Mark Knows It All

According to the New York Post, Staten Island’s Gwendolyn Williams (pictured above), age 9, got a “Fitness-gram” from New York City School PS 29 telling her she is fat as part of a city school system mandated BMI test.  The test results were given to the students in a barely sealed envelope to be brought home to their parents.  When confronted by the upset girl’s mother as to how this skinny girl could possibly be fat, the school principle responded they didn’t think the children would open the envelope. Schools are now providing three meals/day to many students during the school year and oftentimes during the summer months.  The government is now mandating calorie and portion sizes, as well as Draconian measures such as only skim milk.  The result is school lunch sales are down 12%.  Food waste measured by analyzing garbage contents is skyrocketing.  To combat this, some systems are now analyzing the home packed lunches brought to school by students, sometimes confiscat

When Youngstown State's seven month new president Randy Dunn abruptly quit his job to move to Southern Illinois University, it reminded me of John Paul 1 dying immediately after he became pope.  The conclave picked the wrong one.  The Board of Trustees should have picked Jim Tressel last time around.  This time they did.  Bravo. It was a brave decision given the criticism leveled at the Trustees from numerous sources, including two hit pieces in the Youngstown Vindicator spewing doom and gloom about hiring a perceived non-academic, a really bad guy who cheated and lied, and worst of all...a coach.  Oh, the horror, the horror.  The assumptions of those making these comments are so off base it is almost laughable. Start with don't assume the sanctity and purity of academia.  Behind those ivy covered halls is a cut throat political environment of the worst kind, filled with unbridled competition for money, tenure and promotions, dogmatic professors, unions, research a

The United States Supreme Court calls it "the heckler's veto":  free speech being outlawed for fear someone might react adversely to it. The attack on free speech in America is growing at an alarming rate.  Over the past several weeks, several stories have been thrust to the forefront as political correctness gone a muck moves to stifle freedom of expression, the bedrock of our system.  Even more alarming, these incidents are happening in our schools where impressionable children are being taught that correct speech is more important than free speech.  The problem is simple: who determines what is correct speech. The most widely reported story is the Condoleezza Rice incident at Rutgers.  Former Secretary of State Rice withdrew from her participation in commencement ceremonies at the taxpayer supported state university of New Jersey after a bunch of left wing thugs stormed the Chancellor's office demanding that the "war criminal" be banned from spea