Have you ever seen a "Geep"?

I don't know if it's worse. I think some of it has to do with location.

I have found "country" people to be fairly nice. I am more aware of rude people in the city. Actually, the biggest a-holes I ever encountered lived in an upscale suburb.

And not not start a generational dispute, but I think younger people are more self-centered and less aware of being considerate to others.

Our power goes out for no apparent reason.

Beautiful sunny day, not a cloud in the sky and the power will sputter. I read or heard somewhere (?) that the power companies no longer trim the trees, and that is a big part of the problem. They haven't cut back our trees along the road in years.

Longest it was ever out was 3 days during a blizzard a few years ago. We lived huddled around the fireplace. We fared better than many people whose power was out for a week! After that storm, we bought a generator. Fortunately we haven't used it yet! I think of it as an "insurance policy"!

Yes it was. And we had such inspirational teachers.

Not that there aren't great teachers today, but they are so overworked and regimented that creativity takes a back seat to testing, testing, and more testing.

His ignorance about special education should be grounds for dismissal.

He should have never been inflicted upon the nation's schools.

Reality.

It "starts" in 4th or 5th grade, actually.

I taught middle school (5-8) for almost 20 years. I loved 5th, 6th, and 8th graders, but could not stand 7th graders. Seventh graders are very mouthy and whine and back-talk a lot more than the others, for some crazy reason. Maybe it's "middle child" syndrome!

Middle school is a blast though. The kids are so much fun, even if they do get rowdy at times. Those bathroom rules are ridiculous. I always let my students go as needed (they just had to sign out) and very few abused the privilege. They need to be treated with respect and not as little kids at that age.

A much bigger problem than "hormones" is bullying. It is so rampant at that age as they sort out their places in the middle school pecking order.

They were putting up Back-to-School displays last week.

I was there looking for some cheap pool toys for the kids -- but they were NOT even marked down yet! LOL

Halloween candy will probably be out by Labor Day!

This was very well-intentioned, IMO.

However, the schools did not do much to implement the changes. I saw very little change in the menus except that they took away the salt shakers. The meals were still overloaded with sugar, salt, and fat. I considered them inedible and felt sorry for the kids who had a steady diet of pizza, chicken nuggets, and French fries.

I hope she is successful in pushing for even more healthy changes.

LBJ got Authur Goldberg to leave the Court in 1965.

You are right.

We do have it damn good compared to most of the world. Thank you grandparents (as scared teenagers) for getting on those boats and settling here a hundred years ago. If they had not done that, I would have spent most of my life under the thumb of the USSR. (Well, I probably would have been someone else, but you know what I mean.)

Happy Fourth, question everything!