How will the recruiting practices of the US Army effect the overall condition of our military?
Why are less High School Grads joining the military?
How can recruiters attract more High School Grads?
Check out Article here!
Monday, October 29, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Homeless vets, from Vietnam to Iraq
When I Came Home
Director’s note: When I Came Home is a documentary which follows the lives and struggles of several homeless veterans, including those who have recently returned home from the war in Iraq. The film examines the factors which led over 150,000 Vietnam veterans from the battlefield to the street and asks the question: Will what happened to Vietnam veterans happen to a new generation of soldiers? The film also focuses on the veteran-led movement which is fighting to end this national disgrace.
When I Came Home is a work-in-progress. Follow the making of the film on director Dan Lohaus’ GNN blog.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
School Policy
PORTLAND, Me., Oct. 19 — Carissa Porcaro, a student at King Middle School here, did not hide her feelings about the Portland school board’s decision to let the independently operated clinic at her school provide girls access to prescription contraceptives.
Wearing a sticker with the words “I’m against giving out birth control” written in black marker, Carissa, 13, said she did not think the school should make the drugs available. Her mother disagrees.
“She thinks it’s really good,” Carissa said after school on Friday. “I think it’s stupid because what people are saying is that it’s O.K. to be sexually active.”
Two days after the school committee voted 7 to 2 in favor of adding prescription contraceptives to the services offered at the health clinic, the issue continues to draw fervent support and ardent opposition in this city of 64,000, the largest in Maine.
“I think it’s a great idea,” said Cathleen Allen, whose son is enrolled at King. “Someone is finally advocating for these students to take care of themselves.”
Ms. Allen added, “It’s an eye-opener for all of us, but when you look at the facts, why not?”
Bishop Richard J. Malone of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland is calling on the school committee to rescind its decision, as have the state and city Republican Parties. The city party is also pushing a recall for members who voted in favor.
Nick McGee, the city’s Republican Party chairman, said of the policy, “It is an attack on the moral fabric of our community, and a black eye for our state.”
On Friday, John Coyne, chairman of the school committee and one of the two members who voted against the plan, said he wanted the panel to reconsider the program. Mr. Coyne said that parents should have the option to enroll their children in all aspects of the clinic except reproductive health treatment, and that parents should be made more aware of the state’s confidentiality laws.
“I still don’t feel comfortable with this,” Mr. Coyne said. “There’s no talk about the health issues and the possible long-term ill effects on these young ladies.”
The school’s clinic functions much like a physician’s office and has been offering condoms and testing for pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases since 2000. It also offers dental, mental health and basic care.
The clinics at Portland high schools have offered oral contraceptives for years, said Douglas S. Gardner, the city’s director of health and human services. Health officials decided to extend the policy to middle school after learning that 17 middle school students had become pregnant in the last four years, seven of them in the 2006-7 school year.
“These kids are far too young to be sexually active,” Mr. Gardner said. “You can’t argue that any differently. But there is a small group of kids, and thankfully it’s a small group, who are reporting that they are sexually active, and we need to do all we can to protect them.”
The Portland clinic is not the first in the country to offer such services. Four middle schools in Seattle offer reproductive health care through city-administered health centers, said James Apa, communications manager for Public Health-Seattle and King County. Clinics in six Baltimore middle schools offer access to oral contraceptives, said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the city’s health commissioner, who said the program had helped to decrease teenage pregnancy rates.
Nationally, about a quarter of school-based clinics, most of them in high schools, provide some type of contraception, according to the National Assembly on School Based Health Care. Less than 1 percent of schools provide prescription contraception, said a spokeswoman for the organization, Divya Mohan, who said most were high schools. She declined to give the number of middle schools that provided prescription contraception.
Parents in Portland who want their children to have access to the clinic must sign a waiver each year that details the services it offers. Under state law, reproductive health, mental health and substance abuse issues are confidential between medical provider and patient, regardless of the patient’s age.
Of the 500 students at King, 135 have permission to use the clinic, said Principal Michael McCarthy. Of those, five students, all of whom were 14 or 15, reported being sexually active in the last school year. One became pregnant. King is the only one of the city’s three middle schools that has a health clinic.
Postpubescent girls will be able to gain access to prescription contraceptives only after undergoing counseling and being examined by a physician or nurse practitioner who can prescribe oral contraceptives, Mr. Gardner said. The clinic is likely to start prescribing contraceptives at the end of the year, officials said, after parents sign a new waiver.
Students will then be written a prescription for oral contraceptives or be given them at the clinic, depending on each student’s situation. For students who are written a prescription, the school will often try to find a financing source, such as the state’s Medicaid program.
Kitty Purington, whose daughter attends King, says she had mixed feelings about the decision to provide contraceptives to middle school students but thought it was the right one.
“It brings home the fact that my 13-year-old daughter has friends and people around her who are sexually active,” Ms. Purington said. “But at least it’s a good alternative in a not-so-good situation. No one is going to stand up and cheer that 12- and 13-year-olds are having sex, but it’s not anything new.”
How do the cities of Baltimore, Portland, Seattle and NYC differ in their policy in regards to matters of birth control?
Find policies of the cities, and compare to Maine's Middle School policy.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Brown v BOE
What type of citizens did we wittiness in the class documentary?
How has the country changed since Brown v BOE?
How is QHST integrated?
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Injured Iraq Vets Come Home to Poverty
By BRIAN ROSS, DAVID SCOTT and MADDY SAUER
Oct. 14, 2004 --
Following inquiries by ABC News, the Pentagon has dropped plans to force a severely wounded U.S. soldier to repay his enlistment bonus after injuries had forced him out of the service.
Army Spc. Tyson Johnson III of Mobile, Ala., who lost a kidney in a mortar attack last year in Iraq, was still recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center when he received notice from the Pentagon's own collection agency that he owed more than $2,700 because he could not fulfill his full 36-month tour of duty.
Johnson said the Pentagon listed the bonus on his credit report as an unpaid government loan, making it impossible for him to rent an apartment or obtain credit cards.
"Oh man, I felt betrayed," Johnson said. "I felt, like, oh, my heart dropped."
Pentagon officials said they were unaware of the case until it was brought to their attention by ABC News. "Some faceless bureaucrat" was responsible for Johnson's predicament, said Gen. Franklin "Buster" Hagenbeck, a three-star general and the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel.
"It's absolutely unacceptable. It's intolerable," said Hagenbeck. "I mean, I'm incredulous when I hear those kinds of things. I just can't believe that we allow that to happen. And we're not going to let it happen."
The Department of Defense and the Army intervened to have the collection action against Johnson stopped, said Hagenbeck.
"I was told today he's not going to have a nickel taken from him," he said. "And I will tell you that we'll keep a microscope on this one to see the outcome."
'Not So Good'
Hagenbeck also pledged to look into the cases of the other soldiers ABC News brought to the military's attention, including men who lost limbs and their former livelihoods after serving in Iraq.
