Society's ChildS


Attention

Earthquakes rock Oklahoma in record seismic activity - Fracking strikes again

Carey Gillam
Yahoo! News
Sat, 05 Apr 2014 14:01 UTC
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© Joeofamerica.com
Earthquakes rattled residents in Oklahoma on Saturday, the latest in a series that have put the state on track for record quake activity this year, which some seismologists say may be tied to oil and gas exploration.

One earthquake recorded at 3.8 magnitude by the U.S. Geological Survey rocked houses in several communities around central Oklahoma at 7:42 a.m. local time. Another about two hours earlier in the same part of the state, north of Oklahoma City, was recorded at 2.9 magnitude, USGS said.

Those two were preceded by two more, at 2.6 magnitude, and 2.5 magnitude, that also rolled the landscape in central Oklahoma early Saturday morning. A 3.0 magnitude tremor struck late Friday night in that area as well, following a 3.4 magnitude hit Friday afternoon.

Austin Holland, a seismologist with the Oklahoma Geological Survey who tracks earthquake activity for the USGS, said the earthquake activity in the state is soaring.
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Heart - Black

Heartless principal: Cops caught on video arresting a kid for telling his principal that he is disappointed in him


The Free Thought Project
Fri, 04 Apr 2014 18:11 UTC
Lake Central High School students in Indiana were upset that their school refused to allow them to grieve for a fellow student who had committed suicide over the weekend. So they staged a sit in to request one. Of course there were police involved.

The students gathered and sat on the floor of the Wedge and Main Street. After principals and other administrators got to the two scenes, multiple St. John police officers arrived to help supervise.

According to Lake Central News, The administration encouraged students to return to class, or go to the LGI. Around 1:30 p.m. students gathered into what became an open forum for their grief, the school's reaction and what can be done from here.
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Attention

Spring break party turns into a 15,000 person melee


The Australian
Mon, 07 Apr 2014 07:03 UTC
crowd
© APA crowd confronts police during the weekend college party in southern California that devolved into a street brawl
Californian police have arrested 100 people after a college street party attracting about 15,000 students got out of control.

At least 44 people were taken to the hospital after violence broke out in the densely populated beachside community of Isla Vista around 9.30pm on Saturday during the annual spring break party known as Deltopia, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office said.

Sheriff's spokeswoman Kelly Hoover said things escalated after a University of California, Santa Barbara police officer was hit in the face with a backpack filled with large bottles of alcohol.

Authorities said some members of the crowd of 15,000 then began throwing rocks, bricks and bottles at officers, lighting fires and damaging law enforcement vehicles.
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Books

10 ways the standard core curriculum in schools is wrong

Marion Brady
Washington Post
Wed, 02 Apr 2014 05:00 UTC
chalkboard
© freepik.com
The debate over the Common Core State Standards overlooks the broad problems inherent in the core curriculum that has been taught in schools for decades. Below Marion Brady explains. Brady has worked as a teacher, administrator, college professor, contributor to academic journals, textbook and professional book author, consultant to publishers and foundations, newspaper columnist.

Mainstream media, cued by corporate press releases, routinely claim that America's schools are markedly inferior to schools in other developed nations. The claim is part of an organized, long-running, generously funded campaign to undermine confidence in public schools to "prove" the need to privatize them.

Syndicated columnists, education reporters, editorial boards, and other opinion leaders interested in thoroughly understanding the campaign to privatize public schools should do two things. First, they should stop dismissing all the critics of the Common Core State Standards as Tea Party types opposed to change. As my books, articles, newspaper columns and blogs make clear, I argue that change is not only essential but decades overdue. What I oppose is superficial, dishonest change - change sold by misrepresenting the quality of what preceded the Common Core Standards, half-truths about the process that created the Standards, and hype that's radically over-selling their value.
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Smoking

Inside New York City's cigarette smuggling industry

Christopher Mathias
Huffington Post
Thu, 03 Apr 2014 08:09 UTC
cigarettes
More than 900 cartons of contraband cigarettes were seized at a warehouse in the Bronx. Photo: New York Department of Taxation and Finance
Ask for cigarettes at one bodega in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and the owner will open a small drawer behind the counter and pull out your pack of Marlboros, Parliaments or American Spirits.

