I hope you actually apologized to Sergeant Crowley, without weasling about it.

Let's turn things around for a moment: suppose the people forcing their way into Professor Gates' house actually were burglars, and suppose the police department decided not to respond to the call. What then would Gates have had to say?

As for the arguments that the neighbor who called the cops "should have known" Gates, why? I have lived in the same house for 35 years, and some of my neighbors--even people living within sight of me who have been here a year or more--do not "know" me. Some of these neighbors are black people who have no interest in socializing with me, and by my observations do not have any white friends who visit. Are they racists? Some of them have children who are foul-mouthed louts, who shout racial epithets at me for no good reason.

You mentioned today that race is "still a factor" in American life. Can you understand the frustration of white Americans who never seem able to do enough to accomodate the social disparities between themselves and that tiny minority of black soreheads who think they define their entire race?

As it happens I despise and pity white supremacists. But since I don't know of any within my family and circle of friends, I bear no responsibility for their actions.

You, sir, need to make up your mind whether your presidency is race-neutral (as you claimed in your campaign that it would be), or whether in fact things are as they have come to appear to be with you. The black voters of the USA could not alone have elected you. It happens that I voted neither for you nor Senator McCain, but I had hoped that you would act as President of every category of American citizens. Both your legal and your extra-Constitutional appointments have created the appearance of ethnic/racial favoritism. And you have certainly done yourself no good this week, meddling in a local police matter on behalf of a personal friend, regardless of the race of the people involved.

To paraphrase [the execrable] Keith Olbermann, Mr. President, shut the hell up.

Connecticut School Bans Physical Contact

MILFORD, Conn. (CBS) ―

A Connecticut middle school principal has laid down the law: You put your hands on someone -- anyone -- in any way, you're going to pay.

A violent incident that put one student in the hospital has officials at the Milford school implementing a "no touching" policy, according to a letter written by the school's principal.

East Shore Middle School parents said the change came after a student was sent to the hospital after being struck in the groin.

Principal Catherine Williams sent out a letter earlier in the week telling parents recent behavior has seriously impacted the safety and learning at the school.

"Observed behaviors of concern recently exhibited include kicking others in the groin area, grabbing and touching of others in personal areas, hugging and horseplay. Physical contact is prohibited to keep all students safe in the learning environment," Williams wrote.

Students and parents are outraged. They said the new policy means no high-fives and hugs, as well as horseplay of any kind. The consequences could be dire, Williams warned in the letter.

"Potential consequences and disciplinary action may include parent conferences, detention, suspension and/or a request for expulsion from school," Williams wrote.

Many think the school's no tolerance policy goes way too far. Others said it's utterly ridiculous.

"Now it's almost as if it's a sanitized school. Where you have to keep your distance from everybody? And that's not what school is about," one father said.

"What if they are out on the playground at recess, or in gym class?" parent Kathy Casey wondered. "You know, gym class is physical."

This is just more of the ongoing foolishness from public school educrats. Obviously, this dumbass of a principal is either too stupid or too lazy to be able to distinguish between affection or play and potential violence. Such a person should not be in a position to exercise authority over anyone else, child or adult.

Ignoring the fact that this silly policy will make it nigh well impossible for students to play any kind of competitive sport, there are other ramifications. Presumably if two students are walking along together and one trips and falls, helping one's friend back to his feet will be considered a punishable offense.

In the dog-training business, we taught owners that you are always teaching an animal or child, by virtue of your actions and reactions towards them. Accordingly, we suggested that people be extra cautious, to be sure they were not teaching something unintended and undesirable.

The students of East Shore Middle School have just been taught an important lesson: that the school is run by a flock of jackasses who are not worth of their respect.

Mayor who sent watermelon e-mail says he'll resign12 hours agoLOS ALAMITOS, Calif. (AP) ??? The mayor of a small Southern California city says he will resign after being criticized for sharing an e-mail picture depicting the White House lawn planted with watermelons under the title "No Easter egg hunt this year."Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose issued a statement Thursday saying he is sorry and will step down as mayor at Monday's City Council meeting.Grose came under fire for sending the picture to what he called "a small group of friends." One of the recipients, a local businesswoman and city volunteer, publicly scolded the mayor for his actions.Grose says he accepts that the e-mail was in poor taste and has affected his ability to lead the city. Grose said he didn't mean to offend anyone and claimed he was unaware of the racial stereotype linking black people with eating watermelons.Located in Orange County, Los Alamitos is a 2 1/4-square-mile city of around 12,000 people.

He wasn't aware of the racial stereotype. If you believe that, please send me a message--I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

No apology at all is better than an insincere one.

The Seattle Star-Tribune reports that one of those hypersensitive born-again Christian protest groups finds Starbucks' new logo absolutely pornographic.

Here's the offending picture.

 

The Resistance, a Christian group out of San Diego says the new image "has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute,"  according to Mark Dice, founder of the group. The Resistance claims more than 3,000 members nationwide and has found a place  advancing various conspiracy theories.

Starbucks says the logo is based on a sixteenth-century Norse woodcut: a two-tailed mermaid, or siren. Bare-breasted and Rubenesque, that siren is meant to be as seductive as coffee itself. It's a somewhat bowdlerized version of the company's original logo from 35 years ago, on which you could actually see--gasp!--nipples. Most recently, the company has been using a stylized version of the Norse mermaid, as shown below.

These Christers, as Sinclair Lewis called them, are quite talented at discerning sexual content just about anywhere. Which might explain why so many of them have such large numbers of children. I'm of the opinion they ought to pray more and keep their pants zipped. 

Next, we have this tasty Reuters story about how obesity contributes to global warming.

