Enjoy Every Sandwich

Cheerleader who wouldn’t root for assailant loses

A Texas high school cheerleader who was kicked off the squad for refusing to chant the name of a basketball player - the same athlete she said had raped her four months earlier - lost a U.S. Supreme Court appeal Monday.

A federal appeals court ruled in September that the cheerleader was speaking for the school, not herself, and had no right to remain silent when called on to cheer the athlete by name.

The girl, identified by her initials H.S., was 16 when she said she was raped at a party in her southeast Texas hometown of Silsbee in October 2008. She identified the assailant as Rakheem Bolton, a star on the Silsbee High School football team.

Bolton ultimately pleaded guilty in September 2010 to a misdemeanor assault charge and received a suspended sentence.

At a February 2009 basketball game in Huntsville, Texas, H.S. joined in leading cheers for the Silsbee team, which included Bolton. But when Bolton went to the foul line to shoot a free throw, H.S. folded her arms and was silent.

Cheerleader’s Father Speaks Out

It isn’t business as usual at Silsbee High School in Texas after the unlikely duo of the Ms. Blog and Fox News covered the story of the school kicking a cheerleader (known only as H.S.) off the squad for refusing to cheer for Rakheem Bolton, a basketball player who had assaulted her. (Though he was charged with sexual assault of a child, he pleaded guilty to a lesser assault charge, receiving only a suspended one-year prison sentence and two years probation.)

Contact information for the relevant school and district officials:

Richard Bain Jr., Superintendent, Silsbee Independent School District, 415 Highway 327 West, Silsbee, TX, 77656; rbain@silsbeeisd.org; (409) 980-7800

Eldon Franco, Principal, Silsbee High School, 1575 Highway 96 North, Silsbee, TX, 77656-4799; efranco@silsbeeisd.org; (409) 980-7800

Bobby McGallion, Athletic Director, Silsbee High School, 1575 Highway 96 North, Silsbee, TX, 77656-4799; bmcgallion@silsbeeisd.org; (409) 980-7800

I couldn’t give a crap about the athletic director, but I did send the following to the principal and superintendent:

Date: May 9, 2011 4:53:49 PM MDT
To: rbain@silsbeeisd.org, efranco@silsbeeisd.org
Subject: Thank you for your hard work

Dear Mr. Bain and Mr. Eldon,

I just wanted to thank you for your hard work in making the case for homeschooling. What better way to encourage parents to remove vulnerable children from the abusive environment known as school than to put a rapist back on an athletic team and then punish his victim for refusing to cheer him on? Holy cow, I could not come up with something that good my own self!

It is good to see that we have clever folks such as yourself on the inside hastening along the downfall of collectivist indoctrination disguised as education. Yes, it is unfortunate for the young woman who was victimized once to have to go through this again, but I’m sure she would be comforted knowing that this abuse at your hands is for a greater cause. I know that one day once you finish running your school and school district into the ground and shaming it before the entire country with your abusive treatment of minors, you will make the truth known to her.

In solidarity for independent education,

Kirsten C. Mylastname

Posting from: Missoula, MT
Listening to: The Clintons, A Strange Day in Mexico

I did almost all the Christmas gift wrapping at Christmas for a few years in a row when I was younger because that let me have the garage (aka my workshop) pretty much all to myself. It was practically the only way to have any privacy or alone time all year long. I would generally permit 1- ONE- younger sibling to accompany me as my assistant, provided that her obedience to my commands was both swift and unquestioning. I would do the wrapping, and that person would apply bows and gift tags, organize wrapping paper scraps for reuse on small gifts, and so on.

Best of all, we would listen to FM radio. It sounds ridiculous, but that was a big deal in our house. We pretty much never had music on in the house and the car radio was only for angry conservative talk radio. There was a record player in the house, but it was only used for things like Mormon Tabernacle Choir at Christmas. (Although we were officially Catholic, my dad had a thing for MoTab.) Until we got our own radios, boomboxes, and stereos, the radio in the garage (operated not in the presence of parents) was our (at least the older ones of us) only glimpse into the amazing world of rock and pop music. Well, that and the radio on our school bus on the way home from kindergarten and first grade. But that’s another story.

Tags: Christmas

Posting from: Missoula, MT
Listening to: The Black Pacific, The System

I am feeling anxious.

