As much as I hated the Bush dynasty, I hate them more now. Among all the other stupid shit Bush The Elder did, the one with the longest consequences was probably the ADA. And as many problems and inconveniences as this has caused for me in the past, the latest manifestation takes the prize. There’s apparently a new scam that the students have discovered and the university has gone along with: special accommodations for lectures, quizzes and exams, documented in so-called Letter of Accommodation (LoA) for the student.
Now I recognize that there’s some true issues where accommodations are appropriate and not onerous; for example, one of my students has hearing issues, so she puts a microphone on me for lectures which beams my mellifluous voice directly into her hearing aids. Cool, and she has a sense of humor as well, so we do a bit of goofing about it.
But suddenly, I’ve been getting hit with LoAs for students “needing” special accommodations for tests because of some supposed “learning disability.” “Distraction-free environment,” meaning taking the tests separately from the rest of the class. “Additional time” meaning that if the other students get the usual 50 minute class period for the exams, the special kids get 100 minutes. “Aids,” meaning that despite my ban on smartphones, laptops, and pads for exams (this came about when I found my students were just feeding the exam questions into ChatGPT or similar and copying the results), the special kids must be allowed to use them.
The practical result is that if I have 5 kids with LoAs, I need to make up 5 separate exams because they’re all going to have to take them at different times and will have seen the exams for the “normal” class and likely one another’s. I will have to spend an extra hour and 40 minutes per student proctoring- and proctoring more closely because I have to watch their screens continuously through the tests. So each exam and quiz will now require 8 extra hours of my time in addition to the time to prepare separate tests and keys, and separate grading. So far. I could get more LoAs in the next week. How much extra pay do I get for the massive extra time now required of me? Hah, you know the answer.
My question analogizing students with learning disabilities in a university to having old Jewish men incapable of jumping more than two inches in the NBA must not be asked. And it couldn’t possibly be that the students are scamming to make it easier to get high grades…
Speaking of time, birthdays today include a true new world guy; a guy who could teach Tommy Crooks a few things; a guy who tried to set longevity records for leeching; the guy who inspired the Mongo horse-punching scene; a guy who made politics a grift, a cult, and a sideshow long before Trump; the greatest comic actor of my lifetime; the spirit animal of my beloved Sierra Ferrell; a guy who made political success of being a retarded Muppet; a guy who had the Death Seat at Grateful Dead concerts; a guy who is a recovered libertarian; and a chick who will make sure you can’t complete a sentence.
I can complete Links, though, and here they are.
A preview of our next election.
I just hate everybody in this story.
The BBC is totally not antisemitic.
And I’m sure that the BBC was of great assistance here as well.
“Don’t worry, we’re only going to pick half your pocket. Maybe. No promises.”
After yesterday’s song which made the Old Guy all weepy, here’s a contrast that had me in hysterics. And best banjo solo ever.
Cool, and she has a sense of humor as well, so we do a bit of goofing about it. – goofing about sounds improper
“Additional time” meaning that if the other students get the usual 50 minute class period for the exams, the special kids get 100 minutes. – sadly they will want this on the job
this came about when I found my students were just feeding the exam questions into ChatGPT or similar and copying the results – good questions should not be easily solved by chatgpt.
back in my say you had a small wireless earphone you would insert into your ear with a magnet. there was an antenna on your chest and you had a small camera at the band of your wristwatch. photograph the test. your buddies were outside with the laptop. get the test solve it and dictate. you had a microphone as well and communicated via coughs. slower faster again. It was important to write as if solving yourself. if you wrote fast and continuously it was clear you were being dictated to. there were other pitfalls like when I dictated to a buddy who wrote the incorrect greek letters.
My wife is a 7th grade teacher and she has a bunch of kids with these accommodations. Two of the kids have 20 or more things on their list. She just writes pass on their grades because there are no consequences for them failing or not doing work. So get ready for more.
We’ve not only made “education” ridiculously expensive, we’ve totally debased it.
Relevant
Idiocracy is coming true faster than I expected.
Wut?
wut wut?
In the butt
James Bond is that you?
