THE JOE WILSON SHOW

It's time for another episode of The Joe Wilson Show tonight, and you've got a sneak preview exclusively here on edwardgroberts.blogspot.com, so tell all of your friends. You can catch the live broadcast tonight at 9:00 PM EST on the channel that would otherwise be broadcasting something worth a squat. Without further ado, here it is:

BILL LIVINGOOD: Madam Speaker… the President of the United States.

(applause)

BARACK OBAMA: Madame Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, and the First Lady of the United States:

One year ago we started down a new pa- oh, and my fellow Amuslicans. One year ago we started down a new path: one of hope and of change. We have come a long way, the light is at the end of the tunnel, yes we can, we will win.

(short applause from Pelosi and Biden)

Thank you. Thank you. Today some are suggesting that our efforts are not working, but I want to be perfectly clear – they are.

Unemployment may be up, but hope is high. This administration’s approval ratings may be low right now, but so are copper prices. What does all this mean? It means our economy has never looked better. And with me in the White House the hope is going to change all of this into a more stable and viable national agenda capitalizing on helping Americans and immigrants create a better tomorrow for the future of children...

(confused silence)

We are going to fix all of this over the next year and here is how I am going to do it:

(applause)

I’m putting a freeze on all domestic spending for the next three years. The deficit is at an all time high due to an unprecedented and reckless amount of spending, and we must put a stop to it. For too long Washington has been throwing money around as if it were just that *snap* easy to print, and those who are responsible must be held accountable. My staff and I will be going over George Bush’s economic record right down to his personal checkbook to find out where all this money has gone.

If Americans are going to be on top again we must fix the education system. To that end I am calling for a 6% increase in Education spending domestically. This will create much needed jobs at both the teaching and administration levels, and represent a huge increase in government education contracts. I am also introducing a brand new idea that I came up with… well, me and the Democratic members of congress that are up for re-election this year – they helped me on it, so remember that. Anyway, we’re going to start Charter Schools all over the country. This will introduce competition in education, just like in business.

And speaking of business, some CEOs seem to be under the impression that I am against big business. I want to be perfectly clear on this: nothing could be further from the truth.

JOE WILSON: You lie!

(loud murmur and applause from all but Pelosi and Biden)

BARACK OBAMA: The caps on CEO wages that I am endorsing are for your own good. With that your compensation is tied to stock market value through stock bonuses and buy-backs, rather than the long term value of the company and its product. This way the economy turns around faster on paper and you get a bigger piece of the pie through Wall Street manipulation. Good for you. Good for stockholders. Good for my administration. Good for everybody.

During this time of economic hardship it seems that prices on commodities are rising without any logical reason. Oil fluctuates daily though the supply and refining capacities remain either constant or on the rise. This is due to the health care situation in this country. I want congress to buckle down and get something passed before Novemb- uh, before we lose the momentum needed to bring about what all of the Americans who can’t afford it want.

As you all know, recently the Supreme Court ruled that corporations and other far right interest groups will be able to make movies that send messages to the voters. This decision could very well be used to try to discredit the health care reform that we are working so hard on, or our initiatives to reign in out of control business in America. That is why I am taking steps to dampen the effect of this ruling against the American voice. I am appointing Michael Moore as the Czar of Media Messaging.

Finally, some in the media have suggested that I did not respond adequately to the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound commercial airliner in December. I want to be clear on this: nothing could be further from the truth. And I really don’t think these hate-mongers represent the best of America. To show just how wrong they are I am announcing a new initiative to battle terrorism.

Thanks to some family ties on my father’s side, we will be taking over all administrative duties of Al-Qaeda starting immediately. This will be a three-pronged approach. First, we have determined that Al-Qaeda Afghanistan, where we have made great strides militarily, is just too big to fail. So, starting now we will be funneling monies from the pirates in Somalia and terrorist cells in other parts of the Middle East and redistributing it to those in the hills of Afghanistan. We call this the Terrorist Activity Realignment Plan. This will keep a concentration of terrorists in Afghanistan, thus giving the US military a more manageable area of operations where they can continue to keep their performance numbers up.

