"I coulda went through college..."

Many years ago - make that many decades ago - I went to an introductory Scientology session with my late (and hysterically funny) friend Mary Beth. We were college girls with nothing to do on a Friday night and thought that checking out Scientology, and Dianetics (the ideas underlying L. Ron Hubbard's "religion") might be good for a few laughs.

Indeed it was.

At that time (late 1960's), in that place (Boston), tickets to free Scientology introductory sessions were handed out on on the streets, so we grabbed a couple and went for it. The sessions were held in a non-descript building on Boylston Street, up one flight of stairs, in a non-descript room furnished with a bunch of folding chairs and a table/podium set up in the front.

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the guy running the show - the evangelist? the salesman? - was named John. I can picture him as vividly as if I'd seen him yesterday. He was blandly good looking, with thick, jet-black hair, and wearing a grey suit.

John explained the concepts underlying Scientology, which was that you needed to get "clear" of whatever was holding you back and advance to become an Operating Thetan, which had multiple levels. None of this was free, of course. If memory serves, it cost a few thousand bucks to get on the OT ladder. 

To demonstrate how getting clear worked, John asked for a volunteer to test out the Scientology e-meter, a little contraption that "audited" someone, measuring how they reacted to the mention of certain words. The device looked like a couple of Donald Duck Juice cans attached a black box that resembled a car battery, only smaller. The person being "audited" gripped the handles (i.e., the Donald Duck Juice cans) and the dial registered the impact of those certain words on the auditee. In the case of the volunteer, the word "mother" caused the needle to jump wildly. A miracle!

With "mother" identified as the root cause of the volunteer's personal and professional failures, the volunteer was encouraged to sign up to get "clear" of "mother." He politely declined. 

The audience was, not surprisingly, full of skeptics, and John told us that, because he was a Scientologist, he was able to detect "hostility" in the crowd. Some of that hostility, of course, emanated from me and Mary Beth. We were nearly falling off of out folding chairs laughing. And we weren't the only ones. I don't think it took any Scientology to accurately read the room.

John then went on to brag that, "if I'd of had Scientology, I coulda went through college in three months."

It's been many a moon since I've thought about my Scientological experience, but it came to mind when I read a recent Boston Globe article on how some online learners are racing through college and achieving their degrees in a matter of months, rather than the traditional four-year snail's pace.

For those trying to grab a credential as quickly as they can and save a lot of money while they're at it, a near insta-degree is a very good thing. 

But some question whether you can learn as much in three months as you do over the course of four years. 

Personally, I'm sure that even without Scientology, I coulda went through college in fewer than four years. Obviously, if I had time to fart around taking in a Scientology session, I could have been taking a few more credits. But back then, there was less of an urgency to finish up, less need for speed. College was less expensive, and we all accepted the wisdom of taking your four-year time to get your bachelor's degree. (And, of couse, for young men, college meant a deferment from the draft and a visit to the rice paddies of Vietnam. Ain't no one wanted to accelerate that process.)

But the times, they are a-different. College costs more. A lot more. There's more pressure on to study something that will produce an obvious and immediate payback, career-wise. A lot more. There's more pressure to avoid lolling around reading great books, thinking great thoughts, bullshitting the night away. 

Supporters of the [breakneck degree] approach tout it as an affordable, convenient way for people to earn credentials they need for their careers. Others, including some online students and academic officials, expressed concern about what the super-accelerated students are missing, and whether a quick path devalues degrees. (Source: Boston Globe)

I get the need for speed, the demand for affordability. But I'm with those who think that the "super-accelerated students" are missing out on something. Mostly what they're missing out on  is going deep on a topic, doing a lot of reading, thinking about what your paper is going to be about, researching that paper - and going down paths that perhaps don't yield much, yet are still learning experiences. There's talking to your professors. There's hanging with the other students in your class. There's working on a project - solo or with others. For the STEM courses, there's also lab time, computer time. 

Things take time. Learning builds on learning. 

I'm sure there are plenty of courses of study that don't require all that much study, all that much time. Maybe they cover checklist items that, once checked, lead to a credential. Sort of like the quickie online security courses a client of mine required everyone to take in order to keep using their internal systems. 

I'm all for older learners getting some credit for whatever OTJ experiencal learning they've acquired. If you can demonstrate competency - by, say, taking the math test - without having to show up for sections, go for it. Great if these online degree schools accept all legit credits from other colleges, even if it's three years worth, and still confer a degree. And I'm all for being able to earn your degree while juggling work and family responsibilities. I'm all for affordability. But I'm also for Marjorie Hass has to say:

“We want diplomas that mean something,” said Marjorie Hass, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, which represents more than 600 liberal arts colleges and universities. “I would prefer to have some of these degrees called something other than a bachelor’s.”

Could I have went through college more quickly than I did? Sure. There is no doubt whatsoever that I wasted plenty o' time. But am I glad I had the time to read, think, learn, explore, run into dead ends, munge around with my ideas? Absoltutely!

I'm all for education for all. So YES to online education. Just let's not pretend that truncating the time it takes to earn a college degree is always going to translate into the full equivalent of a four-year, slow-paced degree. (Or a two-year, slow-paced degree.)

Respectfully, Maureen Rogers BA, MS

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Image Source: Court Street Press

Ah, the Age of Enlightenment

Admittedly, the world probably didn't need another high school production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. ("I saw Goody Osburn with the devil.") But how interesting that a school in remote, ultra-conservative (80%+ Trump), ultra-white (90%+) Fannin County, Georgia, would decide to put on a play about witchhunts, panics, hysteria, and the persecution/prosecution of the innocent. (The play may have been the idea of the school's drama teacher, who was forced out a few weeks before. In the true spirit of "the show must go on," the kids forged on without their leader.)

Back in May, they had their first of two performances on a Friday night. On Saturday morning, the students were informed that the second performance had been canceled. 

In accounts from multiple students and parents, the Friday evening performance went off without incident. But on Saturday morning, word of the cancelation began filtering out. Angela Grist, a parent with two students in the play, described the Saturday morning in her house as, “The kids all got messages stating that, what the kids were told initially, was that somebody in the audience didn’t like the context of the play and said that it was demonic and disgusting and that it was immediately shut down.” (Source: Howard Sherman)

The president of the school's drama club, senior Abigail Ridings - who was the one directing the play - heard pretty much the same thing:

“I walked into my mom’s bedroom Saturday morning, the night after our first show, and she told me that the show had been canceled, that she just got off the phone with my principal. He said that certain people had to ‘repent after watching the show,’ as a joke, and that it was canceled due to parent complaints.” Asked about the specific nature of the complaints as explained to her mother, Ridings elaborated saying that the play was “too evil and disgusting and things like that.”

Fast forward to Monday, when the school tut-tutted to the world that the play wasn't canceled because of pitch-fork parents. No. Nothing like that: 

After Friday night’s performance of The Crucible, we received several complaints as to an unauthorized change in the script of the play. Upon investigation, we learned that the performance did not reflect the original script. These alterations were not approved by the licensing company or administration. The performance contract for The Crucible does not allow modifications without prior written approval. Failing to follow the proper licensing approval process for additions led to a breach in our contract with the play’s publisher. The infraction resulted in an automatic termination of the licensing agreement. The second performance of The Crucible could not occur because we were no longer covered by a copyright agreement.

