SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:58 P.M. ET: 

A LESSON – From Townhall.com:  "North Carolina restaurant The Pit was robbed at gunpoint on Sunday. Normally, local crime stories like this wouldn't merit a Townhall post, but this one is different: The Pit has a 'no weapons' sign displayed prominently on its door declaring the restaurant a gun-free zone, and bans patrons from carrying concealed weapons.  Authorities said just before 9 p.m. Sunday, three men wearing hoodies entered the restaurant through the back doors with pistols, and forced several staff members to lie on the floor.  The bandits assaulted two employees during the crime, but they were not seriously injured."  Nothing more need be noted.   As Jerry Lewis famously said, "Bad looks you can change, stupid is forever."

ACADEMIC FREEDOM? – From Fox:  "A substitute teacher in New York was fired after investigators say she asked students in her fourth-grade class for dating advice, DNAinfo.com reported.  Cassandre Fiering, 45, allegedly consulted her students on June 13, 2013, and acted out scenarios where her students would play her boyfriend and she would play herself, the report said.  At one point, she allegedly asked her Bronx class who she should date. The class went with the older man who returned her calls, the report said.  DNAinfo cited a report by investigators for the office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation for New York City Schools. The news site obtained the report under a Freedom of Information Law request."  Her defense will probably be that she was showing appreciation for the cultural understanding of her students.  Who could object?

BUSINESS NEWS – From Fox:  "Long after his death, Che Guevara, who some regard as a ruthless killer and others adore as an icon of revolution, is teaching a new generation of students about the failure of communism.  University of California-San Diego students have run the 'Che Café Collective' for 34 years, a vegan co-op and concert venue boasting 'exorbitantly low' prices and volunteer staffing. But it’s consistently in the red, costing the student body nearly $1 million over the years, and isn’t kept up to fire or safety codes. School officials are threatening to cut off funding, which would shut down the campus fixture, but a band of students is fighting back.  'The venue has been operating for 34 years and it’s the longest-running volunteer space in Southern California, if not in all of California,' café volunteer Rene Vera told FoxNews.com. 'And our building is covered in murals that document a lot of that history.'"  Who cares about safety codes?  Fire codes?  A million dollars lost that could have gone to scholarships?  Hey, we've got murals.  This is what happens when we raise children to be children.

YUCH! – From London's Daily Mail:  "First Lady Michelle Obama's healthy eating initiatives have been so unpopular among young people that more than a million students have stopped buying school lunches.  The Agriculture Department set new standards for what types of foods schools can serve students that have been phased in over the last three school years in response to Obama's push for healthier school lunches, and even more changes are coming in 2014."  Right.  Try to tell kids what they should like.  I say, give me ice cream or give me death!"

May 21, 2014