When I graduated from an online uni in 2009, it was considered a degree of a lesser sort, in spite of the fact that all of my exams were proctored at our local community college’s computer labs, where I was searched for a cell phone and any other unapproved electronics before and after each test (I had exactly one exam where I was allowed a graphing calculator). Some of my younger friends from online gaming graduated in the last 3-4 years. From no-shit, brick-and-mortar, full-fledged, real-credential unis. Half their exams were at-home, open-book tests, and smart phone usage was allowed even for on-site testing. And that’s before any ADA considerations. The young woman I was recently seeing is currently studying for a nursing degree. Labs are like twice a semester about 40 miles away. Other than that, it’s all open-book quizzes and tests. She’s learning most of the material, but I sat there and watched as she submitted a chemistry test with questions I passed on paper from memory back in high school. Her anatomical knowledge was perfect sufficient for my purposes, but I’m not so sure I’d be psyched to be dying in a hospital with a nurse that barely dragged it over the line using chegg and wolfram alpha.
“Her anatomical knowledge was perfect sufficient for my purposes”
Go on…
Something something old age, something something youth and exuberance…
My wife is a 7th grade teacher and she has a bunch of kids with these accommodations. Two of the kids have 20 or more things on their list. She just writes pass on their grades because there are no consequences for them failing or not doing work. So get ready for more.
you can say that again
Wrote it twice to help you understand.
I may be an underachiever [Narrator: She’s an underachiever,] but I can’t remember the last time I heard or read anything that made me regret that I narrowly escaped becoming a teacher (especially since I had certification in Learning Disabilities.)
I was fortunate enough to realize during the Student Teaching part that the teacher part was not for me. I went in another direction.
My kids always said I had “no class” and they were right.
Diane: Actually, I’d like to join you, but I have class tonight.
Thornton Melon: Oh. How ’bout tomorrow night?
Diane: I have class then, too.
Thornton Melon: I’ll tell you what, then. Why don’t you call me some time when you have no class?
the greatest comic actor of my lifetime – a strange fellow even weird could get canceled these days
Sellers went round the bend in the second half of his career (you can pretty much see the exact point when he shows up as Dr. Strangelove) and makes most of his work in that era unwatchable.
I liked Being There, which as we all know, is the only film in which he appeared post-Dr. Strangelove.
ILY Alice B. Toklas is on TCM today. I would call that watchable.
I hated it, although Chauncey Gardner is as vapid and platitudinous as Barack Obama and Kamala Harris.
That’s the joke
Mushroom overlords would be a step up from our current political class.
But just the mushroom tip.
The annual Mushroom festival was held this past weekend in Kennett Square. Plenty of overlords available for the picking!
Happy birthday “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan?
Happy birthday Jerry Brown?
Happy birthday every chick ever, since Eve?
She’s known as V now.
Let me introduce you to Gavin Newsom. Jerry Brown is a statesman by comparison.
Morning, Glibs.
I feel like I’ve slept in a lot. In the early morning hours, I was laying there trying to figure out what I needed to add or subtract in order to get the real time from the hotel clock, before realizing what I needed was local time, which the clock was already showing.
In re cheating through accommodation – make sure the tests are four times as hard.
A preview of our next election. – democrats flee to Canada to escape the fascist trump regime?
No thank you. We’ve got enough of that shit here already.
Imagine how cool movies will be again by 2026, if Trump wins.
Which he won’t, at least not when the fortifications are complete.
They always threaten it but never carry through.
Meh. No purpose other than novelty. DUDE WHAT’S THE STUPIDEST THING WE COULD USE TO GENERATE ELECTRICAL SIGNALS TO CONTROL A SERVO CIRCUIT LMAO!
If it’s an edible mushroom, shouldn’t we kill it with butter and a saute pan?
I don’t know what you mean.
BRB. Where’d I put that flamethrower…?
Nuke it from or it. It’s the only way to be sure.
*orbit
The BBC is one of the “try to make sure you’re not in an echo chamber” sources in my newsfeed, but yeah, every article about Israel and Hamas is like reading Stormfront with slightly better editing.
just antizionist
That’s a reverse. Churchill was famously pro-zionist, anti-bolshivek back when that seemed to be the choice for eastern European Jews.
