Society's ChildS


Heart

Best of the Web: Rafeef Ziadah - 'We teach life, sir',

How can it be any other way? The Palestinians have been tortured, brutalized and systematically murdered by the Israelis for decades. That they still exist is a testimony to the fact that they, more than any other people, know what it is to teach life to their children.


Megaphone

Flashback Oh Canada, another birthday: This day in history - July 1, 1967

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© Glenn BagloOn Canada’s 100th birthday, Chief Dan George silenced a crowd of 32,000 with his 'Lament for Confederation' at Empire Stadium.
On Canada's 100th birthday, Chief Dan George silenced a crowd of 32,000 with his "Lament for Confederation" at Empire Stadium. George's mournful speech began with, "Today, when you celebrate your hundred years, oh Canada, I am sad for all the Indian people throughout the land."

George - chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, a Coast Salish band in North Vancouver - was also an author, poet and an Academy Award nominated actor. But above all, he was an activist and an influential speaker on the rights of native peoples of North America. Some of this activism may have stemmed from the fact that, at the age of five, George was placed in a residential school where his First Nations language and culture were prohibited. His "Lament for Confederation" - a scathing indictment of the appropriation of native territory by white colonists - was his most famous speech.

What follows is the complete text:

Attention

Teen Gregory Spring kills self after bullying, bullying continues on condolence page

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A teen with Tourette syndrome and a developmental disorder killed himself days ago after suffering from years of bullying. But death wasn't enough to escape the taunting, as just after his suicide, a mean-spirited bully took over his condolence page to leave one last haunting comment.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA HE DIED!!!!!! I HOPE HE IS IN HELLLLLLLL," the student wrote.

Gregory Spring was 17 years old when he took his life. His mother Keri said he suffered six years of relentless bullying.

Dollars

Congress to double student loan interest rates

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© Reuters / Kevin LamarqueU.S. Capitol building.
Seven million college students will see their student loan costs double on Monday, after a group of bipartisan lawmakers failed to agree on a plan to keep interest rates down.

The Senate adjourned for the July 4 recess on Thursday, but failed to keep interest rates on Stafford loans at the current 3.4 percent rate. The federally subsidized loans are set to expire on July 1, after which the interest rate cap will rise to 6.8 percent.

Congress' Joint Economic Committee estimates that the average student will be paying $2,600 more starting July 1. On a $23,000 student loan repaid over 10 years, a student would be paying about $3,000 total interest.

Cow

Global food system vulnerable due to growing population and climate change

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© Daniel Acker/BloombergImmature corn plants are surrounded by standing water in a field outside Wyanet, Illinois, on May 28, 2013. Corn jumped to a record in August after the worst U.S. drought since the 1930s left limited supplies.
The global food system will remain "vulnerable" in the years to come as a growing population boosts demand for crops and climate change makes weather disruption more frequent, according to the World Bank.

The world will need to produce 70 percent more food by 2050 to feed a global population expected to grow to more than 9 billion from 7 billion now, the United Nations' Rome-based Food & Agriculture Organization estimates. The three biggest annual gains in food prices in the past 20 years occurred since 2007, with the FAO's food prices index of 55 items climbing to a record in February 2011.

Comment: Food insecurity is already an issue and has been for many years:
Food insecurity hits almost 15 percent of US household
World Food Prices Surge to Record, Passing Levels That Sparked 2008 Riots


Cow

Dairy prices rising in California even as farmers struggle to stay afloat

Dairymen across the state are struggling to stay afloat, and it won't get any better without paying dairies market value for whey.

When the California Department of Food and Agriculture set a temporary price hike until the end of the year, it gave producers 12.5 cents more, but didn't solve the main issue, said Michael Marsh, the CEO of Western United Dairymen.

A big discrepancy exists in what the state dairies get paid for whey compared to other states where the farmers get paid according to federal whey standards, Marsh said.

For example, the price of whey under federal guidelines is $2.20, versus the state of California, which gives farmers nearly 69 cents per 100 pounds of milk.

Marsh said the temporary price hike may be a small relief to farmers, but it really hurts the consumers, who, he expects, will have to pay more for products such as milk, ice cream and sour cream -- as soon as Monday.

