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Since 1994, this is the 1643rd issue of Randy Cassingham’s...
| 7 December 2025: The Martian | Copyright ©2025 https://thisistrue.com |
Other Good Reading: “In classrooms today, the technopoly is thriving. Universities are being retrofitted as fulfillment centers of cognitive convenience. Students aren’t being taught to think more deeply but to prompt more effectively. We are exporting the very labor of teaching and learning — the slow work of wrestling with ideas, the enduring of discomfort, doubt and confusion, the struggle of finding one’s own voice. Critical pedagogy isout; productivity hacks are in. What’s sold as innovation is really surrender. As the university trades its teaching mission for ‘AI-tech integration,’ it doesn’t just risk irrelevance — it risks becoming mechanically soulless. Genuine intellectual struggle has become too expensive of a value proposition. The scandal is not one of ignorance but indifference. University administrators understand exactly what’s happening, and proceed anyway. As long as enrollment numbers hold and tuition checksclear, they turn a blind eye to the learning crisis while faculty are left to manage the educational carnage in their classrooms. The future of education has already arrived, as a liquidation sale of everything that once made it matter.” So writes a California State Universities professor on A.I. being embraced by CSU (with a $17 million contract with OpenAI), while it simultaneously cuts thousands of teaching positions. It’s sobering reading (and a LONG piece, but it needs to be) at CurrentAffairs — AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself.
(As always you’re welcome to copy out that paragraph and forward/post it as desired; credit True if you care to — not required.)
A Thirst for Trouble: Officers were called to a state-run liquor store in Ashland, Va., ona report of a burglar who had apparently broken in before opening time, and had drunk enough booze that he was still there, passed out on the restroom floor. Employees arrived to find an absolute mess. “Officer Martin safely secured our masked bandit,” the agency said, “and transported him back to the shelter to sober up before questioning.” Wait... what agency is this — a “shelter”? The Hanover County Animal Protection and Shelter, of course: the masked bandit is a racoon. It smashed 14 bottlesof liquor valued at around $250, and was released back to the wild once it was sober. (RC/WTVR Richmond) ...Investigators said the suspect’s issues with impulse control were indistinguishable from the human variety.
Just Trying to Help: A man found an injured raccoon in Cherokee County, Ga. Instead of calling anyone, he picked up the animal, put it in his coat, and drove to the Chattahoochee Nature Center, over an hour away. Unsurprisingly, the raccoon bit the man, so he wrapped it in a blanket, with duct tape. He arrived an hour before the center’s clinic opened, but the camp director was able to radio someone to meet him with a kennel. He then went to a hospital; the raccoon was euthanized.“Fewer than 48 hours later, we were informed the raccoon had tested positive for rabies,” the center said on social media. “Please note, we are not licensed for raccoon rehabilitation and can only accept raptors, reptiles, and amphibians. This information is on our website, voicemail, Facebook page, and Clinic door.” (MS/WANF Atlanta) ...It’s best to use your brain even when acting from the heart.
Squeezing Out the Very Last Cent: The very last U.S. penny has been produced. Now what? [Premium Only]
Old Man Yells at Town: Man makes everyone in town miserable with more than 100 complaints per month ...until the town passed an ordinance allowing them to sue him. [Premium Only]
Egg on His Face: It just does not work to steal from a jewelry store by swallowing the item. [Premium Only]
A Reader Aboard Our Ship (hi Miss Marti!) expressed surprise yesterday that the newsletter has gone so long without ads: this isWeek 13. Yes, I replied, I’d much prefer readers supported the newsletter than advertisers. But it’s relentless: True needs 5 upgrades every week to replace advertising here. In the past week, there were NO upgrades, 2 former Premium members who came back, and no financial contributions to cover this week, so now we need 8 upgrades for next week, or there will be an ad, ending the streak. Please don’t let thathappen: it’s your turn to step up if you can. Upgrade here and thanks so much.
That Thing You Never Say on a Plane: The man did NOT say he had a bomb onboard, he said his wife did. [Premium Only]
Put That in Your Pipe and Smoke It: Heavy marijuana consumption has a really nasty side-effect. [Premium Only]
Yes. Yes, It Does: “This may sound sick,” a guy says ...and then proves he is. Police had questions. [Premium Only]
Wedding Party: Now this is the way to have a stress-free wedding! [Premium Only]
Wait, That’s Two Words: You’d think a dictionary publisher would know that. [Premium Only]
The Right Bar: Sprig + Fern The Meadows, a craft beer bar in Richmond, New Zealand, welcomes pets, and Bella Evans, who owns itwith her partner, thought at first glance that the animal now called Fern was a dog. Fern, however, is a baby fur seal. Fortunately, the bar was running a special and had salmon on hand as a pizza topping. “I just went to my fiancé, I said, ‘Grab the salmon! Grab the salmon!’” Evans said. Fern had hidden under a dishwasher, and Evans wanted to attract the seal and get it into the dog crate a customer had brought in. Rangers were already on Fern’s case, the New Zealand Department ofConservation said, because they’d gotten other calls. Department representative Helen Otley credited pub staff with doing “a great job keeping the seal safe.” She said the pup was transported to Rabbit Island. What makes Rabbit Island a good place for seals? It doesn’t have dogs. (AC/AP) ...Nor does it have bar owners who give away salmon.
