A ninth-grade student at Catalina High Magnet School in Tucson, Arizona, who went to school stoned last Thursday and with a small amount of weed in his backpack, was speedily deported along with his parents and younger sibling after school officials called police about the stash and police in turn called the student’s parents to come to the school. Once there, the parents, unable to produce U.S. drivers’ licenses, admitted that they were illegal immigrants, and the U.S. Border Patrol was summoned. Border Patrol took the ninth-grader and his parents into custody and picked up a 12-year-old sibling at Doolen Middle School.

On Monday, Tucson Assistant Police Chief Roberto Villaseñor said that the officer who responded to the scene handled it correctly because the student committed a crime and department policy allows police officers to contact Border Patrol if they think a suspect is an illegal immigrant. Faux News quoted Villaseñor as saying: “We can’t lose track of the fact that an administrator came across a juvenile who was violating the law, in possession of marijuana…That is a crime in this country, whether you are here illegally or not.” When asked whether such draconian measures created an atmosphere of fear, a mistrust of police and an unwillingness to call police at all, Villaseñor commented: “While we don’t want to put a chilling effect on anyone calling us, we are also obligated to do our job.”

Dozens of students, seen above, protested the deportation on Monday, marching approximately five miles from the Catalina school to police headquarters. One student, 15-year-old Erick Quintero, told the Arizona Daily Star: “We’re students, not criminals.” Sophomore Daninza Bautista, 15, said: “We’re doing something positive, something valuable. We’re showing other students to stand up for what is right.”

Ernest Portillo, Jr. wrote in an op-ed piece for the Star: “…in today’s hyper-charged environment, there is no rest for undocumented immigrants. Bashing illegal immigrants has become a national sporting pastime. The vilification of undocumented immigrants propels people to elected office. It garners high ratings for ranting hosts on cable television and hate radio. Without a comprehensive immigration policy, there’s a green light for this to continue. There is no real accountability for raiding workplaces, homes and neighborhoods in search of America’s pariah…The hard hammer on undocumented immigrants is a sweet sound to some folks who dream of a United States that never was — empty of illegal migrant workers.”

Read more immigration news.

Photo credit: Mamta Popat / Arizona Daily Star and Tucson, Arizona Police Department

Copyright ©2007 pajamadeen.com

While we’re on the subject of educational folly, there was a recent noteworthy example in Red Oak, IA. Steve Bitterman, 60, told students in his Western Civilization class at Southwestern Community College that the biblical story of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve shouldn’t be taken literally. Students complained that he was denigrating their Christian faith; one of them threatened to sue and, two days later, he was fired in a telephone conversation with Linda Wild, vice president of academic affairs at Southwestern, allegedly for teaching religion instead of history.

That religious faith must be pretty flimsy if it can’t stand up to the scrutiny of one professor. Isn’t college supposed to be a place where one has an open mind and is willing to learn and explore novel new ideas? What’s the point in going to college if one isn’t willing to learn? Sure, generally speaking, college can turn into a good meal ticket. But it can be a lot more than that. The adminstrators did their students a disservice, by sending students a message that they can intimidate teachers for teaching unorthodox or unpopular ideas.

Interviewed by the Des Moines Register, Bitterman said: “I put the Hebrew religion on the same plane as any other religion. Their god wasn’t given any more credibility than any other god…I told them it was an extremely meaningful story, but you had to see it in a poetic, metaphoric or symbolic sense, that if you took it literally, that you were going to miss a whole lot of meaning there…I just thought there was such a thing as academic freedom here. From my point of view, what they’re doing is essentially teaching their students very well to function in the eighth century.” Bitterman added: “As a taxpayer, I’d like to know if a tax-supported public institution of higher learning has given veto power over what can and cannot be said in its classrooms to a fundamentalist religious group…If it has, then the taxpaying public of Iowa has a right to know.”

Read a more inspiring post about faith.

Photo credits: Andrea Melendez / The Des Moines Register

Copyright © 2007 pajamadeen.com

Kyle Walker, 7, drew a picture of a stick figure shooting a watergun in his second-grade class at Dennis Township Primary School in Cape May County, New Jersey last week. He carefully wrote the word “me” above the shooter and another child’s name over the other figure in the drawing, and promptly earned a one-day vacation suspension from school. His mother, Shirley McDevitt, was told Kyle’s artwork violated the school’s zero-tolerance gun policy. “What I’m told is, it’s the time we live in,” she said, when interviewed by The Press of Atlantic City. “Is it the time we live in when a little boy can’t draw a picture?” The prolific young artist also drew pictures of King Tut, a skateboarder, a tree, a ghost and a Cyclops.