"When you're in the military, they take good care of you," said the 23-year-old Johnson. "But now that I'm a vet, and, you know, I'm out of the military -- not so good. Not so good."
Johnson had been flying high last September, after being promoted from Army private first class to specialist in a field ceremony in Iraq. Inspired by his father's naval background to join the military after high school, Tyson planned a career in the military and the promotion was just the first step. But only a week after the ceremony took place, a mortar round exploding outside his tent brought him quickly back to Earth.
"It was like warm water running down my arms," he said. "But it was warm blood."
In addition to the lost kidney, shrapnel damaged Johnson's lung and heart, and entered the back of his head. Field medical reports said he was not expected to live more than 72 hours.
With the help of exceptional Army surgeons, Johnson survived. As he recuperated, however, Johnson faced perhaps an even greater obstacle than physical pain or injuries -- the military bureaucracy.
Part of the warrior ethos, the soldier's creed of the U.S. Army, is to "never leave a fallen comrade."
"And it doesn't just pertain to the battlefield," Hagenbeck said. "It means, when we get them home they're a part of the Army family forever."
But Johnson now lives in his car. It is where he spends most of his days, all of his nights, in constant pain from his injuries and unwilling to burden his family.
Better Off Dead?
Stories like Tyson Johnson's are not unique.
Many of the severely wounded soldiers returning from Iraq face the prospect of poverty and what they describe as official indifference and incompetence.
"Guys I've met, talking to people, they'd be better off financially for their families if they had died as opposed to coming back maimed," said Staff Sgt. Ryan Kelly, who served as a civil affairs specialist for the Army while in Iraq.
On July 14, 2003, the Abilene, Texas, native had been on his way to a meeting about rebuilding schools in Iraq when his unarmored Humvee was blown up. A piece of shrapnel the size of a TV remote took his right leg off, below the knee, almost completely, Kelly said.
Kelly attests to receiving excellent medical care at Ward 57, the amputee section of Walter Reed, but said he quickly realized that the military had no real plan for the injured soldiers. Many had to borrow money or depend on charities just to have relatives visit at Walter Reed, Kelly said.
"It's not what I expected to see when I got here," he said. "These guys having to, you know, basically panhandle for money to afford things."
No Answer
Perhaps as a sign of the grim outlook facing many of these wounded soldiers, Staff Sgt. Peter Damon, a National Guardsman from Brockton, Mass., said he is grateful for being a double amputee.
"Well, in a way, I'm kind of lucky losing both arms because I've been told I'll probably get 100 percent disability," he said.
Damon, a mechanic and electrician, lost both arms in an explosion as he was repairing a helicopter in Iraq. He initially woke up in the hospital worried and anxious to learn that both forms of livelihood were taken away from him.
"Now what am I doing to do?" Damon said, faced with the prospect of supporting his wife, Jennifer, and two children. "I can't do either, none of those, with no hands."
The military fails to provide a lump sum payment for such catastrophic injuries. And Damon still has not heard from the military about what they plan to give in terms of monthly disability payments.
The last time Damon asked about the payments, he was told by the military that his paperwork had been lost.
"And then when I went to go back to inquire about it again, just to ask a question, I just wanted to see if they had found my paperwork, I was told I had to make an appointment and to come back five days later," he said.
A thick book of federal regulations specifies the disability rate based on how many limbs were amputated and precisely where.
The percentage rates were set during World War II.
Jennifer Damon said the shock of her husband returning with no arms has been replaced by the fear of destitution, as well as a frustration over her husband's final discharge. Like his disability benefits, Peter's release is being held up by the lost paperwork and unanswered phone calls.
"It's hard to understand," she said. "I mean, I need him more than they need him right now. It's been a long time. You've had him for a long time. I want him back."
A Failing System?
Staff Sgt. Larry Gill, a National Guardsman from Semmes, Ala., wonders whether his 20 dutiful years of military service have been adequately rewarded.
Last October, Gill injured his left leg when on patrol during a protest outside a mosque in Baghdad. A protester threw a hand grenade which left Gill, a former policeman, with leg intact, though useless. He received a Purple Heart from the military, but no program, plan or proposal of how to make a living in civilian life.
"It's not fair, and I'm not complaining," Gill said. "I'm not whining about it. You know, I just, I just don't think people really understand what we're being faced with.
Gill expects he will have to sell his home, the dream house he and his wife, Leah, designed and built, where they raised their children.
"I've never questioned my orders," he said. "I've slept with rats and stood in the rain and wondered why I was standing in the rain, and, you know, for my children to have to do without based on a lack of income from me, it's frustrating."
Leah Gill agreed. "I just don't feel we should have to uproot because of an injury that he received while he was serving the country," she said. "It shouldn't come down to that."
Gill and the others in Ward 57 have had their pictures taken frequently with visiting politicians.
"Where are the politicians? Where are the generals?" he asked. "Where are the people that are supposed to take care of me?"
Help and care will be forthcoming, promised Hagenbeck.
"There in fact was a plan," he said. "But again, it was not integrated in a seamless fashion that it needed to be. And that was not even, really, to be honest with you, recognized probably until sometime about a year ago. And these soldiers actually brought it to our attention about the transition problems."
The military would do a better job of taking care of their own, Hagenbeck said, though the system in place was often unwieldy, outdated and inadequate.
"Oh, there absolutely has been problems in the past," Hagenbeck said. "And they're in -- even with some of our soldiers today. Some missteps have been made. And they have not been taken care of the way they should have been taken care of."
Loyal Soldiers
help these neglected soldiers, Hagenbeck said, the military created an advocacy program this past April called Disabled Soldier Support System, or DS3. The network is set up to fight for a soldier's benefits and entitlements, ease transition to civilian life, and deal with any other problems facing a disabled soldier, according to Hagenbeck.
But still there are soldiers like Johnson who fall through the cracks.
His mother, Willie Jean Johnson, worries her son may hurt himself.
"He's not going to say anything bad about the Army," she said. "I have never heard him say anything bad about it. But you can see the hurt in his eyes. You can see the hurt from his heart in his eyes."
Johnson said he usually keeps to himself, preferring to protect his son from seeing him in his current state. "I'd rather be to myself than to flare at somebody else and, you know, and hurt someone that I know I really love," he said.
One year after nearly being killed in combat, the Pentagon has yet to send Johnson his Purple Heart medal.
The Pentagon collection notices, however, arrive without fail.
As to Kelly's discovery that he and his wounded comrades had to beg and borrow to pay for their loved ones to visit while they recuperate, Hagenbeck said a new policy went into effect this weekend to alleviate part of the problem.
"There was no system in place to support them in their needs. And I'll be honest with you, until it came to our attention, to people that were paying attention, and then those that wanted to help, that obstacle was there," Hagenbeck said.
Incredibly, these soldiers remain dedicated to the military despite all they have endured.
"Even though the way I'm being treated, you know, as a vet, I'd still go back in," Johnson said. "I would."
