A Rutherford County elementary student has to eat lunch at the "silent table" for the rest of the semester for waving around a slice of pizza some say resembled a gun.
School leaders say 10-year-old Nicholas Taylor threatened other students at his lunch table with a piece of pizza with bites out of it so it looked like a gun and when asked about it was initially dishonest.
Nicholas' mother LeAnn says that her son's punishment is "absolutely ridiculous" adding he was just playing around and never said anything derogatory or anything about shooting anyone. She said, "The kid across the table from him said it looked like a gun so he picked it up and started shooting it in the air."
Taylor said she learned of the incident when the school sent her a note saying her son was threatening other students.
James Evans, spokesperson for the school district, said the boy isn't being punished because he had a piece of pizza shaped like a gun. He's being punished because "some students reported he was making some threatening hand gestures, that he was shooting other kids at the table and they reported it to a teacher. The student didn't tell him the truth about it so he got silent lunch for six days."
Evans called the punishment minor but said the message is clear. He said, "I realize some might say we are going overboard but the principal is just trying to use an abundance of caution and send the message that we don't play about guns and it's not something we joke around about."
In response, Taylor said her son knows he shouldn't play with guns. She said, "We don't have a gun in the house. He plays with light sabers. He's a big Star Wars fan."
In addition to lunch at the silent table, Nicholas has spent time with the school resource officer learning about gun safety.
Taylor said the school system has made it clear that if her son eats his pizza into the shape of a gun again and there is a similar occurrence, he will be suspended.
#3
THAT response, to THAT comment, to THAT story. Irony meter needle done snapped clean off, yessuh...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/28/2011 11:40 Comments ||
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#4
YH9418, your ass, this quiet table, NOW!
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/28/2011 11:41 Comments ||
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#5
Spokeshole: "I realize some might say we are going overboard but the principal is just trying to use an abundance of caution and send the message that we don't play about guns and it's not something we joke around about."
#12
Pizza for lunch? We had spinach, turnip greens, smashed taters, fish sticks, salmon croquets, green beans, ground beef patties, spam, beets, squash, and other assorted un-edibles.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/28/2011 18:39 Comments ||
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#13
We also played cops and robbers, Army, cowboys and indians, and civil war at recess. How we have fallen to sissydom.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/28/2011 18:45 Comments ||
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#14
A statement on not playing with your food would have been sufficient. Of course, the school did not think of, never could think of, teaching good manners. Is the "quiet table" called the Gitmo Table?
Cheetah the chimpanzee, who acted in classic Tarzan movies in the early 1930s, died of kidney failure Saturday at Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor, a sanctuary spokeswoman said.
Cheetah was roughly 80 years old, loved fingerpainting and football and was soothed by nondenominational Christian music, said Debbie Cobb, the sanctuary's outreach director.
He was an outgoing chimp who was exposed to the public his whole life, Cobb said today.
"He wasn't a chimp that caused a lot of problems," she said.
Cheetah acted in the 1932-34 Tarzan movies, Cobb said. Movies filmed during that timeframe starred Johnny Weissmuller and include "Tarzan and His Mate" and "Tarzan the Ape Man," according to the Internet Movie Database.
Sometime around 1960, Cheetah came to the sanctuary from Weissmuller's estate in Ocala, Cobb said.
In the wild, the average chimp survives 25 to 35 years and at zoos chimps typically live 35 to 45 years, she said.
Cheetah, the most famous of the sanctuary's 15 chimpanzees, liked to see people laugh.
"He was very compassionate," Cobb said. "He could tell if I was having a good day or a bad day. He was always trying to get me to laugh if he thought I was having a bad day. He was very in tune to human feelings."
Ron Priest, a sanctuary volunteer for seven years, said Cheetah stood out because of his ability to stand up – shoulders tall, back straight – and walk like a person.
Cheetah also stood out for another reason, Priest said: "When he didn't like somebody or something that was going on, he would pick up some poop and throw it at them. He could get you at 30 feet with bars in between."
It doesn't appear Cheetah had any children, Cobb said.
Cheetah put a lot of thought into his art, though if he was tired he would give up easily and not play with it much.
He wasn't into watching animal shows on television, but he enjoyed watching all the color and movement when football appeared on screen. Cobb wasn't aware of whether Cheetah had any favorite teams.
"I couldn't ask him that," she said. "I'm not a chimp psychic."
#1
No comments? I can't count the times he saved Tarzan's life by timely chimp screaming. RIP to a favorite animal actor! Today I'll eat a banana in Cheetah's honor!
#2
If it were left up to me, Kimmie would only need two pallbearers.
Talk about all hat and no ranch, what's the deal on those HUGE uniform hats all the NORK generals wear?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
12/28/2011 11:35 Comments ||
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#3
More like he went out on a Lincoln Continental. They had lots of limos but no hearse, so they piled his coffin on the roof and heaped flowers around it to hide the bungee cords. People laughed so hard when he rode by that they looked like they were crying, but no tears.
[Emirates 24/7] A 1941 fruitcake has sold for $525 to an Arizona man in an Ohio company's online auction, and the money will go to the homeless in southwest Ohio.
Elite Estate Group sold the cake in an auction on its website. Company owner Larry Chaney says the man, who wanted to remain anonymous, probably bought the cake as an investment. Chaney says he doubts anyone would eat a 70-year-old fruitcake even though it was vacuum packed and contained rum that probably helped preserve it.