Why not keep the cigarettes on display? Because the bodega owner -- who asked not to be identified -- didn't buy these cigarettes for the legal price in New York, where high taxes on tobacco have fueled a multimillion-dollar tobacco smuggling industry.

"Every store in Brooklyn," the bodega owner said, buys cigarettes from someone who travels down South to states with lower cigarette taxes. In places like Virginia, North Carolina and Delaware, they'll buy cartons containing 10 packs of cigarettes for around $48 a pop, then come back to New York, where local stores will buy them around $55.

"My guy has 100 different businesses he sells to," the bodega owner said, gesturing across the street at a Chinese restaurant, a laundromat and a barbershop. "All three of those stores buy and sell smuggled cigarettes too," he said.
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Alarm Clock

Bullied schoolboy writes: 'I can't cope any more' - kills self

Martin Robinson
Daily Mail
Fri, 04 Apr 2014 09:28 UTC
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Heartbroken: Simon's mother Julie has paid tribute to her son and says he was mercilessly bullied at school
  • Simon Brooks, 15, collapsed after suspected overdose and died in hospital
  • His mother Julie said her beloved son's life was made a misery at school
  • 'It was the worst 4 days of my life watching my darling child suffer and die'
  • Police are investigating the family's claims that Simon was picked on
A bullied schoolboy left a heartbreaking goodbye letter to his mother telling her: 'I can't cope any more' just before he died of a suspected overdose.

Simon Brooks, 15, died in hospital four days after writing the note, which also blamed bullies for making his life a misery. His bereft mother Julie Brooks, 48, today said Simon had been picked on for 18 months and dreaded going to school in Pontyclun, South Wales.

She said: 'He wrote a goodbye letter in the notes of his mobile phone and it said: "I can't cope any more".

'He was being pushed about, having his bag grabbed and subjected to verbal abuse. 'He loved the lessons and had a lovely group of friends, but he wasn't being left alone at break times and lunchtimes.'
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Question

Justina Pelletier: Mitochondrial disease or medical child abuse?

Brian Palmer
Slate
Tue, 01 Apr 2014 09:07 UTC
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© A Miracle for Justina/FacebookIt's difficult to know what's really going on with Justina Pelletier.
Justina Pelletier's case is a study in diagnostic challenges.

Linda and Lou Pelletier brought their daughter to Boston Children's Hospital last year. They were looking for a gastroenterologist to help with 14-year-old Justina's mitochondrial disease, a rare disorder that causes widespread and nonspecific symptoms. Justina Pelletier never saw a GI specialist, though. Instead, she officially became a ward of the state last week.

The physicians at Boston Children's concluded that Justina did not have mitochondrial disease. They believed that her symptoms were the result of psychological stress, caused in part by her parents. They accused the Pelletiers of subjecting Justina to dangerous and unnecessary medical treatments. When the hospital petitioned the state to take custody, the Boston Globe picked up the story and painted an unflattering picture of both the state government and the doctors at Boston Children's Hospital.

It's easy to get angry about this scenario - and there are some troubling things about the way the conflict has been managed - but the doctors at Boston Children's deserve a defense. First, we're essentially hearing only one side of the Justina Pelletier story. Neil Swidey and Patricia Wen, the reporters covering the story for the Boston Globe, have done an admirable reporting job, but hospitals can't say much about their patients. Linda and Lou Pelletier appear to have provided much of Wen and Swidey's information. Second, the science is complicated. Mitochondrial disease (Justina Pelletier's original diagnosis) and medical child abuse (the Boston Children's diagnosis) can look extremely similar. Both can be deadly if not treated properly.

