That statement by Defoe’s attorney Wednesday was the one thing on which he and his courtroom opponent agree in the legal battle over the Anderson County school system’s quarter-century-old ban on the display of the Confederate flag.
It was 18-year-old Defoe who was suspended from Anderson County High School in 2006 after repeatedly refusing, albeit politely, to take off or cover a T-shirt and belt buckle bearing the Rebel battle flag. It was Defoe who has been sitting at the table in U.S. District Court this week as the plaintiff in a lawsuit that labels the ban an unconstitutional violation of the teenager’s right to free speech.
If you are inclined to believe he should be able to wear his t-shirt and belt buckle would you then also say he should be free to show up in hot pink knee-length boots?
The boy’s parents, Dawn and Gregory King, along with his younger brother, Rocky King, are seeking unspecified damages related to the fatal shooting of the 15-year-old boy as he sat in English class at E.O. Green School on Feb. 12. …
In the claims, the Kings say school and county staff members failed to enforce the middle school’s dress code.
That put the feminine-dressing King at particular risk at a time when staff members knew he had “unique vulnerabilities” and was “susceptible to abuse” because of his perceived sexual orientation, the claim says. …
King had told friends he was gay, and he wore makeup, jewelry and high-heeled boots with his school uniform — something Dannenberg said the teen had the freedom to do under his First Amendment rights.
The school’s dress code prevents students from wearing articles of clothing considered distracting. Much broader — and thus more likely to survive a court challenge? — than the specific Confederate flag ban in Tennessee.
My own thought is that dress codes for kids are fine. I see us demanding that schools do more and more of our parenting, so we shouldn’t take away their tools.
For those following the case of Brandon McInerney (the teen who shot King), he entered a not guilty plea last week. The judge has ruled that his lawyers may view records documenting King’s behavior.
Michael Mehas says it’s too bad for Brandon McInerney that he wasn’t born 19 days later. “If he were 19 days younger, he would be legally unfit to be tried as an adult.”
You will recall that Brandon is the Oxnard, CA, youth charged with first-degree murder and a hate crime in connection with the Feb. 12 killing of his classmate Larry King, 15, who sometimes wore makeup and told friends he was gay.
Brandon is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday. He will be tried as an adult under the provisions of California’s Proposition 21, which allows prosecutors to bring murder charges against juveniles as young as 14.
Because Brandon is being tried as an adult, and if convicted — which appears assured — he will spend the rest of his life in a California men’s adult prison. […]
The sad part about all of this is that there are Brandon McInerneys all over our country. According to Human Rights Watch, at least 227 people, who were under 18 at the time they committed their crimes, have been sentenced in California to life without the possibility of parole. In the United States, at least 2,380 people are serving life without parole for crimes they committed when they were under 18.
In the rest of the world combined, only seven people are known to be serving a life sentence for crimes committed when they were juveniles. International law prohibits the use of life without parole for those who are under 18. The United States is in violation of those laws.
State lawmakers will be tempted to ratchet up penalties for the crime of child prostitution and declare the problem solved. But Georgia already has very tough laws in this area. Like the rest of the states, it needs to significantly expand treatment programs for sexually exploited children. And even more important, it needs to broaden community-based prevention programs that spot and help troubled children before they end up selling their bodies on the streets.
A report earlier this year by the Barton Child Law and Policy Clinic at Emory University estimated that hundreds of children were being used as prostitutes throughout Georgia. They come from troubled families and often have histories of truancy. They typically run away from home after being sexually abused. […]
The men who drive the sex trade by patronizing prostitutes rarely figure into discussions of the problem. Shirley Franklin, the mayor of Atlanta, has changed that through advertisements underscoring the damage that these men do to their communities.
The city is also considering legislation under which first-time offenders on adult prostitution charges will be required to attend classes where they would learn about the broader social harm associated with their activities. Restitution and community service may be required.
Georgia’s state budget shortfall and the cuts called for by the governor make funding for such initiatives difficult.
