In school we were always taught that when writing your introductory sentence was key. Its purpose was to draw in the reader and set the stage for the rest of the paragraph. I believe this story offers as fine an example of an engaging introductory sentence as you're going to find:
The Brevard County doctor who was arrested for groping a woman while dressed as Captain America with a burrito in his pants will not go to jail.
So Arizona education officials want to reassign teachers with heavy accents so that they aren't teaching students who are learning English. The story's here and the first comment on the story is this:
Have you spoken with any college aged students lately? The number of functional illiterates in our primary and secondary school system is disheartening. Unless these students can hear English spoken correctly at home and on the street, yet alone taught it correctly in our schools we should all start calling it "bassetball" or say "ax" instead of ask, or perhaps we can all "boat" instead of "vote"??? how much further down do we have to lower our standards to allow for "the acceptable " lever of mediocrity?
"Lever of mediocrity?" "Yet alone?"
Pot, meet kettle.
Those of you who have never seen I Love Lucy re-runs won't know what the title of this post is referencing, so just keep in mind that during the early days of TV married couples were always depicted as sleeping in separate twin beds. Apparently here in North Carolina they want to keep that tradition alive, because according to this list of stupid laws in each American state:
In North Carolina "All couples staying overnight in a hotel must have a room with double beds that are at least two feet apart."
I read the front page article in the Winston-Salem Journal about the public airing of grievances by UNCSA's outgoing conductor at his final concert and thought, "I wonder if it felt as good to vent his spleen as he expected it to?" Who hasn't daydreamed about letting loose like that at their boss/teacher/nitwit co-worker in a big public venue?
Back in the mid-90s I worked for a company that could best be described as a soul sucking black hole run by amoral jackals. I fantasized about calling my bosses on the carpet at a large company function and listing their various misdeeds in excruciating detail. Alas I just quit and went to a better job, but to this day I wonder what it would have felt like to let it rip.
BTW, check out all comments on the article about the conductor's rant. Based on the number you'd think the article was about an illegal immigrant representing the ACLU in a protest against sectarian prayer at the county commissioners' meeting.
We have family visiting for the weekend, one of whom is my one year old niece. I tried to help keep her occupied at breakfast by giving her a "horsey ride" on my knee. When my kids were little it was a tactic I used quite often, usually while humming the theme to Bonanza which only served to confuse them since they'd never heard of the show. Anyway, I figured some things are timeless and that making my niece feel like a female version of Little Joe would work as well as it did with my kids.
Not so much. She kind of got this glazed look in her eyes, and as soon as I put her down she went running for her mother. I guess I've earned the title of scary uncle instead of fun uncle.
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One of the things I like about minor league baseball is the fact that the teams have some t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e names. I don't like the names as much as I like the cheap tickets and beer served in the bleachers, but I still find them quite entertaining. Still, I have to wonder what the owners of the Giants' AA affiliate in Richmond were thinking: I give you the Richmond Flying Squirrels.
For the second time in three years a West Forsyth H.S. math teacher has been named Teacher of the Year in the Winston-Salem Forsyth County School system. Hopefully this means my kids will leave H.S. with a much stronger grasp of the subject than their old man has.
Congrats to Heather King for the recognition.
Anyone who thinks Forsyth County is just another sleepy, southern county that's home to a medium-sized city that was founded by members of a mainstream religion that hardly anyone outside of NC or PA has heard of, is smoking crack. Where else would you have government officials who are simultaneously fighting in court to be able to continue practicing sectarian prayer at the beginning of their public meetings and on another front are lobbying the state legislature to allow them to establish parimutuel betting on horses?
Budget shortfalls sure do have a strange effect on people. I mean sheesh, it wasn't that long ago that you couldn't buy booze on Sunday and now we're looking at legalizing gambling in order to fill a budget hole. If we're that desperate let's go for casinos and brothels and do it up right. Think of the selling points, not least of which is the easy flight from DC to PTI so that the naughtiest people on Earth (Congress, especially those "conservative" skirt chasers) can easily partake of our wares. We're also pretty close to some prominent televangelists and they seem to go for this kind of stuff on a regular basis. They could come to fight for public meeting prayers by day, and to explore their sinful natures by night.
The more I think of it the more I think we may be on to something.
I just registered my daughter for her club soccer team for next fall. I opted to pay online and after I hit the "submit" button for the payment a window popped up saying that I was going to be assessed a $1.75 "convenience fee" for paying online with a credit card. A friend of mine had a much more appropriate term for this kind of fee; he called it a d-ck fee. And if you're wondering what the dash stands for let's just say that the word would not be a bird that quacks.
That kind of crap makes me want to drive over to the office and pay with a sack of pennies.
Just when you thought it might be safe to go back in the (real estate) water:
These seriously delinquent loans are the 4.3 million loans MBA Chief Economist Jay Brinkmann referred to as the "shadow inventory" on the conference call this morning. Not all are really "shadow inventory" since some of these loans will be modified, some will be cured (probably very few), and some are probably already listed as short sales. But it does suggest a significant number of distressed sales coming…
Thirty four states and the District of Columbia have total delinquency rates over 10%. This is a widespread problem.
Befuddled 