Nancy Pelosi Prioritizes

With radical Muslim extremists, rising fuel prices, a possible artificial recession looming on the horizon due to too much governmental regulation of the economy, the controversy of national health care initiatives, the global war on terror, and other such critical situations looming in the world, it's GOOD to know that Speaker Pelosi has her priorities straight on what's important.



It COULD be said that she's heading up the Capital Food Police. Speaker Pelosi has determined that the menu offered by the Capital deli's, snack bars, and such needed to be "greened up" for the sake of the environment.

From Politico:

The processed cheese has been replaced with brie. The Jell-O has made way for raspberry kiwi tarts and mini-lemon blueberry trifles. Meatloaf has moved over for mahi mahi and buns have been shunted aside in favor of baguettes.

A revolution is afoot at the deli counters, grills and salad bars of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Newly ascendant Democrats may have hit roadblocks on Iraq and fiscal issues, but they have revamped congressional menus, replacing fatty, pre-made foods with healthier, gourmet alternatives. The once dreary congressional cafeterias now abound with haute cuisine.

The menu transformation is part of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “Greening the Capitol” plan to make the House campus more environmentally friendly and socially progressive.

But there can be a downside to delicious. Not everyone is happy with the enhanced offerings. Many congressional employees have complained that as the food quality has increased, so have the prices.

“It’s a big jump from high school cafeteria to fancy-pants gourmet. I just wish my pay improved,” said Caryn Schenewerk, a staffer for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

A fruit and cheese side dish with two small wedges of brie and cheddar, six grapes, two saltines and one strawberry cost $4.95, for example.

Don't touch that pepperoni pizza, Jimmy, you don't know where it's been, and besides, it's not good for the environment.

Ok, I have to say this. I've GOT to say this. Meatloaf I understand (and love), but mahi-mahi? First of all, what the hell IS it? Secondly, what the hell IS it?

Oy vey.

Outstanding job, Nancy, keep up the good work. It's your continued focus on such pressing issues as this that make us so VERY proud of you and, indeed, our House of Representatives as a whole.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man


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Felonious Slicing of Steak

Yup.

You guessed it.

It's rant time.

The back story first.

Knife At Lunch Gets 10-Year-Old Girl Arrested At School

OCALA, Fla. -- A 10-year old Ocala girl brought her lunch to school and a small kitchen knife to cut it. She now faces a felony charge after being arrested. The school and the sheriff's office disagree on the reason for the arrest.

School officials say the 5th grader was brown-bagging it. She brought a piece of steak for her lunch, but she also brought a steak knife. That's when deputies were called.

It happened in the cafeteria at Sunrise Elementary School. The 10-year-old used the knife to cut the meat.

"She did not use it inappropriately. She did not threaten anyone with it. She didn't pull it out and brandish it. Nothing of that nature," explained Marion County School Spokesman Kevin Christian.

I can imagine it looked a LOT like THIS (click here if you subscribe via email):



Zero Tolerance policies are an excuse for school administrations to be lazy. Zero Tolerance is an excuse for school administrations not to have to think. It requires no thought process, no looking into a situation, no BRAINS, to sit and cry "Zero Tolerance Violation."

NAIL clippers fall under Zero Tolerance policies. Drawing pictures of guns can get you suspended under Zero Tolerance.

This little girl was TEN YEARS OLD and just trying to eat her lunch. She was ARRESTED, at the age of TEN YEARS OLD, for trying to eat her lunch. Now, I can understand her being arrested had she been brandishing the knife in a threatening way, eyes glazed over, and holding people at bay threatening to cut them if they did whatever. SHE WAS EATING HER LUNCH AND WAS ARRESTED FOR IT. And they're talking about charging her with a felony for it?

The question I have to ask is if the steak felt overly threatened in any way? WAS there also a felonious use of A-1 sauce as well? Perhaps maybe just a misdemeanor offense of using Heinz 57 instead.

