The made-for-tv movie The Execution of Private Slovik – based on the true story of Eddie Slovik, the only American soldier executed for desertion during WWII – aired 40 years ago last month. Chris Walsh considers the film’s success in 1974 and ponders why today “cowardice in the military is a topic too obscure and tender for nonmilitary Americans to contemplate”:

We are willing to have other people’s children put themselves in harm’s way, but we feel both ignorant and guilty about it, and that is enough to keep us from presuming to criticize, much less punish, a deserter. Reflecting on the alleged cowardice of a soldier like Slovik leads to disturbing questions: What would we do in his place? Why haven’t we joined the fight, or more actively supported those who do — or, alternatively, joined in the debate about whether fighting is the right thing? Why did we…

Good friends don’t let you do stupid things alone 😉

From http://www.anywhen.com

Inspired by the following photo from the No Words Needed post:

Just like me and my friends in our University years 🙂 

Have a good Friday giggle and enjoy the weekend 🙂 

THE END

From St. Augustine Recordreporter Marcia Lane:

A Senate subcommittee approved an amendment on Tuesday expanding the voucher program, known as the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program, adding it to a bill that helps parents of disabled children get additional educational services.

Opponents say the plan is going to hurt public schools and the state’s children. Among major complaints is the lack of accountability.

“Our concern is the same as it always has been, and that is there’s no accountability or transparency in voucher legislation,” St. Johns County School Superintendent Joseph Joyner said. “We believe all students that get taxpayers’ money should be held to the same level of accountability. … We have no idea where those children are and how they’re doing.”

Hiding in their ideological bunker, Florida republican legislators continue to ignore the people who matter on voucher expansion. And not just school superintendents. Voters, too. A poll…

On Wednesday, Rahm Emanuel’s hand-picked school board voted to fire every administrator, teacher, paraprofessional and lunch lady from three neighborhood schools and handed those schools over the the corporate-connected Academy for Urban School Leadership.

The three schools – Gresham, Dvorak and McNair are on the south and west side. 

“Given money, we can do many, many things,” said Diedrus Brown, principal of Gresham Elementary. She said test scores rose when the school was allowed extra funding, and that it achieved the middle tier for a Level 2 school in 2011. “You destabilized our school for the past two years by taking money away,” Brown added.

“It’s Chicago Public Schools, not Chicago private schools,” Brown insisted.

“We are not failures at Gresham,” said Tina Bumbers Walker, a second-grade teacher and alumna at the school. “It’s not just about scores.

“We were progressing,” she added, but then pointed out the school had…

Donna Dudley, superintendent of Moyers public schools in Oklahoma, made a conscious decision to defy the state.

It should not have been an extraordinary decision because it was what a decent human being would do.

Two of her students suffered a terrible loss the weekend before the state tests. Their parents were killed in a car crash.

Superintendent Dudley asked the state for permission to exempt them from the state tests.

The bureaucrats at the State Education Department said no.

Superintendent Dudley exempted them anyway.

I honor her here as a hero of public education.

The story broke after Superintendent Dudley wrote about it on Facebook and said she was willing for her school to get an F, if that was the consequence of doing what was right for the students.

Once the situation was publicized, the State Superintendent of Instruction, Janet Barresi, quickly apologized.

Mistakes were made.

When the…