Category: ZT & PC

Just in case you thought real Zero Tolerance stories were becoming difficult to find, the good folks at Caney Creek High near Houston have stepped up to the plate by arresting someone who was trying to save a classmate’s life.

Andra Ferguson and her boyfriend, Brandon Kivi, both 15, use the same type of asthma medicine, Albuterol Inhalation Aerosol. Ferguson said she forgot to bring her medication to their school, Caney Creek High School, on Sept. 24. When she had trouble breathing, she went to the nurse’s office.
Out of concern, Kivi let her use his inhaler. “I was trying to save her life. I didn’t want her to die on me right there because the nurse’s office (doesn’t) have breathing machines,” Kivi said.
“It made a big difference. It did save my life. It was a Good Samaritan act,” Ferguson said.
But the school nurse said it was a violation of the district’s no-tolerance drug policy, and reported Kivi to the campus police. The next day, he was arrested and accused of delivering a dangerous drug. Kivi was also suspended from school for three days. He could face expulsion and sent to juvenile detention on juvenile drug charges.

Right, because there’s a huge problem with teens giving each otther hits of asthma medication. Never mind that the parents (you know, the legal guardians) of both kids fully support Brandon’s actions.

The school principal said he couldn’t do anything about it since Kivi not only broke school rules, but also allegedly violated state law.
“It’s simply a matter that it’s classified as a dangerous drug. It’s an inhaler form, but yet, if it had been in pill form or any other, it’s still classified as a dangerous drug,” said Greg Poole, the Caney Creek principal.

Ah. So we’re not only teaching kids the value of caring for each other and stepping forward to help in times of need, but of critical thinking, too. Way to go, people!

Why, in no time at all, you’ll have the whole student body terrified to do anthing to help each other, for fear that it might violate some law for which they will be expelled and thrown in prison. Woo-hoo!

(via Ipse Dixit)

(Though the reverse is true.)

Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat, idiot. To coin a phrase.

I have about a five minute tolerance for listing to Rush on the radio. He’s clever and witty and all that, but usually after about five minutes, the safety valve on my blood pressure starts hissing madly, and I need to change to another station.

I have minimal interest in pro sports, and when I heard that Limbaugh was doing a stint on ESPN football coverage, I scratched my head at the bizarre juxtaposition, then forgot about it.

Until, of course, the contretemps as to his comments. And now he’s resigned under fire.

The irony is that he was roundly blasted for “racist” remarks, when his remarks were not, so far as I can see, racist at all — except, insofar, as they (a) referred to race, and (b) referred to folks making decisions based on race.

What Limbaugh said that got him in trouble was the following, about Eagles QB Donovan McNabb, who happens to be black:

I don’t think he’s been that good from the get-go. I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well; I think there’s a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team, that he really didn’t deserve.

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen McNabb play. I don’t usually follow the Eagles (I barely follow the Broncos).

But I do know that there’s been a lot of criticism of the NFL in the past over the dearth of black QBs and coaches (which is exactly what Limbaugh noted). Indeed, the NFL has been called racist over that shortage, and anyone who has explicitly defended it (say, Jimmy the Greek) has been branded racist as well.

So Limbaugh speculates, offers his opinion, that McNabb is (a) not all that great of a QB, and (b) is getting favorable treatment from the NFL because of his skin color.

He didn’t say that McNabb was a bad QB because he was black. He said he was getting a pass (so to speak) by the NFL because of his color.

Which, when it’s couched in terms of hiring quotas and affirmative action and so forth, anywhere but in the NFL, is defended as being a Good Thing, benefiting society, righting past wrongs, pursuing social justice. But, evidently, if it’s what’s being done in the NFL — excuse me, if it’s what someone opines that is being done in the NFL — then that opinion is racism.

Huh?

Was Limbaugh’s assessment of McNabb’s quality as a QB wrong? I have no idea. Certainly sports commentators express their opinions about who’s a great athlete, and who isn’t, every day, without getting in trouble. If Limbaugh had only said, “I don’t think he’s been that good from the get-go. He got a lot of credit for the performance of his team, that he really didn’t deserve,” folks could and would debate what he had to say, but nobody would call for his firing. Criticizing a sportsman’s performance is not racist, unless, one would think, the criticism is ascribed to his race.

