Society's ChildS


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Golden parachute: Chicago police retire to avoid punishment, keep generous pensions


RT
Fri, 05 Feb 2016 23:08 UTC
police chicago
© Jim Young / Reuters
After coming under internal investigation over involvement in a scandal that resulted in a man's death at hands of police, three Chicago police officers are retiring. Some of them will receive pensions in excess of $100,000 annually.

Six officers of the Chicago Police Department were accused of covering up a 2004 manslaughter incident, in which one of their own punched David Koschman in face. The 21-year-old fell into a coma and died 11 days later.

The officer who punched Koschman, Richard Vanecko, is a nephew of former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley. He eventually pleaded guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter in 2014. The six officers said to have helped Vanecko cover up the incident were being investigated at the recommendation of Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson.

The Chicago Police Board has not yet made official any disciplinary charges against the men, but Police Superintendent John Escalante said Friday that he was pursuing punishments that "range from suspension without pay to job termination

Comment: The systemic corruption within the Chicago police and Rahm Emanuel's administration keep the scandals erupting almost daily:

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Attention

Criminalizing conscience: Volunteers who save refugees from drowning off Greece could be charged as smugglers


RT
Thu, 04 Feb 2016 22:10 UTC
refugees
© Giorgos Moutafis / ReutersThe EU solution: arrest the helpers or drown the refugees. Win-win scenario, in their minds!
A petition has been launched calling on EU leaders to scrap plans that would criminalize those who rescue migrants and refugees arriving on the Greek islands as part of a push to secure the border between Turkey and Greece.

London-based civil liberties watchdog Statewatch has released the confidential European Commission report detailing the plan, which was outlined in talks between EU ministers in Amsterdam late last month.

The proposed plans would remove the exemption for charities, volunteer groups and others who provide "humanitarian assistance" to refugees from being considered "smugglers." Under the new rules, which are aimed at reducing human smuggling and trafficking, these groups and individuals would be criminalized.

The EU would instead create a state-run agency that would force would-be volunteers to register with the police and work under tightly controlled EU relief plans.

Comment: This story pretty much speaks for itself, no?

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Brick Wall

Smarty paints: Paris resident mulls anti-pee paint to stop the drunks


The Connexion
Fri, 05 Feb 2016 20:58 UTC
Anti-pee paint!
© Telegraph, UKPee on the wall and the wall pees back?!
Stop people peeing on our walls! That is a Paris resident's plea as he asks the city to use anti-urine paint on walls so drunks 'get their own back'.

Xavier Delaporte, 31, says drunks are making the 18th arrondissement a "disgusting" place to live as they urinate on walls and especially the local supermarket.

He told 20 Minutes newspaper they "buy their beers first thing in the morning and then pee it up the walls and the front of the supermarket".

Now he has taken advantage of the capital's public budget consultation to demand that it include funds to cover the walls with anti-urine paint - so any urine would rebound back.

He told the paper the paint had already been tested in Hamburg in Germany and he thought that "rather than a repressive approach it was better to use a deterrent".

Saying the worst-affected walls should be covered with a coat of hydrophobic paint, he added: "Anyone who decided to have a pee would see it bounce back off the walls and on to their trousers."

Quentin Tarantino fans will know the area where he lives, just off Boulevard Ney, as it was shown in the film Inglourious Basterds for a bistrot scene and Mr Delaporte says that "everything is disgusting in the area".

He wants to extend the project to cover several of the worst-hit parts of Paris, especially as it was a public health problem and a terrible example for children. Painting walls in the 18th for a test and extending it to the Canal Saint-Martin would cost €100,000.


Comment: This is already being done on the West coast of the U.S:



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Life Preserver

Giant listing cargo ship narrowly avoids crashing into the coast of France


The Connexion
Fri, 05 Feb 2016 20:51 UTC
Modern Express
© Marine NationaleModern Express
Rescuers are carrying out a final attempt to secure a cargo ship which is drifting towards the south west coast of France.

The 22-strong crew of the Modern Express were evacuated from the 164m ship on January 26 after sending out a distress call as they crossed the Bay of Biscay.

The listing ship has since been drifting towards the French coast and high winds and waves have hampered attempts to tow it.

The maritime prefect for the Atlantic, Vice Admiral Emmanuel De Oliveira, said the impact of the Panama-registered vessel running aground would be limited. It is not thought to be leaking fuel, although 300 tonnes of diesel remains on board, and its cargo consists of 3,600 tonnes of wood and equipment.

If today's rescue bid fails, the ship is expected to run aground south of Arcachon on Tuesday night.

UPDATE:

Tugs have managed to tow the ship into the port at Bilbao where a bid will be made to right the vessel and get her fit for sea again.
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Alarm Clock

Crane collapses in New York City, 1 dead, 3 injured


RT
Fri, 05 Feb 2016 19:31 UTC
crane collapse nyc
© Valuable2ND / YouTube Screen shot of crane collapse in NYC's TriBeCa neighborhood.
An electrician working in a nearby building to the crane that collapsed in the TriBeCa area of Manhattan caught the moments it fell on video.


Comment: There's been a spate of incidents like this in the last couple of years. Symbolic?

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Blue Planet

Will humans be brought under control by Mother Nature?

Jack Balkwill
Dissident Voice
Thu, 04 Feb 2016 23:42 UTC
Gaia
© kwm.com
Decades ago James Lovelock constructed a principle called the Gaia hypothesis, contending that a biosphere teeming with life works together with inorganic matter to self-regulate conditions for maintaining a livable planet.

