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Topics - Anne Bonney

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Open Free for All / Long haired "freaky" kids need not apply

« on: August 26, 2010, 02:58:40 PM »

http://www.kens5.com/news/Boys-long-hai ... 51293.html

by Chris Hawes / WFAA.com

kens5.com

Posted on August 26, 2010 at 7:15 AM

Updated today at 7:51 AM

JOSHUA — He's a good student; a respectful 12-year-old. But Chris McGregor is banned from the classroom.

The reason? His hair.

While Chris has a sister, it's his long, golden locks that attract attention in his family.

"I want to be my own person," he said. "Everybody has their own personality, and this is how I am."

Chris started growing his hair a few years ago when he noticed professional soccer players wearing longer styles.

"His dream is to play professional soccer for Brazil," said Allen McGregor, Chris' dad.

The family moved to Joshua so Chris could enroll at Godley Middle School. All the district's campuses hold a "recognized" status from state.

But on the first day of class, school officials confronted him. The dress code requires boys' hair to be above the shoulders.

"We try to be fair," said Godley ISD Superintendent Paul Smithson. "However, there are standards in life, and Godley ISD's chosen these standards for the dress."

"I don't believe I should have to cut his hair," the youngster's father said. "He's had it for several years, and I've never had a problem with it in any other school."

The Fort Worth ISD shows a male student with shoulder-length hair on its dress code page.

But Smithson said the hair rule protects students and reflects community standards. "There's a reason in Texas they're called 'independent' school districts," he explained. "Bullying's a big thing, and we want to make sure everyone's dressed appropriately, someone doesn't bring attention to themselves so that someone says something to them, and all of a sudden we have a problem."

If Chris attends Godley Middle School with long hair, he'll have to remain in in-school suspension. That makes his favorite part of school nearly impossible.

"Making friends," he said.

Open Free for All / Parents that can't let their kids live thier own lives

« on: August 23, 2010, 05:59:13 PM »

Commonly referred to as "helicopter parents" or "velcro parents".

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/educa ... +WlexFvj2Q

GRINNELL, Iowa — In order to separate doting parents from their freshman sons, Morehouse College in Atlanta has instituted a formal “Parting Ceremony.”

It began on a recent evening, with speeches in the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel. Then the incoming freshmen marched through the gates of the campus — which swung shut, literally leaving the parents outside.

When University of Minnesota freshmen move in at the end of this month, parental separation will be a little sneakier: mothers and fathers will be invited to a reception elsewhere so students can meet their roommates and negotiate dorm room space — without adult meddling.

As the latest wave of superinvolved parents delivers its children to college, institutions are building into the day, normally one of high emotion, activities meant to punctuate and speed the separation. It is part of an increasingly complex process, in the age of Skype and twice-daily texts home, in which colleges are urging “Velcro parents” to back off so students can develop independence.

Grinnell College here, like others, has found it necessary to be explicit about when parents really, truly must say goodbye. Move-in day for the 415 freshmen was Saturday. After computer printers and duffle bags had been carried to dorm rooms, everyone gathered in the gymnasium, students on one side of the bleachers, parents on the other.

The president welcoming the class of 2014 had his back to the parents — a symbolic staging meant to inspire “an aha! moment,” said Houston Dougharty, vice president of student affairs, “an epiphany where parents realize, ‘My student is feeling more comfortable sitting with 400 people they just met.’ ”

Shortly after, mothers and fathers were urged to leave campus.

Moving their students in usually takes a few hours. Moving on? Most deans can tell stories of parents who lingered around campus for days. At Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., a mother and father once went to their daughter’s classes on the first day of the semester and trouped to the registrar’s office to change her schedule, recalled Beverly Low, the dean of first-year students.

“We recognize it’s a huge day for families,” she said. Still, during various parent meetings on Colgate’s move-in day, which is Thursday, Ms. Low and other officials plan to drop not-so-subtle hints that “activities for the class of 2014 begin promptly at 4,” she said.

Formal “hit the road” departure ceremonies are unusual but growing in popularity, said Joyce Holl, head of the National Orientation Directors Association. A more common approach is for colleges to introduce blunt language into drop-off schedules specifying the hour for last hugs. As of 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 11, for example, the parents of Princeton freshmen learn from the move-in schedule, “subsequent orientation events are intended for students only.”

The language was added in recent years to draw a clear line, said Thomas Dunne, the associate dean of undergraduates. “It’s easy for students to point to this notation and say, ‘Hey, Mom, I think you’re supposed to be gone now,’ ” he said. “It’s obviously a hard conversation for students to have with parents.”

For evidence, consider a chat-board thread by new Princeton parents on the Web site College Confidential. “Do parents hang around for a day or two after orientation in case their kids need something?” one poster, mrscollege, asked. “I say no, but we have a friend who is planning to hang around for a while in Princeton for her son just in case.”

Some undergraduate officials see in parents’ separation anxieties evidence of the excesses of modern child-rearing. “A good deal of it has to do with the evolution of overinvolvement in our students’ lives,” said Mr. Dougharty of Grinnell. “These are the baby-on-board parents, highly invested in their students’ success. They do a lot of living vicariously, and this is one manifestation of that.”

He and other student-life officials encourage parents to detach — not just at drop-off but throughout the freshman year, including limiting phone calls and text messages.

Parents, of course, know that in their head. But they still struggle to let go.

After lunch on Saturday at Grinnell, before the hail and farewell ceremony, Gary and Glorialynn Calderon easily welled up while visiting the campus mailroom with their daughter. “It’s hard, we’re overprotective,” Mr. Calderon admitted.

His wife, a kindergarten teacher, said Grinnell’s message that at 4 p.m. college was starting and parents must go reminded her of what she tells the mothers and fathers of her pupils on the first day of school: “Say goodbye and just leave, because the kids calm down.”

Their daughter, Aileen, a softball player, said that she had initially been fearful about starting college, but “now I’m excited and ready to go.”

That seemed altogether typical of the freshmen, who were looking forward to the “floor bonding” exercises with dorm mates and were failing to share parental nostalgia.

The pressure to let go had really begun a year earlier while touring colleges, said Leslie Nelson, who with his wife, Jill Hayman, had spent three days driving their son, Micah, from New York City.

Ms. Hayman corrected her husband: “I think the pressure starts when the umbilical cord falls off,” she said. “I’m not the only mom here who’s been dreading this since that day.”

As a comfort, she had read books about the stages of grief. “You have to just allow yourself to experience the loss and grieve over what’s gone,” she said.

But Micah was eager to get on with it. “I haven’t been thinking about anything they’ve been saying,” he said, as his parents looked on.

As for Mr. Dougharty of Grinnell College, for the first time in his academic career he missed his own campus’s move-in day. He and his wife were busy Saturday, dropping off their only child, Allie, at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., to begin her freshman year.

Mr. Dougharty had made reservations at a bed-and-breakfast near the campus for Saturday night, but then his wife, Kimberly, questioned why they should stay around after dropping Allie off.

“I had to look at myself in the mirror,” Mr. Dougharty said. “I had thought, ‘On Sunday morning we can swing by and take Allie to breakfast.’ Kimberly was good and sane — ‘We have to get down the road.’ ”

The Troubled Teen Industry / If you've got something to say to me..fucking say it!

