assault with a deadly weapon

willie campbell is h.i.v positive. during an arrest for public intoxication, he spit at the police officer and stated that he had aids. he was a repeat offender and under texas law that can get you 25 years in prison. another ten years was added onto his sentence because the dallas jury ruled that he had assaulted the officer with a deadly weapon, meaning his saliva. let's all take a minute to process that level of stupidity...if you go to the centers for disease control and read up on the h.i.v virus, it clearly states that no one has ever transmitted the virus through their saliva, sweat, or tears. hmm. i must be overly optimistic in hoping that after the near witch hunt like hysteria that greeted those infected in the early days of the disease, we had progressed beyond ignorance and fear into the realm of fact and science. apparently i am wrong. it is a sad day when there are still people that believe that h.i.v is some sort of andromeda strain, capable of leaping over tall buildings in a single bound and living outside the host for years on end. perhaps it's even acidic like the saliva from the creatures in the alien movies. leave it to texas to once again lead the charge of the imbecile brigade. willie campbell did something disgusting when he spit at another human being but he did not assault that person with a deadly weapon and i am inclined to believe that he might not have received the potentially harsh 25 year sentence for habitual offenses had it not been for the h.i.v spitting incident. this sets a dangerous precedence for all those infected with the disease and all diseases for that matter. when we allow ourselves to degenerate into a society controlled by fear then you can expect to see violence erupt that targets the weak, diseased, and those just plain different. i was reading what some wrote about this case and they do make my point nicely by saying that campbell should be executed, even going so far as to be set on fire. dear god! All these years of evolution and we have not progressed at all. spoke is going to go get a beer.

longer hours in school

i don't teach, although i did once for a year, and i have a healthy respect for those that slog it out in the trenches for the greater good of our kids...but this new call for longer class room hours is pointless. you can send our kids to school twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for the entire year and still not meet the so called goals of the leap test. once upon a time in america, kids had shorter days, more recess time, and summers off and they were graduating with the ability to read and process information. at the beginning of world war one, a cross section of incoming GI's revealed that approximately 90 something percent of whites could read and an 80 something percent of blacks were literate. by world war two, the numbers fell into the 80's for whites and the 70's for blacks and they have been steadily falling since. now, in new orleans for example, i would daresay the majority of the population has a 5th grade education even though they finished high school. so, what has gone wrong. i won't pretend to have all the answers but i do know that longer hours of poor instruction will still get you no where. i think we need to place less emphasis on education as a study that potential teachers can earn a degree in and more stress on obtaining that degree in the field that they wish to teach. history majors teach history. mathmatics majors teach math. education majors...well, i would rather see that you have an understanding of the subject matter you are teaching. i realize that there has to be some way to evaluate children at the end of the year but i am not so certain that leap tests are the way to go. some children do not perform well on standardized tests and i am not so sure but what those tests encourage rote memorization without true thinking skills. in other words, it scares me that we are graduating children that are taught to mindlessly regurgitate facts and follow rules without questioning why. critical thinking should be the hallmark of any education worth its salt. it is one thing to memorize the proofs in geometry but the knowledge of the proofs is worthless without the ability to apply them in order to solve problems. perhaps this is what the world wants...worker bees who do as they are told, blindly obedient, numbed on television and alcohol. we need to seriously reconsider how we educate our children instead of simply throwing more hours at the problem without ever solving it.

public rudeness

ok, let's revisit the rules of how to behave properly in public.
rule number one: blow your nose in private!! i know it is allergy season and we are all reduced to drippy messes but stop being lazy and get up and go to the bathroom and take care of your business there. please do this especially if you find yourself in a place that serves food or drink. thank you.
rule number two: i do not need to to see your food in your mouth while you are chewing it, nor do i need to hear the mastication process. you are not a trough animal. stop acting like one.
rule number three: if i let you in front of me in traffic, wave thank you. failure to execute this common courtesy makes me want to ram my vehicle into the back of yours.
rule number four: i don't need nor do i want to hear your music while you are driving down the street. i'm listening to my own music thank you very much.
rule number five: put the fucking cell phone down if you are at a counter being waited on. if your cell phone rings while in a coffee shop or restaurant, get up and take the conversation outside. i don't give a damn who you are screwing.
rule number five: control your children! the old adage, children should be seen and not heard...yeh think along those lines.
this is a start to a better society, so let's all pitch and do our part.