Student punished for having the "wrong" opinion

What an incredible world we live in today!  We send our kids off to school, hoping that they will get a good education, wishing that they will stand up for those things they believe in, expecting them to be given the right to express their opinions in an open environment where any well-thought-out premise can be a point of discussion.  Not so in some places.

Take for instance, Fort Worth, Texas. There an Honors student was sent to the principal’s office and punished for expressing an opinion. Now, mind you, telling a classmate that you believe homosexuality is wrong doesn’t really cut it with certain elements of today’s society. In this case, a German teacher at the school, who has, apparently, openly promoted homosexuality as part of the new world view, overheard the student’s statement and took umbrage. In other words, the thought police, and others who promote a politically correct view of the world, jumped at the chance to hammer a person for espousing an opposing viewpoint instead of theirs.  You know their opinion; the right one.

So for taking a stand against someone’s populist view of homosexuality, Dakota Ary, a student at Western Hills High School was sent to in-school suspension.  In-school suspension is for students who, for one reason or another, find themselves on the outs with the current administrative staff for any of a number of reasons, usually having to do with behavior.

But I would say that in this case, it wasn’t behavior that got Ary in trouble, it was opinion.  Certainly, had Ary said “homosexuality is wrong” and impressed his opinion with a flurry of punches, that would be grounds for in-school suspension.  But what exactly are we trying to promote here when we punish students for doing what we would like them to do:  express opinions on philosophical points of view.

So, if Ary gets in trouble for espousing the point of view that homosexuality is wrong; does that mean that the school administration believes it is right?  What other meaning could it have?

This is the same kind of mentality used to support dictatorships. If we don’t like what you say, then we will simply lock you up until you change your meandering ways.

It happened in Tiananmen Square years ago, and is currently happening throughout the mid-east. When a country like the United States takes this kind of a stand, how far down the road of politically correctness have we come?  We face this every day.  You can’t say this or that because it might hurt someone’s feelings.

Perfectly good words, such as niggardly, have to be discarded in general conversation because a moron somewhere doesn’t realize it has nothing to do with racial prejudice.  So what does niggardly mean? According to Merriam Webster, it means to be “grudgingly mean about spending or granting;” it can also mean that something is “provided in a meanly limited supply.”

How does that stack up against racism? To quote some famous writer, “Me thinks though dost protest too much.”  Typically, of course this is my opinion, those who complain about things like this and try to ascribe them to racism are probably racists themselves.  If our skins are so thin that common, everyday language triggers pent in emotions then what hope do we have for the future?

So back to Ary.  His mother states that her son, Dakota, is a very well-grounded 14-year-old, who is an honors student, plays on the football team, and is active in his church youth group. He’s attended church his whole life, and has been taught to stand up for what he believes.

So what does that say about the idea of separation of church and state, or in this case, school?  Somewhere, we would like to think that school is the place where kids are taught to stand up for what they believe and to not be afraid to have an opinion.

But yet, at Western Hills High School, it would seem quite contrary. Instead of standing behind this student, the school administration decides the best thing to do is to stifle such broad thinking.  God knows, we can’t have any of that original thought around here.

It boggles the mind in this day when the world screams out for free thinking human beings that the very institutions we force our children to attend would fetter a child’s opinion and make him or her join the lockstep beliefs of the powers that be.  All I can say is what does this school administration think like?

After running through a small legal tussle, the school did in fact rescind its punishment. But the real problem isn’t correcting a wrong. It’s what got us there in the first place. A case like this should never have seen the light of day; it should have been squashed by the administration at the school, that it was not is a crime.  The people of Fort Worth should take a closer look at this. There may indeed need to be some punishment meted out; but it probably isn’t directed at the student.

Two good reasons to support Capital Punishment

Now comes before the court the case for doing away with the Death Penalty, as brought forth by James R. Acker, a teaching professor at the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany (Georgia).  Acker says no case better supports the need to do away with the death penalty than that of Troy Davis, scheduled to be put to death this week by the state of Georgia for the murder of off-duty police officer Mark McPhail.

Davis was tried and convicted some 20 years ago, but now, seven of the nine witnesses have recanted or changed their testimony, and therefore Davis’ guilty verdict deserves another look.  No one wants to execute someone under the death penalty law if they are not guilty, but looking at this one case certainly, at least in my opinion, doesn’t mean there aren’t those who deserve capital punishment.

We don’t need to look very far for examples of those kinds of people. In recent memory, we have the case of the Harvey family who were brutally murdered at the hands of Ricky Gray and Ray Joseph Dandridge.

The two had put together a murder spree that spread from Pennsylvania to Richmond, Va. Certainly, it would be hard not to justify capital murder in the case.  How does that stack up against the Davis case?

Then there’s an even more egregious capital murder trial that occurred right in Chester. It involved a 10-year-old child who was abducted, raped, and murdered by Everett Lee Mueller. Surely there is no bigger a boogey man than the likes of Mueller.

