This is such an amazing story — the school massacre that wasn’t — that I don’t think that we as a nation have as yet fully digested it. Well, this should help.
Antoinette Tuff, bookkeeper for Atlanta’s Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy, is one exemplary public employee. This is how to be.
I especially like this line from her earlier interview with CBS, included below:
I’m not the hero. I was terrified.
That’s part of how you know someone’s a hero. They’re terrified — and they do it anyway.
This is your Weekend Open Thread. Talk about that or anything else you wish, within reasonable bounds of decency and decorum. Dearthwatch may or may not follow — that franchise is open for transfer!
About Greg Diamond
Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that.
Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too.
He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.)
His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)
The news of an alleged attack with chemical weapons, in Syria, is heartbreaking.
A footage that “could not be independently verified, the gut-wrenching images show a woman hugging a deceased child in silence, then briefly examining another. CBS notes the footage was obtained and distributed by the Syrian opposition”
The apparent use of chemical weapons is discussed in this radio program:
“We begin with the latest apparent use of chemical weapons in Syria that has both the French government and Senator John McCain calling for the use of force against the Assad regime. Raymond Zilinskas, a former U.N. chemical and biological weapons inspector in Iraq, who directs the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies joins us to discuss the evidence so far that might indicate Assad has crossed President Obama’s red line.
This woman is truly a hero. She managed to defuse a bad situation and with out a gun! I believe it would benefit more of us to use our wits and not violence to get out of a bad situation.
For your edification, the term “irony” has further definition – the Voice of Russia reports:
US bans Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago at Guantanamo
“The reasons for ban of Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago are on the surface. For the same reasons this epic narration about life in the communist prison camps has been illegal in the Soviet Union, and, given the circumstances, if not explained otherwise by the Gitmo authorities, such ban may have a very symbolic and threatening meaning.”
“If your success is defined as being well adjusted to injustice and well adapted to indifference then we don’t want successful leaders. We want great leaders – who love the people enough and respect the people enough to be unsought, unbound, unafraid and unintimidated to tell the truth.” —Dr Cornel West
Cornel West – The Liberace of Faux Intellectualism
*Have you ever noticed that nearly every public pronouncement that spews from the mouth of Cornel West is literally dripping with racial innuendo? His latest racist slander is that MSNBC is the ‘Rent a Negro’ network.
Cornel West spews more racist rhetoric than any Republican in America. The reason for that is he’s essentially an entertainer who specializes in shock and race-baiting as his one and only routine.
CORNEL WEST USES A FALSE “LOVE OF BLACK PEOPLE” TO SLANDER BLACK PEOPLE WHO OVERSHADOW HIM.
Well, get a load of this. Kristen Chenowith picks someone from the audience to sing with her, as a stunt, and gets more than she bargained for when the person turns out to be a voice teacher.
The director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is making this argument for the USA to intervene in Syria:
“The administration’s reluctance to get involved in Syria is wholly understandable. Such an arbitrary humanitarian trigger for military involvement makes little sense. After all, to date more than 100,000 Syrians have been killed, mostly by bullets, artillery and missiles. Why should Washington change its policy just because the Assad regime altered its modality of killing? Is the murder of 1,000 innocents with sarin gas worse than that of 100,000 with conventional weapons?
The United States did not intervene in much worse situations in Africa, including Congo, where more than 5 million were killed between 1998 and 2008, and Rwanda, where the 1994 genocide claimed the lives of some 1 million Tutsis. The sad fact is that Washington cannot intervene in every slaughter of innocents. After a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans are fatigued.
…But what Obama and others in Washington fail to understand is that there is ample justification for intervention in Syria — if America’s strategic interests are factored into the equation.”
As of November 4, 2009, the Washington Institute’s Board of Advisors included (Wikipedia):[25]
•Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State
•Samuel W. Lewis, former United States Ambassador to Israel
•Edward Luttwak, Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
•Michael Mandelbaum, Director of the American Foreign Policy program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
•Robert McFarlane, former National Security Advisor
•Martin Peretz, former editor-in-chief of The New Republic
•Richard Perle, former Assistant Secretary of Defense
•James Roche, former Secretary of the Air Force
•George Shultz, former Secretary of State
•R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence
•Mortimer Zuckerman, Publisher of U.S. News & World Report
Ok, if we assume we should jump into Syria, that there are both moral and political reasons we should be there, the question is still with whom?
