One big moron

▲ BLESSED ARE THE LITTLE MORONS

Gosh, when I was a kid, we did some stupid things, but THIS YOUNGER GENERATION TODAY, boy, they're something else.

Evidently, there is a stunt, called “Ghost riding the whip,” in which “a driver gets out of his car and dances around and on top of the slowly moving vehicle to a thumping hip-hop beat….” The stunt has “gotten at least two people killed, led to numerous injuries and alarmed police on the West Coast and beyond.” So says an article on the AP wire: "Ghost riding the whip".

Evidently, the fad has something to do with a “a West Coast strain of hip-hop music called 'hyphy'….”

It’s news to me.

You can actually watch some of this nonsense on YouTube: Ghost riding goes wrong.

Does everybody already know about this? Am I the last person on earth to learn about it? I woke up this morning, thinking, “I’m SO out of it. Take me out of my misery!” I looked at my cat. She stared at me.

You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?

▲ OH YEAH? THE WHOLE COUNTRY IS ONE BIG MORON

Learn about educational “Sputnik moments” in an article in yesterday’s Inside Higher Ed. A Sputnik moment is when a BIG NEWS STORY OR EVENT spurs an effort to overcome a deficit in public education, such as the Soviet Sputnik launch and our panic over scientific ignoramitude back in the 50s.

The IHE article discusses the perception that Foreign Language instruction in the U.S. has been subject to a series of Sputnik moments, like random jolts of thought, each one fading faster than the last.

If we weren’t a nation of morons, we’d maintain a prominent discussion about just what our schools and colleges should be teaching. We’d understand the importance of pursuing a knowledge of “foreign” languages and cultures. We wouldn't have to be busted upside the head to think about it.

But, no. A bunch of terrorists have to get lucky and kill 3,000 people in one fell swoop. Then somebody says, “Hey, does anybody around here know Arabic?”

We look around. Nobody.

Someone shouts: "My God, man! Do something!"

(While we're on the subject: how long will it be before it is acceptable to discuss WHY all these people hate us so much? History makes that pretty clear, I think. You might have to go to college for that.

But no. Trying to understand the motives of the "enemy"--something that those horrible academics might try to do--is gay or French or unAmerican.)

▲ WHY AREN'T THEY MORE GRATEFUL?

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred...Both this and [an] earlier study [also finding a high death toll] are the only ones to estimate mortality in Iraq using scientific methods. The technique, called "cluster sampling," is used to estimate mortality in famines and after natural disasters…A Defense Department spokesman did not comment directly on the estimate. —Washington Post 10/10/06

▲ WILL THE TUITION CUT SAVE OUR BACON?

As you know, recently, the Governor signed into law a price break for community college students. Starting Monday, students will pay only $20 per unit, down from $26.

For what it’s worth, there are some early indications that the tuition decrease will have the desired effect on enrollments, which have trended downward statewide. See Tuition cut 23 percent (this article concerns San Diego County in particular).

▲ TEACHERS CAN’T SPEAK AT BOARD MEETINGS?

Here’s a disconcerting story in this morning’s Ventura County Star: Brown Act challenge goes to state.

The question is: do public employees (in this case, an instructor with the Oxnard Union High School District [OUHSD] in Ventura County) have the right “to attend [board] meetings and address local school boards that employ them”?

[Thomas] Ito, who has taught biology at Oxnard High School since August, said he went to [the March 8 OUHSD board] meeting to address the board about his reassignment. However, according to a statement signed by Ito in May, he was approached by Superintendent Jody Dunlap as he was filling out a yellow speaker card at the back of the meeting room. Dunlap told him he couldn't address the board and to leave the building, according to his statement, and he left.

Who the !@*# does this Dunlap person think she is?

Well, to make a long story short, the Ventura County DA has written to the Attorney General for clarification (i.e., for a legal opinion).

So they're waiting to hear from the AG, who no doubt will make things crystal clear. While he’s at it, maybe he can explain how it is that a town gets a name like “Oxnard.” I mean, why not “Pigb*lls” or "Horsea**"?