A "study" done by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine claims that obese and overweight people "require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat," adding to food shortages and higher energy prices. This bit of pseudo-science actually found its way into The Lancet, which I have always assumed is a peer-reviewed journal.  The, um, scientists went on to say that because thinner people eat less and are more likely to walk than to rely upon automobiles, they occupy some sort of environmental high moral plateau.

I think they are missing something important. The ultra-thin, environmentally hip crowd includes a large proportion of vegetarians and vegans. A diet heavy in vegetable matter produces more intestinal gas than one laden with meat and fat. Thus vegans fart more copiously than normal people, and everyone knows that human flatulence is simply saturated with sulfur dioxide and methane, two of the most notorious "greenhouse gases."

Continuing on the subject of Obesity...

Philadelphia's CBS Channel 3 reports that if you are more wealthy and foolish than you are hungry, you can spend a hundred bucks on a cheese steak sandwich. Reporter Nicole Brewer tells viewers that Chef James Locascio, of Rittenhouse Square's Barclay Prime, created this "haute" cheesesteak, which includes butter poached lobster and shaved truffles. Locascio is quoted saying the sandwich has "every ingredient you want to try in a life time in one." Apparently without regard for whether you can actually taste lobster when it's combined with the other ingredients, and assuming there is something about the truffle--at $900 a pound--that makes it more desirable than the dozens of less expensive, and tasty, mushrooms that might be used. Of course this is not merely a sandwich: it's a status symbol, a paean to conspicuous consumption.

Brewer, on camera, sampled one of the sandwiches and pronounced it worth the price. Of course, you can bet the TV station picked up the tab.

To my cheese steak discerning eye, the thing looks puny and the roll looks overbaked. I may harbor a prejudice because I grew up two blocks from the place, and went to sleep every summer night to the aroma of sauteeing onions, but I don't think you can beat Captain Harvey's of Dundalk for steak sandwiches. True, the price of a half-sub has zoomed to nearly seven dollars, about double what it was a decade ago. But for your money, you get something about the size and heft of a truck driver's forearm, and infinitely more delicious. There is no eat-in, and I would recommend you wear something to protect your clothing from dripping juices. Last time I bought a Captain Harvey's sandwich, I ate my fill and had enough left over for a couple of hefty steak burritos for the next day's lunch.

Finally, this is not especially humorous, but it does involve someone who is overweight and tends to lunacy...

The new June edition of the Baltimore Beacon reports that President Bush signed into law last month S.845, known as the "Safety of Seniors Act of 2007," noting that Ms. Mikulski is a co-sponsor. This law, in the words of Beacon reporter Barbara Ruben, "authorizes new programs to help prevent falls among older adults." So we are now the beneficiaries of a program that is expected to cost at least $178 million over the next two years. Though I suspect the true beneficiaries will be the public health mavens who will be well paid to try to figure out who falls, where, when and why, and what troublesome architectural constraints can be put into place in a misguided effort to prevent it.

Mikulski bloviates, "Falls don't discriminate. This is a serious public health problem..." Except, of course that until the research is done, nobody knows how serious a problem it might be. Plus that little grammatical faux pas in her first sentence.

Having sent written testimony in favor of the school's plan, I received a copy of the summary of the hearing and the decision. I'm almost sorry I blew off attending the hearing, because it must have been a real circus. For one thing, the changes proposed at the school property are nowhere near as radical as they have been represented to be. And for another, the opposing neighbors appear, collectively, to be dumber than a box of hammers.

THE OPPOSITION AND ITS CASE

Graystone Community Association - an association without a community

Among the objectors were people claiming to represent two community associations, each of them suspicious in its own unique way. The Graystone Community Association claims to represent more than 100 households in the immediate neighborhood. Neglecting the minor detail that there is no such community as "Graystone," a few soreheads in this neighborhood whose plat is officially recorded as "Broadacres" incorporated early last December. During the time interval conveniently created for them by the undue and potentially unethical influence of two local politicians. The Association's web site describes the neighborhood thus:

Where is this development and when was it built?
Graystone is located in Woodlawn and built about the 19xxs. Homes in this area include a mix of mid-size single family homes and attractive townhomes.

Aside from the fact that there's not a "townhome" within half a mile of the residence of the association President, the members were too stupid or too lazy to know when their own houses were built. A thirty-second check on the Web revealed that the association president's house was erected in 1956, along with much of the surrounding neighborhood.

The Woodlawn Community Education & Development Association

What exactly does this group do? 

The other organization objecting calls itself the Woodlawn Community Education and Development Association, Inc. This outfit, a federal non-profit, was established in 2002, with the wife of a local Baptist preacher at its head. According to its corporate charter, this outfit was established for the following purpose:

"Establish a community based entity, formed to maintain a strong alliance between schools, police departments and our community. In addition, to strive to assure an active participative relationship with politicians through a focused, productive, educational and developmental agenda."

Now, having benefited from a privileged education at a public high school in a blue-collar neighborhood across town, it would be unfair of me to criticize the bad syntax of this statement of objectives, or to point out that it is a meaningless abstraction, so I will move on to other things. The officers of this corporation are listed as "V. Ross, D. Griffin, I. Zachary, C. Hayes, A. Truitt, M. Bowden and G. Jones," which makes them all but impossible to identify.

At the hearing, the preacher (husband of the Association president) spoke on their behalf. He "described his association as an umbrella organization representing a number of community groups on behalf of approximately 1,800 households."  That number represents approximately ten percent of the total number of households in the entire community known as "Woodlawn," and one would think that with such high participation and lofty goals, you'd be constantly hearing of the good works done under the auspices of the Association.

