It's Not Rocket Science

I'm not a psychic.  I don't have a sixth sense.  But when I said on October 24th last year  that after "President Obama wins re-election the Main Stream Media will then investigate" the White House cover-up of the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, it was simply a logical conclusion.  And this week that prediction came true with a vengeance.

On October 24, 2012 I wrote a blog entry titled "Why Did Obama Lie?"  In that essay I predicted the ultimate outcome of the Benghazi cover-up that was then in its infancy:

We will never know why the President ordered Susan Rice, the United Nations Secretary to outright lie on four Sunday Morning News Interviews, destroying her credibility forever.

We will never know why in the world Vice President Biden told such an involved fictional account of the information known to the administration, even recounting totally false dates, during the Vice Presidential Debate.  Biden knew from day one.  Why did he destroy any chance he might have had of becoming President? 

Certainly the administration will never explain these lies and the bizarre and unnecessary cover-up of the facts.  It's a mini-Watergate with no logical explanation. 

We can only guess that the President was trying to place the blame elsewhere, on an obscure video maker, to avoid any direct blame that would harm his re-election chances.  It just all seems so odd.

President Obama wins re-election the Main Stream Media will then investigate and ask these same questions.  If he loses it will fall upon a disgruntled staffer to reveal the truth.  But either way, Mr. President, the truth will come out.

But this week the dominoes all began to fall.  As I predicted the Main Stream Media has turned on Obama for the very lies they helped his cover-up before the election.  First CBS News. Then ABC News. Now everyone.

Mark Mardell, the North American Editor for BBC News probably summed it up best in his article: After Benghazi revelations, heads will roll

There's new evidence, obtained by ABC, that the Obama administration did deliberately purge references to "terrorism" from accounts of the attack on the Benghazi diplomatic mission, which killed four people including the US ambassador to Libya.

Conservatives have long maintained that the administration deliberately suppressed the truth about the attacks.

This is the first hard evidence that the state department did ask for changes to the CIA's original assessment.

Specifically, they wanted references to previous warnings deleted and this sentence removed: "We do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack."

There's little doubt in my mind that this will haunt Hillary Clinton if she decides to run for president, unless she executes some pretty fancy footwork.State department spokesperson Victoria Nuland is directly implicated, and the fingerprints of senior White House aides Ben Rhodes and Jay Carney are there as well.

In the interests of full disclosure I have to say I have not in the past been persuaded that allegations of a cover-up were a big deal. It seemed to me a partisan attack based on very little

But the evidence is there in black and white, unless we doubt the documents obtained by ABC, which I don't..

This is now very serious, and I suspect heads will roll. The White House will be on the defensive for a while.

The Truth About Cable Network News

Here's an incredibly short post (by the usual Wizard standards) about Cable Network News.  I just want to share the ratings for last Wednesday, a relatively typical night for Cable News, although slightly inflated because of the U.S. House of Representative's Benghazi hearings.

Included are the shows on Comedy Central because, quite frankly, that's where many Americans get their news.

FOXNEWS THE O'REILLY FACTOR 3,383,000

FOXNEWS THE FIVE 2,937,000

FOXNEWS BRET BAIER 2,638,000

FOXNEWS SEAN HANNITY 2,628,000

FOXNEWS GRETA VAN SUSTREN 2,363,000

FOXNEWS FOX NEWS WITH SHEPARD SMITH 2,240,000

CNN HEADLINE NEWS NANCY GRACE 1,576,000

COMEDY CENTRAL THE DAILY SHOW 1,450,000

CNN ANDERSON COOPER 1,391,000

CNN WOLF BLITZER 1,382,000

COMEDY CENTRAL THE COLBERT REPORT 1,250,000

CNN PIERS MORGAN 1,085,000

CNN ERIN BURNETT 944,000

CNN HEADLINE NEWS DR DREW 940,000

MSNBC RACHEL MADDOW 877,000

MNSBC LAWRENCE O'DONNELL 826,000

MSNBC CHRIS MATTHEW 703,000

MSNBC AL SHARPTON 624,000
MSNBC CHRIS HAYES 573,000 

There are two reasons FOX NEWS dominates the ratings. First they are much more entertaining.  Each host has fun and schedules a mix of lighthearted news and discussion with heavier commentary.

