Saturday, October 31, 2015

Just When You Thought You Heard It All News 10-31-15



Some people really don't like spiders. 

Chris White, a punk assistant prosecuting attorney in Logan County, West Virginia, has been suspended for pulling out a gun and threatening to shoot fake spiders set up around the office as Halloween decorations, according to WCHS, the ABC station in Charleston.

The station reported that White has arachnophobia, or a fear of spiders. 

"He said they had spiders everyplace and he said he told them it wasn't funny, and he couldn't stand them," Logan County Prosecutor John Bennett told WCHS. 

He said White pulled out a gun and while he didn't wave it around or point it at anyone, he threatened to shoot all the spiders. 

"It had no clip in it," Bennett was quoted as saying. "Of course they wouldn't know that, I wouldn't either if I looked at it, to tell you the truth."

Bennett told the station that White had been with the office for five years without incident, and that as of now he does not intend to fire him.


A short video of a little boy dressed up for Halloween as infamous Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar is drawing criticism from those who say it's inappropriate to dress up a toddler as a man who was one of the world's most wealthy and violent criminals.

They may as well have dressed him in a nazi uniform with a tiny mustache.

The video generated more than 14 million views after Break, an entertainment website, shared it on Facebook. The Facebook caption reads, "Little Pablo Escobar runs the biggest fun size Snickers cartel…"

Colombian authorities killed Escobar in 1993, but the recent Netflix original series, "Narcos" has sparked new interest in the narcoterrorist and his drug empire.

"If you think this is ok you are very uneducated on exactly who Pablo Escobar was, the terrorist acts he caused and the lasting effect it has had on the Latin world," wrote one commenter opposed to the costume.

The toddler holds a weapon in one hand, a briefcase full of cash in the other, and sports Escobar's characteristic mustache. Some people on social media defended the costume.

"You can dress your kids up as a ghost or the devil but not Pablo Escobar?" someone asked.

"Technically he's in the spirit of Halloween ... Pablo Escobar was a real life monster," wrote another.


If you've ever spotted an animal carcass on the highway and wanted to know how it tasted, and I cannot imagine who has, you're in luck, Hotel Vermont's "Wild About Vermont" festival is offering the opportunity for attendees to try selections straight from its roadkill grill.

The Burlington-based business will host the festival on Nov. 7, which will also accept wild fish and game donations from locals to serve to members of the community, reports WPTZ News Channel 5.

Attendees who pay the $75 fee will have the chance to try geese, deer, bear, moose and muskrat.

“The idea is to get people connected to their local food sources, but also to showcase the traditions of Vermont,” hotel chef Doug Paine told WPTZ.

More adventurous types may feel inspired to try a different selection. The festival will also supply three animals injured or killed on highways in the vicinity.

If the thought of eating a flattened animal makes you salivate, you're not alone. 

Many states have laws that allow people to eat roadkill provided they report the dead animals to the state or get a permit to keep them, according to a 2013 article from Modern Farmer.

PETA's website says that roadkill isahealthier option than store bought meats pumped full of antibiotics, and is more ethical than eating animals killed in slaughterhouses.

Some experts disagree.

In a 2011 Food Safety News article, Deb Cherney of Cherney Microbiological Services, suggested roadkill may pose some risks. 

“When you’re a hunter, you control the scenario, it’s so very different than finding something and having to deal with the unknown questions,” she said.

With roadkill, it's hard to know whether the animal was healthy before it was hit, she said. If an animal walks around with open wounds, it could expose itself to pathogens that are harmful to humans.


PR

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Beating Up Black Girls.

It seems like almost every other week a white law enforcement officer brutalizes a Black teenage girl....for no reason at all.

This time, a girl who refused to surrender her phone after texting in math class was flipped backward and tossed across the classroom floor by a sheriff's deputy, prompting a federal civil rights probe on Tuesday.

The sheriff said the girl "may have had a rug burn" but was not injured, and said the teacher and vice principal felt the officer acted appropriately. Still, videos of the confrontation between a white officer and black girl stirred such outrage that he called the FBI and Justice Department for help.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott suspended Senior Deputy Ben Fields without pay, and said what he did at Spring Valley High School in Columbia made him want to "throw up."

"Literally, it just makes you sick to your stomach when you see that initial video. But again, that's a snapshot," he said.

Videos taken by students and posted online show Fields warning the girl to leave her seat or be forcibly removed on Monday. The officer then wraps a forearm around her neck, flips her and the desk backward onto the floor, tosses her toward the front of the classroom and handcuffs her.

Lott pointed out at a news conference that the girl can also be seen trying to strike the officer as she was being taken down, but said he's focused on the deputy's actions as he decides within 24 hours whether Fields should remain on the force.

"I think sometimes our officers are put in uncomfortable positions when a teacher can't control a student," the sheriff said, promising to be fair.

Email, phone and text messages for Fields were not returned.

The deputy also arrested a second student who verbally objected to his actions. Both girls were charged with disturbing schools and released to their parents. Their names were not officially released.

The second student, Niya Kenny, told WLTX-TV that she felt she had to say something. Doris Kenny said she's proud her daughter was "brave enough to speak out against what was going on."