Second, we are going to offer all terrorists employment through their local governments. These jobs will include everything from repairing road surfaces damaged through wars and years of neglect, to damaging road surfaces to ensure continued employment. These will be stable, government jobs. It is time to get them off the battlefield and onto the public payroll.

And finally, in order to win the terrorists loyalty and divert their attention away from the fact that we are trying to destroy their way of life and turn their nations into the picture we have in our minds, we are going to offer them universal healthcare. We will be able to raise the money for this by taxing their income – from those government jobs we are setting up – at a 50 to 60 % rate. Actually, I really don’t know how much it will be – we’ll figure that out after the fact. But no matter what it will buy their loyalty and bankrupt their operations.

PELOSI: Uh, Mr. President… doesn’t that seem a bit far-fetched? I mean, they’ll never go for it.

BARACK OBAMA: You’d be surprised, Nancy. You'd be surprised.

(room fills with maniacal laughter)

Hire Education

The College Board has released its annual report on the cost of a college education in America. It turns out, again, that a higher education is just that - higher... in cost. This year the average tuition increase is 6.5% for in-state four-year public college programs, and 4.4% for private institutions. And what do you, as parents, get in return for the hard-earned dollars you pour into these institutions? (Watch this where you can turn up the volume and listen.)


Mom...Dad... this is what you are getting for your money.

And a quick aside to Suzie Student:

Shut up, sit down, and listen. You are a student. No matter what you may think, you do not have any of the answers. You likely don't even know that the G-20 isn't a move in Battleship. You will one day look back on this video with embarrassment. Maybe you shouldn't have posted it on the internet.

That is what you are getting for the tens of thousands of dollars you are spending on expanding your child's mind. In more cases than not your little one is being instructed by a professor who is qualified to do nothing other than instruct the unknowing. If you've engaged in continuing education in your profession you likely have looked back at your college professors and realized just how unknowledgeable they really were. Well, it ain't getting any better. But we know that.

Still, a child has to have an education. Now, more than ever. Almost all career level jobs out there require a four-year degree, and the ones that don't come with experience requirements that trump anyone under the age of 147 from qualifying. The time spent in college is looked at only as evidence that the applicant completes what he or she starts. A headhunter once informed me that 80% of the people he places are working in fields totally unrelated to their major course of study. Let's take a look at some of those degrees:

Retail Floristry
Adventure Recreation
Physical Education
Peace Studies
Angling

And a thousand other hobbies disguising themselves as college degree curricula. Kids, if it's something other people learn to do on the weekends as a distraction from work, you needn't spend your parents' retirement learning it from a college professor. There are precisely four real jobs in the world where the degrees above might serve you... and three of them are already taken.

Also, when choosing a major, a good rule of thumb is that the more words there are in the title of the degree (i.e.: Psychology of Ancient Greek Mythology as it Relates to Post-Industrial Revolution Arkansas) the fewer jobs there are related to the degree. Keep to degrees with short titles like Finance, but not too short like Dance. And stay away from degrees that preclude required conditions. Philanthropy comes to mind. This is essentially teaching you how to give away money. If you have your heart set on being a philanthropist I'd suggest you start by building a railroad, steel conglomerate, or computer company. Just an idea.

Where do all of these major courses of study come from? Obviously from schools, but why? For years primary and secondary schools have been convincing everyone - students and business leaders alike - that everyone needs a college degree. In an effort to attract everyone colleges have offered more and more varied degree choices, watering them down to the point that a four-year degree is now looked at by the business world as merely an attendance record... a $100,000 attendance record!

