08:34 – We’re doing the usual weekend stuff. I finished the laundry yesterday. Barbara is cleaning house this morning. She tells me that I need a haircut, so that’ll be first up.
More science kit stuff for us this afternoon.
Sunday, 30 August 2015
42 Comments and discussion on "Sunday, 30 August 2015"
Comments are closed.
Just got back from 3 days in Paris, for a math competition. Just for fun, nothing serious. Mostly for school kids, with categories from elementary school through university, but there are also two categories for adults.
Interestingly, the Polish competitors took by far the most top places, followed by Switzerland, with France in third place. Kind of odd, considering that this is hosted in France and is supposed to be very widespread there. Anyhow, since this was the “international final”, there were people from all over: Algeria, Italy, Canada, Russia, and lots of other places.
Typical French organization, which is to say, not very much of it. No real place for the participants to wait, before and after the competition, not even nearby restaurants or cafes. Of course, the facility itself was locked until just before the competition, and anyway provides no seating other than the lecture halls used for the exams. Errors in the problem translations, problems in different orders between languages (but the same answer sheet). Stupid stuff too, like posting only one copy of the results for all categories, these all together on the same small board, at waist level. Several hundred people all want to see how they did, so you can imagine the mess.
But that’s France. You can’t get upset about it, there’s just no point. You just have to laugh at it, because there’s absolutely nothing to be done. Indeed, that’s how all of Southern Europe works (or sometimes doesn’t).
Now back to the proverbial grindstone.
And here are some fun things to think about if and when things get REALLY sporty:
http://weaponsman.com/?p=25115
Like to fiddle with numbers? Like guns?
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/08/dean-weingarten/question-of-the-day-how-many-guns-are-there-in-the-us/#more-370480
Outstanding.
Just outstanding.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/08/robert-farago/colion-noir-post-live-tv-murder-bloody-shirt-waving-is-no-good-for-anyone-video/#more-370577
Sitting by the pool at our neighborhood association, talking public schools with the neighbors. Planning on our gentrification pushing out the non-English speakers. I’m not so sure. If things get tough the economic migrants will head back home, probably, assuming benefits get cut too. Gonna be hard to convince white taxpayers to support illegals when natives are going hungry. In tough times, folks clan up.
Nick
Speaking of clanning up, some black activists are calling for lynching solitary whites. Are they going to call themselves the BlacKKK? Wear black sheets when they’re looking for their targets of opportunity?
“In tough times, folks clan up.”
Haters.
“Wear black sheets when they’re looking for their targets of opportunity?”
I wonder how many of them will show up here in northern New England, north-country Vampire State, etc.? Yo, slide on up, mofos…we got sumfin fo yo ass…
But of course the rulers love this kinda stuff; it’s that game people play, described in the book back in Ancient Times by Dr. Eric Berne, “Games People Play.” This one is called “Let’s You and Him Fight.”
So they fan the flames, and the MSM and innernet blow on the flames some more…next thing ya know, we DO got us clans…and all at war with each other…we gon hab sum fun now…
Am I reading this article correctly? Not the “tardy 111 times” and keeps his elementary school teaching job part. He makes $90,000 DOLLARS A YEAR part! Liberal fucking union racket! What, has he got 8 PhDs or something. What a joke.
An elementary school teacher has been allowed to keep his job even though he was late for work 111 times over a two-year period.
In a decision filed Aug. 19, an arbitrator rejected an attempt by the Roosevelt Elementary School to fire 15-year veteran Arnold Anderson from his $90,000-a-year job, saying he was entitled to progressive discipline.
“…progressive discipline.”
Been there fifteen years; union seniority gets him that dough. Easily. I’m surprised he only makes that much.
Progressive discipline probably means an increasingly harder slap from the local union commissar each year in the form of self-criticism sessions with the local teachers union collective. Modeled on the North Korean style circa 1950-53 in POW camps. They’re probably pissed ’cause he hasn’t been utilizing the maximum number of minutes to inculcate Party principles among his Youngest Pioneers.
Yah, “working” for the government is a sweet racket. Not that hardly any government “workers” will admit it. All that I’ve heard talk about salary complain it’s too low and assert they could make more in industry. Far as I can tell, they truly believe it.
Jefferson Davis = bad.