"I love being a soldier," Kelly said. "I don't regret what happened. If I had to go back to Iraq knowing that there was that chance of losing my leg, I'd do it. Because that's what the nation asked me to do."
Jessica Wang contributed to this report.
Update:
Following the airing of this report on PrimeTime Live, Congressman John Dingell (D-MI), a former infantryman, wrote a letter to the Pentagon demanding a progress report on the recently implemented Disabled Soldier Support System and further assurance that all wounded and disabled vets would be financially and otherwise assisted in making the transition to civilian life. "I am astonished by this story and disappointed," Dingell wrote, "that we are failing to fulfill our nation's duty to care for our injured veterans."
How might the Justice Oriented citizen react to such an article? How might a participatory citizen react? What are you going to do with this information?
Oct. 14, 2004 --
Following inquiries by ABC News, the Pentagon has dropped plans to force a severely wounded U.S. soldier to repay his enlistment bonus after injuries had forced him out of the service.
Army Spc. Tyson Johnson III of Mobile, Ala., who lost a kidney in a mortar attack last year in Iraq, was still recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center when he received notice from the Pentagon's own collection agency that he owed more than $2,700 because he could not fulfill his full 36-month tour of duty.
Johnson said the Pentagon listed the bonus on his credit report as an unpaid government loan, making it impossible for him to rent an apartment or obtain credit cards.
"Oh man, I felt betrayed," Johnson said. "I felt, like, oh, my heart dropped."
Pentagon officials said they were unaware of the case until it was brought to their attention by ABC News. "Some faceless bureaucrat" was responsible for Johnson's predicament, said Gen. Franklin "Buster" Hagenbeck, a three-star general and the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel.
"It's absolutely unacceptable. It's intolerable," said Hagenbeck. "I mean, I'm incredulous when I hear those kinds of things. I just can't believe that we allow that to happen. And we're not going to let it happen."
The Department of Defense and the Army intervened to have the collection action against Johnson stopped, said Hagenbeck.
"I was told today he's not going to have a nickel taken from him," he said. "And I will tell you that we'll keep a microscope on this one to see the outcome."
'Not So Good'
Hagenbeck also pledged to look into the cases of the other soldiers ABC News brought to the military's attention, including men who lost limbs and their former livelihoods after serving in Iraq.
"When you're in the military, they take good care of you," said the 23-year-old Johnson. "But now that I'm a vet, and, you know, I'm out of the military -- not so good. Not so good."
Johnson had been flying high last September, after being promoted from Army private first class to specialist in a field ceremony in Iraq. Inspired by his father's naval background to join the military after high school, Tyson planned a career in the military and the promotion was just the first step. But only a week after the ceremony took place, a mortar round exploding outside his tent brought him quickly back to Earth.
"It was like warm water running down my arms," he said. "But it was warm blood."
In addition to the lost kidney, shrapnel damaged Johnson's lung and heart, and entered the back of his head. Field medical reports said he was not expected to live more than 72 hours.
With the help of exceptional Army surgeons, Johnson survived. As he recuperated, however, Johnson faced perhaps an even greater obstacle than physical pain or injuries -- the military bureaucracy.
Part of the warrior ethos, the soldier's creed of the U.S. Army, is to "never leave a fallen comrade."
"And it doesn't just pertain to the battlefield," Hagenbeck said. "It means, when we get them home they're a part of the Army family forever."
But Johnson now lives in his car. It is where he spends most of his days, all of his nights, in constant pain from his injuries and unwilling to burden his family.
Better Off Dead?
Stories like Tyson Johnson's are not unique.
Many of the severely wounded soldiers returning from Iraq face the prospect of poverty and what they describe as official indifference and incompetence.
"Guys I've met, talking to people, they'd be better off financially for their families if they had died as opposed to coming back maimed," said Staff Sgt. Ryan Kelly, who served as a civil affairs specialist for the Army while in Iraq.
On July 14, 2003, the Abilene, Texas, native had been on his way to a meeting about rebuilding schools in Iraq when his unarmored Humvee was blown up. A piece of shrapnel the size of a TV remote took his right leg off, below the knee, almost completely, Kelly said.
Kelly attests to receiving excellent medical care at Ward 57, the amputee section of Walter Reed, but said he quickly realized that the military had no real plan for the injured soldiers. Many had to borrow money or depend on charities just to have relatives visit at Walter Reed, Kelly said.
"It's not what I expected to see when I got here," he said. "These guys having to, you know, basically panhandle for money to afford things."
No Answer
Perhaps as a sign of the grim outlook facing many of these wounded soldiers, Staff Sgt. Peter Damon, a National Guardsman from Brockton, Mass., said he is grateful for being a double amputee.
"Well, in a way, I'm kind of lucky losing both arms because I've been told I'll probably get 100 percent disability," he said.
Damon, a mechanic and electrician, lost both arms in an explosion as he was repairing a helicopter in Iraq. He initially woke up in the hospital worried and anxious to learn that both forms of livelihood were taken away from him.
"Now what am I doing to do?" Damon said, faced with the prospect of supporting his wife, Jennifer, and two children. "I can't do either, none of those, with no hands."
The military fails to provide a lump sum payment for such catastrophic injuries. And Damon still has not heard from the military about what they plan to give in terms of monthly disability payments.
The last time Damon asked about the payments, he was told by the military that his paperwork had been lost.
"And then when I went to go back to inquire about it again, just to ask a question, I just wanted to see if they had found my paperwork, I was told I had to make an appointment and to come back five days later," he said.
A thick book of federal regulations specifies the disability rate based on how many limbs were amputated and precisely where.
The percentage rates were set during World War II.
Jennifer Damon said the shock of her husband returning with no arms has been replaced by the fear of destitution, as well as a frustration over her husband's final discharge. Like his disability benefits, Peter's release is being held up by the lost paperwork and unanswered phone calls.
"It's hard to understand," she said. "I mean, I need him more than they need him right now. It's been a long time. You've had him for a long time. I want him back."
A Failing System?
Staff Sgt. Larry Gill, a National Guardsman from Semmes, Ala., wonders whether his 20 dutiful years of military service have been adequately rewarded.
Last October, Gill injured his left leg when on patrol during a protest outside a mosque in Baghdad. A protester threw a hand grenade which left Gill, a former policeman, with leg intact, though useless. He received a Purple Heart from the military, but no program, plan or proposal of how to make a living in civilian life.
"It's not fair, and I'm not complaining," Gill said. "I'm not whining about it. You know, I just, I just don't think people really understand what we're being faced with.
Gill expects he will have to sell his home, the dream house he and his wife, Leah, designed and built, where they raised their children.
"I've never questioned my orders," he said. "I've slept with rats and stood in the rain and wondered why I was standing in the rain, and, you know, for my children to have to do without based on a lack of income from me, it's frustrating."
