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Friday, October 8, 2010
HIGH SCHOOL > 1957 vs. 2010
HIGH SCHOOL
> 1957 vs. 2010
>
>Scenario 1:
>Jack goes quail hunting before school and then pulls into the school
>parking lot with his shotgun in his truck's gun rack.
>1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car and
>gets his shotgun to show Jack.
>2010 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never
>sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students
>and teachers.
>
>Scenario 2:
>Buster and Dale get into a fist fight after school.
>1957 - Crowd gathers. Buster wins. Buster and Dale shake hands and
>end up buddies.
>2010 - Police called and SWAT team arrives -- they arrest both Buster and
>Dale. They are both charged them with assault and both expelled even though Buster
>started it.
>
>Scenario 3:
>Jeffrey will not be still in class, he disrupts other students.
>1957 - Jeffrey sent to the Principal's office and given a good paddling by the
>Principal. He then returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class
>again.
>2010 - Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin. He becomes a zombie. He is then
>tested for ADD. The family gets extra money (SSI) from the government because
>Jeffrey has a disability.
>
>Scenario 4:
>Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a
>whipping with his belt.
>1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows
>up normal, goes to college and becomes
>a successful businessman.
>2010 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy is removed to foster care
>and joins a gang. The state psychologist is told by Billy's sister that she
>remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has
>an affair with the psychologist.
>
>Scenario 5:
>Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school..
>1957 - Mark shares his aspirin with the Principal out on the smoking dock
>2010 - The police are called and Mark is expelled from school for drug violations.
>His car is then searched for drugs and weapons.
>
>Scenario 6:
>Pedro fails high school English.
>1957 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college.
>2010 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally
>explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist.
>ACLU files class action lawsuit against the state school system and Pedro's
>English teacher. English is then banned from core curriculum. Pedro is given
>his diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot
>speak English.
>
>Scenario 7:
>Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the Fourth of July, puts
>them in a model airplane paint bottle and blows up a red ant bed.
>1957 - Ants die.
>2010 - ATF, Homeland Security and the FBI are all called. Johnny is charged with
>domestic terrorism. The FBI investigates his parents -- and all siblings are
>removed from their home and all computers are confiscated. Johnny's dad is
>placed on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.
>
>Scenario 8:
>Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee He is found
>crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
>1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
>2010 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces
>3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.
>
>
>This should hit every email inbox to show how stupid we have become!!
> 1957 vs. 2010
>
>Scenario 1:
>Jack goes quail hunting before school and then pulls into the school
>parking lot with his shotgun in his truck's gun rack.
>1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car and
>gets his shotgun to show Jack.
>2010 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never
>sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students
>and teachers.
>
>Scenario 2:
>Buster and Dale get into a fist fight after school.
>1957 - Crowd gathers. Buster wins. Buster and Dale shake hands and
>end up buddies.
>2010 - Police called and SWAT team arrives -- they arrest both Buster and
>Dale. They are both charged them with assault and both expelled even though Buster
>started it.
>
>Scenario 3:
>Jeffrey will not be still in class, he disrupts other students.
>1957 - Jeffrey sent to the Principal's office and given a good paddling by the
>Principal. He then returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class
>again.
>2010 - Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin. He becomes a zombie. He is then
>tested for ADD. The family gets extra money (SSI) from the government because
>Jeffrey has a disability.
>
>Scenario 4:
>Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a
>whipping with his belt.
>1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows
>up normal, goes to college and becomes
>a successful businessman.
>2010 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy is removed to foster care
>and joins a gang. The state psychologist is told by Billy's sister that she
>remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has
>an affair with the psychologist.
>
>Scenario 5:
>Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school..
>1957 - Mark shares his aspirin with the Principal out on the smoking dock
>2010 - The police are called and Mark is expelled from school for drug violations.
>His car is then searched for drugs and weapons.
>
>Scenario 6:
>Pedro fails high school English.
>1957 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college.
>2010 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally
>explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist.
>ACLU files class action lawsuit against the state school system and Pedro's
>English teacher. English is then banned from core curriculum. Pedro is given
>his diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot
>speak English.
>
>Scenario 7:
>Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the Fourth of July, puts
>them in a model airplane paint bottle and blows up a red ant bed.
>1957 - Ants die.
>2010 - ATF, Homeland Security and the FBI are all called. Johnny is charged with
>domestic terrorism. The FBI investigates his parents -- and all siblings are
>removed from their home and all computers are confiscated. Johnny's dad is
>placed on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.
>
>Scenario 8:
>Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee He is found
>crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
>1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
>2010 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces
>3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.
>
>
>This should hit every email inbox to show how stupid we have become!!
THE NAZI VIRUS
ROBERT C. KOEHLER
For release 10/7/10
THE NAZI VIRUS
By Robert C. Koehler
I call it the Nazi virus.
