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.

As an interesting side note, on the same day that the Crumbleys were sentenced, Ebony Parker, the assistant principal at the school where a 6 yr old shot his 1st grade teacher, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of felony child abuse, claiming that she "did commit a willful act or omission in the care of such students, in a manner so gross, wanton and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life." The 6 yr old had a long history of violent behavior, and had been kicked out of kindergarten after choking his teacher and another student, but he was placed in a regular 1st grade class, with little additional support other than allowing one of his parents to sit in class to help control him (which teachers claim was a security risk in itself given the father's criminal history and the mother's extensive drug use). His teacher, Abby Zwerner, along with other teachers and aides, repeatedly complained to Parker about his dangerous behavior; a few days before the shooting he had smashed Zwerner's cell phone. On the day of the shooting, four different staff members informed Parker that the boy was in a violent mood, had threatened to beat up another child, and claimed he had a gun, which two other students said they had seen, but she ignored them. Zwerner had seen him take something out of his backpack and put it in his pocket, so Parker was asked for permission to search him, which she refused — 20 minutes later he shot Zwerner in the hand and chest, and the only thing that kept him from continuing to shoot was that the gun jammed. Parker and another staff member were in the main office, along with a student and a grandmother who was there to pickup a different child, when someone burst in to say there'd been a shooting. Parker and the other staff member immediately went into their private offices and shut the doors — leaving the grandmother and the student in the outer office. Zwerner managed to get her students out of the classroom and ran to the office where she collapsed on the floor. The other staff member opened her door, saw the bleeding unconscious teacher, and shut the door again, leaving the grandmother to render aid while the terrified child tried to hide behind a photocopier! Meanwhile, the police who had been called stood outside banging on the door so long that they contemplated shooting their way in, because the front door was locked and the button to buzz people in was broken; luckily a janitor eventually saw them and opened the door. And when investigators tried to get the school's files on the boy, they had mysteriously disappeared from both the main office and Zwerner's classroom, even though the files on all other students were in place. Parker faces up to 5 years on each count if convicted. The boy's mother has already been sentenced — she pleaded guilty to one count of child neglect in return for prosecutors dropping additional charges and they requested a 6 month sentence, but the judge sentenced her to 2 years anyway, which is the maximum for the child neglect charge. It seems like a lot of people, and at least some judges, are truly fed up with the lack of accountability.

The judge gave them both the maximum sentence possible on the manslaughter charges (15 years), and they will have to serve at least 10 before they're eligible for parole. I hope the parole board does take the death threats into consideration and keeps him there for the full 15.

From the CDC: "The ‘Spanish’ influenza H1N1 pandemic of 1918-1919 killed an estimated 50-100 million people worldwide. Although the virus was not isolated during 1918-1919, when the technology was available the genetic sequence was later determined to be an avian-like H1N1 virus." "In February 1957, a new influenza A(H2N2) virus emerged in people in East Asia, triggering a pandemic (“Asian Flu”). This H2N2 virus was comprised of three different genes from an H2N2 virus that originated from an avian influenza A virus. ... The estimated number of deaths was 1.1 million worldwide and 116,000 in the United States."

At least they're coming right out and admitting that they're pretending it's a different disease in order "to maintain confidence in the safety and accessibility of beef and dairy products for consumers." <eyeroll>

If you enjoy the event and don't mind organizing it as long as Sam is not included, then I would continue it that way and just tell Sally upfront that this event will no longer include Sam, and if she isn't comfortable attending under those circumstances, that's her choice and you understand. But she needs to understand that the only two options at this point are an event without Sam or no event, because you do not want to attend, and will not organize, one that includes him.