In an editorial today, the NY Times argues that the decision about where a sex offender should live properly resides with law enforcement agencies
A disturbing new development is the proliferation of local ordinances that go beyond the reporting requirements of legislation like Megan’s Law by restricting where sex offenders may live. In some New Jersey towns, offenders cannot live within 2,500 feet of a school or playground. Often, the banned areas are so large as to effectively prohibit a sex offender from living anywhere in town.
The law in Georgia prohibits offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a church, school, bus stop, or recreation center! The problem extends beyond Atlanta. Last week ABC reported on a massage parlor sting in Macon, GA that counted 17-year-olds among those arrested.
RELATED: A case was brought before the Georgia Supreme Court arguing that the recent Kennedy decision suggests that imposing a mandatory life sentence on a sex offender for failing to register should be unconstitutional.
You can read Barack Obama’s agenda for helping women and families balance work and life in his Blueprint for America’s Working Women and Families, and later today, I’m told, there will be video of the announcement, which occurred in Chicago just about 20 minutes ago.
From the inbox:
Michelle Obama will address a gathering of Women for Obama in Chicago on Monday. There, she will discuss the campaign’s success in reaching women across the country, and discuss why her husband, Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, will be a champion in addressing the unique challenges facing working women and families. Mrs. Obama will also unveil a Blueprint for America’s Working Women and Families, detailing Barack Obama’s agenda to help women balance work and family, to keep themselves and their families healthy, and to prosper in a changing economy.
Michelle Obama kicked off the Women for Obama program in Chicago in April 2007. Since then, Women for Obama has created a nationwide network of tens of thousands of women working to educate and empower themselves on the issues that are most important to women and families. Throughout the primary, the group has played a key role in Senator Obama’s campaign through its fundraising, grassroots activity and online organizing efforts.
“We know the importance of women’s voices and votes in this election cannot be overstated, and I am so proud of the progress Women for Obama has made over the last year, bringing the issues that are most important to women and families to the center of this campaign,” said Michelle Obama. “As President, Barack will change Washington so that instead of just talking about family values; we actually have policies that value families. Policies that make it easier for working parents to support, care for, and raise their families; policies that no longer force working women to choose between their kids and their careers. Barack understands the struggles working women and families face every day, because the women he loves most in the world have gone through it. That’s why he carries our stories – and the stories of women he’s met all across America – with him every day.”
This luncheon, benefiting the Obama Victory Fund, will take place at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago on Monday.
I’ve browsed the Blueprint and here’s a list of the topics covered:
Fight for pay equity
Making Work Pay for Working Families
Increase the Minimum Wage to $9.50 by 2011
Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit
Provide a Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit to an Additional 7.5 Million Women
Create Automatic Workplace Pensions
Expand Retirement Savings Incentives for Working Families
Expand Family and Medical Leave Act
Encourage States to Adopt Paid Leave
Expand Paid Sick Days to 22 Million Women
Protect Against Caregiver Discrimination
Expand Flexible Work Arrangements
Expand High Quality Afterschool and Summer Learning Opportunities
Fix the Nation’s Health Care System
Ensure All Children Have Health Insurance
Fight Cancer
Supports a Woman’s Right To Choose
You’ll have to read the pdf to get the meat on each of those.
Does he offer enough ideas and details? Not enough? What would you add? What would you remove?
What more do you want to know?
How does this blueprint compare to what John McCain has promised to do for working women and families?
When Barack Obama pointed out recently that Americans should - in their own interest - teach their children Spanish or some other second language, many were quick to pounce.
But, not surprisingly, people in South America wholeheartedly agree with him.
“The percentage of people in the United States who master a foreign-language is pathetic compared to other wealthy countries. … Obama is right, although it would’ve been nice if he himself spoke Spanish or some other language. … a recent survey taken in 27 countries of the European Union revealed that 56 percent of Europeans speak at least one language apart from their native tongue, which is an increase of 53 percent over five years ago.”
Saro, who first said he liked boys to a classmate in sixth grade, is like many of today’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths who openly discuss their sexual orientation and identity with friends, and sometimes family, before entering high school. In doing so, experts say, these youths are escaping the isolation of generations before them but also finding themselves vulnerable to harassment — or worse. A California eighth-grader who expressed interest in asking another boy to be his valentine was fatally shot in February in a case that drew national attention.
