
Samson's Wig
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Everything posted by Samson's Wig
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I agree with that, of course. We couldn't just dump them all at once. But we would need mechanisms in place for weeding them out, or we'd just end up with higher-paid loafers whose primary skill seems to be doing the bare minimum to not get fired. The slightest increase in responsibilities and/or accountability would likely have most of the running for the hills reasonably quickly. The phrase "work-life balance" is too often misused as a euphemism for sanctioned laziness by that crowd. It will be a huge hill to climb, and I'm not confident it will happen in our lifetimes, if ever. I don't see the social will to fix it, and no figure in leadership has proffered anything other than gutless money grabs like voucher programs, which will do nothing but make things worse.
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"Last wife" tracks.
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Once upon a time, I subbed quite a bit. It's a tough gig. My mom was a public school teacher for 50 years before finally retiring in 2022. She also managed the academic UIL program for her school, which was one of the best in the state. Even in retirement, she is still brought down to Austin to consult on academic UIL activities, testing standards, etc. She worked her ass off her entire career, and I know well what a quality educator looks like. I spent much of my childhood hanging around at school until 7:00 at night while she prepared lesson plans and put in the effort required to properly educate students, all without ever being paid nearly enough for it. I completely understand that side of the argument, but those types of educators are rare anymore. Daily, I witness teachers at my kids' middle school stumbling in at the first bell and racing to see who can get in their car first at the last bell. There are still a few good ones, of course, but the pandemic was the final straw for most of the experienced talent, and they're gone now. We're left with young teachers who don't know what they're doing and are some of the laziest people I've ever dealt with. I don't see how any of them would function in any other career where they would be allowed to do basically nothing all day and still keep their job. I guess the tech industry has some crossover there. I agree entirely with the general notion that teachers should be paid more, just not most current teachers. That nuance should be involved in any discussion about pay raises. Giving this lot a pay raise across the board would be foolish, as you would reward many people who work fewer (and easier) hours than a part-time fry cook. High pay should be attached to job performance (and no, I don't mean test scores). I also agree that what kids are getting these days is the direct result of years of underpaying teachers and generally treating them like shit. As you said, it attracts shitty teachers, and that's primarily what we have now. It's all moot as the state isn't going to do shit, especially when the only way to fix it starts with completely restructuring the funding system and stopping the theft that happens from inner city taxpayers. I am tired of the sanctification of teachers anytime these conversations come up. That argument may have carried some water thirty years ago, but right now, the conversation needs to shift away from "Those poor teachers, they work so hard and get so little pay!" That's just not a factual statement, and besides, it hasn't gotten us anywhere in decades of muttering it. One can argue that many of the teachers are overpaid based on performance, even though a small percentage of talented teachers are indeed underpaid. They need to be targeted and rewarded, for sure, but lumping in the dead weight with them won't fix anything. We need a complete restructure of the education system, and yes, that should include higher pay for teachers but should also include a purging of the absolute crap workforce currently in place. We need to encourage more of our best and brightest to want to teach. Misogyny benefited us for a long time when attracting capable talent because women had very few options for work. By default, many of the brightest and most competent women became teachers and kicked ass at it (what better options were out there?). Those same types of women today have many options in any field, and we're left scraping the bottom of the barrel for the bare minimum of qualifications for new teachers. It's a pathetic state of affairs. As for coaches teaching classes, that is an abomination, and perhaps the biggest indictment on Texas public schools there is. Anyone who ever had a coach for a teacher knows what a joke it is. We value competitive athletics over academics to a degree of complete stupidity, and boy, is it evident in the education level of the public in this state. Until we fix our academic woes, I think that competitive athletics should go by the wayside in public schools outside of intramural activities. If competitive sports stick around, they should be privatized, and coaches (outside of one or two PE-type coaches to teach physical fitness at each school. perhaps) should be removed from the public payroll. It's insane that the highest-paid individual at any public school (including universities) is a fucking coach. And we think we will continue to thrive in the future when our priorities are this out of whack. We're fucked if things don't change.
