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Katherine Kersten: A character-killer is lurking in your neighborhood
Star Tribune ^ | 2/1/07 | Katherine Kersten

Posted on 02/02/2007 9:25:32 AM PST by Johnny Gage

There's a childhood epidemic sweeping Minnesota and the nation. Its warning signs aren't fever or skin rashes. The symptoms are behavioral -- and unmistakable.

Consider a recent, particularly virulent outbreak of the affliction in Maplewood, N.J., as reported by the New York Times. In the last few years, out-of-control kids from the middle school have overrun the town's library after school. They routinely mouth off to librarians, disrupt common areas, leave restrooms a shambles and race about, sometimes almost knocking over elderly patrons

(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; US: Minnesota
KEYWORDS: barbarians; eminem; hiphopinfluence; katherinekersten; libraries; lousyparenting; publiclibraries; rapinfluence; sayno
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To: T.Smith

My ideal private library would cost many thousands of dollars for entry. All books would be rare first editions. Visitors would have to wear chemical suits with helmets and be sprayed down for germs. An I.Q. test and Ph.D. would be required for entry. There would be a private bar, lectures by famous locals, and everyone would have comfortable chairs and wear three piece tweed suits.


41 posted on 02/02/2007 10:26:37 AM PST by scotus
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To: Our man in washington

What if the librarian tells you that disciplining your kid isn't in her job description and that you should monitor your kids yourself?


42 posted on 02/02/2007 10:27:36 AM PST by 2Jedismom (Expect me when you see me!)
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To: pollyannaish

ADD=Global Warming.


43 posted on 02/02/2007 10:28:43 AM PST by scotus
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To: twonie
lower the drinking age and let them go to bars

Liquor licenses for libraries.......

44 posted on 02/02/2007 10:32:23 AM PST by Hot Tabasco (Dear Santa: Next year, READ THE STUPID LIST! Oh, and thanks for the socks....)
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To: T.Smith

Hey, I'm the president of the Canadian Association for Adult Attention...Hey, look, what's that shiny thing?

The funny thing about ADD is that sometimes (only rarely) I can actually hyper-focus on one thing to the extent of not noticing what's going on around me. But generally I'm very easily distracted. That's not altogether a negative thing, though, as it also means that I'm very observant of my surroundings. For example, in the last month I've observed sundogs and, 2 nights ago, a ring around the moon, because I'm typically aware of everything going on around me.

I actually thing ADD is just one part of the spectrum of normal human psychologies. One might suppose (assuming they're not a creationist) that there is some evolutionary advantage to the condition, at least in some circumstances - and variation in the genome itself is also now understood to be an evolutionary survival strategy for a species.


45 posted on 02/02/2007 10:32:39 AM PST by -YYZ-
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To: scotus

Could I smoke my pipe? I just can't put on a tweed suit without smoking my pipe.


46 posted on 02/02/2007 10:33:19 AM PST by T.Smith
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To: T.Smith

You may smoke your pipe. In my ideal library smoking is not only allowed, it is obligatory.


47 posted on 02/02/2007 10:35:24 AM PST by scotus
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To: Johnny Gage

Possibly the access to porn in libraries in some communities attracts the wrong kind of patrons.


48 posted on 02/02/2007 10:39:25 AM PST by Jane Austen
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To: Johnny Gage
I help put on a Sr. student vocation class once a month thru our Rotary program at our local High School. Each month we have a speaker come and talk with the kids and do a Q & A afterwards to help them decide on careers and college.

This morning I took my 6th grade son to our class because he had an orthodontist appointment and he sat in on our speaker for a short while with me....when we walked out of the class early to go to his appointment he said "Dad,why were those kids in the back of the room talking thru the speakers presentation?"....he sat there and watched the disrespect these kids have as Seniors (who should know better) to a visiting speaker. I just told him that let it be a lesson learned on how annoying and wrong it is when someone is trying to help you and you blatantly disrespect his authority and professionalism.

Thank goodness my kid saw that and gets it!

49 posted on 02/02/2007 10:43:16 AM PST by oust the louse
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To: scotus

I'd like to move to your world.


50 posted on 02/02/2007 10:47:46 AM PST by jusduat (I am a strange and recurring anomaly)
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To: scotus
Hey "doc", next time you wake up in such a pissy mood, try joining DU instead, you'll fit right in. Come back to FR when you're not so surly.

