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Topics - MissusDe

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76
3DHS / Middle School Project Asks Kids To Defend Slavery
« on: October 03, 2007, 01:21:09 AM »
(CBS) CALDWELL, N.J. Two local middle school teachers are in hot water after assigning students a controversial project on slavery that's angered parents.

Over 100 sixth graders at Grover Cleveland Middle School in Caldwell spent several days last week taking part in an assignment where they used terms like "build a plantation" while completing their "Lap of Luxury" social studies project.

The project instructed students to create an advertisement defending the use of slave labor to run a newly built plantation in South Carolina. Students are told to come up with a '"catchy" name for the plantation and give three reasons why slave labor is the "best idea" and to add illustrations.

One student, who is not being identified because of his age, read to CBS 2 what he wrote for the assignment: "Slave labor is the way to go because slaves aren't paid, so all money is profit."

Parents are astonished by the assignment's nature.

"It's really offending," said Tyiesha Hameed, whose child is one of the only eight black students who attends the school. "There's so many other ways and tools to show our kids how to learn and teach them in reference to slavery."

One question parents and officials are asking is whether the 11- and 12-year-olds even understand the lesson which was given to them.

"The students have to use their creative spirits to create justification. That gets the mind pretty worked up, and it embeds some things in their process that will be there for forever," said James Harris, president of the New Jersey NAACP chapter.

Casey Shorter, the school's principal, said he didn't find out about the project until after he spoke with a concerned parent. "Our intent was not to be insensitive. After reviewing the assignment and listening to feedback, from an administrative and teaching perspective, we determined it was insensitive and inappropriate. And we will eliminate it from the curriculum," he said.

Citing privacy issues, Shorter would not say what he's done with Dana Howarth and Beth Rutzler, the two language arts teachers who created the controversial "Lap of Luxury" project. He adds this is actually the second year that the teachers have given the assignment.

http://wcbstv.com/local/local_story_275172255.html

77
3DHS / Lanya - here's the site you wanted
« on: August 31, 2007, 11:46:36 PM »
Here's the site that has clone recipes for restaurant and fast food favorites.   Many of the recipes are free; otherwise there is a minimal charge per recipe.  For the drinks below that call for espresso, it tells how to make a substitute using a drip coffee maker. 

Top Secret Recipes: http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/recipes.asp

Starbucks Caramel Macchiato: http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/recipedetail.asp?sessionid=&login=yes&id=208&page=17

Starbucks Frappacinno (bottled version): http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/recipedetail.asp?sessionid=&login=yes&id=95&page=

78
3DHS / Amish-run businesses eye modern tech
« on: August 13, 2007, 08:09:11 PM »
DUNKINSVILLE, Ohio (AP) ? Despite a tradition of shunning modern technology, the Amish in southern Ohio are finding ways to use solar energy, windmill power and the Internet to produce and market their homemade goods.

Electricity generated in the outside world and brought into Amish communities through power lines is usually forbidden, but generating their own power is considered acceptable.

That's especially true for businesses like the one run by Daniel Miller and his brothers, where family members come together for a common purpose.

"What we might do in our business, we would not do in our homes," said Miller, who runs the family's furniture store in Adams County, about 70 miles east of Cincinnati. "That is more by tradition than anything else."

Solar panels have also become prevalent among Amish in northeast Ohio, where hundreds see getting energy from the sun as a safe alternative to natural gas and kerosene as a source of light.

At Miller's Furniture, Bakery and Bulk Food, freezers, cash registers and other equipment are operated by energy generated by a windmill and solar panels at the family's country complex. The family, which also makes and sells pies, cheeses and bread, stores the electricity in truck-sized batteries.

In 30 years, they haven't had to pay a single electric bill.

"The world may run out of oil and gas," Miller said. "But we will always have the sun and wind."

The family also is using Internet advertising to attract non-Amish customers from Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton. The Millers hired ZoneFree Ohio Marketing and Public Relations, a public relations company that highlights the family's various products on a website that caters to tourists.

"Some people see them as simple and backward," said Frank Satullo, ZoneFree Ohio founder. "And yet they went 'green' years ago. These plain-living people in horses and buggies are way ahead of the world."

At the bottom of the ZoneFree website featuring the Millers' store, Satullo runs a disclaimer that his company, not the Miller family, created and maintain the site.

"I have to say that, because, of course, the Millers can't have their own website," Satullo said. "But I can use the Internet for them."

Miller also buys ads in newspapers, which usually run in a paper's Internet site as well. But it's an advertisement he'll never see.

"We just can't go there," he said. "But, yes, it is a tool that can be used to tell people we're here."

Miller's Furniture, Bakery and Bulk Food
http://www.ohiotraveler.com/ohio_amish_stores.htm

79
3DHS / The day God was taken to court
« on: July 14, 2007, 06:54:47 AM »
Sigh....another member of the "it's not my fault" club.  I guess he forgot the part about utilizing free will, and then accepting the consequences of his actions.

Bucharest - A Romanian man who sued God for "fraud" and "betrayal of trust" for failing to answer his prayers has had his case dismissed in court, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Mircea Pavel, 40, who is serving 20 years in prison for murder, brought charges against "the defendant God, who lives in the heavens and is represented in Romania by the Orthodox Church," the daily Evenimentul Zilei reported.

He accused God of "fraud, betrayal of trust, corruption and influence peddling."

"At my christening, I made a deal with the defendant aimed at freeing me from evil. But the latter has not respected that agreement until now, although he received from me various assets and numerous prayers," Pavel wrote.