Fall has finally showed up here in Montana. We’ve had our first couple of snows of the season in Pburg, although there is nothing left on the ground at this point. So far as I can tell, my turnips are still alive outdoors. I am quite certain that my tomatoes indoors are doing well. Several are now finally ripening and I finally got to eat one. I also have a few ripe ancho chilies that need to be picked. This week may involve me making a batch of homemade salsa. I had a beautiful drive up the west side of Flathead Lake recently looking at the Tamarack Pines (aka Larch) which have turned a beautiful golden color. I think that a drive around the lake may become a fall tradition for me.

Edward Hasbrouck, The Practical Nomad, reports that the DHS Privacy office ordered TSA not to respond to his FOIA request. He’s not the only victim of this political gaming of the system.

Hank Green suggests we get out there and make a cow’s dream come true.

Jacob Grier shares this stimulating, if depressing, video:

Now that Flickr is done giving me trouble, let’s resume our weekly canine feature:
Pepper of the Week
Tomorrow I take Pepper to the vet to check out a hip that has been bothering her intermittently and see about a lump on her side. The last lump we got checked out was just a lump of fat so maybe this is just another of those. I hope so. Meanwhile, here’s a picture from our old house in Tucson with Pepper lounging in her favorite winter spot on the carpet in the sun by our sliding glass door.

Question of the Week
Giving the last question a week a lot of thought, I realized it is tangled up with a slightly different question. Rather than go to the trouble of untangling them to answer them separately, I decided to answer them together. I’ll do that in a separate post. For now, that second question is

Feel free to ponder privately, answer in the comments or your own blog, ignore completely, whatever. May your week be one of decreased entropy.

Posting from: Philipsburg, MT

Voting is for the lazy and morally weak, says Henry David Thoreau:

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.

Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, by engaging in direct action today instead of merely patting yourself on the back for pushing a button or pulling a lever:

Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.

Let’s not be cagey about this: if you vote for any candidate, or for nearly any ballot measure, you are willfully threatening your neighbors with violence even if it does not actually come to pass. But let’s face it, as a proud voter, you most likely hope that violence does, indeed, come to fruition. Shame on you. As an alternative, may I suggest looking into Peaceful Alternatives to the Violence of Voting? Not voting does not mean doing nothing. In fact, voting IS doing nothing, and the way to do something is to replace it with direct action.

Posting from: Philipsburg, MT
Listening to: Blondie, Call Me

This week is the first time my heater is on here at home on purpose. I kept turning the thermostat down further and further and just bundled up because I kind of like the cold. But finally when it came on and I saw the indoors temperature below 55 degrees F, I indulged and cranked it up for a while to heat up the house before turning it back off. I thought I might make it until November without heat, but alas, I cracked.

Fortunately, it turned off again. I know it’s just a matter of time before I have to go down in my scary basement and pull the limit switch out of the heater to clean it again for the season so the fan doesn’t run continuously for the next four months. But I’d like to put that off as long as possible. Have I mentioned that I find my basement scary?

Meanwhile, I have brought three tomato plants inside for the winter along with two healthy ancho chili plants and one pathetic jalapeno plant. I just discovered that I brought four hanging baskets of strawberries indoors several days ago. Apparently not watering them hasn’t hurt them so I guess I will put up some brackets and see if I can’t keep them going through the winter. And then there are the herbs I’ve been growing indoors- (sorry, no parsley) sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, chives, and basil. Still going outdoors, though probably for not much longer, are turnips and spinach. I think the warm weather may be over for the year for real. We’ll see how long I can keep them happy outdoors, though, for experimental purposes.

Radley Balko, whose first instinct as a libertarian is an all-consuming contempt for politics, sums up my feelings about the upcoming elections:

Me, I’m cheering for elections to matter less, and for politicians to have less impact on my life. I dream of waking up to find the results of the November 2 election on page A-10 of my November 3rd newspaper—because no one cared, because very little was at stake, because we stopped pinning our hopes and dreams on the results of a perverse process dominated by generally horrible people who have made a career of accumulating power for the sake of accumulating power.

Wendy McElroy comments on a piece in The Guardian regarding Emma Goldman, A Thoroughly Modern Anarchist. Says Wendy, “I still grasp at the hope that Emma Goldman can help guide us towards a more humane, fair and fulfilling world.” Click through for more on how Goldman’s words and life are still relevant today.

Quantum Tuba explains to his Mormon friends Why Boyd K. Packer’s Speech Matters. Short answer: basic human decency.

Roadblock Revelations provides details of an illegal and Indefinite Detention By Border Patrol Agents Inside the Country. Most disturbing is the Border Patrol officer overheard by detained students taking a recreational trip to a California state park that is nowhere near the border looking for an excuse to shoot one of them for exercising his Constitutional right to remain silent.