“Within any given school system, there may be a very accepting crowd and a very hateful crowd,” said Robert-Jay Green, executive director of the Rockway Institute in San Francisco, a national center for LGBT research and public policy. “You have to find a way to avoid the people who will hurt you and keep close to the group that will accept you.”
In recent years, 110 Gay Straight Alliance clubs, which are common in high schools nationwide, have sprouted in middle schools, including nine in Maryland and Virginia. Kevin Jennings, the founder of the first club, said he “never anticipated” they would also form in middle grades. His organization, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, is creating age-appropriate pamphlets to respond to the trend.
This year, students in 1,046 middle schools took part in the Day of Silence, a protest against LGBT intolerance, organizers said, double the participation level of the previous year.
“Unlike people of my generation, where there was very little visibility and a great sense of sadness, these kids know gay people are out there,” Jennings said. “They have a language now to understand their feelings.”
And there’s this:
The first time Saro said aloud what he had always felt — that he liked boys — came when he lived in Prince George’s County. The words tumbled out, Saro said, as he and another sixth-grader were walking home. The boy shrugged it off with a “So?”
Later that year, that boy called him an anti-gay slur. When Saro ran to tell the teacher, according to a letter his parents wrote to the school, he was told: “Well, you act like one, so you should be used to it by now.”
The issues are difficult and complex — for parents and for kids. The article is sensitive and complete. Please read it.
For those of you who might wish to read the Pitt-Jolie-certified announcement of the birth of their boy-girl twins, this is the write-thru from the newspaper that the couple selected for the task - Nice’s Nice Matin.
“The most celebrated babies in the world were born just before 8pm last night at the Santa Maria Clinic of the Lenval Foundation Hospital. Angelina Jolie, 33-years-old, has brought twins into the world: Knox Leon Jolie-Pitt, a small boy at 2.27 kilos [about five pounds] and Vivienne Marcheline, also a petit 2.28 kilos. The two were worth over $11 million even before they let out their first cry: the exclusive first-ever photo of the extended Pitt family - now six children - has been sold by the couple to an American magazine to benefit a humanitarian cause.”
Now that Jesse Jackson has reassured us about Barack Obama’s genitals, it’s time to consider what prompted the Reverend’s rage–the candidate’s criticism of African-American fathers for failing their children–as part of a larger subtext of this election.
On all sides, it involves issues about American manhood in the 21st century and the troubling rites of passage from one generation to the next.
Start with George W. Bush who was moved to take up a war left unfinished by paternal prudence and turned toward “a higher Father” for guidance.
Enter John McCain, son and grandson of Admirals who, after writing “Faith of My Fathers,” is campaigning for the White House based on the premise that the Head of State in an age of terror should be a reassuring paterfamilias.
Then there is Obama, searching for a father he never knew in “Dreams from My Father” and, in his presidential campaign, calling out men who aren’t there for their children and challenging them to take up their responsibilities.
It’s now cliche for white folks looking to justify their own paranoia and fears to invoke rowdy black kids on the train, with no parents, acting a fool. Word up, I hate it to. But my ability to see this threw a racial lens is undercut by one observable fact–white kids act a fool in full view of their parents. In the last three months, I’ve seen a white child hit his mother, tell her mother to shut up, and run up and down a subway car, ignoring his parents pleas to stop. Yesterday, on my plane to Denver, I watched a white kid get up and walk the aisle–while the plane was ascending. He kept going even after the stewardess warned him.
He’s got some pretty good stats to back him up. Black parents are more likely to spank and…
…black parents punish their children more than white parents in all ways. If you’re black and you misbehave, you’re both more likely to get spanked and more likely to lose your allowance than your white neighbor, who in turn is both more likely to get spanked and more likely to lose his allowance than the Hispanic kid down the street. So on average, poor people spank more and withdraw allowances less, whereas black people spank more and withdraw allowances more.
Coates concludes:
I know the white kid with his mother is just rude, while the black kid is “scary,” but to me, they’re just annoying–both of them.
Worth keeping in mind over a long hot summer holiday weekend.
