Happy 2007...

Happy New Year 2007!

New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.
~ Mark Twain

I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.
~ Anais Nin

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things.
~ John Burroughs

Of all sound of all bells... most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year.
~ Charles Lamb

A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I've played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.
~ Edgar Guest

It wouldn't be New Year's if I didn't have regrets.
~ William Thomas

The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.
~ W.H. Auden

New Year's Eve, where auld acquaintance be forgot. Unless, of course, those tests come back positive.
~ Jay Leno

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.
~ Benjamin Franklin

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.
~ Thomas Mann

New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
~ Mark Twain

There are many different ways to look at how to celebrate the New Year. Whichever way you choose, best wishes for a happy and healthy 2007!

Bush Administration: an 'F' for Reading Program

OIG Review Questions Ethics in Reading First Program

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has released a scathing audit, an internal review of the Bush administration's billion-dollar-a-year Reading First program. The report says that the Education Department ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money how it wanted.

State educational agencies have received over $4.8 billion in Reading First grants, helping about 5,600 schools. The program is reported to have served more than 1.7 million students in kindergarten through third grade.

Recently U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced awards of $101,687,216 in grants to 32 recipients in 25 states, the objective being to improve the language and early literacy skills of young children.

The OIG audit doesn't hold back in its view that the Reading First program is riddled with mismanagement and has more that its share of conflicts of interest. It also suggested that laws may have been broken in that the department dictated to schools which curriculum they must use.

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released its audit on September 22, 2006, and it's listed as ED-OIG/I13-F0017. You can read the entire document here in Adobe Acrobat .pdf format or as a Microsoft Word .doc file.

When one read's the audit report, a particular individual is noted repeatedly (over 100 times), but not by name, but the title of Reading First Director. The person holding that title within the Department of Education was Chris Doherty.

The audit report says that program review panels were stacked with people who shared the director's views and that only favored publishers of reading curricula could get money.

In one e-mail, Director Doherty told a staff member to come down hard on a company he didn't support. The report states that Doherty wrote, "They are trying to crash our party, and we need to beat the [expletive deleted] out of them in front of all the other would-be party crashers who are standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we welcome these dirtbags."

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said that the Department will adopt all the audit's recommendations quickly. She also pledged a review of every single Reading First grant her agency has approved.

Reading first is crown jewel of No Child Left Behind, President Bush's education law. Its goal is to help young children read through scientifically proven programs. A separate review recently found that the effort is helping schools raise achievement.

From the start, the program has been hit by a number of accusations of impropriety, which lead to several ongoing audits. The new audit from the OIG raised serious questions with the program's credibility.

Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, was angry and blunt in expressing his feelings about the report, stating, "Everyone at the Department of Education who was involved in perpetrating this fraud on school districts should be fired – not suspended, not reassigned, not admonished, but fired. This was not an accident. This was a concerted effort to corrupt the process on behalf of partisan supporters, and taxpayers and schoolchildren are the ones who got harmed by it."

Secretary Spellings stated that the problems unearthed in the report occurred in the early days of the program, which began in 2002, before she was secretary. She also noted that those responsible have already left the agency or been reassigned.

The OIG's audit found that the department:

• Botched the way it picked a panel to review grant applications, raising questions over whether grants were approved as the law requires.
• Screened grant reviewers for conflicts of interest, but then failed to identify six who had a clear conflict based on their industry connections.
• Did not let states see the comments of experts who reviewed their applications.
• Required states to meet conditions that weren't part of the law.
• Tried to downplay elements of the law it didn't like when working with states.

As noted earlier, the audit doesn't name Doherty, referring to him as the Reading First Director. It says he repeatedly used his influence to steer money toward states that used a reading approach he favored called Direct Instruction (DI).

The OIG investigation found that four states (New York, Nevada, Virginia, and Connecticut) and one territory (Puerto Rico) were awarded grants, even though their final applications on record show a Chair Panel Summary rating of "Disapproval."

The audit also faults other officials who had a big hand in Reading First, including Susan B. Neuman, the former assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education.

Spellings, who became secretary in 2005, said she is not aware of any effort to favor certain reading programs. "I'm doing everything I can at this point," she said. "I can't undo what's been done."

This isn't the first time that questions have been raised about this issue. Robert Slavin, a Johns Hopkins University education professor who co-founded the Success for All Foundation and spent years researching effective reading programs, said he watched in disbelief as the nonprofit lost business because states chose to adopt other programs favored by U.S. officials.

Slavin is said to have prompted the federal investigation by going to the inspector general in May last year and telling authorities what he thought was going on. "There is nothing in the report that we haven't been saying for two years," Slavin said yesterday. "It is a vindication of sorts."

