Teaching the Bill of Rights to children

Sometime I fear Grits' fare will become too negative, having so often adopted the role of bearer of bad news regarding Texas' criminal justice system. So this post pairs notice of a rather ugly incident with two more positive developments:

Seven girls and three boys, ages 11 and 12, were strip searched by their private charter school in LaMarque, TX, looking for a 10 dollar bill another student reported missing last week. The searches conducted were performed without the parents' permission. The money was not recovered, so the humiliation these kids went through was for naught. One parent called the police and pulled her kids out of the school, but police told the newspaper the searches weren't against the law. Via Last One Speaks and Talk Left.

Meanwhile, Pete Guither points to this Houston Chronicle op ed, "Lawyer's plea on pot penalty," in support of Rep. Dutton's bill.

After my perhaps rather alarmist post last night about dogs, it's worth mentioning that the Statesman has an interesting item on a program utilizing inmates to train "difficult" dogs from the local animal shelter to make them easier to place in a home. Sometimes the inmates have family members adopt them so they'll be waiting for them when they get out.