Society's ChildS


2 + 2 = 4

Oh, the irony: School named for Barack Obama 'fails to meet expectations', according to report card

barak obama school
© SolteszObama Elementary
It is a sad twist of political irony with serious consequences for students. The only school in Wisconsin currently named for President Barack Obama rates quite dismally on a state report card designed to measure school success.

President Obama himself, according to the latest statewide survey by the Marquette University Law School, has an approval rating of only 41.4% in the state.

The Barack Obama School of Career and Technical Education is part of Milwaukee Public Schools. It is located on North Sherman Boulevard in Milwaukee and during the 2012 presidential election the school served as a polling location.

According to data from the state Department of Public Instruction, for the 2013-2014 academic year the school, listed as Obama Elementary, scored 39.4 out of 100.

On a grading scale, that means Obama Elementary is well below failing. Only 14 schools fared worse on the state report card.

Comment: According to the website the curriculum is based on Common Core.
"The curriculum at Barack Obama School of Career & Technical Education K-12 School is based on the Common Core State Standards. The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)."
It's said the universe speaks in symbols. This one seems pretty clear.


Yoda

Putin, now tougher than Chuck Norris, receives 9th-degree black belt

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© AP/Everett CollectionRussian leader Vladimir Putin has received a ninth-degree black belt in Taekwondo — ranking him higher than Chuck Norris
He's already been deemed more powerful than President Obama - and now, he's even tougher than Chuck Norris.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin, on a visit to South Korea, was honored with a ninth-degree black belt from the president of the World Taekwondo Federation - ranking him a notch higher than Norris.

Putin, a martial-arts enthusiast, was humbled by the honor.

"I'm not sure if I deserve this," said Putin, a former KGB agent, after receiving the honor. "Let's call it our campaign to popularize this wonderful martial art. Russia will do its best to contribute to its popularity at home."

Putin, 61, was judo champion of his home town of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, in his youth, and starred in the instructional video "Let's Learn Judo With Vladimir Putin" in 2008.


Ambulance

Philadelphia man stabs McDonald's employee after argument over closing time

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© Philadelphia Police Dept.
Philadelphia Police are searching for a man who stabbed a McDonald's employee after an argument over the store's closing time.

The entire altercation was caught on the store's surveillance cameras. The suspect and a companion were eating inside the restaurant when they were told the dining area was closing and they were asked to leave. The suspect became irate and began to argue with several employees.

The suspect then followed one of the employees outside and continued to argue. When the employee began to walk away from the suspect, the suspect stabbed the employee in the back and then chased him through the parking lot.

The employee was transported to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where he was treated for his injuries. The suspect fled from the scene and remains on the loose.

Anyone with information on the suspect is urged to call 911 or 215.686.TIPS.

Bomb

British Islamic State fighters call for assassination of key UK figures

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© Image from twitter.com @AbuHussain102This picture is taken from the Twitter account AbuHussainAlBritani, who is believed to be Jones's husband
Britons fighting for the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria and Iraq have reportedly called on jihadists in the UK to assassinate key figures.

Messages posted on Twitter allegedly detail the addresses of high-profile people in the UK, the Daily Mail reports.

Junaid Hussain, 20, from Birmingham, is said to be one of those calling for domestic attacks.

Hussain was jailed for six months in 2012 for hacking Tony Blair's office computer. He has since become an outspoken Islamic State supporter on social media.

The Sun reports that Hussain, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Hussain Al Britani, retweeted a message from another Briton, known as Abu Dujana, on Friday, saying, "Whoo wants 2 do something 2 some top kaffirss, we gt addresses 4 u."

Comment: More fear. What is the purpose of jihadists 'advertising' their terrorist attacks?


Phoenix

Woman burned alive after witchcraft accusation in Paraguay

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An indigenous woman was burned alive in Paraguay after being accused of witchcraft, a local prosecutor confirmed Wednesday.

Prosecutor Fany Aguilera said that members of the Mbya Guarani ethnic group tied 45-year-old Adolfina Ocampos to a wooden pole and shot arrows at her before they burned her alive. Ocampos was sentenced to death last week by the community's chief in Tahehyi, a village some 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of the capital, Asuncion. The date of the killing was unclear.

Aguilera has charged nine men in the village with first-degree murder, and they have already acknowledged killing the woman.

Bad Guys

Following massacre, Guerrero State Congress names third mayor for Iguala in 2 months

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© Guerrero State CongressSilviano Mendiola is the third Iguala mayor in less than two months.
Silviano Mendiola is the third mayor in two months in Iguala, the city where the 43 Ayotzinapa students went missing.

More than 40 days after the former mayor of Iguala, Jose Luis Abarca. fled the state of Guerrero apparently due to his involvement in the disappearance of the 43 students of the Ayotzinapa Teacher Training College, the troubled municipality has a new leader.

The Congress of the southern state of Guerrero appointed on Tuesday Silviano Mendiola as the new acting mayor of Iguala. Mendiola Perez was one of the candidates elected by Governor Rogelio Ortega.