The judge had only one option when he sentenced Cedric Bradshaw: life in prison. Bradshaw had not committed murder, rape or armed robbery. His offense was failing to properly register as a convicted sex offender for a second time — even though he had repeatedly tried to follow the law….
On Monday, the state’s highest court will consider whether the law is unconstitutional on grounds it is cruel and unusual punishment.
No other state calls for a life sentence for failing to register as a sex offender the second time, and even rape and armed robbery convictions in Georgia do not carry mandatory life terms, said Bradshaw’s lawyer, Robert L. Persse, the circuit public defender in Statesboro. “The punishment for a second violation is grossly disproportionate to the offense,” Persse said. “That is particularly true when this is essentially a paperwork offense not accompanied by aggravating circumstances like violence, sexual deviance or being out in a schoolyard hunting for children.”
The Bulloch DA’s office is urging the state Supreme Court to uphold the life term. “The courts look at the Legislature’s intent in determining the best evidence for the appropriateness of the sentence,” Assistant District Attorney W. Scott Brannen said. “When they increase it [to a life term], that too is evidence of the intent and the will of the people.”…
Brannen, the prosecutor, said the law is on the books and “it’s not my place or the court’s place to decide what we like and don’t like and what we want to enforce or not enforce.” Bradshaw, Brannen said, broke the law by failing to give a valid address within the 72-hour reporting deadline. “There are no exceptions in the law,” he said.
I am not sure what I find more remarkable: the fact that Georgia punishes this regulatory offense with a mandatory life term, or the fact that in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Kennedy ruling the defendant here could have sexually molested and beaten a dozen children without facing a harsher sentence.
As regular readers know, I have long been troubled that the U.S. Supreme Court’s eagerness to hyper-regulate the reach of the death penalty through the Eighth Amendment has not extended to regulating extreme prison terms for relatively minor crimes. The Georgia high court has previously shown the courage and wisdom to do something about a seemingly crazy prison sentence, and this would seem to be another case calling out for some remedy.
Read the whole AJC story. The facts are pretty darned sad. Barely more than a child himself at 19, Bradshaw was charged with statutory rape for having sex with a 15-year-old girl. Fine. That’s punishable. I’d prefer it had been kept out of the criminal justice system (see here for more) but its punishable. He gets 5 years.
After he gets out he gives an invalid address. For that, too, he pleads guilty and is sentenced to time served. When released he moves in with his sister but can’t live there because Georgia’s draconian sex offender law won’t let him live within 1,000 feet of a recreation center!
He moves in with an aunt but can’t stay there because the home is within 1,000 feet of the First Baptist Church! Growing desperate, he finds a family friend but this time inadvertently transposes the street address!
Now the cops move in. Bradshaw is arrested because he hadn’t moved into the friend’s single-wide trailer within the legally required 72 hours — and lied and said he did! His mandatory sentence for this infraction is life in prison.
This is not proportional punishment! This is sex offender hysteria gussied up as protecting children. And it’s great big a waste of tax payer money.
I’ve seen victims of child rape while growing up in southeast Michigan. Drug dealers and pimps who indoctrinate young girls into sick harems by raping them. Young boys being raped as punishment for not doing a “dirty deed” right or just as some toy for a wackjob. Drug addicts pimping their own children to feed their habits. These light brown eyes have seen the horrific results first hand. And I say the following without a shred of compassion:
Child rapists need to be executed.
The mental destruction of a child by rape is almost unbearable to see. Those children either become shells of themselves that do anything without protesting or sick and angry projections of themselves that seek to do harm to any and everyone in anyway (or both). And when (if) they grow up, many are very dysfunctional adults with massive trust, relationship, and sexual issues. Frequently they become criminals themselves. So why do the men and women that commit this terrible crime still get to see the light of day after effectively destroying another human being? Why?
To me, there are certain criminal acts that have to send the perpetrator(s) to the other side quick, fast, and in a hurry. And child rape is one of them. I’m terribly disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision. Terribly and completely disappointed. And what’s happening to state’s rights?
