Homework? Bah! + Continuing Egg Coverage + Butter Cows vs Kool-Aid

G.O.M.E.R. * off hiatus.

* Grumpy Old Men & Their Elucidating Rants

• New homework policy. Norfolk Daily News (8/22): Students in kindergarten through 4th graders won't be receiving homework at N-- P----- S----s * this year. The district has recently reviewed the research on homework for elementary-aged students & has set this new expectation for homework during the '17-18 school year. This is based on research that shows that homework for students in these grades does not have a positive effect on student achievement, school officials said." * 

* I hesitate to publish the entire name of this school district for fear that the next step may be to ban any & all school work, in class or out.  COMMENT:  Another comment in this article referenced the need for busy families, including their children, to free up time for more family time, like eating meals together. This will give kids time to watch TV, play w/electronic devices, and/or message friends--much more educational, much more likely to learn & reinforce healthy lifestyle habits.

• "Seniors snap up $10 lifetime parks passes. After SUN the permits will cost $80 . . . " OWH (8/24). COMMENT: I got my lifetime pass at Scottsbluff National Monument a couple of summers ago. It paid off, since it got us into Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Little Bighorn Battle Site, & Ft. Laramie Historical Site. This freed up extra cash, allowing Lois & me to buy our grand-children "My grandma & papa visited Yellowstone & got chased by murderous bears, & all I got was this lousy t-shirt."
• "Powerball . . . The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292 million, the NE Lottery said. But local ticket buys said it's worth taking a shot, especially when the payoff is this hefty . . . " OWH: (8/24). COMMENT:  I can't remember the payoff--I threw the rest of the story away--but these odds are better than the CA legislature enacting tax cuts or relaxing regulations prohibiting timber harvesting on vacant lots.
• "Ex-Dutch government minister to lead probe into tainted eggs." OWH (8/24). COMMENT: In my 8/23 blog, I referenced a story about a town in Belgium creating an omelette, using 10,000 eggs, despite the threat of tainted eggs. 

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DEPT. OF HEADLINES WE'D LIKE TO SEE

"Netherlands government left with egg on it's face. Egged on by other EU countries to open probe." *
* Do I detect some groaning? I for one am grateful that the Dutch government isn't laying around. Plus, it will be a feather in the cap for the head of this probe, should it be successful.

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There is no place like . . .

IOWA (Maybe MINNESOTA)??

• "More than 1 million people typically visit the Iowa State Fair each year; every one of them is clustered around the Butter Cow's climate-controlled glass enclosure. Here are some details about the creamy sculpture that has been an essential part of the fair since 1911. COMMENT:  I will say that it deters Iowanian fairgoers w/high blood pressure from binging on bacon-flavored corn-on-the-cob.
• "Is it really made of butter? It's not solid butter. The core of the cow is composed of a wood, wire & steel mesh frame, & that structure is then layered w/about 600 lbs of IA butter. COMMENT:  Wait . . . what? I just took the IA State Fair off my bucket list.
• "That seems like a lot of butter to waste. The state fair estimates it's enough butter for `9,00 slices of toast, but even fairgoers w/grumbling stomachs probably wouldn't want to dig into the sculpture. Most of the butter is reused from year to year, & some of it is up to a decade old. [SEE previous comment.]
• Do other states have butter cows? Yes, They're particularly popular in the Midwest, w/sculptures in IL, MN, MO, & WI. The MN State Fair's sculptures are especially beloved as each year a dairy association's Princess Kay of the Milky Way & her court have the likenesses carved into 90-lb butter blocks."  COMMENT:  And the MN State Fair replaces Iowa's on my bucket list.
• Norfolk Daily News (8/21). COMMENT:  Too bad . . . This is the closest the majority of chiildren from major cities in IA  will get to a real cow. 

NEW YORK??

• "Whale watching? Try New York. On a gray summer afternoon a double-decker ferry cruised around NY's Rockaway Peninsula as rain drove in sheets. Undaunted, the passengers . . . looked out windows, hoping to glimpse their quarry. A voice came over a weak microphone. 'You're going to help all of us find whales,' Catherine Granton said.' said . . . Yes, whales in New York. Granton is an educator for the nonprofit Gotham Whale, which has been tracking humpbacks off the coast of NYC since 2011, after fishermen began reporting sightings. To date, the organization has cataloged 60 individual humpback whales in the area." Omaha World Herald (8/24). COMMENT:  I'm sure this whale watching cruise is way more economical than taking a whale watching cruise in Hawaii. On the other hand, when we took our kids on two whale watching cruises off Oahu, when we returned to dry land, we returned to . . . Hawaii. When the people on these cruises returned to dry land, they returned to . . . NYC! 
• Also, I need to offer a mea culpa. I neglected to write down the references before throwing this clipping away.

NEBRASKA!!!!!!!

• "Hastings festival devoted to Kool-Aid (NDN 8/23):  Sometimes in the tumult & the strife of 2017, it seems highly advisable to close Twitter, shove your iPhone deep into your pocket, take a deep breath & allow a smiling volunteer to pour you an ice-cold mug of Kool Aid. That is what I did on a recent Saturday, at the only known lace in the world where you could choose between 20 difference flavors of Kool-Aid & then settle in to watch a pair of uber-committed pre-teens readying to do battle in a Kool-Aid chugging contest . . . " NDN( 8/23). COMMENT:  Hmmm . . . This seems like a cultural step above a 10,000 egg omelette & at LEAST the equivalent of a butter cow.

Today's celebrity watch *

"Clooney donation. George & Amal Clooney are donating $1 million to fight hate groups. The couple announced TUE that their Clooney Foundation for Justice is supporting the Southern Poverty Law Center w/a $1 million grant to combat hate groups in the U.S. George Clooney said in a statement TUE that they wanted to add their voices & financial assistance to the fight for equality." NDN (8/23). COMMENT:  I can neither confirm nor deny these rumors. (1) The DNC was on the list of hate groups originally targeted by the Clooney's. Then GC remembered that he's a Hollywood celebrity. (2) "Before donating $1 million to this worthy cause, I wish I would have known about the Dutch Tainted Egg Probe. I missed the opportunity to split my donation in 1/2 in order to support tainted egg probes.
* You won't find this kind of objective commentary in sources like Time Magazine.