Disinformation » Children

The Police-ification Of Schools

JacobSloan — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:08:02 +0000

The Guardian reports on the new public education model in Texas, in which police officers patrol school hallways, giving out hundreds of thousands of tickets to children each year and making arrests for criminal behavior such as leaving crumbs in the cafeteria, wearing inappropriate clothing, spraying perfume, and making sarcastic remarks in class. Poor children whose families are unable to pay the fines may be jailed for the nonpayment once they turn 17:

More and more US schools have police patrolling the corridors. Pupils are being arrested for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor. Why is the state criminalising normal childhood behaviour?

The charge on the police docket was “disrupting class”. But that’s not how 12-year-old Sarah Bustamantes saw her arrest for spraying two bursts of perfume on her neck in class because other children were bullying her with taunts of “you smell”.

“I’m weird. Other kids don’t like me,” said Sarah, who has been diagnosed with attention-deficit and bipolar disorders and who is conscious of being overweight. “They were picking on me. So I sprayed myself with perfume. Then the teacher called the police.”

The policeman didn’t have far to come. He patrols the corridors of Sarah’s school, Fulmore Middle in Austin, Texas. Like hundreds of schools in the state, and across large parts of the rest of the US, Fulmore Middle has its own police force with officers in uniform who carry guns to keep order in the canteens, playgrounds and lessons. Sarah was taken from class, charged with a criminal misdemeanour and ordered to appear in court.

Each day, hundreds of schoolchildren appear before courts in Texas charged with offences such as swearing, misbehaving on the school bus or getting in to a punch-up in the playground. Children have been arrested for possessing cigarettes, wearing “inappropriate” clothes and being late for school.

In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 “Class C misdemeanour” tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later.

“We’ve taken childhood behaviour and made it criminal,” said Kady Simpkins, a lawyer who represented Sarah Bustamantes. “They’re kids. Disruption of class? Every time I look at this law I think: good lord, I never would have made it in school in the US. I grew up in Australia and it’s just rowdy there. I don’t know how these kids do it, how they go to school every day without breaking these laws.”

The emphasis on law and order in the classroom parallels more than two decades of rapid expansion of all areas of policing in Texas in response to misplaced fears across the US in the 1980s of a looming crime wave stoked by the crack epidemic, alarmist academic studies and the media.

“Zero tolerance started out as a term that was used in combating drug trafficking and it became a term that is now used widely when you’re referring to some very punitive school discipline measures. Those two policy worlds became conflated with each other,” said Fowler.

The very young are not spared. According to Appleseed, Texas records show more than 1,000 tickets were issued to primary schoolchildren over the past six years (although these have no legal force at that age). Appleseed said that “several districts ticketed a six-year-old at least once in the last five years”.

Fines run up to $500. For poorer parents, the cost can be crippling. Some parents and students ignore the financial penalty, but that can have consequences years down the road. Schoolchildren with outstanding fines are regularly jailed in an adult prison for non-payment once they turn 17. Stumping up the fine is not an end to the offending student’s problems either. A class-C misdemeanour is a criminal offence.

The Little Lama from Columbia Heights, Minnesota

imkaan — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 07:18:07 +0000

Allie Shah writes in the Star Tribune:

It’s morning time and a little boy with a shaved head and a face shaped like the moon chants a Tibetan prayer.

His high-pitched voice echoes inside the Columbia Heights bedroom that his father has transformed into a lavish prayer room. In here, the 4-year-old forsakes his cartoons and toys to study scripture and learn to pray the Buddhist way.

Big for his age, he looks bigger still perched on an ornate chair draped in crimson and saffron robes. “Only for lamas,” explains his father, Dorje Tsegyal, sitting cross-legged on the floor at his son’s feet.

Jalue Dorjee, you see, is believed to be no ordinary boy.

Going To A Public Farm School

Jin_TheNinja — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:31:10 +0000

Are schoolyard farms the best way to counteract the increasingly industrial food provided by school lunches? Via Denver’s ABC affiliate:

DENVER — Just eight months ago, a one-acre plot at the Denver Green School was an unused athletic field, but now that land has come to life with food-bearing vegetation.

“We have harvested over 3,000 pounds of produce from this ground. Lots of salad greens and root vegetables, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers,” said Megan Caley, the programs and outreach coordinator for Sprout City Farms.

Each week during harvest season, the farm produces 150 pounds of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables that end up in the school’s cafeteria.

