Worried about a Sandy Hook reprise? Fear not, all you have to do is arm your kiddo with some armour... We're talking bulletproof Avenger and Disney Princess backpacks (never fear, style is never compromised!)
Derek Williams, president of Amendment II that manufactures the lightweight body armour, is now marketing his products at elementary school kids. How perfect!
Americans get to keep their stash of arsenal, while the Salt Lake City-based turns a profit. The new line of backpacks are built with Amendment's "signature carbon nanotube armor, designed to keep kids safe in the event of school shootings."
Not surprisingly, since the Newtown, Conn. massacre, according to an article in Mother Jones, sales have gone through the roof.
"I can't go into exact sales numbers, but basically we tripled our sales volume of backpacks that we typically do in a month—in one week," Williams says. "We want to be sensitive [to the crisis], but we are gonna try to get the word out that this product does exist that there are ways to at least provide our children with some protection."
Amendment isn't the only company using tragedy and the fear and vulnerability of parents to rake in the dough. A backpack by Massachusetts company Bullet Blocker Backbacks cost upwards of $200 USD.
Helpfully, Bullet Blocker explains: "While you can not control when gun-related violence happens, you can choose to do something to improve your odds of survival."
This sickens me on so many levels. It's absurd and awful and so beyond the point. While I sit here and seethe, please go on and read this. I wish Mr Bullet Blocker and Mr Amendment II would read it, too...
What does Victoria's Secret have to do with the yuletide season? Well, I didn't think so, either. But I'm sure the idea of supermodels prancing around in little red lacy numbers set the sugarplums dancing in the heads of many men.
From where you're sitting, the video of the models attempting to trim the tree and sing "Deck The Halls" is either cute in a cheesy bloopers sort of way or it's a sort of cruel way to poke fun when the models can't remember the lyrics (because as a Jezebel post points out "half of these women don't even speak English as a native language.")
Either way, wonderful. We're back to women being best seen and not heard...
Cute or cringeworthy? Does it get you in the spirit—for Christmas, that is?
So mass havoc yesterday after Ontario's elementary teachers staged a one-day walkout. The schools belonging to eight school boards—including the province's largest—closed their doors as part of a staged strike.
In Toronto, nearly 14,000 traded the classroom for the picket line in what was dubbed "Super Tuesday."
According to an article in the Huffington Post, teachers are protesting legislation that gives the "provincial government the power to end strikes and impose a collective agreement on the teachers."
By repealing Bill 115, the government can put an end to strikes, involvement teachers claim goes against their human rights.
"It's gotten a little sticky, that's unfortunate," Premier Dalton McGuinty said on CityTV's Breakfast Television, "but I am convinced we are doing the right thing for the long term. Thankfully, it's just the one day," he said of the strike, which was permitted with 72 hours' notice.
McGuinty urged teachers back to the bargaining table, yet the Liberals have "prepared the necessary legal documents" should they need to quash further strike action.
A Toronto teacher quoted by Metro claimed the strike was an "empty gesture." Do you agree? Should teachers be denied striking rights, like other public servants?
What did your kids do on their 'day off'?
Printer-friendly version