Author’s Note: Today I am deviating from politics although some might be able to draw some obvious parallels. That being said, this is a bit of a warning before you read. This is not the usual social commentary.

The Jacksonville Jaguars fired their coach last night. He lasted all of 13 games. There have been numerous coaches that have only lasted one season. We can poke fun at them all we want, but I always take a step back here. Urban Meyer is the first coach in my lifetime to get fired before the end of his first season. Maybe it has happened before. Bobby Petrino famously quit before his first season was up so he could return to college. So, maybe that will have to do. The Houston Texans might be in the midst of a one and done season as well. Football fans will have to judge for themselves I suppose.

Deciding on the worst hiring is always subjective. I imagine I could levy insults, but it’s the holidays and I want to be nice. So, I’ll chronicle my own experience instead and hopefully draw some parallels. Suffice it to say, I judge based on the available information at the time.

I wasn’t exactly Ted Lasso. My sister still coaches and I coached a few years of volleyball at the freshman level. I coached for a few seasons at the club level. I even served as a successful varsity and junior varsity coach at a Catholic school. Making the jump to varsity at a 5A (now 6A competition) seemed like a logical leap. I had turned around the fortunes at the Catholic school, so maybe I could do it for the next school.

What I quickly learned is that everyone has a level of coaching/teaching where they are most comfortable and a best fit. As a coach, I was a good teacher. I could teach kids the basics successfully and those kids showed real growth. That made me a better fit for younger players. After my one season of one win volleyball, I took over as junior varsity coach and had a much more successful season.

That brings us to our combined stories of the day. Urban Meyer has been fired and David Culley feels like dead coach walking. Meyer is 187-32 at the college level. I doubt he ever coaches again after this, but you could have easily envisioned him taking another job after Ohio State at say USC or LSU and being highly successful. That’s only if he hadn’t decided to go to the NFL.

Culley had never been a coordinator in the NFL. Sometimes you get young guys that you just know will be great head coaches some day and jump the gun a little too soon. Culley is 66. If it hadn’t happened then it wasn’t going to happen. I know his position units often struggled, but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was a really good position coach.

I think most people have had a job where they were a fish out of water. I’ve had more than one. You discover it pretty early on and you get to a point where you just want to bail. Who knows if that is where Culley is. In that regard I kind of feel sorry for him. I’ve been there and I know how overwhelming it is. Of course, I never had any job with the kind of checks he’s getting. So, that sympathy only goes so far. Besides, we are all responsible for our own choices. They offered the job. It doesn’t mean he had to accept.

Thelma called me this weekend and told me that there’s a whole new conspiracy theory that birds aren’t real. Yea, that’s what it’s called – the Birds Aren’t Real conspiracy theory.

And it’s got to be true because it’s on a billboard and the internet machine.

The theory goes like this: birds are being replaced with drones by the government and they are spying on you.

Yep. And the sad part is that it’s not even the most outrageous conspiracy I’ve heard this week.  I think the far left is just that crazy.

However, come to find out – it’s satire. And the kids made it up. Because they are brilliant.

You can read about it here.  And yes, it’s the New York Times and I do not want to hear that you don’t subscribe because the only answer is “I can’t afford it.” That’s caca del toro. Right now you can subscribe for $4 a month.  At the end of the year, it goes to $17 a month however, if you call the number to unsubscribe and tell them that you’re over 65 and you love the NYT but can’t afford that much, they will extend your $4 a month for another year.  So shuddup and support journalism.

The Washington Post offers the same deal and it’s even cheaper. Give yourself a damn Christmas present.

These screeds usually come out in the morning, but I couldn’t do it this morning. I was administering a STAAR test. For those out of state, that is the acronym for our state testing. We take five of those tests throughout high school and students are expected to pass them all in order to graduate.

Except they don’t have to pass them all. Special education students can be excused from taking them after making several attempts. Other students can have an alternative packet they fill out in order to get the same credit. Still others can simply graduate with a different diploma as long as they pass three of them. Are you sufficiently confused?

