Remember kids. Everyone is a unique snowflake. The world will care how you feel. Everyone will hand you what you want and feel you are entitled to, as to not upset you. This is ridiculous. This is absurd. This is modern day England. Read the original here.
Schools ban children making best friends
By HARRY HAWKINS
Published: 19th March 2012
TEACHERS are banning schoolkids from having best pals — so they don't get upset by fall-outs.
Instead, the primary pupils are being encouraged to play in large groups.
Educational psychologist Gaynor Sbuttoni said the policy has been used at schools in Kingston, South West London, and Surrey.
She added: "I have noticed that teachers tell children they shouldn't have a best friend and that everyone should play together.
"They are doing it because they want to save the child the pain of splitting up from their best friend. But it is natural for some children to want a best friend. If they break up, they have to feel the pain because they're learning to deal with it."
Russell Hobby, of the National Association of Head Teachers, confirmed some schools were adopting best-friend bans.
He said: "I don't think it is widespread but it is clearly happening. It seems bizarre.
"I don't see how you can stop people from forming close friendships. We make and lose friends throughout our lives." The Campaign for Real Education, which wants more parental choice in state education, said the "ridiculous" policy was robbing children of their childhood.
Spokesman Chris McGovern added: "Children take things very seriously and if you tell them they can't have a best friend it can be seriously damaging to them. They need to learn about relationships."
Showing posts with label ridiculous. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ridiculous. Show all posts
Friday, March 23, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Home Associations are out of control...
I don't know about other people, but I despise most homeowner and condo associations. I (and my bank) own my place, and having a group of peers that attempt to wield what little power they have like a 18th century monarch because they couldn't get elected to the city council just annoys me...on many levels. Because of things like this. This is just bullying, plain and simple. Read the original here.
NH Woman Sued For Planting Flowers In Her Front Yard
By Jim Armstrong, WBZ-TV
March 19, 2012 10:55 PM
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (CBS) – Kimberly Bois’ tiny front yard garden isn’t much to look at right now. But in a few weeks, it’ll be in full bloom, and every blossom will cost her dearly.
Even though she says her builder gave her permission to do a little planting, the current condo board now says she’s in violation.
They’re charging the Portsmouth, New Hampshire homeowner $50 a day for being so petal pushy. That fine has reached close to $6,000, plus the board’s legal fees.
“It’s just not a happy place to live anymore for me,” says Bois, who planted the small flower bed with the help of her mother, who has since passed away.
She says, “It just feels like we’ve been bullied and really all we wanted to do was have a conversation to figure out how this can benefit all of us.”
A new certified letter arrives every month, ordering Bois to uproot her garden and keeping track of her fines.
It got so bad, she contacted a Realtor friend of hers to talk about just selling the place that she has owned since 2008.
That’s when she got the real shock: the board put a lien on her townhouse for their fines.
Bois says the whole situation has, “gotten out of control.”
She even offered to pull up the flowers and pay part of the board’s legal fees a couple of weeks ago – an offer she says was refused.
The association’s bylaws don’t expressly forbid planting flowers on your property, Bois explains, nor do they explicitly allow it.
Board members have told Bois they just want all the units to look the same.
“Now we’ve gone down a rabbit hole that I just can’t seem to get out of and it’s very sad, and it’s upsetting,” she says.
WBZ reached out to the attorney who represents the condo association, but he did not respond our request for comment.
NH Woman Sued For Planting Flowers In Her Front Yard
By Jim Armstrong, WBZ-TV
March 19, 2012 10:55 PM
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (CBS) – Kimberly Bois’ tiny front yard garden isn’t much to look at right now. But in a few weeks, it’ll be in full bloom, and every blossom will cost her dearly.
Even though she says her builder gave her permission to do a little planting, the current condo board now says she’s in violation.
They’re charging the Portsmouth, New Hampshire homeowner $50 a day for being so petal pushy. That fine has reached close to $6,000, plus the board’s legal fees.
“It’s just not a happy place to live anymore for me,” says Bois, who planted the small flower bed with the help of her mother, who has since passed away.
She says, “It just feels like we’ve been bullied and really all we wanted to do was have a conversation to figure out how this can benefit all of us.”
A new certified letter arrives every month, ordering Bois to uproot her garden and keeping track of her fines.
It got so bad, she contacted a Realtor friend of hers to talk about just selling the place that she has owned since 2008.
That’s when she got the real shock: the board put a lien on her townhouse for their fines.
Bois says the whole situation has, “gotten out of control.”
She even offered to pull up the flowers and pay part of the board’s legal fees a couple of weeks ago – an offer she says was refused.
The association’s bylaws don’t expressly forbid planting flowers on your property, Bois explains, nor do they explicitly allow it.
Board members have told Bois they just want all the units to look the same.
“Now we’ve gone down a rabbit hole that I just can’t seem to get out of and it’s very sad, and it’s upsetting,” she says.
WBZ reached out to the attorney who represents the condo association, but he did not respond our request for comment.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Pelosi's quote of the day
I swear, if Pelosi's, Biden's, Reid's, Durbin's, etc. quotes were actually true on what they accuse Republicans of, the GOP would be worse than a SAW movie villain. Read the original here.
Pay For Abortion, Or Women 'Die On The Floor'
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., accompanied by House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., attend a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday Oct. 13, 2011. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was essentially stripped of any formal input into the legislative process in last November's election. I heave a sigh of relief over this fact every time I see her say something like this:
She's talking about a bill that simply protects taxpayers from having to subsidize abortions through Obamacare. This is about just how out-of-touch progressives are on social issues. If you fail to show sufficient enthusiasm for paying to kill someone else's baby, it is a sign that you're heartless.
Pay For Abortion, Or Women 'Die On The Floor'
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., accompanied by House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., attend a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday Oct. 13, 2011. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was essentially stripped of any formal input into the legislative process in last November's election. I heave a sigh of relief over this fact every time I see her say something like this:
She's talking about a bill that simply protects taxpayers from having to subsidize abortions through Obamacare. This is about just how out-of-touch progressives are on social issues. If you fail to show sufficient enthusiasm for paying to kill someone else's baby, it is a sign that you're heartless.
Friday, July 15, 2011
White House vs. Fox News?
Read the original here.
Emails Show White House Targeting Fox News Despite Denial
Foxnews.com
Newly released emails show the Obama administration communication team privately discussed whether to exclude Fox News from interviews in late 2009, despite claims at the time that the White House did not intend to snub the cable news channel.
The emails, obtained and released by watchdog Judicial Watch, pertain to a kerfluffle over whether the administration tried to lock Fox News out of a round of interviews with "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg, who was then responsible for reviewing compensation of Wall Street executives.
The perceived slight in October 2009 led to a confrontation with the press corps, not just Fox News -- afterward, the administration ultimately granted the interview to Fox News, along with other news outlets. Administration officials at the time rejected any suggestion that they had tried to exclude Fox News in the first place.
But the emails suggest the subject was at least discussed.
"The Obama administration seems to have lied about its attempt to exclude Fox News Channel from access to an interview with the 'pay czar,'" Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.
Fitton told Fox News the White House treatment was "something Hugo Chavez might do but it really has no place in modern-day America."
The emails cover dozens of conversations in late 2009. But in one email dated Oct. 22, 2009, White House media official Dag Vega wrote to Treasury spokeswoman Jenni LeCompte saying, "we'd prefer if you skip Fox please."
The guidance was in reference to a discussion about whether to make economic officials available. It's unclear whether they were referring at all to Feinberg -- who was, after a back-and-forth, offered up to Fox News for an interview later in the afternoon.
But administration aides showed frustration as they later saw media reports claiming Treasury tried to exclude Fox News at first. That frustration ended up being directed at Fox News itself.
"brett baier just did a stupid piece on it---but he is a lunatic," White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki wrote in an email that evening, referencing "Special Report" host Bret Baier.
The next morning, as other media coverage of the run-in popped up, Psaki wrote: "I am putting some dead fish in the fox cubby -- just cause."
At the time of the dispute over access, the explanation offered by the administration was that there was no "effort to exclude" Fox News, and that the administration initially was only offering interviews to the big three networks. Officials claimed Fox News had not made a request, but that the administration eventually made time for other outlets including Fox News.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, in one email, put it this way: "We've demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews -- but yesterday, we didn't."
But Fox News, back in 2009, refuted the claim that the cable channel did not request an interview.
Fitton said in a statement that the documents his group obtained show a "pervasive anti-Fox bias in the Obama White House."
But Michael Clemente, senior vice president of News for Fox News, said times have changed.
"On and off-the-air relations with this administration have come a long way since then, and if that unfortunate incident helped get things on a better track, then it served its purpose," Clemente said.
Asked Thursday about the emails, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said he has respect for the reporters at Fox News.
"It is well known that at the time there was a dispute between Fox News ... and the White House and its feelings about the coverage. That was then, and you know, we obviously deal with Fox News regularly," Carney said.
He joked that nobody ever put fish in the Fox News cubby.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/14/emails-show-white-house-ripping-fox-news/#ixzz1SC94jnpw
Emails Show White House Targeting Fox News Despite Denial
Foxnews.com
Newly released emails show the Obama administration communication team privately discussed whether to exclude Fox News from interviews in late 2009, despite claims at the time that the White House did not intend to snub the cable news channel.
The emails, obtained and released by watchdog Judicial Watch, pertain to a kerfluffle over whether the administration tried to lock Fox News out of a round of interviews with "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg, who was then responsible for reviewing compensation of Wall Street executives.
The perceived slight in October 2009 led to a confrontation with the press corps, not just Fox News -- afterward, the administration ultimately granted the interview to Fox News, along with other news outlets. Administration officials at the time rejected any suggestion that they had tried to exclude Fox News in the first place.
But the emails suggest the subject was at least discussed.
"The Obama administration seems to have lied about its attempt to exclude Fox News Channel from access to an interview with the 'pay czar,'" Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.
Fitton told Fox News the White House treatment was "something Hugo Chavez might do but it really has no place in modern-day America."
The emails cover dozens of conversations in late 2009. But in one email dated Oct. 22, 2009, White House media official Dag Vega wrote to Treasury spokeswoman Jenni LeCompte saying, "we'd prefer if you skip Fox please."
The guidance was in reference to a discussion about whether to make economic officials available. It's unclear whether they were referring at all to Feinberg -- who was, after a back-and-forth, offered up to Fox News for an interview later in the afternoon.
But administration aides showed frustration as they later saw media reports claiming Treasury tried to exclude Fox News at first. That frustration ended up being directed at Fox News itself.
"brett baier just did a stupid piece on it---but he is a lunatic," White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki wrote in an email that evening, referencing "Special Report" host Bret Baier.
The next morning, as other media coverage of the run-in popped up, Psaki wrote: "I am putting some dead fish in the fox cubby -- just cause."
At the time of the dispute over access, the explanation offered by the administration was that there was no "effort to exclude" Fox News, and that the administration initially was only offering interviews to the big three networks. Officials claimed Fox News had not made a request, but that the administration eventually made time for other outlets including Fox News.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, in one email, put it this way: "We've demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews -- but yesterday, we didn't."
But Fox News, back in 2009, refuted the claim that the cable channel did not request an interview.
Fitton said in a statement that the documents his group obtained show a "pervasive anti-Fox bias in the Obama White House."
But Michael Clemente, senior vice president of News for Fox News, said times have changed.
"On and off-the-air relations with this administration have come a long way since then, and if that unfortunate incident helped get things on a better track, then it served its purpose," Clemente said.
Asked Thursday about the emails, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said he has respect for the reporters at Fox News.
"It is well known that at the time there was a dispute between Fox News ... and the White House and its feelings about the coverage. That was then, and you know, we obviously deal with Fox News regularly," Carney said.
He joked that nobody ever put fish in the Fox News cubby.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/14/emails-show-white-house-ripping-fox-news/#ixzz1SC94jnpw
Who's the most patient of all...
Read the original here.
Pelosi's Audacious Claim: Obama Has More Patience Than Biblical Job
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that President Barack Obama has shown a “level of patience” in debt limit negotiations with congressional leaders that does not compare to the biblical figure Job, known as the “Man of Patience.”
“I want to commend the president – I have never seen – Job is no place compared to this president in terms of patience,” said Pelosi at a press briefing on Thursday. “He [Job] doesn’t even begin because this president has demonstrated a level of patience, not only during the meetings but as respect, respectful of the suggestions that are made by all parties at the meeting, in his preparation for the meeting, and his coming back to address concerns that are expressed by others.”
Pelosi also said she is “almost too busy” to continue listening to what is going on in the debt limit meetings.
“Day in and day out, the president has respectfully listened, accommodated, engaged in conversation in a very informed way and he is the president of the United States,” she said. “I know he’s busy. I myself am almost too busy to continue listening to some of the things that are going on in that room. So I know he must be very busy. But he has treated everyone there with great dignity. The only thing I hope he doesn’t ask us to do is go to Camp David. That goes beyond the pale. Driving down the street for these meetings is one thing --”
Pelosi went on to describe Camp David as a place where the president should be able to study rather than hold meetings like the current debt limit negotiations.
Cross-posted from CNSNews.com, a sister publication of NewsBusters.org.
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nicholas-ballasy/2011/07/14/pelosis-audacious-claim-obama-has-more-patience-biblical-job#ixzz1SC8ubqrf
Pelosi's Audacious Claim: Obama Has More Patience Than Biblical Job
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that President Barack Obama has shown a “level of patience” in debt limit negotiations with congressional leaders that does not compare to the biblical figure Job, known as the “Man of Patience.”
“I want to commend the president – I have never seen – Job is no place compared to this president in terms of patience,” said Pelosi at a press briefing on Thursday. “He [Job] doesn’t even begin because this president has demonstrated a level of patience, not only during the meetings but as respect, respectful of the suggestions that are made by all parties at the meeting, in his preparation for the meeting, and his coming back to address concerns that are expressed by others.”
Pelosi also said she is “almost too busy” to continue listening to what is going on in the debt limit meetings.
“Day in and day out, the president has respectfully listened, accommodated, engaged in conversation in a very informed way and he is the president of the United States,” she said. “I know he’s busy. I myself am almost too busy to continue listening to some of the things that are going on in that room. So I know he must be very busy. But he has treated everyone there with great dignity. The only thing I hope he doesn’t ask us to do is go to Camp David. That goes beyond the pale. Driving down the street for these meetings is one thing --”
Pelosi went on to describe Camp David as a place where the president should be able to study rather than hold meetings like the current debt limit negotiations.
Cross-posted from CNSNews.com, a sister publication of NewsBusters.org.
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nicholas-ballasy/2011/07/14/pelosis-audacious-claim-obama-has-more-patience-biblical-job#ixzz1SC8ubqrf
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Experiments in Irony....
First Syria leads the UN Human Rights Commission, now this? Anything else required to prove the UN is a joke now? Why do we pay for them? Read the original here.