Mr. Doherty recently resigned from the department to “return to the private sector,” Katherine McLane, a department spokeswoman said. Doherty has declined to comment.

Expect to hear more on this topic over the coming weeks and months, for this just may be the tip of a very large iceberg, so to speak.

Additional Resources:

• U.S. Department of Education
• Office of Inspector General (ED/OIG) - What's New
• Schools Matter - blog with timely educational info
• NCLB Outrages (Susan Ohanian Speaks Out)
• Top 101 Web Sites for Teachers

tags: George Bush, Education, OIG, lexidiem, jargontalk, Chris Doherty, Reading First, Margaret Spellings, Robert Slavin, No Child Left Behind

Kids' Books for Our New Age

Books for young children seem to be changing.

Books for kids are changing, and bedtime stories aren't about little bears, frogs that get kissed or magic dragons. Here's a new title: Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!

Before you go any further, take a close look at the characters and items illustrated on the book's cover. You can see a larger version here.

The publishers state:

"This news-making book is a fun way for parents to teach young children the valuable lessons of conservatism. Written in simple text, readers can follow along with Tommy and Lou as they open a lemonade stand to earn money for a swing set. But when liberals start demanding that Tommy and Lou pay half their money in taxes, take down their picture of Jesus, and serve broccoli with every glass of lemonade, the young brothers experience the downside to living in Liberaland."

Liberaland? Had to do a search on that one, as it was a new term to this writer. Am obviously not a member of the Conservative in-crowd.

One reviewer was quite up front in that "this book is not for a liberal or even a moderate. You will find unashamed conservatism being pushed in this book." Another stated that the book was a "funny modern parable about two boys running a lemonade stand in Liberaland," that the "heroes are honest, God-fearing, and hard working," and that the "villains are tax-raising, religion-stomping, control freaks." The reviewer continued with "But don't worry. This is a children's book."

A children's book? OK, if they say so. And it's been endorsed by none other than Rush Limbaugh himself - isn't that just dandy? Wonder if it was his choice in reading material during those trips to and from the Dominican Republic.

The author is Katharine DeBrecht, a freelance newspaper reporter, the mother of three and a member of the South Carolina Federation of Republican Women. Her publisher even offers for sale a tie-in Hillary Clinton mousepad, along with the requisite Conservative mugs, refrigerator magnets, bibs, t-shirts and such things.

In the other side of the fence, a professor, self proclaimed diehard liberal and political activist by the name of Jeremy Zilber has written a book of his own entitled Why Mommy is a Democrat. He was so committed to the need for such a response that he financed its publication himself. It's a short book, and obviously by the language one for very young children, but it tries to get its points across in simple fashion, with pages that declare:

• Democrats make sure everyone is treated fairly,
  just like Mommy does.
• Democrats make sure sick people are able to see a doctor,
  just like Mommy does.
• Democrats make sure everyone plays by the rules,
  just like Mommy does.
• Democrats make sure we all share our toys,
  just like Mommy does.

A BuzzFlash review stated that it's "the ideal traditional children's nighttime tale" and that "... unlike 'Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!', it's true!" They went on to say that it's "... great for reading to your children or as a gift to nieces, nephews, cousins or friends with young kids. Just make sure that they are Democrats."

They go on to state that Republicans will surely regard such concepts as "Democrats make sure everyone plays by the rules, just like Mommy does" and "Democrats make sure we all share our toys, just like Mommy does" as "subversive" and "Pinko."

Wait a minute, it's fine that we all learn to share our toys, but that raises certain questions:

1. Who buys the toys?
2. How is the money earned to buy the toys?
3. Does being a Democrat make you a better “sharer” than a Republican or Libertarian? Now explain your answers.

There's something disturbing about about both of these books, for they seem to be aimed at kids who are just starting to read, if even that. Evidently I'm not alone in my observations, either. Are we supposed to read books like these to our kids every night? Are we expected to politically indoctrinating them in one of the following adult bias patterns on a daily basis:

[ ] Republicans - they are knee-jerk fundamentalists
[ ] Democrats - they hate God and American values
[ ] Libertarians - they are weird.
[ ] All of the above - they all suck but so does life
[ ] None of the above - can't kids be allowed to enjoy childhood.

Feeding the minds of young children with political propaganda isn't new. I had a very uneasy feeling that somewhere back in the 1930s, young German children were being read some kids' version of Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf as a bedtime book.

Upon looking I found that it was far worse than I expected.

There was a plethora of anti-Semitic books for children written by a variety of authors, but one that comes to the foremost is Elwira Bauer's, Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jüd auf seinem Eid (Nuremberg: Stürmer Verlag, 1936). This title in English is Trust No Fox on his Green Heath And No Jew on his Oath, and it has been translated.