Since the players are so poorly defined in some areas, just exactly who is it we are supposed to arm? Further with what weapons, that could really make a difference and not be turned back on us or our allies in the future?
I understand the US has some moral obligation, the real question is how do we get it right. Right from the moral and political side, I know that’s not really phrased right but I don’t really know how other to ask it either. It really is my main concern and question and why I feel so very hesitate to jump into it.
I hope that the same questions are being asked by those who have the power to make the decisions…but my faith is weak.
What I’m hearing is we are going to send cruise missiles and I question how effective that will be and how much collateral damage will be caused by it. The cost benefit ratio is questionable.
No matter how well planned they are or how pinpoint, they blow crap up and cause suffering in large areas.
so killing more people is ALWAYS the answer… just look at the mess we left behind in Iraq…
Carl Overmyer
Posted August 25, 2013 at 10:23 PM
Oh, I totally agree Inge.
The US is good at killing people and breaking things, not so good at nation building or even picking the right side sometimes. Remember that Ho Chi Min came to us first for help and we refused because the French are our allies. (Like the French are anybody’s allies and would it really matter anyway? au contraire!)
I really don’t like the idea of arming anyone over there or throwing million dollar warheads around. I sure as hell don’t want my nephews going off to Syria either. One of which, almost ended up in the MFO Sinai, but was eliminated because of some strange twists of fate. Which I am very happy for now.
Call it my wacko libertarian views if you like but I have huge misgivings about this whole deal in Syria. I had the same feelings about both Iraq and Afghanistan as well, both of which still need to shake out.
Ricardo Toro
Posted August 25, 2013 at 10:52 PM
The mess and the killing in Iraq were a result of political decisions. If those decisions had not been taken, or massively opposed, that may not have happened. Was the war against Hitler’s Germany a necessary evil? Complex issues, that unfortunately carry the loss of human lives. It seems that the only modern conflict that avoided a major bloodbath was the democratic transition in South Africa, after the apartheid.
That is not a line-up of endorsers that inspires confidence.
Blowing up planes and munitions makes some sense, just to impose a cost on this sort of atrocity, but the blowback will probably be larger than the gain.
I don’t know (here I go again…) if the people listed are endorsers of the proposed US intervention in Syria. As of 2009 they were members of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Didn’t George Shultz pass away already?
“Internet rumor mongers, the editorial said, “mix right with wrong, turn the black and white upside down, fabricate news on purpose and damage the reputation of public figures.”
Did the LOC write this? No, it is an article in the LAT about Chinese bloggers:
“One of China’s most prolific and widely followed bloggers, Charles Xue, was arrested over the weekend on a prostitution charge in what was widely seen as part of a government crackdown on the Internet.”
“A 28-year-old microblogger, Zhou Lubao, who exposed a corruption scandal recently by analyzing luxury watches in photographs of officials, was also reported to have been formally arrested and charged with extortion over the weekend. He had disappeared earlier in the month.”
I was thinking about the BRAVVERY shown by Michelle Johnson, the accused BOHS teacher. How much gumption must it have taken to bang your CHILD victim in the same class room where others learned intigers? That takes some ball’s!
But, more to the point, she had the gumption to marcher her (now disgraced Esperanza bond daughter) into the gym after the later failed to make a team: “Do you know who I am” Yeah, as disgusting as it sounds she used those words. Worse yet, her “COURAGE” extended tote very coach who taght her daughter, who left BOHS quietly in a sex scandal of his own. He now coaches at Tesoro.
Certainly, the subject of this story was brave, but frankly, most teachers I have encountered have the courage, bravery and concern of your average supermarket clerk (no offense to Julio Perez, who never worked in a supermarket).
Ms. Tuff was not a teacher. She is the school’s bookkeeper.
I guess that Johnson and the coach are fair game, though I have no idea if what you allege is true, but are you taking a swipe at her daughter too? I can’t figure out what “Esperanza bond daughter” even means. I guess we’ll just wait and see if Vern gets a takedown notice.
That time I called upon people to look to something other than their own narrow self-interest and support a land…
Wait, Vern! I do remember that flyer now.
I don't remember that. Jesus H. that creep was useless. Always somebody's puppet.
That’s muy rico!!
Yeah, 'member this? This 2012 Brandman ad speaks for itself. Click for larger image.
