Nancy Perry Should Not Be Allowed To Teach

My father was a teacher, and, in some ways, he still is, because he is constantly imparting bits of knowledge — most notably about climate change, a passionate topic to him — to friends and family, so I love a good teacher; I’ve had many in my lifetime.

Nancy Perry, however, is not a good teacher; in fact she is the worst kind of teacher imaginable and how she still has a job is beyond me.

See, Nancy teaches at Dublin Middle School in Dublin, Georgia, and one day during class she decided to teach the class a lesson in … something … by telling her students that President Obama is lying about being a Christian and that if their parents support him, they aren’t true Christians.  To add insult to religious indoctrination stupidity, she then challenged her class of middle school students to prove they were Christians.

Well, you just know one of the students took this story home to his parents, who were baffled and confused and angry that a public school teacher would impart her own, obviously limited, opinions on the president’s faith, the student’s faith, and the parent’s faith, in a classroom setting so they demanded a conference with Nancy Perry.

On the day of the scheduled meeting, though, they were surprised to find that not only was Nancy Perry at the meeting, but she’d brought along her husband, Bill, who is on the school board, and who once hosted a right-wing radio program during which he would demonize same-sex marriage and trash Democrats, including President Obama.

Which, by the way, is his right, on the radio, but is not Nancy Perry’s right, in a classroom.

During the conference, the parents got the impression that Mrs. Perry had brought along her husband to intimidate them, and became even more alarmed when the Perry’s, rather than discussing her inappropriate lesson, tried to convince them to goosestep along with their extremist views by offering them a packet of internet propaganda.

The parents then took their complaints to the school board and to the Dublin Laurens County NAACP, who called upon the school to take action against the Nancy and Bill Perry:

“This teacher has betrayed her profession. She has broken the trust from teacher to student and from teacher to parent. The harm that she has done goes beyond her classroom. It is incalculable. At the very least she has tainted the learning experience and caused divisiveness among her students, the school faculty, staff and the community. Her husband should be held accountable for his abuse of power stemming from his participation in the parent-teacher conference. He had no right to be there. His presence did nothing to enhance the process. In fact, his presence further eroded his wife’s credibility as a teacher.”

Sounds about right to me, but, apparently school administrators had a different thought and have allowed Nancy and Bill Perry to retain their positions, though Superintendent Chuck Ledbetter had this to say about the incident:

“We work to build bridges with students, not build walls, and talking politics, especially giving political opinions, can be very divisive

[…]

We’ve had meetings to make sure there is an understanding that this is not appropriate

[…]

You try to be appropriate to the situation. It’s one of those that you don’t want repeated… A board member being in a parent-teacher conference can tip the balance, or at least from the appearance, tip the balance of fairness. It is not a practice that we can allow. Her husband should be held accountable for his abuse of power stemming from his participation in the parent-teacher conference. He had no right to be there. His presence did nothing to enhance the process. In fact, his presence further eroded his wife’s credibility as a teacher.”

Am I wrong in thinking that Nancy Perry should be kicked out of school immediately? I mean, first, for bringing her own personal views into the classroom as a lesson? I mean, she has the right to her opinions, but I don’t think her opinions were part of the curriculum for middle school students.

And then, to bring her husband into the parent conference? He had no business being part of that discussion, or in sharing his little website package with them, and, in fact, inserting himself into a parent-teacher conference is a violation of school policy, so Bill Perry should be removed from the school board instantly.

The fact that they haven’t been terminated, and have really only gotten a minor slap on the wrist, only means that Nancy Perry will continue teaching students her own political and religious beliefs, and that her husband will continue to back her up.

It amazes me that these two still have jobs, and in education, no less.

sources:

Addicting Info
Freakout Nation
GWMAC

Architecture Wednesday: Flight House

Before my parents left California for Oregon, they lived high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in a place called Blue Canyon. It was nice, though a little isolated, but what I liked a great deal about it was that it was just a thirty minute uphill drive to Truckee; and Truckee’s cool. Hip and quaint; trendy and touristy; modern and retro. I kinda always thought that even though I don’t like remote areas, I could live in Truckee … especially if I had the Flight House.