North Korea To Head U.N. Conference On Disarmament
3:26 PM, JUN 29, 2011 • BY ANNE BAYEFSKY
On Tuesday, the United Nations again made itself an international laughing stock – except perhaps to the American taxpayers who continue to foot 22 percent of the bill – by appointing North Korea chair of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. That would be the same North Korea that, according to an article this week by Senator John Kerry, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has “twice tested nuclear weapons…is developing missiles to carry them…has built facilities capable of producing highly enriched uranium for more nuclear weapons” and has defied a U.N. arms embargo by exporting weapons and sensitive technologies to rogue regimes.
Alas, Senator Kerry is also one of the lead champion of the United Nations in the Senate. According to the U.N., "The Conference is funded from the UN regular budget, reports to the General Assembly and receives guidance from it."
North Korea assumes the Conference chairmanship by being the next state in the alphabetical rotation of the 65 members, which include five nuclear weapons states and 60 other countries such as Iran and Syria. North Korea will preside over the Conference for a four working-week period.
North Korea’s representative, So Se Pyong, was enthusiastic about his new job. He announced that he was “very much committed to the Conference” and that during his presidency he “welcomes any sort of constructive proposals that strengthened the work and credibility of the Conference on Disarmament.” He also said that “he would do everything in his capacity to move the Conference on Disarmament forward.”
That might make sense, if by “forward” he means toward a nuclear winter, or by “constructive,” he means steering clear of anything that might impede North Korea. The official mandate of the Conference looks a bit different and includes “all multilateral arms control and disarmament problems” with the following “main areas of interest”: “cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament; prevention of nuclear war, including all related matters.”
North Korea’s chairmanship was heralded by other U.N. aficionados, including the Iranian delegate to the Conference. Iran’s Mohammad Hassan Daryaei told the Conference meeting: “I would like to congratulate the distinguished ambassador of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for the assumption of the presidency and assuring him of my delegation’s full support and cooperation.”
Iran’s support is telling. Just yesterday Iran's Revolutionary Guards tested 14 long-range missiles that could carry a nuclear weapon, with the express purpose of hitting U.S. interests and Israel, according to the head of their aerospace division.
Congratulations also poured in from such upstanding world citizens and U.N. fans as China. China’s Wang Qun “welcomed the presidency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.”
It was left to the Canadian delegate to speak plainly. Canada’s Marius Grinius said: “[I]n the last 13 years the Conference has failed to move forward on its core disarmament responsibilities, including the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty…[T]he Conference on Disarmament is on life support because it no longer is the sole multilateral negotiating forum for disarmament. Indeed, it is not negotiating anything and has not been for a very long time.”
Why not just put it out of its misery and pull the plug?
Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a professor at Touro College, and the editor of EYEontheUN.org.
North Korea To Head U.N. Conference On Disarmament
3:26 PM, JUN 29, 2011 • BY ANNE BAYEFSKY
On Tuesday, the United Nations again made itself an international laughing stock – except perhaps to the American taxpayers who continue to foot 22 percent of the bill – by appointing North Korea chair of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. That would be the same North Korea that, according to an article this week by Senator John Kerry, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has “twice tested nuclear weapons…is developing missiles to carry them…has built facilities capable of producing highly enriched uranium for more nuclear weapons” and has defied a U.N. arms embargo by exporting weapons and sensitive technologies to rogue regimes.
Alas, Senator Kerry is also one of the lead champion of the United Nations in the Senate. According to the U.N., "The Conference is funded from the UN regular budget, reports to the General Assembly and receives guidance from it."
North Korea assumes the Conference chairmanship by being the next state in the alphabetical rotation of the 65 members, which include five nuclear weapons states and 60 other countries such as Iran and Syria. North Korea will preside over the Conference for a four working-week period.
North Korea’s representative, So Se Pyong, was enthusiastic about his new job. He announced that he was “very much committed to the Conference” and that during his presidency he “welcomes any sort of constructive proposals that strengthened the work and credibility of the Conference on Disarmament.” He also said that “he would do everything in his capacity to move the Conference on Disarmament forward.”
That might make sense, if by “forward” he means toward a nuclear winter, or by “constructive,” he means steering clear of anything that might impede North Korea. The official mandate of the Conference looks a bit different and includes “all multilateral arms control and disarmament problems” with the following “main areas of interest”: “cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament; prevention of nuclear war, including all related matters.”
North Korea’s chairmanship was heralded by other U.N. aficionados, including the Iranian delegate to the Conference. Iran’s Mohammad Hassan Daryaei told the Conference meeting: “I would like to congratulate the distinguished ambassador of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for the assumption of the presidency and assuring him of my delegation’s full support and cooperation.”
Iran’s support is telling. Just yesterday Iran's Revolutionary Guards tested 14 long-range missiles that could carry a nuclear weapon, with the express purpose of hitting U.S. interests and Israel, according to the head of their aerospace division.
Congratulations also poured in from such upstanding world citizens and U.N. fans as China. China’s Wang Qun “welcomed the presidency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.”
It was left to the Canadian delegate to speak plainly. Canada’s Marius Grinius said: “[I]n the last 13 years the Conference has failed to move forward on its core disarmament responsibilities, including the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty…[T]he Conference on Disarmament is on life support because it no longer is the sole multilateral negotiating forum for disarmament. Indeed, it is not negotiating anything and has not been for a very long time.”
Why not just put it out of its misery and pull the plug?
Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a professor at Touro College, and the editor of EYEontheUN.org.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Senators are idiots AKA Youtube might be in trouble...
Read the original here.
Senators Want To Put People In Jail For Embedding YouTube Videos
from the not-understanding-the-technology dept
Okay, this is just getting ridiculous. A few weeks back, we noted[1] that Senators Amy Klobuchar, John Cornyn and Christopher Coons had proposed a new bill that was designed to make "streaming" infringing material a felony. At the time, the actual text of the bill wasn't available, but we assumed, naturally, that it would just extend "public performance" rights to section 506a[2] of the Copyright Act.
Supporters of this bill claim that all it's really doing is harmonizing US copyright law's civil and criminal sections. After all, the rights afforded under copyright law in civil cases cover a list[3] of rights: reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works or performthe work. The rules for criminal infringement only cover reproducing and distributing -- but not performing. So, supporters claim, all this does is "harmonize" copyright law and bring the criminal side into line with the civil side by adding "performance rights" to the list of things.
If only it were that simple. But, of course, it's not. First of all, despite claims to the contrary, there's a damn good reason why Congress did not include performance rights as a criminal/felony issue: because who would have thought that it would be a criminal act to perform a work without permission? It could be infringing, but that can be covered by a fine. When we suddenly criminalize a performance, that raises all sorts of questionable issues.
Furthermore, as we suspected, in the full text of the bill[4], "performance" is not clearly defined. This is the really troubling part. Everyone keeps insisting that this is targeted towards "streaming" websites, but is streaming a "performance"? If so, how does embedding play into this? Is the site that hosts the content guilty of performing? What about the site that merely linked to and/or embedded the video (linking and embedding are technically effectively the same thing). Without clear definitions, we run into problems pretty quickly.
And it gets worse. Because rather than just (pointlessly) adding "performance" to the list, the bill tries to also define what constitutes a potential felony crime in these circumstances:
the offense consists of 10 or more public performances by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copyrighted works
So yeah. If you embed a YouTube video that turns out to be infringing, and more than 10 people view it because of your link... you could be facing five years in jail. This is, of course, ridiculous, and suggests (yet again) politicians who are regulating a technology they simply do not understand. Should it really be a criminal act to embed a YouTube video, even if you don't know it was infringing...? This could create a massive chilling effect to the very useful service YouTube provides in letting people embed videos.
178 Comments[5] | Leave a Comment..[6]
References
^ noted (www.techdirt.com)
^ section 506a (www.copyright.gov)
^ a list (www.copyright.gov)
^ full text of the bill (www.govtrack.us)
^ 178 Comments (www.techdirt.com)
^ Leave a Comment.. (www.techdirt.com)
Senators Want To Put People In Jail For Embedding YouTube Videos
from the not-understanding-the-technology dept
Okay, this is just getting ridiculous. A few weeks back, we noted[1] that Senators Amy Klobuchar, John Cornyn and Christopher Coons had proposed a new bill that was designed to make "streaming" infringing material a felony. At the time, the actual text of the bill wasn't available, but we assumed, naturally, that it would just extend "public performance" rights to section 506a[2] of the Copyright Act.
Supporters of this bill claim that all it's really doing is harmonizing US copyright law's civil and criminal sections. After all, the rights afforded under copyright law in civil cases cover a list[3] of rights: reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works or performthe work. The rules for criminal infringement only cover reproducing and distributing -- but not performing. So, supporters claim, all this does is "harmonize" copyright law and bring the criminal side into line with the civil side by adding "performance rights" to the list of things.
If only it were that simple. But, of course, it's not. First of all, despite claims to the contrary, there's a damn good reason why Congress did not include performance rights as a criminal/felony issue: because who would have thought that it would be a criminal act to perform a work without permission? It could be infringing, but that can be covered by a fine. When we suddenly criminalize a performance, that raises all sorts of questionable issues.
Furthermore, as we suspected, in the full text of the bill[4], "performance" is not clearly defined. This is the really troubling part. Everyone keeps insisting that this is targeted towards "streaming" websites, but is streaming a "performance"? If so, how does embedding play into this? Is the site that hosts the content guilty of performing? What about the site that merely linked to and/or embedded the video (linking and embedding are technically effectively the same thing). Without clear definitions, we run into problems pretty quickly.
And it gets worse. Because rather than just (pointlessly) adding "performance" to the list, the bill tries to also define what constitutes a potential felony crime in these circumstances:
the offense consists of 10 or more public performances by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copyrighted works
So yeah. If you embed a YouTube video that turns out to be infringing, and more than 10 people view it because of your link... you could be facing five years in jail. This is, of course, ridiculous, and suggests (yet again) politicians who are regulating a technology they simply do not understand. Should it really be a criminal act to embed a YouTube video, even if you don't know it was infringing...? This could create a massive chilling effect to the very useful service YouTube provides in letting people embed videos.
178 Comments[5] | Leave a Comment..[6]
References
^ noted (www.techdirt.com)
^ section 506a (www.copyright.gov)
^ a list (www.copyright.gov)
^ full text of the bill (www.govtrack.us)
^ 178 Comments (www.techdirt.com)
^ Leave a Comment.. (www.techdirt.com)
Thursday, June 2, 2011
"I'm not from around here" as a criminal defense?
What the hell? Culture shock as a criminal defense? Any bets as to when the defense "She was asking for it" is openly submitted in court? Way to go Australia, this moved you more than a few notches down on my list of sweet countries. Can the prosecution enter an argument of "he's a misogynistic douchebag"? And should he have gotten the book thrown at him for the, I don't know how the Aussies may label a sexual assault on a 13 year old, but I call it child molestation....Read the original here.
Here's the news broadcast from Australia:
Here's the news broadcast from Australia:
Muslim Man Gets Sexual Assault Sentence Reduced Because Of 'Culture Shock'
posted by American Thinker
The old argument that "she was asking for it" has resurfaced in multicultural guise. Where are all the feminists? This shocking report from Melbourne, Australia tells the tale of a Libyan student recently arrived in Australia as a scholarship student, who sexually attacked 6 women, and a 13 year old girl a month after arriving in Australia.
The judge found that his sentence should be reduced because he was unable to cope with the way Australian women dress. Obviously, the implication is that Australian women should don abayas and burkas, if they want to avoid being attacked, because Muslim men just can't control themselves.
Creeping dhimmitude, indeed.
posted by American Thinker
The old argument that "she was asking for it" has resurfaced in multicultural guise. Where are all the feminists? This shocking report from Melbourne, Australia tells the tale of a Libyan student recently arrived in Australia as a scholarship student, who sexually attacked 6 women, and a 13 year old girl a month after arriving in Australia.
The judge found that his sentence should be reduced because he was unable to cope with the way Australian women dress. Obviously, the implication is that Australian women should don abayas and burkas, if they want to avoid being attacked, because Muslim men just can't control themselves.
Creeping dhimmitude, indeed.
Friday, May 27, 2011
What color is your shirt? It might make you a racist
Also, this headline seems misleading. It's not the students who are claiming white supremacy, it's the school that is claiming that the students might be claiming it.Read the original here.
Soquel Students Suspended For White Supremacy Claims
SOQUEL, Calif. - Students banned from a Central Coast school for wearing a white t-shirt.
On Wednesday, Soquel High School suspended at least two students. The students say it's because of allegations, they're part of a white supremacist group.
"All the girls wore pink, all the sports guys wore tank tops," says Soquel High Senior Mikey Donnelly. "We were all going to wear white so that was the plan. Just wear white t-shirts to identify ourselves and look back and say that was our group of friends right there."
Soquel High Senior Mikey Donnelly wore a white t-shirt for his senior class photo Tuesday. About 10 of his friends did the same. That decision may seem harmless. But Soquel High suspended Donnelly for three days because of it.
Donnelly said the school told him people were offended and intimidated by his group, claiming they're a white supremacist gang.
"I do think this is BS," says Donnelly. "I'm not a white supremacist in any way shape or form. If I did say white power, I would probably say it just as much as I say black power."
He's not the only one upset.
"I feel disrespected," says Soquel High Senior David Mine.
Mine also wore a white t-shirt and was also suspended. He's missing out on finals and that could jeopardize his graduation.
"I'm Asian," says Mine. "I don't see how I can be a white supremacist. I'm against it completely."
Soquel High Principal Ken Lawrence-Emanuel was very tight-lipped about it, saying students' punishments are confidential. But told me the school got several complaints about a white pride group on campus.
"Safety is always first at Soquel High," says Lawrence-Emanuel. "We want to make sure we do everything we can to keep people from feeling and being safe on campus."
But, the students don't agree and are ready to fight it.
"It's a pretty bad feeling to be labeled something you're not," says Donnelly.
Donnelly said nobody's ever accused him of being a white supremacist before and plans on appealing the schools decision. He'll even take it to court if he needs to.
Submitted by Azenith Smith, Central Coast News
Soquel Students Suspended For White Supremacy Claims
SOQUEL, Calif. - Students banned from a Central Coast school for wearing a white t-shirt.
On Wednesday, Soquel High School suspended at least two students. The students say it's because of allegations, they're part of a white supremacist group.
"All the girls wore pink, all the sports guys wore tank tops," says Soquel High Senior Mikey Donnelly. "We were all going to wear white so that was the plan. Just wear white t-shirts to identify ourselves and look back and say that was our group of friends right there."
Soquel High Senior Mikey Donnelly wore a white t-shirt for his senior class photo Tuesday. About 10 of his friends did the same. That decision may seem harmless. But Soquel High suspended Donnelly for three days because of it.
Donnelly said the school told him people were offended and intimidated by his group, claiming they're a white supremacist gang.
"I do think this is BS," says Donnelly. "I'm not a white supremacist in any way shape or form. If I did say white power, I would probably say it just as much as I say black power."
He's not the only one upset.
"I feel disrespected," says Soquel High Senior David Mine.
Mine also wore a white t-shirt and was also suspended. He's missing out on finals and that could jeopardize his graduation.
"I'm Asian," says Mine. "I don't see how I can be a white supremacist. I'm against it completely."
