Tag: Bull

Cut the Bull

I want to thank the commenters who’ve shared their very personal stories about cognitive dysfunction and depression. It looks like Batiuk has once again drawn a response from his readers by addressing another thought-provoking and sensitive topic…and getting just about everything wrong.

The North Carolina reference in today’s strip led me to Grandpa Google: I read about a study, being conducted by UNC, of 2,500 former NFL players, investigating “the potential long-term neurological effects from concussions.” Maybe Bull’s “cup of coffee* with the [St. Louis] Cards” qualifies him for such a study, but the majority of his “repeated concussions” had to have taken place during his high school and college playing career. One could hardly fault the NFL for refusing to pay for his care.

* “A ‘cup of coffee’ is a North American sports idiom for a short time spent by a minor league player at the major league level. The idea behind the term is that the player was only in the big leagues long enough to have a cup of coffee before being returned to the minors. The term originated in baseball and is extensively used in ice hockey, both of whose professional leagues (MLB and the NHL) utilize extensive farm systems; it is rarely used in basketball or American football since neither the NBA nor NFL have implemented a true farm system.” —Grandma Wikipedia

At Least I’ll Get My Washin’ Done

While harmless for the person repeating the word or action, this behavior can be troublesome or stressful for those caring for the person with dementia. Fortunately, there are some ways to distract the person and break the repetitive action.

  • Provide plenty of reassurance and comfort, both in words and in touch.‬
  • Try distracting the person with a snack or activity.‬
  • Avoid reminding them that they just asked the same question.
  • Try ignoring the behavior or question and distract the person into an activity.‬
  • Don’t discuss plans with a confused person until immediately prior to an event.

https://www.nextavenue.org/coping-dementia-related-repetitive-actions/

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…or do what Linda Bushka does: stand back and let ’em have at it! Bull’s torturous decline continues, and apparently the only support that Linda seeks is for herself, online. And what’s Buck got to smirk knowingly about? He shared with Linda that he’d (impossibly) been diagnosed with CTE himself, shortly after Bull was. He still appears hale and hearty, while Bull has been reduced to a mindless laundry addict.

Bell Pepper Curve.

Link to today’s strip

First of all, there is an absolute horror show of a human in the background. A literal dickhead emerging from a shirt made of pubes. The guy is smug as shit too. No doubt having just eaten an entire plate of the grilled processed meat tubes that he has descended from in some kind of twisted Westviewian evolution.

Does Westview grade on the curve? That’s a horrific thought. Because while some teacher claim that pretending that the smartest kid’s 85% correct on the test is the new 100% is ‘grading on the curve’, what it really means is the draconian application of the bell curve to the entire class. Every student ranked, in direct competition with the other students for the limited number of A’s, 40% of students doomed to C’s regardless of what actual percentage of the material they got correct. All your A or B tells you is that in Mrs. McGiggins 2005 Fall semester of Pre-Calculus you did better than 15 other people.

My junior year of high school, the calculus teacher was gone the entire year on maternity leave. For the first semester, they gave the advanced math students taking precalc and calc a teacher they had previously relegated to teaching remedial general math because she was so inept, despite the fact she was technically qualified. Because of her I never learned the difference between cosine and cosign.

When the most gifted kids in the school started struggling and complaining to their parents, the principal had the audacity to come to the class, pull out a bell curve and try to explain to us that, really, most of us SHOULD be getting C’s in the class.

I shot my hand right up and explained to the class that ‘the bell curve’ was both old-fashioned and unfair. We were supposed to be graded on the percentage of the material we got right, not in competition with other students for limited number of A’s. The fact that most of us were getting C’s meant that, as a class, we were understanding barely half of what we were being tested on. He fumbled around for a bit, but didn’t really have a good response. He was talking to the smartest kids in the school, and our GPA’s, and thus our college prospects, were on the line.

They pulled an old math teacher out of retirement for the next semester.

I remember the impotent frustration, the despair, and the eventual fatalistic resignation that we, as a class, felt that semester. So many of us just gave up trying. There was no reason to attempt to succeed on our own, because that would only hurt our classmates by driving up expectations. So most of us sat through every day of math class that semester, silent, sullen, and unresponsive.

What I’m saying is, I’m guessing that Westview grades on a curve.

But Who Is The Dreamer?

Link To Today’s Strip

Bull and Linda share an inside CTE joke today, or so it appears. It’s nice to see a Very Serious prestige arc end on such a light-hearted note, unlike that mousy woman that got the cancer that time. Blech, what a downer THAT was. Anyway, it’s sort of tough to believe they drove all the way to North Carolina for the cone of uncertainty diagnosis, as they probably could have gotten that in Ohio, but whatever. Hopefully Batiuk gives us some sort of “heads up” when Bull actually starts declining, as otherwise it’ll be impossible to tell, what with all the wryness and all.

There’s Someone In Bull’s Head But It’s Not Him

Link To Today’s Strip

Phony faux-profoundity with absolutely nothing at its core…a classic Batom prestige arc blow-off strip. Bull chose to play football but didn’t choose brain damage…yeah, that’s some powerful thought-provoking stuff right there. It really makes you think, namely that I really should have tried to get in on this comic strip scam back in the day.