Society's ChildS


Bulb

Give parents power to oust teachers?

Patrick Wintour
The Guardian
Sun, 09 Feb 2014 20:20 UTC
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© Thomas Trutschel/Getty ImagesEd Miliband wants to create a schools improvement team that will work separately from Ofsted.
Proposed public service overhaul includes education hit squads to boost performance of failing schools or teachers

Parents are to be given a new power to call in a specialist team to boost the performance of failing schools or teachers, under a set of wide-ranging public service reform plans to be laid out on Monday by the Labour leader, Ed Miliband.

The improvement team, working separately from Ofsted, will have powers to set out school improvement plans, order greater collaboration between schools or even remove failing headteachers. The body would have powers to intervene with academies, free schools and community schools.

Miliband has been relatively quiet on reform of schools, hospitals and local government, but will say on Monday he wants to usher in "a new culture of people-powered public services".

Writing in the Guardian, before delivering the annual Hugo Young lecture on Monday night, Miliband concedes: "I meet as many people coming to me frustrated by the unresponsive state as the untamed market. And the causes of the frustrations are often the same in the private and public sector: unaccountable power with the individual left powerless to act."

He will claim he is just as determined to tackle unaccountable power in the public sector as he has already shown himself to be in relation to the private sector.
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Heart - Black

Barbarians! Shameful! Marius the giraffe killed and dissected at Copenhagen zoo despite worldwide protests

Lars Eriksen and Maev Kennedy
The Guardian
Sun, 09 Feb 2014 19:51 UTC
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Young giraffe unsuitable for breeding was shot, dissected in public and then fed to lions despite offers of a new home

In the chilly dawn of Sunday morning a healthy young giraffe in a Danish zoo was given its favourite meal of rye bread by a keeper - and then shot in the head by a vet.

The death of Marius, an 18-month-old giraffe considered useless for breeding because his genes were too common, was followed by his dissection in front of a large crowd, including fascinated-looking children, prompting outrage and protests around the world.

Copenhagen zoo carried out the killing despite a small group of protesters at the gates and an international petition which garnered more than 27,000 signatures, as well as offers from several zoos to rehouse the creature. Yorkshire Wildlife Park, near Doncaster, which offered to take Marius, said it was saddened to learn of his fate.

The zoo's decision to conduct the public dissection, and the disclosure that the animal was shot rather than being killed by lethal injection so that it could be fed to the carnivores, fanned the protests and provoked some calls for the zoo to be boycotted or closed. The controversy was fed further by startling images and video of the process, including a picture of a large chunk of meat with an unmistakably spotty hide being fed to the lions.

Bengt Holst, the zoo's scientific director, said he had never considered cancelling the killing, despite the protests. "We have been very steadfast because we know we've made this decision on a factual and proper basis. We can't all of a sudden change to something we know is worse because of some emotional events happening around us.
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Display

TV propaganda and the mind control culture

James Hall
Batr Org
Mon, 10 Feb 2014 19:37 UTC
"Almost all people are hypnotics. The proper authority saw to it that the proper belief should be induced, and the people believed properly." ― Charles Fort
Televison
© Batr Org
Few subjects present an undisputable window into modern society than the electronic version of reality that is dispensed through television broadcasts. This technology does not require interactive skills or critical thinking acumen. Just watch and fall into a daydream trance. TV is the stealth killer that penetrates 114.7 million American households. According to Nielsen, the 2012 Universe Estimate (UE), reflects a reduction in the estimated percent of U.S. homes with a television set (TV penetration), which declined to 96.7 percent from 98.9 percent. Should this turn down suggest promise or is it merely a result of internet substitution?

With the proliferation of cable channels and 24 hour programming, the landscape of TV addiction vastly impacts perception and dramatically excludes normal interpersonal relations. Melissa Melton cites the following in her article, TV: Your Mind. Controlled.
"According to last year's Nielsen report, the average American over the age of two years old watches more than 34 hours of television per week, plus at least three more hours of taped programming. The report also noted that the amount of time we spend watching television increases as we get older."
This overwhelming intrusion into and over personal time and space are often called entertainment. Broadcasts that bill themselves as news or business shows claim to provide useful information. Sport coverage makes no pretense of presenting socially significant content. Yet, vast segments of the public are wrapped up in the childish exercise of false hero adoration.
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V

One killed as South Africa's miners go on strike again

Ed Cropley
Reuters
Sat, 08 Feb 2014 19:23 UTC
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A union steward was killed in a clash with police at an Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) mine in South Africa, where workers were holding a strike to press for higher wages, the company said on Saturday.

The world's biggest platinum producer said the worker, a member of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), was killed in a "violent outbreak" when police tried to clear a barricaded road leading to the company's Union mine in the northern Limpopo province.

It did not provide further details and Limpopo police could not be reached for comment.
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Syringe

New York Palisades Mall warning: Shoppers exposed to measles

Brynn Gingras
NBC4 New York
Mon, 10 Feb 2014 12:46 UTC
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© NBCShoppers who were at the AT&T store or the Best Buy at the Palisades Center Mall on Sunday may have been exposed. Brynn Gingras reports.
Shoppers at a New York mall, particularly those at an AT&T store and a Best Buy, were possibly exposed to measles, a county health department warned Friday.

A case of measles has been identified in Rockland County, and anyone at the Palisades Center Mall on Sunday between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. could have been exposed, the county Department of Health said.

The health department said people who shopped on the first floor of the mall and at those two electronics stores are at the greatest risk of exposure.