* NOTE: Even though I feel very strongly about this issue, I won’t attack people that comment to the contrary. That’s not the way I roll here on The Moderate Voice.
In the strongest rebuff yet of the national “pregnancy pact” story that has scandalized Gloucester, top city and school officials say there’s no evidence that nearly half of the 17 pregnant teens at Gloucester High conspired to have babies together.
“We have not been able to confirm the existence of a pact,” said Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk, trying to defuse the national story on the school’s teen baby mama drama. “The information from the principal has not been verified by any other source.”
Principal Joseph Sullivan, in an explosive story published last week in Time magazine, said about half the 17 pregnant teens at Gloucester High made a pact to get pregnant, even high-fiving each other when they had a positive test at a school clinic.
Developing… Update added minutes later… Anatomy of a media-made pact. From the horse’s mouth, GloucesterTimes.com:
Through stories and editorials, we have occasionally noted that at least some of the 18 girls who became pregnant this past school year did so intentionally, with the idea that it might be “cool” to “become moms” and raise the babies together. Could that be considered some sort of informal “pact”? Maybe. It depends on how formally one defines that word. But one thing has become certain over the past two days — that’s the fact that “pact” can certainly be a magic word. As soon as Time magazine reported the presence of a “pregnancy pact” — as its headline blared in its online edition Thursday — this story, which had already sparked local and some national talk about teen pregnancy and the distribution of contraceptives in schools, exploded worldwide.
How? Well, shortly after Time posted the story, national news network CNN — a corporate partner of Time Warner, and thus a close partner of Time — added the “pregnancy pact” story to its online and broadcast reports. It wasn’t long after that the other major news networks joined in, and the frenzy was on.
By Thursday night — before the print edition of Time was even on newsstands — Gloucester and its teen “pregnancy pact” were featured on the CBS Evening News, and Patrick Anderson, our reporter on the story, was called upon for a guest spot on MSNBC’s Dan Abrams show. By yesterday morning, I was getting calls and doing live radio interviews with WABC in New York, with BBC World News in London and with Ireland national radio in Dublin. All, of course, were looking for more information about a story that has literally thrust — or plunged — Gloucester into the global spotlight.
In the midst of all of this, our own coverage has maintained a different focus. Yesterday’s Times focused on the fact that none of the pregnant girls — not one — dropped out of school this year, a fact officials credit in large part to what has become something of a controversial day-care facility at the school. And while today’s story leads with local officials questioning the status of any “pact,” (Please see news story, Page 1) it also includes coverage of the media’s sudden, intense interest in our community on the heels of the explosive Time story. For Gloucester, we believed that had, indeed, become part of the story as well.
So, you may ask, why has your community’s newspaper covered this global story like that — with only peripheral mention of any “pact”? Because, frankly, no one had used that term in describing the girls’ intentions to us — as no one apparently had with local school and other officials, either.
Answer that Time Magazine!!! Parenthetically, more confirmation of my point last night, heedless adults taking thoughtless advantage of kids for our needs. In this case the need for a good story! Thereare doubtless real, complex, nuanced, important issues and problems that need to be addressed in this story. I’m not sure we’ve done anyone any service!(I’m still reading…) I hate it when I rant! It was the principal who gave the quote. Sounds like he got carried away.
The story would have benefited from more caution all around. None of the girls would be interviewed; a recent graduate of the school who “thinks she knows why these girls wanted to get pregnant” is quoted instead. You can get by with that I guess but it’s not the best journalistic practice in the book…
THE NEXT DAY ON TODAY: The Time reporter, Kathleen Kingsbury, on The Today Show, 8:12 a.m. EDT, “…repeatedly the story I heard out there was that there was a group of girlfriends who decided to get pregnant and raise their babies together…” Hey??? I didn’t hear the word pact! Did you??? BAD REPORTORIAL PRACTICES!!! Confirmed on Today!!!
I guess Barack Obama and other key Democrats (“Liberals,“ Bill would say) didn’t do or say anything that Bill Kristol could use as fodder in his much awaited, once-a-week, Monday morning New York Times column. I say that because Bill Kristol decided to go after MoveOn.org by dredging up last September’s General Petraeus ad, and by mischaracterizing a new 30-second TV spot that MoveOn is airing and is called “Not Alex.”
