It's time for a bit of healthy venting, lol:

> When I taught AP Statistics, I always warned my students about how easy it is to skew the results of a survey. Ironically, I got a phone call this past week from the NRA which attempted to do precisely that. The woman asked me if I would like to participate in a survey about the current UN proposal to control guns which is supposedly “taking place right now.” However, before voting, I had to listen to a brief message from the NRA vice-president whose sole intent was to prejudice me against the proposal. I wonder how many survey results reported in the media are as blatantly-skewed as that survey.

> Anybody wishing to annoy me can do so very easily by harassing me in either of two ways: for being an overpaid teacher who works a half-year and gets free medical benefits; or for being a big fan of science fiction, an obvious juvenile form of simplistic literature. I have grown used to being insulted for being a teacher, which has become more and more common in the wake of our governor’s anti-teacher campaign. I do not get as much anti-sf sentiment as I did when I was young, before Star Wars legitimized the genre in the eyes of most people (an ironic fact, considering Star Wars is actually one of the more simplistic versions of sf which I particularly dislike).

So here’s my advice to everybody I know: if you have no f***ing idea what you’re talking about, either with regards to the teaching profession or science fiction as a form of literature, don’t try to belittle me about it, all right? Otherwise you will lose both my respect and possibly my friendship too.