Society's ChildS


Coffee

Heartless: Nescafé #AlexaStorm tweet leaves a bad taste

nescafe alexastorm
© twitter
We were sickened to see this #AlexaStorm Tweet from Nescafé today. While thousands suffer the effects of winter storm Alexa right across the middle east, and as over 1 million refugees from Syria endure the snow and sub-zero temperatures in Lebanon - many of them living in makeshift tents - they are informed that a blanket and a warm cup of Nescafé is all they need.

It will take a lot more than coffee and blankets for those families to weather the storm. Still never mind that when there's potential profit to be made from the suffering of others.

Che Guevara

Flashback Mandela to Arafat: If peace with Israel is impossible, then the only alternative is violence

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© James Zogby
As the mainstream media publishes countless sanitised obituaries in honour of one of the world's last true peace-makers, it's important to remember that Mandela wasn't preaching 'peace at any price'. He made this quite clear on numerous occasions. While on a visit to Ireland in the mid-1990s he told reporters that the IRA should not have surrendered it weapons until the British military had withdrawn from the north of the country. In the above snippet of a speech he gave in Palestine around the same time, we hear him intimate that violence towards oppressors isn't just right, it's necessary.

Israel shares a large portion of blame for institutionalising Apartheid in South Africa, without whose financial contributions and military support the South African enclave of white supremacists would never have been able to establish and sustain the bantustan model that has since been applied to the West Bank and Gaza. Arafat, who we see seated left of Mandela, and who really tried to believe the Israelis actually wanted peace, was later discretely assassinated by Israel.


Family

Nevada dad's survival skills kept girlfriend, 4 kids safe for 2 days lost in snow


A couple and four young children missing in frigid weather since they went on an outing to play in the snow on Sunday were found alive in a remote mountain range in Nevada on Tuesday huddled in their overturned vehicle, a sheriff's dispatch supervisor said.

The couple had taken their two children and the woman's niece and nephew, who range in age from 3 to 10, to an abandoned mining camp in the Seven Troughs range of northwestern Nevada, Pershing County dispatch supervisor Sheila Reitz said.

The six were found in good condition and were treated for exposure and dehydration at the Pershing General Hospital in Lovelock, Nevada, said Patty Bianchi, chief executive officer of the facility. They did not have frostbite, she said.

A doctor at the hospital told reporters the six family members were doing "remarkably well" considering their ordeal.

"They did a lot of things right by staying with the vehicle, and they did have food and water available with them, and as soon as the vehicle suffered this slow rollover accident, the father jumped into action," Dr. Douglas Vacek added.

He "knew that they had to stay warm, and the first thing he did was build a fire and he was able to keep that fire going the entire time while they were out."

Heart - Black

NYPD beat family and killed pet parakeet in own home, lawsuit says

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The suit says family friend Luis Ortega (pictured) and Lugo's son George were repeatedly struck in the head with a baton and suffered severe facial injuries.
A Staten Island woman has sued the city claiming police entered her St. George home without a warrant, beat her family and killed her beloved pet parakeet, according to court documents.

Last year, Evelyn Lugo's bird, Tito, was thrown from his cage after it was knocked off a dresser as cops came into her Corson Avenue home, the Daily News first reported.

The officers then stepped on the bird intentionally, killing it, court documents say.

Officers also beat two of Lugo's sons, her daughter and a family friend, the lawsuit claims.

According to court documents, police entered Lugo's home on Sept. 2, 2012, as her family was celebrating Labor Day.

Police stopped and questioned her son Edwin Avellanet as he was outside throwing out garbage and asked for identification, the lawsuit says. When he refused to show any, officers allegedly grabbed his right arm and Avellanet broke free and ran into the building.

Ambulance

D.C. officer charged with child porn confirmed dead after Potomac plunge

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Marc Washington
The D.C. police officer who was charged with taking nude photos of a runaway teen girl was pulled from the chilly waters off Hains Point and has died, the department confirmed early Wednesday.

U.S. Park Police received a 911 call at about 8:15 p.m. from a male caller that a man was in the water at Hains Point, between the East Potomac River and the Washington Channel.

