~ * Heather on Homeless Holiday Hype * ~
Twittering One
New York Post
December 7, 2002
By Heather Mac Donald
It's the holiday season--the time when New York's press likes to
scarf
up the homelessness industry's lies even more eagerly than usual.
Thanksgiving week saw a cornucopia of made-for-the-media whoppers.
(more hype follows ...)
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_nypost-homeless.htm
~ * ~
More Holiday Homelesss Hype ...
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=gn&ned=us&q=homeless&btnG=Search+News
~ * ~
Linda
>
> ~ * ~
On America's Satanic WASP's and Jews Outrageous War Economy
Twittering One
By Kimberly Orsborn
Mount Vernon News
November 12, 2008
MOUNT VERNON — There is no single cause to blame for homelessness and,
sometimes, the issue is complicated.
“Oftentimes we find that if they are younger people,” said Joy Harris,
executive director of Interchurch Social Services, “they have either
had a fight with someone they were staying with, or mom and dad are
trying to make them take responsibility for themselves by making them
leave home.
“Their stories vary, just as people vary. I do sometimes believe they
have made ‘bad’ choices, but unless they’ve had guidance in their
earlier lives, they may not know what is a good choice or an
appropriate choice. But who am I to make that judgment?” Harris asked.
(more)
http://www.mountvernonnews.com/local/08/11/12/homelessness-cause-is-complicated
Linda
> Homelessness Cause Is Complicated
Lie.
ALL Displaced Americans are casualties of the warfare which America's
Satanic WASP's and Jews have been waging against all other Americans.
Being Displaced as a result of the warfare which America's Satanic
WASP's and Jews are waging against all other Americans is the ONLY
cause of Homelessness.
Frank
"Linda" <Indomi...@netzero.com> wrote in message
news:c8291c12-b410-4b68...@k1g2000prb.googlegroups.com...
On Nov 12, 10:59 am, Twittering One <mournenwo...@aol.com> wrote:
> Homelessness Cause Is Complicated
Lie.
=========================================================
Linda, you know little of the subject, on top of that you have
additional mental illnesses that needs be treated. Attacking The
Twittering One garners you no points, back off.
She is a caring person and far more thoughtful than yourself.
Twittering One
Capital 9 News
... and in an effort to help those who are less fortunate this holiday
season Albany County DA David Soares and Albany County Executive
Michael Breslin are putting on their dancing shoes. They're teaming up
with the Interfaith Partnership for the Homeless to perform the Cha-
Cha Slide to help "Stomp Out Homelessness".
Paper product donations will be accepted at noon today at West Capital
Park.
The Interfaith Partnership has provided shelter, clothes as well as
breakfast programs to the needy for about 25 years.
~ * ~
More Holiday Homelesss Hype ...
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=gn&ned=us&nolr=1&q=homeless&btnG=Search
~ * ~
Hagar
cannot be motivated to find a job and spend all day on-line bitching about
how bad off they are.
"Twittering One" <mourne...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:13fa692a-f100-4004...@d36g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
Linda
> Only in America do the "homeless" have computers and Web access,
>
but somehow
> cannot be motivated to find a job and spend all day on-line bitching about
> how bad off they are.
U.S. Aluminum Can Recycling Steady in 2006
The Aluminum Association, Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI), and
Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) today announced
statistics indicating that Americans and the aluminum industry
recycled 51.9 billion aluminum cans in 2006, half a billion more than
in 2005. It has the highest recycling rate of any beverage container
at 51.6 percent.
The aluminum beverage can is the most recycled consumer beverage
product in the United States and has been for more than 20 years. In
the U.S., 100.6 billion cans were produced in 2006 and the cans
recycled equaled approximately 1.52 billion pounds.
"The aluminum can is the most valuable packaging material to recycle,"
said Patrick M. Franc, chairman of The Aluminum Association and
president of ARCO Aluminum, Inc. "The practice of recycling aluminum
cans provides environmental, economic, and social benefits to
communities and organizations across the country."
"Aluminum cans continue to provide our customers and consumers with an
exceptional environmental package of choice," said Robert Budway,
president of the Can Manufacturers Institute. "When you recycle it
gets better and better compounding the benefits."
Recycling conserves energy, saves precious resources and minimizes
consumer and production waste. A can that is recycled can be back on
the store shelf in just 60 days. And it requires 95 percent less
energy and generates 95 percent less emissions.
The aluminum can industry continues to actively promote recycling
through the Curbside Value Partnership (CVP). CVP is a national
recycling program that helps communities grow participation in
residential curbside recycling programs and measures their
effectiveness. Recycling reduces carbon emissions and helps combat
climate change; so it is more important than ever to help re-energize
community recycling.
Funded by the Aluminum Association and the Can Manufacturers Institute
and their members - Alcoa, Anheuser-Busch Recycling, ARCO, Ball
Corporation, Novelis and REXAM, CVP is engaged with more than 40
communities. Partner communities have seen an average increase of 22
percent in recycling volume and 20 percent in participation.
Additionally, hundreds of other communities have benefited from the
best practices and resources shared on-line at www.recyclecurbside.org
and in print in the quarterly newsletter Bin Buzz.
The aluminum can industry supports the domestic market for aluminum
cans through marketing, research and recycling initiatives. Other
programs include the Cans for Habitat for Humanity recycling
partnership, the Recycle Challenge school drop-off program, can
advertising promotions, recycling promotion, student environmental
education programs, school and civic organization collection programs,
and other projects. The aluminum can industry recognizes and promotes
the value and importance of recycling.
The aluminum beverage can is 100 percent recyclable into new beverage
cans indefinitely - a demonstration of recycling at its finest.
Today's beverage can is lighter than ever with 34.21 cans per pound of
aluminum, almost 10 percent lighter than in 2004.
The aluminum can is the only packaging material that more than covers
the cost of collection and re-processing for itself. It also helps
subsidize the collection of other recyclable materials.
"The scrap recycling industry is encouraged that despite the modest
year-over-year growth, the report shows an increase in the volume of
recycled cans," said Robin Wiener, president of the Institute of Scrap
Recycling Industries. "This demonstrates that the all-aluminum can
continues to be recognized as a valuable recyclable commodity."
Recycling saves energy. Recycling 40 aluminum beverage cans has the
energy-saving equivalent of one gallon of gasoline. During 2006,
Americans recycled enough aluminum cans to conserve the energy
equivalent of over 15 million barrels of oil.
http://resources.alibaba.com/topic/163759/U_S_Aluminum_Can_Recycling_Steady_in_2006_.htm
Linda
> cannot be motivated to find a job and spend all day on-line bitching about
> how bad off they are.
>
>
> news:13fa692a-f100-4004...@d36g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> > Homeless Holiday Hype
> > New York Post
> > December 7, 2002
>
> > By Heather Mac Donald
>
> > It's the holiday season--the time when New York's press likes to
> > scarf
> > up the homelessness industry's lies even more eagerly than usual.
> > Thanksgiving week saw a cornucopia of made-for-the-media whoppers.
>
> > (more hype follows ...)
>
> >http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_nypost-homeless.htm
>
> > ~ * ~
> > More Holiday Homelesss Hype ...
>
> > ~ * ~- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Recycling is an economic development tool as well as an environmental
tool. Reuse, recycling, and waste reduction offer direct development
opportunities for communities. When collected with skill and care, and
upgraded with quality in mind, discarded materials are a local
resource that can contribute to local revenue, job creation, business
expansion, and the local economic base.
Recycling-based economic development has been a 30-year focus of
ILSR's work. It is the heart of our Waste to Wealth program. For three
decades, we have provided technical assistance linking reuse and
recycling with community development and have documented the job
creation and value added benefits of reuse and recycling.
On a per-ton basis, sorting and processing recyclables alone sustain
10 times more jobs than landfilling or incineration. However, making
new products from the old offers the largest economic pay-off in the
recycling loop. New recycling-based manufacturers employ even more
people and at higher wages than does sorting recyclables. Some
recycling-based paper mills and plastic product manufacturers, for
instance, employ on a per-ton basis 60 times more workers than do
landfills.
Product reuse is even more job-intensive than recycling. It is a
knowledge-based industry, with a premium placed on accurate sorting
and pricing, and good inventory management. More on jobs at reuse
operations
Job Creation:
Reuse and Recycling Vs. Disposal
Type of Operation Jobs per
10,000 TPY
Product Reuse
Computer Reuse 296
Textile Reclamation 85
Misc. Durables Reuse 62
Wooden Pallet Repair 28
Recycling-based Manufacturers 25
Paper Mills 18
Glass Product Manufacturers 26
Plastic Product Manufacturers 93
Conventional Materials Recovery Facilities 10
Composting 4
Landfill and Incineration 1
TPY = tons per year
Note: Figures are based on interviews with select facilities around
the country.
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Washington, DC, 1997.
Value is added to discarded materials as a result of cleaning,
sorting, and baling. Manufacturing with locally collected discards
adds even more value by producing finished goods. For example, old
newspapers may sell for $30 per ton, but new newsprint sells for $600
per ton. Each recycling step a community takes locally means more
jobs, more business expenditures on supplies and services, and more
money circulating in the local economy through spending and tax
payments.1
Recycling has had a major impact on job creation in local and state
economies:
In North Carolina, recycling industries employ over 8,700 people. The
job gains in recycling in this state far outnumber the jobs lost in
other industries. For every 100 recycling jobs created, just 10 jobs
were lost in the waste hauling and disposal industry, and 3 jobs were
lost in the timber harvesting industry.
A survey of ten northeastern states found that they employ 103,413
people in recycling.2
A 1992 survey in Washington found that this state had created 2,050
recycling-based jobs since 1989. 3
Massachusetts employs more than 9,000 people in more than 200
recycling enterprises. About half of these jobs are in the recycling-
based manufacturing sector. These businesses represent more than half
a billion dollars in value added to the state's economy.4
In California, meeting the state's 50% recycling goal is expected to
create about 45,000 recycling jobs, over 20,000 of which are slated to
be in the manufacturing sector.5
In Iowa, a 2001 study found that recycling-related end-use
manufacturing operations sustain over 23,000 jobs and generate nearly
$3.33 billion in total industrial output. The direct manufacturing
jobs in Iowa's recycling industry typically support high wages, on
average $47,700 per job.6 Click here for more information.
Regional studies of employment and the remanufacturing industry
indicate that recycling activities employ more than 2.5% of
manufacturing workers. Extrapolating these findings to the entire
nation, recycling and remanufacturing activities could account for
approximately 1 million manufacturing jobs and more than $100 billion
in revenue.7 Indeed, according to a recent study of recycling's
national economic impact, the U.S. Recycling Economic Information
Study, in the year 2000, the recycling and reuse industry sustained
approximately 56,000 operations that employed over 1.1 million people,
generated an annual payroll of nearly $37 billion, and grossed over
$236 billion in annual revenues. The study also documented the
"indirect" impact of recycling on support industries, such as
accounting firms and office supply companies. It found that the reuse
and recycling industry indirectly supports 1.4 million jobs that have
a payroll of $52 billion and produce $173 billion in receipts. 8
While employment in the U.S. grew only 2.1% annually between 1967 and
2000, the recycling industry saw 8.3% increase in employment, and
12.7% growth in annual sales. In 1967, the recycling industry
consisted of approximately 8,000 companies, employing 79,000 people,
with $4.6 billion in sales. See ILSR press release, Recycling Sector
Has a 30-year Record of Impressive Growth.
Endnotes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Shore, The Impact of Recycling on Jobs in North Carolina, for
the NC Recycling Business Assistance Center (Raleigh, North Carolina:
July 1995) p. 1.
Roy F. Weston, Value Added to Recyclable Materials in the Northeast,
C-096-94 (Brattleboro, Vermont: The Northeast Recycling Council, May
1994).
Deirdre Grace, "Recycling is Working," The ReMarketable News (Seattle:
Clean Washington Center, November 1992), p. 1; and Deirdre Grace
(Clean Washington Center, Seattle, Washington), personal
communication, December 1, 1992.
Robin F. Ingenthron, Value Added by Recycling Industries in
Massachusetts (Boston: Department of Environmental Protection, July
1992).
California Recycling Means Business California Jobs: A Library of
Facts (Sacramento, California: Californians Against Waste Foundation,
October 1994); and A Market Development Plan for California
(Sacramento, California: the California Integrated Waste Management
Board, 1993).
"Economic Impacts Study," press release, Recycle Iowa Office, Iowa
Department of Economic Development, October 8, 2001. Available on the
Web at: http://testing.recycleiowa.org/impact.html
Recycling... for the future: Consider the benefits, prepared by the
White House Task Force on Recycling (Washington, DC: Office of the
Environmental Executive, 1998).
U.S. Recycling Economic Information Study, prepared by RW Beck for the
National Recycling Coalition, July 2001, available on the Web at:
http://www.nrc-recycle.org/resources/rei/reihome.htm
"Recycling Sector Has a 30-Year Record of Impressive Growth," press
release, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Washington, DC, January
11, 2002. Available on the Web at: http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/recyclingma.htm.
Raving
Linda
> On Nov 14, 6:54 am, "Hagar" <ha...@sahm.name> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Only in America do the "homeless" have computers and Web access, but somehow
> > cannot be motivated to find a job and spend all day on-line bitching about
> > how bad off they are.
>
> > "Twittering One" <mournenwo...@aol.com> wrote in message
>
> >news:13fa692a-f100-4004...@d36g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>
> > > Homeless Holiday Hype
> > > New York Post
> > > December 7, 2002
>
> > > By Heather Mac Donald
>
> > > It's the holiday season--the time when New York's press likes to
> > > scarf
> > > up the homelessness industry's lies even more eagerly than usual.
> > > Thanksgiving week saw a cornucopia of made-for-the-media whoppers.
>
> > > (more hype follows ...)
>
> > >http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_nypost-homeless.htm
>
> > > ~ * ~
> > > More Holiday Homelesss Hype ...
> > >http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=gn&ned=us&q=homeless&btnG=Searc...
>
> > > ~ * ~- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -
Oops!
I cut and pasted that article without proper attribution.
The title of the article is Recyclying Means Business.
http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/recyclingmeansbusiness.html
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/recyclingmeansbusiness.html- Hide quoted text -
Linda
Ahem!
America was only a mecca for gangsters with duh-grees so long as
America insanely turned a blind eye to the gangsters with duh-grees
defrauding America of $1.2 trillion dollars annually or 10% of it's
GDP for health services that do not improve health.
Americans can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to Americans being
defrauded of $1.2 trillion dollars annually or 10% of it's GDP for
health services that do not improve health.
Hence, the party is over for all the gangsters with duh-grees who
emigrated to America to join all the other gangsters with duh-grees
defrauding America of $1.2 trillion dollars a year or 10% of America's
GDP for health services which don't improve health.