So, not pitch-fork folks, but super-sharp local experts well versed in the ur-text of The Crucible and in copyright law. Is it just me of does this credulity-straining bit of legalese not hold water?

Students weighed in to say that they hadn't changed any of the wording. 

The only possible material in the production that might have given the licensor pause was that the production began with a wordless scene of the young women of Salem dancing in the woods at night, enacting what is described by dialogue in the text, an interpretive choice that was unlikely to have been in violation of the license since it altered not the text, the spirit nor the intention of the show. Would it have been advisable to have checked with the licensor? Yes. Was it flagrantly out of bounds? I think not.

(Howard Sherman, whose post I'm extensively quoting here is "the managing director of the Baruch Performing Arts Center at Baruch College in Manhattan." So I suspect he knows what he's talking about.)

Without saying BS, Sherman calls BS, ticking off a number of reasons why this copyright reasoning doesn't ring true.  "So the timing [of the cancelation] is questionable and the solution draconian."

Angela Grist - the parent with two disappointed kiddos in the play - took the initiative to contact Broadway Licensing. She was told by a staffer there that nothing that the Fannin High drama club had done rose to the level of copyright violation. (You go, Angela Grist!) Another parent also called Broadway Licensing and was informed that they have a process they follow through when they learn there's been a possible copyright infringement. And this ain't it. (You go, second drama mom Amber Cather Herendon!)

Sherman posits that:

...it seems that the school’s administration decided, after content complaints, to use the wordless opening scene, an interpretive choice, as a pretext for shutting the show down, after bowing to complaints about the show’s actual content, namely the words of Arthur Miller and his characters.

The students, by the way, also stood up for themselves. Aiden McBee, a member of the cast, questioned the school's decision to close things down:

“They say they understand and appreciate the arts, but I just don’t believe it, because to appreciate the arts you have to understand. The Crucible is a message of authority and of distrust, which is quite ironic. I just want clear communication.”

Another cast member - Caden Gerald, who played John Proctor (hanged for witchcraft) - said that some locals were on FB and Insta saying they thought the "show was demonic and disgusting."

Channeling the oratory of his character, Gerald said, “John Proctor is being forced to sign away his friends because of one cry against them. To draw parallel to real life, I ask you to ask yourselves, how may you teach us students to walk like men and women in this world when you sell us to lies and opinion, deflecting blame to our good names that we have made...How may we walk in this world when you have forced us to be sat?”

I'd say the kids of the Fannin High drama club are all right!

The ninnies who were terrified by The Crucible, the weaklings in the school administration who buckled under to the complaints of the ninnies and ginned up a nonsense excuse to shut the play down: not so all right. They're all no doubt the sorts of fear-stricken loons who'd be up there on the stand testifying that they saw Goody Proctor dancing with the devil.

Ridiculous.

Whatever happened to the Age of Enlightenment? Apparently it never fully made its way to Fannin County, Georgia. That said, the parents and students who spoke up and out - especially in a community where the odds are stacked against them - do give me some hope...And god knows I could use some right about now.

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Image source: Genius. 

One big, sordid mess

My alma mater has been in the news lately. 

And the news that's been in the news is not good.

I'm a graduate of Emmanuel College in Boston. Class of 1971. So, an old girl who was there when the college was all women. And when the comparable Catholic men's colleges like Holy Cross and Providence College were still all men. 

The school had been founded in 1919 to serve the daughters of Boston's large and fertile Catholic population. Initially, the majority of the students were the daughters of Irish immigrants, with a smattering of Italian and Lithuanian/Polish immigrant daughters thrown in. Fast forward to when I was a student there, and the school had a slightly broader geographic reach - the vast majority of "Emmas" (as we called ourselves) were from New England, New York, and New Jersey - but the demographics were largely the same: overwhelmingly white Irish Catholic (with those same smatterings), only now we were the granddaughters, not the daughters of immigrants. 

Students came primarily from Catholic high schools which had long been - and still are - feeder schools for Catholic colleges. (Wouldn't want your kiddos to lose the faith now, would you? 'Cause that'd never happen at a Catholic school...)

There were an awful lot of very bright girls at Emmanuel, young woman who, if they hadn't been fed into the Catholic college maw, would have found themselves right at home in the Seven Sisters, the Ivies, and other top schools. 

When I was there, Emmanuel had about 1,600 students - 400 per class.

But then the Holy Crosses and Providence Colleges of the world went co-ed, and a lot of the girls who'd been fed into the Catholic women's colleges were now being fed into co-ed schools.

The school's population plummetted. I think there were some years in the 1980's when there were fewer than 100 students in a class. 

Emmanuel almost went under, but thanks to the vision and management genius of its long-term President, Sister Janet Eisner - and to Emmanuel's prime location in the Fenway area of Boston - the school has survived. Among other things, Emmanuel went co-ed, and is now a good enough little Catholic college along the lines of local schools like Merrimack and Stonehill. 

I have no idea what the demographics there are now, but I believe there are a lot more first-gen-to-college, a lot more minorities. For the most part, the kids of the women in my class who I was friendly with had children who went to better known schools that are higher up the academic food chain than Emmanuel College. 

Still, the school survives. 

I haven't been an especially active alumna. 

In truth, I wish I'd been fed into one of those higher up the food chain colleges. I got a decent enough education and made a couple of sterling life-long friends, but I wish I'd gone to a school that was more diverse. (Seriously, folks, when I went to Emmanuel the food service people told us that we were the only college they managed where the students drank more tea than coffee. This was, of course, thanks to the Irish heritage shared by so many of us.) I wish I'd gone to a school that was more challenging, and, yes - snob warning - more prominent. Someplace where the name of the school was shorthand for "someone who goes here is probably pretty intelligent." (I took care of that by making sure my grad schools were top of the line. I started out in a PhD program at Columbia - back in the day before Columbia folded and became a big mess - and, after figuring out that a political science PhD was not for me, went to business school at MIT.) I also wish I'd gone to a school with men. (Also made up for that with Columbia and MIT.)

As I said, I haven't been an especially active alumna. That is until a decade ago when I got involved in the Dorothy Day Lecture Series, which, each April, hosts a speaker on a social justice topic. The women on the DDL committee - most of them from my class or class-adjacent - are all wonderful: deeply compassionate, deeply empathetic, highly accomplished, highly intelligent. I was friendly-ish with a couple of them when we were in school, but now I count all of them as friends. 

We were just coming off the high of another successful lecture - this one on Gaza, the most fraught (and controversial) topic we've ever taken on - when the article in the online Boston Globe appeared, at pretty much the same time I found a midnight email from Beth Ross, Emmanuel's president, giving the alumni/ae a head's up on what was just breaking:

A 29-year-old assistant admissions administrator at Emmanuel College who allegedly offered to pay prospective students “for some fun” was arrested last week on charges of attempted sex trafficking of a minor, according to federal prosecutors. (Source: Boston Globe)

Jacob Henriques, an Emmanuel graduate (gulp!), offered one prospective student $400 for that fun, and also asked her whether he wanted him to share some porn videos and pictures with her. And then he sent them anyway. The young woman, a 17 year old senior who had just committed to attending EC, had no idea who he was or how he'd gotten her number. Turns out, he'd gotten her number from the admissions system, which he, of course, had access to. (He had met her on a campus tour.)

The young woman blocked him from texting, so he tried emailing her. (He approached at least three other prospective students on well.) Among other things, Henriques had asked her whether she was up for participating in a "gangbang." 