Were Limbaugh’s statements impolitic? Obviously. But that’s not racism.

Were Limbaugh’s comments about the NFL, or the Eagles, wrong? Hard to say. I doubt there’s a memo in someone’s file that says, “Hire this guy, it will make the league look better.” And it seems that a team, at least, would hardly start a QB that was marginal, only because of his color. On the other hand, what’s said around conference tables or on the phone is a different matter, and certainly I suspect that there were those in the league who were pleased at another starting QB who was black — to deflect that racism charge, if for no other reason.

But whether Limbaugh was wrong or right about it, there’s nothing racist about his comments. They’re ascribing social or political agendas to the media and to the league, effectively calling them racist. It’s ironic that folks can accuse the NFL of being racist for having too few black QBs and not draw any any criticism, but that calling them racist for coddling a black QB is branded as racism in and of itself.

Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat idiot, and he may well be racist; I don’t listen enough to his show to say. But anyone who applies that label to these specific remarks is ascribing a quality to them that is just not there, and is therefore playing politics with the language. They are diluting the perniciousness of racism itself, turning it into something that means, “Anything that criticizes the job of someone who isn’t white.” Which is kind of idiotic itself. And racist.

As I drove home yesterday, the NPR news headline led off, “A female American soldier was killed today …”

I’d think NPR would be the last to single out gender differences among US servicefolk.

Being of an historical bent, I can appreciate the desire of the high school band director to be historically accurate.

But I’m not sure that a “Visions of World War II” half-time show by the Paris HS Band (Texas) was the place for historical accuracy [free registration required].

Particularly when it included a kid running across the field with a flag of Nazi Germany, to the Haydn tune that was the Reich’s national anthem, Deutschland Uber Alles.

Particularly, I suppose, on the evening of Rosh Hashana.

“We were booed,” he said Monday. “We had things thrown at us. We were cursed.” Mr. Grissom apologized for the incident, which nearly caused a melee at halftime of Friday night’s football game at Franklin Field.
“We had an error in judgment; it was certainly not to disrespect anyone,” he said. “Our intent was never to cause any harm.” He added, “We understand there was a sensitivity we didn’t know about going in. … We didn’t do our homework.”

Um … yeah.

The show also included the flags and music of Britain, France, the US, and Japan. No word on whether any folks of Chinese or Korean descent in the audience were less-than-pleased by the Imperial Japanese flag flying again for their entertainment.

Also no word on why the Soviet Russian flag was absent, given their pivitol role in WWII.

I’m all for history, and was quite the WWII nut for a while. But some folks still have personal, painful ties to that conflict, and waving around the flag (and playing the anthem) of a regime that committed the atrocities that the Third Reich did does not seem, to my mind, appropriate for a football halftime show, let alone one on the Jewish New Year. I suspect they wouldn’t have been surprised if a reenactment of the War Between the States drew some criticism.

(Interestingly enough, the show has been being worked on since August for a band show coming up later this month. It was performed a week earlier after the homecoming game, and garnered no protest. Of course, if it was after the homecoming game, it probably garnered no audience, either.)

(via Daimnation)

Ouch.

A voluntary “climate survey” of over 3,500 Air Force Academy cadets (out of 4,100) comes up with some disturbing results.

Fewer than half of female cadets at the Air Force Academy say they would report being sexually assaulted.
[…] Those unwilling to report cited the same reasons as in the inspector general’s survey – fear of threats and reprisals, belief that the attacker would not be punished, ostracism and social isolation.
[…] One male cadet in every five believes women don’t belong at the school. And two of every five cadets – male and female – say that differences between the sexes make the complete acceptance of women in the service impossible.
[…] Almost two in five underage cadets admitted drinking, and one in five cadets said they would buy alcohol for cadets under 21 if they thought they wouldn’t be caught.
[… M]ore than 90 percent of freshmen respondents said they would confront another cadet for violating the honor code, which governs cadet conduct. But that fell to 85 percent for sophomores and juniors and 81 percent for seniors.