Tom Knapp explains Pamela Geller, the Short Version: “Geller is crazy as a shithouse rat, has figured out how to turn a buck on bigoted hysteria, or both.” I would say this also describes sad Ann Coulter/Pamela Geller Wanna-Be Rachel Alexander as well. (The amateur political commentator, not the model.)

Aaron Tap asks When You’re Hot, You’re Hot. And When You’re Not…? Sometimes the lessons of youth are not learned until later in life. Also, do yourself a favor and click the meedlee-meedlee link. I am clicking it yet again right now.

The Innocence Project reports that some of you in select major cities in both the United States and Canada either this weekend or in the coming weekends in October will have the chance to view a film called Conviction on the big screen in theaters near you. This film is “based on the true story of Betty Anne Waters’ fight to free her brother after his wrongful conviction in Massachusetts.” I wish a city fewer than four hours from me were on the list, but I hope some of you will go see it. As I’m unlikely to get to see it in Spokane, I’m considering having a viewing of this film and American Violet in my living room when the DVD comes out. That might be a good winter event in Montana. We’ll see who is around this winter who might be interested.

The Well-Timed Period sums up how the recent health care “reform” is really just corporate welfare and has nothing to do with my well-being or yours: it’s Mandatory for Thee, But Not So Much For Corporations .

Next up, here is your weekly photographic dose of my dog because you’d rather look at her being cute than hear me tell stories about her poop:
Pepper of the Week

The Persistence of Peppery. This photo reminds me of Salvador Dali’s melting clocks.

Question of the Week
Finally, I thought I’d maybe occasionally have another feature. This will be a question of the week. Feel free to use it for personal self-reflection, answer in the comments, blog about it, critique or outright ridicule it, or ignore it completely. I will ponder this a bit myself and maybe post my answer in the comments after a few days. These are not intended to be political questions so do not feel you need to limit your answers to that realm.

If you are a new poster, your first post will be held for moderation as a spam control measure, but subsequent posts once I’ve approved one post of yours should post without moderation. Please review my Family Posting Policy and my Shitcan Policy on the Bulletin Board in the sidebar.

This week’s question comes from a book I am currently reading- Writing to Change the World by Mary Pipher. She has a list of questions of which several stood out for me so more of them will probably crop up again in this feature in the future.

Written: in the air somewhere between Charlotte, NC and Houston, TX
Listening to: Muse, Resistance

I am angry. I am very, very angry.

This is a post that, in a healthy and sane world, I would never even be writing.

This is a post that, in a less unhealthy and less insane world, I might still be writing, but would have published before I ever left my house last week.

But because we live in a terribly poisonous and insane world, this post is being written on the last day of my trip. I cannot miss the wedding I flew here to attend as it’s a couple of days in the past. There are no more visits with friends on the other side of the country that could be curtailed. My feet have already bathed in the Atlantic Ocean, and my toes have already dug into the sands of its shore.

I am basically a peaceful person. I have done nothing wrong. Yet a simple trip by air across the country steals my life, bit by bit, because I am, in the eyes of the government, not a customer to be served with respect and dignity but rather a suspect to be treated as a criminal until “proven” otherwise.

And I use the term “proven” extremely loosely here. The “proof” I’m referring to has nothing to do with whether or not we are actually criminals and everything to do with whether or not we are acceptably docile and compliant sheep.

I do not use the word ’stolen’ loosely here. My life has been stolen in every moment I spent worrying about what I could and could not pack and in what ways, and in each second I spent planning what my response would or would not be in this or that situation. My life has been stolen in every penny I spent on items purchased and taken by the TSA, every penny spent on items purchased after security because I couldn’t take my own with me, every penny spent on items purchased only because of security theater regulations designed only to train us and test us in compliance, every penny added to my ticket price to pay for all these hoops I object to being made to jump through for the sake of basic travel. My life has been stolen in every moment I spent sitting in a god damned airport because I felt I had to arrive ridiculously early just in case I should be given a hassle by some rent-a-cop getting off on the power he’s been given to fuck with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people daily.

I chatted with one of them pleasantly while standing in line on the way home. A nice fellow, and he was in a good mood. We chatted weddings and weather. I can only imagine how it could have gone had I taken the conversation in a different direction.

I truly believe some, even many, of these people committing these acts of aggression do not understand why I might feel this way because we ostensibly are given all manner of choices. It’s all voluntary, right? We can voluntarily choose not to fly, in spite of having no practical alternative. And if we choose to fly, we have the choice, as E. alluded to before we ever left Seattle, between being felt up or being some TSA perv’s free porn. So what’s the problem, right? Choices aplenty! I imagine that some even view themselves as minor heroes, simply protecting me and the rest of the flock. Who could object to that?