Appearing on MSNBC, Niya Kenny said an administrator told her to sit down, be quiet and to put her cellphone away. She refused.

"'This is not right. This is not right,'" Kenny recalled saying in the classroom. "'I can't believe y'all are doing this to her.'"

Kenny said Fields arrested her and handcuffed her inside the classroom.

Lt. Curtis Wilson told The Associated Press in an email to "keep in mind this is not a race issue."

"Race is indeed a factor," countered South Carolina's NAACP president, Lonnie Randolph Jr., who praised the Justice Department for agreeing to investigate.

"To be thrown out of her seat as she was thrown, and dumped on the floor ... I don't ever recall a female student who is not of color (being treated this way). It doesn't affect white students," Randolph said.

The sheriff, for his part, said race won't factor into his evaluation: "It really doesn't matter to me whether that child had been purple," Lott said.

Tony Robinson Jr., who recorded the final moments, said it all began when the teacher asked the girl to hand over her phone during class. She refused, so he called an administrator, who summoned the officer.

"The administrator tried to get her to move and pleaded with her to get out of her seat," Robinson told WLTX. "She said she really hadn't done anything wrong. She said she took her phone out, but it was only for a quick second, you know, please, she was begging, apologetic."

"Next, the administrator called Deputy Fields in. ... He asked, 'Will you move?' and she said 'No, I haven't done anything wrong,'" Robinson said.

"When I saw what was going to happen, my immediate first thing to think was, let me get this on camera. This was going to be something ... that everyone else needs to see, something that we can't just let this pass by."

Districts across the country put officers in schools after teenagers massacred fellow students at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999. Schools now routinely summon police to discipline students, experts say.

"Kids are not criminals, by the way. When they won't get up, when they won't put up the phone, they're silly, disobedient kids — not criminals," said John Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties and human rights organization.

Police should guard doors to "stop the crazies from getting in these schools," Whitehead said, but "when you have police in the schools, you're going to run into this — having police do what teachers and parents should do."

The National Association of School Resource Officers recommends that schools and police agree to prohibit officers "from becoming involved in formal school discipline situations that are the responsibility of school administrators."

At a school board meeting Tuesday night, parents spoke out about the arrest.

"This is not a race issue," said Rebekah Woodford, a white mother of two Spring Valley graduates and one current student. "This is, 'I want to be defiant and not do what I'm told.' ... The child is the one who can choose what to do."

School Superintendent Debbie Hamm said "the district will not tolerate any actions that jeopardize the safety of our students." School Board Chairman Jim Manning called the deputy's actions "shamefully shocking."

Fields, who also coaches football at the high school, has beat cases against him amid accusations of excessive force and racial bias before.

A trial is set for January in the case of an expelled student who claims Fields targeted blacks and falsely accused him of being a gang member in 2013. In another case, and a federal jury sided with Fields after a black couple accused him of excessive force and battery during a noise complaint arrest in 2005. A third lawsuit, dismissed in 2009, involved a woman who accused him of battery and violating her rights during a 2006 arrest.

Note: in the video several students can be seen in the video either on an iPad or a cell phone. The video was filmed by a student.

Let's hope that this time somebody realizes that this rogue officer is a dangerous individual who should be fired convicted and terminated.

But the fact reminds, legislation, convictions, and negative press do nothing to change the hearts of men.

PR

Monday, October 26, 2015

NYC Police Officer Steals A Building.

Just in case you didn't know, there are some certainties in life. Perhaps one of the most overlooked is the fact that you never really get away with anything. Days, weeks, or even years may pass, and just as you sink into comfortability with some of the things you've done, they come back and tear a huge chunk out of your reality. You reap what you see, later than you sew, and more than you sew....... 

Case in point. Blanche O’Neal, a 45 year old NYC police officer was arraigned in court on Monday and charged with grand larceny and perjury after forging papers in order to take ownership of a three-story family house belonging to a dead neighbor. After realizing that the house lay vacant for some time, Officer O’Neal produced faked documentation stating that she’d actually purchased it from Lillian Hudson, her deceased neighbor, for $10,000. As if you could even purchase a shoe box in New York for $10,000. She made the filing back in 2012, and apparently thought that she had gotten away with it Scot free

But what she didn't realize recognize or understand is that her dubious activities would one day come to light and put her on the wrong side of the law.

“This defendant allegedly stole a house from its rightful owner with the stroke of a pen, hoping no one would notice,” Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson said in a statement. “But her brazen actions have unraveled and she will now be held accountable. That she is a veteran NYPD officer makes this alleged crime all the more disturbing.”

After Hudson died in 1993, her nephew and three other relatives didn’t bother much with the property, 23A Vernon Avenue. As such, they didn’t know that O’Neal had filed to claim ownership of the house.

O’Neal made a move to sell the house last year to a buyer, who, in order to ensure that everything was above board, contacted the real owners of the house. It’s at that point that the real property owners discovered that O’Neal had transferred the property to her name back in 2012.

O’Neal was arraigned in Brooklyn Supreme Court where she pleaded not guilty through her lawyer.

“Bottom line is, she is not guilty,” King told reporters outside the courtroom. “And she’s going to vigorously defend the case.”

