Good stories needed, I mean, really, really needed.

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  Well, today, for about the millionth time in Mrs. Simmons English class, we had to write a story about a time we had to "overcome our fears." Seriously, though phrased differently, we pretty much get this same topic every time - "When I faced my fears", "When I didn't think I could do it, yet did", "A time when I had to use Tae-Kwon-do and defeated 18 ninjas." (okay, we've never had that last one, but it would be so cool if we had.) Anyway, adults seem to think future adults - we are taking their jobs soon, and probably be better at them, so they may be transferring their fear to us-that we live in constant fear on ahourly basis.


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  "Oh my gosh!!! There's a squirrel on the sidewalk. It might rip my throat out!!! No, Thaddeus, just face your fears and step into the grass to skirt this killer tree rodent. Hooray, you faced your fears! "


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  My thinking is that we need to take back our story telling. So that's what I'm doing. We kids should start trading story ideas, fear involved or not, and actually write about something. So if you have any story ideas, post them here. I've got all kinds of great advice and comments that your teachers will never tell you, and other kids with constructive criticism or positive feedback can help also. I'm figuring we know good story telling better than these freaked out adults. C'mon guys, let's take back good story telling!!!


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  The adults may have messed it up, but we can show them that life doesn't have to be all boring, full of lessons that can be stated in a thesis statement, and involving fear. Looking forward to hearing your story ideas (except Billy Cunningham - A story about a kid who has a possessed arm that is "always punching yourself" is not a story)


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  Thaddeus A. Ledbetter, Editor and Chief (self appointed)

Seems pretty cruel to me

Today, Mrs. Kimbrough was mispronouncing "nuclear" as "nucular." When I corrected her, she said "You say to-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe," trying to say people can pronounce things differently. But no one says toe-mah-toe, except maybe beginning speakers of English as a second language or those with speech impediments. So I don't see how mocking those with physical problems as an excuse for your ignorance is helpful at all.

Dumbest Game Ever

Again, I would like to thank you adults for misleading us kids with your dumb games. Having us decide disputes with "Rocks, Papers, Scissors" just messes up how we see the world.

Let's look at the rules

"Paper covers Rock" - Really? I guess the laws of physics don't apply to this game. I know when my mom opens the window, not wanting my rock collection to blow away, I put a nice sheet of loose leaf paper on it. I've misunderstood "paperweights" all this time.

"Rock beats Scissors" - Maybe if you have anger problems. I, for one, have never seen a pair of scissors and thought, "I am so angry at those scissors I'm going to smash them with this rock!" And if your in an alley fight, I'm thinking the guy with the scissors is going to beat the rock guy. After you throw your rock and miss, you're going to be stabbed repeatedly by sharp steel.

Scissors cut Paper" - At least this make sense in the physical world, but is the paper really bad off afterwards? Maybe you cut it into a nice snowflake or happy face. That's not a loss.

Seriously, don't mislead us with your shananigans.

Deranged Mother orders son to spit on all his possessions!

Get this. My mom told me today that I can't leave the apartment until my room is "clean as a whistle." Whistle. Apparently, my mother doesn't understand how a whistle works.
The only people I know who use a whistle are traffic cops and coaches, and Coach Wolverton can't even speak without spittle flying everywhere, so I'm pretty sure his whistle is awash in saliva, which is really gross. So when I point this out to my mother ("filthy as a whistle" is more accurate), she has another one of her freak-outs.
No wonder I'm always in trouble.

What's the deal with graduation speeches?

My neighbor three doors down graduated from high school last week and my mom made me go to the dumb ceremony. Nothing like hearing 500 names of people you don’t know called out while sitting on a metal bleacher bench in a million degree heat. My neighbor’s last name is “Best,” so he was called early, so I really didn’t have anything to look forward to the rest of the way.
But what I really hated was the old guy who gave a speech. I think it was supposed to be inspirational, but it was really just a bunch of nonsense. I took a few notes on the most glaring problems:
-This class is the future? Wow, that’s a lot of pressure. What about last year’s graduating class? I guess they were just a bunch of losers. I guess the junior class can just take it easy since the future is all taken care of.
-These graduates are a gathering of the best and the brightest? No, they all happened to have been born the same year and share geographic proximity. Move the district line over a quarter mile and half the class would be going to the rival they hate so much.
-He expects great things from this class? Statistically speaking, with 500 people here, it is inevitable that at least one will go to prison, several will have drug abuse problems, and the number of had hair cut choices will be numerous . If he calls that “great,” he needs a new dictionary.
-“To thine own self be true”? – What does that mean? And why are you using the pronoun “thine”? How about joining us in the 21st century, gramps?