I object.

I object, and yet I comply. Why? Because what else am I supposed to do? Miss the most precious and important moments of my loved ones’ lives to avoid the aggression of the state? How is THAT any kind of freedom? How is that not just another point scored by a state whose ultimate means of control is destroying relationships between individuals so that we are all, in the end, dependent on the coercion of the state instead of on mutually beneficial, voluntary cooperation directly with one another?

I don’t know the answers. I’ve got nothing here. Nothing but the knowledge that I won’t be doing this again for the foreseeable future, and that’s cold comfort.

I don’t know how to handle this contradiction of living in the so-called Land of the Free which is so obviously in reality a huge police state. I remember a talk given by Jane Shaffer on raising pro-freedom children. The point that stuck out most for me was her recommendation that parents make sure their children get a taste of freedom in their youth because they’ll never forget it. Well, I’ve tasted freedom, and I can’t and I won’t forget it.

Tags: compliance, freedom, police state, security theater, TSA

Posting from: Dallas, NC
Listening to: crickets, frogs, and the wind in the trees

I’ve been hard at work and then out of town, so I only have two things of note to report on this week- fear and love.

Warren Bluhm announced the publication of Refuse to be Afraid: The Book. “Life is scary,” he notes. “But you don’t have to let your fears control your actions.”

J. and E. embodied that idea by getting married this past weekend, reminding me that fear has a price and that overcoming it yields some amazing and beautiful rewards. Congratulations, you two. May your hearts and your cups overflow.

For the rest of you, may you go forth into the next week in defiance of fear, embrace of love, and may you do or experience something great as a result.

Posting from: Philipsburg, MT
Listening to: The Supremes, Baby Love

Help me out on this one:
Going through airport security with hands raised, a two-handled bag in one hand held by index finger and thumb, proclaiming that I’m unarmed and demanding to talk to Niska.

Good idea or bad?

Posting from: Missoula, MT
Listening to: Warren Zevon, Keep Me in Your Heart

While I’m on a posting roll, how about I resurrect that long forgotten recurring series I called Week in Review? Let’s see what people on my blogroll have posted that has particularly caught my eye in the last week or so.

Will Conley gets himself on many a list, I am sure, by bringing up Five Spectacular Jerk Moves by Ayn Rand.

Radley Balko would like to know, Are Sandcastles Now Illegal in Florida?

If it’s just Another Day in the Police State, you can be sure justice was not done, explains Wendy McElroy.

Edward Hasbrouck, the practical nomad, reminds us of the role of Foreign Tourists and Travellers as Witnesses for Human Rights violations.

And now, here is Week in Review’s new random feature:

Pepper of the Week

Enjoy your Mondays, folks.

Posting from: Missoula, MT
Listening to: The Lemonheads, Kitchen

I provide as a service to some of my friends two forms of entertainment:
1. Horrifying stories from my twisted childhood.
2. Details of my bizarre dreams.
(Note: I encourage you all to pony up with yours in both categories as well.)

Today’s entertainment falls into the second category. After a 3-night movie marathon consisting of:
Night 1: The Matrix
Night 2: Children of Men
Night 3: Earthlings
I offer you the following from last night’s unrestful sleep.

First I dreamt that I was still living in Arizona but I was volunteering for an animal rescue organization. They had a rescue house out in an open space area with a housing development on it where they put all the animals. The normally outdoors animals lived indoors while the house cats guarded the place from the trees outdoors. If someone unfamiliar approached the place unescorted by someone they knew, the cats would jump on them from the trees and scratch the heck out of them. Anyway, it was my first day at the shelter, and someone was giving me a tour. The rescued goats lived in the living room. We were deciding where to put a recently rescued unicorn. I think he was going to get the master bedroom.

After I woke up from that one and went back to sleep, I had another dream that I was at a grocery store, bought one thing and got charged twice for it. As the cashier was checking my receipt to find out what had been mischarged, the whole computer system for the cash registers went down. While it was down, I figured out the mistake. Then when the computer system came back up, I found another cashier to give me a refund of the extra $4.32 I’d been charged but by now I’d lost my receipt. Then I got stuck in a loop of searching my grocery bag then my purse then the bag and so on looking for the lost receipt. I woke up and my first thought was, “Crap! I need to go back to sleep fast or I’ll lose my $4.32!” and then a little more awake I realized, wait, no, that was just like the matrix. I didn’t even have to worry about my refund since it wasn’t real.

Tags: dreams