AB31 addresses the whey price structure, said Marsh, adding that he hopes legislators pass a resolution soon.

Last year alone, 105 dairies closed -- most of them located in the northern San Joaquin Valley.

Comment:
Food prices jump to six-month high as dairy costs rise
Food price hikes in 2013 far higher than predicted by government statistics


Che Guevara

Fears of a civil war growing as Egyptians prepare for day of reckoning over Mohamed Morsi

Seven die, hundreds are injured, as rivals organise massive rallies on anniversary of president's rule
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© Amr Nabil/APSupporters of President Mohamed Morsi shout anti-opposition slogans outside the Rabia el-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo, not far from the presidential palace, on Saturday.
Egypt's leading Islamic institution has warned of a possible civil war as clashes between supporters and opponents of President Mohamed Morsi spread across the country on Saturday - exactly a year after his inauguration as the first democratically elected president.

Egypt's fate feels as uncertain as at any point since the 2011 uprising, which toppled Hosni Mubarak, with repeated rumours of military intervention.

At least eight people have died and more than 600 have been injured in fighting between Morsi's Islamist allies - who argue that his democratic legitimacy should be respected - and his often secular opponents, who say that he has not shown respect for the wider values on which a successful democracy depends.

Key

Mother who killed daughter's rapist gets reprieve from prison

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© Pepe OlivaresMaría del Carmen García is hugged by her daughter, Verónica, after hearing that she will not have to go back to prison.
María del Carmen García already had her suitcase packed, ready to enter the Fontcalent prison in Alicante on Thursday for killing her daughter's rapist. However, at the last minute, the court accepted the appeal filed by her attorney, Joaquín Galant, which called for the suspension of her sentence while the government considers her request for a pardon.

"Thank you all for your support," said García, visibly emotional after learning that, at least for now, she won't have to return to jail to serve the remaining four-and-a-half years of her murder sentence. "They have to pardon me because I'm not a killer," she told reporters.

Her daughter, Verónica, was 13 when she was raped by a neighbor in 1998. The offender was sentenced to nine years in prison. In 2005, while on parole, the rapist returned to their hometown, Benejúzar, and ran into García. "How's your daughter?" he asked her.

María del Carmen's response was blunt. She bought a bottle of gasoline, walked into a bar, doused the convicted rapist and set him on fire. The man died a week later from the burns he suffered.

Stormtrooper

University of Virginia student jailed for possession of bottled water, ice cream

A University of Virginia student spent a night and good part of the next day in jail after seven plain-clothes agents from the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control division ambushed her.

The student, 20-year-old Elizabeth Daly, made the mistake of walking to her car with bottled water, cookie dough and ice cream in a dark supermarket parking lot near the UVA campus, reports The Daily Progress.

The seven agents sprung aggressively into action, suspecting that the student was carrying was a 12-pack of beer. She was actually carrying a sky-blue carton of LaCroix sparkling water.

Police admit that one of the high-strung agents vaulted onto the hood of Daly's car. She contends that one of them also drew a gun.

It's not clear what about Daly's appearance gave the six police officers the belief that they had probable cause to confront her en masse.

Daly, along with two roommates who were in the car, did what reasonable, unarmed people usually do when violently pounced upon by seven people. They tried to get away.

Arrow Down

Australian man gets 40 years jail for abusing bought baby

Justice
© Thinkstock
An Australian man who bought a baby boy for $US8000 ($A8659) with his partner, sexually abused the child and handed him off to other pedophiles to molest, has been sentenced to 40 years' prison in the US.

Judge Sarah Evans Barker, while sentencing the 42-year-old in the US District Court in Indianapolis on Friday, said he deserved a harsher punishment but accepted the plea deal because she did not want to subject jurors to the disturbing evidence.

Prosecutors discovered videos and photos of the man, his domestic partner, also an Australian, and other men in Australia, the US, Germany and France abusing the child from the age of two to six.

"For more than one year and across three continents, these men submitted this young child to some of the most heinous acts of exploitation that this office has ever seen," Indiana US Attorney Joe Hogsett said after the sentencing.