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Topics - 001010

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16
Let It Bleed / Banana Phone?
« on: November 13, 2006, 06:34:43 PM »

17
Straight, Inc. and Derivatives / Happy Halloween!
« on: October 31, 2006, 10:21:28 AM »

18
Straight, Inc. and Derivatives / The new Cherrios commercial...
« on: September 09, 2006, 11:00:12 AM »
It uses the song, "Happiness Runs in a Circular Motion" which is an old Straight song. Upon hearing the song I was able to recall all of the hand motions and words that Straight added.

It made me feel a bit robotic and creeped me out.

That commercial really bothers me.

19
http://groups.myspace.com/WWASPSdiscussion

Join now!

_________________
Teen Advocate
est (Landmark/Lifespring/Discovery) '83
Salesmanship Club '84-'86
Straight, Inc. '86-'88

20
Tune in...Brainwashed parents defend decision to send child to WWASPS.

*Actually this may have been Dundee Ranch.

Weren't they both shut down?

_________________
Teen Advocate
est (Landmark/Lifespring/Discovery) '83
Salesmanship Club '84-'86
Straight, Inc. '86-'88

[ This Message was edited by: 001010 on 2006-04-25 11:11 ]
[ This Message was edited by: 001010 on 2006-04-25 11:12 ]

21
Straight, Inc. and Derivatives / It's interesting for all people
« on: April 19, 2006, 08:48:00 AM »
Viruses.....

22
Straight, Inc. and Derivatives / Where did "Straight Testimony" go?
« on: March 25, 2006, 12:26:00 AM »
Am I blind, or is it gone?

23
I can't find any links... anyone?

_________________
EST (Landmark/Lifespring) '83
Salesmanship Club '84-'86
Straight, Inc. '86-'88

24
In case this wasn't posted:

By Steve Rock
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Edition: METROPOLITAN, Section: METROPOLITAN,
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Missouri attorney general's office hasn't played a role in an investigation of a home for troubled teens despite agreeing to provide assistance more than five months ago.

The reason? The local prosecuting attorney hasn't asked for help.

Scott Holste, a spokesman for Attorney General Jay Nixon, said his office has been waiting since July for direction from Caldwell County Prosecutor Jason Kanoy as to what role it should play in an investigation of Thayer Learning Center.

"We still stand ready to assist when, and if, asked," Holste said.

Kanoy said the case involving Thayer "hasn't had my utmost attention" in recent months.

Thayer - a controversial facility in Kidder, Mo., where a student died in November 2004 - has been the subject of child abuse allegations and critical state reports. An investigation by The Star in October showed that since April 2003, at least seven persons had reported more than a dozen allegations of child abuse at Thayer to the Caldwell County sheriff's office.

Thayer officials have previously called general allegations of abuse "ludicrous and false," and Thayer owners John and Willa Bundy have denied in court records any wrongdoing in conjunction with the death. Kanoy hasn't asked Nixon's office for assistance in investigating the death, Kanoy said, because "I did not think their assistance was necessary."

Many abuse allegations were made in May 2004 by three Thayer employees who alleged they saw or heard that:

Restroom breaks were so limited that students regularly soiled themselves, and the restricted bathroom breaks led to various urinary tract and bladder infections. One girl was forced to sit in a plastic tub containing urine for at least 2 1/2 hours.

A student was tied up and dragged around a sand track behind an all-terrain vehicle.

A drill sergeant was "helping" a student do push-ups, causing the student's head to bounce off the concrete.

A student was forced to eat her own vomit.

The sheriff's deputy who took the report said he found the women's reports credible, and he asked Kanoy to subpoena medical records that might substantiate the allegations. Kanoy said he subpoenaed records of Thayer students from a Hamilton, Mo., physician.

It's in connection with that investigation that Kanoy contacted Gov. Matt Blunt's office in July and formally sought cooperation from the attorney general.

Blunt sent a letter to Nixon on July 18 and instructed Nixon to "provide assistance" to Kanoy.

Nothing has happened since.

"There's nothing new that we know of in the criminal investigation in Caldwell County," Holste said. "But you might ask Mr. Kanoy, as he's in control of everything on this."

Holste, who has been in the attorney general's office for more than 10 years, said Tuesday that neither he nor anyone else in Nixon's office could recall a situation in which a local prosecutor sought formal assistance from the attorney general, then failed to use that assistance. The attorney general can't participate in local investigations unless invited, he said.

"The level of our involvement is completely controlled by the local prosecutor," Holste said.

Kanoy said that the Thayer case is a "pending investigation" and that he expects to contact the attorney general at some point. Asked why he hadn't so far, Kanoy said: "I've been working on the new cases that have come into the office.

"I'm not saying it's not the most serious case to come through my door. It just hasn't been the most recent.