Then there is Ernst Hiemer's Der Giftpilz (Nuremberg, Stürmer Verlag, 1938). This has also been translated as The Poisonous Mushroom. Both of these extremely anti-Semitic books came from none other than Julius Streicher's publishing house. If you're unfamiliar with Julius Streicher, he was the publisher of Der Stürmer, the newspaper that was a part of the Nazi propaganda machine. An almost fanatical Nazi, he was convicted after the war of crimes against humanity and executed. The neo-Nazis of today consider him to be a martyr. Read the text from the books above and see how you feel about his martyrdom.

I previously wrote about a contemporary mother named April Gaede, and how she has influenced the lives of her daughters Lamb and Lynx, the adolescent twin girls who make up the girl group known as Prussian Blue. She is said to have indoctrinated them in her own neo-Nazi beliefs since birth, and now her adolescent daughters have a political perspective that's is definitely very tolerant nor is it middle-of-the-road.

Am I alone in my being disturbed by these books and what they teach our children? Apparently not, because a number of them have been expressing their feelings, and quite openly.

When do we just teach our children simple values of right and wrong, the Golden Rule and the simple things like that? Why do political values, and yes, even hatred, have to be instilled into our kids at such a young age?

Out of the choices above, I'll personally opt for the last one.

Our lexidiem is Liberaland.

tags: Liberals Under My Bed, kid books, Liberaland, Rush Limbaugh, Katharine DeBrecht, Hillary Clinton, mousepad, lexidiem, jargontalk, Jeremy Zilber, Why Mommy is a Democrat, liberal, conservative, libertarian, Hitler, Mein Kampf, Streicher, neo-Nazi, April Gaede, Prussian Blue, Golden Rule

A 9/11 Tribute to LTJG Darin H. Pontel, USN

This 2,996 Tribute is dedicated to Darin Howard Pontell

When Darin Pontell was 14, he decided that he would join the Navy. His older brother Steven was a Navy pilot, and he was killed in a crash on the USS Lexington off Pensacola, Florida in 1989.

"When that happened, Darin mentioned that he'd like to pick up where his brother Steven left off, to complete the circle," his father, Gary Pontell, said.

Darin Pontell, a native of Arlington Heights who moved with his family to Baltimore in 1985, graduated with honors from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1999. Upon graduation, he reported to the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Command in Dam Neck, VA. He was assigned to Carrier Air Wing Seven as the Collections Officer. He was later deployed to the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. He received the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Naval Commendation Medal, Navy Achievement Medal and National Defense Service Medal.

Lt. Pontell married Devora Sue Wolk, a lawyer, in March 2001. He began working at the Pentagon in April and celebrated his 26th birthday that August. He and his new bride lived in Gaithersburg, MD.

"He was thoughtful and generous and wanted to make everyone around him happy," said Devora. " He would do whatever it took to make his family and friends smile."

He was completing his second night of training in a new position with the Chief of Naval Operations Intelligence Plot at the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001. He and six colleagues were piecing together information about the attacks on the World Trade Center when American Airlines Flight 77, a highjacked Boeing 757, crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 AM. The jet aircraft slammed into the west side of the Pentagon, where the CNO-IP office was located.

"When he returned to the Pentagon, we felt he was so safe," his father said. "Who would have thought of the Pentagon as a target?"

"He was a good kid. He liked athletics," his grandfather said, and described him as "a computer wizard. He was smart. He had an awful lot of friends."

"I had known my husband since we were about 11," stated his wife Devora. "All he wanted to do was go to the Naval Academy like his older brother, but it was a challenge for him to get in and make it through the four years and graduate with honors. And this is his Naval Academy ring that he wore every day, that marked his accomplishment; he accomplished something that he had set his mind to when he was so young. He was proud to be a Naval Academy graduate and an officer in the U.S. Navy.”

Before Darin Pontell went to the Naval Academy, he worked with his father, an architect, who was left with one son, Michael, now 38.

"Darin and his brother Mike were my best friends," Gary Pontell said shortly after the attack on the Pentagon. "And being that both of them were such family people, we always spent a lot of time together. That's what I'm going to miss. The Sunday afternoons and Sunday evenings. I'm going to miss the phone calls."

It can only be presumed that Lt. Pontell and his colleagues were killed immediately. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart Medal.

Darin Pontell was buried next to his brother in the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation Cemetery.

He is fondly remembered by former shipmates and many others.