Abraham Lincoln = good
Isn’t this exactly what ISIS is doing? The Mooslims are just more efficient using sledge hammers, dynamite and bazookas.
Sitting by the pool at our neighborhood association, talking public schools with the neighbors. Planning on our gentrification pushing out the non-English speakers. I’m not so sure. If things get tough the economic migrants will head back home, probably, assuming benefits get cut too. Gonna be hard to convince white taxpayers to support illegals when natives are going hungry. In tough times, folks clan up.
You are making the assumption that Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, etc will let them back in. When ten million folks come flooding back into Mexico, watch out. And, things have got to get worse, way, way worse before it is better for them to go home. Even if you cut all the free bennies, it is still better here because the menfolk are working. That might not be the case in Mexico, etc.
@MrAtoz
I wouldn’t be surprised if teachers in New Jersey make $90,000. My wife makes much less as an elementary school teacher, but the cost of living here is much lower and the kids in our rural/suburban area have issues less severe than those of urban New Jersey kids.
@OFD
Yes, for that degree of lateness, the teacher should be fired. However, after the first year of that behavior, he should have been given disciplinary action severe enough to make him change his behavior.
Can anyone name the racist Republican President who thought the freed slaves should be shipped off to Liberia? Is President Obama trying to rehabilitate his reputation?
Has our country gone so far that police shouldn’t be allowed to leave the station in uniform or a marked car without a buddy? If so, how long is it going to be until policy changes to reflect that?
Back home.
Well, there have been a couple of times they self deported. After the crash in ’08 the streets were noticeably empty of white vans and beater chevy pickups. Freeway traffic was much reduced.
Cut off the bennies and even with men working (or more likely women) they won’t be able to pay the rent. And I’m assured that it is better to be poor where you have family and support than elsewhere.
There are thousands living in section 8 housing in a 2 mile radius from me. They have thousands of kids in school. Thousands sounds like a lot, perhaps like an exaggeration, but it’s not. The 3 elementary schools closest to me (out of 5 or 6) have enrollment of ~1500 and are around 80-90% hispanic. So just in the schools my kids would attend there are a thousand kids who probably don’t belong here. Anyone who thinks that isn’t a burden on taxpayers is certifiable. Most receive free breakfast lunch and dinner at school, food stamps at home, subsidized housing, and subsidized clothing, and a variety of other bennies, including free legal aid. Despite that, they live pretty circumscribed lives and when they work, work hard. Unlike the blacks who have expensive hairdos, expensive nails, designer clothes, cars with audio systems or wheels that are worth more than the car, gold jewelry, and bags of drugs and (for males anyway) don’t seem to work at all.
Anyway, it’s an experiment I’d like to try. Gonna be lotsa misery anyway at some point. Act now, while there will still be something left when you’re done.
nick
@ofd, if you really want to get your blood pressure up, google around to see how many NY teachers are paid to sit and read the paper all day, while waiting years for their disciplinary actions to work thru the system.
$90k sound low for that much seniority in any big city.
The other thing is that my elementary school, in addition to teachers, has ‘instructional coaches’, and at least 2 layers of staff between teachers and principal. I can’t remember the titles off hand, but I was surprised how many folks are sucking at the tit in school besides teachers, principal, and maintenance staff. It’s a bunch.
nick
Here’s an org chart for the district. I haven’t found one for individual schools.
http://www.springbranchisd.com/campusmenus/orgchart.pdf
LOTS of staff, and I bet the make pretty near 6 figures or more.
nick
Cut off the bennies and even with men working (or more likely women) they won’t be able to pay the rent. And I’m assured that it is better to be poor where you have family and support than elsewhere.
We moved to Houston in 1971. We had been living in Lake Jackson with Mom’s parents for two years and Dad was driving up 288 each day. Dad rented a two bedroom house off South Post Oak and Orem. We lived there for two years. I’m fairly sure that Mom’s Dad gave him the money since he was starting his business.
Anyway, that area was (and still is, I think) the largest barrio in Houston. The schools were 50% Hispanic at that time. The area was functional since a lot of low middle class white families lived there and kept it all going. My son lives on the edge of that area now and he thinks that he is the only white person on his street.
My buddy next door was Pete. He lived in a two bedroom, one bath home with a converted garage for his 17 member family. Pete, the youngest kid, spoke fluent English and was the only person in the household to do so. But, his Dad worked, his three? four? five? brothers all worked at menial jobs and construction. No probleme in paying the rent and buying food in that situation. His mother was a real nice lady and did not speak a word of English but she believed in feeding 11 year old boys snacks after we got home from school.
I still think that all of these families can live at the subsistence level here in the USA without government bennies. My son reports that most of of the families in his neighborhood have three generations living in their homes and some have four. They open the garage doors when they get home and watch a big screen tv and drink beer every day.
“Can anyone name the racist Republican President who thought the freed slaves should be shipped off to Liberia?”
Too easy. And he even met with black leadership at the WH and proposed the idea to their faces. No takers.
“@ofd, if you really want to get your blood pressure up, google around to see how many NY teachers are paid to sit and read the paper all day, while waiting years for their disciplinary actions to work thru the system.”
I’ve been aware of that for a very long time, ditto in MA. It’s a criminal racket.
“Anyway, it’s an experiment I’d like to try.”
Ditto. But we won’t get the chance. Those tens of millions are here to stay. Habla Espanol, amigo?
“…at least 2 layers of staff between teachers and principal.”
Want a boost in your blood pressure? Check out the layers of administration not only in the publik skool systems, but also at most colleges and universities. It’s amazing. And check out their pay and bennies.
Check out the layers of administration not only in the publik skool systems, but also at most colleges and universities.
Tenured professors never show up for class. They have aides teaching the classes or the students watch taped lectures. The profs have a hair brained idea, get some grants, the students do the work, the prof gets the money. If there is something worthwhile out of their hair brained scheme the prof patents the idea, sells it to another company, and takes home a boatload of money.
Other profs write their own text books, charge the students $200.00 for the book, change one sentence each year and demand the use of the newer version. Thus making the old books worthless and the prof extorting new sales.
Had one prof get pissed because I arrived early and took the parking space he used. He called parking services and I got a parking ticket for parking in a what should have been a legal spot. Parking services said it was because a door was in front of the space yet four slots down another car was parked in front of a door but was not issued a citation. There were no markings, no signs, nothing to indicate you could not park in that space.
Next day the prof was parked in the spot and I called parking services and was told it was OK now because they changed the requirement. I asked about my ticket and was told the ticket was valid because the regulations in place the day I got the ticket (the day before) got me the ticket. Somewhere the prof had the rules changed so he could park in that spot again. So I changed my working hours and arrived early and took the spot for the next month. Nothing parking services could do at that point. Oh, and I paid my $27.50 fine with multiple checks of random amounts all less than a dollar (thanks computer generated checks).
Way to GO, Mr. RAY! Outstanding!
Yeah, that’s how they do ya at colleges and universities if ye are not among the Annointed Ones. And there is no department with so many harebrained profs, grad students and ideas as the average English department, as I have much cause to know.
Tenure is basically disappearing now and the colleges and universities are gonna be on the way out, like nooz papers and cable tee-vee. The wunnerful kidz can find and get anything they want, pretty much, off their smartypants phones and the innernet.
For as long as the Grid stays up, that is. After that, they’re gonna be effed. They don’t know how to do much of anything else.
NC region residents may wanna take a peek at this:
http://ncrenegade.com/
Methinks the moral of this story isn’t the one that the author intended it to have.
Yeah, the US university system, which was once the worldwide star, is slowly self-destructing. Profs who actually want to teach have always been second class citizens at universities (different at technical and community colleges, of course).
Now, US colleges are eliminating teach positions altogether, hiring more and more adjunct lecturers to do the teaching. Cut-rate pay, no job security, massive pressure – this is also not the way to provide your students with a quality learning environment. But it saves money, which can then flow into the ever-growing administration.
Add in the ever-increasing political correctness, the crazy sexual-harrassment environment, the need for remedial courses because high school grads are missing basic skills, etc., etc.. It won’t take many more years of this, and only the elite, private schools will retain any pretense of providing any sort of quality education.
On my recent trip to Paris, we met a guy from Vietnam who is pursuing a very international program of education (mathematics and economics, iirc). He got his bachelor’s degree in Russia, is now doing graduate work in France, and afterwards will be going to Germany. The US is apparently not on the list of places he wants to study, and who can blame him?
