Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
…because the whole point to zero tolerance is to take human thinking out of the equation. So in assessing the actions put into play by the policy, there is no human intellect that can be evaluated. It’s been removed.
And you need that explanation…to keep your jaw from hitting the floor…
Finding character witnesses when you are 6 years old is not easy. But there was Zachary Christie last week at a school disciplinary committee hearing with his karate instructor and his mother’s fiancé by his side to vouch for him.
Zachary’s offense? Taking a camping utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. He was so excited about recently joining the Cub Scouts that he wanted to use it at lunch. School officials concluded that he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary was suspended and now faces 45 days in the district’s reform school.
As Neal Boortz pointed out, someday our country’s defense will rely on kids Zachary’s age. Yeah that’ll work out real well, if the little darlings have never seen a knife before won’t it?
My kid knows how to handle a knife, bow & arrow, and a gun…somewhat…anyway, why do I teach him to do these things? Because I got upset when someone had to cut up his meat for him, when I thought he was way too old for it — and I don’t want to get shot in the ass with a pellet or an arrow. But then there is the matter of his safety. What if the time comes he has to use a gun? He’d need to own one first, of course…and childhood seems an apt time to learn the rules. It’s always loaded, never point it at anything you don’t want to shoot, etc.
But there is this vast multitude of unfortunates out there — and some of them are parents — who believe any scintilla of danger anywhere represents a job left undone. They’re the ones driving this…the ones who think life, womb-to-tomb, should be danger-free. Ironically, these are the same folks who talk on cell phones while they park-and-unpark huge minivans they have no business driving, before and after dropping off their kids. Your preciousness is very likely to be in greater danger during those few minutes than at any other time of day.
What we’re seeing here is a great culture clash. Because let’s face it, we really don’t have occasion to come together across class lines, outside of the schools our kids attend. How this is reconciled should be of great concern to everyone, even to the people who prevail in the reconciliation. The independent-minded folks, responsible gun owners, rednecks, call ’em what you will, send their kids to the same enclave as the ladies who sat in the back seat with the little ones when they were babies, and now drive minivans with sixteen sets of airbags, and live under the delusion they can somehow make life hazard free.
I’d be happier if there was some kind of big melee that resulted.
As it is, rulz is rulz and…game-set-match, the pussies win. This community area called “school” is custom made-to-order so as not to offend their sensibilities of what a kid-friendly environment should be. Everyone else just needs to learn to cope.
Neal raised the question of how the nation is to be defended in the years ahead. Well there are other things that have to take place, too, once the defense has been provided. People don’t learn to engage diligent, responsible, strong thinking when they haven’t learned things can go wrong.
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I need to post on this. Saw this this morning on the news … the 17 year old in New York … Eagle Scout … has completed military basic training ….
Suspended, for having a regular utilitarian 2″ pocket knife in his car!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Folks, since I was about 12, I have had a pocket knife in my pocket every day, all the way through the last part of grade school, all of high school, and college, at school, and there’s one in my pocket right now. I use it all the time.
A certain extended family member, who is a progressive, can’t understand it. But I use it often. Even at her house — typically to fix or improve. It’s just there. Part of my standard equipment that gets transferred from one pair of pants to another as I change pants. Wallet. Keys (including my bottle opener keychain which also has a P38 can-opener on it). Change. Pocket knife. And usually a guitar pick or two.
Ask yourself how a country founded on liberty, limited government, and a basic right to self-defense is compatible with a country where a pocket knife in your car, off of your person can be considered a threat. Especially when, as the kid pointed out, the girl’s softball team walks around with baseball bats and there’s also a tire iron in his car which is far more dangerous than his bitty pocket knife, which again, was in his car. Not to mention that a car itself is a far deadlier weapon.
Kid can be trusted to drive a car to school and not kill anyone, but can’t be trusted with a bitty pocket knife in his car.
And they extended his five day suspension to a month.
I suspect that someone didn’t like his politics and/or the fact he is joining the military. I suspect. I’ll bet I’m right.
- philmon | 10/13/2009 @ 06:42Here’s that story.
- philmon | 10/13/2009 @ 06:58Ironically the very same small brained losers who came up with this “zero tolerance” BS don’t want to carry it over to the most important aspect of a safe society – terrorism and the insane rules of not “profiling” Middle Eastern Muslims. Now there’s a zero tolerance rule I could get behind.
Yea, just keep searching my 71 yr. old, Swedish/Dutch mom’s bags at the airport, ‘cause she probably just came back from jihad training in Afghanistan. Idiots.
- tim | 10/13/2009 @ 10:15Just read that linked story Philmon. I want to punch somebody.
- tim | 10/13/2009 @ 10:19Over at Moonbattery, below the story about the six-year-old, there’s actually some moron in the comments who’s insisting that zero tolerances policies are somehow the result of “conservative” parents demanding law and order.
In other news, water is dry, the sun rises in the west, Australia is in the northern hemisphere, and the Pope is actually a Buddhist.
As far as pocket knives go, I never carried one in junior high for fear I’d be expelled. (And this was in the late 80s!) When I started high school, I took a basic shop class in 9th grade. One of our projects was to design and build a simple wooden box with a lid. One of the intermediate phases of the assignment was to make a full-sized mock-up of the container out of cardboard. The instructor proceeded to whip out his pocketknife, cut some cardboard, and proceed to assemble it into a cube shape.
Seeing my surprise, he looked at me and said something like, “What is it? Don’t you carry a pocketknife?”
It turned out I was the only kid in the class who wasn’t carrying one in his pants pocket. And folks, this wasn’t in the fifties….it was 1989. Not that long ago.
I’ve carried a folding knife everywhere I go, ever since.
- cylarz | 10/14/2009 @ 21:32If.. hopefully when, I have kids, they will NOT be in public school.
- thebastidge | 10/15/2009 @ 16:26[…] tolerance”; Cub Scout Who Brought Camping Utensil to School Has Suspension Lifted; Don’t Dare Call it Stupidity …. (nytimes, breitbart.tv, […]
- Steynian 390 « Free Canuckistan! | 10/15/2009 @ 17:13