The survey is meant as a baseline to chart the success (or failure) of leadership and process changes at the Academy.

Did you know that the Dewey Decimal System is an owned trademark? I didn’t. Nor did the owners of the Library Hotel. But they do now …

The Library Hotel, overlooking the New York Public Library, opened in August 2000 as an homage to the Dewey Decimal system of classifying books by topic. Each floor is dedicated to one of 10 Dewey categories. The 60 rooms are named for specific topics, such as room 700.003 for performing arts, with appropriate books inside.
Trouble is, the classification system isn’t in the public domain.
Online Computer Library Center, a nonprofit organization based in this Columbus suburb, acquired the rights to Dewey Decimal in 1988 when it bought Forest Press. The system is continually updated, with numbers assigned to more than 100,000 new works each year as soon as they are cataloged by the Library of Congress, according to the OCLC website.
Now the library group is suing the Library Hotel, accusing it of trademark infringement.

Which is fine, I suppose, if they just wanted to be acknowledged as the trademark owner, or something like that. Instead, this non-profit wants treble damages (which I would think woudl be around, oh, zero), or triple the profits the hotel has made since opening.

It does seem that the organization contacted the hotel owner three times over three years, asking for acknowledgment of the trademark, but got no reply.

Still — given that it only charges libraries $500 to use the system (though, frankly, that still seems outrageous), and given that very few people would likely go to the hotel thinking it was actually a library, or vice-versa, asking for triple profits seems a pretty goofy thing to do.

(via Volokh)

The Saudi religious police have declared that Barbie is a threat to Islamic morality — especially since she’s Jewish.

Saudi Arabia’s religious police have declared Barbie dolls a threat to morality, complaining that the revealing clothes of the “Jewish” toy — already banned in the kingdom — are offensive to Islam.
The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, as the religious police are officially known, lists the dolls on a section of its Web site devoted to items deemed offensive to the conservative Saudi interpretation of Islam.
“Jewish Barbie dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures, accessories and tools are a symbol of decadence to the perverted West. Let us beware of her dangers and be careful,” said a poster on the site.
[…] Other items listed as violations on the site included Valentine’s Day gifts, perfume bottles in the shape of women’s bodies, clothing with logos that include a cross, and decorative copies of religious items — offensive because they could be damaged and thus insult Islam.
An exhibition of all the violating items is found in the holy city of Medina, and mobile tours go around to schools and other public areas in the kingdom.

Now I have little love of Barbie — among other things, I find that particular shade of pink hideous — but, damn, this is almost enough to send me straight to the Toys ‘R’ Us and pick up a dozen for Katherine …

(via Daimnation)

Someone’s actually developed a “Real Map” of Europe, using the names that the countries call themselves as the country names, rather than the Anglicized version of it.

It’s an interesting exercise, though I disagree that the “normal” maps are a “ridiculous … last vestige of colonialism.”

(via BoingBoing)

A remarkably reasonable essay in Reason on how overzealous church-state separation is a real problem, but how the apparent defeat of Roy Moore is not an example of it. It doesn’t say anything I haven’t said, but it says it quite nicely.

(via InstaPundit)

Whilst looking up some info on a Samuel Taylor Coleridge quote, I ran across this little passage in the middle of a description of how to get a Ph.D. in Communication at North Dakota State University, describing the “reflective essay” that all candidates must write.

1. The reflective essay has a long and rich history. For example, Samuel Taylor Coleridge is quoted (with a masculinist bias), “There is one art of which man [sic] should be master, the art of reflection.”

Puh. Leaze.

First off, do follks actually quote that passage from Coleridge with a “masculinist bias”? I presume by such bias they mean that it is quoted in such a way as to exclude women — and, I will grant you that someone writing that today would probably be rightfully so accused (or at least accused of lack of inclusiveness by not saying “man and woman” or “a human”). But given that Coleridge died in 1834, it is, perhaps, more than a bit over-sensitive to say that anyone who quotes him is guilty of a masculist bias (unless, of course, it’s draped with caveats about masculinist bias).

