Price of Freedom

Arizona Teacher Fired Over Bumper Sticker

care2.com — Arizona teacher Tarah Ausburn has been fired from her job teaching English at Imagine Prep High School, in Surprise, because she refused to remove a bumper sticker from her car.

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Bandersnatchi's take:

Can you say, "pun?"
This teacher has not only the courage of her convictions, she has wit as well.
cf. Have you hugged your kid today?
vs. Have you drugged your kid today? - the offending sticker.

Shades of Dead Poets Society.
The school does not deserve this teacher.
She speaks the truth.
They cannot handle the truth.

The excessive dispensing of prescription drugs to alter moods, and inhibit thinking is apalling: ritalin, prozac, et al.
The dumbing down of school terxts, TV shows, the numbing of America through the avalanche of advertising propaganda all aimed at conrolling the behaviour of the masses is disgusting.
More teachers aware enough and courageous enough to try to awaken youth is exactly what is needed.
The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Don't let these fools silence another voice of sanity and reason.

That a teacher's job is in part to stimulate students to think is surely not contentious?

The Socratic method is the basis of public & private education or it is just propaganda. There are constitutional issues here. But this is Arizona and I fear the conspiracy to promote ignorance to maintain power is widespread there. But not only there.

Lesson in Life

"A seventeen year old Miss San Antonio lost her title for gaining too much weight, being told by the pageant committee she ate "too many tacos." Instead, Domonique Ramirez's crown was given to the runner up."
- Robin Marty reports, in "Beauty Queen Loses Crown Over Eating "Too Many Tacos"


Bandersnatchi's take on the incident:

A deal is a deal. A contract is a contract.
There was full disclosure - the rules were published and well-known beforehand.
You may not like "beauty contests" or "scholarship programs" but you have to want her to learn to be responsible and to honour her commitment at age 17 - while she's young, before it has life altering consequences.

If she doesn't like the deal after the contest is over and the tour begins, she can quit, give up her crown, forfeit the winnigs - it isn't slavery. The pageant knows winners sometimes stub their toe - that's why they have runners-up. Everybody knows this.

This win could lead to product endorsements for her, maybe, Revlon, maybe DKNY, who knows?
Jessica Alba makes big bucks putting Revlon on her pretty face, but if Jessica Alba puts on weight, stays out late and gets bags under her eyes so she cannot represent Revlon the way she does now, she gets replaced. That's the deal.
Tell the beauty queen to grow up, do her job, or she'll be answering the phone for the local car dealership for the rest of her life.

If God blesses you with good looks, or a singing voice, or the ability to catch a football, you shouldn't squander it by shoving coke up your nose, or Tacos down your throat.

The slow baby turtles get eaten by seagulls on hatching.
Life's tough, but it's beautiful if you don't weaken.

There are billions out there who don't have it as good as Miss San Antonio.
No sympathy here.

Romeo Must Die!

World Population
  * 1 billion in 1804       * 2 billion in 1927 (123 years later)     * 3 billion in 1960 (33 years later)     * 4 billion in 1974 (14 years later)     * 5 billion in 1987 (13 years later)   
Climate change causes notwithstanding, the human impact on the animal kingdom is indisputable.
But know this, there is no going back.
Concerns for the environment are not (just) about how pretty it is to look at, at the bottom it is about liveability - for humans.
Sure we care about pristine mountain streams being good for fish to spawn in, but in reality the concern is that the fish will still be there for us to eat.
We are pushing 7 billion people now. The environment supported lots of critters a hundred years ago when there were fewer than 2 billion people, but now we have five billion more! That's five BILLION more mouths to feed, butts to poop, and to house, warm, and entertain.
The only way for us to return to a world of plenty is for 5 billion people to die.
That isn't going to happen voluntarily, but it will happen, and it ain't gonna be pretty.

NASCAR is the canary in the coal mine.

Two truths are told as prologues to the swelling acts to the Imperial theme:

- There is no stopping climate change - so get away from the coasts, sell off your shore front cottage.
- Just because they speak English, there is no reason to think our politicians are any less corrupt than those of your average banana republic.
Polluted water, air & soil will have increasing adverse effects on people as time passes because there are no new lands to conquer where unconflicted life is possible.
- it's going to be an increasingly more vigorous battle for life & liberty from now on. The salad days are over, mostly because the peoples that "we" European descendants, enslaved, colonized and exploited, are now grown up and sitting at the table of the developed nations demanding a piece of the pie.
The G8 has become the G20 and others are clamoring to be let in.
I see world politics becoming more protectionist from now on, and energy-dense fossil fuels will be hoarded by the military to protect borders and resources.
Because the only solution to this competition is massive reduction of the population, there is no political solution, only military ones.
btw, I consider NASCAR to be a bellwether, a canary in the mine - as long as there is NASCAR, no government can be taken seriously about energy conservation and climate change.

"Why [should] I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature?"

Sorry, Bubba.