Please visit these other 2,996 Tributes that we and some of our friends have created:

• 2,996 Tribute to James B. Reilly by DragonDude
• 2,996 Tribute to Fran Riccardelli by JargonTalk
• Remembering Paul E Jeffers by Willo's Web
• 9-11 Tribute to Nicole Miller by AZAnnie

tags: 2996, Darin Pontell, USN, Pentagon, Flight 17, Naval Academy, Purple Heart, Francis Riccardelli, 911, World Trade Center, security, terrorism, lexidiem, Homeland Security, September 11th, 9-11, James B Reilly, Flight 11, Flight 175, wtc

Barbaro Burgers? Not this week!

Those hungry for horsemeat won't get their wish this week

On Thursday the House of Representatives passed H.R. 503, the bill that bans horse slaughter in the United State. The bill passed by a vote of 263 to 146, despite amendments submitted by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte to weaken the measure.

The issue was simple: about 90,000 horses are sent each year to three plants in this country (two in Texas and one in Illinois, all foreign owned), where they're slaughtered and the meat is shipped to restaurants in Europe and Asia.

Though some complained about the priority of this legislation, 263 lawmakers voted for the horse bill in the final tally, with only 146 daring to say "nay."

The administration has stated that they opposed the bill in a letter sent to the House of Representatives' Committee on Agriculture. This may be an issue that will have to be dealt with when the bill goes before the U.S. Senate as S.1915.

The Livestock Marketing Association (LMA) also opposes the horse slaughter ban. LMA Director of Information John McBride said he's concerned Congress won’t stop at banning horse slaughter, and said opponents of the ban will work to keep it off the Senate's agenda.

So congratulations go out to all those who contacted their respective Representatives and let their thoughts be known. And thanks go out to all of those 263 members of our Congress who thought about the issue and listened to their constituents.

And a special thanks goes to FlyingFilly.com and all the resources they put together to help all of us better understand the issues and the actions that can be taken.

You have all proven that our system works!

Our lexidiem is Congress.

Technorati tags: HR 503, Barbaro, Barbaro Burger, fast food, AHSPA, SAPL, basashi, lexidiem, jargontalk, FlyingFilly, Willie Nelson, Kinky Friedman, Bo Derek, Dallas Crown, John Sweeney, John Spratt, Ed Whitfield, John Ensign, Mary Landrieu, Bob Goodlatte, S.1915, horsemeat, LMA, John McBride

Barbaro Burgers Legal after Thursday?

Those hungry for horsemeat may get their wish this week

Just check out these 9/7/2006 headlines, and read this in the text:

One fast food franchise has already applied for the name "Barbaro Burgers" as a trademark, and expects to be selling horse burgers before November 1st.

Horrifying, isn't it? OK, this is a fictitious copy of a fictitious newspaper. 2006 Kentucky Derby Winner Barbaro is not going to be slaughtered because of his injuries. You're not going to be finding "Barbaro Burgers" on the menu of your local fast-food restaurant this weekend.

But could it happen? Yes, and here's why.

Up before the U.S. House of Representatives this week is a bill known as H.R. 503, The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, a bill to to "prohibit the shipping, transporting, moving, delivering, receiving, possessing, purchasing, selling, or donation of horses and other equines to be slaughtered for human consumption, and for other purposes."

The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (AHSPA) is scheduled to go before the House on September 7, 2006. Simply put, its a bill to end the slaughter of horses for human consumption in the United States and the export of live horses for the same purpose.

The bill has been reintroduced in the House of Representatives by Congressional Horse Caucus Co- Chair John Sweeney (R-NY), Representative John Spratt (D-SC) and Representative Ed Whitfield (R-KY). Senator and veterinarian John Ensign (R-NV) and Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) have reintroduced an identical measure in the Senate.

This sounds fine, except that there are currently no guarantees that this bill is going to pass. The Society for Animal Protective Legislation (SAPL) has been involved, and has sent out an urgent alert letting people know that this potential legislation needs the support of people like all of us. SAPL is the oldest non-profit organization in the United States specifically dedicated to the passage and promotion of federal, international and local legislation to ensure and protect animal welfare.

Paula Bacon, the Mayor of the small town of Kaufman, Texas, has been fighting to get the nearby Dallas Crown Inc. slaughter mill to close. Some families in the area say that odors from Dallas Crown keep them indoors. The plant and its Belgian owners have survived numerous attempts to close it in recent years. Bill H.R.503 would shutter Dallas Crown and other slaughter plants in Fort Worth, TX and DeKalb, Il. Horse meat is not marketed as table fare in the US, but the slaughter plants process hundreds of horses each week and ship the meat overseas. Horse meat (pictured here) is considered a delicacy in some European countries, Japan and other places.

