questions of the day

1) how strict/stupid can people really get? about this much.

2) from the above-linked article:

"Under the policy, students are required to wear collared or polo shirts that must be tucked in. The shirts must be in a solid color of white, gray, green, pink or khaki. The shirts must be 3 inches below the waist, which is school board policy." (emphasis mine).

so... how exactly are you supposed to tell whether or not a shirt is 3 inches below the waist if it's tucked in? do they make students untuck their shirts to prove the length, then tuck it back in? do they have a series of stretches that would cause any shirt that did not meet the required length to come untucked? or am i just missing something here?

h/t dave barry

weeha

with a little help from william d. mounce, i am attempting to teach myself greek. biblical greek, specifically; it doesn't really differ from "regular" greek, but is completely focused on the new testament. so it won't make me fluent by any means, but it should give me a pretty decent grasp of the language, which will hopefully free up some time in grad school (which is still "somewhere, some time") for all the other reading i'll have to do.

i'm just starting on it now, working on the alphabet and pronunciation. most of it isn't too bad, but some of the letters don't sound anything like their transliteration looks. wish me luck.

amen, brother

i never thought i'd see this day, but i find myself agreeing with steve jobs over michael dell. dell seems to believe that unions are for the protection of employees from their employers (which seems an odd stance, given his position as company CEO). jobs, on the other hand, realizes that unions--at least in the case of teacher's unions (not sure what he thinks about the rest of them, though i'd assume it would be similar)--are bad for education.

and the economy seems to agree, at least according to this LA Times article. somehow, even though union membership has shrunk drastically, workers are better off than they were before. this doesn't mean lower union membership leads to the workers being better off, but it does mean that we can get by just fine without them.

h/t say anything for both stories