The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
Meds
So you all know what a pain it is to medicate animals. My mother has to find new ways to hide pills from Shadow every day. Canned food. Peanut butter sandwiches. Cheese. Luckily, she remembers the technique from back in the 80’s when everyone just shoved the pill down the dog’s throat. Kiwi the Grey and Spooky the Cat have to be force fed with the syringe.
There is a holistic serum-like thing the Refuge has been using on feather-picking birds. We’ve been pretty pleased with the results, and thinking it might be worth trying on Sigmund the Foster Grey. The problem is there isn’t a food that is conducive to holding the liquid that we can trust him to eat consistently.
On a lark, I bought some mini-pancakes last weekend. I saw them in the freezer section and remembered one volunteer saying that is how she gets her bird to take meds. I nuked one last night and gave him a piece.
Chowed. Right. Down.
So I picked up the meds tonight, used a syringe to infuse the pancake and gave him a piece. Chowed down again. This is only night two, but I am very encouraged.
Kiwi, of course, won’t have anything to do with them.
The Decline and Fall of Higher Education in the U.S.
The Trib wrote about a topic that has been bothering me for a long time – the fact that higher education has become less and less effective every year. Standards are lowering and Google has replaced thinking.
Here is the news:
“The research of more than 2,300 undergraduates found 45 percent of students show no significant improvement in the key measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years.”
The article goes on to interview a college student that claims to have learned very little her freshman year. It was all material she covered in high school. The way I remember it, high school was a recurring refrain of, “If you don’t learn this now, you will never make it through college.” So I guess I believe her.
And what is not news:
“Lindsay McCluskey, president of the United States Student Association, said the findings speak to a larger problem in U.S. higher education: universities being run more like corporations than educational institutions, with students viewed as consumers who come for a degree and move on.”
Having gone through the online education experience, I am happy to say that schools are continually looking for ways to reach students and provide different programs to meet different needs. However. That should not be at the expense of teaching. Of holding students accountable for understanding the material and applying it properly. Grades should not be bought. Or begged, cajoled or bullied. I don’t care how much “good money” was paid for a course, it doesn’t buy an A, or even a passing grade.
Someone, please. Put our standards back where they belong.
The Suburbs
I’ve been watching lectures from a course on Academic Earth called France Since 1871. I am interested because almost everything I have known about French history has been in the context of American or, perhaps, English history. More on that later.
In a lecture on the urban rebuilding of Paris (mid-19th century), Professor Merriman notes that in the United States, the suburbs are the place that people go to escape the Big Bad City. Whereas in Europe, the suburbs are the place to which the riffraff is (are?) exiled. Fascinating.
Isn’t that a huge part of the American character? That we want land. We want space. But the work is to be found in the cities, so the best we can do is commute from the suburbs.
I could live in a college town, or a small town. I could even go rural, assuming that there was Internet and a near-enough airport. And UPS. But I don’t think I could go urban for real. Even when I went to college – AU is pretty much in the suburbs.
My friend Rich loves the city. He loves it so much that when he figured out that he couldn’t afford a place he really liked in Chicago, he moved to Milwaukee. Just to live in an urban environment. For me, the city is an event, not an everyday way of life.
I need space. I need green. And I love my car. I am ok with being the riffraff.
It is So On
My office had a Bears Day – wear your team gear to the office – on Friday. Well, you don’t have to tell me twice. I wore my lucky Brian Urlacher jersey. And because one can’t clomp around in the office wearing one’s snow boots (and the heels I keep under my desk would look silly), I ran around on Friday wearing my slippers.
Toward the end of the day, a colleague laughed at my jersey, asking from whom I had borrowed it. I was clearly a couple of sizes too big. I hadn’t borrowed it from anyone. But I’ve lost some weight since I bought it. It seemed like time to get a new one.
As any sports fan knows, jerseys can get really expensive really quickly. The best quality, with the names and numbers sewn on can run $250.00.
Not in the budget. But Kohl’s had some replicas on sale and I picked one up on Saturday. Matt Forte. Now to the dilemma:
This is not your average Sunday. This is the playoffs. Would wearing the new Matt Forte jersey upset the delicate balance of mojo? Should I just do my laundry and wear No. 54?
Ultimately, I decided that if the Bears couldn’t manage that minor shift in my ritual, I didn’t want them playing the Pack next week, anyway.
And I was too lazy to do laundry last night. Obviously, it turned out just fine. And now hear this:
Everyone. No more talking until next Sunday. Not one more word.
Mad Men, Season Two
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=leartojugg-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B001GCUER0&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrMuch like Season One, I spent the first few episodes of Mad Men, Season Two wondering what I was doing watching these horrible people and their mean little lives.
Then I got sucked in again.
I don’t think it is too much of a generalization to say that in any good Season Two, there is some serious character development. For me, the way the women flesh out is the more important.
