caulfield12

Read this today in the comments section at medium.com, thought it was worth sharing with a fellow teacher "I'm a teacher. It's bad. But it's not just bad for teachers; it's bad for students as well. Each day, I stare out at a bunch of cold, dead faces, like zombies from an apocalyptic movie. I ask them about their lives, what they are thinking, what they are doing in their spare time, what kinds of things get them out of bed in the morning, to connect with them, to try to build some rapport, because this is my workspace, the classroom, and I prefer my workspace to be minimally affable, for my own sanity, and I get dead, empty space in return. The students turn their backs, stare at their phones or computer screens, wishing I would just stop talking and give them their required work for the day. There is no discussion. There is no energy or even life in that room . . . in all of those rooms, just cold, dead, empty eyes staring back, thinking the whole business of education is a joke, because their culture, and some of their families tell them this: be suspect of education. They think it's just another ruse, because when will they ever use English or communication skills, when will they need critical thinking skills, because all of this is just too hard to bother with -- just give me my grade, my course credit, and get out of my face, this is what they say. It's not just teachers who don't want to be teaching, it's also students who don't want to be learning, to be in school, because they find zero value in it, other than the job they hope to get at the end of all of it. It's Friday morning, and I am sitting here thinking: I can't do it; I can't face them again. It's the end of the work week and all my special reserves are exhausted and I have nothing to give to this battle, no armor or ammunition left. I don't smile either. Not anymore. I can ignore climate change, or the other social problems that are so immediate and so depressing in our society, ignore them for a minute or for a day, but I cannot ignore my job, those dead-eyed students, not even for a second, not even in my sleep, which is troubled, always, with trying to find some way to make this profession bearable, to make a student care, even just a little bit, about learning, and if they can't care about learning, to care just a tiny bit, an angstrom, about me, or other teachers, as people, just like them, trying to do some good for society, just trying to make it through, but it never works, no matter how hard I try to tap-dance in front of them, entertain them, inspire them, get them out of their zombie-like state. And, it's not getting better, only worse, year after year, as I see more and more good teachers retire early or leave the profession altogether, which is what I have resolved to do, because life is way too short, not to smile once in a while. And, please, while well-intentioned, do not respond to me with: hang in there, because hanging in there is what I have been doing for a decade, trying to figure this problem out, to find a way to make teaching bearable, and there is no way. We have failed. Education has failed, just as intended, just like the Post Office, a planned demise of a once proud and storied institution. We are devolving. The arc of history does NOT always bend towards progress, justice, or improvement as we once so foolishly and naively believed. The arc of history bends towards demise, and education is only one example of this." 

There's no way to force MLB owners to value wins over profits https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb-lockout-theres-no-way-to-force-team-owners-to-put-wins-over-dollars-015040077.html Well-written article. Made me revisit the JR only will spend enough money to ensure the team's around 2nd place (well, that was the case until 2016/17) each and every year, which was basically the Sox philosophy from the late 90's until two decades later, mostly under KW.

Let's save Jared (not Subway dude) first...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/kamila-valievas-doping-test-sample-201613301.html Now it turns out she had three heart-related drugs in her A sample, including hypoxen. And now an implausible excuse about her grandfather burping or breathing into her cup or mug...as he is supposedly the one taking the illegal heart medication she got caught using. Hypotenuse and the third drug will likely be added to the banned substances list quite quickly, but it will undoubtedly take a decade at least for the sport to recover in the eyes of the world. "Airing immediately after the Super Bowl, the Beijing Winter Olympics scored easily its highest ratings yet on NBC. Abbreviated primetime coverage of the Winter Olympics averaged a 9.8 rating and 21.28 million viewers on NBC immediately following Super Bowl 56, marking easily the highest rating and viewership of the Games. The NBC-only audience is not only the highest of this year’s Games, it also surpasses every night of last year’s Tokyo Summer Olympics to rank as the network’s largest Olympic audience since the first Sunday in PyeongChang four years ago (22.7M)." https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2022/02/olympics-ratings-super-bowl-lift-most-watched-night-beijing-games/

But that's also counting international and DSL players....well, it used to be every team had a minimum of five US-based minor league affiliates, and quite a few had six, meaning two for rookie ball/short season, like Great Falls and Bristol with the Sox.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/33253001/kiley-mcdaniel-top-100-mlb-prospects-2022 Alek Thomas and Jasson Dominguez with interesting write ups. CJ Abrams retained his spot but Gore is way way down. No Sox…shocker. It’s front loaded with the big two Tigers prospects, Witt Jr., quite a few Twins and Indians after the Top 25-30 or so.

Has anyone seen the names of the five teams with over 180 players on their reserve list and the rumored two teams UNDER 150?...would be interesting to know.