Leah Gill agreed. "I just don't feel we should have to uproot because of an injury that he received while he was serving the country," she said. "It shouldn't come down to that."
Gill and the others in Ward 57 have had their pictures taken frequently with visiting politicians.
"Where are the politicians? Where are the generals?" he asked. "Where are the people that are supposed to take care of me?"
Help and care will be forthcoming, promised Hagenbeck.
"There in fact was a plan," he said. "But again, it was not integrated in a seamless fashion that it needed to be. And that was not even, really, to be honest with you, recognized probably until sometime about a year ago. And these soldiers actually brought it to our attention about the transition problems."
The military would do a better job of taking care of their own, Hagenbeck said, though the system in place was often unwieldy, outdated and inadequate.
"Oh, there absolutely has been problems in the past," Hagenbeck said. "And they're in -- even with some of our soldiers today. Some missteps have been made. And they have not been taken care of the way they should have been taken care of."
Loyal Soldiers
help these neglected soldiers, Hagenbeck said, the military created an advocacy program this past April called Disabled Soldier Support System, or DS3. The network is set up to fight for a soldier's benefits and entitlements, ease transition to civilian life, and deal with any other problems facing a disabled soldier, according to Hagenbeck.
But still there are soldiers like Johnson who fall through the cracks.
His mother, Willie Jean Johnson, worries her son may hurt himself.
"He's not going to say anything bad about the Army," she said. "I have never heard him say anything bad about it. But you can see the hurt in his eyes. You can see the hurt from his heart in his eyes."
Johnson said he usually keeps to himself, preferring to protect his son from seeing him in his current state. "I'd rather be to myself than to flare at somebody else and, you know, and hurt someone that I know I really love," he said.
One year after nearly being killed in combat, the Pentagon has yet to send Johnson his Purple Heart medal.
The Pentagon collection notices, however, arrive without fail.
As to Kelly's discovery that he and his wounded comrades had to beg and borrow to pay for their loved ones to visit while they recuperate, Hagenbeck said a new policy went into effect this weekend to alleviate part of the problem.
"There was no system in place to support them in their needs. And I'll be honest with you, until it came to our attention, to people that were paying attention, and then those that wanted to help, that obstacle was there," Hagenbeck said.
Incredibly, these soldiers remain dedicated to the military despite all they have endured.
"Even though the way I'm being treated, you know, as a vet, I'd still go back in," Johnson said. "I would."
"I love being a soldier," Kelly said. "I don't regret what happened. If I had to go back to Iraq knowing that there was that chance of losing my leg, I'd do it. Because that's what the nation asked me to do."
Jessica Wang contributed to this report.
Update:
Following the airing of this report on PrimeTime Live, Congressman John Dingell (D-MI), a former infantryman, wrote a letter to the Pentagon demanding a progress report on the recently implemented Disabled Soldier Support System and further assurance that all wounded and disabled vets would be financially and otherwise assisted in making the transition to civilian life. "I am astonished by this story and disappointed," Dingell wrote, "that we are failing to fulfill our nation's duty to care for our injured veterans."
How might the Justice Oriented citizen react to such an article? How might a participatory citizen react? What are you going to do with this information?
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Slavery Lesson
http://wcbstv.com/local/slavery.slave.labor.2.312697.html
CALDWELL, N.J. (CBS) ―
Two local middle school teachers are in hot water after assigning students a controversial project on slavery that's angered parents.
Over 100 sixth graders at Grover Cleveland Middle School in Caldwell spent several days last week taking part in an assignment where they used terms like "build a plantation" while completing their "Lap of Luxury" social studies project.
The project instructed students to create an advertisement defending the use of slave labor to run a newly built plantation in South Carolina. Students are told to come up with a '"catchy" name for the plantation and give three reasons why slave labor is the "best idea" and to add illustrations.
One student, who is not being identified because of his age, read to CBS 2 what he wrote for the assignment: "Slave labor is the way to go because slaves aren't paid, so all money is profit."
Parents are astonished by the assignment's nature.
"It's really offending," said Tyiesha Hameed, whose child is one of the only eight black students who attends the school. "There's so many other ways and tools to show our kids how to learn and teach them in reference to slavery."
One question parents and officials are asking is whether the 11- and 12-year-olds even understand the lesson which was given to them.
"The students have to use their creative spirits to create justification. That gets the mind pretty worked up, and it embeds some things in their process that will be there for forever," said James Harris, president of the New Jersey NAACP chapter.
Casey Shorter, the school's principal, said he didn't find out about the project until after he spoke with a concerned parent. "Our intent was not to be insensitive. After reviewing the assignment and listening to feedback, from an administrative and teaching perspective, we determined it was insensitive and inappropriate. And we will eliminate it from the curriculum," he said.
Citing privacy issues, Shorter would not say what he's done with Dana Howarth and Beth Rutzler, the two language arts teachers who created the controversial "Lap of Luxury" project. He adds this is actually the second year that the teachers have given the assignment.
CALDWELL, N.J. (CBS) ―
Two local middle school teachers are in hot water after assigning students a controversial project on slavery that's angered parents.
Over 100 sixth graders at Grover Cleveland Middle School in Caldwell spent several days last week taking part in an assignment where they used terms like "build a plantation" while completing their "Lap of Luxury" social studies project.
The project instructed students to create an advertisement defending the use of slave labor to run a newly built plantation in South Carolina. Students are told to come up with a '"catchy" name for the plantation and give three reasons why slave labor is the "best idea" and to add illustrations.
One student, who is not being identified because of his age, read to CBS 2 what he wrote for the assignment: "Slave labor is the way to go because slaves aren't paid, so all money is profit."
Parents are astonished by the assignment's nature.
"It's really offending," said Tyiesha Hameed, whose child is one of the only eight black students who attends the school. "There's so many other ways and tools to show our kids how to learn and teach them in reference to slavery."
One question parents and officials are asking is whether the 11- and 12-year-olds even understand the lesson which was given to them.
"The students have to use their creative spirits to create justification. That gets the mind pretty worked up, and it embeds some things in their process that will be there for forever," said James Harris, president of the New Jersey NAACP chapter.
Casey Shorter, the school's principal, said he didn't find out about the project until after he spoke with a concerned parent. "Our intent was not to be insensitive. After reviewing the assignment and listening to feedback, from an administrative and teaching perspective, we determined it was insensitive and inappropriate. And we will eliminate it from the curriculum," he said.
Citing privacy issues, Shorter would not say what he's done with Dana Howarth and Beth Rutzler, the two language arts teachers who created the controversial "Lap of Luxury" project. He adds this is actually the second year that the teachers have given the assignment.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Report Says Firm Sought to Cover Up Iraq Shootings
By JOHN M. BRODER
WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — Employees of Blackwater USA have engaged in nearly 200 shootings in Iraq since 2005, in a vast majority of cases firing their weapons from moving vehicles without stopping to count the dead or assist the wounded, according to a new report from Congress.
