Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
My brother called me and told me that “everyone but the Canadians can go to hell. Curling is awesome and I’m tired of people picking on it.”
I’m reasonably sure I’ve made fun of curling in the past, but I think I am on Seth’s side on this now. It does look like fun. They all seem to be having a great time, and it looks like something you can do well into your middle ages. And let’s face it- it ain’t bowling.
Consider this your open thread.
*** Update ***
Here is a pic of Team RedKitten:
The suicide pilot thread somehow devolved into an argument about gender, so let me offer this to calm the waters.
In other news Dr. Mrs. Dr. F and I are shopping for a rescue dog to go with our soon-to-be first house. Some day in the next two centuries she might forgive me for letting her fall in love with a boxer pup that got adopted before we had the house ready. Maybe. Signs indicate that it’ll take a lot of creme brulee.
There aren’t enough jobs around right now, and yet the New York Times tells us The Powers That Be intend to turf young job-seekers into the marketplace sooner and make the old people keep working menial jobs later. Tough times!
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First, there is the ‘New Plan to Let High Schoolers Graduate 2 Years Early’:
Dozens of public high schools in eight states will introduce a program next year allowing 10th graders who pass a battery of tests to get a diploma two years early and immediately enroll in community college.
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Students who pass but aspire to attend a selective college may continue with college preparatory courses in their junior and senior years, organizers of the new effort said. Students who fail the 10th-grade tests, known as board exams, can try again at the end of their 11th and 12th grades. The tests would cover not only English and math but also subjects like science and history.
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The new system of high school coursework with the accompanying board examinations is modeled largely on systems in high-performing nations including Denmark, England, Finland, France and Singapore.
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The program is being organized by the National Center on Education and the Economy, and its goals include insuring that students have mastered a set of basic requirements and reducing the numbers of high school graduates who need remedial courses when they enroll in college. More than a million college freshmen across America must take remedial courses each year, and many drop out before getting a degree.
On the one hand, this sounds a bit like reverting to the pre-1950s norm, where a high school degree meant you were literate enough to take a serious job and be worth paying wages. And there’s certainly plenty of wasted time in the average high school curriculum. On the other hand, modern Americans seem to have lost all interest in belonging to a “high-performing nation”, and this could easily be read as enshrining a two-tier caste system where the upper income classes nurse their golden offspring through extra years of college prep, while the rest of us proles are left competing for whatever service jobs can’t be offshored or handled more cheaply by robots. So — like today, only more?
Early Morning Open Thread: Both Ends of the Career PathPost + Comments (200)
At least you’re not required to attend this event:
According to my calendar, Friday — tomorrow — is the 19th, not the 20th. But then, I’m a member of the Reality-Based Community(tm).
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Wonder how long it will take some of the Tea Party Crashing Establishment CPAC To Hang With ‘Fellow Conservatives’ Oldfolkken to wander into the Epic!-ness, tell some young punk to pull up his dam’ pants, and get a fist-fight started?
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And when it happens, who do we bet on winning?
Late Night Open Thread: Could Be Worse…Post + Comments (111)
No real reason fora new thread other than I have been listening to a lot of my old Who discs since the Super Bowl and I forgot how much I like this song and wanted to share it with you:
Makes me feel like driving too fast.
I know by now you are sick and tired of hearing this, but today was another shitty day and I can not tell you how sick and damned tired I am of having my shoulder aching constantly and having to wear this stupid damned brace. I can’t sleep well, because I either have to sleep in a damned chair or sleep in the bed and roll over and wake myself up in pain every 45 minutes. I haven’t had a solid night of sleep in a month.
I can’t do basic things, like tie my shoes or button my pants. To get dressed, I have to put my belt in before I put my pants on, button them, pull them up buttoned while sucking in my gut and perform a gymnastic feat to do my belt with one hand, then spend ten minutes trying to rearrange the boxers so I am not a gelding by the end of the day. I can’t mop or sweep or clean, and even emptying the dishwasher is a total PITA. Not that that is a big deal, because I can’t cook, and even if I could, I can’t use a damned fork with my left hand unless I A.) place a plastic sheet over my torseo B.) cook enough that 50% spillage will still leave enough food. Shaving is another whole load of joy.
Even using a computer is an ordeal. I can’t do any video or sound editing because I suck with a mouse with my left hand, and I can not do keyboard shortcuts with one hand. The only way I can blog and email is by using a laptop placed strategically on a board placed across my lap while sitting in a lazyboy- that allows me to have my right hand on the keyboard in the sling while contorting myself so my left hand can play too.
I can’t exercise, because walking hurts my shoulder after just a little bit, and even then, who can walk in this ice and snow. I move like an 80 year old with a hip replacement because I am so terrified of falling again. Additionally, you would be shocked how many times you are accidentally bumped into in public places by people- you just don’t realize it until you have something broken. Also, the $500.00 towel rack (the exercise bike) has been forbidden by the doctors, but I doubt I could probably mount the damned thing anyway.
And now to the chipper sadists at rehab who claim this is for my own good but who main remarkably cheerful while watching people in agony all day. Apparently I have moved on to a new stage in my rehab protocol, something that involves “table exercises.” If that sounds a lot like waterboarding, that should be no coincidence, because it is just as painful. After rehab, I’m basically shot for the day.
I know it is supposed to get better with time, but this just sucks and I have no idea how elderly people recover from this sort of thing without a huge support system. I’m so fed up with the lack of independence and the pain that I’m going crazy. And about the pain- it is no longer the excruciating after-surgery pain, it is now a constant aching, with occasional sharp pierces of pain and always the fear that you have done something wrong. Sure, you can take pills for it, but that just leaves you dain-bramaged and unable to think.
And I don’t want a 100 people saying “I hope you feel better.” I just wanted to bitch, and some of you stated complaining was therapeutic. If that is the case, I should be better by tomorrow after this baby.
Dog on my lap, ice on my shoulder, Chuck on tv.
My life has turned into a g-rated Eastbound and Down.
BTW- NEW MERCHANDISE IN THE BALLOON JUICE STORE.
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