Fish for Friday

The Chapel Hill Chancellor

Holden Thorp arrived at UNC five years ago, heralded on all sides as the ideal man to take the university to new levels. After three years of struggling with athletic violations of epidemic proportions, he leaves to become chancellor of a school one-third the size of UNC, and that rather conspicuously competes at a level where the school runs the athletics, not the other way around. "[Outgoing UNC Chancellor] Thorp proposes changes in athletic leadership at big time sports universities."

The Exxon Man

If all the humans are going to die from pollution and global warming anyway, why save the planet? It isn't like polar bears and whales are going to be buying gas from Exxon Mobil, so why should the company give a damn? At least their CEO is straightforward about it, and the shareholders aren't losing any of their precious dividend payout by wasting money on spin doctors: "Exxon CEO: ‘What Good Is It To Save The Planet If Humanity Suffers?’"

I find this a little hard to look at...but then I don't like heights:

The girl on a very high ledge

This cheered my heart, but then I'm a dog lover:

The man with a very big dog on his back

The searchers down from the falls

Could this be a test case for the usefulness of prayer? Man visits Yosemite with church group. Swims in river. Gets swept over 594-foot high waterfall. "Yosemite National Park rangers were searching for a 19-year-old California man who disappeared over a waterfall while swimming in a river."
    With a church group to hand, we assume there was much praying involved on his way down, and by others since. Will be curious if the man is found to have survived and it is claimed to be an example of the power of prayer. Don't worry about swimming immediately upstream from a waterfall; just pray and it will be fine?

The South Carolina woman

Prayer not having a warranty is one thing, but this is quite another: "SC woman prayed with family before killing them."

The New Jersey woman

This is what happens when women don't have Oprah to turn to for fashion advice: "Lawsuit: Prostitutes beat NJ woman in Miami hotel." Trade in the sensible pumps for stilettos, swap the nice beige sweater-and-skirt combo for an animal-print top and black leather mini, and see what happens....

The Florida high school student

For the gristmill [from Cop Block on Facebook]: On May 1, Kiera Wilmot, a Florida high school student, was arrested for mixing toilet bowl cleaner with tin foil, causing a small, harmless explosion. Though she had a spotless school record, she was expelled and charged with a felony as an adult—a harsh penalty widely ascribed to institutional racism (Wilmot is black). On May 16, thanks to Wilmot's bravery, a crowd-funded project by former NASA engineer Homer Hickam, and the ACLU, the charges against Wilmot were dropped and Wilmot and her twin sister were awarded a full bursary to the Advanced Space Academy program at the U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala.
    Now, Wilmot has written a must-read editorial for the ACLU on her experience with zero-tolerance, detailing the awful treatment she received and the thoughtless way in which the gears of a discipline-obsessed educational system grind up its own students: "An Unexpected Reaction: Why a Science Experiment Gone Bad Doesn't Make Me a Criminal."

Limerick of the Week:

It's hard to find a thing if you can't recall just whereabouts
you lost it, and harder if you can't remember whenabouts
    you found that it was gone;
    but then you might be drawn
perchance to the very spot and find it when it's nearabouts.

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Copyright © 2013 by Morris Dean

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