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Topics - nite owl

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1
The Troubled Teen Industry / WRITE LETTERS DEMAND RELEASE OF VIDEO
« on: February 10, 2006, 02:56:00 PM »
It's time to write letters to the local papers and authorities in Florida to demand the public release of the video detailing the beating of the boy who died after being admitted to a Florida Boot Camp. If this place is paid for by the taxpayers then we have a right to know what our money is being used for.

Here is some information about the public right to know act in Florida:
http://freeforallcandidates.com/RTKsunshine.htm

Following is the email for letters to the editor of the Miami Hearald:
[email protected]

Fax: 305-376-8950

Slow Mail

The Readers Forum
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida  33132-1693

If a flood of letters comes in more will be done.
Be sure to include your name, address, phone number and limit letters to about 200 words.

 :nworthy:  :nworthy:

History gives us a kind of chart, and we dare not surrender even a small rushlight in the darkness. The hasty reformer who does not remember the past will find himself condemned to repeat it.
--John Buchan


2
Look at all of that money. It seems like he uses all of his extended family members to escape campaign limits....

http://opensecrets.org/indivs/search.as ... =Y&Order=N

Every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid."
--Alexander Hamilton    


3
Check out who the Lichfield family donates to. It is mind boggling.

http://opensecrets.org/indivs/search.as ... =Y&Order=N

A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question
about it.
--GW Büsh, Business Week, July 30, 2001


4
Let's talk about the weather... / Inspirational acts of kindness
« on: September 30, 2005, 05:34:00 PM »
I just returned from New Jersey. While en route there, I was stuck in traffic on Interstate 81, just below the Virginia state line, (Bristol,Tennessee), due to a traffic accident with a fatality involved. This accident involved a tanker truck hauling a hazardous material load that developed a leak, which meant that we weren't going anywhere for several hours.

After being told by the Tennessee state troopers that we would be sitting still until the clean up was completed, I set my brakes on the truck and got our to stretch my legs. Other truck drivers did the same, and at one point there were 5 of us standing there by my truck, complaining. Sitting right beside me in the left lane, were two elderly people in a Silverado pick up truck, which was loaded quite well. The man, (Joe), lowered his window and asked what was going on regarding the traffic situation.

Soon we were all talking with this couple. I mentioned that if I had known about this, I would have bought something to drink, (water), for I was becoming thirsty. The lady, (Anna), said that they had plenty of water, and sodas in the cooler in the bed of the truck, and offered everyone present something. While she was back there, she said that she had plenty of tuna salad made up, and asked if we would be interested in a sandwich. After some urging from Joe, we agreed to a sandwich. While Anna was making the sandwiches on the tailgate of the truck, she was singing like a songbird. To be close to 70, (I guess), she had a remarkable voice.

When she finished making the sandwiches, and putting everything up,Joe raised the tailgate of the truck to close it. I noticed a Mississippi license plate on it. I inquired as to what part of Mississippi they were from. Joe said Biloxi. Knowing that Biloxi had been ravaged also by hurricane Katrina, I asked if they sustained any damage. Joe said that they lost everything but what they had on and what was in the pickup. All of us drivers tried unsuccessfully to pay them for their drinks and the sandwiches. They would have nothing to do with it.

Joe said that their son was living around Harrisonburg, Virginia and that they were going there. He was in the real estate business and that there was a home that became open, and that they were going to start all over there. Starting over at their age would not be easy.

I will soon be 48 years old, and I have to say that I have never eaten a tuna sandwich with side orders of reality and humility.

These people lost everything except the pictures, important documents, and some clothes. Joe had managed to get their antique heirloom grandfathers clock into the bed of the truck and Anna got her china and silverware, but that was all. These wonderful people lost practically everything they owned and still would not accept any money for their food and drinks. Joe said that "it was better to give than it is to receive."

They sought refuge behind a block wall that he had built years ago, and they watched their belongings and their home disappear in the winds of Hurricane Katrina. Joe said that during all this he had one hand holding onto Anna and the other holding on to God. Their truck and themselves came out of Katrina unscathed.

As I stated before, Anna was singing a song while making the sandwiches. The song is titled "I know who holds tomorrow," an old gospel song. She knew every word, and was quite a gifted singer of it. Have you ever heard it? The chorus of this song is,

" Many things, about tomorrow, I don't seem to understand. But I know who holds tomorrow, and I know who holds my hand."