The officer, who’s been in service for 12 years, is currently on suspension without pay.

PR

Friday, October 23, 2015

Just When You Thought You Heard It All News 10-23-2015


 Authorities in......Florida. Where else, say a man and woman left the woman's name and telephone number in the guestbook of a South Florida art gallery before stealing about $6,000 worth of jewelry. All of the nut balls seem to live in Florida.

Palm Beach police say 24-year-old Megan Ohara and 19-year-old David Ziskowski took a bracelet and a ring Sunday from the Attila JK exhibition at the ICFA Gallery. They were spotted a short time later at a nearby grocery, and police reported finding the jewelry in the woman's purse.

Officers found multiple fake email addresses and at least one obscene drawing in the gallery's guestbook. But they still used their real names. Two of the fake emails included the name "Meg" and one included Ohara's actual phone number.

Ohara and Ziskowski were arrested and charged with grand theft. Jail records didn't list attorneys.



In Texas, A suburban Houston school district police officer and foot freak who pulled over a female motorist and then asked to lick her feet has been sentenced to 1 year in jail. I'm sure he'll find an all you can lick foot buffet in there, 1, 2, 3, ewwwwww!

Patrick Quinn, a 27-year-old former Cypress-Fairbanks school district police officer, pleaded guilty to official oppression. He was sentenced on Wednesday in Houston.

According to court documents, Quinn stopped the woman in August 2014 and found marijuana paraphernalia but told her he had a foot fetish and would release her if she let him lick her feet or give him her underwear. Investigators say he then changed his mind and let her go.


This boy took the high road and taught a bully a lesson with love. 

Nicolas Neesley, an 8-year-old who goes to Jennings Elementary School in Quincy, Michigan, saw a friend being picked on and pushed around on the playground by a fifth-grader. While attempting to diffuse the situation, Nicolas was spit on, his mother, Shamayne Neesley said.

Rather than respond with anger, the third-grader wrote a note addressed to the school earlier this month, offering an alternative to bullying.

He's sounds like a really nice boy. But being spit on is the most vile assault there is. I'm not sure if I'd give my third grader that advise.

In addition to offering his friendship in the letter, he promised to be respectful, responsible and caring to the bullies. He ended the note with a plea to "stop the bullying." 

"I think we need to put a stop to bullying, because it happens to like five kids every week," Nicolas told the Daily Reporter. "Every time I see someone get bullied, I break it up."

Good idea...in theory. 

PR


Thursday, October 22, 2015

She Brags On Social Media About.......


So, I read an article today about this girl and I saw a clip on "Dr. Phil" in which she talked about how much she loves negative attention. Needless to say, I was shocked, because even the most depraved individuals among us loves positive attention or being shown in a positive light. Even Charles Manson gets pissed when he's criticized, ostrisized and demonized. But this girl, seems to think its cool to publish posts on social media saying that she wants to be raped, and enjoys being raped. Yes, I said she's posted on social media that she wants to be raped and enjoys being raped. I couldn't believe what I was reading the first time I read it either. But apparently, I can still be shocked and surprised. As much as I think of myself as a worldly, wise, sophisticated man, the fact is, sometimes I feel like I'm just not ready for today's youth. At least not the ones who are growing up outside my house.


Tracey” as she calls herself, was apparently a guest on the Dr. Phil Show possibly around October 16. Admitting that she posts attention-seeking commentary on social media just to get noticed.

She boasts. “People were sharing my comments and I had 26,000 likes and 4,000 comments. No eff’s given to the fact that most of them are negative."

“I would talk about what’s going on with my life, what’s going on with my body, and the fact that I want to marry a rich white guy,” she says on a clip shown on the Dr. Phil Show.

She is shown on camera kissing some random white guy. And shows us a post she wrote that says, “I want to get raped right now.”

Adding, “rape is amazing.”

“90% of the comments are negative, but I love it. I do have a rape fetish, but I have not been raped,” she says to the camera in her Valley-girl voice, while wearing an extremely bad weave. But is nothing as bad or damaged as the brain in her head underneath that weave!

PR

Monday, October 19, 2015

The Stupid Suspension....

America used to be a progressive society. But it seems as if our progress has actually caused us to regress. Zero tolerance rules, and ultra liberal sensitivity is ruining society. EVERYTHING is offensive, and nothing is chalked up to childhood indiscretion. Conservatives are no better. They quickly point the finger at the liberal agenda, and their overreact
ions, only to impose strict punishment on those who "break the rules", which is a blatant overreaction in and of itself. IWhere is the middle ground and where does the madness end.

Last week Patrick Dinkelacker, a judge in the Hamilton County Common Pleas court, upheld the September 2014 suspension of a 

12-year-old from St. Gabriel Consolidated School in the town of Glendale, about 20 minutes north of Cincinnati.

“My son stared at a girl who was engaged in a staring game,” Candice Tolbert, the boy’s mother, told the local media. “She giggled the entire time,” said Tolbert. She also expressed concern over allegedly inconsistent application of the school’s discipline policies.

“The same girl that accused my son of this act of perception of intimidation, aggressively poured milk on someone else’s lunch. When she did that, there was no penalties for that. She received nothing for that,” Tolbert told the station.

