Society's ChildS


Red Flag

University of Manchester bans clapping at student events, orders students to 'use jazz hands instead'

Amy Wei
The Mancunion
Fri, 28 Sep 2018 18:37 UTC
clapping hands
Jazz hands will be used instead of traditional clapping, whooping, and cheering at University of Manchester Students' Union (SU) events, following a motion voted through the first Senate session of the academic year, held on Thursday 27th September.

It was argued that the loud noise of traditional clapping and whooping pose an issue to students with anxiety or sensory issues. BSL (British Sign Language) clapping - or, jazz hands - would be a more inclusive form of expression.

Liberation and Access Officer Sara Khan authored the motion, called 'Making Senate More Accessible'. It resolved to swap out audible clapping for BSL clapping at SU events, and to "encourage student groups and societies to do the same, and to include BSL clapping as a part of inclusion training".

The National Union of Students (NUS) has been using BSL clapping since 2015. Khan's motion received little opposition in Senate.

Thrice per semester, the SU holds a Senate session where students can bring forward motions to amend the SU constitution.

Comment: The inmates have taken over the asylum.

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Light Sabers

Sex-crimes prosecutor who questioned Christine Blasey Ford says that Democrats', lawyers' actions 'affected' her testimony

Becket Adams
Washington Examiner
Mon, 01 Oct 2018 18:26 UTC
Rachel Mitchell
© Tom Williams-Pool/Getty ImagesRachel Mitchell sits before the Senate Judiciary Committee and questions Christine Blasey Ford in September 2018
The headlines only pointed to the bottom line: Rachel Mitchell wouldn't have prosecuted Brett Kavanaugh based on the available evidence after her questioning of both Christine Blasey Ford and the Supreme Court nominee during last week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

But there is a lot more to it than that. The sex crimes bureau chief for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office in Phoenix, Ariz., also said in a memo released this weekend that she did not find Ford's story credible. One reason was the lack of corroboration from the witnesses the alleged victim cited. Another was Ford's own failure to recollect important details about the sexual assault she alleges occurred nearly 40 years ago.

But more importantly, Mitchell found Ford to be evasive in her answers about more recent events - specifically, events that occurred this summer when she began discussing her story with Democratic lawmakers and with the Washington Post.
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Bullseye

#NotHer: Kellyanne Conway's sex assault story doesn't matter to media, because she's not a liberal


RT
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 18:22 UTC
Kellyanne Conway
© Leah Millis / ReutersKellyanne Conway
With the Democratic party demanding that survivors of sexual assault be believed and their motives for coming forward unquestioned, one woman's story isn't deserving of the same respect: White House counselor Kellyanne Conway's.

Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh's ongoing did he / didn't he sexual assault controversy has thrown the judge's confirmation process into jeopardy, and made the "believe survivors" mantra of the #MeToo movement a rallying cry of the left.

However, while Democrats fall over each other to issue the most emphatic support for Kavanaugh's accuser(s) and blast Republicans questioning the convenient timing of the allegations, the same unconditional support isn't extended to women on the opposite side of America's vast political divide.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday that she supports Kavanaugh's nomination, and has "had it" with the devolution of Kavanaugh's Senate hearing into a "meeting of the Me Too movement," despite having been sexually assaulted herself.
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Cross

French Catholics demand parliament investigate child sex abuse by priests


RT
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 18:18 UTC
church pedophilia protests
© Gonzalo Fuentes / Reuters
A group of French Catholics has urged the parliament to establish a special commission tasked with investigating reports of pedophilia within the Roman Catholic Church, which they say continues to ignore and cover the abuse.

"We call for the creation of a parliamentary investigative commission to probe the crimes of pedophilia and their concealment within the Catholic Church," says the petition published by the French Catholic weekly Temoignage Chretien, adding that the church in France is a subject to the law and cannot escape justice.

The instances of child sex abuse within the Catholic Church are not some isolated cases but a "systemic problem" acknowledged by the Pope himself, the petition says, adding that this problem cannot just be left for the Church to sort it out all by itself as "an interested party cannot be the judge."

"Today in our country the Catholic Church thinks it is enough to repeat the words of the Pope without taking any significant initiative to look into these crimes ... and especially their institutional and structural causes," the petition says, adding that the Church still prefers to either "ignore" or even "conceal" such instances of abuse.
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Magnify

Worldwide opinion poll finds people trust Putin more than Trump - Analysts blame US' selfish and reckless foreign policy


RT
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 18:11 UTC
putin trump
© Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
A recent worldwide opinion poll conducted by Pew Research Center shows that Vladimir Putin enjoys more trust than Donald Trump, and analysts blame this fact on America's selfish and reckless foreign policy.

Trade wars with key economic partners, continuing military operations abroad, and the ongoing split among US political elites have been thought to do little for the president's image. This conclusion appears to have been confirmed by the poll.

According to recent research conducted by Washington-based think tank Pew Research Center, people now trust Vladimir Putin more than Donald Trump. Over 26,000 people were surveyed for the study in 25 countries throughout the world.
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Star of David

'I felt unable to move an inch, I fell on the ground,' says sister of 12yo Palestinian killed in deadliest day in Gaza in weeks

Ahmad Kabariti
Mondoweiss
Mon, 01 Oct 2018 18:04 UTC
gaza attacks
© Mohammed Asad
Friday marked one of the deadliest days at the fence that divides the Gaza Strip from Israel since protests began in Gaza last March, as Israeli forces killed seven including two children.

