Principal Who Accused 9 Year Old of Sexual Harrassment Fired by Own Zero Tolerance Rule

MSNBC - The principal who accused a 9-year-old North Carolina boy of sexual harassment for allegedly calling a teacher "cute" has been forced to retire. The story of Emanyea Lockett's suspension last week, first reported by WSOC-TV of Charlotte, N.C., created a national controversy. Tuesday, the Gaston County School District apologized to the family and said there was no sexual harassment. Jerry Bostic, principal of Brookside Elementary School in Gastonia, told WSOC on Tuesday night that he had retired because of the controversy. "One mistake in 44 years, and I'm not given the benefit of the doubt. I really don't believe I was treated fairly," Bostic told the station.

It's about damn time one of these idiotic, over zealous, PC, educators got a taste of their own medicine. About Damn Time.  Oh, "wahh, one mistake and I don't get any benefit of the doubt, wahhhh." Fuck off. It's your own zero tolerance policy that got you in this mess in the first place, see what a mess you've created?

Was this 9 year old kid calling his teacher "cute" (or "Fine" as some reports have suggested) given the benefit of the doubt? Or was he treated like a sex offender because that's what the zero tolerance policy told you to do. 

Simply put, if the punishment is good enough for your students, then its good enough for the educators who put it in place. 

A great day for America in my mind. 

I Just Don't Get Words with Friends. It Doesn't Appeal to Me At All. Scrabble for Life.

(CNN) -- What's so addictive about a Scrabble-like online game that it can get you kicked off an airplane? Non-gamers have been asking that question since actor Alec Baldwin was booted from an American Airlines flight Tuesday in Los Angeles for refusing to turn off his phone. His reason? The "30 Rock" star was in the middle of playing "Words with Friends." For the uninitiated, "Words with Friends" is a multiplayer word game that people play online, usually on their phones or via Facebook. Like Scrabble, players receive a random assortment of letters on tiles and must use them to form words on a crossword puzzle-like grid. Words with rare letters such as Q or Z are worth more points.

Little secret, I've never played Words With Friends. Just haven't done it, sure I have it DL'd on my phone and tablet, I'm not a tool or anything, I just haven't played it yet. It's weird too, because I'm the definition of an early adopter, by all accounts I should have been the first person on Words, just waiting for someone else to join so I could play. Shoot, just this week I went out and bought a new vacuum, solely because it had a headlight. I thought it was technologically advanced, for all those times where I vacuum in complete darkness. But Words with Friends? Just haven't done it.

I just don't get the hype, still don't after reading this article. Its basically Scrabble, right, just a different name? Don't get me wrong, I love a good game of Scrabble, and get ultra competitive about it, its just I've never found myself wishing that I'd brought my scrabble board with me so I could play with my friends on the shitter, in the subway, or in line at Target. Great game, not exactly beckoning me at all hours of the day. 

Plus, I've never been one for these games that last for days on end. Like those people who play chess and only move 1 piece every time they visit eachother. What the fuck is that, how's that fun? Just sit down and bang out a game fellas, its chess, takes like 20 minutes, I've seen black people in the park finish up in like 3 minutes. No need for the two year mini-series saga over a chess board. Same with Words With Friends (I take it we can't abbreviate this WWF?). No, I don't want to play a game where you place a word every 4 hours. I 'm either into the game or I'm not. I may be really amped for a game at like 10 AM one day, but if you don't respond until 6 PM, I'm probably not going to be interested in playing anymore, my attention span is short. 

PS: Can't you just cheat too? It's a smartphone, you can be looking up words all day. That doesn't seem right. Call me a purist, but I like Scrabble because it proves that I'm smarter than my opponent when it comes to the English language, what does Words with Friends prove? You know how to use an online dictionary better than them? No thanks. Scrabble for Life

Lynn, MA Police Arrest Lady for Feeding Birds at Local Pond

LYNN (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - An elderly Lynn woman dubbed "The Bird Lady" will be in court Wednesday for continuing to feed geese and ducks at a local pond. The Lynn Daily Item reports that police filed a criminal against 80-year-old Claire Butcher for trespassing. Lynn's health directors told the paper that she brings entire shopping carts full of bread at a time to Flax Pond.

Man, her career really fell off after Home Alone 2, Lost In New York, huh? From feeding the birds of Central Park, the most sought after crazy old bird feeder lady park in the world to feeding ducks at some crummy pond in Lynn...I dare say no star has ever plummeted so greatly. 