It goes without saying, that the party being over will occaision a
mass exodus of gangsters with duh-grees.
(medical tourism is all the rage; therefore, the gangsters with duh-
grees can always set up shop in developing countries)
In any event, kicking America's gangsters with duh-grees to the curb
will free up the loot which America requires to rebuild and maintain
it's infrastructure, which, in turn, will stem the flow of waste
from America to the developing countries which have been utilizing
America's waste, toxic or otherwise, to build infrastructures which
America's current infrastructure pales in comparison to.
marcia
Don't count on it.
Twittering One
By Kirstin Mcguire
Miami Herald
November 14, 2008
Thousands of people will participate in a sleep-a-thon at Markham Park
Friday night to bring attention to homelessness.
Fifteen years later, his risky lifestyle led to a drunk driving
arrest, and his mother kicked him out of the house.
Feeling hopeless, Rivera, 29, turned to the Miami Rescue Mission. Now
sober for 32 months and counting, Rivera has graduated from the
program and volunteers regularly at the mission.
''I thought I was living before, but I wasn't,'' Rivera said. ``I
wasn't living until I came here.''
Friday night, Rivera and thousands of community members will
participate in an outdoor sleep-a-thon to bring awareness to
homelessness. Like those living on the streets, participants will
sleep in cardboard boxes and sleeping bags in Sunrise's Markham Park,
16001 W. State Road 84.
(more)
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/770898.html
Jeff▲Relf
Would you like a place to stay, in Manhattan, with a locker ?
If so, how bad do you want it ? how long before you get it ?
Twittering One
Leave me alone Jeff Relf, and stop messing with the titles of my
thread.
Jeff▲Relf
All I see here is me, talking to you,
using titles that reflect the drift.
Linda
> Thousands to Sleep Under the Stars to Help Homeless
> By Kirstin Mcguire
>
> Miami Herald
> November 14, 2008
>
> Thousands of people will participate in a sleep-a-thon at Markham Park
> Friday night to bring attention to homelessness.
>
Scam!
The displaced americans I'm acquainted with sleep under bridges, or,
sleep in tunnels, or, sleep in abandoned buildings, or, sleep in
abandoned motor homes, or, sleep in abandoned buses, or, sleep in
abandoned shipping containers, or, sleep in "hooches" they build out
of pallets and plywood, etc.
The only displaced americans I've ever encountered sleeping in
cardboard boxes are the displaced americans who let themselves be
exploited by the predators making a mint running shelters, who
endeavor to maximize the contributions they receive by virtue of their
having the displaced americans they exploit camp outside their
shelters in cardboard boxes to ensure maximum visibility.
Furthermore, the war / economy coming to a complete standstill must
have created a humongous surplus of tents, as the cardboard boxes of
the displaced americans camped outside shelters preying on them have
recently been replaced by brand new tents---so they aren't even
sleeping in cardboard boxes anymore.
Raving
> On Nov 14, 11:13 am, Twittering One <mournenwo...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > Thousands to Sleep Under the Stars to Help Homeless
> > By Kirstin Mcguire
>
> > Miami Herald
> > November 14, 2008
>
> > Thousands of people will participate in a sleep-a-thon at Markham Park
> > Friday night to bring attention to homelessness.
>
> > Like those living on the streets, participants will
> > sleep in cardboard boxes ...
>
> Scam!
>
> The displaced americans I'm acquainted with sleep under bridges, or,
> sleep in tunnels, or, sleep in abandoned buildings, or, sleep in
> abandoned motor homes, or, sleep in abandoned buses, or, sleep in
> abandoned shipping containers, or, sleep in "hooches" they build out
> of pallets and plywood, etc.
That's no scam. Here is your scam.
Nevada
291,190 or rather 48% of properties which are mortgaged have negative
equity.
The debt-to-value ratio for all mortgages pooled is 89%
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/11/10/business/20081111_MORTGAGES.html
To be honest, those numbers are hard to comprehend.
Linda
>Here is your scam.
>
> Nevada
> 291,190 or rather 48% of properties which are mortgaged have negative
> equity.
> The debt-to-value ratio for all mortgages pooled is 89%
>
>
> To be honest, those numbers are hard to comprehend.
That's no scam.
Nevada being the last to boom, makes Nevada first in line to go bust.
As a matter of fact, I ran across a space at our local swap meet
which was advertizing a slew of homes being auctioned off a week or
two BEFORE the sub-prime lending crisis made the rest of America aware
of how dire things are.
Needless to say, residents of Nevada are not holding vigils to raise
public awareness of the hardships endured by the displaced americans
living off the land.
Au contraire
Residents of Nevada seem quite eager to learn how the undomiciled
manage to survive.
Frank
That's no scam.
Au contraire
=================================================
Ask Linda why she does not own a home?
The financial difference between her and the Twittering one is the
influx of state funds to Linda's purse, nothing more nothing less. The
other differences are immense with Linda on the side with negative
attributes.
Twittering One
By JULIET FLETCHER
November 15, 2008
VINELAND - As donations to food banks have dwindled, one local soup
kitchen faced a difficult time this week finding turkeys for its
Thanksgiving dinner.
Around lunchtime today, about 150 homeless and hungry adults and
children are expected to arrive at the sit-down event, held inside
First Presbyterian Church at Eighth Street and Landis Avenue, for a
turkey dinner with all the trimmings.
But members of the organizing group, Spirit and Truth Ministries, said
Friday that birds for this year's feast were hard to find, a sign that
the numerous organizations that supply such outreach have also been
feeling the economic pinch.
"We did have a problem with getting our turkeys," said kitchen head
Pam Carman, who has spent the past few weeks planning everything from
the menu - including stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes and green beans -
down to handmade placemats designed by local Girl Scouts.
(more)
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/182/story/316461.html
~ * ~
More Holiday Homelesss Hype ...
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=gn&ned=us&q=homeless&btnG=Searc...
~ * ~
Twittering One
TO NYC BELLEVUE HOSPITAL OR BELLEVUE CITY SHELTER -- who provides a
wonderful vegetarian lunch every Saturday, rain or shine, OUTSIDE on
the sidewalk, in front of Bellevue.
Twittering One
Twittering One
By Jennifer Brooks
THE TENNESSEAN
November 17, 2008
The leaves are falling, the nights are cold and Carolyn Garton would
like nothing better than to move out of her makeshift shelter in Tent
City and into a nice, warm house.
But not without her Sunshine.
"She's my baby. God brought her to me," said Garton, pulling Sunshine
into a hug. The black and tan shepherd mix thumped her tail and
wriggled closer to lick her owner's chin.
Garton, who's known around Tent City as Mama Bear, has been homeless
for two years. Sunshine's been by her side for most of it.
(more)
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20081117/NEWS01/811170332/1001/RSS6001
Twittering One
> The Pains of Being Homeless ...
>
> http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_10997749
Pain clouds cognition.
Twittering One
Faith communinity looks to take over men's shelter
Shelby Star
Monday, Nov 17 2008, 6:43 pm
Cassie Tarpley
SHELBY - If you were homeless and living in the woods, you'd probably
want something to help you done quickly.
Charles Moore does.
He's set up a tent in a thicket near a railroad track in Shelby. He
shares it with a few other men. He'd like some blankets and a non-
electric heater. Or a change in policy at The Beacon, the men's
homeless shelter.
A faith-based group talking about a new non-profit organization to
take over the shelter's operation and address related issues are
thinking much longer term.
It's been almost a year since the Mayor's Task Force on Homelessness
asked churches to step up and look at what they might do together to
help.
"I am one of the homeless," Moore said from the back row of the packed
Shelby City Council Chamber. "We have guys in the wood right now - one
with pneumonia - at camp sites with no blankets."
http://www.shelbystar.com/news/shelter_35072___article.html/homeless_shelby.html
~ * ~
More Holiday Homelesss Hype ...
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=gn&ned=us&nolr=1&q=homeless&btnG=Search
~ * ~
Jeff▲Relf
Raving
> Sure, you can cut-and-paste, but can you write ? I think not.
Why would you expect her to be able to do so?
She hasn't got a 'mood disorder'.
Didn't you know?
Good, prolific writers have an annoying and inconvenient habit of
committing suicide.
johnb...@sbcglobal.net
Why whomever the source is cross posting and throwing stuff like this
in wreck running I have no idea. It would be nice for that to stop
please.
Can they run and also write about running? I think not.
Raving
Can those with ADHD "Walk and chew gum at the same time? I think so.
Can they run and chew gum at the same time?
That would seem somewhat similar to driving whilst holding a cell
phone and talking. YMMV.
Illegal where not permitted by law. Check with the authorities in
your local jurisdiction.
Cordially running on at the mouth, sincerely,
Raving
Twittering One
Not to professional standards, as I once did -- in a competitive NYC
work environment -- under normal circumstances, with appropriate ADHD
treatment.
But I can communicate.
Twittering One
by The Associated Press
Tuesday November 18, 2008
NEW YORK -- Emergency outreach teams headed to the streets today amid
concerns that a blast of wintry weather could put homeless people in
peril.
"Extreme cold weather can lead to deaths. We need to make sure that
the neediest New Yorkers are protected in severe weather," said
Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Robert Hess.
Last year, four unsheltered homeless people died in the city during
cold weather.
Lows of around 25 degrees were forecast from tonight night to
Wednesday. The city's Code Blue Cold Weather Emergency Procedure takes
effect at 32 degrees.
Starting today, the agency had about three dozen outreach teams in
vans, ready to respond around the clock to reports of homeless people
outdoors or in the subways. Police and Department of Parks teams also
perform homeless outreach.
They are trained to look for signs of distress including frostbite or
hypothermia. Symptoms also include slurred speech, shallow breathing,
skin discoloration, blisters and waxy-feeling skin.
Officials asked New Yorkers to call the 311 city hotline when they see
homeless people. They may request a callback if they'd like to know
what action was taken.
Homeless people can be coaxed indoors, but not forced unless their
life is in danger. In that case, ambulances or police take them to a
hospital or other emergency facility.
A Code Blue alert also is issued when snow is deeper than 6 inches,
with temperatures below 15 degrees; when the wind chill is below zero
for 48 hours; or when there are sustained winds of more than 4 mph
during an ice storm, freezing rain or coastal flooding.
The city has 8,000 beds reserved -- in shelters, drop-in centers,
apartments and other buildings including the YMCA or churches. Food
also is provided.
The last survey taken, in January, counted about 3,300 unsheltered
homeless New Yorkers -- down by 25 percent over the past two years,
Hess said. Since September, about 900 have been housed, the
commissioner said.
Hess said there are no figures on whether the homeless population has
increased amid the economic downturn.
http://www.nj.com/helpinghands/index.ssf/2008/11/cold_prompts_nyc_homeless_outr.html
Double-A
> Sure, you can cut-and-paste, but can you write ? I think not.
She's written more on Usenet alone than you could read in a month!
Double-A
Twittering One
> hypothermia. Symptoms also include slurred speech, shallow breathing,
> skin discoloration, blisters and waxy-feeling skin.
Speaking from experience, during a 14-degree night last year, the
SLURRED SPEECH is a good self-monitoring sign.
It's like they say about heat stroke: BY THE TIME YOU ARE IN DANGER,
IT IS TOO LATE, because your reflexes to move and think clearly are
already compromised.
Jeff▲Relf
Can you see it happening someday ?
Twittering One
November 20, 2008
By Adam Behsudi
News-Post Staff
Counting the homeless is not without its challenges.
Every year, the Frederick Community Action Agency attempts to tabulate
those without homes.
Finding regulars to the agency's soup kitchen, food bank and health
clinic is the easy part, according to executive director Mike
Spurrier.
But the challenge of finding the homeless in rural Frederick County
can only be met through the cooperation of governments, agencies and
residents.
In past years, Spurrier said his staff has located people living in
substandard housing without indoor plumbing. One person was found
sleeping in a garage and another had made a home in a chicken coop.
(more)
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=82945
Double-A
> In Rural Areas, Homeless Often Remain Hidden
> November 20, 2008
>
> By Adam Behsudi
> News-Post Staff
>
> Counting the homeless is not without its challenges.
> Every year, the Frederick Community Action Agency attempts to tabulate
> those without homes.
>
> Finding regulars to the agency's soup kitchen, food bank and health
> clinic is the easy part, according to executive director Mike
> Spurrier.
>
> But the challenge of finding the homeless in rural Frederick County
> can only be met through the cooperation of governments, agencies and
> residents.
>
> In past years, Spurrier said his staff has located people living in
> substandard housing without indoor plumbing. One person was found
> sleeping in a garage and another had made a home in a chicken coop.
Sounds like upscale accomodations compared to mine. What I wouldn't
give for a nice warm coop! (You know, when the chickens are in there
they make it warmer!)
> (more)http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=82945
>
> ~ * ~
> More Holiday Homelesss Hype ...http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=gn&ned=us&nolr=1&q=homeless&btn...
>
> ~ * ~
I am noticing more and more bewhiskered types with backpacks and bags
hanging around this posh suburban mall. I think it is a sign of the
times.
Double-A
Frank
"Double-A" <doub...@hush.com> wrote in message
news:f892e440-cf92-493b...@3g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
I am noticing more and more bewhiskered types with backpacks and bags
hanging around this posh suburban mall. I think it is a sign of the
times.
Double-A
====================================================
Are their reindeer and sleigh parked close by?
Twittering One
For Helping the Homeless
A List of Tips ...
~ * ~
Twittering One
(it's the only thing you can't get from most Soup Kitchens ...
Although from Monday through Friday, in winter, The Church of the Holy
Apostles, New York City, offers hot tea and coffee, alternating days,
along with their lunch meal.
http://www.holyapostlesnyc.org/haskhome.htm
But I need coffee for breakfast, just to make sure I make it across
town to eat lunch.
Double-A
> Boston Health Care Offers Suggestions
> For Helping the Homeless
>
> A List of Tips ...
>
It's hard to know if my speach is slurred when my teeth are chattering
so loudly!
Double-A
>
> ~ * ~
Double-A
If any of you are feeling in the holiday spirit, you might help
Twittering out with that morning cup of coffee. See:
https://www.dunkindonuts.com/shoponline/Product.aspx?CategoryId=GIFT&GroupId=TRSVC
Double-A
Twittering One
KATHLEEN LUCADAMO
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU
November 22nd 2008, 1:23 AM
As temperatures fall and the economy crashes, 22 city churches have
been told to stop providing beds for the homeless, advocates for the
poor charged Friday.
"We will see hundreds of people who will not have a place to sleep.
It's antithetical to what the mayor talks about," said Arnold Cohen,
president of the Partnership for the Homeless, a nonprofit that serves
as the middleman between the city and faith-based shelters.
The city recently began enforcing an often-overlooked rule that
requires faith-based shelters to open five days a week, said Cohen who
told a score of churches last month they no longer qualify to house
the homeless.