Even as we were prosecuting Nazis at Nuremberg for their barbaric behavior, including their notorious medical experiments on death camp inmates, we were, it turns out, conducting our own medical experiments on a vulnerable and unsuspecting population: Between 1946 and 1948, medical researchers with the U.S. Public Health Service deliberately infected almost 700 Guatemalan prisoners and mental patients with syphilis and gonorrhea in order to study the effects of penicillin on the diseases.
What does it take to be a monster? Maybe no more than good intentions and a war to fight — in the above case, a “war” against venereal disease — and, oh yeah, near-absolute power over a group of people who, so easily in such cases, become expendable, at least compared to what we can learn from their unknowing or forced participation in a scientific experiment. Their suffering, their death, is such a small thing compared to human progress. Just ask Dr. Mengele.
Susan Reverby, a professor of women’s studies at Wellesley College and an expert on the infamous 40-year-long Tuskegee experiment, discovered evidence of the Guatemala research last year as she read through some papers left behind by a participant, as it turns out, in both studies, Dr. John Cutler. She only recently published her findings, which precipitated embarrassed apologies from both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to the government of Guatemala and “Hispanic residents of the United States.”
The Nazi virus isn’t something that began and ended with the Nazis. If it did, the Nuremberg Code, defining the ethical boundaries of scientific or medical experimentation on human beings, would not have been necessary. It was adopted by the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1949, in the wake of the “doctors’ trial,” not to protect us from the Nazis but to protect us from ourselves.
“The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential,” the code begins. “This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching . . .”
This is humanity’s minimum standard of good behavior for the powerful, and if we fall below it we enter the morally squishy area of pre-Nazism, which can lead to the unleashing of harm on our fellow human beings, and the human race as a whole, at a level — in the nuclear age — unexplored even by the Nazis.
The recent revelation of our research on Guatemalans 60-plus years ago begs a thorough examination of who we are, a scouring of the public record, and the opening of forgotten or classified documents that may reveal truths at odds with our pristine self-image as a decent, freedom-promoting society. We must know our own secrets — and be fully aware of our impulse to dehumanize those over whom we wield immense power.
And the public record is frightening: “During the last 50 years, hundreds of thousands of military personnel have been involved in human experimentation and other intentional exposures conducted by the Department of Defense, often without a service member’s knowledge or consent.”
Thus begins a 1994 report prepared for the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Examples cited include “thousands of World War II veterans who originally volunteered to ‘test summer clothing’ in exchange for extra leave time, (who) found themselves in gas chambers testing the effects of mustard gas and lewisite.” And Gulf War I veterans who told interviewers “they were ordered to take experimental vaccines during Operation Desert Shield or face prison.”
Most frightening of all is our history of radiation and nuclear weapons experimentation, which one Atomic Energy Commission employee, Dr. Joseph G. Hamilton, a radiation biologist, described in 1950 as having “a little of the Buchenwald touch.”
Experiments, according to a February 1994 article in The Progressive, include: a study at Vanderbilt University in the late 1940s, in which researchers “gave radioactive pills to 751 pregnant women who sought free care at a prenatal clinic”; the exposure of 19 mentally retarded boys at a state school in Fernald, Mass., “to radioactive iron and calcium in their breakfast cereal” from 1946 to 1956; and, from 1963 to the early 1970s, tests in which more than 130 inmates of Oregon and Washington state penitentiaries, who received no warning of the dangers, had their testicles subjected to high levels of radiation.
These are just a few examples. Open the door a little wider — allow Cold War politics into the room — and the moral relativism spreads exponentially. Above-ground nuclear testing over several decades, for instance, has involved millions of American guinea pigs.
The expendable people in all cases are the powerless: the poor, the mentally ill, prisoners, soldiers — and unsuspecting civilian populations generally. They are never given the option of invoking Article 9 of the Code: “During the course of the experiment, the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.”
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.)
© 2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
For release 10/7/10
THE NAZI VIRUS
By Robert C. Koehler
I call it the Nazi virus.
Even as we were prosecuting Nazis at Nuremberg for their barbaric behavior, including their notorious medical experiments on death camp inmates, we were, it turns out, conducting our own medical experiments on a vulnerable and unsuspecting population: Between 1946 and 1948, medical researchers with the U.S. Public Health Service deliberately infected almost 700 Guatemalan prisoners and mental patients with syphilis and gonorrhea in order to study the effects of penicillin on the diseases.
What does it take to be a monster? Maybe no more than good intentions and a war to fight — in the above case, a “war” against venereal disease — and, oh yeah, near-absolute power over a group of people who, so easily in such cases, become expendable, at least compared to what we can learn from their unknowing or forced participation in a scientific experiment. Their suffering, their death, is such a small thing compared to human progress. Just ask Dr. Mengele.