Not clear how Emmanuel first found out about these incidents, but I'm guessing a parent contacted the school and they either recognized the phone number, or figured out the Henriques had had contact with the students, and had accessed the systems to get info on them. But the school jumped on it right away - no cover up, no handle it internally nonsense.

Here's part of Emmanuel's statement:

“Because the safety and well-being of all is our highest priority, and consistent with established policies, we took strong action upon learning of this issue, immediately contacting law enforcement and launching an investigation that led to the prompt termination of the individual,” the statement said. “We have cooperated fully with authorities from the moment this matter came to our attention and will continue to do so.”

Henriques has been fired, but that's the least of his worries. 

If convicted as charged, Henriques faces the possibility of life in prison with a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years, [US Attorney Leah B.] Foley’s statement said. 

Yes, the US Department of Justice is after this guy. (Good to see the locals are focused on something other than maliciously going after those who Trump perceives as the enemy.)

My first thoughts are with the victims of this perverted moron. I know that today's kids are a lot less naive, a lot more sophisticated, than the girls of my era. But still, inviting young women to a paid-for "gangbang?" How colossally sordid.

My second thoughts are with Emmanuel and its reputation.

This story has been all over the place, from local coverage to The New York Times, People Magazine, network TV news, and (no surprise) the scurrilous rag that is the New York Post. When I was in my doctor's waiting room the other day, they had a local news show on the TV. Flowing along the chyron was a headline about this story. 

I can only imagine how the students, faculty, and adminstrators feel about this. 

I can only imagine that a lot of folks - not just the immediate victims - are rethinking Emmanuel College as an option.

Everyone's tried so hard to keep the school going when so many small, underendowed, small liberal arts colleges are going under. I have never been all that optimstic about the school's chance for survival, and have long thought that "the play" for Emmanuel is to become part of Boston College, providing that (also Catholic) school with an urban (highly valuable) campus. Maybe BC would relo their nursing school there? Emmanuel is in a very hospital-heavy area. It would make sense. To me anyway.

All I know is that these young woman didn't deserve to get swept into this big, sordid mess. And my alma mater didn't deserve it, either.

DOGE Bro Wannabe

Alex Shieh is a sophomore at Brown University.

So he's obviously a pretty smart kid, with the requisite grades, AP courses, SAT's, and enough of the eye-catching goodies to catch the eye of someone in the Brown admissions office. Enough goodies to differentiate him from the tens of thousands of pretty smart kids who apply to Brown every year, with against-the-odds chance of acceptance. 

From his LinkedIn profile, I'd say that Shieh's main eye-catcher was so-founding a (now defunct) political poll while he was a student at Phillips Academy. 

Since his acceptance at Brown, he has also contributed a couple of op-ed pieces to The Boston Globe. Topic: the need to get rid of affirmative action in university admissions, which Shieh argues disadvantages Asian-Americans. 

He's certainly entitled to his opinion.

And he's certainly entitled as well.

Yes, he's the grandchild of immigrants. But they came to the States to get their PhDs and stayed. And he went to Phillips Academy, an elite prep school that's a feeder to elite colleges and universities. (Not that this guarantees acceptance, any more than legacy status, athletic prowess, celebrity parents, or a family that can afford to name a building guarantees acceptance. Okay, maybe naming a building does. But it sure helps to come from a feeder school.)

And Alex Shieh is something of a DOGE Bro Wannabe, who took it upon himself to set up an online publication to track what he deems inefficiencies that contribute mightily to Brown's price tag. (Tuition is a bit over $70K, and when you factor in housing, fees, etc., the tab is a bit over $90K.)

Bloat@Brown is modeled after the Trump administration’s Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency and purports to highlight administrative waste within the University. (Source: Brown Daily Herald)

To help him find all the waste he was looking for, on March 18, Shieh, positioning himself as a reporter for what had been Brown's (long inactive) conservative newspaper:

...Shieh sent emails to approximately 3,800 Brown staff members asking them to “describe what tasks you performed in the past week,” mirroring a similar February email DOGE sent to federal employees. Before Shieh decided to take the site down due to repeated hacks, the AI-powered database featured a search function that returned ratings of “every Brown administrator in three domains: legality, redundancy and bullshit jobs,” according to the website.

He only got a few responses - one of which was "Fuck Off" - but his work caught the eye of the Brown administration, which decided that Shieh was in violation of the student conduct code. 

And, as Shieh was no doubt hoping, he also caught the eye of Elon Musk and "conservative activist Bill Ackman [who] described the effort as “impressive,” lauding its “remarkable” parallels to the Musk-led DOGE."  (Musk you know; Ackman is a billionaire hedgie and big man off campus, going after a number of elite schools that he perceives as anti-Israel. A former supporter of Democrats, Ackman's now a major Trumpean.)

Hoping to catch even more eyes, Shieh has used X to address Trump and "Secretary of Education" Linda McMahon, appealing for their support under the mantle of free speech and transparency. And it looks kinda-sorta like Shieh would like to make a federal case out of things. As in 'look how Brown is going after righteous me; gee, don't they realize that thanks to their DEI, Brown's federal funding is at stake.'

Righteous me claims that his aims are noble.

“I’m trying to help the administration to find people that might be redundant,” Shieh said.

Hmmm. "People that," not "people who?" Sure sounds to me like Shieh just might consider people as inanimate objects, not people as actual living, breathing, sentient human beings. How DOGE-like. (Then there's that posing with the chainsaw.)

“I’m a big fan of cutting wasteful spending,” Shieh, 20, told The Post. “This is no different to what Elon Musk is uncovering in the federal government,” he added, referring to the DOGE head and Senior Advisor to President Donald Trump. (Source: NY Post)

Of course, we've yet to see much detail on all that waste and fraud that DOGE has uncovered. Just stupid stuff like claiming that little kids collecting Social Security is evidence of fraud. (As someone from a family whose kids collected Social Security after our father died, I know up close and personal that this ain't fraud.) And willy-nilly cutting legitimate and important programs like food inspection, veterans' suicide prevention, etc., while all the while treating government employees with wanton cruelty and disregard. (Not saying there isn't any government waste; you just need to go after it more planfully, and involve those who actually know how government works and what programs do. And, yes, government does work. Or did until the current regime was installed. And, yes, there's probably plenty of stupid spending at Brown. How about college and university tuition madness as the topic for another post?)

Anyway, there went Alex Shieh, with his so called "journalistic inquiry," asking Brown employees: 

...“explain [their] role,” “describe what tasks [they] performed in the past week,” and “explain how Brown students would be impacted if [their] position was eliminated.”

Seriously, who wants to emulate members of the DOGE brigade, those soul-less, heartless, empathy-less punks?

Oh, I know. Some smart kid who wants to catch the eye of Trump, Musk, et al., and gain notoriety - fame and fortune, of course - at the expense of decency. Why would any Brown employee have to explain themselves to this tool?

Shieh's hearing is tomorrow. I'm sure he'll get what he's hoping for, i.e., any kind of slap on the wrist that he can throw into the maw of the Alex Shieh publicity engine.

What was it that one Brown employee told him. Oh, yeah, Fuck Off!