The court in Timisoara, in western Romania, dismissed the case, ruling that "God is not subject to law and does not have an address."

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=29&art_id=nw20070711160129319C673845

80
3DHS / Mock funeral to 'bury' offensive words
« on: July 07, 2007, 11:01:30 PM »
Decades have passed since the mass marches of the civil rights and women's lib movements. But it's still common to hear chart-topping songs that contain casual but offensive terms for African Americans and women.

Rap and hip-hop artists are often the culprits, and now members of the NAACP hope to send a strong message: Enough is enough.

As part of a nationwide campaign to end the use of offensive terms and the objectification of women in songs and music videos, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People plans to hold a "mock funeral" for the word "nigger" on Monday during its annual convention in Detroit.

In the Puget Sound area, NAACP chapters are urging people to wear black ribbons Monday to show solidarity with the campaign to "bury" the word. The campaign also urges people to stop using the terms "bitch" and "ho" to refer to women.

Some hip-hop fans have argued it's acceptable for African-Americans to use the n-word casually and that doing so could strip it of its power to hurt. Others, such as longtime Seattle civil rights activist Oscar Eason Jr., strongly disagree.

"It was meant to degrade you, to put a certain amount of fear into the conversation," said Eason, who serves as president of the NAACP Alaska/Oregon/Washington State Conference. "And to have our kids to use it like this ... it's frustrating."

The "funeral" comes just months after high-profile instances of celebrities using the terms prompted public outrage. In November, former "Seinfeld" actor Michael Richards used the n-word repeatedly during a tirade against a patron at a Los Angeles comedy club. And in April, radio shock jock Don Imus referred to members of the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy headed hos."

Imus was ultimately fired.

After the Imus controversy, more and more voices called on popular hip-hop artists to stop using the words.

Eason hopes the funeral will help younger African Americans -- who may never have had it used against them as a slur -- rethink their use of the word in the future.

"We're constantly trying to get that word erased from people's vocabulary," he said.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/322507_nword05.html

81
3DHS / Feds fruitless in getting kids off junk food
« on: July 06, 2007, 04:59:20 AM »
The federal government will spend more than $1 billion this year on nutrition education -- fresh carrot and celery snacks, videos of dancing fruit, hundreds of hours of lively lessons about how great you will feel if you eat well.

But an Associated Press review of scientific studies examining 57 such programs found mostly failure. Just four showed any real success in changing the way kids eat -- or any promise as weapons against the growing epidemic of childhood obesity.

''Any person looking at the published literature about these programs would have to conclude that they are generally not working,'' said Dr. Tom Baranowski, a pediatrics professor at Houston's Baylor College of Medicine who studies behavioral nutrition.

The results have been disappointing, to say the least:

? Last year, a major federal pilot program offering free fruits and vegetables to schoolchildren showed that fifth-graders became less willing to eat them than they had been at the start. Apparently, they didn't like the taste.

? In Pennsylvania, researchers went so far as to give prizes to school children who ate fruits and vegetables. That worked while the prizes were offered, but when the researchers came back seven months later the kids had reverted to their original eating habits: soda and chips.

? In studies where children tell researchers they are eating better or exercising more, there is usually no change in blood pressure, body size or cholesterol measures; they want to eat better, they might even think they are, but they're not.

Nationally, obesity rates have nearly quintupled among 6- to 11-year-olds and tripled among teens and children ages 2 to 5 since the 1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The medical consequences of obesity in the United States -- diabetes, high blood pressure, even orthopedic problems -- cost an estimated $100 billion a year. Kentucky cardiologist Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., nominated as the next surgeon general, says fighting childhood obesity is his top priority.

The forces that make kids fat ''are really strong and hard to fight with just a program in school,'' said Dr. Philip Zeitler, a pediatric endocrinologist who sees ''a steady stream'' of obese children struggling with diabetes and other potentially fatal medical problems at The Children's Hospital in Denver.

What does he tell them?

''Oh God, I haven't figured out anything that I know is going to work,'' he said. ``I'm not aware of any medical model that is very successful in helping these kids. Sure, we try to help them, but I can't take credit for the ones who do manage to change.''

Experts agree that although most funding targets schools, parents have the greatest influence, even a biological influence, over what their children will eat. Zeitler says when children slim down, it's because ``their families get religion about this and figure out what needs to happen.''

But often, they don't.

''If the mother is eating Cheetos and white bread, the fetus will be born with those taste buds. If the mother is eating carrots and oatmeal, the child will be born with those taste buds,'' said Dr. Robert Trevino of the Social and Health Research Center in San Antonio.

Most kids learn what tastes good and what tastes nasty by their 10th birthdays.

''If we don't reach a child before they get to puberty, it's going to be very tough, very difficult, to change their eating behavior,'' Trevino said.

Poorer kids are especially at risk, because unhealthy food is cheaper and more available than healthy food.

Parents are often working, leaving their children unsupervised to get their own snacks. Low-income neighborhoods have fewer good supermarkets with fresh produce.

Meanwhile, it's harder for children to exercise on their own. Parks often aren't safe, and sports teams cost money.

''Calorie burning has become the province of the wealthy,'' Zeitler said. ``I fear that what we're going to see is a divergence of healthy people and unhealthy people. Basically, like everything else, it costs money to be healthy.''

Children ages 8 to 12 see an average of 21 television ads each day for candy, snacks, cereal and fast food -- more than 7,600 a year, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study. Not one of the 8,854 ads reviewed promoted fruits or vegetables.

