Monday morning roundup and announcement

Turkey has reached capacity in terms of Syrian refugees. 

Egypt is facing a garbage crisis.

The world--or at least the country--could use more great writing teachers. I've taken very little formal instruction in writing, and any that I've taken has been specific (writing in a given language, writing a certain kind of product) and so has assumed a basic level of writing skill. I agree with the "rules" discussed in that article: revision is key, write to express rather than impress; but I come across a more fundamental issue in a lot of writing I see: lack of clarity. I must have developed a sensitivity for clarity in taking foreign language classes, where there's an emphasis on agreement, but this sensitivity is lacking even among many educated people. I very often see sentences where there's a mismatch between the stated and intended subject, or object, and the verb. Put less technically: a lot of writers don't put enough care in making sure the reader has no doubt about what the writer means.

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Over the weekend, a friend said she wasn't doing any food shopping over the weekend since she would leave town for the following weekend. "I shop at the Farmer's Market; that food is to expensive to risk wasting." If only that were the case with food in general. I believe that food should be generally affordable, but it should also be valuable enough that we're wary of wasting it. Even I--who is very wary of wasting food--sometimes find myself throwing things out. I hate to do it, but it happens. But I get the sense that many people find food a whole lot more disposable.

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Guess what? In anticipation of my upcoming visit to my parents' house, I have joined Twitter. I will continue to avail myself of these pages to share actual conversations, but I'll take to Twitter (@youputonweight) for--you guessed it--Mom's one-off observations that I've gained weight. And, I suppose, Mom's one-off observations in general.