Yesterday's space shot? Yep, amid the celeb nonsense, there's some inspiration in there

My husband had an abiding interest in physics in general and space exploration in particular. A few weeks before he died, he told me that he'd "pay a million bucks to have my ashes flown into space." Well, I loved my husband, but my response to that - which, by the way, he did agree with - was that "this is the brain tumor talking." But I did hop online and found an outfit that rocketed cremains into space. I told Jim that there was an orbital flight that would be heading out in a couple of years, but a straight up and down shot taking off in the fall. We dubbed the orbital flight the John Glenn, since he was the first American astronaut to circumnavigate earth from space. The straight shot we named the Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut to take flight, which just went up and down.

Jim chose the Alan Shepard, as it was sooner and cheaper. 

So the fall after he died, Jim got his space shot. I have the little metal "space capsule" they returned his bit of ashes in. It sits on my mantel in a tiny Connemara marble urn, which fittingly unites two of Jim's great loves: space and Ireland.

Anyway, if he were alive, I can absolutely see Jim being interested in taking a Blue Origin flight. (And I can absolutely see myself talking him out of it.)

Blue Origin is the Jeff Bezos' space tourism outfit that sends civilians on paid journeys into the wild blue yonder.

And yesterday, Blue Origin sent the first all female "crew" on a ten minute trip into space. I put "crew" in quotes because I think they didn't actually have to do much, like flip switches and conduct experiments, which is what actual astronauts do. I'm pretty sure their role was strictly passenger. Still, they took what I'm sure was a trip of a lifetime.

It's interesting, but not surprising, that the overwhelming percent of those who are doing space travel are men. On my husband's trip, I don't remember that there were any women among his fellow travelers. 

So a key part of the "positioning" of yesterday's Blue Origin flight was that it would inspire young women and girls to become more interested in matters space-related. 

But I don't think this quite squares with the "crew" they chose.

Why, there's Katy Perry in her cute little electric-blue spacesuit. There's Gayle King, the Good Morning, America host and BFF of Oprah Winfrey. And Jeff Bezos' fiancée Lauren Sanchez. (At least Sanchez had the decency to keep her cute little electric-blue spacesuit zipped up. In her last high-visibility public appearance, she was at Trump's inauguration with her boobs hanging out.)

Yes, I realize that Katy Perry will attract a lot of attention because she's, well, Katy Perry. But will that attention inspire interest in becoming a STEM girl, or will it inspire trying to become a singer-celeb who can afford to take a Blue Origin flight?

Although I did see her once in a restaurant in Charleston, SC, I don't know a lot about Gayle King. But my impression is that she is intelligent, pleasant, and good at her jobs as news/entertainment show host and Oprah BFF. Her wikipedia bio now states that she's a "commercial astronaut." Huh? She got shot into space, just like my husband's ashes. Does this make Jim a "commercial astronaut" of the posthumous variety?

Pre-Bezos, Lauren Sanchez was a reporter, but now she's a philanthropist who's helping spend Jeff Bezo's money. (Admittedly, his foundations appear to support organizations dedicated to causes like the greening of poor communities, fighting climate change, and trying to solve homelessness. Wonder if Trump knows about that climate change thang?) And, yes, she was a pilot. And she's written a kids' book called "The Fly Who Flew Into Space." But, frankly, I think she'd be more of an inspiration if she wasn't so frequently pictured with her boobs hanging out. The inauguration wasn't a one-off. And why did this perfectly pretty woman fall into the Mar-a-Lago puffy lip enhancement trap???

The other "crew" members included Kerianne Flynn, a film producer who makes indie films that are socially-conscious. She has one coming out about Lilly Ledbetter, the woman who fought the good fight for equal pay for equal work. And she's had a long standing interest in space, so there's that. So, certainly an accomplished person - as, of course, are Perry, King, and Sanchez. But STEM-inspiring?

Then we get down to the two space tourists who actually would be the ones to inspire young woman and girls to pursue space/science/tech careers. Of course, neither Amanda Nguyen nor Aisha Bowe is a celebrity, so they're not getting the play that the others (at least Perry, King, and Sanchez) are.

Amanda Nguyen is a civil rights activist who focuses on the rights of rape and sexual assault survivors. While she was an undergrad at Harvard, studying astrophysics, she interned at NASA and conducted research on exoplanets. (Yeah, I had to look it up: planets outside of the solar system.) She's a bioastronautics researcher - yeah, another one I had to look up: a study of the physical impact of space travel on living organisms - who also spent some time as a fellow at MIT's Media Lab. So, bona fide STEM girl, and someone who's definitely got inspiration written all over her.

But the truly inspiring crew member has got to be Aisha Bowe. She's a former NASA engineer, who had this to say about her journey, and the criticism it has received from those (like me, I guess) who considered yesterday's flight a bit stuntlike, a bit frivolous:

When I decided that I was going to pursue aerospace engineering, it was after my high school guidance counselor told me that I should pursue cosmetology because she did not think that I would be suited for this field. I went from pre-algebra and community college to do two degrees in aerospace engineering, to working for NASA, to being able to sit on the stage and say: ‘It is bigger than the criticism.’ (Source: CNN)

Someone who was advised to become a hairdresser who went on to get bachelor's and master's degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan? An entrepreneur and STEM-activist who once mentored a 13-year-old girl who grew up to be an aerospace engineer working at Blue Origin? A Black woman, the daughter of a Bahamian immigrant? 

Now THIS is someone who's worthy of the being described as an inspiration! I just love Aisha Bowe's story!

But I'm ending with a shoutout to the original women-in-space inspiration, the estimable Sally Ride!

Wish Sally Ride were still with us. They could have sent her on this all-female Blue Origin trip and left one of the celebrities home.

Bottom of the barrel at Cracker Barrel

Although I've been to a Cracker Barrel a couple of times, I'll never be a regular. 

1. There aren't many around here
2. The calories
3. I'm way too much of a snob

But what's not to like (other than the calories) about those biscuits, those fried apples? And I will say that when I've been to a Cracker Barrel (last time, over 20 years ago while on a business trip to South Carolina) the service was fine (although probably a bit too chirpy for my liking).

But the service wasn't so fine for a group of Maryland special ed students - kiddos with severe cognitive disabilities and/or autism - who were snubbed, denied service, treated poorly, while on a field trip. 

On Tuesday [December 3rd], a group of 11 students and seven staff members from Maryland's Charles County Public Schools District were "refused service" at the Cracker Barrel restaurant in Waldorf, Maryland, Superintendent Maria Navarro said in a statement. The outing was a part of community-based instruction for students at the district's Dr. James Craik Elementary School. The instruction allows students in special education programs to perform practical skills and socialize with the public. (Source: USA Today)

The school had called ahead and got the okay that they wouldn't need a reservation for their party, despite its size; had informed the Cracker Barrel people of the purpose of the visit; and had also told them that they were willing to split up if needed. 

But, no. When the group showed up - after doing some Christmas shopping at a Dollar Store - the teachers were told not only that they couldn't be seated, but that Cracker Barrel should be taken off the list of restaurants approved "for community-based instruction."

Cracker Barrel? Wouldn't you think that an informal, inexpensive, family-friendly, nothing fancy restaurant - especially one that specializes in exuding real fake cornpone charm - would be an ideal venue for a bunch of kids who might be messy, make funny noises, act weird. Hmmm. When I look at it at this way, wouldn't this describe most groups of kids?