(Here again, let's ignore my personal experience: I've lived in the area this association purports to represent for 32 years, and have not heretofore heard of it. This, in spite of the fact that I was a regular contributor for several years to a community newspaper here, and spent more than six years canvassing the area as a real estate salesman.) As far as I can see, the Association has no presence on the Worldwide Web, in an era when Joe Sixpack might have two or three websites of his own.

There is a scant record of the Association's works. The county school board minutes from June 2006 note:

Dr. Manuel Rodriguez, Assistant Superintendent, Southwest Area, recommended that Woodlawn High School auditorium be renamed to the "Woodlawn Community Education and Development Association (WCEDA), Inc. Community Auditorium." ...

Ms. Shillman asked whether the funds for the auditorium had been donated by WCEDA, Inc. Dr. Rodriguez responded this group has applied for, and received a federal grant to renovate the auditorium.

Sure enough, Congressman Elijah Cummings managed to wangle a $65,000 federal grant for auditorium renovations. Exactly what role Rev. Ross' organization played in the process is not clear. But the Cummings "earmark" occurred in fiscal year 2004 [that's the year ending July 1, 2004], and according to a cached web page from the Association of School Business Officials of Maryland and the District of Columbia, a request for bids on the work was let only this year. That bid, number JMI-632-08 remains in limbo, the due date having passed on March 31st.  

Later that same year (October, 2006) the Reverend Ross testified as an "expert" on the idea of a light rail line connecting Woodlawn and Dundalk, tentatively named the Red Line. As the Daily Record reported [emphasis added],

The expansion of light rail and bus services on state government's Red Line was addressed by Daniel Pontious, regional policy director of the Baltimore City-based Citizens Planning and Housing Association, and Rev. Ezio Ross, a Baltimore County clergyman who heads the Woodlawn Community Education and Development Association.

One of the major points made by both men is that transit projects need to be better coordinated with economic development. Both said they saw transit as a way to boost commerce by creating "town centers" and "urban villages."

"It can bring developers into an area by creating amenities," Ross said, following a 15-minute review of transit projects in cities such as Boston, Denver and Los Angeles.

Transit establishes routes, something vital to fostering trade, they noted.

"A sense of permanence is important to economic development," Pontious said.

The Red Line is expected to create a transit corridor starting in Woodlawn and running through Baltimore City and out to Dundalk on the eastern side of Baltimore County, the presenters said, although the state Department of Transportation Web site labels it a 10.5- mile project that will only go as far as Fells Point/Patterson Park. The portion to be addressed within the next few months by state and local leaders is a section that will run from Woodlawn to Canton, Pontious and Ross said.

The article went on to say that even this truncated route would cost  between $525 million (for a surface rail line) and $2.6 BILLION for an underground line. And apparently nobody bothered to address the little complication posed by the fact that the route would probably not be allowed to run through the Leakin Park, owing to the same deed restriction that prevented I-70 from continuing eastward several decades ago, and resulted in the Interstate Highway to Nowhere, connecting Schroeder Street with Greene Street, a mere 45/100 of a mile distant, and through some of the most downtrodden housing in the city.

CONCLUSION: I still have no idea what the WCE&DA has been doing for the past five years, or what qualifies Rev. Ross as an expert on "development," since he is by profession (and presumably by education) a theologian.

The School's Proposal, and the arguments against it

The main part of the proposal was to create a dormitory to house 20 to 30 young male students. It was revealed only at the hearing that they'd be housed in the existing buildings, nearly all the changes would be invisible from the outside. A couple of neighbors made a great fuss over whether cars had been parked on the grass on this property. Bear in mind, it's slightly over an acre of land, and on a knoll overlooking the surrounding area, so while you can see whether or not there are cars parked, you can't tell where they are parked without trespassing on to the place.

Other neighbors contended they were worried that the tavern across the street and downhill from the school property would be a horrible temptation. Apparently this sub-group is so ignorant of Islam that they don't realize that alcohol consumption is strictly verboten to Muslims. And the bar is such a redneck joint that I can't imagine anyone looking remotely like a Middle Easterner, or even an American Jew, walking into the place and surviving. Not to mention that the students will all be between the ages of 12 and 20 years old. The protestors did note that police had to be called to break up brawls at the bar 21 times in the last six months of last year.

Still more protests focused on the miserable academic record and perpetual violence at the public high school about half a mile away. Nobody mentioned that there's a lot of parking-on-the-grass whenever the high school has a football game, and apparently nobody brought up the fact that this school is at the very bottom of the academic ranking in the county, despite the county's having dumped $13 million into it to graft a "pre-engineering magnet school" on to this otherwise ghettoized school, in the hope that the magnet school students would pull up the average numbers for the entire school. Which they didn't.

It was also revealed at the hearing that, in addition to the $628,500 the school's owners paid for the property being discussed, the man who will be its headmaster spent $380,000 on a new house built just across the street. Without enrolling a single student, this father-and-son team has invested more than a million dollars in a neighborhood where the average sale prices were below $150,000 before they nearly doubled during the short-lived boom experienced here in 2006.

The objectors weren't done yet, though. Besides the high school and the redneck bar, they noted that a commercial building across the street from the school houses a day school for what were described as "75 disruptive children." Now seeing that this bunch started out their opposition with the allegation that Darul Uloom would be yet another unwanted "group home" for the developmentally disabled, and that they subsequently brought up this day school, someone should have asked how many of them favored euthanizing problem children, since neither of these quite opposite alternatives satisfy them.

Yet somewhere along the line, they missed complaining about the "Adult Day Care" center for the elderly in another commercial property on the same intersection. Can you imagine the detrimental influence on young Muslim boys of seeing some Alzheimer's-addled geezer wheeling himself down the street, having escaped from day care? It boggles the mind.