Noted Texans, such as oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens and country singer Willie Nelson and gubernatorial hopeful Kinky Freidman have been activists on this issue for some time, accusing the slaughter plants of cruelly killing even young horses and call the processing operations an un-American slaughter of a cultural symbol. Nelson sat down recently with Bo Derek, Morgan Fairchild and Jennifer Lee Pryor and openly discussed this brutal practice which must be ended. There are many others who have come out in support of ending this often brutal slaughter.

So what can be done about it, and when?

FlyingFilly.com has put together a marvelous set of resources and facts to help you better understand the issues at hand and the actions that can be taken. Take a moment and see exactly where your representative stands on this, then contact your representatives directly and let them know how you feel. Read what Equine Advocates has to say about this issue and what you can do.

But whatever you decide, do it before September 7th, or you might be explaining fast-food signs like this to your kids in the near future.

It's in your hands - there's still time for you to act.

Our lexidiem is horsemeat.

tags: HR 503, Barbaro, Barbaro Burger, fast food, Congress, AHSPA, SAPL, basashi, lexidiem, jargontalk, Kentucky Derby, FlyingFilly, Willie Nelson, Kinky Friedman, Bo Derek, Dallas Crown, John Sweeney, John Spratt, Ed Whitfield, John Ensign, Mary Landrieu

You've got mail! You've been e-Fired!

RadioShack terminates 400+ people via e-mail

What's going on here? RadioShack had announced earlier this month that they were going to trim some 400 to 450 jobs, so any news regarding this should have been expected. But what wasn't expected was the way they went about notifying the employees who were being terminated.

Employees who were effected by this round of layoffs at RadioShack's Fort Worth headquarters came to work Tuesday morning to find an e-mail message informing them that they were being terminated effective immediately.

According to Strategic HR Lawyer, the e-mail contained the following information:

"The workforce reduction notification is currently in progress...unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated."

A letter from the boss like this doesn't exactly make one's day.

Company officials had told employees in a series of meetings that layoff notices would be delivered electronically, spokeswoman Kay Jackson said. She said employees were invited to ask questions before Tuesday's notification on a company intranet site.

Workers who were terminated reportedly got severance of one to three weeks pay for each year of service, but management experts were surprised at RadioShack's use of electronic notification instead of the customary face-to-face meetings with supervisors.

One wag stated that this might be the new way they do things in Texas, but Frank McLaughlin, chairman of McSearch Personnel Consultants in Dallas, saw things differently. "Traditionally in Texas, people are dismissed in a face-to-face meeting," said McLaughlin. "It's not customary, not socially acceptable to some to do it over e-mail, but it's legal."

Derrick D'Souza, a management professor at the University of North Texas, said "If I put myself in their shoes, I'd say, 'Didn't they have a few minutes to tell me?'"

RadioShack spokeswoman Kay Jackson said the electronic notification was quicker and allowed more privacy than breaking the news in person. "It was important to notify people as quickly as possible," she said. "They had 30 minutes to collect their thoughts, make phone calls and say goodbye to employees before they went to meet with senior leaders."

Employees met with supervisors and human resources personnel before leaving. At coffee bar areas on each floor, the company provided boxes and plastic bags for employees to pack their personal belongings.

"Things went very smoothly. Everyone left very graciously and very professionally," Jackson said.

RadioShack is not the first company to let workers go in this way. Accounting firm Arthur Anderson laid off 7,000 employees in 2002 as a result of their "housekeeping" role in the Enron debacle. Many of their employees were told through e-mails to check their job status on their voicemails.

There have been comments on this type of firing, and some feel that it's indicative of the time in which we live. E-mail is how we communicate with our bosses, and how they communicate with us. We do business by e-mail, and some of us update our blogs via email messaging. One person admited that she had broken up with her boyfriend via e-mail.

Is this a new trend: the e-Dear-John letter?

It should be noted that shares of RadioShack (ticker: RSH) rose 10 cents, to $18.02 in trading Wednesday morning on the New York Stock Exchange. Granted that they have had some hard times lately, with sales down, and the price of their common stock down from the $20 range in early April to a low of less than $14 in June, though it has since rebounded.

Sometimes it's better to not ask how results are obtained.

You've got mail, it's not Spam. No, it's your pink slip.

tags: RadioShack, e-mail, email, lexidiem, jargontalk, pink slip, electronic, firing, fired, Texas

Cactus Art or Middle Finger Salute?

Hello, Neighbor - here's your New Jersey salute!

Darren Wood is building a new home in Riverton, Utah. He's installed a custom vent cover on his house, and says that it's a cactus design.

Sounds like a pleasant style for a desert theme, but his neighbor disagrees. Stan Torgersen lives directly behind Wood's new home, and when he looks out his windows, he sees the symbol a hand giving him the finger.