Soquel High Principal Ken Lawrence-Emanuel was very tight-lipped about it, saying students' punishments are confidential. But told me the school got several complaints about a white pride group on campus.
"Safety is always first at Soquel High," says Lawrence-Emanuel. "We want to make sure we do everything we can to keep people from feeling and being safe on campus."
But, the students don't agree and are ready to fight it.
"It's a pretty bad feeling to be labeled something you're not," says Donnelly.
Donnelly said nobody's ever accused him of being a white supremacist before and plans on appealing the schools decision. He'll even take it to court if he needs to.
Submitted by Azenith Smith, Central Coast News
Monday, May 23, 2011
I have no words....
Read the original here....because I can't make this up.
Parents Keep Child's Gender Secret
JAYME POISSON/TORONTO STAR
STAFF REPORTER
“So it’s a boy, right?” a neighbour calls out as Kathy Witterick walks by, her four month old baby, Storm, strapped to her chest in a carrier.
See more family photos. [2]
Each week the woman asks the same question about the baby with the squishy cheeks and feathery blond hair.
Witterick smiles, opens her arms wide, comments on the sunny spring day, and keeps walking.
She’s used to it. The neighbours know Witterick and her husband, David Stocker, are raising a genderless baby. But they don’t pretend to understand it.
While there’s nothing ambiguous about Storm’s genitalia, they aren’t telling anyone whether their third child is a boy or a girl.
The only people who know are Storm’s brothers, Jazz, 5, and Kio, 2, a close family friend and the two midwives who helped deliver the baby in a birthing pool at their Toronto home on New Year’s Day.
“When the baby comes out, even the people who love you the most and know you so intimately, the first question they ask is, ‘Is it a girl or a boy?’” says Witterick, bouncing Storm, dressed in a red-fleece jumper, on her lap at the kitchen table.
“If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs,” says Stocker.
When Storm was born, the couple sent an email to friends and family: “We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now — a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place? ...).”
Their announcement was met with stony silence. Then the deluge of criticisms began. Not just about Storm, but about how they were parenting their other two children.
The grandparents were supportive, but resented explaining the gender-free baby to friends and co-workers. They worried the children would be ridiculed. Friends said they were imposing their political and ideological values on a newborn. Most of all, people said they were setting their kids up for a life of bullying in a world that can be cruel to outsiders.
Witterick and Stocker believe they are giving their children the freedom to choose who they want to be, unconstrained by social norms about males and females. Some say their choice is alienating.
In an age where helicopter parents hover nervously over their kids micromanaging their lives, and tiger moms ferociously push their progeny to get into Harvard, Stocker, 39, and Witterick, 38, believe kids can make meaningful decisions for themselves from a very early age.
“What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It’s obnoxious,” says Stocker.
Jazz and Kio have picked out their own clothes in the boys and girls sections of stores since they were 18 months old. Just this week, Jazz unearthed a pink dress at Value Village, which he loves because it “really poofs out at the bottom. It feels so nice.” The boys decide whether to cut their hair or let it grow.
Like all mothers and fathers, Witterick and Stocker struggle with parenting decisions. The boys are encouraged to challenge how they’re expected to look and act based on their sex.
“We thought that if we delayed sharing that information, in this case hopefully, we might knock off a couple million of those messages by the time that Storm decides Storm would like to share,” says Witterick.
They don’t want to isolate their kids from the world, but, when it’s meaningful, talk about gender.
This past winter, the family took a vacation to Cuba with Witterick’s parents. Since they weren’t fluent in Spanish, they flipped a coin at the airport to decide what to tell people. It landed on heads, so for the next week, everyone who asked was told Storm was a boy. The language changed immediately. “What a big, strong boy,” people said.
The moment a child’s sex is announced, so begins the parade of pink and barrage of blue. Tutus and toy trucks aren’t far behind. The couple says it only intensifies with age.
“In fact, in not telling the gender of my precious baby, I am saying to the world, ‘Please can you just let Storm discover for him/herself what s (he) wants to be?!.” Witterick writes in an email.
Stocker teaches at City View Alternative, a tiny school west of Dufferin Grove Park, with four teachers and about 60 Grade 7 and 8 students whose lessons are framed by social-justice issues around class, race and gender.
When Kio was a baby, the family travelled through the mountains of Mexico, speaking with the Zapatistas, a revolutionary group who shun mainstream politics as corrupt and demand greater indigenous rights. In 1994, about 150 people died in violent clashes with the Mexican military, but the leftist movement has been largely peaceful since.
Last year, they spent two weeks in Cuba, living with local families and learning about the revolution. Witterick has worked in violence prevention, giving workshops to teachers. These days, she volunteers, offering breastfeeding support. At the moment, she is a full-time mom.
Both come from liberal families. Stocker grew up listening to Free to Be ... You and Me, a 1972 record with a central message of gender neutrality. Witterick remembers her brother mucking around with gender as a teen in the ’80s, wearing lipstick and carrying handbags like David Bowie and Mick Jagger.
The family lives in a cream-coloured two-storey brick home in the city’s Junction Triangle neighbourhood. Their front porch is crammed with bicycles, including Kio’s pink and purple tricycle. Inside, it’s organized clutter. The children's arts and crafts projects are stacked in the bookcases, maps hang on the walls and furniture is well-used and of a certain vintage.
Upstairs they co-sleep curled up on two mattresses pushed together on the floor of the master bedroom, under a heap of mismatched pillows and blankets. During the day, the kids build forts with the pillows and pretend to walk a tightrope between the mattresses.
On a recent Tuesday, the boys finish making paper animal puppets and a handmade sign to celebrate their dad’s birthday. “I love to do laundry with dad,” reads one message. They nuzzle Storm, splayed out on the floor. The baby squeals with delight.
Witterick practices unschooling, an offshoot of home-schooling centred on the belief that learning should be driven by a child’s curiosity. There are no report cards, no textbooks and no tests. For unschoolers, learning is about exploring and asking questions, “not something that happens by rote from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays in a building with a group of same-age people, planned, implemented and assessed by someone else,” says Witterick. The fringe movement is growing. An unschooling conference in Toronto drew dozens of families last fall.
The kids have a lot of say in how their day unfolds. They decide if they want to squish through the mud, chase garter snakes in the park or bake cupcakes.
Jazz — soft-spoken, with a slight frame and curious brown eyes — keeps his hair long, preferring to wear it in three braids, two in the front and one in the back, even though both his parents have close-cropped hair. His favourite colour is pink, although his parents don’t own a piece of pink clothing between them. He loves to paint his fingernails and wears a sparkly pink stud in one ear, despite the fact his parents wear no nail polish or jewelry.
Kio keeps his curly blond hair just below his chin. The 2-year-old loves purple, although he’s happiest in any kind of pyjama pants.
“As a result, Jazz and now Kio are almost exclusively assumed to be girls,” says Stocker, adding he and Witterick don’t out them. It’s the boys’ choice whether they want to offer a correction.
On a recent trip to High Park, Jazz, wearing pink shorts, patterned pink socks and brightly coloured elastics on his braids, runs and skips across the street.
“That’s a princess!” says a smiling crossing guard, ushering the little boy along. “And that’s a princess, too,” she says again, pointing at Kio with her big red sign.
Jazz doesn’t mind. One of his favourite books is 10,000 Dresses, the story of a boy who loves to dress up. But he doesn’t like being called a girl. Recently, he asked his mom to write a note on his application to the High Park Nature Centre because he likes the group leaders and wants them to know he’s a boy.
Jazz was old enough for school last September, but chose to stay home. “When we would go and visit programs, people — children and adults — would immediately react with Jazz over his gender,” says Witterick, adding the conversation would gravitate to his choice of pink or his hairstyle.
That’s mostly why he doesn’t want to go to school. When asked if it upsets him, he nods, but doesn’t say more.
Instead he grabs a handmade portfolio filled with his drawings and poems. In its pages is a booklet written under his pseudonym, the “Gender Explorer.” In purple and pink lettering, adorned with butterflies, it reads: “Help girls do boy things. Help boys do girl things. Let your kid be whoever they are!”
Storm was named after whipped winds and dark rain clouds, because they are beautiful and transformative.
“When I was pregnant, it was really this intense time around Jazz having experiences with gender and I was feeling like I needed some good parenting skills to support him through that,” says Witterick.
It began as a offhand remark. “Hey, what if we just didn’t tell?” And then Stocker found a book in his school library called X: A Fabulous Child’s Story by Lois Gould. The book, published in 1978, is about raising not a boy or a girl, but X. There’s a happy ending here. Little X — who loved to play football and weave baskets — faces the taunting head on, proving that X is the most well-adjusted child ever examined by “an impartial team of Xperts.”
“It became so compelling it was almost like, How could we not?” says Witterick.
There are days when their decisions are tiring, shackling even. “We spend more time than we should providing explanations for why we do things this way,” says Witterick. “I regret that (Jazz) has to discuss his gender before people ask him meaningful questions about what he does and sees in this world, but I don't think I am responsible for that — the culture that narrowly defines what he should do, wear and look like is.”
Longtime friend Ayal Dinner, 35, a father two young boys, was surprised to hear the couple’s announcement when Storm was born, but is supportive.
“I think it’s amazing that they’re willing to take on challenging people in this way,” says Dinner. “While they are political and ideological about these things, they’re also really thinking about what it means and struggling with it as they go along.”
Dinner understands why people may find it extreme. “Although I can see the criticism of ‘This is going to be hard on my kid,’ it’s great to say, ‘I love my kid for whoever they are.’”
On a recent trip to Hamilton, Jazz was out of earshot when family friend Denise Hansen overheard two little girls at the park say they didn’t want to play with a “girl-boy.” Then, there was the time a saleswoman at a second-hand shop refused to sell him a pink feather boa. “Surely you won't buy it for him — he's a boy!” said the woman. Shocked, and not wanting to upset Jazz, Witterick left the store.
Parents talk about the moment they realize they would throw themselves in front of a speeding truck to save their child from harm, yet battle the instinct to overprotect. They want to encourage independence. They hope people won’t be mean. They pray they aren’t bullied. No parent would ever wish that for their child.
On a night after she watched her husband of 11 years and the boys play with sparklers after dark, Witterick, in a reflective mood, writes to say we are all mocked at some point for the way we look, the way we dress and the way we think.
“When faced with inevitable judgment by others, which child stands tall (and sticks up for others) — the one facing teasing despite desperately trying to fit in, or the one with a strong sense of self and at least two 'go-to' adults who love them unconditionally? Well, I guess you know which one we choose.”
Diane Ehrensaft is a California-based psychologist and mother of Jesse, a “girlyboy” who turned his trucks into cradles and preferred porcelain dolls over soldiers when he was a child. Her newly published book, Gender Born, Gender Made, is a guide for parents of nonconforming kids.
She believes parents should support gender-creative children, which includes the transgendered, who feel born in the wrong bodies, and gender hybrids, who feel they are part girl and part boy. Then there are gender “smoothies,” who have a blended sense of gender that is purely “them.”
Ehrensaft believes there is something innate about gender, and points to the ’70s, when parents experimented by giving dolls to boys and trucks to girls.
“It only worked up to a certain extent. Some girls never played with the trucks, some boys weren’t interested in ballet ... It was a humbling experiment for us because we learned we don’t have the control that we thought we did.”
But she worries by not divulging Storm’s sex, the parents are denying the child a way to position himself or herself in a world where you are either male, female or in between. In effect they have created another category: Other than other. And that could marginalize the child.
“I believe that it puts restrictions on this particular baby so that in this culture this baby will be a singular person who is not being given an opportunity to find their true gender self, based on also what’s inside them.”
Ehrensaft gets the “What the heck?!” reaction people may have when they hear about Storm. “I think it probably makes people feel played with to have that information withheld from them.”
While she accepts and supports Jazz’s freedom “to be who he is,” she’s concerned about asking two small boys to keep a secret about the baby of the family. “For very young children, just in their brains, they’re not ready to do the kind of sophisticated discernment we do about when a secret is necessary.”
Jazz says it’s not difficult. He usually just calls the baby Storm.
Dr. Ken Zucker, considered a world expert on gender identity and head of the gender identity service for children at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, calls this a “social experiment of nurture.” The broader question, he says, is how much influence parents have on their kids. If Ehrensaft leans toward nature, Zucker puts more emphasis on nurture. Even when parents don’t make a choice, that’s still a choice, and one that can impact the children.
When asked what psychological harm, if any, could come from keeping the sex of a child secret, Zucker said: “One will find out.”
The couple plan to keep Storm’s sex a secret as long as Storm, Kio and Jazz are comfortable with it. In the meantime, philosophy and reality continue to collide.
Out with the kids all day, Witterick doesn’t have the time or the will to hide in a closet every time she changes Storm’s diaper. “If (people) want to peek, that’s their journey,” she says.
There are questions about which bathroom Storm will use, but that is a couple of years off. Then there is the “tyranny of pronouns,” as they call it. They considered referring to Storm as “Z”. Witterick now calls the baby she, imagining the “s” in brackets.
For the moment, it feels right.
“Everyone keeps asking us, ‘When will this end?’” says Witterick. “And we always turn the question back. Yeah, when will this end? When will we live in a world where people can make choices to be whoever they are?”
jpoisson@thestar.ca[3]
References
^ Comments on this story (www.parentcentral.ca)
^ See more family photos. (photogallery.thestar.com)
^ jpoisson@thestar.ca (www.parentcentral.ca)
Parents Keep Child's Gender Secret
JAYME POISSON/TORONTO STAR
STAFF REPORTER
“So it’s a boy, right?” a neighbour calls out as Kathy Witterick walks by, her four month old baby, Storm, strapped to her chest in a carrier.
See more family photos. [2]
Each week the woman asks the same question about the baby with the squishy cheeks and feathery blond hair.
Witterick smiles, opens her arms wide, comments on the sunny spring day, and keeps walking.
She’s used to it. The neighbours know Witterick and her husband, David Stocker, are raising a genderless baby. But they don’t pretend to understand it.
While there’s nothing ambiguous about Storm’s genitalia, they aren’t telling anyone whether their third child is a boy or a girl.
The only people who know are Storm’s brothers, Jazz, 5, and Kio, 2, a close family friend and the two midwives who helped deliver the baby in a birthing pool at their Toronto home on New Year’s Day.
“When the baby comes out, even the people who love you the most and know you so intimately, the first question they ask is, ‘Is it a girl or a boy?’” says Witterick, bouncing Storm, dressed in a red-fleece jumper, on her lap at the kitchen table.
“If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs,” says Stocker.
When Storm was born, the couple sent an email to friends and family: “We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now — a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place? ...).”
Their announcement was met with stony silence. Then the deluge of criticisms began. Not just about Storm, but about how they were parenting their other two children.
The grandparents were supportive, but resented explaining the gender-free baby to friends and co-workers. They worried the children would be ridiculed. Friends said they were imposing their political and ideological values on a newborn. Most of all, people said they were setting their kids up for a life of bullying in a world that can be cruel to outsiders.
Witterick and Stocker believe they are giving their children the freedom to choose who they want to be, unconstrained by social norms about males and females. Some say their choice is alienating.
