David McElroy

I’ve rescued many cats and dogs, but some folks in Malawi have an unusual rescue going on. They’re raising a baby elephant.

Moses is almost 8 months old now, but when he was found in the Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve in Malawi, he was alone and close to death. Jenny Webb, who owns the Jumbo Foundation, took the tiny elephant in and adopted him. He’s being raised with an interesting assortment of humans, dogs and other animals. If you love animals, I think you’ll enjoy the pictures.

As much as I like elephants, I’m not sure whether he’d fit in here at my townhouse, so I’m glad Webb and Co. found him instead of me. I can’t look at the pictures without hearing “Baby Elephant Walk” in my mind.

France’s Socialist President François Hollande made French students happy this week with a proposal to ban homework.

Is this just a clever ruse to win the votes of those students when they’re old enough to vote? Apparently not. It’s ideological — an attempt to make things more fair by preventing educated and affluent parents from helping their children. No, seriously. I’m not making this up.

Hollande and others who think the way he does believe that homework isn’t fair because kids from affluent families can get help from their educated parents, but kids from “disadvantaged” (poor and uneducated) families don’t get the help they need. So the solution is to make sure the kids from the better families can’t take advantage of their parents’ help anymore. According to Hollande’s proposal, all school work will have to be done at school. To be fair.

To implement his sweeping plans, Hollande plans to hire thousands more teachers and increase the number of hours that kids are in school each week. It’s unclear whether he’ll actually be able to implement the plan, but it’s what he’s pushing.

I have to tell you honestly that I don’t have an opinion about whether homework is a good thing for kids or not. I have no idea whether it helps them learn. When I was in school, I rarely did homework. I was pathetic, actually. Sometimes I’d slap out some semblance of the work during homeroom or between classes. Other times, I’d make up elaborate “dog ate my homework” lies. (I actually remember having to stand and explain to the class in the second grade why I didn’t have my homework. My story was creative, but probably not believable.)

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If you’re a political junkie, you might actually be excited about seeing Barack Obama and Mitt Romney hold the joint media appearance tonight that we’ve been conditioned to call a debate. If you’re not a political junkie, you’ve probably been flooded with news stories and commentary that imply every good citizen ought to be watching.

Well, I won’t be watching. I didn’t watch any of the joint circus appearances during the GOP primaries and I haven’t watched the presidential and vice presidential debates so far. I’ve been told that I’m “uninformed” because I don’t watch these things, but I’m not terribly concerned. I won’t be watching. Here’s why.

First, I don’t believe in the majoritarian system, so why would I feel obliged to participate in this farce? I don’t believe in the moral legitimacy of a system that claims the right to control us, so why would I lend it my respect by paying attention?

Second, taking this farce seriously implies that there’s a real choice. There’s not. Yes, these two candidates have a few issues on which they disagree, but when it comes to the vast majority of issues — thing such as the legitimacy of government control over individuals, the acceptability of killing innocent civilians in countries that haven’t even attacked us and the legality of locking people up without trial if a president orders it — these guys are on the same page.

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