The house is dubbed “Flight House” because of the two large arching wing-shaped roofs that appear to shelter the main living space and bedroom areas. The two wings offer different experiences with the environment: in the main living space, the great room is slab-on-grade with a polished concrete floor that extends to the outside and feels “grounded,” while the bedroom wing “takes flight” because the ground slopes down, and that wing ends with a floating 3-sided glass box that is part of the master suite.

The entry is defined by a smaller curved roof structure that shelters visitors from the elements and creates a defined separation between the outdoor courtyard space of the front yard and the street beyond.

With an emphasis on passive solar design, the exterior gathering space needed to be on the front side of the house to gain the best southern exposure. A deep overhang creates a second protected outdoor sitting area, while shielding the home from the hotter summer sun. In the winter, when the sun dips lower in the sky, the sun penetrates into the inner spaces and the polished concrete floor act as a heat sink, radiating warmth throughout the home.

Flight House puts a twist on the mountain cabin, and, well, I love twisted.

via HomeDSGN

#BlackLivesMatter: Walter Scott

It’s happened again, this time down here in South Carolina.

Last Saturday morning, Michael Slager, a North Charleston police officer, pulled over Walter Scott for having a broken taillight. Slager says Scott became belligerent so he used his taser on the man; that started a struggle, and Slager, saying he feared for his life, took out his gun and shot and killed Walter Scott.

Another black man shot to death by a white police officer … what a horrible story … except that isn’t what happened, and there is proof that it didn’t happen.

A video, recorded by an unidentified passerby, and sent to investigators and to Walter Scott’s family, shows Walter Scott running away from Officer Slager, and then shows Officer Slager shooting him in the back; Slager fired eight shots at Walter Scott though it’s how many hit the man. As Scott lay on the ground, dead or dying, Michael handcuffed him. Two- and-a-half minutes later, as other officers respond to the scene, the video shows Slager putting his hand on Scott's neck, apparently checking his pulse.

Michael Slager is facing murder charges. State Law Enforcement Division agents announced the charges yesterday, and at a conference about the charges, North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey called Slager's actions a "bad decision."

I’m sorry; a “bad decision” to shoot an unarmed man in the back as he ran away? There was no other recourse?

Now, let me be clear: not all police officers are bad, and not all black men are good, but we seem to have a series of white police officers shooting black men, choking black men, to death on our streets, and something needs to be done about it.

No one should be killed because they ran away from a police officer who stopped them for having a broken taillight. 

The video can be seen at WLTX

Walter Scott photo via NBC News

Mike Pence Says He 'Abhors Discrimination' But His Actions Tell A Different Story

There was always the assumption that one day Indiana Governor Mike Pence would run for President. I always thought that odd, because he wasn’t well-known outside Indiana, and I got the impression that he wasn’t well-liked inside the state.  I figured he’d have to do something big, take a stand, make a point, and then he’d get national recognition and a shot at the White House … one day.

Sadly, his big move was to sign into law Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act which basically said business owners could discriminate against anyone of their choosing as long as they used the “deeply held religious conviction” excuse. And most folks rightly believed that this law meant anti-LGBT discrimination, no matter how many times Pence shouted “Hoosiers don’t discriminate.”

And no matter how many times he said he would let the law stand, and how many times he said he personally abhorred discrimination, this was Baby Jeebus Discrimination so it had to stand … until it didn’t.

And so I kept returning to Mike Pence saying he “abhors discrimination.” And how he said if he was eating in a restaurant that refused to serve a gay person, he’d up and leave and I got to thinking, “Really, Mike?

As a member of Congress for six terms, from 2001 to 2013, Mike Pence earned a ‘Zero’ from the Human Rights Campaign [HRC]; that means that during his twelve years in Congress he didn’t support one single pro-LGBT bill and did not oppose one single anti-LGBT bill. Sounds like discrimination to me.

