Wed, Feb 27 2008
WHY AMERICA IS GOING DOWN THE TOILET
We clearly have nothing better to waste our time on:
Ohio school suspends boy over Mohawk
PARMA, Ohio, Associated Press - A kindergarten student with a freshly spiked Mohawk has been suspended from school. Michelle Barile, the mother of 6-year-old Bryan Ruda, said nothing in the Parma Community School handbook prohibits the haircut, characterized by closely shaved sides with a strip of prominent hair on top. The school said the hair was a distraction for other students.
"I understand they have a dress code. I understand he has a uniform. But this is total discrimination," she said. "They can't tell me how I can cut his hair."
An administrator at the suburban Cleveland charter school first warned Barile last fall that the haircut wasn't acceptable. The school later sent another warning to her reiterating the ban.
Mohawks violate the school's policy on being properly groomed, school Principal Linda Geyer said. Also, the school district's dress code allows school officials to forbid anything that interferes with the conduct of education.
Ruda's hair became a disruption last week when Ruda arrived freshly shorn, Geyer said. Administrators called Barile on Friday telling her to pick Ruda up from school.
"This was his third infraction," Geyer said Tuesday. "We felt that we were being extremely patient."
Rather than request a hearing to appeal the suspension, Barile said she'll enroll him at another school. Changing the hairstyle is not an option, she said.
"It's something that he really likes," Barile said. "When people hear Mohawk, they think it's long, it's spiked, it's crazy looking, and it's really not."
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Okay, people, using small words in 'merican so's you ijits kin unnerstand, m'kay?
This here is Bryan Ruda. Bryan does NOT have a kindergarten-disrupting mohawk. Also, his "Harley Davidson" t-shirt does not indicate his membership in a ruthless biker gang:
This is a real mohawk. It will definitely be disruptive to anyone with a self-righteous two-by-four wedged up their ass:
Now grow the fuck up, Parma Community School Principal Linda Geyer and the board of Constellation Community Schools in Parma, Ohio. Grow the fuck up and start doing your jobs of teaching children things they need to know, like math and science and good sportsmanship and washing your hands after using the boy's room.
Wed, Feb 27 2008
AMERICA'S DELUSION OF DANGER
Bill Bonner at Daily Reckoning has some excellent thoughts on our obsessive military keynesianism:
"But opening up yesterday's International Herald Tribune we found a editorial by James Carroll of the Boston Globe. It is worth reading. Carroll describes America's curious obsession with "national security." We have wondered about it too. America's national security is the least endangered of any national security in the entire world. The United States has the world's biggest military, by far…and has forward bases all over the world. It is protected by two immense oceans and the tightest border checks outside of North Korea. The security of individual Americans may be in danger…not much from foreign governments or freelance terrorists, but certainly from home-grown criminals…but the nation is as secure as any nation ever has been. It has no enemies capable of launching a substantial attack. The pentagon is clearly the goliath of modern armies; even if the whole world ganged up against it, it would only be an even fight.
While America's own national security is safe, it regularly puts other nations' security in danger, in the name of its own 'national security.' Why?
"Military power… functions in America the way state religion has functioned in other societies," writes Carroll. "The Pentagon is the temple of this religion. It has dogmas, rituals, high priesthood, saints, cults of sacrifice, sacred language and a justifying narrative…what theologians call "salvation history."
When John McCain warns of "taking a holiday from history" he is speaking the language of the pentagon and cultivating America's delusion of danger, says Carroll, who finds the whole thing remarkable and depressing.
But here at The Daily Reckoning, we see it as just another sideshow in the Big Picture. America operates a huge empire. And an empire is essentially a military enterprise. It depends on the support of the masses, of course, who need to feel under constant threat of barbarian invasion to justify the huge expense of it.
Americans, as we pointed out in our book, Empire of Debt, never got the hang of empire. They send their centurions all over the world to provide stability and order, but they forget to charge for it. They do it at their own expense…which quickly becomes a losing proposition. Today, the pentagon's imperial agenda is bankrupting America…but no candidate for the White House - save our invisible friend, Dr. Ron Paul - has bothered to even mention it.
Americans have great respect for their military power…and count on it to keep them on top of the world. The people feel proud, and believe their success - even their survival -- depends on their military power, not their economic power.
"Yet 'national security is bogus," writes Carroll, " - part ghost story with which the nation scares itself at bedtime, part nightly prayer with which it then goes to sleep."
He does not say so, but the empire is not bogus. It is real. And Americans are fearful because they are afraid it is peaking out. They are right. Old empires must die to make room for new ones. The world must turn. Change happens, whether you want it or not. And the military man, backed by the mob of half-wit voters, will want to fight it. That is when the bedtime dream becomes a nightmare."Wed, Feb 27 2008
THIRD TIME NOT THE CHARM
Just sit in your easychair and rail at the teevee, Ralph...
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader announces third-party campaign for president
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ralph Nader on Sunday announced a fresh bid for the White House, criticizing the top contenders as too close to big business and dismissing the possibility that his third-party candidacy could tip the election to Republicans.
The longtime consumer advocate is still loathed by many Democrats who accuse him of costing Al Gore the 2000 election.
Nader said most people are disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican parties due to a prolonged Iraq war and a shaky economy. He also blamed tax and other corporate-friendly policies under the Bush administration that he said have left many lower- and middle-class people in debt.
"You take that framework of people feeling locked out, shut out, marginalized, disrespected," he said. "You go from Iraq, to Palestine/Israel, from Enron to Wall Street, from Katrina to the bungling of the Bush administration, to the complicity of the Democrats in not stopping him on the war, stopping him on the tax cuts."
Nader, who turns 74 later this week, announced his candidacy on NBC's "Meet the Press."
In a later interview with The Associated Press, he rejected the notion of himself as a spoiler candidate, saying the electorate will not vote for a "pro-war John McCain." He also predicted his campaign would do better than in 2004, when he won just 0.3 percent of the vote as an independent.
"This time we're ready for them," said Nader of the Democratic Party lawsuits that kept him off the ballot in some states.
Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton quickly sought to portray Nader's announcement as having little impact.
"Obviously, it's not helpful to whomever our Democratic nominee is. But it's a free country," said Clinton, who called Nader's announcement a "passing fancy."
Obama dismissed Nader as a perennial presidential campaigner. "He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush and eight years later I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about," Obama added.
Republican Mike Huckabee welcomed Nader into the race.
"I think it always would probably pull votes away from the Democrats, not the Republicans," the former Arkansas governor said on CNN.
Nader said Obama's and Clinton's lukewarm response was not surprising given that both political parties typically treat third-party candidates as "second-class citizens." Nader said he will decide in the coming days whether to run as an independent, Green Party candidate or in some other third party.
Pointing a finger at Republicans, he described McCain as a candidate for "perpetual war" and said he welcomed the support of Republican conservatives "who don't like the war in Iraq, who don't like taxpayer dollars wasted, and who don't like the Patriot Act and who treasure their rights of privacy."
"If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up," Nader added.All news articles and images provided under the Fair Use Notice.