Susan Reverby, a professor of women’s studies at Wellesley College and an expert on the infamous 40-year-long Tuskegee experiment, discovered evidence of the Guatemala research last year as she read through some papers left behind by a participant, as it turns out, in both studies, Dr. John Cutler. She only recently published her findings, which precipitated embarrassed apologies from both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to the government of Guatemala and “Hispanic residents of the United States.”
The Nazi virus isn’t something that began and ended with the Nazis. If it did, the Nuremberg Code, defining the ethical boundaries of scientific or medical experimentation on human beings, would not have been necessary. It was adopted by the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1949, in the wake of the “doctors’ trial,” not to protect us from the Nazis but to protect us from ourselves.
“The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential,” the code begins. “This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching . . .”
This is humanity’s minimum standard of good behavior for the powerful, and if we fall below it we enter the morally squishy area of pre-Nazism, which can lead to the unleashing of harm on our fellow human beings, and the human race as a whole, at a level — in the nuclear age — unexplored even by the Nazis.
The recent revelation of our research on Guatemalans 60-plus years ago begs a thorough examination of who we are, a scouring of the public record, and the opening of forgotten or classified documents that may reveal truths at odds with our pristine self-image as a decent, freedom-promoting society. We must know our own secrets — and be fully aware of our impulse to dehumanize those over whom we wield immense power.
And the public record is frightening: “During the last 50 years, hundreds of thousands of military personnel have been involved in human experimentation and other intentional exposures conducted by the Department of Defense, often without a service member’s knowledge or consent.”
Thus begins a 1994 report prepared for the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Examples cited include “thousands of World War II veterans who originally volunteered to ‘test summer clothing’ in exchange for extra leave time, (who) found themselves in gas chambers testing the effects of mustard gas and lewisite.” And Gulf War I veterans who told interviewers “they were ordered to take experimental vaccines during Operation Desert Shield or face prison.”
Most frightening of all is our history of radiation and nuclear weapons experimentation, which one Atomic Energy Commission employee, Dr. Joseph G. Hamilton, a radiation biologist, described in 1950 as having “a little of the Buchenwald touch.”
Experiments, according to a February 1994 article in The Progressive, include: a study at Vanderbilt University in the late 1940s, in which researchers “gave radioactive pills to 751 pregnant women who sought free care at a prenatal clinic”; the exposure of 19 mentally retarded boys at a state school in Fernald, Mass., “to radioactive iron and calcium in their breakfast cereal” from 1946 to 1956; and, from 1963 to the early 1970s, tests in which more than 130 inmates of Oregon and Washington state penitentiaries, who received no warning of the dangers, had their testicles subjected to high levels of radiation.
These are just a few examples. Open the door a little wider — allow Cold War politics into the room — and the moral relativism spreads exponentially. Above-ground nuclear testing over several decades, for instance, has involved millions of American guinea pigs.
The expendable people in all cases are the powerless: the poor, the mentally ill, prisoners, soldiers — and unsuspecting civilian populations generally. They are never given the option of invoking Article 9 of the Code: “During the course of the experiment, the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.”
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.)
© 2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Safe Schools – Facts About LGBT Teen Suicide You Need To Know
Safe Schools – Facts About LGBT Teen Suicide You Need To Know
by David Badash on October 6, 2010 · Comments (0)
in Healthcare
Post image for Safe Schools – Facts About LGBT Teen Suicide You Need To Know
Regular readers here will remember Greg Jones, one-half of the Greg Jones-Jonathan Howard couple we cheered on during the Crate and Barrel Ultimate Wedding Contest. Greg is actually Dr. Gregory Jones, a clinical psychologist specializing in LGBTQ mental health, and a hero for the great work he is doing, and for the great role model he, and his better half, Jonathan, are for our community.
Dr. Jones gave an outdoor speech in D.C. yesterday to address the onslaught of recent LGBT youth and teen suicides we have been seeing.
Listen to the facts and figures, and please share them with everyone you know. The numbers are stunning and tragic.
Here are a few stats from Dr. Jones:
* 28% of gay and lesbian high school students dropped out of school because of harassment resulting form their sexual orientation.
* Lesbian, gay and bisexual adolescents are up to 4 times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers.
* 30-40% of the LGBTQ community have attempted suicide at some point in their life.
* It is estimated that 1,000 LGBTQ youth commit suicide in the United States every
* year. That is approximately THREE LGBTQ youth committing suicide every day.
From Dr. Jones’ speech:
There are multiple resources available for at risk students and teens to help
prevent suicide. The Trevor Project operates three core program areas designed
to provide life-saving and life-affirming resources for LGBTQ youth: The Trevor
Lifeline is the nation’s only 24/7 LGBTQ suicide prevention hotline and that
number is 1-866-4-U-Trevor or 1-866-488-7386. The Trevor Project provides
an acronym to help you remember how you can help someone who is suicidal:
Y-Care.
