Luke Angelo, Cyberbrat

CORAM QUEM QUAERITIS ADSUM, LUCIANUS ANGELUS* AND A HEARTY WELCOME BACK, LUKE: Sure. I haven�t been around here in two weeks. And it�s not that I didn�t want to, either. One email suggested that I might have been pissed off because Ian actually said something positive about one of my recent articles, but that was not the case. Ian�s pretty cool most of the time; he can say something nice as long as he doesn�t make a habit of it. That might take the fun away from being a token free thinker on a mostly liberal, political website.

Fact was I had a stomach virus from hell. Pop and I both came down with it almost at the same time. A solid week of constant, every thirty minute donatives to the great Goddess, Cloaca Maxima, she who rules the waste depositories under our buildings and dwellings. Pop had it, too. The doctor put him in the hospital for two days. �Observation�, it was called. Can�t imagine where there is any future in observing a dude�s constant procession to John Crapper�s porcelain invention.

After a week of ailing, I returned to college and ran smack dab into (1) a hellacious amount of make-up work and (2) a jolly round of exams in every subject. So I have been busy trying to keep up with my required work and, once in a while, write something for my own website.

Anyway I have returned from the ragged edge of the abyss and am ready to resume writing. So let�s write.

� A bastardized line from Vergil�s Aeneid. If you read Latin, enjoy it. The original says, �Here I am, right here, the very dude you are looking for, Aeneas The Trojan�. When asked to translate it two years ago by my teacher, I said ��.Aeneas, The Condom� and got a rap across the mouth because the only Latin teacher available back then was Pop, an expert in The Mother Tongue and administering not infrequent raps across the mouth.

IF YOU NEED ANY ANECDOTAL PROOF THAT AMERICAN EDUCATION IS IN PRECIPITOUS DECLINE, READ ON.

1. In Goose Creek, South Carolina, Principal George McCracken spent four days looking carefully at video surveillance tapes and concluded that his students were in the grip of a drug epidemic where forbidden substances were being bought and sold, traded and bartered right under the all-seeing eye of the camera lens. On tape were students entering a bathroom by two�s and coming out after a short time (how long is a piss supposed to take, Principal McCracken?), students talking �furtively� to one another, and other obvious signs of high rolling narcotic activity.

The principal did what any other red-blooded, law and order, zero-tol, idiot member of the teaching profession would have done, he called the cops. Fourteen officers with guns drawn and an undisclosed number of drug dogs descended upon the area of the school in question and rousted students there, holding them at gunpoint while book bags were searched.

Gunpoint!!!

No drugs were discovered, of course. The entire scene turned up clean as a boson�s pipe. The kids were left with a warm and fuzzy feeling that some, at least, of the significant adults in their life, educators and agents of the law, can now be trusted as far as they can be thrown and that much of the madness found within our universe is the direct result of idiotic decisions made by grown-ups.

And we wonder why teens don�t trust adults.

2. In Roswell High School in Atlanta fourteen-year-old Rachel Boim has had her expulsion overturned by the school board. At first she was expelled for writing, in her diary, a short story that involved the murder of a teacher. The diary was �taken up� by a teacher who took the thing home, read it, and decided that Rachel posed a terroristic threat and turned the kid over to school authorities. She was suspended, at first, then expelled. After a storm of publicity hit the community, she was allowed to return to the school but decided to transfer because of the memories of a bitter and humiliating experience.

This is �Zero Tolerance� in our schools, folks. This is the kind of thinking that takes all the common sense and human responsibility from the administration of our government controlled institutions of lower learning substituting stupid little rules that must be followed to the letter. The kid who brings a one-inch fingernail knife gets the same treatment as the boy who brandishes a lethal switchblade, for we must all follow the same rules in exactly the same way, mustn�t we? We are educators. We don�t have to use our brains. Thinking hurts. Common sense hurts. A one-size rule must cover everything. Don�t give the little bastards a break.

Education in America is at an all time nadir. It has, in many corners of the republic, including my own home town, virtually ceased to exist. Lame mottos like �No Child Left Behind� are about as meaningless as the crapola published by the NEA, local school boards, and the idiots who control teacher certification. No amount of money from on high or low will do any good until the entire structure is stripped away, destroyed, leveled, and put together by somebody who has a clue about what kids really need.

