truesee's Blog

Maple Shade school ends project after complaints about cross-dressing request

April 15, 2010, 5:27AM

MAPLE SHADE -- A teacher's explanation to parents of a women's history project planned for her third-graders contained these words: "If your child is a young man, he does not have to wear a dress or skirt."

That didn't stop a parent and a blogger from complaining that little boys were being asked to cross-dress as part of the "gay agenda." From there, the Maude Wilkins School's project about the evolution of women's clothing quickly took on a life of its own — and now it's been called off completely.

"In hindsight," Superintendent Michael Livengood said Wednesday, "maybe a different activity could have been chosen that was a little bit more relevant to history."

It's the second time in six months that a New Jersey school program has attracted wide attention for something officials say was planned innocently. About 70 protesters visited a Burlington County school in October, upset about a song in which students praised President Obama.

In both cases, administrators said, the ensuing uproar was due to blogs that spread the word but got the intent wrong.

The latest saga began this month when teacher Tonya Uibel sent a letter home with her pupils announcing that all third-graders at Maude Wilkins were required to participate in a Women's History Month project examining how women's fashion has changed over time.

The letter said, in part: "If your child is a young man, he does not have to wear a dress or skirt, as there are many time periods where women wore jeans, pants and trousers. However, each child must be able to express what time period their outfit is from. Most of all, your child should have fun creating their outfit and learning about how women's clothing has changed!"

Janine Giandomenico, a mother of a boy in the class and a frequent user of online social networks, posted a complaint on Facebook. By Monday, her concerns had worked their way to Warner Todd Huston, an opinion writer and editor of the Publius' Forum site.

He skewered the school and suggested that the timing of the event, scheduled for Friday, was designed to coincide with a national "Day of Silence" to protest harassment of gays.

"Pushing the gay agenda while feminizing our young boys through a cross-dressing day? This isn't your parent's grade school celebration, for sure," he wrote.

On Monday, as the Web traffic swelled and national media outlets picked up on the story, principal Beth Norcia decided to cancel the fashion show. She wrote in a new letter to parents that instead, students would draw how women's fashion had evolved.

One third-grader, Elizabeth Heisler, said as school let out Wednesday that none of her classmates had seemed confused about whether boys were supposed to wear dresses. The cancellation of the fashion show means she doesn't get to wear her red and black "can-can" dress to school on Friday.

The episode confounded her mother, Andrea Heisler.

"I would never think my son was going to come to school in an 1800s dress and petticoat," she said.

Livengood, who leads the Maple Shade Township school district, acknowledged that the initial letter could be misunderstood.

But he said the school wasn't trying to make anyone uncomfortable — and wasn't even aware of the gay rights protests scheduled the same day.

"It's unbelievable to me that the wording of a letter to a group of third-graders has caused this," he said. "Do they really think that our little group of third-grade teachers has conspired to try to get boys to cross-dress?"

The district hasn't heard complaints from any parents besides Giandomenico, Livengood said.

She told The Associated Press via Facebook message that she would be available for an interview, but has not responded to subsequent requests. On her Twitter account, she had this to say: "WE WON-CANCELLED! THANKS 4 YR SUPPORT!"

Still, Livengood said, he's learned a lesson — to make sure communications from teachers to parents are reviewed before they go out.

Burglary suspect found dangling from ventilation system says he was playing hide-and-seek

Associated Press

9:02 p.m. EDT

April 15, 2010

NORTH EAST, Md. (AP) — A burglary suspect came up with a creative explanation after he was found dangling from the ventilation system of a Maryland convenience store. He told police he was playing hide-and-seek.

Cecil County sheriff's deputies said the owner of a BP convenience store in North East was opening up Wednesday morning when he spotted a pair of feet dangling from a duct. Deputies responded and freed a 20-year-old man.

Deputies said the man removed a ventilation cover and crawled through the vent before getting stuck and setting off a fire extinguisher that sprayed powder all over the store.

The man told deputies he was playing hide-and-seek on the roof with other adults and decided to hide in the ventilation system. He said the other players couldn't figure out where he was and stopped looking for him.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002529-503544.html?tag=pop

Will the Steelers entertain trade offers for Ben Roethlisberger?

Steelers leave door open to trading Roethlisberger.
SportingNews

The most telling nugget from Thursday’s press conference by Steelers president Art Rooney came not from anything he said in his prepared remarks, but in response to a question regarding whether there’s any truth to the notion that the team is willing to trade quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

"We don’t talk about trades in advance," Rooney said. "That’s been a consistent policy, and I think that’s the way we’ll proceed. The only thing I’ll add is at this point we have not discussed a trade with any other club." 

