What an amazing update! ❤️

I think 90% or more of the posts on AITAH (and all the similar subs), are completely fictional, and they are purposely written to get as many responses as possible. Apparently some people literally just start new accounts, pump up the points so it seems like a reputable account, then sell the account to spammers and/or those looking to spread misinformation while giving the appearance of a legit account. The best way to rack up a ton of points quickly is to post rage bait in one of the biggest subs, and there is a definite pattern where you will see a thread get a huge response, and then there will be very very similar stories on AITAH and all the similar subs, just with minor changes to the details — genders or income reversed, ages or jobs changed, etc. I don't doubt there are some guys like that, but I think they are over-represented on Reddit, and none of my kids' friends are like that at all. ETA: keep in mind that the more you click on certain types of stories, the more the algorithm will feed you those types of stories, so what may really just be a few, largely fictional stories, can end up feeling like some widespread cultural movement.

He can definitely sit comfortably in the middle row, but I don't know about the 3rd row. But if you only need to fit a driver plus 3 passengers, you can leave the 3rd row seats down and just pop out the center console/seat from the middle row (it's designed to be very easy to remove) and slide the bass in with the neck part going between the two passenger seats. Here are a couple of photos showing what the center console/seat looks like, and what it looks like from the back with it removed — you'd have the full length of the car from the back to the driver's seat for the bass, while still having two full sized, comfortable passenger seats.

How many people do you need to fit at the same time as the bass, and how tall are they? In my experience, Hondas tend to have the best headroom for tall people and I often see them recommended for "very tall" folks. DS is 6'7" and he can sit comfortably in an Odyssey or Pilot, but in a Subaru Forrester his head hits the roof and there is no way to adjust the seat to prevent that, at least while driving (if he is in a passenger seat he can recline the seat way back, but he can't drive in that position). Even though on paper the Forrester has roughly the same headroom as a Pilot, the seats are more upright, while the Pilot and Odyssey seats can be lowered in a way that makes it comfortable even for someone 6'7". I have also seen the Honda CRV recommended on several sites by people who are very tall, including a guy who is 6'10," and I knew a guy who was 6'4" and loved his Honda Fit (which is a pretty small car and not something most people would think of as comfortable for a 6'4" guy). When DS graduates and moves back home, I will likely get him a used CRV. What we did with the Odyssey when I was hauling around several kids (mine plus others) plus large fencing bags, was put up the 3rd row seat and then take out one of the middle row seats and the central console/mini seat. That way we could fit 6 people plus several fencing bags. With the Forrester that I currently have, I can put down the smaller side of the split rear seat and still fit 4 people plus fencing bags (or a bass), as long as no one is over 6'4" or 6'5"

I suspect that the blue will be easier to find coordinating accessories for, because I think varied shades of blue tend to "go together" better than varied shades of green (mixing yellow-green and blue-green can look "off" IMO). Also, stores tend to carry a lot of blue & white home goods in the summer, so you should have a lot of inexpensive options at Target, Home Goods, Walmart, etc. Since the duvet and curtains are solid color, throw pillows in coordinating prints, a paterned throw, inexpensive art on the walls, a coordinating lamp or lampshade, even some candles or little items like a decorative box or tray, small vase, etc., can go a long way to pull a look together.

I'd go with either cornflower or sage, depending on which of those coordinates best with your accessories (artwork, throw pillows, lamps, etc). If you don't already have a lot of accessories, or are planning to add new ones as part of the bedroom refresh, then I would be tempted to order both the cornflower and sage, and then go look at Target, Home Goods, etc., for coordinating pillows, art, candles. etc., and then keep the duvet set that you can find the best accessories for and return the other one.

Thank you so much for the update ❤️

Thinking of your family and sending positive thoughts for the best possible outcome.

I think certain public figures and events of the last 8-9 years have encouraged a lot of people to think that being rude, crude, and offensive in public is not only normal and acceptable, it shows what a smart, edgy, independent thinker they are (never mind that a million other people have the same obscene bumper sticker/yard sign/whatever). The ability to offend others gives insecure people the illusion of power.