There was one ad for healthy foods for every 50 for other foods.

Children may be the best sources to explain why lessons about nutrition don't sink in.

''I think it's because they like it so much, because like, I don't know if you've seen the new hot Cheetos that are like puffs? Oh my God, they're so good. Like everyone at the school has them and they're so good,'' said Ani Avanessian, 14, of Panorama City.

Her classmate George Rico, a 13-year-old whose mother is a manager at a McDonald's, said he loves his nutrition class. But does it affect what he puts in his mouth?

''Well, no, but it makes me think about what I eat,'' he said. ``I think kids don't change because they've been eating it for so long they're just accustomed to eating that way.''

http://www.miamiherald.com/884/story/160714.html

82
3DHS / Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled
« on: July 06, 2007, 04:06:02 AM »
Don Chance, a finance professor at Louisiana State University, says it dawned on him last spring. The semester was ending, and as usual, students were making a pilgrimage to his office, asking for the extra points needed to lift their grades to A's.

"They felt so entitled," he recalls, "and it just hit me. We can blame Mr. Rogers."

Fred Rogers, the late TV icon, told several generations of children that they were "special" just for being whoever they were. He meant well, and he was a sterling role model in many ways. But what often got lost in his self-esteem-building patter was the idea that being special comes from working hard and having high expectations for yourself.

Now Mr. Rogers, like Dr. Spock before him, has been targeted for re-evaluation. And he's not the only one. As educators and researchers struggle to define the new parameters of parenting, circa 2007, some are revisiting the language of child ego-boosting. What are the downsides of telling kids they're special? Is it a mistake to have children call us by our first names? When we focus all conversations on our children's lives, are we denying them the insights found when adults talk about adult things?

Some are calling for a recalibration of the mind-sets and catch-phrases that have taken hold in recent decades. Among the expressions now being challenged:

"You're special." On the Yahoo Answers Web site, a discussion thread about Mr. Rogers begins with this posting: "Mr. Rogers spent years telling little creeps that he liked them just the way they were. He should have been telling them there was a lot of room for improvement. ... Nice as he was, and as good as his intentions may have been, he did a disservice."

Signs of narcissism among college students have been rising for 25 years, according to a recent study led by a San Diego State University psychologist. Obviously, Mr. Rogers alone can't be blamed for this. But as Prof. Chance sees it, "he's representative of a culture of excessive doting."

Prof. Chance teaches many Asian-born students, and says they accept whatever grade they're given; they see B's and C's as an indication that they must work harder, and that their elders assessed them accurately. They didn't grow up with Mr. Rogers or anyone else telling them they were born special.

By contrast, American students often view lower grades as a reason to "hit you up for an A because they came to class and feel they worked hard," says Prof. Chance. He wishes more parents would offer kids this perspective: "The world owes you nothing. You have to work and compete. If you want to be special, you'll have to prove it."

"They're just children." When kids are rude, self-absorbed or disrespectful, some parents allow or endure it by saying, "Well, they're just children." The phrase is a worthy one when it's applied to a teachable moment, such as telling kids not to stick their fingers in electrical sockets. But as an excuse or as justification for unacceptable behavior, "They're just children" is just misguided.

"Call me Cindy." Is it appropriate to place kids on the same level as adults, with all of us calling each other by our first names? On one hand, the familiarity can mark a loving closeness between child and adult. But on the other hand, when a child calls an adult Mr. or Ms., it helps him recognize that status is earned by age and experience. It's also a reminder to respect your elders.

"Tell me about your day." It is crucial to talk to kids about their lives, and that dialogue can enrich the whole family. However, parents also need to discuss their own lives and experiences, says Alvin Rosenfeld, a Manhattan-based child psychiatrist who studies family interactions.

In America today, life often begins with the anointing of "His Majesty, the Fetus," he says. From then on, many parents focus their conversations on their kids. Today's parents "are the best-educated generation ever," says Dr. Rosenfeld. "So why do our kids see us primarily discussing kids' schedules and activities?"

He encourages parents to talk about their passions and interests; about politics, business, world events. "Because everything is child-centered today, we're depriving children of adults," he says. "If they never see us as adults being adults, how will they deal with important matters when it is their world?"

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB118358476840657463.html

83
3DHS / Speaking of an inconvenient truth.....
« on: July 05, 2007, 01:43:00 AM »
Al Gore's Son Arrested For Marijuana Possession

Al Gore's son was arrested early Wednesday on suspicion of possessing marijuana and prescription drugs after deputies pulled him over for speeding, authorities said.

Al Gore III, 24, was driving a blue Toyota Prius about 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway when he was pulled over at about 2:15 a.m., Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino said.

The deputies said they smelled marijuana and searched the car, Amormino said. They found less than an ounce of marijuana along with Xanax, Valium, Vicodin, Soma and Adderall, an amphetamine used for attention deficit disorder, he said.

"He does not have a prescription for any of those drugs," Amormino said.

Gore was released from the men's central jail in Santa Ana Wednesday afternoon after posting $20,000 bail.

Amormino said Gore had yet to hire an attorney.

Kalee Kreider, a spokeswoman for his parents, did not immediately return phone messages to The Associated Press.

The son of the former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee also was pulled over and arrested for pot possession in December 2003, in Bethesda, Md., while he was a student at Harvard University.

He completed substance abuse counseling as part of a pretrial diversion program to settle those charges.