For the county's part, they have managed to wipe away any public reference to the fact that the original hearing for Darul Uloom was pulled off the docket last October, due to the arguably unethical intervention of a state senator and a county councilman who is now under investigation for misusing his campaign fund as a personal bank account.

The Decision

Finally, on March 28, the Commissioner made his decision. The school will be allowed to operate, but with a few caveats:

• The size of the student population is limited to 20
• A privacy fence must be erected between the school property and the property to its immediate north, a place that has long been used for the storage of heavy contractor's equipment.
• The school will need to provide landscaping to screen its property from the three houses across the street to its east, one of which is owned by the headmaster!
• Parking will be permitted only in the designated (paved) spaces shown on the site plan. [How the county intends to enforce this without aerial surveillance, illegal search or surveillance, or further trespassing by disaffected neighbors remains to be explained.]
• The driveway into the place will need to be widened from 10 feet to 20 feet.
• [This is the one that makes me laugh] Petitioner shall use similar architecture and building material where applicable to assure compatibility with the surrounding neighborhood.*

* I will need to post some photos to illustrate the absurdity of this requirement. The Bauhof House, which is the site of Darul Uloom, was built as the home of the local baker, back in the twenties, and has a style of its own. The rest of the neighborhood is a mash-up of stuff, much of which Malvina Reynolds described as "little boxes made of ticky-tacky." There are a handful of the original farm houses predating the residential development of the area, ordinary little Cape Cods, a handful of stuccoed split levels, two faux-Spanish-mission houses, the general run of stuff built before World War II, and a couple of freshly-built split foyer disasters.

Then there's the real killer-diller: "Petitioner shall not utilize the property to perform religious services for the general public." Aside from the fact that this requirement appears to violate the First Amendment to the US Constitution, there again arise several questions: (a) How does one define "general public?" I don't believe you will find the "general public" at any religious service; only members of that particular religious denomination and prospective members. (b) Who is going to enforce this, and how? Does the county plan to station someone at Darul Uloom's entrance to "card" people going in and out of the place.

I maintain, and challenge anyone to convince me otherwise, that this matter would never have seen the light of day had the proposal been for a Pentecostal Christian church, like so many of the jump-up congregations operating in storefronts, converted warehouse space, and rented hotel conference rooms around this neighborhood.

This entire matter is shameful and un-American, but alas, it's business as usual in Baltimore County, where we have The Best Government Money Can Buy.

Dear Jordan family:

I recently read an article about Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and am disappointed that you take such a flippant attitude towards mental illness. Were you simply renovating a historic building and providing educational tours for the public, i would understand your business plan and agree that we cannot gloss over history. However, your “psycho path” program, although punny, is incredibly disrespectful and undermines efforts by those who work to eliminate the stigma associated with mental illness. As a person who has to care for a mentally ill mother, I find this quite distasteful and harmful to the public. Terms like “psycho”, “crazy”, “nuts” are devastating to a person who is fighting to simply get through the day in addition to their families and advocates working on behalf of those who are suffering. Further, by creating a novelty environment where mental illness is perceived as “frightening” (your Halloween and New Year’s Eve program) is appalling. In the AP article I read, Rebecca Jordan likened this facility to the Holocaust museum. I live in Washington, DC and recently visited the museum - the mood is somber and reverent - with the utmost respect paid to the victims of the Nazi regime– it’s an audacious analogy and I suggest the Ms. Jordan avoid making it again. Ms. Jordan’s claim that you aren’t creating a “freakshow” is a disingenuous one; it is apparent that you are more concerned with your bottom-line and attracting rubberneckers than educating the public on a very pertinent issue that touches many families.

The level of disrespect you have for those who were interned in the TALA is unacceptable and I sincerely hope that you reconsider your strategy in attracting visitors and take advantage of a potentially powerful educational tool.

Another one bleated thus:

People who like to abuse and degrade people(or to make money using any questionable method they please) ALWAYS use the bogus BS excuse of free speech; just like the boors here in favor of this renaming. That was never what free speech was supposed to be about.

It’s laughable to see some of you, and the owner, try to pretend that it’s to preserve a dark period of history so we can learn from it. She’s doing it because she’s a greedy lowlife using the cheapest tactics she can think of to generate buzz from people of your type. She’s pretty much akin to Jerry Springer and you people are the audience. It doesn’t matter that it’s her private property either. It’s open to the public; that makes a difference. We aren’t talking about a private residence here.

The more people I come across the more I believe free speech should have limits because it’s being misused and used as an excuse by all the wrong people. If you can’t use it responsibly with common sense you shouldn’t get to use it at all.

All this horror reminded just how accurate Lenny Bruce was when he observed that "... it's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness."

In the interest of avoiding my own controversy, I won't quote Bruce's night club routine directly on this page. Wikipedia's entry on Lenny Bruce cites it under "sourced quotes." Also, Honey Bruce talks about this bit, and there's a tiny clip of it on the YouTube clip "Swear to Tell The Truth Three." The pertinent/offending material begins around 01:40. Or if, heaven forbid, you want to read his exact words, click here, using the password "NotAPrude".

My personal conclusion: IF YOU ARE SO HYPERSENSITIVE THAT THE UTTERANCE OR WRITING OF A WORD, EVEN AN INSULTING ONE, SETS YOU INTO A TIZZY, OR A MURDEROUS RAGE, YOU WILL ALWAYS FIND YOURSELF BEING CONTROLLED BY SOMEONE WHO IS WILLING TO UTTER THAT WORD. TO EMPOWER YOURSELF, GET OVER IT !!!

ITEM: This year is the earliest possible date on the calendar for Easter. The holiday falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar. As it happens, 2008's equinox is on March 20, followed by a full moon the next day, making that Good Friday. According to some information I received (but have not verified),

This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives! And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old or above!). And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier! Here's [sic] the facts:
 

1) The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you're 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!).

