Get ready for your kids to start begging you for the swine flu — the swine flu stuffed animal that is. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gift shop in Atlanta is actually selling the stuffed toy pictured above, according to the Examiner.
The doll is nominally a teaching tool to help educate kids about the swine flu, but how representing the flu with a stuffed toy that’s pink and plush that you can hug does that, you’ve got us.
In other swine flu news, Kesley Young, a 20-year-old mother of a week-old newborn, died of swine flu last Thursday in Columbus, Ohio, according to the Columbus Post Dispatch. Something tells us that no one will want to buy a swine flu doll for that little girl, who has mercifully survived.
Tiffany Shepherd was fired last year from a Florida high school after officials saw photos of her in a bikini, working part-time on a fishing charter. Now, the 31-year-old ex-biology teacher has turned to porn to make ends meet.
Shepherd told Page2live.com, a news blog based in Palm Beach, that she wasn’t able to get any other job despite sending out 2,500 resumes. “I’m an educated woman, but I never thought it would come to this,” she says. “No one gets brought up thinking they’ll be a floozy.”
Shepherd, a divorced mom of three kids who formerly taught at Port St. Lucie High School, uses the screen name Leah Lust. She’s made five porn films so far; one is titled “My First Sex Teacher.” She doesn’t seem too worried that her ex-students will see her films, telling the web site, “They’d be adults now anyway.”
Teens have been doing it, now it’s teachers’ turn.
A Detroit-area middle school teacher allegedly sent 10 sexually explicit text messages and a partially nude photo of herself to one of her 14-year-old students. Michelle Simsonson, 28, has been charged with enticing a minor for immoral purposes and distributing sexually explicit material to a minor.
Simsonson had been the boy’s teacher during the past school year, but has since resigned from Sashabaw Middle School, the Detroit Free Press reported. She was arraigned in court last week.
The boy told investigators that he and his teacher began texting each other in the fall, but then the content became more sexually explicit. He said he told her to stop and that there was never physical contact between the two.
If convicted, Simsonson faces up to four years in prison.
“An orgasm a day keeps the doctor away.” That’s the slogan in a British-government-sponsored health pamphlet targeting teens.
The leaflet, being given out to parents, teachers and youth workers to pass on to their kids, says, “Health promotion experts advocate five portions of fruit and veg a day and 30 minutes’ physical activity three times a week. What about sex or masturbation twice a week?”
Steve Slack, an official at the National Health Service in Sheffield, says that the unorthodox message is not advocating irresponsibility. “Far from promoting teenage sex, it is designed to encourage young people to delay losing their virginity until they are sure they will enjoy the experience,” he told reporters.
Officials at an Arizona middle school thought they were justified in requiring a girl to take off her clothes as they searched for ibuprofen pills. But on Thursday, the Supreme Court said that such a search was so degrading, it wasn’t constitutional.
School authorities never did find the pills. The vice-principal at Safford Middle, near Tucson, had been told that Savana Redding had brought ibuprofen to school and planned to distribute them, an allegation that she denied. Under the school’s zero-tolerance policy, even over-the-counter pain relievers are considered contraband. Savanna, then 13, and her mother, never received an apology from the school. They sued, saying that the search violated the girl’s rights under the 4th Amendment, which bans unreasonable searches.
Justice David Souter said that the school officials lacked “an indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear.”
The only justice to disagree was Clarence Thomas, who said that judges shouldn’t second-guess how schools maintain discipline and safety.
Paging Dr. Suess! A new study finds that kids ages three to eight really love being read to at bedtime, and the little bookworms would like more stories, mom and dad.
Almost two-thirds of kids surveyed said that they wished that their mother and father would spend more time reading to them. Kids ages three and four were the most hungry for more storytime, with three-quarters of them clamoring for it. And more than half of children ages 3 to 8 said that storytime was their favorite thing to do with their parents, Reuters reports.
“The results of our research confirm the traditional activity of storytelling continues to be a powerful learning and emotional resource in children’s lives,” said child psychologist Richard Woolfson, who conducted the study. “It can be very difficult for parents to find the time to read with their children, but these moments can help build strong bonds and play a vital part in their child’s development.”
Disney/Pixar commissioned the study, which also found that storytime ranked higher than TV or videogames among pasttimes for kids.
It’s touching that the world’s kids are eager to hear a whole stack of books at bedtime, but the cynical parent has to wonder how much that desire really has to do with a budding lust for literature. It could also be part of a savvy ploy to delay bedtime just a few more minutes.
Photo by khrawlings
Kids who visited three Florida prisons on Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day on April 23 got a lesson in what goes on in their parents’ workplace that they’re not likely to forget. Some 40 children, ranging in age from 5 to 17, were shocked with stun guns as part of educational demonstrations, according to the Associated Press.
At two prisons, kids held hand in a circle, while one child was shocked passing the shock around the circle. At another, children were shocked individually. None were hurt seriously or taken to the hospital, yet three adults have been fired, and two have reassigned in the wake of the incident.
The circle stun gun demonstrations took place at Indian River Correctional Institution in Vero Beach and Martin Correctional Institution in Indiantown. Children were shocked directly at Franklin Correctional Institution in Carrabelle.
Next year on Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, if your child seems bored following you around the office from cubicle to cubicle and meeting to meeting, you’ll have a great story to tell them.
A Ohio high school teacher has resigned after allegedly taking four cheerleaders to a gay club, according to the Advocate.
Lori Epperson, who taught at Edgewood High School, said that while she did take the girls to Club Masque in Dayton, who were ages 17 and 18, she had permission from their parents to do so. One of the girls was her own daughter.
The teens allegedly got drunk at the club, too. Epperson claims that an acquaintance who they ran into at the club helped the girls buy shots, according to WLWT.com. The matter is under investigation by local police, although no charges has been filed.
The girl would have received the same two-week punishment if she had brought a gun to school. The Fairfax County, Va., teenager was hauled to the principal’s office after someone saw her taking a prescribed birth control pill during lunchtime.
The girl’s mom knew she was taking birth control pills, but the school didn’t. So school officials consider the pills contraband. Oakton High School, like many others across the country, has a zero-tolerance policy on drugs — no drugs of any kind unless previously approved by the school nurse.
The teen and her mother, whose names were not published by the Washington Post, say the policy is too harsh. “I realize my daughter broke a rule,” the mom told the Post. But “the punishment does not fit the crime.”
School officials say they’re concerned about liability and safety. How can they enforce the rules if some students were allowed to take certain pills, but not others?
The honors student now faces a hearing to determine whether she’ll be expelled. She and her mom say that they’re embarassed that a personal decision to take birth control pills is now known among the girl’s teachers, not to mention other students.
It’s safe to say that nobody fell asleep during the lesson. A line-up of naked men showed up at a British high school to teach teens about human anatomy and sex.
“It was really interesting and the way they taught us about everything was practical and made it more understandable,” 16-year-old Tom Harvey told the Evening Post.
The Hanham High School’s assistant head teacher said the nude guys helped take some pressure off teachers: “It can be hard for both students and teachers to go from a teacher being your math teacher to being your sex education teacher.” Teens had to get permission from the parents to be in the class.
This isn’t the first time a British school has used unconventional teaching methods. One high school invited a pole dancer to perform to encourage kids to exercise and be healthy.