Becky Chandler's Page

Thank God America is finally addressing the issue of Middle School children hugging each other.

One day Hal Beaulieu, a thirteen year old student at Kilmer Middle School in Virginia, hopped up from his lunch table and sat next to his girlfriend and slipped his arm around her shoulder. That landed him a trip to the school office.

All touching -- not only fighting or inappropriate touching -- is against the rules at Kilmer Middle School.

School administrators say the rule helps keep crowded hallways and lunchrooms safe and orderly, and ensures that all students are comfortable.

But I just say it is the stupidest thing I have heard of in quite a while.

But the fraternity of douchebag school administrators seems to disagree and it is a trend that is sweeping the nation.

At Oregon's Sky View Middle School (sounds like a happy place, no?), 14-year-old Cazz Altomare spent an afternoon in detention when she got caught hugging a friend.

Today Percy Julian Middle School in Oak Park, Illinois implemented a no hugging policy.

Principal Victoria Sharts is concerned that all this hugging is causing children to be late to class. As if there is so much learning going on in the public schools this should be a big concern.

For Christ's sake, these schools are putting police officers in their schools because they are so fearful and the administrators and teachers are concerned about hugging.

But Dave Hadley, the principal at Fossil Hill Middle School in Keller, Texas explains why all this adolescent touching must be strictly controlled:

"I think it's kind of like if you let the camel put his head in the tent, next thing you know, the camel's going to be inside the tent."

I suppose he is right. You let kids start holding hands and it won't be long before they are humping in the hallways.

These lame brains should be happy the kids are getting along and not pulling knives on each other.

And then they should start doing something else.

It's called teaching.


P.S.-- hugs are not necessarily that bad of thing:





~Becky

Bill Gates is less dangerous than Google. All Bill has ever wanted to do is beat the day lights out of any competition, make billions of dollars and own as much of the techie world as possible.

In the last few years, Gates has been reborn, by virtue of the legacy of crappy code and the blood of many, as the world's savior. However, he is just a savior in the same sense as Rockefeller and Carnegie, sprinkling his spare cash for worthy causes.

Google, however, as a New Age Corporation, is committed to a vision of making the world into a better place through the control and dispersion of information. And whenever any group has that mission, you best watch out. It is nothing new-- it has long been a favorite of totalitarian ideologues.

So no one should have been surprised when Google did not have a problem in assisting the Chinese Communist Party in censoring its people.

Wouldn't you think when the Chinese government demanded the search engine in China not produce hits for words such as freedom and liberty, the progressives at Google would say “we already have enough money, we don't need your stinking business.” But that didn't happen. Not that it is an excuse, but Yahoo and Microsoft did not step up to the plate either.

But, Microsoft is in slow decline, their desktop application and quaint monopolistic business model slowly eroding. And Yahoo was left in the dust several years ago.

But Google rules. And , it seems there is little criticism or concern about Google's efforts to compile a data base of every single fact about everything in the universe.

Sir Francis Bacon pointed out long ago that Knowledge is Power.

And it was Lord Acton who noticed that Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.

I am not by nature conspiratorial. So I do not lose sleep over some 1984 vision of Google teaming up with the federal government and making nefarious use of their massive quantities of information. Although, I don't think anyone should ever totally discount that scenario. There is nothing to stop the Googlers from partnering with the government, especially if it ever comes under the firm control of the Left Wing of the Democratic Party.

Google News is not fair and balanced. A while back Michelle Malkin attempted to get listed. They declined, purportedly because the blog was operated by a single individual and did not have a formal editorial review process. Does a staff of more than one and some type of internal editorial procedure somehow imply respectability and accuracy?

Michelle Malkin is very popular, and one of the most reliable of the neo-con leaning web sites. In fact one reason I like her is that I have never seen her make a factual error, though I often disagree with her take on it.

I do not see why Michelle is censored by Google , but Democratic Underground is not. Perhaps it is because Miss Malkin led a sustained and heated campaign to halt the censorship of the Chinese people.

Most recently, Google has decided there are some other people we should not be exposed to. These are the deluded loons who believe 9-11 was an inside job, the work of the Zionist conspiracy, etc.

I already know these people are off their rocker. It is not necessary for Google to shield my eyes from these idiotic sites.

But apparently that is what they are doing.

My personal problems with Google have involved their Adsense program. In order to earn my weekend drinking money I have a few ads on the blog, including the targeted ads shot here by Google.

I manage to get my Adsense ads pulled at least once a week. Besides getting old, I find this a little odd. This blog is moderately popular. If it was to be categorized at all, it would be as more or less a political and cultural blog, that is sometimes slightly naughty in the tepid Playboy/Playgirl/Wonkette kind of way.

But I am quite certain one of the problems is the politics and cultural thought tends to be conservative (albeit in a libertarian sense) or traditional.

And I suppose this may be one of the reasons they have problems with any articles that use the word spanking, even if it is a simply a discussion of child discipline or a cute childhood memory.

Even though the Googlers are quite fond of mouthing the platitudes of women's rights and gay pride, they are uncomfortable with aspects of it.

This is really not surprising. Though they tend to be progressives or even libertarians it is really not unusual for the techie crew to be uncomfortable with gay women, or any woman if there is a hint of feminism. On Digg I am a pariah. Whenever one of my articles is submitted to Digg it is actively buried within minutes.

The same insidious discrimination and misogyny is at work in the cubicles of Mountain View. It is the strong undercurrent of testosterone OD adolescent geekiness that runs through the techie world.

