corporal punishment is alive and well

I was shocked and horrified at the staggering numbers of corporate punishment cases in what I assume to be typical school discricts.

Another thing that bothered me was the mention of corporal punishment having been officially prohibited for (only) 20+ years. That would put it at what I thought were very civilized 80s.

'Safe environment', my foot.


Corporal Punishment Disputes Up in N.Y.

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press Writer
Sun Sep 25, 7:30 AM ET

ALBANY, N.Y. - Formal complaints of corporal punishment in New York classrooms more than doubled over the past five years, with 4,223 accusations reported in 2004, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

At the same time, fewer school districts were filing the required semiannual reports detailing corporal punishment allegations, the records show.

Many of the allegations involved faculty or staff pushing, slapping and grabbing students' arms. Among those verified were an incident in which a teacher put a misbehaving student outside to cool off in December without a jacket, a teacher who tackled a student who reached for a pencil on the floor, and several cases of students' mouths taped shut.

[..]



David Ernst of the state Schools Boards Association said the lack of uniform reporting makes it impossible to draw conclusions about trends in corporal punishment.

Fewer school districts may be filing the required semiannual reports because of superintendent turnover or because they include their corporal punishment incidents in mandated reports on child abuse instead, he said.

Ernst said officials believe corporal punishment in schools is actually becoming less common. [yeah, right!]

New York's schools, with about 3 million students, have had to report incidents of corporal punishment since 1985. Corporal punishment has been prohibited there for over two decades.

Deputy Education Commissioner James Kadamus said he believes the most serious cases — those that could be considered child abuse under state law — are being reported.

"We are trying to emphasize a safe learning environment and that goes for both the kids' behavior and the adult behavior," he said.

America's Battered Wife Syndrome

America's Battered Wife Syndrome
by Gail Thomas

Dear America,

As a friend of the family I can't sit back and watch you do this to
yourself without saying something. Consider this a long distance
intervention.

Your man is no good. He treats you like crap, lies to you, abuses you,
bullies you, exploits you, takes your money. As a friend I want to tell
you that you deserve better. You deserve a person that treats you with
respect, cares about your welfare, and your children's welfare, but
that's not George and it never will be.

Do you tell yourself that he'll stop, or that it won't get worse? He
won't ever stop, every insult, injury and death he has caused are a line
that once crossed will never be uncrossed. Forget the dream. You will
never have the American dream with George. You have to forget about what
might have been, what George might have been, and realise that at the
end of the day you are what you do, and look at George's track record.

Notice how he's alienated all your friends? Who can blame them, they
can't understand why you stay with him when he treats you like shit and
embarrasses you in front of everybody. The more his public behaviour
overshadows yours, The more doubt creeps over them, they wonder if they
knew you as well as they thought they did. You seem to have changed - if
you condone his behaviour- and your silence can create the impression
that you do. People are more inclined to take things at face value when
they feel alienated. Your friends remember the good times you had
together, the heroic battles you fought together, all of the intricate
interweavings between their families and yours through time and space.
Do you even recognise yourself anymore America? He is a drunken,
coke-addled loser and he always will be, you should kick him out of your
house today before he can destroy any more members of your family, your
history, your culture, before he decimates your bank account so
irretrievably that China and Saudi Arabia repossess all your stuff.

YOU CAN DO BETTER! You are an amazing country, beautiful, interesting,
funny, positively glamorous, you wouldn't stay single for five minutes,
you know that suitors would be competing for your affections and any one
of them would be ten times better than George. And how can you stand his
god-awful Stepford's answer to Marie-Antoinette mother, piping up with
another casual atrocity every time she opens her mouth.

Because of George and his friends global warming is now upon us - I know
what it has cost your family already, combined with George's complete
uselessness and indifference in a crisis. It would probably now be
possible for a mathematician to calculate exactly how much of all of our
futures we are losing for every minute you stay with that sick,twisted,
idiot.

