Category: Sardonic Side

Interesting term, net neutrality. Nobody’s neutral.

So look who is now defending his on-the-ground, “combat-zone” bona fides: Fox pontificator Bill O’Reilly. He’s being called out over his selective recall of Falkland Islands’ reporting he did in 1982–while he was in Buenos Aires. But you have to admire his candor when caught. No “misremembering” here.

“Hey, I’m no Brian Williams conflating helicopter stories in Iraq and creating floating Katrina bodies in the French Quarter,” said O’Reilly, “but you got me on this one. Buenos Aires is a lot of things, including being 1,200 miles from the Falklands and one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, but it was hardly a ‘war zone’ during the Falklands War.

“And while I’m coming clean about my resume, one other thing to be fair and balanced about,” added O’Reilly. “I was not a history and English teacher at Monsignor Pace High in Miami Gardens in the early 1970s. I actually taught driver-training and was in charge of the Time-Out room.”

If you have babies, small children or pets at home, you truly get this. There’s a difference between planned, date-specific, celebratory fireworks and free-lance, noise-making, neighborhood cretins on the loose between New Year’s Eve and Gasparilla.

* The most resonating objection to the polarizing emphasis on standardized testing: Students don’t come standardized.

* Wouldn’t you like to see one of your favorite sweet-tooth products–now marketed as having, say, half the usual calorie count–not be downsized by, say, half?

* “Narcisstick“: What some are calling the telescopic extender used to take selfie photos by positioning a smartphone or camera beyond the normal arm range.

While Bill Cosby still hasn’t directly responded to all those sex assault allegations, his wife of 50 years, Camille Cosby, has gone public with a rebuttal. She dismissed the allegations and suggested her husband was the party being harmed.

“He is,” said Camille Cosby, “the man you thought you knew. He is a kind man, a generous man, a funny man, and a wonderful husband, father and friend. And, by the way, I also think Jerry Sandusky got a raw deal.”

* Does Rick Scott have an evil twin?

That was my first thought upon hearing that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is calling for mandatory testing of journalists in his war against the “drug mafia.” So, yeah, it could be worse.

Are Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chou the oddest couple since Tiny Tim and Miss Vicki?

It was the class of 70.

No, not 1970. The eighth grade class of St. Timothy’s Catholic School in Philadelphia that had 70 students. One class, one teacher. No complaints. Well, no complaints about class size anyway. It’s all we knew. No standees. Everybody had their own student desk.

Seventy students with one lone St. Joseph’s Order nun teaching everything. From math to grammar to geography to penmanship–remember that? Might as well be calligraphy now.

It all came cascading back when the subject of class size hit the news cycle again–in the form of Pinellas County’s class-size shell game. Pinellas hires substitute teachers as “co-teachers” in October when the state takes official enrollment numbers to determine if public schools are in compliance with the 2002 class-size amendment.

The “co-teachers” are more like Potemkim Village props so it looks like the students-to-teacher ratios meet the 22-to-1 mandate for fourth through eighth grades.

That sparked a flashback to 1960 and a certain blocky, stone-gray Catholic school in a working-class, row-house section of Philly called Mayfair. We were the sons and daughters of World War II-vet families who couldn’t afford Levittown, but were upwardly mobile enough to escape the “temporary,” post-war project housing that dotted the city. It helped that parents came in pairs.

We all walked to school and came home for a lunch of baloney sandwiches while watching “Tic-Tac-Dough,” with “your host Jack Barry.” Whenever we left the building–lunch or dismissal–it was always in well-disciplined lines until we crossed the big streets that abutted the school.

The crossing guards were like extended family. The nuns, with stentorian voices and martinet manners, were the enforcers. (Even for fire drills. Never know when you would need to walk in straight lines–at a prudent pace–from a burning building.)

Our eighth grade class, one of three similarly sized, was 35 school-tied boys and 35 uniformed girls. Boys on the left, eight or nine to a runnered row of desks, girls on the right. Some likely with undiagnosed learning disabilities masquerading as inattention or self-control issues.