Comment: For more information, see SOTT's previous articles on this troubling case:
Hospital holds girl for 9 months after parents argue diagnosis
Parents lose custody of teen after seeking 2nd medical opinion; girl indefinitely detained in psych ward
Massachusetts father charged for speaking about his daughter's kidnapping
Boston Psychiatric Unit's imprisonment of teenager Justina Pelletier needs State investigation into reckless endangerment of psychiatric diagnosing

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Dollars

North Carolina wants to tax 5 cents a mile for driving


WTVD
Thu, 03 Apr 2014 08:57 UTC
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Big changes could be just down the road for North Carolina drivers. A proposal is in the works that would change the state tax system to charge drivers by the mile, and at the gas pump.

The proposal would be to charge a half cent per mile for cars, which would generate almost $500 million in annual state revenue. A driver who travelled 15,000 miles in a year would pay about $75.

"Basically you pay per the mile. It's treating transportation as a utility, much like your water and sewer," said Larry Goode, with the Institute of Transportation Research and Education.

North Carolina currently tacks on an additional 37.6 cents gas tax at the pump. The vehicle mileage tax, or VMT, would not replace the gasoline tax. It would be an additional fee.

Lawmakers are looking at making changes because of falling state gas tax revenues - in part because of more fuel-efficient cars requiring less gas. North Carolina drivers currently pay one of the highest gas taxes in the nation.
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Pistol

11-year-old Georgia children proned out at gunpoint for building a tree fort


Police State USA
Sat, 05 Apr 2014 21:04 UTC
Omari Grant
© WSB-TV11-year-old Omari Grant had a gun in his face while playing with his friends.
Henry County - A group of children building a tree fort in a wooded area near their home were accosted by foul-mouthed, gun-wielding police officers who treated them "as if they were robbing a store."

Omari Grant, 11, and several of his friends were off playing together in a wooded area near their subdivision. On that day earlier this March, the boys decided to build a tree fort in the woods out of some branches and sticks.

A busybody neighbor witnessed the boys removing tree limbs and promptly called 9-1-1 for a police response.

Several officers from the Henry County Police Department arrived, and one came running with his gun already drawn, the children said according to WSB-TV.

The boys were allegedly proned out on the ground and cussed at by armed agents of the government.

"He was crying," said his mother, Janice Baptiste, to WSB-TV. "All he could get out at the time was, 'Mom, he had a gun in my face.'"

She continued: "I got him to calm down. Then he told me how they had them down on the ground, and they had to spread their legs, as if they were robbing a store."
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Syringe

Doctors say lethal injection is often botched and horrific

Matt McCarthy
Slate
Thu, 27 Mar 2014 16:26 UTC
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© National Archives and Records Administration/Colourized by Mads MadsenGerman Gen. Anton Dostler is tied to a stake before his execution by a firing squad in Italy in December 1945.
Dennis McGuire clearly knew something was wrong. At 10:34 a.m. on Jan. 16, as a crowd at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility looked on, the convicted murderer began gasping for air. Then McGuire began to make snorting and choking sounds. For the next 10 minutes, as a combination of midazolam (a relaxant similar to Valium) and hydromorphone (an analgesic related to morphine) coursed through his veins, McGuire's chest and stomach heaved as the oxygen in his blood dwindled. Death was approaching, but slowly.

Watching a man gradually suffocate may have come as a surprise to some people in the gallery, but it didn't surprise David Waisel, an associate professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, who had predicted this would happen. Ten days earlier Waisel had presented U.S. district court judge Gregory Frost with a nine-page declaration explaining that the state of Ohio planned to use an improper dose of midazolam - a short-acting benzodiazepine that's often used to induce sedation and amnesia before a medical procedure - to kill McGuire. "In light of the insufficient dose of midazolam," Waisel wrote, "it is substantially likely that McGuire will be aware of this agony and horror." Based on his expertise, he felt there was a "substantial, palpable, objectively intolerable risk of experiencing the agony and horrifying sensation of unrelenting air hunger" during the execution, suggesting that "McGuire will remain awake and actively conscious for up to five minutes, during which he will increasingly experience air hunger as the drugs suppress his ability to breathe." It turns out Waisel may have undershot things; Dennis McGuire took nearly 30 minutes to die.
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