Some teachers need to be shot

We have teachers sleeping with students, teachers bringing guns to school, teachers allowing students to cheat, and teachers humiliating their students. This is a case that went way too far.

From paretndish.com:

It sounds like somebody has been watching too many reality shows. Namely, Wendy Portillo, a teacher at Morningside Elementary in Port St. Lucie, Florida. She turned her kindergarten classroom into a cruel version of Survivor by allowing her students to vote a fellow student out of the class.

The banished child is 5-year-old Alex Barton, who is in the process of being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning type of autism. Not uncommon to his condition, Alex has had some behavioral issues and as a result, spends a lot of time in the principal’s office.

After returning to Ms. Portillo’s classroom after a recent visit with the principal, his teacher decided to punish him with humiliation. She had Alex stand at the front of the class while his fellow students listed off what they didn’t like about him. After informing him that they found him “disgusting” and “annoying”, the class was instructed to vote on whether or not Alex should be allowed to stay in the class. By a 14 to 2 margin, they voted him out.

Alex hasn’t been back to school since then, but his mother, Melissa Barton, says he is still reliving the incident. The night after it happened, she says she overheard him saying “I’m not special” over and over.

Incredibly, an investigation by the state attorney’s office concluded that Alex’s treatment did not meet the criteria for emotional child abuse and no charges have been filed. I don’t know what the criteria for emotional abuse is, but if this doesn’t meet it, what does? My heart breaks for all the children involved in this incident.

This teacher needs to lose their job right now. There is no excuse for this type of behavior. To do this to any kid let alone one that suffers from autism is the exact definition of the word inhuman (lacking pity, kindness, or mercy).

The state attorney’s office is obviously inhuman as well if they can’t see that this is abusive behavior.

On a brighter thought, I would love to know who the two kids who voted for Alex to stay are. They obvioulsy have more heart and are more human than an adult that is over them and teaching them. Those two kids probably have great parents and I hope they are blessed for doing the right thing.

 

Jerk Hut

I finally got to eat at a Jerk Hut thanks to my class making us do “culturally different” activities. The design of the Jerk Hut much like I would picture a Caribbean hut to look like.

I started out with a Ginger Beer. It was strong but very good and unlike any other soda I have had before. My salad was a basic iceberg lettuce with one tomato and some cucumber but the dressing was authentic. It was spicy with hints of red pepper in it; almost like a spicy french dressing but homemade. My main course was jerk chicken with rice and beans. The jerk glaze was ok, not as spicy as I would want. The rice was dry but the beans were good with good texture. The best and most authentic part was the homemade sauce that you put on the chicken. It was spicy and tangy like a saucier spicy bbq sauce. The chicken was moist but the bones were broken and got mixed in and it kinda grossed me out. I also sampled the pineapple soda but it was just like any pineapple soda you would find here in America or in Mexico. Overall it was a good experience and I look forward to trying their pork in the future.

 

I can’t wait for “The River Empires”

 

The River Empires is a band that caught my attention due to the members being from one of my favorite bands called Falling Up (who had one of the most overlooked albums of 2007).  The sound that TRE brings is a fresh one. It’s fused with Folk/Bluegrass/Classical and it follows a story. Here is how they describe their sound:

Infusing bluegrass, dark melodramatic folk, and deep cinematic overtones, TRE has promised to cross the line of the artistically sane and drop like a boiling sun into the dark and strange waters of pure imagery. The band is more than just a musical vision, it’s a geometric glance at a ghost story that spins the imagination into lost and haunting infinities. In other words, it’s like sitting around a campfire with friends, summer naps, young love, jumping off a dock into the lake, and all the while getting haunted by a ghost.

The album synopsis is here:

Ultimately, The River Empires seeks to revive the love of musical art and bring together fans and friends alike to share in the journey as they fight to make music they believe in, travel the road doing shows, and love everyone possible. Nothing is what it seems, everything is foreshadowed, and every character, scene, and emotion play out in deliverance to the arched and sweeping crescendo. Welcome to the town of Astral, where the story of The River Empires begins.

They go into studio on May 25th to record their first album.  No date has been set for the release but this is my most anticipated release other than Mute Math who is also in studio recording as I write this.

To hear their music go to: myspace.com/theriverempires

 

Free 52-song compilation at indievisionmusic.com

Great bands on this sampler and a lot of bands I have never heard.  I am excited to hear Mojo & The Info (Featuring Matt Morginsky of The OC Supertones).  Here is the link:

http://www.indievisionmusic.com/wordpress/2008/05/09/summer-slam-vol-2-free-digital-compilation/#comments

 

Original fill-in-the-blank stories

Name an animal __________

Name a food ____________

Name a shape___________

Name an object__________

Pick a number ___________

Name an article of clothing ____________

Now fill in your answers as you read the story below for some hilarity!

What is in a pork loaf you ask? First the butcher chops up some __Animal___. Then, it’s pounded and rolled into __food___ crumbs. Next, it’s shaped into a ___shape___ and twisted with a/an ___object___.  Last, it is packaged and sent to the grocery store for Jonathan and Mike to buy for __#__ dollars to eat for dinner while wearing only their __article of clothing__.

