Litter and Lit(t)eracy

“Litter gets on the tracks and catches fire and that causes train delays that make you late aside from making trains and stations untidy because a little litter goes a long way.”

That startling quotations, replete with errors that I devoutly wish were typos, is a complete, unedited and unsanitized public service announcement that was not long ago plastered pillar to post throughout the New York City transit system. Presented as friendly advice, the closest thing to a modern civics lesson, it asked the ridership, a cross-section of the folks in the greatest city in the greatest country on the face of the earth (blah blah) not to throw garbage on the rails, because even a small amount is messy, can catch fire and make you late to wherever you’re going.

That is what it states, but what is it really saying?  Is it saying that in order for a message to resonate with the general public it must reflect the kind of illiteracy that is the new literacy?

Two pernicious industries, advertising and entertainment, have used direct pitches and subliminal images to keep our youth mired in the new luxury of undisciplined thought and speech gone haywire.

The elitists of both political parties and “wings” luxuriate in the prospect of a semi-literate generation because the handicap of not being able to make a subject and verb agree will play right into the hands of the exploiters. It will create tens of millions of drones who will fall hook, line, and sinker for globalism and other tenets of modern American mythology.

A person who cannot express a complete thought properly will have no problem melding into society or even being a leader. So it may seem until it’s too late. That’s exactly what the billionaires want to protect their investments.

Let’s implant electronic tags with computerized grammatical advisories into the general population. Inject an identification chip into every inhabitant and program it with memory of the canons of English (or other language.) When real communication can no longer be averted, activate the technology.

Hey, just kidding. I should lighten up. Or maybe just stop riding trains.

Tagged: literacy, MTA

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