2) The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So, no one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than this year!

The oldest member of my mother's church happens to be 94, with a great sense of humor. I can't wait until Sunday to rib her about having been "born too late" to have seen two March 23 Easter Sundays.

ITEM: The top story (front page, above the fold) in the March 20 issue of The Jeffersonian is a puff piece about a center for the practice of Wicca! This is an ongoing story of some interest in the county. It seems that a thirty-ish man here who won millions of dollars in the state lottery is a follower of Wicca, and he decided to convey quite a bit of money to this existing business for its expansion. The place is a café-cum-book-and-coffee shop run by a handful of people who consider themselves pagans-in the most charitable and innocuous sense of the word. The newspapers have been at pains to point out that this quasi-religion does not involve Satanism; in fact that the practitioners do not even acknowledge the existence of Beelzebub or his equivalent.

This is all very fine, and it's a nice, heartwarming tale, but the Jeff's timing is just awful. The grand reopening of this place occurred last weekend, which meant that the story could-with a bit of extra effort-been run in the Tuesday number of the paper. Or it could have waited until next week. To headline this story on the day before Good Friday seems like a deliberate slap in the face of the Christians who comprise the majority of the county's population.

I cannot imagine that the paper would have run a feature about  radical Islam three days before the start of Yom Kippur, just as it wouldn't have run a feature about the Jewish Defense League on the eve of Ramadan. But apparently Christianity is fair game for any sort of abuse.

ITEM:  Wednesday nights, I am out at a community band rehearsal across town, and on the way home it has become my practice to tune in to about ten minutes of the Les Kinsolving show on WCBM. There are several reasons: (1) ten minutes is about all I can abide of this old gasbag; (2) he occasionally gives half an hour or more of air time to one Larnell Custis Butler, arguably the greatest crackpot caller in the entire history of talk radio; and (3) when Kinsolving is on a tear about homosexuality, it's interesting to count how many times he can work the term "sodomy lobby" into the conversation in a short period of time.

As it happened, last night I managed to just miss Ms. Butler's diatribe, but shortly after I tuned in Kinsolving was hyperventilating with another caller, a man from Delaware who was in a lather about his local school system having ordered the removal of Easter decorations, as of Thursday.

Now this might have been an outrage if the decorations in question made even the most indirect reference to the betrayal, trial, crucifixion and rebirth of Jesus of Nazareth. But this caller's complaint dealt with nothing more than decorations depicting bunnies and colorfully decorated eggs.

Initially my reaction was to think that the school administrators were a bunch of old soreheads who found yet another excuse to make the public school experience dull and enervating. But as a bit of research this morning revealed, the caller was merely repeating an unsubstantiated rumor. WGMD radio reports in some detail that the story appears untrue. Moreover, perusing the web site of the Indian River School District, where this non-event occurred, reveals that the school administration had been the defendant in a recent lawsuit related to prayer in the schools, and has crafted a policy relating to prayer, religious symbols, teaching of religious history, and other forms of religious expression that seems quite fair and well-crafted, albeit a bit ponderous. But that's what you get when lawyers get their hands on an issue.

So, as usual, Kinsolving's blast was a waste of oxygen that someone else could have been using.

Look for a dispatch early next week about this Easter Sunday, which will be an interesting and bittersweet occasion for some of my friends and family.

She asked the clerk to help her find a hand-cart, then launched into a complaint about how she'd been treated three days earlier. Listen in:

"Who was working here Saturday?"

"Well, there are two people working in the office on weekends..."

"I'm not talking about that Afro-American woman who was here; she always treats me nice. I'm talking about that Euro-American [I swear to God, that's what she said] woman. She did me a favor, getting me a storage unit on short notice, I know, but I just didn't like the way she talked to me. I'm going to come back here and talk to her about that, and this time she'd better treat me nice, or there might be trouble."

At this point I could not help intervening. In part because the woman she was complaining about is  one of the most unflappable, upbeat people you could hope to meet, and in part because I needed to complete my purchase and move on with my day. Excusing myself into the conversation, I remarked that what this woman had said sounded remarkably like a threat, and that perhaps the clerk ought to warn her boss to be on the alert for trouble. Predictably, that shifted the focus of the attack to me, the woman now getting shrill and demanding to know whether I worked for the company, etcetera. In an even tone of voice the clerk told her I was a long-time customer of the place, of very high standing, and a personal friend of the woman being complained about. After a bit of huffing and puffing, and looking me over from head to toe, as though she was trying to memorize my description (enough so that I offered her a business card), the woman flounced out of the place. As she left, she shouted over her shoulder, "Jena Six!"

I am at an absolute loss to understand what message this little ejaculation was intended to convey, since it was so far out of context with anything that had been said up to that point. I can only assume it was some sort of weirdly abstract threat directed at me; perhaps that I should expect Al Sharpton and a few thousand angry liberals to show up on my doorstep.

Apparently, the woman is one of those people--the ones who push race into every possible encounter, hoping to use it for leverage when she's wrong on the facts. Reflecting on the "Euro-American" remark (and I swear, I have never before heard a white person referred to thus), I formed a mental picture of this woman as a huge locomotive, with her race-resentment shoved out in front of her like a cow-catcher.

And as I have written on other occasions, I'm always amazed to hear this kind of stuff from someone who is obviously too young to have been turned away from a lunch counter, relegated to the back of the bus, or forced to use a "colored" water fountain.

The shame of this kind of behavior is that it becomes to easy to make it into a racial generalization, when the truth is simply that this woman is a racist and a jerk.

Last week, I emailed Barry Barber, Captain of the Second Police Precinct, and asked what data the police department might have about disturbances at or service calls to group homes.