The city Department of Homeless Services said these shelters - many
that have been open three nights a week for decades - should never
have been allowed to operate under terms of a contract with the
Partnership.
(more)
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/21/2008-11-21_churches_forced_to_boot_homeless.html
~ * ~
Twittering One
Did you know that some of the vagrants you see on NYC streets who
appear homeless are actually working undercover, with various parts of
law enforcement?
I know this sounds good and innovative, for potential crime reduction
and/or convictions/apprehensions.
But are you aware that some of these undercover operatives actually DO
the disgusting and scary stuff -- such as screaming like a lunatic,
tossing food garbage on sidewalks, tossing televisions on sidewalks,
obnoxious panhandling, and yelling at help volunteers?
Most of the really homelss people I have met are timid, tired, and
afraid; attracting attention to themselves is the most dangerous thing
they can do, under such conditions.
Don't be fooled into thinking all bad behavior is from real vagrants.
Twittering One
samosamo
PONTIAC, Mich., Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Police in Pontiac, Mich., have
charged two 14-year-old youths with first-degree murder in the beating
deaths of two homeless men.
The teenagers are being held in Oakland County Children's Village
pending a Dec. 3 court appearance in the case, The Detroit News
reported Monday.
Police say the two were part of a group of teens that prowled the
streets and alleys of Pontiac in search of victims.
(more)
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/11/24/Two_teens_charged_with_killing_homeless/UPI-71441227544389/
Twittering One
NY1
November 25, 2008
As winter approaches, advocates for the homeless are criticizing the
city's plan to cut back on the number of beds in some of its shelters.
Last month, the city proposed reducing the number of beds in drop-in
and faith-based facilities like churches and synagogues.
In recent weeks the city has closed 22 church shelters.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said yesterday those shelters were not in
compliance with city regulations, but advocates argue that the more
options for the homeless, the better.
"The requirement is a shelter must be open at least five days a week
and 12 months a year and some of them are not in compliance," said the
mayor.
"Those are the rules and they either have to get the shelters in
compliance or they can't provide shelters."
RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULLES????
"We have to provide regulations to help keep people safe and make sure
it's dependable."
SAFE??????????????????????????????
you just commended Bellevue SHITHOLE on safety
"We need to preserve what's good about the system, that is that on a
cold night there is some place that someone who is very vulnerable can
walk into and get the help they need," said Mary Brosnahan, executive
director of the Coalition for the Homeless.
The city is asking for community input on its plan for the homeless. A
final decision is not expected until spring.
Twittering One
Most homeless people, given a choice, MUCH PREFER a church bed to a
shelter.
Has your administration given these "non-compliant-for-reasons-of-days-
per-week" church shelters a grace period of, say, 3-6 months to
comply, before ordering them shutdown at the beginning of winter, with
the coldest November I can remember in years?
mc...@pitt.edu
Just one more data point here.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=6522256
Shelters being closed down, but the powers that be are milking what
they have for publicity.
Mick
Twittering One
Yorkers" ~ Says NYC Official Watchdog
Linda
> Dear Heather:
>
> Did you know that some of the vagrants you see on NYC streets who
> appear homeless are actually working undercover, with various parts of
> law enforcement?
>
> I know this sounds good and innovative, for potential crime reduction
> and/or convictions/apprehensions.
Get a grip!
America's criminal overworld has it's thoroughly corrupt law
enforcement agencies working with America's thoroughly corrupt
psychologists to protect members of America's Criminal Overworld from
ever being indicted, arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned, or executed
for the crimes which members of America's Criminal Overworld
perpetrates on a mass scale against others, BY, Displacing all the
criminal overworld's crime victims and/or eyewitnesses to the criminal
overworld's crimes.
America also has thoroughly corrupt law enforcement agencies working
with unethical and thoroughly corrupt US Psychologists to protect
members of America's criminal overworld from ever being indicted,
arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned and executed for the crimes they
are Guilty of perpetrating, BY, Stalking and Terrorizing the
Criminal Overworld's Now-Displaced crime victims and eyewitnesses to
their crimes to their DEATH.
> But are you aware that some of these undercover operatives actually DO
> the disgusting and scary stuff -- such as screaming like a lunatic,
> tossing food garbage on sidewalks, tossing televisions on sidewalks,
> obnoxious panhandling, and yelling at help volunteers?
"False Flag" Terrorism of Displaced Americans includes America's
Criminal Overworld deploying members of the Criminal Overworld to
attack un-displaced Americans whilst posing as Displaced Americans to
foment and/or fuel un-displaced American's hostility towards the
Criminal Overworld's Displaced crime victims so gangs of un-displaced
americans will hunt and murder the criminal overworld's displaced
crime victims and/or un-displaced americans will support the enactment
of yet more statutes which criminalize Displaced Americans working,
eating food, drinking water, breathing air, sleeping, sheltering
themselves from the elements, medicating their pain, etc.
> Most of the really homelss people I have met are timid, tired, and
> afraid; attracting attention to themselves is the most dangerous thing
> they can do, under such conditions.
True.
However, America's criminal overworld has use of the Sentient World
Simulator and all the other not so non-lethal weaponry America's
criminal overworld requires to wage unilateral warfare against it's
millions of Displaced Crime Victims and/or Displaced Eyewitnesses to
it's crimes ala the "Most Dangerous Game" Cheney is credited with
creating.
All of today's inhabitants of earth are in the same exact position vis
a vis today's not so non-lethal weapon toting WASP's as yesteryears
native americans armed with nought but arrows were vis a vis
yesteryears colonial gun toting WASP's.
Twittering One
Sacramento Bee
Nov. 26, 2008
El Dorado needs to help homeless
THE COUNTY HAS THE MEANS;
DOES IT HAVE THE WILL TO PROVIDE AID?
With a median household income of $56,629, El Dorado County is one of
this region's wealthier counties. As of 2004, less than 7 percent of
its population was living below the poverty line.
Compare that to Sacramento County, where the median income was just
$47,215 in 2004, with 13.6 percent living in poverty.
By all measures, the people who live in El Dorado County can afford to
support a homeless shelter, either through philanthropy or the
leveraging of government grants. But as winter closes in on this
mountain county, there will be no shelter in El Dorado.
Scores of people sleeping under bridges and overpasses will be
completely on their own.
(more)
http://www.sacbee.com/324/story/1428065.html
Linda
> Two Teens Charged With Killing Homeless
> samosamo
>
> PONTIAC, Mich., Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Police in Pontiac, Mich., have
> charged two 14-year-old youths with first-degree murder in the beating
> deaths of two homeless men.
>
> The teenagers are being held in Oakland County Children's Village
> pending a Dec. 3 court appearance in the case, The Detroit News
> reported Monday.
>
> Police say the two were part of a group of teens that prowled the
> streets and alleys of Pontiac in search of victims.
>
>
> ~ * ~
> More Holiday Homelesss Hype ...http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=gn&ned=us&nolr=1&q=homeless&btn...
>
> ~ * ~
The only details the journalists provides about the two Displaced
Americans who were murdered are their names, Wilford Hamilton and Lee
Hoffman Jr., and, their ages, 61 and 65, respectively.
Therefore, I'm left to conjecture wrt the identity of Wilford
Hamilton and Lee Hoffman.
Displaced American males who are 61 and 65 today would have come of
age when America's criminal overworld was coercing america's youth to
serve as their indentured servants in Viet Nam and South East Asia.
Although Hollywood produces movies depicting the angst of the suckers
who volunteerily enlisted then later became disillusioned when their
choice was a choice which left them crippled and unable to compete for
the plum positions in industry reserved for yankee doodle dandies,
such movies do NOT typify the experience of any of the survivors of
indentured servitude in Viet Nam whom I'm acquainted with.
No sirree Bob!
Their stories are something along the lines of, they were 16 or 17
year olds walking down the street, wanting nothing except to continue
walking down the street, when the devil jumped out of the bushes, in
the form of an ambush by peace officers, who paraded them before a
rogue judge, who offered them the choice of either A)enlisting in the
US military, or, B) indefinite detainment in the custody of the
state.
Given the nature of the horrific experiments which the rogues who call
themselves psychiatrists and psychologists were performing on both the
american youth incarcerated in houses of horror like Willowbrook AND
the american youth railroaded into US prisons survivors of indentured
servitude in Viet Nam apparently decided the odds of surving the front
line in Viet Nam were better then the odds of surviving the horrific
experiments US psychiatrists and psychologists were performing on
american youths incarcerated in Willowbrooks and Rahway.
Once in Viet Nam, they weren't as sure---since they were confronted
with new dilemma, which was EITHER follow their CO's orders, which
might include murdering babies asleep in their crib, OR, be murdered
by friendly fire.
Once they completed their tour of duty, they were confronted with yet
another dillemma, which is either, STFU about any war crimes they
were ordered to perpetrate or witnessed others perpetrate, OR, be
locked up in the back ward of Veteran Hospitals where homicidal
maniacs were performing horrific experiments on Veterans deemed
delusional because of their refusal to cease filing reports about what
they witnessed take place in Viet Nam.
I can't help but wonder if the very first teams of Behavioral
Cognitive Scientists weren't tasked with the debriefing of the
indentured servants returning from Viet Nam.
Now, the primary goal of the rogues who call themselves Behavioral
Cognitive Scientists is protect members of the criminal overworld from
ever being indicted, arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned or executed
for the crimes they perpetrate on a mass scale, BY, incarcerating,
debilitating, and contributing to the death of the criminal
overworld's crime victims and/or witnesses to their crimes.
In any event, whatever debriefings occurred not all of the indentured
servants returning from Viet Nam bought into any of the shittola that
the teams of BCT's were shoveling.
It was most definitely NOT their fault that there are all manner of
parasites in the world who refuse to work for their own subsistance,
and, instead subsist off the income generated by taxing their
hardworking fathers and mothers under one false pretext or another.
It was most definitely not their fault that all such parasites ever do
is sit around on their parasitic arse creating sufficient rules,
ordinances, codes, regulations, statutes and laws to ensure every
human being born on american soil is in violation of one of the tens
of millions of rules, codes, regulations, ordinances, statutes,
and laws these parasites sit dream up to create a false pretext for
apprehending them and parading them before another parasite sitting on
a bench, and given them a choice of serving as an indentured servant
to rogue CO in Viet Nam, or, being detained by the state in prisons
where rogues calling themselves psychiatrists and psychologists were
performing horrific experiments upon them.
But, it would be their fault if they continued to live their lives AS
IF there weren't a bunch of sociopathic parasites refusing to earn
their own god darn living, and, who were, instead, subsisting off
the fruits of other americans labor, whilst sitting around on their
parasitic arses dreaming up sufficient rules, ordinances, codes,
regulations, statutes and laws to ensure every living american
violates a rule et al every 28 minutes, to render them nothing more
then indentured servants of the parasitic sociopaths who suck off
them.
So lot's of survivors of indentured servitude in Viet Nam and South
East Asia refused to live their lives out AS IF US civil servants
weren't a bunch of corrupt, immoral, unethical, lying, theiving,
murdering, lazy, good for nothing, no account, blood sucking
leeches, of a mind to every man, woman, and child in american into
their indentured servants.
Instead, many survivors of indentured servitude in Viet Nam set up or
joined encampments other crime victims of the criminal overworld had
set up where they lived togetther communally until they died, OR,
were murdered in cold blood by defenders, supporters, and/or
apologists for the Pathocracy, and/or, were murdered in cold blood
by 14 yo youths who had been manipulated into murdering them by a gang
youths which had been infiltrated by members of the criminal overworld
deployed to infiltrate youth gangs to manipulate them into
perpetrating crimes against other americans.
The journalist unwillingness to include any biographical details about
the identities of the two Displaced Americans who were murdered
precludes me from knowing whether or not Wilford Hamilton and Lee
Hoffman were amongst the survivors of indentured servitude in Viet
Nam.
My suspicion that may be the case arises from not only the age and
gender, but, because the life span of Displaced Americans who
didn't receive military training in surviving the elements is eight
years, whilst displaced americans who received survival training from
the US military can and do live off the land to a ripe old age,
unless, of course they are murdered.
I suppose I'll never know---because america's criminal overworld
include a group of parasites who call themselves journalists even
though their income is generating as a result of money paid them to
write articles focusing on the Criminal Overworld's talking points,
and, money paid them not to write anything else.
In any event, the "talking point" I can be 100% certain of is that
the DISPLACEMENT of Wilford Hamilton and Lee Hoffman is the direct
result of some sort of dirty pool or zero sum game perpetrated against
them by one or more of America's parasitic pathocrats.
Living Off the Land is the choice made by americans who refuse to
provide America's parasitic pathocrats any false pretexts for hiring
yet more parasitic pathocrats to sit around on their parasitic arses
and dream up yet more rules, ordinances, regulations, codes, laws
and statutes to ensnare yet more americans into being ambushed by
rogue peace officers on their streets, and paraded before a rogue
judge who proffers them choices like "Get 3, Go Free".
If there weren't a heck of a lot of Americans who would rather die of
disease, or starve to death or freeze to death or die of heat stroke
rather then provide America's parasitic civil servants an opportunity
to maintain their illusion they are something other then parasites
engaging hard working americans in zero sum games to obtain the moolah
to support their parasitic arses, then, US physicians wouldn't be
being vetted for their willingness to force feed those whom the
parasitic pathocrats are of a mind to treat as indentured servants.
Why would the Wilford Hamilton's and Lee Hoffman's of America CHOSE to
risk disease, starving to death, freezing to death, dying of heat
strokes, being murdered by gangs of thugs, coopted by employees of
the pathocracy or not, unless the alternatives which exist as a
result of all these parasitic socopaths sucking off the rest of
Americans weren't all far worse?
If Americans weren't forced to fork over 60 to 85 % of their hard
earned money to support the parastic arses of all the parasites who
refuse to work and earn their own subsistance, then, hardworking
Americans would have plenty of dough to honor the economic bill of
rights of all americans, which includes, Wilford Hamilton and Lee
Hoffman's economic right to work.
But, Americans have been being forced to fork over 60% of their hard
earned money to support the sorry arses of a bunch of parasites who
refuse to work, therefore, Americans do not have the money to honor
the economic rights of America's 3.5 million Wilford Hamilton's and
Lee Hoffman's.
But, Americans haven't seen nothing yet.
For the last 8 years, Bush and his flying monkeys have increased the
salaries of the parasitic pathocrats to obscene heights.
The parasitic pathocrats being paid obscene salaries went out and
invested their ill gotten money in real estate which resulted in the
cost of housing skyrocketing well out of the reach of the average
american household income which is $40,000 in my state.
Course, these were heavily leveraged buys same as their investments
in energy hedge funds were.
The value of their real estate purchases was no where near the money
they borrowed to purchase the real estate.
