Pinball Wizard

Junior turns six this week. He has made remarkable progress lately. He attends a special needs preschool class, and his "great days" have far outnumbered "okay days" (meltdowns). He's doing quite a bit of kindergarten level work, and according to his teacher, he's right on track academically. His disability is most obvious when he's in a group with other kids; he flops around grunting and making barking sounds, or his tics take over and he may start drooling, babbling incoherently or cracking his knuckles maniacally. We tried enrolling him in a karate class, but he got confused, or over-stimulated, and started acting out. Last week, he discovered the wonderful world of video games, a sure sign he was turning from a preschooler to a little boy.

He's got a wicked sense of humor, and quite an imagination. Sometimes he tells me about his dreams. He has a lot of dreams about blood and violence; people cutting him, impaling him with spears or tearing him with their teeth. It's bone-chilling when he recounts these nightmares in a matter-of-fact fashion. He's finally starting to trust us enough to let us peek into the chaos inside his head. I don't know what happened to him during the first three years of his life, before he come to our home, and I suspect I'll never find out. This week, when he got to playing the Nintendo, his brain got attuned to a completely different frequency. His tics were gone, and there was an aura of joy, even peace, around him. Except for when he sleeps, the hours he spent staring intently at his Nintendo screen he was probably the most peaceful he's ever been. Alas, by this afternoon, he had, as he is wont to, managed to bust the screen of his Gameboy. But for a spell, I had visions of The Who's "Tommy", that maybe there was a little Pinball Wizard in there ready to break free.

WMDs Finally Found In Iraq

Bush was right all along: Weapons of Mass Destruction finally found in Iraq. Too bad late Saddam Hussein can't be blamed for these "dirty bombs".

Good-Ole-Boys-In-Training

United Way of Knoxville is training future Good Ole Boys (and Girls):

A group of 12 Knox County high school students recommended allocations for $10,000 to community organizations Monday at the United Way of Greater Knoxville. The students, all part of the Youth Action Council, were given the responsibility because Knox County students raised almost that much for the United Way.

Who gets to represent Knox County high school students in recommending where the money goes:

A committee of volunteers, including local teens and officials from the City and County Mayors' Offices, determines who is selected each year to serve on the council. The committee makes every effort to ensure that the YAC is diverse and a true representation of teens in Knox County.

How representative of Knox County teens is the Youth Action Council? According to the United Way web site, Fulton and Austin-East have six (6) representatives each; Webb School has four (4); Catholic, Carter and Farragut have two each; West, Bearden, Halls and Central have a single youth in the YAC. Gibbs, Karns, Powell and South-Doyle have no representatives at all. So there's some true representation for you.

Kallenberg and Lindsey

It's been over six months since Powell HS vice principal Kimberly Kallenberg was suspended with pay due to allegations made against her. To date, none of the accusations have been substantiated, but Kallenberg still remains on paid leave, with a discrimination lawsuit against Knox County Schools pending. Kallenberg passed a lie detector test in November and has been demanding her job back.

The decision to place Kallenberg on leave was made by Superintendent Charles Lindsey, who is also named as an individual defendant in the lawsuit. The filings also claim that Lindsey replaced Kallenberg with his personal friend. If Knox County Schools cannot find proof of Kallenberg's alleged misconduct, she might well be able to demonstrate that the school system, by way of Superindendent Lindsey's conduct, has wantonly ruined her career. I contacted a Knox County school board member, who indicated that while he couldn't divulge details about the litigation, he was extremely concerned about the lack of progress in the case.

Yesterday Mayor Ragsdale confirmed that the school board is considering ousting Lindsey in the middle of his contract term. School board Chairwoman Karen Carson said she met with Lindsey to talk about his evaluation and "other matters that she can't divulge". Might it be that excrement is finally about to hit the fan in the Kallenberg case?

Truth-Loving Citizens, Arise Ye

Kansas makes a U-turn in public school science education. Last year students in Kansas were taught that Darwin was a heathen charlatan, this year "intelligent design" is shoved back to the fairy tale world. This controversy might appear to be resolved, but never fear, the Federal government is ready to spring into action: Witness a letter from Rep. Ben Bridges (R-GA), who is of the opinion that teaching evolution will irreparably harm students. Us "truth-loving citizens" should rest assured that our offspring is better off believing that Earth is flat and that science should be expelled from public schools. It's a good thing that the Second Coming will settle this dispute for good. Any day now.

George Washington

What do the Revolutionary War and the Iraq quagmire have in common?

Our current president would be wise to consider the implications of an imperial nation attempting to secure a very remote colony when support at home is lagging.

From The Daily WTF

Bees Gone

For the past two years, I've had a hard time finding mead, a variety of sweet honey wine, in local package stores. Local wineries have complained that honey has been almost impossible to aqcuire. Now it's being reported that a mystery illness plaguing honey bees is some sort of bee AIDS that is wiping out entire colonies all over the country. Is the mass destruction of bees a sign of Mother Nature starting to throw in the towel?

Sunshine Laws Where The Sun Doesn't Shine

I claim that people who were shocked by the recent Knox County Commissioner replacement soap opera are the same folks, by large and far, who are flabbergasted about the fact that George W. Bush turned out to be an incompetent doofus. It's the same nepotistic, wasteful, inner-circle special interests tit-for-tat it's always been. One can only hope that this melodrama is enough for the sheeple to plop their brain-pimples out of their rectums come 2008.