The oxygen levels in our air are maintained, and the salinity of the seas - everything that's needed to keep conditions within the zones which nurture life on the planet. This is a theory embraced by many deep environmentalists because it offers hope for the future of life forms on the planet.

When one creature (such as man) gets to be so out of control that it threatens the other life forms, Gaia, or Mother Earth, pushes back toward a healthy balance, according to some theorists (the Gaia principle has many variations).
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Pistol

Culture of violence: 11-year-old Tennesee boy to spend childhood behind bars for murder 8-year-old girl with shotgun

Travis Gettys
Raw Story
Fri, 05 Feb 2016 11:39 UTC
McKayla Dyer
© WKRNMcKayla Dyer
An 11-year-old Tennessee boy was ordered to spend the rest of his childhood in juvenile detention for the cold-blooded killing of his 8-year-old neighbor — but officials aren't exactly sure how to handle his incarceration.

The boy was found guilty this week of shooting McKayla Dyer to death with a shotgun from the window of his trailer Oct. 3 after the girl laughed at him, reported the Knoxville News Sentinel.

Jefferson County Juvenile Court Judge Dennis "Will" Roach II found Benny Nicholas Tiller delinquent by reason of first-degree murder following a two-day hearing, and he ordered him held until he's 19 years old.

The Department of Children's Services said he's too young to place in a youth development center, and officials will have to develop a treatment and rehabilitation program for the boy because most state services for children involved in crime are aimed at teenagers.

The court order shows the boy had been talking with McKayla, her 11-year-old sister and an 11-year-old friend from the bedroom window of his trailer when he asked her to get one of her puppies, reported KXAN-TV.

The girl said no, and the boy went to get a 12-gauge shotgun and a BB gun from another part of the tailer. McKayla laughed at her neighbor and said she didn't believe the guns were real, and he aimed the shotgun from an open window and fired.

"(He) then made certain the gun was loaded, cocked the hammer of the gun and shot the victim just above the heart," court documents show. She died moments later in her mother's arms.

Comment: For a variety of reasons, a lot of children are left to be raised by the culture and values found in the media. Children left to the mercy of television and its deteriorating morality can become completely desensitized to violence.

Official culture in the U.S. is a sad state of affairs. See: Official Culture in America: A Natural State of Psychopathy?

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Family

Flashback What Turkey really fears? People Power: The unique Kurdish-Syrian experiment in democracy

Carne Ross
Financial Times
Fri, 23 Oct 2015 17:01 UTC
kurdish democracy experiment
© Carne RossYPJ fighter at a shelter in Rojava, Syria
The Kurds in Rojava are testing a democratic model shaped by the political philosophy of an American eco-anarchist

Perhaps the last place you would expect to find a thriving experiment in direct democracy is Syria. But something radical is happening, little noticed, in the eastern reaches of that fractured country, in the isolated region known to the Kurds as Rojava.

Just as remarkable, perhaps, is that the philosophy that inspired self-government here was originated by a little-known American political thinker and one-time "eco-activist" whose ideas found their way to Syria through a Kurdish leader imprisoned upon an island in the Sea of Marmara. It's a story that bizarrely connects a war-torn Middle East with New York's Lower East Side.

I visited Rojava last month while filming a documentary about the failings of the western model of democracy. The region covers a substantial "corner" of north-east Syria and has a population of approximately 3m, yet it is not easy to get to. The only passage is by small boat or a creaky pontoon bridge across the Tigris from Iraq.
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Better Earth

People power: 'Putin's world is open to all who wish to belong'


Sputnik
Fri, 05 Feb 2016 15:48 UTC
Putin sculpture
© Sputnik/ Sergey Venyavsky
Regardless of all the Western propaganda, Russians are not the only ones who hold President Putin in high esteem: increasing dissatisfaction with governments in the West and Putin's snap military intervention in Syria, in contrast to the West's perceived passivity, are gaining him surprise support across the globe, according to Western media.

"Vladimir Putin, it seems, is impervious to the woes that afflict normal leaders," laments The Economist.

Even a recession, falling real wages and rampant inflation have barely dented his ratings, adds the London-based weekly newspaper.
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Handcuffs

Chicago police arrest teachers at 1000-march protest rally


Press TV
Fri, 05 Feb 2016 10:57 UTC
Chicago teachers
© The Chicago TribuneChicago Teachers Union members protest cuts as they march downtown toward City Hall.
Police in the US State of Illinois have reportedly arrested at least 12 teachers at an anti-austerity rally in Chicago.

The arrests were made Thursday as at least 1,000 teachers and their supporters marched through the Loop, Chicago's financial district, to protest against cuts proposed earlier this week by Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Teachers said they wanted to express anger over CPS's threats to cut $100 million from the budget, which would include layoffs affecting the classroom.

Their rally was organized by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) whose officials blame the financial institution, Bank of America, for bad investments that have helped hurt the shaky finances of the school system, US media reports said.

The march began at Bank of America around 4:30 p.m. local time, where police intervened after people allegedly went inside the bank, sat down and chanted. Afterwards, the protesters, who by some accounts had turned out in their thousands, headed to Congress building. The rally continued south from LaSalle, blocking Congress Parkway before returning north via Dearborn to Daley Plaza. Protests concluded at City Hall.

The protesters held banners reading "Banks rob schools" and "Starving schools to feed the rich" as well as chanting "Save our schools." CPS officials have reportedly expressed hope an agreement could be reached with teachers.


Comment: Bankster manipulations have far-reaching effects that permeate throughout the US into all corners of the society, in this case the quality and standards of a child's education and the livelihood of their teachers. The police are arresting those who protest the financial wrong-doings instead of those who create them.

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