Somebody needs suing here, but I don’t think it’s the ice-cream manufacturer. I’d say that the employee who lost the fingertip was harmed far more than the customer who found it, and refused to return it so it could be reattached. Now it’s too late.

I can’t think of anyone better to do it than Lileks:

“The Next Generation.” The post-Reagan years. The Enterprise was no longer a lone vanguard making its way through realms unknown; now it was like a grand Hilton in space, complete with spa, psychiatric counselor, accommodations for kids, and a French captain who could sometimes be mistaken for a cranky sommelier. Whoopi Goldberg was the ship’s bartender, which, in retrospect, really tells you all you need to know. Patrick Stewart’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard was much-beloved, and for good reason: His stentorian acting style gave the show a dramatic heft it otherwise didn’t always deserve.

The Federation, in this iteration, was like a liberal dream of the U.N.: diplomacy first, multicultural understanding above all, but if need be, a gigantic armada could be summoned to fight off whatever evil leather-clad empire had decided to mess with the goodfolk of Earth. Zeitgeist giveaway: The Klingons became allies, sort of, after the Berlin Wall fell. Grade: B+, not so much for overall quality, but because it relaunched the franchise with a broad-based appeal no subsequent version would match.

RTWT

My GM post, and reminiscences about my childhood, prompt me to ask if there’s anyone out there who can help resurrect some childhood memories, and perhaps preserve them.

My father produced semi-annual concerts for AC Spark Plug, one in the spring, and one in the fall, back in the sixties, performed at the IMA auditorium in downtown Flint (a structure that was demolished several years ago as part of an expansion of the U of M campus, and to attempt to bury memories of the ill-fated and misbegotten Autoworld). They consisted of the AC Men’s and Women’s choirs, with auditions for others to perform in skits and musical numbers, and he’d always have some kind of headliner, like Edie Adams, or Florence Henderson (this was prior to The Brady Bunch), or Peter Palmer (who was at the time fresh off the Broadway lead of Li’l Abner) but of whom a Google search today reveals little else of note in his apparently unspectacular career. I even have fond memories of Anita Bryant, in her pre-gay-bashing days. I specifically have memories as a small child of going with these famous (at the time) celebrities to Luigi’s Pizza over on Davison Road (still the best pizza, anywhere, in my humble opinion), just a couple blocks away from Angelo’s Coney Island, in Flint. Some of their autographed pics remain on the wall there.

Google searches for anything relating to these concerts have proven fruitless. If anyone has any old concert programs, I’d much appreciate scans (or if you don’t have a scanner, copies mailed to me). I’ll probably actually set up a website for them.

By the way, in searching for a Luigi’s website, I found this site that only Flint natives will appreciate. But they’ll appreciate it a lot.

[Update on Sunday morning]

For all of you who can’t get enough of Flint cuisine, here’s a discussion of the relative merits between Flint and Detroit coney islands (including a discussion of Angelos, which has indeed gone downhill since they decided to franchise it).

Sometimes that state just has more weather than it can hold. These are awesome pictures.

For a(nother) white pope. So much for my prognostication.

Two hundred and thirty years ago, the first American revolution started, when British troops attempted to enforce gun-control laws in Massachussetts. This incident was doubtless fresh in the memories of the Founders when they wrote the Second Amendment.

The baby boom echo kids (born between 1982-1995) are almost out of high school on average. It will be another 5 years of reduced enrollments until the baby boom echo echo kids start showing up in the schools. This will have implications for optimal school policy. Underlying this is a richer, better prepared, better nourished, healthier population that is increasingly going to college after high school. The high schools will increasingly adopt the trappings of junior and four-year colleges in order to adapt to the academic and funding environment.

With the schools having a temporarily sufficient capacity, there is a strong incentive for school to heavily recruit students for transfers under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The facilities costs are largely fixed. The money brought in by additional students would be marginal profit for the school system. That money could be used to provide enrichment activities for the existing student body and hold the line on general cuts in services as enrollment subsides.

NCLB encourages high schools to take a step in the direction of becoming like universities by having admissions requirements. College admissions are brutally competitive. High schools develop brands that influence college admissions officers much as the college brands influence employers. A high school needs to have high scores, achievement and diversity from its student body for the school brand to positively influence a college admission decision. It follows that a high school admission requirement be put in place to increase the academic and cultural luster of the high school.

High schools also face a budget squeeze. Money from state and federal sources is often keyed to the number of students. As the number of students fall, budgets come under pressure. Many jurisdictions have property tax caps that prevent further tax increases. School financing has a difficult battle at the ballot box as empty nesters and newlyweds grow in the demographics compared to parents of school age children. Financing pressure leads schools to turn to parents and community to establish and fund foundations and build alumni associations to assist with high school excellence. As contributions go to the foundations and the schools, the money can be used to further improve the brand and upgrade the teaching quality, supplies and equipment.

The curriculum must also evolve to become more relevant to the knowledge age. Vocational tracks should encourage students to become software developers and enter other high wage careers. As computers and the internet have nullified or inverted age stereotypes in many industries, we have already seen high school students driving new SUVs with money they earned from software development. This may be a critical national resource to tap as overseas competition forces older workers even higher up the value chain.

It will no longer be enough to simply offer AP courses. High schools will need to start considering hiring ever more qualified and illustrious professionals to teach their college courses. If many students are taking AP courses, the school must compete with the junior colleges, community colleges and four year universities for staff. With those staff will come research opportunities for students that rival those at highly rated universities. Those will be necessary to match the bios of the Intel Science Talent Search winners. As hundreds of schools aspire to be the next Bronx Science, Bronx Science is aspiring to be the next Caltech and already boasts six Nobel Prize winning alumni. High school researchers from the baby boom echo echo may well be the source of the next shot heard round the world.

It’s the hundred and fortieth anniversary of day that Abraham Lincoln was shot.

Well, actually I hope not, but northern Alabama does seem to be looking down the barrel of what’s going on in Mississipi tonight.

Colorado is actually ticketing people who hog the left lane. More of this, please.