Council Winners

This week’s Council Winner: Border Freebies: Using The Race Card To Get An Education by the Education Wonks.

	During the last school year, several hundred students living in Mexicali took advantage of continued lax enforcement of residency requirements in order to obtain a free education at taxpayer’s expense...nothing will change in the upcoming school year; hundreds of children living in Mexicali will continue getting a free K-12 education in Imperial County public schools courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.
	Ironically, many of these students are from relatively affluent families. And nobody will do a thing about it.
	In Mexico, [these] students must pay tuition to attend public high school.
	As the Wonks say, hypocrisy.

Second place went to e-claire for her Independence Day post.

	Today is Independence Day, the 229th anniversary of the day that 56 men stood before “Supreme Judge of the world” to proclaim that they did, “in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States...”
	Today I am privileged to be able to express in some small way my gratitude to five out of the thousands of men and women who stand daily between US in our safe and comfortable homes and the forces that would tear our civilization down and take our entire species back to the caves.

Read the stories of her five men.

First Place in the non-Council posts went to Today I Leave For the War from the Makaha Surf Report:

For anyone that reads this; yes I am a 30 year old idealist, at 20 I was a cynic, but now I have a mission in life and a purpose. I found God, but I am far from a religious fanatic, I found a God that inspired me to do good deeds just for the sake of doing good. I can feel his prescence in everything around me, the sunset, the waves crashing on a Hawaiian beach and even in the evening breeze that is laced with plumeria. I would call myself a soldier of God, but not in any way that says he favors me or my cause. I am a soldier of our Lord because I choose to serve the side of good, good is opening a door for a stranger, or helping your neighbor empty his trashcan, or going to Iraq because you want to help a people find their voice and feel what we feel when we think of our freedoms. The most fundamental question I ask myself everday is: If I have the chance to do good, even if there is a terrible price to pay, why wouldn’t I? I wish more Americans would ask themselves this question, if you can do good, what on earth would stop you from following through?

Read the whole moving and sincere goodbye to those he loves.

Varifrank, in second place, does it again. This time an incisive post on the Boomers, that large, loud, and narcissistic cohort which continues to believe the world is about them. Always. As Varifrank says, in his response to Gary Trudeau for one of the latter’s more insufferable “cartoons” -- this one a snide comment on bloggers:

Your generation sure has come a long way, Gary. And from the deepest part of my ‘Generation Next’ heart, I wish you’d all just keep moving right along. Your generation lived in the soft pocket that the generation before provided for your generation, and yet you hated them for it. The parents of your generation, the generation that survived the triplet horrors of the Great Depression, the struggle against fascism and finally the Soviets was your definition of evil, not the horrible things they fought against. They left behind a world that you could live in that was beyond anything they could have imagined...

...Thank you, baby boomers! Thanks for the sexual revolution, thanks for Chlamydia, herpes, oh and a very special thank you very much for the spread of AIDS. Thanks for a generation of kids raised in divorce. Thanks for rampant adolescent drug use. Thanks for crack cocaine and black tar heroin. Thanks for making a culture that makes the staggering hell of drug addiction something “cool”...

As Varifrank says, his generation wil have revenge:

	My generation will be here after yours is soon gone to write the legacy of your lives. That is our revenge. We get to be the ones to tell your tale...
	You’re a leftist and used to be funny. P.J. O’Rourke was a leftist and now he’s not, but he grew up, which is a normal thing for most men everyone except you, Michael Jackson and peter pan. Now he is in his 50s and yet he’s still funny but he’s not a leftist anymore. I suggest you give him a call sometime. There is nothing wrong with trying to act like your 25, except when you’re in your 60’s...

Thank you, Varifrank. He needed that.

Go see ’em all at The Watchers’ Council.