island⁹⁴

A New York Times article on paying kids based on their standardized test scores:

…a seventh-grade English class was asked one morning if there were too many standardized tests. Every hand in the room shot up to answer with a defiant yes. But at the same time, the students all agreed that receiving money for doing well on a test was a good idea, saying it made school more exciting, and made doing well more socially acceptable.

Sounds an awful lot like the standard beef with millenials: entitlement and “everyone gets a trophy”. Of course, 7th graders are too young to be millenials, so maybe millenials are already in school administrative positions. The eldest (born 1981) would be 27.

In September 1963 [George] McGovern became the only senator who opposed U.S. involvement in Vietnam during the Kennedy administration. He came by his horror of war honorably in 35 B-23 missions over Germany, where half the B-24 crews did not survive—they suffered a higher rate of fatalities than did Marines storming Pacific islands. McGovern was awarded a Distinguished Flying Corss with three oak-leaf clusters. In his 70s he lost a 45-year old daughter to alcoholism. Losing a presidential election, he says softly, “was not the saddest thing in my life.” Time confers a comforting perspective, giving consolations to old age, which needs them.

McGovern and the outcomes of the 1968 Democratic Convention are big news what with the current affairs. From the Last Word of Newsweek’s February 25, 2008 issue.

I think that last sentence is unnecessary; or upon closer reading, is supposed to dismissive of McGovern (old people need to be comforted/coddled).