Week In Review - If It Would Stop Raining, I'd Have Better News

This week has been one long stupid overcast drain on my parade. BUT. I do feel better that we never got around to buying a grill last week, since we couldn't use it.

Anyway, here's what's going on in the world.

The Taliban decided it was tired of being stuck in one place, so there was a mass prison break in Kandahar.  I hadn't realized it was the Stalag 13 of prisons - a 1,000 foot tunnel?  Really?  Where was Colonel Klink? And did Sgt. Shultz really see NOTHING? About 480 prisoners braved their claustrophobia and pulled a Shawshank. I'm sure we'll see them again.  Way to go, Colonel Hogan of the Taliban.  Way to go.

In good news, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is showing improvement, enough so that she'll be at her husband's shuttle launch.  Amazing.  Seriously, how incredible that this woman has made such strides in such a short time?

This actually happened last week, but I forgot to include it, and I think it's important.  Robert Bobb, the emergency financial manager of the Detroit Public Schools, decided to close more schools in an effort to save money.  Among the schools he's closing? The Catherine Ferguson Academy, the only school of its kind in the country, where young pregnant women and teen mothers can go and finish high school.  The school has a 90% graduation rate and a 100% college acceptance rate.  But it's better off for everyone if it's close.  Assholes.

I am not going to discuss the whole [whispers] birth certificate thing [clears throat] because that is just fucking embarrassing for us as a country.

There's been insane weather in the South.  The devastation is heart-rending.  Nothing funny or snarky there. [Although I did hear a weather person standing in a tornado-devastated area, where houses were completely swept away, say, "And these were brick houses.  This wasn't a trailer park!"]

Anytime people tell that there's no reason to be a feminist because women have made such huge strides, point them to this fact: Title IX discrimination in sports continues unabated.  Rather than make difficult decisions for men's sports, colleges and universities have been fudging numbers to show that there are equal numbers of women in sports since 1972 when Title IX passed and required gender equity in college sports.  And by fudging numbers I mean things like half the women's fencing practice team is men [Cornell], women's names are placed on track rosters without their knowledge [University of South Florida], and women's practice basketball teams include men [Duke, Texas A&M].  This, despite the fact that 57% of people attending college are women. This quote sums it up:

Those of us in the business know that universities have been end-running Title IX for a long time, and they do it until they get caught,” said Donna E. Shalala, the president of the University of Miami.

Nice, right?

And on a final note, there was a wedding this morning.  Did you watch? Did you know they had an official website?