> Debate coaches lose cool, pulls down pants

Debate coaches lose cool, 1 pulls down his pants

By MARIA SUDEKUM FISHER, Associated Press Writer

Friday, August 15, 2008

(08-15) 11:17 PDT Kansas City, Mo. (AP) –

An argument between two debate coaches that was caught on video was not the sharp-witted dialogue typically associated with college debate teams. Instead, the two traded profanity-laced barbs and one of them pulled down his shorts, exposing his underwear.

An eight-minute segment of the argument, in which each cursed repeatedly and one student near the camera can be heard crying, was posted on YouTube on Aug. 2 and has garnered more than 100,000 hits.

“In 18 years of taking part in debates, I have never seen an incident like this one,” said Gordon Stables, first vice president of the Cross Examination Debate Association, which sponsored the March tournament in Wichita, Kan., where the argument took place.

Stables, who is also director of the University of Southern California’s debate squad, said the association was investigating.

In the video, Fort Hays State University debate coach William Shanahan is shown arguing with Shanara Reid-Brinkley, debate coach at the University of Pittsburgh, during the competition’s quarterfinals.

The argument, which appears to be at least in part about race, is punctuated with frequent cursing and name-calling. Shanahan, who is white, and Reid-Brinkley, who is black, scream criticisms about one another’s body language during students’ debates.

At one point Shanahan screams as he jumps up, then yanks his shorts down to his knees and points his rear end at Reid-Brinkley.

Phone messages left for Reid-Brinkley and Shanahan were not returned Thursday. Officials at Pitt and Fort Hays State, a university of about 9,000 students in western Kansas, said they were investigating.

> ‘Ethnic’ children faked in Olympic opening ceremony

Children representing China's 55 minority groups�their country's flag during the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Picture: Reuters

Another section of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony has been exposed as faked – the children supposedly representing the country’s 56 ethnic groups were in fact all from the same one, the majority Han Chinese race.

By Richard Spencer in Beijing
Last Updated: 12:49PM BST 15 Aug 2008

The children carried the national flag into the Bird’s Nest National Stadium, before handing it over to soldiers to raise at the most solemn moment of the ceremony.

They were dressed in costumes associated with the country’s ethnic minorities, including those from troubled areas such as Tibet and the muslim province of Xinjiang. Such displays of “national unity” are a compulsory part of any major state occasion.

But the children were all from the Han Chinese majority, which makes up more than 90 per cent of the population and is culturally and politically dominant, according to an official with the cultural troupe from which they were selected.

“I assume they think the kids were very natural looking and nice,” Yuan Zhifeng, deputy director of the Galaxy Children’s Art Troupe said.

The official guide to the opening ceremony said that the children did not just represent but came from China’s ethnic groups.

“Fifty-six children from 56 Chinese ethnic groups cluster around the Chinese national flag, representing the 56 ethnic groups,” it said.

This point was put to Wang Wei, executive vice-president of the Beijing organising committee at a press conference today.

“I think you are being very meticulous,” he said. He said it was “traditional” to use dancers from other ethnic groups in this way.

“I would argue it is normal for dancers, performers, to be dressed in other races’ clothes,” he said. “I don’t know exactly where these performers are from.”

The initial triumph of the opening ceremony has already been clouded by revelations that the little girl who sand “Hymn to the Motherland”, a patriotic Chinese anthem, was lip-synching to the pre-recorded voice of another girl who had been told she was not pretty enough to appear.

The “footprint fireworks” shown on television were also pre-recorded and digitally enhanced.

The mother of one of the children involved, who represented the Hezhe, a group of nomads from north-eastern China who are one of its smallest minorities, revealed that some of the children had originally been auditioned also to sing the anthem, but been turned down.

The woman, who does not give her real name on the blog in which she described her feelings, said it involved gruelling days of rehearsal, from 3pm sometimes until 2am the next morning.

“I never thought my little girl would be taking part in the Olympics opening ceremony,” she wrote. “Days later I still haven’t calmed down.

“Now the ceremony is over, and my girl has completed her mission.

“She told me proudly: ‘Mum, I contributed to our country, I am very proud.”

The discovery that the children representing ethnic groups as diverse as Mongolians and members of the Li group from the south-western mountains were all in fact Han will hardly be noticed in China, where such practices are normal.

Nevertheless it is a sign of how sensitive ethnic relations in China are. At national Communist Party and state congresses, while the Han Chinese delegates all wear suits, carefully chosen members of ethnic minorities are told to wear traditional costume.

“Minority dances” are a regular part of state-sponsored entertainments, with performers coming from all over the country without having to belong to the relevant group.

> Teachers in molest claims

Teachers in molest claims
By NELSON BENJAMIN

LABIS: Two primary school teachers have been arrested for allegedly molesting and performing indecent acts on their pupils.

The teachers, aged 35 and 27, from two different schools in Labis and Kluang respectively, were arrested after pupils lodged police reports.

Investigations showed that the students were molested in different places, including a school’s counselling room, an art class and even in a park.

In the latest report in Labis last week, a Year 6 pupil who failed to attend her extra classes was asked to see the discipline teacher in the counselling room.

Sources said that instead of reprimanding her, the 35-year-old teacher started showing her pornographic pictures on his laptop and molested her.

The family suspected something amiss when the girl refused to go to school the next day. The family then lodged a police report.

In the other case in Kluang, several Year 6 pupils lodged separate reports after being molested by their 27-year-old teacher, allegedly since March this year.

In one case, the teacher had offered a 12-year-old pupil a ride in his car to attend Friday prayers but took him to a secluded area instead and molested him and tried to sodomise him.

The boy managed to fight him off and demanded to be sent home.

Johor CID chief Senior Asst Comm (II) Amer Awal appealed to those with information to contact the police hotline at 07-2212 9999.

> Ministry cannot act without probe

Wee: Ministry cannot act without probe

PUTRAJAYA: The Selangor education department has been directed to hold a domestic inquiry into the case of a teacher who allegedly uttered racial slurs against a group of Indian students recently.

Deputy Education Minister Dr Wee Ka Siong said the ministry could not simply take any action, including sacking an individual, without first conducting a domestic inquiry.

He told a press conference yesterday the teacher had been transferred to another school as a temporary measure as the case had caused feelings of hurt in the original school.

If the teacher remained at home during the investigation, he pointed out, the ministry would be accused of paying her for nothing.

Two students from SMK Telok Panglima Garang recently lodged police reports against the teacher, alleging that she had made derogatory remarks about Indian students and called them unflattering names.

Angry parents and other members of the Indian community had gathered outside the school to stage a protest against the teacher.

Dr Wee said Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein had expressed his concern over the matter and had asked him to personally look into it.

On another matter, he said the ministry would be working with representatives from the Health Ministry as well as psychologists to conduct a scientific study on hysteria among students.

From June to August, the ministry had received reports of hysteria involving 221 students from nine schools.

“We want to know how it happens and what measures can be taken in future,” he said, adding that it was common among Muslim students.

In the short term, he said, when such cases occurred, school counsellors and religious teachers would help the affected students.

Dr Wee said long-term measures included having more training courses for teachers and residential school staff members on how to deal with such a situation and avoid panic.

===

Apparently, “no pay leave” and “suspension”, does not exist in his dictionary.