When I was in television most of our younger photojournalists had complete four-year photojournalism degrees that held no value whatsoever. Many of them did not know how to use a tripod correctly, set up a shot at all, or even care for a $10,000 piece of equipment... or they didn't care. These guys were making less than twice minimum wage, yet carrying a $15- to $20,000 college loan debt. This resulted in an understandably sour attitude. Most of them, to my knowledge, left the industry. Imagine if they had started training directly out of high school: a $10,000 camera would be an object of extreme value, nearly twice minimum wage would be more than they had ever earned in their lives, they would have no student loan to pay off, and the experienced photojournalists that actually work in television could train them to be real photojournalists. Money would be saved and the on-the-job training would represent actual value.

So why are colleges skewing us away from training systems with real value and toward degree plans that are irrelevant to, in some cases, anything? The College Board itself points out the reason: "More than $168 billion in financial aid is available to students and their families."

There is a lot of talk about the rising price of equipment and facilities, the cost of quality instructors, the improvement in teaching aids and materials, and the overall rise in college standards. With the offering of classes like Philosophy and Star Trek, I'm not so sure I buy that excuse. Over the last ten years or so Pell Grants have increase 123% and Federal Student Loans have increased 107%. Over that same time period the average rise in tuition prices has been only about 22%. That's leaving a lot of federal money on the table. So where do you think future trends will take us?

The fact is college prices have increased because colleges have a way to charge the federal government. And where does that federal money come from? Your wallet. And when students default on their federal loans (do we need a graph to predict the future trend in that?), where does the money come from to refill the coffers you initially filled? Your wallet. With, by some claims, $180 billion in federal money on the table, are colleges going to decrease tuitions anytime soon? Is it in colleges' best interests to bring in more students? Will they have to water degree programs down even more to attract and retain those students? And if everyone in the country has a college degree, will there be much value to any one of them?

Now, am I suggesting that anyone drop out or forego college? No! The reality is you need that degree to get a job. The national average unemployment rate is currently around 9.8%. If you have a four-year degree it's more like 2.6%. If you just hold a high school diploma you are twice as likely to be out of a job, and if you dropped out of high school you are four times more likely to be unemployed. SO STAY IN SCHOOL! It is an investment in your future.

But to everyone, students, parents, and business leaders alike - we need to do some serious evaluation of the post-secondary education system in this country.

Students
Back in the 90s nutty people invested in Beanie Babies, thinking they'd resell them at such a markup that they'd retire off the profits. Ask yourself: is my degree plan a Beanie Baby?




Parents
Remember this phrase: Parents don't let kids major in liberal arts.

Employers
Do you want this guy training your future director of marketing?






And Taxpayers
With Federal money affecting college tuition prices as it is, what do you think is going to happen when it gets a hold of health care?

My Friend Joe

I first saw Joe Williams in Mrs. Dejean's class at Janie Stark Elementary in Farmers Branch. It was a fifth grade class, and Joe had been attending a different school for several years. It was far enough in the school year that we had developed our cliques: outsiders welcome by invitation only. Joe was wearing a Scout uniform... to school. He was never one for making things easier on himself.

I didn't know Joe because I was relatively new to the school. I had moved out to Texas just before my fourth grade. Actually, my parents moved to Texas, and took all of the money, so I tagged along. I settled into my new home fairly well even though I was the new kid with a pageboy haircut and an Alabama drawl (boy, that was a fun break-in period). I had actually heard snippets here and there about Joe but had no point of reference. That was about to change.

The murmurs started before he walked into the room. Mrs. Dejean braced the class first, announcing the arrival of the "new" student we all could see in the hallway. Several students near me warned me to stay away from him. "He's weird." "Psycho." "Some kind of sick genius." I was sold. Joe and I became fast friends. I remained very close to my friend Joe through much of college.

I never found out first hand why Joe went to a different school for a time, but he did announce to me that one of the girls we attended school with through graduation wore a scar on her ankle shaped exactly like several of his teeth. He neither bragged nor lamented this fact... just stated it like one might point out it's partly cloudy. That was my friend Joe.

