Making an Arguement for Misspelling

Dear Laura Fitzpatrick,

I appreciate your article about Ken Smith, senior lecturer in criminology at Bucks New University, in Buckinghamshire, England, who finds so many spelling mistakes in his students' work that he proposes that several misspellings simply be accepted as variants. However, you may have missed a larger issue: Based on the picture accompanying your article, I think Mr. Smith's students are simply too young for university--let alone old enough to study criminology. These students haven't even learned cursive yet.

I think we push students far too hard nowadays. Really, now! At what age would we expect a budding criminologist to know how to spell "accidentally" or look it up in a dictionary? Not enough attention has been paid to the physiological effects on young arms being asked to open heavy boring books before they are ready--merely to find out how a word is spelled!?

Jack Bovill, chairman of the British-based Spelling Society, is certainly correct in saying that people who have trouble with spelling are punished when it comes to applying for jobs or even filling out forms. At a time like this we can hardly afford to see such people waste valuable education time learning how to put letters into arbitrary rows when there are so many bigger ideas to be learned about! I’d feel a lot better knowing that my physiologist concentrated on *physiology* rather than worry about not spelling it “fizzyollogee”! And what is this business with filling out forms, anyway! Is it just me or do we fill out way too many forms? What do they do with these forms? Where is the British-based Forms Society when you need them?

Libby's! Libby's! Libby's!

After some nagging, I am relenting and putting up a blog post again. It’s not as if I haven’t had anything to say. I’ve been working seven days a week for the past 5 weeks and I am *really crabby*. And I have rants galore about store clerks, perps being chased by police, the network at my job, and so-called Communists in China that I just haven’t had time to commit to cyberspace. Perhaps if I had been exiled at the beach, I’d have had time to write about all this. Instead I will take a moment to note an absurdity that took place today (one of oh so many).

The Court of Appeals in Washington has upheld the dismissal of Valarie Plame’s lawsuit against Vice President Cheney et al. for destroying her career. As you probably know, it is not illegal for a journalist to reveal the identity of a spy and put her and her contacts at risk and destroy her career and perhaps put you and me as citizens of this country at more risk than we would otherwise face. Revealing the identities of those who have been trained at taxpayers' expense and who put their lives on the line protecting this nation and, indeed, defend the world from grave danger is what patriotic journalists are supposed to do and that is why we admire them so much.

It is, however, illegal for a U.S. government official to reveal the name of a U.S. spy (thus one of the bases for the lawsuit against Vice President Cheney et al.). In the original dismissal of Plame’s suit the judge said, essentially, that Vice President Cheney et al.’s desire for revenge against her was understandable. The latest dismissal upheld that decision, saying that even though revealing Plame’s identity might be illegal, it is within the scope of, say, Vice President Cheney’s official duties. Or Vice President Père Ubu or whatever his name is. Appeals Court Chief Judge David Sentelle wrote in his opinion, "The conduct, then, was in the defendants' scope of employment regardless of whether it was unlawful or contrary to the national security of the United States." Well, who can argue with that?

Now, I’m not a lawyer, and I’m sure Judge David Sentelle writes fantastic opinions every day. In fact, I am just too lazy to read through this thing, which in all likelihood I am incapable of understanding anyway. What I don’t get is why Cheney's top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. Wasn’t that within Libby’s scope of employment regardless of whether it was unlawful or contrary to the national security of the United States in his important work for Vice President Ubu Enchaîné?