Darreen Wood claims that the gesture in question is art. He said, "It speaks for itself, really. It's such beautiful art. It's a cactus."

It seems that things have not gone well between Mr. Wood and some of his new neighbors. They've complained about the height of his house and other issues for awhile. The problems began last fall, when Wood's lot was excavated. Neighbor Torgersen was worried that the excavation might damage his home's foundation, so he and another neighbor asked the city to intervene.

Officials in ordered a soil test, which Wood said had been done by the previous owner. He said that the new test would cost $3,000 and delay the construction of his new home by four months.

Recently, the Torgersens and another neighbor complained to the city that the home exceeded the height allowed by code.

"We used to have a view of the mountains," Janet Torgersen told The Salt Lake Tribune recently. "He didn't have to take everyone's view."

Wood noted that the city approved the house plan. regarding his neighbors' grievances he said, "I think the bottom line is harassment. They will find another issue to complain about."

Wood said that he might be willing to change his air vent cover if he received an apology from his neighbors.

Maybe it's all a matter of perception, or beauty being in the eye of the beholder. The vent cover design could be viewed as someone giving another giving the finger, but it could also be an abstract cactus.

Jeroen Arendsen says it well when he asks if this a camouflaged insult or a case of extreme sensitivity? Perhaps even both. Because his neighbours are so sensitive, Mr. Wood effectively manages to insult them and deny it to anyone else. See A Nice Gesture: The Perception of Insults.

In some area, flipping someone the bird can be considered quite an insult, and can even be illegal. In other areas, the "New Jersey Salute" (see #20) is considered a common, everyday occurance. President Bush has done it on video. It's all a metter of one's individual interpretation of the gesture.

Latest indications are that a peaceful resolution has been reached, and that Darren Wood is having the controversial "art" removed.

The lexidiem is art.

tags: abstract cactus, cactus art, new jersey salute, finger, jargontalk, lexidiem, cactus, insult, sensitivity, humor, harassment

Bye-bye, Pluto!

Kids, Pluto is No Longer a Planet

SPACE.com reported today that after years of often intense debate, astronomers resolved today to demote Pluto in a wholesale redefinition of planethood that is being billed as a victory of scientific reasoning over historic and cultural influences. Already the decision is being hotly debated.

So now, officially, Pluto is no longer a planet.

Astronomers have been debating for years about whether to demote Pluto, and public support in favor of Pluto has weighed heavily on the debate. Today's vote came after a two-year effort by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to develop a definition.

Astronomers at the IAU meeting were said to have debated the proposals right up to the moment of the actual vote.

The resolution

The decision establishes three main categories of objects in our solar system.

• Planets: The eight worlds from Mercury to Neptune.
• Dwarf Planets: Pluto and any other round object that "has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, and is not a satellite."
• Small Solar System Bodies: All other objects orbiting the Sun.

So it looks like Pluto will be known as a dwarf planet or something to that effect. And classroom teachers will be instructing students to ignore their textbooks: "No, Billy, it's eight planets, not nine. And there will be a test on this tomorrow."

It was just last year that the Lowell Observatory celebrated the 75th anniversary of the discovery of Pluto.

So goes the evolution of the science of astronomy. Check your local news at 6:00 PM for any updates.

So our changing lexidiem is planet.

tags: Pluto, planet, dwarf planet, space, solar system, IAU, astronomy, satellite, evolution

At What Age Does Hatred Begin?

Prussian Black and Blue

My son was watching television in the living room on Tuesday night, and as I walked through I did a double take at what was on the screen. It wasn't anything violent, pornographic or even inappropriate: he was watching "The Outsiders", a special on ABC News Primetime. What was disturbing though was the pair of angelic looking blonde twins, just a few years older than my son, who were talking about preserving the white race and Nazi heroes while they were wearing T-shirts with a happy Hitler smiley face.

He was watching Lamb and Lynx Gaede, adolescent twin girls who make up the band Prussian Blue, and I decided I better join him. We watched as Primetime commented that they though they might look like innocence personified, the twins are part of a terrifying movement spreading a message of racism and White Nationalism.

Their estranged father said that the messages that they preach are not their own, but those of April Gaede, the girls' mother. The twins have been nurtured on racist beliefs since their birth by their mother, who said, "They need to have the background to understand why certain things are happening. I'm going to give them, give them my opinion just like any, any parent would."

It was disturbing to find out that after Hurricane Katrina struck, the girls donated money but stipulated that their donation to victims should go only to white people. My son, who has been involved in Toys for Tots and other charity work since kindergarten, turned and looked at me in complete surprise.

I had seen a previous broadcast last fall on ABC where Lynx had said, "We're proud of being white, we want to keep being white. We want our people to stay white … we don't want to just be, you know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race."

