Bob Sullivan's top ten everythingeducation

Top ten signs you’ve chosen a bad college

10. Its Latin motto is actually written in Pig Latin

9. They ask you to pay your entire tuition “in cash, up front, in small bills”

8. In the Jeopardy College Championship, your college had its ass handed to it by Hamburger U

7. Your grade is based on how much you tip your professor

6. There’s only one ‘L’ in ‘COLEGE’

5. When you asked if the school was well endowed, the school president pulled down his zipper

4. The photo on the cover of the college catalogue is of Donald Trump

3. All the books in the library are written by L. Ron Hubbard

2. The only place it advertises is Craigslist

1. The valedictorian is a monkey that knows sign language
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

bad sports, good sports

BSGS News Brief: Tom Brady beats the NFL

Just as I expected, a judge from New York, Richard Berman, tossed out the NFL’s suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady that was handed out in the wake of the so-called “Deflate-gate” scandal. Details are not fully available yet, but the entire suspension was removed and Brady will be eligible to play in next week’s season opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I have been totally perplexed at the NFL’s insistence on fighting this thing all the way to this point, as they clearly had no real case and were very likely to end up with a really bad look. I guess the league felt that a compromise would somehow look even worse (it wouldn’t have), and since Brady flatly refused any deal that involved an admission of guilt, the NFL felt like it needed to follow through with the judge. Bad choice. Now the league has been thoroughly embarrassed, and all for something that was so ridiculous and trivial in the first place. Millions of dollars (for the Wells Report plus legal fees) later, all that was accomplished was a foolish look and the loss of some serious clout.

More to come.

 

Bob Sullivan's top ten everythingeducation

Top ten least useful college majors

10. Amish Microwave Cooking

9. Synchronized Twerking

8. Creative Reading

7. Ethics in Politics

6. Fart History

5. Ogling

4. The Macarena

3. Telegraph Repairman

2. Yodeling

1. The Wit & Wisdom of Jeb Bush
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

educationvirtual children by Scott Warnock

Trigger warnings: Bang! Bang! Your mind is dead

Have you heard about “trigger warnings”? Trigger warnings, as defined in this great September Atlantic piece, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” are “alerts that professors are expected to issue if something in a course might cause a strong emotional response.” [Read more →]

environment & naturereligion & philosophy

PCUSA … and PRO-Fossil Fuel … Part 1

Consider how Christians might respond to a call for a blanket divestment from Christianity, inspired by a variety of things that have taken place in the past, or are taking place right now … things that had (or have) nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus Christ and the kingdom He proclaimed, yet were done (or are being done) in His name, and in pursuit of a very worldly and wrongful pursuit of His kingdom.

How might Christians respond to such a call?

[Read more →]

Bob Sullivan's top ten everythingenvironment & nature

Top ten signs your summer camp counselor is crazy

10. He’s always walking around the camp, wearing his tent as a poncho, and nothing else

9. During Arts & Crafts, he asks everyone to knit a sweater out of pasta

8. His Indian name is ‘Dances with Kumquats’

7. He shows you how to make a fire just using sticks, dry leaves, and a blowtorch

6. Instead of a sunscreen with a high SPF, he keeps slathering on mayonnaise

5. He claims that his favorite camp counselor is Jason Voorhees

4. Around the campfire, instead of Kumbaya, he has you singing Charlene’s I’ve Never Been To Me

3. When you’re acting up around the pool, instead of a whistle, he blows his slide trombone

2. Every five minutes, he has everyone check everyone else for ticks

1. He plans to vote for Trump
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

art & entertainmentBob Sullivan's top ten everything

Top ten reasons Kermit and Miss Piggy split up

10. It suddenly occurred to them, he’s a friggin’ frog and she’s a friggin’ pig!!!!

9. The Muppets contract has a ‘no fraternization’ clause

8. Miss Piggy’s parents caught their daughter with a frog in her throat

7. It was only puppet love

6. Miss Piggy just felt that Kermit was too much of a “male chauvinist frog”

5. Kermit wanted to keep their lovemaking a secret, but every time they make love, she squeals

4. Miss Piggy said Kermit had to “put a ring on it,” and he said he couldn’t afford a ring that big

3. Kermit recently converted to Judaism, so has to keep kosher

2. Miss Piggy has a fear of kermitment

1. Kermit came across a copy of Miss Piggy’s X-ray, and was totally freaked out by the fact that it looked exactly like Frank Oz’s forearm and hand!!
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

bad sports, good sports

BSGS News Brief: Geno Smith gets his jaw broken by a punch

I’m a few days late on this, but the story really never gets old. After all, how often does an NFL starting quarterback get his jaw broken by a punch delivered by a player on his own team? That’s exactly what happened to Geno Smith of the New York Jets last week. [Read more →]

virtual children by Scott Warnock

Getting you through the long days

There are rough days when you’re raising kids, starting when they’re wee with worries about what will be and extending through months (or, in our case, years) of sleeplessness and intensifying when you have teenager aliens skulking about. People with kids in their 40s and even 50s confirm to me that you never do stop worrying. [Read more →]