"Like when a kid gets a new toy at Christmas, you play with the new toy."

Roberto Reyes, 15, had been at Thayer less than two weeks when he died in November 2004. His death has been attributed to a probable spider bite. A state investigative team said "it appears that those responsible for the safety and well-being of Roberto Reyes failed to recognize his medical distress and to provide access to appropriate medical evaluation and/or treatment."

A former Thayer student told a state investigator that Roberto had been "almost lifeless" for several days before his death. Two other former students told The Star that he had barely moved when they saw him in the days before he died.

Kanoy has said he doesn't expect to file criminal charges in connection with Roberto's death. The investigation is still pending, he said, but "we have not had anything happen recently."

Victor and Gracia Reyes of California, Roberto's parents, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in February. The seven defendants are Thayer, two affiliated businesses and four persons who were Thayer employees at the time of Roberto's death. The Reyeses alleged that Roberto had been subjected to physical exertion and abuse that caused or contributed to his death; that Roberto had been dragged, hit and "forced to lay in his own excrement for extended periods" and that he would have lived had he received competent medical care in a timely manner.

In court records, Thayer officials denied those and other allegations. A trial is scheduled for June.

To reach Steve Rock, call (816) 234-4338 or send e-mail to [email protected].

 

 



_________________
EST (Landmark/Lifespring) '83
Salesmanship Club '84-'86
Straight, Inc. '86-'88

25
News Items / Behavior Modification Money Trail
« on: December 19, 2005, 03:23:00 PM »
* This is a little older, but I think it belongs in here:

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

Government connections enable ?teen help? industry to thwart regulation.

At Some Youth ?Treatment? Facilities, ?Tough Love? Takes Brutal Forms.

The controversial world of youth behavior-modification facilities intersects with a web of intricate political connections. And where the treatment industry sees cooperation with government entities, activists warn, these links could cloud the prospects for public oversight of the "teen-help" market.

The influence of the behavior-modification industry is felt on Capitol Hill. Four members of the House of Representatives and one senator serve as honorary board members of Kids Helping Kids, a company with corporate links to a now-defunct behavior-modification program for teen drug users known as Straight Incorporated. The various franchises of that program dissolved in the early 1990s following allegations of child abuse, as well as criticism for using cruel, prisoner-of-war-style brainwashing techniques on adolescents.

Watchdog groups report that Straight Inc. has since morphed into the Drug Free America Foundation, a conservative anti-drug advocacy group. The co-founder, Mel Sembler, is a longtime Republican Party donor and fundraiser who served as ambassador to Italy for the current administration and ambassador to Australia under George H.W. Bush.

The connections are even more direct on the state level. Earlier this year in Montana, a landmark bill to impose regulatory guidelines on adolescent residential treatment facilities was squelched by a powerful lobbying campaign from private service providers. Proposed partially in response to reports of abuse and deaths in some treatment programs, the bill would have authorized the state Department of Health and Human Services to monitor private behavior-modification programs. According to government estimates, Montana contains over two dozen of these institutions, ranging from "wilderness"-based programs to disciplinary boarding academies.

To eclipse the bill, private treatment companies pushed their own legislation, which would effectively place regulatory authority not with the health department but with a five-member board under the Department of Labor. Three of the board?s members are representatives of the teen treatment industry, including state Representative Paul Clark, who directs a local therapeutic wilderness program. The bill, which was recently approved by the legislature, requests no public funding and specifically exempts church-affiliated and "faith-based" programs.

According to state records, Spring Creek Lodge, an affiliate of World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS), spent over $50,000 on lobbying activities to help push the bill through the legislature.

In Utah, the WWASPS name is prominently linked to the Republican Party. The Salt Lake City Tribune reported that between 2002 and 2004, WWASPS founder Robert Lichfield, his family, and business associates have contributed a total of more than $1 million to Republican candidates and party organizations ? a financial push that coincided with the killing of a 2004 initiative in the state legislature to regulate teen residential treatment facilities.

Charles Huffine, an adolescent psychiatrist who has joined other mental health professionals in urging stronger oversight of residential treatment facilities, is wary of attempts by industry interests to co-opt the regulatory process. "It?s the fox-guarding-the-chicken-coop kind of thing," he remarked.

But rather than a conflict of interest, some in the teen help industry see a healthy partnership with officials. In interviews with The NewStandard, WWASPS representatives described a good working relationship between their enterprises and the agencies charged with checking up on them, like state departments of education and, at Tranquility Bay in Jamaica, the United States Embassy.

"I?m all for law enforcement," said WWASPS President Ken Kay. "I think all of our schools work closely with law enforcement and would welcome their visit every day."