Tolbert and her husband filed suit against the school in an effort to get the one-day suspension removed from their son’s academic record. The girl said that she “felt fearful” during the staring contest, according to court documents. The day after the contest took place, the girl’s parents contacted school officials about how their daughter was scared of the boy. The administrators talked to the boy, and he subsequently wrote an apology letter to the girl.

“I never knew she was scared because she was laughing,” the boy wrote in the letter. “I understand I done the wrong thing that will never happen again. I will start to think before I do so I am not in this situation,” he added. Tolbert and her husband were not notified that there was an issue until the day after their son wrote the apology. 

The school’s handbook states: “The principal is the final recourse in all disciplinary matters and may waive any and all rules at his/her discretion for just cause.” The school administration has refused requests for comment, and a statement from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati seems to support the actions of the administrators, as well as the court ruling.

“Judge Patrick Dinkelacker listened to the plaintiff’s arguments rejected them, and dismissed the complaint against the school. We aren’t going to comment any further on particular issues concerning our students,” reads the statement.

In recent years black children have been escorted out of class by police for wearing the wrong shoes to school and suspended for holding up three fingersin a  photo. As seen in the cases of Florida teen Kiera Wilmot and Texas teen Ahmad Mohamed, disciplinary action and law enforcement involvement might happen when black kids choose to demonstrate their scientific knowledge. Indeed, black students are three times more likely than their white peers to be suspended, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights. 

What's driving the boom in suspensions? According to research, black children may not be seen as innocent in the eyes of teachers or other parents.

A paper published in 2014 in theJournal Of Personality And Social Psychology found that black children "as young as 10 may not be viewed in the same light of childhood innocence as their white peers, but are instead more likely to be mistaken as older, be perceived as guilty and face police violence if accused of a crime."

To address the problem, in January 2014 Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and then–Attorney General Eric Holder released a 35 page document of guidelines on school discipline. The effort was designed to help teachers and principals pay more attention to the social and emotional needs of students and reduce their reliance on suspension and expulsion as a punishment.

"A routine school disciplinary infraction should land a student in the principal’s office, not in a police precinct,” Holder said in a statement at the time.

The "Belief Statement" on the website of St. Gabriel Consolidated School indicates that the staff is aware of the need to treat students equitably. “We believe each child has the right and ability to learn” and “We believe that cultural diversity is good,” it reads. However it seems Candice Tolbert is no longer convinced that the school has her son's best interests in mind.

“We invested academically into our son [for] the betterment of his education,“ Tolbert told radio host Joe Madison on his Sirius XM show, The Black Eagle, on Tuesday morning. “At the end, they want to brand him and mark him.”

“Now we’re looking to go to other schools," said Tolbert. She also expressed fear that transferring might not be so simple for her son, who is "a young black male coming to another school with his suspension on his record.”

His reputation for being a child, and doing NOTHING......

PR

Friday, October 16, 2015

Just When You Thought You Heard It All News (10-17-2015)

Only a psycho would smile after suing her 12 year old nephew for a hug. But then again, only a psycho would sue her 12 year old nephew.

The New York City woman vilified for suing her 12-year-old nephew over a broken wrist she suffered when he jumped in her arms to greet her four years ago said Thursday she was "never comfortable" with the lawsuit.

Jennifer Connell appeared on NBC's "Today" show along with her nephew, Sean Tarala. She said she wanted her nephew's parents' homeowners insurance to pay her medical bills, but under Connecticut law she could only sue an individual.

"An individual has to be named, and in this case, because Sean and I had this fall together, I was informed that Sean had to be named. I was never comfortable with that," Connell said.

But, she did it any way.....

A jury this week rejected Connell's $127,000 suit.

Connell said she broke her wrist when the boy jumped into her arms at his 8th-birthday party at his family's home in Westport, Connecticut, causing her to fall. Her attorneys say she filed suit after her nephew's parents' insurance company offered her $1 over the accident.

Connell and Sean sat side by side and said they loved each other.

"She would never do anything to hurt the family or myself," Sean said.

Connell said she was shocked by the backlash, which included her vilification on social media as a terrible aunt, the most hated woman in America and an awful human being.

"It was amazing how I walked into court that morning and walked out all over social media. It just spun and spun, and suddenly I was getting calls, 'Don't look at the Internet. Don't turn on the television,'" she said.

Sean defended his aunt, saying: "Everybody was saying stuff that they didn't know. 




Police in West Virginis say a woman accused of drunken driving and hitting six vehicles initially identified herself to an officer as "Hell on Wheels."

I wonder if she's related to "Hell on Toast" from Brooklyn.

According to reports 38-year-old Amanda Dolores Alleman of Clarksburg was arrested Friday on numerous charges. Among them are aggravated driving while under the influence, striking an unattended vehicle and having no insurance.

Wow, what a surprise!

Police say Alleman had a blood-alcohol content of 0.20 percent when she struck six parked vehicles on two different streets.

Alleman was being held at the North Central Regional Jail on $14,000 bond. The jail said they don't have a record of having an attorney yet.


Ronny Scott Hicks has two prior DUI convictions, but his arrest on Monday night was slightly more memorable.

