Moms gets jail time for sending kids to better school

Kelley Williams-Bolar has been sentenced to 5 years in jail, with all but 10 days suspended, for sending her children to a suburban school rather than a school in the Akron City School district in which they lived. Williams-Bolar falsely used her father's address as their address.

Copley-Fairlawn City School District hired private detectives to follow her when they suspected her daughters did not live in their district. Copley-Fairlawn claims that they were defrauded of $30,000.

Williams-Bolar is a few credits shy of getting her teaching certification from the University of Akron. A felony conviction jeopardizes her ability to teach in Ohio.

Copley-Fairlawn City Schools have a 1% dropout rate. Akron City schools have a 6% dropout rate, which is a pretty significant difference.

Her punishment clearly outweighs her crime. This case also gives me a new perspective on arguments about parent choice in schooling.

Good satire that's not funny

Judge Rules White Girl Will Be Tried As Black Adult
I didn't find this "news story" from the Onion News Network to be funny. It's too depressing and nauseating and too much of an accurate reflection to be funny. I wonder what the criminal justice system would be like if juries never saw what defendants looked like. What do you think?

Ebert, Murals, & Race

Roger Ebert has a thoughtful piece about the Arizona mural that is definitely worth a read.

Oklahoma Hates God

Whooooopsies! The Oklahoma State Legislature meant to enact a protest law, if you will, against the Shepard Act, which includes sexual orientation in the federal hate crimes statute. It looks like Oklahoma meant to prohibit Oklahoma law enforcement sharing information with the feds if state law did not recognize the case as a hate crime. Specifically, they meant the sexual orientation/transgendered group. Unfortunately for them (fortunately for those of us who like to laugh at such things), they got the statute numbers mixed up and referred instead to crimes based on religion or race. Good going guys!

Death in South Africa

Eugene Terreblanche, South Africa's white supremacist leader has been bludgeoned to death by two of his farmhands. The president urges calm and the white supremacists call it a "declaration of war." That can't be good.

Post-Racial America

DNA heritage

I think I'm going to change the name of this blog to The Lazy since I never actually post anything here.

In other news, I have been watching Faces of America, in which Henry Louis Gates (of the beer summit) traces the ancestry of 12 famous Americans. This is the only time I've wished I were famous -- just so someone could give me my family tree. I was fascinated by the show beyond the celebrity factor. (Yo-Yo Ma, it turns out, is quite chill, and I want to be his friend.)

The last episode has a DNA analysis, where they determine which percentage of the stars' DNA is European, African, Asian, etc. The results were surprising for some. That would be fun to find out, but I am skeptical that the technology is that precise. I don't really know, but I'm skeptical. Either way, it's interesting for discussion!