I just hate everybody in this story. – there must be one persona not to hate in that whole story.
The IT help desk guy at the web hosting company who provides the enterprise hosting for the NYT surely can’t be all bad.
I donno… I’ve dealt with more than my fair share of L1 Support ‘techs’.
“Repeated Takes, Coaching on Lines…”
I thought I was reading about Kamala’s debate prep with CNN.
Same people.
Fuck you, Trout Mask Replica was gold…
Are trout masks anything like the muzzle masks that the puppy-play fetishists wear?
Yes.
TMR was brilliant. I used it once for Old Guy Music and the complaints were epic.
Not the sort of thing I’d play in polite company, but Dachau Blues is unironically wonderful, in its way.
On This Day: President Ford pardons Nixon for Watergate scandal
But Trump! Immunity! Fascism! Argle-Bargle!!!!!!
I am trying to imagine how my father would have handled those LoA’s, and the only thing I could think of that would be in his ballpark and temperment would be to make the student walk along with him through the university orchards while being verbally questioned for the requisite time. He had to be there anyway, might as well kill two birds with one stone.
Just because you are “accommodating” them doesn’t mean you need to make it easier.
One recent trend I’m quite happy with is that hotel rooms are moving away from the “Mirror on every wall makes the room look bigger!” nonsense. Seeing movement when I’m trying to think distracts me, even if it’s my reflection. Finding that one spot where I don’t see my reflection from multiple angles was annoying, and I’m glad am greater portion of my hotel rooms this trip don’t have this problem.
(I really dislike the ones where there’s a mirror right behind the only desk where you can set up a computer.)
I haven’t found that hotel yet.
The last one I was at had a full-length mirror outside the bathroom door, facing the toilet.
WTF?
They used a German interior designer.
I have never cheated and never understood cheating academically (and my grades showed this). And I consider most of the LoAs cheating. Tests are a way to measure/show what you’ve learned. Done honestly, this benefits the teacher as well as the student(s). If everyone is weak in one area, maybe the lesson plan needs tweaking. If the student is weak in one area, the student can decide if that is important enough to give more focus to that area going forward. But cheating is just trying to obtain good results that weren’t earned. And while I am now self-employed, I have yet for an employer to ask about my grades.
Students are not fonts of self reflection and sound thinking.
In fact, on average, they’re idiots.
I used to look at the syllabus and calculate what I could afford not to do and still pass, just to minimize the amount of effort required. There was a lot of useless busywork I found I could afford to ignore.
If you are only going to school to get a credential, as opposed to an education, then cheating makes sense, as it is just another step to getting an email job.
@Zwak – I suppose that makes a certain amount of sense. Also points to why credentialism is so stupid.
A friend and I were just talking about how wonderful it would have been to to to school to actually learn.
Instead, both of us, were focused solely on graduating with a degree. Both of us came with no money, but wealthy enough parents to totally screw us on financial aid. So we were trying to game the system. How could we get enough credits to graduate with the least amount of tuition?
I took a lot of classes out of order and faked my way through the math. I look back on how nice it would have been to know how differential equations worked before I took my higher level engineering classes.
In my day the poor international (Iranian) students could only afford one calculator amongst them so it got passed around during exams.
I cheated in high school Spanish. Being a lily white kid from Spokane, Washington, it’s not like I was ever going to live in the American southwest where Spanish is spoken as commonly as English, so what was the point?
I actually got called out by my Spanish teacher for not taking it more seriously. I told her basically that (but MN, not WA). Now I’m in TX and wish I would’ve listened! To be fair, I learned enough of the structure and such that now I can understand it fairly well and can almost speak it at the Peggy Hill level.
I moved to southern NV at 18, back to Washington at 21, back to NV at 25, then here to TX at 36. I speak just enough Spanish to let the Spanish-speakers know I can’t speak Spanish.
On the one hand, we’re in fucking America; it’s not unusual that I don’t speak Spanish. On the other hand… yeah, I see the point now.
“And I consider most of the LoAs cheating.”
Well, only because they are.
Since it sounds like each one of them has to be individually administered, I like the idea of making them all oral exams.