But, being the sociopathic parasites they all are, they called on
Bush and his flying monkeys to keep all the children of parasitic
pathocrats INDOORS, by printing 7.8 trillion dollars to bail out the
banks which they borrowed obscene amounts of money to pay obscene
prices for homes with their obscene salaries as public servants.
The bailing out of the parasitic pathocrats by the printing of 7.8
trillion dollars is also known as the "No Child of Taxpaying Americans
Left Indoors Bill."
In order to pay for that money being printed to keep the children of
pathocrats indoors, the taxes on hard working americans will go from
60% to 85%.
Once hard working americans no longer have yet another 25% of their
hard earned money to employ other hard working americans, they can no
longer employ those other 25% of americans.
When unemployment reaches 30 or 35 percent, the number of Displaced
Americans will increase to 30,000,000 or 35,000, 000.
Don't like the fact that the pathocracy is levying obscene taxes on
americans making $40,000 per annum to pay the obscene salaries of
public university presidents in the millions with benefits and
pensions.....you'll likely be amongst those 30,000,000 or 35,000,000
Displaced Americans.
Remember, Bush and his flying monkeys are believed to be responsible
for the mailing of anthrax to key democratic senators to coerce them
to vote for the Patriot Act, as well as, threatening US Senate with
Martial Law In America if the US Senate fail to vote for the printing
of 7.8 trillion dollars of money to keep all the children of America's
parasitc pathocrats indoors, at the expense of leaving no child of
hard working americans footing the bill for the pathocracy INDOORS.
So now we are reading a news article where the police announced the
arrest of two members of a group of thugs the police permitted to roam
the streets to hunt down and murder Displaced Americans.
Why did the police permit a group of thugs to roam the streets to hunt
down and murder Displaced Americans.
Why did the police only arrest two members of the group of thugs who
roamed the streets to hunt down and murder displaced Americans?
Which members of the group weren't arrested?
Were any of the members of the group the children of parasitic
pathocrats whose handiwork Displaced Wilford Hamilton and Lee Hoffman?
Were any of the members of the groups employees of the pathocracy who
were deployed to infiltrate youth gangs and manipulate the more
youthful members of the group to perpetrate the dirty deeds on the
basis the state will go easy on them on account of their youth?
False Flag Terrorism of 3. 5 million Displaced Americans, whose
population is bound to swell to 30 or 40 million before too long.
Communism is the form of totalitarian government wherein the
pathocrats dictate public policy.
Is the murder of Displaced Americans by the pathocrats who displaced
them going to be public policy.
You bet it is!
And, it's all the fault of those babies being displaced to the
streets of America, and, America's Criminal Overworld can prove it,
because they got all those rules, ordinances, codes, regulations,
statutes and laws they sit around and dream up to ensure the
pathocracy can frame each and every american AS IF it's hard working
americans who are the no good niks, rather then all the parasitic
pathocrats sucking off hard working americans who are the no good
niks.
Babies who will not continue being born if the WASP's have their way.
The President Elect of the American Psychiatric Association has a
company which has applied to the FDA to allow his company to sell the
abortion pill known as RU-486 as a remedy for depression.
American WASP's are moving a bill through the US Congress which make
screening for depression mandatory for all women of child bearing age
in the US.
If rogues succeed in getting an abortion pill approved as a treatment
for depression AND succeed in getting a law enacted which will make
the mental health screening of all child bearing aged american females
mandatory, then, the rogues can deny reproductive rights of everyone
save the parasitic sociopathis like themselves!
No more retroactively aborting the Rebecca Riley's of the world to
attract world wide attention to what ROGUES psychiatrists all are.
Nobody will take notice of the fact that these rogues just displaced
tens of millions of americans by their printing 7.8 Trillion dollars
in non-existent money to keep the children of america's parasitic
pathocrats indoors in those homes they purchased on loans which far
exceeded the value of the homes, as well as, to keep their children
riding around in all those SUV's and Hummers which would be being
repossessed if not for the printing of money to keep the SUV's and
Hummers of the parasitic pathocrats from being repossessed, etc ad
nauseum ad infinitum.
Sigh......
Frank
"Linda" <Indomi...@netzero.com> wrote in message
news:ea6e8095-bcf5-4966...@a37g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
Sigh......
===============================================
Ever wonder about the "friendly fire" in the streets of Cali?
Although I wouldn't call the Riverside area particularly friendly to
anyone.
Sigh.........
LOL!
Frank
"Twittering One" <mourne...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:5413c463-fbbb-4a40...@l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
> With a median household income of $56,629, El Dorado County is one of
> this region's wealthier counties. As of 2004, less than 7 percent of
> its population was living below the poverty line.
>
> Compare that to Sacramento County, where the median income was just
> $47,215 in 2004, with 13.6 percent living in poverty.
People in the US "living in poverty" work less and live far better for
income well above the median income of the world.
People make their personal value judgments and live accordingly. Of
course there are a few exceptions.
Twittering One
USA Today
November 29, 2008
By Randi Weiner,
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News
NYACK, N.Y. — Nearly every day during the past year, Fleming Taylor
walked into the Starbucks on Main Street as the doors opened, sat in
the same purple velvet chair, read and discussed what was in The Wall
Street Journal with other regulars, and left only when the store
closed in the evening.
Now the chair where the 62-year-old Taylor sat is cordoned off with
black ribbon and filled with bouquets and notes announcing his death.
Orangetown Police Lt. Joseph Holahan said about 10:45 a.m. Wednesday,
officers were sent to 80 1/2 Main St. in Nyack after someone reported
a man's body in the stairwell. The death did not appear to be
suspicious. Holahan said he could not confirm the man's identity
because it was unclear whether all his relatives had been informed.
Starbucks employees and acquaintances, however, identified the man as
Taylor, and said he apparently was homeless and lived beneath the
stairs where he was found.
(more)
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=gn&ned=us&nolr=1&q=homeless&btnG=Search
~ * ~
More Holiday Homelesss Hype ...
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=gn&ned=us&q=homeless&btnG=Searc...
~ * ~
Twittering One
the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, where I and many others enjoyed this
Thanksgiving dinner ...
http://www.holyapostlesnyc.org/soup_kitchen/audited_financial_statement.htm
... & afterward kept warm in my neighgorhood friendly Starbucks, @ 2nd
Avenue and 32nd Street, New York City, where another wonderful staff
worked their holiday * ~
PS. Get those guns away from where I sleep ~ !
"Three people were shot and wounded yesterday in Murray Hill, police
said.
Two men, ages 17 and 38, and a woman, 21, were attacked by a gunman
for unknown reasons at 4:05 a.m. on East 34th Street at Second Avenue,
near the St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral.
The victims were rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where they were listed
in stable condition.
Police said they were being uncooperative.
The shooter fled."
~ New York Post
Twittering One
> Starbucks Shrine Created in Honor of Homeless Customer
> USA Today
> November 29, 2008
>
> By Randi Weiner,
> The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News
>
> NYACK, N.Y. — Nearly every day during the past year, Fleming Taylor
> walked into the Starbucks on Main Street as the doors opened, sat in
> the same purple velvet chair, read and discussed what was in The Wall
> Street Journal with other regulars, and left only when the store
> closed in the evening.
>
> Now the chair where the 62-year-old Taylor sat is cordoned off with
> black ribbon and filled with bouquets and notes announcing his death.
>
> Orangetown Police Lt. Joseph Holahan said about 10:45 a.m. Wednesday,
> officers were sent to 80 1/2 Main St. in Nyack after someone reported
> a man's body in the stairwell. The death did not appear to be
> suspicious. Holahan said he could not confirm the man's identity
> because it was unclear whether all his relatives had been informed.
>
> Starbucks employees and acquaintances, however, identified the man as
> Taylor, and said he apparently was homeless and lived beneath the
> stairs where he was found.
>
>
> ~ * ~
> More Holiday Homelesss Hype ...http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=gn&ned=us&q=homeless&btnG=Searc...
>
> ~ * ~
Starbucks story link ...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-11-29-starbucks-shrine_N.htm
RF
> On Nov 14, 11:13 am, Twittering One <mournenwo...@aol.com> wrote:
>> Thousands to Sleep Under the Stars to Help Homeless
>> By Kirstin Mcguire
>>
>> Miami Herald
>> November 14, 2008
>>
>> Thousands of people will participate in a sleep-a-thon at Markham Park
>> Friday night to bring attention to homelessness.
>>
>> Like those living on the streets, participants will
>> sleep in cardboard boxes ...
>
> Scam!
>
> The displaced americans I'm acquainted with sleep under bridges, or,
> sleep in tunnels, or, sleep in abandoned buildings, or, sleep in
> abandoned motor homes, or, sleep in abandoned buses, or, sleep in
> abandoned shipping containers, or, sleep in "hooches" they build out
> of pallets and plywood, etc.
>
> The only displaced americans I've ever encountered sleeping in
> cardboard boxes are the displaced americans who let themselves be
> exploited by the predators making a mint running shelters, who
> endeavor to maximize the contributions they receive by virtue of their
> having the displaced americans they exploit camp outside their
> shelters in cardboard boxes to ensure maximum visibility.
>
> Furthermore, the war / economy coming to a complete standstill must
> have created a humongous surplus of tents, as the cardboard boxes of
> the displaced americans camped outside shelters preying on them have
> recently been replaced by brand new tents---so they aren't even
> sleeping in cardboard boxes anymore.
Linda's interference and attempted distraction
here suggests she is a devout supporter of the US
Military Industrial Complex.
RF
> On Nov 19, 2:24 am, Jeff?Relf <Jeff_R...@Seattle.Invalid> wrote:
>> Sure, you can cut-and-paste, but can you write ? I think not.
>
> Why whomever the source is cross posting and throwing stuff like this
> in wreck running I have no idea. It would be nice for that to stop
> please.
>
> Can they run and also write about running? I think not.
Double-A
> ~ * Many thanks to the courteous staff and volunteers of The Church of
> the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, where I and many others enjoyed this
> Thanksgiving dinner ...
>
>
> ... & afterward kept warm in my neighgorhood friendly Starbucks, @ 2nd
> Avenue and 32nd Street, New York City, where another wonderful staff
> worked their holiday * ~
The food court from which I now post using free Wi-Fi is beside the
Starbucks booth indide a Safeway store here. Both the Starbucks and
Safeway people are nice to me.
Double-A
RF
It seems from most of the posts in this thread
that the US Military Industrial Complex is well
represented here.
Twittering One
BY FRANK X. MULLEN JR.
December 2, 2008
Some homeless men are protesting rule changes at the Reno men's drop-
in center that restrict showering time to an hour a day for
nonresidents and prohibits them from going in the building to get warm
early in the morning, or using laundry machines, telephones and tap
water.
Volunteers of America, which operates the shelters on a contract
approved in September, said the restrictions are needed to protect the
men and women living at the shelter from homeless people who aren't in
the 30-day residency program. And city officials said other services,
such as bathrooms and telephones, are available at the family center
next door to the drop-in facility.
The men's shelter has 154 residents and 13 on a waiting list. But more
than 80 homeless people sleep outdoors along the fences and in between
the buildings of the men's and women's drop-in centers.
Victor Chambers, who said he lives on the streets, gave the newspaper
a petition signed by 57 homeless people protesting the shower
restriction and other new rules at the drop-in centers.
"When the Gospel Mission ran this, they just let people in to use the
showers," he said. "I'm not that good, but I'm not that bad. I'm here,
and I'm human."
(more)
http://www.rgj.com/article/20081202/NEWS04/812020352/1321/NEWS
~ * ~
More Holiday Homelesss Hype ...
Twittering One
the Cold
By Megan Cottrell
December 02, 2008
Chicago Town Daily News
With a long, cold winter ahead, advocates for the city’s homeless
population are concerned that a new CTA policy could mean more
homeless on the streets, without anywhere to turn.
Chicago Transit Authority workers recently put up new signs at many El
stops prohibiting “continuous riders,” people who take a train to the
end of the line and then turn around and take the next train in the
other direction. City homeless advocates feel the new signs are aimed
at Chicago’s homeless population, who often stay on trains on cold
winter nights.
Ed Shurna, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the
Homeless, says he think the signs are ridiculous.
“They should take those signs down and find a way to take care of
people, not punish people,” Sherna said yesterday. “These are people
who are cold, these are people who are poor, these are people who are
suffering already. Why slap them in the face?”
Mike Doyle, who writes the blog Chicago Carless, agrees with Shurna.
“Regular CTA customers know to expect a surge in overnight homeless
riders during Chicago's harsh winter months," says Doyle, who also
writes for the Huffington Post in Chicago. "It doesn't take a rocket
scientist to figure out who this ominous signage is aimed at."
Painius
news:2da36a5e-68cd-45f6...@f20g2000yqg.googlegroups.com...
~ * ~
************************************************
Mz. V? All people really have to do is get off the train
BEFORE the end of the line and then catch another train.
The transfer cost would be about the same, and how
would officials *know* if someone is a "continuous rider"
if they don't ride to the end of the line?
happy days and...
starry starry nights!
--
Indelibly yours,
Paine Ellsworth
P.S.: "When you change the way you look at
things, the things you look at change."
> Wayne Dyer
P.P.S.: http://yummycake.secretsgolden.com
http://garden-of-ebooks.blogspot.com
http://painellsworth.net
Twittering One
> BEFORE the end of the line and then catch another train.
> The transfer cost would be about the same, and how
> would officials *know* if someone is a "continuous rider"
> if they don't ride to the end of the line?
Dunno about Chicago, but in NYC you cannot transfer for the opposite
direction at any and every station.
Painius
> Paine asked...
Ah, okay then, well like i said, if a person used to go
to the end of the line and then pay full fare to go the
other direction, then going only to the stop or two
*before* the end of the line wouldn't make a lot of
difference, would it?
Because of this way around the new dick-rule, i'd
have to agree that it's a very, *very* stupid set of
signs! Took one of those "college genius's" to come
up with them, i'd guess!
So... what? Does a "continuous rider" person get
flogged 40 lashes for getting caught? (Silly people
with homes and huge city incomes... whadda they
know?! They ain't got the good sense God gave an
amoeba!)
happy days and...
starry starry nights!
--
Indelibly yours,
Paine Ellsworth
P.S.: "Success in life comes not from holding a
good hand, but in playing a poor hand well."
> Denis Waitley
Double-A
> Chicago Transit Authority Policy May Kick Homeless off Trains, into
> the Cold
> By Megan Cottrell
>
> December 02, 2008
> Chicago Town Daily News
>
> With a long, cold winter ahead, advocates for the city’s homeless
> population are concerned that a new CTA policy could mean more
> homeless on the streets, without anywhere to turn.
>
> Chicago Transit Authority workers recently put up new signs at many El
> stops prohibiting “continuous riders,” people who take a train to the
> end of the line and then turn around and take the next train in the
> other direction.
