Now Go Do...That Voodoo...That You Do... So.. We-helllll!!!!!!!

Harvey Korman of ‘Burnett Show’ Dies at 81
Heaven became a funnier place today.

"This word is new to us... hoh-mmm--worrrrk? Homework?"

Phi Beta Cons on National Review Online:

• The 2006 High School Survey of Student Engagement found that 55 percent of high school students spent less than one hour per week "Reading/studying for class." Only 10 percent exceeded ten hours per week.
• In 2004, the Horatio Alger Association found that 60 percent of teenagers logged five hours of homework per week or less.

Oh, where to even begin? The complete failure of professional pedagogy courses to emphasis homework anymore? The always-unwritten-but-ever-present administrational emphasis on passing the most students? The failure of many households to engage with the education process? The continual emphasis on rote learning of exams? (Oh hush, this was true even before NCLB.) The wrong-headed excuse that homework is "insensitive" to students who have to work to support their families? (Here's a thought: you're reinforcing the cycle when you do this!)

I could go long but I have a meeting in 15 minutes.

One Week!!!

This Saturday the Democratic Rules Committee will meet to make a final ruling on the MI and FL delegations. The remaining primaries will be done by June 3. Barring something Completely Unexpected, the 2008 campaign for Her Nibs will effectively end in one week. Oh sure, there will be shouting and whining and threats of convention theatrics. But everyone knows that this song is over. If there were a nuke left in the arsenal, it would have been deployed. (Actually, there may have been one, but it seems to have detonated against the wrong target.)

Mind you, I'm now going to lose my bet about Al Gore. I just don't see a groundswell of supers holding him out as Mr. Compromise.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Two weeks ago I went to my hometown to take care of my parents' garden, as they were out of the country. As I was watering the tomatoes, up came this li'l ol' puppy dawg. Awwwww.... And then I remembered: my parents don't have a puppy dawg. They have the Wonder Schnauzer, but he's in the kennel right now. It was painfully obvious that Li'l Ol' Puppy Dawg was abandoned, incredibly hungry and thirsty, and eaten up with mange. I know it was abandoned because she had no fear, was at least semi-potty-trained (would only go pee on the grass), and was wearing a collar.

"Come, Li'l Ol' Puppy Dawg, I will take care of you. For lo, if I take you to the shelter with your mange and your ear mites and your undoubted parasitic worms, they will prescribe for you The Big Sleep without hesitation."

Four hundred dollars later (!), I now have a potential playmate for the Ginger-pup. (Special thanks to BB for her generous underwriting of the vet bill). She is an adorable cross between a Chihuahua and (we think) a Jack Russell Terrier. Full of energy, life, vigor --and fiercely defensive of her food dish. First Puppy Lesson: snarling at Daddy is the Worst Idea Imaginable, as he is much bigger than you and can cause pain by simply looking at you. Still, she got off one good snap on a knuckle before she was Educated.She's intelligent, for sure. She learned about the Astroturf not being real grass inside of a day. She goes off to do her business by herself, so I no longer leave her locked in her crate at night. She isn't allowed inside until her mange clears (Stinky Puppy!), but she enjoys running around the yard.

The effect on the rest of the household has been somewhat predictable. The Kaiser enjoys spying on her from his perch atop the BBQ pit but otherwise ignores her. Sweetikins is absolutely hissy-fit jealous and refuses to go into the backyard, and will actually stand at the patio glass door and growl at the puppy on the other side. She also hisses if I pick her up after being near the puppy. But at least she has ended her boycott of the house after three days. Ginger-pup has had the most interesting reaction. She is rather indifferent to the puppy most of the time, as she stays in while the puppy stays out (puppy hasn't figured out the dog-flap yet). Both have learned to respect each other's food dish (I no longer feed them at the same time). They do not snap at each other, although the puppy occasionally tries to "impress" the much-larger dog with her fierce yipping. But that lasts only as long as The Wee One isn't outside with us. Then, Ginger reverts to Ultra-Guard mode and visibly threatens this incredibly tiny puppy with bared teeth, raised hackles and a no-nonsense growl that would even put dearly-departed Roxie the Rottie to shame if she so much as approaches my daughter. That's devotion.

