What are they smoking?

I’ve written a few posts over the last month about the extremes to which some parents and school officials will go to “protect the children”. Often such incidents provide a laugh or two, like the school in Britain that covered the faces of children with smiley faces in their on-line newsletter. The objective, apparently, was to protect the children from on-line predators. The easier way, of course, was not to publish the photos in the first place.

But an article published in the Washington Post earlier this month contained no element of humour at all. Post reporter Brigid Schulte described an incident in which a male student slapped a female classmate on the butt during recess. He was promptly hauled before the principal who, just as promptly, called the police.

The title on the incident report prepared by school officials said, “Sexual Touching Against Student, Offensive”. Uh-huh. Guilty of sexual harassment. And the incident report will stay on his record for his remaining school days and maybe beyond.

The Potomac View Elementary School student was a six year old first grader. The school officials were, allegedly, adults.

Although it’s unlikely the six year old was capable of forming any criminal intent, he has been branded as a sex offender by these highly trained child care professionals. Calling 911, school officials claimed later, was simply the result of a “misunderstanding”. Uh-huh.

Schulte, in the same article, reports on a case that occurred in Texas a year or so ago. Apparently, a school official in Texas accused a 4-year-old of sexual harassment after the boy was observed pressing his face into the breasts of a teacher's aide when he hugged her before boarding the school bus.

One must assume the teacher’s aide was bending down to hug him back if his face was pressing into her breasts; four year olds aren’t usually all that tall. Fortunately, the school official who observed the incident took positive action and had the little pervert suspended.

Isolated incidents? Overly zealous school officials? Not according to Schulte. She believes the real culprit is the ever increasing number of “zero tolerance” policies cropping up across the country.

She notes in her article that, last year in the state of Maryland alone, 16 kindergartners and three preschoolers were suspended for sexual harassment. Nineteen kids aged six and under branded as sexual offenders before they graduated from first grade.

School officials (what ever in hell they are) and teachers are supposed to be trained to deal with children. Even without training, the application of a little old-fashioned common sense should have resolved any difficulties that might have arisen.

Zero tolerance policies in schools are one thing, but suspending four year olds for sexual harassment is lunacy.

Will that be cash or credit card?

It should come as no surprise that the American armed forces are stretched pretty thin as a result of the Iraq war. That’s simply one of the drawbacks to having a volunteer army.

So the army provides enlistment bonuses to encourage young men and women to sign up, knowing they might wind up in combat zones in Afghanistan and Iraq. In some cases the enlistment bonus might be as high as $30,000; an incentive for putting their ass on the line in the service of their country.

But what happens when a serviceman doesn’t fulfill his commitment and winds up being discharged early? Well, they have to pay back a part of their enlistment bonus. That’s fair, isn’t it?

Or is it?

The U.S. military has been, apparently, demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back all or part of their signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments. Soldiers who have been seriously wounded and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

Jordan Fox, for example, was seriously injured when a roadside bomb blew up his vehicle. He was knocked unconscious. His back was injured and he lost all vision in his right eye. He was sent home, his injuries preventing him from completing the remaining three months of his commitment to the military. The Military demanded that he repay $3,000 of his enlistment bonus.

But, injuries sustained in combat aren’t the only reason for demanding repayment of enlistment bonuses.

Army Spc. Jason Hubbard became a casualty of the military’s sole survivor policy last October. Following the death of his younger brother late last year, Hubbard was sent home; the last of three brothers; the other two killed in Iraq. The Military thanked him for his service by cutting off his family's transitional health care benefits, stopping his G.I. educational subsidies and demanding that he repay $6,000 of his enlistment bonus.

There are efforts underway in the US Congress to remedy the situation. By most accounts, the treatment of wounded US veterans returning from combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq leaves a whole lot to be desired. They deserve a damn sight better.

And, just where is the Texas tyrant while all this is going on?

Anti-sealer activists jailed

You’ll read a lot of angry rhetoric about the boarding and seizure of the anti-sealer ship, Farley Mowat, just off the coast of Cape Breton Island. The ship was boarded, her crew arrested and the ship impounded by an elite RCMP marine team last Saturday.

Loyola Hearn, Canada’s Minister of Fisheries, said he had to take action before someone was killed on the ice. Throughout the weekend, Hearn said he was taking steps to ensure the safety of seal hunters; claiming, at one point on March 30, the Mowat came within nine metres of a group of sealers, shattering floes as sealers scrambled to get back to their small boat.

