Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints? Who dat? Who dat?

Go Raiders: http://www.nvcc.edu/current-students/student-life/athletics--fitness/

My NOVA's doing better than your Nova. http://novabball.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/nova-raiders-beat-thomas-nelson-cc-105-to-100/

C, looks like we have a lot in common...

I went to NOVA for a summer semester while I was in high school. It was a Calculus preperatory class. Hahah... It's really called "NoVa" (Northern Virginia Community College).

By the way, I lived in Vienna.

Chain Bridge / Sr-123 / Maple Ave

I would have thought the same re NoVa but the website a few posts back says NOVA about three times so I didn't question it.  I grew up in a less prestigious county on the east side of DC, but my girlfriend lived in Annandale.

Would this be Trinidad or closer to Fairmont Heights...

Fairmont Heights

Damn, that makes people who went to Eli High School look like small time... you must be pretty hard-core C. No joke...

Why do you say that?  It wasn't that bad, but I did get jumped for no reason by a couple of guys one time and they scared the nearby teacher away lol.  I guess he didn't like me, ha.  There was an ear sliced off that year, too...nickname Van Gogh?

...but anyway, I'm just a wimp.

Hahah... Fairmont Heights isn't as bad as Trinidad. If I'm honest, I think I only stopped off there once, and I think it was because I had to go to one of the embasseys to get a VISA (don't remember). But it was still a tougher neighborhood than Herndon or Vienna or something similar...

At Ely one of our classmates was car jacked and shot to death.  That's just off the top of my head.  I know some suburbs of DC/Virginia are really bad and I don't know much about it so I can't compare.  Although, Fairmont Heights sounds like a cakewalk compared to Ely just based on the name.

Yes PG county is a distant last after Mo. Co. and the No. VA counties at least so they say.  We enjoyed beating the Mo. Co. schools in B-ball and, Fairmont Heights, a smaller school, always seemed to win their divisional state championship.  PG is, however, now the most affluent, predominantly Black county in the U.S.  Fairmont Heights is in Seat Pleasant which is on the PG/D.C. border.  Anacostia is on the D.C. side of the border and is probably less pleasant, but it shouldn't be dissed just cuz it's Black.  Unlike Ely perhaps its issues are Black on Black issues rather than interracial gangs such as seen in the movie Freedom Writers.  That seems worse to me and I'm glad I didn't have to deal with such.  The schools (public) I went to were overwhelmingly White.

Otoh, my father was principal of Maryland Park JHS in Seat Pleasant in the 60s.  A student with a gun coundn't find my Dad one day so he (the student) shot a teacher.  Plan B.  My Dad kept a gun in the house but he broke it down into a few pieces and spread them around the house so we kids wouldn't get hurt.  Good thing he never needed it.  He met me at my Jr. High School a few times because people were making death threats toward his kids....in the 60s.  Interestingly, it just didn't register with me.  I was oblivious to most of that stuff.  I guess I just didn't take it seriously.  My biggest challenge in school was having to deal with obnoxious, short kids like Stephen.

But, I live in So. No. VA now and the traffic is what I hate.  Back in good ol' PG, traffic's not such a problem!  Today's paper says that a kid in Queen's got arrested for doodling on her desk with a marker.  A matter of perspective, I guess.

Obama will sign a student loan bill into law on NOVA's campus on Tuesday.

The south florida version or the virginia version?

The Virginia NoVa. (Northern Virginia College)

The so. fla. version?

Here's a question for you professorial types.  What gives professors the right to give a student who has submitted a satisfactory paper a grade of zero if the paper does not include the "honor pledge"?

That question is probably directed to Trev...

Dade County Schools and their abuse of corporal punishment in 1970-71 led to a Supreme Court ruling which banned it.  It was a 5-4 decision based on Amendment VIII which bans cruel and unusual punishment.  Amendment XIV probably at play in there to for SCOTUS to be able to apply equal protection to a state.  Seems to me a zero on an otherwise satisfactory paper because the writer forgot "the pledge" constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, too.  Most professors do not punish at all when the pledge is missing which means the few profs that do are unusual, imho.  The Dean thinks the prof has the right to do it if they want to.  What is the basis for the rights of a prof?

TLM, I thought you would weigh in on this question of proferssor rights