What’s “News” These Days: Newsweek fell all over itself writing about how Gerraint Oakley “went viral” on Threads“when he posted a photo of his small, long-haired dog before and after getting a haircut.” The photo pair of “his pup” is undeniably cute, and the caption drove it home: “My dog just got a haircut and now it looks like he gave up drinking and got his life together.” It got well over 100,000 Likes. Newsweek’s “Life and Trends Reporter” apparently didn’t bother trying to call Oakley to get the story, instead “reporting” on the cute comments, and ending with how often various dog breedsshould get groomed. But before it could even publish the item, a further comment on Oakley’s post put the lie to the entire thing: the photos are apparently not Oakley’s, nor of his dog. It’s not even sure the two pics are of the same dog. Because three months before, someone going as “Steve Major” published the exact same photo pair on Facebook’s “Børing Støries”, where it only got 32 Likes. (RC/Newsweek) ...Trend Reporter: not savvy enough to know the age-old trend ofreposting good memes to a wider audience.
Snooze Too: Time magazine had its own major gaffe, but Newsweek’s was cuter so it beat this one out. [Premium Only]
That’s a Slow Way to Make a Cake
France’s Far-Right Leader Hit by Egg, Days after Flour Attack
AFP headline
Did You Find an Error? Check the Errata Page for updates.
This Week’s Contributors: MS-Mike Straw, AC-Alexander Cohen, RC-Randy Cassingham.
Stories This Week were Written/Edited at sea between Suvasuva, Fiji, and Leleuvia, a tiny coral cay where we stopped just for the day.
It’s Hard to Make Me Laugh. I mean, I’ll enjoy funny things, and I’ll say “that’s really funny” (or inventive or clever). But it’s hard to make a humorist actually laugh out loud when by himself sitting there reading through things.
I happened to have found the “drunk raccoon” story early Wednesday (our time), very shortly after it went live. I thought it could be appropriate for True and was marking it for possible use ...and then scrolled down and saw the photo taken by the Hanover County Animal Protection and Shelter personnel of it splayed on the restroom floor, passed out drunk, and started laughing. (Definitely click through to see it if you didn’t!)
I must’ve laughed for 30 seconds because it was such a perfect capper to the story. And it was a good laugh, not just a chuckle. Though it wasn’t as big of a laugh that I got way back in 1995 when most of the way through writing a story about an obliviot Aussie politician who was complaining loudly about an obvious publicity stunt: the MP was taken hook, line, and sinker. As I was finishing up, I realized what his nickname must be, and was laughing so hard that I could hardly catch mybreath. His actual name: Richard Face. I’d hope his friends called him something else for short.
Monday I made that story viewable in the archive: No Sense of Humor. J. Richard Face stayed in office (as a Member of the New South Wales Parliament) until 2003. And this means he chose to go by Richard, rather than his real given name, Jack. I had Chatty-G do a quick search, but there was no examples found of him going by, or being commonly called, Dick.
But it did find a nice headline — “Career switch saves Face from prison” — in the Sydney Morning Herald back in 2004. Yep: he was involved in a scandal, and got away with a minor hand-slap. “Saves Face”? Definitely funny: it got a smile out of me, but not a laugh.
What did he do so that “he deserves the opprobrium and denunciation which he has to date suffered and which he will continue to suffer”? He lied — to the Independent Commission against Corruption, no less. We need to go back to those times! Jail and/or fines for politicians who lie!
Anyway, after all that, then the raccoon story started “going around” (even Kit saw it!), and it was by far the most-suggested story this week.
New In My Blog this weekend: readers love to read about cranky unsubscribe demands. While looking for something else in my files, I found what might be the first such, from almost exactly 29 years ago. But as I wrote it up in my blog, it actually turned into The Secret to True’s Success.
This Week’s Ask Me Anything video is my answer the question, Will there ever be a manned mission to Mars? I also answer what I think is the more pertinent question: will humanity ever leave Earth permanently to live in space or another planet? I don’t think so, and say why. Premium subscribers can ask questions here.
Ten Years Ago in True: I didn’t remember this story, and laughed even before I got to the tagline: Call Me Sheila.
This Week’s Sunday Reading: A story SO good, I ran it both in True and the now-defunct Mug Shot Museum. Smooth Move, Megan.
This Week’s Honorary Unsubscribe goes to Ena Collymore-Woodstock. A judge, Collymore-Woodstock shows what can happen by refusing to take no for an answer, and working very, very hard. A 3-minute read.
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Copyright ©2025 by Randy Cassingham, All Rights Reserved. All broadcast, publication, retransmission to email lists, web site or social media posting, or any other copying or storage, in any medium, online or not, is strictly prohibited without prior written permission from the author. Manual forwarding by email to friends is allowed if 1) the text is forwarded in its entirety from the “Since 1994” line on top through the end of this paragraph and 2) No fee is charged. I request that you forward no more than three copies to any one person — after that, they should get their own free subscription. I appreciate people who report violations of my copyright.
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