It Came From Airport Security

The anthology is now available! You can read the press release here or purchase the book here!

We all enjoyed the editing, and our thanks to all of the writers who contributed! Glen designed the cover and set the final copy, and we are delighted with the outcome of this little book.

My First Riot Gear

I first heard about the bulletproof backpacks on CNN. Then I found that it was apparently true when this story from the Boston Herald popped up in response to my search for more information:

Dads Mike Pelonzi, 43, and Joe Curran, 42, dreamed up the bullet-proof backpack, which also blunts knife attacks, to protect their own children after witnessing the Columbine massacre in 1999.

“It was after seeing what happened in Columbine that we started thinking about this. I’m a parent and so is Joe and we wanted a way of keeping kids safe at school and this is what we came up with,” said Pelonzi, co-owner of MJ Safety Solutions which produces ‘My Child’s Pack’.

The backpacks, which will cost $175, have a super-lightweight bullet-proof plate sewn into the back which weighs no more than a bottle of water. Pelonzi said the material used is a secret.

The plate material meets National Institute of Justice safety standards, said Pelonzi, and during a three-year testing phase, stood up to bullets as well as machete, hatchet and Ka-bar knife attacks. (Dads push bulletproof backpacks in schools, Mike Underwood, August 9, 2007, Boston Herald)

Boston school officials still have to decide whether or not their students can use the bag, since the dress code prohibits a student from wearing "anything which is threatening or offensive.”

I am firmly convinced that there is a better response to school violence, and we should be thinking of how we can make our schools more nurturing places. Anybody who is not with me on this might be interested in My First Riot Gear.

Anybody not yet insulted?

Here is Ann Coulter in her persona as Legal Affairs Correspondent for Human Events talking about the YouTube Democratic debate:

CNN commentators keep telling us how young and hip the audience was for last week's YouTube Democratic debate, apparently unaware that the camera occasionally panned across the audience, which was the same oddball collection of teachers' union shills and welfare recipients you see at all Democratic gatherings.

Noticeably, Gov. Bill Richardson got the first "woo" of the debate -- the mating call of rotund liberal women -- for demanding a federal mandate that would guarantee public schoolteachers a minimum salary of $40,000...

So what is with the putdown for school teachers? I saw a position announcement the other day coming to a teacher education department that was seeking a person trained as a public school teacher to work as a nanny for 3 kids in Washington, D.C. The offered salary was $50,000.00, and there was a retirement account and health insurance as well as room and board, with two days off a week and holidays. Wait till teacher's union shrills hear about that!

And I know a few rotund liberal women who could squash Ann Coulter like the biting bug she is. Even liberals get mad once in a while.