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Larry T. Spider

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    2022
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Everything posted by Larry T. Spider

  1. During the school year public school administrators are in a perpetual state of being swamped with work. Unless its cyber bullying, which we legally have to deal with, being the internet police is the last thing I’m going to do.
  2. Limited media access after Vietnam. Can’t have joe public seeing what he supported. Just keep liking the military Facebook posts and move along.
  3. Anybody else out there have experience in mining? I find the whole idea fascinating.
  4. I’m curious about the unwritten rules for the media in which pictures are shown. It seems that they do have a line that they typically don’t cross. Usually the face isn’t shown but the body with the scene to give context is. I also wonder how the internet has changed things as people have become desensitized to graphic images. Some of those images from 50 year ago were so powerful because people hasn’t seen stuff like that in print.
  5. I feel more justified in my hatred of the olympics.
  6. Just spitballing here: We have 2000 chronically homeless people in Austin. I would create a database of these people (with pictures) that includes basic information on them, any mental health diagnosis, addiction issues, work history, and criminal record. When an officer approaches one of these people they will (hopefully) be able to identify them and get some history on them. They can then divert the homeless person to the correct service. The three basic options would be a work program, mental health treatment, or addiction treatment. I’m not sure what already exists in these areas but I’m under the assumption it would be created from scratch or an existing programs would need significant funding increases. If you are involved in one of these three programs, you get access to a huge shelter that would be built in north east Austin with bus access to the rest of the city. The shelter would have tiers of living with the top tier being like a halfway house. If the person refuses all three options then jail is the last resort. I truly want to help homeless people by treating the root cause of their homelessness and would be willing to pay more for a comprehensive program. I’m not in favor of just letting them camp and do drugs all over the city. That isn’t helping the homeless live a fulfilling life or the city in any way.
  7. I’ve seen the sales pitch in action before. It goes something like this: Coach: Timmy is a really good player and we are happy to have him. He’s good but he’s only scratching the surface of his potential. The sky is the limit for Timmy because most people are just not born with what he has and they would kill for it. Hes a bit raw right now and will need a couple of days with our batting coach to really set him up right. We also have an extra infield drills practice each week he should attend. Parents: I don’t know, this sounds expensive and we just want him to enjoy the game. Coach: I would really hate for you to regret not giving it your all later in life considering his talent. He has real potential and you don’t want him to wonder how far he could have gone if you had let him. Parents: I don’t know.....he’s only 7, this seems like a lot. End of the story: they signed up.
  8. “If Austin — or any other Texas city — permits camping on city streets it will be yet another local ordinance the State of Texas will override.” — Gov. Greg Abbott
  9. The same thing happens for UIL academic competitions. Parents wanting to confront judges about how some thing subjective like 3rd grade storytelling. I hate zero tolerance policies but we need to go in that direction for youth sports. If you have a problem with a ref/ump you go through a formal process to file a complaint. If you have a problem with a coach, you take that up on your own time. We now have a shortage of referees despite despite decent pay because of this. Yell at the ref once and you’re done for the season.
  10. It’s not just in sports that this happens. That’s just where the cameras are out and rolling. Let’s just say I learned a lot in my first week as a school administrator.
  11. There is no way for our current city council or any one that would be elected in the future to come up with a reasonable position on homelessness. We love electing loons even if it will clearly worsen our quality of life. Remember the whole Uber thing? Guess who is still running this city... The best hope is for an outside organization to come up with a reasonable plan, gain public support for that plan, then have the city adopt and fund it. Quality ideas are never going to be generated by the city.
  12. Used to play it a lot as a kid in the 90s. Plenty of bum camping near the train tracks even back then.
  13. I read that as “put me down for 5 for Bernie”.
  14. I read it but I’m too dumb to get it.
  15. Lighten up Francis. It was a joke about people being scared of the east side back in the day. I worked in East Austin schools for years where I was the only white male in the building most of the time. It was a running joke about how white people were scared to come over there. Austin has never had a ghetto in the time I have lived here since 1991.