I'm 100% in for Jessie Lopez. She's the real deal, a strong advocate for human rights and free speech who…
That time Joshy encouraged Irvine to violate the California constitution and ignore the electorate. What a pompous putz. https://irvinewatchdog.org/opinion/opinion-the-city-of-innovation-needs-to-take-a-moonshot-in-oak-park/
"Citizens for an Affordable California. I'm looking right at it. I never said Pulido was responsible for these mailers. BTW,…
Taj is pining for the Armenian American vote. lol! https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1387880783379929&id=100064740608946
The news of an alleged attack with chemical weapons, in Syria, is heartbreaking.
A footage that “could not be independently verified, the gut-wrenching images show a woman hugging a deceased child in silence, then briefly examining another. CBS notes the footage was obtained and distributed by the Syrian opposition”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/22/syrian-mother-hugs-dead-children-video_n_3798343.
The apparent use of chemical weapons is discussed in this radio program:
“We begin with the latest apparent use of chemical weapons in Syria that has both the French government and Senator John McCain calling for the use of force against the Assad regime. Raymond Zilinskas, a former U.N. chemical and biological weapons inspector in Iraq, who directs the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies joins us to discuss the evidence so far that might indicate Assad has crossed President Obama’s red line.
http://ianmasters.com/
This woman is truly a hero. She managed to defuse a bad situation and with out a gun! I believe it would benefit more of us to use our wits and not violence to get out of a bad situation.
For your edification, the term “irony” has further definition – the Voice of Russia reports:
US bans Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago at Guantanamo
“The reasons for ban of Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago are on the surface. For the same reasons this epic narration about life in the communist prison camps has been illegal in the Soviet Union, and, given the circumstances, if not explained otherwise by the Gitmo authorities, such ban may have a very symbolic and threatening meaning.”
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_08_23/US-bans-Solzhenitsyn-s-Gulag-at-Guantanamo-1359/
“If your success is defined as being well adjusted to injustice and well adapted to indifference then we don’t want successful leaders. We want great leaders – who love the people enough and respect the people enough to be unsought, unbound, unafraid and unintimidated to tell the truth.” —Dr Cornel West
I admire Dr. West but must admit I was surprised to hear his thoughts about President Obama. But then again Dr. West doesn’t mince words either. Read story here: http://www.seattleorganicrestaurants.com/vegan-whole-food/UN-eating-insects-world-hunger-US-poverty.php
anyone want to add their 2 cents?
Cornel West – The Liberace of Faux Intellectualism
*Have you ever noticed that nearly every public pronouncement that spews from the mouth of Cornel West is literally dripping with racial innuendo? His latest racist slander is that MSNBC is the ‘Rent a Negro’ network.
Cornel West spews more racist rhetoric than any Republican in America. The reason for that is he’s essentially an entertainer who specializes in shock and race-baiting as his one and only routine.
CORNEL WEST USES A FALSE “LOVE OF BLACK PEOPLE” TO SLANDER BLACK PEOPLE WHO OVERSHADOW HIM.
http://www.eurweb.com/2013/07/beneath-the-spin-a-portrait-of-cornel-west-the-liberace-of-faux-intellectualism/
Well, get a load of this. Kristen Chenowith picks someone from the audience to sing with her, as a stunt, and gets more than she bargained for when the person turns out to be a voice teacher.
Nice piece Greg!
The director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is making this argument for the USA to intervene in Syria:
“The administration’s reluctance to get involved in Syria is wholly understandable. Such an arbitrary humanitarian trigger for military involvement makes little sense. After all, to date more than 100,000 Syrians have been killed, mostly by bullets, artillery and missiles. Why should Washington change its policy just because the Assad regime altered its modality of killing? Is the murder of 1,000 innocents with sarin gas worse than that of 100,000 with conventional weapons?
The United States did not intervene in much worse situations in Africa, including Congo, where more than 5 million were killed between 1998 and 2008, and Rwanda, where the 1994 genocide claimed the lives of some 1 million Tutsis. The sad fact is that Washington cannot intervene in every slaughter of innocents. After a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans are fatigued.
…But what Obama and others in Washington fail to understand is that there is ample justification for intervention in Syria — if America’s strategic interests are factored into the equation.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/forget-red-line-engage-syria-article-1.1435524#ixzz2d0QHiDNn
As of November 4, 2009, the Washington Institute’s Board of Advisors included (Wikipedia):[25]
•Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State
•Samuel W. Lewis, former United States Ambassador to Israel
•Edward Luttwak, Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
•Michael Mandelbaum, Director of the American Foreign Policy program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
•Robert McFarlane, former National Security Advisor
•Martin Peretz, former editor-in-chief of The New Republic
•Richard Perle, former Assistant Secretary of Defense
•James Roche, former Secretary of the Air Force
•George Shultz, former Secretary of State
•R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence
•Mortimer Zuckerman, Publisher of U.S. News & World Report
Ok, if we assume we should jump into Syria, that there are both moral and political reasons we should be there, the question is still with whom?
