Typical parent thoughts.

My youngest played his first high school(freshman) football game last night. I enjoy the complete range of emotions evoked when watching him play. Pride takes the lead. I am proud of his hard work, willingness to expose himself physically and being made co-captain while playing both center and defensive end.  Seeing him in position and tackling the running back single handedly on the corner was thrilling for this dad. It was sad that as a team they were soundly thrashed by the opponent 53-0. One of his teammates ran into him in the 3rd quarter and I could see that he was hurting with his left arm hanging by his side, but he didn't think to come out until his coaches called him over before the next play. The protective parent wants to run down and comfort him but coaches and trainer were very attentive and the fearful, tense dad waited until the end of the game. He walked toward me after the game and the coaches post-game talk and it broke my heart to see him fighting back tears. He stated, " I'm going to have the trainer look at it, I heard it pop". I think not only the pain but the thought of missing football was overwhelming for him at that point.
By the time he came home with his brother an hour later he had a big bag of ice taped to his shoulder and had a look of satisfied accomplishment on his face, followed by a whoop of joy when his mom brought home his favorite sub.
I do like my buddies suggestion for his new nickname, "Bloodbath".

From the brilliant Ashleigh Brilliant.

House GOP Blocking Abortion Access for Soldiers Who Are Raped - Seriously, America?

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/shaheen-amendment-military-rape-abortion


B Herr

Responding to "cannibal fever," CDC denies existence of zombies

 

 

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Responding to "cannibal fever," CDC denies existence of zombies

via Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin on 6/1/12

"CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms)," wrote the US government agency spokesman David Daigle in an email to The Huffington Post.

 

 

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I must share this with my teenage sons. Thanks xkcd!

Get 'em while they're young.

 

 

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Tolerance and understanding solve school discipline problems, zero tolerance makes them worse

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on 5/3/12

The principal at Lincoln High, an "alternative" school in Walla Walla, WA that was used as a dumping ground for kids with "behavioral" problems, decided to ditch the "zero-tolerance" approach to school discipline. Instead, Jim Sporleder tried treating traumatized, furious kids with compassion and understanding. Their behavior improved dramatically.

2009-2010 (Before new approach)
* 798 suspensions (days students were out of school)
* 50 expulsions
* 600 written referrals

2010-2011 (After new approach)
* 135 suspensions (days students were out of school)
* 30 expulsions
* 320 written referrals

...These suspensions don't work for schools. Get rid of the "bad" students, and the "good" students can learn, get high scores, live good lives. That's the myth. The reality? It's just the opposite. Says the NEPC report: "…research on the frequent use of school suspension has indicated that, after race and poverty are controlled for, higher rates of out-of-school suspension correlate with lower achievement scores."

There are just two simple rules, says Turner.

Rule No. 1: Take nothing a raging kid says personally. Really. Act like a duck: let the words roll off your back like drops of water.

Rule No. 2: Don't mirror the kid's behavior. Take a deep breath. Wait for the storm to pass, and then ask something along the lines of: "Are you okay? Did something happen to you that's bothering you? Do you want to talk about it?"

It's not that a kid gets off the hook for bad behavior. "There have to be consequences," explains Turner. Replace punishment, which doesn't work, with a system to give kids tools so that they can learn how to recognize their reaction to stress and to control it. "We need to teach the kids how to do something differently if we want to see a different response."

Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tries new approach to school discipline — suspensions drop 85% (via Making Light)

 

 

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Pre1950 textbook or photoshop?

Wow

 

 

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Screaming black female circumcision cake controversial

via Boing Boing by Rob Beschizza on 4/18/12

Swedish culture minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth cut into an unusual cake at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm this Saturday, and found herself at the center of a controversy some might say could have been predicted.

The remarkable cake design--featuring a edible black torso and the artist's head screaming as guests tucked in--was intended to draw attention to female genital mutilation in Africa.

Campaigners, however, say it is itself an unacceptable caricature. From Sweden's The Local:

"In our view, this simply adds to the mockery of racism in Sweden," [said] Kitimbwa Sabuni, spokesperson for the National Afro-Swedish Association."This was a racist spectacle."

... the culture minister began cutting a large cake shaped like a black woman, symbolically starting at the clitoris. Makode Aj Linde, the artist who created the installation and whose head is part of the cake cut by the minister, wrote about the "genital mutilation cake" on his Facebook page.

"Before cutting me up she whispered, 'Your life will be better after this' in my ear," he wrote in a caption next to the partially eaten cake.

Minister in 'racist circumcision outrage' [The Local]

 

 

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The church I grew up in. Ahh memories.

Yes, yes it is. So are impure thoughts, genitals, breathing.

