Cuyler Page wrote:
> Your wonderful kids chaos learning theory is right up there beside 
> Toffler's "Future Shock".   I am saving it for a Children's Museum 
> planning discussion.
LOL... another theory was to leave the vast collection of books in the 
house pretty much in disorder on the idea that whenever he went to look 
for a book he would find something else to read. This was pre-internet. 
The result is that he himself keeps a very small collection of books 
that he reads over and over. Recently he has been encouraging me to sell 
off the collection on eBay as we both know that he does not want it. If 
I want him to read a book then I give it to his wife and she reads it. 
He has pretty good vocabulary but that mostly comes from the spoken 
environment.

There was also the theory that he would learn more in the neighbor's 
house than our house. That one had extremely positive results.
> As to radiation, the stuff that came over Ithaca was publicly tracked 
> all the way from the ground level tests in Nevada.
I assume I was too young to have that memory or knowledge. It was only 
after 9/11 and my interest in Chernobyl that I became aware of it.
> reporters and environmentalists today.   I suppose it all went down 
> the Great Lakes sewer.
Long as it did not go down Buffalo Creek.
> No one at the gathering knew what that was, and when he talked about 
> salmon and habitat, it all seemed very weird and terribly esoteric. 
I read Rachel Carson's books when they were new. It never occurred to me 
that environment was not important to worry about. I remember being at 
gatherings and talking about the future increased importance of 
environmental concerns and people... as seems to be happening a whole 
lot these last few months... acted like they had no clue what I was 
talking about.

No names to be mentioned: I just got off with a rather complicated phone 
discussion over a rather touchy situation  as a potential risk to the 
public insofar as a one paragraph statement to the owner's rep that if 
there is bad weather that they may consider to shut off the area to 
public access or at the least put up a sign to warn the public. The 
person who I reviewed the paragraph with prior to distribution asked me 
enough questions that I told them I would get it edited by someone else 
more competent than I if need be. I have a cold and other things going 
on that make clear thinking difficult. They said no need to edit, just 
that they did not understand. My response, if you do not understand then 
how can we expect the folks we are sending it to that they will 
understand? Then it occurred to me and I said, "We are not obligated to 
express ourselves in a clear manner that anyone can understand. They are 
obligated to get our message and for them to figure out what we meant by 
it. If it does not make perfect sense then it is their problem."

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