The 54-year-old Florida wolf man was arrested Monday night after police in Palm Bay got reports of a man in a motorizedwheelchair blocking traffic, according to ClickOrlando.com.

Hicks has two previous DUI convictions neither while driving a wheelchair, according to officials.

When officers arrived on the scene, they allegedly saw Hicks sitting in his wheelchair blocking traffic. Officers said that he smelled of alcohol  and was slurring his words, according to WBRZ.com.

Hicks allegedly refused to take a breathalyzer test, according to WTSP.com. He was taken into custody, refused treatment for an open wound, and remains behind bars at the Brevard County Jail on $5,000 bond.

PR


Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Ben Carson & The Religious Right.


When it comes to political issues way too many Christian's choose to support issues based on "biblical principles" while ignoring issues that are just as important and are also "biblical issues" whether we choose to acknowledge them or not. Some of us will support a conservative candidate who is anti-abortion, but in support of the death penalty. Some of us will support a candidate who is against gay rights, but that same candidate may defend police brutality and make excuses for cold blooded murder. While it is a fact that you cannot and will not go wrong by standing on the word of God, what we must realize is that those words were not written for us to pick and choose according to what tugs at our heart strings. It is easy to site abortion as being against the word of God, and a blatant violation of one of the Ten Commandments. But the only caviat that God has is that be live my his word. Unabridged, and unedited with no revisions. The candidate that supports the police in the face of blatant murder and injustice, advocates violating the very same commandment in the face of what is deemed extenuating circumstances. So, is abortion a worse crime than the police choking a man to death? I've never seen a passage in a the bible in which there is a differentiation of sin. Sin is sin. The end result is the same. Loss of life. While the abortion rate is, and has been a concern in the black community for quite some time now, the decision to do so is legal, and protected by the law. 
Let's now allow ourselves to be fooled a conservative smoke screen. The same media outlets that will tell you that abortion is murder will also tell you that it is essentially okay for police officers to shoot and kill unarmed Black men who do not "comply". While we are busy supporting and defending these two-faced jokers, clowns, and wolves in sheeps clothing, they are not defending or supporting us. In fact, it's quite the opposite. They mock us.
Here is one such clown. The esteemed Dr. Ben Carson a man who's accomplishments I still admire, but who's principals I detest.

1. On the Holocaust: Hitler would have had more trouble taking over in Germany “if the people had been armed.”

This is quite a bizarre statement. Not many politicians, or any for that matter reference The Holocaust just to make a point. But then again, no politician has ever blamed the Jewish people who were murdered in concentration camps for not being armed. That is, after all, the inference here.

2. On being held at gunpoint at Popeyes: “You want the guy behind the counter.”

Carson had been bragging about what he would do when faced down by a gunman. So to supposedly prove his point, Carson told Sirius XM host Karen Hunter that he was once held up at a Baltimore Popeyes.

“A guy comes in, put the gun in my ribs, and I just said, ‘I believe that you want the guy behind the counter,’” he said, without further elaborating on what happened after that.

That’s a far cry away from supposedly jumping the gunman, which is what got Carson into this gun-debate debacle in the first place. 

Kill that guy, not me! Sure, this is the kind of man that I want to run this country! Said, no one ever

3. On mass-shooting victims: They shouldn’t “just stand there.”

So this was the comment that really brought Carson under sharp scrutiny in the gun control debate. The shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., Oct. 1 shook the nation but was just the latest in a way-too-long list of such tragedies that make gun control and mental illness the topics of national debate without leading to any solutions. It’s a vicious, nonsensical cycle.

But back to Carson’s comment. While being interviewed on Fox & Friends, the presidential candidate claimed that he would never back down in such a situation.

I would I probably not cooperate with him, I would not just stand there and let him shoot me. I would say, ‘Hey, guys, everybody attack him! He may shoot me, but he can't get us all."

He faced immediate backlash for his seeming insensitivity, which also reeked of victim-blaming.

4. On joking about running from the police when he was a child: “That was back in the days before they would shoot you.”

LOLOL!......NO!

Given the current political climate and the tragedies that activist groups such as Black Lives Matter are responding to, Carson’s joke about his interactions with police when he was a child was a bit ... off-color to say the least.

“Sometimes the police would come, always in unmarked cars. And they'd be chasing us across the field,” he said, describing how he and his friends would jump over high fences in one leap without breaking their stride to get away from cops. Once they cleared the fence, the group would taunt the cops, who couldn’t get across to catch them.

“That was back in the days before they would shoot you,” Carson said, laughing, before quickly adding, “I’m just kidding. You know they wouldn’t do that!”

Carson didn’t even use the ill-timed joke to talk about police brutality but instead offered praise for the police.

“I really have a tremendous amount of respect for the police because they put their lives on the line every day for us, and they are the very last people that we should be targeting,” he said............

But if you still choose to vote for Dr. Carson, go for it!

PR

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Just When You Thought You Heard It All News 10-10-2015


An unlucky woman who glued her eye shut after her friend mistook glue for eye drops is finally getting the medical treatment she needs.

With friends like that........well, you know!