PS: Real nice Lynn. Like you don't have enough shit to worry about, you're arresting 80 year old ladies for feeding birds? In Lynn, MA. No house of illegal immigrants or drug dealers you could've been busting, had to send out the APB for Grandma Bird Feeder over here? For shame.

Saugus Librarian Steals $800k from Library Funds, Bookman On the Case

Boston - A former Saugus Public Library employee has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of stealing $800,000 from the library, money she allegedly used to pay bills, to fund work on her home, and to splurge on jewelry, flowers, and hotel stays. Linda E. Duffy, 65, a part-time administrative assistant who became a permanent employee at the library in 2004, was indicted on four counts of mail fraud, 10 counts of money laundering, and one count of aggravated identity theft, the US Attorney’s office said today. The indictment states that starting in 2004, and continuing until she resigned in July 2011, Duffy allegedly drained funds from a bank account at Eastern Bank that she had set up in the name of the Saugus Public Library.“We could have used the funds that were allegedly misappropriated. ... This is a real breach of the public’s trust,” he said. The charitable donations diverted to Duffy’s account included checks for about $143,535 from a family estate, prosecutors said. The GE Foundation, which matched donations to the library from current or former General Electric employees, was also bilked of a total of $450,000, according to the indictment.

Sick town, Saugus. When your librarian is bilking your town, and a Fortune 500 company, right under your nose for almost 8 years, you've got some serious problems...Probably start in the Accounting/Controller/Town Auditors office, because they clearly just ignored the library for quite some years. Then I'd look at this womans co-workers, I mean is this a common thing? Librarians living the life of luxury? I know they've got a mean business model making like a nickel a day on overdue books, and that would add up, if people read books from the library anymore. I'm guaranteeing I find more nickels on the street on a daily basis than the library makes in fees. I'm also guaranteeing that if my man Bookman up there was on the case, this would have been snuffed out at the start.

And none of this is to suggest that Linda Duffy isn't to blame, these are her actions and her actions alone it looks like. It's just, she's a librarian, not some Criminal Minds case study. She wasn't even all that clever, just moving funds from the Library's bank account to her's and then giving it out and buying shit. How was this not caught? That's all I want to know. You can just pay yourself from the city of Saugus' bank accounts and no one notices?

PS: What does a library need such exhorbitant donations for anyway? $450k from GE? Can we maybe donate this money to the school systems (which incidentally, have their own library's)?

Lindsay Lohan Playboy Cover Leaked...And I Hardly Cared

Fox News - Lindsay Lohan's Playboy cover was leaked online Wednesday, revealing a shot of the actress channeling a mix of Marilyn Monroe and Jessica Rabbit. The photograph shows Lohan with long blonde tresses cascading down her shoulders while her nude figure straddles a bright red Playboy logo -- strategically covering her sensitive areas. The cover shot, posted on The Insider website, was not set to be revealed until Lohan's interview on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" December 15.

Surest sign yet that its not 2005 anymore? Upon hearing the words "Lohan," "Playboy," and "leak," I didn't immediately go home from the office for lunch and check that shit out...I did later go home for lunch, and didn't even bother to search around for it. It wasn't until like 9:30 at night and I happened to stumble across a story about it on Fox News that I was like "oh yea, hey you should probably check that out." 

 
I don't know if my lack of enthusiasm says more about LiLo and just how far she's fallen off the male radar, or about me and my struggle to remember and enjoy the very same things I loved in college just a few short years ago...Though I'm guessing its just her. I mean, if she still had her fastball, I'd probably have been all over it, its just when you go to jail like 3x per month, its just bad for your image and health.

Elementary School Removes "Gay" From Deck the Halls

AOL - A Michigan music teacher's decision to censor the word "gay" from a traditional Christmas carol is being met with a frosty response. The teacher, who has not yet been named in any of the published reports, allegedly removed "gay" from "Deck The Halls" after 1st and 2nd grade students kept giggling during preparations for a Christmas concert at Cherry Knoll Elementary School in Traverse City. Instead of the traditional lyric, the students were taught to sing "don we now our bright apparel," according to UpNorthLive.com. The story caught the eye of famed sex columnist Dan Savage, who noted, "Someone had to straighten out that carol--can't have children donning gay apparel." 

And cue a whole class of 1st and 2nd graders now associating "Gay" with something to be censored and looked down upon. Fantastic job teachers. You guys keep doing the good work. Wouldn't want our students to A) Grow up in a tolerant and fostering environment, and B) Understand the actual definition of an English language word. 