There is no doubt, in my mind, who was holding both their hands. I know there have been many, many emails that have circulated over the years about things that will touch your heart, but this one I personally was involved in.


Forget all of the politics that the news is thriving on, and think about people just like Joe and Anna. If you can, help out with the victims relief funds. If you cannot, at least offer a prayer for everyone.

Do what you wish with this email, forward it, delete it, whatever. I know that these two elderly people got to this old boy. I will always remember them.

Joe and Anna, if by some strange way you, or someone you know gets this, and shows it to you, God Bless you!

 

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment, to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure.
--Clarence Darrow, American lawyer


5
Open Free for All / Finding the cheapest gasoline
« on: September 26, 2005, 12:04:00 PM »
here's a tip and a site to find the best prices
on gasoline in your area.  It's a good idea to give business to the places that offer the best bargains during these times...

http://autos.msn.com/everyday/gasstatio ... =&src=Netx

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
--H. L. Mencken, American publisher


6
The Troubled Teen Industry / WWASP and history of hogtying
« on: August 11, 2005, 12:52:00 AM »
Children were isolated and hogtied, they report

Boulder woman exposes network of compounds that incarcerates kids in the U.S. and abroad

By Lou Kilzer
News Staff Writer (Rocky Mountain News -- November 15, 1998)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Matt Grise is not alone.

The 15-year-old honor student from Rifle captured Colorado's attention this month with reports that he is locked inside a fundamentalist Christian compound in Louisiana. He committed no crime but is not even free to talk to his grandmother.

Many American teen-agers share his fate.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Matt Grise story
11/05-Students join effort to free Matt Grise

11/03-Religious beatings are recalled

11/01-Fighting to save grandson

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Alexia Parks, a Boulder businesswoman, has for two years led a national movement to expose a network of religious and secular compounds that incarcerate America teen-agers both in the United States and in places as remote as Western Samoa.

Unlike what friends say of Matt, most of these youths are truly troubled. Their parents -- or often their single parent -- simply thought that a private lockup was the way to save their offspring from drugs, alcohol and crime.

Some programs work well. But sometimes when the parents buy into "tough love" as a way to readjust their daughters and sons, they unwittingly buy into terror.

That point was driven home last week when police in the Czech Republic raided a school for American youths that is part of a network based in St. George, Utah.

Fifty-seven youngsters were freed from the Morava Academy, and four staffers were charged with child cruelty, including Glenda Roach, the principal of the school, and her husband, Steven, of St. George.

Some of the children complained that they were isolated in a room and forced to lie flat on their stomachs with their hands tied behind their backs, said police investigator Petr Netik. They were not free to leave and were involved in strict "behavior modification" courses.

Robert Bezdek, an attorney for the staffers, told The Associated Press that the children may have lied to police.

The St. George consortium is known by various names: Teen Help, World Wide Association and Adolescent Services International. It sends kids, sometimes shackled and surrounded by guards, to facilities in Mexico, Samoa and Jamaica as well as Montana, South Carolina and Utah.

Parks, who runs a Boulder-based Internet firm, agrees that many parents who pay up to $150 a day for their child to be locked up believe they have done the right thing. But many, she learned, have not.

Her journey into the world of private youth incarceration began with the independent fundamentalist compounds in the South, like the one holding Matt Grise.

In the summer of 1996, a young relative came to visit Parks. The 13-year-old with a genius IQ was having trouble with her mother.

To Parks, the girl was nothing other than a warm, affectionate child with a keen imagination and a desire to attend law school at Stanford. The two got along well, and the teen-ager began answering phones at Parks' business.

But by the fall of 1996, the girl was back with her mother and trouble resumed. Soon Parks heard that the woman had sent her child to a compound three hours south of St. Louis.

Parks investigated and discovered a network of schools that incarcerate children, often in the name of the Lord. She dug deeper.

Some of these places have a similar structure, Parks said. For the first 30 days, the child must remain within six feet of a "buddy," walk with his or her head down and speak with no one else. Corporal punishment is the rule. Touching is prohibited. Often medical treatment is prohibited for the first 30 days.