Second, they are, by far, fair and honest given the RIGHT WING perspectives of the hosts.  The shows tend to be facutal and often present both sides of the issues being discussed.

As a LIBERAL I can watch FOX, laugh at them and, occasionally cuss at them and always learn from them.

As a Liberal, I am appalled that 877,000 people watch Rachel Maddow, the single most dishonest person in major broadcasting.  I've learned the hard and painful way that if Rachel Maddow says it, it's likely not true, at best half true.

We Liberals DESERVE voices as HONEST and as ENTERTAINING at the conservatives have over on FOX.  We DESERVE BETTER THAN WHAT WE GET ON MSNBC. 

I Blame Mitt Romney

Most of the sane and reasonably informed people, press, politicians and pundits have seen the unraveling of President Obama's lies and deception about the attack and murder of our Ambassador in Libya coming for a long time.  Now even the major media is finally investigating and reporting on a scandal worthy of censure, if not outright Impeachment.

Not only did Hilary Clinton and the Obama Administration refuse to send readily available aid to the Ambassador, they then engaged in the most bizarre series of lies and cover-ups in modern history.

Here are just a few of today's stories unfolding:

Benghazi whistleblowers allegations: US forces in Tripoli told to stand down on night of attack; Hillary cut department’s counterterrorism bureau out of the loop

Clinton sought end-run around counterterrorism bureau on night of Benghazi attack, witness will say

CBS NEWS: Diplomat: U.S. Special Forces told "you can't go" to Benghazi during attacks

NBC NEWS: Official: US Special Forces team wasn't allowed to fly to Benghazi during attack by Lisa Meyers  Here's a small snippet from Lisa Meyers report:

A small team of Special Forces operatives was ready to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi last year after Libyan insurgents attacked the U.S. mission there, but was told it was not authorized to board the flight by regional military commanders, according to a career State Department official scheduled to testify before Congress on Wednesday.

Gregory Hicks, then deputy chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, told investigators for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that U.S. officials had persuaded the Libyan government to allow the Special Forces operatives to board the rescue flight from Tripoli to Benghazi. But an officer received a phone call telling them to stand down before they left for the airport, according to excerpts of his account made available to NBC News on Monday. That conversation occurred after the U.S. ambassador to Libya and another American had been killed in the initial attack, but hours before a second attack that killed two other Americans

What has bothered me since the attack in Libya is why candidate Mitt Romney failed to use this major issue in his campaign.  I wrote this in my blog on November 1, 2012:

Curiously Mitt Romney had a chance. Even more curiously, he decided to forgo almost certain election and pursue a genuinely bizarre last minute campaign strategy, ignoring the huge issue of the Obama Administration's cover-up of Libyan Ambassador Steven's torture and murder in Benghazi and opting instead to double down on a deceptive ad about Jeep moving production to China. 

Obviously had Mitt Romney been elected it wouldn't change the events that had already taken place.  But the cover-up, which continues to this day, would be over and the facts would be known.

In my opinion this event calls into question Barack Obama's fitness to be President.  There will be no Impeachment, nor should there be one.  But the facts, at least as known so far, certainly disqualify Hilary Clinton from becoming President.  That's a shame and a personal disappointment as I've been a long time Hilary Clinton supporter. 

As so often it is in the case of government scandals it's not the event but the cover-up that brings down the politician.  Sadly, this is beyond a doubt the stupidest and most unnecessary cover-up in history.

Claiming Hate Stops Debate

One of my favorite bloggers, the great Lee Kiester whose blog "Lee's Tid Bits" I recommend you read daily, started me off on a journey that ultimately led to an insightful article written by Rachel Alexander in the Tea Party Tribune.  Before you dismiss the source for being associated with the "Tea Party" you need to take time to consider what Rachel has written.

Her title neatly summarizes the entire article - The Power of Being “Offended” in Order to Shut Down Political Debate  Let me reprint just a small portion of what Rachel has written.

Has society really become quite thin-skinned, or is acting “offended” a new tactic that is being used to shut down legitimate political debate? Progressives are increasingly claiming to be offended whenever those on the right disagree with their left-wing positions. It doesn’t matter what the issue is; the left will divert a legitimate political debate into an accusation that the right disagrees with them because they are full of hate towards them. This puts the right on the defensive, and removes the real debate from discussion. It then becomes difficult for the right to ever prevail with their position, because to do so would mean “hate” had won.

