Society's ChildS


Briefcase

Nearly $80 million judgment awarded in New Mexico woman's sand suffocation death


Fox News
Wed, 11 Dec 2013 14:34 UTC
Laura Miera
© Associated Press/Courtesy Vigil Law FirmLaura Miera is seen with her daughter Cassandra. In 2002, a tractor-trailer overturned, burying Laura Miera's car in sand and suffocating her inside, in Albuquerque, N.M.
A judge has awarded nearly $80 million to the family of a woman who died in 2002 when a tractor-trailer struck her car and buried it in sand, suffocating the woman as teachers and students at a nearby school frantically tried to dig her out.

Laura Miera had just dropped off her 14-year-old daughter at Jimmy Carter Middle School and was waiting at a traffic light when the semi exited a freeway and came barreling toward her.
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Book 2

Child 'training' book causes deaths of children - triggers backlash

Aidan Lewis
BBC News
Wed, 11 Dec 2013 14:01 UTC
to train up a child
A child-raising book that advocates whipping with branches and belts has sold hundreds of thousands of copies to evangelical Christians. But the deaths of three children whose parents appear to have been influenced by the authors' teachings have provoked a growing backlash.

The implements can vary. For a child under one year old, a willowy branch or a 1ft (30cm) ruler is recommended. For older children, a larger branch or a belt.

But the objective of the "spanking" described in Michael and Debi Pearl's To Train Up a Child is the same - making children surrender completely to their parents' will.

Comment: For those looking for a humane approach to raising children see the following books:

Nelson Jane, Positive Discipline
Sears Robert, M.D., The Baby Book
Solter Aletha J., The Aware Baby
Thomas Lewis, M.D, Fari Amini, M.D. and Richard Lannon, M.D., A General Theory of Love

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Arrow Down

Georgia police brutally slam 72-yr-old woman to ground, intimidate witness filming

Chris
InformationLiberation
Thu, 12 Dec 2013 12:29 UTC

In this outrageous video out of Georgia a police officer is seen slamming a 72-year-old woman to the ground in an entirely unnecessary act of raw violence, then his fellow officer intimidates the man who filmed the incident.

From Nick James on YouTube:
A DUI arrest on a 72 year old women turns bad when Kevin Jones (badge #149) of the Glynn County police is trying to cuff the woman. She was taken down, and did not have her arms to break the force that Jones decided to use on her. The sound is the worst part. Both sides will need this footage, and it deserves to be put online for people to make their own judgement. Glynn County Police,157 Public Safety Blvd. Brunswick, GA

This event happened on 12/5/2013
The video is going viral on YouTube but it appears no articles have yet been written about it.
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Light Saber

Will Uruguay trigger a global marijuana revolution?

Ted Hesson
Fusion.net
Mon, 09 Dec 2013 10:08 UTC
legalizar uruguay
© Pablo Bielli/AFP/Getty Images
Uruguay is poised to legalize recreational marijuana on Tuesday, an experiment that will force the United States to reevaluate its own international drug policies.

The Uruguayan government will oversee the cultivation and distribution of pot, and residents will be able to purchase up to 1.4 ounces of marijuana each month.

Along with Uruguay, other nations are considering marijuana law reforms.
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Question

Suit: Marine's body sent home to Pennsylvania without heart

Maryclaire Dale
myway.com
Tue, 10 Dec 2013 10:10 UTC
LaLoup
Marine Sgt Brian LaLoup is believed to have killed himself at the American embassy in Athens
The parents of a Marine sergeant who died while stationed in Greece say that they discovered weeks after his funeral that his body had been sent home without a heart - and that the Department of Defense later gave them somebody else's heart in its place.

Craig and Beverly LaLoup, who are suing the department, said Tuesday that authorities told them 21-year-old Brian LaLoup had shot himself in the head during a party at the U.S. Embassy compound in Athens, where he worked a security detail.

The Marine was taken to an Athens hospital and died a few hours later. Six days after that, on Aug. 18, 2012, the state-run hospital performed an unauthorized autopsy, according to the family's lawsuit, filed Friday in Pennsylvania.
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Coffee

Heartless: Nescafé #AlexaStorm tweet leaves a bad taste

Alec Swintun
Sott.net
Thu, 12 Dec 2013 08:26 UTC
nescafe alexastorm
© twitter
We were sickened to see this #AlexaStorm Tweet from Nescafé today. While thousands suffer the effects of winter storm Alexa right across the middle east, and as over 1 million refugees from Syria endure the snow and sub-zero temperatures in Lebanon - many of them living in makeshift tents - they are informed that a blanket and a warm cup of Nescafé is all they need.

