The signs in the Balducci’s proclaimed "Delicious for Chunaka". The problem? The products are various kinds of ham. According to the blogger who found and photographed these the signs have since been replaced with signs that say "Perfect for the Holidays".
Thanks to the No Child Left Behind law we have an educational environment here in North Carolina that is myopically focused on our students achieving good scores on standardized tests that are used to measure their academic performance. In our kids’ schools they literally have weeks dedicated specifically to preparing for the tests, with some time being spent on such intellectually stimulating tasks as test taking strategy.
Since the schools’ federal funding is put at risk if the students don’t achieve what is considered adequate academic progress there is a great deal of incentive for administrators and teachers to get the maximum number of kids to pass. In fact the book Freakonomics has a chapter that explores how some teachers in Chicago gamed the system (i.e. cheated) to make their students’ test results seem better than they actually were.
What amazes me is that no one has thought of inspiring the kids to succeed on their tests in the most typically American fashion: by paying them. Since each school district is looking at losing millions of dollars if they don’t get the students’ test grades up wouldn’t it behoove them to set aside a percentage for student incentives? Any parent who has watched their kids open their birthday cards before their presents, not out of politeness but because they want to see how many gift cards they’ve racked up, can tell you that cash is king with America’s youth. That’s why I think you could stoke the desire for "education" in the kids by merely promising them cash or a Target gift card if they achieve a certain level of success on the tests. The little kids would come cheap since their economic valuation system is based on the amount of candy the money represents. The middle schoolers and high schoolers are more jaded and quite frankly they’re a bunch of money-hungry ingrates, so I’m thinking that you’re probably looking at a hefty price to get them interested. That’s why I’m thinking you can give them a choice: cash or a special exemption on their drivers license that will lower the drinking age from 21 to 18. The next step would be to earmark for education all the taxes on alcohol sold to these kids which would make the proposal revenue-neutral, and would help get it approved by our conservative representatives. Those conservatives really don’t like anyone to have fun unless there’s money to be collected from it. That would give North Carolina a healthy chunk of education revenue from gambling (the "education" lottery) and booze.
Of course once this type of incentive system is established it will have to be continued indefinitely. Some folks in the UK discovered the hard way that when an incentive is offered to one graduating class, those that follow expect to get the same treatment. I don’t see a problem with that; I think we’d be paying cash to about 5% of our kids since the vast majority would opt for being able to drink the same year they could vote or be drafted.
There is one potential fly in the ointment: the teensy – weensy problem of losing federal highway funds by lowering the drinking age, but since we’re already billions in the hole and NCDOT is as dysfunctional as a Hollywood marriage I don’t think it would make things much worse. In fact I’d say we could split the earmarked taxes between the ed and transportation departments and both would come out ahead. In case you didn’t know teenagers tend to enjoy their beverages of choice.
Check out the image of the 1898 City Directory for Williamsburg, VA to the left (click on it to enlarge; Source College of William & Mary). You’ll notice no phone numbers or addresses for the individuals listed and the existence of a "Yellow Pages"-style advertising section, which means that the format for the phone book existed even before the phone. Head to the College of William & Mary SWEM Library website to see more manuscript and rare book samplers.
Today we had our service from Time Warner Cable (TWC) upgraded. We went from standard cable plus RoadRunner service to Digital Cable, plus RoadRunner and the TWC wireless network service. I’d networked the house with a bunch of Linksys gear a long while back, but it’s been problematic for Celeste in her office with the signal usually being too weak for her to work effectively. I’d tried every thing I could think of to boost the signal, but to no avail. We’re giving their network gear a try to see if it’s any better, and since our overall monthly bill only went up $10 it’s essentially a bunch of free gear with added stations via digital cable. If she still has problems then we might start looking at alternatives like DSL.
But that’s not the main reason I’m writing about this. The real reason is to highlight some of the positives and negatives of the transaction. I’ll start with the positives:
Now for the negatives:
The long and the short of it is that TWC sent out a guy who did the best he could, but they obviously haven’t provided strong enough training on the wireless network set up. If he’d done the set up for any number of my family members or friends they’d be hosed right now because they haven’t wasted their time messing around with wireless networks on any level. Ah well.
Now I’m off to find out what my PIN is on the digital TV box before I end up with a bunch of teenage boys watching "Hot College Girls Get Crazy" in my living room while I’m out of the house.
Newspaper folks are always embarrassed by bad copy editing. I think it stems from the fact that they see themselves as differentiated from the great unwashed electronic media masses by their belonging to the world of print. While no one would define newspapers as literature, most reporters would not be confused with the Brell boys and girls of TV. Thus it must cause them great vexation when misspellings and poorly formed phrases leach into the bodies of stories, but also manage to make their way into headlines.
The Sunday, December 2, 2007 issue of the Winston-Salem Journal offered a particularly egregious example of headline excrement in the "The Region" column of the Local section. Here ’tis:
Trooper’s condition improves whose car flipped during chase
If I’d written that in the third grade I’d have been sent to the principal’s office and threatened with being held back. Ouch.
RemoteByMail allows you to send an email to the host computer that you have this little program installed o
Unless you’ve lived in a cave for 20 years you’ve no doubt heard much about the sex abuse scandals involving lots of US priests and various diocese across the country. As part of its efforts to deal with the issue the New York Archdiocese is publishing a coloring book called "Being Friends, Being Safe, Being Catholic" that has some pretty direct cartoons about how to avoid being in dangerous situations (see image to the left for one of the pictures in the book). From the Newsday article about the book:
That’s an unusual approach, says David Clohessy, the national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests,
but not necessarily a bad one. "We welcome any innovation," he says,
"especially from an institution that has such a horrific track record."
The coloring book is intended as a supplement to the prevention
curriculum mandated by a 2002 U.S. bishops charter—a way for adults to
broach a topic that is "not the most pleasant to talk about," says
Edward Mechmann, the director of the New York Archdiocese’s Safe
Environment Program. He says the book (along with comics about
molestation, for older kids) has been shipped to about 700 schools.
Administrators are then given the option of distributing them.
"Teachers love it," Mechmann says. "It’s a nice little vehicle for
speaking to kids about [abuse]." Talk about alternative education.
Personally I think it’s a smart move by the Archdiocese, but definitely falls into the "too late" category. Had the church dealt with this issue decades ago and listened to the victims when they first came forward then maybe we’d have seen efforts like this in the 70s or 80s rather than 2007. Then maybe we wouldn’t dealing with the incredible number of abuse victims over the last 50 years, or looking at a church selling off assets to pay the victims’ damages and a church that lost who knows how many members who felt alienated by the church’s handling of the situation and who were sickened by a cancerous cell of spiritual leaders who sickened the entire church body. A tragedy on so many levels.
Befuddled 