In an age where helicopter parents hover nervously over their kids micromanaging their lives, and tiger moms ferociously push their progeny to get into Harvard, Stocker, 39, and Witterick, 38, believe kids can make meaningful decisions for themselves from a very early age.
“What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It’s obnoxious,” says Stocker.
Jazz and Kio have picked out their own clothes in the boys and girls sections of stores since they were 18 months old. Just this week, Jazz unearthed a pink dress at Value Village, which he loves because it “really poofs out at the bottom. It feels so nice.” The boys decide whether to cut their hair or let it grow.
Like all mothers and fathers, Witterick and Stocker struggle with parenting decisions. The boys are encouraged to challenge how they’re expected to look and act based on their sex.
“We thought that if we delayed sharing that information, in this case hopefully, we might knock off a couple million of those messages by the time that Storm decides Storm would like to share,” says Witterick.
They don’t want to isolate their kids from the world, but, when it’s meaningful, talk about gender.
This past winter, the family took a vacation to Cuba with Witterick’s parents. Since they weren’t fluent in Spanish, they flipped a coin at the airport to decide what to tell people. It landed on heads, so for the next week, everyone who asked was told Storm was a boy. The language changed immediately. “What a big, strong boy,” people said.
The moment a child’s sex is announced, so begins the parade of pink and barrage of blue. Tutus and toy trucks aren’t far behind. The couple says it only intensifies with age.
“In fact, in not telling the gender of my precious baby, I am saying to the world, ‘Please can you just let Storm discover for him/herself what s (he) wants to be?!.” Witterick writes in an email.
Stocker teaches at City View Alternative, a tiny school west of Dufferin Grove Park, with four teachers and about 60 Grade 7 and 8 students whose lessons are framed by social-justice issues around class, race and gender.
When Kio was a baby, the family travelled through the mountains of Mexico, speaking with the Zapatistas, a revolutionary group who shun mainstream politics as corrupt and demand greater indigenous rights. In 1994, about 150 people died in violent clashes with the Mexican military, but the leftist movement has been largely peaceful since.
Last year, they spent two weeks in Cuba, living with local families and learning about the revolution. Witterick has worked in violence prevention, giving workshops to teachers. These days, she volunteers, offering breastfeeding support. At the moment, she is a full-time mom.
Both come from liberal families. Stocker grew up listening to Free to Be ... You and Me, a 1972 record with a central message of gender neutrality. Witterick remembers her brother mucking around with gender as a teen in the ’80s, wearing lipstick and carrying handbags like David Bowie and Mick Jagger.
The family lives in a cream-coloured two-storey brick home in the city’s Junction Triangle neighbourhood. Their front porch is crammed with bicycles, including Kio’s pink and purple tricycle. Inside, it’s organized clutter. The children's arts and crafts projects are stacked in the bookcases, maps hang on the walls and furniture is well-used and of a certain vintage.
Upstairs they co-sleep curled up on two mattresses pushed together on the floor of the master bedroom, under a heap of mismatched pillows and blankets. During the day, the kids build forts with the pillows and pretend to walk a tightrope between the mattresses.
On a recent Tuesday, the boys finish making paper animal puppets and a handmade sign to celebrate their dad’s birthday. “I love to do laundry with dad,” reads one message. They nuzzle Storm, splayed out on the floor. The baby squeals with delight.
Witterick practices unschooling, an offshoot of home-schooling centred on the belief that learning should be driven by a child’s curiosity. There are no report cards, no textbooks and no tests. For unschoolers, learning is about exploring and asking questions, “not something that happens by rote from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays in a building with a group of same-age people, planned, implemented and assessed by someone else,” says Witterick. The fringe movement is growing. An unschooling conference in Toronto drew dozens of families last fall.
The kids have a lot of say in how their day unfolds. They decide if they want to squish through the mud, chase garter snakes in the park or bake cupcakes.
Jazz — soft-spoken, with a slight frame and curious brown eyes — keeps his hair long, preferring to wear it in three braids, two in the front and one in the back, even though both his parents have close-cropped hair. His favourite colour is pink, although his parents don’t own a piece of pink clothing between them. He loves to paint his fingernails and wears a sparkly pink stud in one ear, despite the fact his parents wear no nail polish or jewelry.
Kio keeps his curly blond hair just below his chin. The 2-year-old loves purple, although he’s happiest in any kind of pyjama pants.
“As a result, Jazz and now Kio are almost exclusively assumed to be girls,” says Stocker, adding he and Witterick don’t out them. It’s the boys’ choice whether they want to offer a correction.
On a recent trip to High Park, Jazz, wearing pink shorts, patterned pink socks and brightly coloured elastics on his braids, runs and skips across the street.
“That’s a princess!” says a smiling crossing guard, ushering the little boy along. “And that’s a princess, too,” she says again, pointing at Kio with her big red sign.
Jazz doesn’t mind. One of his favourite books is 10,000 Dresses, the story of a boy who loves to dress up. But he doesn’t like being called a girl. Recently, he asked his mom to write a note on his application to the High Park Nature Centre because he likes the group leaders and wants them to know he’s a boy.
Jazz was old enough for school last September, but chose to stay home. “When we would go and visit programs, people — children and adults — would immediately react with Jazz over his gender,” says Witterick, adding the conversation would gravitate to his choice of pink or his hairstyle.
That’s mostly why he doesn’t want to go to school. When asked if it upsets him, he nods, but doesn’t say more.
Instead he grabs a handmade portfolio filled with his drawings and poems. In its pages is a booklet written under his pseudonym, the “Gender Explorer.” In purple and pink lettering, adorned with butterflies, it reads: “Help girls do boy things. Help boys do girl things. Let your kid be whoever they are!”
Storm was named after whipped winds and dark rain clouds, because they are beautiful and transformative.
“When I was pregnant, it was really this intense time around Jazz having experiences with gender and I was feeling like I needed some good parenting skills to support him through that,” says Witterick.
It began as a offhand remark. “Hey, what if we just didn’t tell?” And then Stocker found a book in his school library called X: A Fabulous Child’s Story by Lois Gould. The book, published in 1978, is about raising not a boy or a girl, but X. There’s a happy ending here. Little X — who loved to play football and weave baskets — faces the taunting head on, proving that X is the most well-adjusted child ever examined by “an impartial team of Xperts.”
“It became so compelling it was almost like, How could we not?” says Witterick.
There are days when their decisions are tiring, shackling even. “We spend more time than we should providing explanations for why we do things this way,” says Witterick. “I regret that (Jazz) has to discuss his gender before people ask him meaningful questions about what he does and sees in this world, but I don't think I am responsible for that — the culture that narrowly defines what he should do, wear and look like is.”
Longtime friend Ayal Dinner, 35, a father two young boys, was surprised to hear the couple’s announcement when Storm was born, but is supportive.
“I think it’s amazing that they’re willing to take on challenging people in this way,” says Dinner. “While they are political and ideological about these things, they’re also really thinking about what it means and struggling with it as they go along.”
Dinner understands why people may find it extreme. “Although I can see the criticism of ‘This is going to be hard on my kid,’ it’s great to say, ‘I love my kid for whoever they are.’”
On a recent trip to Hamilton, Jazz was out of earshot when family friend Denise Hansen overheard two little girls at the park say they didn’t want to play with a “girl-boy.” Then, there was the time a saleswoman at a second-hand shop refused to sell him a pink feather boa. “Surely you won't buy it for him — he's a boy!” said the woman. Shocked, and not wanting to upset Jazz, Witterick left the store.
Parents talk about the moment they realize they would throw themselves in front of a speeding truck to save their child from harm, yet battle the instinct to overprotect. They want to encourage independence. They hope people won’t be mean. They pray they aren’t bullied. No parent would ever wish that for their child.
On a night after she watched her husband of 11 years and the boys play with sparklers after dark, Witterick, in a reflective mood, writes to say we are all mocked at some point for the way we look, the way we dress and the way we think.
“When faced with inevitable judgment by others, which child stands tall (and sticks up for others) — the one facing teasing despite desperately trying to fit in, or the one with a strong sense of self and at least two 'go-to' adults who love them unconditionally? Well, I guess you know which one we choose.”
Diane Ehrensaft is a California-based psychologist and mother of Jesse, a “girlyboy” who turned his trucks into cradles and preferred porcelain dolls over soldiers when he was a child. Her newly published book, Gender Born, Gender Made, is a guide for parents of nonconforming kids.
She believes parents should support gender-creative children, which includes the transgendered, who feel born in the wrong bodies, and gender hybrids, who feel they are part girl and part boy. Then there are gender “smoothies,” who have a blended sense of gender that is purely “them.”
Ehrensaft believes there is something innate about gender, and points to the ’70s, when parents experimented by giving dolls to boys and trucks to girls.
“It only worked up to a certain extent. Some girls never played with the trucks, some boys weren’t interested in ballet ... It was a humbling experiment for us because we learned we don’t have the control that we thought we did.”
But she worries by not divulging Storm’s sex, the parents are denying the child a way to position himself or herself in a world where you are either male, female or in between. In effect they have created another category: Other than other. And that could marginalize the child.
“I believe that it puts restrictions on this particular baby so that in this culture this baby will be a singular person who is not being given an opportunity to find their true gender self, based on also what’s inside them.”
Ehrensaft gets the “What the heck?!” reaction people may have when they hear about Storm. “I think it probably makes people feel played with to have that information withheld from them.”
While she accepts and supports Jazz’s freedom “to be who he is,” she’s concerned about asking two small boys to keep a secret about the baby of the family. “For very young children, just in their brains, they’re not ready to do the kind of sophisticated discernment we do about when a secret is necessary.”
Jazz says it’s not difficult. He usually just calls the baby Storm.
Dr. Ken Zucker, considered a world expert on gender identity and head of the gender identity service for children at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, calls this a “social experiment of nurture.” The broader question, he says, is how much influence parents have on their kids. If Ehrensaft leans toward nature, Zucker puts more emphasis on nurture. Even when parents don’t make a choice, that’s still a choice, and one that can impact the children.
When asked what psychological harm, if any, could come from keeping the sex of a child secret, Zucker said: “One will find out.”
The couple plan to keep Storm’s sex a secret as long as Storm, Kio and Jazz are comfortable with it. In the meantime, philosophy and reality continue to collide.
Out with the kids all day, Witterick doesn’t have the time or the will to hide in a closet every time she changes Storm’s diaper. “If (people) want to peek, that’s their journey,” she says.
There are questions about which bathroom Storm will use, but that is a couple of years off. Then there is the “tyranny of pronouns,” as they call it. They considered referring to Storm as “Z”. Witterick now calls the baby she, imagining the “s” in brackets.
For the moment, it feels right.
“Everyone keeps asking us, ‘When will this end?’” says Witterick. “And we always turn the question back. Yeah, when will this end? When will we live in a world where people can make choices to be whoever they are?”
jpoisson@thestar.ca[3]
References
^ Comments on this story (www.parentcentral.ca)
^ See more family photos. (photogallery.thestar.com)
^ jpoisson@thestar.ca (www.parentcentral.ca)
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Hippies do their hippie thing
Read the original here.
Nobel Laureates In Stockholm Climate 'Trial'
Published: 17 May 11 13:52 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation[1]
Updated: 17 May 11 16:18 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/33826/20110517/
Around 20 Nobel[2] prize winners will preside over a mock courtroom in Stockholm on Tuesday, with the Planet Earth and humanity on opposing sides of the case, as part of a symposium to highlight global sustainability.
"It's a civil court case to see whether we've breached our relations" with the planet, "and to see how to restore that relationship," symposium chair Johan Rockström told reporters at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The "trial" will be one of the sessions at the third biennial Nobel laureate symposium on global sustainability -- a three-day event that opened in the Swedish capital Tuesday.
In addition to the Nobel laureates, leading scientists and environmental research group heads were on site to draft a Stockholm Memorandum on the findings of the meeting, which will be presented Wednesday to the United High-level Panel on Global Sustainability.
Rockström explained that one of the sessions had been shaped as a trial since "we've come to the point where just another meeting with another dialogue would fail to have an impact (and to clearly) communicate ... the possibilities and challenges we are facing."
"History will in any case judge us," Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren told reporters, explaining the "trial" was actually about humanity judging itself with future generations in mind.
Mario Molina of Mexico, the winner of the 1995 Nobel Chemistry Prize who is a science and technology advisor to US President Barack Obama[3], told the news
conference he hoped rationality, common sense and wisdom would strengthen the
planet's case in the "symbolic" trial.
At the conference's inaugural speech, Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria stressed the urgency of acting to make the world a better place.
"Mankind faces tremendous challenges if we are to hand our future generations a healthier mother earth, ... a planet more sustainable than it was when we received it from our parents," the princess said in a speech inaugurating the symposium.
"I see no better persons than Nobel laureates to carry this message to the world," she told the delegates.
The princess and delegates were welcomed at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences by a tiny group of protesters.
"Manmade climate change is an unproven, unscientific political ideal... If we implement what these people are saying, billions of people are going to die of poverty," said protestor Hussein Askary
The Stockholm Memorandum will be considered by the UN panel, which was appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon[4] and includes South Africa's
President Jacob Zuma and his Finnish counterpart Tarja Halonen and has been
tasked with putting together a "new vision" on sustainable growth.
The panel will draw up a report with suggestions before the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012.
References
^ translation (www.thelocal.se)
^ Nobel (www.thelocal.se)
^ Barack Obama (www.thelocal.se)
^ Ban Ki-moon (www.thelocal.se)
Nobel Laureates In Stockholm Climate 'Trial'
Published: 17 May 11 13:52 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation[1]
Updated: 17 May 11 16:18 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/33826/20110517/
Around 20 Nobel[2] prize winners will preside over a mock courtroom in Stockholm on Tuesday, with the Planet Earth and humanity on opposing sides of the case, as part of a symposium to highlight global sustainability.
"It's a civil court case to see whether we've breached our relations" with the planet, "and to see how to restore that relationship," symposium chair Johan Rockström told reporters at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The "trial" will be one of the sessions at the third biennial Nobel laureate symposium on global sustainability -- a three-day event that opened in the Swedish capital Tuesday.
In addition to the Nobel laureates, leading scientists and environmental research group heads were on site to draft a Stockholm Memorandum on the findings of the meeting, which will be presented Wednesday to the United High-level Panel on Global Sustainability.
Rockström explained that one of the sessions had been shaped as a trial since "we've come to the point where just another meeting with another dialogue would fail to have an impact (and to clearly) communicate ... the possibilities and challenges we are facing."
"History will in any case judge us," Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren told reporters, explaining the "trial" was actually about humanity judging itself with future generations in mind.
Mario Molina of Mexico, the winner of the 1995 Nobel Chemistry Prize who is a science and technology advisor to US President Barack Obama[3], told the news
conference he hoped rationality, common sense and wisdom would strengthen the
planet's case in the "symbolic" trial.
At the conference's inaugural speech, Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria stressed the urgency of acting to make the world a better place.
"Mankind faces tremendous challenges if we are to hand our future generations a healthier mother earth, ... a planet more sustainable than it was when we received it from our parents," the princess said in a speech inaugurating the symposium.