Well they paid their fair, so whats the problem???
> City homeless advocates feel the new signs are aimed
> at Chicago’s homeless population, who often stay on trains on cold
> winter nights.
>
> Ed Shurna, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the
> Homeless, says he think the signs are ridiculous.
>
> “They should take those signs down and find a way to take care of
> people, not punish people,” Sherna said yesterday. “These are people
> who are cold, these are people who are poor, these are people who are
> suffering already. Why slap them in the face?”
>
> Mike Doyle, who writes the blog Chicago Carless, agrees with Shurna.
>
> “Regular CTA customers know to expect a surge in overnight homeless
> riders during Chicago's harsh winter months," says Doyle, who also
> writes for the Huffington Post in Chicago. "It doesn't take a rocket
> scientist to figure out who this ominous signage is aimed at."
>
> (more)http://www.chitowndailynews.org/Chicago_news/CTA_policy_may_kick_home...
>
> ~ * ~
> More Holiday Homelesss Hype ...http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=gn&ned=us&nolr=1&q=homeless&btn...
>
> ~ * ~
I have thought of riding the MAX Train all night, but I can't afford
it. Also the ride is too rough on that train, and the chairs have no
seat belts, I wouldn't get much sleep. They are also now cracking
down on anyone riding the train without a ticket.
Double-A
Twittering One
Associated Press
December 4th, 2008
A report on the death of a homeless woman last year at a Los Angeles
hospital calls it "a case of medical negligence."
The report was done for Los Angeles County and obtained by the Los
Angeles Times when it was inadvertently made public in a court filing.
It concerns the death of Edith Rodriguez at Martin Luther King-Harbor
Hospital in May 2007. She lay writhing in pain for almost an hour on a
floor before dying. Security cameras showed a janitor mopping around
her, and a nurse dismissing her problems.
Rodriguez died from a perforated bowel. The report says she could have
been saved, at least early on.
She'd been seen at the hospital at least six times in the month before
her death.
http://www.kvewtv.com/news/?sect_rank=1§ion_id=18&story_id=11925
~ * ~
Twittering One
By Louis Porter
Vermont Press Bureau
November 30, 2008
Few people in Vermont remember Dr. Robert W. Hyde, but one of his
former patients can’t forget him. The doctor was involved in one of
the nation’s darkest chapters in medical science: In the 1950s, Hyde
conducted drug and psychological experiments at a Boston hospital
through funding that apparently originated with the CIA. Later, he
became director of research at the Vermont State Hospital.
The patient, Karen Wetmore, is convinced that Hyde and other
researchers subjected her and possibly other patients to experiments
paid for by the CIA at the Waterbury facility.
In addition to her claim, new evidence, though incomplete, suggests
that such tests might have been conducted at the Vermont State
Hospital.
Several books and numerous newspaper accounts have detailed how
techniques developed through testing, including on mental health
patients at hospitals in other parts of the country, are related to
the interrogation methods used in Guantanamo and other locations in
the war on terror. These well-known and well-documented drug
experiments began in secret after the Korean War and were sponsored by
the U.S. government.
(more)
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081130/NEWS/811300299
Twittering One
By ALAN JUDD
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, November 30, 2008
For the second time in two years, Georgia will pay a million-dollar
settlement over the death of a patient at one of its beleaguered state
psychiatric hospitals.
An apology, the patient’s sister said, might have resolved the case
for much less money.
The family of Michael Ernest Webb, a 59-year-old Vietnam veteran from
Gwinnett County, will receive $1 million for agreeing not to pursue a
lawsuit against the state. Webb died Dec. 16, 2006, after nearly three
weeks without a bowel movement at Georgia Regional Hospital/Atlanta.
The payment will be the largest since a $1.25 million settlement in
2007 with the family of Sarah Elizabeth Crider. Foreshadowing Webb’s
death, the 14-year-old from Cobb County died Feb. 13, 2006, after
Georgia Regional’s medical staff overlooked a severe bowel
obstruction.
The state admitted no fault in either case. Georgia law caps the
state’s liability at $2 million.
(more)
http://www.ajc.com/health/content/metro/stories/2008/11/30/mental_health_settlement.html
Linda
Consider looking closer to home, T1.
The racists who traded in their white sheets and ropes for white lab
coats and biological weaponry couldn't possibly have access to all
those babies whom NYU and/or Columbia chemically lobotomized through
the VIP unless a slew of corrupt civil servants,
such as NYPD, civil servants employed at youth detention facilities,
civil servants employed by the Department of Health and Human
Services, civil servants employed as teachers, and administrators in
the city schools, civil servants employed at public hospitals and
public universities and/or other universities performing research as a
result of grants from the NIMH, VIOLATED the privacy rights of a heck
of a lot of NY cities black youth and/or their baby siblings.
I submit it's highly unlikely the retribution exacted the criminal
overworld exacted against wasn't merely to make you STFU about your
right to privacy having been violated, but, more then likely to make
you STFU wrt issue of public concern where the right to privacy is
concerned, because, it's highly unlikely that NYU and/or Columbia
Presbyterian could obtain access to all those babies they chemically
lobotomized UNLESS a slew of corrupt civil servants believe the laws
enacted to protect the privacy of children do not apply to any of
them.
Just food for thought, T1.
Double-A
Here in the Pacific Northwest (Hanford, WA area), they gave patients
plutonium in their breakfast food! They also released clouds of
radioactive idodine over dairy country!
Double-A
P.S. Would you go to a Dr. Hyde?
Linda
http://breggin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=53
Peter Breggin MD
Facts About Psychiatry: Racism & Social Control
The widespread diagnosing of children is a subtle form of social
control that suppresses children rather than providing them with what
they need to fulfill their basic needs in the home, school and
family. For more information about social control and youngsters see
the Children's section under Special Topics and Children's section
under Scientific Papers, and well as several of Dr. Breggin's books,
especially Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry (1998). Dr.
Breggin's blogs often address current children's issues.
In Toxic Psychiatry (1991) Dr. Breggin addresses the psychiatric
oppression of women.
Both Peter Breggin and Ginger Breggin have worked extensively to stop
racist psychiatric programs of social control, especially those aimed
at subuding inner city children. These successful reform projects are
described in detail in their book, The War Against Children of Color
(1998). The following article is based on the book and presents a
summary of their efforts.
Dr. and Mrs. Breggin detail their findings in The War Against Children
of Color,
the definitive work exposing how mental health agencies and the
government are using invalid science for social control rather than
addressing the decline of families, schools and communities or the
escalation of racism and poverty.
Campaigns Against Racist Federal Programs by the Center for the Study
of Psychiatry and Psychology
by Peter R. Breggin, M.D.
Originally published in Journal of African American Men 1:No. 3, 3-22.
Winter 1995/96
The Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology was founded in
the early 1970s to organize my international campaign to stop the
resurgence of lobotomy and other forms of psychosurgery or psychiatric
brain surgery. Initially, I had no idea that my campaign would end up
focusing on the racist intentions of federally funded biological
psychiatrists and neurosurgeons. I certainly could not have
anticipated that twenty years later, the Center would once again be
fighting a government-sponsored racist psychiatric program. This
report tells the story of the first and second violence initiatives
and the Center's efforts to counter them.
THE FIRST VIOLENCE INITIATIVE
In 1971 I discovered that psychiatrists and neurosurgeons were
planning and implementing a worldwide revival of psychosurgery. At the
time I was not an activist, but I was aware that no one had publicly
opposed the first round of lobotomies in the 1940s and 1950s. I
decided to take a stand.
My medical training convinced me that improving the techniques of
psychiatric surgery-for example, by replacing the scalpel with hot
electrodes--would not make the interventions any less damaging.
Without harming the brain, there could be no "therapeutic" effect. The
surgery must destroy enough function to flatten the patient's
emotions. There is no way to accomplish that without creating more
widespread mental devastation, including the relative loss of
essential human qualities such as creativity, spontaneity, personal
responsibility, self-insight, social sensitivity and awareness, and
judgment. Research and my personal experiences would confirm this
initial impression.2
Psychosurgery, Individual Vulnerability, and Public Health
Shortly after beginning my opposition to psychosurgery, I came under
attack in the national media from an unexpected source, three Harvard
professors-psychiatrist Frank Ervin and neurosurgeons Vernon Mark and
William Sweet. Sweet was director of neurosurgery at perhaps the most
respected hospital in the world, the Massachusetts General. Mark was
head of the department of neurosurgery at Boston City Hospital.
As the controversy heated up, a physician who asked for anonymity
directed me to published remarks made by the three doctors concerning
the use of brain surgery to suppress black urban rioters. Soon after,
in 1973, I received a brown envelope from an unidentified source in
the Department of Justice (DOJ). It contained an in-house memo
documenting that Mark and Ervin were receiving funds from the National
Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) for experiments in psychosurgery for
violence control. Meanwhile, Ervin was also receiving money from the
Department of Justice for research on genetic factors in violent
crime. Sweet was involved as a supporter, co-author, and a member of
the private foundation that funneled the government funds to Mark and
Ervin.
In a 1967 letter entitled "Role of Brain Disease in Riots and Urban
Violence" in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
Mark, Sweet and Ervin, much like current violence-initiative
advocates, focused on individual vulnerability rather than upon larger
social, economic or political factors. They asked, "if slum conditions
alone determined and initiated riots, why are the vast majority of
slum dwellers able to resist the temptations of unrestrained violence?
Is there something peculiar about the violent slum dweller that
differentiates him from his peaceful neighbor?"
Mark, Sweet and Ervin went on to suggest that this "peculiarity" was
"brain dysfunction." They called for large-scale studies of the inner
city to "pinpoint, diagnose, and treat those people with low violence
thresholds before they contribute to further tragedies." In a
supportive "Medical News" report a few weeks later, JAMA lauded Mark
and Ervin's psychosurgery as a "public health" measure.
Mark and Ervin must have felt they were on a heroic, Nobel Prize-
winning endeavor-providing a solution to worldwide mayhem, and
especially to America's urban uprisings. In 1968, a year in which they
were aggressively experimenting on patients, they wrote in Psychiatric
Opinion that "brain dysfunction" was "equally important" to "poverty,
unemployment and substandard housing" as a cause of urban violence.
They estimated that tens of millions of Americans might be violence
prone as a result of brain damage.
In testimony on civil disorders before a New York State legislative
committee in 1968 (Bird, 1968), William Sweet "said mass violence
might be touched off by leaders suffering from temporal seizures of
the brain." Sweet made a pitch for the electrical stimulation of
surgically implanted electrodes as a method of calming violent
people.
Mark, Ervin and Sweet had their greatest PR coup when their work made
the cover of Life on June 21, 1968 (Rosenfeld, 1968). Life observed,
"The psychobiology approach, new as it is, is gaining adherents so
fast that it might almost be called a movement." Life seemed to
endorse their efforts toward biomedical social control:
In a slum neighborhood, everyone may live under the same frustrating
set of pressures and tensions, but only a small minority will engage
in rioting, and even among the rioters only a handful will actually
burn down a building or assault another person. Thus psychobiology
proceeds on the premise that violent acts are carried out by violent
individuals, even if the individuals are part of a mob.
The article gave a big spread to Mark and Ervin's psychosurgery for
violence.
The fate of Thomas R
In their book, Violence and the Brain (1970), and elsewhere, Mark and
Ervin described Thomas R (sometimes called Leonard K) as a young white
man largely saved from epilepsy and completely saved from violence by
psychosurgery. When describing his outcome, they mention no serious
side effects. He was their star patient.
The patient's mother, Mrs. G., read my criticism of Mark and Ervin in
the Boston Globe and realized for the first time what had been done to
her son. She wrote to me that in reality he had been reduced almost to
a "vegetable." Thomas's tragic story is retold in detail in Breggin
and Breggin, The War Against Children.
Mark and Ervin Lose Their Funding
As a result of the antipsychosurgery campaign, all of Mark, Ervin and
Sweet's federal funding for genetic and psychosurgical experimentation
was cut off. As a long-delayed satisfaction to us, we learned this
year that the Center's campaign against the DOJ's Law Enforcement
Assistance Administration (LEAA) funding for Ervin had brought about a
dramatic reversal in official government policy. A guideline entitled
"Use of LEAA funds for Psychosurgery and Medical Research" was signed
by the LEAA administrator, Donald E. Santarelli, on June 19, 1974. The
guideline declared that any future grant applications for
psychosurgery would be denied. It further stipulated that all "medical
research," unless risk-free, would be denied and referred instead to
the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (DHEW, now DHHS). It
forbid states to use LEAA block grants to do psychosurgery or medical
experimentation.
OPERATING ON LITTLE BLACK CHILDREN
As far as we know, Mark and Ervin did not perform their psychosurgery
experiments on any African Americans. With more limited political
aims, perhaps, another surgeon was operating on numerous black
children. When I began researching the return of psychosurgery in the
early 1970s, I quickly came upon the work of O.J. Andy, director of
neurosurgery at the University of Mississippi-Ole Miss-in Jackson. He
was publishing reports on multiple surgical interventions into the
brains of small children, ages five to twelve, who were diagnosed as
aggressive and hyperactive. Of his 30-40 patients, he wrote me in
1971, most were children.
Before the controversy hit the press, l phoned Andy, who told me he
could not recall the race of any of the children. Later I contacted a
civil rights attorney in Mississippi who was able to determine that
most of them were housed in a segregated black institution for the
developmentally disabled. The attorney got onto the wards, where the
nurses told him with frustration that Andy had a completely free hand
in picking children for psychosurgery.
In 1966 Andy described J. M., age nine, who was "hyperactive,
aggressive, combative, explosive, destructive, sadistic." Over a three-
year period Andy performed four separate mutilating operations
involving at least six lesions with implanted electrodes. The
youngster was at first said to be doing well. In a subsequent 1970
article, Andy again claimed that J. M. is no longer so combative and
negative. Then he added, "lntellectually, however, the patient is
deteriorating."
While Andy did not take an activist political position like Mark,
Ervin and Sweet-he did tell B. J. Mason, a reporter for Ebony, that
black urban rioters "could have abnormal pathologic brains" and
"should undergo tests with whatever capacity we have now." Following
world-wide publicity about his operations during the antipsychosurgery
campaign, in 1973 a committee of his peers at the university declared
his research experimental. When Andy did not establish appropriate
experimental protocols, he was prohibited from operating. Andy himself
declared in 1980 that he had been forced to stop operating due to
"sociological pressures" in his home community.