 

“Martian Child” was a great surprise

My wife and I do the Blockbuster online deal and I added the movie “Martian Child” to list because I am a huge John Cusack fan.  We had it a little ways down but not too far down on our list.  We had Bu-Ray discs and a few “short-wait” discs so to our surprise we got “Martian Child” in the mail. 

It sat in front of our tv for about three days because we weren’t too excited about it.  We finally figured we have to watch it because we wanted to return it for a new movie and didn’t want to waste a movie selection.

Much to our surprise it was one of the best movies we have seen in a long time.

The movie centers on John Cusack’s character (Dave), a sci-fi writer who is a widower.  His wife was adopted and it was a plan of theirs to adopt so he decides to do so after much thought and doubt.  The kid he adopts believes he is from Mars and is here on a mission. 

Cusack struggles to raise Dennis (Bobby Coleman) as he prepares for the follow-up to his “Harry Potter in outerspace” book.  Dennis struggles to fit in with his peers as he honestly believes he is a martian and he shows it in his actions.

I don’t want to give too much away about the movie but Dennis and the things he does make you believe he might be telling the truth about where he is from.  Dave does an amazing job letting a kid be a kid and helping become a ”human” at the same time.

The movie is filled with family values, love, wonder, laughter, sadness, character, and it is a great all around movie.  This is a must see for anyone.  It caught us by total surprise in a magnificant way.

 

Don’t waste your time with “Interview”

My wife and I rented a movie called “Interview” that starred Sienna Miller as a famous actress who is being interviewed by a political journalist who has been downgraded to profiles played by Steve Buscemi. 

The movie was boring, scattered, and didn’t really have any reason for being a movie.  The plot was dumb.  It started with Pierre (Buscemi) waiting an hour in a restaurant for Katya (Miller) to do this interview.  He had no desire to do the interview because he wanted to be in D.C. to cover politics so he blew the interview off as nothing.  Katya didn’t take it lightly and left.

Boring…  the story goes on with Pierre ending up in her loft because his taxi got in an accident because the driver was gaucking at Katya (lame!). 

They tried to conduct the interview but a bottle of wine, a bottle of scotch, some cigs, and some coke for Katya turned into some stupid reversal interview about Pierre’s personal life while she lied to him about hers.

Don’t waste your time on this movie, rather, check out other low budget-indie type films like “Once” or “Waitress” and leave this one on the shelf.

 

Twitter

I just set up a twitter.com account for my website – 3guysandasportspage.com – so please follow our updates by adding us here:  https://twitter.com/3guys

 

HD rules!

My wife and I finally upgraded our cable service to include HD channels and a new HD cable box.  To our surprise it was only $2 more per month.  We got an HDMI cable off Ebay for $8 and we have limited our channel surfing to HD channels only.

Once you go HD you don’t go back.  We love watching Lost in HD along with sports, The Office, Food Network, and my wife’s favorite HGTV (I like it too).  I feel cheated when I watch something on “regular” tv now which stinks because all Rays games are on regular tv. 

 

My “annoyed” rant continues with Carlos Gomez

I was actually going to include Carlos Gomez in my Yunel Escobar rant yesterday but figured my annoyance with him would pass, until his game yesterday.  Here is a piece by Tom Powers of twincities.com:

In Wednesday’s game, Gomez, the team’s irrepressible young center fielder, had three hits, scored two runs, knocked in a run, stole a base and forced a balk. He also was chastised for hot-dogging while catching fly balls and for trying to steal third base with two outs and Joe Mauer at the plate.

Which he did, by the way, but then was thrown out at home after the ball skipped a few feet from the third baseman.

What a show!

He’s been doing it all year.  The fact that I don’t get to see a ton of Twins games has made me less annoyed by his antics.  But manager Ron Gardenhire seems to think his antics are ridiculous:

“It’s kind of crazy, really. It’s high school,” Gardenhire said of Gomez’s antics. “I don’t even know if it’s college (level). But he’s so enthusiastic and such a talent … “

I can’t disagree with him here.  What does Gomez think?  Who does he think he is?  He needs to earn his stripes and even then he needs to behave in a manner that is respectable to the game.  You can show your emotions in a positive way that is not showboating much like Papelbon, David Ortiz, Sabathia, and David Wright to name a few. 

Here is how the base running crap went down:

Two outs, Gomez on second and the Twins’ hottest hitter, Mauer, up, Minnesota is clinging to a 4-3 lead. Suddenly, Gomez breaks for third base. Who knows why? Gomez can score from second on almost any single. Plus, the left-handed-hitting Mauer gives the catcher a clear throw to third base.

No matter, Gomez was off to the races. Catcher Toby Hall’s throw beat Gomez, but the ball squirted out of Joe Crede’s glove when he attempted to apply the tag. As the baseball rolled maybe 10 feet away, Gomez popped up and raced for home.

He was called out on a very close play that could have gone either way. Gardenhire ran out to argue with home plate umpire Tim Timmons but admits his heart wasn’t in it.

“I couldn’t even make a good argument,” he said. “I kept thinking, ‘what the *$#@% is he doing?’ “

Gomez is a very exciting player and should be a very good one in time but for now he needs to settle down and become a team player and cut the antics.