Mike Pence is also firmly entrenched in the anti-marriage equality camp. The website for his 2000 congressional campaign said this:

“Congress should oppose any effort to put gay and lesbian relationships on an equal legal status with heterosexual marriage.”

Now, folks can say that maybe he’s evolved; I mean, Obama did it right? But, in 2006, he cosponsored and voted for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman.  Mike Pence continues to speak out absent marriage equality while saying he abhors discrimination, as he did at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2008:

“Marriage was ordained by God and instituted in law. It is the glue of the American family and the safest harbor to raise children. Conservatives must defend traditional marriage by passing the Federal Marriage Amendment.”

In 2013, when the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA], Mike Pence said he was disappointed by the decision; he began pushing for Indiana to amend its own constitution to ban same-sex marriage even though the state already had a statutory ban on same-sex marriage. He wanted it written into the state Constitution that The Gays must never be allowed to get married.

Mike Pence, who “abhors discrimination”, is also against protecting LGBT employees. In 2007, as a member of the U.S. House, he voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act because he felt that:

“By extending the reach of federal law to cover sexual orientation, employment discrimination protections, in effect, can wage war on the free exercise of religion in the workplace. Some examples, under ENDA, would mean employees around the country who possess religious beliefs that are opposed to homosexual behavior would be forced, in effect, to lay down their rights and convictions at the door. For example, if an employee keeps a Bible in his or her cubicle, if an employee displays a Bible verse on their desk, that employee could be claimed by a homosexual colleague to be creating a hostile work environment because the homosexual employee objects to passages in the Bible relating to homosexuality.”

Mike Pence does not support LGBT-inclusive hate-crimes legislation either. In fact, he opposed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 — passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama. Although he said he objected especially to the measure being attached to a defense spending bill, he didn’t like the hate-crimes bill itself:

“The president has used his position as commander in chief to advance a radical social agenda, when he should have used it to advance legislation that would unequivocally support our troops.”

By the way, it’s no surprise that Mike Pence has never supported lesbian, gay, and bisexual troops, and, in fact, opposed the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell [DADT]:

“There is no question that to mainstream homosexuality within the active duty military would have an impact on unit cohesion, an impact on readiness.”

He said that repealing DADT was akin to “using the American military, our armed forces, to advance a liberal social agenda.”

Mike Pence won't say whether same-sex couples should raise children, and when asked that specific question in 2012, he refused to answer. But, back in 2004, while arguing on the House floor in favor of a federal constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, Pence seemed to suggest that he considers straight parents superior at raising children:

"Marriage is the glue of the family and the safest harbor for children."

Mike Pence’s stand on funding for HIV services also reeks of an antigay bias. His 2000 website stated:

“Congress should support the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act only after completion of an audit to ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus. Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.”

Though he didn’t say it, it kinda sounds like Pence is in favor of ex-gay therapy to change a person’s sexual behavior. And he has long opposed needle-exchange programs to help prevent the spread of the virus among injection-drug users, but after one Indiana county saw a spike in HIV cases among intravenous drug users, Mike Pence temporarily changed his stance, and he allowed for a short-term, state-supervised needle-exchange program for that single county.

Mike Pence says he abhors discrimination, but his words are meaningless when his actions clearly state the opposite. And if we can trust his deeds as governor of one state, how can we trust him as president of all fifty?

sourced from: The Advocate

#BillieAt100: Happy Birthday Lady Day

There isn’t another singer, alive or dead, who moves me as much as Lady Day, Billie Holiday. I have been a fan since, well, probably forever. The first time I heard that voice, that soul, that pain, that life, in song, I was hooked. And so, while today we’ll celebrate Carlos’ birthday, we are also celebrating #BillieAt100, because this is her 100th birthday.

She was born Eleanora Fagan, and grew up in Baltimore in the 1920s. As a teenager, she would sing-along with Bessie Smith or Louis Armstrong records in the neighborhood after-hours jazz clubs. When Eleanora’s mother, Sadie, moved to New York in search of a better job, Billie soon followed, and made her debut in nightclubs in Harlem, changing her name to Billie Holiday.