In at least two cases, Blackwater paid victims’ family members who complained, and sought to cover up other episodes, the Congressional report said. It said State Department officials approved the payments in the hope of keeping the shootings quiet. In one case last year, the department helped Blackwater spirit an employee out of Iraq less than 36 hours after the employee, while drunk, killed a bodyguard for one of Iraq’s two vice presidents on Christmas Eve.
The report by the Democratic majority staff of a House committee adds weight to complaints from Iraqi officials, American military officers and Blackwater’s competitors that company guards have taken an aggressive, trigger-happy approach to their work and have repeatedly acted with reckless disregard for Iraqi life.
But the report is also harshly critical of the State Department for exercising virtually no restraint or supervision of the private security company’s 861 employees in Iraq. “There is no evidence in the documents that the committee has reviewed that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater’s actions, raised concerns about the number of shooting episodes involving Blackwater or the company’s high rate of shooting first, or detained Blackwater contractors for investigation,” the report states.
On Sept. 16, Blackwater employees were involved in a shooting in a Baghdad square that left at least eight Iraqis dead, an episode that remains clouded. The shooting set off outrage among Iraqi officials, who branded them “cold-blooded murder” and demanded that the company be removed from the country.
The State Department is conducting three separate investigations of the shooting, and on Monday the F.B.I. said it was sending a team to Baghdad to compile evidence for possible criminal prosecution.
Neither the State Department nor Blackwater would comment on Monday about the 15-page report, but both said their representatives would address it on Tuesday in testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, whose Democratic staff produced the document. Based on 437 internal Blackwater incident reports as well as internal State Department correspondence, the report said Blackwater’s use of force was “frequent and extensive, resulting in significant casualties and property damage.”
Among those scheduled to testify Tuesday are Erik Prince, a press-shy former Navy Seal who founded Blackwater a decade ago, and several top State Department officials.
The committee report places a significant share of the blame for Blackwater’s record in Iraq on the State Department, which has paid Blackwater more than $832 million for security services in Iraq and elsewhere, under a diplomatic security contract it shares with two other companies, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy.
Blackwater has reported more shootings than the other two companies combined, but it also currently has twice as many employees in Iraq as the other two companies combined.
In the case of the Christmas Eve killing, the report says that an official of the United States Embassy in Iraq suggested paying the slain bodyguard’s family $250,000, but a lower-ranking official said that such a high payment “could cause incidents with people trying to get killed by our guys to financially guarantee their family’s future.” Blackwater ultimately paid the dead man’s family $15,000.
In another fatal shooting cited by the committee, an unidentified State Department official in Baghdad urged Blackwater to pay the victim’s family $5,000. The official wrote, “I hope we can put this unfortunate matter behind us quickly.”
The committee report also cited three other shootings in which Blackwater officials filed misleading reports or otherwise tried to cover up the shootings.
Since mid-2006, Blackwater has been responsible for guarding American diplomats in and around Baghdad, while DynCorp has been responsible for the northern part of the country and Triple Canopy for the south.
State Department officials said last week that Blackwater had run more than 1,800 escort convoys for American diplomats and other senior civilians this year and its employees had discharged their weapons 57 times. Blackwater was involved in 195 instances of gunfire from 2005 until early September, a rate of 1.4 shootings a week, the report says. In 163 of those cases, Blackwater gunmen fired first.
The report also says Blackwater gunmen engaged in offensive operations alongside uniformed American military personnel in violation of their State Department contract, which states that Blackwater guards are to use their weapons only for defensive purposes.
It notes that Blackwater’s contract authorizes its employees to use lethal force only to prevent “imminent and grave danger” to themselves or to the people they are paid to protect. “In practice, however,” the report says, “the vast majority of Blackwater weapons discharges are pre-emptive, with Blackwater forces firing first at a vehicle or suspicious individual prior to receiving any fire.”
The report cites two instances in which Blackwater gunmen engaged in tactical military operations. One was a firefight in Najaf in 2004 during which Blackwater employees set up a machine gun alongside American and Spanish forces. Later that year, a Blackwater helicopter helped an American military squad secure a mosque from which sniper fire had been detected.
Blackwater has dismissed 122 of its employees over the past three years for misuse of weapons, drug or alcohol abuse, lewd conduct or violent behavior, according to the report. It has also terminated workers for insubordination, failure to report incidents or lying about them, and publicly embarrassing the company. One employee was dismissed for showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Senate on Monday gave final approval, 92 to 3, to a defense policy bill that included the establishment of an independent commission to investigate private contractors operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill, which must be reconciled with a House version, faces a veto threat because it includes an expansion of federal hate-crimes laws.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — Employees of Blackwater USA have engaged in nearly 200 shootings in Iraq since 2005, in a vast majority of cases firing their weapons from moving vehicles without stopping to count the dead or assist the wounded, according to a new report from Congress.
In at least two cases, Blackwater paid victims’ family members who complained, and sought to cover up other episodes, the Congressional report said. It said State Department officials approved the payments in the hope of keeping the shootings quiet. In one case last year, the department helped Blackwater spirit an employee out of Iraq less than 36 hours after the employee, while drunk, killed a bodyguard for one of Iraq’s two vice presidents on Christmas Eve.
The report by the Democratic majority staff of a House committee adds weight to complaints from Iraqi officials, American military officers and Blackwater’s competitors that company guards have taken an aggressive, trigger-happy approach to their work and have repeatedly acted with reckless disregard for Iraqi life.
But the report is also harshly critical of the State Department for exercising virtually no restraint or supervision of the private security company’s 861 employees in Iraq. “There is no evidence in the documents that the committee has reviewed that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater’s actions, raised concerns about the number of shooting episodes involving Blackwater or the company’s high rate of shooting first, or detained Blackwater contractors for investigation,” the report states.
On Sept. 16, Blackwater employees were involved in a shooting in a Baghdad square that left at least eight Iraqis dead, an episode that remains clouded. The shooting set off outrage among Iraqi officials, who branded them “cold-blooded murder” and demanded that the company be removed from the country.
The State Department is conducting three separate investigations of the shooting, and on Monday the F.B.I. said it was sending a team to Baghdad to compile evidence for possible criminal prosecution.
Neither the State Department nor Blackwater would comment on Monday about the 15-page report, but both said their representatives would address it on Tuesday in testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, whose Democratic staff produced the document. Based on 437 internal Blackwater incident reports as well as internal State Department correspondence, the report said Blackwater’s use of force was “frequent and extensive, resulting in significant casualties and property damage.”
Among those scheduled to testify Tuesday are Erik Prince, a press-shy former Navy Seal who founded Blackwater a decade ago, and several top State Department officials.
The committee report places a significant share of the blame for Blackwater’s record in Iraq on the State Department, which has paid Blackwater more than $832 million for security services in Iraq and elsewhere, under a diplomatic security contract it shares with two other companies, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy.
Blackwater has reported more shootings than the other two companies combined, but it also currently has twice as many employees in Iraq as the other two companies combined.
