The Rants of Anaximenes

Folks' Folly is a regular rant feature of The Rants of Anaximenes with commentary on and over the galactic stupidity of most people on this planet.

Time for another installment of Folks' Folly to comment on the continued exhibition of the lame-brained, obtuse, dim-witted, simple-minded, thick-headed morons, idiots and imbeciles who never leave me with a shortage of material to write about. Homer Simpson continues to have Einstein-esque intelligence compared to some of the dunderheads on this planet, and will forever remain my avatar for each edition of Folks' Folly.

Now that we're ending another school year, let's take a look at just how well a policy of lowering standards has contributed to the overall improvement of education in our nation's second most populated state and ninth most populated city, where the high school drop out rate exceeds one in four:

New Grading Policies Roil Dallas Parents, Teachers
Scores, Deadlines Are Eased in Plan To Limit Dropouts

By Jeffrey Ball
Wall Street Journal
August 20, 2008

DALLAS -- As students prepare to return to school here Monday, teachers and parents criticized the relaxation of the district's grading policies in a state that helped trigger national testing requirements.

The Dallas Independent School District's new policies give students who do poorly more chances to improve their grades. Among the changes: High-school students who fail major tests can retake them within five school days, and only the higher scores count.

School officials say the changes are designed to reduce one of the highest dropout rates in the state. According to the Texas Education Agency, 25.8% of students in the Dallas district who enrolled as ninth-graders in 2003 dropped out before their class's scheduled 2007 graduation.

But the policies have sparked criticism since the Dallas Morning News reported them last week, with angry parents and teachers contending that the district is watering down educational standards for its more than 160,000 students.

"These kids have already gone too far in not being held accountable," says Tracy Dotie-Hill, who has one daughter in Dallas's W.E. Greiner Middle School and another who just graduated from the district's Skyline High School. "When you go into the work force, if you don't meet the standards or deadlines, you have to reap the consequences."

Teachers say the policy undermines their authority. "It's micromanaging and not trusting the fact that we are professionals," says Diane Birdwell, who teaches 10th-grade world history in a Dallas high school and is executive vice president of the Dallas chapter of the National Education Association, a teachers' union.

Dallas school administrators say they aren't lowering standards -- they are giving students additional chances to meet existing requirements.

"Chief among the reasons children drop out of school is because they are failing their course work," says Denise Collier, the Dallas district's chief academic officer. "We don't want to give them a pass, but at the same time we don't want to pass them over."

The Dallas policies appear to fly in the face of a national trend toward tougher grading standards, according to Dan Goldhaber, a research professor at the University of Washington's Center on Reinventing Public Education.

More than a decade ago, loose standards by local districts led several states -- including Texas -- to exercise tougher control over their public schools. Later, the federal government raised its oversight, implementing the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act. That law has itself come under some criticism for emphasizing standardized-test scores.

"This is the reason we've gotten to this place," Mr. Goldhaber says, referring to the new Dallas grading policies. "It really does look like the lowering of standards."

The new Dallas policies stipulate that students must be given at least one chance to make up work they don't turn in on time, with any penalty to be determined by the school, and that high-school students enrolled in regular courses can be assigned no more than ten hours of homework a week.

In addition, no student can receive a final score lower than 50 out of 100 on a report card -- a policy the district says has existed in the past.

Among large school districts in Texas, Dallas's dropout rate is second only to San Antonio's, and it is higher than the 22.1% rate in Houston, the state's largest school district. Almost two-thirds of the students in Dallas's 225 schools are Hispanic, while 29% are African American and 5% are non-Hispanic white.

Some Dallas parents say the changes are necessary. "We're going to have to come up with some concepts [to keep] a child in school," says Ola Allen, president of the parent-teacher association at Skyline High School.

But the move could hurt students overall, says David Figlio, a professor of education and economics at Northwestern University. "It wouldn't surprise me at all if it helps on the margin with the dropout problem but ends up reducing the incentive for students to do well," he says. "This is a case in which there's no free lunch."

