Republicans Oppose Law to Ban Physical Abuse of Children in Schools – The House of Representatives last week passed the Keeping All Students Safe Act, which for the first time sets minimum national standards for practices the use seclusion rooms, the use of “mechanical restraints” such as tying children to furniture. The bill would allow seclusion and physical restraint to be used only when there is “imminent danger of injury and only when imposed by trained staff.”
Though the bill was a bipartisan effort in reaction to a government report last year that found “hundreds of cases of alleged abuse and death” related to the practices, it was opposed by a vast majority of Republicans, who said the bill amounted to an intrusion on states’ rights and the ability of local school districts to determine their own policies.
In all, 145 Republicans and eight Democrats voted against the bill last week, which will have to get the Senate’s and the president’s approval to become law. [This is key to the strict father worldview of conservatives – children will be bad and need strict physical punishment to teach them what is right as dictated by a strict authority figure.]
School Rejects Child Because Of Lesbian Parents – Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic School, in Boulder, has refused to readmit a preschooler because her parents are lesbians.
“God and Jesus would not allow discrimination in that way,” said Joellen Raderstorf, one of about two dozen demonstrators who turned out at Sunday’s church service. Most of the protesters stood silently, across the street, holding signs. One read “God loves all people.”
Glenn Beck Urges Listeners to Leave Churches That Preach Social Justice – On his daily radio and television shows last week, Fox News personality Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that “social justice,” the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a “code word” for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice.
(Glenn Beck says, “Who you gonna’ listen to, me or some guy that lived 2,000 years ago? 😉 JLV)
Tom DeLay Says People are Unemployed Because They Want to Be – On CNN:
“People are unemployed because they want to be? ” asked Crowley.
“Well, it is the truth. And people in the real world know it,” said DeLay. [In the strict-father worldview, the individual is totally responsible for their circumstances and there is no such thing as systemic causation.]
Ryan Grim noted in The Huffington Post that “unemployment benefits are generally so small that much of it is often used to pay for COBRA health insurance, even when subsidized. The size of the benefits does not generally cover the cost of living and it would be hard to find a single person who would prefer unemployment to having a job so that they could get subsidized COBRA.”
Tennessee CEO Compares Michelle Obama to Chimpanzee
An e-mail that Walt Baker, CEO of the Tennessee Hospitality Association, sent to to a few friends, the president of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau, and several members of the press compares First Lady Michelle Obama to Tarzan’s chimpanzee sidekick Cheeta. There are two photos at the bottom — one of Obama with an awkward pursing of her lips and another of a chimp.
Baker has begun apologizing for the outrage created by the e-mail.
Sarah Palin’s Family Traveled Across Border to Canada for Health Care – At a speech in Calgary, Canada, Sarah Palin said:
“My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse. Believe it or not – this was in the ‘60s – we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.”
Humans Driving Extinction Faster Than Species Can Evolve – For the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared, humans are driving animals and plants to extinction faster than new species can evolve, one of the world’s experts on biodiversity has warned.
Conservation experts have already signaled that the world is in the grip of the “sixth great extinction” of species, driven by the destruction of natural habitats, hunting, the spread of alien predators and disease, and climate change.
“Measuring the rate at which new species evolve is difficult, but there’s no question that the current extinction rates are faster than that; I think it’s inevitable,” said Stuart.
Regards,
Jim
Andy Hailey