Aug 3, 2013 | Politics
Sound advice from Heike Larson at LePort Schools:
Does a parent have to choose between learning and fun?We don’t think so. In our view, the learning vs. fun trade-off is a false alternative, and in practice the most profoundly joyous childhood environment is precisely the one which best satisfies a child’s cognitive needs.Children by nature are curious about the world. They are capable of an astounding amount of early learning when given the freedom to explore to their heart’s content, particularly in an environment of carefully prepared engaging, meaningful explorative activities. In such a setting, learning so-called academic skills, such as handwriting or arithmetic, is experienced as a playful, enjoyable activity. The pleasure and deep satisfaction of such concentrated engagement is natural and to-be-expected because it is consistent with the actual needs of the child. Psychologically, the satisfaction derived is exactly the satisfaction that comes from play. As Maria Montessori put it, “play is the child’s work.” [Play vs. Work: A Wrong Alternative]
Aug 3, 2013 | Politics
Writes Walter Williams at Capitalism Magazine on Black Self-Sabotage:
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims. Using the 94 percent figure means that 262,621 were murdered by other blacks. Though blacks are 13 percent of the nation’s population, they account for more than 50 percent of homicide victims. Nationally, the black homicide victimization rate is six times that of whites, and in some cities, it’s 22 times that of whites. I’d like for the president, the civil rights establishment, white liberals and the news media, who spent massive resources protesting the George Zimmerman trial’s verdict, to tell the nation whether they believe that the major murder problem blacks face is murder by whites. There are no such protests against the thousands of black murders.
Aug 2, 2013 | Politics
Attorney Thomas Bowden draws some interesting parallels between the Apple antitrust persecution and the persecution of Rearden Metal in Ayn Rand's epic best-selling novel Atlas Shrugged:
In Rand’s novel, the particular law that necessitated a Washington-installed monitor was designed to control sales of a brand-new metal, demand for which far outstripped supply. The law mandated that each customer receive a “fair share” of the popular metal. What’s a “fair share?” The law didn’t say—and so a monitor (nicknamed the “Wet Nurse”) was sent to the factory, to substitute his dictates for the owners’ decisions. Here’s a passage from the novel:
Nobody had known how to determine what constituted a fair share of what amount. Then a bright young boy just out of college had been sent to him from Washington, as Deputy Director of Distribution. After many telephone conferences with the capital, the boy announced that customers would get five hundred tons of the Metal each, in the order of the dates of their applications. Nobody had argued against his figure. There was no way to form an argument; the figure could have been one pound or one million tons, with the same validity. The boy had established an office at the Rearden mills, where four girls took applications for shares of Rearden Metal. At the present rate of the mills’ production, the applications extended well into the next century.
Read the rest of In Apple antitrust case, life imitates Atlas Shrugged.
Jul 30, 2013 | Politics
Commenting on the George Zimmerman trial, America's first half-black President, Obama stated:On the other hand, if we're sending a message as a society in our communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there's a way for them to exit from a situation, is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we'd like to see?And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these "stand your ground" laws, I just ask people to consider if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr Zimmerman, who had followed him in a car, because he felt threatened?
Obama also stated:I think the African-American community is also not naive in understanding that statistically somebody like Trayvon Martin was probably statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else. So folks understand the challenges that exist for African-American boys, but they get frustrated, I think, if they feel that there's no context for it – and that context is being denied.And that all contributes, I think, to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.
Or it might not have.Meet Christopher Cervini killed by two gun shots.
Meet Roderick Scott the man who killed him:
YNN Rochester reports on the verdict:Not guilty: The verdict in the manslaughter trial of Roderick Scott. After more than 19 hours of deliberations over two days, a jury acquitted the Greece man in the shooting death of Christopher Cervini, 17, last April. [
Jury Finds Roderick Scott Not Guilty:]
Mr. Obama's speech-writer clearly has not been doing his homework.
"I just want to say thank you to the people who believed in me, who stood by me,” Scott said following the verdict. “I still have my regrets for the Cervini family; it's still an unfortunate situation for them. I am happy that at least this chapter is over."As deliberations dragged on over two days and the jury asked for testimony to be read back, Scott admits he didn't know how it would all turn out."I was nervous of course,” he said. “You never know what direction this whole thing is going to turn, so I have no idea. But it worked out and I feel that justice (was) served today."Cervini's family members say justice wasn't served. They say Christopher was murdered in cold blood, that he'd never been in trouble and Scott acted as judge, jury and executioner."The message is that we can all go out and get guns and feel anybody that we feel is threatening us and lie about the fact,” said Jim Cervini, Christopher’s father. “My son never threatened anybody. He was a gentle child, his nature was gentle, he was a good person and he was never, ever arrested for anything, and has never been in trouble. He was 16 years and four months old, and he was slaughtered."Scott says he acted in self defense when he confronted Cervini and two others saying they were stealing from neighbors cars. He told them he had a gun and ordered them to freeze and wait for police.
Scott says he shot Cervini twice when the victim charged toward him yelling he was going to get Scott."How can this happen to a beautiful, sweet child like that?” asked Cervini’s aunt Carol Cervini. “All he wanted to do was go home. And then for them to say, he was saying, 'Please don't kill me. I'm just a kid,' and he just kept on shooting him."
Comments T.Kevin Whiteman at
Liberty Unyielding:
[...] It was verified during Scott’s murder trial that he called 911 before the bloody confrontation took place. It was also determined that he opened fire with his legally owned firearm only as a last resort when he reasonably believed his life was in danger.Still another similarity between the two cases was Scott’s testimony that there had been a rash of break-ins in the area. Scott testified that on the morning of the fatal encounter he observed Cervini and two other youths breaking into a neighbor’s vehicle. Scott says he ordered the suspects to freeze and wait for the arrival of the police.He insists that he opened fire on Cervini only when the teen “charged” him and was screaming that he was going to get Scott.After Scott was acquitted, family members of the deceased child claimed that justice had not been served by the verdict. They shared their belief that their son’s killer had taken it upon himself to act as judge, jury, and executioner.But this is where the similarities between the two cases end. There were no marches, no vigils, no mobs crying “No justice, no peace.” There were no riots or revenge beatings of lone black men by gangs of white teens. There was also no statement by the president — whose named coincidentally was Barack Obama — or other efforts to inject his personal biases into the outcome of the trial. ["Obama’s double standard on race challenged by the 2009 shooting death of a white teen by a black adult"]
For the record the Scott decision, like the Zimmerman decision, was the correct one.However, like Dana Loesch, we are wondering: where is the outrage from the "progressive" racial bigotry machine?Outrage peddlers are silent because this story doesn’t fit the narrative of racial strife. Al Sharpton can’t Tweet about his photo ops with Jay Z and Beyonce over instances of justice like this.So do Sharpton, NAACP, Piers Morgan, Stevie Wonder, etc, etc, all believe that Roderick Scott is a murderer? That he should have been denied his ability to defend himself? Are they really wanting to reintroduce Reconstruction-era suppression on the ability and right to self defense? [The Double Standard On The Zimmerman-Martin Case | RedState]
Perhaps this is because the Zimmerman case, unlike the Roderick case, distracts attention from the nihilist in chief's attacks on the American Republic, capitalism, and freedom.Jul 30, 2013 | Politics
Adams Morgan hate crime was motivated by Zimmerman verdict, police say - The Washington Post
A Bethesda man was beaten and robbed early Saturday morning in Adams Morgan by three men who yelled, “This is for Trayvon Martin,” before attacking him, police said.