I don't know about Jennifer, but James is one very angry, very scary dude. In his presentencing statement he continued to insist that he was unjustly charged and convicted and that there were absolutely no signs that Ethan was disturbed — he literally said that Ethan always appeared "very stable" and had never expressed any concerns about mental health, therefore he could not possibly have known of the danger. He insisted that the SIG Sauer 9mm was his gun, not Ethan's, despite Jennifer's post referring to it as Ethan's Christmas present and Ethan's own testimony, backed up texts and journal entries, that the gun was bought for him, at his request, and that he had specifically chosen that model. James insisted that the gun was legally secured and he had no idea his son was able to access it, despite the fact that police found the cable lock that was sold with the gun inside the case still in an unopened plastic bag; his other guns were in a small gun safe on an easily accessible shelf with the combination still set to the default code of 000, and even before they bought the SIG Sauer Ethan had posted photos of himself playing with one of the other guns, fully loaded, while joking about shooting up a school. He made really vile threats against the prosecutor, calling her a "f***** stupid bitch," promising "there will be retribution, believe me," and saying he was "going to f***** take her down," she's "f***ed as soon as I get out," she'll be "f***** sucking hot rocks in hell soon," and "I am on a rampage... your ass is going down and you better be f***** scared." After his phone privileges were revoked, he gave the prosecutor the middle finger in court (his attorney argued that he was just "adjusting his headphones" and that the death threats were just "venting"). I sure hope they give the prosecutor a heads up before he is released, and that she has a restraining order and some serious protection when he gets out!

He was found competent because he admitted to carefully planning the killings in advance with the full understanding that what he was doing was wrong and that he would go to prison for it. He admitted that the reason he asked his parents to buy him a gun was specifically so he could shoot up the school, saying he wanted to be known as the biggest school shooter in Michigan history. He wrote in his journal the day before the shooting that "the first victim has to be a pretty girl" along with a drawing showing him shooting a girl in the head. It's possible to be mentally ill and still understand that what you are doing is wrong — the defense's own psychological evaluation deemed him competent, which is why they withdrew their initial insanity plea. The defense did argue for a shorter sentence with the possibility of parole, on the grounds that Ethan was young and could be rehabilitated, but prosecutors pointed out that he remained obsessed with violence while in jail, and had managed to bypass protections on a tablet in order to access violent content, including visiting a specific website more than 30 times to watch videos of murder and torture. He was supposed to be using the tablet to study for his GED.

I think the convictions and sentences were fully warranted. IMO the fact that there wasn't a "safe gun law" on the books at the time is irrelevant; they were charged with involuntary manslaughter by gross negligence, and their negligence went so far beyond just leaving a gun unlocked. These parents purposely bought a gun as a Christmas present for a child they knew was mentally ill, while simultaneously refusing his requests for psychiatric help. He repeatedly told his mother that he was hearing voices and seeing demons, and begged them to take him to the doctor, but he told a friend that his mother just laughed at him and his father told him to suck it up. He texted a friend that he wanted to call 911 on himself, but was afraid his parents would be "so pissed" if he did. During the same period he was begging for help, he was making videos of himself torturing and killing baby birds, he was watching hundreds of violent videos, including mass shootings, he was recording his violent thoughts in a journal, and posting gruesome pictures on social media. Months before they bought him his own gun, he texted a friend photos of himself playing with his father's loaded gun and "joking" about shooting up a school. His parents knew he was struggling with mental health, they even knew about the journal, but they never bothered to check his phone or browser history, or look in his room where they would have found a severed bird head in a jar. They were so preoccupied with their own lives that instead of getting him into therapy, they bought him a gun and taught him to shoot it. The day before the shooting they were told he'd been searching online for ammo while in class and Jennifer texted Ethan "LOL next time just don't get caught." On the day of the shooting they were shown Ethan's drawing — a gun and a murder victim with the words "blood everywhere" and "the thoughts won't stop, help me" — and they refused to take him home, even though Jennifer's boss testified she could easily have taken the day off and James was just a DoorDash driver. They also purposely withheld from the school the fact that he owned a gun just like the one in the drawing, and that they knew he was having intrusive thoughts and hearing voices. Ethan's backpack was in the room with them, and his parents didn't even bother opening it to see if the gun they bought for him might be in there. What happened that day was absolutely predictable and 100% preventable, but at every single point where the parents could have taken action to prevent it, they made grossly negligent choices that made the tragic outcome more likely rather than less. Other actions that the judge considered as part of the sentencing included the parents attempts to flee, their refusal to take responsibility (Jennifer said she wouldn't have done anything differently and James repeatedly referred to himself as a martyr and victim of persecution), and the fact that James made so many death threats against the prosecutor that his phone privileges were revoked.

