The following editorial appeared in last week's edition of the St. Louis Review:
Tests of speed may be the oldest and most durable of human competitions. Some, like running, must be as old as two cave boys racing to see who gets the bigger piece of mammoth pie. Others couldn't even be imagined until modern technology invaded our brain patterns.
Part of this summer's news is the speed texting contest being held by one of our cellular phone companies. For those of us who think a phone is only a tool for talking at long distance, this will be, as they say, a wake-up call. The cell phone has become a pocket computer with a tiny keyboard. Our children have become amazingly adept at thumbing those keys with a new shorthand language.
Some of their symbols can be figured out fairly quickly, like CUL8R (that's "see you later" for the slow among us). But you might not catch the meaning of PRL, and that's all right because you're not supposed to. It means "parents are listening." Obviously, much of this stuff is done surreptitiously, under the noses of parents, teachers and even friends in the same room who could spoil the game of the moment if they knew what flirting was under way.
The girls might be surprised to know that one of their abbreviations, SWAK, could have been used by their grandmothers 50 years ago, though it would have been printed on the back of an envelope sent to the boy with whom they hoped to have an LTR ("long-term relationship").
Continue reading this editorial on the Review website »
During October, which is Respect Life Month, the RLA hosts its annual Respect Life Convention. The purpose of the Convention is to provide a forum for Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Louis to gather and listen to informative and motivational speakers discuss the dignity and sanctity of human life and the latest efforts to build a Culture of Life.