It is not unusual for the child to be confined to a dark, small room as a punishment. Contact with the outside world, if allowed, is restricted to parents. No grandparents are allowed. The educational emphasis is on the Bible.

What Parks also found was how little anyone could do for these children. In a lengthy article she has written on the World Wide Web called An American Gulag, Parks says: "In America, adults can be locked up after a public trial with guarantees of due process. It is only children who have no way to defend themselves from adults. Only children who can be locked up with no witnesses, no evidence, no defense attorney, no independent judge, no rules of procedure, no watching public, no right of appeal, not even a right to be heard."

She's right, according to child advocacy officials.

"Children really have no rights," said Seth Grob, a lawyer for the Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center. "Basically, parents who have legal custody of their children can determine where to send their children, and that decision is not reviewable unless some party brings it to a court's attention."

Even then, it is difficult to act without proof of child abuse, and proof is hard to come by because of the child's inability to contact the outside world.

"When it comes to children's rights in this country and what parents can do to their children, the stories I have heard are unimaginable. Unimaginable," said Christine Doyle, lead researcher for Amnesty International in New York. "Sending them to Hawaii, to Jamaica to make them straight instead of gay, to make them go through shock therapy. The fact of a juvenile's inability to take care of themselves, to have any say in their future is frightening.

"I've come across these stories and, trust me, they're absolutely horrific."

One case that gained national media attention this year involves David Van Blarigan.

The 16-year-old was awakened just after midnight last November in his Oakland, Calif., home. Two large men had come to take him away.

Though he did not drink or use drugs and had no criminal record, his parents found him hard to control and decided that the services of the St. George consortium were needed. The men were from an arm of the St. George group that specializes in seizing children and delivering them to institutions.

As he screamed to be let go, the men took him out of his house and took him to the Brightway Adolescent Hospital in St. George.

Found by the hospital to be needing longer term care, David was sent to Tranquility Bay in Jamaica, one of the consortium's foreign detention centers. Through a momentary mix-up by the transport team, David was able to break away long enough to call an adult friend who, in turn, called the Alameda County District Attorney's Office in California.

Deputy DA Robert Hutchins thought he had a possible case of kidnapping and went to court. The psychological exam at Brightway was a smoke screen, he said, since David's parents had already signed on for a year at Tranquility Bay.

Judge Ken Kawaichi was not impressed with the arguments. As he dismissed Hutchins' motion to have David returned, some 100 parents and supporters of the Teen Help group broke out in cheers.

Parental rights were reaffirmed.

California attorney Thomas M. Burton, who is preparing 10 individual lawsuits against the Teen Help and its related companies, says he understands the parents.

"Single mothers become hysterical, desperate, looking for help and as a last resort turn to these groups at $3,000 a month. ... They're willing to pay anything, borrow anything, mortgage anything to come up with the money. Because no one is more important to a parent than one's child."

Often, he said, they find high quality facilities that help their children.

However, he said, the Morava Academy in the Czech Republic; Tranquility Bay; Paradise Cove in Western Samoa; Casa By the Sea in Ensenada, Mexico; and Teen Help's operations in the United States are not the garden spots their brochures depict.

"(The kids) are being hog-tied with their feet behind up next to their hands," he said about some of the facilities. "They are kept in isolation. Food is very, very bad. Very primitive accommodations. They claim to have an educational component, which is a joke. It's a self-study test is what it is."

The children are held incommunicado for the first few months, then progress through six levels of increasing freedom. "The more courageous these kids are in standing up to this abuse, the longer he or she stays at that lower level," said Burton. "Also we find that the richer the parent, the longer the kid is going to need the services of that program."

Justin Nielson, a manager at Adolescent Services International's St. George office, defended the quality of the programs.

He said that 98.6 percent of parents say they made a good choice in putting child in program, while 96.7 percent would recommend the program to a friend.

The transport service does not constitute kidnapping, he said. "In all cases, we have to have a signed and notarized permission from the parents which states exactly what we are supposed to do and exactly where the youth is being transported from and where they are going to."

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religion than it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
--Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist


7
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 please sign petition to end institutionalized child abuse now! ---
time is running out....
http://www.petitiononline.com/hr1738/petition.html

read the bill the petition refers to here:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.1738.IH:

Pass this along to all your friends...