Police found some clothing and a parked car that was connected to Marc Washington, the patrol officer who had been released from jail charges of child pornography Monday.

Dozens of police officers, a helicopter and several high-ranking officials rushed to the scene. Metropolitan Police Department rescue boat crews rescued from the roughly 48-degree waters an adult male who was taken to a hospital for treatment.

During a press conference late Tuesday, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier would not confirm that the body was that of Washington and said investigators she did not yet know the origin of the 911 call.

"There's a lot of speculation," Lanier said. "Whether this was a call from someone associated with the Metropolitan Police Department, we don't know."

Sherlock

Steve Jobs' doctor's house deal raises eyebrows

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© Getty ImagesThe story surrounding the late Steve Jobs and his liver transplant is getting murkier as a report emerges that his surgeon, Dr. James Eason, moved into the Jobs-owned Memphis mansion just months after the operation.
Fresh questions about Steve Jobs' liver transplant have been raised after it emerged that the doctor who performed the surgery spent two years in the Memphis, Tenn., house Jobs bought for his recovery.

Dr. James Eason, who performed the March 2009 liver transplant, moved into the palatial house Jobs bought for his recovery just a few months after the operation, according to a report.

It isn't the first time questions have been raised over whether Jobs, a California resident, received an unfair advantage in landing the Memphis transplant.

Eason lived in the house in midtown Memphis for two years before buying it outright in May 2011, a few months before Jobs died.

Eason bought the house for $850,000 - the same amount Jobs paid for it, through a nondescript LLC, in March 2009, according to the report. It was unclear if Eason paid rent while he lived in the two-story, 13-bedroom house at 36 Morningside Place. A man who answered the phone there on Monday evening said Eason was unavailable to talk before abruptly hanging up.

Video

San Diego 'revenge porn' site owner arrested

keyboard
© unknownThe attackers got access to the servers underpinning the porn site
A 27-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the running of a "revenge porn" website.

Kevin Bollaert is accused of being behind UGotPosted, a site that published intimate photographs of people against their wishes.

It would link to relevant social networks of the subjects pictured.

Prosecutors said the website also sought to extort money from the people featured on the site by charging a fee to have pictures taken down.

"This website published intimate photos of unsuspecting victims and turned their public humiliation and betrayal into a commodity with the potential to devastate lives," California Attorney General Kamala Harris said in a statement.

Red Flag

Oregon signs up just 44 people for Obamacare despite spending $300 million

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© Washington Examiner
Oregon, once touted as a model for President Obama's health care law, signed up just 44 people for insurance through November, despite spending more than $300 million on its state-based exchange.

The state's exchange had the fewest sign-ups in the nation, according to a new report today by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The weak number of sign-ups undercuts two major defenses of Obamacare from its supporters.

One defense was that state-based exchanges were performing a lot better than the federal healthcare.gov website servicing 36 states. But Oregon's website problems have forced the state to rely on paper applications to sign up participants.

Question

What's wrong with American media?


Heart - Black

Kids suffer panic attacks after New York school locks them in padded cell to 'calm down'

padded cell
© Unknown
In an effort to get kids to "calm down," a New York City elementary school confines kids as young as five in a padded cell, the New York Daily News reports today.

The Daily News says that two of the three youngsters who have been imprisoned in the nighmarish, cramped quarters decorated with nothing more than a single mat on the floor suffered freak-outs so severe that one of them needed to be hospitalized.

Each padded cell stay lasts 15 to 20 minutes.

The room, about the size of a walk-in closet, is reportedly used at KIPP Star Washington Heights Elementary School, a prestigious charter school in upper Manhattan. But the mother of the boy who was rushed to the hospital with an uncontrollable panic attack from being locked away in the cell has pulled her child out of the school to avoid any more incarcerations.

"He was crying hysterically," said Teneka Hall, 28. "It's no way to treat a child."

Her son Xavier, 5, suffered a breakdown while sentenced to the so-called "calm down room," meant for kids who act up in class, panicking and urinating on himself.