Captain Barber replied:

We don't arbitrarily track statistics at all group homes in the Precinct.  When we start to notice an increase in calls for service, especially criminal calls, at a particular group home location, we then begin to track all calls there.

At the same time we start to target the location with increased enforcement. At the same time we contact the home administrator in a effort to relocate some of the problem residents and/or to close the facility all together.

For all other homes, if given an address, we can pull up calls for service over a given period.  We will not do this unless specifically asked to do so.

As for the location on Dogwood Road, it is not a group home.  The proposal is for this to be a dormitory for an Islamic School.  There are no known problems connected to the school and there is no reason to believe that its presence would cause a problem within the community.

Aside from the specifics about the Darul Uloom operation, it is significant that the police department does not track calls to group homes. If, as so many aver, they are a source of trouble, the county ought to be compiling data that either backs up this assertion or disproves it. The don't ask/don't tell approach is unacceptable, especially since the county already uses an (expensive!) GIS mapping system to track crime by category. At the very least, this system could easily show crime rates at non-owner-occupied addresses, compared with owner-occupied ones. God knows, this might also provide a grasp on whether the problem is houses occupied by groups of "retards," Section 8 housing, multiple-unit properties, or some factor nobody has imagined.

Meanwhile, it's worth asking Councilman Ken Oliver when, if ever, he plans to make good on the promises he made shortly after being elected the first time. County Vibe* no longer appears to exist, and somehow it escaped being cached by Google, but it was for a time another of those local newsletters aimed solely at black residents. In February 2005, this web site published an interview with Oliver, who had been elected in 2002. I had the foresight to do a screen capture of the interview, written by one "C. Green." Here's the interesting part, where group homes are concerned. See my footnotes:

Another major concern in the district is the group home issue. We’ve heard that upwards of 70% of group homes in Maryland are located in NorthWest Baltimore County. What impact have they had on the community and what initiatives, if any, are in the works to address this issue?
Good question and I am glad you’ve asked it. Group homes have been in Baltimore County for over 20 years. They have been in this district for over 20 years, and the first councilmatic district for over 20 years. The first and fourth councilmatic district have over 80% of all group homes in the state of Maryland. So they didn’t happen and come in the year 2002 when I got elected. They were here prior to that. I didn’t hear one word about group homes prior to 2002. (1)

Yes, I do have an initiative. The councilman from the first councilmatic district(S.G. Samuel Moxley) and I are sponsoring legislation to have a study done of the group homes so that they can take that information and pass it to our senators and delegates because everything that happens to group homes does not happen on a county level. It is a federal issue and than it becomes a state issue. The problem is that you have three agencies who are issuing licenses and they are not talking to one another. (2) What Senator Kelley has done is sponsor legislation where one agency will issue licenses for all group homes and no more will go in certain areas. They will have to go elsewhere because of the over saturation.

The group home issue is a hot button. Therefore, it is common for some residents to blame group homes for any number of issues in their community. Are some of the concerns and their impact overblown?
I think people are picking it to death and it is overblown.(3) They are not going anywhere. We didn’t pass the federal laws we just have to abide by them. No elected official wants to deal with it and that’s why I took the initiative to talk to my colleague in the first councilmatic district and we are sponsoring legislation to do something about it at least on the state level.

I can't help wondering about several statements attributed to Oliver here. In fairness, the article is quite badly written, and the Councilman may have been misquoted or quoted out of context. Nevertheless:

(1) Councilman Oliver's curriculum vitae includes nearly twenty years with the county's planning commission. How can anyone say they "didn't hear one word about group homes prior to 2002," given that experience?

(2) Even if three different agencies are empowered to license group homes, why has the county never managed to provide an accurate count of them, much less district-by-district? It seems to me that this information is knowable, although admitting that you know it poses several problems: (a) it could blow a hole in the assertion that X percentage of the county's group homes are in such-and-such an area; (b) it makes even more questionable the Police Department's policy of not tracking service calls to these homes; (c) shouldn't the number of these residences in a given area be an important factor in planning ambulance and hospital facilities?

Or is the truth that nobody has the slightest idea how many physically handicapped and developmentally disabled people live in any given part of the county? I realize, this seems difficult to believe, in an era when the US Census Bureau collects an inordinate amount of personal information, and when the Transportation Security Authority has been revealed to be keeping track of what reading material people carry on to airplanes. Obviously, someone, at some level of government is lying about the existence of this data.

(3) Has Mr. Oliver changed his view, that the group home matter is overblown and being nitpicked? If so, how would he explain his decision to intervene in an otherwise ordinary request for a zoning variance?

* If you try to pull up the domain CountyVibe.com on your web browser, you will find yourself redirected to "YourPrintCafe.com," which is a parking spot for semi-inactive domains. The WhoIs database reveals the following about CountyVibe.com:

Registrant:
ATTN: COUNTYVIBE.COM
c/o Network Solutions
, Yukon Territory Box 447
Zimbabwe

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: COUNTYVIBE.COM
Created on: 13-Mar-02
Expires on: 13-Mar-08
Last Updated on:

Administrative Contact:
Green, Clinton gu4ec74v9nw@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
YourPrintCafe.com ATTN: COUNTYVIBE.COM c/o Network Solutions P.O. Box 447 Herndon, VA 2017

It would not be a huge leap to assume that the administrative contact  for the domain is the same guy whose name appears on the byline of the Oliver interview. But what's his connection, if he simply works for some outfit in Virginia? And obviously the registrant information is bogus: Yukon Territory in Zimbabwe?

It's not unusual to find domain registrants hiding their identity behind bogus names and addresses, or registration tracking services like GoDaddy. As revealed in a blog entry in 2006 George Soros, one of the major bag-men of the Democratic Party does this.  By contrast, it is relatively easy to find at least some sensible registration info for domains owned by companies you might think are vulnerable to attack by the net, such as Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, eBay, etcetera.