It so happens that I was in the courtroom the day he took the stand on his own behalf. Foolhardy though it was, Mueller decided he could take on the likes of Chesterfield’s chief prosecutor at the time, Warren von Schuch.  It took little time for von Schuch to show the court what Mr. Mueller was really like. As I recall von Schuch telling the media after the trial, it was just a matter of following Mueller’s psychology profile and pressing the right buttons.

In no time, von Schuch had Mueller screaming at him in the court room. The really sad thing about that case is that it needn’t have happened. If Mueller would have been kept in prison for his crimes, which absolutely no one denies were heinous in the extreme, Charity would be alive today and Mueller would also be alive, albeit locked up.

The problem then?

Virginia had a mandatory release program. That left Mueller, a two-time convicted rapist, outside prison.  He actually had a third rape conviction, but that one happened in California, where he was sentenced to a psychiatric ward. As a result of that, that rape conviction was legally overlooked when it could have resulted in his being convicted under Virginia’s three-time loser law, which would have amounted to life in prison. Real life in prison, not some shortened sentence for good behavior or anything like that.

Instead, 12-years later, we have Mueller out of prison and making his rounds one late Friday night at the Hardee’s near the Chester Skateland. He admitted talking to Charity, and later confessed to the rape and murder charge. Her body was found buried in a shallow grave a few hundred feet behind the house he was living in at the time.

There are those who say that capital punishment doesn’t work as a deterrent, and in some respects that is true. But in the cases of Gray and Dandridge and Mueller, it works better than a deterrent. It takes some of the worst criminals in the state out of the game forever. No one will have to worry about someone kicking in their door and beating their family to death, or abducting their 10-year-old child and raping and murdering her.

Yes, perhaps the death penalty won’t keep the next person from murdering someone. But it certainly stops the ones who already have murdered people from murdering anyone else.

Elect Me! Elect Me! Yeah, right!

One thing about debates, it sure does bring out the rascal in the candidates.  We don’t need a bunch of these so-called candidates going around parsing each other on the great media stage that is America today. We need a solid candidate who not only speaks truth, but who has the chutzpa to back it up.

Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachman, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and the like would be much better off trying to build a case that would influence the American voters instead of attacking each other and mud-wrestling in front of the TV cameras trying to eke out an edge in the next popularity poll.

Do we have problems? Maybe that shouldn’t be a question; it stands just as well as statement, “Do we have problems.”  And the answer is, ‘and then some.”  Sniping at each other to see who will carry enough votes to get into the main event next year isn’t necessarily the best way to go about things.

The problem with the Republican Party is that they haven’t been able to put up a viable candidate. Never mind the so-called split between conservative Republicans and the Tea Party, which many perceive as ultra-conservative.  The party must find a candidate who can carry both sides; neither the pure Republican party nor the Tea Party is capable of winning on their own.

So, where does that leave us? Some might say it leaves us with Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the current front-runner, if you take opinion polls to heart. But opinion polls don’t necessarily reflect an accurate presentation of the public at large. I know it’s hard to believe, but they can be, and have been, way off the mark in the past. A lot of it depends on where the survey is conducted, or “Who you Gonna Call?”

So in the latest debate there’s this big deal about Social Security.  Romney called Social Security a big Ponzi scheme and tried to saddle Perry with the idea that he didn’t understanding that.  I think anyone who has any understanding of the Social Security system, even at the lowest levels, knows that you need people paying into the scheme in order to make it work for the future, and that the law of diminishing return will eventually catch up with it.

I, for one, am a variety of skeptic who believes Social Security does not exist in my future. I would be very surprised if I received even the first buck, no less a cushion, going into old age. I don’t mind paying my “fair share” and providing for those who bought into the deal way back when, but as the population dwindles and the resources dry up, you won’t catch me running around wondering what happened.

I also don’t believe my “retirement plan” holds any future for me either. For years, I have known that I am destined to a life of always having to work. I don’t mind, it’s ok with me. I would probably be bored if I hadn’t something to do, and the writing gig is more cerebral than it is physical anyway.

In fact, just the other day I was at a visitation at my retirement home, E. Alvin Small Funeral Home, in Colonial Heights. I took the time to wander around inside the place, trying to get acclimated to how things might be when that time comes and the retirement bell tolls for me.

The place seemed pretty clean. No big bugs running around, no dust, dirt, or debris. There was just a bunch of people standing around in a queue waiting quietly for their chance to pay their respects.  And I thought, “Man, a lot of these people will be here when my retirement time comes to pass; ain’t I lucky!”

Zen, hurricanes, and the art of small engine repair

Being as timely a person as I usually am, I put off checking out my generator in hopes that I would not lose power during Irene. Sure, I know about all that kind of stuff, after all I did take a small engine repair class in high school. And, like most everything else from high school, it sits right up there foremost in my brain pan whenever a mower, or weed eater, or, for that matter, a generator is in need of work.

