Liberal_in_LA
Liberal_in_LA's Journalparents want 'Of Mice and Men' banned from high schools - "too dark", "too darn much cussing"
if parents get their way, John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" and Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner" could be banned from their children's high school classrooms in Idaho and North Carolina, respectively.
The critically acclaimed novels are the targets of challenges in two cities: "Of Mice and Men" in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and "The Kite Runner" in Asheville, N.C.
In Coeur d'Alene, four members of a committee dedicated to curriculum review have urged the city's school district to ban Steinbeck's famous novel from being taught in classrooms, reports the (Spokane, Wash.) Spokesman-Review. The book would still be allowed "on a voluntary, small-group basis."
Mary Jo Finney, a parent who has previously raised objections about books in the school district's curriculum, declared that the book "is neither a quality story nor a page turner." She and other committee members have a problem with coarse language in the book, such as "bastard" and "God damn," and allege that "the teachers actually had the audacity to have students read these profanities out loud in class." They also complained that the novel, set in Depression-era California, is too "negative" and "dark."
Dave Eubanks, a nonvoting committee member, supports the recommendation. "Nobody’s banning books or burning books, he told the Spokesman-Review. "There was just too darn much cussing. It was on almost every single page of the novella."
"Of Mice and Men" was published in 1937. In 1962, John Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, being cited by the Nobel committee "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception."
http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-steinbeck-hosseini-possible-bans-20150505-story.html
Another spurious bank fee: $12 for depositing a check that bounces
road to corporate greed is paved with nickel-and-dime bank charges.
Want a paper statement? That'll cost you a few bucks. Not making enough deposits or withdrawals? That'll result in an inactivity fee of as much as $10. Don't meet minimum balance requirements? Here's your monthly $25 account maintenance fee.
But the returned-check fee might take the cake.
Brian Baltow of Thousand Oaks recently received a check from a client for $120. Unfortunately, the check bounced.
Baltow's bank, Bank of America, returned the check to the guy who wrote it. And it dinged Baltow with a $12 fee.
"They said it was my responsibility to check that the person writing the check had sufficient funds in his account," Baltow, 76, told me.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20150505-column.html
possible 15 years in jail for sex on beach in front of kids and registration as sex offenders
Couple face up to 15 years in prison and the rest of their lives on the sex offender list after jury finds them guilty of having sex on the beach in front of children
A Manatee County, Florida jury found Elissa Alvarez, 20 and her 40-year-old boyfriend Jose Caballero guilty of lewd and lascivious exhibition
Alvarez and her father broke down in tears as the verdict was read
The couple was videotapped having sex on a public beach in broad daylight on July 20, 2014
Several families witnesses the act, including a 3-year-old child
A Florida couple was found guilty on Monday of having sex on a public beach in front of families - including a 3-year-old child.
It took the Manatee County jury about 15 minutes to find 20-year-old Elissa Alvarez and her 40-year-old boyfriend Jose Caballero guilty of lewd and lascivious exhibition.
Video played in the courtroom showed Alvarez moving on top of Caballero in a sexual manner in broad daylight while several other families spent the day on the beach on July 20, 2014.
Both Caballero and Alvarez will now have to register as sex offenders, and face a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3067920/Florida-couple-convicted-having-sex-beach.html#ixzz3ZIWlU55j
Dave Goldberg, Silicon Valley Executive, Died of Head Trauma, Mexican Official Says
SAN FRANCISCO — Dave Goldberg, the chief executive of SurveyMonkey and husband of Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, died of head trauma Friday night after he collapsed at the gym at a private resort in Mexico, according to a Mexican government official.
Mr. Goldberg, 47, was on vacation with family and friends at a private beach-front villa near the Four Seasons Resort in Punta Mita, a large development with two hotels and numerous private residences close to Puerto Vallarta in southwest Mexico, according to a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office in Nayarit State.
Mr. Goldberg left his room around 4 p.m. on Friday, collapsed while exercising and died of head trauma and blood loss, said the spokesman. His brother, Robert Goldberg, found him on the floor of a gym at around 7 p.m., with blood around him. The spokesman said it appeared “he fell off the treadmill and cracked his head open.”