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2620

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.
--Isaac Asimov, Russian-born American author


26
News Items / Youth Treatment as Brutal 'Tough Love'
« on: December 19, 2005, 03:09:00 PM »
Children's advocates are taking aim at privately run programs that treat kids with a range of problems as delinquents who need to be straightened out by force.

Youth Treatment as Brutal 'Tough Love'

If this was therapy, it sure didn't feel like it. From September to January, Claire Kent spent her days digging up tree stumps from a barren field, her mind and body battered by the elements. The work was part of her "treatment" for the drinking and sex that had landed her at a boarding school for "troubled teens."

In the Montana woods, Kent and a couple dozen other adolescent girls had been committed by their families to a disciplinary program that included chopping wood, exercising to the point of physical breakdown, and being regularly bullied and insulted by "counselors" - all in the name of what the private treatment industry calls "emotional growth."

"It was just based on, 'How badly can I scare you?'," said Kent, now in her late twenties and still suffering from anxiety that she attributes to her experience. During her two-year stay, she said, "they gave me the reality that life was just completely unfair and was going to keep being that way."

The facility where Kent was held, the Mission Mountain School, is still in business today. Though staff declined repeated requests for comment, the recent explosion of hundreds of other so-called "private residential treatment facilities" speaks to the growing popularity of the "tough love" approach to "reforming" youth. Behavioral health experts estimate that the industry deals with roughly 10,000 to 14,000 children and teens, charging typical tuition rates of tens of thousands of dollars per year. The patrons are anxious parents hoping for a solution to issues ranging from attention deficit disorder to drug abuse. Worth approximately $1 billion, emotional growth programs thrive on the promise of turning "bad" kids "good."

Government connections enable "teen help" industry to thwart regulation. Though some mental health professionals believe residential treatment could be helpful in extreme circumstances, horrific experiences reported by young people confined to unregulated facilities prompt questions about who is caring for them, and who is held accountable when care becomes abuse?

"It appears that there's a growth industry of very harsh kinds of programs that are using confrontational therapies, incredibly strict discipline, the kind of exhaust-them-until-they-break-down kind of [practices]," said Charles Huffine, an adolescent psychiatrist with the advocacy coalition Alliance for the Safe, Therapeutic and Appropriate use of Residential Treatment. "These are practices that are much more akin to certain kinds of harsh prison conditions than they are to anything that would be remotely considered therapy."

Private residential treatment facilities take various forms, from camp lodges in Montana to militaristic disciplinary compounds on foreign territory. The main defining features are physically isolated campuses and in many areas, virtually no formal government oversight.

Growing alongside the teen "help" industry is the political and legal backlash against tactics that some view as cruel and bizarre. In recent years, several facilities have closed following abuse investigations. Activists are also promoting the End Institutionalized Abuse Against Children Act, which would fund state and local monitoring of treatment facilities, along with the Keeping Families Together Act, which would enhance access to community-based behavioral healthcare. Yet youth advocates and former program participants caution that legislative action would merely dent the complex culture surrounding institutions that aim to "fix" youth.

At especially harsh facilities, said Huffine, once adolescents are inside, "as human beings they have no rights. They cannot stand up and say, I have been slimed, I have been harmed, I have been hurt, I want out of this."

Rules and Consequences

One night, a few months before his high school graduation, Charles King was awakened by strangers, handcuffed, and told he was being taken somewhere to get help. When his escorts released him, he found himself in another country, locked in a concrete compound, watching a dismal parade of shaved-headed youngsters marching silently in a line.

King's new home was Tranquility Bay in Jamaica, part of a network of behavior modification facilities tied to the Utah-based corporation World Wide Association Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS).

"You weren't allowed to talk, you couldn't call home to your family," recalled King, now in his mid-twenties. "You weren't allowed to do anything, basically, without permission - and if you did, there were consequences."

"Consequences" is the term WWASPS facilities prefer instead of "punishment." Under a point system, participants theoretically earn privileges for following rules and suffer consequences for breaking them: completing intensive chores or sitting obediently through self-help "emotional growth" videos might after a few months earn a kid the prerogative to call home.

But King recalls the consequences more clearly than the rewards: spending days on end in detention, known as "observation placement," lying rigid with his face plastered to the floor, under the surveillance of domineering staff. Seared in his memory, and reported by other former detainees, are the frequent screams of boys and girls who endured special disciplinary sessions in isolation at the hands of staff.

"They thought they were going to die; that's what it sounded like to me," King said.

In California, families of former participants have sued WWASPS and several affiliated schools, claiming abuse and inhumane living conditions. Though children's advocates consider WWASPS schools an extreme example of behavior modification programming, the company's promises of bringing "structure" to kids' lives are common throughout the industry.