Did the Minister have cause for concern? Damn straight he did!

Harvesting seals requires climbing from the relative safety of the vessel onto the treacherous ice floes in the Gulf. A ship the size of the Mowat getting within nine metres of a sealer is a very dangerous situation. But then, maybe the activist scum aboard the Mowat got a chuckle out of seeing men scrambling for their lives across the ice.

The activist vessel had been forced from the harbour in St. Pierre/Miquelon, French islands just off the South coast of Newfoundland, following comments made about four sealers who drowned a week or so earlier.

"We don't accept those kinds of people in St-Pierre," fisherman Carl Beaupertuis told the CBC. "We cut the rope and let the boat go. If they want to come back I tell you this time there's going to be some violence, 'cause we won't let him back in the harbour."

Four crewmen from the Acadian II, all from the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, drowned in the frigid waters off the Cape Breton coast when the sealer went down. Three of the bodies were recovered; the fourth was never found.

Paul Watson, of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which operates the Mowat said, “The deaths of four Magdalen Islands sealers were a tragedy, but the slaughter of young seals was a greater tragedy. These men are sadistic baby killers."

While Watson’s crude and extremely offensive remarks may play well in the upper middle class suburbs up the line, maritimers, who know better, take a somewhat different view.

Fisheries Minister Hearn heaped justifiable scorn on Watson's group. "These are a bunch of money-sucking manipulators," he told a news conference in Ottawa. "Their sole aim is to try to suck as much money as possible out of the pockets of people who really don't know what's going on."

Letters in local newspapers echoed the Minister’s sentiments.

“Isn't it convenient that Watson badmouths this country from the comforts of NYC, while his minions do his dirty work on the front lines? The gall of this man, to imply that the boarding of this vessel is "an act of war" against the Netherlands, a country that was liberated by Canadian soldiers! If Watson's followers are convicted, what better place for them to be sentenced to community service than the Magdalen Islands, whose dead were besmirched by this **** attention-seeker.

“Why did we board these miscreants when they would have provided good target practice for our frigates and subs? If it's war, then let's do it right.”

The Minister was right. Canadians can hold their heads high. Watson’s insensitive remarks deserved a response. The Mowat’s crew ignoring Canadian law and endangering Canadian lives deserved a response.

The Minister, and the Mounties, responded admirably.

Mounties seize the Farley Mowat (Part 1)

Stunned and angry, crew member David Jonas of the Farley Mowat complained that some of his shipmates were placed under arrest, forced to lie down on the deck, escorted to the stern of the ship and kept under armed guard. “Canada,” he said, “did not have a right to board us and bring us to Sydney." Oh-no.

On March 30, some seal hunters called for assistance from the coast guard, complaining that the 54-metre Farley Mowat was getting too close to them on the ice floes north of Cape Breton. The captain of the Cathy Erlene, the sealing vessel which called for help, said, “The arrests were long overdue.”

Nova Scotia sealer, Shane Briand, said at one point the Mowat broke the ice up beneath a sealer as he stood on a floe. Briand said the much larger Mowat harassed his ship and crew until a coast guard icebreaker arrived and put itself between the two ships.

The Canadian Fisheries Department later said its 98-metre icebreaker Des Groseilliers responded to the scene and was "grazed" twice by the Farley Mowat. The crew aboard the Mowat admitted they were told not to approach the ice-covered area where seals were being harvested, but the crew refused to comply with the order.

Officers of the Farley Mowat, a 54-metre ship operated by the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, were charged with steering the Mowat to within 900 metres of the hunt. That's an offence under Canadian fisheries regulations unless you have an observer’s permit. The Farley Mowat didn’t. The charges were announced by federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn last week, but he gave no indication how the summons would be served.

The Sea Shepherd Society, under various names, has long used militant tactics to interfere with the seal hunt. The group claims to have sunk six whaling ships since 1979, in their efforts to “protect” whales and other marine wildlife, saying no one was hurt in those actions.

On Saturday, the RCMPs' elite marine team was called in by the Minister. The armed Mounties launched their speedy Zodiacs from two coast guard vessels, boarded the Mowat and arrested her 17 man crew. The ship was seized and taken to Sydney Harbour.

Crew member Merilee Nyland, one of six who spent the night in a Sydney jail cell after refusing to submit to immigration checks, said the arrest was traumatic. "I came around a corner and all of a sudden there were three men with guns in my face," said the 23-year-old from the US.”