The youngest of Al and Tipper Gore's four children and their only son, Gore lives in Los Angeles and is an associate publisher of GOOD, a magazine about philanthropy aimed at young people.

http://cbs13.com/national/local_story_185123922.html

84
3DHS / New Hampshire Couple Vows to Fight Feds to the Death
« on: June 29, 2007, 04:53:40 PM »
Holed Up and Well-Armed, a New Hampshire Couple Refuses to Surrender to Federal Agents

Calling the federal agents surrounding his fortified compound "guns for hire," a New Hampshire man convicted of tax evasion vowed today that he and his wife would fight U.S. marshals to the death if they tried to capture them.

"Do not under any circumstances make any attempt on this land. We will not accept any tomfoolery by any criminal element, be it federal, state or local," said Ed Brown in a press conference from the stoop of his concrete-clad home in Plainfield, N.H. "We either walk out of here free or we die."

Brown and his wife, Elaine, were sentenced in absentia in April to serve 63 months in prison for failing to pay more than $1 million in income tax.

The couple, however, insists that there is no law that requires citizens to pay income tax.

"There is no law. We looked and looked," Brown told the press.

Brown and his supporters, including Randy Weaver, leader of the 1992 standoff with ATF agents at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, told the press that the government has unlawfully tricked people into believing they have to pay income tax, knowing full well that such a law would be unconstitutional.

"We will defend it to the death. This is 1776 all over again. You cannot tax someone's labor because that is slavery," Brown said.

Carrying a pistol in his waistband, Brown also insisted that he could not receive a fair trial in a federal court because "the court system falls under freemasonry."

"There [are] no longer any lawful courts. The Freemasons have taken over our nation. ? [Freemasons want] to take over our nation and all nations on the planet," Brown said.

Weaver, whose son was killed by federal agents and who later received a $100,000 settlement from the government, said he was there to support the Browns.

"I'd rather die on my feet right here than die on my knees under this de facto government," he said. "Bring it on."

Despite months of surveillance and reports of agents hiding in the woods of the couple's 110-acre compound, U.S. marshals said this morning that the Brown's Plainfield, N.H., home was not surrounded by their officers.

U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier made an effort to starkly contrast the actions of the Marshals with those of the ATF agents who besieged Ruby Ridge in 1992. In addition to Weaver's son, one federal agent was killed in that incident.

"There is no standoff and the house is not surrounded." Monier told ABC News.com. "We have no intention of assaulting the house or engaging in a violent confrontation."

Monier said he believed Weaver would attend the press conference the Browns are hosting this afternoon. He said Weaver and others -- some of whom are believed to have brought the couple weapons -- have been freely allowed to enter Brown's property.

"There is no reason to block Weaver. People are free to exercise their First Amendment rights," Monier said. "We are not setting up roadblocks or surrounding the house."

In April, Ed and Elaine Brown were sentenced in absentia to 63 months in prison for failing to pay more than $1 million in taxes.

Since failing to appear in court the couple has remained within the concrete-fortified walls of their rural New Hampshire home.

Monier said the Marshals have been communicating with the couple in an effort to get them to turn themselves over the federal authorities without having to resort to the use of force.

"We know they have weapons and we do not want to see this escalate," he said.

Last week agents cut off the home's telephone, Internet and power access. Monier said the couple most likely had generators -- possibly solar or wind powered -- but that eventually the Browns would become uncomfortable enough in their isolation that they would be forced to surrender.

"They probably have generators but those will soon need fuel and need people to fix them. We want to continue to encourage them, and make it uncomfortable enough for them that they'll give up."

Brown said he and his wife had enough supplies to wait out the government no matter how long it lasted. He said the couple did not use air conditioning and could chop down trees from firewood.

Last week, Danny Riley a friend of the Browns was arrested near their home by federal agents while walking the couple's dog.

The Marshals claim they were engaged in routine surveillance of the property, but the Browns believe Riley thwarted a potential raid.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3290003&page=1

85
3DHS / Help and/or suggestions
« on: June 25, 2007, 05:34:33 PM »
My 17 year-old daughter will be leaving for Europe on July 19th to participate in the People to People Student Ambassador program.  The kids are supposed to bring small, inexpensive gifts for their home stay hosts.  Anna's best friend already snagged the idea of taking little packs of Jelly Bellys (the factory is in the area), and Anna doesn't want to copy her.  One idea we had was to take packets of seeds for our state flower, the California poppy - but I can't find out if that's even allowed.  Another idea is to get small bars of Ghiradellii chocolate. but then there's the problem of them breaking or melting.

Whatever she ends up getting, it needs to travel well and not take up too much room in her luggage....anybody have ideas or suggestions?

86
3DHS / Journalists dole out cash to politicians (quietly)
« on: June 21, 2007, 06:31:13 PM »
A CNN reporter gave $500 to John Kerry's campaign the same month he was embedded with the U.S. Army in Iraq. An assistant managing editor at Forbes magazine not only sent $2,000 to Republicans, but also volunteers as a director of an ExxonMobil-funded group that questions global warming. A junior editor at Dow Jones Newswires gave $1,036 to the liberal group MoveOn.org and keeps a blog listing "people I don't like," starting with George Bush, Pat Robertson, the Christian Coalition, the NRA and corporate America ("these are the people who are really in charge").

Whether you sample your news feed from ABC or CBS (or, yes, even NBC and MSNBC), whether you prefer Fox News Channel or National Public Radio, The Wall Street Journal or The New Yorker, some of the journalists feeding you are also feeding cash to politicians, parties or political action committees.

MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

The rest of the story here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113485

Also check out the list of media outlet employees which details contributions and explanations of why they feel they can remain unbiased: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113455/#Fulginiti

87
3DHS / How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News
« on: June 21, 2007, 06:05:56 PM »
Quotes from the new book How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News by Drew Curtis of http://www.fark.com/:

 "White House pressrooms (no matter which political party is in charge) toss out a huge dump of bad news around 5:00 PM every Friday. Which as far as I can tell is at least five hours after the media corps has clocked out for a three-martini lunch with no intention of coming back to work until Monday." -- P.10

    "The challenge of reporting is to continually come up with new information on the issues on which you're reporting. This can be extremely difficult if not impossible when dealing with sudden emergencies. Most terrorist attacks fit this pattern. Initially, the media is blindsided by the event. Eyewitness reports start coming in, the vast majority of which are inaccurate. Media outlets don't have the option to remain silent about breaking news, so having nothing else to talk about, they repeat the rumors. Unfortunately, they don't realize that people take rumor as fact from mainstream news outlets, or they do realize it but feel they have plausible deniability by reporting rumors as rumor rather than fact." -- P.14

    "Media will ask survivors some of the most deplorable questions such as "How do you feel right now?" "Has this changed you life?" and "Do you think you'll be able to recover and move on?" For most people following these events, the answers are always "Like sh*t," Yes," and "Hell no." -- P.15

    "Take 9/11. After the shock wore off, Congress, the media, and pretty much every other interest group out there demanded to know how the U.S. government had let it happen. Today no one remembers that on 9/10/2001 no one gave a crap about terrorism. We all thought it couldn't happen in the United States. We'll be right back to that attitude in a short while if no more attacks occur, assuming we're not there already." -- P.55

    "If bird flu had killed 1.7 million people last year, everyone would panic. We'd have 72-point-font headlines screaming about the end of the world, riots in the streets, and general societal collapse if Mass Media is to be believed, given its dire bird flu predictions. It turns out that 1.7 million happens to be the number of people killed by tuberculosis in 2004. Three million people would be even worse, right? That's how many people died from AIDS worldwide in 2004. Nobody is panicking." -- P.56

    "...Media Fearmongering stories tend to always cover somewhat unlikely events. Recently I read of an initiative to require car manufacturers to install sensors that alert drivers when leave a baby in the backseat accidentally. Along those same lines, there is an off switch for the passenger-side airbag in my car, a device that has caused only 30-40 deaths ever. By comparison, more people die every year from drinking too much water. Should Congress legislate safety shutoff valves for faucets? Should they regulate our water to keep us from drinking too much?" -- P.57

    "An interesting corollary to this media pattern that has popped up in recent years is advertisers getting a TV commercial banned on purpose. This seems counterintuitive, but it works amazingly well. A company intentionally concocts an offensive commercial and has it produced professionally. It then submits it to a TV network to be added into rotation with the other ads. The network then rejects it. Subsequently, the company in question raises a big stink about it in the media and puts the original commercial on its website for download. The result is a huge surge in traffic to the company's Web site from curious people looking to download the banned commercial in question." -- P.63-64

    "Readers assume information carried by Mass Media is true solely because it appears there. While Mass Media asks its audience to treat all media matters with a degree of skepticism, no one actually does. People expect Mass Media to do that for them, but it doesn't. Whether it should is another issue entirely." -- P.95-96

    "The main problem with "Headline Contradicted by Actual Article" is that most people don't read articles, they read only headlines and move on. Judging from the click-out patterns on Fark, the average person on a given visit to Fark will click on maybe three links out of around two hundred. As for the rest of the links, they read the outrageous tagline, figure they know what the rest of the article says, and move on." -- P.109

    "The real bafflement here is why the media even gives these (9/11 conspiracy theorists) coverage. Compare the two viewpoints. On the one hand we have thousands upon thousands of hours of forensic science, intelligence gathering, and contemporary media. On the other, we have none of these. The two viewpoints are not equally valid. We're not talking about a religious discussion here, we're talking about an actual forensic event witnessed by dozens of people. Just because a number of people believe something doesn't make it a legitimate alternative viewpoint. I'm not trying to evangelize here. If someone manages to come up with some new evidence, such as a warehouse where the government is keeping all the passengers from the planes involved in the attacks, a missile fuselage, or otherwise, I'm more than happy to change my viewpoint. I'd rather be right than win an argument. I'm not holding my breath on this one, though. If the US government couldn't conspire a way to plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to save face, I doubt they're capable of pulling off 9/11." -- P.119

    "In theory, "Equal Time for Nutjobs" should be harmless. The people being interviewed are obviously out of their gourds. The problem is that a Mass Media mention gives them instant credibility. The media audience automatically assumes that the Mass Media wouldn't give coverage to anything they knew was patently false." -- P.131

    "I fully expect that when I'm a senior citizen, I'll have to read actual scholarly debates concerning the reality of the Holocaust. I guarantee you the first argument will be "We don't know anyone who was there, so how can we prove it was real?" It's already starting; Iran held one in late 2006. The media needs to cut this crap out and stop giving nutjobs a platform to stand on. And don't give me the "where do we draw the line" argument. Just make a judgment call, already." -- P.132

    "Like it or not, we live in a world where people will pay more attention to what a member of a famous boy band says on a technical subject as opposed to real scientists, who in theory should know more about what the hell they are talking about." -- P.137