Economics? Disagree with welfare, and you’re full of hate and intolerance towards the poor. Social issues? Disagree with the left on abortion or gay marriage, and you don’t like women or gays. Foreign policy? Disagree on foreign policy, and you hate Muslims, Palestinians, and the poor in less fortunate countries. Second Amendment? If you support gun rights, then you have a cold and callous view towards the victims of gun violence. Affirmative action? If you disagree with affirmative action, then you’re a racist. Unions? Disagree with them, and you despise working-class Americans.

This really resonates with me because, like many of you, I watch Morning Joe on MSNBC many mornings each week.  I like Jos Scarborough and I am especially fond of Joe's co-host Mika Brzezinski. However, since the defeat of the Gun Control Bill in the US Senate Mika has been passionately lobbying every day for Gun Control and background check expansion.  Passionate may well be an understatement.

No one has ever accused MSNBC or even Morning Joe of being fair and balanced, but Mika's name calling, vilification and condemnation of all gun control opponents has gone out of control.  They are EVIL They are all EVIL. They are all puppets of the NRA. They are all being paid off. They hate children. They don't care who dies. They are all EVIL. And, moreover, they are very, very, very EVIL. 

Ahhh.. the Evil Doers. Mika Tweets their names. She posts their phone numbers. She implores her viewers to call and tweet  They are pathetic. They are cowards. They are all EVIL.

What's been absent is any real discussion of the issues.  Never are any of the EVIL DOERS given an opportunity to explain, tell their side or debate.  The position of gun rights advocates never sees the light of day.  Except when Joe ridicules them himself.

As Tea Party Advocate Rachel Alexander might explain, on MSNBC HATE has won.  Debate has lost. Discussion has lost. Reason has lost. Civility has lost,  Sadly everyone has lost.

In Praise of News and Opinion Diversity

Like most of you I'm still trying to comprehend the events of the past week.  Most American's nerves are raw and we're all guilty of saying things or at least thinking things we don't necessarily mean.  Nothing is more rare today than facts, nothing more plentiful than opinions.

As we calm down and as the myriad of media, new and old, do their jobs, we will begin to understand all that happened in a few short, horrific days.

Until the terror in Boston and the horror in West, Texas I was planning to write a follow-up to my previous blog about Sarah Palin and the lack of real dialog between the left and the right in this country.  It is still, I believe, the biggest obstetrical we all face.

But I'm going to leave that blog for another time.

What I want to do here is simply praise the strength, diversity, the efficiency and the depth of the media in light of the new digital age and social media availability to all Americans.

You only need to be on Twitter for a few minutes t understand why despots in countries all around the globe try to regulate it or shut it down.  Today news spreads like wildfire.  Sometimes its not accurate, sometimes it's colored by strong opinions, but it's ALL out there and we all benefit.

Any of my fellow Liberals who deny the immense left wing bias of the major media are simply deluding themselves.  They should be embarrassed.  They should be one hell of a lot smarter than that.

But the right need not fear for one minute.  The views and OFTEN THE FACTS needed by all Americans are out there. And people get the news.... and the facts... and vital opinions.  This system really, really works!

You need look no further than the news about Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the abortion doctor who might just be the biggest MASS MURDERER in American History as proof.  Did the mainstream media ignore the Gosnell story?  Absolutely.  But did the new media get the story out and shame the old media in the process? YES!

And I don't think the Gosnell story is the worst example of main stream media dereliction of responsibility.  But the new media, FOX News, the Conservative pundits, the brilliant bloggers and others fill the gaps, effectively and consistently.

The truth is out there.  Now if we could just calmly discuss our ideas.

With Love & Affection to All The Sarah Palin Haters Out There

I have many friends and readers who really, really, really, really dislike Sarah Palin.  Their dislike is so intense it can only be called hate.  Their view of Sarah is colored by this intense hatred so deeply they actually are unable to even understand what she says, writes or believes.