Sad thing is, you know exactly what happened here. Some music teacher was having their students sing this song, some immature 2nd grader (I know, right? Grow up kid), probably giggled because he has an older sibling who he'd heard the word from before, and instead of explaining the actual meaning of the word in the context of the song, like your job as an educator requires, the teacher chose to just remove it all together. 

Well newsflash, that doesn't work. This is the real world. They're going to figure out that you changed the lyrics, they're going to know that it's because its a word they shouldn't be saying, and they're going to go right out to the playground and say "gay" at a record pace because its the cool thing to do because adults don't want them to.

So good job there, mission accomplished.

A Tribute to College: A Four Year Blur of Everything Good

College taught me a few things, but "alcohol consumption is fun" was the most vital lesson I ever learned

As my commander in chief so kindly pointed out (edit: bluntly stated) my life is about to undergo a significant transformation. In only a few short hours, gone will be the days of playing Xbox with friends until the wee hours of the night fueled by nothing more than competitive drive to kill more people in Call of Duty and unhealthy levels of caffeine. No longer will I able to skip a class that I deem not important enough to my daily routine, since doing this in the real world apparently results in more severe repercussions beyond not learning whatever useless shit a professor slapped onto a hastily created PowerPoint presentation.

I had a rather cozy view of life beyond college, that I would be able to maintain my recklessly irresponsible lifestyle while maintaining a job that didn't suck the very soul from my body on a daily basis, but as CW aptly points out, as well as the rest of the 20 somethings I know who are festering in a cubicle based, Microsoft Outlook powered prison, this is idealistic to the point of insanity. Very shortly, I will be forced to complete tasks I don't want to do for people I don't like at a speed that is too fast for me. This goes against everything I was taught over the past 4 years, which was that you can do your work in whatever fashion you deemed most acceptable and if you choose to give a fuck about it, good for you. Hell, cracking a beer (or 10) while doing schoolwork wasn't just possible, it was openly encouraged.

Despite the inevitable stranglehold corporate America will have over every facet of my well being, and a blog entry dedicated to how much my life will blow in just a few short weeks/months (time span depends on my ability/luck in finding a real job) I would rather reflect in a positive manner on the good times that college gave me, because as I was told by my elders years ago, these most certainly were the greatest years of my life. I was able to lovingly adopt intramural sports as my competitive outlet, with each game pretending I was playing in a significant sports arena. Flag football became my proverbial situation for pretending I was in the NFL, juking and spinning like Adrian Peterson, only if AP were a white undergrad clumsily attempting athletic manuevers on teams fratboys and former high school "has beens".

People told me the "flexibility" of class schedules in college left you the time to pursue extra curricular activities that would help you in real life. "Flexibility" translated in Sean's language, was "doing whatever the fuck I felt like doing on a given day" 8 A.M. class I actually woke up for and went to? I rewarded myself with a nap. All those school clubs and organizations out in the quad asking me to do useful things for the school? Nah, I'd rather play pick up ball at the gym or snipe the evil Covenant bastards trying to invade Earth in Halo. Mid term tomorrow? Perfect time for a dorm floor war with Axe Body spray, and yes, this most definitely resulted in both the floor smelling like a high school locker room as well as our RA getting monumentally pissed off at everyone involved.

But most importantly, I learned about the immense social bonding power of a substance we all affectionately know as "alcohol." There was no better way to make friends or have a great time than with any variety of beverages. I learned how to play Beirut (and yes, its called fucking beirut. Beer Pong is played with paddles, the movie Beerfest proves this definitively. Jersey kids don't get this fact, and my school is infected with too many of them.) Alcohol was the great X factor that is the hallmark of a college experience. As a result of it, I have my fair share of stories that result in immense triumph and terrible, humiliating shame and you know what? It was all worth it, every single drunken, procrastinating, time wasting, academic slacking second I spent in college. If the rest of my life is going to be a mundane drag through monotonous adult tasks, then I will take solace in the fact that I had 4 awesome years of subsidized "higher education" to have the time of my life. Thank you college, You might be gone from my life, but I will never forget you. Well, I do forget significant portions of most weekends due to the over consumption of an aforementioned substance, but you get the point.

