Wholy Moley!

Look close. Very close. Look closely into my wall. You are feeling sleepy. Veerrryyy sleeppppyyy. Now don't get dizzy and fall!

I found this partition in a bathroom on the University of Michigan's campus. The picture is not blurry. No, the picture is fine. The design of this wall was deliberately made to look blurry. 

Now why? I don't get it. Why would you want to install a material that might make you pass out in a hard tiled small room where odds are you would hit your head if you fell. Why, I ask, why?

More bad design in more than one way. You see it everywhere. When you skimp on paying for a designer, this is the kind of outcome you get. The scary thing is, I think they hired someone to do this....

McGruff Attacked!

This just in from the Associated Press:

A bus driver thought it would be funny to take a bite out of McGruff the crime dog by punching the mascot, but police said the children who witnessed the stunt where horrified.

Metro bus driver Shawn Brim, 38, climbed off a bus, adjusted the side view mirrors and then punched officer Tyrone Hardy, who was handing fliers to children on a Washington street while dressed as the crime dog, police said. After the punch, Brim got back on the bus and drove away, but was quickly pulled over on Saturday March 7th.

Hardy had a swollen right cheek, but seemed more concerned that the attack upset the kids, police said. 

###

Yes, and shouldn't we all be horrified. What on earth possessed the man to do this? 

Teacher injured by student

This is from the Ann Arbor News Police Beat section on Thursday September 18, 2008. 

"An Ypsilanti school teacher told police she wants to press charges against a 9-year old student who broke her hand on Wednesday September 17, 2008. 

Ypsilanti Police said the 52-year old Adams Elementary School teacher told them the boy had not been taking his medication and got into a fight in her classroom at 1 p.m. She said she and an assistant restrained the boy on the ground in an attempt to bring him under control, but he punched and kicked her. She later realized her hand was injured and she reported the incident after a doctor confirmed the fracture, she told police.

Ypsilanti schools spokeswoman Emma Jackson said this morning that the boy has been suspended from school."

It's no wonder we are loosing teachers. What is going on? What happened to parents accountability? This is insane.

Texas Teachers to Carry Guns

The state that executes more people than all other states combined, has decided that teachers should be armed at school. The city of Harrold, in north Texas, is along a heavily traveled highway that administrators feel will make it a target for gun violence. Hence teachers will have the ability to carry concealed weapons while on school property. 

Of all the school shootings how many have involved close proximity to a highway so that the perpetrator could make a quick get-a-way? Ahh. Zero. Yea, the previous shootings have been by students who have felt disenfranchised. There is not one instance where a shooting occurred for convenience. What a load of bunk.

Yet more fear mongering for a select few to have their way. Having people in the general public carrying firearms scares the bejesus out of me. The general public, as a whole, are not the smartest group of people. Look what happens with crazy people and road rage. Now add a gun. It would be a return to the wild west. Yet one more reason not to move to Texas. 

Don't send your kids to Oceanside California school system

This photo shows one kid bullying another kid. Now replace the bullier with an adult and you have the premise for the following:

On a Monday morning in May 2008 highway officials from California visited an Oceanside school to deliver a talk to the students. They reported that several of the students class mates had been killed in car accidents involving alcohol. The students where understandably upset; some became close to hysterical. 

What the students didn't know was that this was a tactic to "scare them straight". School officials had enlisted the help of the officers to play out this scenario for part of the day until the school was holding an assembly when they would be told it was not real. 

This plan backfired when students became so distraught that teachers spilled the beans and fessed up that it was all a lie. This triggered rumors throughout the school as some kids knew the truth and others didn't. Imagine the chaos and distrust this must has brought to the environment. 

School officials at the 3,100-student school defended the program. "They were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized," said guidance counselor Lori Taube. "That's how they get the message."

I'm glad I'm not a student, parent or teacher at this school. What were they thinking? Clearly they weren't. Didn't these "educators" remember the lessons from the boy who cried wolf? Let's hope we hear more about this and that there are some consequences for the actions of a few who made some very poor judgement calls.