Teaching, dumpster diving, and wrestling

Why do so many teachers quit?
"What's pushing so many teachers out of the profession? Richard Ingersoll, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has been trying to answer that question for years. He's found that teachers often cite long hours and low pay as contributing to their dissatisfaction. But teachers are even more upset by their lack of say over key decisions affecting classrooms. Volumes of other research echo this theme. In a 2014 Gallup Poll, teachers ranked last among 12 professional groups in agreeing that their opinion at work matters."

One low-income school, Mission High in San Francisco, took this lesson to heart and began empowering teachers. The results were impressive. Read about it here.

The pro dumpster diver who is making BANK
 For one day's work, "Malone estimates he will earn $5,091 in sales. This adds up to more than $2,500 for each night out, which, despite a good deal of downtime answering my questions, is a pretty good haul. At that rate, if he were to work 240 days a year—a five-day workweek with four weeks of vacation—he would earn over $600,000 annually. "

This almost made me want to quit my job and to become a professional dumpster diver.

How an at-risk, one-legged wrestler made it to the top of the wrestling world, then walked away
I read this in The Best American Sports Writing 2015. The title makes it sound like it's going to be a Lifetime movie in print, but it's much more complex than that. For instance, instead of describing him "overcoming adversity," the article asks "Did Robles win in spite of his one-leggedness, or because of it? It's an ungracious question, but it deserves consideration."

Fleetwood Mac, a psychiatrist, toddlers with guns, college football, William F. Buckley and Allen Ginsberg

A great live cover by Haim of Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well" I got this from Ryan Tucker, and it's awesome.

The story of a psychiatrist who had it all, then lost it, possibly due to frontotemporal dementia. But should he be held accountable for his crimes if they were "caused" by a brain disorder?

If you don't already think we have too many idiots with too many guns, read this. Roughly once a week this year, on average, a small child has found a gun, pointed it at himself or someone else, and pulled the trigger.

A former University of Maryland professor lays out the current disgraceful state of U of M football, and college football in general. His solution: get colleges out of the football business. 

A five-minute conversation between the reptilian William Buckley and Allen Ginsberg. At about the 4:30 mark, Ginsberg notes that police brutality is countenanced because we are not allowed to even us on television the language that the police use in their interactions when brutalizing black people.  I'm not sure I follow the causal logic, but the discussion is certainly still timely 50 years later (Forwarded by John Hagney)

The Quality of Forgiveness?

If [the Philadelphia Eagles] do go all the way to the championship game, expect it to become one of the biggest sports stories of the year. And be prepared for a debate that ranges far beyond football – to the quality of forgiveness, to whether the depravity suggested by his crimes can ever really be exorcised, to the age-old truth that despite the commercial myth connecting character and the playing field, great athletes and great human beings are not necessarily the same thing.


Excerpted from this article in Britain's "The Globe and Mail"

Who Would Have Thought?

Rivals.com chose the Gonzaga Bulldogs men's team as only the third best team in the state.

WSU is preseason #13, UW is #30, and GU is #31.

It might be a great year for hoops in this state.

(EWU clocked in at #325. Ouch.)

Right on!!

My grandpa, who died in 2001, was an old-school type guy. He loved Vince Lombardi and the Packers, and he always said he'd root for the Russians over the Yankees. His favorite college football coach was Joe Paterno.

Now mine is too.

This spring, six Penn State football players were arrested and charged for crimes stemming from an off-campus fight in which at least 15 Nittany Lions were present. The charged included a couple of star players, although what apparently bothered coach Joe Paterno the most was how many of his kids were willing to be involved.

And so Paterno, 80 now but no less tough, no less disciplined, hatched a plan to set things right within his program. He'll let the local legal and student judicial process play out, but regardless he decided that to keep people from thinking his team was trash, it'll spend the fall cleaning it up.

According to Paterno, the Penn State football team will clean Beaver Stadium after each home football game this fall. It'll gather garbage, sweep stairs and maybe even hose parts down.

It'll be Notre Dame on Saturday, nacho spills on Sunday.

It's a job that usually goes to members of club sports on campus – say, rugby or crew – which do it to raise money so they can compete. Paterno said the clubs still will get the $5,000 for the job, but his guys, fresh off playing 60 minutes of major college football the day before, will do all the work starting Sunday morning.

"We're all going to do it, everybody," Paterno told the Harrisburg Patriot-News after a banquet in suburban Philadelphia. "Not just the kids that were involved. 'Cause we're all in it together. This is a team embarrassment. I wouldn't call it anything much other than that."

Read the entire story here.

Opening Day

Baseball season is here, and Barry Bonds stands to become the all-time home run king this year. Many people hated Barry years ago because if his diva attitude--his teammates hate his guts. Then, with his steroids controversy, people had a new reason to hate him.

Some fans have called for an asterisk next to his name in the record books if he breaks the home run record. Maybe that should happen--not because of the steroids, though.

To many baseball fans the game has been ruined — hallowed records toppled, managers playing less small ball as they wait for that three-run homer. But the blame shouldn’t be placed on pills, needles and balms. The true culprit is expansion.

Read the article here.

What a finish

You will never see a more exciting last minute of a basketball game.