Society's Child
Kathleen Taylor, a neurologist at Oxford University, said that recent developments suggest that we will soon be able to treat religious fundamentalism and other forms of ideological beliefs potentially harmful to society as a form of mental illness.
She made the assertion during a talk at the Hay Literary Festival in Wales on Wednesday. She said that radicalizing ideologies may soon be viewed not as being of personal choice or free will but as a category of mental disorder. She said new developments in neuroscience could make it possible to consider extremists as people with mental illness rather than criminals.
She told The Times of London: "One of the surprises may be to see people with certain beliefs as people who can be treated. Someone who has for example become radicalized to a cult ideology -- we might stop seeing that as a personal choice that they have chosen as a result of pure free will and may start treating it as some kind of mental disturbance."
© Shutterstock
The teacher said she told administrators at Harper-Archer Middle School about the abuse, but she claims they ignored her claims until she recorded the videos in February.
"If they don't believe me verbally, maybe I should set up a video," said the teacher, who asked to remain anonymous as she seeks a teaching job elsewhere.
The videos show one teacher's aide, identified as paraprofessional Alger Coleman, repeatedly assaulting an 11-year-old autistic boy, while a second aide sometimes encouraged him.
Coleman was arrested on child cruelty and simple battery charges, but the second aide has not yet been charged in the case.
Students Merritt Burch and Anthony Vizzone, members of the Young Americans for Liberty chapter at UH-Hilo, were prevented from handing out copies of the Constitution at a recruitment event in January. A week later, they were again informed by a censorship-minded administrator that their First Amendment-protected activities were in violation of school policy.
The students were told that they could only distribute literature from within UH-Hilo's "free speech zone," a small, muddy, frequently-flooded area on the edge of campus.
© Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images
KHOU-TV reports that 42-year-old Felicia Smith gave the lap dance to a 15-year-old boy inside a Stovall Middle School classroom on Feb. 26.
According to court documents, Smith stopped the teenage boy from going to his next class and the entire class told him to sit down in a chair placed in the front of the room.
The Houston Chronicle reports Smith then gave the boy a "full-contact lap dance" and the boy told authorities she touched him all over his body, including placing her head between his legs.
At the end of the four-minute long lap dance, Smith reportedly told the boy, " I love you, baby. Happy birthday."
© Reuters/Jim Urquhart
Rancher Cliven Bundy
Rancher Cliven Bundy
Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy defended comments he made regarding African Americans earlier this week, as his ongoing land rights feud with the federal government receded into the background over accusations that he is a racist.
Bundy has been praised by conservative politicians and right-leaning groups for taking a stand against what they see as overreach by the US government, which claims the rancher owes taxpayers $1 million in unpaid cattle grazing fees dating back to 1993. Bundy has refused to pay, saying he doesn't owe the government anything for operating on land his ancestors have used for more than a century.
As RT reported previously, this led to an armed standoff between hundreds of armed federal officials and Bundy's own supporters - some of which included armed militia members from multiple states. That standoff ultimately ended when government officials left in order to avoid a violent escalation.
In the midst of the media firestorm that followed this event, Bundy seemingly placed the land rights conflict on the backburner by questioning whether African Americans were better off as slaves in a New York Times report.
Bundy was originally quoted saying that under government subsidy, African Americans - whom he referred to as "Negroes" - "didn't have nothing to do."
"And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?" he asked. "They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I've often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn't get no more freedom. They got less freedom."
Bundy's comments were quickly seized upon as evidence that the rancher was a racist. Politicians that had previously come out in support of his cause - Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) - quickly distanced themselves from the remarks.
"His remarks on race are offensive, and I wholeheartedly disagree with him," Paul said in a statement.
Heller, meanwhile, said he "completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy's appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way."
© AP photo
That near poverty statistic is perhaps more startling than the 50 million Americans below the poverty line, because it translates to a full 80% of the population struggling with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on government assistance to help make ends meet.