I see you doing what everyone in your position does - you end up looking
to the perpetrator for comfort because theres no one else left, and look
at how he reacts for Christ's sake, look at what he did to New Orleans,
and you should know that yet again he did it in front of all of your
friends, all of us saw nothing happening whilst thousands died, all of
us heard Ray Nagin and the president of Jefferson Parish (I must heard
him 30+ times now and I still cry every time) and all of us heard
George's bloody mother. We have been trying to help and he won't let us.
We are all appalled and aghast, it breaks our hearts to see him hurting
you like this, and you not fighting back, you just take it and take it
as it slowly spirals down into the pits of hell. What will it take
America, will you let him kill you before you'll kick him out? This is
not rhetoric America, he is killing you every day you stay with him. If
I had described your relationship with George to you back when you were
still with Bill you never would have believed me. He degrades you in
little increments, every day he erodes your assets as well as your
dignity, your reputation, your legacy and your life America.

All of our TV crews were rescuing survivors as they filmed the
devastation because there was nobody else there to help them, all of us
saw the victims being treated like some sudden new insurgency. with
suspicion and hostility. Those poor people, the heart & soul of New
Orleans, the very people whose culture and history made New Orleans
beloved around the world, He just left your brothers and sisters to die.
Can you really continue in your relationship with George after this?
There is a degree at which cognitive dissonance becomes outright
delusion. He is a maniac, he is destroying your life, please, please
leave him, just leave him, only you have the power to make it stop.

He is selling out your family business, if you let him continue like
this how are you going to live? How are you going to feed your children,
what happens if you get ill? Everything he has ever touched has turned
to shit, he puts any idiot that'll kiss his ass into positions of power
and New Orleans is the result. Kick him out America! Do it today! I know
it feels like you would be leaping into a void, but I promise you, you
will be leaping out of one. Your friends will come back as soon as they
see you are back to your old self, they really miss you. I know that
less than 36% of your heart is still in it. Go with the 64% of you, that
36% is just that vestigial, primitive part of the brain that clings to
the familiar no matter how badly the familiar sucks.

It all comes down to you, America. I know no-one likes other people
passing comment on their relationships but this is an extreme situation.
You are in very real danger, he is hurting you everyday and he is
hurting us, your friends as well. But only you can make it stop. We are
all rooting for you, although we don't get to talk to you very often
anymore, because he cuts us off from you. We are on your side, we will
all be over the moon the day you finally kick him out. You know he
really should be thrown in jail for the things he has done to you. Him
and all of his gangster friends.

Please, please, do it America, you know I am right. If not for yourself
then do it for your brothers and sisters and children. Do it before he
kills any more of your family or anyone else's. We are all really
worried for your welfare.

Your friend,

Gail

Gail Thomas is am a British/ Australian dual national living in Sydney
with her American partner. Her website is http://www.12thharmonic.com

After Katrina fiasco, time for Bush to go

After Katrina fiasco, time for Bush to go

BY GORDON ADAMS
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 8, 2005
WASHINGTON - The disastrous federal response to Katrina exposes a record of incompetence, misjudgment and ideological blinders that should lead to serious doubts that the Bush administration should be allowed to continue in office.

When taxpayers have raised, borrowed and spent $40 billion to $50 billion a year for the past four years for homeland security but the officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency cannot find their own hands in broad daylight for four days while New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast swelter, drown and die, it is time for them to go.

When funding for water works and levees in the gulf region is repeatedly cut by an administration that seems determined to undermine the public responsibility for infrastructure in America, despite clear warnings that the infrastructure could not survive a major storm, it seems clear someone is playing politics with the public trust.

When rescue and medical squads are sitting in Manassas and elsewhere in northern Virginia and foreign assistance waits at airports because the government can't figure out how to insure the workers, how to use the assistance or which jurisdiction should be in charge, it is time for the administration to leave town.

When President Bush stays on vacation and attends social functions for two days in the face of disaster before finally understanding that people are starving, crying out and dying, it is time for him to go.

When FEMA officials cannot figure out that there are thousands stranded at the New Orleans convention center - where people died and were starving - and fussed ineffectively about the same problems in the Superdome, they should be fired, not praised, as the president praised FEMA Director Michael Brown in New Orleans last week.

When Mr. Bush states publicly that "nobody could anticipate a breach of the levee" while New Orleans journalists, Scientific American, National Geographic, academic researchers and Louisiana politicians had been doing precisely that for decades, right up through last year and even as Hurricane Katrina passed over, he should be laughed out of town as an impostor.