Billie had no training; she couldn’t even read music. But man what she could do with a song. She worked all the clubs in Harlem, sometimes signing with the accompaniment of the house piano player or working as part of a group of performers.

At just 18, Billie was spotted by John Hammond and recorded her first record as part of a studio group led by Benny Goodman. In 1935, at age 20, Billie’s career rocketed when she recorded four sides that went on to become hits, including “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” and “Miss Brown to You,” and landed her a recording contract of her own.

Billie began working with Lester Young in 1936 — he nicknamed her Lady Day — and she then went on to work with Count Basie in 1937 and then Artie Shaw in 1938, where she became one of the very first black women to work with a white orchestra.

In the 1930s, while recording for Columbia Records, Billie heard the poem “Strange Fruit,” an emotional piece about the lynching of a black man. Though Columbia would not allow her to record the piece due to subject matter, Holiday went on to record the song with an alternate label, Commodore, and “Strange Fruit” became one of her classics.

In the 1950s Billie recorded about 100 new songs for Verve Records, her voice more rugged and vulnerable, but still so powerful.  Despite her lack of technical training, Billie’s unique diction, phrasing and intensity made her the outstanding jazz singer of her day.

“Singing songs like the ‘The Man I Love’ or ‘Porgy’ is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck. I’ve lived songs like that.” — Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday died far too young and far too soon, in 1959 at the age of 44. True, her life was filled with bad men, bad choices, drugs, drug arrests, and heartbreak, but none of that matters when you just listen to her sing … like this …

  

photo credits:

Fashion Bomb
Downbeat
BET
see also:
Billie Holiday on YouTube
BillieHoliday.com

Ah-Ah-Ah-Choooooo!

Well, the trees are in bloom, the leaves are coming in nice and green, and the azaleas are flowering.

Spring.Is.Here. And I have a Winter Cold. In motherf**king Spring. I made it theough our nasty cold damp wet soggy frigid freeezing winter without so much as a sore throat and now I get a cold?

A tinge of a sore throat on Sunday, a day we’d planned to make our way to church for Easter services … and by ‘church’ I mean CostCo. Hey, we all worship in our own ways. I worship the thought of enough toilet paper to last till the End Times, but that’s just me.

Carlos asked if I felt up to the trip … 90 minutes up, 90 minutes back … and I said, ‘Sure.’

Off we went; a beautiful sunny day for a drive, though lots of traffic with folks going to and from Church, or Wal-Mart, I couldn’t tell. But we finally made it up there and, well, CostCo isn’t open on Easter.

Ninety minutes back. And then back to bed for me.

Monday was stuffy, sneezy, grumpy, headache-y, cough-y and just plain miserable-y. It was a gorgeous day, and I was off from work, and I so wanted to work in the yard, seriously, and yet it was all I could do to stay upright in a chair,

Bed at 9:30. Nyquil? Check. Aspirin? Check. Vicks Vapo-Rub on the chest and up the nostrils? Check.

Sidenote: because of Carlos’ adorable accent, around our house we call it Bick Boppa Rue.

Carlos let me sleep in — off again today — and so I didn’t wake until 9AM, with a stuffed nose, a dry mouth a puddle of drool on the pillow, and a headache, and memories of what I call Nyquil Dreams. Quite hallucinogenic, I’m guessing, and lovely and crazy and, well, now nothing more than a memory.

That’s all … Soldier on.

Happy Birthday Carlos!

Yup. It's today.

Carlos' birthday, and, as he would tell it, like Vera Charles, he is somewhere between forty.....and death. But, he doesn't get to tell it. I do, because it's my blog and I'll write about him if I want to....

I am constantly amazed by Carlos. I learn something new about him, from him, every day. His hasn't always been the easiest path; he's had more ups and downs than a power top at an all-night orgy, but he moves on with a smile. He's endured things and overcome things that would break a lesser man, but he does it a laugh and, perhaps, a little sashay that would make RuPaul green with envy.