In sixth grade we got Commodore PET computers. For those of you young enough not to be impressed with an elementary school having TWO computers, let me describe them for you. Picture your telephone with no camera, no email capacity, no internet, no permanent memory, no communications capabilities, 4k (yes, 'k') of RAM, all in a package about 900 times larger.

This was in the days of "GOTO" statements and 5 1/4" floppies (ask your parents). The computers were in our school to usher us into the computer age. Unfortunately, our teachers didn't know a thing about computers, either, so they mostly sat on a desk in the back of the classroom. The computers were of little use, either.

Except to a few enterprising students. Those of us who were so motivated worked on becoming programmers. This consisted mostly of copying down code from a little workbook. These complex lines would magically cause the computer screen to go black, or repeat a sentence over and over, or scroll a phrase in green text from left to right.

One day a filthy phrase showed up on the screen. We found out about it through a warning from the teaching staff that we would lose computer privileges if it happened again. It did. Again. And again. Except each new phrase was displayed more creatively... and was filthier. We all denied responsibility, even through the suspension of computer access, but I knew there was only one mind capable of so dastardly a deed. It took years for him to admit responsibility for The Case of the Computer Filth, but I was always jealous of my friend Joe's apparent ability to pass a lie detector test. Artistry.

There are so many random memories. That same year we had to memorize at least 14 lines of poetry. Joe memorized Jabberwochy. That was so cool. He helped me memorize 14 lines of Jabberwocky. I tried to keep up but Joe just... I don't know what his grades were like, I don't know how well he did on standardized tests. I always did as well as I cared when it came to grades and exceptionally well on standardized tests. I've been a member of MENSA and Intertel, and I've held my own in intellectual debates all my life. Some people have impressed me with their ability to utilize their intelligence. Others with their breadth of knowledge. Others with the effort they put into being an expert in their field. Joe Williams was the only person I ever met who intimidated me intellectually. My friend Joe was brilliant in every way.

In the spring of 7th grade there was a History Fair. I submitted an entry in the Literature category. Edmund Ruffin, the man who fired the first shot of the Civil War, is a distant relative of mine. I researched his life and participation in the war and wrote three letters, as if penned by him, that represented his psychological decline from that first shot on Fort Sumter to his suicide at war's end. I wrote the letters as if he was drinking more and more heavily during the composition of each, right down to glass rings on the paper, sprinkling actual liquor on them, and dripping the wax seal on the last letter very messily. I put all of my adolescent talent into this project and I was immensely proud and confident of it. It came in second place.

It is difficult for someone as competitive as I to lose when there is no extenuating circumstance available. I got beat, and beat soundly. Joe won first prize with a poem he wrote, Death at Bunker Hill - June 17, 1775. It was good... better than mine. It was a great poem. My own dad took quite a liking to it. Yes, Joe had beat me fair and square. But it wasn't enough that he bested my greatest creative achievement. In that same way he described the scar, Joe informed me he had written the poem in about fifteen minutes. Ah! Devine intervention... I couldn't have beaten God. No, he explained. He had merely forgotten to do the assignment and typed it out the night before it was due. He didn't brag and he never rubbed it in. He just beat me. And I still have a copy of the poem my friend Joe wrote.

We got separated in class often. In fact, I think Mrs. Dejean, our fifth grade teacher, had experienced enough to make sure no one ever again experienced me and Joe together. I can't think of any time my friend Joe and I were allowed to sit next to each other after fifth grade...

...except in Boy Scouts. Man, now there was a place to get truly evil. We had so much fun together in the Scouts it's a wonder any of the younger children survived! We tired of the Snipe hunting and decided to ramp it up just a bit. On a trip to Turner Falls one year - in the dead of winter - we planned a little initiation involving a branding iron. Actually, one of my history teachers had related a story as it had happened to her in college. For me it was a cool story that was fodder for discussions about what we could do to the newer Scouts. This is where Joe excelled. Left merely to me it would be a good story without any memory. Thanks to Joe it is also a memory... and perhaps a recurring nightmare to some of the kids.