If what was meant was that Coleridge himself had a “masculist bias,” I don’t know if that’s actually true (given the era, it certainly could be, and even may be presumed so by modern sensibilities), but it’s poor writing (ironically enough) on the site’s part if that’s what they’re trying to say.

Nor, one assumes, would it be necessary to actually place a sic next to the evil “M” word — yes, we trust that’s actually what he wrote, folks. And if we’re properly indoctrinated, we’re all aware that Folks Used To Write That Way, the Insensitive Bastards.

Of course, I’m assuming that the writer of the course description knows of the era that Coleridge came from, and that he isn’t, for example, some Fat Cat Republican white male sitting in Washington right now today cranking out masculinist prose.

But maybe that’s a foolish assumption on my part.

I guess what irks me is that this sort of Political Correctness is sitting in the middle of a communication doctorate course description. Were I considering going to NDSU, I would certanily run, not walk, in the opposite direction.

While I roundly condemn the torchnig of an auto dealership by the Earth Liberation Front (motto: “Because the pollution from burning down an auto dealership is insignificant next to the power of the Force”), it is more than a bit disingenuous of folks to argue this is the fault of folks calling for better gas mileage on vehicles.

The move prompted a national SUV owners’ group to condemn the incident and criticize celebrities like California gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington, a founder of the Detroit Project, which has challenged automakers to produce fuel-efficient vehicles.
“While we believe these groups do not condone such activity, those who have generated the greatest amount of media coverage are creating an atmosphere where it is open season on SUV owners and their vehicles. It must stop,” SUV Owners of America President Jason Vines said in a statement.

Wasn’t the same argument made (with equal stupidity) about how Evil Right-Wing Radio Commentators were creating an Atmosphere of Hate that was directly responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing?

I don’t think Rush Limbaugh was responsible for OK City. Nor do I think that Arianna Huffington is resonsible for these arsons. To give either of them credit for that much influence is either silly or just too scary for words.

(via Ipse Dixit)

Doctors have long used the acronym-rich medical profession to make their own little personal comments in patients’ charts, too. I have no idea if they are international (though I plan on pinging my brother-in-law, the doctor), but some cited in the article below include:

CTD – Circling the Drain (A patient expected to die soon)
GLM – Good looking Mum
GPO – Good for Parts Only
TEETH – Tried Everything Else, Try Homeopathy
UBI – Unexplained Beer Injury

Alas, it seems this is becoming a (so to speak) dying language. Seems doctors are being asked, in court, what the abbreviations mean.

Dr Fox recounts the tale of one doctor who had scribbled TTFO – an expletive expression roughly translated as “Told To Go Away” – on a patient’s notes.
He told BBC News Online: “This guy was asked by the judge what the acronym meant, and luckily for him he had the presence of mind to say: ‘To take fluids orally’.”

Other non-acronym terms include “pumpkin positive” (i.e., if you shone a penlight into their mouth, the lack of brains would make the whole head light up like a jack-o-lantern).

I suppose it’s all for the best, but it’s a shame to see such personalized terminology pass.

(via normblog)

The most interesting article I’ve read yet on the whole Kobe Bryant thing: the legal status of adultery in Colorado.

In sum:

• It is illegal, under state law.
• There is no specified legal penalty.
• The penalty used to be $200 fine and six months jail, doubled and trebled for the second and third offenses. The penalty was dropped in 1972 (but not the crime).
• The charge was not included in the indictment against Bryant, thus the jury cannot find him guilty of it.
• The last time the charge was brought up was in 1925, People v. Bright.
• The law was originally passed “to prohibit and punish the disgraceful and scandalous conduct of those who would, by their evil and immoral example, debase and demoralize society.”

Just thought it was interesting.

We discussed a little while back the question of calling people and places by the names they prefer. Volokh asks the trivia question, in a way, of which European countries are not called by us English-speakers what they call themselves? (Begging the question of whether we change what we call them.)

The answer is here.