Ten years old and looking at a felony charge JUST because she was trying to eat her lunch.

This is INVERTED. We have reached a point where common sense has gone out the window. THINKING is becoming a lost art and a lost practice. School administrations have taken the lazy route of REFUSAL to think, to contemplate, to investigate, when situations such as this arise. When a LITTLE GIRL can't brown bag her lunch and eat it at lunch time with her little friends without being carted off by sheriff's deputies, we have lost touch with reality in our school systems. WE CAN NOT continue to go down this road where little girls are arrested for doing nothing more hazardous than eating their lunches.

I can hear the nay-sayers now, "Oh, but, you don't under STAND. She brought a WEAPON to school." Let me tell you that a pencil can be just as much a lethal weapon as a knife. I personally know more than a couple of ways to kill a person using nothing more than a wooden number 2 pencil like you'll find in any school in this country. What makes a pencil a weapon? Intent. What makes a steak knife a weapon? Intent. I would dare say that the only thing being THREATENED was the piece of steak that this child was trying to eat for her lunch.

I want to hear from you, America. I want those of you who feel like I do about this to leave your comments. I want those of you who read this site regularly to pass this around to everyone you know. Email it to people. Spread the word. At the end of this week I would LOVE to have a SIGNIFICANT number of comments supporting this child so that I can forward this piece to the Ocala school district demanding that this stupidity be dropped. I want us all to begin taking a stand RIGHT NOW that this "Zero Tolerance" mentality be scrapped in favor of the use of REASON in our school systems.

Zero Tolerance equals Zero Thought Process.

Enough is enough. Arresting a little girl for eating her lunch is one toke over the line.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man


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Here we go again...

(Sigh)

Arizona School Suspends 13-Year-Old Boy for Drawing Gun

MESA, Arizona — Officials at an Arizona school suspended a 13-year-old boy for sketching what looked like a gun, saying the action posed a threat to his classmates.

The boy's parents said the drawing was a harmless doodle and school officials overreacted.

"The school made him feel like he committed a crime. They are doing more damage than good," said the boy's mother, Paula Mosteller.

The drawing did not show blood, bullets, injuries or target any human, the parents said. And the East Valley Tribune reported that the boy said he did not intend for the picture to be a threat.

Administrators of Payne Junior High in nearby Chandler suspended the boy on Monday for five days but later reduced it to three days.

Don't let them draw farm animals, either. There's no TELLING what they might have on their minds. Why, they might even imagine having fried chicken if they draw poultry. OR WORSE YET! For the love of PEACE don't let them draw any PIGS! We might offend some members of that peace loving religion that doesn't eat pork...



heh.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

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Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice...

Twelve year old little girls are just that. Little girls. They aren't grown women, they aren't older teens, their interest in boys is, under normal circumstances, just really starting to change from "ew, gross," into "you're silly, giggle giggle giggle."

LITTLE GIRLS.

I first saw Dakota Fanning in the Sci Fi channel's mini series a few years back about the UFO abductions. (Taken) I said at the time, "that little girl is going to have a big career."

Why taint that career with controversy? Worse, why taint the MIND of that obviously brilliant little girl with something as explicit and extreme as rape?

She's a little girl.

She shouldn't have had to endure what it must have taken for this role.

Did they have someone who had BEEN raped to coach her on how to react? How to scream? How to fight back? Doubtful, most rape victims don't want to relive that kind of thing. So then did they have a rapist coach her in how to react? Interesting thought, isn't it? Truth be known, I don't know who coached her, but if they knew all the reactions, one of the two questions must stand to reason as being the case, wouldn't you think? Again, not accusing anyone, but just thinking...

Hat tip to Kingdom Advancer for this one.

Where is the stomach turning point in this country today? Is a movie about a twelve year old little girl within the tolerances of what the stomach will allow without losing it's contents? Would you like your OWN little girls to be in movies where there is a rape scene involving them? If so, why? What the hell are you thinking?