What we did was wait until the Scoutmaster was busy pretending Joe and I didn't exist. He was used to this activity as he doubled as Joe's dad. He was also one of my earliest mentors and an all-around great guy. Joe and I went to the far side of a hill and built a little fire. We didn't have a branding iron so we just stuck a little coal shovel-like tool in the fire. Then we'd usher up a younger Scout, go through some rigmarole about initiation and are-you-worthy and prove your loyalty to the troop, etc. Someone (and I think it was Joe's younger brother Chris) would hold the Scout down and raise his t-shirt as we pulled the red-hot "branding iron" out of the fire and hover it above the Scout's belly.

At this point, above the screams, we'd pretend to remember the blindfold which would then be tied onto the Scout. At the last second we dropped a large piece of ice onto the Scout's belly. The sensation was impossible to distinguish from red heat for the first few seconds. (The trick called for using dry ice, but we couldn't very well get Joe's dad to stop for dry ice on the way up without raising some suspicion. Besides, I think dry ice actually will burn you, so...) Good times. This event was likely in the top five cruelest things I've ever done. My friend Joe was right there with me the whole time.

We camped together many times. We went to Philmont together. Joe would fix rather fanciful dishes on our campouts (foreshadowing for his future career in the restaurant business), some so fanciful that I remember Yo Matsushita, our acting Scoutmaster at Philmont, shouting, "Cook the damn food the way it's meant, Joe. No fancy stuff!" Joe was miffed but accepted that you can't make a good soufflé out of dehydrated beef stroganoff and trail mix. He came back at another camping trip with a wonderful dish of lasagna. We all tore into it. It was great. Can we have seconds? You really like it? Oh, yeah... great job, Joe. It was only after we finished that Joe informed us he had sliced a little more than the cheese while preparing the meal. Since we were in the woods and there was no way to hop out to the store, he merely turned the bloodied cheese over and continued to slice, open wound and all. His hand healed nicely and our retching eventually petered out. My friend Joe was quite the dedicated cook.

There was a lot of troop infighting about carrying loads during our Philmont excursion. No one wanted to pack more than the next Scout during our daily hikes. Joe volunteered to carry our biggest cook pot. It really filled out his pack. We discovered near the end of our trip that it was always empty. My friend Joe was brilliant.

We had an odd group in high school, the four of us that ran together. There was me, the football player. Alex the musician. Big Jim Smith the student. And our friend Joe. We made a pact with one another our freshman year that we'd never eat cafeteria food again, so we brown bagged it until we could drive, and went to Burger King the days we could afford to and I had gas. I always got a bacon double-cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke, although it often took two or three tries and at least one trip into the building to get the correct order. Joe wasn't a big fan of Burger King, as I remember it, but would usually find a burger or something eat. Chicken was a fairly new addition to the menu at this time.

One day we went through the drive-thru and the grill was down. This meant my bacon double-cheeseburger was off, but it also meant the inevitable blowing of Joe's lid. Joe had a temper like a keg of dynamite and the fuse of... well, I don't know if anyone ever actually identified a predictable fuse. As his friend I knew that there were certain triggers, the most touchy of which was incompetence. Unexpected change was right up there, too. This little trip was not looking good. Time to sit back and watch the fireworks.

So Joe orders, under pressure to find something new and quickly. He orders a chicken box, it was like eight or ten pieces. When he ordered it he said, "I want the 8-piece chicken." Something like that. Well, the carnival geek behind the microphone can't figure out what that means, and so asks, "You want eight pieces of chicken or eight orders-?" Click. Herewego!

"Yeah, I want f*cking 82 pieces of chicken!" And I mean to tell you my friend Joe yelled it across the car into that microphone. I imagine it echoed inside. My ears certainly rang.

We are still laughing some 21 years later about it. I'm laughing right now reading over it.

