On Second-Generation Illiteracy

I like reading.
There, I said it.
But not everyone does, as this article from GOOD magazine attests:

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http://www.goodmagazine.com/issue001/Silverblatt_on_books

And, "just 'cause", I searched out the text of the Enzenberger essay "In Praise of Illiteracy" - the site where I got the text says it was written in the mid-80s, but another site referred to its publication in the June, 2000 issue of Harper's magazine.

IN PRAISE OF ILLITERACY
by Hans Magnus Enzensberger

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Oh, those Germans....

TOp SEEkruT

I spent the latter half of Sunday in a creative frenzy, designing a new game. New type of game for me too: this one is kind of abstract but still has a compelling theme, partly (or should be, when required) a frustrating brain-burner too.

Rules half-written but completely conceptualized, counters made but not yet mounted. There is no map and there are no dice!

What could it be?

Here's a hint:

(no subject)

I wasn't gonna say anything but:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2006/09/25/guards-return.html

The Canadian Border Security Agency says it will take ten years to train and equip every officer with a sidearm. The first two years will cost $101 million (http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/agency/security-securite/questions-e.html).

Conspicuous by its absence is any reportage of the number of Canadian border guards who have been shot by desperadoes raging to hop the line into the Great White North. That's because there haven't been any: among the 730 names in the Canadian Police and Peace Officers Memorial Honour Roll, going back to 1804, there are only four entries for customs officers: one in 1980 (no one seems to know how he died, but a boardroom in the Customs Excise Union building is named after him) and three in 1994 (two drowned in a flood, and one was killed when a drunk driver hit her car).

I am not convinced this is a good idea, when I cross the border and look at the college students doing their summer term with CBSA, asking me about where I've been and do I have any cigarettes.

It kind of reminds me of the late 1980s when I was working in Ottawa, around Parliament Hill and the Governor-General's residence. The RCMP was tasked with a lot of public security duties and as usual was very short-staffed. So, they hired 3-400 "Special Constables" who mostly did airport security, VIP security, and institutional security at Parliament Hill and the residences of the Prime Minister and G-G.

They all had sidearms and many of them were armed with the Heckler and Koch MP-5 9mm submachine gun, a short-barreled compact weapon then used by many SWAT and counter-terrorist units. These were taken away from them within two years, because of the many instances of SCs shooting themselves in the foot or leg with them!