Society's ChildS


Cloud Lightning

GOP tool spreads false rumors and panic about Hurricane Sandy


Alternet
Tue, 30 Oct 2012 14:11 UTC
The definition of obnoxious: a right-wing Twitter troll making up lies about the impact of Hurricane Sandy.

As widespread worries over Hurricane Sandy spread among New York City residents, one obnoxious right-wing Twitter user took the opportunity to spread unsubstantiated rumours about the impact of the storm. Some of the Twitter messages went viral--and news organizations picked them up.

BuzzFeed Politics' Tumblr has collected many of the tweets from @ComfortablySmug, the Twitter account name that spread the rumours. @ComfortablySmug, according to his Twitter bio, is interested in "Finance, Gin, Politics, Books, Food, Fine Clothing, Meeting Strangers #Mitt2012." Some of the rumours he spread include: "confirmed flooding" of the New York Stock Exchange; Con Edison shutting down all the power in New York; and Governor Cuomo being trapped in Manhattan. None of the tweets were true. And one message--that subways would be shut for the remainder of the week--went viral. That message, also, wasn't true. Another message, that the New York Stock Exchange was flooded, was picked up by CNN.

But "two of his tweets garnered more than 500 retweets. One drew a rebuke from ConEd's official Twitter account," BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski writes.

While Kaczynski didn't identify the user, Wonkette claims to have found out who he is: " Shashank Tripathi , who naturally is some kind of low-level staffer or volunteer at a NYC Republican Victory Center , and was spotted holding a campaign sign in November 2010 ."
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Airplane

Flights canceled at Japanese airport after unexploded WWII shell discovered

Junko Ogura
CNN
Tue, 30 Oct 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© Agence France-Presse/Jiji PressA huge unexploded World War II bomb has been found buried near the runway of Sendai airport in Japan
Dozens of flights were canceled in and out of a northeastern Japanese city on Tuesday after construction workers came across an unexploded shell believed to be from World War II buried near a taxiway.

Airport authorities in Sendai said they had canceled all 92 flights, national and international, scheduled to use the airport Tuesday after the discovery of the shell late Monday under an unpaved area beside the taxiway.

Members of the Japanese Self Defense Force are working to remove the ordinance, which is thought to be a U.S.-made bomb dropped during World War II, the airport said, adding that officials hope flights will be able to resume Wednesday.
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Evil Rays

Baseball fans turn violent as they celebrate victory, burning a bus and smashing windows after San Francisco Giants win the World Series

Associated Press Reporter
The Daily Mail
Mon, 29 Oct 2012 16:56 UTC
Giants fan
© APUnruly: A San Francisco Giants fan jumps over a bonfire in San Francisco's Mission district
Baseball fans disgraced themselves on Sunday night, celebrating victory at the ballpark with violence and drunkenness.

Thousands to the streets of San Francisco to celebrate the Giants' World Series victory, with revelers gathering on corners, in parks and at watering holes - and some turning rowdy.

Fans across the city left their televisions and rushed outside, greeting diners, bar patrons and other merrymakers Sunday night after the Giants defeated the Detroit Tigers 4-3 to sweep the Series for their second title in three years.

Some violence and vandalism was reported, with revelers setting a public transit bus on fire, flipping over a vehicle and breaking the windows of several businesses and vehicles, KTVU-TV reported.

Comment: A sign of the underlying stress and tension that has built up in American Society. If this is the response to victory, just imagine the social fallout when things really start going south.

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Bomb

37 years on, landmines still killing and maiming Vietnamese civilians

Simon Speakman Cordall
The Guardian
Tue, 18 Sep 2012 07:30 UTC
unexploded bomb
© Simon CordallDuong Ba Tien with the unexploded bomb he found while tending his family's water buffalo in Quang Tri province, central Vietnam.
37 years on, unexploded bombs continue to ruin lives in the former wartime frontline regions of Vietnam

Somewhere in the centre of Vietnam, roughly halfway between Hanoi and Saigon, lies the small province of Quang Tri. Palm trees line its white-sand beaches, water buffaloes lounge in its many ponds and farmers bring harvests home in ox-drawn carts.

