You Can't Agrue With Logic Like That

My students had a test a few days ago covering their comprehension of the story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. One of my all time favorite stories and a heck of a good cartoon, if I do say so myself. Since I also teach Language Arts as well as messing mathematicly with the minds of youngsters, we had read the story... and watched the cartoon. Because using the tv is still the best way to get some down time from dealing with a room full of over diagnosed and under medicated kids. (The kids laughed when I screamed from the back of the room "Don't go in the cobra hole, Rikki!!! Seriously, don't they know he might not come out?)

Anyway, after our week of study, the class got the test. I was good and used Bloom's Taxonomy of educational objectives. I covered all the key points and vocabulary for the first level of knowledge, then moved on to the deeper cognative understanding questions. The last question asked the students to pick the best of two answers, then explain why they DID NOT chose the other. It was ment to be a short answer response. This is what I got:

"Duh, that other one sucked"

Yeah, it's hard to argue with logic like that.  (Just like he is not going to be able to argue with the "F" he earned on the test.)

This is Some Scary Knit, People

The other night me and one of the best girlfriends (AW) got together for a night of movies and knitting. (Yes, Ms. Tastrophie knits and she has some mad cable knitting skills, thank you very much. http://www.ravelry.com/) Now, I love to knit. I am not a lover of all things scary movies. But this is the season and Best Girlfriend does love her some scary, so Ms. Tastrophie does what every good friend would do... watches and closes her eyes at the scary parts. (Which means I close my eyes pretty much from the minute the movie starts until the credits roll, because well...I'm a chicken sh*t.)

Now, I really can't yip too much on this because the movie and knitting was my idea. When I suggested the movie and knitting it was 9 a.m and I was thinking more about day-time movie viewing. For me, watching scary movies is done in the brightest part of the day with all the shades open and every light in the house on. The last time I did the scary with the shades closed and lights off was when my sister convinced me that it would be FUN to watch The Ring (http://www.ring-themovie.com/) with no lights on in the middle of the evening. Did I mention my sister is mean? Then she thought it would be funny to call me on her cell phone from the bathroom right after scary-wet-black-hair-creepy-girl comes climbing out of the well and through the TV set. Did I mention I am now an only child?

Yeah, I had a $200 electric bill that month after sleeping with my entire apartment looking like the Crank house at Christmas time. I also lost a month of TV viewing since my TV was unplugged and hidden in the back of the closet for three weeks before I could bring myself to take it out. (I also had the closet door wedged shut with a chair, 2 stacks of BIG @$$ books and a dresser... just in case.)
Back to the story. AW & I rent the typical suspense-horror movie. The one where the Japanese version was so good that Hollywood tried to capitalize and re-make it. Yeah, it fell flat and was pretty bad, but it had just enough scary to get me all weirded out. We watch. We knit. I hid my eyes. Apparently not enough though because after Best Girlfriend leaves to return to here abode, I am left alone in a semi-dark apartment with two of the worst guard cats. One day someone is going to break in and those two morons will fall over themselves trying to make it under the bed in time.

I go to bed. Thing 1 and Thing 2 park themselves on the end of the bed dutifully keeping one eye opened for anything that should go "bump" in the night. Did you know cats can sleep with one eye opened? Yeah, they do. So that they can look like this when the boogie man comes creeping down the hall:

BIG PUSSIES!!! About 3 a.m. one of my neighbors decides now is a good time to go slamming doors and making all sorts of go-bump-in-the-night noises. I sit straight up. Cats jump straight up. My heart races faster than the Indy 500 lead car. Cats race faster across the bed and under the covers. Fur and blood was everywhere. Little brats forgot to pull back the claws in their mad dash under the covers to protect my feet. I scream like a little b*tch. OK, it was more like a blood curdling, bone chilling, OH-MY-GAWD-HE-IS-GOING-TO-KILL-ME-SCREAM. I kept it up for about 5 minutes (it felt like five minute, come on, work with me here). And thanks to the lovely after-market set of lungs I am now packing, I scream VERY loudly. When I finally wake up from the hyperventilating pass out, I grab the closest thing to a weapon I could find: My copy of the latest Twilight Series Breaking Dawn. (I don't know what I was going to do with it: bore the intruder to death?) After a very careful search of my apartment, I kicked Useless and More Useless out of the bed and went back to sleep....

