Warning: may cause dust in air to get into your eyes.

The most touching thing in these two videos, to me, is that he is concerned about his parents and whether they are OK.

I have shown the first video to two classes of intro sociology students. It fits into the current unit, which is on socialization -- how we learn to be humans, including how we learn to live with others. I asked the students to do what children learn to do -- take the role of the other. I could tell that was very uncomfortable for some of them, men and women. Others were moved.

How could his mother stoop to do what she tried to do to him? I hate that.

"It is the story of two men in a railroad train. One was so reserved that his companion had difficulty in persuading him to talk about himself. He was, he said at length, a convict returning from five years' imprisonment in a distant prison, but his people were too poor to visit him and were too uneducated to be very articulate on paper. Hence he had written to them to make a sign for him when he was released and came home. If they wanted him, they should put a white ribbon in the big apple tree which stood close to the railroad track at the bottom of the garden, and he would get off the train, but if they did not want him, they were to do nothing and he would stay on the train and seek a new life elsewhere. He said that they were nearing his home town and that he couldn't bear to look. His new friend said that he would look and took his place by the window to watch for the apple tree which the other had described to him.

"In a minute he put a hand on his companion's arm. 'There it is,' he cried. 'It's all right! The whole tree is white with ribbons.'" —Library of Congress

2 women share 1st kiss at US Navy ship's return



Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta, left, kisses her girlfriend of two years, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek in Virginia Beach on Wednesday, Dec. 22. It's a tradition at Navy homecomings that one sailor is chosen by raffle to be first off the ship to kiss a loved one. Wednesday, for the first time, the reunited couple was same-sex.

In the fierce debate that led up to President Barack Obama's repeal last September of Don't Ask Don't Tell, the 1993 law that banned gay and lesbian service members from serving openly in the military, supporters of the law warned that a repeal would have disastrous consequences for the armed forces. One letter, signed by more than 1,000 military officers, claimed that a repeal would undermine recruiting efforts, negatively affect "troop readiness" and "eventually break the All-Volunteer Force."

One year later, the first academic study of the military's new open-service policy has found there have been no negative consequences whatsoever.

The study, published Monday by the Palm Center, a research branch of the Williams Institute at University of California Los Angeles Law School, found that there has been no overall negative impact on military readiness, unit cohesion, recruitment, retention or morale.

(snip)

"For almost twenty years, experts predicted that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would harm the military," said Aaron Belkin, the founding director of the Palm Center and lead author of the study. "Now the evidence is in, and the conclusion is clear: repealing 'don't ask, don't tell' did not harm the military, and if anything made it easier for the Pentagon to pursue its mission."

(snip)

There’s a reason why Barack Obama is mistrusted in the ranks of the military services. He doesn’t smell of the hive, and it shows. Bees recognize a hostile intruder when they see one, and so do soldiers, sailors and Marines.

Many of these soldiers, sailors and Marines feel betrayed by the senior officers of the services, beginning with the commander in chief. The old customs and traditions which have held the services together through war and peace have been scorned and trashed, replaced with the politically correct attitudes and regulations that gag real men.