Unfortunately, my wife is probably allergic to this particular dog: her eyes started watering almost the day after she was brought home from the vet. The plan had been to nurse her back to health and put her up for adoption, with ourselves being the fallback option. That may not be viable if, indeed, Mrs. Mojo cannot even handle her. Not that any of that stopped her from asserting her rights under The Marriage Contract to name this little girl-puppy (since I had named Ginger-pup and Da Fuzz).

So now it's Ginger and....Nutmeg.

Ahhhhh...

A fine time was had by all as Family Mojo retreated to the beach for an extended weekend. The fishing was no great shakes, but I managed to pull up a type of grouper that is only rarely seen inshore. (Yes, I took its picture.) We learned that not all instant-light charcoals are created equal. And the Wee One discovered that the sea is fun --so did the Ginger-pup.

Blogging may prove light for a while. I'm in that blessed downtime between semesters. It's not the same as Christmas, when there's shopping to be done and parties to attend and family to entertain. No, this is a time of largely hedonistic abandon. A few chores here and there and the rest of my time is my own (when not on Daddy Duty).

And today, at long last, I get my boat back.

My Ancient Enemy Returns At The Most Inopportune Moment

Gastroenteritis. Not a pleasant condition, and for some reason, I get this every three years or so. Yesterday afternoon I experienced a sudden onslaught of symptoms. I gave my last final from the couch in the lobby of my campus --how's that for dedication!

Even so, this completely ruined my plans. I'm now going to be late in turning in grade paperwork (although the actual grades will still be available on the computer). I'm going to have to devote today to grading when I had planned to do Garden Work. And on top of all that, I got the phone call I've been waiting six weeks to get: the boat is fixed and ready to go -only I can't go to get it because now I've got all this other work to do. One weekend of boating, shot to hell.

UPDATE: I feel better than I did yesterday, but with GE that's a deceptive sensation. It's clear liquids until this evening at the earliest.

UPDATE II: I felt so good on Saturday that I went back to doing everything normal. You'd think I'd know better by now. Total relapse Saturday night. Thank heavens my grades are done at Campus One. I'm not doing any work the next two days.

Higher Ed, Anointed Academes, and the Coming of the Free Market

On the sadness of higher education by Alan Charles Kors - The New Criterion:

"[T]he academics who dominate the humanities and social sciences on our campuses today would state that K-12 education essentially has been one long celebration of America and the West, as if our students were intimately familiar with the Federalist Papers and had never heard of slavery or empire. .... In their view, our K-12 students know all about Aristotle, John Milton, and Adam Smith, have studied for twelve years how America created bounty and integrated score after score of millions of immigrants, but have never heard of the Great Depression or segregation."

Yeah, I bet those self-same guardians of academe have never been in a public school system where everything comes to a grinding halt in February to celebrate African American History Month. ( --No, I'm not saying it's not worthy of observing; it is, but some districts go overboard --which is ironic considering how many of those districts are increasingly dominated by Hispanic students. For the record, Hispanic History Month is September, but most districts are too busy organizing football to pay attention --and Cinco de Mayo is not a holiday for non-Mexican Hispanics, so don't even go there.) Public school social science books are among the most politically correct works in existence today. You will never see criticism of FDR (except for mild disappointment over court-packing), JFK or Clinton --but you will see thinly-disguised contempt for Reagan and Bush 41.

"Academics, in their own minds, face an almost insoluble problem of time. How, in only four years, can they disabuse students of the notion that the capital, risk, productivity, and military sacrifice of others have contributed to human dignity and to the prospects of a decent society? How can they make them understand, with only four years to do so, that capitalism and individual- ism have created cultures that are cruel, inefficient, racist, sexist, and homophobic, with oppressive caste systems, mental and behavioral? How, in such a brief period, can they enlighten “minorities,” including women (the majority of students), about the “internalization” of their oppression (today’s equivalent of false consciousness)? How, in only eight semesters, might they use the classroom, curriculum, and university in loco parentis to create a radical leadership among what they see as the victim groups of our society, and to make the heirs of successful families uneasy in the moral right of their possessions and opportunities? Given those constraints, why in the world should they complicate their awesome task by hiring anyone who disagrees with them?"

And this is the world in which I work and revel? I must be a masochist.