Mr. Goldberg was transported to Hospital San Javier in Nuevo Vallarta, with weak vital signs, and died there, said the spokesman, who added that the episode appeared to be an accident. Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook and a friend of the family, had said the death occurred while Mr. Goldberg was on vacation with Ms. Sandberg.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/technology/dave-goldberg-cause-of-death.html?referrer=
suffering is “part of the human condition" says repub who wants women to carry dead fetuses 2 term
Texas Republican Wants Women to Carry Deceased Fetuses to Full Term
The proposed amendment is so insane, even his GOP colleagues are repulsed.
By Leslie Salzillo / Daily Kos May 4, 2015
Last week in Texas, a Republican lawmaker proposed an amendment so outrageous, that even some of his own GOP colleagues were repulsed. Andrea Grimes, with RH Reality, reports:.
Rep. Matt Schaefer (R-Tyler) put forward an amendment that would make it illegal to terminate a pregnancy after 20 weeks, even if a fetus “has a severe and irreversible abnormality,” effectively forcing families with wanted, but unsustainable pregnancies to carry to term at the behest of the state and against the advice of their doctors or their own wishes.
What would cause a lawmaker to want the government to inflict more emotional pain onto an already grieving family, in addition to adding a major health risk to the mother? Does he not realize a woman can easily die of sepsis by carrying a nonviable fetus?
Schaefer said that suffering is “part of the human condition, since sin entered the world.”
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/texas-republican-wants-women-carry-deceased-fetuses-full-term
Bernhard Goetz in legal fight with landlord over pet squirrels and with cops over marijuana arrest
EXCLUSIVE: Bernhard Goetz in legal fight with landlord over pet squirrels and with cops over marijuana arrest
Notorious subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz is waging war on two legal fronts — fighting eviction from his Union Square apartment over his pet squirrels, and taking on the police over an arrest for selling weed to an undercover cop.
The 67-year-old’s beloved critter is one of many lease violations cited by Goetz’s landlord in Housing Court.
An inspection of the apartment in March, due to complaints about moths hatching from rotten food, revealed a homemade “habitrail” of cardboard boxes for a squirrel, papers show.
When an inspector asked if Goetz had more than one of the squirrels in the apartment, he replied, “Don’t ask,” according to court papers.
His squirrels have been a common sight dating back to at least 2004, when court papers say he was “observed washing a wild squirrel in the building’s laundry room.” He allegedly explained that “the squirrel had fleas.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/exclusive-bernhard-goetz-legal-fight-landord-cops-article-1.2208994
Grace Lee Whitney, Yeoman Janice Rand on ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 85
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Actress Grace Lee Whitney, who was most well known for playing Yeoman Janice Rand on the original “Star Trek” series, died May 1 in Coarsegold, Calif. She was 85.
A recovering alcoholic, she helped many people with addiction problems through women’s prisons or the Salvation Army. Her family told NBC News that she would prefer to be remembered more as “a successful survivor of addiction” than for her “Star Trek” fame.
Her death was announced by StarTrek.com, which recounted that she was dropped from the show after the eight first episodes and turned to drugs and alcohol before getting treatment and regaining her career with help from Leonard Nimoy.
Whitney was cast as the personal assistant to William Shatner’s Captain Kirk in the first season of “Star Trek” in 1966. She told StarTrek.com about her character’s crush on Kirk, “It could not be consummated. It had to be love from afar, an unrequited love between the captain and me.”
She returned for the movie franchise starting with 1979’s “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” with a promotion to chief petty officer, then in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,” “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” and she was finally promoted to lieutenant in 1991’s “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.”
http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/grace-lee-whitney-dead-dies-yeoman-janice-rand-star-trek-1201486464/
South Carolina police refuse to release video of officer killing 68 yr old man in driveway
South Carolina police refuse to release video of officer killing man in driveway
White officer followed African American Ernest Satterwhite, 68, home last year and ensuing shooting was caught on dashcam
When a white police officer in South Carolina chased a black man nine miles by car, then shot him to death in his driveway last year, the shooting apparently was captured on the officer’s dashboard camera – a video that state police have steadfastly refused to release.
North Augusta officer Justin Craven tried to pull 68-year-old Ernest Satterwhite over for drunken driving, then followed him with blue lights to his home after Satterwhite refused to stop in February 2014, authorities said.