    "It's going to be a long while before people forget that Hurricane Katrina pretty much destroyed New Orleans. After which, the citizens of that fine city promptly rebuilt it in the same place, ten feet below sea level right next to the Mississippi. What could possibly go wrong? Again, I mean." -- P.151

    "'Mysterious Repeating Sources' are caused by the fact that news sources do a minimum amount of background research, especially during breaking news. If a piece of information originates with research they did themselves, they tend to do a decent job of fact-checking before reporting it. If it originates with someone else, Mass Media, or other blog-type media, they tend not to fact-check it at all." -- P.200

    "Mass Media will respond that media issues are of great importance because they impact the public trust in news organizations. This ignores the fact that most people already believe Mass Media either makes stuff up, is biased one way or the other, or constantly gets information wrong. Finding out that journalists sometimes invent stories just confirms their preexisting viewpoint." -- P.248

    "What people are interested in is not, for the most part, hard news. Witness the travesty that is CNN's most popular articles section. Taking today as a random example, without looking beforehand, mind you, we have a main page story about Bin Laden preparing another attack on the United States. Hey, that's real news. Most popular: "raw fish, air guitar help trio survive 9 months adrift at sea." No further comment needed." -- P.251

    "People don't really want to watch or read news that does the right thing. The McNeil-Lehrer Newshour was a great example of this. Quality news, mostly information, and no one watched it. It was dry as toast in a diner at breakfast on Saturday morning. Is there any way to fix this? No." -- P.253

    "Local newspapers may be lulling themselves into a false sense of security by thinking they can reverse their subscriber loss somehow, some way. Barring some amazing innovation that no one has yet envisioned, and that's certainly a possibility, print media subscriber loss will not be reversed under any circumstances. A company depending on unheard-of innovation for its survival is about as effective as you depending on the lottery to cover your retirement." -- P.255

    "It is highly likely that it may not even be possible to convert newspapers, radio, and TV to the internet and maintain the same income levels from advertising, because now marketing folks can't lie about how effective it is anymore. And by drop in income, I don't mean a loss of 10 percent; we're talking 90 percent or more. That's a conservative estimate; it could be much worse.

    Pre-internet, Mass Media could charge for ads based on total circulation or viewership whether anyone opened the newspaper to page A5 or actually watched the evening news at 5:42 P.M. Now Mass Media can charge only if the reader actually reads the specific page in question. Fark's own usage statistics indicate that the average Fark reader clicks on 2 or 3 articles out of 100 main page articles and 200 sub-page articles. The implication here is that people visiting Mass Media Web sites don't read many of the articles. Putting it simply: On the Internet, Mass Media can no longer charge money for ads no one sees." -- P.262-263

88
3DHS / I thought this kind of stuff only happened in California.
« on: June 21, 2007, 07:22:40 AM »
Gag Order

Usually we leave it up to the linguists and philosophers to muse on the crazy relationship between words and their meanings. In the law, words—the important ones, at least—are defined narrowly, and judges, lawyers, and jurors are trusted to understand their meanings. It's precisely because language is so powerful in a courtroom that we treat it so reverently.

Yet a Nebraska district judge, Jeffre Cheuvront, suddenly finds himself in a war of words with attorneys on both sides of a sexual assault trial. More worrisome, he appears to be at war with language itself, and his paradoxical answer is to ban it: Last fall, Cheuvront granted a motion by defense attorneys barring the use of the words rape, sexual assault, victim, assailant, and sexual assault kit from the trial of Pamir Safi—accused of raping Tory Bowen in October 2004.

Safi's first trial resulted in a hung jury last November when jurors deadlocked 7-5. Responding to Cheuvront's initial language ban—which will be in force again when Safi is retried in July—prosecutors upped the ante last month by seeking to have words like sex and intercourse barred from the courtroom as well. The judge denied that motion, evidently on the theory that there would be no words left to describe the sex act at all. The result is that the defense and the prosecution are both left to use the same word—sex—to describe either forcible sexual assault, or benign consensual intercourse. As for the jurors, they'll just have to read the witnesses' eyebrows to sort out the difference.

Bowen met Safi at a Lincoln bar on Oct. 30, 2004. It is undisputed that they shared some drinks, and witnesses saw them leaving together. Bowen claims not to have left willingly and has no memory of the rest of that night. She claims to have woken up naked the next morning with Safi atop her, "having sexual intercourse with her." When she asked him to stop, he did.

Bowen testified for 13 hours at Safi's first trial last October, all without using the words rape or sexual assault. She claims, not unreasonably, that describing what happened to her as sex is almost an assault in itself. "This makes women sick, especially the women who have gone through this," Bowen told the Omaha World-Herald. "They know the difference between sex and rape."

Nebraska law offers judges broad discretion to ban evidence or language that present the danger of "unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues or misleading the jury." And it's not unheard-of for judges to keep certain words out of a courtroom. Words like victim have been increasingly kept out of trials, since they tend to imply that a crime was committed. And as Safi's lawyer, Clarence Mock, explains, the word rape is just as loaded. "It's a legal conclusion for a witness to say, 'I was raped' or 'sexually assaulted.' … That's for a jury to decide." His concern is that the word rape so inflames jurors that they decide a case emotionally and not rationally.