The staff and students were allowed to place a take out order, but taking out and eating back at school is not the same experience as sitting down in a restaurant and being waited on. So Cracker Barrel was willing to deprive the crew of their money - feel free to pay for takeout! - and their experience. Shameful!

Both servers and management, the school staff said, were rude and ignored the kids. Althought the place wasn't busy, it took what seemed like forever for the takeout meals to be prepared, so the kids ended up waiting on the bus. (By the way, it's not like the 11 students were free-ranging in the restaurant. There were 7 staff members to support those 11 students.)

The parents - naturally furious - threatened a protest and, as news of the incident spread, the Cracker Barrel was flooded with negative Yelp reviews. (Served them right.)

Cracker Barrel apologized, claiming blah-di-blah. The store's general manager and two servers were fired. (And, yes, I do have a scintilla of sympathy for anyone getting fired from what has to be a pretty crummy, bottom of the barrel job to begin with, especially around the holidays. But they really should have known better.)

And just how awful is awful? I can only imagine how much those kids were anticipating their big day out. I can only imagine how the staff prepped them for it. How very awful.

If I were a patron of Cracker Barrel, I'd sure be boycotting. But, as I said, there are none nearby and I'm way, way, way too much of a snob. 

Way to wreck your college career - and maybe even beyond - Greyhounds!

Didn't a college prank used to be a panty raid or stealing a traffic cone? One Christmas, at my all women's Catholic college in the late 1960's - early 1970's, someone in my dorm took the statue of the Christ Child out of the manger scene and left a packet of birth control pills. A friend and I once kidnapped a 3 foot statue of the Blessed Virgin and installed it in her dorm room, surrounded by peacock feathers and with glow-in-the-dark rosary beads wrapped around her piously folded hands. (When a security guard stopped us and asked what we were carrying - which just looked like a mid-sized object wrapped in a madras rainjacket - we answered "art project." So he let us go.)

The ante has apparently been upped and some of today's TikTok and group-think inspired pranks are borderline criminal. And sometimes they even go way over the border.

As happened last October at Worcester's Assumption Univeristy, a Catholic college just down Salisbury Street from my high school. So I'm pretty familiar with Assumption. In fact Assumption's then-president spoke at my graduation. (Assumption's mascot is Pierre the Greyhound, pictured here. When I was a girl, Assumption was for the most part the "French college," where Worcester's French Canadians went; Holy Cross was where the Irish boys went.)

Well, having read about the recent antics at Assumption - which ended up with five students charged with kidnaping and conspiracy, and a couple of them facing additional charges (for one, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon; for another, lying to investigators) - all I can say is that Father Georges Bissonette is spinning in his grave. 

The incident that resulted in the charges (which were filed in early December) occurred on October 1st. From their ages, it looks as if all/most of the students charged were freshmen. So, on campus at that point for a month and change.

On that fateful day, a female student (age 18), on Tinder, had set up a meet and greet, on the Assumption campus, with a young male (age 18) who was in Worcester for his grandmother's funeral. 

The man said he and [his Tinder date] were sitting together for just a couple minutes when a group of people “came out of nowhere” and began calling him a pedophile and accusing him of wanting sex with 17-year-old girls, according to the report filed by Assumption police Sergeant Christopher J. Shea. (Source: Boston Globe)

For starters, the young woman's Tinder profile said that she was 18. For the starter before the starters, the age of consent in Massachusetts is 16. (Note that the Boston Globe article I used as the source for all the quoted info didn't state the man's age; MassLive says he's 18. But whether he's 18 or 48, having consensual sex with an 18 or even a 17 year old is NOT a crime in this state, and the man is NOT a predator.)

The man told police the group surrounded him and held him back, preventing him from leaving. At one point, he said, he was chased by more than two dozen people to his car, where he was punched in the back of the head and had his car door slammed on him as he tried to escape, police said.

While the young man was being chased, the crowd of student faux vigilantes doing the chasing:

...all had their cell phones out in an apparent attempt to record the chase. Additional footage showed the group coming back into the building, laughing and high-fiving each other, the report said.

Fortunately, the man was able to make his escape from campus and call the police. 

So what were these kids up to? 

The students were mimicking a phenomenon that’s become popular on TikTok, police said.

“The goal of the Tinder invite was to simulate the TikTok fad of luring a sexual predator to a location and subsequently physically assaulting him or calling the police,” police said.

One of the stuents charged:

... told police the plot was also inspired by the former reality TV show “To Catch a Predator,” a program hosted by Chris Hansen that showed men arriving at stings expecting sex with minors and instead getting arrested. [He said the mob scene] "was like the Chris Hansen videos where you ‘catch a predator and either call police or kick their ass,’” police said. “[He] reported that catch a predator is a big thing on TikTok currently but that this got out of hand and went bad.”

By "went bad," means that texts went out encouraging fellow students to come on down because there was a predator preying on an underage woman on campus. 

It's as yet not clear that any of the students charged, let alone their fellow mob-sters, has been expelled or suspended, but Assumption (of course) issued a press release stating that the students' behavior was "abhorrent and antithetical to Assumption University's mission and values." The statement also called out the role of social media in stirring up dangerous and irresponsible behavior.

What a bunch of prime knuckleheads. 

Stupid, thoughtless, reckless, silly, dumb, dumb, dumb. And susceptible to stupidly, thoughtlessly, recklessly, etc.-ly jumping into an out-of-control mob.

Whether they do any jail time or just end up with probation and a healthy does of community service, the names of The Assumption Five are all out there. I don't imagine that they'll be allowed to complete their freshman year at Assumption, and may well be expelled. Other colleges, job recruiters, hiring managers will be reading about this "prank" and most/all will be taking a pass. There may well be a civil lawsuit - the parents must be thrilled. And these idiots have pretty much wrecked what they must have imagined when they showed up on the Assumption campus would be a happy college career, only to find themselves in the Internet's educational, social, and professional forever hellscape for miscreants. 

Sure, over time, the news articles end up being a few pages in - especially if The Assumption Five hire reputation managers. But in the Age of AI, it's going to get harder and harder to bury bad deeds. ("Find me everything on Pierre the Greyhoud.")

When I was growing up, Assumption was pretty big basketball school, and their teams got a lot of coverage in the local paper. The cartoon mascot, if I recall correctly, was frequently quoted as saying "sacre bleu" when the ball didn't bounce their way. 

I'm betting that Father Bissonnette isn't just spinning in his grave. I'm betting he's letting out a few "sacre bleus," too.

Way to go, you stupid young Greyhounds!

Sacre bleu, alright. 

Hooked on phonics

a-ay-aw

a as in apple

a (ay) as in lake

a (aw) as in claw

gu-je

g (gu) as in gum

g (je) as in gym

It's been nearly seventy years (gulp) since I was sitting in Sister Marie Leo's first grade classroom, reciting the sounds that letters make, with or without the aid of flashcards.

Sometimes phonics was easy. b was just b, the same sound, whatever letter came after it. Other times it was tricky. Soft g (je) when a long i came after the g, as in giant. Hard g (gu) when a short i came after the g, as in gift. Sometimes, any way. (C.f., the word "imagine.")

We may not have been hooked on phonics, but one thing I'm pretty sure of is that most kids - but likely not all - came out of Sister Marie Leo's first grade classroom - a grim and uninviting little house of horrors - knowing how to read. And, yes, I was one of the four kids in the top of the line Our Lady's reading group, paired up - as if, at age 5-6 I was capable of teaching anything to anybody - with a kiddo who was in the Angel group, trying to help them learn phonics and reading. How could they not get gu-je???

