The local Pacific Coast League Champions, the Sacramento River Cats, sure are good to my school.
During the two weeks we spent doing standardized testing (no, it wasn't just testing going on), my class had perfect attendance. This was exceptional. One day one of our vice principals walked into my room and gave me a stack of River Cats tickets--two for every student in class, and three left over (presumably) for me. That was a one-day reward for perfect attendance, my class wasn't the only one to get such a reward, and the tickets had a face value of $17 a piece. That's over $850 just for my class.
All students at our school who had perfect attendance during the testing--and I believe we had over a thousand--will be getting ice cream at lunch tomorrow, compliments of the River Cats. Supposedly Dinger, the mascot, will be there along with members of the team. I'll gladly be helping serve up the ice cream for my students.
All the teachers whose classes had perfect attendance, well, we were put in for a drawing. I won a Boys Night Out at a River Cats game--6 tickets, admission to the Solon Club, and tossing out the first pitch! I think I'll just take my dad and my son, and let my son throw the first pitch.
The River Cats are apparently a class act--get it? A "class" act? Hahaha! Sometimes I slay myself! Anyway, they're definitely doing their part contributing to our school, and I want to give them a loud ROAR for doing so.
Update, 5/12/06 9:00 pm: I didn't see team members, but then again I was busy scooping ice cream. I did see Dinger, though, and got a handshake out of the deal. ROAR!
Teachers and schools as so appreciative when they get support from the community! This team has smart marketing management!
ReplyDeleteCongrats to you and to your class -- and enjoy the game!
Back to the moonbats and the War in Iraq...
ReplyDeleteNot sure how you write all of that with a straight face.
The five percent on the extreme right and the five percent on the extreme left are equally as out of touch with reality. So by tailoring your arguments to the five percent on the extreme left, am I to assume that you're equally out there on the other side?
Likewise, citing a handful of stats without context, as your other so called conservative blogger buddy did, doesn't help the matter any more than the ranting of the freaks on the far left does.
Blood for oil... what an ironic statement... because it's not that we invaded Iraq to steal their oil, but oil is in fact 90% of our interest in the region, which led to the bad decisions of the 70's-80's that got us where we are now.
(Yeah, it's a 2,000 year old story, but the current situation is more the result of that last fifty.)
It's time for both sides to stop targetting the fringes of the other side and start zeroing the discussion back towards the meat of the issue and stop wasting precious oxygen on rhetoric, sound bites, and trying to win the argument vice find the truth.
But what do I know... I only spent a year in Fallujah, Annaconda, and Tallil. Maybe you folks out there in California have a better perspective.
Semper Fi,
William
Bill, kind of not related to this post, but ok.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, thank you for your service.
2nd off, your argument is the faulty "resort to authority" argument. You're not any more of an authority on the war just because you've been to Fallujah--doesn't work that way. I don't have to have been in Iraq to be able to understand the situation there, any more than I need to have been in a gulag to understand Solzhenitsyn (to steal a comment from another post on my blog).
You're right about arguing to the center, but that wasn't the purpose of my post. My purpose was to show yet again the insanity of the moonbats--and I don't need to be a right-wing extremist to do that. So again, you're mistaken.
I take the threat of the moonbats seriously, which is why I attack their positions. When I don't see them as a threat anymore, *then* I'll worry about the not-so-loony.
I didn't quote any stats in that post except the price of gas--so again, you're mistaken.
Hope you come back and comment again sometime, because it's obvious that you're not just barking soundbites. We don't have to agree, but civility is *always* welcome here.
Cool ! Hope you and your son enjoy that experience. I would.
ReplyDeleteI knew I was in trouble with that parting shot, that it would be taken as a "I know it all" comment. Wasn't supposed to be the case. What I meant was to highlight that I have been there, kicked down the doors, and I don't understand all of the interrelated issues and problems, so I'm a bit tired of hearing those who haven't been there interpret the data and statistics from the safety of their armchair. You can't count watts in 1999, watts in 2002, and watts in 2006, and make a one-size-fits-all statement about how we're doing in Iraq. Especially when we didn't invade the country to fix their power issues. And the GDP numbers were laughable -- sure, the IZ GDP is growing, but I'm not so sure that you can call in "IZ GDP" and not "US(IZ) GDP."
ReplyDeleteThat's all -- not "look at me, I'm so smart," but, "who are these people who claim to be so smart?"
Ideas we don't know we have, have us. -- James Hillman, post Jungian psychologist
So that's my sort of apology, sort of explanation. Now I'm awaiting your explanation as to how my last three sentences have any bearing on the rest of my argument and lead to a "resort to authority" logical fallacy. Evaluate my initial comments on their merits, please. I don't think there's a name for it, but you can't play the counter-resort to authority game, either. Being one step closer to the action than the All Things Conservative fellow doesn't imply that I'm an idiot, because I need to be three steps closer to really know what's going on. So I'm only one step closer. Fine. Give me credit for that one step, and then argue my points on their merits.
While I'm defending myself: roger, you only quoted one stat, gas prices. But the posting that you reference is nothing but stats, all taken out of context. How did I lose you on that point? Did you forget the article about which I was referring?
If so, maybe because I am posting under the wrong blog posting... because the War in Iraq posting has a tech glitch and is missing the Comments tab. So I went one article up. Thought you figure that out when I started with "Back to the moonbats..." Check it out -- still no Comments tab. Not a big deal.
So... recommend you go read the Brookings Institute article to which ATC refers, and not just his select and manipulated quotes. It's a bit murkier than ATC would like you to think.
By the way, best recent article to get a full flavor of the challenges out there was in the New Yorker, of all places:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060410fa_fact2
A day in the life of HR McMaster, basically
Thanks for listening.
Not a moonbat, not a ditto-head either,
Will
Actually, it wasn't a glitch at all. I didn't really want to get into another round of moonbat mania.
ReplyDeleteThe post I linked to had a lot of information--but no commentary at all. It was more of a "we report, you decide" list of good things that have happened.
Why you chose to get bent out of shape about that, I don't know.
Now, back to the River Cats....
my class never got the tickets to go to the lunch thing. none of us were allowed to go.
ReplyDeleteScott, maybe that's because your teacher doesn't like you. Or maybe your teacher isn't as cool as I am.
ReplyDeleteMaybe both =)