Where it seems I’m making a habit of finding ridiculous stories

Thursdays, for which I have a lot of respect, are the days that really hold the week together. They maintain the decorum of the week. They give you permission to look forward to Friday afternoon. They are sometimes the days when government workers go back to work.

You wonder what those first conversations back in the office would be like after those long breaks from the routine. How much paperwork has accumulated, how much more efficiently things will move under the wheels of power. Or how much of the afternoon will be spent in nonessential chatter.

Nonessential was the best work of the entire foolhardy exercise, wasn’t it? Who in which office was nonessential? Who was judged nonessential and then someone in the national security apparatus decided, “You know, now that we think about it, security might be essential. You should come back to the office.” And of course someone had to apply this to everyone under their charge, which must have made for some miserable lunches and awkward office parties in the future.

I’m still stuck with my initial thought. Everyone somehow went about all of that shutdown business in the wrong way. And, ultimately, just lays the groundwork to be in the same spot again in a few months.

As people slip back into their routines now, I’m not sure that it impacted me directly. Probably much of America share that non-experience. All of it was essential, of course.

Things to read, which I found interesting today …

Here’s your trifecta of headlines: It is unnecessarily long, it asks a rhetorical question and it offers you nothing in SEO. Just what is in the bill Congress passed to end the government shutdown, increase the debt ceiling?

Here’s a list of some of the other items the legislation included:

A $174,000 payment to the widow of former Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J)

$3.1 million for the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The board addresses privacy concerns over laws and regulations related to fighting terrorist threats.

An increase in authorization for spending on construction on the lower Ohio River, something people are calling the “Kentucky Kickback” because of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-Kty.) involvement

Back pay for federal workers furloughed because of the shutdown

Compensation for states that paid for federal programs to continue to run when the government shutdown

More on that Kentucky dam … McConnell-Reid Deal Includes $3 Billion Earmark for Kentucky Project:

Here’s this week’s example of how student media matters. Ohio high school journalists push for records, break a story:In September, two Ohio high school journalists broke the story that an alleged assault at Shaker Heights High School was actually an alleged rape, and they did it with public records.

[…]

The Shakerite reported last year that the school has had three sexual assaults in the last five years. Following the September story, SPLC reports, the school began examining strengthening their security.

Just dumb. Erin Cox, Massachusetts Teen, Punished By School After Trying To Drive Home Intoxicated Friend:

When Massachusetts high school senior Erin Cox went to pick up an intoxicated classmate from a party, she thought she was doing the right thing. However, administrators at North Andover High School are punishing her for the deed, citing the school’s zero tolerance policy on drugs on alcohol.

Cox, an honor student and volleyball star, received a cell phone message from an intoxicated friend asking for a ride home from a party earlier this month, according to the Boston Herald. However, Cox arrived at the party at the same time as the police, who were arresting a slew of students for underage drinking.

While Cox was cleared by police who recognized her sobriety, her school has given her a harsh punishment. The 17-year-old was stripped of her title as captain of the volleyball team, and she was suspended from five games.

She’s apparently a volleyball star, and who knows how this has hampered her collegiate hopes. But some right-thinking people in her community have established a scholarship even as her “educators” have failed. “Educators” have impacted a student for doing something off school property, during off-school hours, not at a school function and socially and civically upright. “Educators” have left a 17-year-old feeling “defeated.”

Quick hits:

Re-birthing radio

Like it or not, this is the future of American journalism

Skull Suggests Single Human Species Emerged From Africa, Not Several

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