When Satterwhite stopped in his driveway, Craven ran up to his car and fired several shots through the closed door, telling deputies later that Satterwhite tried to grab his gun, according to a report from Edgefield County deputies who joined the chase after it crossed the county line.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/03/south-carolina-police-dashcam-video-ernest-satterwhite
Craven faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of misconduct in office and discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle. A prosecutor sought to indict him for voluntary manslaughter, which carries guaranteed prison time and a maximum sentence of 30 years, but a grand jury refused.
Craven’s dashcam video has been shown to few people outside law enforcement. Several who have seen it say it is horrible and offensive, and Satterwhite had no time to respond to Craven. They will not speak on the record because they have been threatened with legal action since the video has not been publicly released.
Carly Fiorina will run for president as a successful tech CEO. Silicon Valley says that's a fantasy
Carly Fiorina will run for president as a successful tech CEO. Silicon Valley says that's a fantasy
When Carly Fiorina launches her campaign for president this week, her message to the world will be emphatic: what she did for HP, she can do for America.
From spaghetti dinners in New Hampshire to startup conferences in New York, the former head of Hewlett-Packard is expected to keep staking her claim as a pioneering executive prodigy: “It is only in the United States of America that a young woman can start as a secretary and become CEO of the largest technology company in the world,” she recently posted on Facebook, next to a low rating from a pro-choice group that she called “a badge of honor”.
Fiorina, 60, has never held public office. A 2010 run for US senate collapsed amid images of private jets and million-dollar yachts. Now, she hopes the revived record of a dot-com businesswoman will vault her over the otherwise all-male Republican field of mostly professional politicians – or at least lead to a spot as one of their vice-presidential running mates to face Hillary Clinton head-on.
“We went from a market laggard to market leader,” Fiorina has said of her six years running the computer giant. “Unlike Hillary, I have actually accomplished something.”
But those who watched what Fiorina did to HP – mishandling the $25bn acquisition of Compaq, getting ousted by the board in 2005 with a $21m golden parachute, repeatedly being named one of the worst CEOs in American corporate history – say those supposed accomplishments are already coming back to “haunt” her run for the White House.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/03/carly-fiorina-run-for-president-hewlett-packard
racism is real
1. Black sounding names are 50 percent less likely to be called back by those reviewing job applications. In a 2002 study, Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan of the University of Chicago mailed thousands of job applications to reviewers that were identical except for the names. They found that applications with white-sounding names like Emily and Brendan were much more likely to be answered than identical resumes from black-sounding names like Lakisha and Jamal.
2. Black people are charged roughly $700 more when buying cars. A study by Ian Ayres and Peter Siegelman of Yale Law School found that dealers quoted lower prices to white men than blacks and women, even though all buyers used an identical script for negotiating.
3. Black drivers are twice as likely to get pulled over. Numerous studies -- including this 1999 study by the ACLU and an analysis of FBI records by USA Today last year -- show a significant racial gap in police stops and arrests.
4. Black clients are shown 17.7 percent fewer houses for sale. A 2012 study of housing discrimination by the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development found that black homebuyers who contacted agents about recently advertised homes for sale learned about 17 percent fewer available homes than equally qualified whites and were shown 17.7 percent fewer homes. Asian homebuyers learned about 15.5 percent fewer available homes and were shown 18.8 percent fewer homes.
5. Black people are much more likely to be arrested for marijuana use. A 2013 study by the ACLU showed that, while marijuana use rates are equal among blacks and whites, black people are 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for it.
6. Black people are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of white people. A 2007 study by Marc Mauer and Ryan King of the Sentencing Project document the incredible incarceration rates of young black men. "If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spent time in prison during his lifetime," they wrote.
7. Doctors did not inform black patients as often as white ones about an important heart procedure. In a 1999 study for The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers investigated a long-standing difference in the use of cardiovascular procedures according to the race and sex of the patient. They found that women and blacks were less likely to be referred for cardiac catheterization than men and whites, respectively, and that black women were much less likely to be referred than white men.
8. White legislators did not respond as frequently to constituents with black-sounding names. In a 2011 study, Daniel Butler and David Broockman of Yale University found that state legislators were less likely to respond to requests for help with registering to vote when the sender had a putatively black name than a white one. Legislators of both parties exhibited similar levels of discrimination against constituents with "black names." However, the study also found that minority legislators did the opposite, responding more frequently to those with black names
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-one-video-that-shows-how-racism-is-real-in-the-us-10220844.html
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