Category: Uncategorized

So NPR wants to replace the disappearing “Tavis Smiley Show” with something new to target black audiences. Fine. But did they have to call the new program “News & Notes“? Is there a less original, more dull name conceivable?
Maybe I’ll start a network news show called “Moving Images With Accompanying Sound.” Or a new newspaper called “Things That Happened Yesterday That We Know About.” Or record a new album called “Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements.” Oh, wait.

I’d like to congratulate the men and women of Tarleton State University’s meat-judging team for taking first place in the 2004 Cargill Meat Solutions Hi-Plains Meat Judging Contest.
According to the university’s press release: “The championship concluded an unprecedented season for the team, which went undefeated, and included four of the team members being chosen for the American Meat Science Association’s prestigious All-American teams.”
FYI: “Meat judging competitors evaluate various cuts of meat in a daylong contest that is awarded in six different divisions including, beef, lamb, and pork judging, total beef, questions, and overall placing. The cuts and carcasses of meat are visually evaluated on characteristics such as meat color, amount of fat content within muscle, and US Department of Agriculture quality designations.”
By far my favorite section of the press release: The yearning for more meat judging. “Per collegiate meat judging rules, once an individual has completed a year of judging, they are no longer eligible for participation in that respective division –

Not that I’d ever consider plastic surgery — what, and risk my already lucrative modeling career? — but this video of Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil getting a face lift would turn me off the prospect completely. Warning: Extremely graphic narcissism.

Boo, hiss: Sea Ray, one of the Official Bands of Crabwalk.com, breaks up. “The biggest difficulty we’ve failed to overcome is the financial challenge of being in an independent band full-time while maintaining any semblance of a personal life, as well.”
Boo, hiss: The season of the Bum Phillippi, my fantasy football team, is over. After weeks of teasing me with promising potential and piss-poor performance, Roy Williams was finally sent to my bench. So what does he do? 104 yards, two touchdowns. Had I started him, I’d be in the league finals. But instead, the BPs have plenty of time to contemplate what went wrong in the offseason. I’m considering firing the general manager, the offensive-line coach — hell, maybe the water boy.

Day two of my cheating series, on today’s front page:
Education researchers are clear: The vast majority of teachers are honest people and wouldn’t think of doctoring their students’ results on a standardized test.
But unfortunately, “the vast majority” doesn’t include everybody. In a high-pressure, high-stakes environment, some teachers are going to cross an ethical line.
Some experts say the Texas Education Agency isn’t doing enough to track them down. In some cases, the agency ignores information that could tip the agency off to improper behavior.
Also, in case you didn’t catch my story in Sunday’s DMN, perhaps you caught it on CNN, or in the Washington Post, the Guardian UK, USA Today, Newsday, or the Boston Globe.
Or in the Chicago Sun-Times, the New York Sun, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Charlotte Observer, the San Jose Mercury News, the Kansas City Star, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, or the Raleigh News & Observer.
Or, if you like your markets a little smaller, the Canton Repository, the Bradenton Herald, the El Paso Times, the Barre Montpelier Times Argus, the Nashua Telegraph, the Contra Costa Times, the Billings Gazette, the Sioux City Journal, the Albuquerque Journal, the Lakeland Ledger, the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, the The (Columbia, S.C.) State, the Grand Forks Herald, the Akron Beacon-Journal, or the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette.

Here’s that story I was talking about, on today’s front page. The opening paragraphs:
A Dallas Morning News data analysis has uncovered strong evidence of organized, educator-led cheating on the TAKS test in dozens of Texas schools –