Comment: For more background,check out:

Mexicans protest and clash with police after government declares missing 43 students dead
In the wake of Murillo's press conference, Amnesty International issued a statement indicting the attorney general for failing to recognize or address the fact that the students' disappearance was a crime of the state, and not an isolated occurrence. It charged that the investigations into both the student disappearances and the June 2014 extrajudicial executions of 22 people by Mexican army soldiers in Tlatlaya, Mexico State, had been limited and incomplete, and accompanied by a refusal to question the collusion between the state and organized crime, which underlies these grave violations of human rights.
The Iguala Massacre - "You can't remain silent, the government can't remain in denial"
I have covered so many slaughters, I have seen so many ugly things in Mexico that I often say we've already hit bottom. But we haven't.... I have many doubts about where the bottom is. But I am sure that this (the massacre in Iguala) is a watershed for Mexico. You can't stop talking about this, about the corruption, the drug cartels. You can't remain silent, the government can't remain in denial.



Quenelle

The Iguala Massacre - "You can't remain silent, the government can't remain in denial"

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© PEDRO PARDO, AFP/Getty ImagesDemonstrators protest government corruption in Iguala, Mexico
In 2007, Alfredo Corchado's cell phone vibrated in his jeans pocket. The Mexico correspondent for the Dallas Morning News, he was at home in his Mexico City apartment, drinking a glass of tequila. It was the last time, he writes, that he felt safe in that country.

A longtime source told him that the Zetas, the paramilitary spin-off of a powerful drug cartel, planned to kill an American. And it seemed likely to be Corchado.

That's the opening scene of Corchado's book "Midnight in Mexico." On Monday, a year and a half after its publication, he spoke to a large crowd at Rice University.

Comment: From the article "The Devil's Bargain: The illusion of a trouble free existence in the American police state"
Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus - the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others. - Simone Weil, French philosopher and political activist



Smoking

Raucous town hall meeting on tobacco ban quickly ended

smoking ban westminster
© Christopher EvansBIG DRAG: Customer Bert Leandres, left, discusses the proposed ban on tobacco sales in Westminster with Brian Vincent, owner of Vincent’s Country Store, who says the move would hurt local businesses.
A public meeting on a central Massachusetts town's proposed first-in-the-nation ban on tobacco and nicotine sales has ended early because officials say the crowd was getting too unruly to continue.

The three-member Westminster Board of Health, which proposed the ban, was escorted out by police Wednesday night. The board had asked the crowd to calm down to hear dozens signed up to speak.

Hundreds of people, many opposed to the ban, packed a school auditorium for the hearing. Some, carrying flags and protest signs, had taken part in a rally earlier.

Many businesses oppose the ban, saying it won't stop tobacco use, but only drive away customers.

Comment: It's the well-intentioned but misinformed do-gooders of the world that cause the most damage. There is nothing unhealthy about additive free tobacco grown without pesticides. There's centuries of human experience to prove it. In some applications, tobacco is even a powerful medicine.


Sheeple

Superficiality taken to a new low: Plastic surgeon working to introduce breast enhancements that last 2-3 weeks, "vacation breasts"

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© Reuters / Stringer

Comment: It's crazy that in a world as messed up as the one we are in now and with everything that is happening on the planet, that this is the kind of medical enhancement that is considered a "breakthrough". What's the big deal about crazy weather, the U.S. threatening to blow up any country it wishes, and the total social decline around the world when you can go get yourself some vacation breasts?


The plastic surgeon known for developing the 24-hour "insta breast" procedure is working on a new kind of saline injection that would allow for "vacation breasts," or a temporary impression of larger breasts for two to three weeks.

Dr. Norman Rowe, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Manhattan, said he has had insta breast customers who have been given the 24-hour enhancement but still can't decide if implants are right for them.

"Twenty-four hours is great," Rowe told ABC News, "but it's still just 24 hours."

Rowe said that a breast augmentation that lasts for two or three weeks would be great for both special occasions, like weddings, or to allow women to understand what actual implants would be like.

"You can use 3-D imaging and put implants in bras, but it's another thing to see what the weight will actually feel like and what it will be like to live with the new breasts," he said.

Rowe would not divulge the chemical properties that would allow for weeks-long enhancement, but he said it is something commonly used by the medical community.

These "vacation breasts," he said, will, over time, likely cost less than the insta breasts injection, which costs $2,500. He added that the procedure would, like insta breasts, require no recovery time.

"It [the solution] could be used for more than breasts," Rowe said. "Men might want to use it for pec[toral] or calf implants."

Star of David

Vengeful Israel destroys Jerusalem family's home for second time in two years

palestinian home destroyed twice
© Saeed Qaq / APA imagesKhaled al-Zeer at the site of his destroyed home in the Silwan neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem on 26 August 2013.
Israeli occupation forces have knocked down the home of Khaled al-Zeer and his family two times in as many years.

The latest demolition occurred on 29 October, when Israeli authorities sent bulldozers to the small flat that Khaled, his wife Areej and their six daughters shared in the al-Abbasiyeh quarter of Silwan, a neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem.

Al-Zeer, 40, was alerted by a friend early that morning to the arrival of the demolition team working for the Jerusalem municipality and accompanied by armed police. He abruptly woke up his daughters and sent them to his parents' home.

"It took the girls several months to shake off the trauma caused by the demolition of our former home last year and I did not want them to witness another demolition," al-Zeer said.

That previous demolition had occurred in August 2013. The reason cited for the demolition was one with which Palestinians are all too familiar. Al-Zeer had built his home without getting permits from the Israeli occupation authorities, who routinely deny such permission to Palestinians in Jerusalem.

Comment: There are so many of these stories, that it is easy to become numb and tune them out. SOTT tries to do its part in keeping the reality of the world front and center. The only way to solve our problems is by confronting them squarely and doing what we can. In this case, share these stories on social media, and make sure to boycott Israeli products and the companies that support them. Small actions can make a big difference.