Life as a Road Block

It's a three day weekend. Planned a few chores, some time around the pool and the barbecue. Then things took a different turn. First, my computer decides it's time to really crap out on me. It's been getting gradually worse for a while. I thought maybe the power supply was dying on me, and may still be, but the symptoms were a gradual loss of extra devices. The USB ports became very sensitive of which devices were plugged in and which port they were in. System boots would sometimes freeze up (three or four times even) before loading the desktop. Finally, this morning, the USB devices just disappeared. This was especially disturbing because it includes the keyboard and mouse. Moving devices around didn't help, it simply did not see the USB hardware. Looking at the system devices showed that there was no USB hardware at all, which was more disturbing because there was no failed hardware, just a big empty nothing.

This was way too much distress for a holiday weekend. So my wife and I decided to go out and see a movie. In the process, my car now has decided to display an engine check light.

Oh well, at least I have a job. It may pay only half of what I used to make, and it may not pay for holidays, but, at least it's better than unemployment benefits.

When idiots and morons design things...

I'm sure everybody has their complaints and pet peeves about the way other people drive. It doesn't help any when law enforcement chooses to concentrate on a few easy to document money makers instead of making our roads safer.

One of the basic freedoms of this country is our right to rely on our own judgement to decide right from wrong. Some, whether from religion or other moral ethics, will have a more restricted code of conduct than the laws allow, which is perfectly permissible as long as it falls within the regulations. It's when our judgement starts to cross the established laws, and especially when it crosses safety boundaries that we should be concerned.

There's very little etiquette on the road these days. People might stop at a four-way stop and observe the rules defining the right of way, or they might not. More and more, I see people rolling through stop signs like they were exempt. I could be wrong, but it also seems to me like the bigger the car (meaning SUV's and large pickup trucks) the greater the chance they'll fly through a stop.

I noticed something the other day, and it got me thinking about this. There are several corners around my neighborhood with stop signs and white lines painted so you know where to stop. The problem is, that if you stop behind the white line, you can't see traffic because there are walls lining the road and the stop sign is too far back. So, naturally, everyone has to cross the line about fifteen feet to see when it's safe to go.

How are people supposed to obey the rules of the road when they are constantly bombarded with this kind of lunacy? The city planners probably have rules defining how far back a stop sign must be, and where the white line goes in relation to the sign, but must we hire morons, unable to think for themselves, to install them?

I'm sure there will always be bad drivers, but we don't need to condition people into becoming bad drivers.

Gifts for Grads

Here's a gift idea for all the graduates who think the world has waited long enough for their arrival: a desk calendar that teaches them a new word every day, and every day has the same word.

Hum-ble

–adjective
1. not proud or arrogant; modest: to be humble although successful.
2. having a feeling of insignificance, inferiority, subservience, etc.: In the presence of so many world-famous writers I felt very humble.
3. low in rank, importance, status, quality, etc.; lowly: of humble origin; a humble home.
4. courteously respectful: In my humble opinion you are wrong.
5. low in height, level, etc.; small in size: a humble member of the galaxy.\

–verb (used with object)
6. to lower in condition, importance, or dignity; abase.
7. to destroy the independence, power, or will of.
8. to make meek: to humble one's heart.

DWTS (Duncing With The Sponsors)

So, what in the world is going on with Dancing With The Stars? If you watch the program, you know that the scoring format is a joke. The judges are there to score the contestants on dance quality, and anybody with a phone or Internet account gets to vote on who they think is most popular. This has made for some very unusual outcomes on results night, from very talented performers being voted off the show, to very bad contestants allowed to continue. I've never been a fan of the scoring, but if you look past it, you can usually see some of the stars efforts to improve and make a legitimate attempt to learn ballroom dancing.

