Society's ChildS


Attention

Waterloo school board trying to obliterate debate over sexualized children's books

Sue-Ann Levy
True North
Fri, 21 Jan 2022 08:21 UTC
Waterloo School Board meeting
Claiming it to be a violation of the Ontario Human Rights Code, officials at the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) have decided not to post the video of a controversial public meeting where a long-serving teacher was cut off for questioning the value of two highly sexualized children's books in school libraries.

WRDSB board chair Scott Piatkowski tweeted Thursday night that the customary YouTube video of Monday night's public meeting had not been posted, as the Board is "concerned about potential violations" to the Human Rights Code and the "harm" that could befall students, staff and communities in Waterloo Region.



Comment: See also:

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Attention

The Dark Side of the Metaverse

Dr. Doron Pely
University of Southern California
Mon, 17 Jan 2022 20:03 UTC
Metaverse
© University of Southern California
On October 28, 2021, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, perhaps trying to put a determined end to what was for him and his company a definite annus horribilis (a horrible year), made a double announcement: Facebook is changing its name to Meta. Meta, according to Zuckerberg, will be a "social technology company" - an organization that will focus on transitioning Facebook's business from its "old" social media platform to a brand-new, yet-to-be-defined-and-constructed virtual domain called Metaverse.

Metaverse, "... a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social connection," will, according to its new promoters, developers and proponents, bring our virtual and physical worlds much closer together by converting the hitherto two-dimensional social media experience into a three-dimensional wonder world. In this amalgam of the virtual and the real, physical borders, hindering our movements from here to there, will become a thing of the past, to be replaced by a virtual universe-metaverse that will allow people around the corner and across the globe to meet each other and conduct all manner of fun and business in a virtual Wild West: gaming, chatting, consuming and distributing all manners of products, artistic creations, boundless learning opportunities and experiences, and of course, endless buying, selling and trading.

A veritable wonder world indeed; what can be wrong with it? Well, actually, quite a lot.
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Airplane

Irish man charged for refusing to wear face mask and exposing his buttocks on flight from Dublin to New York

Carl Bennett
GBN
Sat, 22 Jan 2022 08:27 UTC
delta airlines airplane
© Steve ParsonsIn a statement, Delta said the airline 'has zero tolerance for unruly behaviour'.
Shane McInerney, 29, from Galway, created 'numerous disturbances' on the January 7 Delta flight.

An Irish man on a Delta flight from Dublin to New York has been charged after allegedly refusing to wear a mask, throwing a can that hit another passenger and exposing his buttocks to a flight attendant.

Shane McInerney, 29, from Galway, created "numerous disturbances" on the January 7 Delta flight that was heading to John F Kennedy International Airport, according to a federal complaint filed in the Eastern District of New York.

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Stock Down

Moderna stock crash intensifies: Losses top $130 billion after scientists find Covid boosters aren't halting omicron infections

Jonathan Ponciano
Forbes
Fri, 21 Jan 2022 13:32 UTC
moderna logo vaccine syringe
© SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty ImagesModerna was last year’s third-best-performing stock in the S&P—now it's this year’s worst.
Battered by a steep broad-market selloff this week, Moderna shares fell for a sixth straight day Friday as experts questioned whether Covid-19 vaccine sales alone will help justify the firm's meteoric valuation, intensifying a crash that's wiped out more than 60% of the value in one of last year's top stocks and turned it into this year's worst performer.

Moderna stock fell 4.4% Friday to an eight-month low of $160, pushing shares down more than 20% over the past week amid growing research suggesting Moderna's Covid-19 booster, while very effective against previous strains, has been less effective against the rapidly spreading omicron variant.

Though the number of Covid infections has spiked amid the omicron-spurred wave of the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that Moderna and Pfizer boosters were 90% effective at preventing people infected with the new variant from being hospitalized.
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Syringe

California lawmaker introduces bill to allow child vaccinations without parental consent

Michael Robison
Timcast
Fri, 21 Jan 2022 00:00 UTC
teen vaccine
Senator Scott Wiener pitched the bill intending to empower minors to take their medical decisions into their own hands.

Recent legislation proposed in California would allow children aged twelve and up to get vaccinated without parental consent.

Democratic state senator Scott Wiener proposed the bill to empower minors to take their medical decisions into their own hands, Fox News first reported.
"Giving young people the autonomy to receive life-saving vaccines, regardless of their parents' beliefs or work schedules, is essential for their physical and mental health," he said. "It's unconscionable for teens to be blocked from the vaccine because a parent either refuses or cannot take their child to a vaccination site."

Comment: It's easy to see why pro-vaccination politicians would want to remove parental consent from the vaccination equation - kids are too young to make decisions with life-long consequences and are more easily coerced than adults. Progressives are forever pushing the 'rights' of children to make life-altering decisions and taking away the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit.

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Cardboard Box

Monkey on loose in Pennsylvania after crash on way to laboratory


The Guardian
Sat, 22 Jan 2022 03:15 UTC
delivery crash
© Jimmy May/APCrates holding live monkeys litter the side of the road near Danville after the crash in which some escaped on Friday.
Residents of a Pennsylvania county were warned on Saturday not to approach a monkey still missing after a crash involving a pickup towing a trailer taking about 100 of the animals to a research laboratory.