Standardized Test Improvements

Today at school, we took the state mandated minimum skills test. Yes, we are tested on the minimum we can do. Really setting our sights high, aren’t we? “Let’s see if you can walk three steps without falling down. Hooray, you did it! Congratulations, you can go to the next grade.”
So how do high achieving students like myself, who are rare granted, get rewarded? By being bored out of our heads with dumb tests and poorly worded questions. Being the kind of guy I am, I took the essay writing portion as an opportunity to help the testers with a few suggestions. The following is my response to this year’s expectedly stupid prompt : “Who has had the biggest impact on your life.”

The person who has the biggest impact on my life is my mom. Basically all kids should answer their parents. See, we’re 12, so we can’t get jobs, so if our parents didn’t pay for us, we’d be down at the hobo camp eating cold beans out of a jagged tin can, trying to pretend a rat can be a pet, and getting a nick-name that reflected our poor hygiene, like “Stinky Pits Sam” or “Halitosis Hal.”
Duh. Who comes up with these stupid prompts? Have you all ever met a kid?
Since your questions are so lacking, I’m going to use the rest of my space with some suggestions. Your welcome in advance and feel free to acknowledge my contributions to future test takers.
Issues:

- Why are we still being asked questions about trains leaving and arriving on the math test? First of all, the schedules are always posted. Secondly, this hasn’t been relevant in about 8 decades. Come and join us in the 21st century.
- And what’s with the safety questions on the science test? If someone hasn’t enough sense not to look into a beaker being heated, maybe we should let him have a little peek, you know, for society’s benefit.
- Finally, wouldn’t it be a good idea to have someone familiar with the English language write the directions? Maybe send him down to a basic grammar class at the Adult Continuing Education courses they have at the “Y” on Saturdays. Here is an actual testing manual quote read to us before the test : “Does anyone have any questions about bubbling in their answer document.” Wow, and you are testing us.
o First of all, how could anyone have a question about bubbling? The only prerequisite is having an opposable thumb, which includes most humans and primates (see drawing)

o Secondly, “anyone” is singular so needs a singular antecedent, “his or her answer document. Geesh, this is pretty basic stuff, state mandated minimum skills test writer.
Yet when I point these problems out during the test, I’m the one who gets the “isolated testing” accommodation. I’d like to see in the manual where that is described. I think Mr. Cooper just made it up. You might want to investigate him.
Thus concludes the most helpful standardized essay ever.
Thaddeus A. Ledbetter esq. (soon to be)
(all rights reserved)

April Unpractical Liars Day

Well, I think April 1st is another holiday terribly misnamed. Actually, I guess it's not a holiday, more of a day where it's socially acceptable to lie and mislead.

Yesterday in my math class, Mrs. Dixon (who had some doughnut glaze on her chin, which really isn't part of the story, but, geesh, it happens so often it's becoming her signature look) came in and announced that we were having a major test on calculus, and if we didn't pass, we couldn't go on next week's field trip.

Of course, I pointed out that we had not been given worksheets for calculus yet (Mrs. Dixon thinks teaching is handing out worksheets) so the poor test results would reflect her bad teaching, oh, and that she had doughnut on her chin.

After rudely ignoring me, Mrs. Dixon shouts "April Fool's Day! There's no test. I fooled you all with a practical joke!" and started doing that creepy squeal laugh she does.

What? How is lying a joke? It's just bad information. How is that funny? Where's the punchline or witty observation? Aren't joke supposed to make people laugh, not worry unneccessarily?

And how is it practical? Doesn't "practical "mean "useful or capable of being done"? A big fat lie isn't useful. A good practical joke would be cleaning my room while telling amusing anecdotes. That would be useful and funny.

Another example where I have to clean up the mess you adults have made.