« on: August 12, 2010, 02:43:09 PM »

Goddamnit!!!! I'm so tired of getting PMs that are deleted before I even read them. If you have something to say to me, quit being a coward and just fucking say it!!!

Open Free for All / Southern Right Whale v. Sailboat

« on: July 23, 2010, 12:54:57 PM »

http://news.aol.ca/ca/article/40-ton-wh ... t/19563094

40-Ton Whale Crashes Onto Boat

It was the ideal South African boat cruise -- until a 40-ton southern right whale crashed through the deck of Ralph Mothes and his girlfriend Paloma Werner's yacht.

The couple were sailing around Hermanus, a popular destination 130 km (80 miles) north of Cape Town, when they spotted a whale breaching about 100 metres away.

The whale soon reappeared, surfacing 10 metres away from their boat, the Intrepid, in an unwitting attempt to board.

Video here.... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp ... 7#38379217

Straight, Inc. and Derivatives / ARNOLD ANDREWS, OPERATION PAR & CIA MIND CONTROL

« on: July 07, 2010, 01:16:07 PM »

http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/ ... nd-control

The Lexington Comair Crash, Part 32 PRELUDE: ARNOLD ANDREWS, OPERATION PAR & CIA MIND CONTROL
16th December 2006

Arnold Andrews died on Comair. Like SAMHSA’s Steve McElravy, he was employed in the battle against drug abuse.

Contents of this section:

1.) Arnold Andrews, R.I.P., & OPERATION PAR

2.) Wes Fager, editor of http://www.theStraights.com (an Internet newspaper about child abuse in therapeutic communities), documents the sickening history of OPERATION PAR, including ties to the Bush “faith-based” syndicate, CIA mind control, and figures relevant to the Comair crash story.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/08/29/

news_pf/Tampabay/Ky_crash_kills__serva.shtml

par3 The Lexington Comair Crash, Part 32 PRELUDE: ARNOLD ANDREWS, OPERATION PAR & CIA MIND CONTROL
Ky. crash kills ‘servant’ of poor

Arnold Andrews worked behind the scenes for decades for the bay area’s downtrodden.

LEONORA LAPETER
Published August 29, 2006

Arnold Andrews, who was killed in a commuter plane crash in Kentucky on Sunday, rarely made news – but left his imprint all over the Tampa Bay area.

He helped everyone from migrant workers, Cubans and hurricane victims to children with cancer, and the drug and alcohol addicted. One of his latest projects was a training center for homeless families in St. Petersburg.

“He did so much behind-the-scenes work for people,” said Hillsborough Commissioner Ronda Storms, who met him eight years ago. “Just completely causing big and small things to be done on behalf of people who had no voice and no power.”

Andrews was among 49 people killed when a Comair regional jet crashed after taking off from Lexington’s Blue Grass Field airport.

Andrews, 64, was an executive with WestCare Foundation, a non-profit that runs mental health and substance abuse programs. He had attended a company board meeting in Lexington and was scheduled to return Saturday night.

But HIS PLANE HAD A MECHANICAL PROBLEM, he told longtime friend and colleague Bob Neri when the two spoke Saturday night. …

FOR 23 YEARS HE WORKED FOR OPERATION PAR (Parental Awareness and Responsibility), a drug treatment program serving Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee and Lee counties. He started as a volunteer and counselor and left as executive vice president.

“We’ve lost someone who behind the scenes has masterminded quite a few things,” said Watson Haynes, a friend of 35 years who worked with Andrews at Operation PAR.

Andrews became executive director of Catholic Charities in St. Petersburg for a decade, serving also as vice chair on Catholic Charities USA.

“He had a real fondness for the poor and the downtrodden,” said Sheila Lopez, chief operating officer of Catholic Charities, Diocese of St. Petersburg Inc., who also worked with him at Operation PAR. “He loved working in particular with migrant workers. His dream was to build the San Jose Mission.”

Andrews was key in getting grants to set up the residential community for low-income farm workers in Dover in Hillsborough County. …

http://drugfreeamericafoundation.
blogspot.com/2005_02_01_archive.html

Drug Free America Foundation, ?formerly known as Straight, Inc.

From 1976-1985 it was known as Straight, Inc. and had a reputation for abusing kids as a drug rehabilitation program. In 1985 it changed its name to Straight Foundation, Inc. in order to protect its money and its principals from civil suits. In 1995 it was changed again to Drug Free America Foundation. DFAF is a national and international drug policy think tank and provider of services for drug free work places.

Saturday, February 26, 2005

Florida’s Supreme Court strikes down statue of limitations, allows abuse law suit 20 years later

In 1995 a woman identified as S.A.P. filed a lawsuit accussing the state of Florida of concealing details of how she was “beaten, burned choked and denied food” in 1979 at the age of 3 and 4. The judge threw it out under Florida’s 4 year statue of limitations law (section 768.28(13)). S.A.P. appealed and the matter made its way to Florida’s Supreme Court. On November 27, 2002, in a 5-2 decision, Florida’s Supreme Court ruled that the “statute of limitations” could not stop a lawsuit against the state “when one of the allegations in the suit says the state concealed facts about the abuse and delayed the filing of the lawsuit.” [Source: Naples Daily News 11/28/02 by Jackie Hallifax, AP]??Related articles:

1. 1973: Pinellas County States Attorney James T. Russell and County Sheriff Don Genung invite The Seed, Straight’s progenator, to Pinellas County. Russell and 6th Circuit judges join The Seed’s advisory board.

2. 1978: The Dale Report confirms child abuse at Straight. State Attorney James T. Russell does absolutely nothing while state health officials bow to political pressure from the Sembler crowd, hide the abuse in its official report, and fires its chief investigator.

3. 1978: Sixteen year old Jerry Vancil exposes child abuse at Straight to St. Pete Times but state investigation is dropped when Vancil dissapears. He has never been seen or heard from since (dead or alive) and the state has never bothered to look for him (or his body).

4. Ray Waymire, acting chief of police for the city of St. Petersburg, Fl., was a founding Straight board member.

5. 1987: HRS (state health department) received a complaint from a kid who escaped from Straight only to be brought back in handcuffs by a sheriff’s deputy.

6. 1989: Clary Report–Florida state health officials (HRS) bow to political presure once again and allow abuse to continue. Straight Foundation secretary Donald Sullivan, MD resigns to run for state Senate and joins committee that would oversee any investigation of Straight while his wife Irene Sullivan joins Sixth Circuit and attends Betty Sembler’s birthday party.

7. States Attorney James T. Russell shows favortism to Sembler by failing to prosecute anyone in his clan over the Great Cooper’s Point Land Scam while his former assistant state attorney Louis Kwall (whose former partner is now a 6th Circuit judge), who may have investigated the torture of Leigh Bright, et. al., but took no action if he did, becomes attorney for one of those involved in the land scandal; joins Sembler’s powerful Republican Pary Machine; and his wife becomes the Sheriff’s attorney.

8. 1990s: A teenager who had escaped from Straight met with an HRS (Florida state health department) official to file a complaint against Straight. Instead the HRS official called the police who escorted the child back to Straight for further abuse.

9. The Governor, his wife, the Lieutenant Governor, the Mayor and
everybody else joins the Advisory Board of Straight (now called DFAF).

10. The Sixth Circuit and the cops collude with Straight.

11. Operation PAR is a rehabilitation tool used extensively by Pinellas County’s 6th Circuit. It appears that Operation PAR has become the new treatment arm of Straight (now DFAF).