VIOLENCE CENTERS THROUGHOUT URBAN AMERICA
In his 1973 State of the State message, California governor Ronald
Reagan announced plans for the establishment of a biomedical facility,
the Center for the Study of the Reduction of Violence. Supported by
state and federal funds, the first center was planned for the
psychiatry department at UCLA, headed by Louis Jolyn "Jolly" West, a
flamboyant psychiatrist known for his ability to hitch himself to hot
topics. An early draft of West's proposed UCLA center described using
schools in Chicano and African American neighborhoods to screen for
possible genetic defects. It also mentioned the possibility of
psychosurgery. The suggestion of psychosurgery for control of violence
was especially menacing in California because Santa Monica
neurosurgeon M. H. Brown was strongly advocating it. In a January 22,
1972 letter to the Los Angeles Times, he wrote "It is either this
[psychosurgery] or a further escalation of violence and chaos in
society that does not serve the best interests of the United States."
Meanwhile, Frank Ervin left the collapsing Boston project and came to
join West at UCLA. Ervin's arrival at this critical juncture alerted
people to the center's potential dangers. Despite denials from
psychiatrists West and Ervin, the discovery of references to genetics
and psychosurgery in the original proposal proved politically fatal.
Opposed by the Center and a coalition of west coast reformers,3 the
planned string of federal violence centers never got off the ground.
The Kaimowitz Trial
In 1972 the State of Michigan and the Lafayette Clinic of Wayne State
University began planning an experimental psychosurgery program for
the control of violence, using "voluntary" inmates of the state
hospital system. Gabe Kaimowitz, at the time a Michigan Legal Services
lawyer, heard about the upcoming medical event, and intervened in the
court on behalf of "John Doe" and two dozen other state psychiatric
inmates scheduled for eventual enrollment in the experimental
program.
Comparing Blacks to Bulls
Ernst Rodin was the chief neurologist and the moving force behind the
Lafayette Clinic's psychosurgery project. In 1972, Rodin wrote a
lengthy speech describing psychosurgery and castration as fitting
treatment for some of the violent behavior displayed in the riots that
had raged in his city of Detroit. Rodin voiced doubts about doing
psychosurgery without sterilization, because with psychosurgery alone
"the now hopefully more placid dullard can inseminate other equally
dull young females to produce further dull and aggressive offspring."
Rodin argued that children of limited intelligence tend to become
violent when they are treated as equals. He wanted them brought up in
an "authoritarian life style," and declared that many of them, like
aggressive bulls, should be turned into docile oxen by means of
castration. In the neurologist's own words, it was time to "get down
to cold-blooded medical research dealing with individuals rather than
masses."
The Verdict
Kaimowitz invited me to testify as his medical expert and during two
days on the stand, I gave a history of state mental hospitals and
psychosurgery. I wanted the three judges to understand that state
mental hospitals are similar to Nazi concentration camps in how they
suppress and humiliate their involuntary inmates; and I wanted to
suggest the applicability of the Nuremberg Code.
The Nuremberg Code was originally written into the final opinion of
the judges at the first War Crimes Tribunals in postwar Germany. It
consists of ten principles for "permissible medical experiments." The
first principle states in part that the human subject "should be so
situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the
intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-
reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion" (Trials of
War Criminals, 1946-1949, pp. 181-182).
The Nuremberg Code meant that Jewish inmates of concentration camps
were not actually volunteers when they seemingly agreed to participate
in medical experiments, such as being frozen in ice water. If they did
acquiesce to these experiments, their consent was coerced by fear of
other worse alternatives, such as torture or death in the gas
chambers.
After hearing a spectrum of witnesses, the three judges agreed with
the substance of my testimony, including the devastating effects of
the most modern psychosurgery.4 Their official opinion cited the
Nuremberg Code and used it as one reason for prohibiting consent to
psychosurgery in the state mental hospitals of Michigan. The judges
found that "involuntarily confined patients cannot reason as equals
with doctors and administrators over whether they should undergo
psychosurgery." They declared that under First Amendment freedoms the
"government has no power or right to control men's minds, thoughts,
and expressions. If the First Amendment protects the freedom to
express ideas, it necessarily follows that it must protect the freedom
to generate ideas."
The opinion was never appealed and stands to this day. It continues to
inhibit the performance of psychosurgery throughout the country,
especially in state mental hospitals and prisons.
As described in The War Against Children, there are contemporary
attempts to revive lobotomy and other forms of psychosurgery, although
none of the advocates now dare tie their work to political aims. What
keeps advocates of psychosurgery from proceeding ahead full-throttle?
Is it their own scientific caution or ethical concerns? In
Psychosurgery, (1992), Rodgers quotes Donlin Long, the Johns Hopkins
director of neurosurgery:
``You'd also need an institutional commitment to absolutely pristine
science and the guts to tell the Peter Breggins of the world to stuff
it," he [Long] added, referring to psychiatrist Peter Breggin's
lifelong battle to ban psychiatric surgery.
RESULTS FOR THE FIRST VIOLENCE INITIATIVE
Overall, the Center's activities-supported by other activists and
organizations around the country-resulted in victory over the first
violence initiative. The most effective activists were found in the
black community, especially the Black Congressional Caucus. Louis
Stokes (D-OH) and Ronald V. Dellums (D-CA) became founding members of
the Center's board of directors, and have remained with the Center for
the past twenty years. The single most important media event was
probably an article in Ebony written by B. J. Mason (1973) in which he
exposed the whole racist agenda.
In a surprising coalition, white conservatives in the U.S. Senate were
also instrumental in opposing some aspects of the first violence
initiative, especially the resurgence of psychiatric brain surgery.
Their chief concern was not racial justice but morality. To many of
them, tampering with the brain for emotional or behavioral control
robbed individuals of personal responsibility and was therefore
unethical.
After the debacle of the late 1970s, leaders of biological psychiatry
avoided linking their efforts to anything that might be construed as a
racist political agenda. Unhappily, they could not be silenced or held
in check indefinitely. The rise of violent crime, renewed racism, and
economic stresses in the early 1990s provided them fertile ground. The
polarization in the country was symbolized, this second time around,
by a tragic political reality: Unlike their position in the first
round, conservatives would support the new biological racism.
THE SECOND VIOLENCE INITIATIVE
Rhesus Monkeys and Inner-City Youth
At the head of now disbanded Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health
Administration (ADAMHA), psychiatrist Frederick Goodwin was the
federal government's highest ranking psychiatrist and one of the
world's leading biological psychiatrists. He was thrust into the hot
lights of national media attention in early 1992 after he allegedly
made remarks that compared inner city youth to monkeys who live in a
jungle, and who just want to kill each other, have sex and reproduce.
The statements in question were made at a February 11 meeting of the
prestigious National Advisory Mental Health Council. One person in
attendance, an African American government employee, was offended
enough to phone the Washington Post.5
Ten days of escalating media debate and criticism ensued, at the end
of which Goodwin issued an apology. On February 21, 1992 he said he
had "learned all too painfully that the absence of malice or bad
intentions does not excuse the insensitivity" of his comments, adding,
"In an effort to shed light on the violence problem, I juxtaposed
primate research to the problems in our cities in a careless way. I
regret this insensitivity."
Media controversy continued, but as yet no one had seen the actual
transcript of Goodwin's speech to the National Advisory Mental Health
Council. Meanwhile, Goodwin resigned as head of ADAMHA; but Louis
Sullivan immediately appointed him to a post he was already scheduled
to assume, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
Goodwin remained well-placed to lead the violence initiative.
Defending Goodwin
The media coverage of Goodwin's apparently racist remarks was
considerable, and Congressman John Conyers, chairman of the
Congressional Black Caucus, demanded Goodwin's resignation. But then
Conyers came under fire from the Wall Street Journal in a March 9
editorial titled "The Speech Police." The Washington Post followed
with an editorial on March 21, "The Fred Goodwin Case," stating that
an otherwise great scientist and psychiatrist had made an unfortunate
slip. The newspaper commented, "this is the political high season.
When the going got tough, Dr. Fred Goodwin was out."
DISCOVERING THE SECOND VIOLENCE INITIATIVE
In an effort to lend support to Congressman John Conyers, Ginger Ross
Breggin and I visited his office on March 17, 1992. There we read the
newly arrived verbatim transcript of Goodwin's remarks to the National
Advisory Mental Health Council. The transcript not only confirmed
Goodwin's comparison between monkeys and inner-city youth, it
contained something far more threatening. The government was indeed
planning a program of urban biomedical social control aimed at
identifying and treating children with presumed genetic and biological
"vulnerabilities" that might make them prone to violence in later
years.
Goodwin described this inner city psychiatric intervention as "one of
the planning initiatives that is the top priority of the agency now
for its planning for the future-and what we mean here is the 1994
budget."
Goodwin emphasized NlMH's unique expertise and role in identifying the
vulnerable individual-the youngster who might grow up to be violent.
He spoke of "early detection" and "preventive interventions." While he
acknowledged that "psychosocial variables" do contribute to crime, he
focused on psychiatric concepts of "impulsivity," "biological
correlates" and "genetic factors." He said that genetic factors in
violence and crime "are very strong."
He discussed the need to identify specific populations for "extensive
and expensive productive interventions." Because the interventions
would be costly, it would be necessary to "narrow your focus on your
population that you are going to intervene in" to "hone down to
something under 100,000."
Goodwin noted the public's concern over violent crime, and suggested
that there would be more political support or "leverage" for focusing
on individuals rather than on social reform or "large social
engineering of society." He cited gun control as an example of social
engineering that would draw less support than focusing on individual
criminals. It was in this overall context that Goodwin had made his
comparison between inner-city youth and monkeys in a jungle:
If you look, for example, at male monkeys, especially in the wild,
roughly half of them survive to adulthood. The other half die by
violence. That is the natural way of it for males, to knock each other
off and, in fact, there are some interesting evolutionary implications
of that because the same hyperaggressive monkeys who kill each other
are also hypersexual, so they copulate more and therefore they
reproduce more to offset the fact that half of them are dying. Now,
one could say that if some of the loss of structure in this society,
and particularly in the high impact inner city areas, has removed some
of the civilizing evolutionary things that we have built up and that
maybe it isn't t just careless use of the word when people call
certain areas of certain cities jungles, that we may have gone back to
what might be more natural, without all of the social controls that we
have imposed upon ourselves as a civilization over thousands of years
in our own evolution.
In March 1992, immediately after we obtained the transcript of
Goodwin's remarks to the National Advisory Mental Health Council, we
began to organize a national campaign against the government's plans.
We started by sending out hundreds and eventually thousands of reports
from the Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology and by
attempting to arouse media interest.
Goodwin at the American Psychiatric Association
By the spring of 1992, the government was trying to evade the flak
that Goodwin had drawn over his comparison between monkeys and urban
youth living in a jungle. Our efforts to interest the media and the
nation in the even more ominous concrete plans for the violence
initiative met with little initial success. Then on May 5 Goodwin
spoke to the annual convention of the American Psychiatric Association
on the subject of "Conduct Disorder as a Precursor to Adult Violence
and Substance Abuse." It would be the last time he elaborated in a
public forum on his views about violence prevention.
After carefully couching his remarks, Goodwin reached his main
interest, "focus on the violent-prone individual." He brought up the
genetic question and stated, as if it were a proven fact, "There is a
genetic contribution to antisocial personality disorder." According to
Goodwin, while the genetic factor in crime and violence is not
"overwhelming," it is a prerequisite.6 Without directly saying so, he
was making clear that violent inner city men have a predisposing
genetic makeup.
Finding the Preliminary Plan
Under the Freedom of Information Act, we submitted requests to the
government for all documents pertaining to biological and medical
research into violence and Goodwin's proposed inner-city
interventions. Stuffed within one large batch of papers was an
unsigned, three-page document dated March 9, 1992 that bears a
striking resemblance to Goodwin's May 1992 speech at APA. It may have
been a draft that was prepared prior to the outbreak of the
controversy. This document indicates that as of March 1992 someone at
NIMH-very possibly Goodwin himself-was relating the violence
initiative to pharmacological interventions, specifically including
Prozac.
Was There a Written Plan ?
We always suspected that Goodwin's speeches-with their emphasis on
individual vulnerability, biology and genetics-reflected a formal
written plan for the 1994 budget. It was not until later in our
campaign that a source who wishes to remain anonymous provided us with
a nine-page single-spaced typewritten manuscript entitled "Violent
Behavior: Etiology and Early Intervention." The heading identifies it
as a section from "ADAMHA 1994 Planning Documents" and Secretary of
DHHS Louis Sullivan confirmed its authenticity as ADAMHA's proposed
violence initiative for the 1994 budget. It probably dates from the
first months of 1992 or earlier.
The plan's one-paragraph abstract summarizes that "minority
populations are disproportionately affected" and then points to "An
emerging scientific capacity to identify the individual determinants
of behavior-at the biochemical, psychological, and social/
environmental levels." The proposal further states, "Although the
problem is societal in scope, our solutions must reflect increasing
scientific and clinical capacities to isolate and target the
individual determinants of violence." It emphasizes, "ADAMHA will
focus on individual vulnerability factors."
The 1994 budget planning document maintains that "the precursors of
violent behavior are evident at an early age." As the "precursors of
future violent behavior," it lists a broad spectrum of childhood
behaviors: "physical aggression, deviant behavior, attention deficits
and hyperactivity-manifest early on."
The goal is to develop new treatment approaches for the targeted
children-"to tailor clinical as well as population-based interventions
to [these] behavioral risk factors." ADAMHA will stress "the
importance of individual risk factors... in identifying and treating
those who are likely to engage in violent behavior." These treatments
are linked to genetic abnormalities in brain chemistry.7 Perhaps most
potentially menacing, the plan proposes research centers for "the
testing of a variety of interventions aimed at the individual, family
and community."
THE CONTROVERSY HEIGHTENS
In the spring of 1992, talk radio and TV shows with large African
American audiences began responding to our educational campaign,
beginning with WPFW (Radio Pacifica Network) in Washington, DC and
culminating in the summer with news stories and two interview shows on
Black Entertainment Television (BET). The government seemed most
affected by the response to two talk shows, "Lead Story" and "Our
Voices." Extensive mainstream media coverage would follow; but African
American show hosts began the process.
Beyond our personal network of friends and colleagues associated with
the Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, most of our
initial support again came from African American activists, starting
in Washington, D.C. and then Harlem, Chicago, and Watts. Eventually,
public support, like the media interest, broadened to include many
individuals, organizations, and cities. The 26 members of the
Congressional Black Caucus sought Goodwin's ouster from ADAMHA and
they also protested his appointment as NIMH Director. The Association
of Black Psychologists (ABPsi), Blacks in Government (BIG), the Black
Business Alliance, the American Counseling Association (the largest in
the world), and the National Association for Rights Protection and
Advocacy (NARPA) also took strong stands against Goodwin and the
proposals for biopsychiatric interventions into the inner city.