“Kids are eating healthier,” said Frank Coyne, lead partner at the Denver Green School. “They are excited to eat the tomatoes on the salad bar, they are excited to eat the cucumbers.”

11-Year-Old Martial Arts Student Thwarts Carjacking

Camron Wiltshire — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 22:08:05 +0000

ZHU ZHITSU! Via KITV News:

HONOLULU — Jay Yano didn’t have the day after Thanksgiving off, so he planned to take his two young children to work with him. As his kids loaded into his truck, parked right outside their McCully home, Yano left the vehicle running as he quickly walked to the truck’s rear.

“That’s when I noticed the guy walking from across the street, coming over,” said Jay Yano.

Yano said within a split second, his truck began to pull forward, with his 9-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son inside. He ran to the driver’s side door.

“(When) I opened the car (door), I saw my son holding the guy down with his left hand,” said Yano. “I just grabbed his shoulder and started punching his face, telling him to get out of the truck,” said Jonah Yano.

Jonah Yano said he wasn’t scared — his younger sister was in trouble and he needed to help her. Despite being much smaller than the 35-year-old man, Jonah gave his father enough time to pull the suspect out of the truck.

Exposure to BPA Before Birth Linked to Behavioral, Emotional Difficulties in Girls

Good German — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:32:52 +0000

Via ScienceDaily:

Exposure in the womb to bisphenol A (BPA) — a chemical used to make plastic containers and other consumer goods — is associated with behavior and emotional problems in young girls, according to a study led by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center, and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.

BPA is found in many consumer products, including canned food linings, polycarbonate plastics, dental sealants, and some receipts made from thermal paper. Most people living in industrialized nations are exposed to BPA. BPA has been shown to interfere with normal development in animals and has been linked with cardiovascular disease and diabetes in people. In a 2009 study, HSPH researchers showed that drinking from polycarbonate bottles increased the level of urinary BPA.

In this study, published Oct. 24, 2011, in an advance online edition of Pediatrics, lead author Joe Braun, research fellow in environmental health at HSPH, and his colleagues found that gestational BPA exposure was associated with more behavioral problems at age 3, especially in girls.

Pollutants Linked to 450% Increase in Risk of Birth Defects in Rural China

Good German — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 22:38:19 +0000

Forget climate change deniers, there are more urgent reasons to eliminate pollution. Via ScienceDaily:

Pesticides and pollutants are related to a 450 percent increase in the risk of spina bifida and anencephaly in rural China, according to scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and Peking University.Two of the pesticides found in high concentrations in the placentas of affected newborns and stillborn fetuses were endosulfan and lindane. Endosulfan is only now being phased out in the United States for treatment of cotton, potatoes, tomatoes and apples. Lindane was only recently banned in the United States for treatment of barley, corn, oats, rye, sorghum and wheat seeds.

Strong associations were also found between spina bifida and anencephaly and high concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are byproducts of burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal. Spina bifida is a defect in which the backbone and spinal canal do not close before birth. Anencephaly is the absence of a large part of the brain and skull.

“Our advanced industrialized societies have unleashed upon us a lot of pollutants,” says Richard Finnell, professor of nutritional sciences and director of genomic research at the Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas. “We’ve suspected for a while that some of these pollutants are related to an increase in birth defects, but we haven’t always had the evidence to show it. Here we quite clearly showed that the concentration of compounds from pesticides and coal-burning are much higher in the placentas of cases with neural tube defects than in controls.”

Sesame Street Introduces Poor Muppet To Teach About Poverty (Sponsored by Wal-Mart)

bluemana — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:43:36 +0000

The special episode is sponsored by Wal-Mart. Ain’t that a kicker? Gabriela Resto-Montero writes in the NY Daily News:

There’s a new kid on the block on “Sesame Street.” The long-running children’s show will debut a new muppet, Lily, in a primetime special that highlights childhood poverty and hunger, Entertainment Weekly reported.

Lily’s family background reflects the bitter economic reality of the 17 million American children who live without regular access to affordable and nutritious food, the magazine reported. Country music singer Brad Paisley and his wife, actress Kimberly Williams Paisley, will host the hour-long show, titled “Growing Hope against Hunger.”

“We are honored that Sesame Street, with its long history of tackling difficult issues with sensitivity, caring and warmth, asked us to be a part of this important project,” the couple said in a statement. The show will air Sunday, Oct. 9. It is sponsored by Walmart.

