Everyone by now should know about David McSwane. He is the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper at Colorado State University up in Ft. Collins, CO. For those that don’t know, he is also the one who published an editorial in the newspaper which was four simple words “Tazer this, [unmentionable] Bush”.
This was, of course, in response to the tazering of a student in Florida who tried to ask Senator John Kerry un-agreeable questions in a question and answer forum. Forget for the moment that somehow President Bush is responsible for what happened to the Florida student who was asking questions of Sen. Kerry (I have been trying to figure that out, but somehow I just can’t connect the dots), and just focus on the editorial.
The CSU Board of Student Communications which oversees the newspaper is calling McSwane to the carpet. They feel he has violated the paper’s code of ethics, and are looking into firing him. McSwane, of course, is crying they are violating his First Amendment rights. Kids these days, they just don’t understand the term ‘ethics’, or ‘appropriateness’.
If McSwane were working for a real newspaper, in the real world, reporting real news, he would have been fired long before now. The editorial appears on 21 September, and here it is 30 September, a full nine days have passed and McSwane still has his job. In the real world, the Board of Directors or the owner of whatever paper he was working for would have sacked him the day it appeared.
This is just another in what is becoming a fairly long line of cases where students display poor judgment, then scream First Amendment when they are called on it. McSwane has to learn at some point in his life that decisions have consequences, and while he has a First Amendment right to say what he pleases, his employers have every right to can people who make the company look bad.
His unethical, immature use of foul language in a newspaper should not be tolerated if the newspaper wants to retain any credibility as a reporter of real news. That might be okay in a tabloid type paper, or something akin the Lampoon of Harvard, but not an official school newspaper.
With all the talk of how European countries are so ‘enlightened’ these days with regards to just about everything; race, religion, sexuality, drugs and on and on, I would never have expected this type of thing from the EU. Especially in light of how some are saying that the term ‘race’ is an outdated term that doesn’t really apply to groups of people in the traditional sense (i.e. Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, Arabs etc).
The EU comes out now with an idea that should send chills through the spine of any thinking person. The EU wants to classify people based on their race. That’s correct, the European Union is moving to direct member states to collect race information on all of their citizens, and pass that onto Brussels.
People who have knowledge of history, may be worried (and rightfully so) that this kind of thing cannot lead to any good whatsoever. Will Jews’ passports soon be stamped with a “J”? Will the passports of Muslims be emblazoned with an “I”? When something happens in the EU, will ’rounding up the usual suspects’ simply mean folks of a specific race?
All of this and more is certainly not only possible, but probable if the EU follows through with this directive.
An article I read this morning has made me think of the differences between Christian living and Muslim living.
Recently a Catholic churct in McKinney, Texas was vandalized. The numerals ‘666′ as well as some grossly offensive and vile words were spay painted on the statue of St. Michael, the Sanctuary doors and in the parking lot. This is what the pastor, Stephen Bierschenk, had to say about it:
It depicts a person who is very angry, I’d say, and prejudice.
What we preach and the way we try to live is to try and forgive them, during the services this weekend I plan to ask everybody to offer a prayer that God will heal the heart of the person who did (it).
While, when a mosque in Tampa, FL is vandalized, the people demand that local and federal law enforcement search for some sort of bias motive. It is almost as if they actually want people to be biased against them. Why? Because biased crimes (a/k/a hate crimes) will usually carry a stiffer penalty.
Just to recap here; The Catholic priest wants to pray for the offender’s soul, so that the offender might come to God and be forgiven and experience eternal happiness. The Muslims want the offender to be punished more harshly because they are Muslim and the offender isn’t.
Just gotta love that whole “religion of peace” thing, don’t ya?
Daniel Frazier is a despicable man. He gleefully uses the names of dead soldiers for commercial gain. Not much, according to him, but commercial gain nonetheless. For those who aren’t familiar, this is the guy who prints the names of United States servicemen and women on t-shirts along with the words “Bush Lied – They Died” and sells them.
Some states have passed laws that prohibit this. U.S. District Judge Neil Wake in Phoenix issued an injunction prohibiting the state of Arizona from shutting down Frazier’s operation. And rightfully so. Just because Frazier’s speech is in the form of a t-shirt, and just because I happen to disagree with his message, and just because the families of the fallen heroes disagree with the message and the use of their loved ones’ names, does not mean that Frazier loses his right to deliver his message.
I’ve said before that this really isn’t and shouldn’t be a first amendment issue. It isn’t a speech issue at all. What this is, and I think the families would get farther faster going this route, is a civil issue. The issue at hand is unauthorized use of the name and/or likeness of the individual in question. The families should sue Frazier for copyright and/or trademark infringement. The families should have any and all rights to the names and likenesses of their deceased loved ones, and should be able to control how those names and/or likenesses are used.
And in a civil trial, in front of a jury, I believe the families would come out winners because it would be a jury of citizens who decide the case, and it would have nothing to do with Constitutional rights, and everything to do with licensing. There is plenty of precedent for this as well. I’m am fairly certain if I made a t-shirt with the likeness of John Wayne with the words “Bush Lied-They Died” that the folks who control the licensing to John Wayne’s name and likeness would be all over me like grease on bacon.
