NEA | The Bull Speaks!

Arachnophobes: Don’t Look!

I hope the title was warning enough to those suffering from arachnophobia.

Our Rescue took in a unique thing yesterday – nearly two hundred hatchling Rose-Hair Tarantulas! Here’s a photo:

babyspiders 002 Arachnophobes: Dont Look!

All of the pinkish-tan fuzz on that bit of wood is actually baby tarantulas! You can see the black dots that is the abdomens of some of the little tikes. This by far isn’t all of them – just the ones clinging to the wood.

A teacher from a local school had the female in her classroom. The spider made an egg case and guarded it closely. The teacher consulted a vet and was told that the eggs would not be fertile since she had not been with a male in the many months since she was purchased. That particular vet apparently didn’t know about the special storage skills of a female tarantula.

The teacher had a huge surprise when she came into class on day to find her one spider had turned into a couple of hundred! She gave The Bull a call and we, of course, took in the blighters and will have them all new homes very shortly.

Bull, out.

Welcome Back to the Segregation of Public Schools!

There are good ideas when it comes to teaching kids. There are bright ideas when it comes to how to discipline kids, too.

There are, however, NO good, decent, or bright ideas when it comes to segregation of kids in the public schools. None, what so ever. Segregation was a bad idea when we did it by race and it is a bad idea when we do it today by sex.

In my son’s middle school, Hankins Middle School of Theodore, AL, (a suburb of Mobile, AL), the principle has taken it upon herself – without any form of notice to the parents drom either the school or District offices – to segregate the students by their sex – males in one set of classrooms and the females in another set of classrooms. Moreover, Ms. Cheryl Wittner has the full support of the Mobile County School District.

Or maybe she only thinks she has… The District would not discuss it with The Bull save to say that in their opinion “children have no ‘rights’ and that it is entirely a school-by-school decision to be made by the principle of the school“.

OK, since when do Americans, middle school age or not, “have no rights“?

I know that there are plenty of folks that will say that students will likely study better without the distraction of members of the opposite sex sitting within arms reach. Some of those same people will say that discipline in the schools will improve if the sexes are separated. To those people let me answer with the following:

Looking back through the last hundred years I can find no evidence of American students failing to learn just because a member of the opposite sex was sitting nearby. In fact, let us not forget that that those non-sexually segregated students gave us all the modern marvels we use in our daily lives. They even sent men to the moon. Not a bad record. As for discipline, there is also no evidence that behavior failed during all of those decades. No, discipline failed when corporal punishment and strict parenting fell out of favor. It had nothing to do with the sexes being mingled.

All of this, of course, is merely The Bull letting off steam and no one will care. So let’s look more closely at this trend of sexual segregation.

In the more modern times, indeed, until the year 2000, such sexual segregation was outlawed in America. However, laws have been relaxed to allow the “experimentation” with this sad, out-dated mode of education. Since that date several states have looked into the implementation of sex segregation including Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and now Alabama.
(Do you see a geographical trend?)
The Education Department issued final rules in 2006 detailing how it would enforce the Title IX landmark anti-discrimination law. Under the change, local school leaders have discretion to create same-sex classes for subjects such as math, a grade level or even an entire school. The idea being “separate, but equal, education“, (We’ve heard that before here in America, haven’t we?), for all of the ghost-reasons listed above – and others that you won’t believe!

The problem is that the education received may be separate, but is rarely equal.

Enter, the ACLU, stage left. (…and it is killing The Bull to write this. )

Note: Folks, I physically had to leave the computer at this point for several hours. This entire subject, the ACLU, & the fact of just how liberal I think I’m sounding here made me physically ill. It is now after midnight and I will try again to made my case against this “new” idea in education. The writing here does not, and will not, live up to my usual standards simply because of how upset I am over the entire topic. No words can describe the disappointment I am feeling that my beloved Nation that struggled so long over segregation would so willingly start down that path again.