He has a smirk that makes me swoon.
He has a way with words that makes me feel like a dizzy redhead.
He has a heart and passion for life that is unmatched.

So, here we are, celebrating his birthday for the fourteenth time together, and I am looking forward to fourteen more, and fourteen more, and fourteen more.

I love you, Carlos, for who you were, and who you are, and who you will be.

Happy Birthday, Baby, and if they ask, I won't tell.

And, rather than singing that old tired birthday tune, I'll end with a little John Barrowman, and I Am What I Am because Carlos is what he is, and it's the only way he'll have it.

Happy Birthday, Husband ....  

Why Bobby Jindal Will Never Be President: Reason # 46297

Bobby Jindal, Republican, of course, Louisiana governor and Tea Party dingbat has no problem with private businesses denying services to same-sex couples because he’s “uncomfortable” with providing nondiscrimination protections to LGBT Americans because, well, gay.

"I don't think, certainly, that there should be discrimination against anybody in housing and employment. That's not what my faith teaches me. I don't think that's appropriate, and I think the good news is that our society is moving in a direction of more tolerance. My concern about creating special legal protections is that historically, our country, we've only done that in extraordinary circumstances, and it's not evident to me — it doesn't appear to be one of those moments today."

First off: STFU you moron.

Secondly, what exactly is the “special right” given to me by allowing me to eat at a certain restaurant or order a cake or flowers? That’s just me going about my daily life; it’s not special, asshat, it’s just life.

But Bobby the Asshat and Dingbat says he firmly believes bakers, florists and other businesses should be allowed to deny goods and services to same-sex couples looking to get married:

"If it is a sincerely held religious belief that it offends the owner's beliefs to participate in that wedding ceremony, absolutely. I don't think the government should be able to force somebody to contradict their own sincerely held religious beliefs to participate in a wedding ceremony, and that used to be a bipartisan consensus."

First off: STFU.

Secondly, by walking into a florist or a bakery or a dress shop or tuxedo shop, I am not asking the proprietor to participate in my wedding. I am asking them to do the job for which they opened their business in exchange for cash. Stop acting like these bigot bakers and fascist florist are being asked to condone my wedding. I don’t give a flying f**k if they condone it or not, it’s none of their business, just like it’s none of my business to whom they are married, or will marry.

Oh, and Bobby Jindal, there are a great many religious folks in this country who believe that being a Muslim, and practicing the Muslim faith, is wrong, so do we decide now that if you, Bobby Jindal, were to walk into a business looking like maybe you could be Muslim, that it’s just fine for you to be discriminated against because the shop owner has a deeply personal religious faith that says you’re a terrorist.

Or, is it just The Gays who can be discriminated again.

PS The rant about Muslims being terrorists in no way reflects my own personal viewpoint. I don’t believe Muslims are terrorists, I believe terrorists are terrorists. I don’t believe that because you might look Middle Eastern automatically makes you Muslim and a terrorist; I believe the fact that maybe you look Middle Easter means you might have a Middle Eastern heritage.

Now, again, Bobby Jindal, STFU.

story via HuffPo

photo via Raw Story

Minute Rant: The Gays Are Nazis ... Slaveowners ... Want Christians Dead

Since this whole kerfuffle over the ironically named Religious Freedom Restoration Act ... because, let's face it, does religious freedom need to be restored if it has always been here? ... I've been listening to the religious wingnuts ... Robertson, Fischer, Perkins ... say that telling a business owner they cannot discriminate against The Gays because they have a warped belief that's what God wants ... She doesn't ... is akin to enslaving a business owner.

Yes, saying, 'Here's some money, bake me a cake,' is exactly like saying 'Pick cotton or I'll beat you to within an inch of your life or kill you.'

Asking someone to serve you pizza when they wrongly believe God doesn't want them to ... except She does ... is like turning them into Anne Frank because asking for a 'Large pepperoni' from a religious nut is akin to making them hide in an attic until they are discovered and put to death.