In yet another victory for the First Amendment ( that is the one which gives use the right to free speech, and religion and a free press – for those of you in Parma, OH). An Ohio (go figure) federal judge struck down an Ohio state law which basically said, anything one says on the Internet is illegal if it is harmful to juveniles”. What a crock.
Just think of the kids. How many kids are hurt each year by these terrible weapons? I’ll wager hundreds, maybe even thousands. I don’t think there are any records kept. Even if there are records kept, they are almost certainly woefully inaccurate. Just the other day, a woman in Des Moines, IA was attacked with this weapon by her drunken husband. The assault was so brutal that the man, James Izzolena, is being held without bond. Without bond! That honor is usually held for only the most heinous crimes.
The weapon of choice for Izzolena was…an onion. He threw an onion at this wife, and she called the cops, and now he is held without bond. For throwing an onion. Don’t get me wrong here folks, please. It isn’t right to throw onions at anyone, especially one’s spouse. But to 1) actually arrest a fellow for throwing an onion; and 2) actually hold him sans bond for said offense; one has to wonder what the world our justice system is smoking!
While this Izzolena is thrown the book (I’ve got $10 that says he gets the maximum sentence) in Iowa, in Kansas, pedophiles walk with probation and zero jail time.
You have to give this guy a ‘A’ for ingenuity (I know, I know, ingenuity doesn’t begin with an ‘A’ but just roll with me here).
A fellow in Berlin hits German butcher shop and buys a couple of large sausages known ast ‘Schwartenmagen’. I don’t know what schwarten-whatever is, but it sure sounds big. He hollows out the sausages and puts a couple of…um…sexual aid devices in them. He is heading to Dubai, and I am supposing that these…uhm…devices are illegal in the Muslim country. Then takes the sausages back to the butcher and asks to have them wrapped and cooled.
My guess is, the guy was thinking the density of the sausages might be close enough to the density of the…uhm…inserts…so they might not be as noticeable in and x-ray machine. I may be giving the guy too much credit, but probably now.
At any rate, the shop owner noticed a weight difference, and being the good security conscious fellow that he is, alerted police. My thinking is, if the guy had told the butcher what he had done, the butcher probably would have laughed and just went ahead and wrapped them for the guy. After all, it isn’t illegal to put the…uhm…devices in a sausage in Germany.
Government run health care, a.k.a Socialized medicine. Some are ‘fer’ it and some are ‘agin’ it. Those in socialized medicine’s corner include (but are not wholly limited to) the looney fringe leftists that 1) reside in America 2) claim to love America 3) but want to change America into some socialist utopia (but they love America). Those in the ‘agin’ category include (but is not limited to) most of the rationally thinking adults in the United States of America.
The ‘agin’ it folks will usually point to Canada as a reason not to have socialized medicine. They claim there are gigantic waiting lines for life saving procedures. That the Canucks are coming down to American to receive better, quicker medical care (at least, those that can afford it).
What this crowd needs to do is get wise and start telling the stories of our great equalizing socialist neighbor to the south – Venezuela. HugoCare (as I have dubbed it) is such a great and wonderful thing, that recently a man who survived an automobile accident was laying on the autopsy table. Yes, I said “survived” and auto accident. The HugoCare medical experts didn’t know the guy was alive until they started their autopsy and he woke up in extreme pain.
Man, I can’t wait for HillaryCare to come to good ol’ US of A, can you?
This video is somewhat disturbing. It comes to me by way of Lane Hudson over at the Huffington Pos. In it we see a student at the University of Florida asking John Kerry a question about whether or not he was part of the (notorious?) Skull & Bones society while at Yale. Before Kerry could answer, the university police begin to remove the petitioner. When the student complains, they tazer him and forcibly remove him from the building.
While the video itself is terribly disturbing, what really caught my attention (aside from the fact that someone on HuffPost actually posted a video that put a democrat in less than stellar light) was that Hudson tried to spin this incident into somehow being President Bush’s doing. That somehow, because a student who asked a question unfavorable to Senator Kerry was tazered and forcibly removed from the forum, is the responsibility of President Bush, and it happened because he is “edging towards ANOTHER ill-conceived war”.
Please, don’t take my word for it, go and read it yourself. It seems that the far left are grasping at anything and everything these days.
Well, not really. It was an exercise, a pay at Bishop Flaget school in Chillicothe, Ohio. For those not in the know, this is Constitution Week – celebrating the drafting of the Constitution 225 years ago on 17 September. The students put on plays which describe what they believe life would be like without our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The plays centered on the First Amendment (because, let’s face it, that is the most important one – at least in my opinion).
A seventh-grader is arrested for praying by officers portrayed by students during a student play Monday morning at Bishop Flaget. The students were depicting what could possibly happen without first amendment rights.
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Government run health care, a.k.a Socialized medicine. Some are ‘fer’ it and some are ‘agin’ it. Those in socialized medicine’s corner include (but are not wholly limited to) the looney fringe leftists that 1) reside in America 2) claim to love America 3) but want to change America into some socialist utopia (but they love America). Those in the ‘agin’ category include (but is not limited to) most of the rationally thinking adults in the United States of America.
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