And don�t trust the kids to tell you. Too many of them watch MTV and don�t know how to read. Ignorance is bliss.

GEORGE SOROS, lefty-wingy financier extraordinary, has just donated five million dollars to Moveon.org as part of a stated avowal to donate all his energies and his sacred fortune to the defeat of George Bush in 2004. At this point in time he has contributed about fifteen million dollars to this cause.

The good thing is that, thanks to one single individual, the Democrats will come closer to meeting the RNC in the donations department helping make the fight in 2004 a little fairer.

The bad thing is that Soros has helped undo in a short time the entire movement over the past few years toward campaign finance reform. More and more the little guy, the person who actually casts the vote, is marginalized by the big spenders who now dominate both major political parties. This will have serious consequences for the future and could undermine even further the ideal of an America most of us love.

Ian Kleinfeld and I disagree on the subject of Gun Control. I tend to look on efforts to reduce my ability to own and use firearms as a kind of slippery slope. Ian despises the slippery slope theory.

Why is it liberals use the slippery slope argument when it comes to The Patriot Act, but disallow it when it comes to a more conservative topic.

I have asked my Pop for another assault rifle for my eighteenth birthday next month. A guy can�t have too many of the things.

My Current number one hero during the current election cycle is Zell Miller, Senior Senator from the Peach State. His newly published A NATIONAL PARTY NO MORE: THE CONSCIENCE OF A CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRAT lays bare his heartfelt belief that the Democratic Party has (1) moved too far to the left; (2) has turned its back on the South and; (3) is allowing a pack of second rate morons to lead the race for the roses in 2004. Mr. Miller will support Mr. Bush for re-election and feels that such is in the best interest of our nation.

Really. And Zell is right. This is a man of great personal integrity. I know not his equal in the Senate. More than a week ago, Ceci Connolly of FNC said a week or so ago that she felt the Senator is positioning himself for a cabinet post or an ambassadorship.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Miller wants nothing more than to return to Young Harris in the mountains of North Georgia, read, write, listen to music, teach one course, perhaps, and bounce grandkids on his knee. This is a great man, a modern Cincinnatus who returns to his plow and farm once the fighting is over.

What he does is to underscore the growing disconnect between Washington, D.C. and much of the rest of the nation. And this is a serious trend, not limited to Democrats exclusively, but seen most prominently in that party�s apparent disdain of the common man. Once seen as the party of the working stiff, the nine-to-five guy, there is strong feeling in the heartland that the party of the Mythic Jackass has been hijacked by liberal elitists. Right or wrong, that is a common perception. And no amount of bad rhetoric about pickup trucks sporting Confederate Flags will assuage that notion.

Senator Kerry is shaking up his election staff. He should have hired Donna �Cha-Cha� Brazille. Remember how she convinced Algore to move his campaign headquarters to far off Tennessee, and change his color scheme to earthtone and then to baby blue? We predicted an early victory for Kerry months and months ago. But it looks like we are witnessing the beginning of his end right now. Sic Transit Gloria�..

Well, DMY Fans, That�s it for this week. Glad to be back.

If you get a moment, get caught up on my own website�rant, fiction, and outrageous lie. Click on LUKE�S TABLE OF CONTENTS . We are currently complete through episode 284, adding more every week. Hope to have number three hundred in the can by New Year�s. Kind of proud of this output which began back before I turned thirteen.

You can also view some of our stuff over at another fine, liberal website, called simply POLITICAL PULPIT DOT COM. David Allyn over there has recently added a Blog format to the front page. It�s kind of interesting, but I won�t contribute until I weigh the amount of acrimony being generated. I do a weekly column over there�.click on the �Lukester� Link.

Like pictures? See my life in pictures at http://www.photoisland.com enter Luciusson as the I.D. and bubbadog as the password and you can see where we live, the sleepy little town of Macon, and all sorts of goodies.

Life gets better once the diarrhea stops.

Until next week,

Ciao,

Luke Angelo
Macon, GA

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Luke Angelo, Cyberbrat Out Of Hell, lives in Macon, GA, where he regularly causes trouble and proves that the pen is far mightier than the Mayor