12. Florida’s 6th Circuit gags Ray Bradbury to keep him from exposing its own involvement in Straight and The Seed.

13. 1978: US Congressman C.W. “Bill” Young receives three out-of-state complaints against Straight and forwards them to James T. Russell. Russell investigates but does absolutley nothing and Young lets the ball drop. (St. Pete Times, 4/30/78, p. 15B) [Also see Young and Straight; Young and pork for Sembler's Treasure Island; Sembler tells Young to give Itlalians $10M of our money.]

14. How Phil Elberg overcame the statue of limitations in the Lulu Corter case.

15. RICO and how attorney Wendall Turley overcame the statue of limitations to sue the Hare Krishna church for abusing its children 25 years ago. link

16. Suicide or Murder? (Straight and 40+ suicides)

17. Over 40 suicides: Florida jury convicts mother of child abuse resulting in suicide after judge allows a psychological autopsy to determine state of mind of deceased teenager (e.g. whether actions taken by mother drove girl to suicide).

Claims Bill. Beyond suing for recompensation, there is another possible avenue of relief. That’s a claims bill. Let’s say the U.S. government did wrong by knowingly exposing thousands of our soldiers to the plant defoliator Agent Orange. The US Congress can pass a special bill to give a monetary award to those who had been put in harms way. Could the Florida legislature be educated to the problem that Florida state officials colluded with Straight, looked the other way, failed to prosecute, backed down to political pressure from Mel Sembler? Could the legislature be humbled into doing the right thing and make amends for what Florida state officials allowed to happen to thousands of kids by authorizing a special claims bill to reimburse them for the harm state officials caused by their reckless failure to do their jobs. link
If David Miscaviage can go to his deposition as Admiral Farragut, then Keith Henson can go as Bozo the Clown.

Posted by Wes Fager at 3:05 PM 4 comments Links to this post

DFAF carries the logo OJJDP

OJJDP is the US government’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. If you go to Drug Free America Foundation’s (formerly Straight, Inc.) web page, at the bottom right appears the logo OJJDP. What does this mean? Could DFAF and OJJDP be one and the same? (new 2/26/05)

Posted by Wes Fager at 2:13 AM 0 comments Links to this post

Friday, February 25, 2005
Has Op PAR become the treatment arm of the Drug Free America Foundation?

Or: 3 strikes and the Sixth Circuit is OUT!??This article also appears on Tampa Bay Independent Media.??SUMMARY Operation PAR is the biggest drug rehabilitation program in the southeast. In recent years PAR has been infiltrated by officials formerly associated with the defunct Straight, Inc. program. In its heyday Straight was the biggest juvenile rehab chain in the world, but it had a reputation for the dastardly abuse of its young clients (over 40 former clients have commited suicide) as can be seen in these links:

• a newspaper montage on Straight

• professionals comment on Straight

• the US Senate calls the methods of The Seed (the model upon which Straight is based) Communist-styled brainwashing

• Straight civil suits

• Montel Williams Show on Straight (video trailer)

• George W. Bush praises Straight (video)

• Straight Kids (a video trailer)

• Miller Newton, Straight’s former national clinical director, and now with a DFAF subsidiary, settles for $11 million for abusing kids

• Tough Love rejects Straight

Mel Sembler

Straight was founded and operated by US Ambassador to Italy, Melvin Sembler and his wife Betty. Today Straight is called Drug Free America Foundation. Today it specialzes in helping small businesses set up Drug Free Workplaces, and in promoting national and international drug policy. Many of Florida’s Sixth Circuit justices were publicly supportive of Straight, Inc. and its predecessor The Seed. Betty Sembler and many others tied to DFAF/Straight have joined Operation PAR. The Sixth Circuit works closely with Operation PAR. Operation PAR has had no reputation for abuse. This report looks at the question, has Operation PAR become the treatment arm of DFAF? And, if so, should the Sixth Circuit be aware of it??—
In the early 1970s a remarkable woman from Pinellas County Florida named Shirley Coletti was so concerned that her teenage daughter was using drugs that she worked with James T. Russell, the county prosecutor, and Sheriff Don Gedung to found a juvenile drug rehabilitation program they called Parental Awareness and Responsibility or Operation PAR. Op PAR has become so successful that in 2001 PAR sent a representative to the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s National Conference on Drug Abuse Prevention. But Shirley Coletti did not represent PAR at the conference; a woman named Betty Sembler did. A few years after PAR was founded, Betty Sembler had been another Pinellas County mother concerned that one of her teenagers was into the drug scene. But she did not send him to PAR; she chose instead a controversial Fort Lauderdale-based therapeutic community called The Seed.

The Seed had been founded by a comedian and recovering alcoholic named Art Barker. The St. Petersburg Times reported that Barker had a mail-order degree in psychology. Barker had ambitions to make The Seed a national program. James T. Russell and Sheriff Gedung visited the program and recommended opening a Seed expansion facility in Pinellas County. Sixth Circuit (Pinellas /Pasco County) Judge Jack Dadswell had two kids in The Seed in Fort Lauderdale. He had been on the Executive Committee which had brought The Seed to St. Petersburg in Pinellas County. Sixth Circuit Justices William L. Walker and James B. Sanderlin had served on The Seed’s Advisory Board along with Russell, Gedung and Dr. Charles J. Crist, vice chairman of the Pinellas County school board and father of Charlie Crist (Florida’s Attorney General). Thirty years ago Sixth Circuit Judge Jack Page boasted about sending kids to The Seed “on a daily basis.” Today it’s Judges Walt Logan and Dee Anna Farnell who brag about sending one kid a day to Operation PAR.

In 1974 the US Senate published a report that likened the methods of The Seed to those used by North Koreans on American servicemen (brainwashing). The Seed fell from grace after that but Betty Sembler and her husband Melvin were so enamored with The Seed that they opened their own version of The Seed which they called Straight, Inc. Mel Sembler was very wealthy and politically connected too and the two of them were able to accomplish what Art Barker had not. They made Straight a national-level program with treatment camps all over the country.

Besides peddling their program to politicians, the Sembler’s were very successful in marketing Straight to the 6th Circuit as this marketing minutes shows. In 1977 Judge Page (the judge who sent kids to The Seed “on a daily basis”) had called Straight “excellent”; but word of Straight’s abuses were quickly leaking out. Turns out, Straight was much more destructive than The Seed had been. By 1981 Judge Page and other 6th Circuit justices had stopped sending kids to Straight. Judge Page says he started sending kids to PAR instead. He noted that a court order to Straight could involve more time than a sentence to jail for the drug offense for which the juvenile had been brought to him in the first place. He noted that PAR is a shorter program and a little more “normal” than Straight.

In 1985 the Semblers, fearing civil suits (and perhaps fearing possible criminal prosecution as well) changed the mission of Straight, Inc. from “treatment” to “education” and its name from “Straight, Inc.” to “Straight Foundation, Inc.” And then they created a brand new organization to treat kids for addiction which they called “Straight, Inc.”! [See Straight: Piercing the Corporate Veil] In 1989 Florida health authorities tried to close Straight’s flagship treatment camp in Pinellas County, but it appears that Mel Sembler used his political connections to keep it open. The new Straight, Inc. finally closed in 1993 amidst law suits and allegations of child abuse all over the country. And for the first time in 17 years DFAF and Betty Sembler found themselves without ties to a drug treatment business. James T. Russell, the man who brought The Seed to Pinellas County, never indicted Mel and Betty Sembler for their role in Straight, Inc. In fact the only person Russell ever prosecuted from Straight was a male adult counselor who went ot prison for sexually molesting a teenage male client. James T. Russell never even indicted anyone connected with Mel Sembler in 1988 for conspiring to defraud the taxpayers of Clearwater, Florida in The Great Cooper’s Point Land Scam .

