- Who do you believe? The apologetic school principal or the incensed parents of special needs students who claim that their kids were mistreated when they weren’t evacuated from school during a bomb scare? This scene unfolds in Buda, Texas, where a controversy has broken out over the treatment of two classrooms of special education students who were not included in the building evacuation at Hays High School during said bomb scare. A bomb threat was phoned in the morning of Jan. 29 and two hours later the school evacuated its 1,850 students. The only students not evacuated were eight special needs students, five of them with physical-disabilities. If you believe the school district, the students were kept in their classrooms after the area was deemed safe following a security sweep. Also, principal Shirley Reich said one reason the children were kept inside was the chilly day, 47 degrees outside, and that “if anything I erred on the side of compassion for them.” Seriously? That’s the best you’ve got? You think a 47-degree day is so cold that special needs children would be better off inside a building where there might be a bomb? Dude, it’s 47 degrees, not 17. You may not know this, but 47 degrees is 15 degrees above freezing, more than warm enough if these kids have a jacket on. At least one parent of a special needs student isn’t buying what Reich and fellow school officials are selling “I think there were better options. The bus barn is ten minutes away. They could have asked a bus to come over and placed the children on a bus, and then move them to a safer location,” fumed Lisa Gorena, mother of one student with special needs. Oh, and the fact that the school district admits to reassessing its evacuation policy following the incident seems to support the fact that this situation wasn’t handled very well. Next time you believe there is a legitimate bomb threat to your school, go ahead and evacuate everyone, even the special needs kids……
- Give me a minute to finish chewing my nice, juicy steak with a side of chicken tenders, push aside my roast beef sandwich, take off my fur coat, remove my coonskin cap, wipe a barbecue stain off my leather pants, take off my alligator skin boots and recline on my leather couch before getting to this next piece of news…..okay, good to go. Normally I’m not a big fan of PETA. Those tools do things like sending, “You deserved it!” faxes to people like Roy Horne of the magic duo Sigfried & Roy after he was mauled by a tiger. PETA basically tries to treat animals like they’re human beings and gets pissed at the rest of us when we refuse to do so. Their publicity stunts are thus idiotic nearly all of the time, but for once in a long, long time they have pulled out a stunt that I can get on board with 151 percent. Now I’m not sure what it has to do with animal rights, but if PETA wants to slam a blow-up mattress down in the middle of downtown El Paso, Texas and have two hot lesbians making out on it, that’s something I can get with. The sight of two lesbians (or at least women pretending to be lesbians) shoving their tongues down each others throats and rolling around on a mattress might have offended some in El Paso, but clearly not everyone. If everyone were offended, then dozens of people wouldn’t be breaking out their phones and cameras and snapping pictures. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, I still don’t support your mission or your aims, but this stunt buys you a lot of goodwill with me. Oh, and props for having a “purpose” for this lesbian stunt locked and loaded, as if a) you needed a reason to do it and b) there is any way to justify it. This weekend is Valentine's Day, so it is a great time to get the point across that vegetarians have lower rates of impotence and this is also a great way to show off what a healthy vegetarian body looks like," said Ashley Byrne of PETA. That’s the flimsiest “reason” I’ve heard in a long time, but no biggie. From someone who is in great shape and isn’t a vegetarian, can’t say as I see any reason to switch over to your side of the herbivore/carnivore debate. You might be arguing that vegetarians have more stamina in the bedroom because they are healthier, but I’m not having any problems in that area, so sorry, but no dice. But hey, at least I’m not as much of a square as people like El Paso resident Patty Juarez, who clearly took great offense to seeing two hot lesbians make out. “Honestly I just want to slap those girls,” Juarez said. “That’s disrespectful for my two kids, and I mean that’s not even right, and then them kissing like that.” Easy P., don’t blow a gasket. According to PETA, you just blew a great chance to teach your kids about the health benefits of living a vegetarian lifestyle……..