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Most of us will likely be dead before they're finished, but it's a good project.
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Sorry, I don't have the link, but they're out there. They're making it a proper highway with frontage roads and overpasses at the major intersections (essentially only the roads that travel both east and west from 360 will get an overpass). The clearing work you're seeing is for the frontage roads. They started at Westlake, and I believe the Lakewood area is next, as they've already done some utility work at Lakewood along with some at Spicewood, although could have been part of the Spicewood expansion project. There are zero plans to widen the bridge (somewhat understandable) and last I checked no plans to do anything about that major interchange at 360 and 183, so essentially everyone will be able to head north really fast only to wait through the light at 183 4000 times before going on their way.
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I hope they enjoy having no intersection at all, because that's what is coming. Maybe they'll keep the light on the frontage road for them.
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Facebook has that covered. I don't envy the folks working in middle schools, because kids that age are fucking nuts. However, having two kids in a public middle school right now, I can tell you the quality of staff would shock most people who haven't been around education in a while. Experienced teachers bailed during the pandemic and took all of their institutional knowledge with them. What's left is a bunch of millennial and Gen Z teachers (with a smattering of Gen Xers who got emergency certification - the lifers from Gen X mostly left the profession) with little experience, no work ethic, and subpar educations themselves. The turnover rate is insane, with the average new teacher bailing from the profession within 3-4 years. Texas has one of the lowest (maybe the lowest) average years of experience per teacher in the United States. It's a constant battle. Some of the young teachers are shockingly lazy and will completely ruin a student, not out of spite but out of indifference. The ratio of quality teachers to those doing the bare minimum was never spectacular in public education, but wholly crap is it bad now. It used to mostly be the math teachers who dialed it in, as that subject lends itself to it (five minutes explaining a topic on the board followed by handing out worksheets and having the kids grade their own papers, basically just following a textbook all year and never working outside of classroom hours - what a tough gig). Now, it's every subject. As teachers have been saddled with more regulatory busywork, they (perhaps understandably) do less and less actual teaching. And, in Texas, at least, the old tradition of having coaches who can barely spell their own name teach academic courses is still alive and well, and it's as shitty as it ever was. We had one goofy Gen Z football coach teaching Texas History carry a baseball bat around like he's Morgan Freeman in "Lean on Me", slamming it on desks if students weren't paying attention. His bat was taken away from him like a dangerous toy is taken away from a child. However, every kid in his class has a 100 because he's just that good /eye-roll/. Jaime Escalante he is not.
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Still on the menu in the Austin stores. (I'm sad I know this).
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And by default may be the most at peace among us. That could just be the quiet desperation, though. Or the meth.
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"Slowly dying" is exactly the words I would use to describe how I feel while waiting four hours for my food anytime I've made the mistake of pulling into a Dairy Queen on a road trip over the last twenty years. I know there are some locations managed by solid folks who run a tight ship, but most of them are a place for country folk to inadvertently learn mindfulness meditation.
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Okay, yeah, I kind of want that.
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Were they all a bunch of great big fat people, or do they avoid getting high on their own supply?
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It seems like there's a Halloween deluge every other year or so.
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Fuck those people. I'm a dog guy, I guess, but there's a special place in hell for the people who take dogs into grocery stores who don't absolutely need to.