My biggest weekly splurge is probably organic fruit, followed by nuts and seeds. More occasional splurges would include good spices, balsamic vinegar, imported sauces/condiments, and really good dried beans from Rancho Gordo. OTOH, I don't buy meat, dairy, or eggs, I never eat out, and I cook almost everything from scratch, so even with the "splurges" my food bill is probably pretty average.

This. I think a lot of people don't understand the difference between totality and even a fractional % less than totality. Even when the sun is 99.9% covered by the moon, the remaining light is still bright enough to prevent you from seeing the corona. At true totality you can see the stars on a clear day and you can see the corona. In an area that gets 90-99%, watching the moon occlude the sun and seeing it get a little darker is fun, but it's a completely different experience from a total eclipse. The kids and I were able to see the 2017 total eclipse on a totally clear day and we all thought it was really amazing. DS was able to see the one today by driving about 20 minutes, and said it wasn't quite as dramatic as 2017 due to a few more clouds, but it lasted longer and he was really glad he got to see it.

This. I have one kid who is quite frugal, to the extent that it's really hard to buy him Christmas and birthday presents because he wants so little, while my other kid spends every penny she earns on clothes, make-up, and fast food. They grew up with one frugal Boomer parent (me) and one spendthrift parent (my ex). And one of the reasons I grew up dirt poor is because my Silent Generation dad was terrible with money and would spend what little we had on stupid stuff while his kids went hungry. There are frugal people and spendthrifts in every generation. I also think many young working adults don't see the point of trying to save for a house because it's just totally out of reach here, where a 2 BR fixer-upper is $500K — and that's if you can find it before the flippers and investors snap it up. Why scrimp and save and do without for decades, only to find that prices have outpaced your savings anyway? Another current media trope is that kids today are so spoiled to want to have their own apartment, they should be sharing a house with lots of roommates to save money. DD's boyfriend shares a 3 BR house with 4 other people, while working full time plus taking online classes (which he pays for himself). Each person is allocated one kitchen cabinet, one shelf in the fridge, and a tiny space in the freezer, which makes it really difficult to plan and prepare meals at home (not to mention the issue of multiple people trying to use a very small kitchen at the same time). So of course they tend to get takeout more often — but then that's seen as being spoiled and spendthrift. I guess Gen Zers should all be living in shared rental houses and eating from communal pots of rice and beans while saving every penny they earn until they're 40. But then the headlines would be about all the industries "Gen Z killed" by selfishly refusing to support the economy.

I was curious about the origins of the avocado toast meme, and ironically it comes from Australia! From a 2017 article in The Guardian: "An Australian millionaire and real estate mogul has advice for millennials struggling to purchase a home: stop buying avocado toast. Tim Gurner, a luxury property developer in Melbourne responsible for over $3.8bn in projects, is facing heat for comments he made on 60 Minutes in Australia, implying that young people can’t afford to buy property because they’re wasting money on fancy toast and overpriced coffee. “When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each,” he said. “We’re at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high.” He added: “We are coming into a new reality where … a lot of people won’t own a house in their lifetime. That is just the reality.” Asked if he believes young people will never own a home, he responded: “Absolutely, when you’re spending $40 a day on smashed avocados and coffees and not working. Of course.” <snip> Gurner is not the first to suggest that young people’s love of avocado toast was making it harder for them to buy homes. Demographer Bernard Saltwrote in the Australian last year that if young people stopped going to “hipster cafes”, they could purchase property. He wrote: “I have seen young people order smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more. I can afford to eat this for lunch because I am middle aged and have raised my family. But how can young people afford to eat like this? Shouldn’t they be economising by eating at home? How often are they eating out? Twenty-two dollars several times a week could go towards a deposit on a house.” So now Gen Z and millennials are buying more groceries and eating out less — and it's being spun as wasting money on frivolous things like soda and snacks (as if Boomers don't buy soda and snacks???). What these guys are really saying is "We the wealthy have spent the past few decades screwing the economy for our own benefit to the extent that many young people will never be able to afford a home — but we're going to blame them for not living on bread and water."