In the case of the Christmas Eve killing, the report says that an official of the United States Embassy in Iraq suggested paying the slain bodyguard’s family $250,000, but a lower-ranking official said that such a high payment “could cause incidents with people trying to get killed by our guys to financially guarantee their family’s future.” Blackwater ultimately paid the dead man’s family $15,000.
In another fatal shooting cited by the committee, an unidentified State Department official in Baghdad urged Blackwater to pay the victim’s family $5,000. The official wrote, “I hope we can put this unfortunate matter behind us quickly.”
The committee report also cited three other shootings in which Blackwater officials filed misleading reports or otherwise tried to cover up the shootings.
Since mid-2006, Blackwater has been responsible for guarding American diplomats in and around Baghdad, while DynCorp has been responsible for the northern part of the country and Triple Canopy for the south.
State Department officials said last week that Blackwater had run more than 1,800 escort convoys for American diplomats and other senior civilians this year and its employees had discharged their weapons 57 times. Blackwater was involved in 195 instances of gunfire from 2005 until early September, a rate of 1.4 shootings a week, the report says. In 163 of those cases, Blackwater gunmen fired first.
The report also says Blackwater gunmen engaged in offensive operations alongside uniformed American military personnel in violation of their State Department contract, which states that Blackwater guards are to use their weapons only for defensive purposes.
It notes that Blackwater’s contract authorizes its employees to use lethal force only to prevent “imminent and grave danger” to themselves or to the people they are paid to protect. “In practice, however,” the report says, “the vast majority of Blackwater weapons discharges are pre-emptive, with Blackwater forces firing first at a vehicle or suspicious individual prior to receiving any fire.”
The report cites two instances in which Blackwater gunmen engaged in tactical military operations. One was a firefight in Najaf in 2004 during which Blackwater employees set up a machine gun alongside American and Spanish forces. Later that year, a Blackwater helicopter helped an American military squad secure a mosque from which sniper fire had been detected.
Blackwater has dismissed 122 of its employees over the past three years for misuse of weapons, drug or alcohol abuse, lewd conduct or violent behavior, according to the report. It has also terminated workers for insubordination, failure to report incidents or lying about them, and publicly embarrassing the company. One employee was dismissed for showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Senate on Monday gave final approval, 92 to 3, to a defense policy bill that included the establishment of an independent commission to investigate private contractors operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill, which must be reconciled with a House version, faces a veto threat because it includes an expansion of federal hate-crimes laws.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Supreme Court Faces an Array of Divisive Cases
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 — The Supreme Court has so many polarizing cases on the docket for its new term that the deep ideological divisions that characterized the last term are all but certain to remain on display after the justices reconvene on Monday.
The conservative majority under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. drove the court to the right in a series of high-profile rulings during the term that ended in June. That performance, as well as a series of books and articles by and about justices, has placed the court in an unusually bright spotlight as the new term opens.
The conservative bloc will not necessarily prevail in every important case. For example, the Bush administration is clearly on the defensive as the court prepares to hear a third-round challenge to policies governing those held as enemy combatants at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
But the conservative justices clearly have the upper hand in the all-important task of shaping the court’s docket, a process that in effect shapes the country’s immediate legal agenda. They demonstrated their power last week in accepting 19 new cases, an unusually large number, including an employer’s appeal in a racial discrimination case that could provide a vehicle for limiting remedies available under one of the country’s oldest civil rights laws.
But the day after the term ended, they reversed course and agreed to hear the cases, an action without modern precedent. Because the reconsideration required the votes of five justices, instead of the four ordinarily needed to grant a case, the development strongly suggested that a majority of the court retains concerns about the current regime for determining and challenging the detainees’ designation as enemy combatants. The Bush administration lost two earlier rounds at the court, in 2004 and 2006.
Among the new cases the justices granted last week was a challenge to a state law requiring voters to provide photo identification in order to cast a ballot, an issue that has divided legislators and judges along party lines throughout the country. Republicans generally stress the importance of preventing voter fraud, while Democrats view these increasingly popular measures as creating unwarranted barriers to voter access. Although the justices granted the case at the request of the Indiana Democratic Party and the American Civil Liberties Union, the action could well prove to be an example of “watch out what you wish for” if the result is to uphold the statute at issue and to encourage other states to follow Indiana’s lead.
The justices also took up a highly visible death penalty case, a challenge to the particular lethal injection method that is used in most states. While the validity of capital punishment, or even of lethal injection, is not at stake, the case will require the justices to take a position on the current meaning of the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. It is far from clear whether a majority of the justices will read the Constitution as mandating one chemical formulation versus another.
The discrimination case the justices granted on Tuesday, which has attracted almost no notice, could nonetheless produce an important shift in the court’s approach to interpreting statutes. The question is whether a law that bars racial discrimination in business dealings, including employment, also prohibits retaliation against those who complain about discrimination.
Ordinarily, the court grants cases only to resolve conflicting interpretations in the lower courts. But in this instance, every federal appeals court to consider the issue has agreed that the statute does apply to retaliation. For the court to grant a case in the absence of a lower-court conflict — as it did in the case decided in June that invalidated voluntary integration plans in two public school systems — is often an indication that the case has been added to the docket as a vehicle for advancing a particular agenda.
The federal law at issue in the new case was originally part of the Reconstruction-era Civil Rights Act of 1866. Known now as Section 1981, it does not mention “retaliation.” Neither do most other anti-discrimination laws. In the past, that has been no barrier to the court in finding that protection against retaliation is inherently part of protection against discrimination.
But support on the court for an approach that goes beyond the margins of the constitutional text has been shrinking. Two years ago, the court ruled by a vote of 5 to 4 that Title IX, a law that bars sex discrimination in schools, also covers retaliation. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the majority opinion. It is likely that her successor, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., would have been among the dissenters.
Given that the new case, CBOCS West, Inc. v. Humphries, No. 06-1431, does not meet the court’s most important criterion for review, it is likely that a new majority granted it in order to cut off the retaliation claim and perhaps also to issue a broader ruling against finding rights that are not spelled out in statutes.
Here are details of other important cases for the new term.
Detainees
A year ago, in response to the court’s most recent ruling in favor of a Guantánamo detainee, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, providing that “no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction” to consider a detainee’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who was then chairman of the Judiciary Committee, voted for the measure, but he has filed a brief telling the justices he believes it is unconstitutional.
The Constitution authorizes Congress to suspend the “privilege” of habeas corpus only at times of “rebellion or invasion.” Under the Supreme Court’s precedents, a suspension at other times may nonetheless be permissible as long as adequate alternate procedures exist for challenging a conviction or sentence. So the question in these cases, Boumediene v. Bush, No. 06-1195, and Al Odah v. United States, No. 06-1196, is whether the justices will deem the limited procedures available to the detainees to be adequate.