The real question for Judge Cheuvront, then, is whether embedded in the word sex is another "legal conclusion"—that the intercourse was consensual. And it's hard to conclude otherwise. Go ahead, use the word sex in a sentence. Asking a complaining witness to scrub the word rape or assault from her testimony is one thing. Asking that she imply that she agreed to what her alleged assailant was doing to her is something else entirely. To put it another way: If the complaining witness in a rape trial has to describe herself as having had "intercourse" with the defendant, should the complaining witness in a mugging be forced to testify that he was merely giving his attacker a loan?

The fact that judges are not rushing to ban similarly conclusory legal language from trial testimony—presumably one can still say murder or embezzlement on the stand—reflects not just the fraught nature of language but also the fraught nature of rape prosecutions. We as a society still somehow think rape is different—either because we assume the victims are especially fragile or because we assume they are particularly deceitful. Is the word rape truly more inflammatory to a jury than the word robbery? Yes, the question of the victim's consent surely makes a rape trial more complicated than some other kinds of criminal trials. But the fact that the evidence may be more equivocal hardly makes the underlying word more likely to incite blind juror outrage.

Wendy Murphy teaches at the New England School of Law and has spent years studying the relationship between language and the courts. She describes Judge Cheuvront's order as part of a growing trend on the part of the defense bar to scrub the language of trial courts, one that has "really blossomed after the Kobe Bryant trial." The big shifts she's noticing: Whereas defense attorneys once made motions to limit the use of the word victim in trials, there is an uptick in efforts to get rid of the word rape. Moreover, she points out, these strategies used to be directed toward prosecutors, but they are now being directed toward witnesses as well.

Do a Lexis search on the influence of inflammatory language on juror perceptions. Try to find some social science data on the effect of loaded courtroom words on conviction rates. Not much out there, notes Murphy. That's one of the things that makes the Nebraska case so maddening. If judges are going to take it upon themselves to issue blanket orders that would have witnesses testifying that black is white, one might hope that they are trying to remedy some well-documented evidentiary problem.

You needn't be a radical legal feminist to cringe at the idea of judges ordering rape complainants to obliterate from their testimony any language that signifies an assault. At worst, that judge is ordering her to lie. At best, he is asking her to play at being a human thesaurus: thinking up coded ways to describe to the jury what she believes to have happened. If Mock, Safi's attorney, is correct in stating that "trials are competing narratives of what happened," why should one side have a lock on the narrative language used? Can it really be that the cure for the problem of ambiguous courtroom language is to permit less of it?

And there's another problem underlying Cheuvront's order: Jurors will not be told of it. Not only is the "dangerous" language to be hidden from them, but the fact that it's been hidden will be concealed from them as well. They are not merely too emotional to hear the phrase rape kit. They are also evidently too emotional to know it's been hidden from them in the first place.

Professor Robert Weisberg teaches criminal law at Stanford Law School, and he acknowledges that judges in rape trials face a particularly complicated challenge when it comes to keeping prejudicial or conclusory language from a jury. He has no problem, for instance, with the fact that courts have gradually jettisoned the word victim for the less loaded complainant. The former proves too much. But he cautions that there is no value-neutral word for unwanted sex and that the word intercourse "understates what happens in a rape case." He warns that a blanket ban on the word rape may in fact be the worst solution. A jury instruction from the judge or gentle admonitions that witnesses watch their language throughout the trial is the better, more transparent fix. "That," says Weisberg, "is what judges get paid for."

If we've learned anything from the dreary wars over politically correct language in America, it's that purging ugly words from the lexicon hardly makes the ugly ideas they represent go away. Trials exist to ferret out facts, and papering over those ugly facts with pretty—or even "neutral"—words doesn't just do violence to abstractions like language and meaning. When it's done in a courtroom, the real victim—if I may still use that word—may well be the truth.

Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor.

http://www.slate.com/id/2168758/

89
3DHS / Marriage - latest addition to hate speech list?
« on: June 11, 2007, 04:03:54 PM »
The words "natural family," "marriage" and "union of a man and a woman" can be punished as "hate speech" in government workplaces, according to a lawsuit that is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
    Briefs for Good News Employee Association vs. Hicks, which were filed June 5 with the nation's highest court, lists D.C. school board President Robert C. Bobb as one of two plaintiffs. The case originated five years ago in Oakland, Calif., during his tenure there as city manager.
    The dispute began in January 2003, when the two Oakland employees created a subgroup at their workplace called the "Good News Employee Association." It was partly in response to a group of homosexual employees having formed their own group 10 months before and being given access to the city e-mail system. One e-mail, dated Oct. 11, 2002, invited city employees to participate in "National Coming-Out Day."
    When several employees asked whether such a posting was legitimate city business, they got an e-mail from City Council member Danny Wan, reminding them that a "celebration of the gay/lesbian culture and movement" was part of the city's role to "celebrate diversity."
    In response, the Good News employees posted an introductory flier on the employee bulletin board Jan. 3.
    It said: "Preserve Our Workplace With Integrity: Good News Employee Association is a forum for people of faith to express their views on the contemporary issues of the day." It said it opposed "all views which seek to redefine the natural family and marriage," which it defined as "a union of a man and a woman, according to California state law."
    Anyone who wanted to help preserve "integrity in the workplace" was invited to contact the two employees: Regina Rederford and Robin Christy.
    A lesbian co-worker, Judith Jennings, spotted the flier and complained to the city attorney's office that it made her feel "targeted" and "excluded," according to a deposition. The flier was removed by a supervisor because it violated the city's anti-discrimination rules.
    A U.S. District Court for Northern California ruling said the words "natural family" and "marriage" had "anti-homosexual import."
    However, Miss Rederford was told she could announce the group's presence on the city's e-mail system if she removed "verbiage that could be offensive to gay people."
    In late February 2003, Joyce Hicks, a city deputy executive director and the other defendant in the suit, sent out a memo to city employees. It cited recent incidents where "fliers were placed in public view which contained statements of a homophobic nature" and warned employees they could be fired for posting such material.
    Miss Rederford and Miss Christy sued the city, claiming their First Amendment rights had been violated. According to court documents, employees had posted bulletin announcements on everything from terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden to local sporting events, yet those had not been removed.
    The district court disagreed, saying the women had other venues in which to proclaim their message. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said employees' freedom of speech takes a back seat to employers' "legitimate administrative interests." They were allowed to submit a new flier, subject to "certain editorial constraints."
    "This incredible and devastating ruling has had the practical effect of silencing hundreds, if not thousands, of City of Oakland employees who simply wish to talk about marriage and family values," said a statement from the Pro-Family Law Center in Temecula, Calif., which represents the plaintiffs.
    "To the extent that this ruling has been shared by Oakland with other cities, there is a huge risk that these rulings are being treated as precedent by other cities across the nation," the statement continued.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070610-111445-6957r.htm

