Posted by Frank James at 10:09 am CDT

Politico.com reports today that a spokesman in the office of Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican and presidential candidate, has corrected journalists who have described the Virginia Tech massacre as the worst in American education.

While it was evidently the worst shooting in terms of the numbers of victims, Tancredo's spokesman said there was a horrible school attack in 1917 in Michigan by a rabid anti-tax attacker which had a higher death toll. The mass murderer back then used explosives.

The point being made by Carlos Espinosa, Tancredo's spokesman, is that if gun-control advocates think they can blame guns for the worst massacre in a U.S. education setting, they've got another think coming.

Espinosa's corrective probably won't much slow the push by gun-control advocates for stricter legislation, however.

Here's the Politico.com story by the aptly named reporter Ryan Grim:

The shooting spree at Virginia Tech is being reported as the "deadliest massacre in U.S. history" or the "deadliest massacre on a U.S. campus."

Posted by William Neikirk at 6:25 a.m. CDT

Steven Janosik is a leading expert on the Clery Act, a law requiring colleges and universities to issue annual reports on campus crime and their security measures to deal with it.

He also happens to be a professor at Virginia Tech, where his extensive research went from abstract to real in one violent rampage by a single gunman on Monday.

Janosik is no fan of the law, first passed by Congress in 1990 and amended several times in the wake of rising campus violence. He said parents and students do not, as a rule, read the reports. And students are more likely to respond to personal appeals and warnings about their safety than a long report on a website, he added.

Posted by Jim Tankersley at 3:33 pm, updated 4 pm CDT

The morning shootings that shocked the Virginia Tech campus have left students with a screaming question: Why weren't they warned earlier that a gunman was loose on their campus?

"A lot of us were just questioning why someone was shot at 7 a.m. and the school wasn’t in lockdown," said Max Davis, a 19-year-old freshman and one of several students interviewed this afternoon by Tribune reporters.

The shooting shortly after 7 a.m. EDT at a dormitory and subsequent shooting after 9 a.m. in an academic building have left a reported 31 people dead, at least. Many students say they didn't hear about either of them until they received this e-mail just before 9:30 a.m. EDT.

Campus police believed, at first, that they were dealing with a "domestic'' shooting at 7:15 am, when two were killed in a dormitory, the police chief said at a news conference just now. The university president said they believed the situation was under control -- until the second shooting spree began. At a school of 26,000 students, the president said, just 9,000 live on campus. And by 8 am, they were heading to class.

Judge the urgency of the campus email dispatched at 9:26 am EDT for yourself:

Good morning.

Here are a few Washington events of note for Wednesday, June 21, as compiled by the Associated Press.

The National Transportation Safety Board is holding its second day of hearings on last year's runway overrun by a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 at Chicago Midway Airport.
Location: NTSB offices, 429 L’Enfant Plaza

President Bush is in Vienna, meeting with Austrian and EU officials.

The Educational Testing Service is releasing its results of a 6th annual nationwide survey of Americans’ views on key education issues. 11 a.m.

Good morning.

Here are a few Washington events of note for Monday, June 12, as collected by the Associated Press.

President Bush is meeting at Camp David with key American and Iraqi governmental and military leaders today and Tuesday about future operations in Iraq.

10 a.m. The Supreme Court is meeting and may hand down more decisions as its yearly term nears the end.

Good morning.

Here are a few Washington events of note for Wednesday, May 24, as gathered by the Associated Press.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addresses a Joint Meeting of Congress. 11 a.m.


The National Assessment of Educational Progress releases the Nation’s Report Card on Science for 2005. 10 a.m.

President Bush visits Pottstown, Pa. to look at a generating station and speak on energy. He later campaigns for congressional candidates.

Good morning.

Here are a few Washington events of note for Monday, May 22, as compiled by the Associated Press.

10 a.m. U.S. SUPREME COURT — Meets to hand down decisions and release orders.

10 a.m. NATURALIZATION CEREMONY — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Servoices Director Emilio T. Gonzalez swears-in 100 new citizens from 42 nations.
Location: George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, Fairfax County, Va.

8:30 a.m. - 10 a.m. IMMIGRATION — The Hudson Institute hosts a panel on What Makes an American? Historical Perspectives on Immigration. With Amy Kauffman, Hudson Institute; Mathew Spalding, Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation; Peter Skerry, Brookings Institute and professor of political science, Boston College; Tamar Jacoby, senior fellow, Manhattan Institute; and John Fonte, director of the Center for American Common Culture at Hudson Institute.
Location: Hudson Institute, Betsey and Walter Stern Conference Center, sixth floor, 1015 15th Street, NW.

Posted by Frank James at 1:13 pm CDT

I received a press release today which you can read below. A shrewd public-relations person for Foreign Policy magazine saw the Senate vote yesterday to make English the official, national language as an opportunity to plug a language-related article in the periodical.

The article is on the sorry state of foreign-language training in the U.S. Among the striking statistics is that only 8 percent of U.S. college students take a foreign language.