Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 654

Full body whiners

I don't understand the ranting and raving over the airport's full body scanners.

Yes, they capture remarkably life-like images of your unclothed body, and yes, if you wish to avoid this scanners, an aggressive pat-down by TSA security is required, but have we forgotten how many people around the world are constantly trying to bring down American airplanes and kill American citizens.

Seriously. 

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women around the world who spend their every waking moment plotting and scheming to kill Americans by destroying the planes in which they fly.

Yet as Americans, we cannot deign to submit to a scan that would help to ensure our safety and the safety of our fellow passengers, as well as protecting the airline industry as a whole?

Stupid.   

Flying is not a Constitutionally guaranteed.  It is a choice that a person makes.  And yes, those scanners are intrusive and perhaps  even embarrassing (though why you would care if a stranger sees your digitally-enhanced naked image amidst a sea of other similarly naked images is beyond me), but they hardly equate to the loss of civil liberties that Americans suffered as a result of the PATRIOT Act. 

These scanners are simply a thorough and effective means by which security personnel can verify that no weapons or explosives are being brought on a plane.

Yet people are rising up in opposition to them. 

It makes no sense. 

I recently learned that there is a Connecticut law that requires all schools to have an AED (automated external defibrillator) on site in case of a heart emergency.  But there is also a provision in the law that allows school districts that cannot afford the device ($1,200) to ignore the requirement as long as a plan is in place for purchasing the AED when the financial constraints are alleviated.

What does a plan like this look like?

"When we have enough money, we will go to Amazon.com (yes, Amazon sells them) and buy an AED."

Is that enough to bypass the requirement? 

More important, guess what is going to happen if a student experiences a heart-related emergency and dies in a Connecticut school, and it is later determined that an AED could have saved his life?

That silly a-plan-is-just-as-good-as-an-AED clause will be gone in a flash.

Same thing with the new airport scanners.  We can wait for a plane to explode over Detroit or crash into downtown Los Angeles and then accept these scanners as a necessity, or we could just shut up and allow ourselves to be scanned for the safety of our fellow passengers.

Important parental service announcement

I have to admit that I have had similar concerns for my daughter.

CPR sex discrimination

Have you ever noticed that none of the CPR mannequins are female?

Don't you find the flat male chests a little too convenient when it comes to practicing actual CPR?  And frankly a little prudish?

Is there really no way for me to practice CPR on an anatomically correct female mannequin?

And does the lack of female CPR mannequins create a disparity in survival rates between men and women receiving this emergency treatment? 

Seriously.  You think?

Catastrophic yawn

Other than his invitation to students to rat out the perpetrator (anonymously, no less, which is always the most cowardly and despicable means of conveying a message), I kind of this this professor handled the situation perfectly.

It wouldn't be the right approach for fifth graders, of course, but I don't think it's too far off, either.

Thoughts?

Who yawned?

Sucks to be a cashier

The advent of the self checkout line has diminished the already diminished reputation of the grocery store cashier.

Imagine what it must feel like to be replaced by a barcode scanner and a change machine.

Not fun.

A good rule of thumb:

Whenever your job is effectively transferred over to your customer, it is a blatant repudiation of your skill set and a serious threat to job security. 

Desperately seeking Cheerios

My daughter has begun to string together phrases and short sentences. 

Last week she asked Elysha is she could "Eat water?"

When I picked her up from school today, she pointed to the sky and said, "I like Moon."

She can also sing the alphabet, a feat to which my wife and I take no credit but still garner enormous amounts of pride. 

She learned it from an Elmo Speak-and-Spell.

And now that she can speak, she's become quite demanding from time to time, as she is in this short video: 

A bowl of CHeerios

A collection of questionable and lunatic teachers

At a recent book appearance near my hometown, several of my high school friends graciously gathered to listen to me read.  After the reading, about half a dozen of us hung around the library, sharing stories from our days in school together.

Conversation eventually turned to our former teachers, and after a few minutes, someone correctly pointed out that our collective childhood was littered with inappropriate, strange and oddball educators who, if working in education today, wouldn't last ten minutes.

Some of the the examples included:

The teacher who pulled one of our classmates out of the room by her hair

The teacher who was caught by one of my classmates making out with a substitute teacher in the science lab

The teacher who required students to only raise their dominant hand

The seeming abundance of high school teachers who ended up marrying their former students

The teacher who married a former student and then lost his job after an indiscretion with another former student

The teacher (who I have written about before) who called me The Big Dickus, my brother The Little Dickus, assigned detentions like he was doling out candy and handed out zeros as test grades for bad behavior

The teacher who would watch us eat lunch with an unlit cigarette in her mouth

The teacher who my fourth grade class made cry.  And then the other teacher who my fourth grade class made cry.      

The teacher who refused to teach my fourth grade class when we returned to elementary school (that was quite a year for us)

The teacher who told me that she had given me a D- on my report card because she didn't like me

And these are just some of the less-than-savory, less-than-highly-skilled educators who litter my educational landscape.  I know I'm forgetting a bunch of other examples, and perhaps my high school friends can add to the list for me. 

But I wonder:

Were these teachers reflective of the time period that I attended school (1976-1989) or was my hometown a gathering point for lunatics and unskilled professionals?

Choosing one is impossible. Choosing three is stupid, too.

I was asked to name my favorite book today.

An impossible question if I ever heard one.

Then I was asked to name my three favorite books instead.

Also impossible, but I gave it a shot.

My incomplete, spur-of-the-moment list, in no particular order:

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Hamlet by William Shakespeare

I can already think of another ten books to add to the list.

Depressing and monotonous in bed

Last night's dreams included:

1.  A dream in which I was back in high school, riding on the shoulders of my best friend as he sprinted across a grassy field.  Holding on for dear life, I looked up into the night sky and thought about how important it was to remember this moment because someday I would be 40-years old and all washed up.

I turn forty in three months.

2.  A dream in which the truck I was driving needed gas. I stopped at a gas station, swiped my credit card and watched the digital indicators on the gas pump flash as 30-gallons of gas were pumped into the tank.

Did you get that?  I spent a portion of last night watching the numbers change on a gas pump.

As a novelist, is this really the most creative use of my unconscious mind?

Am I really that boring?

My new favorite photo of my daughter