world, you'll find all kinds of interesting facts about their parents that mom and dad never wanted out there. This is beyond just the words they use on an every day basis that they'd rather you not know about. Kids have really big mouths, and they'll tell anyone anywhere everything about everything they know if someone is willing to listen. If there are any secrets that you don't want divulged, you'd best not discuss it around the little ones.

How about that temper? Guess who will be the first to show the world how you react to stress? Give that little tyke something to frustrate him, and he'll demonstrate how well he's learned to deal with frustration by watching you. In fact, your kids want to be just like you. You are the template for their lives, and they see you as their model for how to live their lives. If you've ever wanted someone to idolize you and your every move, have children; they do this automatically...whether you like it or not.

Now, of course, children aren't mean or try to embarrass you on purpose. They don't learn that until later. In reality, they only want to make mom and dad happy with them. I recall getting onto one of mine for taking off across a parking lot once. She wasn't trying to be bad or run off. She saw the basket corral and wanted to help by getting a basket. I had to explain that as sweet as that was, she can't just take off running across a parking lot because it's dangerous.

Anyway, the point is that having children basically opens your house to everyone in the world who interacts with your kids. At some point they'll go to school, and since the school age is dropping to four (the Queen teaches four year olds in a public school now), that means their mouth control with strangers (and teachers who they also trust and idolize) is going to be that much less.

Sit back and think about everything you've ever done and said in front of your child. Now, realize that your little angel is going to tell every single person they come into contact with all of that variously at one time or another during their first few years in school before they've learned that they really shouldn't. Their teachers will get to know every sordid detail as the child just babbles on about your insecurities, embarrassments, description of what you look like naked if they've ever caught you with your pants down, problems, triumphs, imperfections, and every word your mouth has ever uttered in their presence. Oh yes, and if you have any foul opinions of the school or their teachers, take care not to say any of that in front of the children because their teachers will find that out too.

Let's face it. Kids are the spies the government has been dreaming of. Sleep tight.