Give us a break. A stick figure drawing, which we all made as children, violates a gun policy? We think the local academicians have a more vivid imagination than Kyle has. And let’s not forget that ominous-sounding game of “Hangman”? Perhaps it deserves further investigation. As it turns out, Kyle gave his stick figure drawing to another child on the school bus; that child’s parents then complained to the school. No adult in authority had the guts to comment on Kyle’s vacation suspension. School officials had nothing to say, and a message left for Dennis Township Superintendent George Papp wasn’t returned. Maybe it’s something in the water they drink: in March 2000, four northern New Jersery boys in kindergarten each received a three-day suspension…for pointing their fingers like guns while playing cops and robbers.

Besides, what child wouldn’t revel in the idea of a day off from school? Isn’t this kind of like giving Kyle a “Get Out of Jail Free” card? Any self-respecting adult would know that a real punishment would be more time at school.

Read another fine example of misguided political correctness gone awry here.

Photo credits: Dale Gerhard / Press of Atlantic City

Copyright ©2007 pajamadeen.com

According to CNN, the Pennsylvania teenager arrested last night for plotting a Columbine-style attack on Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School in Plymouth Meeting, PA had started the “Imperial Cobra Army,” in which he fantasized that he could recruit children as young as 10 to commit violent acts. In a search for the ICA on the Internet, we found disturbing and graphic videos at YouTube posted by “Shadow19462.” It so happens that 19462 is the zip code for Plymouth Meeting. Creepy, huh? Is “Shadow” the Pennsylvania teenager’s alter ego? The name given is Dillon, age 19; this refers to Dylan Klebold, one of the Columbine killers. “Shadow” was last online yesterday. The image seen here, which is “Shadow”s avatar at YouTube, is really a picture of Eric Harris wearing a t-shirt that said “Natural Selection,” on the day of the Columbine massacre.

We’re not sure how long the ICA video, added on 2 May 2007 at YouTube, will stay up, but here it is, with a message from “Shadow” saying: “this is a wake up call to the world…this is a wake up call to the world, join the I.C.A. (Imperial Cobra Army) , and take back what is rightfully ours HAIL TO THE IMPERIAL EMPIRE!!!!” “Shadow” who needs a spelling tutor in addition to a shrink, has 27 subscribers.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A 13 April 2007 video by Shadow is described as “my 1st tribute to Eric David Harris (…my 1st tribute to Eric David Harris (Reb) and Dylan Bennet Klebold (VoDKa) enjoy…” Warning, this one is graphic but shown because there is a subculture of alienated teenagers who find Columbine fascinating and who view Harris and Klebold as role models. For example, Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech on 16 April 16 2007 in the deadliest school shooting in America, called Klebold and Harris “heroes.” Home-grown terrorism. Pajamadeen is not sure what to say about that, except parents, have the guts to parent. Know your child.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Read a related post about recent school shootings.

Copyright ©2007 pajamadeen.com

“It can happen anywhere,” said Darnell Rodgers, a senior at Cleveland, Ohio’s SuccessTech Academy, after he was shot in the elbow by 14-year-old Asa Coon while at school yesterday. Coon shot two students and two teachers, but the only fatality was Coon, who shot himself in the head and committed suicide in a classroom. A .22-caliber revolver, a .38-caliber revolver, three knives and a box of ammunition were found near his body. He had worn an empty gun holster on his ankle to school on many previous occasions. What we are wondering is, why did no one question his gun holster apparel? Wouldn’t that be a major tip-off that something was amiss in the mind of Asa Coon? No students, teachers or parents noticed this unusual attire?

As it turns out, there were many warning signs. In addition to Coon’s general history of violence and threats to commit suicide, we learn that:

• Classmate Demar Tabb, 15, had heard Coon’s threats. “I thought he was just kidding.” Tabb said. “I probably should have said something, but I didn’t think anything would actually happen.”

• Rasheem Smith, a 15-year-old sophomore at SuccessTech, saw Coon changing clothes in a fourth-floor bathroom, just before the shooting rampage began. He left when he saw Coon load a gun…but didn’ tell any teachers. Why? “I don’t know what I was thinking…I didn’t want him to shoot me.” According to The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer, Smith was eating lunch about 15 minutes later and heard a loud noise. Thinking it was a book being dropped, he still didn’t react. (This is supposed to be a magnet school for gifted students.)

