Month: May 2004

  •  







    Hard lessons from poetry class: Speech is free unless it's critical

    By BILL HILL

    Last update: 15 May 2004







    Bill Nevins, a New Mexico high school teacher, was fired last year and classes in poetry and the poetry club at Rio Rancho High School were permanently terminated.

    In March 2003, a teenage girl named Courtney presented one of her poems before an audience at Barnes & Noble bookstore in Albuquerque, then read the poem live on the school's closed-circuit television channel.

    A school military liaison and the high school principal accused the girl of being "un-American" because she criticized the war in Iraq and the Bush administration's failure to give substance to its "No child left behind" education policy.

    The girl's mother, also a teacher, was ordered by the principal to destroy the child's poetry. The mother refused and may lose her job.

    Bill Nevins was suspended. He was later fired by the principal.

    The principal and the military liaison read a poem of their own as they raised the flag outside the school. When the principal had the flag at full staff, he applauded the action he'd taken in concert with the military liaison.

    Then to all students and faculty who did not share his political opinions, the principal shouted: "Shut your faces."


    **********************************************************








     


    Bush said no child would be left behind


    And yet kids from inner-city schools

    Work on Central Avenue

    Jingling cans that read

    Please sir, may I have some more?

    They hand out diplomas like toilet paper

    And lower school standards

    Because

    Underpaid, unrespected teachers

    Are afraid of losing their jobs

    Funded by the standardised tests

    That shows our competency

    When I'm in detox.

    This is the Land of the Free ...

    Where the statute of limitations for rape is only five damn years!

    And immigrants can't run for President.

    Where Muslims are hunted because

    Some suicidal men decided they didn't like

    Our arrogant bid for modern imperialism.

    This is the Land of the Free ...

    You drive by a car whose

    Bumper screams

    God bless America!

    Well, you can scratch out the B

    And make it Godless

    Because God left this country a long time ago.

    The founding fathers made this nation

    On a dream and now

    Freedom of Speech

    Lets Nazis burn crosses, but

    Calls police to

    Gay pride parades.

    We somehow

    Can afford war with Iraq

    But we can't afford to pay the teachers

    Who educate the young who hold the guns

    Against the "Axis of Evil"

    Land of the Free ...

    This is the land

    If you're politically assertive

    They call you a traitor and

    Damn you to ostracism.

    Say good-bye to Johnny Walker Lindh

    And his family.

    Bye Bye.

    American Pie.

    So maybe

    My ideas about this nation

    Don't resolve around perfection

    But at least I know

    Education is more important

    Than money.

    Land of the Free . . .

    If this was utopia

    We'd have to see each other naked

    Before we got married

    But instead, we see each other naked all the time

    Because the government has my social security number

    And the name of my dog!

    And then we make babies,

    But don't worry, they won't be left behind

    And they grow up saying

    God bless America!

    But they don't know who Bush is

    Because they never learned the Presidents.

    And they will ride the ship Amistad

    To our dreamland shores

    Bearing the same shackles as us.

    I'm here to say that

    Generation X

    Is pissed and we are taking over,

    Ripping down the American illusion of perfection

    We are the future generation

    I have my qualifications

    I know it looks like Angel Soft paper,

    But don't worry

    It's a diploma

    Do I look qualified?

    You can take our toilet paper,

    But you can't take our Revolution.


    From QuidProQuo


     

  •  


    Unitarian group denied tax status


    By R.A. Dyer
    Star-Telegram Staff Writer


    AUSTIN - According to the office of Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a Denison Unitarian church isn't really a religious organization -- at least for tax purposes. Its reasoning: the organization "does not have one system of belief."


    Rejected groups include a Carrollton group of atheists and agnostics, a New Age group in Bastrop, and the Whispering Star Clan/Temple of Ancient Wisdom, an organization of witches in Copperas Cove.


    Some of the denials occurred because of missing paperwork. A few, like the denial for the New Age group and the witches group, were decided because their services were closed to the public, according to documents.


    But the denials of the Red River Unitarian Universalist Church in Denison and the North Texas Church of Freethought in Carrollton were ordered because the organizations did not mandate belief in a supreme being.


    From el_viajero


     

  •  









    Exit Of Troops Means Change In Korea
    Associated Press
    May 18, 2004

    WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is moving 3,600 U.S. soldiers from bases in South Korea to the conflict in Iraq this summer, possibly marking a permanent reduction in the size of the American military force that has helped deter war on the Korean Peninsula for the past half-century.


    A senior defense official said it was possible that a similar-size Army unit from elsewhere in the world would fill the gap at some point - or that the gap would not be filled at all.


    South Korean officials offered the first word Sunday that the United States wanted to move some of the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed there to Iraq.


     

  •  







    US attack kills 40 at wedding


    An American helicopter has fired on a wedding party in western Iraq, killing more than 40 people.


    Dr Salah al-Ani, who works at a hospital in Ramadi, put the death toll at 45.


    Iraqis interviewed said partygoers were firing in the air in traditional wedding celebration. American troops have sometimes mistaken celebratory gunfire for hostile fire.