Well, let's see if the Dallas ISD's decision helped at all:

• Dallas' average 2009 SAT score was 850, the lowest in the entire state
• Dallas' average 2009 SAT score was 141 points below the state's average SAT score of 991
• Dallas' average 2009 SAT score was less than 85% of the national average SAT score of 1012
• Dallas' high school drop out rate is seventh worst in the nation.

Uh, nope. Looks like lowering academic standards and not holding students accountable didn't help things much. Wow, that's quite a surprise, huh? And this from a city whose County Commissioners demanded an apology over use of the term "black hole," believing somehow that this was a racially insensitive remark.

Dallas County Officials Spar Over 'Black Hole' Comment
by Kevin Krause
July 7, 2008
The Dallas Morning News

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.

County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole."

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term. A black hole, according to Webster's, is perhaps "the invisible remains of a collapsed star, with an intense gravitational field from which neither light nor matter can escape."

Other county officials quickly interceded to break it up and get the meeting back on track. TV news cameras were rolling, after all.

I suppose the sensibilities of Dallas County Commissioners Thomas Jones and John Wiley Price would be further riled at the equally racially provocative terms of "black mark," "black sheep," "dark matter," and "pot calling the kettle 'black.'"

Or how about "stupid fucking Black morons?" I'm appalled and aghast at idiotic behavior like this and I don't care from what race the idiot comes. This is racial sensitivity, stupidity and political correctness writ lunacy! Under their standard, we should eliminate the word "black" from the English language if it connotes something malevolent because that somehow reflects on the attributes of a race that is also characterized as "Black." Hmmm. Sounds an awful lot like the heretical thinking of the Roman Catholic church during the Dark Ages.

Oops. I said "dark."

Besides, I thought it wasn't cool to call Black people "Black" anymore. I thought we were all supposed to use the more politically correct if not geographically chauvinistic "African American" term? He didn't say anything about an "African American hole." And even if he did, that would be more pornographic than racist.

Are you sort of getting the idea that the denizens of Dallas have elected completely inept individuals to their governing positions, devoid of logical, rational reasoning? Could it be that the voters in Dallas are as stupid as their high school children?

Well, maybe/maybe not. The residents of the city of Dallas are but 1.6 million of the 6.5 million that live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth "Metroplex." The smarter ones, it seems, have actually moved away from Dallas proper into surrounding communities like Plano and Lewisville. Both of these school districts, by the way, had 2009 SAT averages well above the national score by margins of 13.5% and 7.4% respectively. Yes, it seems the smarter folks have all moved away from Dallas.

Speaking of moving, how about moving your ass a little sometime before you looked down at the scales and saw you weighed something over 1,000 pounds? I have some empathy for people who struggle, as I do, with those 25-50 pounds they keep losing and gaining and losing and gaining. But even I have an upper limit beyond which I won't go. It seems to me that there would be more than a few milestones along the way to weighing a half-ton that might suggest you need to lay off the cheeseburgers and hit the treadmill every now and then.

Moreover, why are these people, pathetic and pitiful as they are, exploited by a television network as some kind of electronic age freak carnival sideshow? Why is The Learning Channel airing all of these shows about abnormally, morbidly, and dare I say disgustingly fat people?

• Half-Ton Mom, Renee Williams, weighing in at 900 pounds, convinced doctors to perform a gastric bypass on her, even though she was the largest person at the time to have had that procedure. Typically, surgeons require a patient to lose weight first to make the operation and recovery odds better. Ms. Williams felt her situation was too dire to wait, so she proceeded with the operation. She had a heart attack and died 12 days later. Now, that's what I call TV drama and a dual whammy. She was both fat and stupid.
  

• The Half-Ton Teen, Billy Robbins, lives with his mother who is definitely the enabler, if not the promoter of his weight, exceeding 1,000 pounds. Billy’s mom shoveled food into him to the tune of 8,000 calories a day. He chose to be home-schooled because the kids were making fun of his weight. An update on Billy is that he has slimmed down to around 550 pounds and has decided to move away from his mother, whenever he can actually get through the front door.
  

