A life for a life?

this is old news...but I just received this email and showed it to my current students....will you sign this petition?

For His Memory

Do you remember February 1993 in England ,when a young boy of 3 was taken from a Liverpool shopping centre by two 10-year-old boys?
Jamie Bulger walked away from his mother for only a second, Jon Venables took his hand and led him out of the mall with his friend Robert Thompson. They took Jamie on a walk for over 2 and a half miles, along the way stopping every now and again to torture the poor little boy who was crying constantly for his mummy. 
Finally they stopped at a railway track where they brutally kicked him, threw stones at him, rubbed paint in his eyes, pushed batteries up his anus and cut his fingers off with scissors. Other mutilations were inflicted but not reported in the press.
N.B. :- Remember, a 3year old cannot possibly defend themselves against a 10 year old, let alone of 2 them. 
What these two boys did was so horrendous that Jamie's mother was forbidden to identify his body.
They then left his beaten small body on railwaytracks so a train could run him over to hide the mess they had created. These two boys, even being boys,understood what they did was wrong, hence trying to make it look like an accident.
This week Lady Justice Butler-Sloss has awarded the two boys ( now men ), anonymity for the rest of their lives when they leave custody with new identities. They will also leave custody early only serving just over half of their sentence.
They are being relocated to Australia to live out the rest of their lives. They disgustingly and violently took Jamie's life away and in return they each get a new life!
Please.... . If you feel as strongly as we do, (and if you haven't already signed this petition ) that this is a grave Miscarriage of justice - Hit the forward button and add your name at the end, and send it to everyone you can !
If you are the 700th person to sign, please forward this e-mail to: cust.ser.cs@gtnet.gov.uk and mark it for the attention to Lady Justice Butler-Sloss.Then continue on until it hits 1400, before you email her the list again. 
There is power in numbers & these petitions   do help. 
Maybe it'll prevent another child from a violent death & maybe it'll get greater, more appropriate convictions for these criminals,whatever their age.
Please take a few seconds to forward it to your mail list & don't forget to add your name to the list.

2007 A-level paper

I just gave the 07 A-level comprehension paper to my current students as an assignment....it's really quite difficult! Now I really empathise with all of you!

Gran Torino

Gran Torino wasn't my first movie choice at the cinema at the new shopping mall Iluma...but since the whole world seemed to have gathered there for a $6 movie on Friday, I had to forgo Shinjuku Incident (yes, I'm a closet Jackie Chan fan!) for this Clint Eastwood movie. 

It was surprisingly heartwarming. Rather raw acting by some of the actors acting as Hmong immigrants, but think it added to the realism of the show. It gave an interesting insight into the lives of migrants in America and was well worth my 6 bucks. The new cinema was pretty comfy too...and the movie started punctually!

Comic Relief

I saw a number of comics by this artist, Mark Parisi, during the Supreme Court open house...thought some of them were quite clever. Here's the link for some of his comics under the search tag 'teacher'

http://www.offthemark.com/send.php?pdate=1997-05-31

(his copyright laws are pretty strict so I shan't risk putting any up here)

Beauty Queen's Blunder

in case anyone becomes a beauty queen/king in the near future....pls don't make such boo-boos...

CARACAS (AFP) - - Miss Universe 2008, Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela, caused a stir here after gushing over her visit to the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, home of the "war on terror" prison camp.
Mendoza, who works for the Miss Universe organization -- an NBC Universal and Donald Trump Partnership -- visited Guantanamo as part of a USO (United Service Organizations) tour that takes entertainers to visit US troops.
"This week, Guantanamo!!! It was an incredible experience," wrote the 22 year-old Mendoza on her Miss Universe-sponsored personal blog. "We had a wonderful time, this truly was a memorable trip!"
Marines and soldiers showed Mendoza and Miss USA 2008 Crystle Stewart around the base, then took them on "a ride around the land and it was a loooot of fun!
"We visited the Detainees (sic) camps and we saw the jails, where they shower, how the recreate themselves with movies, classes of art, books. It was very interesting," she wrote.
"The water in Guantanamo Bay is soooo beautiful! It was unbelievable ... I didnt want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful."
The Guantanamo "war on terror" prison opened after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States as a place to house "enemy combatant" suspects.
Mendoza's posting was quickly struck from her blog -- not before the New York Times posted it on its website -- and replaced by a statement from the president of the Miss Universe organization, Paula Shugart.
The comments "were in reference to the hospitality she received while meeting the members of the US military and their families who are stationed in Guantanamo," Shugart wrote.
Mendoza and Stewart have "traveled to many locations and many bases around the globe including Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan, Korea and most recently, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba," Shugart said.
Local media pounced on Mendoza's comments.
Globovision reporter Ana Karina Villalba said it was necessary to better educate beauty queens -- of which Venezuela is famous for producing -- so that they know what is happening around the world.
"In Venezuela we should have broadly educated misses," said Villalba, remembering that a few years ago a beauty queen said she loved "William Shakespeare's music."
On local blogs, comments ranged from "Let's go vacation in Guantanamo because it's soooo much fun!" to "We'd have to lock Dayanita up."
The Guantanamo prison is one of the most controversial symbols of former president George W. Bush's legacy, where former detainees and human rights activists say the inmates are tortured.
The United States set up a naval base in Guantanamo after the 1898 Spanish-American war, when Cuba was freed of Spanish colonial rule, then obtained a long-term lease on the site.
The Cuban government that came to power after the 1959 revolution however does not accept US control, and wants the bay under Havana's control.
US President Barack Obama in January ordered the prison camp closed within one year.

wrong email...

ha, i really thought this was quite funny....

A man checked into a hotel. There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an e-mail to his wife. However, he accidentally typed a wrong e-mail address, without realizing his error, he sent the mail.

Meanwhile... Somewhere in Houston, a widow had just returned from her husband's funeral. The widow decided to check her e-mail, expecting condolence messages from relatives and friends.

After reading the first message, she fainted. The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which read:

To: My Loving Wife Subject: I've reached Date: 22 Feb 2009 I know you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers here, and we are allowed to send e-mails to loved ones. I've just reached and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow.