Category: News

Actually, no, it’s people have made the word magic who have struck again.

The headline is Glendale High School teacher placed on leave after student records him using racial slur

However, the teacher did not use the baddest word as a racial slur. He discussed it as a word:

After a student notes slave owners’ use of the term, the teacher says he recognizes that, but then says, “Is the word (N-word) not allowed to be said?”

Amid several audible gasps from students in the class, a student begins to tell the teacher not to say it, noting, “As a teacher, if you want to keep your job — this isn’t a threat …”

The teacher responds: “But I’m not calling anyone a (N-word). I can say the word.”

Spoiler alert: It was a threat.

Weird times we live in, when “educators” can “safely” discuss sexuality with children and tell the children not to tell their parents, but discussing a word as a unit of language–not using the slur, but discussing it–is grounds for termination.

Also, I am probably a homophobe and a racist for bringing this up. But twenty years of this blog have already proven I’m irredeemable.

MOOKIE BETTS SO SCARED OF DODGERS’ MILWAUKEE HOTEL HE GOT AN AIRBNB:

Mookie Betts apparently has no interest in messing with potentially haunted hotels.

Betts has become a team leader for the Los Angeles Dodgers, but during the team’s series against the Milwaukee Brewers, he’s not with his teammates.

C’mon, man, that’s the Pfizer, one of the premier hotels in the city. I’ve stayed there a time or two when returning home in the years immediately after college. When I could not really afford it.

Which is weird: I went from staying with friends to staying at hotels starting with the Budgetel on the northwest side and the motel by Timmerman Field to staying downtown pretty exclusively. Hearkening back, I wonder if the change took place after I got my job in IT. It must have. But I stayed downtown numerous times, including at the hotel where Teddy Roosevelt got shot (the Hyatt at the time, although it’s probably changed names since then).

Never saw a ghost in the Pfizer, though.

Springfield restaurant owner says teens ransacked his business

Watching the video, it appears that the group includes both black and white youths.

Hopefully, this does not catch on in Springfield as it has elsewhere. Probably not, as firearms amongst the law abiding are rather prevalent.

Comic book hoarder’s house buried in vintage collectibles ‘worth millions’:

What a marvel-ous home.

Vintage comic books and figurines fill an “abandoned” house discovered by urban explorer Devin Dark, who suspects the ’80s and ’90s merchandise is worth “millions.”

“You walk in and immediately you can see everything stockpiled right in front,” Dark, who hails from Chicago, told SWNS. “It’s just overwhelming. You just stand there looking at everything, not knowing what to do.”

Dark, 27, shared footage of the superhero fanatic’s lair on TikTok last week, quickly collecting over 26,000 views. He posted a longer video on YouTube, but didn’t disclose the home’s location.

Given this is the finest in reporting on a TikTok video based on an interview with a company that creates and distributes amazing news content which drives huge audiences across print, digital and social for the world’s biggest publishers, I am sure you can take it completely at face value.

The photos of an “abandoned” home that has not been lived in for 15 years that is in great repair and has not been looted of its pristine comic book memorabilia, fixtures, or copper show a pretty clean house except for the stuff scattered on the floor.

So, yeah, I make a gesture of warding and disbelieve.

What struck me, though, was a discussion in the comments.

As I have explained to my wife, one of the main differences between being a “collector” and being a “hoarder” is shelf space.

And value, hoarders usually have worthless junk.

We are fortunate to have space for the things I accumulate. Not collect as I do not strive for any completeness in particular items, and I do not go to collectors’ shows or prowl Ebay for what I like–I just look to find items in the wild, at garage sales or antique malls or book sales–and I do not like to spend much money on my gatherings. And I do not really hoard–the condition of my garage aside.

But I have been fortunate that we have been able to move to larger and larger houses as we’ve gone along. That keeps things relatively tidy.

T. rex skeleton sells for more than $5M at Zurich auction

C’mon, man, you know that’s not shipping assembled.

One wonders how much it will cost to have an expert assemble that from the container.

One also wonders if the “private collector” is the founder of Ikea. Because that would be awesome.

Study shows nearly a quarter of kids in Springfield are not prepared for kindergarten:

The Mayor’s Commission for Children’s 2022 Kindergarten Readiness Study found nearly one-quarter of Springfield kids were not prepared for kindergarten.

The commission conducts the study approximately every four years. This year, the study was prepared by Dr. Melissa Duncan Fallone from the Dixon Center for Research and Service at Missouri State University.

• A total of 360 surveys were completed by Springfield Public Schools teachers for a response rate of 80%. 2022 overall readiness results indicate 23.9% of those surveyed were not prepared for kindergarten.
• 36.6% of free and reduced lunch program students were reported as “not ready,” while 13.5% of their non-free and reduced lunch program peers reported as “not ready.”
• 53.8% of students who did not attend a formal preschool were reported as “not ready,” as compared to 20.4% of their preschool-attending peers.

I wondered what kind of hard metrics they used to determine if a child was ready for kindergarten, so I looked at the study itself. At my cursory glance, it looks like the actual hard data is simply a survey of kindergarten teachers who are asked how ready a student is, although the study references the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA) “evaluation” which basically scores conditioning to school conditions and the Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning (DIAL-3 and DIAL-4) which is… well, a quick Internet search doesn’t explain exactly what it measures in children from 4 to 6 (kindergarten age), but I did see extracts of at least one paper disputing its value.

Which means that ready for kindergarten probably tracks pretty closely with has already been conditioned to sit quietly for periods of time and to do directed activities as directed (id est, to not be a pain in the butt to the teacher) and not so much academic performance or preparedness. So, yeah, kids who have already those school-coping skills at pre-school programs that cost money would be better prepared for school than kids who spent their days with their grandparents or moms and had the run of the house or the yard but are suddenly given desks and schedules.