(The middle reading group was named Saint Joseph. As a child, I was always trying to come up with some rationale to characterize everything and everybody. Thus, I concluded, based on our first grade reading groups, that Mary was smarter than Joseph (who was sort of a plodder), and that both Mary and Joseph were smarter than angels, who were just sort of pathetic, wispy know-nothings.)

I hadn't really given a thought to phonics until I saw a recent Boston Globe article about:

...two Massachusetts families are suing famed literacy specialists Lucy Calkins, Irene Fountas, and Gay Su Pinnell, their companies, and their publishers, alleging the former teachers used “deceptive and fraudulent” marketing practices to sell curriculums that ignored the scientific consensus about the importance of phonics to early reading.

The families claim that their children were developmentally and emotionally injured, and that the parents incurred costs for tutoring and private schools "to compensate for the flawed reading curriculums used by their children’s public schools."

Apparently, over one-third of school districts in our state use the curriculums designed by the defendants. Interestingly, these districts include Amherst and Brookline, which are widely regarded as having highly rated schools. Amherst has all those professor kids; Brookline is an affluent Boston suburb chocked full of doctors-lawyers-management consultants. And there don't seem to be that many problems associated with Brookline and Amherst kids learning to read. But maybe the Brookline and Amherst parents are supplementing the non-phonics approach by sitting the kids around the kitchen table and drilling them with phonics flashcards. (In much the way parents of children in schools that don't require kids to memorize rudimentary arithmetic formulae sit their kids down and drill them on the times table.)

Anyway, other than knowing that I learned to read using phonics, and, thus, know it's effective - or at least was for me and my Our Lady's reading group colleagues - I don't have a pony in this race. But it sure looks like the alternative to phonics - something called "picture power:" "cueing directions, which instruct children to, for example, look at a picture for context in helping determine an unknown word" - is pretty flawed. (Just off the top of my head: what happens when the books no longer contain pictures?)

The Massachusetts lawsuit represents a new step in the early literacy advocacy movement and could spur new complaints like it nationwide. It follows several years of heightened debate surrounding the “science of reading,” a broad body of research demonstrating how the brain learns to read and which shows a firm grasp on phonics to be key to early reading success.

The suit alleges that the defendants "knew or should have known" that their approach didn't work all that well. In fact, when the evidence started emerging that "picture power" and the like wasn't very effective, the defendants created updated curriculums that incorporate some phonics. Trouble is, school districts have to pay a lot for the updates. Which a lot of them can't afford to. Recognizing that the defendants' curriculums were substandard, the Mass Department of Education has been providing grant money to school districts to update or replace them with "new materials grounded in reading science." And one can imagine  - soft g je sound - that the fact that the government is shelling out money to rid the schools of the defendants' materials can only help the litigants.

It'll be interesting to see how this one turns out. 

As with so much else in life, there may be no one perfect answer for how to get kids to read. Maybe a few kids learn better with "picture power," while most don't. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have been a "picture power" learner. As I have often said, for me, one word is generally worth a thousand pictures. I learn by reading about something, not by watching a 'how to' video. And the science sure looks like it leans towards phonics.

The question will be whethe the defendants "knowingly and deceptively" foisted their methods on an unsuspecting world. And made a boodle doing it. Nosy Parker that I am, I found the address of one of the defendants and found their $4.6M home on Zillow. So, deepish pockets.

We'll see. 

a-ay-aw
gu-je

What would Joe Friday do?

I haven't watched it in years, but the "reality" show COPS, which follows real-life police officers while they make their rounds, has one major thing to recommend it. "Bad Boys" is its theme song. (Bad boys, bad boys. Whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? Bad boys, bad boys.)

I hadn't thought of that show or song in years, but it sure came to mind when I read about Antioch (California) ex-cop Morteza Amiri who's no longer wondering what he's going to do when they come for him. They've come, and he's now facing serious prison time.

In reading about Amiri, I also found myself asking what Joe Friday would do. Joe Friday was the fictional LA cop, played by Jack Webb, on the TV show Dragnet which ran in the 1950's, and then again in the lates 1960's. Joe Friday was a deadpan, stick-up-the-ass, rightwing, by-the-books police officer who liked nothing more (in the 1960's version of the show) than busting some long-haired, peace and love, pot smoking hippies.

But I do know that Joe Friday never would have done what Morteza Amiri did, and would have gladly busted this bad boy.

Amiri was recently convicted, by a federal jury, of trying to scam his way into a hefty pay raise by fraudulently getting his college degree. 

During the trial, evidence showed that Amiri hired someone to complete entire courses on his behalf at an online university so he could qualify for higher pay.

Here are some of the text messages Amiri sent to his would-be stand-in, according to the press release:“Can i hire you [ ] to do my … classes? ill pay you per class”

“Don’t tell a soul about me hiring you for this. we can’t afford it getting leaked and me losing my job”

“If I submit my request for the degree on time by the end of the month I can coordinate my raise in a timely manner”

“I’m gonna rush order my degree to get my pay raise jump-started” (Source: Daily Muck)

Maybe I'm just spitballin' here, by I'm guessing that the curriculum for a degree in criminology is not the most rigorous one in the history of higher ed. I mean, it's not exactly like getting a degree in neurobiology or physics. I don't know what school Amiri was trying to scam a degree from, nor do I know his course of study - just guessing it was something crime-y -  but I looked on the website of a small local college that's well known for awarding degrees to cops and firefighters, who pursue these degrees - like Morteza Amiri was doing/not doing - to earn more money. Here are a couple of the required courses for Anna Maria's degree in Criminal Justice: 

Policing in America: a survey of the history, development, environment, organization, and sociology of law enforcement in America.

Corrections: an examination of the evolution of prisoner management from Pennsylvania's Walnut Street Jail to the present day correctional system. 

Now, I'm all for police officers pursuing further education. May they all take a bunch of psychology courses, for one thing. And far be it from me - with my undergraduate degree in sociology, and my master's in business - to shame anyone for taking gut courses. But Morteza - I keep wanting to type Morticia - Amiri couldn't even see his way clear to take a bunch of gut courses so he could earn more money?

Amiri wasn't alone. Five other police officers have been "convicted in the conspiracy to commit wire fraud related to cops cheating on university degrees to qualify for higher pay" at the Antioch and Pittsburg (also in California) PDs.  They could end up serving more than 20 years. 

He'll have plenty of time to study while he's behind bars, that's for sure. 

But wait, there's more. 

Amiri had already been suspended for instructing his police dog - his "K9 partner" - to take a bite out of 28 suspects, and he's been indicted for these acts, as well. 

Amiri took photos of the encounters to “keep them as a souvenir,” according to the indictment for that case. That trial date is set for Feb. 18, 2025.

Quite a guy! (Whatever happened to protect and serve?)

Joe Friday wouldn't have done this in a million years. But I would have loved to have heard what Joe Friday had to say about this case. "It was Thursday, October 8th, a warm day in Los Angeles. My partner and I were working the day watch out of Central. We got a line on a rogue cop who was faking his way into a college degree..."

Joe would have called Amiri "College Boy," and would have been delighted to snap the cuffs on him.