The students are smart enough to see through our bluff. They have friends that have managed to walk without passing it. These tests are normally done in the spring, but retesters have to take it in December as well. I always administer the English test. Students are given five hours (or more) to answer around 50 multiple choice questions asking them to comprehend reading passages, edit reading passages, and revise reading passages. Then, they have to write either an expository or persuasive essay.

The students taking these tests again run the gamut. Some of them are great kids that just don’t have the skills necessary to make it. Unlike all of the other STAAR tests, the English tests are skills based. You can’t study for them. You either know how to read and correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation or you don’t. You either know how to write or you don’t.

The rest fall under two categories. Either they know they don’t have to pass and don’t care or they cannot keep themselves awake through the five hours. At some point you start to wonder what exactly we’re measuring. You have the poor girl  =asking questions every few minutes and I can’t answer any of them. You have the little turd who announces loudly that he is done with the test after 13 minutes.

Then you have the three or four boys that somehow take apart their chair and throw the pieces at each other. They wait to do this when I am waking up the same three or four girls for the 20th time. Citizens of the state are paying billions of dollars to large corporations so they can write these tests and we can torture these children. Ultimately that is all we are accomplishing.

That’s the whole point. When you fail the test in the spring, you take it again in the summer and then again in December if you don’t pass. Then you go back to the top of the slide and do it again in the spring if you don’t pass it that time. Some students take the same test up to seven times before they are seniors in high school. No wonder they sleep. No wonder they act like 12 year olds. No wonder they just fill it out in 15 minutes. They know the process will start over no matter what. Asking a child to take a test seven or eight times is child abuse. It’s sadism wrapped up in fake accountability.

Okay, one year my beloved puppy Truman knocked over my 8 foot Christmas tree and broke about half of my treasured ornaments. By the next day, I had it cleaned up and went on with my life. I did not call Truman a bad puppy or accuse him of killing sweet baby Jesus and trying to destroy all people of faith, even like Hindi and such.

But then I am not Fox News with a cheesy Christmas tree. Because, you know, nothing represents worldwide religion like a Christmas tree.

Ainsley Earhardt on the Fox Christmas tree: "It's a tree that unites us. It brings us together. It's about the Christmas spirit. It is about the holiday season. It's about Jesus. It's about Hanukkah. It is about everything that we stand for as a country." pic.twitter.com/fV8Hg2juHI

— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) December 8, 2021

You just gotta listen to this. I like the part where she says Fox’s Christmas tree is for hanukkah and freedom and so “we can worship the way we want to.”  A mentally disturbed man burned down a Christmas tree and they act Fox-Christians about it – they become outraged.

And El Jefe wins the beauty shop golden hairbrush for Santifa.

My local newspaper. Front page above the fold.

Click it to see full size. It’s just a great story.

Facing multiple lawsuits and more disciplinary proceedings than ashes at a cookout, lawyer of ill-repute  Sidney Powell scampered out of Texas and opened an office in Alexandria, Virginia even though she is not admitted to practice law in Virginia.

The Virginia Supreme Court is currently considering a legal ethics opinion that would allow her continue to file lawsuits spreading the Big Lie from her new office in Virginia.

I’m thinking that if more people, including those who go to this beauty salon, knew that the Virginia Supreme Court is pondering revising the opinion that deprives a lawyer who is the subject of multiple disciplinary proceedings the honor of practicing law from Virginia until after those disciplinary troubles are resolved. I know you don’t need a map, a compass, or a sherpa to know that Alexandria is one vigorous line dance to DeeCee.

Contact information for the Virginia State Bar appears on the first page of the petition asking the Virginia Supreme Court to approve the proposed legal ethics opinion. If ya got a pencil and an envelope or a fax machine, you could thank them for taking out Texas Trash.  And we’ve got plenty more trashy writ twits in this state that we could hog tie and ship out COD.