"I see no better persons than Nobel laureates to carry this message to the world," she told the delegates.
The princess and delegates were welcomed at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences by a tiny group of protesters.
"Manmade climate change is an unproven, unscientific political ideal... If we implement what these people are saying, billions of people are going to die of poverty," said protestor Hussein Askary
The Stockholm Memorandum will be considered by the UN panel, which was appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon[4] and includes South Africa's
President Jacob Zuma and his Finnish counterpart Tarja Halonen and has been
tasked with putting together a "new vision" on sustainable growth.
The panel will draw up a report with suggestions before the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012.
References
^ translation (www.thelocal.se)
^ Nobel (www.thelocal.se)
^ Barack Obama (www.thelocal.se)
^ Ban Ki-moon (www.thelocal.se)
Monday, May 9, 2011
Don't be a landlord in San Francisco
Read the original here.
The Small-Time Landlord Vs. Big-Time Tenants’ Rights
In San Francisco, one of the toughest places in the country to find a place to live, more than 31,000 housing units — one of every 12 — now sit vacant, according to recently released census data. That’s the highest vacancy rate in the region, and a 70 percent increase from a decade ago. (Scroll down to see a map of vacant housing units in the Bay Area.)
To know one big reason why, ask Wayne Koniuk. By trade, Koniuk fashions artificial limbs for amputees. By habit, he fits prostheses at no charge for people who cannot pay. This has left him a less-than-wealthy man.
But he does have one substantial asset: a Divisadero Street building that his father, Walter, an orthotist, bought in 1970 and gave to his only son in 2001 so Wayne could run his business on the ground floor and Wayne’s adult children would always have a place to live.
“For eternity,” Koniuk recalls his father saying, “my grandkids will always have a place they can go. No matter whatever happens, that building should stay in the family.”
Koniuk, who himself lives in suburban Belmont, gave a half-interest in the building to his older son in 2007 so he could evict a tenant and move in himself. But under San Francisco’s extraordinarily pro-tenant housing laws, landlords can do this only once per building.
So while Koniuk desperately wants to move his younger son into the building’s other four-bedroom apartment, he cannot. He is exploring legal options. Robert Murphy, who has lived there for 30 years without a lease, remains, paying $525.82 a month.
Last spring, Koniuk offered Murphy $45,000 to move out. Murphy’s lawyer demanded $70,000, a sum Koniuk says he does not have. Meanwhile, the city’s Rent Board notified Koniuk that he was allowed to increase Murphy’s monthly rent this year by $2.63.
Murphy did not respond to several phone messages left over a two-week period. Harold Jaffe, the lawyer who wrote the demand letter, said he no longer represented Murphy.
Murphy is afforded extra protections as a renter because he is more than 60 years old. Koniuk might still be able to evict Murphy and allow his younger son, Adam, to move in by invoking the Ellis Act, which would entitle Murphy to about $10,000 in compensation and give him a year to vacate. But doing so would impose permanent restrictions on the Divisadero building’s future use, seriously depressing its value. And should 24-year-old Adam decide to move elsewhere, the Koniuks would be legally required for a decade to offer Murphy his old apartment, at his old rent. Invoking the Ellis Act would also mean that any new tenant to the unit, should Murphy decline the chance to return, would also be entitled to Murphy's old rent amount for many years to come. So the Koniuks would likely opt to just leave it vacant.
Increasingly, small-time landlords like Koniuk are just giving up. One of his Divisadero Street neighbors has left two large apartments on the second and third floors of her building vacant for more than a decade, after a series of tenant difficulties. It’s just not worth the bother, or the risk, of being legally tied to a tenant for decades.
“Vacancy rates are going up because owners have decided to take their units off the market,” said Ross Mirkarimi, a progressive member of the Board of Supervisors. He attributes that response to “peaking frustrations in dealing with the range of laws that protect tenants in San Francisco that make it difficult for small property owners to thrive.”
Perversely, that is hurting the city’s renters as well, as a large percentage of the city’s housing stock is allowed to just sit vacant, driving up rents that newcomers pay for market-rate housing.
San Francisco is a notoriously tough city for small-time landlords. “It is the dream of every landlord to be a landlord in the most lucrative market in the country,” said Ted Gullicksen, head of San Francisco’s powerful Tenants Union. “There’s no sympathy whatsoever.”
Without strong protections, tenant advocates say, only the wealthy would be able to afford to live here. Countless longtime residents, especially the elderly, would be out on the streets.
This is a consensus view in many circles, as illustrated by a recent feature in The San Francisco Chronicle. “Throwing senior citizens out on the sidewalk is never a good idea, but it isn’t stopping North Beach developer Peter Iskander,” it began.
Left unsaid was that one of the article’s featured characters, Carlo Tarrone, pays $450 a month in rent. Or, more significantly, that Tarrone in 1999 bought (half in cash) a two-unit residential building near Telegraph Hill that the real estate website Zillow values at $1.7 million. Tarrone, whom I interviewed by phone, is by no means poor or facing homelessness.
Koniuk is not a slick developer who aims to toss widows and orphans into the street. He could sell, but he does not want to. He wants to honor his father’s wishes and allow his own sons to live in his own building.
“My name is Koniuk. My sons’ name is Koniuk. My father’s name was Koniuk,” he said. “We should be able to move them into a building we own.”
A version of this article appears in the Bay Area edition of The New York Times.
Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/12lM2)
The Small-Time Landlord Vs. Big-Time Tenants’ Rights
In San Francisco, one of the toughest places in the country to find a place to live, more than 31,000 housing units — one of every 12 — now sit vacant, according to recently released census data. That’s the highest vacancy rate in the region, and a 70 percent increase from a decade ago. (Scroll down to see a map of vacant housing units in the Bay Area.)
To know one big reason why, ask Wayne Koniuk. By trade, Koniuk fashions artificial limbs for amputees. By habit, he fits prostheses at no charge for people who cannot pay. This has left him a less-than-wealthy man.
But he does have one substantial asset: a Divisadero Street building that his father, Walter, an orthotist, bought in 1970 and gave to his only son in 2001 so Wayne could run his business on the ground floor and Wayne’s adult children would always have a place to live.
“For eternity,” Koniuk recalls his father saying, “my grandkids will always have a place they can go. No matter whatever happens, that building should stay in the family.”
Koniuk, who himself lives in suburban Belmont, gave a half-interest in the building to his older son in 2007 so he could evict a tenant and move in himself. But under San Francisco’s extraordinarily pro-tenant housing laws, landlords can do this only once per building.
So while Koniuk desperately wants to move his younger son into the building’s other four-bedroom apartment, he cannot. He is exploring legal options. Robert Murphy, who has lived there for 30 years without a lease, remains, paying $525.82 a month.
Last spring, Koniuk offered Murphy $45,000 to move out. Murphy’s lawyer demanded $70,000, a sum Koniuk says he does not have. Meanwhile, the city’s Rent Board notified Koniuk that he was allowed to increase Murphy’s monthly rent this year by $2.63.
Murphy did not respond to several phone messages left over a two-week period. Harold Jaffe, the lawyer who wrote the demand letter, said he no longer represented Murphy.
Murphy is afforded extra protections as a renter because he is more than 60 years old. Koniuk might still be able to evict Murphy and allow his younger son, Adam, to move in by invoking the Ellis Act, which would entitle Murphy to about $10,000 in compensation and give him a year to vacate. But doing so would impose permanent restrictions on the Divisadero building’s future use, seriously depressing its value. And should 24-year-old Adam decide to move elsewhere, the Koniuks would be legally required for a decade to offer Murphy his old apartment, at his old rent. Invoking the Ellis Act would also mean that any new tenant to the unit, should Murphy decline the chance to return, would also be entitled to Murphy's old rent amount for many years to come. So the Koniuks would likely opt to just leave it vacant.
Increasingly, small-time landlords like Koniuk are just giving up. One of his Divisadero Street neighbors has left two large apartments on the second and third floors of her building vacant for more than a decade, after a series of tenant difficulties. It’s just not worth the bother, or the risk, of being legally tied to a tenant for decades.
“Vacancy rates are going up because owners have decided to take their units off the market,” said Ross Mirkarimi, a progressive member of the Board of Supervisors. He attributes that response to “peaking frustrations in dealing with the range of laws that protect tenants in San Francisco that make it difficult for small property owners to thrive.”
Perversely, that is hurting the city’s renters as well, as a large percentage of the city’s housing stock is allowed to just sit vacant, driving up rents that newcomers pay for market-rate housing.
San Francisco is a notoriously tough city for small-time landlords. “It is the dream of every landlord to be a landlord in the most lucrative market in the country,” said Ted Gullicksen, head of San Francisco’s powerful Tenants Union. “There’s no sympathy whatsoever.”
Without strong protections, tenant advocates say, only the wealthy would be able to afford to live here. Countless longtime residents, especially the elderly, would be out on the streets.
This is a consensus view in many circles, as illustrated by a recent feature in The San Francisco Chronicle. “Throwing senior citizens out on the sidewalk is never a good idea, but it isn’t stopping North Beach developer Peter Iskander,” it began.
Left unsaid was that one of the article’s featured characters, Carlo Tarrone, pays $450 a month in rent. Or, more significantly, that Tarrone in 1999 bought (half in cash) a two-unit residential building near Telegraph Hill that the real estate website Zillow values at $1.7 million. Tarrone, whom I interviewed by phone, is by no means poor or facing homelessness.
Koniuk is not a slick developer who aims to toss widows and orphans into the street. He could sell, but he does not want to. He wants to honor his father’s wishes and allow his own sons to live in his own building.
“My name is Koniuk. My sons’ name is Koniuk. My father’s name was Koniuk,” he said. “We should be able to move them into a building we own.”
A version of this article appears in the Bay Area edition of The New York Times.
Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/12lM2)
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Who is evil?
The left had no problem deeming former President George Bush as evil. The boolean search for "George Bush is evil" yields 32,000+ hits. However, ABC can't find 1 person who can definitively say they think that Osama Bin Laden was evil. This is just ridiculous, PC, moral relativism run amok. I agree with Dennis Miller, "There is good in the world, there is evil in the world, and when good has a chance to hinder evil in any way, they must take it."
Read the original here.
ABC News Religion Correspondent: I Can't Judge Whether Bin Laden Was 'Evil'
According to the man ABC News[1] relies on for religious analysis, it's impossible to say whether Osama bin Laden was "evil." Father Edward Beck[2], the network's religion correspondent, appeared with Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday and offered moral equivalence on the subject of the terrorist's death.
When the O'Reilly Factor anchor pressed Beck on whether bin Laden truly represented malevolence, Beck replied, "That's not for me to judge. His actions were certainly were evil."
O'Reilly pressed Beck on this point, prompting the ABC News analyst to assert, "No, I think that's up to God to ultimately decide who's evil."
After asserting that the United States shouldn't celebrate bin Laden's death "like a Super Bowl," Beck compared American happiness over the terrorist's death to Middle East examples, such as celebrating on 9/11: "Yes, but when you watch these people celebrating, how does it make us any better than those in the Mid East who celebrate when America falls?"
(This prompted Bernie Goldberg, who appeared in an unrelated O'Reilly Factor segment, to interject about Beck. He derided, "The idea that... the Palestinians celebrated when they attacked the World Trade Center, we're just as bad if we celebrate when Osama bin Laden takes a bullet to the head. That's pathetic. That's pathetic. I mean, and that isn't Catholicism, that's liberalism.")
Beck, in his role as the religion correspondent, has appeared on Good Morning America and other ABC News programs. He has co-hosted Faith Matters Now, a web-only program for the network's religion section. This is the man ABC looks to on spiritual issues? Someone who won't even go so far as to declare bin Laden to be an evil man?
On June 02, 2008[3], Beck appeared on Good morning America to explain away some of the radical statements heard at Barack Obama's now former church.
A transcript of the May 03 O'Reilly Factor segment can be found below:
BILL O'REILLY: "Unresolved Problem" segment tonight. Military action always controversial in some circles and after Osama bin Laden was killed by the Navy SEALs, a few people had a problem with it, citing moral grounds. One of them is Father Edward Beck, religion contributor for ABC News. He joins us know. Now, you told our guys -- and I'm just going to quote you here -- "I'm uncomfortable with killing of Osama bin Laden being celebrated like a Super Bowl win," and you're referring to the people in front of the White House and other places, Times Square, very jubilant about bin Laden dying. Why are you uncomfortable with that?
FATHER EDWARD BECK: Rudolph Giuliani said he went to a church, which I think is a more appropriate action. It cannot be celebrated like a Super Bowl because it's a tragedy that this happened. Just because Osama killed all of these people, understandable a tragedy, killing him does not justify that action.
O'REILLY: OK. You see I disagree with you 180 degrees here. And you remember after World War II, V-Day, VJ-Day and everybody was celebrating the end of the war because we had defeated our enemies who had tried to kill us and slaughtered countless millions of civilians. That celebration, entirely appropriate. Wasn't it? It was an appropriate celebration, was it not?
BECK: Bill, when you watch-
O'REILLY: For victory over the evil forces, wasn't it?
BECK: Yes, but when you watch these people celebrating, how does it make us any better than those in the Mideast who celebrate when America falls?
O'REILLY: Well, here's why I think you're wrong on this.
BECK: This is not a Christian perspective.
O'REILLY: I think I'm a good Christian and I was very happy to see bin Laden killed because he was killing people and he was capable of doing more killing.
BECK: But how does his death then justify what happened to 3,000 people? You'd have to kill 3,000 people for you to talk about justice.
O'REILLY: No, no. If you -- if there is a criminal enterprise underway which al Qaeda certainly is, you would see that point, right?
BECK: Yes.
O'REILLY: OK. And the criminal enterprise cannot be stopped with any other method other than killing, then you have to kill. And when-
BECK: But you don't celebrate it.
O'REILLY: -the criminal enterprise is stopped- why not? That is a good thing.
BECK: Because it's maybe a necessary evil. But, what about love of enemies? What about Jesus from the cross saying these are my killers. These are terrorists. But I forgive them. They know not what to do.
O'REILLY: Personal forgiveness something the 9/11 families are entitled to. I'm not going to be -- entreat (ph) that because I didn't lose anybody in my family. But I'll tell you what, Jesus had rendered a Caesar and that meant that if you have to defend your country you are OK with defending your country. That's not an anti-Christian thing to do.
BECK: That was about money. He said love of enemies. Pray for those persecute you.
O'REILLY: But render to Caesar was a general thing- a general thing, all right, where the government takes care of the government, I take care of spiritual matters. You can't tell me that Jesus Christ doesn't want to see al Qaeda defeated. You can't sit there and tell me that.
BECK: I would say God is not going to take sides like we take sides. God has a different kind of justice.
O'REILLY: I mean, there's got to be a good and an evil in the world. You telling me that God doesn't take sides against evil? Is that what you're telling me?
BECK: I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that we don't judge what the evil is and how it's acted upon.
O'REILLY: Who is we? I judge evil. Who's we?
BECK: By what standards?
O'REILLY: By the standards of hurting innocent people. That's how I judge it.
BECK: Christianity says you can't kill somebody. All life is sacred.
