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"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful."
Volume 15, Number 9, February 28, 2010
(Why my column is even better than videos on the Internet – I don’t make you watch an advertisement first!)
Greetings, and thanks for joining me for another week. Starting us off are a few news stories you may have missed. First, gee, why didn’t we think of this sooner: "…if you keep a student in your classroom for an entire year and they don't improve, there is something wrong with that and it needs to be fixed." The Houston Independent School District came up with a fix for teachers who don't produce students with high enough test scores: fire them. School board members voted last week to do more than reward teachers based on test scores. Beginning next school year, teachers whose students consistently fail to improve on standardized tests may be let go. (ABC World News) Recently, one school in Rhode Island just fired every teacher, the principal, and staff members. Of course, that also follows and supports the philosophy that there are no bad students, only bad teachers (and principals and staff members).
Next, Chamil Guadarrama, 30, was arrested in Springfield, Mass., earlier this month after a store security guard spotted him with 75 bottles of lotion stuffed down his pant legs (which were tied off at the ankles), making him look like a nearly immobile Michelin Man. Said one policeman: "(We) could not fit Mr. Guadarrama into the cruiser because ... he could not bend over." [The (Springfield) Republican] (Personally, I can think of many other things to steal besides lotion!)
Finally, money well spent. This past summer, the National Institutes of Health awarded $3 million to the University of Illinois Chicago to identify the things that cause lesbians to drink alcohol. It will be very important, said research director Tonda Hughes, to compare why lesbians drink with why heterosexual women drink. (This is a different NIH grant from the one to study why gay men in Argentina drink and why prostitutes in China drink.) [WBBM-Chicago Sun Times] Hey, NIH, give me $3 million and I’ll come up with a better study than that…. You know, like a study on like why people award grants for stupid studies!
Principal Ron Sterr of Litchfield Elementary School in Litchfield Park, Ariz., apparently thought a fake "letter to parents" was so funny, he sent it out to teachers to give them a laugh. "The math we do is really easy," the letter noted. "If your child is either too lazy or too stupid to finish it in class, I'm sending it home so that you can work with them and judge for yourself whether it is laziness or idiocy that inhibits your child's progress." Making fun of kids with physical problems, the letter notes "one of our students has a nervous tick that causes him to slap himself in [sic] face several times a minute. In order to help this child not feel conspicuous, we ask that your child imitate a crazed masochist for the length of the field trip." Unfortunately, one second-grade teacher thought the letter was real and forwarded it to parents. Their outrage has led to Sterr being put on administrative leave. (Arizona Republic)
From Bizarre News, a four pack of Stupidity (1) In September 1992, robbers in Las Vegas held up a van thought to contain gambling chips, only to find that it was carrying potato chips instead. Oops. (2) In 1998, a guard was caught smuggling a wad of money in his underpants out of a bank in Atlanta when a tiny security-dye capsule exploded, blowing a hole in his trousers. Oops. (3) In 1998, a would-be Texas grocery store robber went to the trouble of disguising his face with a balaclava but forgot to remove from his breast pocket a laminated badge which showed his name, place of employment and position within the company - an oversight spotted by at least a dozen witnesses. Oops. (4) A 1975 raid on the Royal Bank of Scotland in Rothesay degenerated into farce when, on the way in, the three would-be raiders got stuck in the bank's revolving doors and had to be helped free by the staff. Undeterred, they returned a few minutes later and announced that it was a robbery. The staff thought it was a practical joke and refused to pay up. While one of the men vaulted the counter and twisted his ankle on landing, the other two made their escape, only to get trapped in the revolving doors again. Oops. (I wonder of their names were Moe, Larry, and Curly….)
The Royal Mail took nearly three decades to deliver a woman's exam certificates just six miles away. Gill Smeathers received the package postmarked 4 November 1982, 27 years three months and two days overdue. It contained four secretarial certificates issued to her daughter Tracy, who now lives in Canada, from a course she took at Kettering Technical College. Mrs. Smeathers, now a retired office worker, said: "I knew instantly when I saw the name of the college what it was. Tracy and I had a good laugh about it when I told her, but I'm not sending it to her. I'm keeping hold of it this time." Tracy thought I had received the certificates and I thought she had them so we never even realized they were missing. I'd love to know where it's been all these years. I can only think it must have fallen behind a cupboard and got lost." (Ananova)
A US woman's life was saved by her size-D breast implants when she was shot at point blank range with a semi-automatic assault rifle. Lydia Carranza was working in a dentist’s office in Beverly Hills, California, when a gunman ran in and opened fire. He aimed the weapon directly at her heart but one of her silicone implants took the force of the blow, stopping bullet fragments from reaching her vital organs. The gunman had gone to the dental office looking for his wife, who also worked there. She was shot and killed in the attack. Mrs. Carranza was sitting a few feet away when the gunman turned on her. "She's just one lucky woman," surgeon Dr. Ashkan Ghavami told the Los Angeles Times. "The bullet fragments were millimeters from her heart and her vital organs. Had she not had the implant, she might not be alive today." Mrs. Carranza, a mother of three and grandmother of two, had implants some years ago to change from a B-cup to a D-cup. When the gun was pointed at her and fired, she said, "I just felt wet in my chest area. I thought I was going to die." Jaime Paredes, the alleged gunman, is awaiting trial on charges including murder following the shooting.
From www.azcentral.com, if you’ve ever wondered why some kids are like they are…. Police said the mother of an elementary school student drank a 40 ounce bottle of malt liquor before showing up and waving around a sword in her child's school. The woman, 32, apparently intended to confront the parents of another child who had been in a spitting match with her child the previous day. According to court records, an employee at Riverview Elementary School in Memphis reported a drunken woman armed with a sword was running through the halls of the school and had threatened to cut her. Officers who arrived on the scene retrieved a black cane that concealed the blade. The woman was charged with aggravated assault and having a weapon on school property. Sigh.
Some people never learn…. From Reuters, a German robber held up the same bank in Hamburg twice within 24 hours just a week after being released from jail -- for the same crime. A police spokesman said the 50-year-old man went into a savings bank in the center of the northern port city and flashed a pistol, saying: "I was here yesterday, and I want money again today!" The repeat offender made off with 450 euros ($600) but with the help of video surveillance cameras, police were able to detain him three hours later.
Finally, a few quotes to ponder as we say goodbye for this week. (1) “A word to the wise ain't necessary, it's the stupid ones who need the advice.” Bill Cosby. (2) “The dumbest people I know are those who know it all.” Malcolm Forbes. (3) “A stupid person should keep silent. But if he knew this, he would not be a stupid person.” Muslih-ud-Din Saadi (Medieval Persian poet). (4) “Then there's politics. Just imagine politics with its dumbbell element subtracted. There would be no Republican candidates. There would be no Democratic voters. The whole system would collapse.” P. J. O’Rourke. (5) “It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Bonus): “Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills” [on causes of the Columbine High School massacre, 1999]. Tom Delay (politician).
Later.
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