Dismissing the allegations of mistreatment as groundless, Director Jay Kay told The NewStandard that Tranquility Bay "has assisted kids and families in ways hard to put into words." He continued, "We are about character-building, emotional growth, therapy and family values."

WWASPS President Ken Kay, Jay's father, argued that compared to psychiatric treatment or the prison system, the WWASPS approach is in fact a more humane way to modify destructive behavior in young people.

"It's extremely necessary in society," he told TNS, "to have something between running rampant with negative behavior and juvenile detention or mental lockdown."

On the issue of human rights, the elder Kay remarked, "Children have the right to expect that when they're getting so far out of line, someone is going to rein them in a little bit."

A Tight Leash

According to critics in the mental health community, even programs that are not outright physically abusive can still be degrading and traumatic, especially for vulnerable adolescents already struggling with emotional issues.

Intensive "wilderness" activities, for instance, are billed as a method of building maturity, but some former program participants say that they serve mainly to break spirits.

"It was really about establishing authority and control," said Kathryn Whitehead, who entered Mission Mountain after a suicide attempt at age 13. The work and exercise programs, she said, aim to exhaust girls until they "can't hold anything in. So, you purge yourself of whatever demons you're carrying."

Claire Kent said her stump-digging assignment was the penalty for not giving the staff a detailed enough account of her sexual history - a requirement for all participants.

Between labor sessions in the woods, Kent described navigating a constrained social system in which girls were forced to "disclose" all secrets. Staff routinely rebutted confessions with accusations of lying or withholding information, she said, so girls wound up spinning made-up stories of abuse or family dysfunction just to gain a counselor's approval.

The pressure to confess, Kent said, was compounded by the stress of obeying seemingly arbitrary rules. When the staff deemed excessive toilet use a punishable offense, for example, she recalled that girls resorted to soiling themselves to avoid going to the bathroom.

"They used fear to change us," she said. "We were not changing for positive reasons."

But Larry Stednitz, an educational consultant who refers parents to youth facilities and has visited Mission Mountain, defended work regimens as a useful way of keeping kids occupied. "If you don't structure things pretty tightly," he said, "you're going to have problems."

Indeed, some former participants feel that this structure benefited them in the long run. In an essay featured on the strugglingteens.com website, which is run by educational consultants, former Mission Mountain participant Kristie Vollar used language similar to Whitehead's to argue that the intense stress helps girls by making them "physically, mentally and emotionally worn out until there isn't enough energy left to hide 'what's really going on'."

Such positive perceptions do not surprise Kent; she takes them as evidence that the program succeeds in inducing total, self-obliterating submission. "The other 30 girls there, you know, were believing in the program," she recalled. "You eventually believed in it, too: that you were this rotten, filthy, horrible kid, and that Mission Mountain saved your life." Credibility Gap

An undercurrent of distrust runs through the controversy over these authoritarian adolescent management facilities. Program administrators suggest that troubled youth cannot be trusted to act in their personal best interest and insist that complaints of mistreatment should be viewed with similar skepticism.

Ken Kay countered abuse allegations by pointing to the results of parent questionnaires administered by WWASPS. According to parents, kids have what he calls "a huge history of manipulation and misrepresenting the truth." These youth, he concluded, "have a bad habit of lying to their parents, their school people, to their friends... And so I don't expect that, you know, they are going to stop lying."

For 18-year-old Sean Hellinger, who languished for about two years in residential treatment - first at a Montana-based WWASPS institution called Spring Creek Lodge and later a similar program in Utah- advocating for himself led to a catch-22. Each complaint about severe and humiliating treatment by the Spring Creek staff, he recalled, would run up against the presumption of "manipulation." It was futile to protest to his parents, he said, because staff would inevitably convince them he was lying to get out of the facility.

"You can't talk to the outside world, and when you can, it's all censored," he said. "And your parents don't believe you.... I was ignored, betrayed."

Parental Misguidance

Advocates calling for tighter regulation of residential facilities say that some programs bank on desperation and lure parents with deceptive advertising. Critics of the industry say consultants and recruiters market programs to families by rapidly "diagnosing" serious emotional problems in children and sometimes offering help in securing a fast tuition loan. Meanwhile, parents are left unaware that the program is not clinically licensed, or lacks an adequate trained staff.

Nicki Bush, a psychology graduate student who interned at a rural residential treatment facility, said administrators convinced parents to sink their savings into behavioral treatment that their children supposedly needed. While many children did have serious psychological disorders, she observed it was not uncommon for kids to end up at the facility "because they were having sex with some 20-year-old guy, and [the parents] found a joint, or something like that."

