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US: Teacher suspended for Facebook post: called kids future criminals, parents say

Stacy Teicher Khadaroo
Christian Science Monitor
Fri, 01 Apr 2011 04:53 UTC
Facebook
© Facebook
The New Jersey teacher is the second this year to be involved in a controversy over a post on Facebook. Experts say cases like this are multiplying.

Once again, a Facebook post has gotten a teacher into trouble.

The Paterson, N.J., school district suspended a first-grade teacher Friday to investigate charges from parents that she wrote on Facebook about feeling like a "warden" and referred to her students as future criminals, the Record newspaper reports.

"We are seeing more of these cases," says Francisco Negrón, general counsel of the National School Boards Association.

Whether or not a district has a specific social media policy, he says, "the question is one about teacher judgment." District officials will need to consider the details, but the types of comments alleged in this case "show not only bad judgment, but are also hurtful to students and simply inappropriate."

Paterson school board president Theodore Best told the Record: "You can't simply fire someone for what they have on a Facebook page; but if that spills over and affects the classroom, then you can take action."

In February, the suspension of Pennsylvania high school teacher Natalie Munroe for Facebook posts about unnamed students sparked widespread debate about what's appropriate when teachers use social media.
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Bizarro Earth

On Eve of Redefining Malcolm X, Biographer Dies

Larry Rohter
The New York Times
Fri, 01 Apr 2011 15:00 UTC
Image
© Phillipe Cheng
The author and historian Manning Marable.
For two decades, the Columbia University professor Manning Marable focused on the task he considered his life's work: redefining the legacy of Malcolm X. Last fall he completed Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, a 594-page biography described by the few scholars who have seen it as full of new and startling information and insights.

The book is scheduled to be published on Monday, and Mr. Marable had been looking forward to leading a vigorous public discussion of his ideas. But on Friday Mr. Marable, 60, died in a hospital in New York as a result of medical problems he thought he had overcome. Officials at Viking, which is publishing the book, said he was able to look at it before he died. But as his health wavered, they were scrambling to delay interviews, including an appearance on the Today show in which his findings would have finally been aired.

Image
© Richard Saunder/Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Malcolm X, the black nationalist, with his wife, Betty Shabazz, and their daughters Attallah, left, and Qubilah around 1962.
The book challenges both popular and scholarly portrayals of Malcolm X, the black nationalist leader, describing a man often subject to doubts about theology, politics and other matters, quite different from the figure of unswerving moral certitude that became an enduring symbol of African-American pride.

It is particularly critical of the celebrated Autobiography of Malcolm X, now a staple of college reading lists, which was written with Alex Haley and which Mr. Marable described as "fictive." Drawing on diaries, private correspondence and surveillance records to a much greater extent than previous biographies, his book also suggests that the New York City Police Department and the F.B.I. had advance knowledge of Malcolm X's assassination but allowed it to happen and then deliberately bungled the investigation.
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Dollar

The Collapse of Globalization

Chris Hedges
Common Dreams
Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:29 UTC
Image
© N/A
The uprisings in the Middle East, the unrest that is tearing apart nations such as the Ivory Coast, the bubbling discontent in Greece, Ireland and Britain and the labor disputes in states such as Wisconsin and Ohio presage the collapse of globalization. They presage a world where vital resources, including food and water, jobs and security, are becoming scarcer and harder to obtain. They presage growing misery for hundreds of millions of people who find themselves trapped in failed states, suffering escalating violence and crippling poverty. They presage increasingly draconian controls and force - take a look at what is being done to Pfc. Bradley Manning - used to protect the corporate elite who are orchestrating our demise.

We must embrace, and embrace rapidly, a radical new ethic of simplicity and rigorous protection of our ecosystem - especially the climate - or we will all be holding on to life by our fingertips. We must rebuild radical socialist movements that demand that the resources of the state and the nation provide for the welfare of all citizens and the heavy hand of state power be employed to prohibit the plunder by the corporate power elite. We must view the corporate capitalists who have seized control of our money, our food, our energy, our education, our press, our health care system and our governance as mortal enemies to be vanquished.
Image
© AP / Jacques Brinon
Demonstrators carry an effigy of Ronald McDonald.
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Vader

SWAT Team Evicts Grandmother: Take Back the Land- Rochester Eviction Defense March 28, 2011

afrimax
YouTube
Sat, 02 Apr 2011 13:58 UTC
Take Back the Land- Rochester engages in an eviction defense of the Lennon-Griffin family home. Rochester, NY sends 25 police cars, including the SWAT team, to execute the eviction.

6 Take Back the Land- Rochester members are arrested, as is an elderly neighbor who dared complain about the police overkill.