I resisted the temptation to view the ad before reading Kristol’s “critique,“ and that almost turned out to be a mistake because after reading the following Kristol review I was very reluctant to view such an allegedly nauseating, unpatriotic piece of dirt:
The MoveOn ad is unapologetic in its selfishness, and barely disguised in its disdain for those who have chosen to serve — and its contempt for those parents who might be proud of sons and daughters who are serving. The ad boldly embraces a vision of a selfish and infantilized America, suggesting that military service and sacrifice are unnecessary and deplorable relics of the past. And the sole responsibility of others.
I finally gathered enough courage to view the ad.
The 30-second ad shows a young mother holding a young baby, Alex, while expressing her natural maternal concern as to what may await her baby when he grows up in a troubled world. This is what she says–and perhaps the only part that Kristol gets right in his much awaited piece:
“Hi, John McCain. This is Alex. And he’s my first. So far his talents include trying any new food and chasing after our dog. That, and making my heart pound every time I look at him. And so, John McCain, when you say you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can’t have him.”
Now, only Bill Kristol could extrapolate the words of this mother into “Take that, warmonger!” “creepy,” “MoveOn has now moved on to express contempt for all who might choose to serve their country in uniform,” “The MoveOn ad is… barely disguised in its disdain for those who have chosen to serve — and its contempt for those parents who might be proud of sons and daughters who are serving. The ad boldly embraces a vision of a selfish and infantilized America, suggesting that military service and sacrifice are unnecessary and deplorable relics of the past,” and by using the words of a post at the Web site, BlueStarChronicles.com.,“Does that mean that she wants other people’s sons to keep the wolves at bay so that her son can live a life of complete narcissism?”
Of course, mothers all across America realize that their sons, and daughters, may have to serve in the military and even risk their lives for our nation. That is not the issue. The issue is that they fear that their sons and daughters may be sent to fight an unnecessary war, a war that is started based on faulty intelligence, exaggerations, and even false pretenses; a war that is utterly mismanaged; and, yes, a war–or an occupation–that may go on “for a hundred years.”
Fortunately, I don’t have young kids. But I do have a precious grandson and I share the same concerns for him as the mother in the MoveOn ad. I have expressed such concerns in “John McCain’s One Hundred Years in Iraq.“
As far a Kristol’s claim that MoveOn “slandered a distinguished general officer,” I could stand corrected, but I don’t remember Bill Kristol condemning the slandering–the swift boating–of other military heroes who honorably served our country, such as Vietnam veteran John Kerry and triple-amputee, Vietnam veteran Max Cleland.
June 19th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
South Australia (SA) is often celebrated as the Down Under’s food and wine centre. Its capital city, the picturesque and laidback Adelaide, and its suburbs have rightly earned a well-deserved sobriquet of being the “cultural capital” of the country (and among the top liveable cities in the world). As a visitor here, I can vouch for the excellence of wine and the enjoyable concerts!
I hope to explore Australia’s extraordinary natural environment, history and indigenous culture…and the great outback. (Meanwhile I learn that “Aussie” Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman are set to star in an “epic” Australian outback movie with the goal of promoting the country’s spirit and luring more tourists Down Under, reports Reuters.)
A memorable Adelaide event that I attended recently was the “Young Accompanists On Show”, where one of the performers was 13-year-old Candy Liang. Her parents arrived from China only three years ago to start a business here, further contributing towards making this city a vibrating multicultural hub.
“Young Accompanists on Show”, which was presented by the Accompanists’ Guild of SA at Pilgrim Church as part of the 25th Anniversary celebrations of the Guild, was supported by the Adelaide City Council. I wonder how many civic councils/bodies in the world encourage young students/musicians in the field of classical music in their cities and suburbs. It was indeed a grand gesture — to offer two concerts by leading musicians, a lunch and a masterclass for young performers.