Katherine Gaydos of Lantana, Florida, got a piece of debris in her eye while blowing leaves last week local newsstation reported Wednesday. She called to a friend for help, but instead of coming back with eye drops, the friend returned with a small bottle of fingernail glue -- a product that can be used to apply artificial nails or tips.

"As soon as I felt it in my eye, I felt it burn, and I closed my eye and screamed 'Call 911,'" she told WPBF-TV.

But when Gaydos first spoke with the station, eight days after the accident, her eye was still stuck shut. She told the outlet that a doctor had given her antibiotics and an ointment, but wouldn’t treat her any further because she didn’t have the money to pay him.

After her story made the news, however, Gaydos told a sources that the doctor’s office called her and told her to come back in. Then, a different doctor got her eye open and made a future appointment to scrape the remaining glue off her cornea. She expects to have no permanent damage.

The Palm Beach Eye Center in Lake Worth, where WPBF noted Gaydos had received treatment, told The Huffington Post they were unable to comment on a patient without a medical release.

Eyes getting glued shut doesn't appear to beas uncommon as one would hope. Dr. Pankaj Gupta, assistant professor of ophthalmology at Case WesternReserve University, says that he’s seen multiple cases of this happening.

If you do accidentally wind up sealing your eyelid with glue, Gupta said, “don’t panic.” People in this situation should immediately go see an eye doctor, he said, but shouldn’t be too concerned about losing their sight permanently.

To that advice, we’d only add: Stop keeping the glue near your eye drops!



A dummy placed a dummy face down in her front yard in Detroit as a Halloween prank. This stunt has prompted repeated visits by police.

Larethia Haddon says police showed up three times Tuesday, the first day she put the dummy out. The Detroit News reports  that police arrived again Wednesday and Haddon notes, "for some reason, it's getting a lot of attention" this year.

Detroit police Officer Shanelle Williams says officers were called to the home again Thursday, but they determined that it was "just a dummy."

Haddon says she puts the dummy face down in a different location in her yard every morning and watches the reactions from passers-by as she sips coffee. She says some have attempted CPR and "once they find out it's a dummy, it's so hilarious." 

NOT!!!!!


NO WORDS!

A nearly 800-pound man undergoing in-patient treatment for his obesity says a hospital kicked him out for ordering a pizza. 

Steven Assanti 33, had been staying at Rhode Island Hospital for 80 days, in which he lost 20 pounds, NBC 10 reports. But after he violated his diet, the hospital asked him to leave, he told the station.

"It's an addiction and I realize that, and it's a disease," he said.

A hospital spokeswoman confirmed to ABC in Boston that Assanti had been discharged but could not comment further.

Assanti temporarily took refuge in the trunk of his father's SUV but was admitted into Kent County Hospital on Tuesday, NBC 10 noted. His father said he needed to be monitored or risk gaining even more weight.

According to CBS in Boston, a socialworker was trying to arrange for Assanti to stay through the weekend. His father said they were also considering an apartment complex in North Attleboro, Massachusetts.

PR



Thursday, October 8, 2015

The Racist Ice Cream Song


Tonight a friend of mine burst my childhood bubble when he told me the true meaning of this song. So, now I have to do it to everyone else!

"N-word Love A Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!" merits the distinction of the most racist song title in America. Released in March 1916 by Columbia Records, it was written by actor Harry C. Browne and played on the familiar depiction of black people as mindless beasts of burden greedily devouring slices of watermelon.

When I heard this song I was PISSED! Admittedly, though, beneath my righteous indignation, I was rather curious about how this century-old, overt racist song came to be. When I started the song, the music that tumbled from the speakers was that of the ever-recognizable jingle of.....the icecream truck. (For the record, not all ice cream trucks play this same song, but a great many of them do.)

As quickly as it began, the music paused, and this call-and-response ensued:

Browne: "You niggers quit throwin' them bones and come down and get your ice cream!"

Black men (incredulously): "Ice Cream?!?"

Browne: "Yes, ice cream! Colored man's ice cream: WATERMELON!!"

My mouth dropped. The music immediately resumed and so did the racism. I soon realized that the ice cream truck song would be forever ruined for me, especially once the chorus began:

"N-word love a watermelon ha ha, ha ha!

N-word Love A Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!" merits the distinction of the most racist song title in America. Released in March 1916 by Columbia Records, it was written by actor Harry C. Browne and played on the familiar depiction of black people as mindless beasts of burden greedily devouring slices of watermelon

I wondered how such a prejudiced song could have become the anthem of ice cream and childhood summers. I learned that though Mr. Browne was fairly creative in his lyrics, the song's premise and its melody are nearly as old as America itself. As often happens with matters of race, something that is rather plain in origin is adapted and sprinkled with malice along the way.

For his creation, Browne simply used the well-known melody of the early 19th-century song "Turkey In The Straw," which dates back to the even older and traditional British song "The Old Rose Tree." The tune was brought to America's colonies by Scots-Irish immigrants who settled along the Appalachian Trail and added lyrics that mirrored their new lifestyle.

The first and natural inclination, of course, is to assume that the ice cream truck song is simply paying homage to "Turkey in the Straw," but the melody reached the nation only after it was appropriated by traveling blackface minstrel shows. There is simply no divorcing the song from the dozens of decades it was almost exclusively used for coming up with new ways to ridicule, and profit from, black people.