Cristine Gomez, one of the plaintiffs in the WWASPS lawsuit, said aggressive marketing persuaded her to send her son, who was having trouble in school and suffering from attention deficit disorder, first to Spring Creek Lodge and eventually to Tranquility Bay. She told TNS, "I took for granted that they were licensed and regulated... I assumed that somebody was keeping track of basic indications of the safety of the children."

In the end, troubling letters describing the conditions in the Jamaica facility compelled her to bring her son home. Four years later, she said he suffers from deep psychological trauma and refuses to speak openly about the experience. Calling the decision to send her son away "the biggest mistake I ever made in my life," Gomez said, "It's just the opposite of what our intent was, what we were sold."

The Cost of Reform

Although several months of residential treatment might at least temporarily stem problematic behavior, experts warn that short-term "success" could mask long-term scars. Some survivors of the treatment experiences report recurring nightmares, anxiety attacks and depression.

In King's case, the cost of survival at Tranquility Bay was emotional desensitization. "After the first month, it broke me," he said, "and after that, I was numb to, you know, anything that was happening." The experience also stoked an angry desire to return to the lifestyle that his family had previously disapproved of. "It almost made me dream about doing those things again," he said, "instead of what it's supposed to do."

Some mental health advocates say oppressive rule systems, in which youth are subjected to constant punishment and accusations of dishonesty and immorality, could crumple an adolescent's social development.

Hellinger characterized the rules imposed on him as "totalitarian. You say what you're allowed to say, which is, you know, that you agree with everything they say." The staff members, he said, "wanted me to be their little programmed machine."

Yet proponents of residential treatment argue that while "tough love" might not feel good, it is necessary to reform a self-destructive teen.

Bob Carter is convinced that a residential program in rural Utah transformed his son from an unruly teen into a responsible adult. He believes the program's key feature is "a positive, conformist sort of element," which becomes "indoctrinated by the kids themselves." Soon, he explained, "they create an environment where the kids more monitor each other than anything else."

But in Huffine's view, "turning kids into narcs is not a good thing, in terms of how you want to help kids... establish some sense of their own social ethics."

Bush said that while a young person could eventually learn to adhere reflexively to rules in a confined environment, conformity itself is not a healthy goal. "You might condition... a rat or a monkey to do something if you punish them enough," she commented. "But it doesn't mean there's been some insight or great growth."

Curbing "Emotional Growth"

Mental health advocacy groups say that in order to prevent mistreatment, the government must hold private treatment facilities to some clinically based standard of care. As an initial step, they are pushing the End Institutionalized Abuse Against Children bill, which would provide seed money to develop state-level regulations.

While some service providers, including WWASPS, have publicly supported moderate state-based regulation, the industry group National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs has contended that bureaucratic monitoring could hinder innovation, and that the government should defer to the industry's own internally developed guidelines.

But Robert Friedman, chair of the Department of Child and Family Studies at the University of South Florida, warned that given the evidence of mistreatment, "there's a danger that if left to self-regulate... there may be the illusion that there's adequate accountability. And that, in some cases, could be worse than at least not having any illusion."

Nonetheless, youth advocates say legal restraints will accomplish little unless the government strengthens and expands the youth behavioral health system.

Mental health experts note that the parents who enroll children in private facilities typically lack insurance coverage for complex therapies. Meanwhile, openings in local mental health programs are so limited that thousands of families struggling to address their children's problems have felt forced to turn them over to the child-welfare or juvenile-justice systems so the state can provide appropriate treatment.

Amid these resource gaps, Friedman said, the growth of the residential treatment industry indicates the need to "develop services and supports close to home, so that families can get the help that they need."

Last year, research by the National Institutes of Health found that while coercive, fear-inducing treatment programs have not proven effective and could aggravate delinquent behavior, more holistic, family-centered approaches have demonstrated positive results in at-risk youth. One federal legislative proposal, the Keeping Families Together Act, would lift restrictions on a special Medicaid waiver to help families use public funds to access community-based treatment.

But enhancing treatment options is only part of the picture, according to Shelby Earnshaw, who underwent a behavior modification program as a teen and now directs the advocacy association International Survivors Action Committee. What fuels the private treatment industry, she argued, is a societal willingness to stigmatize youth with behavioral problems.

Parents who are desperate to "correct" their children, she said, tend to believe that a misbehaving teen is "not worthy of being treated as well... as a kid who didn't do drugs [or] who didn't get involved in crime. I have a big problem with that. Those kids need more help. They need to be treated better."

Michelle Chen is a staff reporter at The NewStandard.

http://www.alternet.org/story/28832/


There never was a good war or a bad peace.

--Benjamin Franklin, (1773)



_________________
EST (Landmark) '83
Salesmanship Club '84-'86
Straight, Inc. '86-'88

27
News Items / Pathway Family Center (one of many) asking for charity donat
« on: December 14, 2005, 08:47:00 PM »
This week
VOL. 26 NO. 40, DEC. 12-18, 2005

Holiday Wish List

The following is a list of Indianapolis-area not-for-profit organizations and the five things each needs most.

