Parents Reportedly Throwing ‘Measles Parties’ To Infect Their Unvaccinated Kids

Some parents in California are reportedly considering hosting “measles parties” — social gatherings where unvaccinated children can come into contact with infected kids — to build up their children’s natural resistance to the infectious disease.

Julie Schiffman, who has chosen not to vaccinate her two children, told KQED’s California Report that she was recently approached by a friend who invited her to a measles party. The friend offered to arrange a play date with a child who currently has measles. Schiffman turned her down.

“I would want that to be something they decide on their own, when they’re older and are more capable of assessing the risks and dangers,” she said. “When they’re teenagers, I’d say, ‘okay, you have a choice, you can get vaccinated or you can get the measles, what would you rather?’”

Before the development of the chicken pox vaccine, this particular “natural infection” tactic used to be popular among parents who wanted to give their children the virus while they were still young and the infection would be less severe. Now, despite the fact that there’s a vaccine available to prevent that disease, the practice has persisted among some parents who are skeptical about following the government’s recommended immunization schedule.

The rise of social media has made it easier than ever before for parents to plan so-called “pox parties.” The Facebook group Let’s Have a Chickenpox Party, for instance, helps anti-vaccine parents connect with each other and publicize their pox-related events. In 2011, some adults even started mailing infected lollipops across state lines, something that violates federal law.

The idea has been floated for other diseases, too. When a serious strain of influenza colloquially known as “swine flu” started spreading in 2009, some people started suggesting holding swine flu parties for their kids. The idea was that surviving a milder strain of the virus earlier in the season would protect children from a deadlier strain that could emerge later.  READ MORE

Nuns Challenge Romney To Spend A Day With Them To Learn About Plight Of America’s Poor

Sister Simone Campbell

By Travis Waldron on Aug 8, 2012 at 1:05 pm

The group behind the Nuns On A Bus tour that highlighted the ill-effects of the House Republican budget in congressional districts across the country is now setting its sights on the party’s presidential candidate, inviting Mitt Romney to spend a day with the nuns to learn about the plight of America’s poorest citizens.
NETWORK, a national Catholic social justice lobby, is inviting Romney to “spend a day with Catholic Sisters who work every day to meet the needs of struggling families in their communities,” according to a release. The group is specifically targeting Romney a day after his campaign released a misleading ad about welfare reform that Sister Simone Campbell, NETWORK’s executive director, said “demonize[s] families in poverty” and shows Romney’s “ignorance about the challenges” the poor face in America:

“Recent advertisements and statements from the campaign of Governor Romney demonize families in poverty and reflect woeful ignorance about the challenges faced by tens of millions of American families in these tough economic times,” stated Sister Simone Campbell. “We are all God’s children and equal in God’s eyes. Efforts to divide us by class or score political points at the expense of the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters reveal the worst side of our country’s politics.”   READ MORE

Here Are Over One Hundred Products Made From Child Or Slave Labor (GRAPHIC)

It's hard to believe, but true: Still today, many everyday products from around the globe are the result of child and slave labor, according to a 2011 report from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Now thanks to an infographic from the National Post, we can more clearly see the effects: All together, the infographic counts 130 product-types from 71 countries -- each the result of forced labor, child labor or some combination of the two.

Indeed, slave labor still exists within economic powerhouses like India, China and Brazil, for example. It's not just these two forms of labor that have come under fire lately. China has faced more wide-ranging criticism over its labor practices, especially after reports of poor working conditions and labor law violations at Foxconn, a factory that manufactures electronics for companies such as Apple and Microsoft.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this graphic incorrectly categorized some forms of child labor as forced labor. National Post has updated the graphic.

 
See the National Post's infographic below to find out which countries are making products by exploiting slave labor:  READ MORE

How the Conservative Worldview Quashes Critical Thinking -- and What That Means For Our Kids' Future

Photo Credit: ShutterStock.com

The education of our children is a core cultural and political choice that reflects the deepest differences between liberals and conservatives.

May 18, 2012

The Conservative War On Education continues apace, with charters blooming everywhere, high-stakes testing cementing its grip on classrooms, and legislators and pundits wondering what we need those stupid liberal arts colleges for anyway. (Isn't college about job prep? Who needs to know anything about art history, anthropology or ancient Greek?)

Amid the din, there's a worrisome trend: liberals keep affirming right-wing talking points, usually without realizing that they're even right wing. Or saying things like, "The education of our children is a non-partisan issue that should exist outside of any ideological debate."

The hell it is. People who say stuff like this have no idea what they're talking about. The education of our children is a core cultural and political choice that reflects the deepest differences between liberals and conservatives -- because every educational conversation must start with the fundamental philosophical question: What is an education for?