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Dog talk in the cat thread not going away. I think off-leash training has become more difficult for many due to leash laws in most cities. If you're walking your dog off leash in an urban or suburban environment, regardless of how well trained, you're an entitled asshole. There's always a handful in every neighborhood. They all think their dog is special and that they train them better than everyone else. They're always wrong. The downside of the leash laws is that most dogs now don't know how to respond well when they accidentally get loose. We have taken our dogs to designated off-leash areas to work on that training, and that has worked well. In defense of (some) dogs that aggressively bark while on the leash, it most often happens after they have been attacked. Their fight or flight response is kicking in when they sense another dog that is a threat to them, and they can't run because they're on a leash - so fight it is. Our current dog (no small yapper, but not huge - 40 lbs) never barked aggressively at another dog on walks or any other situation until he was four years old and a dumbass neighbor let his pit bull get loose, and it attacked my dog. Now any dog he deems even a mild threat gets the full blown "I'm a crazy mother fucker and you do NOT want to mess with me" treatment. It sucks and I feel bad for the folks with the other dogs as they don't know the how or why of it. Training it out of him has been a major chore, but we're working on it. Back to cats - has anyone seen the latest trending XL Bully cats? Holy shit.
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Your Scottish fold is a beauty as well, but I was asking about the new kitten.
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Beautiful kitten! Do you know if it's a particular breed, and if so, which one?
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Thanks! He's a 7th grader, so he's plenty old enough to handle everything, and he is good with animals. We have a dog that was initially intended to be a de facto service animal for him, but the dog latched on to his sister, and it completely backfired. Dog sleeps with her every night. The plan with a cat is that it will be 100% his responsibility (I know), with food and water in his bedroom along with anything else for the cat, like a scratch post/tower or whatever. We'll probably cut him a bit of slack and not put the litter box in his bedroom, but then again . . .
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That light can kiss my ass. Those folks can enjoy heading south when they want to go north once the highway work is done (at least, I don't think they're getting an overpass there).
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Suzanne Simpson, the disappearing San Antonio realtor (UT alum)
Samson's Wig replied to chainsaw's topic in Daily Texan
I can't believe no one has postulated that this may be a "Gone Girl" situation. This forum is full of dudes, and not one has considered the possibility that this is all a brilliant ploy by this woman to exact revenge on her hapless frat bro husband. Bunch of misogynists, I tell ya. Apologies if this has already been brought up. I didn't read the entire thread, but I did read that silly book. -
Looks like [insert name] is a DOB/sexual predator
Samson's Wig replied to South Austin's topic in Daily Texan
The only way this story about Abercrombie and Fitch would be surprising is if any women were involved. I'm not sure how they went from outdoor goods supplier to gayest retailer in history, but they were 100% of the way there by the mid-nineties. -
My son wants a cat. I've read a lot about the benefits of cats for autistic kids and want to make it happen. I've been allergic to them (cats, not autistic kids) all my life, although some breeds, e.g. Maine Coon, don't seem to bother me. We actually had a Maine Coon for fifteen years before he passed. He was awesome, but was a kitten rescue and grew into an unexpected monster. Anyone have experience with a breed of cat that is good for allergies, but isn't the size of a school bus? Any thoughts on males v. females, especially if we really want the cat to bond with my son rather than his sister or my wife or me? Thanks to anyone with any thoughts on the matter.
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Everything is Shit: Tracking the Great Enshittening
Samson's Wig replied to 956 Worldwide's topic in Daily Texan
"Medical Device." "Former owner." It's okay to admit the truth. This is a safe space. EDIT: Damnit, Brisket beat me to the joke. Should have read the rest of the page before commenting. -
Who's been covid vaxxed? Stand up and be counted.
Samson's Wig replied to High Plains Drifter's topic in Daily Texan
At first I was skeptical of his story, but then I remembered some of the doctors I know and realized it was probably true. -
Suzanne Simpson, the disappearing San Antonio realtor (UT alum)
Samson's Wig replied to chainsaw's topic in Daily Texan
I'll take your word for it, and that makes sense. My dad's pacemaker alerts his physician's office with irregularities, so I'm familiar with that process. I assumed in AB's case that it was the physician's office that maybe had an itchy trigger finger in terms of calling in support. That still seems more plausible to me than a sheriff and EMT showing up based on his phone, or whatever, monitoring his conversation with his wife.
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