The Disabled and the Disgruntled
Well, good news for my wife: Having an optimistic partner may stave off dementia. Everyone who knows me says, "Man, that guy, he has such a sunny disposition! His wife is never going to have Al Whathisface." And for those who know me, they are receiving a blog lesson in irony.
Speaking of optimism: The next podcast (Episode 63) will probably be opening with the phrase "Life is hard." It's a lead-in to the problem of Gnosticism: how Gnosticism is a bad answer to the difficulty of life and existence in general. Plan on downloading it Sunday . . . or reading the show notes.
Stories like this really ought to give you pause: School district calls police when kindergarten girl with Down Syndrome points finger at teacher and says "I shoot you." The immediate reaction is, "The principal who called the police must have Down Syndrome, too," but I seriously doubt it was the principal's decision. It was probably a top-down zero-tolerance directive that gives administrators no discretion in such matters (zero tolerance = zero common sense). The bureaucrat's kneejerk response to this is to come up with an elaborate set of rules and flowcharts to determine when to call the police. My response to this is, "Hire administrators with common sense and tell them to call the police if they perceive there is any sort of threat." I'm firmly convinced my response is the correct one. I'm equally convinced my response doesn't resonate with the kind of people who pass zero tolerance laws and policies.
Whenever you hear "zero tolerance," you should hear "Fascist wannabe." I mean, heck, if the postmodern left can label everyone to the right of Bernie as a Fascist, we can label these public official brigands "Fascists."
I know nothing about this story, but I like it: Virginia police confront black man wearing KKK robe outside Target Store. The story contains photos, but they're not exactly revealing (a black man in a white robe looks like a Chinese man in a white robe). The guy told police he was conducting a social experiment. He apparently didn't specify the theories he was testing out.