Y: You are never alone. You are not responsible for anyone who chooses to take
their own life. As friends, family and loved ones, all you can do is listen, support,
and assist the person in getting the help they need.
C: Connect the person to resources and to a supportive, trusted adult
A: Accept and listen to the person’s feelings and take them seriously
R: Respond if a person has a plan to attempt suicide and tell someone you trust
E: Empower the person to get help and call the Trevor Lifeline.
Other helpful resources include
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
www.afsp.org
Center Link: The Community of LGBT Centers
www.lgbtcenters.org
Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network
www.glsen.org
National Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and transgender Health
www.lgbthealth.net
Parents and Friends of Lesbians & Gays
www.pflag.org
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States
www.siecus.org
Soulforce
www.soulforce.org
Suicide Prevention Resource Center
www.sprc.org
Greg says, “I too was bullied for my perceived sexuality and experienced the isolating pain that this can cause. I dreaded the school bus, gym class, and lunch time. It was not easy, but IT GOT BETTER. Taunting increased during high school, but IT GOT BETTER. I came out to friends and family during college and IT GOT BETTER. And recently, one of my childhood bullies contacted me to say, I’m sorry I was wrong for how I treated you. We ended up getting together for lunch this past summer and actually had an enjoyable time. So I am here to testify that it DID GET BETTER.
It gets better.
Remember, nothing is ever worth taking your life.
The Trevor Project: a 24-hour hotline for gay and questioning youth: 866-4-U-TREVOR (488-7386)
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-TALK (8255)
by David Badash on October 6, 2010 · Comments (0)
in Healthcare
Post image for Safe Schools – Facts About LGBT Teen Suicide You Need To Know
Regular readers here will remember Greg Jones, one-half of the Greg Jones-Jonathan Howard couple we cheered on during the Crate and Barrel Ultimate Wedding Contest. Greg is actually Dr. Gregory Jones, a clinical psychologist specializing in LGBTQ mental health, and a hero for the great work he is doing, and for the great role model he, and his better half, Jonathan, are for our community.
Dr. Jones gave an outdoor speech in D.C. yesterday to address the onslaught of recent LGBT youth and teen suicides we have been seeing.
Listen to the facts and figures, and please share them with everyone you know. The numbers are stunning and tragic.
Here are a few stats from Dr. Jones:
* 28% of gay and lesbian high school students dropped out of school because of harassment resulting form their sexual orientation.
* Lesbian, gay and bisexual adolescents are up to 4 times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers.
* 30-40% of the LGBTQ community have attempted suicide at some point in their life.
* It is estimated that 1,000 LGBTQ youth commit suicide in the United States every
* year. That is approximately THREE LGBTQ youth committing suicide every day.
From Dr. Jones’ speech:
There are multiple resources available for at risk students and teens to help
prevent suicide. The Trevor Project operates three core program areas designed
to provide life-saving and life-affirming resources for LGBTQ youth: The Trevor
Lifeline is the nation’s only 24/7 LGBTQ suicide prevention hotline and that
number is 1-866-4-U-Trevor or 1-866-488-7386. The Trevor Project provides
an acronym to help you remember how you can help someone who is suicidal:
Y-Care.
Y: You are never alone. You are not responsible for anyone who chooses to take
their own life. As friends, family and loved ones, all you can do is listen, support,
and assist the person in getting the help they need.
C: Connect the person to resources and to a supportive, trusted adult
A: Accept and listen to the person’s feelings and take them seriously
R: Respond if a person has a plan to attempt suicide and tell someone you trust
E: Empower the person to get help and call the Trevor Lifeline.
Other helpful resources include
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
www.afsp.org
Center Link: The Community of LGBT Centers
www.lgbtcenters.org
Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network
www.glsen.org
National Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and transgender Health
www.lgbthealth.net
Parents and Friends of Lesbians & Gays
www.pflag.org
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States
www.siecus.org
Soulforce
www.soulforce.org
Suicide Prevention Resource Center
www.sprc.org
Greg says, “I too was bullied for my perceived sexuality and experienced the isolating pain that this can cause. I dreaded the school bus, gym class, and lunch time. It was not easy, but IT GOT BETTER. Taunting increased during high school, but IT GOT BETTER. I came out to friends and family during college and IT GOT BETTER. And recently, one of my childhood bullies contacted me to say, I’m sorry I was wrong for how I treated you. We ended up getting together for lunch this past summer and actually had an enjoyable time. So I am here to testify that it DID GET BETTER.
It gets better.
Remember, nothing is ever worth taking your life.
The Trevor Project: a 24-hour hotline for gay and questioning youth: 866-4-U-TREVOR (488-7386)
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-TALK (8255)
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Adult Star Tommy D Announces Retirement - XBIZ.com
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