So, the Bush Administration opened the door to this horror from the past. (Not one of Dubya’s better moments, for sure!) But why? Why would anyone even consider such an act? Where is this educational horse-shyte coming from? Here’s a clue…

Charlotte Allen, (author of an op-ed in the Washington
(com)Post on Sunday, March 2, 2008) wrote:

The theory that women are the dumber sexâ€¦is amply supported by neurological and standardized-testing evidence. Menâ€™s and womenâ€™s brains not only look different, but menâ€™s brains are bigger than womenâ€™s (even adjusting for menâ€™s generally bigger body size). The important difference is in the parietal cortex, which is associated with space perception. Visuospatial skills, the capacity to rotate three-dimensional objects in the mind, at which men tend to excel over women, are in turn related to a capacity for abstract thinking and reasoning, the grounding for mathematics, science and philosophy.

Then we have Michael Gurian, (the author of Boys and Girls Learn Differently!, & founder of the Gurian Institute). He wrote in the Teacherâ€™s Guide that accompanies his book:

Girls have difficulty learning some math, perhaps because they are not called on as much but also for biological reasons. Adolescent males receive surges of the hormone testosterone five to seven times a day; this can increase spatial skills, such as higher math. Increased estrogen during the menstrual cycle increases female performance in all skills, including spatials, so an adolescent girl may perform well on any test, including math, a few days per month.

What the hell? THIS is what we shall use as our guidelines toward training our young? We have just been set back several centuries in our gender roles. But wait! It gets worse!

A guy named Leonard Sax, a family physician and the founder of the National Association for Single-Sex Public Education, states that biologically, girlsâ€™ brains perform worse under stress, while boysâ€™ brains perform better, and thus girls should never be given time limits on tasks, while boysâ€™ classes should be structured around competition.

As it was asked on an ACLU website: “Who do you think will perform better in a demanding work environment after receiving such a gender-typed education?”

Let me ask this as well: What about the social skills that are being lost? How can children learn to behave around the opposite sex if they are not allowed to interact in any way without threat of punishment, such as what is happening at Hankins Middle School? How will this play out in the future lives of these children? It is too big of a gamble in my book.

The ideas proposed by the supporters of this segregation of children are fortunately NOT without their detractors. Many studies show that it is much better for male and female children to be together during the educational process. Prof. Analia Schlosser, from Tel Aviv University, wrote that boys and girls may learn differently, but American parents should think twice before moving their children to sex-segregated schools. Let me quote from the AFTAU webpage on the topic:

â€œBeing with more girls is good for everybody,â€?? says Prof. Analia Schlosser, an economist from the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at Tel Aviv University. â€œWe find that both boys and girls do better when there are more girls in the class.â€?? She investigated girls and boys in mixed classrooms in the elementary, middle, and high-school grades of the Israeli school system.

In an unpublished paper, Prof. Schlosser concluded that classes with more than 55 percent of girls resulted in better exam results and less violent outbursts overall. â€œIt appears that this effect is due to the positive influence the girls are adding to the classroom environment,â€?? says Prof. Schlosser. She carried out the study while on a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University, and will study the effects of gender in higher education lecture halls next.

This is one of few studies of its kind to use scientific data to address the question of gender effects in school.

Pulling out my best Master Yoda voice I have to say “Interesting, that last line was”.

It appears, from the research The Bull has done so far that most school districts starting sex-segregated programs today are doing so on the based entirely on these theories. The rest are using the simply stupid idea of improved behavior. There are a thankfully small number, (mainly in Canada), that are sexually segregating their students in order to conform to Islamic (Sharia) law. I pray that is never the case here. However, considering the attitudes in the Mobile District offices, who can be sure?

I wish assure my readers that it sickens me to have to agree with so liberal a bunch as the ACLU, NOW, and others. However, this idea of gender segregation is one that should be, must be, stopped. It is as vile as the idea of racial segregation and should be treated the same. To that end The Bull has contacted the ACLU of Alabama and have requested their help in this matter. I am now awaiting their response. There has been success in striking down this foolishness in other states.
I pray that this is squashed in Alabama soon.

Please, leave your comments and let me know just how far off-base you think I am. There will be follow-ups to this post. No doubt at all. Now I need to hurl…

Bull, out.

Mobile County Schools

On the County website Dr. Roy D. Nichols, Superintendent of Mobile County Schools, says:

“I am honored to be the Superintendent of the Mobile County Public School System.”

Hell, who wouldn’t be at that salary!

“Thank you for putting your faith in me and my ability to keep the system moving forward and reaching new heights.”