WikiLeaks Reveals Iraqi Children Were Executed in U.S Raid on Ishaqi

TunaGhost — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 19:00:09 +0000

U.S. officials had originally claimed that “nothing inappropriate” had occurred during a controversial incident in 2006 in the town of Ishaqi, Iraq. A U.S. diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks, however, tells a different story. In this version of events, according to an autopsy of the bodies in Tikrit (along with several witness reports which were vigorously denied by U.S. officials) four women and five children (all of which were five years old or younger) were handcuffed and then shot in the head, after which an air-strike was called in to destroy the home in which the massacre had transpired. Not surprisingly, the Pentagon has thus far declined to comment. I hope you all will join me in pinching the bridge of our noses and muttering “Sweet fucking Christ”. (More on McClatchy)

The Mickey Mouse Gas Mask

JacobSloan — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:00:50 +0000

And you thought your childhood was psychologically damaging. The Mickey Mouse gas mask was designed to usher children into the age of biological warfare by turning chemical weapons attacks into a “game.”

An initial run of 1,000 masks was produced, but they were never used, and after the war were distributed to senior officers as keepsakes. Via Gasmasklexicon:

The Mikey Mouse gas mask for children was created in January 1942 by the Sun Rubber Company and designer Dietrich Rempel, with Walt Disney’s approval. This design was presented to Major General William N. Porter, Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service. The mask was designed so children would carry it and wear it as part of a game…

Why Are Finland’s Schools The World’s Best?

JacobSloan — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:50:40 +0000

The secret seems to be emphasizing art, foreign languages, and physical activity, paying teachers like lawyers and doctors, and doing away with standardized testing. A shame that the United States is trending in the opposite direction regarding all of the above. Yes, it helps that Finland is a small, wealthy country with extremely equal income distribution, but its neighbor Norway follows a more “American” education model and with inferior results. Via Smithsonian Magazine:

Besides Finnish, math and science, first graders take music, art, sports, religion and textile handcrafts. English begins in third grade, Swedish in fourth. By fifth grade the children have added biology, geography, history, physics and chemistry.

Not until sixth grade will kids have the option to sit for a district-wide exam, and then only if the classroom teacher agrees to participate. Most do, out of curiosity. Results are not publicized. Finnish educators have a hard time understanding the United States’ fascination with standardized tests. “Americans like all these bars and graphs and colored charts,” Louhivuori teased, as he rummaged through his closet looking for past years’ results. “Looks like we did better than average two years ago,” he said after he found the reports. “It’s nonsense. We know much more about the children than these tests can tell us.”

The critical decision came in 1979, when reformers required that every teacher earn a fifth-year master’s degree in theory and practice at one of eight state universities—at state expense. From then on, teachers were effectively granted equal status with doctors and lawyers. Applicants began flooding teaching programs, not because the salaries were so high but because autonomy and respect made the job attractive. In 2010, some 6,600 applicants vied for 660 primary school training slots.

Some of the more vocal conservative reformers in America have grown weary of the “We-Love-Finland crowd” or so-called Finnish Envy. They argue that the United States has little to learn from a country of only 5.4 million people—4 percent of them foreign born. Yet the Finns seem to be onto something. Neighboring Norway, a country of similar size, embraces education policies similar to those in the United States. It employs standardized exams and teachers without master’s degrees. And like America, Norway’s PISA scores have been stalled in the middle ranges for the better part of a decade.

Read the rest at Smithsonian Magazine.

Virginia Boy Impaled by Bamboo Stick Through Neck Survives (Video)

bluemana — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 23:39:14 +0000

Ellen Tumposky reports on ABC News:

Dez Heal, 13, of Lynchburg, Va., was rushed to the hospital with a bamboo stick impaled his neck. Dez had been playing a Ninja game with friends and “decided to put the bamboo stick in the back of my shirt,” he told ABC affiliate WSET-TV.

“I guess when he jumped, the stick must have went forward,” Nicholas Blencowe, Dez’s friend and Ninja partner, told the station. “And when he hit the ground, the stick went in his neck.” Dez’s father, David Heal, described to WSET how the stick pierced Dez’s neck and came out about about 3 inches behind his ear. Heal called 911.