Maybe their mother had convinced them that America loved them and their message would be accepted by all, but after that ABC TV segment and the outpouring of criticism that followed, the girls were said to be "in tears."

Lynx and Lamb emerged a bit bruised... Prussian Black and Blue. Well, girls, reality sometimes sucks, doesn't it?

April is said to be a stay-at-home mom who no longer lives with the twins' father. She home-schools the girls, and teaches them her own distinctive perspective on everything from history to current events. April Gaede had grown up "goat's milk and Third Reich footage in the foothills of Fresno," and that her father was a rancher who branded his animals with swastikas. They moved from Bakersfield, CA because it wasn't "white enough" for some place in Montana.

April is clever and resourceful, and uses the Internet to her advantage; she is not above exploiting her infant daughter Dresden in her schemes. There are some, however, who have seen through her and come forward with what they have found, and it not a pretty picture.

Lamb and Lynx may seem like cute adolescent twins at home when they fight for the next turn with the joystick in front of TV. But how cute is it when the video game is Ethnic Cleansing, which is focused on trying to kill as many blacks, Latinos and Jews as possible. Did their loving mother give them this racist game as a Christmas present?

The twins have said they believe Adolph Hitler was a great man with good ideas, such as eugenic standards and incentives to improve the genetic quality of the German people, and marriage loans to help qualified German families begin upon a firm financial basis. In the interview, the twins described the Holocaust as being exaggerated.

One of their songs is "Sacrifice," which pays homage to Hitler's deputy Fuhrer, Rudolf Hess, and it clearly shows the effect of the girls' upbringing. The lyrics pay tribute to Hess as a "man of peace who wouldn't give up."

So where does the name "Prussian Blue" fit into this twisted puzzle?

The blue-eyed girls and mother have stated that part of their heritage is Prussian German, that Prussian Blue is a "really pretty color," hence the name choice. The darker side of this could be that Prussian Blue is the name of the blue residue left over by the use of Zyklon B, the poison the Nazis employed to kill millions of Jews and others in concentration camps during World War II.

In an article entitled "Hello White People" with Vice Magazine, the girls parroted the history revisionists' and Holocaust deniers' line about "the so-called gas chambers in the concentration camps" and stated that the Prussian Blue name "might make people question some of the inaccuracies of the 'Holocaust' myth."

In the same article they stated that the most important social issue facing the white race was: "Not having enough white babies born to replace ourselves and generally not having good-quality white people being born."

How and where do kids learn such hatred of other human beings? An example of this goes back to 2003, when the twins were all of eleven. The pro-hate site National Vanguard called her a "brave young patriot" and reported that "11-year-old White patriot Lamb Gaede" had said "that Dr. (Martin Luther) King 'preferred White Prostitutes' and 'was a plagiarist'" in an interview with a radio host.

At 11-years-old this girl was discussing racial stereotyping and prostitutes?

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been aware of the girls and April Gaede for awhile, noting that she had joined the neo-Nazi National Alliance in 2001. The girls have appeared publicly on behalf of former Ku Klux Klan wizard David Duke. They perform for such groups as the neo-Nazi National Alliance at Holocaust-denial events and festivals entitled Folk the System.

Prussian Blue does have its followers, and they can and will readily excuse and justify the duo's pro-Nazi and white supremacist music and comments, using whatever rhetoric they feel necessary. If you want that side of the coin, try these articles on WhiteCivilRights.com, or some of them on National Vanguard.

One apologist said that the lyrics to their songs might be a bit rough, but they represented the Conservative element in out political spectrum. Conservative? This isn't Conservative, with the girls executing Sieg Heil salutes at their concerts while belting out lyrics such as "Strike force! White survival. Strike force!" These are outright White Supremacists, followers of a real neo-Nazi culture, regardless of their age.

Lamb and Lynx are releasing a CD at the same time as their new music video debuts. You can see their video "Victory Day" here on YouTube, but you may want to read the lyrics here first:

Well sit down and listen, to what I have to say.
Soon will come a great war, a bloody but holy day.
And after that purging, our people will be free,
and sing up in the bright skies, a sun for all to see...

Times are very tough now for a proud White man to live.
And although it may appear that this world has no life to give.
Times are soon changing, this cant go on for long.
And on that joyful summer's day we'll sing our Victory song...

The women, they'll smile, on Victory Day.
And the children, they'll laugh and they'll sing and they'll play.
And the forests will echo our grace,
for the brand new dawn of our Race...

You are my brother and in war we proudly sing.
Our Cause shall never tire. Our gift to you we bring:
A holy creed of Racial purpose, A mighty Race to defend.
And when we fly our holy flag Their oppressive reign shall end...