To make matters much, much worse, they actually do believe they understand her.  They believe she is a grandstanding, money grubbing, fool and everything she says and does is strictly for her own profit. They simultaneously believe she is a bumbling fool and a Machiavellian genius and they see no conflict in these opposing views.

They are all horribly wrong.  She is neither.  She actually is a bright, thoughtful conservative voice and her words and opinions bear thoughtful review.  She speaks for millions of Americans, Americans who understand her perfectly.  And these people are no fools, either.

You need not agree with her to appreciate her talent, her wisdom and her eloquence.  As Liberals we ought to be impressed and consider her words carefully, not casually dismiss and deride her.

The above post from her Facebook Page bears a lot of thought, for she is spot on correct.

This post was in response to Melissa Harris-Perry's now famous MSNBC spot   I'm a huge Melissa Harris-Perry fan and watch her show whenever possible.  Harris-Perry's primary point in her ad was that we need to invest in our children's education and we most certainly need to do just that.  Here is the infamous Harris-Perry Ad:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

But the underlying message Ms Harris-Perry made misunderstands the very fabric of American Society.  And many American's reacted very negatively to the Orwellian Animal Farm Group Think Collective Ms Harris-Perry seemed to advocate.  I know I reacted negatively and I'm a Harris-Perry fan!

Sarah Palin's response at the very top of this page is nothing short of brilliant.  Sadly, I'm willing to bet not one of my Liberal Friends will even get Palin's point, but they'll be quick to claim Palin missed Harris-Perry's point.  Such is the sad state of dialog in our country today.

Walgreens: Capitalism May Yet Rescue Americans From Obamacare

Capitalism is doing what it does best: finding and filling the voids between supply and demand.  And, let's be honest, The Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare has more voids than a black hole.

We are mere months away from losing the two things President Obama said we could keep under ObamaCare: our doctors and our insurance.  Both will soon be gone.  Our insurance will be replaced by a significantly more expensive model guaranteeing care most Americans neither want or need.  Meanwhile, our doctors are either retiring or being placed in the untenable position of seeing far more patients that he or she can possibly manage.

But your local drug store, Walgreens, is coming to our rescue! They are going to take over a significant portion of Primary Care at low cost, affordable rates.  Of course you won't see a doctor, but will see either a nurse practitioner or a physician's assistant (whatever that might be) who will diagnose illness, prescribe medicines and order additional tests, x-rays, etc.  Somewhere out in the cloud, probably right next to your mp3's, will be a real medical doctor that will oversee and review the actions of these first caregivers.

This is all actually quite a good thing.  The biggest beneficiary will be Hospital Emergency Rooms.  At a tiny fraction of the cost, people, especially the uninsured, will receive treatment for most minor illnesses that they previously couldn't receive outside of emergency rooms.

And, let's face it, the rest of us will get care for chronic illnesses we won't be able to receive from our previous doctor.

Walgreen's will benefit by filling most of the prescriptions they prescribe and they will be paid between $65.00 and $135.00 per visit.  Some of that cost may or may not end up being paid by the insurance policy you will be forced by law to obtain.

This is good.  At least until my fellow government loving liberals decide that they simply cannot allow a "Company" to make a profit off people's illnesses.

I for one, would prefer to get medical care from Walgreen's rather than the a medical version of the DMV.

Here is a review of the Walgreen's Announcement from Kaiser Health News: Walgreens Becomes 1st Retail Chain To Diagnose, Treat Chronic Conditions

You Want the Slow Death or the Quick Death?

"...we are now seeing weekly examples of this Administration’s inability to govern."
                                                                     ---Joe Klein From the article
                                                            ObamaCare Incompetence
                                                            Time Magazine, April 2, 2013

Is Barack Obama the worst President in History? Of course not. There are numerous examples of more dishonest Presidents and more incompetent Presidents.  None-the-less it is President Obama who is doing the most damage to this country and who just might bring our current era to an abrupt and very unpleasant end.

It is the perfect storm where the government's gross incompetence, the President's massive ego and faltering world economy all meet at once.

I've outlined in numerous articles including the one just a few days ago that the massive debt and continuing deficit spending will destroy both the government and our nation's economy in just a few years.  That's the slow death.