O'REILLY: Christianity says I have a right to defend myself and so does my country.
BECK: Yes, as in a last resort. If that means killing somebody-
O'REILLY: And that's what it was.
BECK: Don't celebrate it. It's a necessary evil. Don't cheer about it like we're in a bar.
O'REILLY: You're celebrating a victory of your country. You're celebrating a victory of your country.
BECK: That's not what they're celebrating. They wanted Osama bin Laden dead. Now that he's dead, let's raise the flag. Well, you know what? It may be good that he's dead.
O'REILLY: I think you misinterpreted that, Father, with all due respect. I think that they were celebrating a victory over evil. And I don't think you understand, with all due respect again, the evil that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden had brought to the world. I'll give you the last word.
BECK: Bill, my father was a New York City firefighter. After 9/11 I was in the triage center at Chelsea Piers. I was counseling people. I've talked to people who've lost sons at 9/11.
O'REILLY: Let me ask you this.
BECK: I know what that's like.
O'REILLY: Was bin Laden evil?
BECK: That's not for me to judge. His actions were certainly were evil --
O'REILLY: Not for you to judge?
BECK: His actions certainly were evil and they caused a lot of harm and disruption.
O'REILLY: So you can't as a human being make a determination on good and evil? You cannot do that?
BECK: No, I think that's up God to ultimately decide who's evil.
O'REILLY: See? I can and I'm -- I'll probably be punished for it by the deity but --
BECK: I see a man's actions. I don't know a man's heart ever, totally.
O'REILLY: Well, I think I know bin Laden's heart.
BECK: I can say the actions were wrong and despicable and needed to be punished.
O'REILLY: All right. You're a standup guy for coming in. I appreciate it.
References
^ ABC News (abcnews.go.com)
^ Father Edward Beck (fatheredwardbeck.blogspot.com)
^ June 02, 2008 (newsbusters.org)
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2011/05/04/abc-news-religion-correspondent-i-cant-judge-whether-bin-laden-was-e#ixzz1LUK9xmPf
Read the original here.
ABC News Religion Correspondent: I Can't Judge Whether Bin Laden Was 'Evil'
According to the man ABC News[1] relies on for religious analysis, it's impossible to say whether Osama bin Laden was "evil." Father Edward Beck[2], the network's religion correspondent, appeared with Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday and offered moral equivalence on the subject of the terrorist's death.
When the O'Reilly Factor anchor pressed Beck on whether bin Laden truly represented malevolence, Beck replied, "That's not for me to judge. His actions were certainly were evil."
O'Reilly pressed Beck on this point, prompting the ABC News analyst to assert, "No, I think that's up to God to ultimately decide who's evil."
After asserting that the United States shouldn't celebrate bin Laden's death "like a Super Bowl," Beck compared American happiness over the terrorist's death to Middle East examples, such as celebrating on 9/11: "Yes, but when you watch these people celebrating, how does it make us any better than those in the Mid East who celebrate when America falls?"
(This prompted Bernie Goldberg, who appeared in an unrelated O'Reilly Factor segment, to interject about Beck. He derided, "The idea that... the Palestinians celebrated when they attacked the World Trade Center, we're just as bad if we celebrate when Osama bin Laden takes a bullet to the head. That's pathetic. That's pathetic. I mean, and that isn't Catholicism, that's liberalism.")
Beck, in his role as the religion correspondent, has appeared on Good Morning America and other ABC News programs. He has co-hosted Faith Matters Now, a web-only program for the network's religion section. This is the man ABC looks to on spiritual issues? Someone who won't even go so far as to declare bin Laden to be an evil man?
On June 02, 2008[3], Beck appeared on Good morning America to explain away some of the radical statements heard at Barack Obama's now former church.
A transcript of the May 03 O'Reilly Factor segment can be found below:
BILL O'REILLY: "Unresolved Problem" segment tonight. Military action always controversial in some circles and after Osama bin Laden was killed by the Navy SEALs, a few people had a problem with it, citing moral grounds. One of them is Father Edward Beck, religion contributor for ABC News. He joins us know. Now, you told our guys -- and I'm just going to quote you here -- "I'm uncomfortable with killing of Osama bin Laden being celebrated like a Super Bowl win," and you're referring to the people in front of the White House and other places, Times Square, very jubilant about bin Laden dying. Why are you uncomfortable with that?
FATHER EDWARD BECK: Rudolph Giuliani said he went to a church, which I think is a more appropriate action. It cannot be celebrated like a Super Bowl because it's a tragedy that this happened. Just because Osama killed all of these people, understandable a tragedy, killing him does not justify that action.
O'REILLY: OK. You see I disagree with you 180 degrees here. And you remember after World War II, V-Day, VJ-Day and everybody was celebrating the end of the war because we had defeated our enemies who had tried to kill us and slaughtered countless millions of civilians. That celebration, entirely appropriate. Wasn't it? It was an appropriate celebration, was it not?
BECK: Bill, when you watch-
O'REILLY: For victory over the evil forces, wasn't it?
BECK: Yes, but when you watch these people celebrating, how does it make us any better than those in the Mideast who celebrate when America falls?
O'REILLY: Well, here's why I think you're wrong on this.
BECK: This is not a Christian perspective.
O'REILLY: I think I'm a good Christian and I was very happy to see bin Laden killed because he was killing people and he was capable of doing more killing.
BECK: But how does his death then justify what happened to 3,000 people? You'd have to kill 3,000 people for you to talk about justice.
O'REILLY: No, no. If you -- if there is a criminal enterprise underway which al Qaeda certainly is, you would see that point, right?
BECK: Yes.
O'REILLY: OK. And the criminal enterprise cannot be stopped with any other method other than killing, then you have to kill. And when-
BECK: But you don't celebrate it.
O'REILLY: -the criminal enterprise is stopped- why not? That is a good thing.
BECK: Because it's maybe a necessary evil. But, what about love of enemies? What about Jesus from the cross saying these are my killers. These are terrorists. But I forgive them. They know not what to do.
O'REILLY: Personal forgiveness something the 9/11 families are entitled to. I'm not going to be -- entreat (ph) that because I didn't lose anybody in my family. But I'll tell you what, Jesus had rendered a Caesar and that meant that if you have to defend your country you are OK with defending your country. That's not an anti-Christian thing to do.
BECK: That was about money. He said love of enemies. Pray for those persecute you.
O'REILLY: But render to Caesar was a general thing- a general thing, all right, where the government takes care of the government, I take care of spiritual matters. You can't tell me that Jesus Christ doesn't want to see al Qaeda defeated. You can't sit there and tell me that.
BECK: I would say God is not going to take sides like we take sides. God has a different kind of justice.
O'REILLY: I mean, there's got to be a good and an evil in the world. You telling me that God doesn't take sides against evil? Is that what you're telling me?
BECK: I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that we don't judge what the evil is and how it's acted upon.
O'REILLY: Who is we? I judge evil. Who's we?
BECK: By what standards?
O'REILLY: By the standards of hurting innocent people. That's how I judge it.
BECK: Christianity says you can't kill somebody. All life is sacred.
O'REILLY: Christianity says I have a right to defend myself and so does my country.
BECK: Yes, as in a last resort. If that means killing somebody-
O'REILLY: And that's what it was.
BECK: Don't celebrate it. It's a necessary evil. Don't cheer about it like we're in a bar.
O'REILLY: You're celebrating a victory of your country. You're celebrating a victory of your country.
BECK: That's not what they're celebrating. They wanted Osama bin Laden dead. Now that he's dead, let's raise the flag. Well, you know what? It may be good that he's dead.
O'REILLY: I think you misinterpreted that, Father, with all due respect. I think that they were celebrating a victory over evil. And I don't think you understand, with all due respect again, the evil that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden had brought to the world. I'll give you the last word.
BECK: Bill, my father was a New York City firefighter. After 9/11 I was in the triage center at Chelsea Piers. I was counseling people. I've talked to people who've lost sons at 9/11.
O'REILLY: Let me ask you this.
BECK: I know what that's like.
O'REILLY: Was bin Laden evil?
BECK: That's not for me to judge. His actions were certainly were evil --
O'REILLY: Not for you to judge?
BECK: His actions certainly were evil and they caused a lot of harm and disruption.
O'REILLY: So you can't as a human being make a determination on good and evil? You cannot do that?
BECK: No, I think that's up God to ultimately decide who's evil.
O'REILLY: See? I can and I'm -- I'll probably be punished for it by the deity but --
BECK: I see a man's actions. I don't know a man's heart ever, totally.
O'REILLY: Well, I think I know bin Laden's heart.
BECK: I can say the actions were wrong and despicable and needed to be punished.
O'REILLY: All right. You're a standup guy for coming in. I appreciate it.
References
^ ABC News (abcnews.go.com)
^ Father Edward Beck (fatheredwardbeck.blogspot.com)
^ June 02, 2008 (newsbusters.org)
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2011/05/04/abc-news-religion-correspondent-i-cant-judge-whether-bin-laden-was-e#ixzz1LUK9xmPf
Not so good for Michigan
Read the original here.
Nearly Half Of Detroiters Can’t Read « CBS Detroit
DETROIT (WWJ) – According to a new report, 47 percent of Detroiters are ”functionally illiterate.” The alarming new statistics were released by the Detroit[1] Regional Workforce Fund on Wednesday.
WWJ Newsradio 950 spoke with the Fund’s Director, Karen Tyler-Ruiz, who explained exactly what this means.
“Not able to fill out basic forms, for getting ajob[2] — those types of basic everyday (things). Reading a prescription; what’s on the bottle, how many you should take… just your basic everyday tasks,” she said.
“I don’t really know how[3] they get by, but they do. Are they getting by well? Well, that’s another question,” Tyler-Ruiz said.
Some of the Detroit suburbs also have high numbers of functionally illiterate: 34 percent in Pontiac and 24 percent in Southfield.
“For other major urban areas, we are a little bit on the high side… We compare, slightly higher, to Washington D.C.’s urban population, in certain ZIP codes in Washington D.C. and in Cleveland,” she said.
Tyler-Ruiz said only 10 percent of those who can’t read have gotten any help to resolve it.
The report will be used to provide better training for local workers.
- View a copy of the report[4] - (.pdf format)
References
^ Detroit (detroit.cbslocal.com)
^ job (detroit.cbslocal.com)
^ know how (detroit.cbslocal.com)
^ View a copy of the report (cbsdetroit.files.wordpress.com)
Nearly Half Of Detroiters Can’t Read « CBS Detroit
DETROIT (WWJ) – According to a new report, 47 percent of Detroiters are ”functionally illiterate.” The alarming new statistics were released by the Detroit[1] Regional Workforce Fund on Wednesday.
WWJ Newsradio 950 spoke with the Fund’s Director, Karen Tyler-Ruiz, who explained exactly what this means.
“Not able to fill out basic forms, for getting ajob[2] — those types of basic everyday (things). Reading a prescription; what’s on the bottle, how many you should take… just your basic everyday tasks,” she said.
“I don’t really know how[3] they get by, but they do. Are they getting by well? Well, that’s another question,” Tyler-Ruiz said.
Some of the Detroit suburbs also have high numbers of functionally illiterate: 34 percent in Pontiac and 24 percent in Southfield.
“For other major urban areas, we are a little bit on the high side… We compare, slightly higher, to Washington D.C.’s urban population, in certain ZIP codes in Washington D.C. and in Cleveland,” she said.
Tyler-Ruiz said only 10 percent of those who can’t read have gotten any help to resolve it.
The report will be used to provide better training for local workers.
- View a copy of the report[4] - (.pdf format)
References
^ Detroit (detroit.cbslocal.com)
^ job (detroit.cbslocal.com)
^ know how (detroit.cbslocal.com)
^ View a copy of the report (cbsdetroit.files.wordpress.com)
Thursday, April 28, 2011
How to demean your dog
read the original here.
Calling animals 'pets' is insulting, academics claim
Animal lovers should stop calling their furry or feathered friends “pets” because the term is insulting, leading academics claim.
Calling animals 'pets' is insulting, academics claim
Animal lovers should stop calling their furry or feathered friends “pets” because the term is insulting, leading academics claim.
By John Bingham 8:30AM BST 28 Apr 2011
Domestic dogs, cats, hamsters or budgerigars should be rebranded as “companion animals” while owners should be known as “human carers”, they insist.
Even terms such as wildlife are dismissed as insulting to the animals concerned – who should instead be known as “free-living”, the academics including an Oxford professor suggest.
The call comes from the editors of then Journal of Animal Ethics, a new academic publication devoted to the issue.
It is edited by the Revd Professor Andrew Linzey, a theologian and director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, who once received an honorary degree from the Archbishop of Canterbury for his work promoting the rights of “God’s sentient creatures”.
In its first editorial, the journal – jointly published by Prof Linzey’s centre and the University of Illinois in the US – condemns the use of terms such as ”critters” and “beasts”.
It argues that “derogatory” language about animals can affect the way that they are treated.
“Despite its prevalence, ‘pets’ is surely a derogatory term both of the animals concerned and their human carers,” the editorial claims.
“Again the word ‘owners’, whilst technically correct in law, harks back to a previous age when animals were regarded as just that: property, machines or things to use without moral constraint.”
It goes on: “We invite authors to use the words ‘free-living’, ‘free-ranging’ or ‘free-roaming’ rather than ‘wild animals’
“For most, ‘wildness’ is synonymous with uncivilised, unrestrained, barbarous existence.
“There is an obvious prejudgment here that should be avoided.”
Prof Linzey and his co-editor Professor Priscilla Cohn, of Penn State University in the US, also hope to see some of the more colourful terms in the English language stamped out.
Phrases such as “sly as a fox, “eat like a pig” or “drunk as a skunk” are all unfair to animals, they claim.
“We shall not be able to think clearly unless we discipline ourselves to use less than partial adjectives in our exploration of animals and our moral relations with them," they say.
Domestic dogs, cats, hamsters or budgerigars should be rebranded as “companion animals” while owners should be known as “human carers”, they insist.
Even terms such as wildlife are dismissed as insulting to the animals concerned – who should instead be known as “free-living”, the academics including an Oxford professor suggest.
The call comes from the editors of then Journal of Animal Ethics, a new academic publication devoted to the issue.
It is edited by the Revd Professor Andrew Linzey, a theologian and director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, who once received an honorary degree from the Archbishop of Canterbury for his work promoting the rights of “God’s sentient creatures”.
In its first editorial, the journal – jointly published by Prof Linzey’s centre and the University of Illinois in the US – condemns the use of terms such as ”critters” and “beasts”.
It argues that “derogatory” language about animals can affect the way that they are treated.
“Despite its prevalence, ‘pets’ is surely a derogatory term both of the animals concerned and their human carers,” the editorial claims.
“Again the word ‘owners’, whilst technically correct in law, harks back to a previous age when animals were regarded as just that: property, machines or things to use without moral constraint.”
It goes on: “We invite authors to use the words ‘free-living’, ‘free-ranging’ or ‘free-roaming’ rather than ‘wild animals’
“For most, ‘wildness’ is synonymous with uncivilised, unrestrained, barbarous existence.