Conclusion:

1. Someone should demand that the police track, and make public, data about group homes, whether or not it fits the convenient story that they are such a pestilence.

2. If there is a third alternative for housing people unable to care for themselves besides so-called institutions and so-called group homes, someone should propose it. By appearances there would be a boat-load of money to be made.

3. Someone needs to ask Councilman Oliver about the inconsistencies I've noted here. Since he no longer answers my emails or phone calls, someone else will need to try.

-30-

Zelman is now offering what he calls "Goody Guns," cookie cutters in the shape of little semiautomatic pistols. As he envisions it, "With the supervision and help of the adults in their lives, boys and girls can turn their own kitchens into "Arsenals of Liberty" by making gun-shaped cookies to keep and share, while absorbing firearms safety lessons the public schools would never teach them, and which the mass media don't want to see taught."

 Halloween would be a great time to send a message to the anti-gun whackos in your neighborhood by baking up a batch of trick or treat cookies using this insidious cookie cutter. Being a responsible adult, you would of course wrap each cookie individually, and enclose a name and address label.

When the rabidly gun-hating parent shows up at your doorstep, you can offer a barter: you will trade the cookie for one of the window stickers shown at the right, provided the neighbor promises to paste it on his front door for at least a month.

If you're operating in a virulently anti-freedom environment like Baltimore, Maryland, you will want to have your lawer on retainer ahead of time, and a bail bondsman on alert. The police will surely throw you "under the jail," and you are guaranteed to make the Late News. Chances are, they will send a news crew to do a "stand up" in front of your house for at least the next two newscasts, and you can take advantage of the air time to paste the pro-liberty poster of your choice on the front of your house, knowing it will be televised.

But wait! There's more...

The next step will be deploying the Goody Gun device as a sandwich cutter, sending little Joshua and Emily to school with gun-shaped sandwiches.

Yellow American cheese would be the most symbolically appropriate filling, although peanut butter and jelly would drive those my-kid-has-allergies whiners straight up the wall as well. White bread is a must, the doughier the better.

Now, envision the news story that will result when the vice-principal confiscates your child's lunch as evidence, and attempts suspending him or her from school.

You'll be able to have a field day with the kid interviewed on television, tearfully describing how "Mr. Goober took away my sam'wich and made me go hungry." The school officials will look like the fools they are, and you can probably make book on an "emergency school board meeting" being called.

 

If you are a member of a "protected minority," or can claim poverty, you get extra credit.

Blind Activists Claim Hybrids Are Dangerous
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
WBAL Radio as reported by Robert Lang

Members of the National Federation of the Blind are picketing  today outside the South Baltimore offices of the Maryland Department of Environment.

They want environmental officials to order the makers of hybrid cars to make changes to the environmentally friendly car.

Chris Danielson says the cars are too quiet when running on their electric battery, and that can be dangerous for blind people trying to cross the street.

Danielson tells WBAL News that  he has no statistics on pedestrian accidents involving hybrid cars, but he does say there have been several near misses.

"Several of our members have reported having  very close calls with these vehicles, including those here in Baltimore....literally walking out into the street when they thought it was safe and having the car screech to a halt in front of them," Danielson told WBAL News.

Danielson says the federation requested a meeting with officials of the leading auto makers, but he claims the car companies have ignored that request.

State environmental officials today are expected to consider regulations requiring that new cars sold in Maryland meet California emission standards by 2011. 

Danielson says he favors the cars, which are considered to be more environmentally friendly.  He feels that the the cars can be made safer.

This is the idiot story of the day. At least I hope, since the day is not yet over. Idiots: please don't consider that a challenge...

I have a flash for Mr. Danielson: I have decent hearing, vision that's corrected to 20/20, and according to my doctors, damn good peripheral vision. In spite of all this, I have had "several near misses" when crossing streets on foot, not to mention when driving.

Danielson needs to understand a few things:

• The world is not "safe," and God help us if anyone thinks it should be
• Some drivers are probably trying to frighten or run down blind pedestrians. There are some nasty, perverse, pathological SOBs in this town, and most of them have a driver's license.
• While it's no longer politic to call blindness a "handicap" or a "disability," blind people still get that double tax deduction. Unless they are willing to give up that privilege, I think they need to resign themselves to being inconvenienced now and then. Plenty others of us have problems, some pretty damn serious, and nobody else has parlayed that into an extra tax exemption.

Beside which, what does Mr. Danielson expect the car-makers to do? Perhaps add a little exterior speaker connected to a digital recording of a 5 year old child going "vroom-vroom."

If he were less narrow-minded, Danielson might have suggested that we look for some ways to reduce other urban noise, so the relatively quiet sound of the hybrid electric car might be hear among the din.

For my money, anyone who implies that we need to make any product more noisy is an ass.

Desperate Housewives racial slur: Philippines wants apology

The Philippine government is to seek an apology from the producers of the hit US television series "Desperate Housewives" for a racial slur against Filipino medics, the Philippine Daily Inquirer said on its web site Wednesday.

The officials cited a recent episode where actress Teri Hatcher, who plays Susan Mayer, asked whether the person attending to her during a medical consultation "can I check those diplomas because I want to make sure that they're not from some med school in the Philippines."

Asked if the government would seek an apology from the producers of the show, and ABC television network that carries it, executive secretary Eduardo Ermita said: "Yes, I think we should, on behalf of our Filipino professionals."

"On the face, we can look at it as a racial slur. We are looked down upon too much, considering the number of our medical professionals in the US," the Inquirer quoted Ermita as saying.