90
3DHS / Experts: Paris May Set Legal Precedent
« on: June 09, 2007, 01:44:54 AM »


As Paris burns back in county jail, the debate over her short-lived release rages on, with law experts dissecting the thorny legal issues raised by the Simple Life star's sentence.

The main issue? Whether Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer was correct in overruling Sheriff Lee Baca's decision to transfer Hilton to house arrest after just three full days in jail for what was originally a 45-day sentence.

"It's really bizarre that the most frivolous person in the western world in the most frivolous case in which she didn't know she has a license to drive might end up creating precedent that could affect thousands of prisoners and where they're housed and how they're housed for years to come," said Stan Goldman, professor of criminal law at Loyola University Law School.

Goldman and others agree the showdown creates a legal quandary—i.e., whether the elected sheriff is truly independent of the judiciary and whether Judge Sauer overstepped his bounds.

"The judge attempted to impose control over the sentence," said Jody Armour, professor of law at the University of Southern California. "The sheriff doesn't have discretion to do anything willy-nilly, but once the custody of an inmate has been given over to his department, the sheriff is given a lot of latitude. But with one huge exception."

Armour said that Sauer's sentencing order explicitly forbade Baca from putting her in home confinement. "The judge was trying to limit the discretion of the sheriff, and the sheriff was saying this is our domain," Armour said.

"The Sheriff's Department didn't know that their discretionary decision would be overridden by the judge. But apparently so far they're mistaken, and now, unfortunately, Paris is paying the price of that confusion and that misunderstanding."

The point was seconded by one of Armour's colleagues at USC. "Usually the court is very loath to intervene with how the sheriff runs his jail facilities. He may have reason to move people around because of overcrowding or an emergency arises," observed law professor Jean Rosenbluth. "But I think because the judge said from the very start no home confinement and 23 days, and the sheriff didn't get his permission...the judge was quick to assert his control."

Sauer hauled Hilton back into court early Friday after learning that Baca had authorized Hilton's so-called reassignment. The sheriff's move sparked a monster PR nightmare, with accusations of his department giving special treatment to the hotel heiress.

At a Friday press conference, Baca attempted to deflect criticism by first asserting that Hilton was a "low-level offender" and he was under a federal mandate to reduce inmate overcrowding. He then switched tacks and said she had "severe medical problems" and her condition was "rapidly deteriorating" without proper medication. After consulting with two psychologists, he made his decision.

Goldman said the 23 days Hilton is expected to serve of her sentence (once she's credited for time served and good behavior) is typical for such offenders, and normally she might get released after two weeks. But Goldman thinks that the hoopla over Hilton's early release could work against her.

"Is the sheriff going to be so gun-shy that he's not going to release her in 15 or 16 days but they're going make her do the 23?" Goldman wondered. "The question is, Can a judge in L.A. override that? Up until now, my answer would have been no. I have no doubt [Hilton's lawyer] is going to appeal this to a higher court and decide whether [the sheriff] is independently functioning from the judge."

Which is exactly what Hilton attorney Richard Hutton did Friday. Goldman thinks the appeal has a shot at success.

"I've never seen someone pulled out of house arrest because the judge didn't like it, as opposed to the judge saying that they violated the rules of house of arrest. It may be that the court of appeals may completely agree with the judge," he said.

Sauer has hardly been sympathetic to Hilton. During his original sentencing, he chided her for failing to take responsibility for her errors after prosecutors showed she was twice caught driving with a suspended license within weeks after pleading no contest to alcohol-related reckless driving in January.

Baca said Hilton was being tossed around like a "football" by the criminal justice system. According to the legal experts, she will likely suffer much more than had she never got out of solitary confinement in the first place.

"The sense of deprivation being so close to a release and you have expectations and then to have those firm expectations dashed with such a stark reversal of fortune must be really psychologically traumatic," said  Armour. "This has to heap on even more psychological trauma on her."

Added Goldman: "I've never had one defendant say to me that he was glad to be out. They all said [they were] sorry they didn't go straight through because it was just too much for them to come out and have to go back in."

http://www.eonline.com/print/index.jsp?uuid=33d9e131-9768-4b15-971a-894a7608b1b5&contentType=newsStory

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