The quick death is coming courtesy of ObamaCare, The Affordable Care Act, the worst single piece of legislation in the history of government.  It was poorly conceived and horribly written with mercurial attention to a thousand details but no understanding of how today's medical industry actually works.  It was written in the back rooms by bureaucrats mostly under the influence of special interest groups and industry lobbyists   It was passed by a Congress where not one member ever read the 1,900 page bill and I believe that NONE have read it to this very day.

If you support UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE, as I do, you have to be terrified of this act which will accomplish just the opposite.

It will abruptly increase the out-of-pocket cost of medical care for virtually every person, reduce the number of people receiving care, bankrupt large portions of the medical industry, drive up costs and explode the national deficit.

You will not be able to keep either your current insurance (it will no longer exist) or your doctor, who will likely retire or be stretched so thin he or she will rarely see patients.  Most care will fall to Nurse Practitioners, or Registered Nurses of other less well trained members of the medical establishment.

Hospitals will become overcrowded ad under financed.  Some clinics will close. Others will be forced to operate on a cash only basis, refusing to take insurance.

It's going to get very ugly in a matter of months.  Read DEMOCRAT Joe Klein's Time Magazine article, ObamaCare Incompetence, to start. It's short and it's scary.  And it's the tip of the iceberg.

A Cautionary Tale: Detroit on the Verge of Bankruptcy

If you've got 5 minutes and 41 seconds I'll scare the heck out of you.

I realize it's Easter and Passover, not Halloween, but NPR put this horror story on the air Thursday anyway. Click it if you dare.

>>>> Bad Bets, Costly Promises Put Detroit On The Brink Of Bankruptcy <<<<

Of course this story is a tragedy.  A great city has fallen onto despair and large portions of the city are in ruin.  

But what's really frightening how many times the city leaders, mayor, city council and city fathers were warned of this apocalypse and how they always turned a deaf ear.  They steadfastly ignored the crisis and did absolutely nothing to prevent it.

FROM THE TRANSCRIPT:

HULETT: ...Joe Harris spent a decade as Detroit's auditor general. Shortly before he quit in 2005, he asked an outside consultant to look at the city's pension and retiree costs. 

 JOE HARRIS: This is his presentation to the council. 

 HULETT: The consultant's report was a shocker. It said the city was looking at more than $7 billion in retiree health care and fringe benefit costs it had not projected, let alone budgeted for. Seven billion dollars, seven times the city's annual operating budget. So, what was the response to this bombshell of a report? 

HARRIS: There was no response. There was no follow-up. There was no concern. There was no - not only by the council, there was no response by the administration either.

That's the trouble with government.  They always put off the tough decisions.  They don't listen. They never react. They deny there is a disaster and always proclaim that even IF a disaster is coming it's always dozens of years away.  They'll be plenty of time to fix the problem..... tomorrow.

This is, of course, what President Obama and the Democrats are doing today in Washington.  President Obama is kinda, sorta, maybe confident that the oncoming debt disaster won't happen until after he is out of office.  So he's ginning up the denial machine of loyal party legislators and pundits to echo his "do absolutely nothing" position. 

His position is all the more curious because only a few short years ago (before he was President) he and his fellow Democrats saw the disaster clearly and DEMANDED President Bush take instantaneous action!  In fact, Senator Obama and every single Democrat VOTED AGAINST RAISING THE DEBT CEILING.  

Of course Republicans all voted to raise the debt ceiling when George Bush was President but now that Barack Obama is President, they're all against it.

Politics rule, reality takes a back seat.  But the downfall is coming and all America is about to face a crisis that makes the current Detroit disaster look like.... an old fashioned Halloween horror story.

Addressing the Single Parent Epidemic

I've discussed my fellow Liberals desire to avoid the assignment of personal responsibility in several blog posts, most notably last December 29th in my post titled "Solving Gun Violence."  Here's what I had to say then: 

".....we avoid any assignment of personal responsibility.  We do not, under any circumstances blame personal lifestyles, personal choices or personal decisions. We never allow any blame that would insult or hurt an individual or the choices they have made or failed to make.

[For example] ....if a person drops out of school, that's the school's fault....  ...we never blame the teachers, or even dare to measure a teacher's ability or success.  That's personal and we don't do personal......"

