Society's ChildS

Heart - Black

Guards lock schizophrenic inmate in scalding shower; his death is ruled an accident

Darren Rainey
© Florida Dept. of Corrections
In 2012, a 50-year-old mentally ill prison inmate named Darren Rainey died while locked in a scalding hot shower, rigged to inflict retribution on prisoners, by guards at Dade Correctional Institution.

Guards put the schizophrenic man in the shower as punishment for defecating in his cell. Instead of getting Rainey the help that he obviously needed, guards took it upon themselves to inflict torturous punishment for hours.

When guards finally checked on prisoner 060954, he was on his back and dead. According to the original documents involving his death, investigators noted that he'd been left in the hot steam for so long that his skin had shriveled from his body, a condition referred to as slippage.

Handcuffs

Rights violation: Bahraini regime jails 250 children on political grounds, terrorism charges

2 boys
© www.presstv.irTwo Bahraini children arrested February 14, 2015. Do they look like terrorists to you?
At least 250 children are behind bars on political grounds in Bahrain which is facing almost daily protests for years now, a report says. According to a report by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights released on Wednesday, the incarcerations violate Article 16 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Under the provision, no child should be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with their privacy, family, or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on their honor and reputation, it said.

The center also called on the Bahraini regime to stop detention and interrogation of children on terrorism charges. On Tuesday, a court in Bahrain sentenced a 17-year-old boy to an additional 10 years in prison over alleged acts of terror. Ahmad al-Arab had earlier been sentenced to 120 years in jail. The ruling was the latest in a series of harsh punishments handed down to dissidents in Bahrain, a tiny Persian Gulf island nation that has been hit by anti-regime protests for years.

Many human rights groups have criticized the Bahraini judiciary for handing down long jail terms to protesters and activists. Amnesty International and other rights groups have also censured the regime over "rampant" human rights abuses. Bahraini protesters rallied in the northern village of Abu Saiba Tuesday, calling on officials to heed calls by UN and human rights organizations to release all political prisoners.

Comment: According to Humanitarium, an international organization dedicated to stopping violations of children's rights, Bahraini children -- arrested and sent to prison for participating in demonstrations -- are detained with adults and parents are deprived access. Human Rights Watch confirms accounts of torture, harassment, incarceration, false arrest, coerced confessions, inhumane treatment and denial of legal counsel and representation for arrested children. US Department of Labor cites Bahrain as having some of the worst forms of child labor, including commercial sexual exploitation. The Bahraini government has made little effort to rectify these atrocities.


Airplane

American Airlines Miami to Milan flight makes emergency landing in Canada after severe turbulence injures 7

AA flight diverted
© Paul Daly / THE CANADIAN PRESSSeveral passengers and crew were taken to hospital with unspecified injuries that occurred when their American Airlines flight heading to Milan from Miami encountered severe turbulence and emergency landed in St. John's.
Seven people aboard an American Airlines flight from Miami to Milan were injured when the aircraft encountered severe turbulence and was forced to divert and make an emergency landing in Canada.

American Airlines flight 206 carrying 192 passengers and 11 crew members experienced "severe turbulence" which forced the Boeing 767 to make an emergency landing at St. John's airport at 9:46pm on Sunday.

Paramedics and up to half a dozen ambulances, along with a fire truck, waited on the tarmac for the flight to land. Four passengers and three flight attendants were rushed to the Health Sciences Centre in St. John's for further evaluation, the airline said in a statement.

Comment: One passenger, Kristoo Prakash described a 'sudden, steep dive' that caught those standing up off guard. Another passenger, Jordan Case said that about four hours into the flight, the plane 'suddenly dropped' and rolled toward one side.

Less than a month ago freak turbulence injured over 20 people on board an Air Canada flight from Shanghai to Toronto. For related articles, see also:


Hearts

Greeks who saved thousands of refugees nominated for Nobel Peace Prize - petition gains 290,000 signatures

Greece migrant refugee rescue crisis
© AFP 2016/ BULENT KILIC
A petition calling for nomination of Greek islanders, who help save thousands of refugees, for the Nobel Peace Prize gained over 293,000 signatures from around the world on Sunday.

