That is so DAMN Irritating!

I have a class this semester that is probably the worst one I have ever been in...for a variety of reasons.

First of all the instructor is scatter-brained as hell and cannot stay on topic. This person is nice enough and we have some decent conversations before class starts....but once class starts it is one of the most aggravating experiences ever.

The instructor doesn't teach from the text book. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to get me to say the instructor teaches anything at all. The conversation in class always seems to be about this instructors personal likes and dislikes or this instructors life outside the school, or the fact that this instructor doesn't like small children, or this instructors political views and so forth and so on. All of those things are fine, but they don't do a damn thing in the way of informing me of what we are supposed to be learning or what will be on the next test. I can't take a test in this subject if the only things discussed in class are things about the instructor.

This instructor also has the incredibly annoying habit of soliciting the political views of students and then immediately talking over them, in a very high pitched voice early in the morning, the minute they appear to be contradicting this instructors political views. Why ask for differing political views if you really don't want to hear them?

But, the most irritating thing about this instructor is that they absolutely REFUSE to exert any control over the classroom environment. Today, I finally got a gut full of the classroom chaos and said something about it.

Today was a rare day when the instructor decided to actually teach the class. We were going over some hand-outs, which we are often instructed to make additional notes on, and we were talking about material that will be on the next test and when that test will be etc.....You can probably imagine that most everyone in the class was paying rapt attention, because actually learning about the subject matter in this instructors class is an unusual event indeed.

But, not everyone was paying attention. A small, teenage cabal had gathered in the back of the class. I sit up front because I have bad eyesight and my hearing at 35 is not what it was at 18. I don't want to miss anything. I also sit up front because most teens sit in the back and teens irritate the absolute hell out of me.

Today this group of teens was so loud and disruptive that even sitting in the front I had trouble hearing what the instructor was saying. They were giggling, talking, cell phones were going off, moving their desks around, rattling papers...oh and did I mention giggling and talking and giggling and talking?

Yet, the instructor said not a word to them....just kept right on talking to us as if there weren't three rude assholes sitting in the back of the room disturbing everyone else, making it impossible to follow along and take the right notes. The people sitting around me were getting as irritated as I was. This should have been as plain as day to the instructor, as a few of us would occasionally turn around in our desks and glare right at them, then turn around and look at the instructor asking silently for an end to be put to that bullshit.

During break those of us who were fed up all discussed how fucked up it is to act that way and disturb other people. I don't quite get why a lot of these kids are in college. They obviously have no interest in learning. It isn't a law that they be in college. This isn't high school. In fact, someones money, either their parents or taxpayer money, is being spent to send them there and they are not only fucking up their futures (which I am not inclined to give a shit about) but they are fucking up other people's futures (like mine) as well, by being such a distraction in class. Why waste money and time like that?

Anyway, after break and upon returning to the class they were at it again....even louder. I stopped by the instructor's podium and said, "Can you please tell those kids to shut up? I can't hear a thing you are saying and they are distracting everyone who is trying to pay attention to what you say. It's really irritating!"

And do you know what that instructor said to me?

"You are asking the impossible."

I stared at them for a second and said, "Really? Well, whose classroom is this, yours or theirs? If you don't say something I will because I am not going to fail a test because you refuse to control the atmosphere in class."

A few minutes went by and when the teenagers got cranked up again the instructor sort of grew a pair (very small one) and told them to stop carrying on a conversation in class....that if it was that important they could take it outside in the heat.

I just kind of shook my head. Had it been me I would have put them out of my class and told them not to come back until they could respect the other students and the instructor. Since the last day to withdraw has already come and gone they would have been in extreme danger of failing, if it were my class. Alas, it is not. They barely got a slap on the wrist and within a few minutes they were cranking it up again.

Luckily class was coming to an end at this point. If it hadn't been and the instructor failed to follow through on the threat to make them leave class I would have left class....and about 14 other students would have followed me out. If it happens again next week that is exactly what I will do. I am not taking out student loans and going into massive debt so I can get a PhD in what some disrespectful, asshole kid just posted as their Facebook status, who they fucked last night, who they are fucking tonight or who got drunker over the weekend. I don't give a shit about any of that.

Really. I. Don't.

Marc Emery Released from Solitary Confiement

Wanted to let everyone know that Marc Emery was released from solitary confinement at SeaTac Federal Detention Center today. He sent me an email on Corrlinks as soon as he got out. WOO HOO!!! 22 days spent in solitary confinement with the squealers and shit artists for neighbors had to be absolute hell....especially for someone like Marc who craves the company of other human beings like no one else I have ever met. But, it's over now and hopefully they won't make up any more rules that do not exist and enforce them against Marc in an effort to break him. They will never break him!

Tea Party and the Drug War

In case you missed this article in the latest edition of The National Review here it is.

Tea Party and the Drug War

June 7, 2010 4:00 A.M.

If the tea-party believes in its principles, it must choose the libertarian path on drug prohibition.