Any discussion of vibrators and the ads are nixed. Why should it offend Google if a woman writes a straight forward review of a particular brand of vibrator? Surprise—these are used by millions of women. It is the age old male fear of female sexuality, and the not always subconscious paranoia about becoming irrelevant.

Any post discussing strap ons, which are used from time to time by the majority of lesbians and bi girls, immediately results in the pull of Adsense ads, even though the discussion is in no way pornographic.

And last week I featured a recent music video by Queens of the Stone Age, which had slightly lesbianish overtones and an overpowering grrl power theme. It was too much for Google and the ads were pulled.

There is also some pretty credible evidence that I need to worry as much about Google and their Adsense bot reading my emails as I am rightly concerned about the snooping of Homeland Security and the NSA.

Except in China, perhaps the reach of Google is not yet overbearing. But the things I mention are canaries in the mine and we should pay attention.

Do you want your world shaped and presented to you by the Mountain View Hippies?

Is there any particular reason we should trust them?

------------------------------------------

NOTE-- Since I have received several emails (which perhaps have ended up in the Google database and are earning you brownie points, arguing that the pulling of Adsense ads is simply a business decision and not censorship) I will do a general response here.

Yes it is. It is an attempt to force or encourage me to not talk about certain things. It is what lawyers call in a First Amendment setting a "chilling effect on free speech."

Now, do not send me emails informing me this is not a First Amendment issue--I am aware there is no governmental action involved. But that does not lessen the impact of the very real efforts of the most powerful Internet company in the world to mold the thought, speech and expressions that are on the Internet.

It is offensive whether it is done by a government, or a multi-national company that is richer, more powerful and bigger than the vast majority of governments.

Abuse of power by little men, ass bag school administrators, racism—here we go again. And I'm not talking about rednecks in the deep South.

Plejiah Mervin, a sixteen year old black girl, was celebrating a birthday with some of her friends at William J.“Pete” Knight High School in Palmdale, California. Someone had brought in a cake, which they were eating after finishing the slop they call lunch at the public schools in America.

The recess bell rang, and she dropped the cake. After picking it up, a Security Guard came over and demanded she pick up the crumbs.

Do they really need Hire-a-Cops at William J. “Pete” Knight High School? I suppose so since administrators have become so incompetent they can't deal with anything, and the teachers' unions don't feel supervising kids fits into the job description.

Anyway, it seems the little Napoleon wanted every crumb of the cake picked up. He had her go back three times to make it spiffy.

In schools it is always pretty important that all spills get left spic and span by the kid. This is because we wouldn't want the custodian to work too hard. Union wouldn't like it.

The fourth time, he followed Miss Mervin down the hall, and in the end the man with the tiny willie threw the girl down, twisted her arm behind her back, and in the process broke her wrist.

Because he followed the Don Imus deal too closely he also had to toss in how she was a “nappy head”

The guard then noticed a fourteen year old boy recording the whole thing on his cell phone, so he tackled him. When his sister came to her little brother's defense, she got it too.

Mom , who works for the school district in another school, was none too pleased. She confronted one of the administrators. So he had her arrested.

Pelijiah was suspended for five days.

And then arrested on assault and littering charges. The kid who recorded the whole thing and his sister were also charged.

Here is the fair and balanced report:




I am sure the school district and their lawyers will come up with some kind of tepid defense.

But you know what?

It ain't gonna fly.

This is because it's fucked up

The kind of thing you'd expect out of a school named after Pete Knight, the author of Proposition 22.



P.S.--

Speaking of ass bags, it looks like once again the Google Censors have decided it is necessary to pull Adsense ads off the front page. This is because the video of Tawny Disaster and the Kittens from Hell is now on the front page. They have also been pulled on the permanent link page where that video is featured.

It is felt this video will offend your delicate sensibilities, so Google does not wish to be associated with it.

I do note this is not a case where the Google Adsense Crawler ran into some bad words and automatically pulled the ads. This is a situation where one or two of the highly moral folks stopped by and viewed the video and were so profoundly shocked they felt compelled to report it to the Mountain View nerds.

And once again, I hope this makes them feel good. They have accomplished nothing, because I really don't care. The video stays. And the next time I run into something as good as that video you can bet your sweet tussy it will also be posted.

~Becky
---------------------------

P.P.S.--I just noticed that some of the Adsense ads are back on the front page--not sure why--they remain pulled on the permalink page for the video.

~Becky

It's impossible to top Tawny Disaster and the Kittens from Hell.

But what should it be for the weekend music video pick?

Some pop punk blokes playing a decent tune in a clown suit?

Or a hot limey chick who is pulling the “oh I think I might be gay” thing?

Well, in certain cases I am inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to that fashionable claim, and this is one.

So we best do both.

And I bet I can even make this into one of those marvelous theme shows.

Arctic Monkeys got a lot of attention by entitling their third album “Who the Fuck Are the Arctic Monkeys.”

But I like this one.

This be the Arctic Monkeys doing Fluorescent Adolescent from the Favorite Worst Nightmare album:



And probably most of you know Lily Allen from Smile—but Alfie is a lot cuter:




Have a great weekend.

I may think Holly Madison is a blond boob for living in the Viagra drenched Playboy Mansion.

However, maybe being Hefner's main squeeze is pretty connivingly smart.

And even though it is kinda creepy she gets naked for Hef, I find it cool she strips for animals too:



The evidence is continuing to mount.

All the cool girls are pro-animal:





Dominique is right.

It's cos kindness is a class act.