Creationists make it sound like a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.
--Isaac Asimov, Russian-born American author


8
Please help with this effort before this bill dies.  

 Petition link! please sign! ---

http://www.petitiononline.com/hr1738/petition.html

read the bill the petition refers to here:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.1738.IH:

You know, if Mama Cass Elliot would have shared that damn sandwich
with Karen Carpenter, they would both still be alive today!!!!!!!

--chongo


9
--------------------------------------------------
Petition link!

http://www.petitiononline.com/hr1738/petition.html

read the bill the petition refers to here:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.1738.IH:

Impiety: Your irreverence toward my deity.
--Ambrose Bierce


10
The Troubled Teen Industry / casa by the sea mixed opinions
« on: June 17, 2005, 07:52:00 PM »
My daughter has a new friend who went to Casa By the Sea. I started questioning her and she had nothing but praise for the program. She said that is saved many people's lives. I told her that is was closed for child abuse and she indicated that she had never seen anything like that while she was there. She did say they spend a lot of time sitting in chairs. It seems like she has repressed a lot of it.  I think they must brainwash everyone into thinking that it saved their lives because she kept talking about that - how it saved so many lives. She was not a problem teen - her parents actually thought that Casa was a boarding school.  

If you want a voluntary urine sample from me it'll have to be a taste test.
--Bumper Sticker


11
Thayer Learning Center / NEW wesite could be good data base
« on: June 07, 2005, 11:51:00 AM »
This new website needs some more data - but it could be an excellent information site.

COALITION AGAINST INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD ABUSE (CAICA) http://www.caica.org

Check out this new website. lots of helpful information.

Share your stories or other information..

Moralizing, with the force of law or coercion, is a
far greater crime against the constitutional principles of our nation than unauthorized euphoria, regardless of the substance involved, be it chocolate or heroin.
--James


12
This is a new website that looks like it could be a excellent data base for those seeking information.

COALITION AGAINST INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD ABUSE (CAICA) http://www.caica.org

Check out this new website. lots of helpful information.

Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundation, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0813912652/circlofmiamithem' target='_new'> James Madison


13
Elan School / New WEBSITE needs your story
« on: June 07, 2005, 11:47:00 AM »
This is a new website that needs some more information. It could serve as a good data base.

COALITION AGAINST INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD ABUSE (CAICA) http://www.caica.org

Check out this new website. lots of helpful information.

Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion...in private self-defense...
-- John Adams, (1788)


14
This looks like a website that could provide information to those in need...

COALITION AGAINST INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD ABUSE (CAICA) http://www.caica.org

Check out this new website. lots of helpful information.


A good place to share your information

Hands that help are far better then lips that pray.
--Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer


15
Tacitus' Realm / PETITION TO SECURE BORDER
« on: May 23, 2005, 12:43:00 AM »
A petition at http://www.ReformUS.org is being circulated to better secure our boarders.  

Here's the text of the petition:

Mr. President, Please Secure Our Borders Immediately

It has been nearly four years since the 9/11 attacks inside our country by foreign nationals. Yet, tens of thousands of foreign nationals every few weeks continue to be allowed to enter this country illegally through our loosely guarded borders. All of these illegal entrants threaten American citizens in one way or another?either as unfair labor competition, tax burdens, instruments of organized crime including drug running and slavery, or as terrorists.

We can no longer allow such disorder on our borders. One of the clearest responsibilities of the federal government and of the President is to protect this country's citizens from attacks across our borders.

We urge you to direct your officials in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to create and institute plans to ensure that foreign nationals who attempt to cross our borders without permission will be (a) detected, (b) apprehended and (c) either removed from this country or detained for appropriate punishment under the law.

While your Administration is implementing long-term sustainable programs to achieve border security, we urge emergency measures that begin to provide the same protection immediately by mobilizing some combination, as necessary, of Border Patrol, other DHS personnel, the military, other federal personnel and technological tools.
Various pilot programs at selected locations have proven that zero tolerance of illegal human traffic across our borders is achievable if the federal government places a priority on protecting its citizens. We submit our names with the appreciation of your consideration and action

I'm a PATRIOT because I believe in the nations ability to un-fuck itself.
--Nihilanthic


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