“OK, you need 100 minutes, I will administer an oral exam lasting 100 minutes.”
*porn soundtrack begins*
I don’t have the strength this morning to filter out the NYT layers of fabrication to get at whatever the truth is there.
The ADA has been good for me and a lot of people I know. It’s good to be able to get into buildings. I remember what it was like before then. My two oldest had learning disabilities and they needed those accommodations in high school.
That being said, I 100% agree it’s being abused. You see it everywhere and it’s sickening. My kids didn’t make it one Semester in college, and that’s fine. It wasn’t for them. Nobody expected them to be “accommodated” through 4 years.
Yes, I was thinking about you when I was writing that. Real shit as opposed to this nonsense.
This is one of my gray areas when it comes to being libertarian. I really like participating in society, like going into buildings and rolling down a street. But I own a business now so I understand how expenses can get insane. For example, we had to spend $5k putting in doors that met the fire code before we could even open our doors.
I think the law is new construction has to be accessible. There are still plenty of buildings with no elevator (ours is one), and plenty of old buildings that have a step to get into the door. That doesn’t bother me as it’s rare these days.
And somehow it will probably work. Because people are fucking stupid.
“She’s not Trump” is still going to get her really far.
That plus “abortion!” will probably seal the deal. Some fortification may be required.
The business community, as a whole, can’t be that dumb. I think her supporters have TDS
Mark Cuban being a prime example.
WTF is with the Kamala campaign? She’s negotiating a tax bill during the election. This is the time when you tout your ideal plans, knowing that you will have to compromise or not get everything you want when you start hitting external obstacles (like congress or a recession, etc.) That whole campaign is a train wreck.
“That whole campaign is a train wreck.”
I hope it goes off the rails in a fiery (but peacful!) crash.
That is my fervent hope as well.
I’m hoping for a terrible thumping of Harris.
It would hopefully lead to the Left purging themselves of the extremists. Like when the GOP got rid of the Birchers.
That would be the ideal situation. Hopefully the GOP is in the process of expelling the neocons as well. This is part of the process. Things go too far and you need a good purging.
Just like when herself lost, your holiness?
The left is incapable of self reflection and adjustment. if they were, Biden would have announced he was a one term buy a year ago and they would have had a real primary.
Instead, post 2016 all we got was “nazis and russians are hiding under your bed”, Biden ran for a second term, and then there was a switcheroo where nobody even blinked. Now, Darth Cheney endorses Harris and the left is having a ticker tape parade in his honor.
Ironically enough, they all seem to have found a safe, comfortable home in the Democratic party that was calling them Nazi warpigs 20 years ago. Politics. Strange bedfellows. Etc, etc.
:Lasty-y
I can only hope that the Dems go through something like they did in ’88.
Someone like Bill Clinton (hopefully without a Hilary) can make a move to recapture the party. It may not be realistic, but I’m kind of drunk (don’t judge me I’m in Japan and it almost midnight), so I’m hoping that some outsider can make a move on the Dem party.
It is. If Team Red had nominated anyone else, this election wouldn’t be close.
People say this a lot, but I suspect a Jeb!, Mittens or McCain would not exactly be setting the electorate on fire. For better or worse, Trump is the only reason the Stupid Party hasn’t taken its rightful place as the historical to the Whigs quite yet.
*historical successor
Gotta agree Pat, Trump’s not ideal and I’d imagine there are even more agreeable “antiestablishment” candidates but if the Reps had fielded some generic vanilla country club jagoff they’d be irrecoverably screwed.
I agree with Pat. Like him or not, Trump gets his base fired up in a way that no other GOP candidate can. You’re going to get way more turnout if people are voting FOR something, instead of “anybody but a Dem”.
None of them ran this cycle. If DeSantis was the nominee Biden and/or Harris would be toast.
Big titties on Slutty Sunday.
https://www.barnorama.com/30-busty-and-gorgeous-women-stealing-the-show/
Archive no worky.
Hello Contestant #3.
I’m giggling because we had a BBQ here in Japan today. Entire extended family was having supper.
