Click here to view the embedded video.

Watch the kid at the beginning. He walks right up to one of the parade members and is greeted warmly, thus making him think that this behavior is appropriate. It is NOT appropriate for any child to walk into a parade route. EVER. It’s dangerous and someone, heaven forbid it be his parents, should have stopped that immediately as if he was running into the street. Hey, that sort of looks like a street, doesn’t it? Dad, maybe you should shut up and stop filming the parade and reign your son in before he gets himself killed now or later in a real street.

So, Darth Maul approaches. What does the kid do? He runs straight at him with his arms up in what could easily be perceived as an attack on Darth Maul. The actor was simply protecting himself. He doesn’t know the kid’s mentally handicapped. That push off to the side (where he belongs) was very appropriate of someone being potentially attacked.

Maybe you should hang a sign around your kid’s neck that says,

“My kid’s got issues related to autism. He won’t attack (even though it looks like he might). Please discipline him calmly and gently in my absence from his development.” – His dad

If the Florida Attorney General ever sees this case, he needs to throw it out and fine the parent for lack of parenting. Hopefully, since this video has been around since last June, it’s already run its course.

What They Are Proposing

“Senior bishops are calling for a cut in personal carbon use for each of the 40 days of Lent. Their list of ways to achieve this includes eating less meat, flushing the toilet less often and cutting vegetables thinner so they cook faster.

But one of their tougher challenges is to give up technology such as television, mobiles and iPods for one day. The “Carbon Fast” , organised every year by development agency Tearfund, even suggests giving up technology for a day every month of the year and giving the money to charity.”

They go on to say:

“The Church of England backs the Carbon Fast and last year the Roman Catholic Church called on followers to cut down on texting and other forms of communication in the run up to Easter.

The Bishop of Oxford, who uses a blackberry, mobile phone and emails everyday, said he will struggle this Lent.

But he insisted we all need to concentrate on more “face to face” communication.”

To top it off, they even created a suggested list of “green” activities:

Other carbon fast actions include:
:: Have a technology fast. Try a day with no TV, no iPod, no computer, and even no mobile. Why not set aside a technology fast day each month?
:: Check your flush. Do you need to always flush the loo? Get a device from your water company to save water when you flush the toilet.
:: Be a part-time veggie. Aim to eat at least two vegetarian meals every week.
:: Avoid excess idling and hard acceleration to cut back on emissions when you are driving.
:: Make do and mend rather than buying new clothes.
:: Start composing food waste and growing your own fruit and vegetables.
:: Arrange a swapping party with friends. Exchange clothes, DVDs, CDs, jewellery and bags so everyone gets something new without a trip to the shops.
:: Try skinny food. Choosing thin pasta and cutting meat and vegetables smaller will mean they’ll cook faster and use less energy.
:: Eat by candlelight. How many rooms do you light in the evenings? Turn out the lights and have a meal by candlelight.
:: Take the train where possible rather than flying.

Brace Yourself for a Rebuttal

You’ve got to be kidding me! If my church, denomination, or global entity of Christ-followers referred to as “the church” started talking to me about this mumbo jumbo, I’d be having some “face to face” talks with someone pretty high up. You see, this is the problem when you turn a belief in God into a form of governing body who can literally dictate to the masses what is and is not acceptable in their eyes (as if it matters, ye Pharisees) or in the eyes of God (which they are clearly not in tune with). Everything has already been written and can easily be referenced for further clarification in the most widely-published book in the world… it’s called the Bible, which I only ever recall seeing a Pope holding one up as a gilded trophy (probably singing “We Are the Champions” in his head whilst doing so). Not that I have a problem with a man being considered something of a supreme commander of Christianity and a mediator for man to know what God wants for our lives. Not at all. Who really wants to read the Bible anyway, right? [Oh, please, dear readers, I sincerely hope your intellect to be of the caliber to identify sarcasm.]

While there is merit to not wasting what God gave you, these ideas are either ridiculous or common-sense frugality. E-mailing rather than meeting face to face does NOT conserve energy; quite the opposite. Same for a phone call, people. One of the number one issues of these global warming wackos is the excess use of fuel, and now you’re advocating frivolous travel to talk to someone when you could have e-mailed, phoned, or texted!? Seriously!? I can see by your nodding that you are too far gone.

Agree? Disagree? Let’s hear some reasoned responses.

I think the first steps to reforming racism is to begin radical social reform in the form of slashing federal and state programs that encourage social delinquency. Here are three of the top social programs that are holding back the progress minorities are looking to achieve but are actually slaves to the system that created the programs. I say this as a former recipient of assistance for the extreme expenses associated with having cystic fibrosis. I’d never choose to limit myself to $1,000/mo income again just for that lousy assistance.

Welfare: gone – if you can’t work, then move in with family – if you had 4 kids with no mom or dad around to help, then you can’t afford to have had them in the first place. If you don’t pay for the car you bought or don’t pay for the insurance on the car you were given, they take it from you, and kids are more valuable than a car.