In 1995, two years after Straight had to be closed, Betty changed the name of her educational foundation again. This time to Drug Free America Foundation (DFAF). But Ms. Sembler will always feel she has something special to offer those suffering from addictions, her fiasco at Straight, Inc. notwithstanding. After Straight closed she joined the board of directors for Operation PAR. And so it came to pass that it was Betty Sembler, and not Shirley Coletti, who attended the 2001 NIDA conference representing Operation PAR. (That same year Mrs. Sembler spoke to the US Congress as a representive of DFAF. So this dual hatted grandam of the “War on Drugs” and self proclaimed “drug prevention and policy expert” represents DFAF when she wants to talk drug policy and represents PAR when she wants to talk drug treatment.)

Betty Sembler is not the only person with ties to Straight who has come over to PAR. Susan Latvala is chairman of the board of directors of Operation PAR. She is also on DFAF’s Advisory Board. Former St. Petersburg police chief Terry Hensley is the former executive director of DFAF. Before that he was a director at Op PAR. The former director of Straight – St. Petersburg is an Interim Executive Director at Operation PAR. The former director of Straight – Sarasota is director of marketing for Operation PAR. Judge Irene Sullivan is on one PAR committee; her husband Donald was formerly secretary of Straight Foundation.

Betty’s treatment concept through the use of politics (with its influx of taxpayer money) seems to have reached Operation PAR. The Sembler’s were able to persuade George H. W. Bush and Nancy Reagan to visit Straight. Already Jeb Bush and his mother Barbara have made separate visits to Operation PAR. The web page for The White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy caries a feature article on Operation PAR. Wes Fager, editor of http://www.theStraights.com once editorialized on his concern of Mel Sembler’s plan to test all American teenagers as a rite of passage for getting a learner’s permit and that possibly Sembler and/or his associates would be paid to do the testing. If a teen shows positive on this invasion of his privacy and if he is just a user he would possibly go to a Sembler-inspired drug rehab program. But if he is a dealer, he would go to a private prison for punishment and treatment. (See Sembler’s plan to make all 16 year-olds pay drug testers for the right to drive .) Operation PAR is already working with law enforcement in America. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has been granting PAR $64,000 a year since 1999. In 1995 the Florida Attorney General’s office granted Operation PAR $59,000. Operation PAR runs a pilot program to rehabilitate prostitutes which as been funded by the St. Petersburg Police Department. Also Operation PAR works with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. Internationally, PAR runs a prison program in Barbados. Today Operation PAR is an $18-million, 500-employee agency treating 8,000 to 10,000 people yearly making it the biggest, most comprehensive drug treatment agency in the southeastern United States!

Blacks and addiction in Pinellas County. A study done by the St. Petersburg Times in the early 1980s found that Operation PAR clients were typically black, had demonstrated a drug dependency beyond casual use of marijuana, and paid on a true sliding scale based upon income. That same study found that Straight clients were typically white, the fees were steep, and casual use of marijuana was cause for admittance.

After the street violence in the predominantly black Midtown section of St. Petersburg in 1996 the community opened Family and Substance Abuse Center to treat black addicts. But by 2003 no public money had ever been freed up for the operation of that program (unless the person in need had committed a crime and had been subsequently court ordered). Any available operational money went to Operation PAR and to other established treatment programs elsewhere in the region. So much for failed drug rehabilitation for Midtown. But the city did manage to free up $ 1.3 million to buy land to build a $ 5 million shopping center in Midtown. Urban Development Solutions, a nonprofit headed by Larry Newsome and the NAACP’s Daryl Rouson, got the contract. The city council leased land to UDS for $5 per year and loaned it $1.35 million for construction. The loan is interest free and UDS doesn’t have to make payments for 10 years. And who is UDS’ business partner in this project? The Sembler Company. [See Coalition Building: Sembler and the NAACP.]

Op PAR receives a lot of its income from government grants, and from government Medicaid and Medicare payments. Last year it received a $ 4 million federal grant to build a development center and therapeutic community. In 1999 PAR was accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Today PAR can also be reimbursed by managed health care providers in addition to receiving its government grants. PAR even bought and operated a mental hospital which is ironic since Susan Latvala, chairman of the board at PAR, has been very chummy with the Church of Scientology™. Scientologists strongly oppose the profession of psychiatry, though many consider Scientology™’s Dianetic™ processing as a sort of poor man’s alternative to psychiatric counseling. PAR’s Dr. Betty Buchan even endorses Narconon™ the drug treatment regimen so closely aligned with Scientology™.

Two Strikes against the Sixth Circuit. Justices Page, Logan and Farnell are not the only 6th Circuit judges with a working relationship with Operation PAR. Sixth Circuit Judge Nancy Moate Ley is or was a member of the board of directors at Operation PAR. Judge Lauren Laughlin works with Operation PAR to do drug assessments for the court. Pinellas County prosecutor James T. Russell helped found PAR. PAR runs a program for the county sheriff’s department. Judges are always looking for an alternative to rehabilitate or punish young offenders in lieu of sending them to jail. That’s understandable, but the judges need also understand that these places of businesses are, after all, just that–places of business–even many of the non-profits. The more people they treat, the more money they make. The more people referred to them by the courts, the more money they make. And the longer a person stays in treatment, the more money they make. Twice before Florida’s 6th Circuit has placed its money on juvenile rehabilitation programs endorsed by or operated by Betty Sembler. And twice before that court has struck out. To our knowledge, there has been absolutely no history of abuse at Operation PAR and that’s great. But the court should be reminded, from time-to-time, of its own endorsements of The Seed, Straight and Operation PAR, and the links these programs have to one another. [See The skinny on Florida's Royal Court under Judge George Greer.)

Straight, Inc. used to be the treatment arm of DFAF but today DFAF has no drug abuse treatment arm. Or does it? Drug Free Workplaces of Tampa Bay is an arm of DFAF. According to SAMHSA, there are 147 substance abuse programs within 100 miles of Pinellas County, and yet DFWTB's web page links to one, and only one, of these 147 programs--Operation PAR![1] Why? What is the true relationship between Op PAR and DFAF? On Feb. 12, 1999 Betty Sembler and Shirley Coletti attended Governor Jeb Bush’s Drug Summit in Tallahassee but they had to be back in Tampa that evening to attend an Operation PAR fund raiser co-chaired by Karol Bullard, wife Sembler’s business partner Fred Bullard. No problem, the two just hopped aboard Mel Sembler’s private jet and flew to Tampa. Lennie Bennett, a gossip columnist for the St. Petersburg Times, covered the day’s events writing that Betty Sembler is “one of PAR’s founders.” Well that is not true, but we might was well start believing it. After all, who runs PAR today–Shirley Coletti or the Straight crowd?

Tacitus' Realm / Pundits on both sides just got told.

« on: June 28, 2010, 10:46:25 AM »

http://wimp.com/fareedzakaria/

Open Free for All / Atheists don't have no songs.