PR

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Inmates Beat Harvard!

TAKE THAT!!

An inmate debate team that is part of a Bard College program that helps give prisoners a chance at a better life when they are released recently went up against Harvard College Debating Union.  By all accounts, Harvard University has a pretty strong debate team, but in an unlikely turn of events, the Bard Prison Initiative Debate team won.

Three Harvard undergraduates, who were representing Cambridge in the debate, competed against three incarcerated former offenders. This was the second win for the men, who beat a team of Oxford men last year. Making the win even more shocking is the fact that the men debated a position they did not support in real life.

In the debate, the inmates had to promote the argument that “Public schools in the United States should have the ability to deny enrollment to undocumented students.” Carlos Polanco, who is serving time for manslaughter, stated after the debate that he would never want a child to not be able to enroll because he or she was undocumented.

The Harvard team admitted that they were impressed and caught of guard. The inmates won despite the fact that they were unable to use the Internet for research. Instead, they were forced to use books and articles approved by prison administration, a process that could take weeks sometimes.

The Bard Prison Initiative the men participate in was started in 2001 with the goal of allowing talented and motivated inmates the opportunity to get a liberal-arts education. Inmates do not pay tuition. Instead, the program is funded by $2.5 million in annual donations from private donors.

More than 300 alumni have earned degrees while in custody, and evidence of the positive impact is the fact that less than 2 percent of them return to prison within three years. It should be noted that the recidivism rate for New York State as a whole is around 40 percent. Nationwide, more than 75 percent of former offenders return to prison within five years. The debate team’s win is helping draw attention to the programs success and the fact that it is possible for prison to be more than just a factory of punishment, release and re-offense.

PR


Is Being Poor A Crime?


There was a law that was outlawed over 200 years ago with the 14th Amendment and reinforced more than 30 years ago by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bearden v. Georgia. According to the ruling, judges are not allowed to send people to jail just because they are too poor to pay their court fines. Instead, judges are supposed to consider whether or not a defendant has the means to pay but is “willfully” refusing to do so. However, the Supreme Court did not outline how courts and judges are supposed to determine if a defendant is “willfully” not paying, leading to thousands of Americans being locked up for weeks and sometimes years for something as simple as a minor traffic violation.

The expectations of judges vary widely, with some expecting defendants to borrow the money from family members or use their welfare or disability income to pay court fees. But, what makes matters worse is the fact that defendants are charged for government services that were once free, including some that are constitutionally required. At least 41 states charge room and board for prison stays; at least 44 states bill offenders for their own probation and parole supervision; at least 43 states charge defendants for a public defender.

Civil liberties groups have uncovered 15 states that have seen in increase in arrest warrants for debtors, and the 2008 financial crisis prompted a rise in debtor incarcerations. People who often times committ crimes because they're poor are charged fees to access to their legal rights such as the right to have an attorney and then they are incarcerated when they cannot pay.

The stories uncovered by various news agencies become more and more unbelievable the deeper they dig into these modern day debtor’s prisons. Stephen Papa of Grand Rapids, Michigan spent three weeks in jail for sneaking into an abandoned building because he was slapped with $2,600 in fees. Kyle Dewitt spent three days in jail for not being able to pay hundreds of dollars in fees associated with a criminal charge for catching a bass out of season.

Thomas Barrett, whose only income was from selling his own blood plasma, was slapped with hundreds of dollars in fines and fees for stealing a $2 can of beer. Despite skipping meals in an attempt to make payments, he eventually spent a year in jail. People are not just sent to jail for criminal justice debt but also for private debt; Robin Sanders was pulled over and taken to jail for an outstanding medical bill.

Disproportionately impacting the poor and people of color is a two tiered system that places people’s freedom on their ability to pay what sometimes amounts to thousands of dollars in fines and fees for menial traffic or quality of life citations. It should come as no surprise that the rise of private prisons has coincided with the rise of private probation companies that operate as debt collectors with handcuffs and minimal to no oversight. A report issued by Human Rights Watch specifically cites “pay-only” probation practices that exploit poor people who must set up installments because they are unable to pay an entire fine on a specific court date as also disproportionately impacting minorities.

An increasing number of municipalities are also relying on fees to balance budget shortfalls, leaving a city’s most vulnerable residents to plug financial shortfalls. The circumstances faced by those who are put in jail for their inability to pay as they lose jobs, housing and other basic necessities has led some to commit suicide.

Prison time is not the only thing haunting America’s poor; in at least eight states, a person can have their driver’s license suspended until a criminal justice debt is paid, and seven states require payment in full in order for people to regain the right to vote.

America is already the world’s leader in incarceration and is no longer considered by many to be the land of the free but rather a place where people are commodified for profit and freedom must be purchased. The country’s most vulnerable citizens are bearing the biggest burden of an immoral and corrupt legal and economic system. The International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights lists debtors’ imprisonment as a civil rights violation, and it is time for America to treat its most vulnerable citizens with enough dignity to not value money more than their freedom.