And then there's that old chestnut ... Gays are Nazis. See, if you don't sell me roses, I'm gonna round you up and put you in a camp with other bigots.

Seriously?

Seriously.

Let's Talk About Race, Baby... Again

I find it odd, and sad, and sick and twisted, that when people hear that there are more black men in prisons than white men they say it’s because black men commit most of the crimes. I mean, that is patently false, and yet people seem to believe it.

But do people believe it that when a black man is arrested on a drug charge, even a minor drug charge, most of the time they get jail, and yet when a white man is arrested on a similar charge they often get a trip to rehab.

Is that fair? Is it racist? Well, then what about this …

Back on March 23rd, the Iowa Gazette ran two separate crime stories. One story was about three white University of Iowa wrestling team members who’d been charged with burglary, and the other story, on the same day, remember, and was about four black men who were suspects in a different burglary.

Same crimes; different races. And when Lee Hermiston, the reporter who covered both stories, and the newspaper, told the tale, they posted pictures of the accused in the paper with one notable difference: the three white men were named alongside their yearbook photos, while the four black men were named alongside the mugshots taken at the time of their arrest.

White men get pretty pictures in suits and ties, while black men get mugshots.

And so, when the time comes for a trial, don’t you think it already looks like at least four of those seven men are guilty, while the other three look like it was just some colossal mistake, or college prank? This idea that the paper used two different types of photographs to portray seven different men all charged with the exact same time perpetuates the idea that black men are thieves and white men are good old college boys.

And in the stories on the alleged thieves, the white men are called wrestlers while the black men are referred to as burglars. You think that gives anyone a leg up when, or if, the cases go to trial?

Still think there isn’t a race problem in this country?

via Addicting Info

Tom Sosnik Comes Out As Transgender

Let’s end the week — or start the next week, depending upon how you roll — with a fabulous story …

Tom Sosnik is just 13-years-old, but he may be the most well-spoken teenager ever. See, Tom is transgender, and after he’d heard the news of the suicide of transgender teen Leelah Alcorn [see my posts HERE and HERE], he wanted to share his story:

“For a while, I dismissed the fact that I hated my body. I pretended to be content with what I was assigned until, at a certain point, I broke. For some of you this may come as a shock, and for others, well, you knew or you thought that I was transgender. Well here’s your reassurance: I am no longer Mia. I never really was. And now I finally stand before you in my true and authentic gender identity as Tom. I stand before you as a thirteen-year-old boy."

I can’t imagine the courage it took to stand up and tell his story, and I am amazed at the reason why he spoke: he wanted his classmates to talk to him, or their parents, about what it means to be transgender, and not just resort to ridiculous name-calling or gossip:

"I really hope that you all will support my decision to embark on a harder route in life as the boy I truly am. Any form of support I receive with much gratitude and I hope that everyone can really support me because you guys are like my second family. And if you support me, I'll feel like the luckiest boy in the world. Thank you for letting me share my story."

It takes a brave soul, a fearless soul, a happy-at-last soul, to share his story the way Tom Sosnik did, and it makes me feel especially good this Sunday morning.

Here’s Tom’s speech in full:

sources:

HuffPo
YouTube
Refinery 29 [picture]

It's Snarkurday!

Color me surprised … I kid, I’m not the least bit surprised … but Jennifer Lopez and her decades younger boy-toy Casper Smart are back together following their “breakup” last year.

Except they never really broke up; Casper has been around JLo this whole time, but she played the “just friends” card because she had a movie, The Boy Next Door, to promote, and it would look better if she was a cougar on the prowl rather than a cougar with her plaything.

So, she pretended to be dating, er, hooking up, with her Boy Next Door co-star Ryan Guzman to help sell tickets, but that didn’t work; the movie bombed; Guzman and Lopez are never seen again; she’s back with Casper.

Must be nice to be the boy-toy of the superstar who keeps you in hiding while she pretends to date someone else so people will go see her movie and then when it tanks she starts showing up with you again.