The "Crime Gene" Conference
After we had begun our initial efforts to publicize the violence
initiative, Ginger Ross Breggin and I received information that the
University of Maryland had received funds from the Human Genome
Project to hold a conference on "Genetic Factors in Crime." Developed
by University of Maryland professor David Wasserman, the conference
was scheduled for October 9, 1992 at the university. After we obtained
the conference brochure, we met with three African Americans: Ron
Walters, Director of the Department of Political Science at Howard
University; Lorne Cress-Love, a WPFW radio columnist; and Sam Yette,
former professor of journalism at Howard and author of The Choice. We
decided together to call for a halt to the conference.
We based our initial opposition to the conference on its brochure,
which promoted research on the "genetic regulation of violent and
impulsive behavior." The supposed discovery of genetic factors in
psychiatric conditions was put forth as an encouraging precedent. The
alleged failure of psychosocial approaches was also cited:
But genetic research also gains impetus from the apparent failure of
environmental approaches to crime deterrence, diversion, and
rehabilitation-to affect the dramatic increases in crime, especially
violent crime, that this country has experienced in the past 30
years.
The conference brochure anticipated the possibility of treating
genetically "predisposed" individuals by means of "drugs," as well as
unnamed less intrusive therapies. To obtain federal funding for his
proposed conference, Wasserman had applied to NIH and the lengthy
application read like an elaboration of Goodwin's plans:
Genetic and neurobiological research holds out the prospect of
identifying individuals who may be predisposed to certain kinds of
criminal conduct. .. and of treating some predispositions with drugs
and unintrusive therapies.... Such research will enhance our ability
to treat genetic predispositions pharmacologically....
The Human Genome Project
The "Genetic Factors in Crime" conference was funded by NlH's
controversial, highly publicized Human Genome Project.8 The Human
Genome Project is a large federal program aimed at mobilizing
international science to map the complete set of human hereditary
factors. Supporters of the Human Genome Project had gone as far as to
suggest that homelessness and crime might be solved as a result of its
discoveries.
The idea of a conference linking crime and genetics caught the
attention of the media and the public. That critics were trying to
stop the conference from taking place heightened the drama. Concern
spread to England and Germany, countries in which the eugenics8
movement had thrived prior to Hitler taking power. Comparisons were
made between the theme of the conference and similar discussions in
Nazi Germany. Heated debate was generated in major newspapers and
magazines, and in scientific and academic journals. It resulted in
panels at political and scientific meetings, as well as dozens of
radio interviews and TV coverage.
The Cowering Inferno
A month before the conference, NIH withdrew its grant and the
University of Maryland cancelled the conference for lack of funds. But
the university did not reject or abandon the idea, continued to seek
funding, and set in motion a formal protest over NlH's withdrawal of
support. Some defenders of biomedical research into violence accused
NIH of backing down out of cowardice. In November 1992, The Journal of
NIH Research called NIH the "cowering inferno":
Curiously, however, NIH, NIMH, and HHS cowered from Breggin's
criticism and only recently have begun to respond to his
accusations.'° In addition to NlH's halting the genetics and crime
meeting, NIMH in early September abruptly canceled a workshop on
"Clinical Factors in Aggression" slated for Sept. 21-22. Goodwin . . .
was ordered by HHS officials to cancel [media] interviews.
Academic freedom or Political Irresponsibility?
The Human Genome Project has enormous prestige. We feared that its
support for the genetics conference legitimized a debate with no
substance, making it appear as if there must be something worth
discussing. After all, why would the Human Genome Project hold a
conference with no scientific merit? Why would it hold a conference
that moved America one step closer to biomedical social control?
Experience convinced us that whatever might actually be debated at the
conference, the press would play up the biological and genetic
arguments. Biopsychiatric claims regularly make newspaper headlines,
while psychosocial ones almost never do. While conference advocates
claimed it would stir up "healthy public controversy," we felt it
would encourage the false conclusion that violent criminals are
genetically flawed. Opposition to the conference, as it turned out,
created a much larger and more searching public discussion than the
unopposed conference possibly could have done.
The Justice Department's Version of the Violence Initiative
While our initial focus was on the health agencies, we gradually put
together information showing that another part of the government was
already sponsoring a large-scale version of Goodwin's plans. Entitled
the "Program on Human Development and Criminal Behavior," it is funded
by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the MacArthur Foundation,
probably with money from NIH as well. In the words of a 1992 brochure
from the DOJ, "It represents an unprecedented partnership between
federal government and a private foundation."
The director of the project, Felton Earls, as well as codirector
Albert J. Reiss, Jr., were key figures in developing the NRC's
blueprint for the violence initiative. Earls-himself an African
American-is professor of child psychiatry at Harvard Medical School
and professor of human behavior and development at the Harvard School
of Public Health. Reiss is a professor of sociology at Yale's
Institute for Social and Police Studies, and lectures at the law
school.
Earl's vision, like Goodwin's, is based on "disease
prevention" (Earls, 1991) and aims at screening and identifying
individual children as potential offenders in need of preventive
treatment or control. According to the DOJ, nine groups of subjects,
"starting prenatally and at ages 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, and 24, will
be followed for 8 years." A total of 11,000 people will be studied.
The project will "link key biological, psychological, and social
factors that may play a role in the development of criminal behavior"
and search for "biological" and "biomedical" markers for predicting
criminality. Again according to the DOJ, the first of the project's
"Questions to be answered" is:
Individual differences. What biological, biomedical, and psychological
characteristics, some of them present from the beginning of life, put
children at risk for delinquency and criminal behavior?
This is entirely consistent with Goodwin's plan.
While Earls also believes in the importance of the environment, he
focuses his project on the role of biological and genetic factors in
predisposing the individual and perhaps in driving him toward violence
and crime. In a 1991 publication, "A Developmental Approach to
Understanding and Controlling Violence," he writes that "advances in
the fields of behavior genetics, neurobiology, and molecular biology
are renewing the hope that the biological determinants of delinquent
and criminal behavior may yet be discovered." In discussing "key
developmental questions" that he wishes to answer, Earls emphasizes
genetic and biological factors.
Earls declares there is evidence for a genetic factor "in violent
behavior among individuals." But the Mednick, Brenna and Kandel (1988)
study that he cites as evidence comes to the opposite conclusion,
stating definitively that it could "find no evidence of hereditary
transmission of violent criminal behavior" and that "a genetic
predisposition to violence was not supported by this review of our
data." (Interestingly, Frederick Goodwin had also incorrectly cited
Mednick studies). Earls believes that spinal taps are intrusive and
unwarranted by our current state of knowledge, but wants to measure
the brain's chemical activity through blood samples, and testosterone
levels through saliva.11
The project is receiving an estimated $12 million per year for the
eight years from all sources, including some previously unidentified
money from NIH. The combining of Harvard and Yale, the Department of
Justice, NIH, and a prestigious private foundation raises the
political specter of psychiatric social control. It is truly Big
Brother in scope.
We originally heard a rumor that the violence initiative controversy
was making it difficult for Earls to get communities to accept his
project. Eventually Earls himself declared that due to our campaign
against his project, he was forced to drop biologically intrusive
elements, such as spinal taps.
THE CURRENT STATUS OF THE SECOND VIOLENCE INITIATIVE
The federal umbrella program called the violence initiative was
withdrawn as a result of the controversy initiated by the Center for
the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology. While individual programs
continued to be sponsored by the federal government, there would be no
overall coordinated policy. Frederick Goodwin, meanwhile, resigned
from the federal government to become a professor at George Washington
University.
The overall result, however, is not nearly so positive. As documented
in The War Against Children, many biopsychiatric leaders in the
federal government continue to view violence as genetic and biological
in origin, and many federally funded projects investigating such views
continued unabated. A multimillion dollar program, for example, is
promoting the use of Ritalin for the control of disruptive behavior.
Other projects continue to seek genetic and biological causes for
violence.
Earls's violence initiative project has finally located a welcoming
city-Chicago. At this moment, it has already begun implementation,
although leaders in that city are organizing to counter it. While it
seemingly has given up its original biological research aims, Earls's
program remains focused on the individual and the family, instead of
on racist national policies that create the problems in the inner
city.
Finally, the "Genetic Factors in Crime" conference was held in 1995 by
the University of Maryland, although with a more balanced format. NIH
decided that the funds had been taken away improperly.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
As the controversy over the violence initiative simmered down, another
scientific assault was mounted on the African American community. This
new racist manifestation grows from the same political and social
roots as the violence initiative. It is spearheaded by the best-
selling 1994 book, The Bell Curve, authored by Richard Herrnstein and
Charles Murray. The book purports to prove that Africans, including
black Americans, are genetically deficient in intelligence. It
promotes programs that would ultimately cut off aid to most black
mothers and their children. The concept that African American youth
are both genetically violent and genetically stupid resurrects the
discredited King Kong image of black American males.
VIOLENCE AS A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE
A public health approach to crime prevention sounds scientific and
humane. It gains authority from a respected tradition of life-saving
interventions. But is the violence initiative really in the tradition
of public health?
In reality, public health moves beyond medicine's typical emphasis on
individual vulnerability. It focuses on the broader environmental and
social factors that affect human well-being and disease.
When public health officials realized that foul water can spread
disease, individuals were no longer blamed for getting physically ill.
It wasn't the "bad habits" or "weak heredity" of the poor, but deadly
micro-organisms in the city water. Instead of spinning wheels over why
some people got sicker than others, water quality and sanitation were
improved, with dramatic results.
Smog remains a serious public health threat. While there is
considerable individual variability in reaction to air pollution- some
people hardly notice it and others die from it-the public health
strategy attacks the source of the problem. When air quality improves,
all individuals benefit and severe reactions are minimized.
Recently there have been incidents of food poisoning at fast food
restaurants. Some people got sicker than others, and some may not have
gotten sick at all; but instead of focusing on these individual
differences, the public health approach led to tighter regulation of
the safety of meat.
The government focus on vulnerable individuals actually abandons
public health in favor of traditional medicine. It obscures the
reality that the high rates of physical aggression cannot be
understood outside the larger environmental context. While it is
important to hold individuals morally responsible for their conduct,
when the rate of crime seems to abruptly escalate within an oppressed
minority, it becomes critical to look for causes beyond the individual
and ultimately beyond the local community.
Why would the government pervert the concept of public health? The
violence initiative was timed with the election year to distract
voters from larger political factors impinging on the inner city, such
as poverty, unemployment, inadequate or absent health care, the
unavailability of housing, the decay of the schools, and racism. It
supported the growing political tendency to blame poverty, crime and
other social phenomena on individuals and their families rather than
on public policy, economics, and broader social issues, such as
racism. It is time to unambiguously condemn all pseudo-scientific
research that distracts America from its fundamental social and
economic problems, including racism.
A PERSONAL CONCLUSION
Iam white and Jewish. It feels like a special honor to work in close
association with African Americans on behalf of human liberty and
mutual respect. As I look back on the fight against the first and
second violence initiatives, it strikes me that the victories would
not have been won without the vigorous participation of African
Americans. Often the dominant white society seems indifferent to the
various psychiatric abuses, whether they affected blacks or the entire
society. For example, I had little success in opposing the return of
lobotomy until its effects on the blacks aroused their concerns. Right
now the drugging of children in general escalates in America, with
millions of school-boys and girls on Ritalin and other psychiatric
medications. Yet it is only among blacks that I have found any
concerted ethical or spiritual outrage over the medical diagnosing and
drugging of America's children. It is ironic indeed that the black
community remains a bulwark of ethics, social conscience, and empathy
for children within the very society that so oppresses it.
NOTES
Much of this article is adapted from The War Against Children (1994)
by Peter R. Breggin, M.D. and Ginger Ross Breggin by permission of St.
Martin's Press. The book contains additional details and citations.
The author's critique of biological psychiatry is further elaborated
in Toxic Psychiatry (1991 ) and Talking Back to Prozac (1994) (with
Ginger Ross Breggin).
1. The Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology is a
nonprofit research and educational network founded in the early 1970s
by Peter Breggin and twenty other individuals, including reform minded
mental health professionals and members of the U.S. Congress and
Senate. Its board of directors and advisory council now have more than
a hundred members.
2. For citations concerning psychosurgery, see Breggin and Breggin,
The War Against Children.
3. Opposition to the violence centers was broadbased: psychologist and
attorney Edward M. Opton, Jr., psychiatrists Lee Coleman and Phil
Shapiro, civil rights and women's groups, African American activists,
and many psychiatric survivors, including Leonard Frank and Wade
Hudson.
4. The technique of psychosurgery has not changed since the Kaimowitz
case. 5. None of the leading mental health professionals in attendance
at the meeting made any complaints about Goodwin's remarks.
6. The lack of evidence for these assertions is discussed in Breggin
and Breggin, The War Against Children.
7. As Elliot Currie commented on the ADAMHA document in the Journal of
NIH Research, "Most strikingly, it repeatedly affirms-without
supporting evidence-the importance of genetic predispositions in
explaining inner-city violence, as if the assertion of those
connections were not controversial." In the March 1993 issue, Sullivan
rebutted Currie and Currie answered his criticism.
8. NlH's National Center for Human Genome Research (the Human Genome
Project) funded the project through its Ethical, Legal, and Social
Issues Program (ELSI).
9. Eugenics, the use of coercive government policies to improve the
genetic stock of a society, is discussed further in Breggin and
Breggin, The War Against Children.
10. Did NIH and its giant parent agency, the Department of Health and
Human Services (DHHS), cave in before one person's-really one couple's-
criticism? While we started the ball roiling and worked hard to
educate the public and the professions, many organizations and
individuals-especially from the African-American community-joined the
avalanche of criticism against both the violence initiative and the
conference. That opposition remains active today.
11. Testosterone level differences among individual men are not
correlated with violence. The Earls study did carry out testosterone
studies, but then declared it was giving up all biologically intrusive
interventions in response to our campaign against them.
REFERENCES
Andy, O. J. (1966). Neurosurgical treatment of abnormal behavior.
American Journal of Medical Sciences 252:232-238.
Andy, O. J. (1970) Thalamotomy in hyperactive and aggressive behavior.
Confinia Neurologica 32, 322- 325.
Bird, D. (1968, August 4). "More stress urged on causes of civil
disorders." New York Times, p. 19.
Breggin, P. (1991). Toxic psychiatry. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Breggin, P. and Breggin G. (1994). The War Against Children: How the
drugs, programs, and theories of the psychiatric establishment are
threatening America's children with a medical 'cure' for violence. New
York: St. Martin's Press.
Breggin, P. and Breggin G. (1994). Talking back to Prozac. New York:
St. Martin's Press.
Earls, E (1991). A developmental approach to understanding and
controlling pediatrics 5,61-88. New York: Plenum Press.
Kaimowitz v. Department of Mental Health. (1973, July 10). Civil
Action No. 73-19434-AW (Wayne County, Michigan, Circuit Court).
Mark, V. and Ervin, F. (1970). Violence and the brain. New York:
Harper & Row.