Joe had two younger brothers who, despite Joe's best efforts, managed to survive childhood. Randy was the youngest and used his brains to circumvent Joe. Chris, on the other hand, had far too much will. He was a fighter. He was hopelessly outsized by Joe (plus, Joe never seemed to give much credit just for being his relative), but held his own. I remember - again, random memories - I remember a pair of needle-nosed pliers being hurled across a room. They stabbed into the wall within inches of Chris' head. I nearly wet my pants; Chris didn't flinch, he just got mad.

One of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life occurred while we were loading the trailer for a camping trip. I was in the house for some reason, but looking out the bay window toward the trailer. The usual sounds of commotion between Joe and Chris were wafting through the air, but otherwise it was a nice morning. Then a shovel, tumbling end over end, passed by the window. I don't remember who threw it at whom, or even if it struck its target, but I remember thinking at the time, "Now there's a metaphor in action!"

I know the brothers had their hard times together just as I did with my own brothers. For that matter, Joe and I had conflict occasionally with one another, but heck, we were like brothers ourselves. We could finish each other's sentences and always seemed to know what the other was up to. Chris was closer to our age than any of the other siblings, which meant I got to know him a little better than I did Randy but - unfortunately for Chris - it also meant he was more often within arms reach. I've probably blocked a lot of things from my memory that we did to Chris. Well, at the very least it made him tough. Sorry, Chris.

Joe and I stayed close through much of college. He joined the Corps of Cadets for a time halfway through our freshman year. Joe definitely didn't have the personality for it. I never saw him enjoy being bossed around, yelled at, or physically punished. I think he just wanted to be with his friend. I know that I supported him all that I could - he eventually left the Corps - but now the second guessing starts and I ask myself if I did enough, if I could have made more of a difference in his life. I don't think I could have but I guess that doesn't really matter now... I've lost the chance.

Joe and I worked together at a Tex-Mex restaurant. He taught me dirty words in Spanish and tried to teach me to be a good waiter. (I was much better at the Mexican profanity.) Joe was an incredible waiter. All the customers loved him and requested his tables. When I sat people it wasn't unusual to run out of tables for Joe and have to sit his customers elsewhere while he handled it all with ease. He worked these people like a psychologist and raked it in with tips. He invested magic bowls and special dip and... uh, just go watch the movie Waiting and always remember to be nice to people who handle your food or work on your brakes.

Towards the end of our college careers I could see Joe starting to drift into another direction. I talked to him about it and let him know I wasn't too fond of some of his friends. Did I do enough? Could I have done more? Would it have made a difference? I don't know. I was just starting a family. I didn't know what I was doing. Who was I to tell my friend Joe how to live his life? Who was I? I was his friend. I don't know if I could have done anything more, and I never will.

Joe and I made contact a few times here and there over the last decade or so. Brief visits in Houston or a short phone call. It seems we often allow life to eat away at those things that make it worth living. Just a few weeks ago I tracked Joe down on one of the social networking sites. I had tried in the past without success, but now...

We exchanged several messages and "chatted" one evening over the computer. I was happy to see we could still, after all these years, finish one another's sentences. He told me life was going much better for him and that he was planning on moving to Tulsa before too long. I sure was happy to find my friend Joe.

When he was younger Joe rubbed people the wrong way. He always seemed out-of-step with the rest of the world. I think that's why I liked him so much. I think that had a big effect on his life. It was his defense mechanism. We all have one. Me? I always told jokes, figuring if I was making you laugh you wouldn't ask any personal questions. Some folks use athletics. Others books. Cars. Clothing. Makeup. Music. We all have a defense mechanism and with everyone you know you had to break through a defense mechanism. I broke through Joe's.

