THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† Hunting Hokies: A group called Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, formed after a deranged student killed 32 people at Virginia Tech University in April, launched a nationwide protest in which students have been sporting empty holsters around their waists to show their objection to laws prohibiting concealed weapons on campus. "People who would otherwise be able to defend themselves are left defenseless when on campus," protest participant Ethan Bratt, a Seattle Pacific University graduate student tells FOX News.
† Let’s Rumble!: Playing off the zinger that got the audience to their feet at the Republican presidential debate in Orlando, John McCain has released this new campaign ad (video) that criticizes Sen. Hillary Clinton’s efforts to earmark taxpayer funds for a museum commemorating the 1969 Woodstock music festival.
† Ron Paul Explains Why He Sounds Just Like Dennis Kucinich (second item): After being inundated by repetitive messages supporting Ron Paul on forum threads by 20 to 30 new users, conservative blog RedState.com announced a new policy: "If your account is less than six months old, you can talk about something else, you can participate in the other threads and be your zany libertarian self all you want, but you cannot pimp Ron Paul." RedState's CEO and editor-in-chief Erick Erickson told Wired News that, "These people are not part of the Republican coalition. It's somewhat naive to think that these people will stay in the race with Republicans when Ron Paul is no longer in the race."
† He Won’t Be Getting A Legal Aid Lawyer: Peter Barta, 32, of Queens, NY, pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful surveillance for using a video camera hidden in a clock to spy on female co-workers as they changed clothes in their offices at the Legal Aid Society. Barta avoided jail time by pleading guilty to the felony, but was automatically disbarred.
† Independent Journalist Fakes Interviews, Quotes: An ABC News investigation into terrorism analyst Alexis Debat, concluded that except for four minor discrepancies the reporting he had contributed to the network stood up. Debat was fired for falsifying his résumé, and ABC plans to review employment and academic credentials more thoroughly when vetting consultants in the future.
† Garbage In, Garbage Out: Part II: The Wall Street Journal reports on a new study by the Pacific Research Institute, "Not as Good as You Think: Why the Middle-Class Needs School Choice" that shows middle-class public school students aren’t getting the education their parents think they’re getting, given the hefty school tax bills they’re paying:
Conventional wisdom holds that upscale communities tend to have "good" schools, and parents often buy homes in expensive neighborhoods so their kids have a shot at a decent public education. …
In areas such as Newport Beach, Capistrano and Huntington Beach, where million-dollar houses are commonplace, researchers found more than a dozen schools where 50% to 80% of students weren't proficient in math at their grade level. …
Schools serving middle-income kids are also doing a poor job of preparing them for higher education. Some 60% of freshmen in the California State University system need remedial courses.
Writing in her blog, The Renaissance Biologist, reader Qwerty the Cucumber offers her usual pithy take:
Finally! Something about the middle class. … although I agree that the Democratic focus on the poor is laudable, I believe it is overdone at the expense of the rest of society. Granted, the meek will inherit the earth. But Jesus never condemned the middle class for earning more money than less-privileged societal strata.
The fact is, schools are failing across the board because unionized teachers cannot get fired, regardless of how mediocre or lazy they are.
And then there are the pedophiles. A seven-month investigation by The Associated Press uncovered 2,570 allegations of sexual misconduct by teachers from 2001 through 2005, that had resulted in "teaching credentials being revoked, denied, voluntarily surrendered or limited." Concludes AP: "Students in America's schools are groped. They are raped. They are pursued. They are seduced. They think they're in love."
† The Not-So Silent Scream: In a column about "the unfolding estrangement of the Turkish people (and derivatively, the Turkish government)" Tony Blankley writes that when he was the editorial page editor of The Washington Times, he hired Tulin Daloglu "a leading Turkish correspondent in Washington … to describe in her column each week what the Turkish people and government were thinking, particularly about American policies and actions."
Blankley describes Daloglu as "a superb student of Turkish culture and politics, a secularist, a friend and admirer of America and a Turkish patriot." It’s a sure bet that Blankley doesn’t know that phrase, "Turkish patriot," is code for "Armenian Genocide denier." In one op-ed for The Washington Times on Hrant Dink’s assassination by a Turkish Nationalist, Daloglu wrote, "Turks don't believe that the facts of history are entirely known." Of course not! The "events of 1915" are not truthfully depicted in schoolbooks, are not included in lesson plans and cannot be discussed in the media.
In a recent article exploring the "Turkish psyche" The New York Times interviews Fethiye Cetin, a Turkish lawyer representing Hrant Dink’s family, who found out at the age of 25 that her grandmother was an Armenian adopted by a Muslim family after being separated from her parents in 1915:
"We grew up, knowing nothing about our past. It was not talked about in the family environment. It was not taught at schools and one day came when we suddenly faced facts telling that there has been an Armenian genocide on this land."
How Blankley thought that the deluded Daloglu could possibly offer an "objective" (his word) view of the Armenian Genocide – that blood-soaked 800-pound gorilla in the room that complicates Turkey’s relationship to the civilized world, is at the root of its failure to achieve normalized relations with Armenia and will likely scuttle its EU accession bid – after being kept in the dark by her government her entire life is beyond comprehension. The Stiletto can only surmise that the standards of objectivity at the Moonie-owned Washington Times are, um, different than what a reasonable (that is to say, not brainwashed) person would expect.
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