This is an opportunity for businesses and individuals to make tax-deductible gifts in the spirit of the season. Anyone who wishes to make a contribution should contact the organization directly.

This list will be published through Dec. 19. Organizations can send requests for up to five goods or services (not cash), along with a contact name, telephone number and e-mail address to: Holiday Wish List, Indianapolis Business Journal, 41 E. Washington St., 46204; fax to 263-5406; or e-mail to [email protected]. Conference room tables and chairs for 25, maintenance truck, lawn mower, vacuum cleaner, gas cards.

At-Your-School Inc., Leslie Hankins, 803-3134, [email protected]. Shipping services, office/storage space in the Lawrence Township area, projector, now or gently used child and youth-sized coats, non-perishable food such as ravioli, stew.

500 Festival, Jeff Graves 614-6128, [email protected]. Office furniture, passenger vehicles, commercial -grade flooring, bathroom fixtures, laptop.

Girl Scouts of Hoosier Capital Council, LaQuita Maxey, 924-3450, [email protected]. Large crates and pads, heartworm pills, pre-paid calling cards, pre-paid gas cards, veterinary services.

Greater Educational Opportunities Foundation, Brandy Wood, 536-1027. Library books for grades 6-12, periodical subscriptions, six sets of encyclopedias, four 30-inch-plus TVs with VCR/DVD and PowerPoint capable, furniture for a resource center.

Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, Kelly Siegert, 639-4534, [email protected]. Three laptops, CD player, digital camera, environmental artwork.

Hoosier Veterans Assistance Foundation Inc., Tina Shelley, 951-0688, [email protected]. Hotel overnight stays, public service announcement space and/or time, postage stamps, Staples or Office Depot gift cards, fund-raising items such as event tickets and certificates.

Indy Great Pyrenees Rescue, Jane Rose, 251-3179, [email protected]. Large dry-erase board, four-drawer filing cabinets, marketing/public relations services, computer projector, copy paper for a year.

Keep Indianapolis Beautiful Inc., Linda Broadfoot, 264-7555. Circular saw, 15-passenger van, power drills, executive services, LCD projector.

LBC Community Center, Jay R. Kennedy, 727-7595, [email protected]. Computer desk, recliner, children's videos, bath towels, twin bedspreads.

Morris-Butler House Museum, Alan Goebes, 636-5409, [email protected]. TV with DVD and VCR, radio with tape deck and CD player, rolling desk chair without arms, computer workstation, two lobby chairs.

North Park Academy, Terry DeBruhl 347-0450, [email protected]. Bookcases, 12 training room tables, 16 conference room chairs, 25 plastic floor mats, L-shaped desks and matching furniture.

People's Burn Foundation, Shelley Reeves, 217-1747, [email protected]. Laptops; gift cards for gas, major discount stores, grocery stores, bath and body; diapers for newborns to size 3; Fisher Price toys; AM/FM/CD alarm clocks.

Volunteers of America, Debi Marshall, 686-5806. Storage lockers, furniture such as bed frames and dressers, bathroom mirrors and vanities, bus passes, gloves and scarves for men and women.

Writer's Center of Indiana, Penelope Cray, 255-0710, [email protected]. Foster homes, printing services, postage, classified ads, veterinary care.

Boone County Senior Services Inc., Susan T. Ritz, (765) 482-5220 or 873-8939, [email protected]. Pickup trucks, air compressor, 500 copies of organizational promo, projector, wall- or ceiling-mounted electric shop heater.

Jameson Camp, David L. McDonald, 241-2661. Hydraulic wood splitter, commercial lawn mower, robotic pool cleaner, blank CDs, network computer server.

Local Initiatives Support Corp., Shawn Thomas, 396-0588, [email protected]. Large area or play rugs, 27-inch TV, extra-large clear plastic storage bins, board games, Commotion exercise program and materials.

Noble of Indiana, Philana Cunningham, 375-4241, [email protected]. Multi-purpose standard copy paper, teal or blue twin-pocket portfolio report covers, Avery labels in 5160 and 5164 format, QuickBooks non-profit edition.

Second Helpings, Jill Bennett, 632-2664, [email protected], or Larry Cooney, 340-7931, [email protected]. Digital camera and printer, management software, storage bins with wheels, musical instruments, copier.

Training Inc., Nika Croom or Linda Williams, 264-6740, [email protected]. New or gently used business portfolios, bus passes, two-drawer locking filing cabinet, laser printer, ink cartridges.