“There is an obvious prejudgment here that should be avoided.”
Prof Linzey and his co-editor Professor Priscilla Cohn, of Penn State University in the US, also hope to see some of the more colourful terms in the English language stamped out.
Phrases such as “sly as a fox, “eat like a pig” or “drunk as a skunk” are all unfair to animals, they claim.
“We shall not be able to think clearly unless we discipline ourselves to use less than partial adjectives in our exploration of animals and our moral relations with them," they say.
Freedom of Speech vs. Political Correctness
I know it's in the UK, but still. Read the original here.
Cops To Quiz Kung Fu Fighting Singer
Simon Ledger was arrested in a Chinese restaurant after a complaint was made to police.
The singer is set to be interviewed by cops at 8pm tonight after his bail comes to an end.
Simon, 34, often performs the song in Sandown, Isle of Wight. He said: "I hadn't even seen these two."
Now he fears he could get a criminal record.
Cops sprang into action and arrested Simon despite the fact that he regularly features the 1974 No1 in his act at a seaside pub.
Simon, who has performed on TV with Michael Barrymore, was doing a spot with a pal at the town's Driftwood Beach Bar on Sunday afternoon.
All went well until he began the Carl Douglas disco classic, with its famous Chinese-sounding riff.
Simon said: "We were performing Kung Fu Fighting, as we do during all our sets. People of all races were loving it. Chinese people have never been offended by it before.
"But this lad walking past with his mum called us w*****s and did the hand sign before taking a picture on his mobile phone.
"We hadn't even seen them when we started the song. He must have phoned the police.
"They phoned me when I was in a Chinese restaurant that night. They arranged to meet me and I was arrested.
"I thought it was a joke but they were serious. They seemed pretty amazed but said the law is the law and it was their duty. It's political correctness gone potty."
Simon added: "There are plenty of Welsh people at our shows - does it mean I can't play any Tom Jones?"
Bar owner Sean Ware said: "The song is in no way racist and nor is Simon. There is no way he would abuse anyone.
"He didn't start the song just because Chinese people were walking past. He had already started playing it."
Simon, who is on bail until today, wrote on Facebook: "If the lad who phoned the police is reading this, WHAT IS WONG WITH YOU? Sorry, what is wrong with you?"
A police spokesman said a 32-year-old man of Chinese origin had claimed he was subjected to racial abuse.
He added: "Police are investigating an allegation of racially-aggravated harassment. A man from Shanklin was arrested on suspicion."
j.pyatt@the-sun.co.uk[1]
References
^ j.pyatt@the-sun.co.uk (www.thesun.co.uk)
Cops To Quiz Kung Fu Fighting Singer
Simon Ledger was arrested in a Chinese restaurant after a complaint was made to police.
The singer is set to be interviewed by cops at 8pm tonight after his bail comes to an end.
Simon, 34, often performs the song in Sandown, Isle of Wight. He said: "I hadn't even seen these two."
Now he fears he could get a criminal record.
Cops sprang into action and arrested Simon despite the fact that he regularly features the 1974 No1 in his act at a seaside pub.
Simon, who has performed on TV with Michael Barrymore, was doing a spot with a pal at the town's Driftwood Beach Bar on Sunday afternoon.
All went well until he began the Carl Douglas disco classic, with its famous Chinese-sounding riff.
Simon said: "We were performing Kung Fu Fighting, as we do during all our sets. People of all races were loving it. Chinese people have never been offended by it before.
"But this lad walking past with his mum called us w*****s and did the hand sign before taking a picture on his mobile phone.
"We hadn't even seen them when we started the song. He must have phoned the police.
"They phoned me when I was in a Chinese restaurant that night. They arranged to meet me and I was arrested.
"I thought it was a joke but they were serious. They seemed pretty amazed but said the law is the law and it was their duty. It's political correctness gone potty."
Simon added: "There are plenty of Welsh people at our shows - does it mean I can't play any Tom Jones?"
Bar owner Sean Ware said: "The song is in no way racist and nor is Simon. There is no way he would abuse anyone.
"He didn't start the song just because Chinese people were walking past. He had already started playing it."
Simon, who is on bail until today, wrote on Facebook: "If the lad who phoned the police is reading this, WHAT IS WONG WITH YOU? Sorry, what is wrong with you?"
A police spokesman said a 32-year-old man of Chinese origin had claimed he was subjected to racial abuse.
He added: "Police are investigating an allegation of racially-aggravated harassment. A man from Shanklin was arrested on suspicion."
j.pyatt@the-sun.co.uk[1]
References
^ j.pyatt@the-sun.co.uk (www.thesun.co.uk)
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Why not to stomp a spider in Bolivia...
And hopefully not be restricted around the world...read the original here.
UN Document Would Give 'Mother Earth' Same Rights As Humans
UNITED NATIONS — Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving "Mother Earth" the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country.
The bid aims to have the UN recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to "dominate and exploit" — to the point that the "well-being and existence of many beings" is now threatened.
The wording may yet evolve, but the general structure is meant to mirror Bolivia's Law of the Rights of Mother Earth, which Bolivian President Evo Morales enacted in January.
That document speaks of the country's natural resources as "blessings," and grants the Earth a series of specific rights that include rights to life, water and clean air; the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities; and the right to be free from pollution.
It also establishes a Ministry of Mother Earth, and provides the planet with an ombudsman whose job is to hear nature's complaints as voiced by activist and other groups, including the state.
"If you want to have balance, and you think that the only (entities) who have rights are humans or companies, then how can you reach balance?" Pablo Salon, Bolivia's ambassador to the UN, told Postmedia News. "But if you recognize that nature too has rights, and (if you provide) legal forms to protect and preserve those rights, then you can achieve balance."
The application of the law appears destined to pose new challenges for companies operating in the country, which is rich in natural resources, including natural gas and lithium, but remains one of the poorest in Latin America.
But while Salon said his country just seeks to achieve "harmony" with nature, he signalled that mining and other companies may come under greater scrutiny.
"We're not saying, for example, you cannot eat meat because you know you are going to go against the rights of a cow," he said. "But when human activity develops at a certain scale that you (cause to) disappear a species, then you are really altering the vital cycles of nature or of Mother Earth. Of course, you need a mine to extract iron or zinc, but there are limits."
Bolivia is a country with a large indigenous population, whose traditional belief systems took on greater resonance following the election of Morales, Latin America's first indigenous president.
In a 2008 pamphlet his entourage distributed at the UN as he attended a summit there, 10 "commandments" are set out as Bolivia's plan to "save the planet" — beginning with the need "to end capitalism."
Reflecting indigenous traditional beliefs, the proposed global treaty says humans have caused "severe destruction . . . that is offensive to the many faiths, wisdom traditions and indigenous cultures for whom Mother Earth is sacred."
It also says that "Mother Earth has the right to exist, to persist and to continue the vital cycles, structures, functions and processes that sustain all human beings."
In indigenous Andean culture, the Earth deity known as Pachamama is the centre of all life, and humans are considered equal to all other entities.
The UN debate begins two days before the UN's recognition April 22 of the second International Mother Earth Day — another Morales-led initiative.
Canadian activist Maude Barlow is among global environmentalists backing the drive with a book the group will launch in New York during the UN debate: Nature Has Rights.
"It's going to have huge resonance around the world," Barlow said of the campaign. "It's going to start first with these southern countries trying to protect their land and their people from exploitation, but I think it will be grabbed onto by communities in our countries, for example, fighting the tarsands in Alberta."
Ecuador, which also has a large indigenous population, has enshrined similar aims in its Constitution — but the Bolivian law is said to be "stronger."
Ecuador is among countries that have already been supportive of the Bolivian initiative, along with Nicaragua, Venezuela, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda.
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
UN Document Would Give 'Mother Earth' Same Rights As Humans
UNITED NATIONS — Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving "Mother Earth" the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country.
The bid aims to have the UN recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to "dominate and exploit" — to the point that the "well-being and existence of many beings" is now threatened.
The wording may yet evolve, but the general structure is meant to mirror Bolivia's Law of the Rights of Mother Earth, which Bolivian President Evo Morales enacted in January.
That document speaks of the country's natural resources as "blessings," and grants the Earth a series of specific rights that include rights to life, water and clean air; the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities; and the right to be free from pollution.
It also establishes a Ministry of Mother Earth, and provides the planet with an ombudsman whose job is to hear nature's complaints as voiced by activist and other groups, including the state.
"If you want to have balance, and you think that the only (entities) who have rights are humans or companies, then how can you reach balance?" Pablo Salon, Bolivia's ambassador to the UN, told Postmedia News. "But if you recognize that nature too has rights, and (if you provide) legal forms to protect and preserve those rights, then you can achieve balance."
The application of the law appears destined to pose new challenges for companies operating in the country, which is rich in natural resources, including natural gas and lithium, but remains one of the poorest in Latin America.
But while Salon said his country just seeks to achieve "harmony" with nature, he signalled that mining and other companies may come under greater scrutiny.
"We're not saying, for example, you cannot eat meat because you know you are going to go against the rights of a cow," he said. "But when human activity develops at a certain scale that you (cause to) disappear a species, then you are really altering the vital cycles of nature or of Mother Earth. Of course, you need a mine to extract iron or zinc, but there are limits."
Bolivia is a country with a large indigenous population, whose traditional belief systems took on greater resonance following the election of Morales, Latin America's first indigenous president.
In a 2008 pamphlet his entourage distributed at the UN as he attended a summit there, 10 "commandments" are set out as Bolivia's plan to "save the planet" — beginning with the need "to end capitalism."
Reflecting indigenous traditional beliefs, the proposed global treaty says humans have caused "severe destruction . . . that is offensive to the many faiths, wisdom traditions and indigenous cultures for whom Mother Earth is sacred."
It also says that "Mother Earth has the right to exist, to persist and to continue the vital cycles, structures, functions and processes that sustain all human beings."
In indigenous Andean culture, the Earth deity known as Pachamama is the centre of all life, and humans are considered equal to all other entities.
The UN debate begins two days before the UN's recognition April 22 of the second International Mother Earth Day — another Morales-led initiative.
Canadian activist Maude Barlow is among global environmentalists backing the drive with a book the group will launch in New York during the UN debate: Nature Has Rights.
"It's going to have huge resonance around the world," Barlow said of the campaign. "It's going to start first with these southern countries trying to protect their land and their people from exploitation, but I think it will be grabbed onto by communities in our countries, for example, fighting the tarsands in Alberta."
Ecuador, which also has a large indigenous population, has enshrined similar aims in its Constitution — but the Bolivian law is said to be "stronger."
Ecuador is among countries that have already been supportive of the Bolivian initiative, along with Nicaragua, Venezuela, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda.
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
Thursday, March 31, 2011
How do I get this job?
Read the original here.
Agency Chief Makes Six Figures For Little Work » Merrimack Valley » EagleTribune.Com, North Andover, MA
LAWRENCE — Fighting poverty in the state's poorest community is supposed to be a full-time job.
But the head of the city's leading anti-poverty agency spends as little as 15 hours a week in the office. The remainder of his time is spent at the Elks Lodge on Andover Street, playing card games and video poker, enjoying long lunches, and indulging his taste for Romeo Y Julieta cigars, an investigation by The Eagle-Tribune has found.
Philip F. Laverriere Sr. has been executive director of the Greater Lawrence Community Action Council since 1974. Under his watch, the nonprofit agency has grown into a $30 million-a-year operation funded almost entirely by federal and state tax dollars.
He oversees 310 employees and a sweeping array of poverty programs, including child care, immigration assistance, heat subsidies and even a youth baseball league. The agency serves 35,000 people annually in Lawrence, Methuen and the Andovers.
Laverriere's salary has also grown over his 37 years with the agency. According to the last tax returns filed by the agency in 2009, Laverriere earned $144,641 between his salary, allowances and annual bonus.
Based on an anonymous tip, The Eagle-Tribune began observing Laverriere and found that between Jan. 28 and March 14, the 85-year-old spent 21 afternoons at the Elks Lodge No. 65, a chapter of a nationwide fraternal organization Lodge.
Typically, Laverriere showed up for work at the agency's headquarters on Essex Street within a few minutes of 9 a.m. and left work within a few minutes of noon for the 10- or 15-minute drive in his Cadillac DeVille over the Merrimack River to the club. He typically stayed at the club for two to five hours, then went directly to his home on Ames Street.
When confronted with The Eagle-Tribune's findings, Laverriere acknowledged his routine and said it has been going on for about three years. He said he makes up the time away from the office by going in on weekends.
"I come in on Saturdays, I come in on Sundays," he said. "Whatever is needed to do the job. When you see the checks I have to sign every week — they come in this high every week. I don't always get to them during a regular day because of other things that happen."
Laverriere said he would not tolerate an employee working his type of schedule.
"I wouldn't accept it from anybody else in the agency — I wouldn't," said Laverriere, who claims to be on the job 40 hours a week in the Form 990 tax forms he signs and the agency files annually with the federal Internal Revenue Service.
When asked why it is OK for him to spend most of his days at the Elks, Laverriere said, "I don't know. It's an honest answer. I don't know."
The investigation
The monthlong observation of Laverriere ended last Monday, when The Eagle-Tribune requested an interview with him, as well as Assistant Executive Director Charles LoPiano and Finance Director Richard Robichaud.
LoPiano and Robichaud attended the 2 p.m. meeting. Laverriere did not.
"He had to go to the doctor — something happened to him," LoPiano said. When asked if Laverriere was OK, LoPiano replied, "Are any of us OK?"
Laverriere was OK. In fact, he remained inside the Elks, while the meeting continued on without him in the agency's headquarters.
Another request was made to meet with Laverriere in his office, but this time a morning meeting was requested. This time, Laverriere was there.
"You're going to make this a thing, saying the executive director only works part-time or whatever?" he said, as the 30-minute interview ended. "That's not very pleasant for me. So now, from here on in, I will make a change. If I go to the Elks club, I'll stay one hour and come back."
Thomas Schiavone, who has served on the agency's board of directors for 12 years and now chairs it, said the revelation that Laverriere has been working half days for three years was "alarming." He called the executive committee of the board of directors to a special session Friday to inform members that The Eagle-Tribune would be publishing this story. He canceled the meeting as word about the story spread independently. Instead, he said the board would discuss the issue at its regularly scheduled monthly meeting this Thursday.
Schiavone said there has been no discussion about offering Laverriere a severance package, but Laverriere said if asked to leave, he would demand one.
"If they ask for a buyout, they better give me two years' pay," he said. "After 45 years, I think I deserve it."
Two years of straight pay would be $262,130.
'No idea where he goes'
By the end of last week, Laverriere had reportedly hired a lawyer. But even as battle lines began to form between him and his board, Laverriere was at work Friday morning inside the building that was dedicated in his name in 2003.
The red-carpeted executive suite on the fourth floor is a tight cluster of offices that surround a wide central lobby. Laverriere shares the space with his four top staff members — LoPiano, Robichaud, Human Resources Director Christine Kuzmitski and Planning Director Maureen Mulcahy, as well as their secretaries.
Laverriere's corner office, which has a picture-window view of the city, can be seen from any of the other offices and by the two secretaries who sit just outside it.
