There ought to be a law

Some time back, only one phone company operated in the United States. Law makers decided it had grown too big, broke it apart and made room for competition. This was bad for the environment.

With only one phone company, there was only one phone book publisher. Over recent weeks, I’ve received phone books from at least three publishers. Most of these have gone straight from my doorstep into recycle bins. I didn’t even crack the covers.

Thanks to the internet, I rarely look at a phone book anymore. I’ll bet I’m not alone. Think of all the trees that have died in order to supply paper pulp to manufacture books people don’t use.

Wouldn’t it be better if phone book publishers were required to ask consumers if they want their books instead of assuming that they do. This would save countless trees and prevent much of the pollution of streams that results from paper manufacturing.

There ought to be a law. There really should.

In a reading groove

I’m enjoying reading Jack Vance’s “Lyonesse” trilogy even more than I did the first time I read it. Midway through however, I decided to take a Vance hiatus. While visiting the library with my daughters, I noticed that a new book had been added to a series I’d begun reading years before. I remembered the author. I remembered the character. I’d forgotten the writing style.

I brought the book home. Now, I can’t put it down. That’s because I want it out of my hands and back in those of the librarian’s. But, first I want to know how it ends.

It’s a struggle to finish because it’s so very badly written. Did the author always write this badly, I wonder. Did he change, or was it me? I’ve already added him to my short list of best-selling authors whom I can’t stand reading.

It’s probably not all his fault. In my formative years, I watched cartoons all Saturday morning. One day in my teens, I asked myself why I wasted Saturday mornings on such moronic fare. On that day, I stopped watching cartoons. Sometime later, I stopped watching situation comedies.

Apparently time changes tastes. Authors I once enjoyed, I won’t read today. In this case, the author tells his story in plain and simple language. His writing lacks style and bores me. Vance has style. His language is elegant, yet pithy. With Vance, it’s not so much about what’s going to happen next, it’s about how he’ll describe it.

When I first picked up a Vance in a Hong Kong bookstore, I assumed he was British. He’s not, but he knows his English. Yet his elegance is fresh, not archaic. Other authors, born in 1916, use styles that are dated. Vance has moved with his times, and yet his writing moves beyond his times.

I wish I wrote like that.

Learning a Living

Learning a Living: a guide to planning your career and finding a job for people with learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, and dyslexia
Dale S. Brown
Nonfiction 342 pages
Woodbine House, Inc. 2000

Many books have been written about career planning and job hunting. This one’s a little different. While it offers all the usual stuff found in books of its type, it also offers useful information for people with learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder (ADD), and dyslexia.

People who don’t swim in the mainstream while learning can be victimized by misconceptions held by others and themselves. This book aims at dispelling some of these misconceptions and takes a realistic look at learning disabilities and difficulties.

Because learning disabilities, ADD and dyslexia manifest themselves in a variety of forms, no one career planning approach fits all. The author addresses questions like:

• How does a learning disabled person identify his strengths and weaknesses?
• How does he know when he is being objective, instead of influenced by his own bias or that of others?
• How can a weakness be turned into a strength?
• In what jobs are those strengths assets?
• How can weaknesses be compensated for?

He also considers the relationship between the job market, the individual and the law. For example, when is it advisable to inform an employer of a handicap and when is it best not to do so? What protections are offered under the Americans with Disabilities Act and what does the act not cover? What constitutes reasonable accommodation? When can an employer refuse accommodation due to undue hardship?

Sometimes asking the right questions is more useful than knowing readymade answers. This book teaches people with, and without, disabilities how to ask good career planning questions.