It is clear to The Bull that the ‘faith’ he is speaking of is very much mis-placed! Further, ‘reaching new heights’ in the Mobile, AL school system wouldn’t be a difficult job for a standard cockroach! Dr. Nichols apparently hasn’t been paying attention to our rankings as compared to the rest of the Nation. Too many golf games on tax payer time, (and tax payer expense), no doubt.

“School systems are one of the more complex organizations to manage, with budget, personnel and labor issues.”

Especially with the teacher’s union calling the shots and holding the elected/appointed officials in their pocket along with the loose change! Then, of course, we have all of those very well-paid upper-level officials while the poorly-paid teaching positions are being cut! Makes me wonder what the hell good the union is anyway. Oh, wait… I forgot! The purpose of the NEA is to get liberals elected to offices (local through Federal levels) and to guarantee the jobs of the most inept instructors imaginable.

What fired me up today?

Trying to get my oldest son – a returning student, mind you – registered for school. The District has made the process nearly impossible. We did finally get the kid registered… It took two trips, a dozen documents, four ID’s, and visits from The Bull and Lady Beth (who had to leave work in the middle of the day).

Why all the hassle?

When asked the school said it to keep out those that do not belong in the Mobile County Public Schools. That’s a joke! With all of the non-English speaking illegals in our schools? No. They will allow anyone in! Oh! the good folks at Hankins Middle School simply hung up on me the first time I questioned them on the phone. Like rude behavior would make The Bull go away! (They don’t know me too well, do they?) The Superintendent’s Office says it is to keep students from moving from the other (new) middle schools to my son’s school that was opened in the year 1918. No kidding – 1918! Yeah, we’re all just dying to get our kids into sub-caliber Mobile, AL schools – especially the one that was serving students at the beginning of the last century!

I never did get a straight answer as to why it took so much. Never got an apology for the rude behavior, either.

Considering what group we’re talking about, and the leadership thereof, I’m not surprised.

Bull, out.

Why Big Pythons are NOT good ‘Beginner’ snakes

Today I was asked by a person calling our Reptile Rescue, (Chaos & Critters), why we take such great care in who we allow to adopt potentially giant pythons. The reasons are simple: They get huge, they are amazingly fast when attacking, they are expensive to keep, and can kill you or your kids simply by accident. For those that need more convincing read the following. When you get to the autopsy report you will discover why The Bull always has a razor-sharp knives on my belt and around my neck! This is also just one of the reasons We agree with the Florida law requiring the licensing of keepers of giant reptiles.
Read on.

The Keeping of Large Pythons: Realities and Responsibilities

(No, this photo has NOT been altered. Burmese pythons really do get that big – and bigger! This photo is from the December 1996 issue of REPTILES Magazine.)

Large pythons were the subject of many a news story last year due to the fact that there were at least two deaths directly attributable to them. Tragically, the deaths would not have happened had the owners of these snakes kept them safely, and responsibly, contained. The following article, by David Chiszar, Hobart M. Smith, Albert Petkus and Joseph Dougherty, was recently published in the Bulletin of the Chicago Herpetological Society, and represents the first clear, and accurate, account of the death that occurred July 1993:

A Fatal Attack on a Teenage Boy by a Captive Burmese Python (Python molurus bivittatus) in Colorado
“The recent Colorado case of a human death caused by a Burmese python (Python molurus bivittatus; 20 July 1993) resulted in considerable sensational media coverage as well as widely varying estimates of the snake’s length and weight. In the interest of scientific accuracy, we sought and received the cooperation of the Commerce City Police Department in acquiring detailed information regarding both the victim and the snake so that correct data could be placed on record.

“The victim was a 15-year-old male, 152 cm [5'] tall, weighing 43 kg [95lb]. While in bed, naked except for briefs, he was bitten on the right instep, with maxillary and palatine-pterygoid tooth marks clearly visible on the dorsal surface of the foot and dentary tooth marks clearly visible on the plantar surface. Numerous tooth impressions were present on the fingers of both hands, but only on their palmar surfaces, indicating that the hands had tried to pry open the snake’s jaws from around the instep. The fingers and the foot bled profusely. Autopsy photographs revealed scleral ecchymotic hemorrhage, and venous congestion in the cerebrum (petechial and ecchymotic hemorrhage both present), all being signs of agonal breathing consistent with a diagnosis of suffocation as a cause of death. No attempt was made during autopsy to distinguish between suffocation and circulatory arrest (Hardy, 1993) as causes of death; however, in subsequent correspondence the pathologist hypothesized that circulatory arrest would more likely be the cause of death of smaller prey, whereas suffocation would be more likely with larger victims. Although blood was present on the victim’s face, hands arms and legs, there was no blood present on the neck or on the middle of the torso, suggesting that the snake’s coils had been wrapped around this area. Bruising of the victim’s skin, consistent with this hypothesis, was visible in the photographs. There was no evidence that the snake had attempted to swallow any part of the victim.