Oh well. As online coursework availability explodes from places like the University of Phoenix and an increasing number of community and junior colleges, many of those Worthy Academics may find themselves with decreasing enrollment, as students switch their non-essential classes to situations where they may only have to encounter a professor once or twice a semester. I actually root for the day that happens: education may yet become a truly free market where students pick classes from wherever and whomever they wish. The big schools dare not complain. Phoenix's cash flow is growing comparable to some of the truly awesome endowed campuses' figures, and with that comes political/governmental Schwang. The day will come when no one is forced to take "History of How White Guys Ruined Everything For Everyone" unless they really want to; they can just go online and instead take "Mojo's History of How Stuff Happened And Why Folks Still Argue About It --With PowerPoints!"

Busy Busy Busy

Finals are the next two weeks for me (one week for each school). Students whining about grades ("Why didn't you ask me this before your final exam?"). Paperwork paperwork paperwork. Oh, and the house is getting new carpet this week and I have to see about moving the gun safe into storage (not so easy as it sounds, it's 350# and will take three grown men with good backs to move down the stairs). At least there is ample Garden Booty to harvest at day's end.

TV Claims Poker's Firstborn Child As Payment For Services Rendered

World Series of Poker stretches out Main Event

Okay, I knew one day that TV, the great savior of poker, would someday ask for poker's firstborn child. And that day has come. Bowing to TV executives' demands, the WSOP has agreed to implementing a delay between the establishment of the final table participants in the "main" event (the $10K no-limit hold'em tournament) and the actual final table action. The delay will be approximately 117...days. This is not a typo. The final table will be played almost four months after the hand that eliminates the 10th-place finisher, so that it can be broadcast live after ESPN shows all the shows (with commentary) leading up to it.

This is an absolutely terrible idea. First, it completely eliminates momentum. Ask Jamie Gold about the value of momentum.

A) Player A, a projects mananger playing only his second tournament ever, makes a mad dash at the title and is in third at the final table. In the ensuing months, his job mandates that he move overseas and his boss refuses to give him time off to complete the tournament. Is he really going to quit his job and become a pro on the basis of this one-time fluke? Will he fly in for one day, go hog-wild ("I'm all -in!" on every hand, just to get eliminated) and go out in a blaze of glory in 9th place? Or will he stay overseas, keep his job, and let himself be blinded off with a guaranteed payday? [I'm sure that'll look just fine on ESPN.]

Second, it allows for coaching and review. While this has always been in the background since the popularization of the hole camera, it now takes on added "oomph". Like the New England Patriots, players can scout each other in depth, aided by the commentary of the helpful ESPN talking heads. And since you only need scout those players who are actually there, it's a much simpler task than before.

B) Player B knows that he will be playing against Phil Hellmuth and an unknown amateur. Player A watches extensive tapes of both Phil (easily done) and the Great Unknown (thank you, ESPN). The Talking Heads helpfully point out that Phil likes to isolate players like GU during the bottom half of the hour with crap hands. Player A sets a huge trap for Phil, thus generating the largest tantrum anyone has ever seen when he tells Phil how he pulled it off ("I'll NEVER play in the #@$%@#$@#$ World Series again! " *throws chairs*) [Actually that would be phenomenal for ratings...]

Third, and most glaringly obvious to anyone but a TV exec, it increases the chances of shenanigans and unexpected complications. Anyone who says that WSOP tournaments are always decided on the table is naive. Deals are struck in the bathroom a lot more than people think, although in most cases the play for the actual bracelets remains genuine. The pressure to make a deal to guarantee certain paydays will be heightened; remember that many pros have backers who must be compensated.

C) Player C, a well-known semi-pro, is at the final table and running well in the chips. Unfortunately, in September he doinks off $500K playing against Phil Ivey and Gus Hansen in Bobby's Room. He is also in debt to several other people, at least one of whom is backing another final table player. Player C is now under enormous pressure to make a deal to guarantee enough payout to erase his debts, and to enhance the backer's payout; or even to "play with certain things in mind." Player C then makes some very stupid bluffs and makes an obviously terrible call to go out in 7th place, giving most of his chips in the process to the player backed by one of his debt-holders.

Or even, God forbid,

D) Doyle Brunson is on-pace to win a record 12th bracelet, having gained his 11th by defeating Phil Hellmuth heads-up in the $50K H.O.R.S.E. event (thus denying Phil his own record-setter). He is massively ahead in chips, and insiders say that Doyle has never played any better in his life than in that glorious summer of 2008. But in September, while puttering around his Montana ranch, Doyle suffers a stroke and is hospitalized. While his eventual recovery is a dead-cert --the man did beat Stage IV cancer!-- he will be completely unable to play cards for at least a year.