The Steelers, based on Rooney’s remarks, are occupying the position that Pennsylvania’s other NFL franchise assumed after the 2010 season. They will not say that their starting quarterback is on the block, they will not say that he isn’t, and they will wait for the phone to ring.

It makes sense. Last week’s Santonio Holmes fire sale, which arose when the Steelers called around the league in an effort to find an immediate trade partner, occurred when the team initiated the process. This time around, the Steelers will sit back and see whether anyone makes an offer between now and the draft, which launches a week from today. 

And an offer could be coming. Earlier today, a non-Steelers team source told me that potentially interested teams already are comparing notes in an effort to determine whether Roethlisberger can be had.

Some say that the Steelers would trade Roethlisberger only if they receive an offer that "blows them away." That’s the same thing, however, that many were saying about the Eagles and Donovan McNabb, before the Eagles shipped McNabb within the division for something far less than a Herschel Walker-style bounty.

Given that the draft launches in seven days—and Rooney has said that discipline won’t be imposed against Roethlisberger until the week after the draft at the earliest—it’s hardly a stretch to conclude that the one of the true purposes of today’s press conference was to open the bidding without sacrificing any leverage. Though at a certain level it seems like a silly proposition, a sophisticated negotiator recognizes the power of not being the party to make the first move.

The lack of a salary cap makes it easy for the Steelers to make a move. No bonus acceleration would apply, and the new team would have no obligation to write a large bonus check in exchange for a six-year commitment that includes, according to NFLPA records, base salaries of $8.05 million in 2010, $11.6 million in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, and $12.1 million in 2015. 

Then there’s the question of discipline. For now, it appears that the Steelers will, in coordination with the league, levy a suspension for conduct detrimental at some point after the draft. But if he’s traded prior to or during the draft, the Steelers would no longer have jurisdiction over him. If Roethlisberger is traded, the league would then be acting alon

Though it’s possible that the Steelers don’t feel the same sense of urgency to move Roethlisberger that they experienced over the weekend with Holmes, it’s clear that he’s available. If he wasn’t, Rooney would have said so with the kind of plain, blunt manner in which many Pittsburghers prefer to communicate. Rooney said nothing to dispel the suggestion that Roethlisberger might not be back, so it’s fair to wonder whether Roethlisberger will end up heading to a new NFL city in the not-too-distant future.

So who would be interested? The Bills, Jaguars, Broncos, Raiders, Panthers and every team in the NFC West should be studying tape and deciding whether to get in the bidding. Given that he’s five years younger than McNabb, under contract for six years, and sufficiently scared to swear off barhopping and VIP rooms for at least seven years, it would be easy to justify giving up a first-round pick for a very good player who has been thoroughly humiliated and humbled.

Unless the Steelers want substantially more, it’s not all that crazy to conclude that, for a first-round pick, a deal could be done.

ACLU: Foster mother rejected for not serving pork

Complaint filed with city agency over incident, officials say

Brent Jones

The Baltimore Sun

9:25 p.m. EDT, April 14, 2010

 

The city and the teachers union have reached an agreement to shut down the so-called "rubber rooms" - a limbo for educators accused of wrongdoing - by the end of the year.

About 550 teachers and 630 school employees report to reassignment centers after being accused of serious violations ranging from incompetence to sexual misconduct. 

At a cost of more than $30 million a year, the teachers sit for weeks or months in the centers in each borough - reading the paper, playing board games or napping - while waiting for their cases to wind through the system.

"The rubber rooms are a thing of the past," said Mayor Bloomberg at a ceremony to sign the surprise agreement Thursday .

"To say this is a big deal is probably an understatement. It goes to show that when you work together, when you cooperate, you can do things."

The agreement would bar any new teachers accused of violations from being put in the rubber rooms starting in September.

Instead, they would be assigned to administrative duties outside the school or, if the cases are relatively minor, they may be reassigned to non-teaching duties in the school.

Educators accused of serious sexual or financial misconduct would be suspended with pay, or, in the most serious cases, they would be suspended without pay.

"This agreement is designed to get teachers out of the rubber rooms and to ensure that they do not have to wait for months or years to have their cases heard," UFT President Mulgrew said.

