Classroom Assignment on Bestiality Will Spark Reactions Across The Spectrum

Ocean State scholastic object d'amore?

There might be concern about America's performance in the classroom in mathematics and science, but on the subject of bestiality, at least one Rhode Island school is at the top of the class.

A parent objected to her daughter having to write an essay on a book that included profanity and acts of bestiality. The girl, a freshman, her mother, the local school system's response all make for a telling story. More on assignments in bestiality in the classroom from Providence Journal:

A high school reading assignment that contains profanity and references to bestiality has angered a Cumberland parent so much she has complained to the superintendent, the School Committee and the state Department of Education. She wants the essay removed from the curriculum and the teacher disciplined.

So far, that hasn’t happened. Will Clarke, the author of the offending eight-page essay, “How to Kill a Boy That No One Liked,” doesn’t see what the fuss is all about.

Clarke, who has two novels published by Simon & Schuster, The Worthy: A Ghost’s Story (2006) and Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles: A Spy Novel (Sort of) (2005), says the essay is about his own high school experience in Shreveport, La., where he was a loner who was constantly picked on until he reinvented himself.

“It’s about a pivotal point in my high school experience when I won an election and stopped being a loser in people’s eyes,” the Dallas-based author said in a telephone interview.

“If anything, the essay is redemptive. That’s what literature does. It gets people to try on another person’s skin and see what it’s like,” he said. “It’s totally appropriate for high school kids.”

Lori Drew first saw the essay when her 15-year-old daughter, Amanda, a freshman at Cumberland High, brought it home as part of a homework assignment for a reading class early this month. The assignment was to read the essay and come up with as many questions as possible.

“I was shocked with the profanity and explicit sex acts with animals,” she told the School Committee last week as she handed out copies of the essay to members of the audience and the committee.

Superintendent of Schools Donna Morelle agreed to let Amanda opt out of the assignment and left Drew with the impression that the essay itself would be pulled.

But the assignment was never eliminated. The superintendent could not be reached to explain the apparent misunderstanding.

“She lied to me,” Drew said after the meeting.

Upon reading this story, parents will shake their collective heads, ominous music will play as keyboards tap out stories about the Power of the Religious Right in America and some will argue for the free interchange of discussion in the classroom. The familiar calls of "censorship" will be heard. Many of those voices will be the same ones who shout down the protests this story will generate,

Of course, others might take a shower and grab the latest issue of "Farm Digest".

by Mondoreb
& Little Baby Ginn



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AIDS Came From Haiti? New Research on the AIDS Front

The Mysterious Case Of Robert R And The Pieces To The AIDS Puzzle
By Little Baby Ginn

The October 29th Chicago Tribune came out with the story of how genetic analysis of 25 yr old blood samples showed the most predominant strain of AIDS first emerged in Haiti in the 1960’s and arrived in the United States a few years later, most likely 1969.

Study: HIV in U.S. decade earlier than was thought
By Jia-Rui Chong | Tribune Newspapers
10:56 PM CDT, October 29, 2007

A genetic analysis of 25-year-old blood samples has outlined a new map of the AIDS virus' journey out of Africa, showing that today's most widespread subtype first emerged in Haiti in the 1960s and arrived in the United States a few years later.

The fact that the new HIV study proved AIDS was here in the United States in 1969 wasn’t news to the physicians whose patient’s symptoms and subsequent death were so baffling that they had the 15 year old’s tissues stored in the hopes that some day their questions would get answered.

When a fifteen-year-old African American boy appeared at the Washington University clinic in St. Louis in 1969 with an assortment of symptoms such as swollen lymph glands, Chlamydia, weight loss, and exhaustion the treating physicians were baffled as to what it was that the boy suffered from. He was treated with anti-biotics for the Chlamydia infection but succumbed after a bout of bronchial pneumonia. The autopsy revealed Kaposi’s Sarcoma, a skin cancer. A Chlamydia specialist at Washington University, Dr. Memory Elvin-Lewis, was “fascinated” by Robert R’s illness and was the one who requested that tissues from Robert R’s body be frozen for later examination.

Robert R. claimed he had never traveled outside of St. Louis. When questioned the boy kept mum about his private life. His symptoms were so bewildering that it wasn’t until the early 1980’s, after a new disease referred to as “gay cancer” emerged in 1981. It had claimed 121 deaths in the U.S. The symptoms of this new “disease” were the same as those that Robert R had suffered. The pieces of the puzzle of what might have killed the boy started to fall into place. In 1984 the disease became officially known as AIDS or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. The doctors who treated Robert R believed that the 15 year old most likely had AIDS but it wasn’t proven until 1984 when his tissues tested positive for HIV. Fifteen years after his death Robert R became officially known as the first confirmed case of HIV/AIDS in the United States. He died on May 16, 1969, at the age of fifteen.

