Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

McDonald's customers film 4 y.o. choking on a McNugget instead of helping her

Millie Wise
© SWNSMillie Wise lost consciousness while choking on a chicken McNugget
In the digital age, people are increasingly attached to technology and obsessively eager to capture memorable moments on their smartphones.

This new-age phenomenon repeatedly makes headlines, often when animals are mistreated or endangered. Last year, a horde of beachgoers morbidly snapped selfies with a dead whale that washed ashore in Orange County, California. In Argentina earlier this year, a crowd of people at the beach pulled a baby dolphin from the water, taking pictures with it until it died. At a beach in Lebanon, people dragged a sea turtle from the water to take selfies before beating and abusing him.

Animals often suffer the fate of serving as props in our image-obsessed world. But a recent incident at McDonald's shows just how far some people are willing to go to record exciting content.

Penis Pump

Indianapolis fertility doctor accused of using own sperm 35 years ago

Dr. Donald L. Cline
Prosecutors say he may have used his sperm to inseminate patients 50 times.

The woman knew her biological father had been a sperm donor, according to court documents. The doctor had told her mother that he would use an anonymous medical student to help her conceive.

For years that story stood. Then advances in genetics and an ever-expanding online universe toppled not only that story but also the reputation of the fertility doctor behind it.

When the woman went online to find genetic relatives, she discovered at least seven siblings, court documents say. The one thing they had in common? Dr. Donald L. Cline, the Indianapolis physician who helped their mothers conceive.

Heart - Black

Rape culture: Judge faces sacking after asking rape victim why she "couldn't keep her knees together"

Judge Robin Camp
© Andrew Balfour/Federal Court of CanadaThe full extent of Robin Camp's controversial comments have been revealed in court documents
A top judge asked an alleged victim why she "couldn't keep her knees together" and suggested young women want to have sex when they're drunk, shocking new court documents reveal.

Robin Camp, 64, now faces the sack for his controversial comments made during a trial, in which he said: "Why didn't you just sink your bottom down into the basin so he couldn't penetrate you?"


Comment: Just another authority figure who prefers to blame the victim of a rape instead of the rapist: Rape Culture in America - How the system protects the rapists and fails the victims


The remarks were made during a five-day trial in which Alexander Wagar stood accused of raping the 19-year-old woman over a bathroom sink during a house party.

Camp's comments have been made public by the Canadian Judicial Council as Camp faces a probe into his conduct. The council launched an investigation into the remarks and will decide next week if the judge should be struck off.

Court documents also reveal that the Canadian federal court judge said young women "want to have sex, particularly if they're drunk" during the 2014 trial.

Cross

Christian ex-mayor admits to raping Ohio 4-year-old - blames her as 'willing participant'

Richard Keenan
© WKNBRichard Kennan
A former Ohio mayor has admitted to repeatedly raping a child, prosecutors said — but the self-described Christian blames the girl for her own sexual abuse.

Richard Keenan, who served as mayor of Hubbard in 2010 and 2011, was indicted last month eight counts of rape and 12 counts of attempted rape and gross sexual imposition, reported the Youngstown Vindicator.

The 65-year-old Keenan pleaded not guilty last month during a court appearance, but prosecutors said he admitted to sexually assaulting the girl over a three-year period, beginning when she was 4 years old.

Prosecutors said Keenan confessed to the sex abuse to his wife, a pastor, a social worker and his brother- and sister-in-law.

According to court filings, the child told Keenan's wife about the abuse and she confronted him — and he then admitted "I did it." Keenan also admitted the abuse during group discussions at a nearby hospital, and he then voluntarily checked himself into a psychiatric facility because he was suicidal.

Comment: To learn more about sexual predators among us and how to protect yourself and your children, listen to or read our interview with Dr. Anna Salter, author of the best-selling book, "Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders, Who They Are, How They Operate, and How We Can Protect Ourselves and Our Children".


HAL9000

Simulated world? Bank of America researchers claim there's 50% chance we live in a Matrix-style virtual reality

matrix code
© GettySecretsRandom hexadecimal codes like matrix style
Top bank analysts claim there's a 50% chance our world is a computer simulation and we're all plugged into a Matrix-style virtual reality. And they also reckon if it's true - then there's no way we'll ever find out about it.

The Bank of America's Merrill Lynch made the astonishing claim in a research note citing comments by top scientists, astrophysicists and philosophers.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk is one of those who is almost certain our world is run by artificial intelligence developed by a future civilization.

His mind-bending theory is backed up by the bank's analysts who said in a report our world could actually be a simulation created by a future civilisation.

Biohazard

Doped up cop passes out while snorting Xanax in police cruiser and crashes into middle school

cop snorting xanax
A Raleigh County Sheriff's deputy was recently arrested after he was found unresponsive in his patrol car — after crashing it into the entrance of a middle school.

Sgt. Roger Dale Richmond Jr. of Shady Spring, 41, was taken into custody and charged with Driving Under the Influence of a Controlled Substance (DUI) and Unlawful Possession of a Controlled Substance, according to WVVA.

Police say Richmond, now a former sergeant, notified fellow officer, Lt. T.L. Miles, that he had been involved in a motor vehicle collision. Police say they were investigating skid marks at a nearby gas station when they followed fresh ruts in the embankment and dirt on the road. About a mile and a half down the road from the gas station, deputies found Richmond's marked patrol car smashed up at the entrance of Shady Spring Middle School. The front bumper had been torn off and the tire was entirely gone.

