College Algerbra

I received my test back with a score of 67.  Hmm, this must be a mistake I thought.  I studied way hard enough to get a 70.  I scanned the paper and there it was, question #13. 

13.  2+X=Y    Solve for X.    I answered "X=2"  and the teacher marked a big red X through it.

After class I approached the teacher. 

Snetty:  Ms. Cloughman, I think you incorrectly marked my paper.
Cloughman:  Oh, Mr. Snetty, nice to see you showed up two days in a row.  What can I help you with?
Snetty:  Question 13, I put the answer "2" and you marked it wrong.
Cloughman:  That is because it is wrong.
Snetty:  Well of course the answer is 2.
Cloughman:  You were supposed to derive the equation, its all variables, there is not enough info to say what X equals all the time.
Snetty:  But the answer is 2, what kind of derivation is required.
Cloughman:  Mr. Snetty, you have about ten seconds and then I have another class to lecture.
Snetty:  So, if I subtract Y from both sides you get 2+X-Y=0, that does not simplify anything.
Cloughman:  Mr. Snetty, I do not have time for this.
Snetty:  Ok, wait, X is 2 because Y is 4 so 2+2=4, correct?
Cloughman:  I have to go, what if Y was 6?
Snetty:  Y is never 6.  That would make  4=6-2 and that is so prosaic!
As she wiggled her cute butt past me and down the hall, she said:
Cloughman:  I see your point, I will change the grade.

When I got my report card I received a C in Algebra which looked really cool above the C in Organic Chemistry, the C in Cell Physiology and the C in COBOL.  At the bottom of the report card there was a GPA number for that semester.  You will never guess what it was, yep, the magical value of X.  "2.0" which is 2.  I went to the registrars office and showed the important looking mother figure lady at the counter  my report card. 

Registrar:  Yes young man,  how can I help you?
Snetty:  Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt.
Registrar: Excuse me?
Snetty:  This is my report card, I got a "C" in every class.
Registrar: That is passing!
Snetty:  I do not have to take any of them over again?
Registrar: Nope, you passed the semester.
Snetty:  Hmmmp.

Off I went to charge the next windmill.

Insects

9


Enough said.

When I was in college, a professor tried to insight me to become an entomologist by waving a sweet research position at me.  I considered the offer for less than a second.  Well actually, I used my "go back three spaces(or seconds)" card from my pocket Monopoly and said no before he even opened his mouth to make the offer.  I said to the Professor, "I thought you were a bird guy?"  He told me his graduate work was related to insects of southern Patagonia.  "I fell in love with penguins and auks while down there. (most probably literally)

Anyway, I was so freaked out by the movie Starship Trooper that I cannot even look at a bug of any kind.  I can hold a dragonfly as long as he does not move his legs.  Ok, so insects are the bottom of the food chain and an integral part of the worlds' biom.   Well the above cricket could fish salmon on the annual run.  God has a grand purpose for them and for us so I guess I can let them be themselves.  There was a Japanese fighter pilot that after the war, vowed to never kill another living thing.  He included insects, even the ever buzzing mosquito in that proclamation.  As a monk, he could do no other.  I can use a shotgun on that Jiminy.
Better man than me. 

Bottle Tops

In Margaritaville, there is a serious injury from a pop top.  Ban them, ban them all.  Actually, you rarely see them anymore for pop. (soda north of the Mason-Dickson)  Beer bottles still use them.  My lava lamp has one but it is twenty five years old.  Many people feel that a beer tops, twist off or impossible to get off do not need to be in a trash bin.  Beer tops, newly relieved from a crimped existence, are free spirited entities and must be mysteriously flicked into the wild blue sailing as a flying saucer onto some parking lot or lawn. 

I am not sure why pop bottles have mostly gone plastic with screw tops.  Beer can be found in plastic at ball games of all sorts where rudeness is still tolerated.  At hockey games they used to heat bottle caps up with a lighter and fling them on the ice.  Well, I have heard of squid (octopus), dimes and fish being throw onto a hockey rink.  I heard someone once threw a hubcap from a car onto the ice.  I guess security was not curious why a man was taking a hubcap to a hockey game yet do not dare try to sneak a bottle of cherry sloe gin into the arena. 