Sheesh.

51 posted on 02/02/2007 10:53:18 AM PST by workerbee (Ladies do not start fights, but they can finish them.)
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To: Johnny Gage

Of course, such liberal writers also lead the crusades to outlaw corporal punishment and crucify any school officials who actually attempt to address DDD . . .


52 posted on 02/02/2007 10:59:47 AM PST by Iconoclast2 (Two wings of the same bird of prey . . .)
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To: -YYZ-

I saw that ring around the moon by the way last month...we were sitting at a fire pit at my friends in Arizona having a few beers and thought we were seeing things. That was pretty cool actually....


53 posted on 02/02/2007 11:04:03 AM PST by oust the louse
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To: Johnny Gage

54 posted on 02/02/2007 11:09:08 AM PST by Gritty (Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society-John Dewey)
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To: 2Jedismom
What if the librarian tells you that disciplining your kid isn't in her job description and that you should monitor your kids yourself?

I would say that's a cop-out.

Keeping order in the library is in her job description. I wouldn't expect the librarian to come up with some creative plan to keep my children in line. If my kids are misbehaving, she should be willing to say "knock it off!" or "get out of here!" That's all.

Now if my kids misbehave in the library on a consistent basis, it is my job to keep them from going there.

Kids need freedom to go places, and adults simply don't have the time or energy to monitor every single thing that kids do. Employees in public spaces have to be willing to step in when kids are out of line. They don't have to be substitute parents, but they have to let kids know in no uncertain terms when their behavior is not acceptable. A mall security guard should be willing to toss out kids who break the rules for example. And parents have to back up these employees.

55 posted on 02/02/2007 11:14:32 AM PST by Our man in washington (The Democratic party is an alliance of narcissists and parasites.)
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To: scotus
Do I "really" need a taxpayer funded institution, for god's sakes, to go and check out a battered up dog-eared copy of East of Eden?

Our taxpayer funded institution recently put up a 'Facts About Islam' display. Not the first time. They also seem to have additional copies of Islamic books for children showing up on a weekly basis. They had a few books last summer and now have dozens.

I think it is fine if the kids are driving the librarians nuts. Throughout Mercer County, New Jersey you would be hard pressed to find one that isn't some left wing fruitcake. They no longer operate the library for what is was intended. Islamic Displays, Gay & Lesbian Study Groups, Gay Support Groups, Falun Gong Classes, Computer Classes For Spanish Only Speakers, etc. Since it is no longer a library, why have teenagers act like their in one?

Let the kids torture them.
56 posted on 02/02/2007 11:18:02 AM PST by dmartin (Who Dares Wins)
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To: -YYZ-
ADD is hardly a new idea....They could have put me on Ritalin. Who knows, maybe they should have,..."

my older brother was diagnosed as well around 3rd grade, and my parents DID listen to doctors who put him on Ritalin..

it most certainly didn't help..and, if anything, pushed him further towards alienation and dysfunction...my mom still questions about the decision to have drugged him..it's quite sad
he continued to struggle all the way thru school, and now at 41, still struggles thru life.

I believe there is definitely something to "chemical-inbalances" such as ADD.

57 posted on 02/02/2007 11:18:35 AM PST by xhrist ("You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body. " - C.S. Lewis)
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To: scotus

Excellent! Three cheers for the Scotus Harrumpf Library!


58 posted on 02/02/2007 11:18:59 AM PST by T.Smith
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To: xhrist

I should say, for all the issues that my ADD has caused me over the years (and I DO have all the classic symptoms), I still managed to get through high school and graduate with good grades, at least the year I graduated. And then went on to University where I dropped out in the second year on my first go at it. 3 years later I was back again, got my degree (Computer science), and now hold down a good job as a software tester. So, it's not as though chemistry is destiny, at least in milder cases like mine.


59 posted on 02/02/2007 11:26:24 AM PST by -YYZ-
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To: Hot Tabasco

No, let them go to bars. Can't you see that I am trying to get rid of librarians here? Besides which they would probably be terrible bar tenders. But then again, the kids, being just kids, would never know, would they? Oh, well.


60 posted on 02/02/2007 11:32:12 AM PST by twonie (Just because there are fewer of us don't mean we are wrong.)
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