Sister-in-law wanted to go to the local bathhouse (settle down Tonio, completely different here) and have a good sauna and soak. SIL then told Mrs. Holiness that she should change her shirt because the current one stunk of BBQ.
At that time Mrs. Holiness pulled up her shirt to smell it to see if her sister was just fucking with her, but the result was that she flashed pretty much the whole family. Luckily she had on one of her sexier bras, so I didn’t have to worry about ridicule.
“and a chick who will make sure you can’t complete a sentence.” I was sure it was going to be my ex-wife.
“As she has not had bottom surgery, she expected her audience to be mainly LGBTQ+, however she started to get messages from a lot of straight men.”
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/love-sex/im-transgender-adult-star–33590564
Sorry, if xe still has OEM equipment and you’re interested, you’re not “straight” (NTTAWWT).
Don’t be a genital fetishist.
The younger generation seems to be a lot more… flexible, if you will, on that score. I’ve had a years-long ongoing debate with one of my 20-something buddies who insists that “some of them are so feminine, you wouldn’t even know if it wasn’t for the dick.” I’m old fashioned enough that “if it wasn’t for the dick…” is doing a tremendous amount of lifting there.
I think having a dick is checkmate. I mean… that’s the whole game.
I’m not buying that. At the end of the day men are still men and women are still women – messing around with the equipment doesn’t change that.
That doesn’t seem to be the issue – they’re cognizant that trannnies are trannies, and not whatever sex they’ve modified their bodies in an attempt to resemble. They just have a more accommodating definition of what is or isn’t “gay.” Basically, they’re willing to discuss “Well, if he only fucked one sheep…”
So Y chromosome then…not a she, wang or no.
Your new avatar is…disturbing.
Jared Fogle grin but worse: Dead eyes, like a dolls eyes.
That guy reminds me of Joe Besser.
I did a job a couple of weeks back for a stunning Brazilian trans woman (Brazilians and Thais seem to be the best at it). The surgeon who did her breasts was a frigging artist, and I’m not usually super partial to the Q size, but she wore it well. I’d say it was a full chop job as her jeans were absolutely painted on, but you ever know and I was never going to find out.
TOK and I have been chatting about my trip to Japan and the ADA (or maybe JDA).
I showed him the pic of the “handicapped” stall in Japan ( this was 10 years or so ago and it has since been replaced by a real handicapped stall).
To me, this is like the no smoking in bars laws. I love the outcome, but I fret about the fact that it tramples a lot of libertarian policies.
If TOK and his hockey buddies wanted to go hoist a few beers, I would definitely take them somewhere where they had made the effort to accommodate their badass selves. I’d worry though that we might be dropping money into some shitheel’s pocket, who only build a ramp because of the State. Not because they actually wanted to earn the business of TOK and his team.
That’s the crux of it. A proprietor of a public accommodation who chooses to make his establishment accessible to the “differently advantaged” is fine in my book. The state forcing *everyone* to make that accommodation, not so much.
“Her advice for those looking to get into the industry? “Don’t do it. That’s my tip. Don’t f**king do it,” she said.”
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/real-life/if-could-take-sex-work-33607798
Clearly an anti-sex prude. Probably a Trumptard too.
NB: Is “Amyyy-oxxo” on her driver’s license?
When a woman with 4 inch fake fingernails and a throat tattoo with such sage wisdom as “THE GREATEST THING YOU’LL EVER LEARN IS JUST TO LOVE AND BE LOVED IN RETURN” offers you free advice, you’d do well to take it.
Good lord the tatts, especially the middle school level positive affirmation on her throat. “Don’t do it” is solid advice though.
Solid tune, but that throat tatt is just fucking horrid (along with the collection of shitty prison tattoos she is sporting).
Diana Moon Glampers looms large.
Tryna game a university to get better grades is like cheating at solitaire.
Well, as someone observed above, if you’re there for an actual education, yep. If you’re there for the union card of a diploma, cheating is just a step taken to attain that goal.
Thanks, Mr. Griggs.
Contrary to OMWC, I do not hate the guy who asked this question.
“How do you know we aren’t getting criminals, rapists?” a man in a blue Harley Davidson T-shirt asked.”