On second thought, I'd rather have watched Joe Friday bust Amiri for siccing his police pooch on suspects. And if Morteza Amiri ends up with a good, stiff sentence, I'd just as soon see it be for torturing suspects. 

When Dragnet was on the air (and beyond) the LAPD had quite the reputation for having violent and corrupt cops, but Joe Friday never would have had a dog-bites-man thing going. Never. 

Too bad (not) for Morteza Amiri, but it looks like his bad behavior is now jumping up and biting him in the ass.

Bad boy, bad boy.

Moola moola!

I couldn't get the story. Business Insider has a paywall. But I was able to grab the lede:

College donors are feeling pressure to donate to NIL "collectives" to attract the best athletes. The NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley said he's tired of his alma mater asking for donations. Donors are getting fatigued in part because of a lack of transparency about how the money is spent.

And it was interesting enough that, as we near the professional amateur college football season, to be folowed by the professional amateur college basketball season, I thought it might be a good topic for Pink Slip. A bit of a google bounced me to a NY Times article from last October that talked about these NIL collectives, with their "rich donors and loose rules" that are "transforming college sports."

A few years ago, the Supremes ruled against the NCAA and allowed for "student athletes" to make money from use of their "name, image, and likeness" (NIL). As well they should be. Sure, Rah-Rah U is giving these "student athletes" a free ride, but if Rah-Rah U is selling jerseys with the "student athletes'" names and numbers, why shouldn't the "student athletes" get to pocket a bit of coin? Why shouldn't those "student athletes" be allowed to sell championships rings that they were awarded? Etc.

But there are, of course, unintended consequences to unleashing NIL, and one of these is the emergence of donor collectives with bogus charitable wings that let tax-deductible donations flow in one door, and out the other door and into the pockets of "student athletes."

The rapid rise of big-dollar payments to student-athletes from so-called donor collectives has emerged as one of the biggest issues in college sports, transforming how players are recruited and encouraging a form of free agency for those looking to transfer. And because many of the groups are set up as charities or with charitable arms that make donations tax-deductible, they are drawing scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service.

The shift stems from a decision forced on the N.C.A.A. two years ago to allow payments to student-athletes. The system that has grown out of that change is reshaping college football and other major sports by unexpectedly empowering collectives, little-regulated groups that raise money from alumni and other die-hard fans and channel the proceeds to players, ostensibly for charitable work, social media posts or other small tasks. (Source: NY Times)

I'm all for some of the money flowing into the big money, big time college sports programs flowing to the players, not just the programs. But it's gone well beyond NIL and into the realm of the "student athletes" actually being paid to play, which remains verboten. 

The average starter at a big-time football program now takes in about $103,000 a year, according to Opendorse, a company that processes payments to the players for the collectives. This year, Opendorse said it expects to process over $100 million in payments for athletes, with about 80 percent coming through collectives.

In one example cited in the article, a football player at the University of Iowa (who had been lured from Michigan with the promise of money-making) got "a job delivering meals to seniors and visiting children in hospitals. It pays about $600 an hour."

Talk about moola-moola!

I'll have to check in with my cousin Ellen, who has a granddaughter at Iowa who actually is a student-athlete getting an excellent education while playing for a varsity team, whether the average student job at Iowa pays $600 an hour. And whether doing meals-on-wheels to old geezers or visiting kids in hospitals tends to be a paid gig, rather than a goodness-of-heart (or resume-builder) activity. 

But my question is: why on god's green turf should the "donations" that fund these collectives be tax deductible?

How about this:

• Acknowledge that the major football programs are the minor league for the National Football League. 
• Acknowledge that, to perhaps a lesser extent - many players go pro directly out of high school, and the NBA does have a development (minor) league - the major basketball programs are the minor league for the National Basketball Association. (While we're at it, acknowledge that there are a handful of women's basketball programs that are the minor league for the WNBA.)
• Make a list of the Division 1 college programs that comprise these minor leagues. Call it D-0, or semi-pro, but stop pretending that the athletes playing in these leagues are students. 
• Have the NFL and NBA/WNBA pay for their minor leagues.
• Pay the young folks who play in them. 
• Offer those who want an education an education, either at the time they're playing in the minor leagues, OR if they fail to make it to the professional leagues. Make it so that the kids who don't go pro have something to fall back on other than their unrealized visions of end-zone dances or their unrealized hoop dreams.

How about ending the situations where "student athlete" is an absolute farce, and let the true student athletes be just that. 

Moola moola indeed. 

There's the Freshman 15; and then there's the Freshman $51K

Sometimes you luck out with your college roommate.

I did. 

Joyce and I seemingly had little in common, but we became great friends. During college, we had crappy jobs together - working in the student snack bar at MIT, taking customer complaints at Sears regional headquarters, waitressing one summer at the Union Oyster House. We protested the Vietnam War together, which included taking a long bus ride in an uncomfortable school bus to Washington DC for the October 1969 Moratorium. Senior year, we got an apartment together - and a dog. Over our January break that senior year, Joyce was with me in Worcester when my mother called from Boston to tell me that my father had died. (The night before, Joyce and I had taken my kid sister Trish to see Love Story, of all things. We got to know each other's families very well.)

After college, we had crappy jobs together - waitressing at Durgin Park, working retail at Filene's and Jordan Marsh. Those crappy jobs funded a couple of months driving and camping cross country, and five months hitchhiking, camping, and hosteling throughout Europe. 

We went our separate ways in our mid-twenties, and hadn't seen each other in many years, but we reunited 20+ years ago. 

Here's how we got back together. I was working from home when the phone rang, and a long-lost but still-familar voice said "Do you know who this is?" My response was instantaneous: "It's Joyce, you married Tommy, and you live in Dallas." I know this because, seconds before my phone rang, I had been taking a work-from-home break-let and had been  sitting at my computer, searching with early Google, to see if I could find Joyce. And I had just found her, married to her college boyfriend, and living in Texas. 

Once this telepathic weirdness occurred, we quickly decided to meet up in NYC, and then traded a couple of visits. My husband was still alive, and we all hit it off. After Jim died, Joyce and her husband Tom came to Boston to spend some time with me, and it was just what I needed.

When we got back together, we picked up where we left off and once again became great friends. We have a standing conversation every Sunday morning, text (and occasionally have a convo) throughout the week, and try to get in person visits in there as well. I was in Dallas in late May.

Long way of saying that sometimes you luck out with your college roommate.

I sure did.

NYU's Aurora Agapov, not so much. Her father, Andre Agapov, is a gold-mining magnate. A Russian-American, he's supposedly a pal of Putin, and oligarch-ish/oligarch-adjacent at least.)

As befits the daughter of a gold-mining magnate, Aurora kept a ton of pricey bling and other swank items in her dorm room. These included a ring worth $24K. Chanel and Celine handbags. A Chanel bracelet. A Bulgari necklace. A pair of Christian Louboutin red-soled shoes. 

I have to laugh when I think about the modest possessions that Joyce and I had when we were in college. My most epensive piece of jewelry was a leather, stone and wood necklace I got at Lord & Taylor for $25. Despite the fact that I bought it at L&T, the necklace - which I still have and occasionally wear - had a cool, artisanal vibe.

But Aurora's roomie may have been a bit jelly of her, a bit covetous of her bounty of goodies. 

