Hi — ‘Tis Lenore from Free-Range Kids again. Here’s one that’ll make you (verrrrrry carefully) bang your head against the table: A dad noticed that the medals a school was giving out as prizes were not made out of fur, or cotton, or silk. They were, in fact, made out of metal, with a point at one end!  According to this article on the website Kent:

The father-of-two said: “What on earth were these idiots thinking, handing out something like that to children? It does make you wonder how in these health-and-safety days, these slipped through the net. The people who organised it obviously didn’t see them like that but they’re so sharp, I just pushed one into a wooden table.

“I can’t believe someone’s allowed these to be given out.”

The technician, who is in his late 50s, spotted a friend’s ten-year-old son wearing one of the bronze medals last week and immediately confiscated it.

He said: “He was proudly wearing it round his neck and I thought, ‘My God, he’s going to stab himself with that.’

Let’s hope no one ever hands any kids he knows a cross or a Star of David! The horror! – L.
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Pentagon City: There’s no denying that the United States Army holds the military fashion crown, with past designs by Ralph Lauren and Karl Lagerfeld selling out at Barney’s and Neiman Marcus. But the Army has outdone itself this season, by teaming up with Versace!

“Since the days of Saratoga and Germantown, the Army has always been at the forefront of defending America from foreign enemies, and doing so with a flair and chic that would be the envy of any design house in Milan or Paris,” says Uwe Rheinhardt of the New York School of Fashion Arts. “But the Army’s 2013 collection shows a verve and daring that will keep America’s soldiers a step ahead of the competition, whether that’s in the Kandahar desert or on the runways in Miami.”

The new collection’s stunning red coats have already been modelled by Bianca Tauro at last month’s Fabrizzi fashion show in Rome, and the rest of the range is equally show stopping. With lashings of Versace trademarks, from shocking bright colour to tricornered caps, it’s glamorous and cool with a garish twist, sure to attract all eyes on the battlefield in any Middle Eastern hellhole.

General Stanley Abraham of the Army’s Natick, Massachusetts design lab concurred, noting that Versace’s gold-braided waistcoasts, contrasted with the ivory pantaloons that have fashion mavens talking from Berlin to Basra, “give the Army a strong fashion brand sure to ‘shock and awe’ all enemy combatants.”

The Army's new Versace Collection on parade!

“It made me think about why soldiers are so fixated with rules,” says Donatella Versace of her collection. “Armed combat should be more fun. When the American fighting man marches forth on the battlefield, his last worry should be that he’ll be caught dead in the dreary fashions of yesteryear.”

We’re circling  our diary for 2013 – in gold. In the meantime – see our favourite pieces from the collection here.

Email responses to my article from Friday have been mostly positive. But here’s a fun one:

I’m from outside Chicago.  Wicker park has historically been a rough neighborhood.  In fact, i had to chase down a purse snatcher there a couple years ago.  The new hipsters moving in are naive.

Shaver seems to me like she doesn’t understand the city.  Her and her dipshit friend picked a fight with two hot headed gangsters and got a light beat down.

Then they blamed the cops.  You learn not to screw with Chicago cops, and you learn to mind your own business.

Someone yelling profanities is a verbal argument.  She’d have an excuse to get involved if the girl was getting beaten.

There’s no California bullshit in my city.

I feel bad for her like i feel bad for the dead wrong pedestrian lying in the crosswalk (Oh yeah, that rule doesn’t mean shit in Chicago either).

Two sides to every story,

Brock

Going forward, I think “Your An Idiot” will be the running title for hate mail posts. It nicely captures the correlation between level of vitriol and concentration of spelling/grammatical errors you tend to find in hate mail/comments.

So to kick things off, my Huffington Post piece yesterday brought some fun hate mail from the right. Which is a refreshing change of pace from the Koch brothers-themed hate mail and nasty comments from the left over the last few months. Of course, nothing in the piece expressed any support for the ideology or the goals of the Occupy movement. It was just an article about how they’re using technology. But who cares! People like to be angry!

A sampling ([sics] all around):

Sir:

I am appalled by your lack of integrity. You quoted someone from the Cato Institute but didn’t reveal that you also worked for them. You also didn’t reveal that while they pretend to be conservatives, they are really George Soros peacenicks, homos, and potheads (your probably all three) who wear ties to disguise themselves.

Morale degenerate.

~

Sir;

I read your article with interest but I was waiting for the REASON the police had to act. You in the media have been trying your best to equate this rabble with the Tea Party so can you please name the times , dates and places were Tea Party “protesters” clashed with the police?

I no longer watch network TV nor read any newspapers and least of all this so-called “news” outlet. I read this one  to reassure myself that nothing has changed, you are all ideologues and left-leaning swine.

~

If you think cell phone snippets of “police brutality” accurately depict what is happening, you probably think Jurassic Park is a documentary of living dinosaurs on a real island, after all we actually saw dinosaurs killing people.

~

You’re kidding, right?

Will these rich kids, unionists, criminals and just-plain-nuts types show the footage of THEM-

- urinating on police cars

   Throwing glass and metal at police-

 defacating in people’s yards-

bullying, harrassing property[read taxpayers] owners?

These idiots scream against the rich-all the while shoving each other out of the way to stand next to fatass Michael Moore-

They rant against Wall St/business owners as being “too rich”.-Who do these idiots think supply jobs?

They whine about oil /petroleum companies-while they hold their plastic Starbucks cup-and text on their I phones/pads/blackberry’s.

This is the TYPICAL entitlement mentality of the Left.

And this is EXACTLY why you all will have a RUDE awakening Nov.12. Let me guess what YOU’RE doing right now………reading your article on your PETROLEUM- based unit-hoping you get noticed by the RICH Huff-HO herself.

You’re pathetic.

~

Then there is the phonys documented who stand there and yell and scream at the police like they are witnessing abuse that is not taking place so they can splice it into old tapes to make it LOOK like the police are mistreating them. All staged.

~

“Hey Mr. Soros, can you send more money and Twinkies? I love it down here man. By the way George, why aren’t we protesting on your front lawn. Oh, I get it! You’re one of the 99% like us.”