Well, in my humble opinion, the scoring format has been changed. If you've been watching this year's show, you may have seen the judges make some very hard and wholly well deserved criticisms of this years football star. Chad Ochocinco is at best slightly better than mediocre, but he appears to be trying, he just can't overcome some inherent gawkiness. In the first six weeks of the show, the judges comments showed in his facial expressions, but he kept returning. And to be fair, he is no where near the worst contestant they have had. I recall a basketball player who did little more than walk around the floor, yet fans kept voting him back (or at least, we all assume they were his fans).

Two weeks ago, something changed. The judges have become much more lenient with Chad, and their criticisms are suddenly dripping with honey to take off the sting, and he seems to be getting a couple free points on each of the paddles. I can only conclude that the sponsors have weighed in and told them to lighten up, they don't want to lose the viewership if he is voted off, and frankly, he's about two weeks past his time.

I don't recall seeing such a turnabout in the judges opinions in previous years, but I have to wonder if the sponsors have had their influence on the votes. Perhaps the viewers votes aren't really counted at all. The sponsors decide who sells the most product, and arrange to keep them on the show as long as possible. (They don't get too crazy, some contestants are way too talented to lose).

I'm not a dancing fan, but I do like watching these stars struggle to learn something new. I just wish they had a fair shake with a fair scoring system. The fans can vote for most congenial.

Failures of the Educational System

The educational system has been failing for a long time, and the statistics paint a rosier picture than the truth.

It's no secret that there have been problems, and educators have been trying to find ways to solve them, the government has stepped in to find ways to solve them (or maybe they just wanted to use our kids to get elected), and the result is, our kids are all part of an experiment, and have been for many decades.

The bean counters and statistic keepers probably count me as one of their success stories, but my education was in spite of the system.

The first experiment the tried on me was offering me advanced classes in english and math by sending me up to the next higher grade for those subjects. They claimed that skipping a grade would stunt my social advancement, like that wouldn't alienate me from my own class.

The next experiment I recall was phonics. In my college years, I met a friend's mother who was a teacher, and the subject of phonics came up. I made the mistake of speaking my mind. I hate phonics. It was a bore and a waste of time. She clearly felt differently and made it clear to me that thousands of children struggled with reading before phonics came along. In her opinion it was one of the best weapons in a teacher's arsenol. That's when it struck me. So many of the things I hated in school weren't inherently bad, they were just bad for me.

Then there's the bell curve. Let's motivate our kids to compete with each other for the best grades, and guarantee that some of them fail. It even sounds like a great idea (not).

Testing. They still don't get it. Some kids test well, others don't. How do you determine someone's knowledge if they don't test well? And how do you compare them with those that do? The answer is obvious: You create standardized tests; You teach them how to pass the test. This has got to be the dumbest idea I have ever heard. Now we have a bunch of kids going to college that think learning is easy. Woah, that question wasn't in our class, what's it doing on the test?

Who comes up with this crap? Whole word reading. My grand daughter was taught whole word reading. To this day, she see's the first few letters in a word and guesses the whole word, not always succesfully.

Somewhere along the way, I learned that it was my responsibility to learn my subjects more than it was my teachers responsibility to cram it in my head. This, of course, lead me to learning the stuff I liked and ignoring the rest. My teachers recognized that they didn't know how to motivate me. They weren't properly prepared either, they are all products of the same educational system.

So what do we have?

We have a bell curve that leaves children behind, and a no child left behind policy that teaches them how to cheat the test and advance anyway.

We have a system that tries to teach all children as if they were the same, instead of teaching them according to their abilites.

We have a system that is more interested in bussing children around based on their skin color or economic status than on their talents.

We have a system that is starving for money and is cutting out some of the classes that might actually motivate some students.

Worst of all, we have a system where children think it's uncool to be smart, and failure only comes from the attempting, so don't even try and you won't fail.

I think the solution is to allow the students to learn at their own speeds, but that would never be politically acceptable. I am willing to bet there are hundreds of people that think they have solutions of their own, unfortunately, most of those constitute experiments on the next crop of children to find what works, and what doesn't. Most don't.