You’d have to be thinking about the broader picture, about the fact that the president of the United States ought not to be a drooling yahoo whose two favorite Supreme Court cases are Roe v. Wade and Roe v. Wade and who thinks living near Canada counts as foreign policy experience, to not see what an asshole Katie Couric was being. And that other reality, the reality where one worries about a national political candidate having the brains of an innertube, is less immediate than the five-foot airspace radius around the Palin bobblehead. It’s harder for the average person to connect with, I guess.
Stupid people are stupid. Unfortunately, that unifying characteristic isn't enough to hold the 9/12-Tea-Party-Sissy-Boy-Slap-Fight-USA-USA Party together. Eli at FDL:
Look, if you throw a bunch of Tasmanian devils into a sack, they’re probably not going to be discussing cooperative escape strategies.
Military commanders will differ on whether it is more advantageous to be on the defense or the attack. I prefer to be on the attack.
And so I was distressed to find myself surprised by the first real salvo of the Xmas War season: the Holiday Music Channel. I went to my folks' house to play cards with my grandma today and before I knew it, I was trapped directly in the withering line of fire that was a cable channel totally dedicated to firing the musical munitions of this most unholy of time periods.
To make matters worse, I wasn't in a position to retaliate. With the exception of my dog, who was outside fighting with his imaginary rodents (don't ask,) all of my family members are hardened members of the Xmas Cavalry. In other words, I was outnumbered. I couldn't even turn the damn TV down.
And so, Xmas, the first battle goes to you. But I warn you, the next time we meet, I will be ready. Bring your best. If you don't, I'll make the Grinch look like the Lorax. I won't just steal you, I'll knock you out, stuff you in a gunny sack, beat you with a heavy rubber hose and throw you into a rain barrel head first.
And there won't be any Cindy-Lou Whos around to save you.
I dropped the disciplinary hammer a little hard on Monday and I felt a little guilty about it all night, but today, all was quiet. I had attentive, almost polite, students. It's so hard to be good when the bad things work as well, if not better.
And it's about damn time a good Christian reminded us of this important tenant of The Faith. For far too long, cannibalism has been demonized by the Jew-run-liburl-meedya. After all,
"If God didn't want us to eat [people], he wouldn't have made them out of meat."
Despite the fact that other teachers insist that my students are not capable of doing homework I will continue to assign it. I'm not going to be responsible for passing the fail on to another teacher. If you can't do homework, GTFO of academia.
[T]he Valley Club, the small, sleepy Huntingdon Valley community pool that was thrust into the national spotlight this past summer, allegedly for discriminating against minority campers who'd signed up to swim there for 90 minutes each week.
Yesterday, Valley president John Duesler announced that the club's board of directors had voted 5-1 to file this week for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
It has occurred to me that, in my work-related posts, I sound like an old, cranky codger. I really don't know what I can do about that except to stop writing about my job.
That's probably not going to happen. I need to write about my problems at work. It helps me to stay sane. I know the Wyzzyrd understands, at least. But here's a little backstory:
I grew up in rural communities (farming and logging towns, respectively) as a pastor's kid. Until I was in 4th grade I attended school at my church where the ultimate act of discipline was corporal punishment. From 4th grade through 7th grade I went to a "Christian" school, and it was only after tuition at that private school became restrictive that I went to the local public school (where I now teach.)
In high school I was a sickeningly good student. I was publicly kind and outgoing, I got good grades and I only earned one detention (and, actually, that was in 8th grade. I was sent up for throwing spitballs. How quaint.) My behavior, however, was not due to any fear of punishment (ok, I was a little afraid of my dad.) Rather, I was a good kid because I understood that I wasn't the only fucking human on the planet. I also had a basic understanding that very few people were under any obligation to do anything for me, so I tried to put myself in a position where people would want to be on my side. In the most cynical sense, being a good boy was a survival skill.
Of course, after I left town and went to college, I tried a different strategy (being a dick.) It failed miserably. But, hey, at least I gave it a shot.
But I think this little history helps explain why I'm having such a hard time simply observing, much less dealing with, the never-ending parade of budding sociopaths, narcissists, bigots, rebel poseurs and standard-grade assholes that files through my room every day. On one hand, as a human with a rapidly degrading sense of humor, I am just generally offended by the overall rudeness of it all. I admit it, I'm a green teacher. I haven't developed a leathery hide and a steely cold temper. On the other hand, I will readily admit my resentment at the fact that the respect that I gave to my school and my teachers, respect that I gave freely without asking for it to be earned (an arguably foolish act, perhaps,) is not being returned in the slightest. In other words, I'm pissed because I paid my dues, and now I'm expected to give everyone a free pass.
And, yes, I do mean that I am expected to roll over and take it. Over the course of this week I have heard and used the phrase "pick your/my battles " over a dozen times, usually in the context of allowing/ignoring a "minor" incident of anti-social behavior or poor academic performance in order to save one's strength for dealing with "major" incidents that will inevitably arise. Essentially, I have been encouraged by other staff members and by members of the administration to let shit slide until It gets too heavy. Then, I suppose, I'm supposed to spring like a fucking puma and assert my authoritah.
