Who knew summer camp was held at the OK Corral?

Irate camp counselor fires gun near school bus, police say.

This is what happens when you hire your relatives and friends without doing a thorough background check. Or when you hire based on what church someone attends.

Wake up, people! There are plenty of resources out there to help you make an informed decision. Nepotism and favoritism are no way to run a business OR a volunteer organization.
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Our sister blog covered the original headline problem.

Pray for solution to invasive species?

At Invasive Species Blog:

There's an interesting little piece in today's Christian Science Monitor about an invasive species control method that I must admit I have never considered: prayer. The author of the article notes that global efforts to manage invasive species are stalled by politics and by social issues, and goes on to suggest praying as something that can be done right now and that could inspire folks to come up with potential solutions and lead to greater cooperation.

Hey, why not? What with local nurseries selling invasive Ligustrum (privet), there's a lot of material to pray about.

Dear Lord,

I never thought I'd ask you
To strike the shrubbery dead
And brown the foreign fescue
Which fills my heart with dread.

While you're on this killing spree
Please smite the nasty tallow tree.
If you're inclined to really hustle,
Zap to death the zebra mussel.

Formosan termites need a blast,
As does that thug called Johnson grass.
Fire ants, kudzu, Ligustrum vulgare,
A list too long for this brief prayer.

Take no prisoners, leave no seed,
Thanks for helping in my hour of need.
Amen.

Oriana Fallaci, 1929-2006

Who was she? Via Wikipedia:

A former partisan during World War II, she had a long and successful journalistic career.

She has interviewed many internationally known leaders and celebrities such as the Dalai Lama, Henry Kissinger, the Shah of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, Willy Brandt, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Walter Cronkite, Omar Khadafi, Federico Fellini, Sammy Davis Jr, Nguyen Cao Ky, Yasir Arafat, Indira Gandhi, Alexandros Panagoulis, Archbishop Makarios III, Golda Meir, Nguyen Van Thieu, Haile Selassie and Sean Connery.

After retirement, she returned to the spotlight after writing a series of articles and books critical of Islam and Arabs that aroused substantial support, controversy and accusations of racism and Islamophobia.

Probably 10 percent of my readers have heard of her. And here I am trying to entice y'all to purchase one of her books via Amazon.

Michelle Malkin has an article:

She refused to candycoat her criticisms of Islam. She refused to submit to jihadi thugs. Her books, her life, her rage and her reason serve as fiery inspirations in an era of flinching dhimmitude.*

Buy her books if you haven’t yet to see why the jihadists wanted her put in jail for “insulting Islam:”

More.
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*dhimmitude: see here.

Bogalusa schools

The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has taken an interest in the Bogalusa schools - because they've got problems. Low test scores, discipline, etc. Surely some enterprising parent or teacher will bemoan the supposed lack of G*d in the schools, too [sigh].

I missed the meeting and sure hope The Daily News puts the results online.

Some comments on the above-linked meeting article [excerpt]:

District 1 BESE Board member Penny Dastugue called today's public meeting - with staff members of the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) and not members of the BESE board - an "analysis and summation of data" because "it is hard for public citizens to go through data on-line."

I'll say it's hard. The latest numbers don't exist.

This is the PDF file of the 2005-2006 accountability results at the state ed. site. On page 43, blanks for Bogalusa because "Data are shaded for districts that had all schools identified as severe impact and chose to start over as new schools in accountability in 2006-07." However, I don't recall that the schools were all that great before Katrina - assuming that's the "impact" mentioned.

Here's my previous post with an overview of the spring 2006 GEE scores at Bogalusa High, specifically its comparison to Franklinton's schools.

ACLU, SLU, Tangi Parish reach settlement

From the Louisiana ACLU website:

­The ACLU of Louisiana announces a favorable settlement in the case of student teacher Cynthia Thompson versus Southeastern Louisiana University and the Tangipahoa Parish School Board. SLU will remove the failing grade on the student teaching course from her transcript and allow her the opportunity to enroll in the future to complete the requirements for graduation. Furthermore, an investigation of teacher Pamela Sullivan by the school board verified the allegations of officially sponsored prayer in the classroom and Bible study before class, which led to the cessation of such practices.[...]Thompson, who had made the President’s List and the Dean’s List and accumulated all of the hours to graduate, was never determined to be a marginal student. Yet two weeks before completion of the student teaching assignment, she was pulled out of the classroom, after teaching all day, and given an untenable ultimatum to withdraw or take an “F.”

Deliberately failing an honors student because of her refusal to preach in the public schools amounts to religious fascism, in my opinion.

Too bad they settled. They should have been sued into penury.

Tangipahoa Parish in trouble again

It's a lesson that ought to be read about and absorbed by all Washington Parish educators.

The Tangipahoa Parish School Board has been held in civil contempt of court by a federal judge for violating an August 2004 agreement over school prayer.

The order, issued this week by U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan, does not specifically name any school official as being in contempt, but orders the school board to pay attorneys fees to the plaintiffs who filed the motions.

The American Civil Liberties Union is representing a parent and two children who complained about prayers in Tangipahoa Parish public schools. They are unnamed in court documents.

The ACLU and the school board have tangled for three years over the proper role of religiously worded invocations at school events and then overseeing them through the consent order that attempted to settle the question.

Berrigan rejected the idea that student-initiated prayers or prayers said at off-campus events would comply with the prayer agreement. At issue were two school banquets in 2005 in which students offered prayers.

ACLU officials said the decision upheld religious neutrality in the schools. School officials said they disagreed with the ruling,but would abide by the order until they could consult with their attorney. Link

This is dumb, dumb, dumb. Public school personnel continue to defy court orders and the law, and will jeopardize the school district because they cannot shut the f*ck up.

It doesn't sound very Christian to me.

Previous:
Graduation? or church service?

Graduation? Or church service?

Make up your mind.

Grade-school graduation ceremony, with nearly all the music religious. The commencement speaker a minister, and his speech resembling a sermon more than anything. Prayers led by the principal. The superintendent of the city schools was there, too, and didn't say a word against it.

Everybody knows this stuff is against the law. Everybody.

Thanks a bunch, Bogalusa School Board. We can probably look forward to a big fat lawsuit which will bankrupt the city or the schools.

You are putting your personal beliefs above my children's education. If you're gonna break the law like this, what other laws have you broken?

Wow, Baptists.

I daresay anyone who lives in and around Bogalusa remembers the Baptist Emergency Kitchen set up on Avenue F following Hurricane Katrina.

I didn't know they were doing all this:

Area residents gathered at Larkin Avenue Baptist Church on Friday and Saturday to receive disaster-relief training from Southern Baptist Convention and Illinois Baptist State Association representatives.

The groups provide food, child care and cleanup and recovery services in the wake of catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina and the pair of tornadoes that struck Springfield in March.[...]
Thurman Stewart, an association coordinator from downstate Woodson, near Jacksonville, was among the relief veterans who had made the trip to Elgin for what he said was the first such training event held in the city. He and other volunteers spent weeks assisting with recovery efforts in Bogalusa, La., a town of roughly 13,000 north of New Orleans.

"Huge trees were everywhere," Stewart recalled. "We cleared over 1,200 yards."

I recommend reading the whole thing.

And thanks again, Illinois Baptist volunteers.