Petting the Mainstream Middling Mind: An Indictment Against Standardized Testing

I have never been a fan of standardized testing in schools.  There’s too big a variable at play — missing the wild mind — and these tests praise and condone only the middle.  If you don’t do well on these tests, you are not moved forward or thought of as a significant thinker.  The system doesn’t mind if your wild view of the world matters.  The only thing the test givers care about is finding, and approving, the mainstream, middling, mind to guarantee, and impress, conformity.

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How to Fix the Real Housewives Franchise for Bravo

The Real Housewives franchise is in trouble. Bravo used to have a charming show that dealt with the families of these insulated women. We found joy as they slowly began to tempt the threads of a genuine life in real time and sometimes feel the shallow tenderness of, perhaps, eventually becoming human. The ironic twist of the show has always been that these monstrous women were neither “real” nor “housewives” and we, as viewers, knew that — while they still do not.

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