Right.
I'm sure you can see the flaw in this plan, and you can be sure that my students do too. And so every day is a constant mind-numbing and soul-dulling exercise of disciplinary tug-of-war. The students-who-constantly-and-destructively-demand-attention pull the rope too see how much slack they have, and after it plays out, I pull back. Every day. Over and over. They know that I have to pick my battles and they are willing to bet that on any given day I won't pick theirs. Another metaphor? Ok: It's a daily 9 hour game of whack-a-mole, but the moles all pop up at once, and each time they emerge, they giggle that you will be dying far sooner than they will.
What adds to this frustration is that there are a large handful of good, friendly and smart students at my school, but they rarely get the attention that they deserve because our woefully understaffed school is constantly dealing with discipline issues (In the space of 1 hour, yesterday, I perused a soon-to-be expelled student's knife collection [complete with a list of students marked for death] right before another student literally broke his crutches as he used them to bludgeon another student as they waited to board the bus.)
And because I do sincerely care about educating the people who want to be educated, this makes me very sad.
Anyway, that's where I'm at when I rant about assholes or other members of those damn kids today. I want to be their advocates. I want to help them help themselves, but 9 times out of ten, after I cast my pearls, I am swiftly rended.
Well, it's been a while since I checked the stats on my new location counter:
Hey! WTF, Russia?! You too, China. Martinique is down with the POP, Canada is a big fan, even Switzerland. So...what's the deal? Are you too good for the most awesome blog in the world? And don't tell me that you gave us a look last week. I don't see your IP address anywhere on this list. Frickin' Commies.
Yesterday, the Robot family went for a little visit to Mr. Robot's old library. That is to say, we visited the library to which I would go when I was a younger robot. It was an interesting experience for me so see yet another building that has shrunk in size since I was 10 years old.
The layout had been changed and there were a few more computers than there used to be, but the content was pretty much the same as it was 20 years ago: trashy mystery novels for the grown-ups, Hardy Boys and Nancy Drews for the tweeners and lots of picture books for the toddlers. It's not a very impressive library, but it never was.
I enjoyed the feeling of familiarity, though. It was like visiting an old friend...well, more like seeing an old acquaintance on the street.
I also discovered that, even though I moved back to my old home town 1.5 years ago, there are still lots of places around here that unlock untouched memories...and that's fascinating to me: what a piece of work is a brain that it can receive an image, a smell, a feeling, and hold it in some archive for decades only to release it again when some part of the subconscious brushes up against it and knocks it from the shelf. I walked through the door and it was as if I could see a 10 year-old Robot scanning the shelves for books that would seem "grown-up" to his peers. I could see him hiding in a corner, slouched in a green naugahyde chair, reading LOTR and trying to ignore an involuntary erection. I could see him at the counter trying to hide The Babysitters Club in his stack of books so that it would look like he was checking it out for someone else (I could hear him say: "It's for my sister.")
And I had never thought about those moments again until, 20 years later, I returned to the library with my wife and 2 year-old son...Amazing.
Also amazing: I couldn't remember where I put my keys last night.
When's the last time your brain opened up an old book? Where were you?
Copying a source word-for-word into your paper (without citation) is plagiarism even if you typed all of the words yourself as opposed to using CTRL+C/CTRL+V.
If you're going to ask someone if they would "suck dick" for answers to a quiz, ask them in a whisper on the other side of the classroom from the instructor instead of in a stage whisper 10 feet from the instructor.
Slamming open a door and proclaiming loudly that the room smells like ass and then using that observation to dovetail into making fun of the fat kid in the room is funny in precious few circumstances. This isn't one of them, Asshole.
Swastikas and Confederate flags are meaningless when you're surrounded by rednecks and various other ignorant racists. Why don't you quit acting like a coward and go wave your hate symbols around where people might actually notice and react to them. Go somewhere like NE Portland, Motherfucker.
Just stop telling stupid, transparent lies. I don't need to argue with you about whether or not you punched that kid. I saw you punch him. You saw me see you. Are actually a compulsive liar or are you just an asshole?
If you don't want to be here. Awesome. I don't want you to be here, either. I really could not give a shit if you are bored. Your boredom bores me. Get to fuck-all.
Just shut up. The kid playing the guitar is just trying to do something that isn't ugly and mean. Don't make fun of him right in front of him while he's playing. Go be a dick somewhere else.
And, in general, don't worry. You exist. Everyone knows that you're here in this room. I know that you think you might disappear if you are quiet and thoughtful, but you can rest assured that that is impossible. If it were possible, I would have bound you, gagged you and thrown you in a closet a long time ago.
"...[T]hey know how to text message their friends in gibberish, in some bastardized version of the English language that has been lured into a windowless van and fingered."
