Showing posts with label The White House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The White House. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Are zero-tolerance policies at American schools targeting harmless kids and actually backfiring? Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit blog is spot-on in his assessment: YES. NEXT QUESTION?; Rules-are-rules, and optics are optics. But at The White House, it's all fun and games with plastic guns with our do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do president!





The sort of plastic gun you see above gets you suspended or expelled from lots of American schools these days, no matter how young or innocent you are, or even whether what's in your hand is actually a Pop Tart.
Really.

Rules-are-rules, and optics are optics. 
But at The White House, it's all fun and games with plastic guns with our do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do president!

Prof. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit blog is spot-on: YES. NEXT QUESTION? 
Are zero-tolerance policies at school targeting harmless kids and actually backfiring?

Deseret News
Are zero-tolerance policies at school targeting harmless kids?
Compiled by Eric Schulzke, Deseret News
June 11 2013 12:05 a.m. MDT
School officials around the country have been reacting to the specter of the Sandy Hook shooting by targeting harmless behavior among some very young students, University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds argued in a USA Today op-ed.
The most recent case Reynolds cites was a Maryland kindergartner suspended for 10 days after being interrogated and wetting his pants because he brought an orange-tipped cap gun on the bus to show a friend.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865581435/Are-zero-tolerance-policies-at-school-targeting-harmless-kids.html

The Blaze
8TH GRADER SUSPENDED, ARRESTED OVER NRA T-SHIRT NOW FACES $500 FINE AND A YEAR IN JAIL
By Madeleine Morgenstern
June. 15, 2013 3:55 p.m.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/15/8th-grader-suspended-arrested-over-nra-t-shirt-now-faces-500-fine-and-a-year-in-jail/


Fox News Channel
Gun play: 'Zero tolerance' toward schoolkids could backfire, says expert
By Perry Chiaramonte
Published June 11, 2013, 
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/11/gun-play-zero-tolerance-toward-young-schoolkids-could-backfire-says-expert/


Reason Magazine
Zero Tolerance Watch: Teen Faces Felony Charges for Science Experiment 
By Jesse Walker
May. 1, 2013 9:45 am  
http://reason.com/blog/2013/05/01/zero-tolerance-watch-teen-faces-felony-c

Orlando Sentinel
Kiera Wilmot will not be expelled from school, attorney says Polk County teen was suspended for mixing chemicals on campus, causing firecracker-like 'pop'
May 29, 2013
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-05-29/news/os-kiera-wilmot-not-expelled-20130529_1_alternative-school-leah-lauderdale-school-police-officer

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Glenn Reynolds is at http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/

@instapundit  https://twitter.com/instapundit

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Mediabistro's Fishbowl DC's Eddie Scarry reminds us that POLITICO is "always selling" and always promoting themselves, even to the point of creating a video patting themselves on the back for being -wait for it- legen-dary.; Remembering D.C. and the daily anticipation of getting The Hotline by fax in the early 1990's, when the Internet was still not a daily reality


POLITICO: Our Story; http://bcove.me/oawud7k0

Mediabistro's Fishbowl DC's Eddie Scarry reminds us that POLITICO is "always selling" and always promoting themselves, even to the point of creating a video patting themselves on the back for being -wait for it- legen-dary.; Remembering D.C. and the daily anticipation of getting The Hotline by fax in the early 1990's, when the Internet was still not a daily reality

The former Washington Post reporters behind it, Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris,
whom I read for years while living up there, are trying to create a wave of publiclity that will create a corresponding interest in that.

But how will they keep that information only in select hands when everyone at the law firms, lobbying firms and trade associations they are trying to convince to subscribe to it can always  copy and email real "nuggets" to their friends who don't get it?.

It reminds me a lot of the problem faced by The Hotline -now owned by The National Journal- in the pre-Internet era of the early 1990's, when that goldmine of information used to be faxed daily into offices throughout The Beltway and people would gather around the printer mid-morning waiting for it all to spill out, so they could grab a page and see if there was something in it that dealt with their area of coverage or responsibility.
People would be positively giddy on days after big events in Washington to see what was being written about that subject, and that was especially true during the 1992 presidential election.

And there was always someone in an office who would try to pull the last sheet out before it was finished printing, who'd be yelled at in a milli-second. Good times!

That was also back when if you saw someone reading a copy of The Hotline on the Metro in the evening on your way home, especially an original copy with the Red masthead, that was your clue that the person you were looking at was someone much smarter and better-informed than the average Washingtonian around you.

I kept old copies of them in stacked banker boxes in my garage, with colored 3M Post-it's on the sides with subject areas written on them that I dealt with or was interested in. 
My little treasure trove!

Of course, that was also in the era of heavy faxing, when people routinely forgot to replace the paper in the paper tray of the printer and there was hell to pay if it turned out to be you.
Email is so much easier! 

FishBowlDC blog
New Video Reminds Everyone That Politico Is Still Politico And Always Will Be
By Eddie Scarry on March 27, 2013 12:00 PM
A new three-minute video produced by Politico touts the publication’s “early success” and its plan for the future. Full of Politico bluster, it’s part of a new “brand and advertising” site the publication launched this week, according to Mike Allen‘s Playbook.
Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowldc/new-video-reminds-everyone-that-politico-is-still-politico-and-always-will-be_b100185

Friday, January 13, 2012

"The Obamas": You've heard the anecdotes, now meet the author Saturday & Sunday on C-SPAN2's Book TV: NY Times reporter Jodi Kantor


Jodi Kantor, The Obamas 
Saturday at 11 p.m.; Sunday at 9:45 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Eastern
        
Jodi Kantor, Washington correspondent for the New York Times, examines the relationship between President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. The author reports on the changes to the couple's relationship as they entered the White House and their efforts to raise their children and balance their personal life against the requirements of their public life. Jodi Kantor discusses her book with David Brooks, columnist for the New York Times at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC.
It's interesting to imagine whether or not someone in the audience will say something about the criticism of Kantor -from a pro-Michelle Obama p.o.v.- like how can she possibly know what was in Mrs. Obama's mind or what she may've said to Carla Bruni about the fish-bowl existence in The White House, when everyone knows, most especially David Brooks, her colleague, that Times columnist Maureen Dowd -a subject of past blog posts here- has made a speciality over the years of putting dozens and dozens of well-known Washington pols or power brokers on the psychiatrist couch in her columns, and tried to explain their actions without ever speaking to them, which many greatly resent.


She especially milked it in trying to draw distinctions or explain away the policy and emotional differences between Bush 41 and Bush 43, as well as the differences between their respective supporters and friends, like Brent Scowcroft's constant criticism of Bush 43's foreign policy.
Just saying... BOLO!