« on: June 25, 2010, 01:00:51 PM »

Steve Martin & the Steep Canyon Rangers :seg2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWlqpowKkBY

Open Free for All / Giant penis rises and glistens in the light

« on: June 17, 2010, 02:42:19 PM »

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/831458-gia ... petersburg

The massive penis was created by the radical art collective Voina, or War, who painted the organ on the bridge to highlight the security measures that will be put in place when St. Petersburg hosts the International Economic Forum from June 17.

Measuring 65 metres (220 ft) long and 27 metres across, the big penis rises and glistens in the light whenever the bridge is raised to let ships pass beneath, framed against a backdrop of the imposing architecture of the former capital city of the Russian Empire.

'We have painted a giant phallus to show what the FSB and Interior Ministry are doing in terms of security for the forum,' Voina said in a statement. The FSB is Russia's main internal security agency, the successor to the KGB - and when the bridge is raised, the now-erect penis stands right beside its local headquarters.

The International Economic Forum will bring together politicians, including Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and international business leaders.

The penis was painted on Monday, and one of the Voina artists has subsequently been fined by police over the penis. The penis was still visible on Wednesday.

The Troubled Teen Industry / LGATs/Encounter groups/Confrontational "therapy"

« on: June 17, 2010, 11:43:34 AM »

My comments in blue

http://www.cultnews.com/?p=2075

Kids trained by Landmark Education, is it “brainwashing” or their “salvation”?

Not content with making money from adults paying for its controversial large group awareness training (LGAT) the controversial company called “Landmark Education“ targets minor children.

Werner Erhard, 1970sKids as young as eight were recently enrolled at a cost of “$700 a child” in Australia to go through Landmark’s “intensive three-day workshop” reported The Sunday Times.

40 elementary school children were signed up this month in Perth for the supposedly “life-changing” LGAT based upon the teachings of a former used car salesman ”Jack” Rosenberg, who later changed his name to Werner Erhard.

Erhard had no educational or counseling credentials to guide him, but rather his personal experience dabbling in fringe self-improvement groups like Scientology.

He created a company during the 1970s called “est” (Erhard Seminar Training) that presented an initial introductory program called The Forum.

Est was reportedly sold in 1992 and was subsequently renamed “Landmark Education.” Erhard’s brother Harry Rosenberg and his sister now run the private for-profit company.

Landmark turned Erhard’s concocted philosophy into LGAT gold, making millions of dollars every month in fees. The company has never been bigger or more successful since its inception.

Landmark has a formula to make even more money. First it recruits parents to take its courses and then the company gets them to enroll their kids. This can potentially cause conflict, if parents are divorced and share joint custody. A Perth policeman refused to let his ex-wife send their daughter to the LGAT.

A $avior?“It struck me as a money-making enterprise and I really thought that the three-day seminar could be quite stressful and draining,” he said. The officer also questioned why anyone would put an 8-year-old through something so “stressful or draining” referring to Landmark’s methods as “pressure-cooker teaching.”

But kids have become lucrative for Landmark, which runs programs in the US for children 8-12 and teens too.
Effectively Landmark has turned families into ”cash cows” and has successfully milked almost 2,000 kids in Australia alone.
Landmark’s programs are controversial and some have called them ”brainwashing.” The company has a long history of bad press and it garnered some more this month “down under.” Australian adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg warned parents “to be wary” of the workshop and called it an “utter waste of money.”

“If a child has a major psychological problem they should go to a fully qualified, government-accredited professional,” he said.

It is unclear what educational requirements Landmark requires or expects from its seminar leaders, who are typically neither mental health professionals, nor licensed or accountable to any government regulatory or accrediting body.

The psychologist was also concerned about “overloading children on the weekend” and he said, “sticking a kid in there for three days is pretty awful.” Yeah, a weekend is pretty awful.....just think what it does to a kid to be stuck in a program for months/years on end being subjected to it.

Greg isn’t the only doctor worried about LGATs like Landmark. Clinical psychologist Philip Cushman studied LGATs in the 1990s and published a paper after researching what he called “mass marathon training.” Cushman saw serious problems for adults, let alone children.

In his paper titled “The Politics of Transformation: Recruitment - Indoctrination Processes in a Mass Marathon Psychology Organization” Cushman says that such “training is usually based on the belief that it is a universal truth that all human beings will have problems in life until they develop deep cathartic psychological insight, experience completely their every feeling, and live only in the present moment.”

Cushman goes on to explain that ”according to this ideology all defenses are bad and must be destroyed. They shape their group exercises in order to uncover and intensify the participants’ underlying conflicts and deficits. Everyone must be exposed to these exercises; there are no exceptions. When all defenses are destroyed, they claim there is literally no limit to what each individual can accomplish.” Sound familiar?? Break 'em down to build 'em up?

What the psychologist describes is reflected in Landmark Education’s repetitious vocabulary filled with buzz words like “breakthrough,” “integrity,” “transformation” and “completion” that become a kind of “loaded language” for its graduates.

Landmark’s spokesperson told the press in Perth that the LGAT enabled children to “gain clarity” and “examine their lives in a way, which leaves them empowered,” which gives them “a new freedom in life…[for] powerfully facing…risks and challenges…”

Cushman pointed out more than a dozen serious problems that frequently pop up wit LGAT groups like Landmark.

1. They lack adequate participant-selection criteria.

2. They lack reliable norms, supervision, and adequate training for leaders.

3. They lack clearly defined responsibility.

4. They sometimes foster pseudoauthenticity and pseudoreality.

5. They sometimes foster inappropriate patterns of relationships.

6. They sometimes ignore the necessity and utility of ego defenses.

7. They sometimes teach the covert value of total exposure instead of valuing personal differences.

8. They sometimes foster impulsive personality styles and behavioral strategies.

9. They sometimes devalue critical thinking in favor of “experiencing” without self-analysis or reflection.

10. They sometimes ignore stated goals, misrepresent their actual techniques, and obfuscate their real agenda.

11. They sometimes focus too much on structural self-awareness techniques and misplace the goal of democratic education; as a result participants may learn more about themselves and less about group process.

12. They pay inadequate attention to decisions regarding time limitations. This may lead to increased pressure on some participants to unconsciously “fabricate” a cure.

13. They fail to adequately consider the “psychonoxious” or deleterious effects of group participation (or] adverse countertransference reactions. Ya think??

Cushman warns specifically ”as a result, participants and leaders may unconsciously distort their feelings and responses when reporting to researchers about the group or recruiting for future groups. This might result in a deceptive ‘oversell’ that could undermine informed consent and lead to unrealistic regressive expectations in new recruits, the specific type of problems that have been found to lead to psychological casualties.”

Landmark’s long history of personal injury lawsuits goes back to its old “est” days.

Many participants claimed they were hurt by Landmark and some sued.

In fact, Landmark is so concerned about legal liability that it now requires participants to sign a waiver, whereby they cannot take the company to court before a jury, but instead must submit to “binding arbitration.” Essentially, this acts as “poison pill” to fend off litigation. Does this sound like something that an 8 to 12-year-old child or teen should be involved in? Path to 'salvation'?Landmark is good at persuading people that its courses are positive and that they somehow produce benefits.

In polling gathered through surveys often sponsored and/or paid for by the company, a high percentage of its graduates are convinced that they benefited in some way from attending the LGAT.