It will take a lot more than coffee and blankets for those families to weather the storm. Still never mind that when there's potential profit to be made from the suffering of others.
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Che Guevara

Flashback Mandela to Arafat: If peace with Israel is impossible, then the only alternative is violence

Niall Bradley
Sott.net
Thu, 12 Dec 2013 04:17 UTC
Image
© James Zogby
As the mainstream media publishes countless sanitised obituaries in honour of one of the world's last true peace-makers, it's important to remember that Mandela wasn't preaching 'peace at any price'. He made this quite clear on numerous occasions. While on a visit to Ireland in the mid-1990s he told reporters that the IRA should not have surrendered it weapons until the British military had withdrawn from the north of the country. In the above snippet of a speech he gave in Palestine around the same time, we hear him intimate that violence towards oppressors isn't just right, it's necessary.

Israel shares a large portion of blame for institutionalising Apartheid in South Africa, without whose financial contributions and military support the South African enclave of white supremacists would never have been able to establish and sustain the bantustan model that has since been applied to the West Bank and Gaza. Arafat, who we see seated left of Mandela, and who really tried to believe the Israelis actually wanted peace, was later discretely assassinated by Israel.

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Family

Nevada dad's survival skills kept girlfriend, 4 kids safe for 2 days lost in snow


Business Insider
Tue, 10 Dec 2013 22:00 UTC

A couple and four young children missing in frigid weather since they went on an outing to play in the snow on Sunday were found alive in a remote mountain range in Nevada on Tuesday huddled in their overturned vehicle, a sheriff's dispatch supervisor said.

The couple had taken their two children and the woman's niece and nephew, who range in age from 3 to 10, to an abandoned mining camp in the Seven Troughs range of northwestern Nevada, Pershing County dispatch supervisor Sheila Reitz said.

The six were found in good condition and were treated for exposure and dehydration at the Pershing General Hospital in Lovelock, Nevada, said Patty Bianchi, chief executive officer of the facility. They did not have frostbite, she said.

A doctor at the hospital told reporters the six family members were doing "remarkably well" considering their ordeal.

"They did a lot of things right by staying with the vehicle, and they did have food and water available with them, and as soon as the vehicle suffered this slow rollover accident, the father jumped into action," Dr. Douglas Vacek added.

He "knew that they had to stay warm, and the first thing he did was build a fire and he was able to keep that fire going the entire time while they were out."
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Heart - Black

NYPD beat family and killed pet parakeet in own home, lawsuit says

Nicholas Rizzi
DNAinfo New York
Tue, 10 Dec 2013 22:12 UTC
Image
The suit says family friend Luis Ortega (pictured) and Lugo's son George were repeatedly struck in the head with a baton and suffered severe facial injuries.
A Staten Island woman has sued the city claiming police entered her St. George home without a warrant, beat her family and killed her beloved pet parakeet, according to court documents.

Last year, Evelyn Lugo's bird, Tito, was thrown from his cage after it was knocked off a dresser as cops came into her Corson Avenue home, the Daily News first reported.

The officers then stepped on the bird intentionally, killing it, court documents say.

Officers also beat two of Lugo's sons, her daughter and a family friend, the lawsuit claims.

According to court documents, police entered Lugo's home on Sept. 2, 2012, as her family was celebrating Labor Day.

Police stopped and questioned her son Edwin Avellanet as he was outside throwing out garbage and asked for identification, the lawsuit says. When he refused to show any, officers allegedly grabbed his right arm and Avellanet broke free and ran into the building.
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Ambulance

D.C. officer charged with child porn confirmed dead after Potomac plunge

Cynthia McCabe
D.C. Crime Stories
Tue, 10 Dec 2013 21:59 UTC
Image
Marc Washington
The D.C. police officer who was charged with taking nude photos of a runaway teen girl was pulled from the chilly waters off Hains Point and has died, the department confirmed early Wednesday.

U.S. Park Police received a 911 call at about 8:15 p.m. from a male caller that a man was in the water at Hains Point, between the East Potomac River and the Washington Channel.

Police found some clothing and a parked car that was connected to Marc Washington, the patrol officer who had been released from jail charges of child pornography Monday.

Dozens of police officers, a helicopter and several high-ranking officials rushed to the scene. Metropolitan Police Department rescue boat crews rescued from the roughly 48-degree waters an adult male who was taken to a hospital for treatment.

During a press conference late Tuesday, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier would not confirm that the body was that of Washington and said investigators she did not yet know the origin of the 911 call.

"There's a lot of speculation," Lanier said. "Whether this was a call from someone associated with the Metropolitan Police Department, we don't know."
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