Back then, I learned to set the gap on a spark plug using a device called a feeler gauge, and how to check if the motor was getting spark, and how to make sure the gas was getting through to the cylinders.

Over the years, I have added to that knowledge. I learned how to pull off the head and use a hammer to adjust sticky valves, and how to use small C-clamps after breaking the heads off the bolts that are supposed to keep the piston cylinder from losing compression. Once, I was able to take a metal strip and use it to cover the space where a bolt was missing, bolting the strip down on either side and hoping the strip would provide enough force to allow the motor to have enough compression to run. It did, surprisingly enough.

But this time, I felt would be different. This time, I had the proper tools, the proper know how, and a relatively new piece of equipment, that is the generator. Now, that doesn’t mean the generator was near what I needed for what I wanted to do. I bought the generator more than three years ago, with the intent of using it to support power in our pop-up camper. I figured to run lights and a portable AC unit, 2500 KW would be more than sufficient. Please take notice that I am well aware 2500 KW of power is nowhere near enough to run a modern household.

On the other hand, I only wanted to run a freezer and a refrigerator. I was unconcerned about things like AC, computers, entertainment centers, lights, coffee makers (okay, we swapped the refrigerator for the coffee maker long enough to make a pot of coffee then back to the refrigerator), and other such devices that we have become dependent upon over the years.

Really, I think I know how it feels to go through withdrawal now. In fact, no junkie ever had to deal with the kind of cold turkey I had to deal with because of not being able to access the Internet. I nearly sold my family just for an hour on Facebook. But not to fear, I held off. Instead, I ate a whole bag of Reese’s Cups, and locked myself in the bathroom until I felt normal again.

But all that aside, back to my generator story.  As I said earlier, I did take a small engine repair course back in high school, which at the time I thought might be useful as a sort of fall back plan if partying and failing to do homework, yet again, didn’t carry me through. Actually, I was way ahead of everyone along those lines; I was a senior and only needed two credits to graduate.

Since I chose any road that was not academic during my previous three years, it turned out I didn’t have any other requirement except two classes. In other words, I could take anything I wanted. Small engine repair met Monday and Wednesday from 10 to 11, and I figured it was perfect. My other course ended up being Home Economics, Marriage and Child Care, which met on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, even earlier than 11. That left me with no classes in the afternoons, and absolutely no class on Friday. Did I tell you about my part time job at the Ski Resort? Oh well, that’s another story, but that is what I did with the time I carved out of school attendance.

Meanwhile, back in Colonial Heights, I was stuck with a three-year-old generator that hadn’t been run since my brother borrowed it in 2008 for a trip to Tennessee and the annual Bonnaroo concert. Since we had lost power Saturday night, it seemed like a smart thing to start checking out the generator Sunday morning. Having been a trained small engine repair mechanic, I knew it was important to check the fuel tank first. Rightly so, since I found a small amount of old gas on the bottom of the tank had caramelized. I added a bit of fresh gas to slosh around and break up the mess. I then drained that into a bucket, not realizing the bucket had a hole until it was all over the front stoop. Take 10 minutes out for clean up, then on with the project. I felt the on-off valve might be gummed up, so I took it off just to make sure it was clear. It wasn’t, so that was a good idea and I fixed it.

Then I decided to check the carburetor, too, and sure enough it was clear. My brother must have run the generator out of gas, thereby protecting the carburetor from gumming up with bad gas. I put it all back together, dumped some gas in the tank, and got ready to get things rolling.

Thankfully, I had muscle on hand that wasn’t mine. I put my son Geordie’s brawn to good work, and he spent about 10 minutes dutifully pulling the starter cord. I even tried using some ether starting fluid, but still no luck. We were disgusted, but just about then Geordie grabbed the cord and gave it one final, determined yank. Puuuuuurrrrrrrrrrr. The motor was off and running as if it had just got back from Tennessee.  We were both excited; it was like a miracle.

Our next problem was that we needed the generator in the back yard. So, we hit the kill switch and carried it to the back of the house.  Once there, we went to start it again. Nothing. We both cranked it for a while and still nothing. Knowing that the fuel line was working, I pulled the spark plug out and low and behold no spark. I took a wrench and “adjusted” the gap, still no spark. We were amazed. Finally, Geordie looked at the kill switch. It had a plastic protection cover over it and you couldn’t actually see the switch. He pulled off the cover and we discovered that it was a toggle switch, and the toggle was in the wrong direction.

Once we changed that, the motor started even easier than it had out front.  In no time at all, we hooked up two long extension cords and had both the freezer and refrigerator running.  At some point, I think I am going to have to purchase a more powerful generator, though. It seems whenever we opened the refrigerator door, we could watch the light dim telling us we were drawing too much power out of the little generator.

I guess that old small engine repair class has stood me well, something to be said about a high school education after all. And I ain’t saying nothing about the Home Ec class.