I missed a great deal in Joe's life over the last 10 years, but I can tell you how he was. As much of an agitator as Joe was, he was extremely compassionate. People hurting people hurt him so much. He hated any story about a child getting hurt or worse. As much as he picked on his brothers (as we all do), no one else was allowed to talk about them. He really did love them. He had a mind that should have brought us a cure for cancer, a new way of creating energy, or a really sick novel or screenplay. He could have done anything. But perhaps Joe's personality couldn't quite bridge his world and his future. I don't know. His brother Chris summed it up wonderfully: "he was just one of those people who moves so quickly and does so much that they can't sustain the pace for long."

I guess I'll wrap this up. I've got some chicken strips cooking in the other room in honor of Joe. He was my friend. I'm very proud to be able to say that. I loved him as a brother. There are many of you out there who never took advantage of the opportunity to get to know my friend Joe. You missed an amazing person.

I am sorry for your loss.

For Whom The Belles Towed

The whole family loaded up this weekend and went to the Heritage Festival/Car Show that I had alluded to last week. The Roberts adventure is now complete and, in an attempt to wipe if from my memory, I'm going to give you a brief synopsis.

As you know I am from the South, so we were prepared for anything at the Heritage Festival. Down in these parts that phrase can mean a good excuse to wear your sheets outside the bedroom. Fortunately, that was not to be in this case, though several members of the Daughters of the Confederacy made a showing in their beautiful dresses. Now, you may be thinking this would be a good time to include a photograph, and you'd be right. The wife and I both took cameras with every intention of using them, but the weather did not cooperate. It dropped from the low 60s all the way down to the mid-50s while we were there.

I know this may not seem like much to those of you from the yonder side of the Mason-Dixon, but for we southern folk, anything north of I-40 or south of 60° is unacceptable. For that reason we didn't take any photos; I didn't get the camera out of the bag or my hands out of my pockets. Let's just say that if the world was dependent upon me to bring it photographic proof of the snow leopard, the world would have to rely on legend and campfire tales.

As it turned out heritage, as it was used in the flyers for this event, meant "rural artists selling crap made of driftwood and bird nests." I got only a cursory view of these booths, but I feel confident in saying there were no lost photo ops (unless you like looking at license plate figurines). We ducked into a diner to have a burger and drink, but instead spent an hour waiting for a burger and drink. The bad part was that it took so long, but the bad part was that their supplier was the same one my elementary school cafateria used... possibly food from the same era.

No Southern Heritage Festival would be complete without a car show, and this one was no disappointment! There were cars from the 30s to the 00s. Mustangs, T-birds, Chargers, Bel Airs, drag cars, cruisers, and rusto-rods. Everything a motorhead could want. You'd've loved it! Even if you aren't particularly into cars it would have taken you back to a better time in your life! Of course, it was a little chilly, so I don't have any photos to show you. Sorry.

I have to admit that this was the first car show I'd been to in quite some time (the church decided to go with 'Jesus and Guns' for last year's Christmas Pageant), so I was a little unprepared for these newer models. Do you remember the time when you'd look into an engine compartment and see... well... an actual engine? I'm going to give a little visual assistance here:

For me, I can do without all the plastic... I like my engine to look like an engine.

I missed my high school reunion to freeze my cojones at the heritage festival/car show and eat canned chili on top of boxed fries... and it was worth every moment. Still, there must have been a number of you at the reunion hoping to see me so that you could revel in how much better you've done since the last reunion (based upon the air-brushed photos on your Facebook pages), so I will placate you:

Since the last reunion I have put in years of overtime to finally work my way up to vice-president of a company with two employees, I've gotten a divorce, and my dvd player is on the fritz.

Oh, and my engine compartment back in high school...

was way cooler than the one I have now.


See you all at the next reunion/heritage festival!

THE PANSY CORNER

Congratulations to the Christina (Delaware) School Board, which has been backed into The Pansy Corner this week by a student who was on his way to a 45-day suspension to the alternative school but for a last minute reprieve.

