Just wanted to let you all know that on Thursday night, from 7-9 pm EST, my good friend Wiley Cash will be here ofr a coveritlive live chat discussion of his EXCELLENT and OUTSTANDING debut novel, A Land More Kind Than Home. I hope you all mark off some time on your calendar to participate in this live chat.
Archives for January 2013
School Shooting Drill to Include Someone Shooting Blanks in Hallway
A high school in a Chicago suburb is planning a code red drill which will include someone shooting blanks in the hallway to familiarize students with the sound of gunfire.
CHICAGO (CBS) — A school shooting drill planned for tomorrow in the far northwestern suburbs has many parents upset.
According to a letter from Cary-Grove High School principal Jay Sargeant, there will be a code red drill at the school on Wednesday.
It will include somebody shooting blanks from a gun in the hallway “in an effort to provide our teachers and students some familiarity with the sound of gunfire.”
Parent Kassy Pinter says: “It’s probably necessary to have the ‘code red’ drill but not really necessary to shoot the blanks in the hallway.”
Seems reasonable. Better yet, just send them to Harper High School in the Englewood neighborhood in Chicago. People get shot there all the time, apparently. If you’re going to traumatize a bunch of high schoolers, might as well do it right.
(h/t JM Ashby)
[cross-posted at ABLC]School Shooting Drill to Include Someone Shooting Blanks in HallwayPost + Comments (122)
Tails you lose
You know the old joke about the guy with a dog whose vet tells him the dog’s tail has to be removed. Guy says “it’ll hurt too much to cut it off all at once, let’s do it an inch at a time”.
It’s pretty obvious that’s how things are for Republicans on immigration. They can for immigration reform now, which will hurt a little by increasing the number of Latino voters (but probably isn’t completely fatal to the GOP as a party) or they can spend the next five-to-ten years talking about sharks with frickin’ laser beams in the Rio Grande and further alienating the brown enemy within. The latter will just be killing time, painfully and self-destructively, until president Hillary Clinton or Julian Castro finally gets immigration reform passed. Every year they let Rush Limbaugh tell them to brown-bash is another year non-white people will hold against them for the next generation or so.
So I think the idea that Republicans shouldn’t do immigration reform until they’re prepared to start competing for Latino votes is just dumb. Republicans aren’t going to embrace the Other all of a sudden. Even Bobo doesn’t think so:
Can current Republicans change their underlying mentality to adapt to these realities? Intellectual history says no.
The obvious thing to do is cut loose some non-southern Republicans to vote for immigration reform, take their lumps the next few elections, and then hope they can eventually compete for non-white votes.
Is Football worth it?
While we gear up for the Super Bowl (I say “we” but I will fully admit I’m not a sports guy) my co-host and new Balloon Juice commenter Dacia Mitchell added to the TWiB! Radio news docket the question about the impacts of professional football and how it leaves it’s players. There was a recent article discussing how injuries in the NFL has a racial component since over 67% of players are of color. Our resident Football expert Aaron Rand Freeman doesn’t believe we can look at injuries in Football in that particular light. The discussion was really interesting and the call-in section towards the later half of the show was pretty awesome.
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And on TWiB! in the Morning we had New York State Senator Kevin Parker on discussing the perils of governing in a 24/7 news cycle in addition to a landscape completely changed by social media. He argues that it has less of an impact that we would think.
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Tonight I’m going out with the Wife but I’ll jump in the comments when we get back. Dacia Mitchell and Aaron Rand Freeman will hold down the comment section while I’m out being a good husband.
Open Thread: Kerry’s Confirmed
From his hometown paper, the Boston Globe:
Senator John Kerry wins confirmation as secretary of state; to replace Hillary Clinton at swearing-in ceremony later this week
WASHINGTON — The Senate Tuesday confirmed President Obama’s nomination of Senator John F. Kerry to be secretary of state, handing the Massachusetts Democrat a redemptive career victory that ensconces him in an elite echelon of national leadership nine years after his failed bid for the presidency.The 94 to 3 vote was the final hurdle for Kerry, whose nomination soared through the Senate after Obama’s first choice of United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice encountered stiff GOP opposition and never got off the ground.
Kerry met virtually no resistance, as his colleagues on both sides of the aisle lauded his 28 years of service in the Senate and his deep experience in international affairs, most recently as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He is expected to give a farewell speech in the Senate on Wednesday and will be sworn in as Hillary Clinton’s replacement in a Department of State ceremony later this week….
The three nay votes in the full Senate vote cast by Republicans Ted Cruz of Texas, John Cornyn of Texas, and James Inhofe of Oklahoma. Kerry abstained….
Governor Deval Patrick is supposed to name Kerry’s “interim” replacement, who will serve only until June 25th, on Wednesday. He’s played his choice very close to the vest, but since it’s said he has Presidential ambitions, “pissing off the progressive wing of the Democratic party” should not be part of his agenda. Fingers crossed for Barney Frank!
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Apart from the horse race talk, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Another awesome day in gun culture
I am so proud to live in a country where a citizen can defend himself from people whose GPS directs them to the wrong driveway and from his own urologist.
A “Both Sides Do It” for the Ages
Let me first second Kirsten Powers’ loathing for Media Matters’ campaign to shame and target individuals for appearing on Fox News. But the memo she cites is from a year ago. And I have to say that even if it means agreeing with David Brock, I’m afraid I have to confess that I do not regard Fox News as a legitimate news organization. It’s a propaganda channel for the far right, and not much worse than MSNBC’s leftist partisan smugbursts. And an administration, in my view, should be open to all at regular press conferences (okay, not heckling by the Daily Caller) … but does not have to legitimize propaganda machines by appearing on them. I’d keep off MSNBC and Fox if I were in any administration. They both poison our discourse. Let these propaganda channels put talk radio on TV all day if they want. You don’t have to enable them.
Because, you know, MSNBC is just the flip side of the FOX coin.