Er, excuse me Miss Hyland, but “all of a sudden . . .?” What did they do, jump out from behind a bush? Were the two Coast Guard vessels from which the Mounties staged their attack operating under a “cloak of invisibility?”

Those “men with guns” were police officers. They enforce Canadian law. You and your colleagues entered Canadians waters, approached a restricted area and endangered the lives of Canadians engaged in a lawful activity. Then your Captain ignored a lawful command from the Canadian Coast Guard, forcing a collision with the Des Groseilliers and further endangering Canadian lives.

Meanwhile, from the relative comfort of a New York hotel room, the president of the society, environmental crusader Paul Watson, described the seizure and arrests as an "act of war." because the vessel is registered in the Netherlands.

There’s more to the story. We’ll look at some of it in my next post.

Not for sissies

Sometimes, I wonder just how I managed to survive my childhood with only the slight amount of brain damage I’ve actually suffered. And, sometimes, I wonder just how I managed to survive my childhood at all.

Back in the fifties, I actually rode my bike every day without a helmet, knee pads or elbow pads. And, as I recall, my Dad once drove my mother, me and my little brother, all the way over Gillis Mountain to spend a week camping at Gillis Lake, without seatbelts. OK, so maybe my brother Tom should have been in a car seat, but nobody can say for sure that’s when he sustained the head injury. Besides, they hadn’t been invented yet.

When I, or my four siblings, got underfoot, my parents would often say things like: “Why don’t you kids go out and play.” I’m sure that many of the same hazards that exist today existed back in the fifties. Maybe parents back then just weren’t sophisticated enough to appreciate the hazards to which they were exposing their children with that simple admonition.

Back then, no one would dare wear a helmet when playing hockey for fear of being laughed off the bog that served as our local hockey/skating rink. Besides, going through the ice was a far greater hazard than getting hit in the head with a puck. (The town council solved that problem; they just filled in the bog with slag from the coal mine, forcing the kids to play street hockey.)

What got me to thinking about this stuff was a brief piece in a blog called Nobody’s Business , written by Rogier van Bakel. It’s a good site and I drop by there on a fairly regular basis.

In his post, Rogier had written, “Kids. They're precious, aren't they? So why not protect the delicate little flowers with an adorable Thudguard helmet, to be worn around the clock?” Following the link provided, I wound up on the homepage of an outfit called Gizmodo: The Gadget Weblog

According to Gizmodo, “Babies and toddlers aren’t best known for their ability to stop and go on command. This results in them spending much of their time using their head as the brake for most of their unexpected manoeuvres.”

“Meet the Thudguard, a helmet specifically designed to make sure your little Einstein doesn’t damage their brain along the way to learning how to walk and run. It’s targeted at kids aged from 7 months to 2 years old. And yes, if you send your child to crèche (a day nursery) wearing one of these, it will be singled out and bullied.” Uh-huh.

I suspect the folks at Gizmodo were being just a little sarcastic. And, some of the comments to their post were just as sarcastic. Here’s a small sample.

• I thought it was some form of a Mickey Mouse cult, look at those ears, lol
• I need one of these for everyday living. You never know when you might get kicked in the head by a ninja, so this could come in handy. Give me 12 of them for family and friends. Christmas shopping finished early this year
• Falling down and hitting your head is a very valuable experience. It teaches you things like: get out of the way, don't hang on that, don't push people, and just because you can reach, doesn't mean you should pull it off the shelf.
• Looks like my drinking helmet. I am not allowed to leave the house on weekends without it.

I need comment no further. Besides, when the McGinty government gets word of this, they will likely pass a law mandating these safety hats for use in every home and playground in Ontario. The Thudguard “infant safety hat” is available (seriously) for only 20 pounds sterling (roughly $40.00 Canadian). Visit their site here: ThudGuard

Books & Project Gutenberg

I’ve always been an avid reader; going way back to the 1950’s when I was still a kid. My tastes back in those days leaned towards novels of adventure from authors such as Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Victor Hugo, etc.

I never read the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew, although I was aware they were out there; they just never appealed to me. I preferred to spend my 79 cents on hard cover copies of books I found considerably more interesting. The H. Rider Haggard series with Alan Quartermain searching for King Solomon’s Mines, Edgar Rice Burroughs and his tales of lost worlds and Tarzan. James Fenimore Cooper was also one of my favourites with The Deerslayer and Last of the Mohicans.