For so many reasons: no no no no no.

Admit it: you've done this

Once in a blue blue moon, for no good reason, I begin Googling for People Whose Path I Really Ought Not Intersect Again. It's the same part of me that likes to put sticks into fire ant mounts, and that likes to leave the dresser drawers open so that Mrs. will bark at me ("I like it when the cannons go off, they're loud!").

But curiosity is a powerful force. And so I Googled. And I found....

--nothing.

I'm the first to say that sometimes one should let sleeping dogs lie. It's just as well.

(No, not that one. This is one from back in Indiana.)

Thoughts of a Monday

1) Obama has got to tell Jeremiah Wright to sit down and shut up. It doesn't matter that the man has some very valid points on race and cultural relativity --although the BS about brain structures would never be tolerated coming from white people (or have we forgotten The Bell Curve already?). The media are all over the Reverend Wright, and it's taking the Obamamentum right out of the campaign.

2) Does the Reverend Wright now have his own agenda? I'm not the first person to suggest this, but it is within the realm of possibility that it is now the Reverend Wright who is throwing Obama under the bus, and not vice-versa. Just as I posited last posit that Mr. Limbaugh could have more to gain from a HRC presidency, so too does JW have more to gain from either a HRC or a McCain presidency. Alternatively, this is retribution for Obama's failure to make liberation theology an overt talking point of his campaign.

3) It is a matter of time before the next major bombshell gets lobbed at Clinton. There are several possibilities: another Billious Explosion, Peter Paul's trial, yet more Whitewater dirt (there is more, in theory), the Rumored Hillary Affair, foreign fundraising, another Tuzla-level whopper being revealed. I think that socially conservative Democrats (i.e., Hoosiers) are most susceptible to the affair angle, but that is a very dangerous road for the Obama campaign to travel, since a) constituency groups like MoveOn.org who support Obama were founded on the premise that presidential politics should be above such things; and b) the very nature of the Rumored Affair could divide some of the netroots who support Obama. But as all is fair in love, war and politics, I won't be surprised if this one gets the play --but to be sure, if another target of opportunity arises, it would take precedence.

4) The Clinton campaign needs to start publicly kissing the hindquarters of the netroots and triangulating Left if they're to avoid down-ticket disaster in November. Bear in mind that this is the true long-range goal of Mr. Limbaugh's Operation Chaos: stimulate Republican anger at HRC after making her the nominee and retake Congress. This is made more plausible by the very public threats by the netroots to withhold fundraising and sit out the general election if HRC "steals" the nomination. Young people, creative-class professionals and African Americans will sit out the election in droves if She-Hulk doesn't begin moving Left, and even then, you may as well forget the last group giving its all this year. Never mind the presidential race: HRC may cost her party control of the House this year (the Senate is probably out of reach for the Republicans, for now).

5) Both Obama/Clinton and Clinton/Obama are pipe dreams. The egos involved are too large. Obama would be a fool to accept the VP slot, since there is no conceivable upside (or will HRC be such a phenomenal president as Reagan, that her coattails will extend to Obama in 2016?). This is HRC's last real chance and she knows it, 2012 against McCain notwithstanding.

6) The MSM are still a pack of jackals in their tendency to go after wounded prey. The blood in the water is Obama's, and they are all over him in their attempt to curry favor with Her Nibs. Pathetic and peripatetic. They're little better than Horace Greeley during the Civil War.

As they say over at Little Green Footballs, pass the popcorn.

New (?) Recipe: Scrambled Eggs with Green Apples and Green Onions

So I got up this morning and decided to let The Wee One try a bit of a real apple before her main bottle. She was not as impressed by it as she was by her first taste of cantaloupe. This left me with a bit of a problem: what do to with the remaining apple? (Maybe next time I'll think to give her a red apple instead of a green one...)

Scrambled Eggs with Green Apples and Green Onions
Three eggs
One green apple, peeled and diced
One green onion, hastily gathered in the rain and the wind from one's garden, diced (NB it is permissible to eat half of it while dicing)
Three tablespoons of grated Romano cheese
2-3 tablespoons margarine (butter if you're decadent)
Optional: cinnamon, brown sugar

Melt margarine in skillet over medium-high heat. Add diced apple and green onion and cook until apple is soft. Add eggs and scramble, reducing heat if necessary. Just before eggs are at desired degree of doneness, add cheese (and cinnamon and brown sugar, if desired) and fold in, reducing heat to avoid scorching. Serve warm with toast.

