They're Back

The other day or night, some piece of hill trash decided it would be a good idea to come over and randomly flip circuit breakers in my fuse box. I guess the no trespassing signs aren't working anymore. I'd ask Mr. 12 Gauge to help with the problem, but I work, and my welfare king neighbors and their horde of feral kids don't. That gives them a decided advantage when it comes to malicious behavior.

I went to the sheriff to report the issue. Stupid me. I had at least hoped for maybe an increased law enforcement presence in my neighborhood, but no. It is not to be. I did get told by the officer at the desk that if I got evidence, I should go to the county attorney, and he could get an arrest warrant for me. I always thought the police were supposed to do that, but I guess in this era of budget cuts, I need to do my own investigations, get my own evidence, and obtain my own warrants. Why do we even have a police force?

The best part came when I tried to fill out a report. They couldn't find any forms, so they had me fill out the information on a post it note. For some reason that does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about the professionalism of the Clinton County Sheriff's Department.

And people wonder why I have almost nothing good to say about Appalachia.

WTF?

The high school has a new principal. The fact that the police found marijuana in her fridge a decade ago is apparently no bar to employment in the educational system of Clinton County, Kentucky. Admittedly, she claimed the drugs were her husband's and she had no knowledge of them. But, honestly, if the police found drugs in your fridge, would you be able to claim that excuse? If she's that clueless, that her husband can hide drugs in her fridge without her knowledge, does she really need to be a high school principal? WTF people.

Why?

Last week the college held convocation. This is where faculty and staff get together to start the new year off on a common footing. This year when I arrived I found a book waiting for me. Apparently, we're supposed to use this book in our courses to help bridge the gap between the various departments. Of course, that's what I got from asking around. No one in charge had actually told anyone anything, which is kind of normal. If the book were by Hawking or even some worthy literature like Dickens, I'd support the idea. This book however, while probably a good and decent book, was a mass market, self help type book. Okay, not quite what I think of when I think of college level, but I guess we're supposed to teach to the lowest common denominator rather than expecting excellence from our students.

The why moment came before lunch, when the program finished 30 minutes early and the guest speaker hadn't arrived yet. Since the college has a distributed campus structure and a service area approximately the size of Connecticut, this is the only time many of us see our colleagues. You'd think this would be a golden opportunity to discuss professional issues. Alas, the powers that be hate not filling all time with something. They think it's inefficient, or they won't be able to fill out the block on their form that says they were performing professional development at that time,  or something like that. So they started to read the book to us. Now I liked people reading to me in the 3rd grade, but now, I find it a might insulting. Granted they'd only read a little bit and then ask us to discuss, but come on people, I wouldn't treat my students like that. If they do, I've found the reason why our enrollment keeps dropping.

The bright spot in all this was that most of the faculty just ignored them and kept discussing matters which were actually important. Still, to think you need to impose so much control in a room of college educators is just mind boggling.