It's a painful, contagious disease that many people mistake for the common cold.

Despite news of the measles case, the parking lot at Palisades Mall was packed Friday night. One shopper who contracted it 25 years ago called it "scary."

"No one should have to go through it," said Leanne O'Brien of Newburgh.

Bruce Pratt of Munsie also had the measles decades ago and still remembers the pain it caused.

"I had a cold, rash on my stomach and little spots, and you cough a lot," he said.
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Health

Somerset UK: Floodwater contains 60 times the amount of safe bacteria - epidemics may follow weather woes


Express, UK
Sat, 01 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
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© PATests found samples contained 60,000 to 70,000 bacteria per 100 millilitres.
Health fears are growing after floodwater in Somerset has been found to contain 60 times the amount of safe bacteria for agricultural water.

Tests found samples contained 60,000 to 70,000 bacteria per 100 millilitres.

The World Health Organisation says agricultural water should have no more than 1,000 bacteria per 100 millilitres.

The safe level for bath water is capped at just 500 bacteria per 100 millilitres.

The research was commissioned by Sky News and carried out on Thursday by Microbiologist Nathaniel Storey from the University of Reading.

There is so sign of the weather letting up, as Flood-hit communities have been warned to be on their guard as high tides and gale-force winds could send water levels rising even further.

The Environment Agency has especially warned those living in parts of south-west England and the Midlands to take care as it issued nine severe flood warnings - meaning there is a danger to life - for the Cornwall and North Devon coasts and the River Severn, south of Gloucester.
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Health

2 jump into Arkansas river to avoid wreck; 1 missing

Kelly P. Kissell
Associated Press
Mon, 10 Feb 2014 19:02 UTC
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People watch from the river bank as Hempstead County Sheriff deputies and Arkansas wildlife officers search the Red river. A man was rescued and woman is missing after they jumped off an icy highway bridge in Arkansas into frigid water on Saturday to avoid being struck by a jackknifed truck.
A search was called off because of darkness early Saturday night for one of two people who jumped from an interstate bridge in southwestern Arkansas into an icy river to avoid a jackknifed 18-wheeler that was skidding toward them.

The search for the missing person along the Little Red River was to resume Sunday morning, according to Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, which was leading the search.

"The water is 25 feet or less, so it's pretty shallow," Stephens said. "But the current is pretty high from the snow and ice from the storms."

The missing person's name was not released.

Three people were outside their vehicles after an earlier accident on the icy Interstate 30 bridge near Fulton, Ark., when a commercial truck jackknifed and slid toward them. Two people leapt over the guardrail and into the water during 29-degree weather.

One person was recovered almost immediately, according to Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler.

Game and Fish Commission employees and water rescue units from Hempstead and Miller counties were called to the scene.
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Better Earth

Why herds of grazing cattle may be the answer to all our problems

Allan Savory
TED
Mon, 04 Mar 2013 00:00 UTC
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© GlobalprepDesertification in China
"Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert," begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And it's happening to about two-thirds of the world's grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it. He now believes -- and his work so far shows -- that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert.

Comment: Lierre Keith on 'The Vegetarian Myth - Food, Justice and Sustainability'

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Red Flag

4th Financial Services Executive found dead; "From self-inflicted nail-gun wounds"

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Fri, 07 Feb 2014 18:18 UTC
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The ugly rash of financial services executive suicides appears to have spread once again. Following the jumping deaths of 2 London bankers and a former-Fed economist in the US, The Denver Post reports Richard Talley, founder and CEO of American Title, was found dead in his home from self-inflicted wounds - from a nail-gun. Talley's company was under investigation from insurance regulators.

Via The Denver Post,
Richard Talley, 57, and the company he founded in 2001 were under investigation by state insurance regulators at the time of his death late Tuesday, an agency spokesman confirmed Thursday.

It was unclear how long the investigation had been ongoing or its primary focus.

A coroner's spokeswoman Thursday said Talley was found in his garage by a family member who called authorities. They said Talley died from seven or eight self-inflicted wounds from a nail gun fired into his torso and head.

Also unclear is whether Talley's suicide was related to the investigation by the Colorado Division of Insurance, which regulates title companies.
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Info

Undeniable facts about the Woody Allen sexual-abuse allegation

Maureen Orth
Vanity Fair
Fri, 07 Feb 2014 18:07 UTC
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© ABY BAKER/GETTY IMAGES
This week, a number of commentators have published articles containing incorrect and irresponsible claims regarding the allegation of Woody Allen's having sexually abused his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow. As the author of two lengthy, heavily researched and thoroughly fact-checked articles that deal with that allegation - the first published in 1992, when Dylan was seven, and the second last fall, when she was 28 - I feel obliged to set the record straight. As such, I have compiled the following list of undeniable facts:

1. Mia never went to the police about the allegation of sexual abuse. Her lawyer told her on August 5, 1992, to take the seven-year-old Dylan to a pediatrician, who was bound by law to report Dylan's story of sexual violation to law enforcement and did so on August 6.

2. Allen had been in therapy for alleged inappropriate behavior toward Dylan with a child psychologist before the abuse allegation was presented to the authorities or made public. Mia Farrow had instructed her babysitters that Allen was never to be left alone with Dylan.

3. Allen refused to take a polygraph administered by the Connecticut state police.Instead, he took one from someone hired by his legal team. The Connecticut state police refused to accept the test as evidence. The state attorney, Frank Maco, says that Mia was never asked to take a lie-detector test during the investigation.
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