Blue T-shirt or not, his question deserves an answer, and the Regime will never give him one.
How this got misthreaded to here, I do not know
I really don’t recommend the latest Covid variant. I’ve had it for a week now. At first I thought it was going to be a mild version as for 3 days there I felt pretty much back to normal. Then Friday afternoon it hits me harder than the first part and ruined my weekend plans and looks set to fuck up at least part of my work week.
I think the most hilarious story of the week is that Dick Cheney and his country club play cowgirl daughter are now in their natural home of the Democratic Party. G Dub didn’t go quite that far, but he really should just join them. I was voting for Trump mainly for two policy reasons and that I want to see the Dems beaten. Now that the warmongers are all going Dem gives me another positive reason to cast my useless ballot for T Dog.
What sickens me is seeing the Dems fawning over the twin Cheney endorsements. They don’t have a single principle they won’t sell out mostly because they don’t have a single principle.
They are unprincipled idiots. I cannot imagine there is a single person out there who was going to vote Trump and has been swung to the Kamala side with those two now on her side. I can imagine there might be some lean Dems that this will turn off of voting altogether.
I think the difference between RFK and Cheney is that with RFK, people see some things they have in common with him and they’re happy to have a fellow traveler. Cheney is just cynical, like he’ll bring in anti-Trump Republicans. They’re in complete denial about how much they have in common with him.
All Cheney brings to the table is for Dem deadenders to say, “look at how bad Trump is, even hardcore Republicans like Dick Cheney don’t want him.” I don’t know how they don’t realize that there may be a few people out there on the lean Dem spectrum that don’t really want to get down with the cognitive dissonance of voting for the Dick Cheney approved candidate.
But soon there were not enough workers. Many young, working-age people had descended into addiction. Others shunned entry-level, rote work altogether, employers said.
I thought they all got killed in school shootings.
It didn’t help that most of those jobs disappeared for several decades, and that those jobs and the people who used to do them were relentlessly denigrated by our cultural elites the whole time.
My dad drilled into me from the time I was in grade school to get an education so I wouldn’t have to be a tradesman like he’d been. With my impressive undergrad degree, I now make less than an apprentice at the trade he never wanted me to enter.
Many young, working-age people had descended into addiction.
That would describe a lot of the trades.
ADA (and a fat legal settlement with an activist group) are the excuse for destroying every sidewalk corner in the state and replacing them with dangerous trip hazards*. And every previous intersection, not matter how remote or rural, gets a wheelchair corner, even if there’s no sidewalk. Absolute waste of money.
Michelle Lee-Hall, executive director of Springfield’s housing authority, said that the affordability problem had been aggravated by landlords pivoting to Haitians who were willing to pay higher rent.
Landlords have withdrawn about 200 properties from a federal housing-voucher program for low-income families, she said.
Money-grubbing bastards. This wouldn’t be an issue if the government owned all those rental units. Then the Party could allocate them equitably.
On a recent Saturday, about a dozen Nazi sympathizers — masked men in matching red shirts, black pants and boots — waved swastika flags as they marched in downtown Springfield near a jazz festival. At least two of the men, who authorities said were outsiders, carried rifles.
It wouldn’t be a NYT story about immigrants without armed Nazi thugs.
Leave it to the NYT to give them attention.
Far and away the laziest villain creation in both fiction and “news.”
OMG, not Nazis! Whatever will we do?!?
It’s nice of Dick and Liz to give their permission to Real Republicans to save democracy by voting for the anointed Democrat.
If R had any spines, they’d put up billboards touting Cheney’s endorsement in blue states.
“With this announcement, she is sending a signal to the business community that she is not the bogeyman that the right paints her out to be, and that is more important in some ways than the policy,” Coley said.
She’s ambitious, spineless and unprincipled. You know, somebody we can work with.
Late to the show today, but…
Re: accommodations of extra time on tests. Before retiring, I ran a course with ~1000 students and had 2 to 3% with such accommodations. You can do the math to figure how many I had to deal with. Fortunately, we were allowed to give the same test to all; the extra time people had to either start early or go late, which meant the proctors had to work longer, but overall not as bad as making extra tests.