Sometimes what you knew turned out to be not true.
All this bowing down to children and asking them to please tell us what our public policies should be, reminds me of how wise we all were when I was in fifth grade.
Out on the playground, which was our grove of Academe, we liked to discuss weighty topics with one another: the more philosophically abstruse, the better. We especially liked scientific subjects.
One of the topics we discussed at great length went like this: “Ya know, every time they talk about shooting a rocket to the moon, these two dubular clouds appear on Mars…”
Dubular? What does that mean? Well, nobody asked! Each of us took it for granted that everybody else knew exactly what it meant. I didn’t know, but that didn’t stop me from repeating that baloney. It got so I didn’t have to know what it meant! Just saying it made us sound so wise.
If only adults had listened to us, back then! Obviously they had no appreciation for our childly wisdom.
But that seems to be changing fast.
Keep your eyes peeled for dubular clouds on Mars.
From November 2019