LoPiano and Robichaud said they were unaware of Laverriere's daily trips to the Elks. Kuzmitski did not return phone calls. Mulcahy said she was instructed to refer calls to the agency's lawyer, Michael Morris, who would not comment.
"It's not unusual for us to go do different things, different days, different places," LoPiano said. "The agency runs. You have to manage and supervise it, but it runs."
"I have no idea where he goes when he leaves the office, to a business luncheon or one of the program locations," Robichaud said. "He's accountable to the board of directors, not me."
Three times while Laverriere was at the Elks club, The Eagle-Tribune called the agency or paid a visit to ask his whereabouts. On Jan. 28 and March 14, LoPiano said Laverriere had gone home sick or to a doctor's office. On Feb. 3, a secretary said he went home sick, but Laverriere's car was parked at the Elks.
Schiavone said the disclosure that the man who oversees the agency's daily operations has been working 15- or 20-hour weeks for three years does not suggest that the board's oversight of its top employee has been lax.
"I'm not a micro-manager," said Schiavone, who was chief of staff for former Lawrence Mayor Patricia Dowling and economic development director under former Mayor Michael Sullivan. "It's not my personality to go in and walk around the agency on a day-to-day basis to see who's in and who's not. I'm not the clock-watcher."
He added, "Every indication is that this agency is run extremely well. There have been no controversies, no rumors or investigations of inappropriate activity at the agency or misappropriation of funds. If you call the funding sources, you'd get the same answer."
How he and the agency works
GLCAC has only two major funding sources: the federal and state governments, which together provide $29 million of its $30 million budget. GLCAC funnels the funding to the 16 or so programs it administers, which return a portion of the funding to pay for the administrative services the parent agency provides. GLCAC this year will receive $1.6 million from the programs it oversees, of which $1.2 million will pay the salaries for its 16 administrators, including Laverriere.
The state Department of Health and Human Services funds several GLCAC programs, including the $5 million-a-year Head Start program.
Jennifer Kritz, a spokeswoman for Health and Human Services, said the agency has received no recent complaints about Laverriere or the programs he oversees. She said the agency would contact GLCAC about the allegations involving Laverriere's 15-hour work weeks.
"We take allegations of misuse of state funds very seriously," Kritz said. "We will certainly look into the concerns ... and take appropriate action."
Joseph Diamond, executive director of the Massachusetts Association for Community Action, did not return several phone calls seeking reaction. The agency provides training, resources and other services for 24 community action programs in the state and lobbies for them in Boston, but provides no oversight.
GLCAC is among the largest of the 24 programs across the state. The city at the core of GLCAC's service area — Lawrence — is Massachusetts' most impoverished municipality. Median household income in the city was $33,337 in 2009, the lowest in the state and nearly $20,000 below the national average, according to the U.S. Census. One in four Lawrence families lives in poverty. Unemployment is approaching 18 percent.
Into that massive need, GLCAC launches a life raft of social services. Among the biggest are Head Start, which serves 700 children in Lawrence, Methuen and the Andovers, and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which recently doubled the aid it distributes to $9.1 million as economic stimulus money flowed in from Washington, D.C.
The agency also administers a lead abatement program for the city and last year received a five-year, $2.4 million federal grant to provide "wrap-around" education and social service programs at South Lawrence East elementary and middle schools. Wrap-around programs complement services provided by schools.
GLCAC's executive director oversees it all. The written job description says the executive director supervises personnel, develops rules and regulations to carry out daily operations, builds relationships with the public and governments, prepares financial statements and directs the operation of services, equipment and facilities.
Laverriere elaborated. He said his workday includes serving the executive board and the committees of GLCAC's board of directors, including going to their meetings. He said his day is expansive.
"How the hell can I explain what I do? It's so damn much," he said. "Everyday, I have to sign financial documents, supply request forms. There's so many things I do."
He said he also hosts business meetings, including at the Elks club. He did not elaborate, except to say that the meetings can involve a card game.
"Sometimes I meet with business people down there," Laverriere said. "We play 45s. You get wrapped up in it."
GLCAC AT A GLANCE
Annual budget: $30 million
Funding sources: Federal and state contracts and grants, $29 million. Service fees and contributions, $1 million
Clients: 35,000
Employees: 310
Service area: Lawrence, Methuen, North Andover, Andover
Major programs: Women, Infants and Children (WIC); Head Start; low-income heating assistance and weatherization; lead abatement
Agency Chief Makes Six Figures For Little Work » Merrimack Valley » EagleTribune.Com, North Andover, MA
LAWRENCE — Fighting poverty in the state's poorest community is supposed to be a full-time job.
But the head of the city's leading anti-poverty agency spends as little as 15 hours a week in the office. The remainder of his time is spent at the Elks Lodge on Andover Street, playing card games and video poker, enjoying long lunches, and indulging his taste for Romeo Y Julieta cigars, an investigation by The Eagle-Tribune has found.
Philip F. Laverriere Sr. has been executive director of the Greater Lawrence Community Action Council since 1974. Under his watch, the nonprofit agency has grown into a $30 million-a-year operation funded almost entirely by federal and state tax dollars.
He oversees 310 employees and a sweeping array of poverty programs, including child care, immigration assistance, heat subsidies and even a youth baseball league. The agency serves 35,000 people annually in Lawrence, Methuen and the Andovers.
Laverriere's salary has also grown over his 37 years with the agency. According to the last tax returns filed by the agency in 2009, Laverriere earned $144,641 between his salary, allowances and annual bonus.
Based on an anonymous tip, The Eagle-Tribune began observing Laverriere and found that between Jan. 28 and March 14, the 85-year-old spent 21 afternoons at the Elks Lodge No. 65, a chapter of a nationwide fraternal organization Lodge.
Typically, Laverriere showed up for work at the agency's headquarters on Essex Street within a few minutes of 9 a.m. and left work within a few minutes of noon for the 10- or 15-minute drive in his Cadillac DeVille over the Merrimack River to the club. He typically stayed at the club for two to five hours, then went directly to his home on Ames Street.
When confronted with The Eagle-Tribune's findings, Laverriere acknowledged his routine and said it has been going on for about three years. He said he makes up the time away from the office by going in on weekends.
"I come in on Saturdays, I come in on Sundays," he said. "Whatever is needed to do the job. When you see the checks I have to sign every week — they come in this high every week. I don't always get to them during a regular day because of other things that happen."
Laverriere said he would not tolerate an employee working his type of schedule.
"I wouldn't accept it from anybody else in the agency — I wouldn't," said Laverriere, who claims to be on the job 40 hours a week in the Form 990 tax forms he signs and the agency files annually with the federal Internal Revenue Service.
When asked why it is OK for him to spend most of his days at the Elks, Laverriere said, "I don't know. It's an honest answer. I don't know."
The investigation
The monthlong observation of Laverriere ended last Monday, when The Eagle-Tribune requested an interview with him, as well as Assistant Executive Director Charles LoPiano and Finance Director Richard Robichaud.
LoPiano and Robichaud attended the 2 p.m. meeting. Laverriere did not.
"He had to go to the doctor — something happened to him," LoPiano said. When asked if Laverriere was OK, LoPiano replied, "Are any of us OK?"
Laverriere was OK. In fact, he remained inside the Elks, while the meeting continued on without him in the agency's headquarters.
Another request was made to meet with Laverriere in his office, but this time a morning meeting was requested. This time, Laverriere was there.
"You're going to make this a thing, saying the executive director only works part-time or whatever?" he said, as the 30-minute interview ended. "That's not very pleasant for me. So now, from here on in, I will make a change. If I go to the Elks club, I'll stay one hour and come back."
Thomas Schiavone, who has served on the agency's board of directors for 12 years and now chairs it, said the revelation that Laverriere has been working half days for three years was "alarming." He called the executive committee of the board of directors to a special session Friday to inform members that The Eagle-Tribune would be publishing this story. He canceled the meeting as word about the story spread independently. Instead, he said the board would discuss the issue at its regularly scheduled monthly meeting this Thursday.
Schiavone said there has been no discussion about offering Laverriere a severance package, but Laverriere said if asked to leave, he would demand one.
"If they ask for a buyout, they better give me two years' pay," he said. "After 45 years, I think I deserve it."
Two years of straight pay would be $262,130.
'No idea where he goes'
By the end of last week, Laverriere had reportedly hired a lawyer. But even as battle lines began to form between him and his board, Laverriere was at work Friday morning inside the building that was dedicated in his name in 2003.
The red-carpeted executive suite on the fourth floor is a tight cluster of offices that surround a wide central lobby. Laverriere shares the space with his four top staff members — LoPiano, Robichaud, Human Resources Director Christine Kuzmitski and Planning Director Maureen Mulcahy, as well as their secretaries.
Laverriere's corner office, which has a picture-window view of the city, can be seen from any of the other offices and by the two secretaries who sit just outside it.
LoPiano and Robichaud said they were unaware of Laverriere's daily trips to the Elks. Kuzmitski did not return phone calls. Mulcahy said she was instructed to refer calls to the agency's lawyer, Michael Morris, who would not comment.
"It's not unusual for us to go do different things, different days, different places," LoPiano said. "The agency runs. You have to manage and supervise it, but it runs."
"I have no idea where he goes when he leaves the office, to a business luncheon or one of the program locations," Robichaud said. "He's accountable to the board of directors, not me."
Three times while Laverriere was at the Elks club, The Eagle-Tribune called the agency or paid a visit to ask his whereabouts. On Jan. 28 and March 14, LoPiano said Laverriere had gone home sick or to a doctor's office. On Feb. 3, a secretary said he went home sick, but Laverriere's car was parked at the Elks.
Schiavone said the disclosure that the man who oversees the agency's daily operations has been working 15- or 20-hour weeks for three years does not suggest that the board's oversight of its top employee has been lax.
"I'm not a micro-manager," said Schiavone, who was chief of staff for former Lawrence Mayor Patricia Dowling and economic development director under former Mayor Michael Sullivan. "It's not my personality to go in and walk around the agency on a day-to-day basis to see who's in and who's not. I'm not the clock-watcher."
He added, "Every indication is that this agency is run extremely well. There have been no controversies, no rumors or investigations of inappropriate activity at the agency or misappropriation of funds. If you call the funding sources, you'd get the same answer."
How he and the agency works
GLCAC has only two major funding sources: the federal and state governments, which together provide $29 million of its $30 million budget. GLCAC funnels the funding to the 16 or so programs it administers, which return a portion of the funding to pay for the administrative services the parent agency provides. GLCAC this year will receive $1.6 million from the programs it oversees, of which $1.2 million will pay the salaries for its 16 administrators, including Laverriere.
The state Department of Health and Human Services funds several GLCAC programs, including the $5 million-a-year Head Start program.
Jennifer Kritz, a spokeswoman for Health and Human Services, said the agency has received no recent complaints about Laverriere or the programs he oversees. She said the agency would contact GLCAC about the allegations involving Laverriere's 15-hour work weeks.
"We take allegations of misuse of state funds very seriously," Kritz said. "We will certainly look into the concerns ... and take appropriate action."
Joseph Diamond, executive director of the Massachusetts Association for Community Action, did not return several phone calls seeking reaction. The agency provides training, resources and other services for 24 community action programs in the state and lobbies for them in Boston, but provides no oversight.
GLCAC is among the largest of the 24 programs across the state. The city at the core of GLCAC's service area — Lawrence — is Massachusetts' most impoverished municipality. Median household income in the city was $33,337 in 2009, the lowest in the state and nearly $20,000 below the national average, according to the U.S. Census. One in four Lawrence families lives in poverty. Unemployment is approaching 18 percent.
Into that massive need, GLCAC launches a life raft of social services. Among the biggest are Head Start, which serves 700 children in Lawrence, Methuen and the Andovers, and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which recently doubled the aid it distributes to $9.1 million as economic stimulus money flowed in from Washington, D.C.
The agency also administers a lead abatement program for the city and last year received a five-year, $2.4 million federal grant to provide "wrap-around" education and social service programs at South Lawrence East elementary and middle schools. Wrap-around programs complement services provided by schools.
GLCAC's executive director oversees it all. The written job description says the executive director supervises personnel, develops rules and regulations to carry out daily operations, builds relationships with the public and governments, prepares financial statements and directs the operation of services, equipment and facilities.
Laverriere elaborated. He said his workday includes serving the executive board and the committees of GLCAC's board of directors, including going to their meetings. He said his day is expansive.
"How the hell can I explain what I do? It's so damn much," he said. "Everyday, I have to sign financial documents, supply request forms. There's so many things I do."
He said he also hosts business meetings, including at the Elks club. He did not elaborate, except to say that the meetings can involve a card game.
"Sometimes I meet with business people down there," Laverriere said. "We play 45s. You get wrapped up in it."
GLCAC AT A GLANCE
Annual budget: $30 million
Funding sources: Federal and state contracts and grants, $29 million. Service fees and contributions, $1 million
Clients: 35,000
Employees: 310
Service area: Lawrence, Methuen, North Andover, Andover
Major programs: Women, Infants and Children (WIC); Head Start; low-income heating assistance and weatherization; lead abatement
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Politicians are supposed to be smart enough to lead?
Read the original here.
EU To Ban Cars From Cities By 2050
The Association of British Drivers rejected the proposal to ban cars as economically disastrous and as a "crazy" restriction on mobility.
"I suggest that he goes and finds himself a space in the local mental asylum," said Hugh Bladon, a spokesman for the BDA.
"If he wants to bring everywhere to a grinding halt and to plunge us into a new dark age, he is on the right track. We have to keep things moving. The man is off his rocker."
Mr Kallas has denied that the EU plan to cut car use by half over the next 20 years, before a total ban in 2050, will limit personal mobility or reduce Europe's economic competitiveness.
"Curbing mobility is not an option, neither is business as usual. We can break the transport system's dependence on oil without sacrificing its efficiency and compromising mobility. It can be win-win," he claimed.
Christopher Monckton, Ukip's transport spokesman said: "The EU must be living in an alternate reality, where they can spend trillions and ban people from their cars.
"This sort of greenwashing grandstanding adds nothing and merely highlights their grandiose ambitions."
EU To Ban Cars From Cities By 2050
The Association of British Drivers rejected the proposal to ban cars as economically disastrous and as a "crazy" restriction on mobility.
"I suggest that he goes and finds himself a space in the local mental asylum," said Hugh Bladon, a spokesman for the BDA.
"If he wants to bring everywhere to a grinding halt and to plunge us into a new dark age, he is on the right track. We have to keep things moving. The man is off his rocker."
Mr Kallas has denied that the EU plan to cut car use by half over the next 20 years, before a total ban in 2050, will limit personal mobility or reduce Europe's economic competitiveness.
"Curbing mobility is not an option, neither is business as usual. We can break the transport system's dependence on oil without sacrificing its efficiency and compromising mobility. It can be win-win," he claimed.
Christopher Monckton, Ukip's transport spokesman said: "The EU must be living in an alternate reality, where they can spend trillions and ban people from their cars.
"This sort of greenwashing grandstanding adds nothing and merely highlights their grandiose ambitions."
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