Radley Balko on the criminalization of childhood

It’s come to the point where even kids are being prosecuted for acting like, well, kids: 5-year-olds cuffed to police cars for throwing a tantrum, 12-year-olds forced through a perp walk for scribbling on her desk, a boy being charged with terrorism for warning other kids not to finish all the potatoes in his school cafeteria, and innumerable other, less prominent but equally irrational incidents across the country. Here’s an enlightening interview with Radley Balko on Russia Today’s The Alyona Show with Alyona Minkovski wherein they discuss the issue:

My transcript: (click the [+/-] to expand/collapse →)

[−]

Hostess Alyona starts by showcasing some more extreme examples of students being prosecuted for acting their age: a 5-year-old in Saint Petersburg, Florida, who was arrested, handcuffed and shackled to a police cruiser for throwing a temper tantrum; a 12-year-old in Forest Hills, New York, who was perp-walked out of her school and taken to the police station, then handcuffed a pole for two hours after she doodled on her desk; a 12-year-old boy in Louisiana with hyperactive disorder who was suspended for two days after telling kids in the lunch line ‘I’m gonna get you!’ if they ate all the potatoes. He ended up charged for making “terroristic threats” and then was jailed for two weeks while awaiting trial.

Alyona then showcases a Texas study of 1 million students across 4,000 state schools showing how 6/10 students were suspended or expelled at least once between 7^th and 12^th grade. Those suspended or expelled were 3 times as likely to come in contact with the juvenile system the following year.

Alyona then brings on Radley Balko. Balko explains that kids need to be able to make mistakes (that’s what kids do) without having negative repercussions for the rest of their lives. He says that teens have been showing off their nude parts to one another for all of human history, yet with the advent of telecommunication technology, this behavior is now being criminalized to “protect” minors against being exploited (or exploiting themselves?) by charging them with production of child porn, or forcing them to register as sex offenders.

Alyona asks what, exactly, is causing all these persecution of kids, especially those who don’t even commit any actual crimes and just do childish things (throwing tantrums, doodling on desks, etc.). Balko replies that it’s due to a mix of zero tolerance policies and (primarily) a lack of reasonable discretion. He notes the example of schoolkids who, a couple of years ago, got into a food-fight and a bunch of whom were then arrested and charged with felonies. Communities need to step in and realize that it’s their role to discipline kids, not that of cops and courts.

Alyona brings up a report of a Texas school that’s offering cash to get people to report truancy to the cops. Balko says that it used to be up to the community, but now it’s being delegated to law enforcement, who unjustly criminalize the behavior. He says that society makes it so that misbehavior is increasingly being treated as criminal.

Alyona describes reports stating that people (kids included) whose harmless behavior is criminalized are turned into disenfranchised, second-class citizens who then can’t get a job and end up filtering through the prison system over and over again.

Alyona then cites the Texas study in that while Black kids in Dallas make up 30% of the population, they receive 62% of the citations. Balko explains that while not every cop and prosecutor is racist, racism is still a nationwide problem.

Alyona mentions that the Obama administration claims it intends to investigate and reform the broken system, but both Alyona and Balko express skepticism that they’ll be able (or willing) to do anything about it in the end.

(via @TheAlyonaShow)

Tags: Radley Balko • The Alyona Show • Alyona Minkovski

Daily Blend: Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Darryl Cunningham [source]

• Darryl Cunningham ^[pictured] investigates the bundle of pseudo-scientific mysticism that is chiropractic.
  (via Respectful Insolence)

• “Flamboyant narcissism, moral relativism and plenty of gyrating nude bodies.” (Wait, that’s bad?)

• Richard Dawkins ripostes to Gov. Rick Perry’s (R-TX) dismissal of evolution. Also love his dig at the name ‘GOP’; I really should stop using it.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• A serious write-up of Stephen Colbert’s SuperPAC and its very real ramifications for US politics.
  (via @todayspolitics)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Darryl Cunningham • chiropractic • Liberty Counsel • Matt Barber • gays • liberals • Richard Dawkins • Rick Perry • Stephen Colbert • PACs • SuperPACs • Colbert SuperPAC • Americans For a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow

‘Portal’: The (Short) Movie

I got nothin’ today. So, here’s a fun video.

My transcript: (click the [+/-] to expand/collapse →)

[−]

A woman (Chell) wakes up alone in a small, dingy room. She realizes she has a barcode on her nape. Seeing no way out (and secretly being filmed 24/7), she starts exercising for an indefinite amount of time, pausing to sleep and eat the occasional tray of food that gets slipped through a sliding door.

Eventually, she gets an idea and discovers the portal gun. She experiments with portals, creating a closed loop through the walls of her room. Then, she uses portals to knock out a guard upon entry and escapes, disabling further guards in the corridors beyond. She makes her way to the roof of the building and uses portals to execute a particularly daredevil-esque jump between buildings to escape more guards.