Agape Therapeutic Riding Resources Inc., Kevin Allender, 773-7433, agaperiding.org. Mini cargo van, Bobcat, kitchenette and classroom cabinets, carpeting.

Alzheimer's Association of Greater Indiana, LaNita Garmany, 575-9620. Bookkeeping and help-line assistance.

American Diabetes Association, Renea Marsh, (888) 342-2383, [email protected]. Flat-panel 17-inch monitor; laptop; all-in-one fax, copier, scanner and printer; tabletop four-panel fabric display board; $250 Staples gift card.

Benedict Inn Retreat & Conference Center, Sr. Mary Luke Jones, 788-7581, [email protected]. Twenty-four network capable computers, elementary playground equipment, public address system, 12 teachers' desks and chairs, and bookshelves.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Indiana Inc., Kristene Ruddle, 921-2201. Drawing and door prizes, 30 rose buds, board and card games, Kings Island tickets.

Boaz Project Inc., Don Burdsall or Jim Jurgensen, 889-7606, [email protected]. New or gently used LCD projector, stackable board-room chairs, new or gently used fax, office supplies.

Building Block's with T.L.C. Child Care, Nicole Collins-Tunsill, [email protected]. Web site re-design services, horseback-riding helmets and English-style adult saddle, new flooring and heat in clinic, Lite Gait Trainer and hydraulic floor lift.

Chrysalis Academy of Life and Learning, Joyce Duvall, 786-3456, [email protected]. Saturday meeting space with breakout rooms to accommodate 75 people, video production services, new laptop, QuickBooks Pro 2006, donation canisters with literature holder.

Coburn Place, Laura Henn, 923-5750, [email protected].. High-mega-pixel digital camera, video camera, high-quality laser color printer, accounting services, PowerBooks or G5 MAC.

Damar Services Inc., Katie McCoy, 856-5201, [email protected]. New or gently used books and puzzles for ages 2 through 6, art supplies, disposable cameras, gardening supplies.

Dayspring Center, Anne Marshall, 635-6780, [email protected]. Family passes to the Children's Museum, IndyGo bus passes, paper shredder, fax/answering machine, passenger/moving van.

Family Service of Central Indiana Inc., Stacy Clark, 634-6341, [email protected]. Photocopier, repair services for a photocopier, legal services, multi-purpose printer, heavy-duty shelving.

Girls Inc. of Franklin, Pamela Janning, 736-0043. Refrigerator, DVD/VCR, snow blower, new office desk, picnic table.

Girls Inc. of Indianapolis, Bevin Prater, 283-0086, [email protected]. Food, two-inch box-sealing tape, cardboard boxes, letter-size manila file folders.

Hamilton Centers Youth Service Bureau Inc., Stephanie Lyons, 773-6342, [email protected]. Legal assistance, insurance assistance, accounting assistance, basketball equipment, gym time.

Helping Our Own People Inc., Linda Cuff, 625-4479, [email protected]. Tractor-feed paper and labels, Rubbermaid utility cart, postage stamps, plastic ware, foam cups.

Indiana Juvenile Justice Task Force Inc., Victoria Rempel, 926-6100, [email protected]. Digital camera, carpeting, carpet runners, copy/printer paper, artwork storage unit.

Indiana Sheltie Rescue Inc., Teresa Cotton, 984-5737, [email protected]. Four-drawer fireproof letter-size file cabinet with lock, laminating machine, 10 28-inch traffic cones, small ice-making machine, portable public-address system.

Indy Feral, Verna Boggs, [email protected]. Carriers/kennels, classified ads, foster homes, volunteers for adoption events, transport van.

IPS George Buck School 94, Ruthanne Adams, 226-4294. Rocking chair, DVD player, 100 dry-erase slates and 60 third-grade dictionaries, talking/lighted globe, Polaroid 600 film.

JobWorks, Lana Taylor, 546-7180. Color copier, microwave cart, small and large silk plants.

Julian Center, Jen Reichwage, 941-2212, [email protected]. Laptop computers, multimedia player, gas cards, printing services.

Little Sisters of the Poor at St. Augustine's Home for the Aged, Tracy Desserich, 872-6420, [email protected]. Painted mural, indoor climbing equipment, carpet cleaning.

Love of Labs, Linda Acup, 770-5095. Foster homes, gift cards to pet retailers, large crates for labrador retrievers, Nutro Natural Balance Lamb and Rice or Purina ProPlan dog food.

Lutheran High School, Tom Finchum. 787-5474, [email protected]. Printer, digital camera, colored paper, copy paper, two-pocket folders in all colors.

Marion County Children's Guardian Home, Linda Cuff, 356-5281, [email protected]. Multifunction fax and copy machine, laser printer, presentation projector for use with a laptop, paper shredder.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Melody Stevens, 781-6233, [email protected]. Billboard space, printing services, event coordination assistance.