Just how did a kid who grew up in St. Louis and never traveled outside the city contract AIDS? He told doctors that he had had symptoms since late 1966 when he was 12. He did admit to having sexual relations but refused to elaborate. He told doctors he had never had a blood transfusion. Since the disease is sexually transmitted doctors believe he was infected by someone already in the U.S. before Robert R showed symptoms in 1966.

In 1987 molecular biologists at Tulane University in New Orleans examined Robert R’s
tissues for signs of AIDS and found that he did, indeed, have AIDS. One of the pieces still missing from the puzzle, how did Robert R contract the disease?

The new genetic analysis published in the Chicago Tribune found that the AIDS subtype B, the most prevalent form outside Africa emerged from Haiti in the 1960’s.

Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona and senior author of the study, analyzed five blood samples collected in 1982 and 1983 from Haitian AIDS patients in Miami. The samples had been stored in a freezer by the CDC.

Statistically, the researchers found a 99.7 percent certainty that HIV subtype B originated in Haiti, Worobey said.

Worobey surmised the virus was brought to Haiti by workers who had gone to Zaire after it became independent in 1960. The virus appears to have been carried to the U.S. by Haitian immigrants between 1966 and 1972. Researchers have debated for years whether the U.S. epidemic came directly from Africa or through Haiti.

From 1981 through the end of 2004, more than 20 million people (worldwide) have died of AIDS.

It remains to be seen how this latest news on AIDS will be treated by the media and by activists. Any information which doesn't fit a tighly-controlled template is immediately shouted down or discounted, as Biologist Peter Dueserg has discovered. His research on AIDS and a link to illegal drug use has caused vehement reaction in some circles.

Hopefully someone has tested or plans to test Robert R’s tissues to verify whether the teen was infected with the Subtype B virus. Then perhaps, another piece of the AIDS puzzle will fall into place.

UPDATE: Reuters gets in on this story.

--notes by Mondoreb
Sources:

Chicago Tribune
Info Please
Chicago Tribune
New York Times




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Anti-Hillary Video Gets over 1.4 million Hits on YouTube and Google Video

The above video has gotten over 1.4 million hits on Google video and (with it's other part) over a half-million hits on YouTube. It's an anti-Hillary Clinton video by Peter Paul. The rest of this breaking story by New York Daily News:

First came the Orwellian mash up YouTube video that portrayed Hillary Rodham Clinton as Big Brother. Then came a clip of her off-key rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Now, a stinging 13-minute video by a bitter Clinton foe is finding its own Internet audience.

The clip, a preview of a longer film by one-time Clinton donor Peter Paul, has scored more than 1.4 million hits on Google Video and about 350,000 on YouTube during the past week. Its popularity has driven it to the top spot on Google Video over the past two weeks.

Paul is a Hollywood entrepreneur, former partner of Spider-Man creator Stan Lee and convicted felon who has sued the Clintons in connection with a celebrity-packed fundraiser he helped organize for her 2000 Senate race. A California appeals court earlier this month ruled that Sen. Clinton should be dismissed from the suit.

With the fascination about Hillary Clinton and the number who absolutely wouldn't vote for her under any circumstances, the video seems to be proof that there's an enthusiastic anti-Hillary audience among the viewers at Internet video sites.

by Mondoreb
& Little Baby Ginn



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I Survived Waterboarding And Other Tales Out of the Left's Basement

It has the smell of a middle school science project. We have a hypothesis and an experiment by a Junior Left Science Club member. One that he might pull off in his parents' basement. As he explains it:

I was thinking about the AG confirmation and how Mukasey isn't certain that waterboarding constitutes torture. And then I started thinking about how Rudy Giuliani doesn't believe waterboarding is torture either.

So I figured I'd find out for myself. I mean if it isn't torture, it can't be that bad, right?

Let me tell you this, it's not pleasant. And we were operating under circumstances where we absolutely knew that the other person wasn't going to kill us with the technique.

Hot Air then picks up the scent:

“[I]f it isn’t torture, it can’t be that bad, right?” our hero wonders rhetorically before declaring it most definitely bad — and recounting how he went in for one, two, three, four rounds of the stuff. Which, incidentally, was fewer than his brother managed. A possible alternative standard: If it is torture, you probably wouldn’t be so willing to have it done to you.

Hot Air provides a video of another water-boarding experiment, that of Fox's Steve Harrigan. Neither Harrigan nor the JLSC member doesn't seem much the worse for wear.

But--boy!--did he come up with a Certified Left conclusion.

So yeah, it's torture. And if Rudy or Dick Cheney or anybody else doesn't think it is, well, I'd like to see how they would react if they had it done to them.

And there are members of the Right Wing Blogosphere who don't want to give the Left any style points for originality.

It'd be original if the Left spent 1/10th the time trying to recreate the victims of terror's experience: being blown to bits, fingers and hands chopped off, the beheadings. Perhaps they might bring a more useful perspective to the discussion of what constitutes torture.

Of course, all that would really mess up the basement.

by Mondoreb

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"Buried" Stories Bring to Mind A Whiff of Modern-Day Book Burnings

The Diggs news site/social community started with an incredibly fresh idea: make the world of news a world of democracy. People vote on the news and the cream rises to the top. Democracy meets the Fourth Estate and the people are the winners.