I imagine one could add some bacon into the mix and it would not hurt a thing.

I grow weary of this...

"Hillary with decisive win in PA!" (Note: 9.4% should never be rounded up to 10%, this isn't a high-school history class where the emphasis is on giving out passing grades.)

"Obama has trouble closing the deal." As if presidential nominations are historically decided by the end of March. Look at the history of nominations since conventions became the norm. Traditionally conventions are where candidates are supposed to be chosen.

"Operation CHAOS is a tremendous success!" Yes yes, Mr. Limbaugh, we know how you love to beat Democrats at their own game (and thank you, too, Mr. Moulitsas, for making this a viable idea in the first place). But stop and think about it for a second. If you've succeeded in making a good chunk of the public feel that BHO is a weak candidate with no chance in the general election against McCain, then why in the world are you continuing to go after him, especially by telling "operatives" to go register Democrat and vote for HRC? Would it not now make far more sense to tell everyone to vote BHO and clinch it for this so-called Modern McGovern? Do you really feel that HRC has no chance regardless of what happens in the remaining primaries? Or maybe you honestly do want HRC as the candidate? After all, if she can come back from this primary campaign, she can win in November, which would probably result in a huge ratings boost by next summer for you.

"The mainstream media are a pack of jackals." Well, I've been weary of this for years, so that doesn't count...

For Earth Day 2008, Mrs. Mojo and I burped.

I planted a bigger-than-normal garden this year for three reasons. First, last year the garden went in late because of the fencing issue (blast your flea-ridden hide, Ginger-dog!) and I didn't get nearly as much out of it as I had wanted. Second, I was busy during the harvest period last year owing to the (premature) arrival of The Wee One and the associated remodeling, and I felt cheated because a lot of what was planted ended up as bird bait. Third, as this is likely the last year in this house, I am going to get the most out of my beds, which were expanded as a result of the fencing project. So I'm trying a lot of things I haven't had time/room for before.

This evening I came in from class, went straight to the garden to inspect progress, and behold! The snap beans were ready to be picked. Spinach had already been harvested (and consumed) over the weekend, but the rain had added sufficient growth so that I harvested some more of it as well. Hmmm...snap beans and spinach...

Verdure Sicilliana al Mojo Bison (which I may have unconsciously stolen from someplace else)
1 bunch freshly picked spinach, washed
1 bunch freshly harvested snap beans, washed and in pod
1/8 - 1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
1/8 - 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
4 tablespoons olive oil (less if desired)
Red pepper, black pepper, and garlic salt to taste

Toast pine nuts before-hand if needed and reserve. Add oil to skillet and warm. Add washed snap beans to skillet and saute until almost tender. Add spinach and pine nuts and continue to saute until spinach is wilted thoroughly. Toss in Romano cheese and remove from heat. Pepper/pepper/garlic salt to taste. Serve warm.

So we ate off our own land tonight. Burp.

This comes as no surprise to me

Dr. Helen: Girl Violence: YouTube Fad?:

Administrators of the Raymondville school system said they will review the district's cell phone policy after a report of an assault on a middle school student that was recorded with a cell phone and then displayed on YouTube. It was at least the second time this year students from the school district uploaded violent videos to YouTube, said school board president John Solis. Early this year, a Raymondville High School student used a video to solicit someone to beat another student...

[T]he school board president, said officials will have a workshop to discuss policy on student cell phone use. "We're going to see if we need a stricter cell phone policy or not allow them anymore," he said. "That's what they're doing -videotaping on cell phones.

Knock me over with a feather: violence in a public school, and the administrators immediately say that the problem is videotaping.

The grand irony here is that many districts live in mortal fear of privacy-rights lawsuits and severely limit videotaping, even through surveillance (assuming that the district spends the money to keep the cameras working). They know they won't be sued for "unsafe educational conditions" because there are too many ways districts can make life miserable for the families involved --it's far easier for the family to (rearrange its whole life and) relocate or else find another school.

In my world, the best justice for the victim's family here is to demonstrate how YouTube is making money from these videos (increased site traffic --> higher ad revenues), then sue for unlawful appropriation of image for commercial purposes. Go for the deepest pockets!