Social Security: completely broken. I’ve already paid more into it than I’ll ever get out and it sets people up with a false sense of security and entitlement that the gov’t will take care of them just because they worked or got injured. Retirement’s not a right and neither is gov’t spoon-feeding.

Bussing is racist in its purest form. Let me translate what the legislatures and school administrators are saying with a veil of compassion: “those kids are too poor, have too many issues at home, and are possibly too stupid to excel as a group, so if there are some shining stars, lets’ get them out of there to a ‘good school’” How about you hire the same caliber of teachers, pay them the same, fund them the same, and treat those kids like the other schools treat their kids? That’s the racism going on in school!

I’ll be the first to tell you there are a lot of stupid people out there. Students, teachers, parents, workers, bosses… all walks of life. By definition, 50% of the population has a less than average intelligence – something to think about while driving. Despite those terrible statistics that Jay Leno exposes on a regular basis, don’t knock the rest of academia and those who love to learn and keep on learning after it’s not required.

That said, that article is a piece of work… I mean, a piece of art. I’ve spent a good many years proofreading papers and always spot typographic errors in publications. I was an editor for 3 years and know what things look like when a stupid person writes something. To even consider that letter to the editor as a contribution to society is laughable. Even numbskulls know about capitalizing sentences – what they don’t know is how to use parenthetical statements (which that person did twice). There is also a sign of significant intelligence in the actual ideas of the letter, though I’m not sure which provoked the tbt* editors more: the atrocious spelling or the position on the topic that the student took. The very existence of the letter should set off some alarms to the validity of the piece as written by an idiot.

Two more points for kickers: 1) would tbt* have published the piece if it was written with perfect prose – would it have made its way out of a pile of letters they receive every day? 2) if it was written by a dolt, they would have not known how poor the grammar was and would have omitted the request for anonymity.

Here is the first page of the replies to the editor that tbt* received in response to the student letter: Replies to the editor

I am calling for a full-scale investigation of the author to have tbt* report back that said author is actually an honor roll student with plans to attend the USF Honor’s College next fall, but is fearful of any action the university may take against their application if this was attributed to them.

I got to campus an hour early because I knew it was going to be a large class because the roster online showed more than 150 people and outlets for laptops are scarce. Of course, being Saturday, the door to the lecture hall was locked so I looked for a bench and found one in the shade about 100 feet from the door.

Ten minutes later, a couple of people (based on age and behavior comparison of the two, I’d say a mother and daughter) came up the walk, looped around in front of the door a couple of times, tried the door, and then kept walking. One would assume that any normal person (like said person on the bench in the shade) would find a bench in the shade and wait for the door to open since they were 50 minutes early.

Not these two. In an act of brilliance, they decided that they would do an entire lap around the building and try to go into Burger King (closed at 9am on Saturday) to look for a rear entrance to the hall. They returned with a campus map open like tourists and I could hear them say, “ULH 101. This is the building and room. Why isn’t it open?” I’ll give them one guess, but I think they need more than that.

Around they go for another lap and stop a woman with her iPod on her arm clearly on a fast stroll to burn calories to ask her why the building isn’t open. As exercise woman passed me, she gave me a morning greeting and told me they were looking for another entrance to the building. I told her that they were 40 minutes early for a Saturday orientation; she laughed and kept walking.

On their next lap and attempt to open a locked door, I shouted over to them that was indeed the entrance and that it was still locked because they were 40 minutes early for the first class of the day on a Saturday. I should have kept my mouth shut, because they walked over to me to sit on a nearby bench and ask if I was a part of the orientation. Then if I was Wesley or someone like that. Immediately telling them I wasn’t but wondering why they assumed I was Wesley, I figured he was a T.A. for the course and resorted to putting in my headphones to stop the insanity.

By the way, according to the roll call, they are mother/daughter. Freaky. I guess age didn’t give Mom an advantage and chronological proximity to high school life didn’t give the daughter an advantage.

Life lesson: a college degree doesn’t mean that much for reasoning or practical functioning.

The class was a modern literature evening course, Junior level at USF, with a professor with tenure leading the charge every Tuesday night from 6pm-9:50pm. Great times, as you can imagine! The current assignment was Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The main topics of the book were racism and imperialism in the British Empire in Africa back in the 1800s, which is always a great topic in a racially mixed class because some are “over it,” some are listening intently to a history lesson, some people are racists, and some people just want to get along and sing Kumbaya naked around a campfire.

In some strange shift of normal diversification (I guess bussing doesn’t work for college), there was only one lone black person: an older woman of about 45-50 who dressed and carried herself as an office or cubicle worker of some sort who was just getting off work like half of the rest of the class who doesn’t sleep until 2pm and come in their sweats and PJs.

The professor constantly looked over her way every time she mentioned something about how “African Americans” or “Africans” think, feel, remember, anything having to do with what was clearly being distinguished as “you/them” to the only person of significant skin coloring in the room. She was the de-facto black person to consult, of course, right?

Hehe!