But the "bury" feature of Diggs, for some, brings another image to mind: that of a high-tech book burning. When a cadre of a few dedicated diggers can determine what the majority see. By burying a story, a select few deny stories to the hurried, regular readers of Diggs. Something has to be in place to control blatant spam, the attempt to shill goods and services masquerading as news stories. But using the "bury" feature to register differences of political opinion smacks of censorship.

Some who have studied Diggs' Bury Brigade think a small group can kill a story. Just like a few burning books can determine what the majority in a community can read.

The only difference is that if you are diligent, you can search Diggs for buried stories--and thus, get a chance to read what a tiny percentage of Diggs' users have kept from the popular story stream.

At the moment, the most popular buried stories have to be any under the "Ron Paul" tag. Most of Diggs' users visiting any previous stories on our site come from searches with "buried" and "Ron Paul" as search terms.

Diggs changed when the site offered political news stories for persusal. It opened up a whole new audience. It also opened up a whole new political tool. Diggs is an evolving organism. The "bury" feature will surely also evolve over time.

One day, the "buried story" will go the way of the "book burning".

by Mondoreb
[image:art.com]



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Japan's Justice Minister: Friend's Friend Participated In Al-Qaeda Bali Bombing

[photo:CNN]

Japan's Justice Minister says that a friend's friend entered Japan several times and was involved in a bombing in Bali. This story presents more questions than it answers. What was known by who and when was it known, as they say in America?

The news also helps explain the tough new immigration rules Japan has put into place. Shades of Tom Tancredo! Of course, any official implementing of tough immigration measures isn't automatically branded as "xenophobic" in Japan, a homogeneous country.

More on the revelations from CNN:

Japan's justice minister said "a friend of a friend ... is a member of al Qaeda" and had entered the country several times, using various passports, an officer of the Justice Ministry told CNN.

Justice Minister Kumio Hatoyama's comments came during a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on Monday when he was explaining Japan's new, tougher immigration procedures, which will require foreigners to provide finger prints and photographs upon entering the county.

"A friend of a friend of mine is a member of al Qaeda involved in a bombing in Bali," Hatoyama said, adding the alleged member of the terrorist network had gone in and out of Japan a number of times two or three years ago.

The answer to one question was buried deep in the CNN story. The Justice Minister was admonished to choose his words wisely in the future.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said it was clear that Hatoyama did not directly know the al Qaeda member, but he urged Hatoyama before a Cabinet meeting Tuesday to be more careful in his remarks.

Japan realizes what some in the immigration debate don't: if you're going to fight terrorism at home, a good place to start would be at the borders. If you don't know if or how many al-Qaeda are in your country, it's hard to catch them when the next bomb goes off. Proponents of safer borders and better controls have been making the same point in the U.S. Japan gets it.

Open borders are an open invitation.

by Mondoreb



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Hillary Vs. Paul: Rasmussen Poll Not So Surprising

Ron Paul Vs. Hillary Clinton.

Is it David vs. Goliath? The Fight of the Century? The Underdog and the Behemoth?

The headline promises long-concealed information just now coming to light: the story delivers something else: a bland look at how many Americans have opinions of Hillary Clinton vs. how many have heard of Ron Paul
More from the merry pollsters at Rasmussen:

A recent Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey featuring a match-up between Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul highlights one of the perils that comes from overanalyzing poll results between candidates with different levels of name recognition.

In that survey, Clinton held a fairly modest 48% to 38% lead. But, a careful look at the results tells us a lot about the public’s opinion of Hillary Clinton and virtually nothing about their opinion of Ron Paul.

The story goes on to say what is well-known: more Americans have heard of a former first lady than of a Congressman from Texas.

Why? First, because just about everyone in the United States has an opinion of Hillary Clinton. She has been a major player on the national and international state for 15 years. Half the country has a favorable opinion of her and half holds the opposite view, but all have an opinion. Our most recent survey results show that nearly 60% of voters have a strongly held opinion about the New York Senator and former First Lady.

As for Ron Paul, 42% don’t know enough about him to have an opinion one way or the other. He’s one of 435 Congressman whose life is way below the radar screen for most Americans. Still, his presence in the GOP Presidential Debates has raised his profile a bit--26% now offer a favorable opinion and 32% say the opposite. But, only 16% have a strongly held opinion about Paul (7% Very Favorable, 9% Very Unfavorable).

The reaction to this "news" will be predictable: the Ron Paulistas will shout it out that it's proof their man is the Great Bright Hope; the equally-rabid anti-Paulistinians will paste it up as more proof that Paul is getting too much attention. It's getting so there is a definite negative element to covering any news of Ron Paul. Even more so for the disinterested observer trying to play it straight.

Us? We thought about it and decided to comment on this story instead of this weekend's NFL games.

Barely.



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by Mondoreb