• The Half Ton Man, formerly 1,072-pound Patrick Deuel, has slimmed down to a svelte 542 pounds three years after he underwent bariatric surgery, losing the equivalent of two NFL defensive linemen. His ultimate goal is to weigh 240 pounds or less. On the one hand, Deuel’s story is inspiring. But on the other hand, he smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, and part of his motivation to lose weight is to gain the mobility to drive to a McDonald’s to get an Egg McMuffin.

I'm sorry, but this is some stupid shit. These people have destroyed their lives as living incarnations of gluttony run amok, and some goddamn television network, allegedly dedicated to "learning," has turned their pathetic lives into entertainment venues, while the rest of us look on in disgust.

Or not. I pretty much change the channel when one of these programs airs. That goes for all the fucking midget shows I've been seeing lately, as well as these other gems from TLC:

99 Most Bizarre Medical Mistakes 99 Most Bizarre Self-Inflicted Injuries 101 More Things Removed from the Human Body The 160 Pound Tumor 627-Pound Woman: Jackie's Story Addicted To Food The Baby Who Changed Colors Born A Boy, Brought Up A Girl Born With Two Heads Born Without a Face Boy Whose Skin Fell Off Boy With A New Head Can't Stop Growing Dead Tenants The Dwarf Family The Girl Who Never Grew Half Man, Half Tree I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant I Eat 33,000 Calories a Day I Woke Up In The Morgue I'd Kill For a Baby Inside the Brookhaven Obesity Clinic It's Not Easy Being Wolf-boy Joined For Life Kids By the Dozen Living With Half A Body Man Whose Arms Exploded Mermaid Girl My Big Foot Paralyzed and Pregnant Pregnant For 46 Years Real Wolf Kids Sex-Change Capital of the World Shrinking The World's Heaviest Man The Sickest Patient In The Hospital When Surgical Tools Get Left Behind Wild Child: The Story of Feral Children Woman With Giant Legs The Woman With Half a Body The Woman With The Giant Lump World's Fattest Kids World's Heaviest Man Gets Married World's Tallest Woman

The Learning Channel needs to step down off of their lofty pedestal, change their name, and take a big whiff of truthfulness. The Exploitative Channel or The Freak People Channel would both probably work nicely.

Speaking of freaks, one of the more inane actors-turned-annoying-environmental-activists is Ed Begley. So what does our television entertainment industry do with someone like that? They make a fucking weekly television show out of him, of course.

Discovery Channel likes to stratify its content to appeal to various market segments. In addition to the parent network, other Discovery networks include The (aforementioned) Learning Channel, Animal Planet, Science Channel, Military Channel, Discovery Health, and now, it's latest incarnation to cash in on the Al Gore global warming hysteria, Planet Green. This network includes such riveting shows as:

• Emeril Green, in which the defunct Food Network chef "bams" and "gah-licks" his way through Whole Foods Markets doing his cooking schtick with unsuspecting shoppers;
• Focus Earth where liberal author and Washington Post icon Bob Woodward gives further credence to the environmental movement with bullshit studio-based round table discussions about global warming, environmental regulations and a perspective on why we're all assholes for creating a hotter planet and how we need more governmental interference in our lives;
• Greenovate, which shows viewers how they can purchase and install "energy efficient" green technologies around their home, further driving up the stock prices of Al Gore's companies that invest in crap like this;
• G-Word, a pseudo-news show with a variety of stories on creating the illusion of a "green lifestyle," brought to you by a former improvisational comedic actress, with such stories like why you should eat insects for their high protein value and "low environmental impact;"
• Go For the Green, in which former MTV shock comedian Tom Green manically challenges members of his studio audience to prove how "green" they are. By the end of the show, two finalists will face off to win the grand prize — a "fantastic green weekend getaway.”

I guess that means they get to camp out in a compost heap in Ed Begley's back yard, because this exciting TV line-up on Green Planet also includes his new show, Living With Ed.

