What a bizarre story. I’m curious who the other kids picked. Also, I’m curious if we’re missing any of it. Even if the teacher tries to nudge all the students into picking the same handful of heroes every year, it’s odd they’d keep pushing back against a less well known one, even after the parent calls in.
Next year (especially if that kid has younger siblings), someone should do their report on that mom, for fighting the man/the system/the power.
If I were very cynical I’d think the story was faked somehow to earn headlines, just based on how spare on details the whole thing seems from the article.
Here’s a completely different take.
In this telling, she was assigned to do a report on Amelia Earhart, and the teacher agreed to let Noa do her presentation on Bessie Coleman. The MSNBC video says the assignment was for Black History Month. Given the current date, and we’re just now hearing about it, it sounds like it was for Women’t History Month.
BUT… The GMA article was posted in July… of 2019.
I was outraged the teacher denied Bessie Coleman (perhaps because she’d never heard of her?), but this story is 3½ years old, not well-sourced, and MSNBC’s account and GMA’s account are at odds.
Apparently, it’s Cobb Christian School.
These appear to be two different, if similar, stories. The girl in the video is 9-year-old Alice Williams. The girl in the GMA story is (then) 8-year-old Noa Lewis.
So she can’t even keep her own name and age straight?! This is getting awfully suspicious. What is she up to?
I never heard of Bessie Coleman or this story but Googling her name, apparently the US Treasury is going to put her on a commemorative quarter. Doesn’t that qualify someone as worthy of note?
Seriously, Bessie Coleman was cool! There are a number of bronze plaques honoring aviators embedded in the sidewalk near LAX, and I always smile when I see Bessie’s.
I’ve come to think of this thread as equivalent to the obituaries: any day I don’t see my name mentioned as the subject is a good day 
I found this video very interesting.
It’s a 16 minute LegalEagle video about Florida Man. “Florida Man” is so pervasive in the news not just because Florida is full of crazy people (I’m sure there is some element of that to the phenomenon) but mostly because of a 1967 law in Florida making all government meetings open to the public (with very few exceptions). Over the years, what constitutes a “meeting” has broadened so much that even things like arrests are included. Since all of this information in Florida is so easy to get ahold of, there is a massive amount of material to mine and it’s an absolute treasure trove of crazy headlines for article writers. In other words, it’s a matter of quantity over quality.
Devin argues that the sheer volume of crazy stories out of Florida gives people a biased view of the state, and insists that its transparency is a model that other states should strive for. I think he has a compelling argument. (Though I’m not sure that a lot of the more recent legislation out of Florida has much to recommend it, and Governor Ronnie is trying to limit the scope of the law.)
Plus, the video quotes plenty of entertaining Florida Man/Woman/People stories, as well as equally crazy stories from other states, and it’s worth watching for that alone.
A similar phenomenon is why Russians are perceived as insane drivers; YouTube has thousands of hours of dashcam videos of accidents and reckless driving on Russian roads.
But due to lax insurance and the bureaucracy of Russian courts, many Russian drivers equip their cars with dashcams, and as a result, capture much more chaos on the roads. Thus creating the impression that Russians have a higher proportion of psychotic, dangerous drivers.
Incidentally, this didn’t make the news, buttt, some guy was stalking/harassing one of my woman co-workers. It’s a long story, but includes: him telling people in the parking lot to tell her “hi”, him loitering in the store to the point other customers wouldn’t leave until they were sure she wasn’t alone, her running and hiding in the office when the guy working with her told her the stalker was coming in. The crowning piece is he left for a while and returned to stand in the parking lot smoking weed. Eh, no big except he was only wearing underwear. Some customers called the cops. Now this establishment is in Michigan, and yes he was from Florida!
As an aside I would have called the cops much sooner. I worked overnights by myself most of the night. I never ever hesitated to call the cops when hinky shit went on. I couldn’t believe my co-workers didn’t. Especially (not mentioned above) when male co-worker told Florida man he was being stalker-ish, she was happily married, and not interested, the guy went off on him. He was threatening and called my male co-worker and friend a f##gt. Grrr!
Those have pretty much dried up lately. I am unable to put my finger on exactly why.
I did comment to DesertRoomie once, "I think we’re hearing the kind of Russian you don’t get in high school.
It always sounds like birds chittering to me.
Dumbass prankster YouTuber gets shot by prankee, vows to continue pranking (multiple stupid MFers in this one):
Agreed. The kid is an asshole based on the description of his pranks, which sound like harassment. He also pretends to vomit on Uber drivers. Something was bound to happen to him. The fact that he’ll still keep going after this, I don’t have too much sympathy for him.
But he doesn’t deserve to be shot. A lawsuit or fine is more appropriate. The asshole who shot him is dangerous and should not have had a gun, and probably needs psychiatric help. If you shoot someone for harassing you, there is something seriously wrong with you.
Seems to me that there’s something wrong with the kid, too. A normal person should be all “Welp, that’s enough of that!” after getting shot.
“But the views, man. *The views!”
I don’t think we have facilities designed to help people overcome being a dumbass. If only. We do have anger management programs at least for the shooter along with whatever else might be going on.
I’ve never heard of “being a jackass” management.
Shooting him was an over-reaction. Whatever happened to a good old curb-stomp beat-down?
nevermind, misread a post.