Sometimes...

...I just sits.  Sometimes I sits and thinks.

Great column in the newspaper the other day about the lack of quality candidates, from both parties, in the Congressional elections next year.  The best part involved columnist Dale McFeatters insisting that "no skills to speak of" are required for "a job program of sorts" created by Congress.  The jobs, of course, are US Senator and US Congressman/woman.  It's "a career," he goes on, "but one that's not too demanding."  It includes $174,000 for "33 weeks of work, a 'week...' generally being only four days."

Getting the job might require one "to grovel, beg, and pander, but these are easily learnable skills."  A key is "getting over the hump" of realizing "having no apparent qualifications for this or any other job."  Once in the seat, "as long as you begin your speech with 'My fellow Americans' and end it with "God bless you and God bless the united States of America," you can get away with any amount of nonsense."  And, "If you're ever at a loss for words, look a donor in the eye and give him a heartfelt 'God Bless America.  It works!" 

Can there be much more of a slam on Congress? 

Is it true the Calgary, Canada public schools are going to eliminate grades until high school?  Ostensibly, the move is to prevent students from seeing themselves as failures.  I think there's another way for students to avoid seeing themselves as "failures."

And, I heard, in it's infinite wisdom, the state of Michigan Dept of Ed is going to begin testing first and second grade students on their computer skills, along with whatever else they are tested on.  But, I guess students don't start getting real computer teaching until 3rd grade.  Huh?

Michigan high school student scores on the ACT and the other state test went up this year.  I suppose that's cause for applause.  But, maybe not.  There are still far too many "not prepared for college," almost 80% of high school graduates.  More significantly, to an anti-test person like me, this "improvement" assumes the tests are worthwhile.  I refuse to make that concession.  And, with all of the emphasis on the tests--the tests themselves, test-taking, teaching to the tests (and we all know it is going on, esp with so much of teacher and school evaluation depending on test scores)--it doesn't seem like the improvement is such a big deal.

I was reminded of a quotation from the Roman Cato the other day.  It brought memories of various halls of fame, teachers-of-the-year awards, etc.  The quotation is, ""After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one."  Quite fitting.

I see Gov Snyder is upset with the state senate for going on vacation instead of voting on his Medicare bill.  I think it would have been defeated, but at least we'd have had a record of how our representatives voted.  I still think Snyder is a big hypocrite and that his support of this bill strongly reflects that.  It reminds me of the stupid position in the schools.  There'd be money left over in the budget at the end of a year.  The rush was then on to spend it on anything, even something not at all needed.  Why?  Because if there was a surplus, that is not spending all of the money in one year's budget, the next one might be cut.  So, go ahead--spend it all, whether it's useful or not.  Snyder's view seems to be, "We contibuted to Medicare, we should spend it."

Walter Williams points out this piece of ridiculousness.  Exxon was fined in 2009 a total of $600,000 for the deaths of birds which had contacted some of Exxon's pollutants.  Yet, this nation's "wind farms" kill about 573,000 bird every year.  Why doesn't the Justice Dept go after the wind farms?  In fact, why has the wind farm industry been legally shielded from prosecution in this?  And, why have the media been so silent on the wind farm "murders," when it was headlining the Exxon "murders?"

I came upon this quotation the other day, from the Roman Cato:  "After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one."  I immediately thought of all of the trivial halls or walls of fame, the teachers-of-the-year awards, etc.  I don't know why, but that was the first thing I thought of when I saw Cato's words.

How about if the kids and I have a dish of ice cream??????