Our answers to that question could not be more diametrically opposed.   READ MORE

Outrageous Lies Monsanto and Friends Are Trying to Pass off to Kids as Science

The claims made in a book from the biotechnology industry are laughable. But these blatant lies are passed off as 'science' for schoolchildren.

March 20, 2012

It's not enough that the biotech industry -- led by multinational corporations such as Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, BAS, and Dupont -- is poisoning our food and our planet. It's also poisoning young minds.

In a blatant attempt at brainwashing, the Council for Biotechnology Information (CBI) has widely circulated what it calls a Biotechnology Basics Activity Book for kids, to be used by "Agriculture and Science Teachers." The book -- called Look Closer at Biotechnology -- looks like a science workbook, but reads more like a fairy tale. Available on the council's Web site, its colorful pages are full of friendly cartoon faces, puzzles, helpful hints for teachers -- and a heavy dose of outright lies about the likely effects of genetic engineering on health, the environment, world hunger and the future of farming.

CBI's lies are designed specifically for children, and intended for use in classrooms.

  READ MORE

Trayvon Martin and the End of Excuses

Trayvon Martin. (photo: Family, Trayvon Martin)

By Charles P. Pierce, Esquire Magazine

24 March 12

e have become a nation in which children have become expendable. Trayvon Martin is just the most recent example.

We executed children in this country until long after the rest of the world - except Iran - thought that was a good idea. Almost six million children live in poverty in this country. Almost six million of them are without health insurance of any kind, and that's reckoned to be an improvement. None of this is accidental. These children are expendable because the people we elect make policy decisions of which we approve - or, at least, of which we do not disapprove. The Republicans in Congress - behind the "leadership" of zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan - would like to zero out the SCHIP children's health-care program. If they do that, it will not be done by accident. The Florida legislature, behind the leadership of the National Rifle Association, passed the "stand your ground" law, despite the fact that even police and prosecutors were warning that it amounted to a hunting license for anyone who had both a gun, and the ability to concoct a good story. Trayvon Martin is not dead by accident.

But, already, even in the face of widespread outrage, the notion is continuing to circulate through the country, like topical anesthetic working on an open wound, that what happened to Trayvon Martin was, if not entirely accidental, then merely a combination of unfortunate circumstances culminating in an entirely regrettable event. (That's not even to mention the wilder precincts of mouth-breathing public commentary. If you ever needed proof that whatever consulting genius came up with the idea of having a Comments section follow every newspaper story deserves to die a slow and painful death by honey and fire ants, this story is pretty much what you're looking for.) Conservatives caution the president not to "inject race" into the incident any further, because, as we know, we can't tell how much of a factor "race" was, because George Zimmerman was half-Hispanic and because of the backward masking on the Sergeant Pepper album. (I am not kidding.) Geraldo Rivera, looking for relevance in all the wrong places, blames hoodies:

But I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing hoodies. I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin's death as George Zimmerman was.... Every time you see someone sticking up a 7-11, the kid is wearing a hoodie.... When you see a black or Latino youngster, particularly on the street, you walk to the other side of the street. You try to avoid that confrontation.

(And every time I see someone convicted of ripping off pension funds, he's wearing a $500 suit. Don't wear $500 suits!)   READ MORE

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The legality of Zimmermans position on self defense,  obviously rests upon his being part of the "neighborhood watch" and not a "vigilante"  which would have been illegal!  

Okay,  but the 911 operator,  who speaks for the city/police/emergency services ordered him to stand down!  Had Zimmerman followed that order,  he could not have been involved with Trayvor Martin at all.

But that was not the case!  Zimmerman disobeyed his orders and that made him a vigilante unlawful,  which gave Martin the right to defend himself against the now criminal vigilante Zimmerman. 

A robber cannot break into your home or hold you up on the street and shoot you,  then claim self defense because you had tried to shoot him.   Normally,  merely following and accosting someone isn't a crime.  But,  under the circumstances where Zimmerman was acting as a "neighborhood watcher" and told not to do so by the authorities,  his actions then,  became the unlawful acts of an illegal vigilante.  He accosted Martin under the color of an authority he did not have.  To be a "neighborhood watcher",  he needed and had the permission of the police department to do certain things under certain circumstances.  When he disobeyed his instructions,  he ceased to be the legal extension of the police,  that the organization was set up to be.  He instead became a lone vigilante unlawful,  acting on his own.  Thus,  the police should have arrested him on the spot for what he did,  regardless of any and all claims,  since he had disobeyed his orders and lawfully given instructions. 