  16. I think the east side about half a mile from dt would be great. All these people bitch about that part of town becoming gentrified. We could fix that problem in a hurry. I’m hungry for the nostalgia of running for my life on the east side.
  17. Michael Bennet (D) Joe Biden (D) 1 Bill de Blasio (D) Cory Booker (D) 2 Steve Bullock (D) Pete Buttigieg (D) 3 + 2 Julián Castro (D) John Delaney (D) Tulsi Gabbard (D) Kirsten Gillibrand (D) Mike Gravel (D) Kamala Harris (D) 2 John Hickenlooper (D) Jay Inslee (D) 2 Amy Klobuchar (D) 2 Wayne Messam (D)  Seth Moulton (D) Beto O'Rourke (D) 5 Tim Ryan (D) Bernie Sanders (D) Eric Swalwell (D) Elizabeth Warren (D) 2 + 4 Marianne Williamson (D) Andrew Yang (D)
  18. From the article: "Everything is focused on redistricting," state Sen. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills, said at a recent Tea Party meeting as he fielded questions about the demise of some controversial legislation this session. "There is nothing more important — not only to Texas, but literally the nation — than to make sure that we maintain the Texas House ... going into redistricting because if you look at the nation — we lose Texas, we lose the nation. And there's no other place to go." I read that as: we are going to cheat like hell to maintain or worsen our gerrymandered districts to our benefit.
  19. This is the most ludicrous thing I’ve seen in a while. I’m beyond pissed. Who the hell thinks it’s ok to refer to a 4 year old as a toddler?
  20. It’s not quite that simple because in the old formula certain students were allotted more money. The new formula is roughly a 20% increase for all students but takes away some of the extra funding attached to certain students. Still a big overall win for districts. Austin came out with 7% for experienced teachers and 6% for everybody else. I would guess that nearby districts will do something similar but haven’t heard any announcements yet. AISD jumped first because of the struggle to retain teachers with our huge recapture payments (still over 500 million), the high cost of living, and the traffic from the burbs, which is where teachers can afford to live. They also increased the stipend for bilingual teachers, which is our biggest shortage. Its certainly not life changing money but it’s really nice to end a legislative session like this. First time in my career.
  21. Was in London and Paris a couple of summers ago. I met some really cool people from China that were friendly and engaging. The ones in tour groups were the scourge of the earth though. All the annoying behaviors already mentioned. They moved like they had a list of 1000 items to check off before the end of the day or they would die. It didn’t seem like an enjoyable experience at all.
  22. Ran across this on CNN: Local newspaper Het Nieuwsblad reports that Bruges will no longer advertise or promote day trips to the city, and measures will be taken to cut back the number of cruise ships able to dock at Zeebrugge port. Currently, the port has room for five cruise ships at a time, but the number will be capped at two per day. Cruise companies will also be asked to dock during the week instead of on weekends, which will help spread the crowds out among more days.
  23. I was on the plaintiffs side until I read that they have a kid named Cashlyn.
  24. I’ve actually done a fair amount of research on consequences and better ways to change behavior through my work as a school administrator. Consequences such as detention are the kid version of jail time. There is the same underlying philosophy that people want to avoid this so they won’t do whatever behavior we are trying to get them to stop. The good news is that this approach works well for 95% of people. The bad news is that those were likely the people that were going to follow the rules regardless of the consequences because they have the skill set to do so. It doesn’t do a damn bit of good for the people that lack problem solving skills, frustration tolerance, social skills/awareness, etc. We often mistake a persons failures to follow the rules as a lack of willingness. This means our philosophy on how do deal with it is rooted in tools related to motivation - rewards and consequences. You could often offer these people a million dollars to do certain things and they would not be able to. It’s not a motivation issue, it’s a skills issue and that’s why our jails are largely a failure with high recidivism rates. I actually look at the people in the college cheating scandal and think they are generally in the 95% that can have their behavior influenced by rewards and consequences. I think jail time would be effective for deterring this type of behavior. I also think 1 month would do just as much good as 18.
  25. At the rate they are moving here, we should remove the word free from the thread title.
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