Bob Sullivan's top ten everythingpolitics & government

Top ten things overheard at last Thursday’s GOP debate

10. “Boy, with Megyn Kelly starin’ at those ten dudes, it looks like the worst episode of The Bachelorette ever!”

9. “Have you seen that ad where Ted Cruz wraps bacon around the barrel of an assault rifle and fires off some shots so it’s sizzling? We can’t elect him; obviously he’s into pork-barrel politics.”

8. “So whose hair do you think is weirder, Trump’s or Rand Paul’s?”

7. “I don’t think life begins with conception. I think it begins when the guy says, ‘Do you come here often?’”

6. “Sure, I’d tap that Megyn Kelly. At least she’s not a fat pig like Rosie O’Donnell.”

5. “I think we should elect Ben Carson. I mean, once you go black…”

4. “I hear Trump’s called Immigration and is trying to get Marco Rubio deported.”

3. “Scott Walker promised, if he’s elected President, he’s going to change the preamble to The Constitution from ‘We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union…’ to ‘We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect country…’”

2. “Fox News tries to live up to its motto: ‘Fair and Balanced.’ To keep the debate fair, they’re not asking any questions involving math, and to keep it balanced, they’re putting Chris Christie on one side and the other nine on the other side.”

1. “Yeah I’d be willing to put Sarah Palin in my cabinet. At least she’s not a lipstick-wearing pig like Rosie O’Donnell.”
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

bad sports, good sports

BSGS News Brief – Oh, Vanderbilt. Really?

Many athletes have gotten themselves in trouble by using social media without thinking things through before posting. I have highlighted many of them here in this space. Today, we found out that this kind of gaffe is not limited to just players. Vanderbilt University tweeted out a doozy this morning.

Two years ago, four Vanderbilt football players were indicted on rape charges after an incident that happened in a dormitory that summer. Two of the players were found guilty back in February of this year, while the charges against the other two players are still pending. Despite all that ugliness, the team’s official Twitter account put out a new ad campaign today. The tweet looked like this:

Wow. Someone got paid to come up with that. The program then sent it out to the world. Even if it wasn’t so clearly a huge mistake, it also doesn’t even make sense. My guess is someone will be out looking for a job tomorrow.

Oof.

 

 

 

ends & odd

… but NOT Robotly Love, I guess …

Not as much as I would like, but I try to get back to Philly when I can. Me? I’ve never had any trouble during my visits … but then, I’m not a robot …

Famous hitchhiking robot gets ripped apart in Philadelphia
By Marissa Kabas
The Daily Dot

A hitchhiking robot named hitchBOT set off on a cross-country journey two weeks ago, starting in Boston. It successfully made it through the rough-and-tumble streets of Beantown, Gloucester, Marblehead, and New York City, only to get completely torn apart in Philadelphia. Et tu, City of Brotherly Love?

The rest of the story …

Hmmmm … maybe they should send in Gort next time.

 

Bob Sullivan's top ten everythingends & odd

Top ten answers to the question “How hot is it?”

10. “It’s so hot, Paris Hilton is sleeping with both Ben and Jerry.”

9. “It’s so hot, Dick Cheney was caught waterboarding himself.”

8. “It’s so hot, the supermarket aisle where the unpopped popcorn is kept is blocked by an avalanche of popped popcorn.”

7. “It’s so hot, a Republican actually broke down and admitted Global Warming is real.”

6. “It’s so hot, you recently agreed to become Mrs. Softee.”

5. “It’s so hot, in Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon, joints are lighting themselves.”

4. “It’s so hot, Vladimir Putin has been stockpiling Slurpees.”

3. “It’s so hot, Chris Christie is drawing huge crowds, just for the shade.”

2. “It’s so hot, Pee-wee Herman is wearing his bowtie, and nothing else.”