The report does not break down or break out other children’s activities that might accustom them to the organized activities of school, such as day care, Sunday school at church, or Vacation Bible School. Nor does it explore whether children would be more ready for school at age 6 rather than as soon as possible.

Because it’s not so much science as it is lobbying for more money and to extend the state schools’ reach in childhood.

Because I’ve seen that movie before.

Actually, I read about the movie in one of the kiddie computer magazines in like 1984–I forget which magazine, but I had a subscription to it several years before I had a computer–and I eventually watched it at some point.

I don’t have it in the library here at Nogglestead, and it’s not likely that I’ll find a videocassette of it in the wild, but one never knows.

Police investigate counterfeit money in Republic, Mo.

The counterfeit money is not exactly the highest quality:

C’mon, man, that’s not putting any effort into counterfeit money. That’s buying stage money and passing it.

Even Old 880 put more effort into it than that.

Apparently, going to the gym is getting dangerous.

• Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine brutally beaten inside Florida gym
• Punjabi actor Aman Dhaliwal ID’d as victim of bloody hatchet attack at California gym

Here in southwest Missouri, my greatest danger at the gym is that I’ll do something foolish to impress my beautiful wife, like captain’s chair leg raises:

I know it’s a good ab workout when I think I’ve contracted the stomach flu two days after the ab workout.

Woman who got B&Bs confused and climbed in man’s bed died after being ‘dragged outside’

I had a recent trip to St. Louis, and my beautiful wife asked me if I preferred an AirBNB or a hotel.

Given that I might be arriving at night, I preferred a hotel with big signs, a parking lot, and a lobby.

Because I have enough imagination to find myself entering not the AirBNB but the house/apartment/condo next door at 11pm and getting ventilated for it.

Not likely to be dragged down stairs, though, given that I’ve conquered being skinny.

Less than a month ago, I mentioned Robert Blake on this blog talking about the television show Hollywood Squares.

Robert Blake died yesterday. And the headline is “Robert Blake, actor acquitted in wife’s murder, dies at 89“. Not “Robert Blake, Television’s Baretta“. Not “Robert ‘Bobby’ Blake, Mickey in the Our Gang/Little Rascals Comedies”.

As you might recall, gentle reader, Larry McMurtry died while I was reading The Last Picture Show.

I guess that’s not a large sample size, and it’s probably because I’m an old man who often blogs about older people. But still. One can never be too careful.

A hard-hitting, ProPublica and Gannett-regurgitated piece delves into an accidental death on a dairy farm and discovers the real killers.

Apparently, the farm was mostly staffed by immigrants who might have been illegal immigrants, and the boy’s father might have backed over him with a skid steer. To be honest, although the story indicates this is the police report, it remains purposefully vague on a lot of points and casts some doubt on whether the report is accurate because the employees who were there, including the father, spoke little or no English.

But is it a tragic accident? Yes, but:

What happened to Jefferson and his father is a story of an accumulation of failures: a broken immigration system that makes it difficult for people to come here even as entire industries depend on their labor, small farms that largely go unexamined by safety inspectors, and a law enforcement system that’s ill equipped to serve people who don’t speak English.

The system failed. Not in keeping out illegal immigrants (maybe), but it not being completely bilingual and more accommodating of the immigrants.

After all, it was you and me.

I don’t mean to make light of this tragedy–I am a father myself, you know–but the authors of this piece try to make political hay of it, exploiting the tragedy for political gain.

I am not sure who will be swayed by this piece–I see it’s off of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Web page already–but rest assured, the nonprofit, its employees, and its vendors will continue to get paid.

‘Heartbreaking’: Visitor accidentally shatters Jeff Koons ‘balloon dog’ sculpture at Art Wynwood

“Accident” my patootie. All the balloons and balloon-like objects must be destroyed.

U.S. Military Shoots Down Fourth “High-Altitude Object,” This One Over Lake Huron

Who benefits from the United States using $400,000 missiles to shoot down balloons?

China.

How fast are we building replacement Sidewinders?

Objects shot down over US could be ‘alien or extraterrestrials’, Pentagon says.

Who benefits from blaming aliens? China.

(Link via Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

More unhinged speculation here.

Man, I’m sounding a lot like Bill Gertz soundbites these days, but, hey, he’s had a pretty good run for 20 years sounding like Bill Gertz.

Also, I would like to state for the tribunal that although these thoughts occur to me, I only halfway believe them. But it’s getting halfier all the time.

This thought occurred to me the other morning when I was trying to not wake up at 4:00 in the morning.

Borepatch, amongst others asks:

For the life of me, I can’t see what compelling interest the USA has in war with Russia. I can see what the US Military Industrial Complex has with a war like that. And as they say, “War is the health of the State”.

But I don’t see what’s in it for us.

You mean, what is in it for the United State in burning off war materiel by shipping it to Europe? By leaving, what, $7,000,000,000 worth of stuff abandoned in Afghanistan?

I’ve seen people speculate it’s the military industry looking for profits. Meh, I don’t think the military industrial complex has been hurting for money. But you know cui bono from diminished stocks in the United States?

General is right that US, China headed to war over Taiwan by 2025: congressman

Paranoid thoughts in the middle of the night? Or history in the making? Time will tell.

Also, as a disclaimer, I don’t think war is inevitable, nor do I think it is impossible. History is full of currents, trends, and proclivities that are only manifest in events, and then we can argue about why they occurred. So it’s never clear what is to come, and it’s only marginally clearer what just happened.