One of the recent heroes today's liberals (in part because of his bizarre desire to ban large sugary sodas), Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, has dared to take on the single largest and most important issue in our society today, single parent families.  And he's dared to break the cardinal rule of liberals I outlined in the December 29th essay, he's daring to actually place some of the blame on today's youth!

The liberal communities response against Bloomberg has been overwhelmingly negative and very vitriolic.  According to nearly all my fellow liberals, young people who become pregnant outside of a stable family environment are totally blameless!  And they must never be shamed, slandered or made to feel the least bit bad!  Instead they are to be supported, nurtured, even praised for their bravery.

The New York Times' Michael Powell, writing a highly critical essay in the New York Times this week states categorically "Teenage pregnancy is a problem of poverty."

This level of stupidity from today's liberals and progressives is disastrous and is destroying lives and the very fabric of our society!

What Bloomberg is trying to do is to educate young people into making better, more reasoned decisions.  He is not advocating abstinence.  He is not eliminating sex education from public schools. Far from it! But he is trying to actually show young people the seriously negative outcome that arises from single parent child rearing.

In addition to teaching youth the mechanics if sex and methods of birth control Bloomberg is daring to teach them the dangers of failing to use that knowledge in their personal lives.

Wouldn't we have a problem is the teachers in wood shop taught students how to use a circular saw but then failed to teach them that they might lose a limb is they don't use the saw carefully?

Once again I am forced to turn to someone really brilliant to outline what ought to be obvious, the incomparable Ann Coulter who addresses this issue in this week's column, "In Fighting Teen Pregnancy, The Folly of Shame and Blame."  Read her whole essay, it's funny and insightful, as usual.

Coulter points out that the popular liberal causes from banning soda's to restricting guns will have virtually no impact of the health or welfare of children compared to the horrific damage inflicted by single family child rearing:

Liberals seem to believe that drinking soda is voluntary, but getting pregnant is more like catching the flu.

It would be hard to make the case that fast food, plastic bags and cigarettes do more damage than single motherhood. 

-- Controlling for socioeconomic status, race and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single mother. 

-- At least 70 percent of juvenile murderers, pregnant teenagers, high school dropouts, teen suicides, runaways and juvenile delinquents were raised by single mothers. 

-- A study back in 1990 by the Progressive Policy Institute showed that, absent single motherhood, there would be no difference in black and white crime rates. 

It is critical to point out no one, not even Coulter, is advocating forcing unwed mother's to wed or to abort their children.  Instead both Bloomberg, and his unexpected defender Coulter, recommend education, something liberals would normally favor, except, I guess, if that education teaches personal responsibility.

As I pointed out in that December 29th essay, "We liberals don't do personal...."

You Can Have My 32 Ounce Drink When You Pry It from My Cold, Dead Hands

I've already posted, over and often, that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is an ivory tower idiot. His bizarre, unjustified and Orwellian edict to prevent all restaurants, movie theaters and ball parks from serving any sugar sweetened soft drink in containers over 16 ounces was thankfully overturned by the courts.

However, my home state of Mississippi, in a genuine effort to not be outdone in the  unnecessary laws department, has passed "The Anti-Bloomberg Bill" which specifically prohibits any local governmental authority from creating any law or regulation which limits portion size OR requires the posting of calories.

The governor has promised to sign the legislation into law.

Of course it must be noted that Mississippi is the most obese state in the nation.

To paraphrase Charlton Heston, "You can have my 32 ounce soda when you pry it from my cold, dead hands."  And if we don't lose some weight here in Mississippi, that just might be sooner rather than later.

SOURCE: THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: Mississippi passes 'anti-Bloomberg bill,' banning local limits on portion sizes and requirements to post calorie counts

The Restless Gun

Here's one little news story from this week I find more than a little disturbing:

7 Year Old Maryland Boy Suspended for Nibbling His Pop-Tart into the Shape of A Gun

A 7-year-old Baltimore boy was suspended Friday for two days after he shaped his breakfast pastry into what appeared to be a gun, his dad said. Josh Welch, who suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, told Fox Baltimore that he was trying to shape the tart into a mountain. “It was already a rectangle, and I just kept on biting it and biting it and tore off the top and it kinda looked like a gun but it wasn’t,” Josh told the station.

“All I was trying to do was turn it into a mountain.” 

Josh said his teacher was “pretty mad.”

Josh’s dad, who was not identified, said he received a phone call from the school, notifying him of the suspension. “I would almost call it insanity,” he said. “I mean with all the potential issues that could be dealt with at school, real threats, bullies, whatever the real issue is, it’s a pastry. … Ya know?” 

A letter was sent home with Park Elementary School students Friday explaining that “a student used food to make an inappropriate gesture,” the station reported.

I wish this was some sort of weird isolated instance, but it's not.  It's happening again and again, all over the country.

- Feb. 8, 2013 - Yep - That's just yesterday, A student had his Birthday Party Cupcakes confiscated because they were decorated with small toy soldiers.

- Feb. 1, 2013 - A 9-year-old student was suspended for bringing a 2-inch toy gun on a key fob to school.

- Jan. 29, 2013 - A 5-year-old student could be suspended for crafting a Lego gun during an after-school program. We're told by school officials he is a repeat offender.

- Jan. 22, 2013 - Yet another 5-year-old is suspended because, well, those damned 5 year old's are so dangerous.  And there is certainly no sex discrimination in suspensions because this one's a girl. Her crime was talking about her Hello Kitty bubble gun.

- Jan. 2, 2013 - A 6-year-old in a Washington D.C. school was suspended for making a gun gesture with his hands.  Fingers and six year old's don't mix.

- August 28, 2012 - A deaf 3-year-old preschooler has been asked to change the American Sign Language hand gesture used to signify his name, Hunter, which he signs by forming a gun with his hands. Apparently, "saying" his name violates the school's weapon policy.

Part of what bothers me here is that our society in caught in a double think mentality that makes George Orwell's most nightmarish scenarios seem tame.  One minute we heap unparalleled praise on Director Quentin Tarantino for his bloodbath movies that glorify gratuitous violence and make heroes out of murderers and terrorists.  


The next minute we praise Kevin Bacon's new television series "The Following" whose hero, Dr. Joe Carroll, is a psychopathic mass murderer with a cult following of hundreds of like groupies who murder upon command.  Each week this new hit series has multiple graphic murders with maximum blood and gore in every episode.  Some murders are actually so graphic they are sickening.

Even shows and movies aimed at children like the Transformer Movies, are filled to overflowing with gratuitous violence.

Ahhhh, but the very next minute next we suspend 7 year olds from school for chewing their breakfast into a gun shaped biscuit.

When I was eight years old there was a hit television series called "The Restless Gun" that starred John Payne.  In this western Payne played a retired law officer, Vint Bonner, with great patience and restraint who always sought a non-violent path out of any confrontation.  Sadly, at least once each week, Payne was forced to use his signature gun, a pistol that could be transformed into a rifle.  it was the original assault weapon."

Since Payne's character, Vint Bonner, was a hero and the gun was so fantastic, I wanted the toy cap gun version!  And my parents bought me one!! It was the neatest toy ever, at least for an eight year old in 1957.

Sadly I no longer have this toy.  Sadly because these incredibly rare toys sell for many hundreds of dollars at auction, often as much as a thousand dollars for what was, no doubt, a ten dollar toy.  There are none available on ebay today or I'd post a link for you.

My point is that children always imitate their heroes from televison and movies.  It's called "playing,"  Doing so is called "using your imagination," a skill once highly prized and cultivated in children.  In fact, John Payne's most famous acting roll was playing the young lawyer, Fred Gailey, in the classic movie "Miracle on 34th Street."  In that movie Payne and the wonderful Edwin Gwenn, who plays Kris Kringle, try to teach a very young Natalie Wood to use her imagination. 

Back in the day I watched an old black and white television.  Today's 8 year olds sit before large screen, 3-D color televisions, especially good at portraying blood red.  Why do we think children won't imitate what they see in TV, good or bad?  

One last note, in 1958, when Vint Bonner always stood for up for what is right and always tried to avoid violence and every child had a toy cap gun, the murder rate in the United States was only about 4.3 murders per 100,000 people.  Since that year the murder rate in the United States has never been that low.

One last, last note, on April 23, 2013 all 78 original episodes of The Restless Gun: The Complete Serieswill be released on DVD.