Mason, B. J. (1973, February). "Brain surgery to control behavior:
Controversial operations are coming back as violence curbs". Ebony,
Vol. XXVII, No. 4, p. 63.
Mednick, S. A., Brenna, P. and Kandel, E. (1988). Predisposition to
violence. Aggressive Behavior 14, 25- 33.
Rodgers, J. E. (1992). Psychosurgery: Damaging the brain to save the
mind. New York: HarperCollins.
Rodin, E. (1972, March 27). A neurological appraisal of some episodic
behavior disturbances with special emphasis on aggressive outbursts.
Exhibit AC-3 in Kaimowitz. Date is from the exhibit stamp. The
document is undated.
Rosenfeld, A. (1968, June 21). "The psychobiology of violence." Life,
pp. 67-71.
Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg military tribunal,
volumes / and 11 (October 1946-April 1949). Washington, DC: U. S.
Government Printing Office.
Articles by Dr. Breggin on psychiatry and racism
A biomedical programme for urban violence control in the US (PDF)
Psychosurgery for the control of violence: a critical review (PDF)
Psychosurgery for political purposes (PDF)
Court Order Halts Some Research in Psychiatry (HTML)
Information on the federally funded fenfluramine studies done on inner
city boys (HTML)
BradGuth
Our DARPA and their Zionist/Nazi wizards did far worse things to
100,000 of those dark-skinned Jews.
~ BG
Double-A
But after WWII, the US thought they had to catch up. They percieved
there was a human medical experiment gap!
Double-A
Twittering One
>
> - Show quoted text -
Your message is vague, and I am cloudy; so please speak more clear.
I have never been treated at Columbia Presb but it partners with New
York Cornell hospital; and faculty are listed as overlapping on both
sites.
Linda
Who said, "I served as a volunteer for the NYU Medical Center
Child Study Center."
Oops!.
I forgot!
You did!
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.attn-deficit/msg/ecaafac3a96bddf9?hl=en
16 December 2005
Dear NYU Medical Center:
My name is
{...redacted...}.
I live in New York City.
You endangered my life.
You broke NY State Law.
Privacy in psychotherapy, as guaranteed, by NY State and Federal Law
matters. And in some cases, the certitude of privacy
is the difference between Life & Death.
My privacy was violated, and you lied to me about that
fact when I filed complaints with your Office of Compliance.
You further undermine by belief that my medical
privacy will be honored the next time I seek psychotherapy.
Your egregious violation of the integrity of my life,
my right to medical privacy, and my right to file
complaints that are legally investigated, with appropriate
sanctions and appropriate response, stands as a constant
threat to my survival, present and future.
Because I no longer believe that institutions such as
NYU Medical Center honor the patient's most
fundamental right to privacy in psychotherapy,
as guaranteed by law.
I served as a volunteer for the NYU Medical Center
Child Study Center.
If you look at the medical literature, you will find
evidence that the lack of privacy integrity in psyhotherapy
has deleterious consequences.
You are a medical center that violates this most fundamental
premise.
And you endangered my life, both by allowing that to happen
and by obstructing my ability to report and document
these facts.
Your Office of Compliance lied to me, and I have detailed
these lies and violations in other correspondence to you.
{..redacted...}
New York City
Twittering One
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
The law was broken, in my ignorant opinion, more than once.
Twittering One
>
> - Show quoted text -
For example, you do not intentially injure a patient, or negligently
place a patient in known danger.
When I was forced into Bellevue Hospital, it was known -- if NYC court
OATH records are reliable -- that a known assautl has occured to a
patient 2 weeks earlier; nonetheless, I was exposed to the same
treatment, and injured.
Twittering One
>
> - Show quoted text -
Linda
http://www.aboutourkids.org/about_us/overview_history
"The New York University Child Study Center (CSC) was founded in 1997
at Bellevue Hospital Center, with Harold S. Koplewicz, M.D., as
Director."
{....}
"The Child Study Center is built around a group of research Institutes
with associated clinical arms, a structure that allows recruitment of
{black, chicano, and other minority group's babies}...
How do the psychopaths who succeeded the psychopaths who fed
radioactive cereal to the babies incarcerated at Willowbrook NY
recruit all those {black, chincano and other minority groups babies}
being lobotomized, chemically and otherwise, at NYU's Child Study
Center and all those research institutes with associated clinical
arms" without a slew of corrupt civil servants all being "IN" on the
trampling the privacy rights of those babies, their elder siblings,
and their parents?
Linda
The $64,000 question remains why? to keep the lid on the can of what
big, fat, JUICY worms?
NYU's child study center was the scene of the very first crime
perpetrated against you, was it not?
Your journey into the abyss was occaisioned by the retribution exacted
against you for your having had the gall to file a complaint when it
became clear to you that employees of NYU's child study center
possessed confidential info about you which could have only come from
a psychologist whom NYU had you being seen by, was it not?
I'm suggesting you think about how child study centers like NYU can
recruit all those babies of blacks, chicanos and other minority
groups without violating the privacy rights of the babies, all their
elder siblings, their parents, etc.?
Then, consider the retribution exacted against you for filing a
complaint about the violation of your privacy vis a vis the backdrop
of
the billions of dollars doled out to erect "child study centers" to
lobotomize, chemically and otherwise, the babies of black, chicano
and other minority groups, under the false pretext of their having
been identitied as being AT RISK, when identifications like that
can't possibly be made UNLESS an army of corrupt civil servants
trampled all over the privacy rights of those babies, their elder
siblings, their parents, etc.
Frank
"Double-A" <doub...@hush.com> wrote in message
news:9181770a-9898-4a3e...@o40g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
Double-A
=========================================================
So just how did you escape or are you just lying about everything. To be
fair, I do see the media on which your write/post glowing.
Jeff▲Relf
“ This proof showed that, although there were as many as ten
eyewitnesses to the incident inside the seclusion room,
not a single witness testified at the hearing that
[ Marcus Little, a “ psychiatric / social ” health technician ]
used any excessive force against the patient.
[ Bellevue Hospital and its attorney
kept the patient’s name and records confidential ]
In fact, Mr. Adams, who provided the only
eyewitness testimony offered by [ Bellevue Hospital ],
refuted ― rather than supported ― the charge
by stating unequivocally that respondent did not strike
or otherwise use excessive force on the patient. ”
Twittering One
> Quoting " CityLaw.ORG/Oath/07_Cases/07-248.PDF ":
> " This proof showed that, although there were as many as ten
> eyewitnesses to the incident inside the seclusion room,
> not a single witness testified at the hearing that
> [ Marcus Little, a " psychiatric / social " health technician ]
> used any excessive force against the patient.
> [ Bellevue Hospital and its attorney
> kept the patient's name and records confidential ]
>
> In fact, Mr. Adams, who provided the only
> eyewitness testimony offered by [ Bellevue Hospital ],
>
> by stating unequivocally that respondent did not strike
> or otherwise use excessive force on the patient. "
I am unable to explain why several witnesses denied earlier
statements, allegedly made to house staff attempting to gather facts.
Twittering One
‘Creature comfort’: One of the city’s biggest shelters temporarily
loses service because of a $160,000 debt.
By Rhonda Cook
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
December 03, 2008
Atlanta turned off water to one of the city’s largest homeless
shelters Tuesday for nonpayment until a judge ordered service
restored, at least temporarily.
The Task Force for the Homeless at Peachtree and Pine streets owed
Atlanta more than $160,000 for service, some of the debt years old.
Fulton County Judge T. Jackson Bedford gave the task force until 10
a.m. Friday to pay $6,000 on the bill. Another $2,294 is due by Dec.
10 or water service will be turned off again.
On that day the task force also must give Bedford a plan for paying
off the remaining debt.
Debi Starnes, the mayor’s adviser on the homeless, said the judge
indicated he “wants both sides to work in good faith in taking care of
the men and he wants the task force to be realistic about keeping the
building open.”
Anita Beaty, director of the task force, could not be reached after
the judge’s decision late Tuesday. But earlier in the day she said the
interruption of water service was just another tactic the city was
taking to shut down the shelter, which housed 700 men Monday night.
(more)
http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2008/12/03/shelter.html
Twittering One
Plea to public: Save it for charity so pushy panhandling won’t pay
By BILL TORPY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
September 07, 2008
A sign at Woodruff Park downtown, long an “urban camping” haven, warns
passers-by not to feed the pigeons — doing so will simply draw more. A
new campaign by Atlanta city officials and downtown business groups is
employing that strategy in dealing with pushy panhandlers.
The effort, to be unveiled this week, is a public education campaign
called, “Stop Panhandling. Give Change That Makes Sense.”
The idea is the same as keeping the birds at bay: don’t give
panhandlers money and they will drift away. The effort encourages
people to give to charities instead.
“You want to stop enabling them,” said Atlanta City Councilman Kwanza
Hall, whose district includes downtown. “When people are losing their
lives over pocket change, we have to do something.”
Hall was referring to a killing last week at a Midtown gas station
where police said a man was shot to death after arguing with a
panhandler. A suspect was arrested and charged with murder.
The newest campaign follows last month’s police operation to arrest
aggressive beggars. The roundup was the largest since the city passed
an anti-panhandling ordinance in 2005. The arrests coincided with
attempts to stem loitering at Woodruff Park and Barbara Asher Square
near the Five Points MARTA station.
It's not so simple. Aggressive panhandling should be banned; but keep
in mind that horrible circumstances make beggars desperate.
I've had to panhandle for chnage to buy coffee on NYC streets, and
after an hour or more in near freezing weather -- with 99% of
middleclass people walking right past me, without acknowledging me --
I do not have kind thoughts toward them.
In NYC, it used to be illegal to panhandle AT ALL; now it is legal, as
long as you do not harass or intimidate (and certainly not murder).
These stories from Atlanta make me feel lucky to live in NYC.
Of note: My informal data reveal that working class men (eg, taxi
drivers, uniformed workers, etc, give money; most women of any class
do not.
Foodstamps do not buy certain things you need: Hot coffee in winter,
or drug store supplies the charities do not give out.
I won't be homeless and broke forever, I trust; but after 2 and a half
years of it, it still IS FOREVER on my brain, emotions, and body.
That's real measurable harm and desperation.
And I am grateful for the change strangers with little money
themselves have given me.
Twittering One
>
> It's not so simple. Aggressive panhandling should be banned; but keep
> in mind that horrible circumstances make beggars desperate.
>
> I've had to panhandle for chnage to buy coffee on NYC streets, and
> after an hour or more in near freezing weather -- with 99% of
> middleclass people walking right past me, without acknowledging me --
> I do not have kind thoughts toward them.
>
> In NYC, it used to be illegal to panhandle AT ALL; now it is legal, as
> long as you do not harass or intimidate (and certainly not murder).
>
> These stories from Atlanta make me feel lucky to live in NYC.
>
> Of note: My informal data reveal that working class men (eg, taxi
> drivers, uniformed workers, etc, give money; most women of any class
> do not.
>
> Foodstamps do not buy certain things you need: Hot coffee in winter,
> or drug store supplies the charities do not give out.
>
> I won't be homeless and broke forever, I trust; but after 2 and a half
> years of it, it still IS FOREVER on my brain, emotions, and body.
> That's real measurable harm and desperation.
>
> And I am grateful for the change strangers with little money
> themselves have given me.
A while ago, ca. 1992, I accompanied, as publicity assistant, the
Atlanta writer Anne Rivers Siddons on a book promotion tour -- she was
airing on NY & Company, NPR local affiliate WNYC -- and we had a
chance to chat briefly.
She said to me, since I, too, have southern roots ...
"You know, Atlanta calls itself the city too busy too hate ..."
(their official logo, referencing that sophsiticated Atlanta has
outgrown their heritage of racisim)
She paused.
I said, "... but they're too busy to think?"
She answered, "That's right."
Or something like that; maybe I am smudging the conversation a bit.
Double-A
Intimidation?
Double-A
Double-A
That is why we are homeless. God is giving us time to think.
Double-A
Twittering One
[but at least the poor Georgia dog abused with a sledgehammer is
getting help]
Episcopal churches in Georgia may join new [CONSERVATIVE ANTI-GAY]
Anglican group
By CHRISTOPHER QUINN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
December 05, 2008
About 30 congregations in North Georgia with an estimated 3,000
members could join a new conservative Anglican church that would
compete with the Episcopal Church for worldwide recognition.
The rift is the result of theological conservatives pulling away from
what they believe is a liberal drift in the Episcopal Church, the
American branch of Anglicanism.
(more)
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/living/stories/2008/12/05/episcopal_anglican_georgia.html
Jeff▲Relf
I'm much more worried about what I'm doing, not them.
The female beggers I know earn/spend three times what I do per year.
Face it, we're decadent ― we love to over-eat, over-drug,
over-borrow, over-consume gasoline, etc.
Why live longer, riding on the backs of the poor,
― squandering our kid's futures ( via debt and spent fossil fuels ) ―
when you could live faster instead, living by your wits, on the street ?
Besides, if you think about it, it ain't much of a choice.
The “ American Dream ” has lost its luster.
Can you be where you want to be ? in Manhattan ? safely ?
As I see it, that's what really matters.
BradGuth
Obviously, and we put those Zionist/Nazis of ours in charge of most
everything, and then we turned a blind eye.
~ BG
BradGuth
But apparently not having given out a single brain to think with. Way
to go, God.
~ BG
BradGuth
Keeping yourself in perpetual denial, and not holding yourself and
others accountable is why The “ American Dream ” and of its supposed
luster is getting tarnished and duller by the day, and even the best
efforts of BHO may not be able to save many of us before the ultimate
price has to get paid.
~ BG
Twittering One
Suzanne Sproul, Staff Writer
Daily Bulletin, Ontario CA
12/05/2008
Three women tirelessly work to help people others have given up on.
In the basement of Ontario First Lutheran Church, they work their
magic, existing on a budget of about $12,000, mostly from private
donations, and with the dedication of volunteers who refuse to give up
on the idea that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity.
It's called, appropriately enough, the New Hope Project, because
there's plenty of that with these women. The project's benchmark to
date is the fact that it has helped rescue 50 people from living and
dying on the streets of the Inland Valley.
It's not a big number, and too many lose the fight, they said. The
women freely admit homelessness can't be cured overnight, if ever, but
it's a start, and a start worth making.
Heading this remarkable effort is Jane Mercer, no newcomer to the
needy. She's got multiple degrees in sociology and she's a retired UC
Riverside professor. She's also a devoted friend to those in need who
now spends her retirement years doing everything she can to help.
Her loyal supporters are Connie Parva and Mary Mim Mack.
"It's the three of us doing what we can, trying to provide some hope,"
Mercer said. "When I retired, I was looking around for something to
do. I decided to volunteer. I helped out one day a week at a clothes
closet and met these people who soon became real to me. I made the
decision right then that I didn't want to serve on a board, I wanted
to be a worker."
(more)
http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_11152629