About her life before hitting it big in "American Idol," Fantasia said, "I wasn't working. I wasn't doing anything, and Zion [her daughter] wasn't in daycare. . . . I had my own little apartment [presumably at taxpayers' expense] and I would do her hair all day, watch movies. . . . We would play dress-up. We had nothing to do." Her baby's father, Brandel Shouse, was arrested and pled guilty for assaulting Fantasia. (They are said to be on cordial terms, now.)
A badge of honor? Tell that to Coach A.
Coach Ted Anderson worked as the basketball coach for the Memphis, Tenn., Hamilton High Wildcats for over 20 years. Memphis, until recently, allowed corporal punishment, one of the few big-city districts that still permitted the practice. Coach Anderson, who, himself, attended Hamilton High -- where he received the occasional paddling -- earned a reputation as a basketball coach for being hardworking, fearsome, and who would, from time to time, administer the correctional swat.
Anderson said he swatted kids for tardiness, unruliness, disrespectful behavior, poor grades and -- twice in his career -- for poor play. Unfortunately for Coach A., at a tournament during halftime, he swatted three players for poor play, one parent complained and despite no other complaint in his 20-year career as Hamilton's basketball coach, the school board fired him as coach and transferred him to teach a middle school class.
During Coach Anderson's career, single moms brought their children to him precisely because they wanted their sons to see a strong male figure, a presence frequently absent from the kids' lives.
One of Anderson's former student athletes told me that he credits Anderson with his success in life and in business. Several other former students rallied to his support in urging the district to reconsider.
Many studies show that the best predictor of violent crime in a community is not the race or economic status, but the proportion of households without fathers. Most juvenile and adult offenders come from homes without fathers.
In his book "My Father's Face," James Robison wrote about a chaplain in a federal penitentiary who decided to improve morale. He persuaded a greeting card company to supply him with Mother's Day cards for the inmates. The prisoners enthusiastically sent each mom a card. Morale improved so dramatically that the chaplain decided to repeat the success on Father's Day. The chaplain offered the cards to the inmates. But not one inmate sent a card to his father. Not one.
A badge of honor?