This story (page 1 of Friday’s WSJ) takes the cake.  And it’s the last line that sums up why I’m frustrated by it:

We just want to make it [English] a little easier to spell.

Changing the spelling of words to be phonetically exacting is just wrong.  That way, you don’t have to know to spell “there”, “their”, or “they’re” correctly.  It would be “thair”.

It’s bad enough that many children would love a life sitting in front of video games all day without a care in the world, without a stitch of work to do, without any effort.

But it is fundamentally aggravating to see fully grown adults attempting to march the children down into that pit.

It’s not just the spelling issue itself, it’s the mindset it is promoting.  Always looking for ways to make everything in life easier.  We’re a society that wants to just sit on our collective backsides and do absolutely nothing.

Better not to have to work.

Better not to have to figure something out.

Better not to have to memorize anything.

Better not to have to think.

One wonders why bother with reforming the language… better not to have to read.

Our mindset is substantially different from the world Jack Kennedy tried to promote.

Learning, exercise, hard work, advanced study and skill development for broader groups of students.  A race to stay ahead of those that seek to overwhelm our society (at that time, Communists), and to ensure our country is the greatest in the world.

But we’re just too lazy.  And this is just one more way to make it easier for the terrorists to win.