Category: Uncategorized

Ashley Fernandez, a 12-year-old, attends Morgan Village Middle School, in Camden, N.J., a predominantly black and Hispanic school that has been designated as failing under state and federal standards for more than three years. Rotten education is not Ashley’s only problem. When her gym teacher, exasperated by his unruly class, put all the girls in the boys’ locker room, Ashley was assaulted. Two boys dragged her into the shower, held her down and fondled her for 10 minutes.

The school principal refused to even acknowledge the assault and denied her mother’s request for a transfer to another school. Since the assault, Ashley has received numerous threats, and boys frequently grope her and run away. Put yourself in the place of Ashley’s mother. The school won’t protect her daughter from threats and assault. The school won’t permit a transfer. What would you do? Ashley’s mother began to keep her home. The response from officials: She received a court summons for allowing truancy.

Then there’s Carmen Santana’s grandson, Abraham, who attended Camden High School. After two boys hit him in the face, broke his nose and chipped his teeth, Abraham was afraid to go to school. Guess what. His grandmother was charged with allowing truancy when she kept him home while she tried to get permission for him to finish his senior-year studies at home. Lisa Snell reports that “more than 100 parents have removed their children from Camden schools because of safety concerns. The school district’s response: a truancy crackdown.”

This isn’t really that hard to handle. Give the kid a kitchen knife, let him take it to school and quietly place it on his desk during his first-hour class. Thanks to zero tolerance, he’ll be home by lunchtime with orders to stay out of school for the rest of the year.

Repeat as needed.

Mark Steyn writes on the recent murder of an Englishman:

None of us can know for certain how we would behave in his circumstances, and very few of us will ever face them. But, if I had to choose in advance the very last words I’d utter in this life, “Tony Blair has not done enough for me” would not be high up on the list. First, because it’s the all but official slogan of modern Britain, the dull rote whine of the churlish citizen invited to opine on waiting lists or public transport, and thus unworthy of the uniquely grisly situation in which Mr Bigley found himself….

By contrast with the Fleet Street-Scouser-Whitehall fiasco of the last three weeks, consider Fabrizio Quattrocchi, murdered in Iraq on April 14th. In the moment before his death, he yanked off his hood and cried defiantly, “I will show you how an Italian dies!” He ruined the movie for his killers. As a snuff video and recruitment tool, it was all but useless, so much so that the Arabic TV stations declined to show it.

Even at the very end, there is always freedom. One can choose to die piteously or one can choose to die with valor. Steyn is correct in seeing in Kenneth Bigley’s sad fate a metaphorical testimony to the decline of Britain; where is the stiff upper lip and the arrogant courage that built an empire?

I am second to none in poking fun at the Italians, especially their historical military prowess, but no one can question the strength of their national character after having been shown how an Italian chose to die.

Uno spirito indomito;

C’e solo il tuo corpo

Che si hanno rotto.

From the UK Sun:

Official police figures show gun crime has doubled in the past five years, robbery is up 50 per cent and violent crime is up 83 per cent.

I’m looking foward to the moment when gun crime in Australia and the UK surpass that in the United States. It may take another 10-15 years, but that will be the final nail in the coffin of the gun control lobby.

“We will stop juvenile diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other debilitating diseases… When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.”

– Democratic vice-presidential candidate John Edwards

I knew that Edwards was a snake oil salesman, but this is not only bordering on blasphemy, it is leaping far beyond the borders of ridiculousness. The extent to which imaginative lefties are able to project their desires onto JJ Kerry has astounded me, but I don’t think even the most fantasy-prone college girl on Prozac will be able to swallow this one.

The upside is that we now have a new and presumably less offensive phrase to swear by. I think “John F. Kerry on a popsicle stick” has a certain ring to it.

A state education official says she’s concerned about the growing popularity of homeschooling in Mississippi. Peggy Peterson, director of compulsory school attendance enforcement with the Mississippi Department of Education, said she fears that some children may not be receiving top quality education instruction from their parents.

Mississippi Department of Education statistics show that the number of families homeschooling in the state has increased since 1999, when officials began monitoring enrollment. A total of 11,063 Mississippi children were homeschooled last year, up from 8,768 in May 1999. Lauderdale County alone had 281 families homeschooling their children in May of this year.

Smart State education rankings: 47. Mississippi

but the new Duran Duran album with all five original members back together will almost certainly be on my Christmas list this year.

I’m betting Paul Sebastian has already ordered his from Amazon.

I have sat in on therapy. It is something to see. For starters, the whole routine is a vaguely sadomasochistic power trip. The Therapist is the domme, the patient a humble supplicant who must bare her soul, confess her psychic sins, embarrass herself, and obey. (A few New Age males go in for this stuff. It is overwhelmingly a woman’s racket.)

