European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 17, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 18 the stars and stripes monday March 17, 1986 heading off into Boring horizons by Russell Baker i was not among those who shouted of boy when president Reagan endorsed a flying machine to get people from the East coast to Japan in two hours. There is some thing Dull about places that Are just two hours away and i can t believe Japan will be an exception. Remember journeys you be made to places that were two hours away they were pretty disappointing weren t they it is hard to explain but there is something about being just two hours away that makes a place feel hum drum. Yet people who Are forever congratulating themselves on living in an age when places that were once unreachable except by remarkable Effort Are now just two hours away. I suspect president Reagan is one of these Progress eccentrics. Otherwise he surely would t have used his state of the Union address to announce support for this two hours to Tokyo vehicle which is bound to be stupendously expensive. For the last five years he has tried to wipe out the Amtrak Railroad passenger system because he complains it costs the government a lot of Money. So Why does he endorse an air passenger system that would be the father and Mother of government subsidized travel you can Only suspect he really believes there is some thing wonderful about turning wonderful places like Japan into places that Are Only two hours away and hence Bor ing. Presidents can probably be forgiven for this. A Nasty thing about being president is that you can never escape the latest technology. The president is dogged Day and night by the Button bearer with his reminder of the doomsday capability with which technology has afflicted residents. As for travel it is forbidden to presidents. They Are doomed always to be transported by the newest technology. The newer it is the More tightly it seals presidents into secure containers until they can hardly be said to be trav Eling at All except in the sense that canned Salmon May be said to travel in route to the supermarket. It is not too surprising then that president Reagan might Welcome having Japan moved As close to him As Philadelphia. Those of us who Aren t prisoners of technology Are naturally less enthusiastic. Because we can travel via antique technology we have cultivated a decent sense of How far apart various places ought to be. England for example should be five or six Days away Italy seven or eight. Regrettably Progress has made it almost impossible to get from the East coast to either place in longer than a single miserably sleepless night. As a result we Are now rearing an entire generation that suffers from the suspicion that England and Italy Are tiresome. You can t blame them. Any place that is Only one miserable night away is bound to strike you after the first few trips As a place you can Well do without. If England and Italy were reduced to places just two hours away would any american bother to go anymore of sure a few Are always willing to make the two hour trips. There Are new yorkers who go to Stonington conn., and washingtonians who go to Richmond. But they Don t come Back bursting with excitement and just dying to Tell you All about their trips do they As a matter of fact since England and Italy were moved into single night Range people going there Don t exactly comeback bubbling either. I am one of the sissified romantics who wishes Europe was still about a week away. I Don t go All the Way with Miniver Chevy and Pine for the time when it took months to get there. I Don t want to feel like Marco Polo i just want to feel that i have travelled a Little. When a single miserably sleepless night is All it takes to reach lands you have dreamed about in childhood you cannot feel travelled you can Only feel transported like just another president in a can. I have never been to Japan but i want to go sometime once my japanese is Good enough so i can eavesdrop on conversations and Tell the waiter to take the Martini Back because it in t dry enough. The Japan i want to go to is about three weeks away. It lies a five Day train trip across the United states plus a three Day trip around san Francisco to get myself adjusted to the Pacific culture and then a two week trip by Ocean liner Westward. I imagine i d be a Little tired of the sea by that time and ready to be absolutely delighted by Japan the conversations on which i d eavesdrop and the dryness of the Marti Nis after the waiters take them Back and have them re paired. If Japan is going to become just two hours away you can keep it. I have already spent a weekend in Gettysburg thanks. C new York times misspelled words a gnat in the Eye by James Kilpatrick not Long ago a letter came in from a Young woman in Wisconsin. It was a charming letter implying a Nice per son behind it. She identified herself As an aspiring writer who wanted to supplement her income by Selling Short stories. She submitted two or three samples. The stories reflected some raw Talent but i had trouble getting through them. I kept stumbling. Every time i caught her train of thought i lost it because of misspelling. She had neice for Niece and Loose for lose " when she meant its she wrote it she gave us a Wiff of smoke a heart that beat she mis spelled Methuselah disintegration and a few Days after i heard from the woman in Wisconsin a letter came from a woman who writes a column for a Small paper in Oregon. She sent samples. Good stuff but i tripped Over tonsillitis and a Little Book came in from a writer in Rome . I started to read his foreword and in the third line came to i did t get much further. Am i being Picky hypercritical i Don t think so. Any one who intends to write for publication has to understand that spelling is important. No editor of my acquaintance is going to linger Long Over a submission flawed by misspellings. True they May reflect no More than careless typing and poor cop Reading. The writer knows better but so what the offensive word leaps off the Page and lands like gnat in the editor s Eye. I have a melancholy notion that the Art of spelling is in decline. An and for Nabisco cookies spells it in the Hays kan., daily news an advertiser seeks a responsible individual with Good communication skills and re pore with in Alabama a Hurricane leaves downed Power lines and Debree along the Beach Boule a writer for the Tri Valley Herald in California reports on a very agg regious flagrant misuse of in the Brave new world of the 21st Century every Type writer and word processor doubtless will have a built in speller. I just acquired a marvelous piece of software called word perfect. Given the right combination of com mands the contraption glides through a piece of copy until it flags a misspelled word. Alert these devices work wonderfully Well until they zip past a homophone fourth where Forth was intended or Rem for testing the machine i spelled from As the computer could t catch it. Despite these drawbacks such mechanical aids eventually could prove a great help in keeping gnats out of editors eyes and speaking As an aging onetime editor i can Tell you that just bound to be Good. C Universal press i m afraid you Llave. To excuse frn. I have an other ehgag5 Witt. \ 3-n my Man wats Okay. 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