Since the players are so poorly defined in some areas, just exactly who is it we are supposed to arm? Further with what weapons, that could really make a difference and not be turned back on us or our allies in the future?
I understand the US has some moral obligation, the real question is how do we get it right. Right from the moral and political side, I know that’s not really phrased right but I don’t really know how other to ask it either. It really is my main concern and question and why I feel so very hesitate to jump into it.
I hope that the same questions are being asked by those who have the power to make the decisions…but my faith is weak.
According to the LAT, the Obama administration is weighing the option of a military strike, which seems to have bipartisan support.
What I’m hearing is we are going to send cruise missiles and I question how effective that will be and how much collateral damage will be caused by it. The cost benefit ratio is questionable.
No matter how well planned they are or how pinpoint, they blow crap up and cause suffering in large areas.
so killing more people is ALWAYS the answer… just look at the mess we left behind in Iraq…
Oh, I totally agree Inge.
The US is good at killing people and breaking things, not so good at nation building or even picking the right side sometimes. Remember that Ho Chi Min came to us first for help and we refused because the French are our allies. (Like the French are anybody’s allies and would it really matter anyway? au contraire!)
I really don’t like the idea of arming anyone over there or throwing million dollar warheads around. I sure as hell don’t want my nephews going off to Syria either. One of which, almost ended up in the MFO Sinai, but was eliminated because of some strange twists of fate. Which I am very happy for now.
Call it my wacko libertarian views if you like but I have huge misgivings about this whole deal in Syria. I had the same feelings about both Iraq and Afghanistan as well, both of which still need to shake out.
The mess and the killing in Iraq were a result of political decisions. If those decisions had not been taken, or massively opposed, that may not have happened. Was the war against Hitler’s Germany a necessary evil? Complex issues, that unfortunately carry the loss of human lives. It seems that the only modern conflict that avoided a major bloodbath was the democratic transition in South Africa, after the apartheid.
That is not a line-up of endorsers that inspires confidence.
Blowing up planes and munitions makes some sense, just to impose a cost on this sort of atrocity, but the blowback will probably be larger than the gain.
I don’t know (here I go again…) if the people listed are endorsers of the proposed US intervention in Syria. As of 2009 they were members of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Didn’t George Shultz pass away already?
“Internet rumor mongers, the editorial said, “mix right with wrong, turn the black and white upside down, fabricate news on purpose and damage the reputation of public figures.”
Did the LOC write this? No, it is an article in the LAT about Chinese bloggers:
“One of China’s most prolific and widely followed bloggers, Charles Xue, was arrested over the weekend on a prostitution charge in what was widely seen as part of a government crackdown on the Internet.”
“A 28-year-old microblogger, Zhou Lubao, who exposed a corruption scandal recently by analyzing luxury watches in photographs of officials, was also reported to have been formally arrested and charged with extortion over the weekend. He had disappeared earlier in the month.”
Vern “guachaut!”. Do not move to China!
I was thinking about the BRAVVERY shown by Michelle Johnson, the accused BOHS teacher. How much gumption must it have taken to bang your CHILD victim in the same class room where others learned intigers? That takes some ball’s!
But, more to the point, she had the gumption to marcher her (now disgraced Esperanza bond daughter) into the gym after the later failed to make a team: “Do you know who I am” Yeah, as disgusting as it sounds she used those words. Worse yet, her “COURAGE” extended tote very coach who taght her daughter, who left BOHS quietly in a sex scandal of his own. He now coaches at Tesoro.
Certainly, the subject of this story was brave, but frankly, most teachers I have encountered have the courage, bravery and concern of your average supermarket clerk (no offense to Julio Perez, who never worked in a supermarket).
We need teachers to teach.
Ms. Tuff was not a teacher. She is the school’s bookkeeper.
I guess that Johnson and the coach are fair game, though I have no idea if what you allege is true, but are you taking a swipe at her daughter too? I can’t figure out what “Esperanza bond daughter” even means. I guess we’ll just wait and see if Vern gets a takedown notice.