1. “It’s so hot, I ran into a burning building, just to cool off.”
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

educationvirtual children by Scott Warnock

The college admissions essay I’d write if I could

Part 11 (of 874) in an occasional series about how standardized tests are destroying education.

If I were a college student now, I know exactly what I’d write to the admissions committee: [Read more →]

bad sports, good sports

BSGS News Brief – Sheldon Richardson hits the Bad Sports wire in a big way

These athletes just make it all so easy sometimes. Digging for stories is fun, but it’s simpler to just let one of these overpaid, spoiled children write the story for you. Sheldon Richardson, star defensive end for the New York Jets, has done just that this week.

A few weeks ago, Richardson was suspended for the first four games of the upcoming NFL season for violating the league’s substance abuse policy. Marijuana was reportedly the substance in question. The 24-year-old said all the right things in the wake of his suspension, although it was clearly just lip-service, as it turns out. Less than two weeks later, he was arrested in St. Louis for an incident that just got worse the more you read about it. Police clocked him driving his Bentley at a ridiculous 143 miles per hour. When they began to pursue him, he left the highway, went through a red light, and reportedly tried to pull into someone’s driveway to hide. If that weren’t bad enough, check out this trifecta of brilliance: he had a loaded semi-automatic handgun in the car, there was a strong smell of marijuana detected by the arresting officers, and there was a 12-year-old kid in the car with him. Wow!

This guy is one of the best young players in football. His prodigious skill looks very likely to be missing from the playing field for a lot longer than the four games he was already going to miss, and justifiably so. If he were a scrub, he would have already been cut. I am interested to see what the Jets do with him.

 

 

 

photography

Day’s first light …

… breaks over the horizon and shines on the Midland College campus, in western Texas, just as I am arriving for work.

firstlight

“For the mind disturbed, the still beauty of dawn is nature’s finest balm.”

Edwin Way Teale

 

animalsBob Sullivan's top ten everything

Top ten excuses of Larry Henry, who faces a preliminary hearing on August 4 after being caught on a neighbor’s farm, in the nude, drinking beer among the neighbor’s pigs

10. “If you saw my ex wife, you’d understand.”

9. “All that beer just got me in the mood for makin’ bacon.”

8. “I think I misunderstood the term ‘animal husbandry’.”

7. “I was only fondling the female pigs – I mean, I ain’t gay or nothin’!”

6. “I just went hog wild!”

5. “Man, it’s true what they say about beer goggles”

4. “I never thought any of them would squeal on me.”

3. “Didn’t you ever have an uncontrollable urge to boink an oink?”

2. “I’d just seen Deliverance on the TV, and I swear that one pig looked exactly like Ned Beatty.”

1. “I was looking for the sheep and I took a wrong turn.”
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

bad sports, good sports

BSGS News Brief – Alex Morgan makes the cover of FIFA 16

From time to time, the bad sports and good sports are so intertwined that it is hard to figure out which one wins out. This may be one of those occasions, although I’d give the edge to the good side. This past week, EA Sports, a video game company, revealed the cover of the next edition of its popular soccer game, titled “FIFA 16.” For the first time ever, a female player appears in the picture. Alex Morgan, a star on the U.S. women’s national soccer team, is shown next to male star Lionel Messi. [Read more →]

Bob Sullivan's top ten everythingpolitics & government

Top ten Donald Trump campaign slogans

10. “Vote for me, or you’re all fired!”

9. “Elect me and I’ll not only reveal my net worth, I’ll tell you what that thing is on my head!”

8. “Who needs the Mexican vote anyway?”

7. “What’s better than a first lady who’s really really hot? – and if she ages in office, I promise to get a new one!”

6. “Comb over to my side!”

5. “Vote for me! I’m really really really really rich!”

4. “Are you better off than you were four wives ago?”

3. “Look at it this way: if I’m president, I won’t have time to tape Celebrity Apprentice.”

2. “Why should North Korea be the only country led by an egomaniac with weird hair?”

1. “Vote for me! I fuckin’ dare ya!”
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

bad sports, good sports

BSGS News brief: Donovan McNabb drives drunk again

By the time Donovan McNabb left Philadelphia, the former Eagles quarterback had most certainly worn out his welcome. People here were just tired of his act. Andy Reid, the head coach, was in the same boat, and although he hung around a bit longer than his hand-picked quarterback, fans were just as ready to see him leave. Donovan had a very successful career here, and since retiring from the NFL, he has moved into a broadcasting role. It remains to be seen, but that career may be over too. [Read more →]