Random thoughts
Are we seeing a collective losing of minds? I would have thought that the murder of the six hostages by Hamas would have united the world against the terrorists. Yet much of the anger has been focused at Netanyahu for not negotiating a surrender to the murderers. Over 200,000 Israelis marched to protest Netanyahu’s refusal to give in the Hamas’ terms for a truce. Campus protests around the world continue to support Hamas despite their brutality. What am I missing?
The treatment of Jews on some campuses is shameful. No encampments should be allowed and those students that set them up should be suspended for the year. Any student harassing or attacking another student should also be suspended for the year. Hate speech, signs and slogans should not be tolerated and met with suspension. The campus should be a place where all can feel safe regardless of race, religion and belief. The problem is that many of the campus administrators are anti-Israel and support the protestors. What the administrators should do is to visualize what actions they would take if the protestors were anti-LBGTQ.
How do you deal with spam calls? I answer all calls, even those from “unknown caller.” In some cases, those calls are from people that I want to talk to. However, if there is any delay from the time I answer to the person on the other end talking, I hang up. The delay tells me it is a robocall and likely spam. If they call back – which is rare – I do not pick up and let it go to voicemail where very few messages are left.
The other day I went into a local restaurant for lunch when a diner stopped me. He said he was a former student and was in my class in 2007. He wanted to tell me how much he disliked me while in my class. He especially hated that I did not use multiple choice/ true-false exams and took off a point for misspelled words. At the start of the semester I gave the students a list of words that had to be spelled correctly (capital, usury, principal). Students still persisted in misspelling these and others. He then told me that forcing him to spell correctly was one of the best things that happened to him and belatedly he wanted to thank me. Too bad those teacher evaluations can’t be revisited.
I think one of the best indicators of my classroom instruction was the semester in which one of the student evaluations read “Dr Black hates white students” while another evaluation complained “Dr Black hates black students.”
It seems like the Atlanta Braves have had targets on their backs the entire season. Ronald Acuna, Jr was thrown at. Michael Harris, Travis D’Arnaud, Austin Riley and then Whit Merrifield have all lost significant time after being hit. Yet in the hit by pitch per game statistic (yes, such a statistic exists) Atlanta ranks only 21st at 0.35 players hit by pitch per game. Seattle leads the majors with 0.70 players hit by pitch per game. With more and more pitchers throwing 100 mph, being at bat which has always demanded a bit of bravery becomes even more of a challenge. What can be done? As Merrifield pointed out, when a player gets hit and has to leave the game, the pitcher faces no punishment unless it was determined that he was intentionally throwing at the batter. A friend of mine suggested that in the case of hit by pitch, the batter be awarded second base.
Only the leftist media would consider Liz Cheney’s endorsement of Kamala Harris newsworthy. Cheney is a completely irrelevant ex-politician who hates Trump. Harriet Hageman’s “Fed Up” speech remains one of my favorites. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcONyHZCBS0. Cheney’s dad also said that he would vote for Harris. BTW if you google “Dick Cheney will vote for Harris” you will have to scroll down six pages before you find a single story that is not in the leftist press. But then no one ever accused google as being fair and blanced.
haroldblackphd.com 