I am interested in the way that Peggy is growing up – she is a trailblazer and this is a Boys’ Club. Watching her try to take Joan’s advice, “Stop trying to be a man,” and “Stop dressing like a little girl,” was worth my time. We really need to move past the Catholic Conflict, though. That story has been told many times before.
And poor Joan. She plays the game by the rules and lands her doctor and he is just as big an ass as the Boys Club and she isn’t happy. She grows professionally and isn’t recognized for it. And OMG with Roger’s little twinkie. I am looking forward to seeing what Joan does next, and how she gets even.
Betty. I spent most of the season disgusted with her. The hand she was dealt wasn’t all bad, but she played it so poorly and is so very spiteful about it. Then we get to the last ep. I don’t want to throw out any spoilers here, but I started to sympathize.
And finally, while I don’t expect to see much of her again, Cooper’s sister was a riot. I want to be her when I grow up. Example:
Cooper, the senior partner, is a germaphobe who makes everyone take off their shoes before entering his office. Alice strolls right in and when Cooper starts to protest, she says something like, “Bertram, my stockings are worth more than your carpet.”
I hope Season Three dives right in.
BTT: First Book
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=leartojugg-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0395401461&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrThe Question was: Do you remember the first book you bought for yourself? Or the first book you checked out of the library? What was it and why did you choose it?
Fifteen Minutes of Fame
Weekend Assignment # 353: My Fifteen Minutes
Andy Warhol famously said that in the future, everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes. Have you had yours? For purposes of this assignment, “fame” includes public speaking, amateur plays, any tv or radio appearance, being a face in the crowd as a movie extra, being mentioned in someone’s autobiography, etc.
Extra Credit: Given the opportunity, would you want to be famous for more than fifteen minutes?
I haven’t told this story in awhile and it is bound to make Kris smile, so:
When I was a kid, my mother was friends with an aspiring director named Sue. The summer I was nine, Sue landed a job directing a short film on school bus safety. To help her out, my mother rounded up kids in my neighborhood to be extras. We spent a few hours on it and were paid 75 bucks. It was fun.
One piece of the film was the little girl that drops a book in front of the bus as she crosses in front of it – then runs back to pick it up. The lesson, of course, was Don’t Do That (followed by If You Can See the Driver, the Driver Can Probably See You).
I, of course, played this little girl. And my school district purchased the film.
I had to watch my 9-year old self in this thing every. single. year. Even into high school. And because there were other kids that we knew, my classmates knew all about it and spent the time shouting “There’s Anne! There’s Justin!” and not remotely paying attention to the message. I slid further and further down into my chair every year.
This was my once a year reminder that I don’t really want to be famous. Rich, yes. But not famous.
Side Note: My father showed up in a National Geographic special that was also played in my school. He was fishing in Alaska with his brothers when NG was filming a documentary on grizzly bears. The teachers would kindly pause the screen and make me point out my dad and my Uncle Jeff and my Uncle Mike and my Uncle Fred. That was way funnier than the bus safety movie.
Confession
As much as I support my local library, I often have trouble using it for its primary purpose – the borrowing of books. Example:
My book club is reading Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
A few days ago, I received an e-mail from the library, saying that the book was due. I logged on to renew it and found that I could not because someone had it on hold.
Lucky for me, the title is in the Clearance Section at Barnes and Noble. Five bucks. I ordered a copy and returned the original one to the library today.
For God’s sake.
Volunteer from Home
Glenview Patch, my new favorite online publication, had an article highlighting some ways that people can volunteer for various causes on their own time, without leaving home. Right now, I have Project Linus to fill that need, but I was particularly interested to see this:
On a Day Where I Needed for Nothing to Go Wrong
Dear United Airlines:
I don’t know how you knew, 24 hours ago, that I was having a rough week in Atlanta. But when I checked on my flight, (to be sure O’Hare wasn’t going paralyzed with the rest of the continent) I found a complimentary upgrade.
I woke up at 6:50 this morning, knowing that I had to take the subway to the airport and not knowing whether those trains would run on schedule. So I was up, dressed, packed and out the door at 7:15 for an 11a.m. flight.
There was no line to check my bag, which made me nervous even though I knew my flight was still on time. I printed my boarding pass, dropped my luggage and looked at the boards. On three other airlines, flights were cancelled right and left. Not United. Everything was running on schedule. Even the 9:38 to Dulles. (OK, it helped that there was only one East Coast flight and the rest of us were going West.)
The gentleman running the gate wasn’t just polite. He wore a smile. Even though he had lived through the same three-day Atlanta nightmare as the rest of the city. I suppose it is possible that he had taken a three-day nap and had missed the drama entirely, but I don’t think that was it.
I fell asleep as soon as I hit my seat. Everything ran on schedule, including baggage claim. Thank you for giving me the day where everything went right.
The Next Dark Age 