This is from one of the people running Real Hope for Haiti, the group that runs the major health facility for the village I visited:
Michael,
Milienne went home this past weekend to her grandmothers house. They have never been able to locate her mother for 3 years now. Her grandmother will have to decide what she is wanting to do. There is talk of adoption but she has not made a final decision yet. She was well and healthy when she returned home.
A couple of months ago, Summit High School in Spring Hill, Tennessee held a “Fictional Character Day” in which students could come to school dressed as their favorite fictional character. Like the Mad Hatter. Or Darth Vader. Or SpongeBob SquarePants.
Jeff Shott came dressed as Jesus.
Before class even started that day, Shott was asked by the principal and other staffers to remove his costume. It was inappropriate, they said.
That’s sort of the default excuse the courts have given to schools, isn’t it? You want to do something remotely controversial? Nah. Sit down and shut up so you don’t disrupt anything. Or, in other words:
Here is part of what Jeff had to say about this in his own words:
I’d arrived at school this Monday before 8:15 a.m. and waited in the cafeteria until classes started, eating breakfast with friends and adding finishing touches to my Jesus costume.
The head principal, Dr. Farmer, soon came up and asked me to come to his office. The assistant principal, Ms. Lamb, and Officer Pewit, school resource officer, were waiting outside the cafeteria. Dr. Farmer asked me whom I was portraying. I told him that I was Jesus Christ. He said he had been hoping my answer would have been Zeus (or some other variation of a mythological deity).
Even though I’m typically very openly atheistic and have no problem discussing my views, I was a little distraught that all three school authority figures were addressing me at once. Dr. Farmer claimed I couldn’t have things both ways — I couldn’t complain about teachers talking about Jesus and also dress up as Jesus on Fictional Character Day.
Apparently one of Jeff’s “science teachers” is a creationist and had expressed as much, undermining the theory and fact of evolution with typical creationist tripe. Now it looks like the administration at Jeff’s school understands the constitution about as well as its teachers understand science. The fact is, whether or not dressing as Jesus is allowed on school grounds, Jeff’s teacher was promoting Christian creationism in the classroom, something which has long been established as illegal. It doesn’t matter if Jeff has a problem with that and he wants to wear a funny costume. Indeed, what a teacher tells her students and what a student wears as a costume are independent situations.
Anyway, Jeff has been given a $1,000 scholarship from the Freedom From Religion Foundation because of all this, so the end result isn’t so awful. And even better? I guarantee more students have been talking about him at school than ever would have if he wore his costume for the whole day.
My top three states have always been Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. (Number four is Colorado because of its ample sun without 500 degree southwest temperatures.) Now my list has been solidified even more:
The rural New England states of Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire are the most peaceful U.S. states, a distinction that gives them an economic advantage over the most violent, including Louisiana, Tennessee and Nevada.
Violence and its aftermath cost the entire U.S. economy some $460 billion last year, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace’s second annual United States Peace Index, which was released on Tuesday.
News of a homicide in these areas is treated like the national media treats news of a pretty white girl who has gone missing. It’s a really big deal and it gets a lot of attention. (The difference, of course, is that it gets attention because someone has been murdered, not because the victim is white and relatively affluent.)
The study found that the United States has become a less violent place over the past two decades, based on an analysis of historic data on homicides and other violent crime, the number of people incarcerated, police employment and the prevalence of small arms.
Now, if I was to argue like I see Christians argue about atheists, I would say that our high rate of incarcerating Christians – they make up an overwhelming majority of our prison population – is what has contributed to this drop. Of course, correlation does not equal causation.
When I become Supreme Ruler of the world, my first order of business will be to outlaw sandwich makers who put my vegetables in the middle of my sub. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO FOLD IT? You aren’t. Damn it. You aren’t.
President Obama issues statement saying Earth Day is very important. Republicans counter by pointing out that half the people on the planet are only women.
FOX is having a 25th year anniversary show to celebrate its existence. I think I can summarize without watching: Cops, canceled show, The Simpsons, canceled show, Married With Children, canceled show, canceled show, canceled show, That 70’s Show, canceled show, canceled show, Family Guy, canceled show, canceled show, 25th anniversary show.
I had to go the the circus this afternoon for a work thing. It’s probably been the better part of two decades since I’ve been to one, so my perspective has changed a bit. (Namely, “Ooo, tigers and elephants!” is no longer my primary thought. Though they are neat.)
I have a hard time believing that the animal portions are particularly justified. I’ve read posts by Jerry Coyne (which I don’t care to search out) where he has said he dislikes zoos and (if I recall correctly) is against them. I don’t go quite that far because, while improvements can always be made for general and specific conditions, I can see the upside. The animals have food and shelter whilst simultaneously providing a great learning experience for the public. Circuses, however, don’t come with that benefit. They certainly provide food and shelter, but there is hardly a decent learning experience to be had. What’s more, I find it impossible to believe that some of the animals – especially the tigers – aren’t under a load of stress.
A condemned killer’s trial was so tainted by the racially influenced decisions of prosecutors that he should be removed from death row and serve a life sentence, a judge ruled Friday in a precedent-setting North Carolina decision.
Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks’ decision in the case of Marcus Robinson comes in the first test of a 2009 state law that allows death row prisoners and capital murder defendants to challenge their sentences or prosecutors’ decisions with statistics and other evidence beyond documents or witness testimony…
Race played a “persistent, pervasive and distorting role” in jury selection and couldn’t be explained other than that “prosecutors have intentionally discriminated” against Robinson and other capital defendants statewide, Weeks said. Prosecutors eliminated black jurors more than twice as often as white jurors, according to a study by two Michigan State University law professors Weeks said he found highly reliable.
Doesn’t this judge listen to Rush or watch FOX Noise? If there’s anything we’ve learned over the past decade it’s that racism does not exist. Well. Okay, that’s not entirely true. It certainly exists. It’s just that there isn’t a single example of it. Anywhere. Ever. By claiming otherwise, Judge Weeks is clearly an activist. And probably a socialist. Maybe gay. Someone needs to call for an investigation.
For the Sake of Science 