The Gloves Came Off!

Well, they sorta did.

After weeks of cheery informational hearings, food prizes for finding “weird” symbols in bill language, and generally agreeing with everything everyone had to say, the gloves finally came off a bit this morning in the K-12 Education Policy Committee.  The reason?  They were taking amendments to the K-12 Education Policy Omnibus bill… an 80 or so page piece of legislation that lays out the education policy changes the legislature wishes to enact.  As a political junky, all the lovey dovey stuff from before gets real old real fast.  The disagreement and debate today, with amendments being defeated and divided and re-written and roll call votes and everything was great.  Two things stood out to me:

I still can’t understand he focus that some legislators have on testing to determine if a student is worthy of receiving a high school diploma.  There is a part of the bill that will create an alternative route to graduation for students who can’t pass the high stakes graduation test… and these legislators tried unsuccessfully to remove it from the bill.  They claim that having students receive diplomas without passing the test amounts to a lowering of 1) our expectations of our students and 2) our academic standards.  I can understand why people might think that, but something that one of these legislators said today didn’t sit well with me.  He basically said that knowledge was most important criteria for determining qualification for graduation.  I guess if you believe in high stakes testing that is what you inherently believe.  This seems to be a rather narrow view of what is important in the world.  Non-cognitive skills are just as important as cognitive skills.  If you ask me, being a decent human being and a good citizen is far more important than any test score for determining graduation.  Again, as I wrote before, we use subjective, non-numerical, non-test-like analysis for almost everything in our lives.  Why should graduation be any different?  Rant over.

Similarly the insistence that teachers’ performance be reviewed based on numerical cost/benefit-ish data baffles me.  I won’t rant about this one because the rant is pretty similar to the one I just had.

In the end, thankfully, most of these amendments were blocked.

They had to recess this morning because they ran out of time, but the committee will be back for round two tonight at 6:30 PM.  Let’s hope the excitement continues!

The Amazing Race: And With That, Romance Was Dead…

**WARNING: Spoilerrrrrrrrr Alert!!!***

I cannot even begin to describe how upset I was last night as I watched the latest installment of the Amazing Race Does Russia.  Amanda and Kris, over the course of the hour, became my favorite team from this year’s race.  Hands down.  I just love ’em.  Earlier I wrote that their weakness could be facing adversity and the fact they might turn on each other.  I think they passed that test with flying colors last night.  Now, it’s easy to be ok with things going poorly when you know you’re philiminated anyway (every time a team knows it’s eliminated, because it is a day behind everyone else, the members always get reflective and sentimental), but I think they handled the setback on the detour quite well.

Also, with their philimination, there is no more romance on the show.  The two married couples and the two dating couples have been the first four teams kicked off the show.  That sucks.

Also, major dick move by Margie and Luke with the U-Turn.  It’s one thing to play the U-Turn if you know the team is gonna be close to you – that passes as playing the game.  U-Turning someone who you KNEW was literally hours behind you is not ok.  They lost major Mess Points last night.

Worst. Trivia. Ever?

We went to trivia last night.  When the dude came out to start asking questions, he informed us that the topic for the evening was “The Clergy.”  Goodness.  I could not think of a category that I would enjoy less.  Then we found out there were going to be FIVE rounds of EIGHT questions.  Goodness!  It featured categories such as “nuns,” and “televangelists.”  Oh well.  Hanging out with people was fun, even if the questions really weren’t.

FYI, we’re playing games tonight if any of ya’ll are interested.  My amazing mood makes me want to hang out with people as much as possible!

Weekend Football Predictions: Week #4

Blackburn v Arsenal: Arsenal 2-0

Fulham v Bolton: Fulham 2-1

Liverpool v Man U: Man U 2-1

Man City v Chelsea: Chelsea 2-1

Newcastle v Hull: Newcastle 3-1

Portsmouth v Middlesbrough: Portsmouth 2-0

West Brom v West Ham: West Ham 1-0

Wigan v Sunderland: Sunderland 1-0

Stoke v Everton: Everton 2-1

Tottenham v Aston Villa: Aston Villa 3-2

 

Crystal Palace v Swansea: Palace 2-0

Memorial Day… A Day Late…

I fell asleep on the couch last night before I could post this, but better late then never right?  Memorial Day is the day that we honor those who have died in service to our country.  Veterans Day is the day when we honor all of those who have served, but despite the distinction I like to honor everyone on both days.  I think all who have served and are serving deserve at least two days of recognition.  I would just like to give a mention to those people whom I honor on these days.

Robert Szymaszek – My grandfather… served as a tank crewman in the 9th Armored Division in Europe during World War II.

John Messinger – My grandfather… served as an anti-aircraft gunner aboard the USS Houston (CL-81) during World War II.

Elias Messinger – My great-great-great grandfather… served in the 153rd Pennsylvania Infantry during the Civil War… fought at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.

Conrad Bloss – My lots of greats grandfather.  Born in Germany, most agree he died in battle fighting the British at the Battle of Long Island during the Revolutionary War.

Valentine McLoughlin – My great-great-great grandfather… born in Ireland, likely served in the Royal Navy (British Navy) before emigrating to America.

I also always like to mention my Polish ancestors, who lived as farmers and peasants during the 18th and 19th centuries.  I have yet to explore the records, but it is likely that at least a few of them from southern Poland gave military service to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Hello world!

**Update 4/27**

I’ve moved combined my four seperate blogs into one blog.  This will now be a forum for all things Messman.