Ed's big claim to fame was playing a regular cast role in the early 1980s television show, St. Elsewhere, and aside from occasionally guest starring in such shows as Scrubs, Boston Legal, and Star Trek: Voyager, Ed hasn't distinguished himself very much or very recently as an actor. That's because Ed can't act. He can only act like Ed. And, well, Ed just isn't all that damned interesting.

Clearly suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder, Begley has lived off of his marginal success as an actor to pursue a life of environmental activism. He is actually in a contest with another environmental activist, Bill Nye, to see who can leave the lowest carbon footprint. Ed could actually win that contest if he would only go blow his brains out sometime real soon.

Ed is a so-called vegan, lives in a 1,585 square-foot home, utilizes solar power and wind power, and has a picket fence made from plastic milk jugs. He has a solar powered oven (that doesn't work when cloudy) and has an electricity-generating bicycle used to toast bread. Only in California would this merit a TV show. Anywhere else, Ed would be dismissed as a fucking nut, or as the neighborhood eccentric at the very least.

Speaking of eccentric TV personalities, annoying TV huckster Vince Offer, whom Anaximenes wrote about in Folks' Folly VI, is back in the limelight for getting arrested on a battery charge for beating up a hooker in his Miami Beach hotel room.

ShamWow Guy Arrested After Hooker Fight
By Newser
March 28, 2009

MIAMI – He may seem like a nice man with a magical towel, but Vince Offer, whose real name is Vince Shlomi, better known as the ShamWow guy, was arrested for punching a prostitute. Shlomi, 44, told police he took 26-year-old Sasha Harris back to his hotel room and paid her $1,000 for sex, according to the arrest affidavit. Then things went sour.

Shlomi says that when he went in for the kiss, Harris bit his tongue and wouldn’t let go. Shlomi, naturally, punched her repeatedly until she surrendered his tongue. The bleeding Shlomi then ran to the lobby, and security called the police. When they arrived, Harris refused to go quietly. Both sported bruises and lacerations and stunk of alcohol. Both were arrested for aggravated battery, but prosecutors have declined to file formal charges against either.

Do you think Vince used his super absorbent ShamWow towel to clean his wounds and wipe off all his dried blood? As far as we know, ShamWow isn't dropping Vince as their spokesperson, which leads us to believe that they may use this incident to promote their super absorbent towel.

That commercial might go something like this [for full effect, read this aloud with Vince's annoying New Jersey accent]:

Hey, dis is Vince Offah heah wid anoder offah for da ShamWow, so absahbent, you'll be sayin Wow!

Look-a-dis...da ShamWom sucks up dried, caked-on blood like a Miami hookah can suck the chrome offah trailah hitch. Speaking of sucking, dats wad I tawt I was gonna git from dat chick dat I had to slap around, ya know? Jeeze, wad a bitch she was to do da Hannibal Lecter numbah on my tongue.

Bud, da ShamWow came to my rescue. Saliva, blood, sweat...no mattah wad bodily fluid you can prahduce, da ShamWow will handle it all!

Look-a-dis. We gonna do dis in real time. Watch as I slit my wrist right heah on de ayah. Ah you followin me camera guy?

See da blood spurtin from mah ahtery? Budda ShamWow will start moppin dis up like dat Miami hookah can suck a golf ball true a gahden hose.

Woah! I'm stahtin to feel a little dizzy heah. Are you followin me camera guy? If so, will you stop followin me camera guy and go get de doctor guy? I tink I'm gonna pass out, now.

So, if you call right now, cause we can't do dis all day, and can't stand heah and bleed all day, we'll give you two moah ShamWows sos we can move somma dis crappy product oudda da warehouse.

You need one fada boat, da cah, da campah, and to clean up crime scenes in cheap Miami Beach hotel rooms.

So - call now - foda ShamWow - heah's how [faints and falls off camera].

Hopefully, that would be last commercial in which we would have to put up with Vince Fucking Shlomi.

And Billy Mays is next!