Item number one:

The Palestinian teenagers who came one after another into the True Love gift and music shop on a recent afternoon all had the same request: nationalistic songs — the new ones.
The proprietor quickly handed over the CDs that he had just started keeping at the checkout counter, like “Jerusalem Is Bleeding,” featuring the track “It’an, It’an” — “Stab, stab” — with its ominous backbeat.
“When I listen to these songs it makes me boil inside,” said one customer, Khader Abu Leil, 15, explaining that the thrumming score has helped pump him up for near-daily demonstrations where he hurls stones at Israeli soldiers.
“Stab the Zionist and say God is great,” declares one, a reference to the spate of knife attacks since Oct. 1. “Let the knives stab your enemy,” says another. A third is called “Continue the Intifada” and comes with a YouTube warning — the video shows the Palestinian woman who pulled a knife at an Afula bus station surrounded by Israeli soldiers pointing guns.
“Resist and carry your guns,” the song urges. “Say hello to being a martyr.”

Inappropriate Thought:  I think it would be neat if one of these artists were to do a cover of Limp Bizkit’s “Break Stuff”.

Story Item Number Two:

New survey findings suggest that when asked how they feel during the school day, USA high school students consistently invoke three key feelings: “tired,” “stressed” and “bored.”
The researcher who led the study warns that such negative feelings can influence young people’s attention, memory, decision making, school performance and social lives. […]

Researchers distributed a brief online questionnaire that featured the question: “How do you currently feel in school?” Three blank spaces followed, with room for any answers they felt were appropriate.
Eight of the top 10 responses were negative.
“Tired” was most often invoked — 39% of students wrote that.
“Stressed” came in second, at 29%. “Bored” was third, at 26%.
By contrast, the two most frequently invoked positive emotions were “happy” (22%) and “excited (4.7%).
Parents and educators should be alarmed by the findings, Brackett said.

Inappropriate Thought:  Aren’t kids supposed to be bored at school?  Also, isn’t that the only proper response to a steady diet of the stimuli — rich as it is in testing, testing, testing?

New Yorker article, backtrack on one famous school shooting:

Kinkel was psychotic: he thought the Chinese were preparing to attack the United States, that Disney had plans for world domination, and that the government had placed a computer chip inside his head.

He’s right about one out of three.

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