Top Middle Schools Must Take Struggling Students

This is one of those things that I feel are well-intentioned but aren't the right idea. Although it's a good idea that perhaps the most academically challenged should receive the best education, these schools aren't intended for remedial education. They're meant for people who have already been succeeding and have met a certain requirement. I'm not complaining like some parents who say the overall quality of the school will deteriorate because of this. I'm just saying the students wouldn't be prepared for such an environment and I'm not certain that's going to help them.

Let's take my middle school, Fieldston. I remember having to write a five-page essay every month in English class, research papers every three months in history, lab reports in science every month, and they expected for you coming in to know a musical instrument since almost everyone graduated from the elementary school. Now let's imagine a kid, who doesn't know English that well, be told they're gonna have to write five pages of that due in four weeks for one of their classes. And another one in the four weeks after. Spelling counts, by the way. There's no way you're going to pass. You're going to fail, you'll have to attend summer school, and the kid's self-esteem may collapse. That's what happens to a lot of people who leave their small high school pond and enter the huge lake that is college. They're suddenly just one valedictorian of many and it's overwhelming. And you're expecting the same won't happen to middle schoolers?

I feel the right thing to do is not the middle school, but starting earlier. You should be hitting up the ABCs in elementary, not in 7th grade. Although middle school isn't too late, you're already pretty behind by that point. Puberty is a cruel time, and being an outsider with less education isn't really the greatest position to be in.

Puerto Rico is out of power again, this time because an excavator got too close to a major power line and knocked it out. But as this comes up in the news, many question why the island is still out of power seven months after Hurricane Maria.

Of course, the obvious answer is Trump: He put the minimal amount of effort into the rebuilding, due in part to racism and indifference. There's definitely truth to that, but Trump isn't the only reason. Puerto Rico was fucked before the storm due in large part to the sheer scale of the damage, the inherent nature of Puerto Rico, and the government bankruptcy. Let's start with the damage. Literally the whole island was hit horribly. At the time, getting supplies to needy people was difficult; roads were inaccessible, power lines were down, and the volume of people who required help was insane. Plenty of goods were pouring into Puerto Rico, but they just didn't have the means of shipping them everywhere, particularly the rural areas. That fact hasn't changed: If we're still trying to repair tunnels in New York City from a hurricane that happened nearly six years ago, imagine trying to rebuild 50,000 electrical poles and 500 towers.

Then there's the fact Puerto Rico is an island. It's harder to get supplies over there than say Houston right after Hurricane Harvey. Since we have the Jones Act, a law that requires any shipment by boat in the United States must be on an American-made vessel and piloted by an American crew. Considering we don't make ships that much anymore, it's hard to find something that meets those requirements, but most of the time that's fine because we just truck, fly, or send it by train. That doesn't work for Puerto Rico. Sure, you can fly stuff in, but the amount required for feeding and rebuilding everything really stretches the amount of planes available. So a nice, large boat full of supplies would be really great. Except you can't get one because of the Jones Act.

Finally, Puerto Rico has no fucking money. At all. Thanks to idiotic bond schemes they did in the early 2000s, they basically are completely broke. So the electrical infrastructure was already failing when Maria arrived since the government couldn't pay for repairs or maintenance. (The Puerto Rican power company is government-owned and has been giving away free power, which exacerbated its debt.) And now it has no money to pay for this giant fuckery. Many times contractors will show up after a hurricane to get the system back on its feet with the understanding of being paid later, but lots didn't go after Maria because they thought they'd never receive their paycheck. Major companies are even pulling out now, citing lack of payment.

The whole situation is a fuckfest even for the best of leaders, so it's hard for me to determine how much of this is Trump's incompetence and indifference or just the difficulty of the task at hand. In a way I'm reminded of Iraq: How much of that was due to problems in the region, and how much of that was due to lack of planning and preparation from the Bush administration? It's impossible to know.

I think the saddest thing is in the current state of affairs, I can't honestly tell if this person is joking or not.