It was here, at around 10am on one sweltering hot morning in 1988, as Nguyen Dinh Thu was hoeing the small piece of land his parents had given him, that he struck the unexploded US military bomb that had lain undisturbed there for 15 years. Nguyen had no knowledge of this, or the 11 other bombs that were later dug up from the ground on which he'd been standing.
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Hearts

Best of the Web: Horrifying brain scans that show the real impact of love


Daily Mail
Mon, 29 Oct 2012 06:31 UTC
Image
  • According to neurologists the sizeable difference between these two brains has one primary cause - the way were treated by their mothers
  • These images are brain scans of a two three-year-old children
  • Brain on the left is considerably larger, has fewer spots and less dark areas, compared to the one on the right
    • You comfort them over a skinned knee in the playground, and coax them to sleep with a soothing lullaby.

    But being a nurturing mother is not just about emotional care - it pays dividends by determining the size of your child's brain, scientists say.

    Both of these images are brain scans of a two three-year-old children, but the brain on the left is considerably larger, has fewer spots and less dark areas, compared to the one on the right.

    According to neurologists this sizeable difference has one primary cause - the way each child was treated by their mothers.

    The child with the larger and more fully developed brain was looked after by its mother - she was constantly responsive to her baby, reported The Sunday Telegraph.

    Comment: And so we see a very direct result of the psychopathologisation of society. Through the spread of psychopathic ideology, people become "ponerized", i.e., they develop psychopathic traits without being clinical psychopaths themselves. This pathology is then spread to the next generation, and on it goes, unto the eventual collapse and destruction of human society.

    Stop supporting psychopaths in power and stop accepting and adopting psychopathic ideals.

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    Handcuffs

    UK police arrest Gary Glitter

    Sylvia Hui
    Yahoo! News
    Sun, 28 Oct 2012 00:00 UTC
    Gary Glitter
    © Associated Press/Alastair Grant In this Jan, 11, 2000 file photo, British performer Gary Glitter, during a press conference in London. Police investigating the sex abuse scandal surrounding late BBC children's television host Jimmy Savile have arrested pop star Gary Glitter in connection with the case, British media said Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012.
    London - Police investigating child sex abuse allegations against the late BBC television host Jimmy Savile arrested former glam rock star and convicted sex offender Gary Glitter on Sunday, British media reported, raising further questions about whether Savile was at the center of a broader pedophile ring.

    Police would not directly identify the suspect arrested Sunday, but media including the BBC and Press Association reported he was the 68-year-old Glitter.

    The musician, whose real name is Paul Gadd, made it big with the crowd-pleasing hit "Rock & Roll (Part 2)," a mostly instrumental anthem that has been a staple at American sporting events, thanks to its catchy "hey" chorus. But he fell into disgrace after being convicted on child abuse charges in Vietnam.

    Sunday's arrest was the first in a widening scandal over Savile's alleged sex crimes. Hundreds of potential victims have come forward since police began the investigation into sex abuse allegations against Savile, a much-loved children's TV presenter and disc jockey who died at the age of 84 last year.

    Most have alleged abuse by Savile, but some said they were abused by Savile and others. Most claimed they were assaulted in their early teens.

    The scandal has raised questions about whether the BBC, the publicly funded and trusted broadcaster, had ignored crimes it suspected over several decades. Its executives have apologized and vowed to uncover the true scale of the alleged abuse.
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    Eggs Fried

    "No Monti Day": Tens of thousands protest against austerity in Rome


    Reuters
    Sat, 27 Oct 2012 16:47 UTC

    Tens of thousands of people marched through Rome in a "No Monti Day" on Saturday, some throwing eggs and spraying graffiti to protest against austerity measures introduced by Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti's government.
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    Family

    Anti-austerity protesters urge Spain government to resign in Madrid rally


    Agence France-Presse
    Sat, 27 Oct 2012 16:19 UTC
    Spain protests
    "If you want to win... fight without rest."
    Thousands of anti-austerity demonstrators marched in the Spanish capital Saturday calling for the conservative government to resign because of its severe budget cuts.

    "They don't represent us", "More education fewer police", demonstrators shouted as dozens of police vehicles followed the march to near the parliament building which was cordoned off.

    A large banner read "No to the debt budget".

    Demonstrators held a minute's silence, sitting down and holding their arms up in the air before they shouted "resign" with their fists clenched.
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    Arrow Down

    Pageant parents exhibit signs of princess by proxy

    April Flowers
    RedOrbit
    Sun, 28 Oct 2012 15:10 UTC
    Beauty Pageants
    © Jaimie Duplass / Shutterstock
    Although Honey Boo Boo has captured the imagination of the American audience with her boisterous personality, she isn't the only little girl on the beauty pageant circuit. Thousands of children compete each year, and a new study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry takes a critical look at these pageants.