How do you know you’re shopping in Texas?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIMiLF_L8s8
Ah-yup!
nick
This is beyond absurd. The person(s) responsible should be fired for generally being idiots. To think this is a place that parents are sending their kids to receive a higher education.
http://wate.com/2015/08/27/ut-knoxville-encourages-students-to-use-gender-neutral-pronouns/
The University of Tennessee is asking students to use “ze, hir, hirs, and xe, xem, xyr.”
No, those words are not another language. According to the University of Tennessee, they’re actually the gender-neutral singular versions of pronouns.
The University of Tennessee Office for Diversity and Inclusion is asking students and faculty to use the pronouns in order to create a more inclusive campus. They say it alleviates a heavy burden for people expressing different genders or identities.
“We should not assume someone’s gender by their appearance, nor by what is listed on a roster or in student information systems,” Donna Braquet, the director of the University of Tennessee’s Pride Center said. “Transgender people and people who do not identify within the gender binary may use a different name than their legal name and pronouns of their gender identity, rather than the pronouns of the sex they were assigned at birth.”
For the first week of classes, Braquet is also asking teachers to ask everyone to provide their name and pronoun instead of calling roll. “The name a student uses may not be the one on the official roster, and the roster name may not be the same gender as the one the student now uses,” ze said.
“These may sound a little funny at first, but only because they are new,” Braquet said. “The she and he pronouns would sound strange too if we had been taught ze when growing up.”
Braquet said if students and faculty cannot use ze, hir, hirs, xe, xem or xyr, they can also politely ask. “’Oh, nice to meet you, [insert name]. What pronouns should I use?’ is a perfectly fine question to ask,” ze said.
Others, like State Representative Bill Dunn with the 16th District, believe the idea is taking things too far.
“I think it’s good to say someone is a ‘he’ or a ‘she’. That tells somebody something. If you say I’m going to meet ‘ze,’ someone’s going to think you’re going to meet someone from another planet,” Dunn said.
“We have paid people a lot of money to sit around and come up with this nonsense. It makes me kind of mad,” he added.
The University of Tennessee’s Media and and Internal Relations director, Karen Ann Simsen, said she would like to stress there is no mandate or official policy to use the language. “The information provided in the newsletter was offered as a resource for our campus community on inclusive practices,” said Simsen.
@medium wave,
Haha! That article was good for a few laughs this am. “No Daddy Land.” indeed.
Whew, what a bunch of spongers. White black or purple, I hate them whining about all the problems they have that they themselves caused. 4 DUIs and still driving. 5 kids in poverty so have another. Only successful one called out for ‘acting too white.’ Thanks mom.
ONE got out. NE was good for that. Saved her life and the lives of her descendants. If she was in NOLA the crap bucket would have pulled her down into drugs, babies, and dependency.
150K didn’t return to NOLA. Couldn’t they find ANY other success stories? We got a lot of Katrina refugees. The crime rate skyrocketed. Gang violence in our schools skyrocketed.* I had an Elementary School teacher mention this year that they are FINALLY getting thru the problems caused by the Katrina refus.
I remind everyone in the US, Obama and the DoJ and HUD want to move this into YOUR neighborhood. They want to spread this misery everywhere. Fight back.
nick
* By “gang violence” keep in mind I mean attempted murder, actual murder, beatings, intimidation, rape, stabbings, and other violent crimes. That goes along with the property crimes and the drug dealing.
What’s wrong with “it” and “its”?
Of course you’d say that, you can’t recognize your own aggression because you are blinded by your cis-male heteronormative binary gender privileged worldview. You must accept the feverish confusion of my mentally ill, patriarchally oppressed, sexually ambivalent and ambiguous, self as I attempt to change the external objective reality of the world to match the subjective reality of my internally self-contradictory world.
Trust me, I’m f#cked up, and you need to be too.
nikc- as you will all now refer to me, on pain of a dissertation explaining the ills of your reality based worldview construct.
Or maybe we should let them all die in the coming unpleasantness to the moaning of “But I don’t believe I’m hungry, I don’t feel like I should be hungry, I won’t accept that I’m hungry, it’s all your fault with your cis-eater, culinary-ist privilege.”
nick
What’s wrong with “it” and “its”?