After spending the weekend re-reading my comic book collection (sadly, I was grounded again in another miscarriage of justice) I have decided that Robin, of the Batman and Robin crime fighting team, is the least impressive superhero of all time. I don’t think either “super” or “hero” applies to this guy.
I can’t even figure what his crime fighting skill is? Batman doesn’t let him touch any of the cool weapons, he doesn’t have any super strength or the ability to fly, and I think his only marketable skill is that he was an acrobat. I guess if the bad guys were trying to escape by swinging from rope to rope, he’d be great, but how often does that happen? And I’m not sure when then the ability to tumble would ever be helpful trying to stop an evil genius.
“Phew, the Joker was about to blow up Gotham City, but was distracted by Robin’s impressive body control during a triple somersault. Hooray tumbling!”
And what’s the deal with his secret identity? Robin? Is he supposed to be like the bird? What could he possibly emulate a Robin doing that would be helpful? Get up early and get the worm? Why would anyone want a worm?
Not to mention his whole disguise is just a 1920’s burglar mask and a cape. Now that I’m on the subject, why does anyone have a cape? Robin, Superman, Dracula, all have capes for no apparent reason? The cape could be the most useless article of clothing ever.
So Robin is a talentless, cape wearing, bird named kid. Maybe he was one of those “make-a-wish” kids who wanted to be a superhero and Batman had to do some community service. Otherwise, at my school, this “superhero” would be beat up by Billy Cunningham.

Happy Labor Day?

Today we get celebrate working by not working. I'm not sure this is the most efficient of holidays. We're celebrating those who labor? Wow, being gainfully employed now gets you a holiday? Kind of setting our sights low these days. Maybe we can have Breathing Day, or Being Able to Grow Hair Day. Billy Cunningham would be the patron saint of the hair day.

Thaddeus Fun Etymological Fact of the Day

"Spelling Bee" - This is no where near as cool as I had hoped"spelling" can be traced all the way back to PIE (Pro-Indo-European, not delicious dessert) "spel" meaning "to say aloud, to recite." "Bee" - from PIE "bhi" for "quiver," the way they look when buzzing around, I guess. In American English, "bee" came to represent folks coming together for mutual benefit, like in a hive. Snore
See, I had hoped that in the old days, in these spelling competitions, if you got the word incorrect, that we set a swarm of stinging insects on you. You know folks would study harder. I'll have to bring this up with my principal, Mr. Cooper.

How publishing should work Part 1

How publishing should work Part 2

How publishing should work Part3

How publishing should work Part4

Congratulations!

You have found a very informative, helpful, and socially responsible blog. Reading it often may even get you college credit hours (not a legal claim - check with your local college. Definitely community college credit)

My name is Thaddeus A. Ledbetter esq. (soon to be) and besides being a member of seven groups and organizations, president and founder of 13 more, amatuer etymologist, rising star in the intellectual community, and efficiency expert, I will soon be publishing my defense against some of the most egregious injustices in recent memory. I definitely can't remember any worse.

Here I was, making my school and community a better, more efficienct place, and what thanks do I get? Stuck in In School Suspension FOR THE ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR! (please note the all-caps, bold, and intalics for emphasis). I know, it's almost unbelievable, but it did happen.

Luckily, I'm an exceptionally good record keeper, so not only am I publishing my defense, but accompanying documents that add perspective from administrators, my mom, my Uncle Pete (he's a lawyer), a lot of the kids, and what not. Sadly, not all of their perspective is accurate, but what can you do?

This blog will take you through the publication process, as well as educate you on all kinds of things and maybe even give you some pointers on how to be more efficient. I like to help people. That's who I am.

Thus far in the process, I believe I have discovered quite possibly the most inefficient profession outside of teaching and school administration - publishing. Either that, or they use different measurements for time than the rest of us.

For example, the good folks at Abrams have made the wise decision to publish my defense after being contacted by this guy name Dan, my agent (not the cool James Bond kind of agent more of the "I'm on my Blackberry at all times talking to "important people" kind). Anyway, they indicated they had the good sense of wanting to publish it and they'd get me a contract "pretty soon." You know how in the real world "pretty soon" means like after lunch, or maybe if there's a long weekend coming up, in three days. In the publishing world, "pretty soon" means a couple of months.

I could SO make this process more efficient with a diagram or two.

But after all the lawyers "reviewed' the contracts several times (my uncle Peter says a lawyers main job is to take something simple, add "the above mentioned parties," "henceforth," and "pursuant" and then charging billable hours for no apparent reason), I think we're ready to go. I'll let you know.

If you have any questions, comments, or nacho recipes, please feel free to post them. They will be edited for proper word usage and threats (I'm talking to you Billy Cunningham, so don't even try it)


PS - Thaddeus Fun Eytomological Fact - The word "blog" comes from the portmanteau construction of "web" and "log." "Web" refers to the early idea of a "spiderweb" of computers making up the internet. This is all good and well, but this is what happens when you let computer nerds manipulate the language. Instead of the word representing the communication of ideas in an electronic community, it sounds like something you get with a sinus infection. i.e. "I think you have a blog hanging from your nostril."