According to the recent data of the EU border agency Frontex, some 880,000 of refugees arrived in Greece in 2015, while the Greek islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos saw the biggest number of people coming to their shores by sea.

"Ordinary residents of Greek islands and other volunteers have been on the front lines of Europe's refugee crisis for months... For their compassion and courage, for treating those in danger with humanity, and for setting an example for the rest of the world to follow, we citizens from around the world, nominate these brave women and men for a Nobel Peace Prize," the petition named "Nobel Peace Prize for Greek Islanders" said.

Comment: The Greek people are still standing against the tyrants in control of the EU, serving as a symbol of what it means to be truly human in this increasingly psychopathic society. As Irini Gregoriou writes about the plight of so many refugees in Europe, 'For there is a worse kind of death than drowning in the Aegean Sea: drowning in a sea of ignorance and indifference to the plight of your fellow human beings, and losing your own humanity in the process.'

Those interested in signing the petition may visit the Avaaz website here.

Also see:


Bulb

Is playing the lottery more rational than voting for president?

Playing the lottery
The writer Ambrose Bierce called the lottery a "tax on people who are bad at math." Those who agree have scoffed at the hullabaloo over the recent Powerball, with its $1.6 billion jackpot and 1 in 292 million odds. After the drawing, such skeptics have smirked at amusing news stories about lottery losers doubling down on their innumerate antics.

There was Cinnamon Nicole, a Tennessee woman who had spent her family's life savings on Powerball and started a GoFundMe drive to raise money to "reimburse" the losses and to, as her short-lived campaign page put it, "spend another fortune trying to hit it big again!"

Then there were the two Floridians who "purchased $146,000 worth of Powerball tickets in a social media pool that went viral." Although they failed to win the jackpot, they plan on "rolling over" whatever relatively meager returns win right back into the next drawing. "We're just going to buy more tickets and buy more tickets until we either hit a jackpot or it's gone," one of the budding financiers boasted.

Comment: Thank you Dan Sanchez, for so well describing why no one in the US should be taking the next presidential election seriously. Not that we shouldn't be paying attention to who the Elite decides will be the next arch criminal-in-chief, but rather, why we should have no active part in the charade whatsoever.


Heart - Black

Europe's disgrace: Closer look at 'Europe's worst' refugee camp

refugee camp
© Jordi Oliver
While many pages have been filled with stories from the so-called Jungle refugee camp in Calais, another refugee camp - Dunkirk - around 50 kilometers away from Calais, hasn't been talked about very much.

Germany's Deutsche Welle (DW) reported about the horrible living conditions at the Dunkirk refugee camp, home to predominantly Kurdish refugees from Syria.

The refugee camp has quickly grown from 700 inhabitants in October of 2015, to more than 3,000 now.

"This place is for animals, not for humans. France is not good for us," one of the refugees, Omed Mohamed, told DW, while standing ankle-deep in the mixture of mud and human waste.


Comment: Not even fit for animals.


migrant is reflected
© Reuters/ Benoit TessierA migrant is reflected in a puddle as he walks past shelters in a muddy field called the Grande-Synthe jungle, near Dunkirk, northern France
Dunkirk is arguably Europe's worst refugee camp and has conditions "unseen anywhere else along the migration trail," said Angel Muller, a project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Grande-Synthe, according to DW.

The camp has only two water faucets and one toilet per 115 people. Rats are said to be crawling around the tents in search of scraps of food. Needless to say, the smell around the camp can be intolerable to many, but refugees in Dunkirk have no choice.

Migrants get warm
© AFP 2016?Philippe HuguenMigrants get warm around a brazier in the migrants camp of Grande-Synthe, near Dunkirk
Muller said that refugee camps in South Sudan with 80,000 people are better coordinated than the Dunkirk camp, which has 3,000 people in a rich country like France.

"It's really a shame for me [as a French citizen]," Muller told DW.

Robot

The U.S. has become an automaton factory

zombie apocalypse
I found it incredibly hard to write about anything this week. For the first time in a long time, I found I really didn't have that much to say.