However, she then realizes that the scenery around her is just a digital backdrop, behind which is another closed chamber with several worn-looking and disabled Weighted Companion Cubes.

Speaking of which, I need to go break my brain play some Portal, now.

(via @alexpalex)

Tags: Portal • short films

New research confirms bisexuality

You’d think this is another one of those things that ought to be rather self-evident, yet it took science until now to realize that, yes, men who claim to be attracted to people of both sexes may actually be bisexual:

In an unusual scientific about-face, researchers at Northwestern University have found evidence that at least some men who identify themselves as bisexual are, in fact, sexually aroused by both women and men.

The finding is not likely to surprise bisexuals, who have long asserted that attraction often is not limited to one sex. But for many years the question of bisexuality has bedeviled scientists. A widely publicized study published in 2005, also by researchers at Northwestern, reported that “with respect to sexual arousal and attraction, it remains to be shown that male bisexuality exists.”

That conclusion outraged bisexual men and women, who said it appeared to support a stereotype of bisexual men as closeted homosexuals.

In short: For this revised test, researchers brought in a group of men from specifically bisexual-oriented venues, along with standard selections of self-professed straight and gay guys, and showed them all erotica whilst measuring their tender areas for autonomic reactions. Shockingly enough, guys who claimed to be turned on by both men and women were, in fact, turned on by both men and women.

Of course, I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that it’s pretty safe to assume that the same holds true for female bisexuals as well, so it looks like science finally confirmed an already obvious fact: bisexuals exist. My, what an age of discovery we live in.

Oh, all right, maybe I’m being a little too depreciating towards science and researchers, here; I’m sure the lack of previous findings on the subject had nothing to do with any prejudice (at least for the most part). But … seriously? It really took until 2011 for followers of the discipline of knowledge to figure out that some people really are attracted to both sexes? Isn’t that the sort of thing that could, and should, have been tested decades ago? In about five minutes?

(Though, I am admittedly somewhat curious as to why the 2005 study failed to garner similar results, if it also included actual bisexuals as reported.)

Fail Quote: Rep. McGuire thinks young workers aren’t worth the minimum wage

Rep. Carol McGuire (R-NH)

From New Hampshire Rep. Carol McGuire (R), explaining why she sponsored a successful (albeit pointless) repeal of the state’s minimum wage of $7.25/hour:

"It's very discriminatory, particularly for young people. They're not worth the minimum," she said.

She believes there are young people who would get a job if they could be paid $5 an hour instead of the minimum.

So, it’s not that she doesn’t want there to be a minimum wage. She just wants another, lower minimum, one that fits more appropriately to those worthless, bottom-feeding young workers. ’Cause who needs them, anyway.

(via Joe. My. God.)

Tags: Carol McGuire • New Hampshire • minimum wage

Daily Blend: Monday, August 22, 2011

[click for full comic]

• Proposed bill would end life-without-parole sentences for nonviolent drug possession in Oklahoma.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Today in “things I have got to try out someday”. ^[pictured]

• Oh, Japan. Even their manhole covers are psychedelic.
  (via The Agitator)

• Where’s <insert name of any robot depicted in last century here>?
  (via The Daily Grail)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Constance Johnson • Oklahoma • clouds • Japan • sewers • WALL-E • robots

Republicans and teleprompters

Keep this at hand for the next time a right-winger so much as mentions “teleprompter” as some sort of criticism:

Fact: Every politician uses teleprompters all the time. Criticizing President Obama for relying too heavily on them is about as intellectually honest as attacking anyone else for breathing oxygen. Just shut up about it and try finding a coherent argument instead.

(via @todayspolitics)

Tags: Republicans • teleprompters • Ronald Reagan • Sarah Palin • George Bush • Tim Pawlenty • Rick Perry

New research punctures “anchor babies” myth

It’s another one of those perennial Republican attacks against illegal immigration (itself a thin cover for smearing immigrants in general): that foreigners – specifically from south of the border – are passing through in droves into the US, plopping out “anchor babies”, and then leaving, confident that their naturally-born-US-citizen kids will provide them easy access to the American Dream once they’re old enough some two decades later. After all, those illegals are so different from you and I that they don’t even care about their children any more than about their potential to grant them an open door to living the easy life at the expense of the American taxpayer. (Or something like that.)

Well, about that. It turns out that research into the matter – actual research, not whatever passes for investigation on Planet Wingnuttia – has revealed that the problem isn’t exactly as prominent as right-wing demagogues make it out to be. That is to say, it’s a complete fantasy:

A new analysis by the Arizona Republic suggests that the phenomenon of “birth tourism” — non U.S. citizens who come to the U.S. to give birth so that their children will be born Americans—may not be the widespread phenomenon that some U.S. politicians suggest.

Less than 2 percent of babies born last year in the border state of Arizona had non-resident mothers, the story said. Those numbers don’t distinguish between women who were living in other U.S. states and those who came from other countries.

