And now, a word from Plato about citizenship

“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

I’m pretty sure that Plato would have attended meetings of his local government bodies, or at least watched them as they streamed them over the Internet.

He was also way into Slashdot, but that’s a story for another day.

Workers of the world to unite

I heard this story on the Marketplace podcast and was impressed. Obviously, trade unions (and their members) have been on the losing side of a lot of the changes brought by globalization. But this is the first time I’ve heard of them proactively stepping up to respond.

But his union and others are trying to stop the slide into irrelevancy. They’re asking, if corporations aren’t constrained by national borders, why should unions be? IG Metall has signed agreements with Britain’s second-largest trade union, Amicus, and two American unions — the United Steelworkers and the Machinists.

The agreements call for more information sharing and collaboration. But the ultimate goal is much bigger. They want a transnational super union within a decade, which could have more than 7 million members. It could, for example, call for multinational strikes and keep companies from playing workers in different countries against one another.

Whatever you think of trade unions, it’s interesting watching how the world changes as “globalization” goes from being a catchphrase to simply a standard way of life.

Bypassing voicemail Hell

The next time you’re punching your way through a voicemail maze (or, worse yet to me, saying “yes,” “no” and “cold sore” to a patronizing computerized voice), check out Get Human to find the shortcut to talk to the human operators hiding in the shadows.

Tiger mauls boy at theme park

Here’s the AP’s take on it:

Father: Costumed ‘Tigger’ hit my son

ORLANDO, FL (AP) — “Tigger” may be in trouble. A Walt Disney World employee dressed as the cartoon character is accused of hitting a child while posing for a photo.

A spokeswoman says park officials have temporarily suspended the employee while they investigate the accusations. Authorities say Jerry Monaco of New Hampshire videotaped his son posing with Tigger at Disney-MGM Studios on Friday and recorded the confrontation.

A sheriff’s spokesman says the father claims the employee intentionally hit his son “on or about the head,” but that the tape “only shows a fraction of what happened.”

In 2004 a Walt Disney World employee dressed as Tigger was accused of touching the breast of a 13-year-old girl while she posed with him for a photo. A jury found the man not-guilty.

Is anyone really shocked that Tigger would be the bad boy of the Magic Kingdom?

PlainLanguage.gov

It’s a little surreal stumbling across this site, but if ever there was an organization that needed to make an effort to speak in normal English, it’d be the US government: PlainLanguage.gov. (Academia could probably use it as well, come to think of it.)

Many definitions of plain language exist. Fundamentally, when we write in plain language, we present information in a way that makes it as easy as possible for people to understand. All definitions emphasize the importance of audience, clarity, and comprehension.

It’s depressing that this kind of thing would even need to be spelled out for government employees, but having had to puzzle through more than a few government documents in my time, I can’t say it’s a big surprise.

We’re all busy people. We don’t want to waste a lot of time “translating” difficult, wordy documents. Plain-language writing saves our offices time. If we save time, we save money. It’s good customer service and reduces the burden you place on the public.

Plain language means your readers can understand your documents more quickly. Readers won’t call you so much for explanations. They make fewer errors filling out your forms. They comply more accurately and quickly with requirements. If your customers don’t understand your documents, you may have to:

• Answer phone calls
• Write explanatory letters
• Write an explanatory document
• Litigate

Though no one knows the total cost of poor communication, the information we do have suggests it’s high. While writing in plain language isn’t easy, it pays off in positive results.

Despite the somewhat surreal nature of a site that has to argue that it’s beneficial to talk like a human being, there’s some neat stuff on the site, including a fun bit on How to Write Good:

1. Always avoid alliteration.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague–they’re old hat.
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas.
8. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
9. Contractions aren’t necessary.
10. Do not use a foreign word when there is an adequate English quid pro quo.

(Source.)

A site worth checking out for anyone who communicates with the written word. And in the 21st century, that’s pretty much everyone in the Western world.