• Interviewed on CBS’ Early Show this morning, Smith said that the shootings could have been prevented and that he and other students tried to warn principal Johneita Durant about Coon’s threats, but (according to Smith) the principal said she was too busy. “I told my friends in the class that he had a gun and stuff,” Smith said. “He was talking about doing it last week. I don’t know why they didn’t say nothing…We talked to the principal. She would try to get us all in the office, but it would always be too busy for it to happen.” Not surprisingly, calls to Durant went unreturned.

Not 24 hours later, we learn of another 14-year-old sick puppy, arrested Wednesday evening near Philadelphia, PA in Plymouth Township, as he allegedly planned a Columbine-style attack on Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School. He tried to recruit another student, who tipped off police. Among the items found were a 9 mm assault rifle, bought for the boy by his mother at a gun show, seven hand grenades (four of which were operational), knives, air guns, copies of The Anarchist Cookbook and Hitler’s Second Book: The Unpublished Sequel to Mein Kampf, and video of the April 1999 Colulmbine High School attack in Littleton, Colorado. In that incident, gunmen Dylan Klebold, 17, and Eric Harris, 18, killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 others before committing suicide.

Police found no ammunition for the assault rifle. Montgomery County (PA) District Attorney Bruce L. Castor, Jr. said: “I do not think an attack was imminent and I am not certain that an attack was going to occur at all…It could have simply been big talking by a kid who thought that he was bullied previously and he was going to exact his revenge.” Looks like a pretty convincing arsenal to us. What normal kid would have all this in his bedroom? What parent would allow a child to own these items?

According to National School Safety and Security, Inc. of Cleveland, there have been more than 60 shooting incidents in U.S. schools in the last 10 years. As SuccessTech student Aaron King said while walking home from school after yesterday’s shootings: “In the end, you never know who is going to snap.”

Read another recent post about school shootings.

Photo credits: AP and WPVI-TV.

Copyright © 2007 pajamadeen.com

Having been brought up with manners, it was unnerving to watch how much damage can be done to diplomacy in the absence of manners, as skillfully demonstrated this afternoon by Columbia University’s President, Lee Bollinger, who welcomed his guest, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, to a public lynching forum held at the New York City campus. As Donald Trump told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer later in the day, Ahmadinejad will most likely “dislike us a helluva lot more” after this visit.

And who could blame Ahmadinejad? What was purported to be an educational discourse at one of the nation’s best Ivy League universities began with the strangest greetings we’ve ever seen for a foreign dignitary. In an astonishing “yee-haw! ride ’em cowboy!” ambush introduction for Ahmadinejad, Bollinger went on at great length, excoriating his guest at every turn. It was quite clear that reason had flown out the window long before the Iranian President arrived. Bollinger said he was “yearning to express revulsion at what you stand for.” How’s that for hospitality? A similar nadir was reached when Ahmadinejad was termed a “petty and cruel dictator,” to audience applause. After the insults ceased and he was, at last, allowed to speak, Ahmadinejad said: “I should not begin by being affected by this unfriendly treatment.”

This all came on the heels of the Iranian President not being allowed to pay his respects at Ground Zero. As he told 60 Minutes in an interview which aired yesterday, he didn’t think his idea of visiting Ground Zero would be perceived as insulting by Americans. (Well, obviously, he miscalculated that one.) “Why should it be insulting?” he said. “Usually you go to these sites to pay your respects. And also perhaps to air your views about the root causes of such incidents. I think that when I do that, I will be paying, as I said earlier, my respect to the American nation.”

Bollinger’s vitriole was startling in its intensity and the Iranian people no doubt feel insulted by our miserable manners and our treatment of our guest. Americans would scream bloody murder if one of our leaders visited a foreign country and was ripped up one side and down the other. You don’t think the Iranians will feel the same? Our diplomatic efforts were harmed today by Bollinger’s cheap shots, which could have foreign policy ramifications. We hope you enjoyed your 15 minutes of fame, Mr. Bollinger. After they’re up, you might want to consider hiring a new tailor.

Read more about Ahmadinejad’s visit here.

