Are They Serious?

A Texas sergeant and his son recently found themselves separated not only by an eight-hour time difference, several bodies of water, hundreds of miles and a war, but by a high school official who suspended the boy for answering his dad's call during class.

Cove High School in Texas, where half the students have at least one parent deployed, justified the punishment against Brandon Hill by saying he had violated the no-cell-phone policy when he took the call from his father, who is serving in Iraq.

"I have been going through a lot of stress lately and my dad’s like my best friend, so I go to him for everything," the sophomore told FOX News on Saturday.

"I needed to talk to him, so my mom got a hold of him on Yahoo and told him to call me, so I answered the phone call in class."

When he learned of his son’s punishment, Master Sgt. Morris Hill said he was unsettled.

"When my wife told me, I was pretty disturbed by it," he said in a phone call from Iraq.

"I was pretty shocked, considering that several months before we left I had talked to the … assistant principal and thought everything was fine," Morris Hill said.

"Since my kid’s been going to the school we’ve had a pretty good working relationship."

And when his mother, Patricia Hill, tried to contact school officials, she received no response until her son’s story garnered media attention.

The matter has since been resolved, Patricia Hill said, but she added that more must be done to protect children around the country from being punished in similar circumstances.

This is pretty outrageous. If my dad was in Iraq, I would take the call too. I'd probably be willing to expel myself to get the chance to talk to him. Were I the teacher, I would also be more understanding rather than reporting him to "school officials."

Wow. Nothing Else To Say.

I originally saw this video on the shoeblog. The blogger said the woman's accent was terrible basically. What I find funnier is that the subtitles are written out exactly as she is saying the words. I am guessing someone added it in later to make it more obvious.

Watch the video to see what I mean.

Also, she isn't a good singer. Why would someone choose to sing a song that her voice is physically incapable of singing?

American Ruins

American Ruins may be the most impressive photography book I've seen. It isn't a photo how-to but a collection of beautiful infrared photos taken of ruins around America.

I saw the book Borders or Barnes & Noble for $45. I'm glad I didn't get it then because I saw it on Amazon today for just under $30. I'll probably order it in the next few days.

I'm also now inspired to try out this infrared film. Once I get the chance I will post some pictures.

Here is the site for the book. If you click on slide show you can see some of the fantastic images.

Portland's Worst Drivers

This may come as a surprise to you but Portland's worst drivers are pizza delivery drivers.

I know this because I had encounters with three of them on Barnes Rd. between Tigard and Portland this evening.

First was Round Table. The guy nearly hit my sister who was driving in the car ahead of mine. He wasn't looking at all when he pulled out of the side street. Then he paced me for a while when suddenly he decided to change into my lane, which forced me to break, so I took note of the New Yorkers and honked at him for not paying attention to what he was doing. (He honked back which essentially meant he was honking at my sister because you can really only honk at the car in front of you.) If you cause another driver to have to break because of your lane changing, then you aren't doing it at the right time.

The second incident involved a second pizzeria but I wasn't sure who it was. He was holding up a long line of traffic trying to turn left on Barnes in a difficult spot, and then the third was immediately following when I was almost rear-ended by a Pizza Hut driver.

Fun times. My sister and I are still deliberating on whether or not to complain about the Round Table guy...he almost hit us both in two separate cars. Bad driver!

Too Absurd For Words

A friend brought this to my attention today.

Pray tell, what exactly is wrong with the haircut? How is it breaking rules? My suspicion is that other kids may have (gasp) liked it!

Anyway, as is always true in these sorts of incidents, the officials weren't available for comment. I am guessing they are in hiding, trying to avoid the proverbial lynch mob that IS the press. Not to mention thinking people who can't figure out what was going through these people's heads.

Holy Elephant!

This is utterly awesome.

I read a supporting article recently that talked about how elephants are self-aware. They placed a blue dot on an elephant and then placed a mirror in front of her. She studied the image in the mirror and then reached for the blue dot. The clincher, the evidence that she knew it was her own reflection, was that she reached for the physical dot on her body---not the one reflected in the mirror.

Untitled, The Third

I think life is far, FAR too short to put up with other people's bullshit.

I don't even think I need to elaborate on that.

:)