Not cerebral enough. After all, the memo to the students was penned by someone with a masters, maybe PhD, in some sort of voodoo degree such as philosophy. Got to show the world how smart they they think they are while making total fools of themselves and the university. The university should terminate
herzir immediately.A quick search of the local public school system’s web site reveals that a teacher with a Bachelor’s degree & 15 years of experience gets a base pay of $42,980. A Master’s degree is worth an extra $2,500 per year, a Specialist degree (whatever that is) gets a bonus of $5,100 , and PhD gets you $7,800 more per year.
“Methinks the moral of this story isn’t the one that the author intended it to have.”
Probably not. We’ve seen similar situations up here in rural white-bread northern Vermont and Maine; the powers-that-be saw fit to resettle Bosnian Serb and muslim refugees in Burlington, fresh from the savagery back in their home country, along with a bunch of Somalis. More Somalis over in Lewiston, Maine, where of course they fit right in immediately. WTF? Needless to say, at least for rational human beings, it doesn’t pan out so great.
“Let’s take some completely different people in terms of race, ethnicity, religion and class who’ve just been through major traumatic experiences and are in a lot of pain, and just drop them into a totally new culture a zillion figurative or even literal miles away. What could possibly go wrong?”
“… hiring more and more adjunct lecturers to do the teaching.”
Which would have been my fate twenty years ago after ten years of college and grad school and multiple languages, with a new PhD in Medieval Studies. Gypsy prof at community and junior colleges all over the country with zero job security, low pay, no bennies and no tenure, ever. Leaving aside for now, whether or not this society needs to know anything about our medieval history, literature, philosophy and theology.
The UTenn insanity is the logical devolution from my “higher ed” experiences a quarter-century ago; it was just getting going then.
“I remind everyone in the US, Obama and the DoJ and HUD want to move this into YOUR neighborhood. They want to spread this misery everywhere. Fight back.”
If they actually go ahead with this on a large enough scale, they will be instigating and fomenting a LOT of violence and mayhem. Which is the point, of course. Divide and conquer. Keep everyone in a tense, keyed-up state of fear and trembling, until we all BEG for more law and order.
Chicago’s pay rate for teachers, 2012-13 starts at total comp of $52094 and maxes at $95,369, that includes pension contributions.
This year it starts at 54,199 and maxes at 104,533 for a doctorate, with 20+ years teaching.
That salary only counts the 208 day school year. Many teachers earn during the summer as well, and many get additional bumps for coaching positions.
nick
Added – and they get 15 days off w pay that MOST districts allow you to accrue. so when you finally leave, you may have many months of pay coming.
The Houston school pay rates are convoluted, but it looks like a 12 month contract can earn between ~11k and $189K.
Talk about a wage gap.
nick
in my district teachers go from ~48k to ~65.5k with phd and 24 years. It actually goes higher with more years up to 35 years at 76.2
I’ll remind people that $60k is a pretty good living down here.
nick
And I’ll remind peeps that a publik skool teacher with a master’s or PhD degree most likely got those degrees in the educationist and social “science” fields, with a lot of required course work in neo-Marxist crapola. It’s a racket much like cops getting graduate degrees in “criminal justice,” a giant load of malarkey. MA had something called the Quinn Bill, where those cops would get automatic pay increases for graduate degrees. And the cops doing that knew full well it was a racket.
http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/07/police_educational_incentive_f.html
Now, nearly a half-century later, cities and towns are finding they can’t and won’t pay this bribe.
and for both teachers and cops, they probably got that advanced degree on your dime, thru ‘professional development’ subsidies and grants.
nick
Exactly. You don’t think they paid for that stuff themselves, do ya?
Because it would have been a cold day in Hell before any of the cops I knew back then paid for any classes or training.
Generally I’m willing to call someone “he” or “she” per their preference. I might possibly use “ze” if it amused me, but most likely I’d drop straight to “it”, initially using it with timing and intonation to maximize offensiveness.
“… initially using it with timing and intonation to maximize offensiveness.”
Agreed wholeheartedly; because they are doing their damndest to not only offend US with this insane bullshit, they’re also, far worse, committing an offense against the English language.
To the wall.