The Ten Commandments were posted prominently to remind us that there was yet another layer of authority beyond parents and teachers.

Sister Charles Mary presided. She was referenced as “‘Ster.” As in: “No, ‘Ster, I didn’t do it. I knew it might be a sin.” She was a stocky, tough-love avatar. Doubt if she had a college degree, let alone a teaching certificate attesting to a dozen courses in educational psychology.

And, as noted, she taught everything. All day long. No time off for our good behavior. She gave a lot of homework and never failed to collect it and promptly return it with comments. It mattered.

She was the first, last and loudest word on all subjects–from what made a sin mortal to what made a rhombus relevant. Sure, you memorized and you recited, but you also applied and learned. That was, after all, your job.

Amazingly, even David Massucci learned. David had been left back one year and struggled more than most. If there were a class rank, his would have been 70th. Years later we met up and he was married, the father of two, owned a home and made a good living as a General Motors salesman in Cherry Hill, N.J. Something had worked.

As you might expect, corporal punishment was a given. No parental permission necessary. They didn’t pull punches at home, because they, well, knew what you were like. So parents couldn’t be used for intercession, let alone leverage, against ‘Ster. They were on the same side. It mattered.

Another form of punishment was staying after school. It meant, however, more than heel-cooling. You had to do windows, clap erasers and clean the 70-desk room while ‘Ster checked homework, and your buddies played audibly in the adjacent schoolyard. For those deserving hard time, there was heavy lifting at the convent next door. It was the price paid for a missed assignment or a wise-guy utterance.

‘Ster had a ruddy face and fleshy hands. Otherwise, she was all black robes, white habit and rosary beads that made an ominous swishing sound when she bustled down an aisle with hands-on discipline topping her agenda. She was probably about 40 years old, give or take 30 years. Most days we were convinced her assignment on Earth was to make us learn–whether we hated it or her. Perspective is elusive when you’re 13 years old.

Of course, much has changed since that class of 70. The meltdown of the nuclear family, immigration scenarios, voucher and charter subplots, standardized-test teaching and curricula that too often treat self-esteem as a goal rather than a by-product of learning.

As I recall, “accountability” was a given, not an FCAT rationale. Excuses were not countenanced–either at school or at home. In retrospect, we were lucky–even if unconscionably overcrowded.

And did I mention the sham of today’s self-esteem curricula and the surety of parental involvement in cooperation with “old-school” teachers back in the day? It mattered.

Upon renewed reflection brought about by class-size notoriety, that eighth-grade year at St. Tim’s was quite the challenge. But if they made it into a movie, it would be: To ‘Ster With Love.

Here’s the bad news. Most Florida law schools, including Florida State and the University of Florida, had fewer applications in the last year. The biggest factor: rising costs. Another factor: greater transparency about employment results.

The good news: improved prospects for a less litigious society.

Immortality.

We’ve all likely harbored such thoughts, mostly as teens when mortality is an abstraction. And that was before texting while driving. And for those of us who were privy to the Old Testament, we were informed that Noah, after building that archetypal zoo, lived into his mid-900s. That’s coming pretty close.

So, yes, we should be able to do better than longevity into our 70s and 80s. Officially, the World Health Organization says the overall, worldwide life expectancy at birth is 71 years. The U.S., at 79.8, ranks 33rd.

Now we learn that a Stanford-trained radiologist, Joon Yun, has launched a ($1 million) science competition with the aim of “curing” aging. It involves 11 teams, at last count, signing up for the Palo Alto Longevity Prize. The competition has drawn well-credentialed researchers from across the country.

It has its critics, and not because it sounds like the ultimate reality show.

Some wonder whether increased longevity would rob life of its meaning. Or sense of urgency. Others say it would exacerbate global overpopulation.

“Balderdash,” said Dr. Yun. “I wouldn’t expect, say, Bernie Madoff or Charles Manson to be overly impressed with the prospect of immortality, but others should be able to concede that if, as a species, we’re innovative enough to hack aging, we’re smart enough to handle any scenario.

“That surprised me. But live and learn, I guess.”