However, these are subjective responses about how participants feel, not objective results that have been scientifically measured.

Ding, ding, ding!!!!!!!^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Should parents and the general public be wary? Is there something potentially unsafe about an LGAT like Landmark?

According to Cushman’s research LGATs can become “dangerous” when they demonstrates the following criteria:

1. Leaders [have] rigid, unbending beliefs about what participants should experience and believe, how they should behave in the group and when they should change.

2. Leaders [have] no sense of differential diagnosis and assessment skills, valued cathartic emotional breakthroughs as the ultimate therapeutic experience, and sadistically pressed to create or force a breakthrough in every participant.

3. Leaders [have] an evangelical system of belief that was the one single pathway to salvation.

4. Leaders [are] true believers and sealed their doctrine off from discomforting data or disquieting results and tended to discount a poor result by, “blaming the victim.”

Landmark’s own training manuals for its Forum Supervisors states, “a Landmark ‘Forum Supervisor’ needs to be an s.o.b. for impeccability. You need to give up a concern for being liked…Be a destroyer…” and “Don’t ever let people move or stand up or talk before you have declared the start of the break. Don’t ever let stuff like that go by. Ever, ever, ever.”

Landmark’s own warnings and disclaimers in its application for the Landmark Forum states, “…people will from time to time cry or experience headaches, tiredness, nausea, confusion, disappointment, feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, and hopelessness. Some participants may find the Program physically, mentally, and emotionally stressful.”

In an article titled “Drive-thru Deliverance“ a Forum leader reportedly told participants “Anything you want in life is possible that you invent as a possibility and enroll others in your having gotten.”

Those attending the Forum in Phoenix asked “why the rules [were] so rigid”?

They were told that “transformation” required following rules, and they soon learned that those that broke the rules might be humiliated and labeled as “uncoachable.”

Werner Erhard the seminar guru that concocted this LGAT claimed that he received a revelation while driving on a California freeway in 1971, he realized that he knew nothing. And the instant he realized that he knew nothing, he then realized he knew everything, and everything was good.

Landmark teaches a philosophy that becomes a belief system for its adherents, and some seem to consider it their “salvation.”

Open Free for All / I just wanna tell you both good luck, we're all countin on y

« on: June 16, 2010, 05:56:26 PM »

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/06/16/fl ... tml?hpt=T2

(CNN) -- A flight attendant with a pilot's license who stepped in for a sick co-pilot said the experience was "not your ordinary workday," but downplayed her role in the safe landing of an American Airlines flight in Chicago, Illinois.

"This was not heroic by any means. I was just trying to be part of a team," flight attendant Patti DeLuna, 61, told CNN on Wednesday.

The first officer became ill Monday with flulike symptoms an hour or so into flight 1612 from San Francisco, California, to Chicago, DeLuna said. When Captain Jim Hunter deemed the first officer too ill to fly, the flight's purser looked at the passenger list for off-duty pilots, but none were onboard.

DeLuna and the purser both had piloting experience, but DeLuna had slightly more and a commercial license, she said, so Captain Hunter tapped her to assist.

"I went up about an hour and a half before landing and talked at length to the captain and familiarized myself with the cockpit and asked him, 'So, what if this?' and 'where are the brakes?'" DeLuna said.

DeLuna received a commercial pilot's license in 1970 and has logged about 300 flight hours on a Cessna, according to American Airlines spokeswoman Andrea Huguely. Captain Hunter has worked for American Airlines since 1977.

Captain Hunter was "exemplary" and "so collected and so together," DeLuna said, that her role was primarily to support him should he need help.

"He did everything by himself pretty much," she said. "I watched for traffic and listened for information from air traffic control just as a backup for him."

DeLuna also changed the altimeter settings a couple of times, she said.

The plane, carrying 225 passengers and seven crew members, landed safely at O'Hare International Airport at 4:24 p.m. Monday.
This was not heroic by any means. I was just trying to be part of a team.
--Patti DeLuna, American Airlines flight attendant

"The entire incident was handled very well on all accounts," said American Airlines spokesman Tim Wagner.

The aircraft involved, a Boeing 767, can be piloted by one person.

"It's very sophisticated, it's equipped with an array of computers," Huguely said. "However, there's plenty of work for two pilots to do, especially when it's descending into a crowded airspace like O'Hare."

"The view is much better" from the cockpit, DeLuna said. "It's exciting and it's fun and this was a real opportunity for me.

"I'm sorry it was at the first officer's expense, but he too said, 'I'm sorry to be going through this, but I'm glad you get this experience.'"

The first officer, who is based in Chicago, was taken to the hospital immediately by paramedics waiting on the ground. He was treated and released, Huguely said.

DeLuna has been a flight attendant for 32 years, with more than 14 years experience with American Airlines. She is based in San Francisco, and the captain in St. Louis, Missouri.

Open Free for All / Top 10 Most Disturbing TLC Series

« on: June 10, 2010, 12:46:08 PM »

http://www.uproxx.com/feature/2010/03/t ... ng-series/

5) Jon & Kate Plus Eight:

It’s bad enough to have to raise eight children, let alone to make the conscious decision to do so on national television. Like a fraternity house filled with tiny drunk people, Jon & Kate Plus Eight was a powder keg just waiting to erupt. Take two ridiculously vapid parents, surround them with cameras and then film them babysitting – sounds more like a Humboldt State thesis paper, than an actual program premise. Seriously, what’s the point of this show? I’ve babysat kids before and it f–king sucks. Why on Earth would I want to relive that experience from my living room, multiplied by eight? Bartender, send me over a large, frothy glass of RATHER NOT. Best of luck to the Gosselin kids. Please just never forget that mommy and daddy love you very much…and checks.

4) Little People, Big World/The Little Couple:

Surprise! It’s the exact same show only twice. Twice the tiny families, twice the altered furniture, twice the ladders, but still only half the concept. I don’t know, I guess I just figure that nobody wants to watch me go shopping for pants and then view an additional thirty minutes of me hemming the seams, so why should I care when these families do it? Oh yeah, because they’re tiny. Pshh, come on, that’s boring as hell. If I wanted to watch someone do all the same sh-t that I do, but take twice as long doing it, I’d go work at Walmart. What’s even more offensive is that we’re supposed to think this is educational? “Excuse me sir, I couldn’t help but notice that you had gotten that can of peanuts down off that shelf exactly how I would have gotten that can of peanuts down off the shelf. What’s that? Why did I expect you to get the can of peanuts down differently? Haha, oh come on, don’t tell me you brush your hair in a circus mirror, do you?”

3) I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant:

Ha, jokes on you, dumb-ss. This show isn’t at all about women who didn’t know they were pregnant. It’s actually a program about septic tank cleaners and their clientele. Alright fine, you called the bluff, turns out this is a show about women, who despite the growing seeds inside of them or the unprotected intercourse, didn’t know that they were knocked up. Oh women, always playing your coy card so well. I’ll continue to watch this show until they finally feed my hunger for an episode involving immaculate conception. Then again, what do I know? I don’t work for TLC, nor have I ever been pregnant and not known about it…I ALWAYS know when I’m pregnant, because I sh-t on the test strips. But what really sets this show apart from the rest are the snuff film-quality reenactments they shoot for each story. Top-notch creepy!