After about 90 minutes of this crap, the professor finally posed one of her factual statements as a question by ending it with, “is that about right?” to our de-facto black person. After taking a second from her note-taking to realize the talking had stopped because the prof was looking at her, she responded in a thick accent, “I’m Jamaican. I am not like all of these people with these feelings of retribution. I am not “African American” nor do I identify myself with any racial movement by Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton.”

BOO-YEAH!

I’d love to see what she puts down on demographic surveys where the options are Caucasian, African-American, Asian, Latino. I hope she throws the book at them every time. I’ll bet Peruvian immigrants feel the same getting blasted by Mexican stereotypes.

I know I sure as heck don’t call myself “German-American” because 5-6 generations ago my people came over on a ship. The only people who can say that are the first or second generations coming over for each given family. Who’s my leader of the German descendants in the US?

There’s a little food for thought for your Tuesday.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If there is supposed to be a call for the “separation of church and state” (which anyone who understands the intent and CONTEXT of the founding fathers’ design for gov’t doesn’t use that phrase to mean what it is being used for today) then there should be a separation of State-funded educational institutions and politics. Let’s see if anyone can step up to the plate and realize that any staff of a university who sends correspondence to the students is representing the policies and such of the entire governing body of the school. It’s no different than if a music director at a church sends an e-mail encouraging members to join a swingers’ club for his brand of “outreach.” That would be interpreted by the members as an endorsement by the senior pastor and possibly the entire denomination or sect from the very top. If he says it’s cool, someone MUST have approved it and thinks it’s a good idea, right?

That said, here is the e-mail sent “on behalf of” a politically-oriented recruiter.

Progressive Campaign Job Opportunities Nationwide

Sent on behalf of Sxxxx Mxxxx. Please send inquiries to sxxxxx@grassrootscampaigns.com.

We made history last fall. Now that we have Obama in the White House and expanded majorities in Congress, it is time to work for the change America needs. Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. has joined forces with the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Save the Children, and other progressive organizations to drive forwards a progressive agenda and undo years of Republican damage.

Grassroots Campaigns is currently interviewing top student leaders around the country to join our team as Assistant Canvass Directors. There is no better time or place to get involved and help to create the new generation that will take this country in a more progressive direction.

“We made history!?” Who is we?

“… the change America needs!?” Make your own change without gov’t crutches and taking more of MY money to build a bigger gov’t.

“… undo years of Republican damage!?” Talk about incendiary and alienating to everyone of a differing political view.

This sort of e-mail distribution has no place in the State university system.

A month ago we were stopped at the door like everyone else, and she nicely pointed out that they had not rung up one of our stacks of drinks. How they missed an entire stack, I don’t know, so we walked right up to the customer service counter and ran another receipt for them. Yesterday was on an entirely different level.

The finger-pointer counted our items, looked at the receipt, and then counted the items again. And again. And again. Seriously, four times! And then she pulled out a man-sized set of kahones and asked us if we had another receipt for our items. /blink, blink… NO! She put our receipt on a bin by the door and told us to go to the counter and pay for our missing items: 48 cans of Fanta Orange… on the top of all of the other items. Not like we paid for our cart and pushed 300-400 lbs of drinks ALL the FRIGGIN’ way back to the BACK WALL of the store to grab $14.21 of additional drinks after we already dropped $131. If we’re good for that much, I think we can scrape up enough for 2 more cases, lady.

So we stood in line right there in front of her growing line of other suspected criminals, as if we’d done something wrong, for a full three minutes before deciding to go through checkout again. Getting there, we realized we didn’t have a receipt for the rest of the stuff, so I had to convince the clerk that I just needed two cases rung up (I’m sure the receipt Nazi would stop us if we tried to exit with a receipt showing two items, dude).

Arriving back at the exit, she grabbed our receipt as I told her I didn’t appreciate having to communicate to the checkout guy that I’d already paid for the rest of it but that you were holding on to our proof, for some reason. *Duct tape your head now, last warning* She pointed at the “customer service” counter and said we could have just gone there. We both turned around and I pointed and exclaimed in a pretty pissed off tone that those people had been in line ahead of us the whole time and were still standing there.

“Oh, sorry.”

“Don’t piss me off trying to sell me more services when you’re not keeping me happy with the services I’m already paying you to provide, especially in this economy where I have more resources than ever before (both financial resources and competition-related) to dump you like a sack of potatoes and go to one of your competitors. MY economy is fine, but clearly yours isn’t if you’re calling upon me to give you more money.”

We’ve already ditched Verizon and we’re not afraid of change so much that we won’t change every single service provider we’ve got to stop this nonsense.

We will not:

• Accept any service offered through an unsolicited phone call – I will call you
• Accept sub-standard service/support
• Continue to pay our current rates if there are better offers for equal services
• Pay more for the same services “just because of the economy”
• Submit to pressure to add services we don’t want or dump services with other providers that are keeping us satisfied

/end rant. I’ll have more on this after we sort out this matter and explain how it started and how I finish it.