Restaurant Bans Children Under Six

Pelliciari — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:08:21 +0000

Starting July 16, McDain’s, a Pittsburgh-area restaurant, will ban children under the age of 6 from its dining area. Restaurant owner Mike Vuick said the policy came in response to complaints he’d received from older customers about kids causing a ruckus. In an email to his clientele, Vuick wrote, “We feel that McDain’s is a not a place for young children … and many, many times they have disturbed other customers.” Via ABC News:

[Story continues at ABC News]

Why Even A Child May Choose To Reject Christianity (Video)

vulcan — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 04:31:42 +0000

Does Watching TV Lead To Obesity?

majestic — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 01:17:55 +0000

The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests there’s a causal link between watching junk food commercials on television and obesity. Alice Park reports for Time:

How much TV do your kids watch? If you don’t know, you might want to find out, say experts, since the time children spend in front of a TV or computer screen can have a profound effect on their physical and developmental health.

In a new policy statement on the role of media on obesity, the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) Council on Communications and Media warns parents that TV watching doesn’t just make children more sedentary, but also influences their eating habits, which in turn has consequences for their health. In other words, it’s not just that TV watching encourages youngsters to be less physically active, but it also exposes them to food advertisements that contribute to develop poor eating habits that can set kids up for health problems as adults.

“We created a perfect storm between media use, junk and fast food advertising, and physical inactivity,” says Dr. Victor Strasburger, professor of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and member of the AAP’s Council. “We created a situation where we now have more overweight and obese adults in the U.S, than underweight and normal weight adults; it’s become an urgent public health problem.”

The policy statement highlights the fact that the harms of TV viewing go beyond promoting inactivity. More studies have shown that children who spend more time in front of the tube are more likely to eat higher-calorie foods, drink sugared sodas and grow up to be overweight adults. In a U.K. study that followed children over 30 years into adulthood, for every additional hour of TV youngsters watched on weekends at age five, their risk of being obese as adults rose by 7%. And in some cases, it doesn’t even take that long for the extra pounds to accumulate: a Japanese study found that children who watched more TV at age three were more likely to be overweight at age six…

Sweden Debuts Gender-Neutral Preschool

JacobSloan — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 17:28:02 +0000

At best, a school model for the more-enlightened future, and at worst, an intriguing social experiment. Via Yahoo News:

At the “Egalia” preschool, staff avoid using words like “him” or “her” and address the 33 kids as “friends” rather than girls and boys.

From the color and placement of toys to the choice of books, every detail has been carefully planned to make sure the children don’t fall into gender stereotypes.

Egalia doesn’t deny the biological differences between boys and girls — the dolls the children play with are anatomically correct. What matters is that children understand that their biological differences “don’t mean boys and girls have different interests and abilities.”

The taxpayer-funded preschool which opened last year in the liberal Sodermalm district of Stockholm for kids aged 1 to 6 is among the most radical examples of Sweden’s efforts to engineer equality between the sexes from childhood onward. Breaking down gender roles is a core mission in the national curriculum for preschools, underpinned by the theory that even in highly egalitarian-minded Sweden, society gives boys an unfair edge.

Egalia’s methods are controversial; some say they amount to mind control. But director Lotta Rajalin says that there’s a long waiting list for admission to Egalia, and that only one couple has pulled a child out of the school.

Six Million American Kids Have Food Allergies

majestic — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:07:29 +0000

Most parents I know agree that when they were kids, hardly anyone had food allergies. Now the kid who brings a PB&J sandwich to school might as well have sneaked in a dirty nuke. This report from Medpage Today confirms the explosion in food allergies, but doesn’t answer the obvious question: Why?

Food allergy in children is more common than previously thought, and often is associated with severe symptoms and multiple foods, a new survey found.

The prevalence of food allergy in children and adolescents younger than 18 was 8% (95% CI 7.6 to 8.3), according to Ruchi S. Gupta, MD, of Northwestern University in Chicago, and colleagues.

That percentage translates into almost six million children in the U.S., the researchers noted.

And among these allergic children, 38.7% had a history of severe reactions and 30.4% were allergic to more than one type of food, they reported online in Pediatrics.

Previous studies have suggested that the prevalence of food allergy among U.S. children ranged from 1% to 8%, with an analysis of data from the 2005 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey finding a prevalence of 4.2% in children ages 1- to 5-years-old.

These earlier estimates were imprecise, and also provided no information on the severity of the allergies, so Gupta’s group conducted a cross-sectional survey using a representative sample of households with children.

