GOVERNMENT SCHOOL --- SOLDIERS NOT WELCOME

Ulrica Corbett

Our cast of characters is as follows:

• Matthew Lund, first year teacher
• Ulrica Corbett, Principal.
• Zach Richardson, Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps.

So .. here's the story, gleaned from the front page of the May 26th edition of Greensboro Herald-Journal.

Matthew Lund and Zach Richardson were college roommates.  After college Richard joined the Marines and Lund started teaching.  Richardson went to Iraq, Lund to Carson Middle School, there to teach a 6th grade language arts class.

As a class assignment Lund gave his students the opportunity to write a letter to Sgt. Richardson in Iraq.  Richardson wrote back and gave the class the names of five other Marines who would like to receive letters.   Soon other middle school classes were also sending letters to the Marines in Iraq.

Matthew Lund

When Sgt. Richardson returned to the United States he told Matthew Lund that he wanted to come to the Carson Middle School to personally thank the students for their support and letters.  Lund filled out and submitted a "Resource Visitor or Guest Speaker Form" and submitted it to Principal Corbett.  Lund says he never got the form back from Corbett.  He says he asked the Principal about the form, and was told that she was not going to look at it.

Lund says that he realized his request to have Sgt. Richardson visit the school was going to be ignored by Ulrica Corbett.  He made the decision to proceed with the plans for the visit, a visit that took place, or was to take place on May 23rd, one week before Memorial Day. 

When Sgt. Richardson showed up at the Carson Middle School Lund took him to the school's media center to prepare to meet the students.  At that point, according to Lund, Principal Corbett called him into the hall and told him that the Marine was not approved to be at the school.  Lund told Corbett that the proper form had been submitted and had been ignored.  Corbett's response was "that's your problem, not mine."  Lund's version of the discussion with Corbett in the hallway suggests that Corbett harbored a great deal of hostility toward Sgt. Richardson and Matthew Lund.  She told Lund that the students had not earned the visit from the Marine, and closed the discussion with Lund with the phrase "what part of what we just discussed do you not understand?"  She then ordered Matthew Lund to escort Sgt. Richardson off the school campus. 

When this story hit the local newspaper Ulrica Corbett thought it best to do a little CYA work.  She submitted a written statement to the Herald-Journal in which she stated "My decision not to allow Zach Richardson to speak with the students on Monday came out of my regard for the safety and welfare of our children."  What a crock.  Is Ulrica Corbett saying that this U.S. Marine who had just spent a year putting his life on the line for his country presented some sort of a threat to the children at the Carson Middle School?

My guess?  What we have here is some self-important middle school principal who harbors a dislike, if not an outright hatred, of the American armed forces, and who is steadfastly opposed to our actions in Iraq and quite possibly in Afghanistan.  This principal then decided to let her petty prejudices stand in the way of what would have been a memorable and rewarding experience for both Sgt. Richardson and the children of Matthew Lund's 6th grade class.  Now that's just a guess. I've received messages that Ulrica Corbett has family members in the military and serving in Iraq.  You would have thought that information might have been set forth in her written statement to the newspaper.  It wasn't

Corbett is saying that the teacher didn't follow protocol.  The newspaper has signed and dated copies of the documentation submitted by Lund.  Someone here isn't telling the truth.  One thing for sure:  Protocol be dammed, Ulrica Corbett could have found a way to allow this soldier to talk to the students who had befriended him.  She didn't  

This morning the story is getting increased attention.  Calls have been coming into the Greene County Schools from across the nation.   Superintendent John Jackson has offered a written apology, saying that the situation could have been handled differently.  The official story still seems to be that Lund didn't follow the necessary steps to get permission for Richardson's visit.  I would like to know a little more about Lund's assertion that Corbett told him that she was simply "not going to look at" the written request, and that this was "(his) problem, not mine."  Right now it sounds more like the problem was with Corbett, not Lund.  I guess it should be expected that the superintendent would protect an established principal in a controversy with a first year teacher on the way out the door.

Thanks to the Herald-Journal the people of Greene County know just what type of person they have in charge of the education of their children at the Carson Middle School.

Government schools.  Gotta love 'em.

DEEP THROAT IRONY

An interesting sidebar to the Mark Felt saga that hasn't received as much coverage as the revelation that Felt was Deep Throat.  After Felt retired from the FBI in a huff because he was passed over as a potential successor to J. Edgar Hoover, he himself was indicted for his own break-ins.

While at the FBI, Felt had authorized warrantless break-ins and searches of people associated with a radical group called the Weather Underground.  This was a group of communists that advocated the overthrow of the US government and its capitalist system.  At any rate, at Mark Felt's trial, Richard Nixon testified on his behalf.  That's right....unbelievably, the former president was unknowingly assisting the man who was most responsible for the destruction of his presidency. 