Voting Rights
Challengers to Indiana’s two-year-old voter identification law, which requires current government-issued photo ID, call it the “most onerous” such law in the country. Voters lacking the proper identification have 10 days to obtain it in order for their provisional ballots to be counted.
A federal appeals court upheld the law, finding that it would prevent fraud while not keeping many people from the polls. The plaintiffs maintain that the poor and elderly would face a disproportionate burden. The underlying question is how the justices will evaluate the competing interests of preventing fraud and protecting access. The cases are Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, No. 07-21, and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita, No. 07-25.
Criminal Law
The lethal injection case, Baze v. Rees, No. 07-5439, challenges the use of the most common three-drug lethal injection “cocktail,” which is conceded to place some inmates at risk of severe pain. The Kentucky Supreme Court concluded that the risk was not “substantial” enough to make the particular combination unconstitutional.
The question for the justices is what standard courts should use in evaluating the evidence from which to draw a conclusion on constitutionality, especially in light of evidence that pain can be avoided through a different combination of drugs and attention to a reliable level of anesthesia.
The court will also hear two more cases that address the question of judicial discretion in federal criminal sentencing. The question in Gall v. United States, No. 06-7949, is the justification a judge must provide in issuing a sentence that differs substantially from the one called for by the federal sentencing guidelines. Kimbrough v. United States, No. 06-6330, addresses judicial discretion to mitigate the harsh sentences required for offenses involving crack cocaine.
Federalism
The Texas courts have refused to accept a directive from President Bush to bypass procedural obstacles and grant a new hearing to a Mexican death-row inmate, following a 2004 World Court decision that the inmate’s rights under an international treaty were violated when he was not given the chance to meet with Mexican officials. The case, MedellÃn v. Texas, No. 06-984, presents unusual issues of state-federal relations.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Justices to Enter the Debate Over Lethal Injection
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 — The Supreme Court on Tuesday stepped into the debate over whether the most commonly used drug “cocktail” used to execute prisoners on death row is so likely to produce needless pain and suffering as to be unconstitutional.
The justices agreed to hear an appeal by two men on Kentucky’s death row who argue that the combination of three drugs amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
The case, which comes at a time when challenges to lethal injections have effectively stopped executions in a growing number of states, will be argued in January or February and decided by early next summer. While it is pending, judges around the country are certain to be asked to bar executions in those states that are not already under an official or de facto moratorium.
In 2004, while the Supreme Court was considering an ultimately successful challenge to the execution of juvenile killers, judges blocked all such executions.
Of the 38 states with the death penalty, 37 use lethal injection — all except Nebraska, which still uses the electric chair. Lethal injection was adopted in the 1980s as a more palatable alternative to electrocution, but it has proven increasingly troublesome. Leading medical organizations have told their members not to participate, and lawyers for death-row inmates have produced evidence showing that in the absence of expert medical attention, there is a substantial risk of error in administering the combination of anesthesia and paralyzing drugs necessary to bring about a quick and painless death.
Litigation over the issue has brought executions to a halt in nine states: California, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee, according to lawyers at the Death Penalty Clinic at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California.
The issue in the case, Baze v. Rees, No. 07-5439, is not whether lethal injection, in the abstract, is constitutional or unconstitutional; the question is more specific and less conclusive than that. It is, rather, the standard by which courts are to evaluate the evidence that lethal injection, predictably and with some regularity, goes wrong: that a paralyzing drug can leave an inadequately anesthetized inmate with the ability to feel severe pain as another drug stops the heart, but without the ability to move or call for help.
There have been other problems with lethal injection as well. Four months ago, an execution in Ohio was delayed 90 minutes as medical workers struggled to find a vein in the prisoner’s arm into which they could insert the shunts to carry the intravenous lines.
Under the Supreme Court’s precedents on prison conditions, inadequate medical care is not deemed to violate the Eighth Amendment unless it is the product of “deliberate indifference.” Under the court’s death penalty precedents, a method of execution must not be “contrary to evolving standards of decency” and may not inflict “unnecessary pain.”
In rejecting the challenge to lethal injection last year, the Kentucky Supreme Court found that the method did not present a “substantial” risk of pain and suffering, and so met these constitutional standards. “The prohibition is against cruel punishment and does not require a complete absence of pain,” the state court said.
In their appeal, the two inmates, Ralph Baze and Thomas C. Bowling, represented by the Kentucky Public Advocate’s office, said the Kentucky court failed to consider that the risk of pain was “unnecessary,” in that alternative methods of lethal injection could eliminate the chance that inmates would remain conscious but paralyzed. They urge the justices to incorporate “unnecessary risk” into the standard for evaluating lethal injection.
The three chemicals used for lethal injections are sodium thiopental, which renders a person unconscious; followed by Pavulon, which paralyzes the muscles, including those that control breathing; followed by potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest. Lawyers have argued that the second drug could be eliminated and that a less painful drug could be substituted for the third.
The Kentucky attorney general’s office, in urging the justices to turn down the appeal, argued that the fact that the three chemicals were so widely used demonstrated that the protocol was acceptable. “Condemned inmates will never run out of ideas for changes to the procedures, drugs or equipment used during lethal injection,” the state said, warning that the Supreme Court would go “down an endless road of litigation” if it accepted the case.
The two inmates were convicted of separate, unrelated crimes: Mr. Baze for killing a sheriff and deputy sheriff who were trying to serve him with a warrant, and Mr. Bowling for killing a couple whose car he had damaged in a parking lot.
In two earlier cases on lethal injection, the Supreme Court removed procedural obstacles to bringing such cases but did not deal directly with the constitutionality of the method. But those two rulings led to an explosion of litigation.
The only time the court ever ruled directly on a method of execution was in 1878, when it upheld the use of the firing squad. In 1999, the justices agreed to hear a challenge to Florida’s use of the electric chair, but the state substituted lethal injection for electrocution before the case could be decided.
In 1972, the court struck down all existing death penalty statutes, but in 1976 allowed executions to resume under newly written laws that gave jurors more precise guidance in an effort to make death sentences less arbitrary. There have been 1,097 executions since then, with Texas accounting for 403. There have been 40 executions this year, 24 of them in Texas.
Here's the latest update!
Monday, September 24, 2007
Black Youth, Conviction in Beating Voided, Will Stay Jailed
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 21 — A court in the central Louisiana town of Jena denied on Friday a request that one of six black teenagers arrested in the beating of a white youth be released from jail.
The ruling came one day after thousands of demonstrators marched through the town to protest law enforcement’s treatment of the defendants.
The decision involved Mychal Bell, 17, the only one of the six yet to stand trial. Mr. Bell was convicted of aggravated second-degree battery this summer, but the conviction was thrown out last week by a Louisiana appeals court, which ruled that he had been mistakenly tried as an adult.
In a closed juvenile court hearing on Friday, Mr. Bell’s lawyers sought to get him released while the local district attorney appeals last week’s ruling.
