December 8, 2014

I call this righteous anger indeed.

She should not be expected to accept an apology from the man who kept choking her husband while he was saying "I can't breathe".

I missed this a few days ago, and her answer is powerful.

'Hell No!': Eric Garner's Widow Rejects Officer's Condolences Amid Shock Over Grand Jury's Decision

At a press conference Wednesday at the Harlem headquarters of the National Action Network, the advocacy group founded by Al Sharpton, Garner's widow, Esaw Garner, and his mother, Gwen Carr, expressed their disappointment with the grand jury's decision and their frustration that Pantaleo would not be held accountable by a court.

Esaw Garner became visibly angry when asked if she accepted the remorse Pantaleo expressed earlier that day. In a statement, Pantaleo offered his condolences to the family and said he never intended to harm Garner.

"Hell no!" Garner replied. "The time for remorse would have been when my husband was yelling to breathe."

"No, I don't accept his apology. No, I could care less about his condolences," she continued. "He's still working. He's still getting a paycheck. He's still feeding his kids, when my husband is six feet under and I'm looking for a way to feed my kids now."

"Who's going to play Santa Claus for my grandkids this year?" she said. "Who's going to play Santa Claus?"

December 7, 2014

What happened to this Mom and her day old baby is scary stuff.

This just upset me so much when I read it. There was absolutely no reason for all this to happen.

Mother Loses Newborn Baby After She Is Wrongly Accused of Being on Drugs

The hospital’s reasons for believing Langwell was on drugs were all conjecture. They said that she was “hostile” when she wanted to check out early, that she packed containers that looked like they held pills, that she and her mother and the baby’s father were all shaky and irritable, and that Langwell refused a drug test while she was in labor (Langwell told Calhoun she was concerned about the cost since they were paying for the hospital out of pocket). In other words, the hospital and CPS declared Langwell to have a substance abuse issue until the point she could prove she didn’t.

Like a growing number of mothers in America, Langwell was guilty until proven innocent.

What Langwell underwent is a growing concern in the United States as mothers are being more strictly examined and children are being removed from homes at a rapid clip. Just as “personhood” style laws are jailing women who are pregnant under the guise of protecting the fetus to ensure a safe and healthy birth, mothers are being scrutinized and examined more closely than ever to protect a baby or child from being harmed by their own parents.

....That was exactly what happened to Langwell, who found CPS at her door the next day to remove her newborn and place the baby with a foster family for the child’s own “safety.” Despite agreeing to an on the spot drug test, which the agency said had “inconclusive” results because her saliva was too thick, CPS took her new baby to a hospital to do a drug test on the infant there, via inserting a catheter. That effort failed.

That's horrible. I would be a little irritable as well after 2 days of contractions.

This Mom Checked Her Newborn Out of the Hospital Early. The Next Day Her Baby Was Taken Away.

Langwell had been having contractions for two days when she told her fiancé at 11:30 p.m. that it was time to head to Desert Regional Medical Center, which she'd chosen because it allowed rooming-in and she didn't want the baby to leave her side. Once there, she asked for an epidural, but by the time everything was in place for her to receive one, it was too late. She delivered the baby naturally at 2:34 a.m., and around noon was put in a room with two other new mothers and their babies, including one who Langwell says kept talking loudly on her cellphone.

Later that afternoon, Langwell decided to check out and go home. Langwell said the baby was breastfeeding well and was healthy, and she preferred to take her home early "AMA" (against medical advice) so they could all get some sleep. When she left, a member of the hospital's staff called and reported her to the county's child welfare agency.

"Desert Regional Medical Center takes very seriously its commitment to the health of mothers and infants in our care," Richard A. Ramhoff, the hospital's marketing director, told Cosmopolitan.com, after saying that the hospital could not comment specifically on Langwell's case. "As mandated by state law, the hospital calls the County of Riverside Department of Public Social Services hotline when staff believe the situation warrants a referral. This reporting is not done lightly. Our staff reviews the details of each situation individually before fulfilling our responsibility to refer a case to child protective services for further review."

December 6, 2014

Snowden film 'CitizenFour' wins top documentary award

Snowden film 'CitizenFour' wins top documentary award


Director Laura Poitras of the best feature award nominee 'Citizenfour' poses at the International Documentary Association's 2014 IDA Documentary Awards in Los Angeles December 5, 2014.Credit: Reuters/Danny Moloshok

(Reuters) - "CitizenFour," filmmaker Laura Poitras's documentary about National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, was given the top award for best feature by the International Documentary Association on Friday.

The IDA award for "CitizenFour" follows the film's best documentary win at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards this week. It was also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award last month and is among 15 films advancing in the Oscars best documentary race.

"CitizenFour" gives a fly-on-the-wall account of Snowden's tense days in a Hong Kong hotel and encounters with journalists as newspapers published details of NSA programs that gathered data from the Internet activities and phone records of millions of Americans and dozens of world leaders.

U.S. filmmaker Poitras shared a Pulitzer Prize this year for her role in publicizing the Snowden documents. She was awarded IDA's Courage Under Fire award last year for her "conspicuous bravery in the pursuit of truth."

December 3, 2014

Charter school won't open after lies discovered. Founder lied about credentials.

Recently Diane Ravitch, a former principal, a few education bloggers called attention to a new charter being opened although the founder had questionable credentials.

Yesterday the Democrat Chronicle announced that the school was not going to open.

Charter school won't open after lies discovered


Pic from Democrat Chronicle

Greater Works Charter School will no longer open in Rochester in 2015, part of the continuing fallout over lies in the resume of its 22-year-old founder.

Ted Morris Jr. represented himself to the New York State Education Department as a precocious businessman and educational advisor with bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees earned mostly online. In fact, he has no college degrees and scant professional experience.

He resigned Nov. 25, the day most of the misrepresentations came to light and just a week after the school gained approval from the state Board of Regents. At that point, both Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and Peter Kozik, who took over as the school's trustee chairman in Morris' wake, said the school would open as planned without him.

But a NYSED spokesman said Monday that the department had asked the board of trustees to rescind its application, and the trustees complied in a letter dated Nov. 29. They are also asking the Board of Regents to take back its approval.

And unfortunately this statement by Kozik can be applied broadly to other charter owners who are getting public money without oversight.

Kozik said he didn't think to question Morris' claims more closely until it was too late.

Educator/Writer Mercedes Schneider points out a strange statement from a spokesman for the NY state DOE.

Now, in a wonderful turn of events for the community of Rochester, NYSED asked the GWCS board to rescind its application, and the GWCS board did so. Therefore, to quote the now-former-GWCS board chair Peter Kozik, “Greater Works is done.”

However, here is a nugget regarding the NYSED charter approval process, one divulged by NYSED spokesperson Dennis Tompkins: “We don’t grant charters to individuals. We grant charters to boards based on the application.” (Emphasis added.)

NYSED apparently does not investigate the individuals behind the application. What is in the application is taken at face value.

He is saying they assume the application is true, and they do not investigate.