LINK  or if this link doesn't work, go to the Ernie and Jay audio page and see the interview with Ogletree.

As I'm listening to this, the Glen Rose Independent School District is still barring Ogletree from volunteering.  Cost in criminal defense $120,000. House would have been paid off by now sans that.

Section 1983 discrimination claim. Ashley Goodwin-male teachers have been treated very differently (I think one of these must be a reference to Erik Slaughter).

Judge Bridewell. Fall of 05 judge threw out the case, appellate court, ALL THREE JUDGES reversed his decision. SAME JUDGE just threw out the case again.  Different legal argument, first time was lack of jurisdiction, second argument her claim doesn't stand. Going to take back to the appellate court. Want to take it to a jury trial. Could hte case get assigned to a different judge?  Appeals court-when? Might take 6-7 months, last time it took 18 months.

What does Ogletree hope to get out of it? Setting precedent for others that are falsely accused (yes, you can stand up and fight). Would like to be a volunteer again. Plans to sue the complainants?

***My comment on what I heard. It appears that Judge Bridewell has decided to rule in favor of GRISD school board about throwing out her case. That would mean, I expect, that the guaranteed court date she was GOING to have in April is a moot point, at least temporarily. But since, as she said on the audio (or her attorney did) they're going to take this to appeals court, where LAST TIME the appeals court threw out Bridewell's verdict, chances are good that this will be back on a court docket. I do wonder how much time that will take, though, because suppose the appeals court does remand it back to the lower court again, where, as the attorney said today, the plaintiffs hope to get a jury trial. Seems like they'd have to wait.. again.. to get that on a docket to be heard. Ugh. Shame on the Glen Rose Independent School District school board. It's appalling that this has gone on so long.

Ugh. Ihate reading stories like this. Here you had a family that didn't have a problem with letting the city have an easement to a ball field, which you know, had to be reached another way, but it was NICE Of that family to let the city have it. So what happened? The city took advantage.

A collision between progressive newcomers and deep-rooted families like Jobe's was probably inevitable. And Jobe, a broad man in suspenders who talks in a preacher's sonorous cadences, says he was told the easement was being done to accommodate folks in the subdivisions, saving them a longer drive to a park that was literally just around the corner.

But he says he didn't have a problem with that. With yet another new subdivision in the offing, the Rocky Fork Road was due for realigning anyway.

"[Engineers] selected this option because it took the least amount of land possible," Beth Lothers says.

But then the six-foot sliver of land the town proposed to take along Newsome Lane kept getting bigger—growing to 6,000 square feet, Jobe says. The town offered Jobe and his kin $8,000 and a land swap, but in late July negotiations fizzled. The family no longer wanted the town's deal. Jobe says the expanded access now encroached on his septic tank overflow, and it reshaped the property in a way that could affect its future value. Lothers says the land swap maintains the property value, forming the swatch of land into a rectangle rather than a triangle.

Stymied by what Lothers calls a resistance to change, the town took a giant leap. After a vote by the town aldermen on Sept. 4, Jobe and his sisters found themselves slapped with a condemnation lawsuit—the first in Nolensville's history.

SHAME ON THEM.

Chanting and waving flags, thousands of Muqtada al-Sadr's followers filled Firdous Square to protest a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact that would allow American troops to stay for three more years. The Bush effigy was placed on the same pedestal where U.S. Marines toppled the ousted dictator's statue in one of the iconic images of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

After a mass prayer, demonstrators pelted the effigy with plastic water bottles and sandals. One man hit it in the face with his sandal. The effigy fell head first into the crowd and protesters jumped on it before setting it ablaze.

Before it fell, the effigy held a sign that said: "The security agreement ... shame and humiliation."

Iraq's parliament is expected to vote next week on the plan to keep U.S. forces in Iraq for another three years. But the noisy opposition by the Sadrists indicates that even if it is approved, the deal could remain divisive in a country struggling for reconciliation.

From Journal-Gazette

According to court documents, on Sept. 11, J.S. was taken from his classroom to the religious release time trailer and given a pamphlet about the program to take home to get parental consent before the program began Sept. 18.

H.S. did not give her child permission to participate in the program, and he and three other students were left behind in a hallway while a teacher walked the other students to the trailer, according to court documents. The four students not participating returned to their classroom when the teacher returned.

The church trailer sits in the school’s parking lot and uses the elementary school’s electricity. The students are escorted to the program by their teachers each week, and those who do not participate receive no school programming during the time the “By the Book” program meets, according to court documents.

The suit alleges that the school district violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by allowing religious instruction to occur on school property during instructional time, allowing the use of school utilities by a religious organization conducting religious instruction and by supervising and promoting the “By the Book” program.