Culture Shock!

(Shhhh! I'm suppose to be working on the Section Points Race Results spreadsheet. Instead I'm posting about recent news that I find either curious or shocking. Don't tell my boss.)

(Hat Tip to World Net Daily ... see the link on my sidebar, if you can find it.)

Yahoo! News - Students paid for tattling on peers

Last month's school shooting in Minnesota has stirred interest in organized "snitch" programs that pay students for telling on classmates who carry guns or drugs or violate school rules.

Last week in central Georgia, the Houston County school board became the state's first school district to enroll in the national Student CrimeStoppers program, started in 1983. Students can earn up to $500 for alerting school officials about firearms. They can get up to $100 for fingering classmates involved in vandalism, theft or drugs.

That's right. It's '1984' all over again. The authorities are teaching kids to rat our their friends, on anything from ripping off lockers to bringing a gun to school (note RKBA spin!)

No more 'moral values'. Forget "It's the right thing to do". Today in Georgia, you can turn in your best friend because ... the school will pay you as in informant.

Here's the money quote:

A similar program at Cherryville High School in rural Gaston County, N.C., "has really worked well," principal Stephen Huffstetler says. He implemented the program two years ago. "This year, we've given out $1,100," he says. "For $100, they'll turn their mothers in."

Well hooray for the kids in North Carolina, and their parents who apparently see no reason why this morally derift practice shouldn't continue. I hope some of these kids DO turn their parents in.

Next; in Manchester, England;

School bans 'wrong race' hairstyle

A TEENAGER was sent home from school after the headteacher ruled she was the wrong race to have a braided hairstyle.

Olivia Acton, 13, was told she could not join her classmates at Middleton Technology College because her tightly plaited hair was too "extreme" for the strict uniform policy.

However, two other pupils at the school who have an Afro-Caribbean background are allowed to attend the school with similar hairstyles because it reflects their cultural heritage.

The teenager usually has her hair brushed straight but had it braided during a family holiday.

She was stunned to be turned away when she returned to school. She was told she can only go back to the classroom if she unpicks the plaits.

I think she's cute. I don't see anything 'disruptive' in her appearance. She's neat and clean, and she looks better than as good as my blond daughter did at her age with her "mushroom" hair style.

The money quote?

Middleton Technology College headteacher Allison Crompton confirmed that braided hairstyles were generally banned in the school but she would make exceptions for hairstyles which are a reflection of cultural heritage rather than a fashion statement.

Oh. Okay. There's clearly nothing discriminatory about THAT! It has to be YOUR "Cultural Heritage" you're "reflecting". I wonder if pupils with "Afro-Carribean background" are allowed to use pomade?


Meanwhile, back home in Kalifornia ...

Fresno teacher apologizes for smoking pot with students

FRESNO, Calif. A Fresno High School substitute teacher charged with smoking marijuana with students has apologized for his actions.

Chris Bochin wrote a letter to The Fresno Bee saying he set a terrible example for students. He says that five years of pot smoking made him -- quote -- "mentally powerless."He was arrested last month after smoking marijuana with five ninth-graders in a science class. The students were suspended for five days.

What's wrong with that?
This is, like, Kalifornia, Dude. I thought pot smoking in the 9th grade was part of their 'cultural heritage'.

Meanwhile, in Massachusets (?)

Student opposition to civil unions disrupts SWHS

SOUTH WINDSOR -- Four high school students were sent home Friday after they wore T-shirts bearing anti-homosexual slogans to school, causing a series of disturbances as other students became "emotionally distraught," students and school officials said.

The boys, who wore white T-shirts on which they had written, "Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve," say their constitutional right to free speech has been violated.

What's wrong with that?

But other students say they felt threatened by the shirts, which also quoted Bible verses pertaining to homosexuality.

"I didn't feel safe at this school today," said Diana Rosen, who is co-president of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance.

What's this school teaching it's students?

In its emphasis on 'diversity' and 'moral relativity', it's also teaching that you do NOT have a right to express an opinion which might be counter to an outspoken group. I wish the members of he schools "Gay-Straight Alliance" had followed up the next day with shirts which read "Gay is Good!". They didn't, so we'll never know exactly what agenda the school officials were supporting.

At least the students who had the nerve to challenge Convention Morality (Version 2005.1) learned something other than that they are subject to unilateral authoriatism. Student Steven Venetta, one of the boys who wore the Shirts Of Shame:

Almost immediately, the shirts drew comment and debate from other students, Vendetta said.

"I walked down the hall, and people were either cheering me on, yelling at me, or just sneering," he said. "It was the most intense experience."

At least he learned how it feels to be an oppressed minority.

Meanwhile, in Greater America:
AOL Chat Room Monitor Accused of Seducing Girl

(note: loads very slowly!)