The sample included 38,480 children, evenly divided between the sexes, with a mean age of 8.5 years…

[continues at Medpage Today]

Nearly One in Three American Children Live Without A Father

imkaan — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 19:22:30 +0000

Via the Huffington Post:

The number of children living apart from their fathers has more than doubled in the last fifty years, from 11 percent in 1960 to 27 percent in 2010.

That’s one of the key findings from a new report on fatherhood in the United the States that was released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project — just in time for Father’s Day.

The findings paint a grim picture of many fathers’ lack of involvement in their children’s lives, using data from over 10,000 people to determine the percentage of “absent” or “non-resident” fathers in America, which the report defines as those who do not live with their children.

A decline in marriage rates may be partially to blame. In 1960, 72 percent of the adult population was married; that share had dropped to 52 percent by 2008. Eighty seven percent of children ages 17 and younger were living with two married parents in 1960 compared with 64 percent in 2008.

According to the report’s co-author Gretchen Livingston, an increase in divorce rates over the last half-century may also play a role.

Go the F**k to Sleep – Read By Samuel L. Jackson!

phunkychic666 — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:17:32 +0000

Donors Pledge $4.3 Billion For Child Vaccinations In Poor Nations

Pelliciari — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 21:49:51 +0000

A case of good humanitarians. Via Reuters:

International donors led by Britain and Bill Gates pledged $4.3 billion on Monday to buy vaccines to protect children in poor countries against potential killers such as diarrheal diseases and pneumonia.

“But every 20 seconds, a child still dies of a vaccine-preventable disease. There’s more work to be done.”

The funding should allow more than 250 million of the world’s poorest children to be vaccinated by 2015, helping to prevent more than four million premature deaths, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) said.

“Today is an important moment in our collective commitment to protecting children in developing countries from disease,” said Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who attended the pledging conference in London.

[Continues at Reuters]

The Worst Playground Idea Ever (Video)

bluemana — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 05:40:33 +0000

Many Public Schools Begin Charging Students For Attending Class, Textbook Use, Teachers’ Materials

JacobSloan — Tue, 31 May 2011 16:32:39 +0000

This is so sad: in school districts across the country, the concept of a free public education is fading into the past. The Wall Street Journal writes:

Public schools across the country, struggling with cuts in state funding, are shifting costs to students and their parents by imposing or boosting fees for everything from enrolling in honors English to riding the bus.

At high schools in several states, it can cost more than $200 just to walk in the door, thanks to registration fees, technology fees and unspecified “instructional fees.”

Though public schools have long charged for extras such as driver’s education and field trips, many are now asking parents to pay for supplies needed to take core classes—from biology-lab safety goggles to algebra workbooks to the printer ink used to run off grammar exercises in language arts. In some schools, each class comes with a price tag, to be paid at registration. Some schools offer installment plans for payment. Others accept credit cards—for a processing fee.

Nationally, district after district has eliminated or cut enrichment programs for gifted students, help for struggling readers, advanced math and science courses, music, art, foreign languages, drama, sports. Some have tried asking local residents to approve higher taxes, only to be shot down at the polls. So administrators say fees are the only way to stave off even more drastic cuts.

Student Creates LEGO Helmet So You Can Listen To Comics

Pelliciari — Fri, 27 May 2011 17:44:53 +0000

Kirstin Butler writes on i09:

A student in product design at the University of Dundee in Scotland, Robson created the toy with his own memories as inspiration. He said:

When I was young I played with LEGO a lot and all I used to read was the comic stories in LEGO Club magazines, I’d like to give something back to them as they helped me learn to read… I’ve been looking at what I enjoyed in my childhood to apply to new ideas and solutions of today.

By inserting the LEGO-brick USB into a slot in the helmet, the lucky kid wearing it can follow along with the comics, games, and puzzles in the subscription-only magazine.

Our only question is, when can we order the adult-size version?

“Prodigy of Color” – The Art of Aelita Andre, Age 4

Haystack — Wed, 25 May 2011 16:42:04 +0000

Four year-old Aelita Andre has a solo show opening at New York City’s Agora Gallery on June 4th. It might not come as too much of a surprise that a child should be able to produce beautiful, abstract expressionist art on par with the professionals, who are probably tapping their “inner children,” anyway. Aelita Andre, however, has been given free reign to so do, with as much space and materials to explore her creativity as anyone could want. Moreover, she displays real talent; working in thoughtful, methodical way, and making deliberate creative choices. Discovered via BoingBoing:

Video: Are We Training Kids To Believe That Total Surveillance Is Normal?