Ermita likewise appealed to civil society groups and other Filipino organisations in the US to "call the attention" of the show producers, and Hatcher, to the "racial slur."

Filipino consul in Los Angeles Mary Jo Bernardo Aragon wrote a letter of complaint to the ABC network saying that Filipino medical workers were in demand all over the world.

"The US recognises the students of Philippine medical and nursing schools and in general, does not require additional schooling in the US for Filipino healthcare professionals," she added.

Aragon also said many Americans go to the Philippines for medical services that they cannot afford at home, the foreign department said in a statement.

The Philippine GOVERNMENT is making a fuss about this? Good grief. It would be silly enough if some medical association there squawked, but to turn a throw-away line in a TV show into a diplomatic incident simply reveals that the Filipino government has people with too much time on their hands.

Imagine a world in which every Polack joke you've ever heard brought down the wrath of Lech Walesa...

We are probably headed there.

And, by the way, I don't think even the most sensitive soul would see this as a "racial slur against Philippine medics." It was a bad joke about Philippine medical colleges. Or categorically about US physicians who have degrees from offshore medical schools because they couldn't cut it at Hopkins or Mass. General.

Fools.

October 1, 2007 -- She wore too much Red Door, so they showed her the door.

That's the claim of a Brooklyn woman who says she was fired as a customer-service rep because she wore too much perfume.

Jorinda Sullivan, 24, of Canarsie is suing her former employer, Mindpearl, a customer-service center in Melville, L.I., for $1 million in Brooklyn federal court, claiming that co-workers' complaints about her perfume morphed into thinly veiled racial discrimination.

After complaints about one perfume, Sullivan switched to Elizabeth Arden's signature Red Door - but said she was soon hauled back into the supervisor's office for the same reason.

Later, she was allegedly attacked over her personal hygiene and asked what soap, shampoo and deodorant she used.

At that point, she decided she was being harassed because she is black and complained to the state Division of Human Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In February, she was fired because, her boss said, she'd been the subject of three customer complaints the previous week.

Vincent Gaines, chairman and CEO of Mindpearl, said, "The company denies any wrongdoing and intends to continue to vigorously contest her claims."

The really insidious thing about being accused of "racial discrimination" is that it is all but impossible to disprove. Which makes it a really handy tool that "people of color" can reach for when they find themselves in a fix, and are wrong, as per the facts of the case.

(CBS) OAK LAWN, Ill. A southwest suburban school district has taken action, responding to the concerns of a Muslim parent. [ed. note: that's "a," as in "one."]

But now, as [TV newsie] Suzanne Le Mignot reports, other parents are angry that traditional school holidays will be renamed or even eliminated.

"That does not represent all the Muslims, all of the Arabs at that school," said Qais Nofel, the father of a student in Ridgeland School District 122.

There was some heated discussion between parents outside Columbus Manor Elementary School in Oak Lawn on Friday. The thought of no more traditional holiday celebrations has many parents really upset.

For now, children in Ridgeland School District 122 will celebrate fall festival instead of Halloween and winter festival instead of Christmas.

Brenda Elvidge said, "It's not fair to our kids. This is America and that's an American tradition."

The decision affects the children at four elementary schools in Oak Lawn and one junior high school in Bridgeview.

The district has a 30 percent Arab-American population, many of whom practice Islam. The superintendent says the reason for the change in tradition comes after one parent wanted Ramadan decorations put up inside Columbus Manor Elementary. They were taken down.

Superintendent Tom Smyth said, "I go back to our policy which says that public schools are to remain neutral in this respect."*

Ridgeland School District 122 has called for an emergency meeting on the issue, to be held on Tuesday.

Meantime, Muslim children are being allowed to pray during what's being called their own time, that's lunch time, during Ramadan.

Parent June Quigley said, "They get to pray in our schools. That is religion in a public school."

Muslim parents have different views on the issue.

Sala Abour said, "To take away Halloween and Christmas from little kids, that is very wrong."

Nofel said, "We go and we celebrate the holidays and traditions here, but we do have the right to be Muslims as well."

Other parents say the controversy is overshadowing what really needs to be addressed at all five schools in the district.

Ronnie Carroll said, "The fact that they are cash strapped. Our classroom size is way above the average mean, 38 children in our first grade classroom. The concern should be our school, not the whole holiday issues."

Those issues along with the holiday controversy are going to be addressed at a school board meeting on Tuesday. Members will decide if holidays will be celebrated or not.

Meantime, the Illinois PTA district director says the state is now investigating this issue and there's a meeting with the superintendent next week.

A few observations, if I may.

ONE parent objected to the more traditional American holidays. Thirty percent of the school district population (which is not to say 30% of the school's students) are "Arab-American," and MANY (not "most," in fact the percentage is not quantified) practice Islam.

Public schools have always been "sold" as the place where children learn to get along with other children who are not just like them. Removing any holiday from the mix defeats that mission.

Superintendent Smyth's statement that the schools are to "remain neutral in this respect" represents a huge departure from the philosophy of having the public school system teach the important cultural stuff about the USA, even if some of it involves (God forbid!) religion. Peruse any pre-WWII public school textbook for a perspective on this.

Until recently, parents in the USA who favored separatism for their children in areas of religion and culture formed "private" or "parochial" schools to serve this need. In some cases, those schools were an alternative to the government-funded school; in others they were supplemental education. This way of doing things has always worked adequately, has harmed no one, and ought to be left in place.

Here in Woodlawn, a suburb of Baltimore, the high school has made many concessions to Muslim students, unbalancing the privileges granted to the student body at large. I won't leap to the assumption this is the entire cause, but I don't think it is altogether coincidental that Woodlawn High School (in spite of having a "magnet" school subdivision) has the lowest standard test scores among all the county's high schools.