Our Town, Michelle Danner, 423-7217, [email protected]. Facility access for youth assistance dog training, digital video and still camera, four-in-one printer, printer cartridges, corporate support for events.

Raphael Health Center, Hoagland Elliott, 860-3961, [email protected]. Printing services, general volunteer assistance, office supplies, digital camera, 26-gallon plastic storage tubs with lids.

St. Mary's Child Center, Lynn McGuire, 635-1491, [email protected]. Publishing services, artistic services, legal real estate services, audit services, 30 pine trees, including excavating services.

Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation of Indianapolis, Jinger Moore, 638-2873. Color printer, Power- Point projector.

Timmy Foundation, Scott Keller, 253-8466, timmyfoundation.org. Discounted lease for 8,000 square feet.

The Villages, Linda Adams, 273-7575, [email protected]. Receptionist desk, free-standing shelving, color laser printer, digital camera, partition walls.

Young Survival, Rachel Daeger, 767-0167, http://www.ibj.com/topstories.asp?A=17783

 

say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.
--Kurt Vonnegut, American author



_________________
EST (Landmark) '83
Salesmanship Club '84-'86
Straight, Inc. '86-'88

28
News Items / County anti-bias rule likely to pop up in '06
« on: December 14, 2005, 08:43:00 PM »
County anti-bias rule likely to pop up in '06

Look for a sure-to-be-controversial anti-discrimination ordinance to come up for debate early next year for Orange County.

Commissioner Mildred Fernandez said last week that she has asked legal staff to look at other counties and come up with a measure for Orange, one that would focus largely on outlawing housing discrimination in unincorporated parts of the county.

Gay-rights champions have ramped up pressure on Orange to pass a wide-ranging ordinance that would erect barriers against all types of discrimination, especially sexual orientation -- much like Orlando passed in 2002. It's not clear whether the Fernandez measure will go as far as Orlando's did, which includes small fines for violators.

But for the past year, nothing at all has happened on the Orange County front.

Mayor Rich Crotty blocked an earlier attempt by Fernandez to bring forth a measure, saying that discrimination, particularly against gays, is not a serious issue in Orange. So activists are pushing again, and Fernandez said last week she plans to push ahead. Crotty indicated he would not get in the way if it came up early next year.

Still, Fernandez cautioned about what she plans to bring forward: "I don't know if it's exactly what they want."

Perjury-defense funds, aisle 7

The developer behind the contentious Winter Garden Village at Fowler Groves shopping center project is now helping I. "Scooter" Libby fight perjury and obstructing-justice charges.

Melvin Sembler, a former ambassador to Italy, is a longtime political bank roller and founder of The Sembler Co., which has won approval to build the 1.1 million-square-foot mall.

Now Sembler is helping to head up a legal-defense fund for Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. Libby is accused of lying during a probe into whether administration war supporters tried to unmask a CIA agent. The agent's husband publicly challenged Bush's allegation that Iraq bought uranium from Niger to build a weapon of mass destruction.

It was one of the scarier supporting points Bush made for going to war. The documents supporting that claim were forgeries.

Interestingly, those fake Niger papers give Winter Garden's future mall magnate another claim to fame in the rush-to-Iraq war story: As Newsweek points out, those forged documents arrived through the Italian embassy when Sembler was the U.S. ambassador at the time.

David Damron of the Sentinel staff compiled this report.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/loc ... nes-orange

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
--Albert Einstein


29
The Troubled Teen Industry / Today Dr. Phil makes a house call
« on: December 01, 2005, 04:19:00 PM »
And sends (abducts by convincing his parents he'll be dead, insane or in jail) a kid away.

They haven't mentioned the program yet.

The present system is among the most impractical imaginable, if the facilitation of learning is your aim.
--Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner



_________________
EST (Lifespring) '83
Salesmanship Club '84-'86
Straight, Inc. '86-'88

30
Tue, 08 Nov 2005 07:47:00 GMT Child abuse accusations bring demise of Nephi boarding school - Salt Lake Tribune
 

Child abuse accusations bring demise of Nephi boarding school
Salt Lake Tribune, United States - Nov 7, 2005
... accusations of child abuse are forcing a Utah boarding school out of business. Cheryl and Mark Sudweeks, co-owners of Whitmore Academy in Nephi, are selling ...  

http://officialcitysites.org/city/UT/Nephi/21492

I wonder where this article went!  :question:
 

When we are pleading with foreign governments to stop the flow of cocaine, it is the height of hypocrisy for the US to export tobacco.  Years from now, our nation will look back on this application of free trade policy and find it scandalous.

1989 testimony before the US Trade Representative,September 1989
--Surgeon General, Everett Koop


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