…All for free with a view to focussing on young accompanists and bringing different groups of people into the City for a cultural event. Having an Adelaide trained pianist (David Barnard — who at just 26 is now working very successfully out of London as a freelance pianist) at the centre of this event was an added bonus. David listened to the concert (mainly secondary school piano/wind duos), performed with three wind soloists from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in the concert, joined approximately 150 for lunch, and then conducted a very stimulating master class with the young performers.
Also, among the audience was the internationally-acclaimed pianist Malcolm Martineau. “I don’t think there has ever been anything quite like this in Adelaide before,” said a delighted Diana Harris, the moving spirit behind the musical event. “There are regular Wednesday lunch-time concerts but never for free and never with lunch and a M class added.” Read the rest of this entry »
What’s a great way to combat juvenile crime? Why, give the kids golf lessons.
Instead of having kids get t-ed off and break the law on the street or in gangs, teach them how to be really t-ed off so they can play the sport at their own country clubs. (Don’t ALL kids belong to country clubs?).
A senior Justice Department official says a $500,000 federal grant to the World Golf Foundation is an appropriate use of money designed to deal with juvenile crime in America.
“We need something really attractive to engage the gangs and the street kids, golf is the hook,” said J. Robert Flores, the administrator of the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
The Justice Department, in a decision by Flores, gave the money to the World Golf Foundation’s First Tee program, even though Justice Department staffers had rated the program 47th on a list of 104 applicants. The allegations were first reported earlier this year by the trade journal Youth Today.
“I don’t know why people insist on denigrating it, it’s a sound program,” Flores told ABC News.
Perhaps its because in a time of scarce money when the government is run by an administration that has caused all kinds of cutbacks in services due to the economy, the Justice Department gave the half a million dollars to save the country’s youth via golf by passing over a host of other programs.
And this allegation fits in with pattern we’ve seen in so many other aspects of this administration: ignoring governments staffers who urge a course of action based on non-political needs and instead opting to help its friends or act upon its political and other biases. The Bush administration’s theme song should be “With A Little Help From My Friends…”
Current and former Justice Department employees allege that Flores ignored the staff rankings in favor of programs that had political, social or religious connections to the Bush White House.
The honorary chairman of the First Tee program is former President George Bush. On a videotape presentation, the former President Bush praised the program for “serving others and building character and building values.”
The director of the golf program, Joe Louis BarrowJr., said the program would help teach inner city children because “golf is a game where values such as honesty, integrity and sportsmanship are essential.”
See? It’s the perfect answer to the nation’s juvenile crime problem…
The golf program grant is one of a number of Justice Department grants now coming under scrutiny by a Congressional committee which will hold hearings next week.
A key witness will be a former employee of Flores’ office, Scott Peterson, who says the grants were awarded based more on politics than merit.
“This is cronyism, this is waste, fraud and abuse,” Peterson told ABC News in an interview aired on Nightline Monday night.
Cronyism from the Bush administration? Critics are just being picky and it’s a coincidence that the former President Bush is on the panel.
Critics will eat their words when they see juvenile halls throughout the country lay off staff and Crips and Bloods argue over the latest PGA news rather than colors at their country clubs.
Talk about political timing. On a week when Democratic Senator Barack Obama will start a two week economic tour underscoring the role of the economy in his campaign for the White House, there’s yet more bad news about a “pocketbook issue” — and one that hasn’t not come up before in such an economically grim context.
It’s an issue under the political radar — but one that could impact many voting Americans. Every day.
It’s a (true) cliche that people vote their pocketbooks in election. Now, as if it wasn’t enough that many Americans are being laid off, face foreclosures on their homes and nearly have to take out a bank loan — if they can qualify one — to fill their gas tank..as if it wasn’t enough that reports suggest some Americans trying to trade in or sell their SUVs find there’s no market for them….now there’s this:
The cost of school lunches is now zooming nationwide — and parents will start feeling the pinch this fall:
When America’s schoolchildren return to class in the fall, they will learn a painful lesson in economics: Higher food and fuel prices are forcing up the price of school breakfasts and lunches across the country, by as much as 50 percent in some districts.
This will be yet another pocketbook issue likely to inspire many voters who aren’t hardcore political partisans to see Elections 2008 as a chance to implement the Big Broom theory of politics: they will want to sweep those in power out, and bring in a new crew and to see what they can do.
