CSotD: Tested on the unstudied chapter
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Poor Edison Lee (KFS) finds himself in what seems likely to be a disaster: He misunderstood the teacher’s previous announcement and thought the upcoming test was on Chapter One, and a 30-minute test is hardly a pop quiz, so this matters.
We’ll see how this turns out. There are kids who study themselves into a tizzy and flame out on tests because of stress and there are others who have such a grasp of testing techniques that they can pass exams in subjects they haven’t taken. It seems Edison’s biggest stressor is not that he hasn’t read the chapter but that he’s worried about his score on the test.
Not everyone frets over such things, and my junior and senior years in high school I had John Ciardi’s poem posted on my bedroom wall as a reminder — largely futile — to buckle down and not count on bluffing my way through.
It was some sort of motivation for getting up at 4 am for a month or so in order to catch up on my translations of Caesar, but my real problem was that I never cared much about grades and found a lot of other things far more interesting.
However, going to school is mandatory. You’re not required to like it.
By contrast, once I was out of school and getting paid for doing work I enjoyed, performing well on tight deadlines became natural and I didn’t need John Ciardi nagging me.
All of which has made me less tolerant of people doing sloppy work in jobs that they chose for themselves.
There are a number of political cartoons this morning about Aaron Rodgers, who — at the ripe old age of 39 — made it four plays into Monday night’s game before a season-ending, possibly career-ending, tear of his Achilles tendon.
I prefer Tank McNamara (AMS), which, having been drawn some time ago, is a matter of odd timing but which, rather than dwelling on Rodgers himself, mocks the mountains of hype that surrounded the old fellow’s signing with the New York Jets, a team based at the Center of the Known Universe.
I have sympathy for Rodgers, but I had already recognized that Monday Night Football was going to be a three hour gushing tribute to him and it was fun to see them have to reshift their entire narrative for the broadcast and be forced to cover the game instead.
Talk about bringing sheep faces to Tuesday!
However, while the MNF crew got their plans upended by fate, I’m far less tolerant of those who have plenty of opportunity to do some homework and yet come out with the story they were predetermined to tell, even if it doesn’t fit the facts.
Thus Dana Summers (Tribune) tells readers that the return of a mask-waving Covid is being presented by Anthony Fauci as a campaign issue for the Democrats rather than a health issue of concern for all Americans.
It takes longer to type “Fauci Covid” into your search bar than it does for the Internet to report that Fauci, who is retired and has no official standing anymore, has said that the uptick in cases is unlikely to amount to much and that while some people may want to mask up in certain circumstances, it isn’t going to be necessary across the board.
Sloppy work or a deliberate falsehood? What difference does it make?
By stark contrast, Mike Smith (KFS) highlights the flaming, deliberate dishonesty at Twitter, where the boss is at war with the Anti-Defamation League while his faithful sidekick dishes out cheerful assurances that what you are seeing is not at all what you are seeing.
And in case you thought that was just a slip, no. Twitter is full of such helpful notices for people who report hate speech.
Mike Lester (AMS) offers this proposition: If you support LGBTQ+ rights, you should also support outrageous lies about Barack Obama’s sexual orientation and drug usage.
The source of stories of late night crack-fueled homosexual liaisons in the White House originated, as the Bulwark’s Tim Miller explains, with a “serial scammer” whose absurd claims have been soundly disproven. Miller — who, since it seems to matter in the cartoon, is openly gay — has such a delightful takedown on the ridiculous smear that I’ll just link to it and let you inform and amuse yourselves.
Though I can’t resist pointing out that Tucker Carlson said the story must be true because Sinclair took a lie detector test. Only Tucker forgot to point out that Sinclair failed the test.
Once more, it’s not that you can’t make this stuff up. It’s that you don’t have to.
Juxtaposition of the Day
A descending explanation of the House’s move to impeach Joe Biden.
Gorrell suggests that it’s unfair to question the impeachment, because Donald Trump was impeached, first for his actions in attempting to improperly coerce the Ukrainian government into supporting his presidential campaign and then again for attempting to foment an insurrection to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential elections. Therefore Joe Biden should be impeached for something.
As Bagley notes, we’re not sure what Biden did, other than put a D after his name and win the election, and god knows we’ve poked around and rooted around and whispered and accused and we still haven’t come up with a scintilla of actual evidence, except that he turned me into a newt. (I got better.)
Luckovich fills in this procedural gap by explaining that the real reason for the impeachment is that Kevin McCarthy is clinging to an untenably small majority in the House which has resulted in his being led around by the nose by a small group of rightwing extremists.
Willingly, Luckovich suggests, given that his desire to cling to his gavel is stronger than his desire to stand up for himself.
Lee Judge (KFS) suggests that there are all sorts of people the Republicans could be standing up for, but they have to make choices, after all.
Jen Sorensen points out that the people are sure to understand that decisions have to be made and that they will be pleased and contented with the way these choices play out.
It is sadly necessary these days to point out that she’s being sarcastic.
Edison Lee isn’t the only one being tested on material he has not studied.
At least he feels bad about it.
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