Until the cops banging on my door woke me up and I started screaming all over again. My neighbors heard me screaming, called 9-1-1 thinking I was getting the business end of an axe or something, and the town's finest took 30 minutes to come rescue me. Let's just say they were not too happy to hear my explanation for interrupting their late-night donut run. And I won't be watching any more scary movies in the dark.

The Palin Problem

I figured out what is wrong with Sarah Palin. Other than she is being totally set up for the fall guy when McCain gets tanked in the election. Note: I have not decided who I am voting for this year, I am still researching it. Paying teachers more money & health care will be my deciding factors. So this is not a political blog. Trust me, read on.

The problem with Sarah Palin is that she is pretty. Apparently you can't be pretty and have a brain. At least that is what Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, etc. keep telling me. Seriously, they have each spent at least one news show, if not more, talking about her clothes, eye wear, hair style, and physical appearance. Where were the shows on Obama's fashion choices or McCain's decision to go full on grey instead of covering it up? Not once in this campaign have I heard two political analysts damn near wet themselves trying to discredit Obama or McCain because "he is too good looking" to be President. LAWD knows you can't be good-looking and want to change the country.

I guess it is a good thing Obama doesn't look like Tyson Beckford or Denzel Washington, cause good grief, how would we deal with that? Oh yeah, I forgot. It's OK if your a guy and good looking. You can still be taken seriously and thought to be intelligent even if you hit the gentic lottery. Forget about it if you are female. You KNOW those two things just can't mix in our gene pool and work out well. (I don't care how much they call it a scholarship pageant ~ no one is watching it for the heated political debates on World Peace!) Apparently before women are born, while we are developing, women get a choice of two lines: Beauty or Brains. You only get to go through one line and you're just plum-outta-luck if you wanted some of the other.

I found the biggest irony in all this to be when Palin met with the President of Pakistan and he almost drooled all over the carpet telling her how "beautiful" she was. At least she held her composure and didn't look act like Mr. President-fifteen-year-old-in-heat for a Major Nation. I guess the bigger problem is that men can't make rational decisions around pretty women and that is why Palin's looks are so damn important. LAWD, knows we have had more than one election outcome changed based on a man's inability to keep it together around good looking women. Gary Hart, anyone?

Seriously people, who cares what she looks like? I mean if we are going to base our choice for Vice-President based on looks alone, lets get Angelina Jolie in the White House. She's HOT. She's aware of global wide issues. She can intimidate the living sh*t out of pretty much anyone she meets and I've seen what she can do with a gun. Think about the foreign trade policies we can change with her in the negotiation chair. Plus I would KILL to see her wear leather to the Inaugural ball.

**And since I have spent the better part of the last two days in a NyQuil induced haze watching more political t.v. than I ever hope to see again, I just thought I should add my thoughts to the mix. Because, even drugged out of my gourd, I know stupid when I see stupid and George Stephanopoulos discussing fashion is just dumb....and wrong...but mostly dumb.

Hi-Jacked Blog

This is Bud E. Phat and Elsa Lioness.
Ms. Tastrophie is sh*t-faced flat down on the bed in a NyQuil induced coma trying to cure another nasty cold. Being the loving pets that we are, we decided that revenge is best served when one is passed out cold. So we have jacked the computer for some sweet payback.

After purchasing a lifetime subscription to Live Nude Cats (http://www.livenudecats.com/ ) and finding a few new friends (http://www.catster.com/)who were willing to send us some premium grade kittty-nip, we have decided to spill the Whiskas on Ms. Tastrophie. Of course she probably will sell us down the river when that box from PlayPet arrives C.O.D. Who knew that a little feathers and fuzz could cost so much? Good thing this woman had a few coin hidden in the cabinet.

Now, here's where you come in. Send us your questions, inquiries and twisted photo requests and we will kitty up the goods. Trust us, that girl ain't getting out of that bed anytime soon. We mixed the xanax with the NyQuil and she hasn't seen the light for the past two days. We're thinking if we can work this right, we can spill the beans, and get the packages hidden before she realizes that we figured out human technology.*

So what do you want to know?