And when we finally conquer, our people will be free.
And all across this great land, the bold Truth we shall see.
So as we march together, to avoid catastrophe,
let's remember always our sacred Destiny...

Their pretty faces and youthful smiles have taken in many. In late 2005, Teen People magazine, guided by its parent company Time Warner, pulled the plug on a story they had planned to run on the twins. An earlier teaser had called the hatemongering duo "aspiring musicians" and had compared them to teen sensations Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Well, to my ears they both sing off key, and they're a far cry from Mary-Kate and Ashley.

Racist songs praising the KKK and promoting segregation have existed for years, but a new phenomenon emerged in the 1970s, an entire genre of music predicated on neo-Nazi racism, and it's become a global issue. Prussian Blue is just another group in that nasty mix.

Lamb and Lynx aren't espousing their own opinions, but ones they're being taught and surrounded with since birth. It doesn't justify it, but are we beginning to see why the girls are filled with so much hatred?

Lamb and Lynx are turning themselves into something evil, plain and simple, and though they are now fourteen and capable of making intelligent decisions, it's hard to forget where they learned it all, and how much they appear to have been brainwashed.

And when you listen to their music, just ask yourself: is it really that good?

We're supposed to be an enlightened society. It's appalling to think that this kind of venomous hatred and bigotry is being taught to our children in the 21st century, and that it's so easily justified.

Our lexidiem is tolerance.

tags: Racism, Prussian Blue, Gaede, neo-Nazi, Nazi, Hate, anti-Semitic, KKK, Klan, lexidiem, jargontalk, YouTube, Ethnic Cleansing, video, White Supremacy, music

Snakes on a Plane... and everywhere else

All Your Snakes Are Belong To Us

It looks like that we may have a phenomenon in the making, and its based on the newly released movie Snakes on a Plane, starring Samuel L. Jackson. If you haven't heard all the hype about the film, also known as SoaP, you would have to be blind, deaf and hidden from the world for a few months now. But is it making its infamous trademark 12-letter-word acceptable socially?

New Line Cinema is running auctions on items used in the film, and one can even purchase official SoaP jewelry there, such as this 18k gold airplane pendant that has a 3D snake adorned with diamonds for only $3900. It was designed by Lin Shaye who plays Grace in the movie. That's a fashion statement unto itself.

If you want to see the official site with the movie trailers and such, it's here. I'm not going to review the movie, because there are enough opinions posted on the 'Net already, including some positive ones that one might not expect.

Now about that phenomenon, do you remember All Your Base Are Belong To Us? The AYBABTU phenomenon was with us for quite a few months in 2001 and into 2002, and was takeoff on an English language version of the 1989 Japanese video game Zero Wing. In case you forgot those memorable sounds and scenes from the original video, they have been preserved for posterity at Google Video and YouTube.

And now we have All Your Snakes Are Belong To Us, a very funny if quite profane takeoff on the movie. This has now been ported over as a video to YouTube, and it's getting more hits there than the original site, by all indications. I'm not showing this video here, as this one could truly be regarded as R-rated, like the movie, at least for the printed language, etc. At best it might be NSFW, so be warned. and proceed at your own risk.

Had found the link to this on Scobleizer a couple of weeks back, looking for info on Robert Scoble's new book, Naked Conversations (which was commented on earlier). Read all of Bob's caveats about adult language and such and followed his link to the Rageboy blog, and there is was, along with a number of other visual comments regarding the film, and all in Christopher Locke's trademark Rageboy style.

Just so that doesn't sound patronizing, those who know me are aware that I own a copies of Chris Locke's Gonzo Marketing and The Cluetrain Manifesto, of which he was co-author, and have followed him since the Titanic Deck Chair Rearrangement Corp days. What he wrote a few years ago still stands well today - check it out for yourself.

But the main thing here is what I also found on his site, and for some reason it just struck me as completely hilarious at the time, and still does. It's Sheikhs on a Plane, and it's far better than the singular sheikh on a plane reference I was going to use.

And searching the 'Net for sheikhs and planes can bring up some interesting results for the lovelorn, if one is so inclined. But the infamous 12-letter-word just won't be made acceptable at any time in the near future.

The lexidiem is plane.

Technorati tags: AYBABTU, all your base, AYSABTU, all your snakes, Snakes on a Plane, Samuel L Jackson, 12-letter-word, Scobleizer, Robert Scoble, Naked Conversations, Rageboy, Christopher Locke, Gonzo Marketing, Cluetrain Manifesto, sheikhs on a plane, lexidiem, jargontalk, SoaP, snake, TDCRC, plane, Amazon.com