Radio Station Ratings Double When they Switch to Christmas Music...People Are Simple

More and more radio channels have been switching their formats to all Christmas, all the time -- a consistent winner for radio even during a brutal 2008-2009 revenue downturn, which ended last year when the U.S. radio industry took in $20.1 billion, up 8 percent from the previous year. Arbitron says it's not unusual for ratings to double once a channel makes the temporary switch to Christmas music. KOST-FM in Los Angeles, for example, saw its share rise from 4.6 to 9.2 last year after it switched, and WLTW-FM in New York jumped from 6.0 to 12.3.

First off, let it be known that I'm not a fan of Christmas music, outside of the classic Alvin and the Chipmunks album. They're just so talented.  But the rest of it, I find irritating. Michael Buble? Come on people, the guy is an imitation artist. Josh Groban? Snooze fest. Mariah Carey Christmas? Still crazy. Justin Bieber? Biggest phony on earth, and hopefully soon people realize that.

With that said, you can imagine how I feel when I jump in the car and my standard presets have changed to Christmas music. I find nothing, NOTHING, more upsetting than when this happens. It's just the clearest sign we have that as a society, we're a really simple people. Just because of the month of the year, everyone's musical tastes change, from whatever you were into before, to just tacky lyrics, cheap melodies, and bells ringing. Its ridiculous. It's like cheating for the radio stations, pandering at its finest. I mean, if you want to win that way, fine, but I prefer you have some dignity and respect and not sell out. 

Take me for example, I'd rather toil away in relative obscurity, than make one simple change to the name of this blog and call it The X-Alt-Tab, or iAlt-Tab, and see the hits come rolling in. Just wouldn't feel right, I like to treat you like you're all a bit more intelligent than that. I don't need to be copying the extreme dorritos trend, or the business plan where you put "i" in front of something and it becomes wildly successful. It just wouldn't seem fair.Call me crazy, but I guess I just have more standards than that.

Seany Mo, Blogging Protege, Is About to Join the Real World...Sucks for You

Welcome to the real world Seany...The real, awful, not nearly as much fun as the life you're leaving world. 

Poor kid probably has no idea what he's getting himself into. Looking back I can't fathom why I would have left college, I saw Van Wilder, I saw how awesome his life was (I choose not to acknowledge the last 30 mins, preferring to believe he kept up his partying ways for the rest of his life), and I still made the mistake of assuming that chasing pay checks and health insurance would be more fun than sleeping late and beer funnels. HUGE mistake.  Literally every facet of life after graduating college is worse.

How You Measure Yourself - Grades vs. Raises. At least grades were based on your knowledge and amount of effort put in. If you believe raises and promotions are based solely on that you're A) Living in a fantasy land, and B) probably not going anywhere anytime soon. Its a rat race in the purest sense. It's not good enough to do good work, you have to point out that you did good work, and point out that others work, for lack of a better word, sucked. But you have to do it subtedly, less you become the office brown nose. 

Sleeping Habits - Basically breaks down to Sleeping a lot, versus not sleeping a lot. Guess which one is better? 

Clothing Attire - Sweat pants and hoodies, casual 98% of the time, vs. Shopping at Kohls or overpaying at Express for clothes  you wouldn't have even considered wearing 2 years ago. Look, dressing up and looking snazzy once in a while is fun. Wearing a corporate clone uniform day in and day out? Sucks balls. 

Living Conditions: Subsidized dorm/Apartment and deferred Tuition, vs. Rent, vs. Parents Basement. Again, guess which one wins? Rent and you'll be broke for at least 6 months while you figure out how to balance your budget like a big boy, live in you parents basement and, well, you're living in your parents basement...Probably commenting on message boards, and pirating copious amounts of porn. 

Video Game Situation - Playing Xbox (FIFA or COD) until 2 AM vs. Slowly phasing out Xbox all together. That's right, eventually you'll widdle yourself down to where I am, my Xbox has had the ring of death for 2 years now, don't even miss it anymore. It's sad, but I'm too busy doing things like buying gallons of milk, and balancing my checking account. Good god kill me now.

The Summer Situation - Kiss it goodbye. Summers working vs. Summers off is the definition of no contest. And having some crummy internship or summer job doesn't count, the difference between a summer job and a real job is literally the difference between training wheels and no training wheels. Once you take that job for real, things like showing up to work with a blinding hangover aren't laughed of because "he's just a college kid," anymore. You're instantly expected to transform your work/living habits to that of a 40 year old  who eats bran cereal for breakfast to keep himself regular. It's a lot of fun.

So good luck Seany, hope this little pep talk really got you excited about your changing life...