Citing juvenile court confidentiality rules, Mr. Bell’s lawyer, Lewis Scott, declined to say what had occurred at the hearing, as did an assistant to Judge J. P. Mauffray Jr.
But Darrell Hickman, a lawyer for another of the accused, was at the courthouse in Jena on Friday and confirmed that the judge had refused to free Mr. Bell. “It’s frustrating, that’s what it is,” Mr. Hickman said.
Mr. Hickman said he did not know why the judge was keeping Mr. Bell in jail. In addition to the beating, in which the white youth, Justin Barker, was knocked unconscious and kicked, Mr. Bell has a criminal record that includes arrests for battery and property damage. And another lawyer in the case said Mr. Barker faced medical bills totaling $14,000 as a result of the attack.
The protests in the case have centered on the fact that all but one of the defendants were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder, though those charges were later reduced.
While Mr. Bell remained in jail, a white teenager found himself newly in trouble. On Thursday the police in Alexandria, La., near Jena, arrested that youth, Jeremiah Munsen, 18, after they found hangman’s nooses draped from the back of his pickup truck while he drove near a crowd of people who had taken part in the protest at Jena earlier in the day.
Mr. Munsen was charged with inciting a riot and driving while intoxicated, The Associated Press reported.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gZLLBBDfbQ
orielly on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpsp5onTJR8
Cnn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok5p6iDz-eY
Bush 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsiPfWU4LyQ
Bush part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=982-4AoFl5o
NBC NEWS
Watch all the videos.
How are they different?
What does the public have to say about this event?
How does the article distributed in class differ from the videos?
What really happened?
Which of the above video clips seems to be the most accurate?
Where do we get our news from?
Thursday, September 20, 2007
TASERED
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swg4E2FzTzE
democracynow.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkjyKDtbCcI
cnn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JHfW1zDMSQ
first advocate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awxc6Yq7YJc
dennis miller
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HikH0jjp6s
bill oreilly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QTr-UPpqfA
hardball
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_IexfMaDXc
wolf biltzer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QnEs7QOYE0
last advocate
Watch all the videos.
How are they different?
What does the public have to say about this event?
How does the article distributed in class differ from the videos?
What really happened?
Which of the above video clips seems to be the most accurate?
Where do we get our news from?
How are individuals supposed to express anger at the elected officials?
democracynow.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkjyKDtbCcI
cnn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JHfW1zDMSQ
first advocate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awxc6Yq7YJc
dennis miller
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HikH0jjp6s
bill oreilly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QTr-UPpqfA
hardball
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_IexfMaDXc
wolf biltzer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QnEs7QOYE0
last advocate
Watch all the videos.
How are they different?
What does the public have to say about this event?
How does the article distributed in class differ from the videos?
What really happened?
Which of the above video clips seems to be the most accurate?
Where do we get our news from?
How are individuals supposed to express anger at the elected officials?
Monday, September 17, 2007
Our Leader.
Mr. Bush shared with the nation his interpretation of General Petraus' report. What seemed to be the focus of his speech? What is something that you agree with that the president said? What question would you have for the president after hearing this speech? Has this speech changed your mind or re assured you of our current position in Iraq?
Friday, September 14, 2007
Cell Phone Ban
Who has juristiction over the school discipline code?
Are students "rights" being violated?
How can rules and laws be changed?
Read article here.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Many Wives
Should we always be judged by our peers? What seems to be the issue int he polygamy case? Does Warren Jeff have a right to practice his religion?
Thursday, September 06, 2007
9/11 Illness
After reading Illness Persisting in 9/11 Workers, Big Study Finds write a brief reflection. How has money played a role in the care of 9/11 cleanup victims? Who is at fault for the illness? What changes in finance need to be made to correct the problem? Is health care a federal, city or individual responsibility?
If you would like to read a follow up article just published on the Times website before you write click here.
Stanley also linked a more controversial article on the same topic from the NY POST.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Senior Class 2008
Your first assignment:
After reading the article Bringing School to the Information Age (hyperlinked here) browse through the previous postings and comments on this blog.
Is this format and classroom structure suitable to your learning style?
What benefits can this format present to a classroom?
What drawbacks do you foresee?
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Pay discrimination
Pay discrimination
Ledbetter v. Goodyear The Central Question
Should a discriminatory action that happened long ago but that has effects that continue to the present day fall within the statute of limitations for the federal Civil Rights Act?
Background
Lilly M. Ledbetter worked for 19 years as a manager at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant in Gadsden, Ala. For years, she was paid less than men at the same level, and by 1997, as the only female manager, she was earning less than the lowest-paid man in the department. Is each new paycheck, reflecting a salary lower than it would have been without the initial discrimination, a recurring violation that sets the clock running again? Or does the passage of time, without fresh acts of intentional discrimination, render the initial injury a nonevent in the eyes of the law?
Related Links
Should a discriminatory action that happened long ago but that has effects that continue to the present day fall within the statute of limitations for the federal Civil Rights Act?
Background
Lilly M. Ledbetter worked for 19 years as a manager at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant in Gadsden, Ala. For years, she was paid less than men at the same level, and by 1997, as the only female manager, she was earning less than the lowest-paid man in the department. Is each new paycheck, reflecting a salary lower than it would have been without the initial discrimination, a recurring violation that sets the clock running again? Or does the passage of time, without fresh acts of intentional discrimination, render the initial injury a nonevent in the eyes of the law?
Related Links
Court Explores Complexities in Job Discrimination Case Federal law prohibits discrimination on the job, requiring employers to pay their employees without regard to race, sex, religion or national origin. Many complexities lie behind that simple statement, as a Supreme Court argument made abundantly clear. (Nov. 28, 2006)
Arguments Transcript (supremecourtus.gov)
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Tough Issues
How are we as Americans of such diverse backgrounds and upbringings going to ever come to a consensus on the issue of abortion vs the right to privacy for women?
What exactly has the Supreme Court decided on in this most recent decision? What was something from today's class that you remember?
Several students pointed out so many related cases during our class discussion, I'm impressed that so many of you are beginning to see the broad implications such seemingly small decisions have, how will this recent ruling of the supreme court change our future?
What exactly has the Supreme Court decided on in this most recent decision? What was something from today's class that you remember?
Several students pointed out so many related cases during our class discussion, I'm impressed that so many of you are beginning to see the broad implications such seemingly small decisions have, how will this recent ruling of the supreme court change our future?
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Should Immigration Be a Police Issue?
April 27, 2007, 9:19 pm
Should Immigration Be a Police Issue?
Communities across the New York region are debating whether their local police should be involved in immigration issues. For example, in Morristown, N.J., the mayor has proposed to enroll the police in a small but growing federal program that trains local officers to help enforce federal immigration laws. The program is known as 287(g), for a section of the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act that allows local officers, after being trained, to “identify, process, and when appropriate, detain immigration offenders they encounter during their regular, daily law-enforcement activity.”
How do you feel about what role, if any, local police should play in federal immigration issues?
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