The marine who shot the unarmed, wounded Iraqi last November was not courtmartialed.  The NPR page that carries the story also has a link to an unedited version of the tape showing the shooting…and be forewarned that it’s graphic.

It seems that 88 members of congress want to know if the story in the London Times detailing the leak of a document from Tony Blairs inner circle that indicates that Britain had already signed on for the war in the summer of ’02.  The members have signed a letter penned by John Conyers (found it on RawStory.com) asking the president to ‘splain himself.

They want to know:

• Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain’s commitment to invade prior to this time?
• Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with
  the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
• At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to
  invade Iraq?
• Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British
  officials to “fix” the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document
  states?
• Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
• Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought
  Congressional authorization go to war?

This ought to be good.

This theme is recurring so often I think I’m going to have to create a new category link for it.  Once again a bunch of school administrators are showing they don’t have alot of common sense going for them.  This time it happened in South Carolina (story from WIStv.com):

(Rock Hill-AP) May 7, 2005 – An
11-year-old boy was arrested this week for carrying ten nails in his
pocket at a Rock Hill middle school and charged with carrying an
unlawful weapon.

Dianne McCray, assistant principal at Rawlinson
Road Middle School, asked the child Wednesday what was jingling in his
pocket and the student gave her the 3.5" long nails.

A school resource officer arrested him. His father picked him up and he was not taken to the police station.

The
father said the nails were left in his pocket after a Boy Scout outing.
He says it is ridiculous that his son faces an unlawful weapon charge.
He says the boy threatened no one.

This zero-tolerance crap has to stop.

Mother’s Day, to me, was always a "Hallmark Holiday" created by said company to sell more cards.  I actually got that idea from my Mom, so I feel comfortable in sharing it publicly here.  That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to learn of the true genesis of the holiday from Billy the Blogging Poet’s post "Mother’s Day in America":

In the beginning, the American celebration of Mother’s Day was an
effort on the part of the mothers of dead American soldiers to morn (sic) the
loss of their sons in war and to protest the wartime actions of the
United States during and after the American Civil War.

Mothers’ Day was first suggested in the United States by Julia Ward Howe, writer of the Battle Hymn of the Republic..
She suggested that Mothers’ Day be dedicated to peace. Miss Howe
organized Mothers’ Day meetings in Boston every year and was influenced
by Anna Jarvis, but like Mrs. Jarvis, failed in her attempt to get
formal recognition of a “Mothers’ Day for Peace.”

Anna Jarvis– a young Appalachian homemaker who began work in 1858 to
improve sanitation using what she called Mothers’ Work Days– organized
women throughout the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions
for both sides, and in 1868 she began work to reconcile Union and
Confederate neighbors, but neither of these women– Anna Jarvis or
Julia Howe– sought to make Mothers’ Day a celebration of motherhood as
it is celebrated today.

It ends up that Anna Jarvis’s daughter spearheaded the effort to get Mother’s Day officially recognized as a national holiday.  President Wilson did so in 1914.

Visit Billy’s post to read the whole piece.  It’s very interesting.

So a 17 year old kid is at school and gets a call on his cell phone from his mom, who is stationed in Iraq.  The kid is ordered to hang up by a teacher because it is against the rules to use the phone during school hours.  The kid apparently informs the teacher that his mom is calling from Iraq and he isn’t going to hang up. 

Let’s keep in mind that this is a 17 year old boy, who is probably a little excited, so we can probably stipulate that the kid didn’t articulate his situation in the nicest way.  So the kid is taken, cursing, to the office where the school administration can choose between a 10 day suspension or arrest.  They opt for a 10 day suspension and then release this quote:

Parham said the teen’s suspension was based on his reaction to the
teacher’s request. He said the teen used profanity when taken to the
office.

"Kevin got defiant and disorderly," Parham said. "When a
kid becomes out of control like that they can either be arrested or
suspended for 10 days. Now being that his mother is in Iraq, we’re not
trying to cause her any undue hardship; he was suspended for 10 days."

Nope, not a hardship at all.

***Update: According to CNN the school officials have shortened the suspension to two days, or time served.  Think it had anything to do with the wave of negative publicity and torrent of angry email they received?***