PR 

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Just When You a Thought You Heard It All News (10-3-2015)

Richard Clem is in a stinky situation: His wife filed a lawsuit last month against their former employer who allegedly fired him for farting too much.

The 70-year-old man and his wife, Louann, both worked at Case Pork Roll Company of Trenton, New Jersey. He was fired in February, 2014, for his supposed flatulance according to court documents.

Louann Clem claims in a court filing that her husband's termination was a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Richard Clem supports the lawsuit and is taking legal action on his own through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

"When the suit was filed, I didn't know it would go viral," Clem said. "I was very surprised."

Richard Clem started working at Case Pork Roll in 2004 as a comptroller and believes he did a good job.

"I brought them into the 21st century," he said proudly. 

At the time of his hire, Clem weighed about 420 pounds, but underwent gastric bypass surgery in October 2010, to get rid of his own porky belly.

Clem lost about 120 pounds before gaining back 10. He's also suffered some embarrassing side effects, including "extreme gas and uncontrollable diarrhea."

In 2013, Clem’s symptoms worsened, which caused “significant disruption in the workplace,” according to the suit.

Louann Clem, who began her job at Case Pork Roll in 2008, said company president Thomas Dolan repeatedly griped about her husband's gassy problem.

Maybe he was eating too many case pork rolls.

The suit alleges Dolan made Richard Clem work at home and said things like, "We cannot run an office and have visitors with the odor in the office," and "Tell Rich we are having complaints from people who have problems with the odors."  

Richard Clem was fired from Case Pork Roll on February 28, 2014,  Louann Clem quit the same day because of theharassmentand discrimination her husband faced as a result of his disability and the resulting symptoms".

The Clems' lawyer, David Koller, said his client's gastrointestinal disorders may be getting headlines, but aren't the key part of the case.

"Flatulence and farting is the sexy part of the story, but my client suffers from obesity, which is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act," Koller said.

Louann Clem is seeking damages from Case Pork Roll that include pain and suffering, compensatory damages and punitive damages.

Richard Clem also wants company employees to go through training programs that will prevent future incidents from occurring.

"I'm speaking up for people who are overweight," he said. "Does being obese mean you can't do a good job?"

NO! But not having self control does!!


For some self-observed, immature people, every time is the right time for a selfie.

One in five millennials are OK with taking a selfie at a funeral, according to a survey conducted by Luster Premium White a maker of teeth-whitening products.

Although the vast majority of those surveyed believe that funerals might not be a fun place for a selfie, you'd be surprised at the percentage of people who think the following is acceptable:

  • 47 percent are perfectly OK with snapping a selfie while in the throes of childbirth.
  • 50 percent are down with naked selfies.
  • 30 percent have no problem with taking a selfie during sex.

Considering the survey estimates that the average millennial spends around 54 hours a year taking selfies, it's doubtful there will be any kind of "selfie control" anytime soon.......


So, you think the cops have sank to a new low when it comes to ticket writing in your town? READ THIS!!!

Police in Concord, New Hamshire have gone lower than you could ever imagine. 

Michelle Tetreault's daughter didn't know what "repent" meant when she spotted a man with a sign around his neck warning "Repent! The end is near!" But she's plenty sorry now that her mom is facing a $124 traffic ticket for using her cellphone to snap a picture of the man.

The two were stopped at a red light in Somersworth last week when they saw the sign. Moments after Tetreault gave in to her 14-year-old daughter's pleas to take a picture, she was pulled over and told the man with the sign was actually an undercover officer. She was ticketed for violating the state's new law against using cellphones or other electronic devices while driving.

Tetreault, whose former brother-in-law died in a crash caused by a texting driver, said she never uses her phone while driving but didn't realize the law also applies to vehicles at stop signs or lights. She plans to appeal the ticket.

"I just think it's a stinky way to do it," said Tetreault, whose experience was first reported by Foster's Daily Democrat. "Granted, should I have said no to my daughter? Probably, yes. But I wasn't even thinking of the law at the time."

With more than 40 states banning text messaging for drivers and a dozen states prohibiting use of hand-held cellphones, police departments around the country are getting creative when it comes to enforcement. New York has given state police 32 unmarked SUVs to allow officers to better peer down at drivers' hands. In California, officers with the San Bernardino police have posed as panhandlers with signs reading: "I am NOT homeless. SB police looking for seatbelt/cellphone violations."

Somersworth police Chief Dean Crombie said that when New Hampshire's law took effect in July, he noticed far fewer drivers using their phones. But as time passed, the problem ramped up again.

"About two weeks ago, I was sitting in an unmarked car watching traffic, and everyone and their brother was on their phone," he said. "So we were looking at innovative ways to maybe come down on people."

He turned to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which noted that other departments have used tractor-trailers or planes to look down on drivers or positioned undercover officers on traffic medians. Somersworth settled on a five-day sting, with two officers — one with the "repent" sign and the other posing as a homeless panhandler. Officers stopped about 110 cars and issued 96 tickets.

The response from most was along the lines of "Hey, you got me, I was wrong," though a few argued entrapment, Crombie said.

"It's not entrapment. Entrapment is when you induce someone to do something they normally wouldn't," he said. "We have an obligation to make Somersworth a safer place to live, and that's why we took this step."

PR