I continue to read voraciously, although strangely enough, I’ve never had a library card.

I love to rummage around the book bins at flea markets, always on the lookout for a a good read. When I go to a shopping mall, my first stop is usually the discount bin of whatever bookstores might be there. There’s no telling what you might find and it’s an inexpensive way to buy books.

Books, if you haven’t noticed, are getting more and more expensive. One of the last Stephen King books I bought was a hard cover copy with a sticker price of $39.95. I didn’t pay that much of course; I found it in a discount bin for $6.95. I found this a little odd because the paperback version was still on the shelves and selling for $12.95.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve re-read a lot of those old “classics” from Burroughs, Twain, Poe, Austen, etc. I’ve also found copies of books I would not ordinarily spend money on; The Prince by Machiavelli, Songs of the Sourdough by Robert W. Service among others.

And, the reason I can afford to read many of these books on my pittance of a pension, is that they don’t cost me a dime.

If you look in the sidebar of this web log, you’ll find links to some of the best freeware in cyberspace. This post, however, is not about freeware; at least not in the normal sense. It’s about books; free books, available on-line; books on philosophy and politics, science fiction, adventure books, poetry and the literary classics.

Das Kapital by Karl Marx, The Illiad and The Odyssey from Homer, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and tens of thousands of others, are available free over the internet. There’s only one catch. The books you want must be in the public domain. But with the sheer numbers of books available, there’s sure to be hundred to your liking.

The books are available from Project Gutenberg, and you can download plain text copies of the books that can be opened in any word processor. There are no dues and no membership requirements although you may make donations. Their web site notes: “Project Gutenberg needs your pennies, nickels and dimes. An average of just one cent per eBook downloaded would make a huge difference.”

It’s a wonderful site for book lovers like myself.

Of course, I’ll still browse through the discard bins for the latest in both modern fiction and non-fiction. But if you like to read, you should check out this site.Go to: Project Gutenberg

Protecting the kids

Parents, more often than not, tend to be somewhat protective of their offspring. It’s instinctive.

While surfing the net a few days back, I came across an article which brought back an incident that happened while I was living on the east coast back in 1991-92. My 15 year old daughter was recounting the experience of her afternoon swimming at Georges River. After listening to her describe the “fun” of jumping off the Georges River Bridge into the water below, I began a lecture on the perils of such activity.

I had barely begun when the younger of my two brothers interrupted with, “Uh, just how old were you again, the first time you went off that bridge?” Sometimes uncles should be seen and not heard.

“That’s not the point,” I countered.

But, of course, that was the point. Sometimes parents, out of concern for the well being of their children, begin to see menace in every shadow; boogiemen lurking behind every bush. It’s instinctive.

And, some “public service” organizations and government bodies have latched onto this trait of parental concern and are using it to further their own ends. “We’ve got to put an end to this or that threat . . . for the good of the children.”

And parents, because protection of their offspring is instinctive, stand ready to shelter their young from dangers both real and imagined. The trick, I suspect, is in how we determine what constitutes a real threat and those alleged threats which are merely the result of an overactive imagination or personal bias.

The article which had me thinking about these mundane matters was a 2006 news brief from the Associated Press and concerned two volunteer cheerleading coaches who were dismissed because one of them pulled up her shirt and “exposed” about three inches of her belly to a group of seven and eight year olds in their charge at a youth football game.

Christine Smith, an assistant coach with the Frederick Youth Sports Association, and head coach Debbie Wheaton, had drawn an image of a smiley face on Smith's abdomen to cheer up their young female students. "Every time the girls weren't smiling, I showed them the smiley face. They thought it was hilarious," Smith said.

However, the president of the association, Kathy Carey, said three people complained about the incident and she agreed with them. "Pulling your shirt up is inappropriate and it's not what our organization is about. The community can understand we need to protect the kids and the integrity of the organization," Carey said.

"The community can understand we need to protect the kids . . . " Uh-huh.

But, from what were the children being protected? Was a little good-natured fun with their coaches really so injurious?

"I didn't feel it was inappropriate," Smith told the Frederick News-Post. "Those girls at that age level are put in extracurricular activities to have fun. The intention was meant to be funny; it was blown completely out of proportion."

Maybe we need to define the true nature of a threat before we go overboard protecting our children from it.