This is six Olympics in a row with Russians corrupting everything. Biggest loophole ever created right now...just dope 14-15 year olds, reap all the benefits of no consequences due to protected status as minors. “If she’s too young for consequences to be imposed on her or her team, she’s too young to compete. This is insanity.“ Ironic, if she was just 2+ months older, the situation would have turned out completely differently. Have to think of all the US skaters like Gracie Gold and Japanese and even fellow Russians who have either gotten injured chasing impossible jumps since 2014…the ones unfairly denied medals…her two teammates who have been painted with the same broad brush as well as one US skater who had to give up quads and triples as she matured and gained weight/mass. Then there’s the Israel skater who is now being denied that last open spot on the list of performers. Not only that, but the millions in endorsements impacted adversely…

And now they're still going to allow Kamila Valieva to skate after all, opening up the biggest can of worms in the history of the modern Olympics...arguably. And we're going to hear a lot about this in the coming days and weeks. The United States could go after those involved in Russian Olympic Committee figure skater Kamila Valieva's doping case under a U.S. law that allows someone to be prosecuted if their actions affect the results of an American athlete. The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act (RADA) was signed into law in 2020, allowing prosecutors to seek fines up to $1 million and jail sentences for up to 10 years if someone's actions affect the outcome of U.S. athletes, Travis Tygart, the head of the U.S. Anti Doping Agency (USADA), told Reuters on Friday. The law could allow prosecutors to go after those involved with the 15-year-old skater, who led the team to a gold medal during the team event on Monday, with the U.S. taking silver and Japan bronze. https://www.newsweek.com/those-kamila-valieva-case-may-prosecuted-under-new-us-law-report-1678561

Well, tbh, almost nobody wants to go to a Sox game in April other than Opening Day. Maybe the Sat/Sun daytime games.

Erin Jackson with the gold by .07 over Japan in 500 meters. Two for monobob in good positions tmrw, two teams for ice dance fighting for 2/3, both hockey teams (men’s leading Germany 2-1), a team pursuit in speed skating seems poised to medal. Women’s hockey has a really tough battle to get past Finland to face Canada again IMO.

Kind of reached a real lull…waiting for women’s hockey and then Erin Jackson in the 500 meters. Seems pretty clear that Kamila Valieva will be blocked from skating (Monday afternoon decision)…if they don’t, it will get really ugly with the US government entering the fray as well and with Russia on the verge of war with Ukraine any day now. Humphries out to roughly a quite significant one minute lead in monobob after two runs out of four…that’s encouraging, other American (she was quarantined for Covid early) right in the battle for 2nd through 4th. Christine Brennan of USA Today being really aggressive questioning Russians at presser

When did Phil Rogers stop doing this?

Two golds for Jacobellis at age 36…this time in mixed team snowboard cross. Her partner Nick Baumgartner is 40. Cool story…like that 41 year old alpine/downhill skier who got a silver medal after persevering for decades in the sport.

While superstars are making more money than ever, baseball’s middle class has been wiped out by recent labor agreements. The median salary — the point at which half the players make less and half the players make more — has dropped about 30 percent since 2015, according to the Associated Press. Teams have figured out it is much more cost effective to fill the roster with younger players whose salaries can be strictly controlled, which means the average veteran player is getting a lot more take-it-or-leave-it offers than ever before in the era of free agency. yahoo.com/sports

