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The Citizen, 2013-06-27, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 2013. PAGE 5. Peter Gzowski, the late CBC radio star, had the smallest one I’ve ever seen – looked like an inchworm with hiccups. John Hancock’s, on the other hand, was colossal. And magnificent. He laid it right across the bottom of the parchment of the American Declaration of Independence and declared “There. I guess King George will be able to see that.” Calm yourself, madame – it’s signatures we’re talking about here. Signatures are an ancient and rather old-fashioned method of personal identification. We use our signatures to validate our driver’s licences, personal cheques, leases, wedding vows, speeding tickets, petitions, hotel registries...the list goes on. The irony is, our signatures are often unreadable. Gzowski’s, as I mentioned was a nondescript squiggle, unrelated, as far as I could see, to any letter in the alphabet. Mine isn’t much better – a touch more flamboyant but illegible to the uninitiated. But much, much better than Jack Lew’s. Mister Lew is the newly-appointed U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and his signature has made him the butt of jokes on late-night TV shows. It’s just a series of joined circles – seven or eight of them. It looks like the famous Olympics logo run amok. President Obama said (with a wink) that he’d had second thoughts about the appointment, seeing that the Secretary’s signature will appear on U.S. currency. Jack Lew has promised to ‘work on it’. Maybe he won’t have to. It seems that signatures are passé. In fact, it seems that handwriting is almost passé too. A recent British survey shows that one in every three children struggles with cursive writing and one in five slips into ‘texting’ language when they do put pen or pencil to paper. And they can’t depend on guidance from their parents. Twenty per cent of the parents contacted in the same survey admitted they hadn’t written a single letter by hand in the past year. We can’t expect much help from the educational system either. Down in the U.S., the National Governors Association has decreed new standards for the school curriculum and it’s all about computers. The association calls for proficiency in keyboarding by Grade 4. What are they going to drop to achieve that? Elementary, my dear Watson – handwriting. Right now, American kids receive 15 minutes of handwriting instruction per day. That’s down from 30 - 45 minutes for the previous generation. Next stop: zero. Supporters say about time. They point out that retina scans and computer fingerprinting are already replacing signatures, so who needs signatures? And my signature? It’s still illegible but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. The other day I was signing a receipt for a credit card purchase when the clerk pointed out that the signature slot on my card was blank. I’d forgotten to sign it. “I’m afraid I can’t let you buy this sir,” said the clerk. I asked why. Because, he said, the signature on my receipt had to match the signature on the card. I took the card and signed it. The clerk took it back and carefully compared it to the signature on the receipt. Lucky for me they matched. Arthur Black Other Views Sign here, and make it look good Last week I wrote about the unwritten rules of baseball, of which there are many. Its unwritten laws, both in sport and in life, that help humans to adequately function in the world. So what then is one to do when common social expectations of a friend allegedly fall short? This is the question that has sparked a firestorm of debate all over Ontario, both on the internet and on the radio airwaves when The Hamilton Spectator published a story about a gift basket gone wrong. It seems that with this story, the topic of appropriate wedding gifts has joined abortion, religion and political leanings as things you don’t talk about with friends if you want to remain friends. The story starts with Kathy Mason and her boyfriend, who attended the lesbian wedding of Laura (we don’t know her last name) and her girlfriend. Kathy classifies herself as a “casual acquaintance” of the couple and in thanks for what she said was a good time at the wedding, she gifted the couple a basket full of fancy pastas, salsas, olive oils, croutons, biscuits, etc. with a few fun (as described by Kathy’s boyfriend) components such as candy. After a brief text message exchange regarding a gluten intolerance, Laura sent Kathy a message stating that most guests gift “envelopes”, adding that the couple “lost out on $200 covering [the pair’s] plate” by receiving the gift basket. What followed was a nasty exchange between the two where the bride called names and even demanded a receipt for the basket. This has opened a debate, which has proven quite nasty itself, between those who have certain expectations from their wedding guests and those who feel a gift is a kind gesture on a special occasion, not some sort of cost- matching social agreement. I think most of us can agree that the gift basket featuring, among other things, Jolly Ranchers, Fluff and Sour Patch Kids likely isn’t the most lavish gift ever given, but the givers’ hearts were in the right place. I find myself in the latter column of the debate. I have been to plenty of weddings I didn’t want to go to. Some have turned out to be better than I expected and there have been others I’d rather smash my face through a plate glass window than relive. My point there is that when a couple gets married it’s not always the ever-magnanimous action of inviting people to their wedding they think it is. Sure, they’re going to have a great day, but sometimes it’s a really great day to golf or one of your favourite bands is playing a concert somewhere. But you go, because it’s the nice thing to do. So to be judged for your gift on top of it is insanity. Later in the exchange the bride makes the point that “weddings are to make money for your future.” No, they’re not lady. A wedding is a celebration of a couple’s love and commitment to one another often followed by a reception, thanking the guests for taking the time to share in the couple’s special day. Louise Fox, an etiquette coach, was interviewed for the story, stating that the couple