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MIB

The FDA and the Fukushima Fallout

Robert Alvarez
IDS
Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:44 UTC
The FDA is disingenuous in its attempt to compare the radiation from a major nuclear accident to radiation exposures in everyday life.

"Radiation is all around us in our daily lives, and these findings are a miniscule amount compared to what people experience every day. For example, a person would be exposed to low levels of radiation on a round trip cross country flight, watching television, and even from construction materials," said Patricia Hansen, an FDA senior scientist.

No matter how small the dose might be, it is disingenuous to compare an exposure to a specific radioisotope that is released by a major nuclear accident, with radiation exposures in every-day life. The FDA spokesperson should have informed the public that radioiodine provides a unique form of exposure in that it concentrates rapidly in dairy products and in the human thyroid. The dose received, based on official measurements, may be quite small, and pose an equally small risk. However, making a conclusion on the basis of one measurement is fragmentary at best and unscientific at worst. As the accident in Fukushima continues to unfold, the public should be provided with all measurements made of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima reactors to allow for independent analyses.

Moreover, the FDA has been asleep at the switch when it comes to protecting public health from medical radiation exposures. According to the National Council on Radiation Protection, radiation exposures to the American public from medical devices and source, which FDA regulates, has soared by nearly 600 percent since 1982. In 2002, the NCRP estimated that the public received an extra 53 millirem (0.53 mSv) per person per year from medical radiation sources.* In 2006, the NCRP estimates that this dose has jumped to 300 millirem(3mSv)--nearly three times the annual dose allowed by the U.S. EPA from nuclear facilities.
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Evil Rays

Flashing Blue Light Seen Above Exploded Nuclear Reactor

MoxNewsDotCom
YouTube
Sat, 02 Apr 2011 13:27 UTC
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Newspaper

'US orders media silence over Bahrain'


Press TV
Fri, 01 Apr 2011 11:05 UTC
Image

Mourners shout anti-government slogans and wave Bahraini flags during a funeral march for Sayed Ahmed Shams, 15, on March 31in Saar

President of Bahrain's Center for Human Rights Nabeel Rajab says the US media have been ordered not to cover news on the government's brutal crackdown on Bahraini people.

Reports from the Center's colleagues in the United States say "In the US some news agencies and TV stations were asked not to report on Bahrain and not to embarrass [President Barack Obama's administration," Rajab told Press TV.

He went on to say that the US and the Western governments have chosen to keep silent over ongoing atrocities in Bahrain due to their support for the country's authoritarian regime.

According to unconfirmed reports, over 420 people have been arrested during ongoing protests in the kingdom, Rajab pointed out.
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Popcorn

'Strange Sex' Exploring More Bizarre Bedroom Behavior, Mysterious Medical Conditions

Hollie McKay
Fox News
Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:41 UTC
Image

An image from 'Strange Sex.' (TLC)

TLC is once again taking American audiences between the sheets for an intimate exploration of medical abnormalities, unusual fetishes and the science behind sexual attraction in the second season of "Strange Sex."

The 10 episode docu-reality series profiles a range of individuals brave enough to divulge the trials and tribulations of their various conditions, including a Muslim couple who waited until their wedding night to have sex only to discover they were unable to consummate their nuptials, a woman born with two vaginas dealing with the possibility she will not be able to have children, and, in the debut episode, we'll meet Ron Low, a typical suburban husband and father from Chicago on a mission to help men restore their foreskin.

"In 2001 I realized I had to do something to improve my sex life because it was getting to be dull. I researched online and found out there are a lot of men restoring their foreskins and I decided to do it too," Low, an industrial engineer, told FOX411's Pop Tarts column. "The tapeless device I wanted wasn't available, so that got me tinkering in my own basement to make a device based on some ideas I had seen online and came up with a way to make these things to meet my needs. I hope when you see (the show) you get an appreciation for how foreskin restoration really benefits men. It makes up for a lot of damage."
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Heart - Black

Video: Sickened cleanup worker praying that God will just let him die


floridaoilspilllaw
Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:28 UTC
Clayton Matherne, a clean up worker on the Gulf Coast, shares his pain, illness and personal loss with the world.

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Arrow Down

Aerotoxic Syndrome? Emergency Landing in Dayton for American Airlines Flight: Passengers and crew members reported being dizzy

Jim Forbes
WTRF
Fri, 01 Apr 2011 04:06 UTC
A bit of a detour Friday for passengers leaving Washington, D.C. On their way to Chicago on board one American Airlines flight. That's because there was an unknown illness on that flight.

An American Airlines jet had to make an emergency landing in Dayton, this morning, when something went wrong on board.

It turns out two flight attendants were complaining of dizziness and four passengers later fainted. But when the captain learned of the illnesses, he decided to divert the plane to Dayton for an emergency landing.


Comment: Read the following article to learn more about Aerotoxic Syndrome.

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