JacobSloan — Tue, 24 May 2011 15:01:36 +0000

Via TED Talks, Cory Doctorow discusses how parents’ and schools’ constant and total monitoring of kids’ internet usage and conversations trains young people to accept a complete lack of privacy, and total disclosure of their lives, as normal and good. Are today’s parents raising their children in a manner that plays into the hands of Big Brother?

Catholic Church Officially Blames Hippies for Their Child Abuse Scandals

bluemana — Mon, 23 May 2011 05:16:17 +0000

Via the LA Times:

Blame the flower children. That seems to be the chief conclusion of a new report about the Roman Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal. The study, undertaken by John Jay College of Criminal Justice (PDF) at the request of America’s Catholic bishops, links the spike in child abuse by priests in the 1960s and ’70s to “the importance given to young people and popular culture” — along with the emergence of the feminist movement, a “singles culture” and a growing acceptance of homosexuality. It also cites crime, drugs, an increase in premarital sexual behavior and divorce.

The problem with this conclusion isn’t that it absolves molesting priests of responsibility. Even the study’s authors wouldn’t go that far. Rather, the flaw with the theory is that it’s unsupported by any data or evidence. It thus detracts from the report’s other findings, which are based on empirical research. Indeed, aside from its implausible indictment of the ’60s counterculture, the report is an enlightening analysis of an abominable chapter in the Roman Catholic Church’s history.

Do Students Eat Like Prisoners?

JacobSloan — Thu, 19 May 2011 14:58:15 +0000

Good Magazine looks at the similarity between prison meals and children’s school cafeteria food — both rich in starch-y/milk-y goodness, and costing around $2.65 per day to provide. It should also be pointed out that both children and prisoners are daily confined to small spaces and given little opportunity to burn off these massive calorie counts. I suppose school is intended to be practice for where the kids will eventually end up?

A Baby Gets a TSA Patdown (Photo)

Join Or DIE — Tue, 10 May 2011 05:02:56 +0000

Cynthia Newsome reports on NBC KSHB-TV

KANSAS CITY, Missouri— A photo of two Transportation Security Administration agents doing a full pat down on a baby, approximately 8 months old, has gone viral.

It happened at the Kansas City International Airport.

A passenger, Jacob Jester, captured the image on his cell phone. Since he tweeted the picture on Saturday, it has had more than 200,000 hits.

The photo shows the helpless baby being held up in the air by his mother while the TSA workers do their job. Jester has an 8-month-old son and would not want his son to be subjected to a hand search by TSA agents.

5,200 Pentagon Employees Bought Child Pornography, Investigation Halted After 8 Months

bluemana — Tue, 10 May 2011 04:20:14 +0000

Mark Crispin Miller writes on News from Underground:

Here’s one I missed completely, and it’s likely you did, too. It aired on CNN last January.

Kids Celebrating Osama Bin Laden’s Death (Photos)

vulcan — Tue, 03 May 2011 17:10:27 +0000

Matt Stopera posts on BuzzFeed:

This is kind of disturbing. Check out these pictures of kids celebrating Osama’s death in Times Square…

New York Libraries: Come on in and Watch Some Porn

bluemana — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 02:27:51 +0000

Photo: PFHLai (CC)

Sam Biddle writes on Gizmodo:

If you don’t mind getting your face punched in, New York’s public libraries might just be your new favorite place to watch people have sex with each other on the internet. Sure, you’re surrounded by other patrons, but it’s free!

You might think that watching people pound away at each other in the most graphic and jarring manner in public might run contrary to a library’s mission of promoting literature and the arts, while providing a safe and tranquil place to read, work, and study. And sure, in 1973 Miller v. California pulled porn out of the categorical forcefield of free speech. But, the NY Post reports, NYPL rep Angela Montefinise thinks everyone’s favorite part of the Bill of Rights includes PornHub: “In deference to the First Amendment protecting freedom of speech, the New York Public Library cannot prevent adult patrons from accessing adult content that is legal.”

This is a sticky (sorry) situation! On the one hand, we tend to agree that people should be able to access whatever information they’d like in a free society. And what if you’re a gender studies major, and you’re writing a thesis on pornography? Or something. Cases like that are likely the infinitesimal exception to the rule that is creepy dudes without a home internet connection who just want to spend the afternoon watching porn, but censorship never quite sits right, even when it’s something I probably wouldn’t want my (hypothetical) little kids to see when I take them to the library to read Goodnight Moon.