Teacher under fire for Holocaust joke

A St. Paul teacher is under fire after she made an offensive joke about the Holocaust.

According to Hazel Park Middle School Academy officials, the 8th grade English teacher sent an e-mail titled ‘Torture Time!’ via interoffice mail to alert other employees about a Holocaust simulation she was planning for her class next week.

In it, she wrote the Feb. 13 exercise was going to be a ‘day of sheer pleasure for the staff being themselves as Nazi Officers and becoming Adolfs.’

“She was trying to be sarcastic and amusing,” said the school’s principal Coleman McDonough.

It further explained the students would wear yellow stars, similar to those Jewish people were forced to wear by Nazi Germany during World War II.

The e-mail stated the reason for the simulation was to give ‘staff need[ed] stress relief and entertainment.’

Full KSTP TV Article

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Bag of Randomness

  • After the drive from work yesterday I came home, worked out, and then talked to four different people for over a half hour each.  I’m telling you all this because I didn’t have much time to blog and watch Lost, so this is all you get today.
  • Speaking of Lost, everytime the there is a time change I think of today’s random TV them show intro.  As a kid, I loved that show.
  • I got to wear a Super Bowl ring once.  I was helping with a Ray Botlz concert in Abilene and one of his management people use to be on staff with the Steelers.  Yup, the Cowboys lost to the Steelers in that Super Bowl, and as much as it pained me to put it on, I figured the chances of me having an opportunity to do such a thing again were pritty slim so I swallowed up my pride.
  • I’m working on a project that deals with additional user authentication, you know, the one where you see an image of blurry and curvy words that you have to type in.  It turns out that image is called CAPTCHA, and it stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.  More on it here if you are interested.
  • Remember the cyanide-tainted Extra-Strength Tylenol scare of the 80’s?  The saga continues.
  • I actually remember that story being told in one of my finance classes.  You may recall there was a second Tylenol scare that turned out to be bogus.  The false rumor was started by an investor that bought a plethora of put options in Tylenol.  A put option gave that investor the right to sell that stock at a specific price within a specific time, so the put became valuable when the Tylenol stock depreciated relative to that specified price.  That investor was busted after he told that story to girl he just met, who happened to be a secretary at the SEC.
  • My gosh, I just can’t avoid dying dog articles this week.  First it was a sports columnist writing about losing his dog only after six years, then yesterday I was reading Ed Bark’s blog that covers our local news stations and he had this post about a WFAA story that dealt with the pound.  It turns out a lot of people have dropped their pets off at the pound because they can no longer afford to keep them during these troubling time, and because of the over-population of pets the pound are putting down a lot more animals than they are use to.  I held it together pretty well until it got to the part in which the person the reporter was interviewing mention how he was about to put a dog down, but before he did so the dog held out it’s paw to shake his hand.  Man, when I read that part I got that deep sickening feeling in my gut and kinda teared up.  Yes, I’m a softy.
  • If I find one more dying dog article this week I’m going to have to have WifeGeeding grind up plenty of Zoloft and sneak it in my food.  Perhaps she can put it in my burger that’s in a spring loaded hamburger grasper.
  • But on a brighter note, here’s a cute clip of a dog riding a bike if that makes you feel any better, or a cat eating like a human.  But then again, there’s this dog with the longest tongue I’ve ever seen.
  • SisterGeeding’s apartment flooded yesterday.
  • Koala in a bucket.  Link
  • The Tampa Tribune became the latest newspaper to deliver copies of the New Testament to subscribers as a part of national effort by the International Bible Society, distributing 56,500 copies in its Saturday edition before Super Bowl XLIII.  Full Article
  • Remember that sad story I posted last week of that old man that froze to death?  Turns out he left his entire estate to the hospital, and it’s worth over half a million.  Article
  • Indian man jailed for taking 50 cents 24 years ago.  Article
  • 50 Cent, a rapper for you folks out of touch with the rap scene, is about to launch a male grooming business.  Article
  • When I saw this eBay listing, I thought of my friend Brent that’s a big Seinfeld fan.
  • A weird/funny/cute video that involves deer hunting, a ukulele, and children.  Dear Deer
  • Disney decides to market on egg shells.  Link
  • Toddler hockey fight.  Link
  • David Hasselhoff is in a music video with KiTT named Don’t Hassel the Hoff.
  • This is kind of cool.  Students in Hawaii throw a bottle in the ocean and track it online via GPS.  YouTube.  You can track the bottle here.
  • Speaking of GPS, here’s a GPS panic watch.
  • SBC entities face cutbacks.  Link
  • Another church talking a lot about sex.  Link
  • GodTube has changed.  Link
  • An expensive camera sliced in half.
  • Grace
Posted in Personal | 2 Comments

Christian T-Shirts

As a teenager, I wanted everyone to know about my faith in Christ, so I would often wear a Christian t-shirt.

But I think I would draw a line wearing these t-shirts.

I admire the intent and passion, but those shirts going to make people an easy target to be mocked.

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Texas swimmer without arms thrives on challenges in and out of pool

Born without arms, Domingo Santoyo lives life on his terms.

The determined Rivera High School junior doesn’t shy away from challenges. Instead, he readily accepts them.

“From my point of view, I don’t think of myself as limited,” Santoyo, 16, said. “I was born like this, and sometimes, I think it was better this way because there are some people who lose their arms in accidents, and I think that makes it harder.”

Already a national-level competitor in chess as a middle-school student, Santoyo decided it was time to learn to swim last summer, and that endeavor led him to join the Rivera swimming team.

“Domingo always wants to do the most he can,” said Astrid Santoyo, Domingo’s mother. “He wanted to get into sports because he needed credits for PE (physical education) at school, and he didn’t want to take adaptive PE. He was thinking about trying out as a kicker for the football team, but he had knee surgery and a dislocated hip when he was younger, and I wasn’t convinced about that idea.

“He tried swimming and found out that he really liked it,” she added. “Since the first day, he’s been all excited about being in the pool. I’m happy because he doesn’t give up. He doesn’t mind if he’s the last one, although he’s very competitive. I think the coaches would say that he’s improved a lot.”

Read the full Brownsville Herald article here.

Posted in Interesting, Touching | 1 Comment