alli snow

Another failure to communicate tolerate?

Tolerance fails T-shirt test

As the media keeps gushing on about how America has finally adopted tolerance as the great virtue, and that we're all united now, let's consider the Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment. Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.

She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching "inclusion," and she decided to see how included she could be. So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:

"McCain Girl."

"I was just really curious how they'd react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters," Catherine told us. "I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be."

Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain's name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid. "People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it," Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

"One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed," Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

Read the rest

Yeah, so they're just stupid kids. The kids at my school were hyped up about Obama, too... at least more than they were hyped about McCain. But then this is a low SES school in California, and not just California but the Bay Area, where their parents and (most of their) teachers are influencing what they think.

I had a lot of kids ask me who I voted for.

"I'm not going to tell you," I told them. "When we vote in America we do it in secret, because it's our business."

"Mrs. B told us she voted for Obama," said one student.

"That's Mrs. B's choice," I told them.

Two teachers I know of - one I work with and one in my cousin's school - let their class have parties after election day "because Obama won".

The indoctrination gets less subtle in high school, believe it or not.

I think I love Orson Scott Card more now than ever before...

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn on the Lights?

Yes.

Britain Adopts Islamic Law, Gives Sharia Courts Full Power to Rule on Civil Cases

Oh well isn't that just wonderful.

Nice knowin' ya, Brits.

Seen in several places, including hotair and fark:

“F*** off” now worth two points in UK English classes

"It would be wicked to give it zero because it does show some very basic skills we are looking for, like conveying some meaning and some spelling," Buckroyd was quoted as saying.

"It's better than someone that doesn't write anything at all."

Buckroyd said the student would have received a higher mark if the phrase had been punctuated.

RAF personnel ordered not to wear uniforms in public after suffering abuse in the street

They serve their country with pride and are ready to put their lives on the line. Yet RAF personnel have been repaid with volleys of abuse in the street. So bad is the problem that servicemen and women from RAF Wittering have been ordered not to wear uniform in public. They were told to keep a low profile in nearby Peterborough following seven months of verbal attacks.

The insults have come from a "cross section" of the community and are believed to be linked to current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to air-base officials. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has held talks with Cambridgeshire police over the problem, described as "despicable" by the city's mayor Marion Todd.

( Click for the entire article )

Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, a former Army colonel, said: "The yobs who shout this abuse are a bunch of clowns and cowards. Do they not realise our servicemen put their lives on the line on a daily basis for them?"

Seriously, I want to kick somebody now. And it's not even my damn country.

If you are in Britain and you come across a serviceperson, please tell them "thank you".

(Ditto for you Americans, but I shouldn't have to say that...)