should have accepted the basket, given it away, perhaps to a needy family or a food bank, if they couldn’t use it and thanked the givers, with a focus on the thought behind the gift, if they were unhappy with the gift itself. So if you’re a defective human being who agrees with the bride here, when you get married, instead of hiring a wedding planner, here’s a company to look into: Ticketmaster. Calculate a sufficient profit margin and sell tickets to your heinous wedding, because hey, isn’t that what tying the knot is all about? (Gift) basket case Shawn Loughlin Shawn’s Sense As I sat at North Huron’s recent council meeting, I couldn’t help but feel a slight twinge of disappointment as a promotional video and new website for the township were unveiled to the public. The two items, which were budgeted at $4,200 and $2,500 respectively, were anything but inexpensive but the final products were less than what I was hoping to see. I suppose, that to validate my claims, some background information is needed. I went to school for Communication Studies and Contemporary Studies. I was encouraged by other journalists to try and follow a path like that because, as they said, I could then move on when I wanted to. My communication studies classes covered a lot of things from history to future predictions and, as there was some choice in the matter, I focused on print and digital communication. Looking at the two ends of the spectrum, the old and the new, certainly opened my eyes to a lot of interesting facts, that, however, is a story for another day. I did learn about websites, about video and about what works and what doesn’t work. When I graduated I could have pursued a career in communications and worked extensively on both video and digital brand presentation, but that isn’t my passion. Journalism is. (For interest’s sake, Contemporary Studies is a potpourri of subjects. It focuses on, among other things, psychology and history and provides a good general knowledge base that pairs well with other degrees.) However, passion or not, I have the training to know what works when it comes to a video or to a website and what I saw at council last week doesn’t work. I’ve talked to others and they agree, the site and the video are garbage. The website is an improvement but, for $2,500, it’s not enough of an improvement. I won’t talk about the colour because, being partially colour-blind, I’m likely the last person who should be doing that. I will comment on the clutter, however. Clutter works for some websites. A municipality’s website, however, can’t have that clutter. Some more utilitarian sites can afford clutter. A municipality’s website needs to be more than utilitarin though. It is not something that people need to accomplish work, especially in such a small community. For residents, there is nothing on that website that can’t be done with a simple phone call to the municipal office. For people looking to invest, the website needs to be simple, elegant and engaging otherwise they won’t look twice at North Huron. The website isn’t optimized for common screen resolutions. The best example I can give of this is that during the presentation, the screen was too small to properly display all the links, causing what should have been a concise menu to overlap itself and attempt to attach to two lines. The city of Toronto’s website is a good example of an efficient site. It is elegant and functional and viewable on all screens. The only issue it has, in my opinion, is one that North Huron faces as well: There is no phone number listed on the front page of the site. Contact information shouldn’t be a click away, it should be on the front page. The constantly revolving pictures behind active menus are distracting at best and, depending on the content of the picture, detrimental to the visibility the foreground menu at worst. The site is also nearly unusable on a mobile device, which should be a first and foremost concern for any municipality that needs to attract young professionals. So, the website is a flop. The video, which seemed to be well received by council, but criticized by nearly every other person I’ve heard talk about it, makes some of the work I did in my Grade 12 technology classes look like Hollywood-level cinematography. The film has angled shots that make signs hard to read, more recycled content than a brown paper bag, a soundtrack that makes Muzak sound good, poorly-lit and poorly-cut interviews, a completely jarring lack of transitions and it looks like it was shot with an old hand-held camera before vibration reduction became the norm. The interviews are hard to follow and punctuated with ‘ahhhs’ and ‘uhmmms’, two things that shouldn’t happen in a controlled environment. The video touches on attracting young professionals, but there isn’t a single one interviewed. It also completely misses one of the great things about North Huron – the people. There are shots (sped up like some ridiculous high school film project to give you the notion of time passing) where people are walking across roads and traffic is flying by but there is nothing showing people. There are shots of local spots like outdoor water features and nature areas but there aren’t people there. There are no shots of sports, of people enjoying the Greenway or the Munro Garden. Huron East also had a similar video made and, while it is better than the North Huron one, focusing on the people instead of abstract, zoomed in shots of sprinkler heads, it still isn’t worth the $4,200 North Huron paid. I guess what really frustrates me as a ratepayer is that, for $4,200, I could have bought all new camera equipment, shot the video in a more effective manner and probably still had a couple of thousand dollars left over by the end of the process. It is also especially troublesome that there are local companies, more local than, say, Atomic North who developed the website and is based out of London and Mississauga, that likely could have done just as good a job or better with the same amount of money. As a ratepayer, I’m disappointed. As someone who knows a thing or two about websites and videos, I think it’s safe to say the township and its population didn’t get its money’s worth here. Denny Scott Denny’s Den The long-awaited digital disappointment