Beer tops are make of steel and covered inside and out with plastic so rusting and disintegrating is a slow process.  I find them in my pasture and only carbon dating can for sure tell me how old they are.  If I knew the selection would have been so varied I would have started a collection.   They will want to see my bottle top collection. 

"They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon." 

Henry David Thoreau did not speak of the manifest rights to fling bottle caps all over the place.  The Magna Carta did not speak of the God given rights of littering.  Did Thomas Paine say "Give me bottle caps hovering like flying saucers or give me death!"
I think John Adams said "Sam, pickup your bottle caps, the wenches will be hear in a fortnight and this is not a pig puddle."

No, I am sure the manufacturers of bottle caps assumed, as the cigarette makers did that people would use a waste receptacle.  The designers could not imagine the thrill of flicking a cap like skipping a stone on water but on air.  I could have imagined it but I have issues that we cannot go into in just a few paragraphs.  Control your caps is all I am saying. 

Friday Science: Tea For Two

John Wayne, William Duvane, Jordyn Wieber
Jordan Sparks and Sparky the wonder Tuna in
               Flat Stanley pitches a Pup Tent.

I love this stuff.  Tea Time Movies was a standard on the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. 

I have started a Tea for Two O'clock at work.  Everyone is always running around looking busy and they need a break.  I insist that all stop working and sit down for a cup of tea.  Talking about current work is forbidden.  People look forward to Two O'clock and not because it is two hours from going home time.  We dine on chocolates and cookies with tea.  We insist on the pinky finger sticking out and an accent is commonly used while speaking. 

I want Tea time to catch on because people need it.  Some take smoke breaks, there are those that take union breaks.  The vast majority just trudge through the day without getting up.  Recently there are several medical papers on sitting and the relationship to strokes.  It has to do with circulation and the body's response to inactivity.  We have programs on our computers that force us to stop typing every so often.  They, the big they in the sky say it helps with the carpal tunnel anomalies and reduces complications from repetitive motion injuries. 

I think reducing repeated cognitive injuries to the noodle is just as important to keep our curmudgeoness tendencies in limbo.  Doing the same mindless scat every day or for hours and hours is harmful.  Look at accountants, bad eyes, bad hair, ghoulish posture and rotating air pockets in the brain during conversations all signs of numericalopathy.
Ebenezer Scrooge was not whistling Dixie all day.  Bartleby the Scribler was not rebellious to attract women.  No, they were burned out.  Melville even went so far as to allude that these damaged individuals were as lepers.

Tea time will revitalize our work efforts.  It will not work as well as a nap but I am working on that policy also.  Tea at Two....

When Will They Learn-NEVER

I reviewed pictures of tunnels assembled by drug runners and the entire article reminded me of Hogan's Heroes.  These tunnels cost thousands of dollars to build with only a small chance of completion without being detected.  The article talked of the insatiable appetites for drugs in the United States.  Our feeble incompetent government spends billions of dollars try to stop billions of dollars worth of drugs from entering.  Why not spend some millions on preventing the need for drugs from another country and save some time, money and resources. 

I just saw an article on "horse slaughtering facilities in the US".  It seems that the moronic policy to ban horse slaughter in this country because of humane reasons only increased the inhumanity to horses.  Now they are sent to other countries where they are treated even worse to be processed and then we have to import the meat.  The export of horses to Mexico increased 600 percent when the ban went into effect.  Will the fascists of this country ever learn that banning something does not stop it.  Lets ban books, lets ban interracial marriage, lets ban Jews, Muslims and Mormons from everything.  That will stop all the evilness in the world.  Death will take a holiday.  Why not ban alcohol consumption?  There are all sorts of problems with poor consumption of the ole -OH.  Oh wait, that was a huge failure, wasn't it.  Prohibition made millionaires out of many people especially the judges and those politicians. 

It used to be said that the need for education is so that we can learn from history.  Well, with the average person on the street being completely clueless of history, science, religion and mathematics and how it relates to our lives and futures, it is no wonder our society is in such a mess.  The wake up call has been slept through, the ignoramuses are winning and I am tired.  Call me when it is over, on second thought, do not call me, I will not recognize the number.