Here's what happened: In the quiet, early morning hours of September 29th, Zachary Christie got off his school bus wielding a knife. A teacher asked him what he had in his hand and he brandished the weapon, claiming he was going to use it to eat his lunch. Acting swiftly before literally dozens of students could be stabbed to death, the teacher turned the knife over to the school principal, who decisively suspended Christie for 45-days, pending a school board hearing. A tragedy, much like the one at Columbine, was once again narrowly avoided by the quick thinking of an alert teacher and a school district's zero tolerance policy.

By October 12th it became clear to members of the school board that not only was Zachary Christie a 1st grader, he was also a new and proud Cub Scout, which is why he brought the spoon-fork-knife utensil to school. Additionally, he was active in school, participating in the talent show, excelling in math and reading, and winning first place in a statewide art contest. Further complicating the school's case was the fact that both of Christie's parents and his step-father are active in the school. His mother is co-President of the PTA and homeroom mother for Zachary's class. And, as it turns out, quite adept at creating websites, like this one.

On October 13th the school board decided to give Zachary another chance in his school. To get around the zero-tolerance regulations, the members unanimously voted to reduce the punishment for kindergartners and 1st graders who carry weapons to school or commit violent acts to a suspension of 3 to 5 days, wisely continuing to protect students and faculty from homicidal 2nd graders.

If you follow the link above you will see that there was a bittersweet ending to this situation. While Zachary is back in school, his parents are concerned that other students may be swept up in similar hysteria, and for good reason. This school board made The Pansy Corner for exactly how they handled this situation. I'm not going into the argument about zero-tolerance here (it is a long debate... at least on the side of common sense). What I want to point out is that these chicken-livered administrators were helpless to make a decision without changing a ridiculous rule. Why not stand up and say:

It is clear that this rule is not set in place for a student of this caliber or a situation like this. Zachary Christie will return to class, his record will be cleared of this incident, and the principal will report to my office for a paddling.

Why? The bottom line is that the school board is scared. All of them across the country are. And no matter what Michael Moore might say, it has nothing to do with safety. It's all about security - job security. The policies put in place since Columbine have done little to nothing to protect children in MOST school districts. (There are some school districts that ought to hand out straight jackets at the door, but that's for another post... on another blog.) These intrusive policies have gone a long way to teaching your children there is no such thing as a right to privacy or personal property, even to the extent of having the school dole out medication. (Gee, I wonder how future generations will vote on health care reform?) But they have increased job security for school administrators.

Zero tolerance means no discretioin at the local level. No discretion means no decisions. No decisions means no responsibility. No responsibility means no accountability. No accountability means no need to evolve into a rational, reasoning, vertebrate. And that's exactly what we have filling the offices and teachers' lounges of our schools: mindless, spineless bureaucrats.

In this case the fear was not that Zachary Christie would attack another student, but that some child might get hurt. A cut. A poke. An abrasion. Bruised feelings. And what happens then? No one wanted to say it, every single administrator associated with this case avoided it, and in story after story of this ilk across the country you won't find it mentioned: LAWSUIT. The easy way to face it is by burying one's head in the rules.

Lawsuits, all across the land, have scared these people into inaction. Zachary's mother got 29,000 signatures of support, which left the school board little choice but to let him off. But they did it in the most spineless way possible. It was truly the least they could do. Why not take the momentum of the signatures and use them to fight back against lawsuits and ridiculous policies? CHARGE!!!!!

Why indeed. Look, I'd love to blame all this on the lawyers. The civil legal system exists so that rational parties who disagree over an issue have access to an impartial resolution. Attorneys are a vital part of the process of making sure justice is served and injured parties are properly and reasonably compensated. The truth is that some lawyers step way outside this role and go looking for any excuse to sue or extort money from someone... anyone. But I'm afraid - and this pains me to say - that lawyers are not the whole problem here...

How many of you nodded your head when I damned the lawyers?

How many of you would be reaching for the yellow pages the second your child broke an arm jumping off the monkey bars at school? Payday, right?

Congratulations, Zachary. I wish you the best in your future educational experiences.