“The snake was 336 cm [11'2"] total length, and weighed 24 kg [53lb]. Incidentally, almost all estimates of the snake’s weight presented by the media were above 27 kg and ranged as high as 54 kg. The only accurate weight had been recorded by Officer Steven Paxton soon after the fatality, but few news writers quoted him, preferring to use the larger, exaggerated numbers. Circumference at the thickest part of the body was 38cm [15"]. The snake had not been fed for 10 days prior to taking the measurements reported here (19 September 1993) and the most recent meal had already been digested and passed. Thus, the digestive system was probably empty. We did not probe the snake’s cloaca, but the short tail and diminutive pelvic spurs strongly suggest that it is a female. This animal had been raised since hatching by a close relative of the victim, and at the time of the attack the snake was not confined to a cage, but had freedom to move about the house. The victim was long familiar with the snake.

“…This raises the question of why the snake killed so large a victim. Although any answer that we can put forward would be conjectural, it is known that pythons and certain other constrictors will sometimes attack prey that cannot be ingested (Branch and Hacke, 1980; Fritts et al., 1990), whether through misinterpretation of size or through presence on the victim of chemical or other cues that are associated with normal prey.

“Perhaps the most significant point to emerge from this Colorado case is the fact that a 24kg python, modest in size by comparison with full grown specimens of this and several other species, was able to kill a healthy 43kg adolescent human. This will come as no surprise to experienced herpetologists, but it might be startling to people who have grown unjustifiably complacent with their now mature pythons that have been raised since hatching.”

Through years of meeting people–especially teenage boys and young male adults–who want or have just bought Burmese and reticulated pythons, I have found that they really do not understand just how big their snakes will get, and even if they do, being “cool” tends to override common sense. Many men (and woefully ill-educated pet store owners and employees) recommend Burmese as “good starter snakes” instead of Ball pythons (P. regius) because of their docility and hearty appetite (failing to recognize that the initial nervousness and reticence to feed are traits common in wild-caught Ball pythons, not in captive bred ones).

I recently met two people who have a deep-seated fear of snakes, both due to encounters with large, loose pythons. The first is a woman whose infant niece was killed by the parent’s python which had been kept in an insecure enclosure. The second is a young man who, while sleeping at a friend’s house, was awakened by the friend’s Burmese python which was in the process of wrapping itself around the young man. When he had gone to bed, the snake was on top of the refrigerator, its owner not wanting to “disturb” it by getting it down and putting it safely away.

What must be remembered is that, no matter how tame and friendly the snake, it is and always will be a wild animal, and as such, subject to what appears to the owner to be unpredictable behavior. No matter how many years one has had a snake, no matter how familiar the snake is with its owner-family, hunger, fear, unease and other factors can trigger instinctual behaviors. Good examples of this were published in the February 1994 issue of Reptiles (Pssst…wanna see my pet snake?) and in the general press in 1996 (NY Teen Killed by Pet Burmese).

Another misconception about giant pythons (and giant iguanid and varanid lizards) is that when they get “too” big, they can just be given to zoos and wild animal parks. NOT! Zoos and wild animal parks have all the giant reptiles that they can handle. Zoos should not, even if they could afford to spare the resources, become a repository of cast-off pets.

The giant pythons are beautiful, awesome animals. There is something breathtaking about seeing a snake with a girth the size of a telephone pole, coiled up contentedly in its basking area. But there are some animals that are not suitable as common pets for some people due to the amount of space and other resources that must be committed to that animal for its entire life, one that may span two or three decades.

If you are sincere in your desire to begin rearing snakes as pets, please, start with a more managable species. The above mentioned Ball pythons (P. regius), for example. Feel free to contact the folks at Chaos & Critters Exotic Animal Rescue for advice.

Bull, out.

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