In order to speed up the process and work through the back log of educators exiled to the rubber rooms, the number of arbitrators who hear cases would expand from 23 to 39. And they could hear seven incompetence cases a month, instead of five.

And while it now takes months for a teacher to be charged, the agreement limits that time to 60 days.

After that time period, a teacher could return to a school.

Then once the hearings began, the case could not drag on past 60 days. A previous agreement between the city and the union to fix the problems of the rubber room failed - and the number of staffers waiting to be formally charged increased to 152 in April 2009 from 99 in January 2008.

That agreement had called for increasing the number of arbitrators, but only three additional ones were hired because of budget problems.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/04/15/2010-04-15_city_to_close_rubber_rooms_reassignment_centers_for_teachers_accused_of_major_vi.html#ixzz0lE4yhNFr

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100415/NEWS0108/304150112/1055/NEWS/Hannity+appearance+canceled

http://www.abc6onyourside.com/shared/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wsyx_vid_3622.shtml

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/92471-president-first-lady-report-more-than-55-million-in-income

http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-benjamin-hooks-death,0,3957600.story

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2010/04/exclusive-tiger-woods-wife-meets-divorce-attorney

LINK TO VIDEO

http://www.baltimoresun.com/videobeta/?watchId=c3346d20-2e50-4b00-9781-a3a30b29fef6

LINK TO STORY

http://www.baltimoresun.com/services/newspaper/bs-md-college-park-beating-20100414,0,6327198.story

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_palin_contract_foundations

Henry K. Lee

Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

 San Jose Polce Department

(04-14) 11:12 PDT SAN JOSE -- Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Kim Komenich has seen his share of crime and violence while capturing breaking news from behind his camera.

Komenich, a former Chronicle photojournalist who now teaches new media at San Jose State University, can now add crime fighter to his list of accomplishments.

On Monday, as Komenich was at a Wells Fargo Bank in downtown San Jose, he saw a teller being robbed and the suspect reaching for his pockets. Komenich walked up behind the suspect and held him in a bear hug until police arrived.

"Between classes, I go out there and do what I can do to make the world a little better for people," Komenich, 53, of Mill Valley quipped this morning.

It all started about 3:30 p.m. Monday when Komenich was in line at the bank on South Market Street. He saw a man, whom police later identified as Victor Anthony Fernandes, 45, walk in with two other people.

Fernandes got in line while the others sat down in chairs in the lobby. "They appeared to be a little down on their luck and, possibly, they had a bit to drink," Komenich said.

Fernandes began talking to a teller, and they appeared to be having a normal conversation, Komenich said. But then the suspect began raising his voice and told the teller, "Give me your money," Komenich said. The teller complied.

When Fernandes reached into his pocket, Komenich said he thought to himself, "If anything bad is going to happen, it's going to happen next."

So Komenich walked over to the suspect. "I clamped him down in a bear hug," said Komenich, who stands 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 260 pounds. Fernandes is about 5-foot-10 "and maybe 180," Komenich said.

Komenich said he wasn't sure, but that he may have lifted the suspect off the ground for a moment. "That sort of established that I had him," he said. Fernandes didn't resist, he said.

Komenich held on for five minutes until police arrived. They found no weapon on Fernandes, whom they arrested along with his two companions, Johnnie Dale Gray, 39, and Tamara Leeann Rennert, 40. All three are being held at Santa Clara County Jail on suspicion of robbery.

"We're applauding the heroic acts of this professor, by all means, but we're not necessarily encouraging this kind of activity," Sgt. Ronnie Lopez, a San Jose police spokesman, said today.

Even though the suspect wasn't armed, the potential was there, Lopez said.

"But more importantly, the two other suspects lingering in the background could have had a gun," he said. "Sometimes, taking matters into your own hands could lead to a deadly confrontation."

Komenich said, "My main reason for doing it was that it seemed like the guy was down on his luck. I just didn't want things to escalate. It was sort of a half-baked attempt at a bank robbery."

He added, "All my life, I've been a witness. I haven't really intervened because it was my job to watch."

Komenich has covered stories in Vietnam, the former Soviet Union, El Salvador, Iraq and Guyana.

In 1987, while working for the San Francisco Examiner, Komenich won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the People Power Revolution that forced President Ferdinand Marcos from office.

Komenich worked at The Chronicle from 200o to 2009. This afternoon, he will be back in class at San Jose State, where he is an assistant professor of new media.

LINK TO PHOTOS

 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2010/04/14/BASK1CUI5T.DTL&o=0