As police approached the vehicle, they saw an unconscious Richmond in the front seat. Upon further inspection, they noticed a short straw used for snorting crushed pills between his legs. Police also found that the front seat of the car was covered in a powdery blue substance.

2 + 2 = 4

The changing trends of homeschooling in America

homeschooling
© CC BY-SAHomeschooling is a growing trend in America. Children learning at Woodlands Nature Station in Kentucky. Land Between the Lakes KY/TN,
As children head back to school, an increasing number of their homeschooled peers will be starting their academic year as well. Homeschooling in the United States is growing at a strong pace.

Recent statistics indicate that 1.5 million children were homeschooled in the United States in 2007. This is up significantly from 1.1 million children in 2003 and 850,000 children in 1999.

The homeschooling movement first emerged in earnest during the 1980s. Back then it was largely led by evangelical Christians. But as the movement has grown, it has also changed. Today's homeschooling families may increasingly welcome cooperation with their local public school districts. In my own research, I have seen how diverse homeschoolers now are. This diversity challenges any simplistic understanding of what homeschooling is and what impact it will have on the public school system.

So how do we understand this evolution in American education?

Comment: Another reason the statistics may be going up for homeschooling is the growing concern among parents about the declining quality of American Education and the implementation of abysmal curriculums like Common Core.

Christopher Chase makes some important points about 'education systems' as a whole:

It's a Pink Floyd World - Welcome (back) to the machine - Kids
In most nations, educational systems are set up the same way animals are trained, where children who comply with adult demands are given a pat on the head and rewarded. Those who endure the training process increase their chances of getting into "good" colleges, and hopefully moving on to "good" jobs in the global economy.

Those who are bored, confused or disinterested may eventually find themselves with lower paying jobs and run the risk of being drawn toward "harmful" and "antisocial" activities such as gang membership, drugs, crime or alcoholism. Schools are society's indoctrination system, created to train and measure our children, using test scores to determine their future social status.

Pink Floyd's social criticism was pretty much on target. The system has been set up this way since the beginning of the last century, as a way of programming children, much as soldiers are trained, to serve as "tools" for those in positions of authority. It's a highly mechanistic and authoritarian system, not at all in tune with the creative and holistic ways young people naturally learn.

Time is cut up into disconnected periods, while children are forced to comply with the instructions of a single adult, rather than freely exploring what interests them. Subjects are taught in fragmented compartments, as if they had no connection to one another or the real world. We learned math and science for tests, not for building our own homes, managing bank accounts, understanding the global economy or experiencing how we are connected to the rest of the Universe.



Laptop

Facebook loses bid to block 14yo girl's lawsuit over nude image posted on 'shame page'

Facebook logo
© Dado Ruvic / Reuters
Facebook has lost a legal bid to prevent a 14-year-old girl from suing the social media giant over a naked photo that was posted on a "shame page." The social network insists it is protected under European law.

A high court judge in Belfast rejected an attempt by Facebook to have the girl's claim thrown out on Monday.

The teen, who cannot be named due to her age, is seeking damages for misuse of private information, negligence, and breach of the Data Protection Act, after a naked photo was posted on a "shame page" several times between November 2014 and January 2016.

The girl's lawyers allege the nude photo was obtained through blackmail and was published as a form of revenge.

Horse

45,000 Wild horses to be killed by Bureau of Land Management

Horses to be killed
© Paulo Whitaker / Reuters
Few animals in the US are as romanticized as horses. From gracing the covers of cheesy romance novels or spaghetti westerns, to being the stereotypical rich person's pet, horses occupy a unique cultural space. But the US government is about to kill 45,000 of them.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is under fire after deciding to euthanize 45,000 unadopted wild horses it has been keeping in holding facilities across the US. The wild horses were removed from their natural habitat by the BLM so that privately-owned cattle could graze on the land for profit.

The decision hasn't been particularly well received. The Humane Society referred to it as "a complete abdication of responsibility for their care," and panned the bureau for not using birth control to curtail the growth of the population.

Handcuffs

Research shows families and communities shoulder over half the $1.2 trillion that mass incarceration costs U.S. society

prison inmates
© Joshua Lott / Reuters
Imprisoning millions of Americans comes at a cost, and not just for local, state and federal government budgets. A new study finds society itself is missing out on more than $1 trillion, mostly impacting the family members and communities of the incarcerated.

"For every dollar in corrections spending, there's another 10 dollars of other types of costs to families, children and communities that nobody sees because it doesn't end up on a state budget," Michael McLaughlin, a doctoral student and certified public accountant, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

McLaughlin is the lead researcher for "The Economic Burden of Incarceration in the US," a study recently conducted by Washington University in St. Louis. Along with a team of researchers, he and Carrie Pettus-Davis, a co-director for the Smart Decarceration Initiative and director of the Concordance Institute for Advancing Social Justice, both Washington University-based, determined that the "annual economic burden" of US incarceration is an estimated $1.2 trillion, according to The Source, a Washington University publication.

The $1.2 trillion figure is nearly 6 percent of GDP and is 11 times the cost of what governments pay for corrections, the study reports, based on 22 costs from three categories: "costs of corrections," "costs borne by incarcerated persons," and "costs borne by families, children, and communities."

Comment: Prisons have openly given up the pretense of being 'correctional institutions'. They are for-profit enterprises housing a huge population of slave labor. Social costs don't enter into this psychopathic equation at all.