As we head into October, one high school is taking attendance seriously. Maybe a little too seriously. Staff at Prospect Heights International High School in New York called to discuss a 16-year-old boy's truancy. Only one problem—he has been dead since June.
But it gets worse. According to an article in New York Daily News, Jean Fritz Pierre from Brooklyn died tragically on a field trip to Upstate New York with the very same school.
Now the grieving dad, Jonas Pierre, is suing the city for his son's death, which he blames on neglect. Though his son was cautioned against swimming in Hessian Lake by park officials due to the lake's deep pits, the teen was later found drowned.
“I think, why are you calling, why are you telling me this,” said 39-year-old Pierre, who was shocked at the school's insensitivity. “Don’t you know my son is dead?”
Although Prospect Heights officials were cleared of blame recently in a formal investigation into Jean Fritz’s death, his father holds the school accountable all the same.
And can you blame him, really? You have to wonder how responsible a school is when it doesn't even bother to record that one of its students has died—on a class trip... So much for duty of care.
“We apologize for any pain or suffering this may have caused the family and are checking all data systems to ensure that the family doesn’t receive these calls anymore,” said Department of Education spokesperson, Erin Hughes.
Can you believe this? Almost as shocking and awful as this recent misstep.
Have you heard about Love Italian Style, the 'advice' book by Real Housewives of New Jersey star, Melissa Gorga? It might as well be called Chauvinism, Actually. A rom com it is not.
According to an article in Jezebel, Gorga has been taken aback by accusations that her book promotes marital rape, when she claims it's all about mutual respect. Hm, we must be reading a different book.
Witness the quote from her husband and control freak extraordinaire, Joe: "Every girl wants to get her hair pulled once in a while. If your wife says 'no,' turn her around, and rip her clothes off. She wants to be dominated." Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so, too.
In fact, there are so many passages that reek of disrespect and borderline abuse, it's hard to narrow it down to just a few gems. But I'll do my best.
"His style was to make corrections and to teach me from the beginning days of our marriage exactly how he envisioned our life together," writes Gorga. "Joe always says, 'You got to teach someone to walk straight on the knife. If you slip, you're going to get cut.' Even if something didn't bother him that badly, he'd bring it up."
From dressing as 'eye candy' to please him, to having sex even when she doesn't want to (because, really, who's fault would it be if he had to go elsewhere for nookie?), Gorga also has to make sure she's home when he gets there, with dinner on the table, children fed and changed, and never a bad smell lingering in her toilet:
"Girls don't poop. Me, never have. Never will. It just doesn't happen. Or, that's what Joe thinks! We've been married for nine years, and he has never once seen or smelled my business. How have I pulled this off? I don't do it when he's around or awake. In an emergency, I have my ways of pooping so he won't hear, smell, or see. It's a challenge."
Talk about walking on the knife! Personally, I'd rather walk off a cliff than be married to someone like that... I understand that some cultures are more, say, traditional when it comes to gender roles. HOWEVER, if that is how love or respect translate in any language, then I'll happily stay single or celibate, thanks.
Is this a culture thing—as the book's title suggests—or simply a brainwashed Gorga thing? You tell me.
Pinch me I thought this was the year 2013. You'd be fooled that we'd regressed half a decade after reading about the reporter who has taken up her boyfriend's challenge to make him 300 sandwiches in exchange for his marriage proposal.
Incredibly, the New York Post's Stephanie Smith not only picked up the gauntlet, but she's already 176 (no doubt now approaching 180) sandwiches into the bargain.
According to her blog, Stephanie has painstakingly and beautifully documented the arrangement with boyfriend Eric Schulte at 300sandwiches.com.
“You’ve been up for 15 minutes and you haven’t made me a sandwich?” he apparently asks.
What, you ask, is a modern woman doing slapping bread together for her partner in this day and age? Is a sandwich really the way to a man's heart?
Apparently he is the chef in the relationship, and she claims his elaborate cooking is a turn-on. So is he simply dishing up some quid pro quo?
“You women read all these magazines to get advice on how to keep a man, and it’s so easy,” he says. “We’re not complex. Just do something nice for us. Like make a sandwich.”
What do you think of this experiment?
Pure sexism, a bit foodie fun—like that of Julie Powell, who famously challenged herself to cook up Julia Child's recipes—or an embarrassing ploy for media attention?
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