Society's ChildS


Heart

Hero bus driver, recipient of Trump check, to be featured on Rachel Ray show

Darnell J. Barton
© Buffalo NewsDarnell J. Barton, bus driver and hero
Donald J. Trump wasn't there himself. But in the well-appointed office of Mayor Byron W. Brown, a check for $10,000 from the real estate mogul was presented to the hero bus driver who brought a woman on the brink of suicide to safety. "Although I know to you it was just a warm-hearted first response to a dangerous situation," Trump wrote to Darnell J. Barton, "your quick thinking resulted in a life being saved, and for that you should be rewarded."

The City Hall ceremony was just the latest in a string of high-profile appearances for Barton since he stopped his bus on Oct. 18 on an Elmwood Avenue overpass and counseled a distraught woman who was contemplating suicide. And there will be more. On Wednesday evening, a crew from celebrity chef Rachael Ray's daytime television show interviewed Barton at the spot where the dramatic rescue took place. "I would like to apologize to the motorists on Elmwood at that moment," Barton said, confirming that Wednesday was the first day of filming for a feature the show is preparing.

Everything has been moving quickly for Barton, whose story spread to national news outlets and has brought congratulations from around the globe.

Barton has learned several lessons since that day, he said. "Let's just administer the grace that we would like administered to us," he said. "We want a better world? We have to be part of it." He has not been able to speak again with the distraught woman. "It is a plan of mine to do so, but I want to treat that with the sensitivity that that situation deserves," he said.

Road Cone

Tens of thousands protest against Erdogan in Cologne

Cologne protests Erdogan
© Oliver Berg / AFPKurds and Alevites protesters attend a protest rally on November 12, 2016 in Cologne against Turkish Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The banner reads 'Stop Erdogan's dictatorship'.
Tens of thousands of people from Kurdish and Alawite communities gathered in the German city of Cologne to protest presidential policies, as well as the Turkish government's crackdown on opposition and journalists.

The massive rally held on the Deutzer Werft embankment not far from the city center was initially organized by the European Alawite Association but later was joined by the Kurdish community that called off its own demonstration in the German town of Dusseldorf and instead decided to rally together with Alawites in Cologne, police spokesman, Benedikt Kleimann, told the regional WAZ newspaper.

Between 20,000 and 30,000 people attended the rally, according to various estimates. DPA news agency puts the number of demonstrators at 25,000. The protest was held under the slogan, "for democracy, peace and freedom." The demonstrators were holding banners that read, "yes to democracy - No to dictatorship!" Protesters sharply criticized the current policies of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and said that the Turkish president and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) are turning Turkey into a dictatorship "at a breathtaking pace."

Comment: There may be more than meets the eye in these European protests fighting for "freedom and democracy". German relations with Turkey are at an all-time low ever since the failed coup last July. While some of the grievances against Turkey may very well be valid, the bigger issue here is that these protesters are also being used by neo-liberal powers that are attempting to bring Turkey back under their influence. And it's worth keeping in mind that it is this precise influence that wants Turkey as their terrorist-supporting gateway.


Monkey Wrench

Flashback Faux protests: Activists admit answering Craigslist ad, were getting paid to protest against Trump

trump tower protest march 2016
On Saturday hundreds of far left activists held a march-rally at the Trump Tower in New York City.

The anti-Trump protesters marched to Trump Tower in New York. At least three protesters were arrested. (KTLA) Several of the anti-Trump protesters admitted they answered an ad on Craigslist and were getting paid to protest Trump.

Comment: "Maidan" for TRUMP in America?

Fomenting a national crisis and color revolution: Soros-funded anti-Trump protesters riot in cities across United States


Black Cat

University at Albany: 7 sorority sisters arrested for hazing ritual that sent one student to hospital

sorority arrests
© CBS 2A noise complaint at an off-campus sorority house led to the arrest of seven University of Albany students for allegedly hazing pledges.
Seven University at Albany students are accused of blindfolding sorority recruits, making them eat mud and dousing them in rotten eggs and milk, sending one pledge to the hospital.

The Times-Union of Albany reports that one sickened victim was treated and released from a hospital after she experienced an allergic reaction.

