In honor of all the Christian whines I’ve heard about how everyone should be especially respectful during Easter weekend, I’ve updated my Facebook page, as well as the FTSOS Facebook page.
McDowell is a homeless single mother from Bridgeport who used to work in food services, is now at the center of one of the very few false address cases in the Norwalk, CT, school district that is being handled in criminal court–rather than between the parent and school. Authorities are accusing McDowell of enrolling her 5-year-old son in nearby Norwalk schools by using the address of a friend. (Her friend has also been evicted from public housing for letting McDowell use her address.)
McDowell says she stayed in a Norwalk homeless shelter sometimes–but she didn’t register there, which would have made her son eligible to attend the school.
This whole case is inane. First, this isn’t even the way this sort of issue is typically handled. It’s a school-to-parent concern. Second, it all seems to be fucking resolved anyway – the kid is out of the district. Third, let’s get down to the real issue here. This is about separating the poor from the wealthy. And by those code words I really mean this is about separating minorities from whites:
The blog DropOut Nation notes that the Norwalk schools are better than those in Bridgeport, where McDowell’s last address was; the case thereby raises larger questions about why poorer families often must send their kids to poorly performing schools, in part because local tax revenues make up so much of school funding.
The only difference between this racist horseshit and the racist horseshit in North Carolina recently is that the Tea Party finally isn’t involved. The woman is being viciously prosecuted, threatened with huge fines and prison time, and none of it makes any sense. Aside from not even having an address in the first place, she actually did live in a shelter within the school district. Does an incorrect address really justify all this bluster and bullshit?
I should have posted this for Earth Day. It’s a spectacular photo taken by Cassini from next to Saturn. The little dot outside the main rings on the right is Earth, and the top left is a zoom-in of the planet.
In a history course I’m taking this semester, we got talking about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests today. It was a good talk, but I couldn’t resist raising a point of irritation I’ve always had about the media coverage of the event. It has to do with this iconic image:
Whenever I’ve seen the video of that moment, it has always stopped short and faded away. I used to quite naturally assume, “Why, he must get crushed. They’d never show something so graphic.” But then things like Wikipedia and YouTube cropped up. This provided me the perfect opportunity to find out the details.
I started with Wikipedia. I didn’t particularly want to see the guy get crushed, but I wanted to know more about what the protests were all about, what happened to the guy’s family, who he was, etc, etc. To my surprise, I read this:
As the tank driver attempted to go around him, the “Tank Man” moved into the tank’s path. He continued to stand defiantly in front of the tanks for some time, then climbed up onto the turret of the lead tank to speak to the soldiers inside. After returning to his position in front of the tanks, the man was pulled aside by a group of people.
…huh? Really? Had the media been lying to me all this time? I thought the man had been crushed by the tank. Why the fuck else wouldn’t they show the whole video? Ever? Does the media really think the moment needs to be augmented? Wasn’t the man courageous as hell regardless of whether or not he was crushed?
To my surprise, a number of other students also noted the same point. They had always grown up assuming the man had been run over by the tank. Given the basic dishonesty of the media here, it’s a rational assumption. Furthermore, the protesters did face violence, resulting in likely thousands of deaths. Some even were crushed by tanks.
“Throughout our history, both as a state and as individuals, Texans have been strengthened, assured and lifted up through prayer,” Perry said in a statement.
“It is fitting that Texans should join together in prayer to humbly seek an end to this ongoing drought and these devastating wildfires.”
Doesn’t Perry’s particular, cultural god already have a plan in place, though? If prayer can change that plan, is it really a plan? And if prayer isn’t suppose to change the plan but only put Perry and others in line with his god’s magic, then isn’t this all a completely fruitless effort?
Europe, especially France, has been hit by a major outbreak of measles, which the U.N. health agency is blaming on the failure to vaccinate all children.
The World Health Organization said Thursday that France had 4,937 reported cases of measles between January and March — compared with 5,090 cases during all of 2010. In all, more than 6,500 cases have been reported in 33 European nations…
WHO has found that young people between 10 and 19 have not been getting immunized as they should, she said.
To prevent measles outbreaks, officials need to vaccinate about 90 percent of the population. But vaccination rates across Europe have been patchy in recent years and have never fully recovered from a discredited 1998 British study linking the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella to autism. Parents abandoned the vaccine in droves and vaccination rates for parts of the U.K. dropped to about 50 percent.
That discredited 1998 study comes from fraud Andrew Wakefield. His honesty in science is at about the level of a global warming denier and creationists. Yet despite that – and despite all the deaths he has caused – he is still viewed as some great savior.
Of course, we can’t blame him 100%. Maybe 97.4%, but not 100%. The media has a hand in all this, too. Whenever any outlet talks about vaccines, they almost always allow kooks to have a place at the table. It’s outrageous. These kooks present highly selective statistics, distort tiny, inconclusive studies, and scaremonger. I’ve seen it locally and nationally. In fact, the only news organization of note that I ever see take these liars to task is CNN, and even then not always. Anderson Cooper seems to be the only person around who has any balls on the matter.
The United States Peace Index defines “peace” as the “absence of violence.”
To determine the rankings, the index looked at factors including homicide rates, violent crimes, percentage of the population in jail, number of police officers and availability of small arms.
The Index also estimates the “total cost of violence” for each state which reflects the cost of correctional and policing services, judicial system and medical costs associated with violent crime and homicide, and lost productivity and wages. In Maine, that total cost per person is $656; in Louisiana it is $2,458.
Not surprisingly, 5 out of 6 New England states rank in the top 10, with the 6th (Connecticut) coming in at number 15. For the full list, and to avoid that terrible flash crap, check out this .pdf.
Top 10 most peaceful states:
1. Maine
2. New Hampshire
3. Vermont
4. Minnesota
5. North Dakota
6. Utah
7. Massachusetts
8. Rhode Island
9. Iowa
10. Washington
A bill unveiled Wednesday would legalize the personal use and private and commercial cultivation of marijuana and tax consumer purchases at 7 percent. Democratic Rep. Diane Russell of Portland, who is sponsoring the bill, said it’s time to stop turning otherwise law-abiding citizens who use marijuana into criminals…
Russell’s bill would allow Mainers 21 and older to possess up to 1 pound of marijuana and legally smoke or ingest it in nonpublic places, including private residences. People could grow pot within 75 square feet of space for personal consumption and within 2,000 square feet of space for commercial cultivation.
I say do it. Telling people they can’t do something only makes them want to do it more. Besides, the war on drugs is a dismal failure. Time to move on.