U.S. soldier held in shooting rampage that killed 16 Afghans, officials say

By Ernesto Londoño and Javed Hamdard, Published: March 11

KABUL — An American soldier walked off his base in a remote southern Afghan village shortly before dawn Sunday and opened fire on civilians inside their homes, killing at least 16, including nine children, Afghan officials said.
The shootings in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province appeared to mark the deadliest intentional attack on civilians by a U.S. soldier in the decade-long Afghanistan war. Although U.S. officials promptly detained the suspect, a staff sergeant, the incident seemed certain to stoke anti-American sentiment at a time of growing unease about the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan and increasing pessimism among Americans about the U.S. mission here.

Coming as Afghan rage over the burning of Korans by U.S. soldiers last month was beginning to taper off, the killings Sunday threatened to spark a new crisis in the strained relationship between the United States and Afghanistan. The two nations are in the midst of contentious negotiations over an agreement that could extend the presence of U.S. troops in the country beyond 2014.
The incident also provided fresh fodder to critics of the Obama administration’s Afghanistan strategy who are trying to portray the 2009 troop surge as a failed attempt to secure a dignified exit.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai called the shootings an “assassination” and demanded an explanation from U.S. officials.  READ MORE

One of Congress's Most Damaging (and Racist) Budget Cuts That Flew Under the Radar

The fund for lead-poisoning prevention was almost entirely eliminated. And here's why this is such a big deal.

This Poor poor child, for shame Congress!

For Christmas this year, Congress gave the nation's urban children a gift that will keep on giving -- a 94 percent cut in funds for lead-poisoning prevention. Once a child is poisoned by toxic lead, permanent brain damage reduces I.Q., lowers grades in school, and diminishes self-control. This, in turn, can lead to frustration, a sense of failure, impulsiveness, aggression, and, for some, potentially even violence, crime, and prison. (More on lead and prisons in a moment.)

Lead is a soft, grey metal with many practical uses, from bathroom pipes to bullets. Unfortunately, it is highly toxic to humans. Despite eons of knowledge about the toxicity of lead, during most of the 20th century Congress allowed the paint and gasoline industries to lace their products with millions of tons of the stuff, which of course ended up in the environment where much of it still remains available to poison unsuspecting children. Urban neighborhoods are full of lead today, in soil and in paint flaking off old buildings. Low-income families are hardest hit because they tend to live in old buildings poorly maintained.

With a peculiar mix of frugality and cruelty, Congress's $1 trillion spending bill for 2012 shrank a small ($30 million per year) federal lead-poisoning-prevention program to a minuscule $2 million annual effort, a 94 percent cut. And it's no surprise to anyone that the children harmed by this grinch move are mostly city kids, which means they're mostly African-American and Hispanic.  READ MORE

550 sexual abuse claims filed against Milwaukee Archdiocese

Sex abuse claims too much

By CARRIE ANTLFINGER

updated 2/2/2012 9:53:48 AM ET

MILWAUKEE — About 550 people are asking for restitution for alleged sexual abuse by clergy in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee — more than in any of the other U.S. dioceses that have filed for bankruptcy protection, according to a lawyer involved in the Milwaukee case.


The archdiocese has paid more than $30 million in settlements and other court costs related to allegations of clergy abuse and more than a dozen suits against it have been halted because of the bankruptcy proceedings. One priest alone is accused of abusing some 200 boys at a suburban school for deaf students from 1950 to 1974.

James Stang, a bankruptcy lawyer who represents creditors in the Wisconsin case, estimated that about 550 claims had been filed by the Wednesday afternoon deadline set by the bankruptcy court.
Those who filed claims will end up splitting a settlement amount that will be determined by the creditors' committee, archdiocese and its insurance company. The archdiocese had only $4.6 million in assets to be applied to claims in 2010.

A victims' advocacy group called the number of filings "extraordinarily tragic," but said that represented only a small portion of people abused by clergy. READ MORE

The US schools with their own police

Texas is a huge state. There are 1229 Independent
School Districts (ISDs) and Charter Schools in Texas
serving over 4 million students.READ MORE

January 9, 2012, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers) 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? Like hundreds of schools in the state, and across large parts of the rest of the US, Fulmore Middle [school] has its own police force with officers in uniform who carry guns to keep order in the canteens, playgrounds and lessons.

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.

"They're kids." The very young are not spared. Texas records show more than 1,000 tickets were issued to primary schoolchildren over the past six years . Note: For a long list of bizarre arrests of children, for behavior not at all unusual, that have been reported in the mainstream media, click here.