That’s love, JLo style.

Little Tommy Cruise always makes a point of the fact that he does all his own stunts because he’s totally fit and heroic and so manly and so butch. But, I kinda wonder, with so many millions on the line — his big budget retreads cost big bucks and he makes big bucks doing them — why a movie studio would let their star risk his life in such a way?

Well, apparently they do it because if they don’t let Tommy hang from the side of a building he throws a pissy fit.

And it’s his BFF and Mission Impossible stunt coordinator Wade Eastman who spills the beans:

“He stomps his feet and fights for it and tells [the studio] that basically if they don’t [let him], he’s not going to do the movie. When he wants to do something cool, he’ll fight to the death in order to do it.”

Funny, though, when I think ‘fight to the death’ I don’t think of a diminutive movie star with a giant ego teetering on his lifts. I mean, if Cruise ever fell off his shoes that would really be dangerous.

It’s no secret that The View is on its last legs. I mean, the show started going downhill with the hiring of Sherri ‘The Earth Is Flat’ Shepard, and continued with the departure of Joy Behar and the addition of Jenny ‘Vaccine Denier’ McCarthy.

But the killer is that Jenny’s husband, Donnie Wahlberg says that View producers wanted her back on the show after Rosie flew the coop:

“She’s very gracious about ‘The View’ and I told her the day that she left, I said they’re going to ask you back within six months. She won’t say it, but they did. Not officially, but they did.”

“Not officially,” means that Jenny and Donnie are making this up out of whole cloth just to keep their names in the press. The View wouldn’t ask McCarthy back because she was a complete and utter moron, making faces at the camera, while there.

Yeah, they’d want that back. Child, please, they aren’t that desperate.

More View? Well, Barbara Walters is officially insane. I know, it seems like she’s been insane for a lotta years but now, well, we need a rubber room for Grandma.

Apparently Babs, seeing her baby, The View, crashing and burning nearly every week with hosts in, and hosts out, and hosts fighting, says she has the solution to the problem: Monica Lewinsky.

A network source — and it ain’t Lohan because she hasn’t got a job right now — says:

“Barbara believes that Monica could make ‘The View’ competitive and compelling, and while a lot of Washington’s elite may scratch the show off its must-visit press list, the younger demographic of online users would tune in daily to see what she had to say.”

The good news is that no matter how crazy Babs acts, and no matter what kinda crazy falls from her lips, she has no say in the matter; she sold rights to the show back to ABC a year before she retired, so this really means nothing.

Except that Crazy Baba Wawa actually thought having to listen to Monica Lewinsky play the Twenty-Year-Old-Victim-Card five days a week was a good idea.

Crawl back into the crypt, Babs, we’ll wake you when something really important happens on The View … which will be never.

Remember when Vanilla Ice, AKA Robert Van Winkle, was arrested for breaking into a Florida home and stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down so he could use them in a house he was remodeling?

And remember when he said the whole thing was a joke … a misunderstanding … and would all be cleared up because he’s innocent?

Yeah, not so much. This week Ice, or do we call him Vanilla, accepted a plea deal to perform community service and a fine for his crime.

Wow. I though “Ice Ice Baby” was the moist embarrassing thing he could ever do … but apparently there’s a sub-basement to his humiliation which includes being busted for stealing pool filters and bicycles.

I like when porn stars stick together …

Apparently Paris Hilton, during a recent interview with Yahoo! Style — which begs the question, why is anyone interested in interviewing Paris Hilton — was asked if she thought her career … career? … paved the way for Kim Kardastrophe and what she thought about the idea that the Kardastrophes wouldn’t be around were it not for Paris Hilton. And she said:

“We’ve known each other since we were little girls. We’ve always been friends. It’s nice to inspire people. So yeah, I’m really proud of her and what she’s done.”

Inspire people? To what? Lay flat on their back, point their heels toward Jesus and get screwed, literally, on film, and then become a household name?

How inspiring. Porn stars sticking together.