The most recent national figures, which also include women studying at U.S. universities and international visitors, are even smaller, at about 0.2 percent, even though it notes that the figure has increased in recent years.

Wow. “[L]ess than 2 percent”! “0.2 percent”! Those numbers are obviously high enough to warrant all the demagogic fear-mongering over this urgent threat to the purity of US citizenship, right?

Actually, here’s what David Leopold, the former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, has to say about it [link added]:

“I might be impressed if hospitals all over the country were crowded with women coming in from all over the world to have babies here,” Leopold said. “I don’t see that. This is a myth. It’s another scare tactic to try to attack the 14th Amendment of the Constitution for no reason at all.”

That sound you just heard was Rep. Louie Gohmert’s (R-TX) head exploding.

(via @todayspolitics)

Tags: immigrants • illegal immigration • illegal immigrants • anchor babies • birth tourism • Republicans • Louie Gohmert • 14th Amendment • Arizona

Daily Blend: Saturday, August 20, 2011

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)

• Because if you can’t bust a household you’ve just mistakenly raided on drug charges, you could always turn into the propriety police instead.

• Forget policy or American history; Rep. Michele Bachmann ^[pictured] (R-MN) can’t even remember (or tell the truth about) her own biography.
  (via The Agitator)

• Breaking news: Sarah Palin really did quit governorship for money. I know, I know, shocking and all that.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• PZ bait.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Cedar Rapids, IA • SWAT • disorderly house • Michele Bachmann • Sarah Palin • Todd Palin • My Little Pony • cephalopods

Maddow on GOP’s latest hypocritical Obama-bashing

Republicans have never shown any particular concern for consistency or honesty when it comes to gnashing their pointy little teeth at President Obama, especially over things that either aren’t even his fault, or things he’s done that are marked improvements over Bush Jr.’s record (yet which the same GOP curiously has nothing but good words to say about). Here’s a great takedown by Rachel Maddow over the right-wing’s latest round of Obama-bashing, this time over his decision to vacation (when his total vacation time is barely a third of what Bush had accumulated at the same point in his presidency) in the mid-West (because fuck Massachusetts, apparently) in his swanky, million-dollar campaign bus (which was chosen by the Secret Service, not Obama himself, and which will be used for any future Presidential contender, Democrat or Republican):

My transcript (click the [+/-] to expand/collapse →)

[−]

Maddow explains that many Presidents have vacation homes, but the Obamas instead rent a place whenever they go on vacation. This time, they’re at Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. The state GOP has released a heavily sarcastic “welcome message” to the “Prez-O” and signed it “The People of Massachusetts”, even though the state GOP comprises less than 25% of the legislature.

The sarcastic letter also ends with a P.S.: “Aerosmith wants their tour bus back.” Maddow points out that, actually, it was the Bush administration who used the Aerosmith tour bus (“complete with black leather sofas and a mirrored ceiling”) in July 2003, never the Obamas. Maddow then explains that the big, black, million-dollar bus used by the Obama on his recent Midwest vacation trip was actually chosen and bought by the Secret Service, who actually bought two, one for Obama and one for the future Republican nominee’s campaign trail next year.

Nonetheless, Karl Rove’s SuperPAC, American Crossroads, declares its intent to make Obama’s (Secret-Service-chosen) bus a key talking point. Maddow questions what they plan to do when the Republican nominee uses the very same bus in the near future.

Maddow then shows Mitt Romney repeatedly criticizing Obama for vacationing at Martha’s Vineyard, when Romney himself will be at Martha’s Vineyard during that exact same time.

Maddow points out that at this point in their presidency, Ronald Reagan had taken 112 vacation days and Bush Jr. had taken 180, where as Obama has taken 61, only a fraction of his predecessors.

Maddow says that it’s normal and expected for GOP entities to launch these sorts of hypocritical attacks against Obama and not feel any embarrassment afterwards, but that the Beltway press should be doing more than merely spreading the Republicans’ attacks without any comment regarding their context and dishonesty.

It’s no secret that the Right’s hypocrisy and charlatanism is only growing ranker and more brazen with time. I wonder, when is it all going to boil over? And what happens when that time comes? Is the American people finally going to realize the sorts of indescribable phonies they’ve been putting up with? Or will the current reign of apathy towards being bullshitted left, right and center continue onwards well into the future?

Time will tell.

(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

Tags: Rachel Maddow • Barack Obama • Republicans • GOP • Massachusetts • Karl Rove • American Crossroads • Mitt Romney

What being stepped on by a horse looks like

I have made a scientific discovery today (well, yesterday): that trying to wriggle around electrified fences through thick mud whilst guiding a mule-headed 2,000-lbs Percheron is a bit of a recipe for disaster. Behold:

[full size (750×834)]

Believe me, it somehow looks even worse in person. Probably to match how it feels.

Ow.

Daily Blend: Friday, August 19, 2011

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.