When repeated studies of New Orleans make it clear that tens of thousands of people would be unable to evacuate the city in case of a flood, lacking both money and transportation, but FEMA makes no effort before the storm to commandeer buses and move them to safety, it is time for someone to be given his walking papers.

When the president makes Sen. Trent Lott's house in Pascagoula, Miss., the poster child for rebuilding while hundreds of thousands are bereft of housing, jobs, electricity and security, he betrays a careless insensitivity that should banish him from office.

When the president of the United States points the finger away from the lame response of his administration to Katrina and tries to finger local officials in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., as the culprits, he betrays the unwillingness of this administration to speak truth and hold itself accountable. As in the case of the miserable execution of policy in Iraq, Mr. Bush and Karl Rove always have some excuse for failure other than their own misjudgments.

We have a president who is apparently ill-informed, lackadaisical and narrow-minded, surrounded by oil baron cronies, religious fundamentalist crazies and right-wing extremists and ideologues. He has appointed officials who give incompetence new meaning, who replace the positive role of government with expensive baloney.

They rode into office in a highly contested election, spouting a message of bipartisanship but determined to undermine the federal government in every way but defense (and, after 9/11, one presumed, homeland security). One with Grover Norquist, they were determined to shrink Washington until it was "small enough to drown in a bathtub." Katrina has stripped the veil from this mean-spirited strategy, exposing the greed, mindlessness and sheer profiteering behind it.

It is time to hold them accountable - this ugly, troglodyte crowd of Capital Beltway insiders, rich lawyers, ideologues, incompetents and their strap-hangers should be tarred, feathered and ridden gracefully and mindfully out of Washington and returned to their caves, clubs in hand.

Gordon Adams, director of security policy studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, was senior White House budget official for national security in the Clinton administration.

Katrina Hall of Shame

from The Hurricane Katrina Hall of Shame...



"Hurricane Katrina vanden Heuvel!"
--Rush Limbaugh (Late August)

-

"The destruction from [The Nation editor] Katrina vanden Heuvel is expected to be massive.... The poor and disabled are particularly likely to suffer from the effects of Katrina vanden Heuvel... Coming up: How to explain Katrina vanden Heuvel to your children..."
--National Review Editor Jonah Goldberg (8/30/05)

-

A young [black] man walks through chest deep floodwater after looting a grocery store in New Orleans...

Two [white] residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane Katrina came through the area in New Orleans...

Captions at Yahoo News (8/30/05)

-

Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield wasn't the only VIP who joined Padres President John Moores in the owner's box last night at Petco Park. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, here to join President Bush at the North Island Naval Air Station today, took in the game, too.
--Copy in the San Diego Union-Tribune (8/30/05)

-

"It makes no sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city that's seven feet under sea level....It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed."
--House Speaker Dennis Hastert (8/31/05)

-

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
--President Bush (9/1/05)

-

"The federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today."
--FEMA director Michael Brown (9/1/05)

-

"I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water."
--Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff (9/1/05)

-

HALLIBURTON GETS KATRINA CONTRACT
--Headline (9/1/05)

-

"Last night, we showed you the full force of a superpower government going to the rescue."
--Chris Matthews on MSNBC (9/1/05)

-

"Elimination of the death tax would be a victory for fairness and job creation. Working together, we can help eliminate the burden of the death tax once and for all."
--Mass email from RNC Chair Ken Mehlman (9/1/05)

-

"You simply get chills every time you see these poor individuals...many of these people, almost all of them that we see are so poor and they are so black..."
--Wolf Blitzer, CNN (9/1/05)

-

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
--President Bush (9/2/05)

-

Out of the rubbles (sic) of Trent Lott's house---he's lost his entire house---there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."
--George W. Bush (9/2/05)

-

"The City of New Orleans and its residents owe the President a profound debt of gratitude."
--John Hinderaker, Powerline blog (9/2/05)

-

"There's trucks?"
--President Bush (9/2/05)

-

"...it was my belief, I'm trying to think of a better word than typical--that minimizes, any hurricane is bad--but we had the standard hurricane coming in here..."
--FEMA director Michael Brown (9/3/05)

-

"Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater..."
--Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff (9/3/05)

-

"Days before Katrina nearly wiped New Orleans off the map, 9,000 Jewish residents of Gaza were driven from their homes with the full support of the United States government. Could this be a playing out of prophesy?"
--Rick Scarborough (9/4/05)

-

"I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged The Bullet.'"
--Chertoff (9/4/05)

-

"When Air Force One dipped below the clouds on Tuesday so the president could peer out the window down at the disaster, the image was uncomfortably imperial."
--Newsweek (9/4/05). The president didn't fly over the area until Wednesday.