Not a meme, but so stinking cute I had to post it: orphaned baby elephant looking out the window during the flight to the nursery facility at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

This was a problem with several of DD's classes that used multiple choice test banks that included questions that were either from a different edition or from sections that were not assigned for the class. I think part of the issue was that many of her classes allowed multiple tries on the quizzes, and each time you'd get a different set of randomly generated questions, increasing the odds of getting questions that weren't covered in the class, which in turn increased the incentive to take the quiz again in the hope of not getting too many rogue questions. And I think that knowing that they'd likely be taking the quiz multiple times anyway also decreased the incentive to study, because kids figured they'd just keep taking it until they got an acceptable grade.

DS had 2 classes as an undergrad where grades were changed for the entire class. In one case, final grades had already been submitted and appeared on unofficial transcripts, and then about a week later everyone got a vaguely worded email from the instructor saying he had regraded the final exam, which changed final grades, so check transcripts for updated grades. That was the class where the instructor took off for Africa in the middle of the semester, and there was material on the final that was never covered in the text or the (nonexistent) lectures, so I assume there must have been a lot of complaints. The other was an upper division class taught by a new instructor who had very high standards and was a really tough grader; a lot of students were really upset when they got lower grades than they were used to, and some complained to the department head. After the final exam a lot of students were really unhappy and went to the department to complain, and apparently the instructor was required to add a certain number of points to everyone's final exam grade because of "too many low grades." DS actually liked the class and worked his butt off and the extra points ended up pushing his final grade to 104, lol. He even wrote a letter of support to the chairman saying he felt that the students' complaints were unfair and he thought she was a good instructor who really knew the material, but unfortunately she was not rehired. (ETA: there were also a few cases in GenEd/Intro classes where there were errors on multiple choice exams that got regraded when the errors were pointed out. The above are the only cases where grades were changed due to student complaints about the content of the exams or grading standards.)

LAPD screwed up that case so badly. On the one hand, Fuhrman never should have been involved, he was not on call and he inserted himself into the case because he had previously answered a DV call from Nicole and he knew it would be a juicy case. On the other hand he was the only one who noticed what was presumed to be OJ's bloody fingerprint on Nicole's gate, which would have provided damning evidence, but the other cops who were assigned to the investigation didn't notice it and didn't bother to read Fuhrman's notes, and the fingerprint got destroyed. OJ's defense team knew about Fuhrman's past, and their strategy from the beginning was to focus on Fuhrman in order to suggest a racist conspiracy to frame OJ. I met Fuhrman in 1990 after an armed man broke into a home in West LA where I was housesitting, and he was assigned to the case. I met with him a couple of times before the trial, and then right before I went to court as a witness I talked to him and the two cops who had arrested the suspect. He and the one of the other cops were making racist jokes, so I wasn't at all surprised when they played the tape of him in court repeatedly using the n-word. I think a conviction would have been a lot more likely if Fuhrman had not decided to involve himself, and/or the other cops had bothered to follow up on the bloody fingerprint. The whole thing was just such a cluster****.

It's absolutely reasonable to request that a driver with a passenger not drive in a way that makes the passenger extremely uncomfortable. He can drive however he likes when he's alone, but knowingly driving in a way that makes you feel so uncomfortable you don't even want to ride with him anymore is rude and inconsiderate. It really doesn't matter how good of a driver someone is (or thinks they are), because other people are nuts! And the basic laws of physics apply to everyone. Any time I get behind the wheel I assume that there are going to be crazy people doing stupid things, and I try to drive in a way that will minimize the consequences if one of those stupid things ends up impacting me.

I'm a 1 at heart because I really hate freeway driving in the city — there's always tons of construction and merging and forced lane changes at high speed, plus a lot of bottlenecks where everyone's going 65 mph and then suddenly traffic drops to a crawl. Any time I have the option to take surface streets without a huge delay, I will. If surface streets are not an option, then I'm a solid 2 for freeway driving in the city. I will stay in the right lane unless it's exit-only or I need to be in another lane because the road splits or merges. The right lane generally runs below the speed limit, which is fine by me, and I always always leave plenty of space in front of me. On an actual interstate outside of the city, with light traffic, I'm a 2.5 in the sense that I will often go faster than the posted limit (like 65 instead of 55), and will sometimes ride the center or left lane if traffic is light enough, so I don't have to keep passing slow trucks. My ex was a 3.5, with the added fear factor of unmedicated ADHD, so I almost always insisted on driving if we needed to take the freeway. He had too many near misses! DS is the polar opposite — he's about a 0.5, lol. His experiences with his dad's driving made him really paranoid about the impact of his own ADHD on driving, and he finds the amount of intense focus and concentration needed for freeway driving, where everyone is driving fast and weaving in and out, stressful and exhausting. DD is a 3.5 like her dad, minus the ADHD — the way she weaves in and out of traffic and tailgates makes me NUTS, and any time I'm stuck riding with her I end up constantly grabbing the door handle and stepping on an invisible brake!