    Martina M. Cartwright, adjunct professor at the University of Arizona and a registered dietitian, suggests that these high-glitz child pageants are often more about the parents and their needs and have little to do with the children at all. The study also suggests that participating in these events can actually be harmful to children's health and self-esteem.

    These pageants have been popularized by The Learning Channel's reality show Toddlers and Tiaras and its spin-off, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. As part of her research, Cartwright attended two live tapings of Toddlers and Tiaras. Cartwright claims that some pageant parents exhibit "princess by proxy," a unique form of "achievement by proxy distortion." Adults with this condition are driven primarily by the social or financial gains earned by their child's accomplishments, regardless of risk involved for the child.

    The glitz pageant is a $5 billion dollar industry in America, which was first introduced to many through the death of 5-year-old beauty queen Jon-Benet Ramsey in 1995. Cartwright focused her research on these types of pageants, where contestants wear heavy makeup and ornate costumes, sometimes costing more than $1,500. Cartwright estimates that along with entry fees, photo and other expenses such as wigs, fake tans and artificial teeth known as flippers, the average cost of participating in a single contest runs between $3,000 and $5,000.

    Glitz pageants have prizes that include cash awards, crowns, trips, puppies and sometimes even "bit parts" in movies. These prizes and the potential for fame and fortune may contribute to "achievement by proxy distortion" in parents, according to Cartwright.
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    Heart - Black

    Best of the Web: Psychopathy's Double Edge

    Kevin Dutton
    Chronicle.com
    Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:04 UTC
    Image
    The traumatic and terrifying effects of psychopaths are visible on our streets and on the faces of people all around us, yet most of us are blithely unaware of their existence.
    Over a 28-year-old single-malt scotch at the Scientific Study of Psychopathy's biennial bash in Montreal in 2011, I asked Bob Hare, "When you look around you at modern-day society, do you think, in general, that we're becoming more psychopathic?"

    The eminent criminal psychologist and creator of the widely used Psychopathy Checklist paused before answering. "I think, in general, yes, society is becoming more psychopathic," he said. "I mean, there's stuff going on nowadays that we wouldn't have seen 20, even 10 years ago. Kids are becoming anesthetized to normal sexual behavior by early exposure to pornography on the Internet. Rent-a-friend sites are getting more popular on the Web, because folks are either too busy or too techy to make real ones. ... The recent hike in female criminality is particularly revealing. And don't even get me started on Wall Street."

    He's got a point.

    In Japan in 2011, a 17-year-old boy parted with one of his own kidneys so he could go out and buy an iPad. In China, following an incident in which a 2-year-old baby was left stranded in the middle of a marketplace and run over, not once but twice, as passersby went casually about their business, an appalled electorate has petitioned the government to pass a good-Samaritan law to prevent such a thing from happening again.

    And the new millennium has seemingly ushered in a wave of corporate criminality like no other. Investment scams, conflicts of interest, lapses of judgment, and those evergreen entrepreneurial party tricks of good old fraud and embezzlement are now utterly unprecedented in magnitude. Who's to blame? In an issue of the Journal of Business Ethics, Clive R. Boddy, a former professor at the Nottingham Business School, contends that it's psychopaths, pure and simple, who are at the root of all the trouble.

    Comment: While the above article is very interesting and informative and provides fascinating scientific proof of the fact that psychopaths are very much a different type of human than the vast majority of humans, the following paragraph is a rather uniformed and callous attempt to rationalise away the disastrous effects that psychopaths have had, and continue to have, on human society.
    "But if society really is becoming more psychopathic, it's not all doom and gloom. In the right context, certain psychopathic characteristics can actually be very constructive. A neurosurgeon I spoke with (who rated high on the psychopathic spectrum) described the mind-set he enters before taking on a difficult operation as "an intoxication that sharpens rather than dulls the senses." In fact, in any kind of crisis, the most effective individuals are often those who stay calm - who are able to respond to the exigencies of the moment while at the same time maintaining the requisite degree of detachment."
    Dr. Robert Hare has stated that psychopaths, who may constitute up to 6% of the population, may be responsible for 50% of crimes. This is hardly something positive. The author also misses the fact that when the ability to be "cool and calm" in a crisis is NOT a choice but rather a state of being, any possible positives far outweigh the negatives when you consider that the apathy of the 'calm and focused' neurosurgeon above would just as likely result in serious malpractice. In short, psychopathy has not "double edge", psychopathic traits are in no way positive to human society. The current dire state of our global society is a testament to that fact.

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