- Not only did the Pittsburgh Steelers win the Super Bowl (which I never wrote about, in case you didn’t notice - still too bummed out), they also appear to have won the sense of entitlement that comes with it. Well, at least one member of the team did: kicker Jeff Reed. Yes, of all people on the team, a kicker is the one making an ass of himself in public and giving a nice black eye to himself and his team by acting like a total tool at a gas station/convenience store. Seems that my boy J. Reed was at a Sheetz gas station on Route 22 in New Alexandria, Pa., using the restroom when a problem occurred: no paper towels. We’ve all been there, forced to use the filthy, repulsive nightmare that is a public restroom and finding that the towel dispenser is empty. Uh oh, what to do? You can wipe your hands on your pants or shirt, never an ideal option, but if you’ve washed your hands and they’re clean, not the end of the world. You can shake them out and try to get as much water as possible off of them, which is a worse option than wiping. Or you can do what Reed did, namely go Mike Tyson on the towel dispenser because you couldn’t get a paper towel when you needed one. That’s what Reed did, going mano-a-towel-dispenser in the restroom shortly before 3 a.m. Saturday Store employees told the authorities that they heard Reed "banging on something and that it was really loud." Not satisfied with inflicting serious damage to the towel dispenser, which clearly had it coming, Reed allegedly left the restroom "using profane language in a loud manner" and stating that there were no towels in the restroom. Right, because it’s not enough to administer a physical beatdown to an inanimate object, you need to talk smack afterward. Let that towel dispenser know who’s boss and don’t let it forget the beating you just gave it. Of course, the first two options I laid out for dealing with this situation won't result in you being charged with disorderly conduct and criminal mischief like Reed was, but it’s your call. Just a word of advice for you, Jeff: you may be a two-time world champion, but you don’t get to do what you want, when you want. If there are no paper towels in the restroom, act like a semi-civilized person and either ask the attendant to put out some more paper towels or wipe your hands on your shirt……….
- Good ol’ Hugo Chavez, keepin’ it real down in Venezuela and proving he’s every bit the oversensitive a-hole today that he was when he was elected. Just because a European parliament envoy who was to serve as observer during the upcoming referendum on President Chavez's term limits elimination proposal was expelled from Venezuela on Friday after calling Chavez a "dictator". Yes, telling the truth gets you expelled from Venezuela, even if you are a foreign ambassador there to make sure that an election is legit and not fixed by the dictatorial despot currently in power. Oh, and very kind of the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry to "invite" Luis Herrero, a European Union parliamentarian from Spain, to leave the country in order to preserve a "peaceful climate" before the February 15 referendum. I’m sure it was a very kind, polite invitation too. “Get out, stay out and would you like peanuts or pretzels as a snack on your return flight home?” is probably how that conversation went. Typcially when someone leaves a country voluntarily, they don’t do so while escorted to the airport on Friday by members of the national guard. I’m going to believe the opposition party’s argument in this case, if you don’t mind. “Following his comments, in a sequestering operation, they took him by force from the hotel without even allowing him to take his personal belongings and his passport," opposition member Luis Ignacio Planas told Globovision. Hmm, that doesn’t sound like a voluntary departure to me. That the eviction, er, voluntary departure came almost immediately after the (true) comments about Chavez being a dictator can’t be mere coincidence. For what it’s worth (not much, I;m guessing), the Spanish Foreign Ministry will express its unhappiness with Venezuela's treatment of Herrero in a letter to the Venezuelan foreign minister, to be sent through the Spanish embassy in Caracas. Spain also may be in the mood to start an international pissing match, as they have chosen to call the Venezuelan ambassador in Madrid to a meeting with the head of the South American department in Spain's Foreign Ministry. All of this because one diplomat had the balls to speak up in a news conference that aired Thursday on Globovision, and imply that Chavez was trying to manipulate the polling schedule to his benefit. In response to that activity, Herrero urged Venezuelans to "vote freely. Don't ever let fear obstruct your vote, as a dictator has premeditated.” Here’s hoping that even though he was subsequently booted from the country, Venezuelans will have the balls to stand up to their dictator and turn down this latest attempt to make him ruler for life………
- Economic times are tough on everyone, even our friends in the corporate world. Companies are suffering so much that they’re actually having to make an effort to be fiscally responsible and do things like tighten up their budgets. That means slashing things like travel budgets, which has led to a decrease in revenues for industries associated with business travel like hotels, airlines, restaurants, etc. For two hotels in London, sagging occupancy rates led to a unique deal being offered to business travelers. In East London, The Hoxton put 500 rooms up for sale on its Web site for $1.50 a night, while in Notting Hill, 3-star hotel UMI also had the same idea, offering the first night for $1.50, with breakfast included. Not surprisingly, the first offering of 500 rooms for $1.50 at the Huxton went quickly and the next round of 500 went for $40 each. It’s one of life’s great truths, that if something is free or nearly free, there’s a line. “We sold out of all the rooms in 13 minutes - 7 minutes for the 1 pound rooms, 13 minutes for the 29 pound rooms. And we had a staggering just under 60,000 people trying to get those rooms, it was a really feeding frenzy of people looking for a bargain," said David Taylor, General Manager at The Hoxton. The fire sale on rooms began last April, and it has become a quarterly event that has been a huge success. The response has been equally enthusiastic on the other side of town at UMI. “People couldn't quite believe it and we had phone calls - is this really true. It's almost like winning a prize - it's great you basically get a free night's accommodation, breakfast, nice latte in the morning and people have enjoyed it,” said Steve Lowry, General Manager, ATUMI. With only 117 rooms in the hotel and a mere 31 on sale, there was a lot of disappointment. Not that I’d waste a single second brawling with other desperate travelers for those rooms, but it’s a nice concept anyhow……….
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