posted by l.b. at 12:37 PM
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"I wouldn't say that I'm an alcoholic. I think that would be pushing the envelope," said Conner, who was known in New York's nightclub scene for drinking hard, snorting cocaine and hooking up with a long string of men.
posted by l.b. at 11:34 AM
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LAWRENCE, KANSAS -- A college professor whose planned course on creationism and intelligent design was canceled after he derided Christian conservatives said he was beaten by two men along a rural road.
University of Kansas religious studies professor Paul Mirecki said the men referred to the class when they beat him Monday on the head, shoulders and back with their fists, and possibly a metal object, the Lawrence Journal-World reported.
"I didn't know them," Mirecki said of his assailants, "but I'm sure they knew me."
Messages left on Mirecki's cell phone were not immediately returned.
Police said Mirecki reported the attack just before 7 a.m.
Mirecki planned to offer a spring course called "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies" after the Kansas Board of Education decided to include more criticism of evolution in science standards for elementary and secondary students.
posted by l.b. at 10:01 AM
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"Fleming senior wears racist T-shirt to school
Incident triggered fight; no criminal charges filed. He has left the school.
By BRAD SCHMIDT, The Times-Union
What's up with your shirt?"
Those are the words a former senior at Fleming Island High School remembers hearing as he walked from his fifth-period algebra class toward the gym. The 18-year-old, who is not being identified due to his family's concerns of safety, had just taken off his Dixie Outfitter T-shirt, exposing a highly offensive shirt.
"What about it?" replied the 18-year-old, skinny and white.
"Well, you know it's racial," said a black student, now in a group confronting the 18-year-old.
"Yeah. So?"
The undershirt the white student wore had a confederate flag on the front with the words "Keep it flying." On the back, a cartoon depicted a group of hooded Klansmen standing outside a church, waving to two others who had just pulled away in a car reading "Just married."
Two black men in nooses were being dragged behind.
Upset by the shirt, a 17-year-old black student hit the white student in the head. A crowd of about 100 students gathered to watch the Aug. 29 fight before authorities intervened.
The white student said he left the school following a three-day suspension. He said he was supposed to go back on a Friday but school officials called and asked his family to keep him home until the following week because "the school's in an uproar."
"Everybody was threatening to come jump me, so we were like, whatever," he said. "So I'm not going to deal with it over some stupid shirt."
Clay County school officials said the incident is isolated and both students involved were disciplined "quickly and appropriately," although they would not release specifics citing privacy concerns.
"There's no way you can prevent it when you've got students coming and bringing an attitude like that to school," said Ben Wortham, deputy superintendent.
Principal Sam Ward said Fleming Island High School's dress code prohibits such apparel, but faculty were unaware the student wore the shirt because it was covered.
"If this kid had this shirt on for very long, some teacher or administrator would have gotten him," Ward said. "... When you put this many people together, every once in a while you're gonna have somebody that does something immature and wrong."
Sgt. Darin Lee of the Clay County Sheriff's Office investigated the altercation and found no criminal action.
Lee said the white student didn't want to press charges against the 17-year-old who hit him. Offensive as it may have been, the former student's shirt is protected by free speech, Lee added.
The white student, who is now enrolled at a community college, said he got the shirt about a week before the incident for $10 at a flea market. He said he typically took off his shirt on the way to the gym, and on that day he didn't think about what he wore underneath.
He said he put the shirt on in the morning because he planned to wear it to a party that night with others who, like him, had enlisted in the Marines.
"I'm not racist or anything," he said. "It's just, some people I hate, some people I don't get along with. And black people just happen to be the ones because they think they're better than everyone else."
The student said his parents were shocked at his decision, Mom dismayed and Dad disappointed.
"I just can't believe you'd wear a shirt like that to school," he said was their reaction. "My mom was kind of upset about it. My dad was like, whatever, it's your life."
The 18-year-old said he has friends who are black, and he said he does not think they would be mad at him because they know he would not do what was depicted on the shirt.
Although a friend has borrowed the shirt, the man said it is "more than likely" he'll keep it in his own wardrobe.
"I'm a redneck," he said. "But no, I'm not racist."
posted by l.b. at 7:55 AM
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I freely admit: When I was in the media business, especially after the federal government changed the rules to favor large companies, I tried to sweep the board, and I came within one move of owning every link up and down the media chain. Yet I felt then, as I do now, that the government was not doing its job. The role of the government ought to be like the role of a referee in boxing, keeping the big guys from killing the little guys. If the little guy gets knocked down, the referee should send the big guy to his corner, count the little guy out, and then help him back up. But today the government has cast down its duty, and media competition is less like boxing and more like professional wrestling: The wrestler and the referee are both kicking the guy on the canvas.
At this late stage, media companies have grown so large and powerful, and their dominance has become so detrimental to the survival of small, emerging companies, that there remains only one alternative: bust up the big conglomerates. We've done this before: to the railroad trusts in the first part of the 20th century, to Ma Bell more recently. Indeed, big media itself was cut down to size in the 1970s, and a period of staggering innovation and growth followed. Breaking up the reconstituted media conglomerates may seem like an impossible task when their grip on the policy-making process in Washington seems so sure. But the public's broad and bipartisan rebellion against the FCC's pro-consolidation decisions suggests something different. Politically, big media may again be on the wrong side of history--and up against a country unwilling to lose its independents.
posted by l.b. at 11:08 AM
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posted by l.b. at 1:10 PM
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