-

"...but the media has a fascination with the blame game and instead of looking for what can we do to help now there's a lot of why didn't we do something different?"
--George H.W. Bush (9/5/05)

-

"What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this...this is working very well for them."
--Barbara Bush (9/5/05)

-

"I dropped a twenty in the bucket."
--Millionaire Jeb Bush, speaking from the broadcast booth on a collection for hurricane relief at the Miami-Florida State game. (9/5/05)

-

"Bureaucracy is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done for the people."
--President Bush (9/6/05)

-

"Americans don't sleep in tents."
--Unnamed FEMA official, responding to the head of the Hurricane Center of Louisiana State University who was trying to urge FEMA to set up tent cities in other states to handle the hundreds of thousands of Katrina survivors. The story was told by Tim Russert on `Imus in the Morning' (9/6/05)

-

"Louisiana's Senator Landrieu announced on network television, "I might likely have to punch him, literally." And my question, since "him" is the President, and both punching and threatening to punch the President is a felony, has her qualifying words `might likely' saved her from arrest and prosecution?"
--Unknown reporter to White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan (9/6/05)

-

"I understand there are 10,000 people dead. It's terrible. It's tragic. But in a democracy of 300 million people, over years and years and years, these things happen."
--GOP strategist Jack Burkman defending Bush (9/6/05)

-

"We really don't have time to play the political game right now."
White House Counselor Dan Bartlett (9/6/05)

-

Reporter: Just to get you on the record, where does the buck stop in this administration?
Scott McClellan: The President.
White House press briefing (9/6/05)

-

To be continued...sadly.

Katrina coverage

My heart goes to the people affected by the Katrina disaster. I am reading the accounts of devastation in New Orleans and surrounding areas, and it is terrible. The infrastracture and fabric of civilized society deteriorates VERY quickly.

This is what a war is like. I hope people will remember this befire waging a war someplace else.

The public officials IMO are unreasonably optimistic about the economic impact of this disaster. If we are to consider New Orleans alone, we shuld keep in mind that to 80% of US ag export goes (sorry, used to go) via Mississippi barge route through the NO port. I used to watch those barges on Mississippi river almost every day. Not to mention imports and destruction of oil rigs. WE will all feel it very soon, and not just in the gas prices.

However, to fully appreciate the magnitute of the destruction, consider the following, written by a survivor and a witness:



The material world in which we lived has been utterly and completely
destroyed; only the earth remains.

Homes and commercial structures which survived every catastrophe since
the 1840's (yes, that's the correct date -EighteenForties), including
Hurricane Camille, have simply ceased to exist.

All you are seeing on TV is New Orleans and the casinos in Biloxi but I
can assure you there is more to the Mississippi coast than the casinos
in Biloxi. The coast is 90 miles wide and, from east to west, here are
the cities that are NOT being featured on the news: Pascagoula, Ocean
Springs, Biloxi, Gulfport, Long Beach, Pass Christian (home),
Diamondhead, Bay St. Louis, Waveland, and Pearlington. Each city was
populated with thousands of residents, many of whom evacuated, many who
remained. No news footage of them. Just the endless banal coverage of
those damned casinos. Every one of those cities and towns were heavily
damaged or totally destroyed. Every structure within 200 yards of the
beach is gone. No recognizable landmarks remain.

Public schools are damaged or non-existent. Churches and temples
(including First Baptist in Long Beach which survived Camille in 1969
and my baptism in 1957) are non-existent or severely damaged. Medical
facilities (doctors offices, pharmacies, etc) non-existent or severely
damaged. Retail centers are non-existent. Recreation areas
non-existent. Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport - severely damaged.


At the east and west ends of Harrison County (my home), both vehicle and
railroad bridges on the waterfront Highway 90 across Bay St. Louis
(west) and Biloxi Bay (east) are completely destroyed.