I can't see this as being a good thing at all, in any way, shape, manner, or form. If Hollywood wants to make a movie demonizing child sexual abuse, that's fine. THIS AIN'T IT. Portraying it, acting it out, showing it on screen, will only do ONE thing to sexual predators: validate them.

They showed it in a movie right? It's okay for me to do something like this if they made a movie about it.

WRONG.

But look for that to be used as a defense in the courtroom. "The defense will show that the movie Hound Dog inspired the accused..."

I wonder if that same defense will work if the South says "we've had enough." "Your Honor, our clients were inspired by the mini-series North and South..."

LITTLE GIRLS.

They probably still have naked Barbie dolls in their rooms, for crying out loud.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

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Ho Ho Hooooold on a second here...

I didn't fit in with other teachers very well when I was a teacher. For one thing, I wasn't one of these young twenty-somethings who had gone straight from high school to college and then back into the classroom to teach. I was what you call a "non-traditional" student; I went to college at the age of thirty and graduated (with honors) at the age of thirty-three. My contracting background and military background made me a little more rough around the edges, grizzled, less "polished" than most of my colleagues. And, having actually LIVED a life outside the classroom, I was definitely more "colorful."

I had a different point of view than most of the people I worked with, as well. I wasn't on a mission to "save" the children who came into my classroom, I was there to actually TEACH. Having chosen to teach secondary education, History and Government classes, I hoped that one of the things that I got across to my students was that each and every one of them had a mind of their own and that they should USE that mind to THINK. Needless to say, I wasn't one of these teachers who fell into lockstep with the cookie cutter liberal mindset that most teachers have. My only affiliation with the NEA (shudder) was because of their insurance policies. Their lobbying I frowned upon (and still do).

Now, having said that, laying the background for what I'm about to say, we'll delve into this little incident over in the United Kingdom:

A primary school has been accused of spoiling Christmas for pupils after a lesson telling them that Santa Claus does not exist.

Children as young as nine were told that only 'small children believe in Father Christmas'.

And yesterday their parents criticised teachers for taking the 'magic' out of the festive period.

My question is, as it was when I was in the classroom, what business is it of the school system or a teacher as an individual to decide when it is time for a child to believe anything? Looking at this as a former teacher, I would consider doing such as this to be HIGHLY unethical as a professional. The teacher isn't there to mandate a child's development in their beliefs or to take the place of the child's family. It takes a great deal of arrogance to take on the role of instilling beliefs and values in a child who is not yours.

As a PARENT, if my child was in a classroom where a teacher did something like this, I would be absolutely LIVID. It is NOT the place of a teacher or the school administration to decide when my children are old enough to stop believing in Santa Claus, it is NOT the place of the teacher or the administration to decide if my children should or should not believe in the religious choices my ex-wife and I have agreed upon for our children, it is NOT the place of the school to try to instill ANY values upon my children.

THAT is the big problem here in my opinion. It isn't the place of the school to take decisions of the family AWAY from the family. Yet and still these liberal GRINCHES try to do just that, not just about Santa Claus, but about matters of religion and sex education as well. Families may not always do the best job in instilling values upon their children, but it IS the job of the family to do so. Not the school system.

Those beliefs labeled me as a rebel and a maverick when I was a teacher (of course, tossing the textbook into the trashcan and saying it was inept might have had something to do with it to...). So be it.

Was my approach effective? I have former students come to me today, several years after my having left the classroom to return to the world of contracting and the world of political analysis, students who tell me how that I was the first teacher they had ever had who showed them how history could be interesting, how politics could be interesting, and how that my belief that the greatest sin to be committed by modern man is the failure to THINK has affected their lives, either in their jobs or in college or both.

Does Santa Claus exist?

This question was once fielded by a young lady several years ago, and the response is both timeless and applicable:

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Teachers, no matter where you may be, teach your subjects, and leave the values to the family.

'Nuff said.

Once and always, an American Fighting Man

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