Divemedic

Being originally from New Orleans, my favorite music is usually of the jazz variety. New Orleans is well known for street musicians doing what musicians did for centuries: playing for their supper. Busking is widespread, and the amount of talent that is on the streets of New Orleans can’t be matched for the digitally processes screeching that passes for pop music these days. For example, here is a band playing right on the street in New Orleans:

Here they are again, and you will note that they have the collection plate out. This is how many musicians in New Orleans make their living.

I finally have found a gun control law that I will support, as long as it remains narrowly tailored. Current law states that non-citizens cannot purchase firearms in the US, unless they have a hunting license. It seems that the terrorist who attacked the base in Pensacola used that law to his advantage and bought himself a handgun, a Glock 45 to be exact. I would not be opposed to eliminating that particular exception. Even so, are any of my readers familiar with any sort of hunting that you can do in Florida with a 9mm handgun? If a person from Alabama,which is only 8 miles from Pensacola, wishes to buy a handgun in Florida, they would be prohibited by law from purchasing that handgun. In this case, Saudi Arabian terrorists have more rights than US citizens. 

What say you?

On another note, if we are supposedly engaged in a GLOBAL war on terror, why aren’t our troops armed while here in the US, at least while on base? The US is a part of the globe, last time I checked. Our entire nation has grown accustomed to the idea that we are safe within our borders. That illusion is going to cost us more.

Here is an illustration of what teachers deal with:

A kid in my 10th grade Biology course doesn’t turn in any work for several weeks, gets a slew of zeros and is now failing for the quarter. A month later, his mom writes me (his teacher) to demand that I allow him to make up the work that was due as far back as October 6th. Here is the email chain that followed:

From: Angry Mom
Date: November 11, 2019
To: Other teacher
CC: Divemedic
Subject: Lazy Son
I am reaching out to you in regards to my son mentioned above. I am his mother and I am concerned with his grades in school and would like to schedule a parent teacher meeting with you and his other teachers as well to try to figure out why his grades are so low, what’s going on, is he not doing classwork or homework, just to try to get a grasp on what’s going on and a better understanding and some help for him so his grades will improve. Please respond back to me via email so we can schedule a conference please. Thank you in advance and I hope you have a wonderful week.
Sincerely,
Angry Mom

Conference was scheduled for Tuesday the 18th by the other teacher, but I was off that week and didn’t attend. Here is the email that I got on December 2:

I’m just following up on my last email regarding my son , Lazy Student. He told me his missing assignments are from a book that you will not allow him to take home. I am asking for a response from you before going to the guidance counselor. He has a free period everyday for a class that he has already finished and I don’t see why he can’t come to your class on that free period and get his missing work turned in. Let me know what options he has as I am trying to prevent him failing your class.
Thank you,
Angry Mom

Note that I took off the week before Thanksgiving. I don’t take off many days, and I had weeks of vacation on the books and had to burn some of them. Before I could answer her email (I have students and can only answer emails during my lunch), my computer died and when it was finally fixed by IT on Wednesday, I answered her with this:

I apologize for the delay in my response, my computer died and I have been working without one for the past several days.
 Students may take books home, if they sign one out. However, there is no homework in this class, and students are given significant amounts of time to complete these activities in class. If they fail to complete them in class, they can bring the assignment in the next day for full credit, and up to five days later for partial credit.
 Unfortunately, Lazy’s free period is during sixth period, and I am not teaching Biology during that period. I cannot dedicate time away from my other students and their needs to provide specialized instruction to students who were not willing to complete their work when it was assigned, as the rest of their classmates were able to do.
 At this point, he currently has a 45 percent F for the quarter, and there is little that can be done to salvage his grade. His best hope is to spend the weekend studying for his quarter exam, which he will be taking on Monday, and to study for the midterm exam that he will be taking the following week. Perhaps a high score on one or both of those exams would serve to increase his grade. 

Thank you for your rather RUDE response!! Teachers are supposed to help struggling students and the fact that you WERE on vacation and therefore not present for the parent/teacher/guidance counselor DOES have bearing on this situation!! But you have made it quite clear what kind of teacher you are and that you would rather have students fail then help them due to “your policies” which I am not expecting leniency for JUST MY CHILD !!! I feel it is your responsibility to first of all help your students and second of all to RESPOND TO A PARENT EMAIL ASKING FOR HELP and not some lame excuse about your computer being broken !!! I have emailed you 4 times in the past month. I’m quite certain there are computers at the school that you have access to. This will not end here. I will be contacting the dean when I get back in town requesting a conference with YOU !! 

Active shooter at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

Couple buys a baby bouncer from Goodwill, and there is a Mossberg 715 inside of the box. What a bargain! A $300 rifle for $10.

What I don’t understand is why the police confiscated it.

This is crappy reporting.

First off, I doubt that the journalist interviewed Harris, even though he was quoted in the article, because the only person named Harris in this story is one of the decedents.

“Jerric, you know, he’s not a bad (person), he’s not bad at all,” Harris said.

Second, the story claims that “there are victims on both sides,” but I don’t consider the person shot in a gun battle with police after he murdered someone to be a “victim.” He is a murderer, a criminal. This is the basic problem that I have with the left: they view all people who are shot as “victims,” even if the so called victim is the perpetrator.

Third, the family of this murderer then begins campaigning for gun control because their choir boy relative isn’t a bad person, so what happened must be the fault of the gun he used, and of the police who obviously overreacted and killed yet another black man for no reason whatsoever.

Journalists know jack and shit about anything. How can I take this article seriously when it gets basic facts wrong? Water is NOT 800 percent denser than air, it is 800 TIMES denser than air? That means water is 80,000 percent denser than air. Popular Mechanics should be able to get something that basic correct.

Quote of the day:

Upon her private email server being subpoenaed by a congressional investigative committee, Hillary Clinton sent the computer to be professionally wiped clean of all files and then turned it over. Yet, the same people who expressed no interest in pursuing that clear obstruction of justice have been calling secondhand witnesses to a phone call, whose transcript has already been made public!

We were invited to my brother’s house for Thanksgiving. So yesterday, we made the two hour drive so we could spend the evening with family. My mother, my sister, and their families were all there, along with my daughter and my grandchildren. In total, there were eighteen adults and children. A great time was had by all. Of course, when that many family members get together, one of them has got to ruin it.

For us, it was my brother’s son. My nephew is 19 years old, lives with his parents, and he has issues. Let’s just say that the local cops all know his name, he can’t keep a job, and it always seems to me someone else’s fault (according to him, anyway). On top of it, my brother and his wife tolerate the fact that he drinks at 19 years old. Whatever- not my kid, not my house. The problem is that he becomes a bit of a jerk while drinking. After dinner, my nephew began wrestling with the older kids who were there (all in the 14-16 range). This mostly consisted of him beating on the teens, “all in good fun.”

A couple of bloody noses later, he challenged me to a wrestling match. I refused. He retreated to his parent’s bedroom and came back with a handheld stun gun. He pulled the trigger to get the loud spark effect, and the room immediately got quiet. He loudly said, “Hey, Uncle. Sit still for a minute, let’s see what happens when I Taser you.”

Me: “No. Put that away.”
Nephew (walking towards me): “Come on, it will be funny.”
Me (standing up and reaching into my pocket for pepper spray): “Put down the weapon right now, or I will have to hurt you.”

It was at this point where my brother snuck up behind him and snatched the Taser out of his hand, thus avoiding a major Thanksgiving incident that would have surely wound up with someone going to the ER and someone being arrested.

My nephew stormed into his bedroom, where he stayed for the next hour. He did eventually come out and apologize.

There is always one in every family.