State troopers urged people not to look for or capture the cynomolgus monkey following the Friday afternoon crash on a state highway near an Interstate 80 exit in Montour county.

"Anyone who sees or locates the monkey is asked not to approach, attempt to catch, or come in contact with the monkey. Please call 911 immediately," a tweet said.

Comment: See also: 'SMALLPOX found in Merck lab in Philadelphia, FBI launch urgent probe

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NPC

Irony alert: University puts TRIGGER WARNING on Orwell's 1984

Libby Emmons
The Post Millennial
Sun, 23 Jan 2022 05:26 UTC
1984 george orwell
© Ivan Radic / Flickr
George Orwell's iconic novel 1984, written in 1949 about the horrors of censorship and the threat of authoritarianism, is being censored by a university. The University of Northampton in Orwell's own England has issued a trigger warning on the book, with staff claiming that the book contains "explicit material" and that some student may find the work to be "offensive and unsettling."

The Daily Mail uncovered this via a Freedom of Information request, and 1984 is one of several books that have been slapped with a trigger warning for students at the university who are studying what's called Identity Under Construction. This course of study comes with a warning to students that it "addresses challenging issues related to violence, gender, sexuality, class, race, abuses, sexual abuse, political ideas and offensive language," The Mail reports.

Other books deemed to be triggering include Samuel Beckett's groundbreaking and brilliant play Endgame, V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd and Jeanette Winterson's Sexing theCherry. Sally Rooney's Normal People has also been flagged, and Mark Haddon's 2003 novel The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time has been labeled as including the "death of an animal, ableism and disability and offensive language."

Comment: Censoring a book that is warning of the dangers of censorship - you kind of get the impression these people aren't playing with a full deck of cards. The entire point of reading a book like 1984 is to get 'triggered': it should be challenging; it should make you uncomfortable; it should make you think. Any education that doesn't challenge a student's preconceived notions isn't an education at all. It's babysitting.

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Heart - Black

TWO military personnel commit suicide on UK's Salisbury Plain military base within hours of each other, follows wave of suicides in recent years

Joe Davies
Daily Mail
Sat, 22 Jan 2022 11:37 UTC
Jaysley-Louise
Gunner Jaysley-Louise Beck was tragically found dead at the base in Larkhill, Wiltshire, on December 15
The heartbroken family of a 19-year-old soldier who died suddenly at a military base within hours of another soldier on the Salisbury Plain have paid tribute to her.

Gunner Jaysley-Louise Beck was tragically found dead at the base in Larkhill, Wiltshire, on December 15.


Comment: So these deaths occurred nearly a month ago and are only just now being reported.


She died on the same day as Lance Corporal Michael Joseph Miah, 28, from the Household Cavalry, who was found dead in his garage at Bulford.

The army has launched a probe into the deaths, which come after at least five confirmed suicides at Salisbury Plain since 2018.

Comment: Of note, the Bulford military base is a short drive away from the UK's highly secretive Porton Down military laboratory.

See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Perfidious Albion: If Russia is a Rogue State, What is the UK?

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Cross

Report on sexual abuse in German diocese faults retired pope

Geir Moulson
Yahoo! News
Thu, 20 Jan 2022 10:05 UTC
Pope Benedict XVI
A long-awaited report on sexual abuse in Germany's Munich diocese on Thursday faulted retired Pope Benedict XVI's handling of four cases when he was archbishop in the 1970s and 1980s. The law firm that drew up the report said Benedict strongly denies any wrongdoing.

The findings were sure to reignite criticism of Benedict's record more than a decade after the first, and until Thursday only, known case involving him was made public.

The archdiocese commissioned the report from law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl nearly two years ago, with a mandate to look into abuse between 1945 and 2019 and whether church officials handled allegations correctly. The law firm examined church files and spoke to witnesses.

Comment: See also:

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NPC

University language guide says 'grandfather,' 'housekeeping,' 'spirit animal' are 'problematic' words

Adam Sabes
Fox News
Sun, 23 Jan 2022 01:04 UTC
Students University of Washington
© Karen Ducey/Getty ImagesStudents at the University of Washington are on campus for the last day of in-person classes on March 6, 2020 in Seattle, Washington.
A University of Washington language guide is calling everyday words used by Americans "problematic."

The University of Washington Information Technology department released an "inclusive language guide" that lists a number of "problematic words" that are "racist," "sexist," "ageist," or "homophobic."

According to the guide, words such as "grandfather," "housekeeping," "minority," "ninja," and "lame" are considered "problematic words."

For example, the language guide states that the word "lame" is considered problematic because it's "ableist."

"This word is offensive, even when it's used in slang for uncool because it's using a disability in a negative way to imply that the opposite, which would be not lame, to be superior," the guide states.

The guide also states that the term "minority" implies a 'less than' attitude toward a certain community.

"When 'minority' is used to refer to other races or abilities, used as a generalized term for 'the other' and implies a 'less than' attitude toward the community or communities being discussed," the guide states.
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