Society is going the way of all those dystopic films. Willingly. Not the ones about the police state or the panopticon; the omnipresent surveillance state is already here, has been for a while now. The death of privacy. The tyranny of total transparency for everyone else, national security for the State. A place where information is constantly being extorted from us. A place where police look up your color-coded threat score based on your social media posts before they ever lay eyes on you during a traffic stop or 911 call. A place where they know it is you based on four credit card purchases. A place where computers can decode your thoughts and translate them into sentences without you saying a single word. A place where we spy on ourselves and spy on each other while the system spies on everyone, every minute, every hour, every day, day after day after day.

No, you may have seen some of the films I mean. Not the zombie apocalypse programming. Not the 2012 apocalypse programming. I'm talking about the ones where people have been stripped of their emotions and individuality to bring order out of the chaos of nonconformity, to do away with the danger of outliers. The ones where people have been sold a mockery of "peace" built on uniformity. Where sameness saves and individuality is certain doom.

Sherlock

Woody Guthrie hated 'Old Man Trump': A real estate empire's racist foundations

Woody Guthrie
In December 1950, Woody Guthrie signed his name to the lease of a new apartment in Brooklyn. Even now, over half a century later, that uninspiring document prompts a double-take.

Below all the legal jargon is the signature of the man who had composed "This Land Is Your Land," the most resounding appeal to an equal share for all in America. Below that is the signature of Donald Trump's father, Fred. No pairing could appear more unlikely.

Water

Emails reveal dismissive attitude of state officials in Flint water crisis

flint
It's been nearly two years since the residents of Flint, Michigan were first exposed to highly polluted tap water. The financially insecure city switched its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River, which saved the city millions of dollars. However, residents of Flint immediately started complaining about the color and foul taste of the water, but those complaints fell on deaf ears and assurances that the water was safe.

In reality the water was loaded with high levels of lead, likely caused by corrosion of old lead pipes. Once the truth was impossible to ignore, Governor Rick Snyder was quick to apologize and asked FEMA to distribute clean water to Flint. In an effort to provide transparency,the governor released 295 pages of emails related to the crisis, (some of them redacted) which don't paint a pretty for the state government.

Comment: Michigan state officials lied about lead in Flint's water - knowingly poisoning countless children


Bad Guys

Flint residents told that their children could be taken away if they don't pay for city's poison water

flint water
© xonecole.com
Not only is the Michigan government poisoning residents, but now they are threatening to take their children for not paying for it.

As the water crisis in Flint deepens, it is becoming apparent that the effects of the lead-infested water are not just a health hazard, but the situation has the potential of ruining many more lives outside of the poison issue. There is no denying that the water in Flint is undrinkable and that it is contaminated with lead and other substances, and it is clear that the government of Flint is responsible for the problem.

However, the city's government continues to charge people for the poison water and then threatening to foreclose their home or take their children if they refuse to pay. Michigan law states that parents are neglectful if they do not have running water in their home, and if they chose not to pay for water they can't drink anyway, then they could be guilty of child endangerment. Activists in Flint say that some residents have already received similar threats from the government if they refuse to pay their bills.

Flint residents have recently filed two class action lawsuits calling for all water bills since April of 2014 to be considered null and void because of the fact that the water was poisonous.

"We are seeking for the court to declare that all the bills that have been issued for usage of water invalid because the water has not been fit for its intended purpose," said Trachelle Young, one of the attorneys bringing the lawsuit said in court.

"Essentially, the residents have been getting billed for water that they cannot use. Because of that, we do not feel that is a fair way to treat the residents," Young added.

Comment: Unfortunately, this is a natural consequence of having psychopaths allowed to participate in government and corporate rule. To get a handle of this phenomenon, check out Harrison Koehli's Ponerology 101 series, or pick up Political Ponerology by Andrew Lobaczewski.

Ponerology 101: The Political Psychopath
Ponerology 101: Lobaczewski and the origins of Political Ponerology
Ponerology 101: The Psychopath's Mask of Sanity