https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/33267925/us-ski-snowboard-investigating-sexual-misconduct-racism-allegations Uh-oh. Impeccable timing. (CNN)The United States could prosecute Russian individuals allegedly involved in figure skater Kamila Valieva's doping case under the American Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act (RADA), the head of the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), Travis Tygart, told CNN on Friday. The RADA bill, named after whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov who helped expose the Russian doping scandal, was signed into law by former US President Donald Trump in December 2020. The bill enables the US to impose criminal sanctions on individuals involved in doping at major international sports competitions that feature US athletes, sponsors and broadcasters. Penalties for violating the law include up to 10 years imprisonment and fines of $250,000 for individuals and $1 million for organizations. "As more facts are developed, I think the Rodchenkov Act potentially could come into play," said Tygart. "If there's a doctor, or a coach, or state officials, sport official, who conspired to dope her [Valieva], then [the Rodchenkov Act] fits like a glove, because it is an international major competition, as defined by the Rodchenkov Act, which includes U.S. money, companies broadcasting, or sponsoring, the WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) code applies, there's more than three foreign athletes, and there's more than one US athlete competing," he added. "Russia's doping, state sponsored and otherwise, has taken away from what we ought to be celebrating, which is the Olympic values, competition done the right way, athletes who win because they're doing it the right way," Tygart added. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/11/sport/usada-prosecute-russia-kamila-valieva-doping-spt-intl/index.html Are skating and the media that covers it complicit? Amid Valieva’s failed doping test and accounts of what sure seems like disordered eating and careers cut very short due to injury, it raises the question of what skating’s governing bodies are doing about this. The answer seems to be rewarding her. In 2020, the International Skating Union awarded Tutberidze its “best coach.” And if you’ve been watching NBC’s figure skating coverage, commentator and former skater Johnny Weir has been — up until news of Valieva’s failed doping test broke — talking about spending time at her coaching facility and the splendid time he had getting to know Tutberidze and the girls. Weir posted on Instagram in November, about how thankful he was to visit the school. In hindsight, these decisions haven’t aged well. “If people start to look under the hood of what’s going on in Team Tutberidze, that might actually be positive for the sport because it would really shine a light on adolescent girls being abused physically, mentally, emotionally. And now pharmacologically, with these drugs,” said Dave Lease, who runs the skating analysis YouTube channel The Skating Lesson. While he acknowledges that Tutberidze’s skaters are talented, Lease has been critical of Tutberidze on his show, specifically calling into question her training practices. He has spoken with guests about allegations of eating disorders and possible doping (prior to Valieva’s positive test). He says what’s happening at Tutberidze’s school is analogous to the abuse that happened at US Gymnastics and the Karolyis’ ranch. Saying that Tutberidze’s coaching practices are “abusive” has gotten Lease harangued in the Russian press. “It doesn’t take a genius to realize that there’s something aberrant taking place with Tutberidze’s training methods as opposed to training methods around the rest of the world,” he said. “I don’t think that any intelligent person who follows figure skating should be surprised. The clues have been there.” The clues Lease refers to are accounts from former skaters, but also Russian press interviews about diets, the injuries from over-training, interviews with coachesabout possible doping, and Russia’s history with state-sponsored doping. Since the news broke, former skaters like Adam Rippon and Katarina Witt have spoken out about holding Russia and the adults surrounding Valieva responsible.

There are exceptions. Eileen/Ailing Gu has already made $35 million from endorsements at age 17-18 before the Olympics even began…if she gets yet another gold in her next two events, she will easily be at $100 million (just in China) before she starts freshman year this fall at Stanford. It’s also telling that Almaty, Kazahkstan was the only other choice for the IOC this year. Then you have the upcoming Qatar World Cup debacle as well.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/olympics-chinese-mens-short-track-relay-team-advances-final-on-judge-ruling-confusion-132757145.html I give up. Between this and Kristen Santos getting wiped out in her final with no consequence. The Chinese skater hit the left skate of the Canadian skater whose skate was already 100% in contact with the ice...and who was ahead position~wise. And this is the third controversy already with China in less than a week. https://www.scmp.com/sport/china/article/3166594/winter-olympics-fans-accuse-chinese-speed-skater-fan-kexin-deliberate https://mobile.twitter.com/mojo_ca/status/1490682488557031425

Remember those “the thrill of victory and agony of defeat” Wide World of Sports intros? Just the drama of many years of training being consigned to dust is part of it…it’s like rubber necking car accidents, in a way. Mikaela Schiffrin this Olympics, the redemption arc of Nathan Chen, Lindsay Jacobellis getting her gold 16 years after relaxing too early, Vincent Zhou out for Covid drama, Dan Jansen…maybe the exotic nature of some of these sports you only see once every four years like curling. A lot of older spectators think it’s now pretty much all about jumping and tricks, almost like a circus…whether it’s snowboarding or ski aerials or figure skating. The X-Games influence, Millennials, etc. For my generation, the 1980 Miracle on Ice, the equivalent of Russia beating the US in basketball in 1972...those were defining life moments in a way. It’s also pretty amazing if you compared figure skating finals from say Katarina Witt’s time to what we’re seeing now. But this latest Russian scandal threatens to take over and leave almost everyone with a bad taste in their mouths.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/10/kamila-valieva-quad-jump-figure-skating-women-controversy-unsustainable/

Little known fact. Jose Abreu’s name in the Cyrillic alphabet looks almost exactly like “Ron.”

Now it seems the Russians allowed Valieva to skate despite knowing her failed test results...that's expectedly brazen.

No medal for Shaun White in the half pipe, will finish 4th or 5th...

Which means Russia finishes 1-2-3 next week in the most high profile event in the games unless the US or Japan can break through...Liu or Chen. It's more about politics than anything else at this point, unfortunately. One obvious problem is that China is getting tied in so closely with Russia on everything that they're bordering on being forced to commit troops to the Ukraine confrontation.

https://sports.yahoo.com/ioc-getting-deserves-not-holding-112500008.html