Four of the seven were shot dead east of Gaza City in circumstances where it appears the demonstrators posed no threat to Israeli soldiers. "Amateur videos showed them kneeling down and kissing the ground on the Israeli side as gunfire could be heard," the AP reported.

The youngest casualties on Friday were Mohammed al-Houm, 14, and Nasser Mosabeh, 12.

Around 1,200 mourners took part in the funeral of Musabeh on Saturday. Mourners chanted slogans against the U.S. and Israel. The procession stretched across the streets of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. He was wrapped in a beige canvas and carried through the city on a stretcher hoisted overs shoulders.
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Bullseye

Mother Jones writer shows what happens when you apologize to a manipulator

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Mon, 01 Oct 2018 17:46 UTC
shane bauer tweet
Have you ever noticed how rare sincere apologies are in politics? I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Normal people apologize to each other every day, for accidentally interrupting someone or standing in their way, for being inconsiderate or forgetful, for being unable to satisfy a customer's needs; it's just a part of life we take for granted at work and at home.

But in the highest levels of the most powerful governments on earth, where thousands of human lives can be snuffed out by a single unwise decision and ecosystems and economies destroyed on a whim, apologies are almost unheard of. You only ever see them when a leader is cornered in a complete political checkmate with no other options available to them.

This is because the highest levels of the most powerful governments in the world are dominated by highly manipulative people. If you serve truth, humanity and the world, you are almost certainly delightful to be around and you will almost certainly never have a career in federal politics.

The system is set up to serve a ruling class of plutocrats and their lackeys, so the way to get to the top of the political ladder is in the exact opposite direction of serving the weak and defenseless and being truthful and compassionate. To win elections you first need to win the blessing of the ruling class, and the way to do that is by kissing the right asses while regurgitating the right sound bytes whenever the cameras are rolling.
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Magnify

Paul Craig Roberts: How the American media was destroyed

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy
Mon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00 UTC
CBS news, dan rather, george bush controversy
Mary Mapes, Dan Rather, and the CBS news team were too focused on news to take into account the dangerous situation in which they were operating. Therefore, they walked into a trap that served Dick Cheney’s Middle Eastern wars, which served Halliburton and Israel, and into a trap that served conservative hatred of “liberal” news.
In my September 24 column, "Truth Is Evaporating Before Our Eyes," I used the destruction of the CBS news team that broke the Abu Ghraib story and the story of President George W. Bush's non-performance of his Texas Air Force National Guard duties to demonstrate how accusations alone could destroy a Peabody Award winning, 26 year veteran producer of CBS News, Mary Mapes, and the established news anchor Dan Rather.

I have many times written that it was President Bill Clinton who destroyed the independent US media when he permitted 90 percent of the US media to be concentrated in six mega-corporations that were in the entertainment and other businesses and not in the news business. This unprecedented concentration of media was against all American tradition and destroyed the reliance that our Founding Fathers placed on a free press to keep government accountable to the people.

Until I read Mary Mapes book, Truth and Duty (St. Martin's Press, 2005), I was unaware of how this monopolization of the media in violation of the Sherman Anti-trust Act and American tradition had proceeded to destroy honest reporting.

Here is what happened. The Texas Air National Guard was a place the elite placed their sons to avoid the Vietnam War draft. Copies of documents written by Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian describing George W. Bush's ability to jump the large waiting list hoping to avoid the war, Bush's non-compliance with National Guard requirements and Bush's unauthorized departure to another state were given to CBS. The CBS team worked for many months to confirm or discredit the documents. The information in the documents proved to be consistent with the interviews of people acquainted with George W. Bush's time in the Texas National Guard.

Comment: See also:

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Wolf

Neo-nazi youths stab German journalist, perform Nazi salute at the scene


RT
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 15:28 UTC
Naumburg, Germany
© Ullstein Bild / GettyImages / FileNaumburg, Germany
Three German youths reportedly stabbed a local journalist in the eastern town of Naumburg, performing a Nazi salute after the incident. The reporter narrowly escaped death despite sustaining a 6cm-deep stab wound

Klaus-Peter Kruemmling, a reporter working with Naumburger Tageblatt, found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, his newspaper reported on Tuesday. The 59-year old has just finished shopping at his local Rewe supermarket on Friday evening when the brawl started.

While heading for his car, the reporter came across three youngsters - and one of them allegedly spat at him and gestured with his middle finger. Insulted by the obscene gesture, Kruemmling confronted the trio about their behavior near the pedestrian crossing - and this is where the brazen attack happened.

Comment: The continuation of a worrying trend.

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Arrow Up

US Supreme Court rules billionaire can't keep California beach to himself

Rosanna Xia
MSN
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 15:18 UTC
Surfer
© Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/TNSMark Massara, lawyer, consultant for Surfrider, and a decades-long coastal steward, walks across the beach after surfing Martins Beach, where an access gate remains locked despite a judge's order to landowner Vinod Khosla to to open the private gate and allow public access to the beach.
In a significant victory for coastal access rights in California, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a Silicon Valley billionaire's appeal to keep a beach to himself.

The decision caps an all-out legal battle over a small stretch of sand in San Mateo County known as Martins Beach. What began as a local dispute over a locked gate has exploded into a cause celebre for beachgoers across California. The decadelong squabble spurred a spate of lawsuits that zeroed in on whether property owner Vinod Khosla needs state permission to gate off the road.

A string of California courts has said he does. If Khosla's last-shot appeal had been granted, his arguments before the nation's highest court could have threatened a landmark state law that declares beach access is a fundamental right guaranteed to everyone.
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