Albany police made the arrests early Thursday and seven women were arraigned on misdemeanor hazing charges.

Katrina Bergvoy, Heaven Guanco, Monica Vitagliano, Tereyza Martin, Chinazao Ezekwem, Nicole Johnson and Jessica Raynor were arrested at the scene Thursday morning and each charged with one count of first degree hazing and one count second degree hazing.

Comment: Hazing: Otherwise known as 'when psychopaths go to college'.


2 + 2 = 4

'Inclusive' colleges push out Trump supporters with their safe spaces and cry-ins

crying student
© Steven Senne, APAt Wellesley College on Nov. 8, 2016, in Wellesley, Mass.
One of the more amusing bits of fallout from last week's election has been the safe-space response of many colleges and universities to the election of the "wrong" candidate. But on closer examination, this response isn't really amusing. In fact, it's downright mean.

Trump's substantial victory, when most progressives expected a Hillary landslide, came as a shock to many. That shock seems to have been multiplied in academe, where few people seem to know any Trump supporters — or, at least, any Trump supporters who'll admit to it.

The response to the shock has been to turn campuses into kindergarten. The University of Michigan Law School announced a "post-election self-care" event with "food and play," including "coloring sheets, play dough [sic], positive card-making, Legos and bubbles with your fellow law students." (Embarrassed by the attention, UM Law scrubbed the announcement from its website, perhaps concerned that people would wonder if its graduates would require Legos and bubbles in the event of stressful litigation.)

Comment: Precious snowflakes: Grieving liberal students beg for exam cancellations in wake of Killary's loss


Black Magic

Amid post-election fallout, EPA quietly approves Monsanto's volatile, drift-prone herbicide dicamba

pesticide drift, dicamba
The EPA has quietly approved the usage of Monsanto's brand new herbicide, which the company says is less "volatile" than all alternative dicamba-based compounds that have caused massive crop damage, lawsuits and even bloodshed in the past.

The US Environmental Protection Agency approved the usage of the dicamba-based herbicide XtendiMax with VaporGrip Technology, on Wednesday, although the event went almost unnoticed by the media and activists, who have been otherwise preoccupied with the US Presidential elections' fallout.

The company still needs to get approval from individual states before the product can be sold to farmers, but according to Monsanto's spokesman Kyel Richard, it should be in the market by the start of next growing season.

Comment: Monsanto's latest addition to its toxic arsenal will hardly prove to be less malignant than glyphosate. Drift-prone herbicides pose serious threats to non-target crops and are also highly mobile in soil where they easily contaminate water. In addition to environmental contamination, health risks associated with exposure to dicamba include increased incidence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and other cancers as well as developmental and reproductive problems. Other studies have shown that dicamba and other 2,4-D pesticides have the effect of inducing antibiotic resistance even at low levels.

Monsanto's newest poison is drifting to neighboring fields killing more than 42K acres of crops


Propaganda

New York Times eats crow on Trump coverage; vows to report more honestly - Trump tweets response

New York Times
© AP
The publisher of The New York Times penned a letter to readers Friday promising that the paper would "reflect" on its coverage of this year's election while rededicating itself to reporting on "America and the world" honestly.

Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., the paper's embattled publisher, appealed to Times readers for their continued support.

"We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for which we are known without the loyalty of our subscribers," the letter states.


Comment: What does it say about the sorry state of journalism that this pledge even has to be made? Was this an honest re-examination of biased reporting or a desperate attempt to hang on to subscribers now that the jig is up? Trump's tweets get to the heart of the matter:






Airplane

Investigators puzzled by dramatic Boeing 767 engine explosion

Plane Catches Fire at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport
© MGNPlane Catches Fire at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport

Industry experts say the cause of the incident was the first of its kind.


The nearly catastrophic explosion of an engine that caused a fire on an American Airlines Boeing 767 just short of takeoff in Chicago on Oct. 28 occurred when a specific part that had never before failed broke into pieces.

The breakup of a heavy metal disk that rotates in the engine core reveals a new risk to airline passengers that, however rare, has already spurred a scramble by engine-maker General Electric and government safety agencies to find and fix the vulnerability.