	Is Kissing a "Gateway Drug" to "Sex Addiction?" | RH Reality Check Source: rhrealitycheck.org When American Life League put out an ad a few months ago declaring that Planned Parenthood turns kids into �sex addicts� through the use of �gateway drugs� like masturbation, progressives collectively howled with laughter through the video and passed it along so that our friends could howl along, as well. �Who thinks this stuff up?," we thought, figuring it must be some weirdo fringe right-wing characters.

br3nth3rr@gmail.com sent this using ShareThis.

Seems like a trustworthy source.

 

 

Iraqi defector whose phony WMD intel and "sexed up graphics" led to 100,000+ deaths: "Yes, I lied."

via Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin on 4/3/12

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, aka "Curveball", an Iraqi defector who falsified testimony about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, confirms that he made the whole thing up in an interview airing this week on the BBC2 TV series, "Modern Spies." The former chemical engineer's "confidence trick" was used by the Bush administration to justify going to war with Iraq in 2003.

Snip from The Independent:

But Mr Janabi, speaking in a two-part series, Modern Spies, starting tomorrow on BBC2, says none of it was true. When it is put to him "we went to war in Iraq on a lie. And that lie was your lie", he simply replies: "Yes."

US officials "sexed up" Mr Janabi's drawings of mobile biological weapons labs to make them more presentable, admits Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, General Powell's former chief of staff. "I brought the White House team in to do the graphics," he says, adding how "intelligence was being worked to fit around the policy".

You can watch the episode in entirety here, for a limited time—but alas, only if the BBC's web servers can be convinced that you're in the UK.

(via Doctrine Man).

 

 

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--
B Herr

I think it's time to re-read Slaughterhouse.

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Kurt Vonnegut's response to book burning

Kurt Vonnegut is just the bee's knees, isn't he? Here's a letter he wrote in 1973 to the head of the school board at Drake High School in North Dakota after the school burned all of its copies of Slaughterhouse-Five in the school's furnace.

If you were to bother to read my books, to behave as educated persons would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in favor of wildness of any kind. They beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are. It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely. That is because people speak coarsely in real life. Especially soldiers and hardworking men speak coarsely, and even our most sheltered children know that. And we all know, too, that those words really don't damage children much. They didn't damage us when we were young. It was evil deeds and lying that hurt us.

Tags: books   Kurt Vonnegut   Slaughterhouse-Five

B Herr

2 of my heroes.

Evolutionary awesomeness strikes again.

 

 

Some birds have a heads-up display compass

via kottke.org by Jason Kottke on 3/15/12

Birds can detect the magnetic field of the Earth, which gives them an incredible sense of direction. Curiously, this sense of direction doesn't work in darkness. This led scientists to discover that some birds can actually see the directions overlaid on their normal vision, like a heads-up display.

According to the new model, when a photon of light from the Sun is absorbed by a special molecule in the bird's eye, it can cause an electron to be kicked from its normal state into an alternative location a few nanometres away. Until the electron eventually relaxes back, it creates an 'electric dipole field' which can augment the bird's vision - for example altering colours or brightness.

Crucially, the alignment of the molecule compared to the Earth's magnetic field controls the time it takes for the electron to relax back, and so controls the strength of the effect on the bird's vision.

There are many such molecules spread throughout the eye, with different orientations. So from the patterns on top of its vision, and the change of these patterns as it moves its head, the bird learns about the direction of Earth's magnetic field.

(via @daveg)

Tags: biology   science

 

 

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True

Soulmates

Recommended reading

I've been re-reading the Illuminatous Triology and find myself chuckling every few pages. It helps me keep the current political clusterfuck in perspective and I think it will give Brave New World a run for its cultural insights as the years pass.

Sarcasm is equally effective.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

 

 

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Vatican Dispatches Elite Team Of Bishops To Sabotage Contraceptive Manufacturer

via The Onion on 3/6/12

VATICAN CITY—Anonymous sources within the Vatican confirmed Tuesday that Pope Benedict XVI has dispatched a crack team of six highly skilled bishops to sabotage the New York headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, a leading contraceptive manufa...

 

 

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Ahhh... that's the secret.

10 commandments for con artists

From Lists of Note, the 10 Commandments for Con Men as set out by Victor Lustig a con-legend who once took $5K off Al Capone and sold the Eiffel Tower.

1. Be a patient listener (it is this, not fast talking, that gets a con-man his coups).

2. Never look bored.

3. Wait for the other person to reveal any political opinions, then agree with them.

4. Let the other person reveal religious views, then have the same ones.

5. Hint at sex talk, but don't follow it up unless the other fellow shows a strong interest.

6. Never discuss illness, unless some special concern is shown.

7. Never pry into a person's personal circumstances (they'll tell you all eventually).

8. Never boast. Just let your importance be quietly obvious.

9. Never be untidy.

10. Never get drunk.

Lists of Note: 10 Commandments for Con Men

(via Kottke)

(Image: Victig.com)

B Herr

I will no longer support taxpayer funded orgasms.