Teaching in the Big Apple

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

700 NYC Teachers are Paid to do Nothing
By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK – Hundreds of New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that's what they want to do. Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its "rubber rooms" — off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.

The 700 or so teachers can practice yoga, work on their novels, paint portraits of their colleagues — pretty much anything but school work. They have summer vacation just like their classroom colleagues and enjoy weekends and holidays through the school year.

Because the teachers collect their full salaries of $70,000 or more, the city Department of Education estimates the practice costs the taxpayers $65 million a year. The department blames union rules.

"It is extremely difficult to fire a tenured teacher because of the protections afforded to them in their contract," spokeswoman Ann Forte said.

So let that be a lesson to all my not-so-hard working friends out there (um... you know why you are).  If you want to hang out and still get paid, just teach for 3 years in NYC (that's the minimum length of time needed to acquire tenured status), then start verbally assaulting your students. You'll be in the rubber room in no time!  Man, who needs a fat corporate banking severance package when you can exploit this little loophole for all it's worth?

The best quote from the article?  Probably this one:

"Most people in that room are depressed," said Jennifer Saunders, a high school teacher who was in a reassignment center from 2005 to 2008. Saunders said she was charged with petty infractions in an effort to get rid of her: "I was charged with having a student sit in my class with a hat on, singing."

Singing in class?  Ok, that's reasonable.  But with a hat on?  My god.  What kind of monsters are our school systems creating? Let's give this teacher a paid vacation... that'll show 'em.

Don't Hide Money in Your Old Sh*t!

From Yahoo! News:

Israeli woman mistakenly junks $1 million mattress
By IAN DEITCH

JERUSALEM – An Israeli woman mistakenly threw out a mattress she said had almost $1 million inside, setting off a frantic search through tons of garbage at a number of landfill sites on Wednesday.

The woman told The Associated Press that she bought her elderly mother a new mattress as a surprise present on Monday — and threw out the old one.

The next day, she said, she remembered that she had hidden her life savings inside the old mattress. "I woke up in the morning screaming, when it hit me what happened," said the Tel Aviv woman, who asked not to be identified.

Oddly enough, this happened to my Dad a couple years ago, who for some unknown reason used to hide money in an old sport coat. The amount was nowhere near the earnings of a modest Israeli woman living with her mom (really, that's what single women living with their parents in Israel can amass these days? I'm definitely living in the wrong damn place).

My mom was doing some spring cleaning and of course she ran across some hideous 70's-style coats in my Dad's closet and decided to donate them to charity. When my Dad realized it, he freaked out, and my Mom went back to Goodwill to dig through piles and piles of clothes in search for the golden sport coat. Think it's hard to find a mattress in a dump? Try finding one article of clothing in a room filled with clothes donated over a series of months. Needless to say, she turned up empty.

The moral of the story? Buy old 70's sports coats from Goodwill and always choose matresses from the dumps of Israel. In this economy, it's probably your best bet.

Random Thoughts

Some more random things that you probably have zero interest in:

• While watching the NBA Finals last night (Go Lakers!), I noticed that GM ran an ad about how although they were bankrupt, they still have awesome plans in the works. Hey, wait a minute, GM. Let me repeat, you're bankrupt. This is even with a extra couple billion dollars in your pockets after the big bailout. And somehow, after being terrible enough to burn through all of this cash, you are spending big dollars running an ad campaign about how awesome your plans are? And people wonder what's wrong with the automotive industry in the U.S.
  
• Dwight Howard has the broadest shoulders in the history of humanity. This is a scientifically proven fact*
  
• When did they stop making regular shorts? All I ever see these days are either plaid shorts, or regular colored shorts with 50 cargo pockets sewed onto them. Can't I just get a regular solid colored pair of shorts sans ancillary pocketage? Why is this not an option anymore?
• And on that note, how come I can't buy multi-colored striped knee high socks to wear with aforementioned shorts?
  
• In my hometown of Monterey Park, CA, some of the officials running for city office used to send pot holders in the mail to each resident with their names printed on them. I guess the hope was that we'd remember their names by using them often. My sister was baking something the last time I was home, and promptly burned her hand using this flimsy pot holder. I said, come on, if you were dumb enough to trust Judy Chu to protect your hands, you deserve to get burned. So, Judy Chu, if you wanted us to remember your name, mission accomplished! However, just know that we associate it with crappiness.
  
• Wi-fi on Virgin America is the best idea since live TV on airplanes. Flying is now just like being in my living room, only with more neon lights and a very, very tiny couch.
  
• Science has shown that skinny jeans have proven to be an indicator of mental retardation in males.*
• This is a fun article.
• I like dogs.
  

* Keep in mind that "science" is defined in this blog as "stuff that seems true to me with utter disregard for fact"