Photo credit: AP / Stephen Chernin

Copyright ©2007 pajamadeen.com

On this first full day of autumn, with the leaves beginning to change colors and students back in school, we await Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia University in New York City this afternoon. We’re struck by the incongruity of last week’s on Jena, Louisiana and a nationwide insistence that civil liberties be preserved in Jena, while the clamor to quash Ahmadinejad’s speech is everywhere. His trip to Ground Zero has already childishly been nixed. We hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Iran wasn’t the cause of the World Trade Center attack on 9/11…Maybe the man would have learned something there, or gained new perspective. Why is this any different than, say, an Iranian student going to visit the Washington Monument? Deliberately offending the leader of a foreign nation can’t be wise.

If the point of the Jena 6 demonstration was to support civil liberties, what are we saying and what do we look like to the world when we want to quash Adhmadinejad’s speech? Free speech only applies to those whom we approve of? As author Noam Chomsky put it, “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” While Columbia University says they invited the Iranian President to speak for educational reasons, the New York Daily News heralded his arrival as if Godzilla was spotted in the distance, with a headline screaming: “The Evil Has Landed,” with a mid-afternoon story headline reading: “Iranian madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad walks among us.” (So much for straight news coverage.) Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House and always a fountain of wisdom, grandiosely remarked that Ahmadinejad’s visit was “an outrage against civilization.” Oh, pal-eeze.

Here’s an image which may offend, of President George Bush dressed as Saddam Hussein. Does it really matter if the picture offends? It’s intended to be provocative, to make the reader think. It’s part of journalist Patrick Graham’s article, “How George Bush Became the New Saddam” in Macleans magazine. In the article, Graham argues that “The Americans are the new Baathists in Iraq.” He says that the current surge strategy of the United States is the same strategy used by Saddam Hussein — “which was to contain the Kurds, confront the Shia using tribal Sunnis, and to confront Iran.” The man does have a point. Is Maclean’s portrayal of Bush “unpatriotic,” as many Americans would say? No, it’s a political statement, nothing more and nothing less. But it’s not inherently “bad,” any more than allowing Ahmadinejad to speak is inherently “bad.”

Read more about Ahmadinejad’s visit here.

Photo credits: andrewstern.net, Atta Kenara/AFP Getty Images and Macleans magazine

Copyright © 2007 pajamadeen.com

Retailing at a hefty $175.00, “My Child’s Backpack” looks like a regular backpack but has a bulletproof lining. Bonus! It protects against stabbings, too! It was invented by two Boston, Massachusetts area fathers, Joe Curran and Mike Pelonzi, who were motivated by the Columbine High School shooting rampage in 1999 in Colorado. The backpack can withstand many types of bullets, including 9 mm hollow-point bullets, and has been certified as Level II body armor. It’s lighter than a police vest and, once on, the straps act as handles to allow use of the pack as a shield.

Now, what enterprising young thug wouldn’t turn the tables and flip the backpack to his chest and then proceed to stab victims, if so inclined? And any intelligent shooter would simply shoot at another part of the body, perhaps the head, with almost-certain lethal results. Then, of course, there’s the matter of the MP3 player pocket and earphone outlets which comes with model 5108, seen above. Your kid will be listening to his MP3 player and won’t know what hit until it’s too late. Some school districts have already dismissed the backpack, with a Boston Public Schools spokesperson saying: “It seems to me that it would not serve our district-wide dress code which says that students cannot wear anything which is threatening or offensive.”

Starting tomorrow, the backpack will also be available as a clear backpack, to meet security concerns at many schools. Great…now shooters and cutters will know which students to avoid and which ones make better targets.

According to the company’s website, “School systems across the nation are staging drills for ‘lock downs’ and ‘shelter in place.’ Act now to give your children a personal, defensive safety tool that will help them feel more confident and able to focus on learning. Isn’t that what school should really be about?” Homeschooling is starting to look better and better, thought Pajamadeen.

And here’s the company’s distasteful and fear mongering video, complete with Columbine footage, pumpkins being shot up and, of course, commercialization of the Virginia Tech massacre, oddly combined with Neil Young’s Four Dead in Ohio song, which was a protest against the shooting of students by Ohio National Guard members in May 1970. Looks like someone at MJ Safety Solutions needs to go back to school and brush up on history. We can’t imagine that Mr. Young would be too happy about this laughably inappropriate use of his lyrics.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Read about another harebrained idea.

Photo credits: MJ Safety Solutions and John Paul Filo of the Valley Daily News and Daily Dispatch of Tarentum and New Kensington, Pennsylvania

Copyright © 2007 pajamadeen.com