2) Toddlers & Tiaras:

There’s really no good excuse for why you should ever be watching Toddlers & Tiaras, unless you’re listening to “Goodbye Horses” and building a skin suit in your basement. It’s a terrifying program, period and surprisingly, once again, the show’s title lets you know exactly what is going on here. I thought there were laws against this sh-t? A Commandment or something? Yeah, that’s it – didn’t Moses stand up there and announce, “Thou shalt not spray tan thy child and live vicariously through their insignificant successes.” Regardless, I’d watch a thousand more programs on midgets, collapsing marriages and chicks crapping babies, before I’d ever consider tuning in to this freak-fest. The only thing worse that the inappropriate parading of the prodded children are the parents shouting at them to suck in their tummies. They’re kids, that’s why they’re called “tummies” and not “beer guts”. They’re supposed to have them. Really unsexy, I know.

1) 19 Kids and Counting: FTW

The. Terrorists. Have. Won. There is truly nothing more disturbing than a Christian, right-wing, home-schooled militia family that’s large enough to start their own NBA basketball team, substitutions included. Not to mention, TLC’s Duggar family has named each one of their offspring starting with the letter “J”. Personally, I hope they keep the kids popping out, because I’d love for them to alphabetically force themselves to name one of the girls Jerome-gela. That would be cool. The crazy gets better though for those of you brave enough to venture on over to the Duggar families own website where you get to learn the origin story of how the wolf-pack got started.

I guess things just aren’t what they used to be, at least on cable television, that’s for sure. It appears that even the concept of “learning” has gone to hell in a hand basket, along with Buffalo Bill’s lotion. Just seems that maybe the best way to go about teaching people to accept others despite their differences, would be to treat them like everyone else and not like a lab experiment. For the record, everyone else does not have a camera crew following their every move. Maybe instead of exploiting someone’s disability, we should overlook it and be rude to them regardless, just like everyone else. I mean, that’s how we used to do it when I was a kid. We didn’t care about race, size, creed or color, we found a better means of judging someone. We gauged them depending on how much money their parents made.

Open Free for All / Absolute power corrupts absolutely

« on: June 04, 2010, 08:16:27 PM »

http://gizmodo.com/5553765/are-cameras-the-new-guns

In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube videos that depict police abuse, a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.

Even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.

The legal justification for arresting the "shooter" rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where "no expectation of privacy exists" (Illinois does not) but in practice this exception is not being recognized.

Massachusetts attorney June Jensen represented Simon Glik who was arrested for such a recording. She explained, "[T]he statute has been misconstrued by Boston police. You could go to the Boston Common and snap pictures and record if you want." Legal scholar and professor Jonathan Turley agrees, "The police are basing this claim on a ridiculous reading of the two-party consent surveillance law - requiring all parties to consent to being taped. I have written in the area of surveillance law and can say that this is utter nonsense."

The courts, however, disagree. A few weeks ago, an Illinois judge rejected a motion to dismiss an eavesdropping charge against Christopher Drew, who recorded his own arrest for selling one-dollar artwork on the streets of Chicago. Although the misdemeanor charges of not having a peddler's license and peddling in a prohibited area were dropped, Drew is being prosecuted for illegal recording, a Class I felony punishable by 4 to 15 years in prison.

In 2001, when Michael Hyde was arrested for criminally violating the state's electronic surveillance law - aka recording a police encounter - the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld his conviction 4-2. In dissent, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall stated, "Citizens have a particularly important role to play when the official conduct at issue is that of the police. Their role cannot be performed if citizens must fear criminal reprisals…." (Note: In some states it is the audio alone that makes the recording illegal.)

The selection of "shooters" targeted for prosecution do, indeed, suggest a pattern of either reprisal or an attempt to intimidate.

Glik captured a police action on his cellphone to document what he considered to be excessive force. He was not only arrested, his phone was also seized.

On his website Drew wrote, "Myself and three other artists who documented my actions tried for two months to get the police to arrest me for selling art downtown so we could test the Chicago peddlers license law. The police hesitated for two months because they knew it would mean a federal court case. With this felony charge they are trying to avoid this test and ruin me financially and stain my credibility."

Hyde used his recording to file a harassment complaint against the police. After doing so, he was criminally charged.

In short, recordings that are flattering to the police - an officer kissing a baby or rescuing a dog - will almost certainly not result in prosecution even if they are done without all-party consent. The only people who seem prone to prosecution are those who embarrass or confront the police, or who somehow challenge the law. If true, then the prosecutions are a form of social control to discourage criticism of the police or simple dissent.

A recent arrest in Maryland is both typical and disturbing.

On March 5, 24-year-old Anthony John Graber III's motorcycle was pulled over for speeding. He is currently facing criminal charges for a video he recorded on his helmet-mounted camera during the traffic stop.

The case is disturbing because:

1) Graber was not arrested immediately. Ten days after the encounter, he posted some of he material to YouTube, and it embarrassed Trooper J. D. Uhler. The trooper, who was in plainclothes and an unmarked car, jumped out waving a gun and screaming. Only later did Uhler identify himself as a police officer. When the YouTube video was discovered the police got a warrant against Graber, searched his parents' house (where he presumably lives), seized equipment, and charged him with a violation of wiretapping law.

2) Baltimore criminal defense attorney Steven D. Silverman said he had never heard of the Maryland wiretap law being used in this manner. In other words, Maryland has joined the expanding trend of criminalizing the act of recording police abuse. Silverman surmises, "It's more [about] ‘contempt of cop' than the violation of the wiretapping law."

3) Police spokesman Gregory M. Shipley is defending the pursuit of charges against Graber, denying that it is "some capricious retribution" and citing as justification the particularly egregious nature of Graber's traffic offenses. Oddly, however, the offenses were not so egregious as to cause his arrest before the video appeared.

Almost without exception, police officials have staunchly supported the arresting officers. This argues strongly against the idea that some rogue officers are overreacting or that a few cops have something to hide. "Arrest those who record the police" appears to be official policy, and it's backed by the courts.

Carlos Miller at the Photography Is Not A Crime website offers an explanation: "For the second time in less than a month, a police officer was convicted from evidence obtained from a videotape. The first officer to be convicted was New York City Police Officer Patrick Pogan, who would never have stood trial had it not been for a video posted on Youtube showing him body slamming a bicyclist before charging him with assault on an officer. The second officer to be convicted was Ottawa Hills (Ohio) Police Officer Thomas White, who shot a motorcyclist in the back after a traffic stop, permanently paralyzing the 24-year-old man."

When the police act as though cameras were the equivalent of guns pointed at them, there is a sense in which they are correct. Cameras have become the most effective weapon that ordinary people have to protect against and to expose police abuse. And the police want it to stop.

Happily, even as the practice of arresting "shooters" expands, there are signs of effective backlash. At least one Pennsylvania jurisdiction has reaffirmed the right to video in public places. As part of a settlement with ACLU attorneys who represented an arrested "shooter," the police in Spring City and East Vincent Township adopted a written policy allowing the recording of on-duty policemen.

As journalist Radley Balko declares, "State legislatures should consider passing laws explicitly making it legal to record on-duty law enforcement officials."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 1DPK7V.DTL

A report of a dog crying in distress can constitute an emergency that justifies police entering a home without a warrant, a state appeals court ruled Thursday in upholding a Los Angeles County man's conviction for animal cruelty.