P.s. Wizard Cat ~ WE LUV U!!
P.s.s. Fernando ~ You had us at "Oink"

*Cause really people? What the hell do you think we do all day when you are away? Sleep? Chase mice? Yea, right. Check your cable bill. Those $3.99 movie rentals you been blaming on the kids? The "good" cheese that keeps disappearing from the fridge? Those internet sites you pretend you don't go to? We know.

Redemption in The Eye of The Pit

I just finished watching one of the most gut wrenching programs I have ever seen (and I watch ALOT of TV).  It was about Michael Vick and his dog fighting ring.  (I know, this is old news, and yes, I followed it when it was happening, but this story was on the animals.)  I was so upset watching it, that I actually was sick to my stomach!!  I personally hope Michael Vick rots in hell and has become the little bitch for every Arian-Brotherhood-Loving prisoner on his cell block. 

I was horrified to watch as these dogs were forced to fight each other for the entertainment and profit of their owners!  And if the dog lost, it was killed.  Not humanly euthanized.  KILLED.  Some were hung from trees, others beaten to death, others left to die from the injuries they experienced in the fighting ring.  Hell, if a grown man want to put on gloves and get into the ring in order to beat the living shit out of another other so that they can be punch-drunk later in life: more power to him.  He knows what he is getting into and the risks involved.  These dogs fought - not because they are solely bred to be mean, but because they have an inherent need to PLEASE their owners!  You could actually hear the owners saying "Good Boy/Good Girl" to their dogs on the videos.  

Now, I know Pit Bulls* are scary looking dogs.  Often fighting dog owners crop the dog's ears and bulk up the dog in order to have a meaner looking animal.  Fighting dogs endure months, even years of abuse in the name of "training" in order to make them vicious.  At times, I did not know which was worse: the fighting videos or the videos of the training and captivity of the dogs.  The breeds of dogs used in these fights have been given (and some have earned) a reputation as being aggressive.  I know that people have died from attacks by pit bulls, rottweillers and wolf hybrid breeds.  I am not saying that doesn't happen. Personally, I blame careless breeders and owners who line-breed or trait-breed in order to create more aggressive fighting dogs.  What the hell are these people thinking?  I can't find a single reason WHY this sport made it out of the colosseum and into modern day culture.  

There are those who say the breeds should be banned.  That it is in their nature to be aggressive.  I don't believe that, especially after watching what happened to these dogs after they were confiscated.  I can't advocate the extermination of a species based on a few "bad apples".  That argument didn't work for the Eugenics movement or The Nazis and I don't think it holds water for taking out a dog breed.  But that is not the point of this blog.  

What amazed me about the dogs involved in the Michael (rot in hell you scum sucking pig) Vick case was that with the exception of two of the dogs, who had to be euthanized for health reasons, ALL of the dogs were rehabilitated and placed in homes or rescue agencies!!!  One even works as a therapy dog with the elderly!  I was moved to tears by the sight of dogs who were once trained to fight to the death, giving unconditional love to another human being. Puppies and adult dogs playing, fetching balls, running with their new owners, and giving kisses in return for good belly rubs like normal companion pets.  I found it interesting that a soul with every reason to HATE based on the inhumane treatment it had experienced until that time in its life, could learn to forgive and love those very creatures who had shown it no mercy.  

Ms. Tastrophie has to wonder about the world in which she lives.  Apparently we are not as evolved as we would like to think we are.  If we have learned to hate one another based on a skin color, job description, or religious affiliation, how can we claim to be above one who can't even hold a fork?  Yeah, I am being a hypocrite by saying I hope Michael Vick gets @$$-pounded in prison for his part in all this and I know that some will never think that the breed is redeemable, no matter what anyone says.   For me, watching those dogs find a new leash in life was enough to restore some of my faith in man-kind (even a very little for Michael Vick ~ who really does deserve to rot in some level of hell).  

So my thought is this:  Who knew that the key to man-kind's redemption could be found in the heart of a once trained killer?

*The pit bull is a type of dog bred for fighting, not a specific breed. Responsibly bred and owned, the American Staffordshire Terrier and the Staffordshire Bull Terrier -- often referred to as pit bulls -- are not fighting dogs.