Free-for-All Friday

Math + Growing Up + Loonies + Canada + Screen Time

MATH

You hated math as a kid, but you see now why you needed to learn it. These days, cashiers can’t calculate the right change without the register, people can’t figure out how many miles they can get on a full tank of gas, nobody knows how to calculate the tip, and nobody can calculate the cost of carpeting a room per square foot. In school you felt relieved that you weren’t the dumbest kid in class. Now it feels like you’re constantly encountering the dumbest kid in class everywhere you go. --Jim Geraghty, National Review Online 10/23

GROWING UP

You just want your kids to be happy and grow up prepared for the real world. You know that if you’re not ready, the real world will beat the stuffing out of you. --ditto

THE LOONY BIN

Yet, as the 2020 Democratic field vies for who can be the looniest of the loony bin, the professional, snobby, and over-educated elite that infest the party is starting to show. It’s quite simple. For liberals, if you’re not college-educated, you’re trash who shouldn’t be acknowledged or listened to because what could you possibly know, right? --Matt Vespa, Townhall 10/23

ANONYMOUS SOURCES

How many dozens, maybe hundreds, of television and print reports have been based on "anonymous sources"? How many times have we read about the reporter's conversation with "multiple" or "six" or "more than a dozen" or some such number of sources? Why can't a single one come forward? Why must we find out, after digging and digging, that their most recent whistleblower has vanished from the scene?--Brent Bozell, ditto

THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE . . . CANADA

Air Canada announced last week that it will no longer use the phrase "ladies and gentlemen" on board its flights. The policy is part of a "commitment to respect sexual identity, diversity, and inclusion," the company said in an internal memo. Instead of the gender-specific "ladies and gentlemen" (and "mesdames et messieurs" -- all announcements on Air Canada are in English and French), flight attendants are to address passengers as "everybody" and "tout le monde." LGBTQ groups are delighted. Most other people are not. --Dennis Prager, ditto

SCREEN TIME, CAFFEINE TIME

"WIRED GENERATION:  Screen time linked to greater caffeine, sugar consumption." --Drudge Report 10/24