The cake was made in 1941 by The Kroger Co. It was returned unopened to a Kroger store in 1971. The manager took it home and kept it until recently when his son was helping him get rid of some things and gave the cake to Chaney.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/28/2011 00:00 ||
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#6
The History Channel's Life After People had this quip -
130 years after people, Fruitcake is still edible. Fruitcake owes its longevity to a mix of alcohol, flour and sugar that creates an anaerobic environment that prevents the growth of micro-organisms inside the fruitcake.
Of course there are many who would argue that even those fruitcakes among us now are not quite "edible".
#9
I have a Claxton fruitcake that's more than 20 years old. Never thought of it as part of my retirement portfolio until now...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/28/2011 14:27 Comments ||
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#10
Buy and hold
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/28/2011 14:30 Comments ||
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#11
M. Murcek, you should have eaten it! Claxton fruitcakes are good (they're mostly fruit, unlike some of the cheaper crap that's more dryish cake than fruit).
I always get a 3-pack every November/December at Sam's. And they're always gone before Christmas. Yum.
(And no, I wouldn't want to eat them all year 'round, any more than I'd want to eat Christmas cookies all year round. They're good, but very rich.)
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/28/2011 14:48 Comments ||
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#12
Barbara, they are good. I used to get 'em in the car when driving south for summer vacation. The 20 year old one migrated to the back of the pantry somehow.
You are also correct that it's a seasonal treat at best.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/28/2011 14:58 Comments ||
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#13
soaked in Lye it'll be as good foreever as it was the first day: Lutecake
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/28/2011 15:14 Comments ||
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(Rooters) - The architect of Vladimir Putin ...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile... 's tightly controlled political system became one its most senior victims on Tuesday when he was shunted out of the Kremlin in the wake of the biggest opposition protests of Putin's 12-year rule.
The sacrifice of Vladislav Surkov, branded the Kremlin's 'puppet master' by enemies and friends alike, is also a rare admission of failure for Russia's 'alpha dog' leader: Surkov's system was Putin's system.
With irony worthy of Surkov's cynical novels, the Kremlin's 47-year-old political criminal mastermind was shown grinning on state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
when told by President Dmitry Medvedev that he would oversee modernization as a deputy prime minister.
When asked why he was leaving the Kremlin, Surkov deliberately misquoted a slogan from the French Revolution, saying: "Stabilisation is eating up its children."
Almost in passing, Surkov told Interfax news agency he would not be running domestic politics after nearly 13 years doing exactly that from the corridors of the Kremlin.
Why? "I am too notorious for the brave new world."
His post will be taken by Putin's chief of staff and Surkov's arch enemy, Vyacheslav Volodin, a wealthy former lawyer who hails from Putin's ruling United Russia party. Anton Vaino, a 39-year-old former diplomat, becomes Putin's chief of staff.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/28/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Nothing is ever quite as it appears in Russia, and the Russians invariably pick the wrong person to assign blame.
The US Treasury again shied away from labeling China a currency manipulator on Tuesday, but it rapped the country for not moving quickly enough on exchange rate reforms.
The United States also chided Japan for stepping into the currency market to stem the yen's rise, and urged South Korea to use such interventions sparingly. Suck up to enemies, offend friends---what can go wrong?
The family of an Australian man imprisoned in Saudi Arabia appealed their father's sentence of 500 lashes for blasphemy saying it would kill him.
Mansor Almaribe, 45, a Shiite Muslim and father of five living in Victoria, was on a Hajj pilgrimage to Medina last month when he was arrested for blasphemy while praying.
Son Isaam Almaribe, 21, said the Australian government was helping but the family needs officials to "speed things up -- I just want dad home as soon as possible."
Isaam said his father was in poor health, suffering from diabetes and broken bones in his knees and back from a past car accident. He said, "He couldn't survive 50 lashes, let alone 500 lashes. Dad said 'Take me out of here as soon as possible because if I stay here I will die' -- that's how bad it is. To be lashed is barbaric and it's really terrifying. Humans shouldn't be treated that way."
The vote in France's lower house of parliament making it a crime to deny that the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 was genocide and penalizing those who deny it with a year in prison and a fine of up to 45,000 euros has brought France's relationship with Turkey to the end of the road. The law is due to be debated in the senate in the coming months.
Turkish attempts to stop this bill going to parliament were charged as "interference in France's internal affairs" by Valerie Boyer, the bills author.
If the bill is adopted, France will lose access to sectors of the Turkish economy such as transport and arms, which could cost French business around $40-50 billion.
#1
The events of Armenia, 1915-1918, are a historical fact. The Turks cannot deny them, and the French do not benefit by exclaiming upon them.
There are many, many atrocities in human history (I am endeavoring to avoid Godwin's Law here, bear with me). Humankind would benefit substantially by learning from these atrocities but never seems to. The Turks have been resolute in this regard, and the rest of the world, for political reasons, wish to ram this down Turkish throats.
Neither shall work.
History is there to teach us. It is neither a blind nor a cudgel.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/28/2011 13:21 Comments ||
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#2
"Turkey threatens to cut off all relations with France/NATO "
What's the downside?
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/28/2011 14:39 Comments ||
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#3
France could reciprocate by calling for an EU trade embargo on Turkey. It would be fun to see, as the Turkish economy crashes and burns, whether the Turks who voted Erdogan into power continue to support him.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A Rutherford County elementary student has to eat lunch at the "silent table" for the rest of the semester for waving around a slice of pizza some say resembled a gun.
The vote in France's lower house of parliament making it a crime to deny that the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 was genocide and penalizing those who deny it with a year in prison and a fine of up to 45,000 euros has brought France's relationship with Turkey to the end of the road. The law is due to be debated in the senate in the coming months.