In appealing Keith Chung's conviction and 16-month prison sentence, his lawyer argued that officers may disregard the normal requirement that they obtain a search warrant only if a human life is at stake.

But the Second District Court of Appeal said that although pets are considered personal property, protecting them is a legitimate government concern.

Police can conduct a search without a judge's approval "when an officer reasonably believes immediate warrantless entry into a residence is required to aid a live animal in distress," Presiding Justice Joan Dempsey Klein said in the 3-0 ruling.

The court said a woman in Marina del Rey called police early one morning in July 2007 and said she and her husband had been awakened by the sound of a dog howling in apparent pain for about 15 minutes in Chung's condominium upstairs. She said she heard similar noises several times a week.

Police went to see Chung, who told them he didn't own any dogs. When an officer heard what sounded like a dog whimpering from inside, he handcuffed Chung and entered the condominium. There he found an injured dog lying on a towel in the patio and the body of another dog in the freezer, the court said.

After unsuccessfully challenging the search, Chung pleaded no contest to animal cruelty. In his appeal, his lawyer argued that police should have sought a warrant before entering because there were innocent explanations for the sounds reported by the neighbor, who was embroiled in another dispute with Chung over water damage to her unit.

Chung's lawyer, William Heyman, said he would appeal the ruling.

The ruling in People vs. Chung, B212210, can be read at links.sfgate.com/ZJUC.

E-mail Bob Egelko at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... z0pvulNOeP

Open Free for All / Stinkin' Thinkin' & Mr. Sponsorpants

« on: June 03, 2010, 07:02:19 PM »

Wow......been reading thru both these sites and I'm fascinated and impressed by both!

http://stinkin-thinkin.com/

Mr. Sponsorpants’ Post

Here is a link to the discussion over at Mr. Sponsorpants.
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Posted in Mr. Sponsorpants.

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By friendthegirl – June 2, 2010

http://mrsponsorpants.typepad.com/mr_sp ... f-han.html

June 02, 2010
Another visit with our friends on the other side of the aisle... (oh dear. this one REALLY got out of hand. this post is ridiculous! way too long to read. Come back tomorrow when I've regained my senses. Really.)

Open Free for All / This drummer cracks me up!!

« on: June 03, 2010, 03:12:02 PM »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO7xWMi0lR8

Reminds me of Animal!!

Feed Your Head / Bill Hicks biopic

« on: June 02, 2010, 12:22:36 PM »

I hope it does the man right.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/thea ... yable.html

Bill Hicks: the man who said the unsayable

Bill Hicks took stand-up comedy to new heights – and depths – but died at just 32, on the brink of global fame. A hard-edged new biopic reveals and intense and dark young comic.

By Andy Fyfe
Published: 3:26PM BST 12 May 2010

In Edinburgh in the summer of 1991, I became the first British journalist to interview Bill Hicks, a man once described as “the most dangerous comedian in the world”. The legendary American stand-up was jittery about how his first audiences outside North America would react to his volatile, controversial act. I was young, and nervous about meeting him. “OK, well, this is the strangest interview I’ve ever done,” he snapped after a few minutes, bringing an abrupt end to my attempts at small talk. “Are we actually going to get to any questions?”

Cowboy-booted, chain-smoking Hicks was the most significant American comedian of his generation, the natural successor to Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor.

He was rude, angry, uncompromising and saw within popular culture a conspiracy to dumb people down so that they could be more easily controlled. He died in 1994, at the age of 32, but still ranks high on most lists of the greatest comics of all time.

A new documentary American: The Bill Hicks Story serves as a reminder of how lucky I was to get away with a mild rebuke. In one clip taken from a live performance, he rounds on a heckler. “Once again,” he screams at the audience, “you, the pee’d on masses, ruin anything anyone tries to do because you can’t do it on your own.”

Hicks’ appearance in Edinburgh that year felt like a one-man stand-up revolution, a provocation to British comics.

But it was also important for Hicks, whose career was stalling in the US after comedy venues became reluctant to book him thanks to his previous wild behaviour, largely fuelled by alcohol and drugs. Despite cleaning up in 1988, he still struggled to get work but on tours of Britain and Ireland he was treated like a rock star and built a devoted following.

In Edinburgh, he reduced an audience of 300 to hysterical tears, with an assault on the modern world that was as brutal as it was brilliant. The first Gulf War? “That wasn’t a war. A war is two sides fighting each other. Iraq: 150,000 casualties. USA: 79. Does that mean if we had sent over 80 guys we woulda still won?” Abortion? “Pro-lifers, don’t link your arms around clinics. Link them around cemeteries. Let’s see how committed you really are.” The Media? “By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself. Seriously, there’s no joke coming, you are Satan’s spawn, filling the world with bile and garbage. Kill yourself now; it’s the only way to save your souls. Now, on with the show… ”

It was confrontational, often ugly stuff; an approach Hicks defined as “cynical humanism”. But he made you want to follow him into battle against the demons of evil, oppression, banality.

His life story is told in the film, which combines interviews with family and friends, performance footage and animated montages.

Born in 1961, he was raised in a strict churchgoing family in Houston. “People thought he was raised a fundamentalist Christian – hell no!” objects his brother Steve during an interview in the film. “We were Southern Baptists and that’s much worse.” His comic epiphany came watching Woody Allen in the 1967 James Bond spoof, Casino Royale. According to friend and early comedy partner Dwight Slade, “he couldn’t believe you could make a living being a comic”.

When Houston’s first comedy club, The Comedy Workshop, opened, the teenage Hicks would sneak out his bedroom window to perform at the club; the snippets of those early performances shown in the film are staggering. Even at 17 Hicks’ stage mannerisms are intact: the way he stalks the stage, the frustrated hair smoothing, the ever-present jabbing cigarette.

From there the story moves with 19-year-old Hicks to a disenchanting brush with Hollywood, and his return to Houston as a 21-year-old stand-up. There his drug and alcohol intake spiralled, and eventually he left for New York to clean up. By the early Nineties, Hicks was back on track with British tours, monologues on Late Night with David Letterman, festival appearances, and CD and video releases of his material, but he continued to challenge the status quo. His last routine for Letterman in October 1993, which featured an attack on pro-lifers that he had been using for years, was deemed too controversial and cut from the show. Hicks, typically, saw conspiracy: during a commercial break in the show he was cut from, the network ran a pro-life advertisement.

The fall out from the censorship gained him more notoriety in the US than any of his previous appearances, but it was too late. Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer the previous April, he died in February 1994.

Most comedy is about taking our minds off our problems. Hicks didn’t want anyone distracted, he wanted us to fight back. “The American dream is a crock,” he told me back in 1991. “Stop wanting everything. Everyone should wear jeans and have three T-shirts, eat rice and beans. Don’t eat McDonalds. Don’t buy suits. F--- ’em, OK?”

His message comes across in American: The Bill Hicks Story, but the film serves up Hicks the comedian at the expense of the man. A huge hole in the story is the absence of his manager and fiancée, Colleen McGarr. Maybe she’ll surface in the Hicks biopic Russell Crowe is developing, but her input might have softened the documentary’s dark, intense image of Hicks. There was certainly a softer side to his nature, if not his comedy.

Hicks’ misanthropy had a heart: redemption is yours if you open your eyes and use your freedom of speech. No other comedian demanded that right to free speech – and a platform on which to preach it – as brilliantly as Bill Hicks.

* ?American: The Bill Hicks Story is released on Friday