Scenic Drive in Pass Christian, 2-miles along the beach lined with
ancient oaks and late 19th-century and ante-bellum homes so stately and
graceful that it was once called "the most beautiful street in America"
and was on the National Registry of Historic Places, is now a pile of
rubble.

No electricity since early Monday. Which translates into: no living and
no commerce of any kind is possble. for home and businesses, no lights,
no cooking, no air conditioning, no fresh water, no toilets. gas
stations are destroyed or closed (pumps are electric)

In an area 90 miles wide by approximately 6 miles deep:

1) cell phones are now useless paperweights. transmission towers
were damaged or blown down. none have electricity. Of those that have
their own generators, the generators were destroyed in the tidal wave
and because the roads are not passable (see below) technicians cannot
reach the towers to repair the generators. Theres no gasoline for the
generators. Regular land-line phones are out and service will not be
back for 2-3 weeks or more. "Satellite" phones are only means of
communication.

2) every single road has to be cleared by bull-dozer and
electricians (downed power lines everywhere) before it is passable

3) every single motor vehicle caught in the storm-surge has been
destroyed, inundated under 20+ feet of muddy salty water. Envision:
every privately owned automobile, police cruiser, ambulance, rescue
wagon, fire truck, post office delivery vans, UPS/FedEx truck, etc., is
now useless.

4) municipal goverment and services no longer exist. Buildings
housing all governemnt offices are non-existent or damaged beyond use.
In my city, the police department has simply vanished from the earth;
officers survived but physical plant is gone and vehicles inoperable

5) Tens of thousands of homes are now scattered rubble. In many of
those homes, someone died. If the body is visible, it is not
recoverable until mountains of debris can be removed. It's sunny and
the temperatures are in the 90s. (Ignore "current death toll" on
evening news reports! It will be weeks, probably months, before a
staggeringly higher death count is officially recognized)

6) In every destroyed home was a refrigerator and in many of them,
freezers, filled with the family's choice of meat, poultry, fish, and
game. Those appliances now litter the landscape, their contents strewn
about, rotting in the sun and heat.

7) every single grocerystore in the storm-surge area had its
contents blown out. Mountains of fresh produce, red meat, fresh fish
and poultry, eggs, milk, frozen food, etc., now lies rotting in the sun.
Add this to 5 & 6 above and you see the health hazard in the making.

8) mortuaries have been destroyed. Refrigerated trucks are
arriving to be used as temporary morgues.

9) mosquito eggs that had lain dormant in dry soil have now been
re-vitalized; in the next two or three weeks, the horde will hatch and
attack

10) every place of employment on the coast is destroyed. no one
who survived and no one who returns will have a job. all are now
unemployed. The casinos alone employed 14,000 people, now jobless. The
hospitality industry (hotels and restaurants) employed thousands more,
now jobless. The 500-boat fishing fleet, if the ships survived, have no
crews. Of the ships that may be operable when their crew can return,
there are no homeport facilities to off-load and process their catch.
The port of Gulfport, 2nd largest on the Gulf coast and largest port of
entry for commerce from central and south america, has been destroyed.
Retail stores (pharmacies, hallmark cards&gifts, groceries, dry
cleaning, hardware, fast food, etc., all gone--those that remain cannot
open due to lack of power. No-one who was expecting to get a pay check
this week for work done last week will get a check and "plastic" is as
useless as cell phones. Credit/debit cards drawn against local banks
cannot be used in in commerce because the banks are destroyed. And
ATMs? Fuggedabboutit. Most of the ATMs were inundated and are now
filled with muddy salt water. State aid? the casinos pump $500,000 of
tax revenue each day into state coffers and every penny of that income
ceased last Sunday. That's $180,000,000/year that the state will NOT
receive.



A terrible, terrible situation.



And here is the latest from the Powers To Be:


Barbara Bush: Things Working Out 'Very Well' for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans

NEW YORK Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, "This is working very well for them."

The former First Lady's remarks were aired this evening on National Public Radio's "Marketplace" program.

She was part of a group in Houston today at the Astrodome that included her husband and former President Bill Clinton, who were chosen by her son, the current president, to head fundraising efforts for the recovery. Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama were also present.

In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I've talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."



Like mother, like son ... like all of them past, present and future.