English assignment #2

Today we read a passage in class dealing with television and the corruption thereof of the sacred family time. Afterwards, our teacher asked us to answer this question from the book.

Q: [The author] asks, “How long are we going to keep passively selling our own and our children’s souls to keep Madison Avenue on Easy Street?” (sic) Do you agree or disagree with Mayer’s contention that television has had a largely negative effect on our children and families? Write a paragraph in which you defend one of the following statements: “I believe TV is generally a harmful influence on children and families” or “I believe TV is not all that bad for children and families.” Use specific examples to support your argument.

pictured: your childhood dying.

So this is what I came up with:

I believe TV is not all that bad for children and families. To say it were would be to cast aspersions on such folk as Wilde, Marlowe, and Shakespeare. Television is nothing more than a technologically advanced version of the playhouse where Will Kemp and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men did strut and fret their weary hours. Television is a storytelling medium, with a rich history stretching back as far as language itself. Even when the stories are not strictly educational, still they can teach, in their finer moments, about the underlying truths of humanity – teaching us that we are not alone in the darkness. Television can remind us that there are others like us, laughing, crying, and courageous, sharing with us the rich tapestry that is life – a far better purpose than mere entertainment.

pictured: art.

So what would you do differently? ^^ I’d like to know.

D.A.R.E. – the new Hitler Youth?

 

D.A.R.E. promotional image - included under Fair Use

I happened upon a good article recently – you can, too, if you go here – written by Radley Balko, a senior editor at Reason Magazine and at Reason.com. For the record, Balko was previously a policy analyst for the Cato Institute specializing in civil liberties issues. You can visit his personal blog, The Agitator, here.

So we assume he knows his stuff.

The article he wrote is on the widely-known failure of the D.A.R.E. program in its primary objective – that of teaching children drug abstinence. Further, the article mentions how the kids subjected to the program do things like turn their parents in for drug use.

Let me say that again. These poor brainwashed kids turn their own parents in to law enforcement officials for negligable crimes. These same well-meaning, innocent children are then (of course) ripped away from the parents who raised them well enough to respect the police in the first place, and tossed into the loving arms of CPS. A perfect reward for telling the truth and doing what you’re told.

This has happened more than just once, by the way.

I quote the Schaffer library of drug policy: “A mother and father in Caroline County, Md., were jailed for 30 days after their daughter informed a police DARE instructor that her parents had marijuana plants in their home, according to a story in The Washington Post in January 1993. The Wall Street Journal reported in 1992 that “In two recent cases in Boston, children who had tipped police stepped out of their homes carrying DARE diplomas as police arrived to arrest their parents.” In 1991, 10-year-old Joaquin Herrera of Englewood, Colo., phoned 911, announced, “I’m a DARE kid” and summoned police to his house to discover a couple of ounces of marijuana hidden in a bookshelf, according to the Rocky Mountain News. The boy sat outside his parents’ home in a police patrol car while the police searched the home and arrested the parents. The policeman assigned to the boy’s school commended the boy’s action. ”

And another: “Nine-year-old Darrin Davis of Douglasville, Ga., called 911 after he found a small amount of speed hidden in his parent’s bedroom because, as he told the Dallas Morning News, “At school, they told us that if we ever see drugs, call 911 because people who use drugs need help . . . . I thought the police would come get the drugs and tell them that drugs are wrong. They never said they would arrest them. . . . But in court, I heard them tell the judge that I wanted my mom and dad arrested. That is a lie. I did not tell them that.” The arrest wrecked his parents’ lives, said the Dallas newspaper; both parents lost their jobs, a bank threatened to foreclose on their homes and his father was kept in jail for three months. ”

I really can’t stress enough how much I despise the D.A.R.E. program at this point. *inarticulate rage*

This one gets mah SEAL of approval ^^

Click for the full size, and TAKE NOTICE…. DAMMIT. This is simple math. *grumbles*

Fucked Up Judiciary

So I don’t know if you were aware of this, but back in February of last year, a couple of Pennsylvania judges went to jail. Wanna know why?

‘Course ya do.

An’ I’m gonna tell ya, too. Soon as I take a hit of whisky, so I don’t throttle my monitor for showing me this evil!

*Breaks the neck off of a bottle, gulps down half of the contents (including fragments of bottle) and sighs*

Okay. The reason that the damned judges got tossed in jail was for taking bribes to change the length and outcome of court cases. But that’s not all. No.

See, these cases weren’t mob cases. They were juvenile court cases. And the bribes weren’t to see that the little shits got out early, either. The bribes were to make sure that the kids stayed in longer.

That’s right. You heard me. The judges artificially inflated the sentences of kids coming before their court… and not on felony charges, either! We’re talking misdemeanor shit, the kind that a kind judge might give you a verbal warning for.

These judges were handing out long sentences to little kids out of greed!

Guess who was lining their pockets with 30 pieces? It wasn’t a mob boss, that’s for damned sure, oh no.

It was PA Child care, a private juvenile detention facility contractor. Basically, the way the scam worked out was this:

• Judges sentence little kids to longer, harder time
• More kids go to juvie . . . and stay there longer
• More kids wind up in PA Child Care’s (money-grubbing, filthy) clutches
• PA Child Care gets more reimbursement from the state every year
• PA Child Care thus raises Pennsylvania’s taxes and ruins the youth of the nation –  at the same time!

So…. yeah. these people are on my permanent shit list.

Here’s a link to the original reuters article.

Here’s a link to the PA Child care organization’s website.

And here are some things they can’t change as easily, if you feel like giving them a piece of your mind for what they did and may still be doing, for all we know.

Western PA Child Care                             PA Child Care
12 Dakota Drive                                          701 Sathers Drive
Emlenton, PA 16373                                Pittston Township, PA 18640

PHONE NUMBER                                       PHONE NUMBER
724- 867-0321                                           570-883-1803

FAX NUMBER                                             FAX NUMBER
724-867-0108                                           570-883-1479