© Cato Institute
The always formidable defenders of free speech at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) filed a lawsuit in federal court today on behalf of a student who committed the heinous crime of handing out wee copies of the U.S. Constitution at the University of Hawaii at Hilo:
The complaint alleges that on January 16, 2014, plaintiff Merritt Burch, who is president of the UH Hilo chapter of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), and a fellow student YAL member were participating in an outdoor event where student groups set up tables to distribute literature. Observing other students walking around and handing out items, Burch and her friend walked out from behind YAL's table to likewise hand out Constitutions and YAL information cards. A UH Hilo administrator ordered Burch and her companion to stop approaching students and get back behind their table, dismissing Burch's protest about her constitutional rights.This is my favorite part, where the university administation tells Burch to go hand out her darned Constitutions on a tiny muddy plot on the edge of campus because "this isn't really the '60s anymore."
A week later, in an orientation meeting for student organizations, another administrator reiterated the rule against passing out literature. Burch and Vizzone were told that if they wanted to protest, the proper place to do so would be in UH Hilo's "free speech zone," a sloping, one-third acre area on the edge of campus. The "free speech zone" represents approximately 0.26 percent of UH Hilo's total area and is muddy and prone to flooding in Hilo's frequent rain. The administrator further observed, "This isn't really the '60s anymore" and "people can't really protest like that anymore."Want to start your very own kampus kerfuffle? Grab a handful of pocket Constitutions from the Cato Institute for a dollar a pop.
Burch and Vizzone are challenging the denial of their right to hand out literature and policies restricting the distribution of literature. The suit also challenges UH Hilo's "free speech zone," a separate policy requiring students to request permission seven working days prior to engaging in expressive activity in two central outdoor areas on campus, and the failure of UH Hilo officials to adequately train administrators on the rights of college students.
Or maybe get one from a friendly cop?
[Editor's note: This video was produced by ReasonTV for educational purposes.]
Comment: All border stops should go like this.
The blaze swept through the warehouse in the early hours of Sunday morning and according to local media reports killed between 20,000 to 30,000 animals who were being stored there.
The warehouse, situated in the town of Saint-Sulpice-La-Point, not far from Toulouse belonged to the company Savannah, one of the main wholesalers of reptiles and turtles in France.
According to firefighters the blaze started at 2am and quickly destroyed the 4,000 square metre depot, where numerous species of snakes, iguanas, turtles and other reptiles were being stored.
A video from France TV showed that the roof of part of the warehouse had collapsed.
Only a few turtles were said to have survived the inferno.
Authorities are still investigating the cause of the blaze and have not ruled out arson.
© Courtesy of Temple's Urban Archives.
Einhorn greeting Earth Day crowds in 1970.
Einhorn greeting Earth Day crowds in 1970.
Nevertheless, the West Oak Lane native, more colorfully known as "The Unicorn Killer," was a major fixture in radical West Philly counterculture movements in the 1970s and a force that helped organize the first Earth Day.
Before he brutally murdered Bryn Mawr graduate Holly Maddux for having the nerve to break up with a guy who actually instructed people to refer to him as "the Unicorn", Einhorn (German for "one horn") taught UPenn courses on the use of psychedelics and ran for mayor. Maddux's body was found locked inside a trunk in Einhorn's residence by then-homicide detective (and now-Upper Darby Police Superintendent) Michael Chitwood, in Powelton Village, a hotbed for political activism. Einhorn's apartment was just blocks away from the site of the first MOVE bombing.
Verona's mayor, Flavio Tosi, also blamed a local homeless charity for attracting hungry vagrants with food handouts
Flavio Tosi, the first citizen of the pretty northern city forever associated with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, said the rising numbers of homeless in a central piazza was posing a "risk to public health".
And he blamed a local homeless charity for attracting them there with food handouts.
"Near to Piazza Dante there's a garden where for some time the Ronda della Carita [charity] has been sending food parcels," said Mr Tosi, a member of the rabble-rousing Northern League.
"Now there are 20 or more [homeless] sleeping there and they use it like their own toilet. The situation has become unmanageable; for this reason I've had to introduce this ban," the mayor said.
Comment: Meet the DSM: Big Pharma's Psychiatric Bible
Hoarding, skin picking and temper tantrums now classified as mental disorders in controversial revision of 'psychiatric bible', DSM-5
Scientists: Creativity part of 'mental illness'