So Aurora, who's 19 has:

...filed a suit against her roommate Kaitlyn Fung and Fung's mother, accusing the 18-year-old of concocting a scheme to steal Agapov's pricey belongings and sell some of the items on an online luxury resale marketplace.

The suit alleges that Aurora Agapov discovered in May that some of her things had gone missing from their room in Founders' Hall. She also found a receipt written to Fung from the online consignment shop The RealReal that listed the missing items, according to the lawsuit. (Source: NBC News)

Interestingly, my friend Joyce - who has quite a collection of high-end clothing, bags, and footwear acquired during her fashion career (I told you we were seemingly had little in common) when she was the lead designer ready-to-wear buyer at Neiman Marcus - sells some of the items she no long has any use for on the RealReal. 

Back to the Agapov v. Fung episode, Fung has been charged with grand larceny. Her parents are implicated as well. 

Fung is supposedly majoring in political science and criminology. 

Is she going to mount "I was just doing fieldwork for criminology" defense? Will she claim that the items had been gifted to her, or she thought they had been? It's possible they had been...Agapov does say that she and Fung were pretty good friends...

Or did it just become too much for Fung to be living with a material girl, and wanting some of the MG lifestyle for herself? Lots of rich kids at NYU, which is not something that didn't exist at my shool, that's for sure. (Joyce and I did have a well-off friend who had gorgeous clothing and a navy blue Jaguar, at a time and place where no one who lived on campus had a car.)

Anyway, Fung is in a heap of trouble. A good student - good enough to get into NYU, which is highly competitive - she could end up expelled. If she ends up doing time - which, if she has no prior criminal behavior, may not be that likely - she won't be needing that dorm room. 

Whatever happens, Kaitlyn Fung has her work cut out for her as she tries to repair her life. 

I've heard of the Freshman 15. Guess now we have the Freshman $51K.

Ola, Vikram. (The power of Duo Lingo)

My Duolingo streak is now over 200 days. 

How's my Spanish?

Not entirely mal, but not exactly muy bien. 

I can understand almost all the sentences, the little stories when I read them. If I slow down the audio, so it's really dragging, I can understand all most all the sentences, the little stories, when I listen to them.

I know a lot of words. Let's hear it for vocabulary building!

My pronunciation skills are pretty damned good - at least according to the Spanish-speaking staff at St. Francis House, who when complimenting me always have a look of astonishment on their face when they hear my accent. For whatever reason, I'm a reasonably good mimic, and can generally convince someone I know more Spanish than I do. 

But my English to Spanish translation skills are mucho limited. When presented with a sentence in English, I pretty much can return the basic elements en español. I'm mostly okay with soy v. estoy, and conozco v. sé. But I fall down on the nuances. E.g., when to use me. 

Most of this is my own damned fault. My focus is totally lacking. I'm really not concentrating on anything much other than keeping my streak going. On many (most?) days, I do the absolute minimum. Minimal listening lesson. Minimal speaking lesson. Minimal word recognition lesson. Guapo = handsome.  Film = pelicula.  Bravo, me! Streak continues! Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé!

I don't get involved in contests. Other than keeping the streak alive, I don't get into competitive mode so that I can beat complete strangers to get elevated to the Pearl League. Or whatever. 

Often, I scoot through my streak-continuation task in the middle of the night when I get up to pee. Get it over with, back for more Z's. Sometimes I do a bit more during the day, but mostly I'm satisfied with my half-baked approach. 

Despite my half-baked approach, I am using my rudimentary Spanish to communicate with the Spanish-speaking guests when I'm volunteering. So I can ask whether they need a cepillo de dientes. I can tell them that we have no more tickets for a clothing appointment, so they should come back mañana, temprano. 

Which is not to say that Duolingo isn't both brilliiant and fun.

Which was not always the case.

A few years ago, I tried Duolingo to learn German. I'm not sure why. I had no trip planned to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, or Frankenmuth, Michigan. If my mother were still alive, I might have been trying to get in touch with my inner German so I could sprecht with her in her mamaloshen. (Ok, that's Yiddish, but close enough.) But for whatever reason, I started to "learn" me some Germans.

When I was doing the German, it was a drag. I got into the streak thing, but I also got maniacally competitive, trying to outdo those complete strangers to reach to top of the daily/weekly/monthly heap. But German is hard. A lot harder than Spanish. So to keep on top of the heap, after I got through all the easy-peasy lessons, I resorted to cheating, using the Duo app on my phone while furiously looking for answers on my laptop. Which is when I decided that my efforts to learn German were kaput. So I quit.

But I do have a reason to learn Spanish. Many of the guests I work with at St. Francis House are from Latin America or Caribbean. Others are Haitians who - because they live in close proximity to the Spanish-speaking DR and/or have spent a few years living somewhere in Latin America before making their way to the USA - speak some Spanish. (I can do a bit of limping along in high school French for the French-Creole speakers.)

And the new and improved version of Duolingo - new since I was struggling/cheating my way through German - is greatly improved. The lessons are more engaging. It's a lot more fun. They've introduced a group of characters, including Vikram and Priti, the idiotic Junior, the annoying Lily, who present the Spanish sentences, who tell the stories. 

The illustrations are funner, too. 

I may not be learning all that much, but I'm enjoying it. And I'm enjoying keeping my streak going. (There is a bit of competition at hand. I'm in a family group set up by my sister Kath that includes my sister Trish, and nieces Molly and Caroline. Other than Caroline, who's doing Italian, we're all doing Spanish and are all streakers. We also pepper our convos with occasional palabras.)

Duolingo is really, really, really good at getting its users to come back day in, day out. 

The ability to get people hooked and keep them engaged is one of the holy grails in business. Few companies do it better than Duolingo, the world’s most popular app for learning another language, which takes advantage of two concepts that translate to lots of other industries: streaks and notifications.

It’s why Duolingo has become one of the biggest winners in the global battle for your attention. 

...It’s not just because you’re intrinsically motivated. It’s mostly because behind that cartoon owl named Duo is a large team of engineers, researchers, strategists and product managers giving you that extra push.

...The best way to learn a language is getting in the habit of daily practice, and the best way to form that habit is getting a well-timed nudge, which makes streaks and notifications essential to Duolingo’s surprising business success.

Humans are so wired to look for streaks that we see them even where they may not exist. Duolingo takes our propensity for streaks and turns it into a motivational tactic. It turns out people are willing to do all sorts of peculiar stuff if they have the incentive of a streak—like sneaking out of a bar right before midnight to speak a few minutes of Japanese.  (Source: Wall Street Journal)

I'm certainly someone who's gotten sucked into streaking. But I don't seem to get all that many notifications. 

In fact, I don't seem to be getting many of them at all, even though - as far as I can tell - I don't have notifications turned off. 

Maybe it's because I'm usually doing my minimal streak-keeping at 2 a.m. According to the article, most Duolingo-ers  - and there are 30 million of us - don't get around to Duolingo until late in the evening - 10 p.m. or so. 

Anyway, my streak is really nothing compared to my sister Kath's - she's more than double my meager number - let alone when compared to the person who's up to over 4,000 days. 

Notifications or not, I'm going to keep my streak going. And I'm really going to try to do a better job of focusing, of concentrating, of not taking the quick and easy way out. I really want to get more serious about what Duolingo can offer. Maybe I'll actually learn enough to have a simple, multi-sentence conversation with one of the folks at St. Francis House. 

Bravo, Duolingo! I'll never be able to do it without you!