If voters find they have to cut back due to soaring gas prices, can’t get home equity loans, struggle with credit card debt, worry about their jobs, see headlines about teacher layoffs and school funding cutbacks AND have to pay extra for their kids’ lunches it can’t help those who are effectively saying “stay the course but just make a few course corrections”.
The cost of staples that make up the backbone of school meal programs has soared in the past year, far outstripping federal subsidies. While inflation has driven up the price of milk by 12 percent, cheese by 15 percent and bread by 17 percent, the National School Lunch Program has increased what it pays local school districts to feed 30.1 million schoolchildren by only 3 percent.
Of all the people on earth expressing exultation over Barack Obama’s impending Democratic Presidential nomination, Kenyans and Indonesians are particularly enthusiastic, given that in part, the junior senator from Illinois grew up in those two nations.
“Some U.S. voters regard his childhood experience during the 1960s in predominantly Muslim Indonesia as a dark side of his life. Nevertheless, many Indonesians are notably happy to see Barack Obama have a chance to become the first African-American president of the United States. Read the rest of this entry »
June 4th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
If the criminals are multiplying fast courtesy the internet, the same technology is also helping the police to nab them. Australian law enforcement agencies have so far arrested 70 persons, in the 19 to 81 age group, for child pornography and abuse offences across the country. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a further 20 people have been issued with summons to appear in court where they will be charged with possessing child exploitation material. More arrests are expected in coming weeks and months.
Those arrested include community leaders, a police officer, a teacher and a youth worker following the nation’s biggest anti-pedophile investigation. ” ‘The possession of the images, the downloading of the images was the tip of the iceberg,’ said Andrew Colvin, the Australian Federal Police’s national manager of high-tech crime operations. ‘It’s the networks. It’s the children they might have access to. It’s the potential for grooming and procuring that these people are involved in as well’.
“During Operation Centurion, police became aware that offenders were using web-enabled devices such as Playstation 3, X-Box and new-generation mobile phones to access the images. ‘They don’t have to worry about a family member checking the history on the family computer, or ask why they are spending so much time on it,’ said one investigator. ‘Most people don’t know games consoles can be linked to the web’.
“Perhaps most disconcerting is the scale of the internet child exploitation. As many as 3.5 million child abuse images are on the internet and cannot readily be removed. Identifying and locating children in the photos can be difficult.
“The social networking revolution that has swept the internet has been adopted by purveyors of child exploitation. Child porn chat rooms pop up, then close almost as quickly. Here, pedophiles trade images, alert each other to new ones and share tips on how to groom potential victims and avoid detection by police, work colleagues and family members.”
May 31st, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
The medical fraternity has hailed as “miracle” the birth of an “ectopic” baby at Darwin in Australia on Thursday. The healthy 2.8 kg baby survived despite developing in her mother’s ovary instead of her uterus. The delighted parents have named their daughter Durga, after one of the most powerful goddesses in the Hindu pantheon.
Most ectopic pregnancies end in miscarriage or are terminated early because of the risk to the mother, reports the BBC. “The mother and baby were both doing well.
“The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said the odds of survival in such a pregnancy were ‘no more than one in a million’. Just 1-2% of all pregnancies are ectopic, and in 95% of those cases the egg is fertilised in the fallopian tubes on its way to the uterus. In 0.5% of cases, including this one, the baby grows inside the ovary itself.
” ‘We’re calling it a miracle,’ said Robyn Cahill of the Darwin Private Hospital in Australia’s Northern Territory, where Mrs Meera Thangarajah, 34, gave birth to Durga. Robyn added: ‘Only 1 in 40,000 fertilisations implant in the ovary, and it was unheard of for one of those foetuses grow to full term.” More here…
Ravi Thangarajah, 40, father of the “miracle” baby did not quite understand the gravity of the situation, and what the fuss was all about. “The doctor and the paediatrician came in and told me it was like a miracle baby — you’re one of the luckiest men in the world at the moment,” he said. Mr Thangarajah added he had to “go to Google” to find out about the “miracle” condition. More here…