Therapy reminds me of nothing so much as a castrated religious order. There is the same proselytizing, the same zeal. Therapists see only two classes of people, those who are in therapy and those who ought to be. (“Are you saved?”) They exhibit the smug assurance of those who have seen the light, and have Truth in a half-Nelson. The difference is that, whereas religions usually say that you are responsible for your bad behavior and you ought to stop it, therapy tells you that you are never responsible for anything. No. It was your childhood. Or some chemical imbalance. The Church of Avoided Guilt.

The cult wants to get everybody. Repeatedly therapists assert that ninety-five percent of people suffer from “codependency,” and must go into counseling. See? We are all in a state of sin. The humiliation of baring one’s inmost thoughts to a condescending estrogenated Hitleress is a mix of self-flagellation and the rite of confession. It is the religious impulse de-Godded.

Therapy is nothing but a racket for the credulous. It does no good for anyone. Unlike medicine, one is never cured, but instead an addiction to being told that nothing is your fault is fostered. I’m convinced that 99 percent of the quasi-lunatics in therapy would be better off either a) being sent on a missions trip to an impoverished land where people actually have problems or b) getting a dog.

The only benefit to therapy is in the case of couples, where a third party referee can be helpful. But even then, you’d do just as well – better, probably – simply pulling in a stranger off the street.

1. Michael Vick is massively overrated. The stupid practice of anointing “superstars” before they’ve accomplished anything – anything at all – simply has to stop. I particularly loathe the idea that a quarterback who is a superior athlete is therefore a superior quarterback. You’d think the Kordell Stewart Experience would have taught those media bozos something. I’d much rather have Drew Brees, (8 TD, 2 INT, 100.0 Rtg), behind center than Michael Vick, (2 TD, 3 INT, 77.7 Rtg) right now.

2. Donovan McNabb has upped his game, without question. But he still can’t touch Mr. Culpepper.

3. Any running back can go for 150 combined yards in the Denver or Minnesota offenses. I think I saw Imelda Marcos going for 90 and 90 against Houston on Sunday.

4. I thought the analysts were smoking crack when they picked Green Bay to win the NFC North, but I never dreamed that the Pack would start out 1-4. It’s strange to think it, but we may have already seen Brett Favre’s last playoff game. At this point, they don’t look as if they’ll be able to catch Chicago for third in the division and they haven’t even played the Vikes yet.

5. The Patriots are unbelievably solid. It’s great to see a reminder that team play is more important than unproven “superstars” manufactured by the NFL’s marketing department. But you know Tagliabue is pulling for Indy to knock them off this year. I don’t see it happening. Peyton Manning may yet learn to win the big game, but as the Sports Guy says, you’ve never heard anyone say that Tony Dungy outcoached anyone. Belicheck, on the other hand, is fast approaching Pantheon status.

6. Seattle may have ruined its entire season with that fourth-quarter collapse. Everyone was wondering if they were for real after that 4-0 start. Not so much, is apparently the answer.

7. The Saints are impressively dysfunctional. Over the last three years, I’ve never seen a team perform so erratically. Tampa has looked atrocious this year; I still can’t figure out how New Orleans managed to lose to them.

8. Arizona is going to be a good team in two or three years. People forget that Denny built most of his playoff teams around defense prior to the arrival of Randy Moss. He’s doing the same thing in Arizona and based on what I’ve seen of McCown’s play, he’s likely to be doing the same plug-n-play quarterback thing too.

9. Surprisingly, the Lions don’t suck this year. They should not be mistaken for a potential playoff team, however.

From the Washington Times:

“Here, ABC’s Peter Jennings reluctantly agreed. ‘I know we weren’t as on the ball as we should have been’ about the war, Jennings offered by way of apology. Warming up to this theme, Jennings also admitted that ‘we were not quick enough to say [the Swift Boat ads] are demonstrably false.’ In other words, the regular network news divisions are, if anything, too favorably disposed towards George W. Bush. And anybody who tells you different is a crazy, right-wing liar. Lay off my friend Dan Rather, Jennings demanded; ‘I don’t think you ever judge a man by only one event in his career.’

This is an impressively inaccurate use of the word “demonstrably”. I like to use it myself, but I only use it when I am willing and able to demonstrate the truth of what I’m saying. But for all that Jennings is now insistent that the Swift ads are false, he and the rest of the network news have completely failed to demonstrate that they are so.

37 Piranha

27 Grizzlies

I’m still only 2-3, I was dumb enough to drop Marcus Robinson for Nate Burleson, (looked like a good move for all of about ten minutes on Sunday), Ahman Green has got the dropsies again, Jerome Bettis is vulturing Duce Staley, (who is otherwise a freaking MACHINE), Chad Johnson is underperforming, Peerless Price is every bit as worthless as I was afraid he’d be and Jerry Porter is so useless I had to drop him. So, basically, I’m relying on Daunte scoring between 15 and 20 points per game, Bubba Franks and his vintage biweekly 2 catch, 2 TD performances, and the S.0.D. coming back strong from suspension in three weeks.

On the other hand, I’m not a large bovine with an L stamped on his head, courtesy of Tha Fish. Life is good….