Today's entry is brought to you by the movie Sex Kittens Go To College. It is a film that the Internet Movie Database describes thusly:
There are no actual decapitations, cattle mutilations, desecrations of houses of worship, or spurting arteries in Sex Kittens Go To College. Within those limits, this is ghastly beyond anything you can imagine.
Imagine Mamie van Doren as an ex-stripper with an IQ of 268 and twelve college degrees - no, thirteen, hired as a college professor. Imagine Jackie Coogan as a blustering oilman doing a 45-minute W.C. Fields impression. Imagine Martin Milner out-geeking Eddie Deezen, a twelve-foot robot named Thinko that handicaps horse races, a chimp in golf pants. Imagine the most credible and disciplined performance in the film being turned in by Louis Nye. Imagine Vampira so hagged out you'd flee to the arms of Nancy Kulp...Brigitte Bardot's little sister as an exchange student...Conway Twitty...fire engine...funny gangsters... Are your sides aching with laughter yet?
I discovered this film while reading up on Elektro, the Oldest U.S. Robot. Previously known to me as an attraction at the 1939 New York World's Fair, Elektro was the 7 foot tall, $700K grandfather of Asimo and likely the inspiration for Gort in the Sci-Fi classic The Day The Earth Stood Still.
The real subject of today's entry regards today's "Type A" parents. What the heck is up with you??? A case that underlines the kind of parenting skills that cause me concern:
I go to the gym this morning. As I am changing into my workout clothes, a middle-aged man is pacing back and forth in the men's locker room, talking forcefully into a cell phone, and wearing nothing but a black Speedo. "They like it when he writes his own stories." he says, "Weren't you at the meeting yesterday? Weren't you at the meeting yesterday? Listen... just have him write his own story and make up some pictures. He'll do that. I'll fix it all up when I get home."
I certainly appreciate that a parent should be involved in whether or not a child completes homework. I also get that a parent should be interested in what that homework is. The intensity of this man's interest seemed to me to be close to crossing a line, however. This child's homework absolutely positively had to be right... and if it wasn't now, well it was going to be after it was "fixed" when he got home.
Have we gone too far with grade inflation? When did being uniquely valuable as a human being turn into "everyone deserves an A"? Are children forever locked out of the Ivy League because they got a B in the Fourth Grade? I hope not.
said drgeek
on 2005-02-10 at 9:40 p.m.
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