    Al-Ani said people at the wedding were firing weapons in the air, and that American troops came to investigate and then left. However, he said, helicopters attacked the area at about 3am.


     

  •  


    76 YEARS AGO TODAY



    May 19 1928

    Saloth Sar, one of the world's most successful mass murderers, is born in French Indochina. He later adopts the name Pol Pot in 1976, a year after the Khmer Rouge seizes control of Cambodia.


    In 1977, Pol Pot declares 'Year Zero' and directs a ruthless program to "purify" Cambodian society of capitalism, Western culture, religion and all foreign influences in favour of an isolated and totally self-sufficient Maoist agrarian state. No opposition is tolerated.


    Foreigners are expelled, embassies closed, and the currency abolished. Markets, schools, newspapers, religious practices and private property are outlawed.


    Members of the Lon Nol government, public servants, police, military officers, teachers, ethnic Vietnamese, Christian clergy, Muslim leaders, members of the Cham Muslim minority, members of the middle-class and the educated are identified and executed.


    Towns and cities are emptied. The country's entire population is forced to relocate to agricultural collectives, the so-called "killing fields". Inmates exist in primitive conditions. Families are separated. Buddhist monks are defrocked and forced into labour brigades. Former city residents are subjected to unending political indoctrination. Children are encouraged to spy on adults.


    An estimated 1.5 million are worked or starved to death, die of disease or exposure, or are summarily executed for infringements of camp discipline. Infringements punishable by death include not working hard enough, complaining about living conditions, collecting or stealing food for personal consumption, wearing jewellery, engaging in sexual relations, grieving over the loss of relatives or friends and expressing religious sentiments.


    Khmer Rouge records from the Tuol Sleng interrogation and detention centre in Phnom Penh show that 14,499 "antiparty elements", including men women and children, are tortured and executed from 1975 to the first six months of 1978. Only seven of those detained at the centre will leave it alive.


    At least 20 other similar centres operate throughout the country.


    Terror and paranoia reign, reaching a climax in 1977 and 1978 when Pol Pot launches a bloody purge against the "hidden enemies, burrowing from within" and the Khmer Rouge cadres turn on themselves. At least 200,000 are executed.


    Although almost the entire population is involved in agricultural production, Cambodia experiences food shortages, resulting in many more deaths.


    http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/pot.htm


     

  •  



    In Louisville, Ky., local Republican Party activists John Lowler and Peter Hayes feuded recently over their status at the upcoming state convention, with Lowler alleging that Hayes punched him. Lowler had first accused Hayes of smearing him by suggesting that he had recently had gay sex.  (Lowler acknowledges that he used to be gay but says he is now straight). 


    Hayes said it was Lowler who smeared first by  denigrating Hayes's religion, the Unification Church (headed by Rev. Sun Myung Moon).  Hayes told the Louisville Courier-Journal in April that Lowler had taunted him by saying, "Moonie, Moonie, Moonie, Moonie, Moonie."  (However, Lowler said he could recall saying only "Moonie, Moonie, Moonie.")


    -News of the Weird


     

  •  








    IRS May Help DOD Find Reservists
    Fort Worth Star-Telegram
    May 18, 2004

    FORT WORTH, Texas - The Defense Department, strapped for troops for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, has proposed to Congress that it tap the Internal Revenue Service to locate out-of-touch reservists.


    The unusual measure, which the Pentagon said has been examined by lawyers, would allow the IRS to pass on addresses for tens of thousands of former military members who still face recall into the active duty. 


    Part or all of nine of the Army's 10 active-duty divisions are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, and 167,000 members of the reserves or National Guard are on active duty, with thousands more on alert for mobilization.


    Unknown to most Americans, though, is the existence of the Individual Ready Reserve, which has more than 280,000 members.


    Those in the IRR are people who have completed their active-duty tours but are subject to involuntary recall for a certain number of years. For example, a soldier who serves four years on active duty remains in the IRR for another four years.










  • Flag football incident ignited melee at girls prison



    By Kathleen Chapman, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
    Tuesday, May 4, 2004


    Overwhelmed with chaos and violence at a maximum-security prison for girls, staff members called 911 to report "a riot" and ask for help Sunday.


    Almost 50 girls -- the entire population of the Florida Institute for Girls west of West Palm Beach -- seemed to be involved in the disturbance just before noon, a staff member told dispatchers.


    The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office responded with 30 deputies and guns loaded with rubber pellets.


    The melee began when three teenage inmates of about a dozen playing flag football stripped off their clothes and started running around.


     

  •  



    Man ill after gorging on sauteed cicadas

     







    Associated Press

    May 15, 2004

     

    BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A man who cooked and ate nearly 30 cicadas sought medical treatment after suffering a strong allergic reaction to the sauteed insects.

    The man showed up at a Bloomington clinic Thursday covered from head-to-toe in hives, and sheepishly told a doctor he'd caught and ate the cicadas after sauteing them in butter with crushed garlic and basil.


    "He said they didn't taste too bad, but his wife didn't care for the aroma."


    The man, who has a history of asthma and shellfish allergies, suffered a "significant allergic reaction."


     

dingus5

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Categories