Lemmingworks

Spanking Kids in School Still Common, Especially Among Disabled | The Autism News

a new study by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch, as reported here and here. More than 200,000 U.S. schoolchildren were subjected to corporal punishment during the 2006-2007 school year, the study shows. And the South has a big lead in whacking schoolkids, with Texas, Mississippi and Alabama holding the top three spots.Paddlings in school are still legal in 20 states, and the report suggests they are quite common, based on 202 interviews with parents, teachers, students and school officials, plus federal Education Department data. The courts haven’t afforded students in classrooms the same protection as criminals have against cruel and unusual punishment.Many pediatricians now advise against corporal punishment; some research suggests spanking makes behavior problems worse. And while I admit to having harbored now and then a fleeting wish that my kids’ teachers could smack fellow students whose behavior disrupted class, I never would seriously advocate such a thing.In the saddest finding of the ACLU study, children with disabilities, especially autism, drew corporal punishment at a far higher rate than others, the study found. Children with autism were often punished for behaviors linked to the condition, because teachers lacked the knowledge, training or patience to use other methods of behavior control.

Evil, Special Needs autism, children, Evil

Gawd Bless the American Right

Republican Missouri Rep, Derides Gov. Spending to Feed Hungry Children: They can Get Free Food at Church or Get a Job!

Cynthia Davis, a conservative Christian Republican State Rep. from Missouri, is against government spending to feed hungry children during the summer, claiming if they were allowed to go hungry, children old enough would be more likely to get a job so they can eat. “Hunger can be a positive motivator,” declared Davis, in her weekly Capitol Report column that is a case study in conservative callousness towards the poor.
In a bizarre display of tone-deafness, which is extreme even by the standards of the most hard-hearted of conservatives who are against government “hand outs’ of any kind, Rep. Davis railed against an innocuous press release announcing Missouri’s Summer Food Service Program, which plans to feed thousands of low-income children during the summer months.
Taking issue with the premise that the recession makes summer food programs more important than ever, Davis believes “[t]he reverse may be true,” because families can economize by doing without twinkies and chips and thereby save money to buy beans to feed their children. She accuses government officials of using the economic “crisis” (she added the quote marks) as an excuse for more government spending of her tax dollars.
How dare the government spend her hard earned tax dollars to feed poor children? Outraged that the summer program cost $9.8 million, “[t]hat money is coming from us,” said Davis. She proposes that hungry children instead, should be forced to rely on the charity of friends and neighbors and go to church for a free meal, like “…they did when Louisiana had a hurricane,” helpfully added Davis.

Alejandra, Evil children, Evil, hunger

Publicists for octuplets mother quit over death threats – Los Angeles Times

Joann Killeen, president of Killeen Furtney Group, said she and husband Mike Furtney decided to drop Suleman early Saturday. Soon after the births, the couple began representing Suleman for free, and almost immediately started receiving threatening e-mails and phone calls from people enraged over the octuplets saga, she said.

“They hope I die, they hope my business goes under, they want to rip her uterus out,” Killeen said. “They say I should be anesthetized and put down like a dog.”

Killeen said she and Suleman felt so threatened that last week they stayed at an undisclosed “secure location” for a few days before returning home. The babies are still being treated at the hospital, Killeen said.

After creating a website for Suleman on Tuesday, Killeen said, she received 55,000 e-mails, most of them negative, and she has stacks of angry mail.

Killeen said she and her husband became afraid enough to send their dogs to a kennel. On Friday, they contacted the Los Angeles Police Department, and officers told them that the threats were the worst they had seen since the O.J. Simpson case, Killeen said.

Yes, I have my own opinions. I do not think that what is going on is anything less than unethical for many obvious, and perhaps some personal reasons. But we’re not talking about that any more. And we should be. I would like to see a discussion of children for children’s sake, rather than for the benefit of parents. IMHO, most of the parents I know, have children for the best of reasons they can think of, and whether I agree or not, I respect their thinking at that time.

We’re talking about death threats, which we know are criminal acts. Threats of violence. And the problem is, no one is willing to counter it publicly, from what I can see, and I bet it is going to get worse. Imagine what sort of pariahs these children will grow up to be when 10s of thousands of people think they should have never been born. Perhaps the mother should have been stopped from having them… that’s an interesting ethical decision. But they are here, and should be accorded the dignity of whatever being a baby in the world does and should mean. There is no other position I can think of on this matter at the moment.

Evil, health babies, children, Evil

Note that we’re talking about fabric softners “air fresheners, cleaners and cosmetic products, such as hair sprays” here.

globeandmail.com: Ottawa suggests adding chemical to toxic list

Health Canada and Environment Canada are recommending adding a former chemical warfare agent, diethyl sulphate, to the country’s list of toxic substances.