America Online hires adult monitors to keep its kids-only chat rooms safe from sexual predators. But one of those monitors seduced a California girl online and was about to meet her for sex before he was caught, according to court documents.

AOL officials declined to confirm or deny specifics of the case. But spokesman Nicholas Graham said the company fired the employee immediately after discovering the incident in April 2003 and reported it to the FBI and local law enforcement authorities, who notified the family.

The girl has now filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court. According to the lawsuit, the AOL employee, then 23 and working from an Oklahoma call center, began the relationship when the girl was 15.

The girl, who was living in Kern County, Calif., at the time, and the employee -- whose sole job at AOL was to monitor chat rooms -- conducted a sexually charged relationship online that lasted nearly two years, the suit contends. The two swapped explicit photographs and videos, had phone sex and made plans to meet for the first time to celebrate her 17th birthday.

I thought these Monitors were suppose to HELP the the AOL subscribers, not predate them. (Apologies for the bad pun.) This makes me nervous about my next call to AOL Technical Support ... which is more typically to Bangledesh than to Oklahoma. Maybe AOL knows what it's doing with its outsourcing policy.


Speaking of outside help, this from Hampton, Roads, VA:


Stranded in a bathtub

April 15, 2005

HAMPTON -- With only her dogs - her babies - nearby for company, Jane Fromal lay in her bathtub and waited.

First minutes, then hours, then days went by. The 75-year-old grandmother had drawn a bath Saturday afternoon to nurse a sore tailbone. But after repeatedly being unable to lift herself up, Fromal started to fear she'd die in the cold tub.

Help finally came Wednesday - five days after Fromal found herself stuck in the bathtub of her home - when a neighbor's grandson noticed the newspapers piling up in her driveway and insisted his grandmother call Fromal's family.

Hey, she's old, she's weak, it could happen to anyone. Thank Goodness that her neighbors were looking out for her. Who knew she could get trapped in her bathtub?

She knew.

It wasn't the first time Fromal, who has a little trouble with her legs, has been stuck in the bathtub, either.

When it happened a few weeks ago, she lay in the tub all day before managing to get out. But now, her family plans to make sure it never happens again ...

Yeah, right. They're planning to put rails around her tub, and maybe waterproof her phone. Maybe she should consider buying one of those First Alert amulets you hang around yoru neck, that when you push the button they day "HELP! I'VE FALLEN AND I CAN'T GET UP!"



We turn now to the National Rifle Association, and one of its most visible members: Ted "The Nuge" Nugent:

Nugent urges NRA members to recruit other gun owner

HOUSTON (AP) -- Rocker and gun rights advocate Ted Nugent urged National Rifle Association members Saturday to be "hardcore, radical extremists demanding the right to self defense" and to work daily to recruit new members.

Speaking at the group's annual convention in Houston, Nugent said the NRA's current record-high membership of 4 million was nothing to get excited about. He said each NRA member should try to enroll 10 new members over the next year.

Sounds pretty mainstream (for RKBA folks) doesn't it?

How about this?

"Let's next year sit here and say, 'Holy smokes, the NRA has 40 million members now,"' he said, adding NRA members should only associate with other members. "No one is allowed at our barbecues unless they are an NRA member. Do that in your life."

Is it just me?
I get the distinct impression that "The Nuge" isn't talking about NRA official functions; he's talking about (for example) the informal get-togethers after an IPSC match that my friend "Randomly Hitten' Witten" hosts. I would really hate to be excluded because I don't subscribe to the "American Rifleman" ... which is what NRA member actually provides for your annual membership fee. (Can you tell I'm disgruntled?) I've been an NRA member, several times, and every time I allowed my membership to lapse because of the exhorbitant extra fees they extort for a magazine which, except for the "Armed Citizen" page, is essentially a piece of crap.

Now, if they brought back "Gun Games" magazine, and made that an option, I would be a Life Member at the drop of a cheesy NRA hat.

Speaking of the NRA, and our (whew! Glad this is almost over!) last piece:
Tough defender of firearms may soften group's rhetoric

By Tom Beal

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

It's understandable, in an organization that still divides its convention luncheons into "ladies" and "sportsmen" categories, that publicity about the National Rifle Association's incoming president highlights her gender.

But while Monday's expected election of Tucson attorney Sandra Froman as president of the nearly 4 million-member organization might inject a more civil tone into the arguments over gun control in the United States, it doesn't signal a softening of NRA policies.

"She's not the new pope who's gonna let priests marry," said Mick Rusing, Froman's friend, former law partner and sometime hunting companion. Her election doesn't signal a liberalization of NRA policies, Rusing said, but it could produce a ramping down of its rhetoric.

That "ramping down" thing could be an improvement, or not. But I'll tell you frankly:
I miss Charlton Heston.

Okay, it's not a Drum Roll, but this single statement pretty much sums up how I feel about all of this "culture shock" minutia.