"The risk will be eliminated," said John Goglia, a former National Transportation Safety Board member with more than 40 years' experience in the aviation-safety industry. "Will it be eliminated before the next one? That's the real question. Everything relies upon the timeliness of the system to correct itself."

American Airlines Flight 383 to Miami was speeding down the runway at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago when the second-stage disk of the high-pressure turbine broke apart inside the right engine with a loud explosion that blew metal shrapnel out through the engine casing.

Hot metal ripped through the wing, igniting aviation fuel. In an update this month, the National Safety Board, often called the NTSB, described how the pilot aborted the takeoff just seconds before reaching a speed at which he would have had to leave the ground. Slamming on the brakes as the jet reached a speed of 154 miles per hour, he brought the plane to a halt within 25 seconds and 900 yards further down the runway.


Comment: Two planes catch fire in separate runway blazes at Chicago and Florida airports (VIDEOS)


No Entry

Bastion of BS New York Times almost (but not quite) admits it failed miserably in its election coverage

New York Times
© AFP/Emmanuel Dunand
The New York Times is taking this loss hard.

The paper, which endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, sent a letter to readers November 11 in which it promised to "rededicate" itself to its journalistic mission and asked subscribers to remain loyal.

Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and editor Dean Baquet certainly seemed to be sounding a reflective note in the letter, admitting, "After such an erratic and unpredictable election there are inevitable questions: Did Donald Trump's sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters? What forces and strains in America drove this divisive election and outcome?"


Comment: Sulzberger and Baquet ought to read the scathing critique of their newspaper from one of their former employees - maybe they'll learn something:

Damning: Veteran reporter exposes The New York Times' arrogant, disconnected, agenda driven approach to journalism


One might wonder whether that last question should have been asked during the campaign, not after.

They continued: "As we reflect on this week's momentous result ... we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences ..."

Comment: Another reason (among several it seems) that the New York Times was so incredibly biased against Trump was because one of the newspaper's major stock owners appears to be rabidly pro-Clinton. Conflict of interest anyone?
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, a major donor to the US presidential campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, is the biggest single shareholder in the company that owns the New York Times, Republican candidate Donald Trump told supporters on Friday.

WASHINGTON — On Thursday, the Times published an article about two women who accuse Trump of sexual misconduct in 1981 and 2005.

The New York real estate mogul called those and other newly publicized allegations of inappropriate actions toward women false and said he would sue the Times for libel.

"The largest shareholder at the Times [company] is Carlos Slim. Slim, as you know, comes from Mexico," Trump said at a campaign rally in the state of North Carolina. "He has given millions of dollars to the Clintons and their initiatives."

Trump, who at campaign stops routinely mocks the US media and has made disparaging remarks about Mexican immigrants, went on to say that New York Times reporters "are not journalists, they are corporate lobbyists for Carlos Slim and for Hillary Clinton."

Slim, who Forbes magazine ranked as the world's second-richest man in 2015, owns a nearly 17 percent stake in the New York Times Co., making him its largest individual shareholder.

However, Slim owns Class A shares, whereas the Sulzberger family of New York controls the company and its flagship newspaper through its 90 percent ownership of Class B stock. A member of the family, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., is chairman of the Times company and the newspaper's publisher.



Newspaper

Flashback Former Trump VP gives her take on President-elect

barbara res
© Linda CataffoBarbara Res on a Trump construction site in 1980.
Donald Trump has been telling voters he is not a sexist, does not discriminate against women and will be "great for women" as President. As proof of this, he points to his hiring of a woman to oversee the construction of Trump Tower in 1980, when there were a very few women in construction.

I was that woman.

My view on his statement, and his candidacy more generally, in light of my experiences working directly for him and his then-wife Ivana: Even though he just went out of his way to repeat a pejorative reference to female anatomy to describe Ted Cruz, Trump is not as bad as he sounds. But he's a lot worse than he says.

I worked with and for Trump over a period of about 18 years, from 1978 to 1996. I started out as an employee of the company that built the Hyatt Hotel, then served as his vice president in charge of construction of Trump Tower, later as his executive vice president in charge of development and finally as a consultant.

Comment: Trump sounds like a flawed human being just like any other.