Banning the "Zero" in Grades. Dog Ate Your Homework? No Problem!

The Wake County (NC) public school system is evaluating whether to eliminate giving students a "zero" grade when work is not turned in on time. Students would be guaranteed the right to turn in late work for credit and retake exams to get higher scores. The logic behind this thought is that the current system allowing students to get zeros is "too punitive." The lowest score students would be able to receive under the proposed guidelines would be a 50, even if they don't turn in the work. Fortunately, some members of the Wake County School Board don't think it's a good idea. Member Jim Martin was quoted in the (Raleigh) News & Observer that "not giving a zero protects a slacker." Hear hear Mr. Martin! What kind of signals are we sending to students who will have to face deadlines and expectations once they enter the workforce? Mr. Martin is also quoted saying “Turning in your work is frankly a behavior of your job that you need to do.” Sure a zero can wreck a grade average really quickly, but if students don't face the consequences of not turning work in on time, instead turning it in "when I feel like it," is not teaching them what they need to know later in life. I know that if I had received a zero on an assignment in school, it would have been my first and only one! let's teach our kids some responsibility and make them accountable. They will thank us later.

Oreos Addicting? Oh Brother!

So a team of researchers at Connecticut College has determined that Oreo Cookies are as addictive as cocaine. The study, which will be presented at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual conference next month, also made another discovery: Rats, like humans, like to eat Oreo’s creamy center first. In the study, laboratory rats were put in a maze and given the choice of Oreos or rice cakes, and the rats chose the Oreo. Duh! Maybe that just shows the rats like things that taste good! The research reports that the cookies activated the same pleasure sensors in the brain as cocaine or morphine. Actually, the pleasure from the Oreo was more intense. I wonder who funded this study, and why we care? The researchers say it was to determine why some people can't resist high fat/high sugar foods even if they know the foods aren't good for them. At least we found out the rats wanted to eat the cream filling first, so they know where the good part is. As for me, pass the milk,please!

More Nanny State News: School bans footballs, tag and cartwheels from recess to keep kids from getting hurt

In the latest nanny-state move to keep kids from being kids, a Long Island middle school has decided that playing games at recess can be dangerous. News reports say that Weber Middle School has instituted a ban on footballs, baseballs, lacrosse balls. Games of tag or cartwheels must be supervised by a coach, or they are not allowed. Tag, really? Nerf balls are allowed, because "The Port Washington district said the softer foam balls put students in the best situation to cut down the chance of getting injured." Port Washington schools Supt. Kathleen Maloney said the change in policy is warranted due to a rash of playground injuries. One news report goes on to say "Without helmets and pads, children are much more susceptible to getting hurt, experts said." Wow! I always thought one of the rites of passage from childhood was that broken arm or scar on the chin or knee. Somehow I survived my childhood with out bike helmets, knee pads or Nerf balls. I am waiting for the day when parents are required to send their kids to school wrapped in bubble-wrap. Don't laugh, that day is coming.

Can your iPhone operating system make you sick? Apparently so.

iPhone users all over the country who have downloaded the new Apple iOS 7 are claiming that the new operating system is making them sick. They claim the icons flying into the screen and the other animations make them feel "car sick." I am having a really hard time believing that the motion from a tiny iPhone screen can have that effect on someone. I have to admit I downloaded the new operating system with some trepidation: I had heard that it was a battery hog, so I did some research and turned off many of the settings, including the one that makes the icons seem to float on the home screen. That seems to be the source of most of the discomfort by users. Still, even that feature seems to be a stretch as a cause of being sick. One user stated "Have headaches and nausea for past 3 days. Can't stand to look at my phone screen anymore while opening/closing apps. I just close my eyes or look away." Hmmmm. Maybe it's just a case of tearing yourself away from the phone instead of staring at it constantly throughout every waking minute. Step away from the phone........

A Man-made "Natural Backyard Playground?" What Next?

The NC Natural Sciences Museum just unveiled its new "Natural Backyard Playground" in Raleigh. At a cost of $10,000 this playground features "A new natural play area with tunnels, digging sites and water experiments for young children..." “It’s very much a trend in the natural sciences to have a space like this,” said Emlyn Koster, the museum’s new director. I remember playing in a place like that. It was the large area of woods behind our neighborhood. I would disappear for hours, play in the creek,catch crawfish, imagine a fallen tree was a pirate ship and have sword fights with sticks. Have we gotten to the point where we have to build "natural" places to play so that parents can continue to "helicopter" over their kids? The article quotes one girl's mom as saying “I think it’s everything – in terms of her intellectual development and fostering her curiosity, the natural world is everything.” I guess the natural world is everything, even if its man-made. http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/09/26/3230280/nc-natural-sciences-museum-build.html

Paris Takes On Free Enterprise and Competition-Big Brother at Work

According to an article I saw today a Paris court of appeals has issued a ruling that forbids a cosmetics store on the famous Champs Elysées to stay open past 9:00 pm. instead of its regular closing hour of midnight or 1:00 am. The reason? The unions think that employers are taking unfair advantage of the workers by making them work "anti social" hours. the only thing is, half of the staff who work the long hours do it voluntarily, and get paid 25% more than the day shift. The store, Sephora, says it does 20% of its business after 9:00 pm, and many of the workers have signed a petition against the ruling. Sephora is not the only one affected. Apple has been forced to close at 9:00 as well, and Abercrombie and Fitch will face legal action soon. Retailer H&M had to fight to open on the street after the city ruled that it would be "one clothing store too many." Well, Paris has an unemployment rate of more than 10%, so you would think the unions would be fighting to help create more jobs, instead of fighting against them. The article states "France has a raft of regulations governing shopping, and its labor unions ensure that they are strictly enforced. As well as strict limits on opening and closing hours, the rules only allow sales during certain periods of the year, price promotions are circumscribed, loss leaders are illegal, store sizes are limited and even the types of shops allowed to open up are regulated." Wow! Is that where America might be headed? Instead of letting a business decide what hours to open, what to charge, how much profit (or not) even what kind of shop you can open, in Paris it is now up to "Big Brother." George Orwell died in 1950, but it looks like his 1984 prediction is finally coming true, just 29 years late.

Rewriting Tom Sawyer: Another PC Move Gone Awry

News stories this week report that a new edition of Mark Twain's classic "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" will be release in February. The new edition will replace the "N-word" with the word "slave." The word appears in Finn over 200 times, Tom Sawyer four times.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/04/new-edition-removes-mark-twains-offensive-words/

The problem I have with this is that use of words such as that is what makes the books what they are. Twain was a gifted author whose books offer is a window to the time when they were written. While it is not correct to use the "N-word" today, in Twain's time that's how people spoke.

In addition to replacing the N-word, the revision changes the villain in "Tom Sawyer" from "Injun Joe" to "Indian Joe" and "half-breed" becomes "half-blood."

To meddle with such as classic as Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer is to rob us of appreciating Twain's work and reflection of his time. Twain himself said "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter."

When will the political correctness madness stop? What's next? Will we modify Adolph Hitler's speeches to remove his derogatory references to Jews?

Remember years ago when Ted Turner came up with the idea to colorize old black & white classic movies, to make them more "up to date."? Classic movie scholars lashed back strongly, and the process was discontinued.

Let's hope the same common sense comes back again, when we think about changing classic written works.