Mad Dogs and Englishmen

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fandomsandfeminism:

Fun fact: anytime you hear a story that boils down to “and then some ABSOLUTE FOOL sued this totally innocent megacorporation for assloads of money AND WON! Can you believe it? Ridiculous. Some people, right?” 99 times out of 100, the corporation super fucked up, the plaintiff 100% deserved that money,.and you’ve just been fed corporate propaganda.

I had a whole bunch of these stupid stories in one of my english language textbooks. I immediately got online and printed out fact checks off all the accounts in the book. 

When teaching the lesson, I had the students read the textbook and said ‘now, which of these stories do you think is rubbish?’ and had them discuss and explain which ones weren’t true. Then I handed out the fact-check printouts and they went ‘oh, they were all rubbish.’

My favorite was the guy who the book claimed sued because he put a ladder in a pile of manure and slipped, but was actually suing because the ladder broke under his 200lbs of weight, when it was claiming to support 1000lbs.

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theonewiththevampires:

skull-bearer:

“I don’t think Cicero was a very influential figure in football.”

More amusing than me having to explain that Jim Powell is the translator of the poem and not actually the name of an Ancient Greek.

Okay, I do want to clarify, this was not a classics class and while the quote is funny out of context, it made sense at that moment.

It was in an English as a Second Language class, and I’d set them to write a short article about the history of a sport. I had a list of points they had to address, and one was to talk about an influential figure in the sport. 

These kids (all about 10-12) were digging through wikipedia on the history of football, and noted down a story about Cicero seeing a guy get fucking decapitated because a football came through the window of a barber’s shop at exactly the wrong moment. I decided to point out that this did not make Cicero an influential figure in football, although it did address point number 5 ‘find an unusual or funny story about the sport’.

I think they ended up talking about some Victorian who first made rubber footballs for their influential figure, I deemed that acceptable.

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loloftheday:

Motivational Memo

I need to implement this in classes.

Although maybe less swords and more gluing the homework together to make a giant paper aeroplane which will be launched from the school roof.

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Playing the stand up- sit down game with my class of giggling five year olds. 

One little boy Could Not Give a Fuck and stayed bent double, touching his toes so he could technically be standing up and sitting down at the same time. 

However, the boy beside him (his friend) gave even less of a fuck and slapped him on the bottom, causing boy number one to lose his balance and fall down hard on his butt to my exact chorus of of ‘-and sit down!’

I ended up in the difficult position of telling off boy number two for hitting, while at the same time laughing myself silly. Thankfully, boy number one was laughing too, but I think my kids now think hitting is okay as long as you get the comedic timing right.

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Apparently, back in 1946 when bolshing around Europe, Ho Chi Minh (Vietnamese Lenin) met Ben-Gurion (Israeli George Washington) and asked if he wanted to set up a Jewish state in Vietnam. Ben-Gurion said no thank you, he was still holding out for Palestine.

But imagine….

What if he’d said yes?

Fuck Nazis and Confederates, there’s an alternate history I’d like to see. 

It even makes a kinda bit of sense. If Ben-Gurion had thought there was no chance of outsing British in Palestine, maybe taking on the French (who’d had the stuffing kicked out of them in WW2) might have been more realistic. Maybe the Jews of Europe (most of whom were still sitting in what had been old concentration camps, waiting for something to happen) might have decided going to a country; where the local population thought antisemitism was a kind of nasty cold, sounded rather tempting.

But then what?

Would there have been like, some wild Viet-Jew united army against the French? Would the Jewish population have been okay with Vietnam being redder than the planet Mars? What the hell would China have thought? Would America have invaded? Would antisemitism be more common in the west, due to its association with communism?

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Dear people of Vietnam,

Firstly, thank you for offering me the chance to work in your beautiful country. I have visited in the past and been impressed by your lovely countryside, friendly people, and peerless food culture. I am very much looking forward to working in historic Hanoi and hope not to offend with me rudimentary tieng Viet.

I also want to apologise in advance.

You see, unknown to you, offering me this position in your country means that you have opened yourself top a visit from Unit X- otherwise known as my father. Unit X has not had reason to visit Vietnam before, although he has always wanted to, however, with my present there he will redouble his efforts and I am sad to say he will probably succeed in arriving at some point next spring.

Despite it being nearly 12 months in advance, I feel such an interval is necessary to prepare you, the people of Vietnam, for what you are about to face.

Unit X does not know Vietnamese, he does not know much about the geography and landscape, he does not even appreciate your food culture.

He has, however, watched every Vietnam War movie currently in existence.

I am aware you do not know me, or Unit X. However, you will probably come to know him in his visit. His first words every morning will be ‘Good Morning Vietnam’ he will converse entirely in cliches about war being hell, napalm in the morning, and will constantly question your ability to surf.

I am deeply, deeply sorry for what you will be subjected to.

Please don’t declare war on France again.

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I am having so much fun with my 3-5 year olds it isn’t even funny.

So we were given the biggest load of patriarchal crap for our topic this month. Fairy tales is all well and good but when the pictures are just straight up ‘princess screams and needs to be rescued, knight fights dragon’, you know it isn’t going to wash with the Frozen generation.

(Thank you Disney for Queen Elsa. Thank you so much.)

So I’ve been giving my kids a choice. They can fight the dragon (Great Wyrm Red, aka me) as a knight with a sword (lv 20 paladin with sword of dragon slaying) or as a princess (wizard level 20 with ice meteor swarm). 

I’m getting a very satisfyingly gender mixed group choosing to be princesses so they can blast me with loud whooshing sounds. The dragon is doing a lot of screaming to help drill that vocabulary word.