Further adding to the irony, once Felt was pardoned by Ronald Reagan in 1981, he received a congratulatory bottle of champagne from Richard Nixon along with a note that said "justice ultimately prevails."  Nixon went to his grave not knowing who Deep Throat was.

Reports say the bidding has started at $1 million on a book by Mark Felt about his Deep Throat years.  It remains to be seen whether his advanced age and faulty memory will allow him to deliver the goods. 

Either way, the family is hoping to cash in.  It's always about the money, isn't it?

Review the Watergate story at this nice online archive at the Washington Post.

CNN AT 25

Happy 25th birthday CNN....you made it.  After all these years of being the groundbreaking, dominant news-gathering outlet, you're still on the air.  That's more than a lot of channels can say.  You're getting your head handed to you in the ratings on a daily basis by Fox News, but hey...you still have Larry King, right? 

Me?  I'm a loyal CNN watcher .... in the morning.  There is nobody on television news, network or cable, who has the enthusiasm and personality of Carol Costello.  The combination of Carol Costello and Chad Myers is unbeatable.  You should swap her time with that Soledad person.  In the afternoons you actually have an anchor, Miles O'Brien, who knows something about general aviation.  Anderson Cooper?  Damned good, but you need to put some weight on that lad before you send him into Florida to cover this year's hurricanes.  That's something that the other's cannot match. 

On the dark side ... there's that Aaron Brown character. 

Anyway, there was a little get-together yesterday of hundreds of journalists from around the world to commemorate CNN's silver anniversary.  In attendance, as would be appropriate, was the founder of the network, none other than Ted Turner himself.  Some of his remarks were quite interesting.

He talked about what he would do if he were still in charge.  He said he would like more international coverage and more environmental coverage.  Yeah...that'll take CNN back to the top, Ted...not.  Every day people who are watching Fox News mutter to themselves that they would be watching CNN if they could just get a little more news about what's going on in Austria and the latest on global warming.  You folks at CNN center can breathe a sigh of relief on that one.

This big surprise from Turner yesterday was praise of Eason Jordan for his ability to curry favor with Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad and get them special access there to be able to broadcast during the first Gulf War.  Jordan has since acknowledged that he looked the other way on Saddam's atrocities in order to maintain that access.   Certainly nothing to be proud of.  Nor was Eason Jordan getting fired for accusing U.S. troops of targeting journalists a bright CNN moment.

But Ted's onto bigger and better things...like spending his billions on the United Nations. Such a worthy cause, isn't it?

REDNECK SCRAP BOOK

You know, now they've got a Barbie doll to suit every taste. Did you miss any scrap book pictures? Catch them all here.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

Neal's favorite pole dancer! Do you like blondes?

Newest computer virus.  Pay up, or we'll cap your 'puter.

Not everyone is painting Mark Felt as a hero....former Nixon White House aide Pat Buchanan calls him a traitor, and says he's about as heroic as Linda Tripp was. Ouch.  Buchanan also calls Felt's actions criminal.

Ben Stein has an interesting take on Mark Felt and other enemies of Richard Nixon.  He says by bringing down Nixon, they also lost the Vietnam war and handed over Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge.   A bit of a stretch?  Perhaps, but good reading nonetheless.

Bill Clinton is still in denial...he calls the impeachment charges against him "false."  So he admitted to lying under oath, but when he's charged with that by the House of Representatives, it's not true.  Whatever.

Well isn't this special.  We finally get Libya to give up his plans for weapons of mass destruction, and here comes France offering Khadafi nuclear power.  Why do we even bother?

All these "no" votes against the EU Constitution have a silver lining: the Euro is dropping like a rock, which  means the U.S. dollar is on the rise.

The mainstream media is reliving their Watergate glory days, calling Mark Felt a hero, and nobody's really questioning his motivations.  The Media Research Center reports.

Robert Novak also thinks Mark Felt's motivations might not have been so noble, but in the end, he says it will be for history to judge.

Affirmative action and political correctness are slowly destroying the integrity of police forces.  Walter Williams says there's no greater example of this than a number of cases involving the L.A.P.D.  He also talks about the female officer that was overpowered by Brian Nichols at the Atlanta courthouse.

Newsweek is at it again. Fresh on the heels of their America-bashing story about a Koran being flushed down the toilet, now they're bad-mouthing us abroad, in some of their foreign editions.  Larry Elder reports.

Is a B.S. college degree really just that...B.S.?  Professor Mike Adams used to not think so, but recent events  have caused him to rethink his position.

Morning Sickness:  Gordon backpedals on comments he made about Danica Patrick having an advantage because she only weighs 100 pounds.

THE COMMENCEMENT SPEECH YOU'LL NEVER HEAR

Do you have a child, grandchild, niece, nephew, neighbor graduating from high school this year? Share with them the commencement speech they'll never hear from the High Priest of the Church of the Painful Truth. Listen | Full Text

WHAT THE HECK ARE THOSE POINTY HAND THINGS?

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