The mental image of the child in the office, crying hysterically while crouched in the corner behind the photocopier, absolutely haunts me. I'm sure the children in the classroom who witnessed the shooting are traumatized, too, but at least the other teachers immediately took them in and comforted them and made sure they knew they were safe. The child in the office had no idea what was happening, how many people were hurt, whether the blood-soaked teacher on the floor a few feet away was dead or alive, or whether the shooter might come bursting into the office at any second. I can't even imagine the level of terror of a small child left entirely alone as administrators locked themselves in their offices and the only other adult in the room was a random stranger desperately tending to the unconscious victim. I imagine that image had an impact on the grand jury, too, and probably contributed to their decision to indict Parker, because it shows a level of callousness that is just unfathomable to me.

One of the many downsides of using a lot of adjuncts and TAs for lower level classes is that those course sections are often listed in the schedule with "TBA" in the instructor slot, so there's no way to know in advance who you'll get. Even if you know the instructor, TAs and adjuncts often have few, if any, reviews on RateMyProfessor, because they may not have taught that particular class before and may never teach it again. And there are just a lot of inherent problems in combining the least experienced instructors with the least experienced students, including freshmen who are transitioning from the hand-holding of most high schools to the independence of college, while trying to figure out a course management software with 50 moving parts, which every instructor uses (or doesn't use) in different ways.

Actually social promotion may have played a role here, because the child was expelled from kindergarten the previous year after choking his teacher and another student, and the parent supposedly put him in a preschool or daycare for the rest of the year, so he never finished kindergarten. Yet he was put in a regular 1st grade classroom the next year, with minimal supports even though Zwerner said he was way behind the other students, which was likely a cause of frustration for him.

I agree with others that a big part of the problem seems to be the increasing use of adjuncts. DD's CC classes have run the gamut from reasonably well-organized and well-taught to complete dysfunctional chaos. She ended up dropping several classes when it became obvious in the first few weeks that the instructor was a total flake and the Canvas materials were a disorganized and incomplete mess, and she retook them later with a better instructor. DS is at an OOS flagship, and he's had a few really disorganized classes, too, all of which have been taught by either TAs or adjuncts. In one class the grad student instructor got an unexpected research grant and literally just left for Africa halfway through the semester! He'd occasionally upload a recorded lecture, randomly change assignments and due dates, and completely stopped replying to email. But other than that one class, I would say even the worst of his other classes were about the same level as DD's "best" CC classes. I mean, I would not expect the level of instruction at a CC to be equivalent to a major research university, but for many of DD's classes the level of content, organization, and teaching was below a lot of classes I took in high school — and significantly below my kids' homeschooled HS classes. Even DS says he was totally spoiled by Lukeion, because none of his university classes have been that well organized!

I'm sure there were systemic problems as well, but according to multiple staff members, Parker had a long history of ignoring serious behavioral problems in students and refusing to listen to teachers' concerns. Even if she had no choice but to allow the boy to attend the school, she willfully ignored multiple staff members telling her that day that they believed the child had a gun and had shown it to other students, and she refused the request to search him, dismissing the teachers' concerns with a condescending comment about his pockets being too small for a gun, as if they were idiots for thinking he might have one. She was incredibly lucky that the gun jammed and her negligence "only" resulted in a seriously injured teacher and a class of extremely traumatized 6 yr olds, because if it hadn't jammed the teacher would be dead and multiple children would likely have been wounded or killed as well, and she could be facing involuntary manslaughter charges like the Crumbleys.