Allow me to take you back to 1898. Tensions are at a high between the US and Spain over Cuba. A rebellion has broken out over there, and Americans are appalled at the treatment of the ordinary citizen as Spain puts down the revolt. At some point an American naval vessel, the USS Maine docks in Havana. Shortly afterward it exploded and over 250 sailors were killed. The US press screamed for blood, blaming the Spaniards for the attack. The US declared war, we whooped the Spanish thoroughly, and to this day we still own Puerto Rico and Guantanamo Bay as a result.

But years later people returned to the issue of the Maine: Did Spain actually blow it up? It was, after all, a foreign military vessel in Spanish waters during a tense time. But logically it doesn't make any sense: Spain was willing to do almost anything to avoid going to war with the US because it knew it would lose. So why provoke a war? There are theories that the gunpowder in the ship spontaneously combusted -- that model of battleship had its gunpowder stored in an unfortunate place that could easily heat it up -- and that the rebels themselves were the perpetrators because they wanted the US to help and defeat the Spanish.

The Maine keeps coming to mind when I look at Syria now. Two weeks ago there was another gas attack. If you may recall, we entered Syria years ago because Obama was pissed about the last one, accusing Syrian President Assad of attacking his own people. Sure, it seems pretty obvious that the Syrian government did the last one -- there are reports of planes dropping bombs and suddenly people couldn't breathe -- but it doesn't make any sense. Assad and the Syrian government know the world is watching now. Why suddenly do another gas attack, especially since it didn't bring any sort of major tactical advantage?

When I sift through the evidence, it seems pretty obvious that Syria did it. Both sides admit that the government was conducting an airstrike in the area. It's sarin gas, and there's no way that would come from an ammunition depot (which is what Russia is claiming). But why? Why not just bomb them like we've been doing this whole time? Why use gas, which you know will piss everyone off? The only conclusion I can think is Assad wants to claim the West is making a giant conspiracy against him to garner support, but it's such a weird way to do that.

Goddamn, Syria is a mess.

Dad: Hello? Hello?? HELLO???
Me: (panting from running) What's wrong? What happened?
Dad: Listen to me. Does this make sense? "There are three pies in every pan."
Me: ...........No, that doesn't make any sense.
Dad: Well, now I'm stuck.
Me: Why does that make you stuck?
Dad: I don't know.
Me: OK. Good talk.

There is good evidence the Syrian government once again used a gas attack on its own people, which pissed off Trump so much that he canceled a visit to Latin America so he could investigate all the options. Shortly afterward he made this early-morning tweet: "Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and 'smart!' " Of course the entire fucking world interpreted this as a threat, and literally the next day Trump said, "Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all!"

Trump and his tweets provide for the first time in history a president's thoughts -- not necessarily his decisions -- in real time as crises are going on. I have no idea what Obama was contemplating as he weighed the options about sending that SEAL team on bin Laden. I equally have no idea what Bush's daily deliberations were as the headlines piled up during the financial crisis in late 2008. But I can see how Trump swings his opinions as he has his first knee-jerk reaction, his next line of attack after the news or his advisers respond, and how he suddenly moves onto another topic after he sees some other news story. And I doubt we'll ever have this opportunity again because any following presidents will see how often Trump shoots himself in the foot with these tweets. In some way it's a shame because no matter how horrifying it can be at times, this is a historian's dream to be able to enter a leader's mind. And yet even then, with the possible exception of Andrew Jackson, I doubt any other president's tweets would be as entertaining. How fucking lame would Jimmy Carter's twitter be?

India Braces for Opening of Film That Has Hindu Extremists Enraged

Considering there are a wide variety of amazing reactions to the movie, like a politician asking for the beheading of the director, I think it's still the most perplexing that about 300 women who petitioned the prime minister to say either to stop the release of the movie or they want permission to commit suicide over it. 1. The movie wasn't even fucking released at the time, so you have no idea whether it's going to be good or not. 2. How little significance do you place on your own life that you're willing to commit suicide over a movie?

Literally just posting this to see how long it takes Alex to notice.