Although the substance isn’t a household name, it can be used to make fabric softeners or flocculants in wastewater and sewage sludge control, and in the production of pharmaceuticals, fragrances and dyes….

[And] it did flag butane and isobutane for further assessment. Both chemicals have been classified as carcinogens by the European Commission when they contain another chemical, butadiene, as an impurity in concentrations of more than 0.1 per cent.

Butane is widely used as a fuel additive, but it can also be found in air fresheners, cleaners and cosmetic products, such as hair sprays, according to information about the chemical posted by the government on its website.

Consumerism chemicals, children

Slashdot | Internet Not Really Dangerous For Kids After All
“We’re all familiar with the claim that it’s horribly dangerous to allow our children on to the Internet. It’s long been believed that the moment a child logs on to the Internet, he will experience a flood of inappropriate sexual advances. Turns out this isn’t an accurate representation of reality at all. A high-profile task force representing 49 state attorneys general was organized to find a solution to the problem of online sexual solicitation. But instead the panel has issued a report (due to be released tomorrow) claiming that ‘Social networks are very much like real-world communities that are comprised mostly of good people who are there for the right reasons.’ The report concluded that ‘the problem of child-on-child bullying, both online and offline, poses a far more serious challenge than the sexual solicitation of minors by adults.’ Turns out the danger to our children was all just media hype and parental anxiety.”

There’s an NYT article on it, and I’m looking for the full report.
FRONTLINE: growing up online: watch the full program | PBS has some interesting segments on children and youth online

CLD419, Social Tech for Children, lj children, CLD419, internet

Sylvie pointed me to Disney Fairies | Pixie Hollow – Create your very own Fairy and fly into Pixie Hollow!… one more wonderful marketing opportunity every parent will not want to miss.

Consumerism, Gaming, Social Tech for Children children, gaming, Social Tech for Children, virtual worlds

Food blog talks about Jamie’s new thing… it is quite amazing. I hope i get to see it. Thanks to buridan for telling me.

There was a moment in the first episode of the new Jamie Oliver TV series last night when the Essex-lad-made-millionaire had an outburst worthy of a revolutionary. Emerging from a mealtime visit to Natasha, a single mother on benefits in Rotherham, he raged in his own inimitable language of protest: “Fucking hell … it’s fucking Great Britain. It’s 2008. I’ve been to Soweto and I’ve seen Aids orphans eating better than that.”…. Miss this Ministry of Food series and you’ll be missing some of the most powerful political documentary in years. In it, whether by intention or accident, the naked chef has entered the domestic life of a British town and captured a snapshot of the country’s social health. The result is an indictment of the current political system as disturbing as any ideological tract. Food, and real people’s experience of it, is still all about class.

Jeremy Hunsinger children, food

Police snap children during stop and search

Scotland Yard has admitted its officers have been photographing children who are stopped and searched even after they have been found to be innocent.
Police in Lambeth, south London, claim the tactic helps fight street crime and insist the pictures are kept on a database only for intelligence-gathering purposes. But the civil rights group Liberty has condemned the measure, and a leading community group working with the police has described the tactic as “sinister”.
On Wednesday, police announced the temporary suspension of the tactic after meeting with the community police consultative group for Lambeth.
Last week, Sandra Moodie told how her son Jordan had been stopped and searched by plainclothes officers on his way home from school. They found he was carrying only school books, but took his picture.
Critics claim it marks the return of a new form of the “sus” law. James Welch, the legal director of Liberty, said: “The police don’t have carte blanche to do anything that they think will help prevent crime; they have obligations under the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act.”
In a statement, the police said: “The [Met] has, since 1998, employed the tactic of overtly photographing or filming persons in the street as a way of preventing offences, gathering evidence and intelligence and identifying offenders.”

I really thought there was a law against this sort of ‘abuse’ of children’s rights. Well, there is, but for some reason people don’t bother calling the government and seem to think that the lack of autonomy for children is a good thing. Strangely enough, there’s little research done on this… though there are suggestions that the lack of autonomous experiences for children is the cause of disaffection and a sense of disenfranchisement in children. Something I want to explore more.

lj autonomy, children, surveillance

Buridan sent me this article: Diet change gives hyperactive kids new taste for life in Norway , and it has a great quote:
“I mean, as a parent, wouldn’t you want to at least try switching your child’s diet before medicating him?” I always wonder why there’s such a push on the parts of parents, as reported in the media, to ‘medicate’ children. And am not referring to obvious medical health issues, but rather a desire to see medicines as the first and best solution.

Jeremy Hunsinger adhd, children, food

Alice.org

Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.

CLD419, Jeremy Hunsinger 3d programming, children