Voter dissatisfaction with Republicans and Democrats is at historic levels, and the tea-party movement is hoping to play kingmaker in the November elections. The country’s current breed of discontent is ideal for the tea parties, because economic concerns are foremost, allowing the movement to sidestep the divisions between its libertarian and conservative wings.

As the elections near, however, voters will want to know where the party stands not just on the economy but on social issues. A perfect illustration is drug policy, where conservatives advocate continued prohibition but libertarians argue for legalization. Which way should the tea party lean when this issue arises?

If the party is true to its principles — fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets — it must side with the libertarians.

Fiscal responsibility means limiting government expenditures to programs that can be convincingly said to generate benefits in excess of their costs. This does not rule out programs with large expenditures, or ones whose benefits are difficult to quantify; national defense is guilty on both counts, yet few believe that substantial military expenditure is necessarily irresponsible.

Any significant expenditure, however, should come with a credible claim that it produces a benefit large enough to outweigh both the expenditure itself and any ancillary costs. From this perspective, drug prohibition is not remotely consistent with fiscal responsibility. This policy costs the public purse around $70 billion per year, according to my estimates, yet no evidence suggests that prohibition reduces drug use to a significant degree.

Read the rest

I did note that at a Tea Party gathering in Tuscaloosa a month or so ago one person had a nice sign that simply stated the issue in a nutshell...

DRUG WAR = BIG GOVERNMENT

Any questions?

When fascism comes to America.....

“When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
~Sinclair Lewis~



Saw this unbelievable church sign while I was out riding today and had to snap a picture of it. It reminded me of the Sinclair Lewis quote above. Sinclair was right, as this sign shows. It often occurs to me that the people around here who loudly and often proclaim Christianity are absolutely no different than the Taliban. Religion and war go hand in hand to them. Here's another fitting quote...

"We have seen the enemy and he is us" ~Walt Kelly~

Another good outcome in Tuesday's primary

Evangelical lunatic Senator Hank Erwin who believes that Alabama victims of rape and incest should be forced by the goddamn state to carry their unwanted, potentially inbred fetuses to term (you know....cuz we just don't have enough inbred folks in Alabama!) lost his bid to become the candidate for Lt. Governor in the November election.

THANK YOU JEEBUS!!!!!

Folks, we have avoided the horror of all horrors...a combination of Roy Moore as Governor and Hank Erwin as Lt. Governor. Honestly, I would have moved out of state if that combination had become a reality...and in Alabama, religious dictatorship, identical to that of the Taliban, is always a very real possibility. Sadly.

I have never been able to stomach Erwin....not for more than a moment. Although I did stomach him long enough to have this cool picture taken at the protest against the legislative pay raise in 2007.



Rep. Cam Ward (R- Shelby) ran unopposed for Erwin's vacated seat. Unfortunately Kay Ivey was selected to run as the Republican Lt. Governor candidate in November. She will face Democrat Jim Folsom. I'm no Kay Ivey fan...not by a long shot but, she would have to be better than Erwin....if only by a hair.... as it would be near impossible to imagine anyone worse than Erwin!! Plus, Ivey stands a great chance of being defeated because of the collapse of PACT. Her name is all over that. But, so is Jim Folsom's. Hard to understand why Alabama would elect either one of them to any public office after the bankrupt status of PACT. Will be an interesting race.

Thanks for the Memories JD

J.D. Crowe has a 'So long Troy King' editorial cartoon in today's Press-Register.

Thanks J.D. Crowe for making the inflatable pig Troy's sidekick in your fabulous toons.

Sex Toys 4 Troy
Troy King and a Turkey Baster
Hump Day is for Sex Toys
Troy King's Office of Inflatables

Yusuf Salaam gets Ass Handed to Him

I am thrilled to learn that Yusuf Salaam of Selma went down in flames in Tuesday's election. Salaam was beaten by opponent Darrio Melton who has no opposition in the November election.

As a member of the House Judiciary Committee Salaam has been nothing but an ignorant thorn in the ass of ACC for the last 6 years. Here's hoping his replacement will be more willing to listen and might actually read information about upcoming bills that is placed in his/her hands by people who care enough about said bill(s) to make the trek to Montgomery and discuss it with the members of the legislature.

Also glad to see Rep. James Gordon from Mobile go down. He deserved it for sponsoring HB697. Guess touting that you were able to outlaw a substance that no one really knows anything about wasn't a big vote getter this election year, eh Rep. Gordon?

I'll miss you Trixie King

The only bad thing about incumbent Attorney General Troy King losing is that I will now have to retire Trixie the Pig :(

Oh well, she had a nice long career alongside Troy and was his constant companion in nearly every J.D. Crowe editorial cartoon drawn since November 2007, when I gifted Troy with her.

So long, Trixie.




PS...Did anyone else happen to notice that Troy King gave his concession speech to an entirely empty room last night? There were a handful of people standing behind him, but not a soul in the audience. How humiliating for TK.