Rational Outrage Articles| Rational Outrage

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 03:27:15 +0000

As the U.S. economy plunges deeper into recession, more people are losing their jobs and scrambling just to cover the basic necessities of life. There are few industries left unscathed and few families not feeling the pinch. It's completely understandable that bills are piling up in households across the country, payments on accounts are overdue, and people are suffering.

Although the effects of the economy were not the reason for 93-year-old Marvin Schur's overdue bills, he certainly suffered. Mr. Schur lived in Bay City, Michigan and owed more than $1,000 on his electric bill. He was found dead in his home - frozen to death - after the power company placed a governing device on his electric service. Sadly, his bills, paperclipped to the cash to pay them, were also found laid out inside the home.

The electric limiting device was installed after Mr. Schur missed payments on his account. These types of devices limit power consumption by turning the electric service off if usage rises above a set amount. According to various news reports, when the limiting device was installed, no one from the electric company took the time to explain how it worked to Mr. Schur. When his body was found, it was 32 degrees inside the home and there was ice on the inside of the windows.

The medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Mr. Schur's body reported the death was from hypothermia and had been slow and painful.

It is not unusual for utilities to be disconnected for non-payment, although some state laws protect the elderly, disabled, and households with small children from this action during extreme weather. In Michigan, the law requires state-regulated companies to establish a winter protection program to prevent disconnection of electric service between December and March for low-income customers and senior citizens. However, people who qualify must register for the program, and Mr. Schur apparently did not.

Sometimes it is circumstances, rather than an inability to pay, that causes elderly people to miss payments. Mr. Schur, a WWII medic, lived a simple and frugal life, but was not destitute. In his will, he left his entire estate, with an estimated value of $500,000, to Bay Medical Center.

Although it maintains it did nothing wrong, the utility company has now stopped its practice of disconnecting power to those who have not paid their bills. It has also removed all electricity limiting devices.

Tragically, it took Mr. Schur’s entirely preventable death, a criminal investigation by the Michigan State Police, public outrage, and media attention for Bay City Electric Light & Power to change its “pay up or die” policy. How many other families and elderly people suffered before the company’s policy was reversed - and how many other lives across the country are in danger because of such ruthless tactics?

Granted, utility companies are not charities and their employees are not social workers. However, in the dead of winter in areas with extreme temperatures, common courtesy could go a long way. Had someone taken the time to knock on the door and speak with this gentleman about his overdue bill when the power limiter was installed, the situation could have been easily resolved and he would not have paid the ultimate price for an overdue bill. After all, a human life is worth more than $1,000 – isn’t it?

Rational Outrage Articles| Rational Outrage

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:00:35 +0000

Whether or not students can be punished for speech outside of school has become a controversial topic recently and the ruling, at least so far, is a little strange: it seems that student speech outside of school is protected, so long as it’s ineffective. That’s because legal precedent suggests that students may be punished for speech outside of school if that speech carries with it a reasonably foreseeable risk of coming to the attention of school officials.

A federal court ruled that a high school student could be penalized speech on her personal blog, and the state legislature promptly responded with a bill to ensure that students could not be punished for such actions. The battle is far from over; the federal court ruling is binding precedent in only one district, and the statute—if passed—will be effective only in one state. It will be a long time before the dust settles on this issue.

Student free speech rights have been the subject of hot debate since at least the Vietnam era. At that time, the United States Supreme Court said that students didn’t check their free speech rights at the door, and ruled that black arm bands protesting the war were protected speech. But the ruling made it clear that there were limits. In the subsequent years, the question as to what student speech is protected and what is “disruptive” in such a way that schools are entitled to regulate it has been litigated again and again. Exactly what speech is protected, in what context, and from what kind of punishment are all unsettled questions.

But recent cases have incorporated a new element that is as fascinating as it is disturbing. Apparently, student free speech was all well and good when no one was really listening, but now that students might actually get their message out, it’s a whole different ballgame. The recent Connecticut decision reasoned:

Perhaps more importantly, we are not living in the same world that existed in 1979. The students in Thomas were writing articles for an obscene publication on a typewriter and handing out copies after school. Today, students are connected to each other through email, instant messaging, blogs, social networking sites, and text messages. An email can be sent to dozens or hundreds of other students by hitting "send." A blog entry posted on a site such as livejournal.com can be instantaneously viewed by students, teachers, and administrators alike. Off-campus speech can become on-campus speech with the click of a mouse. As the case before us demonstrates, we are decidedly not in the world confronted by the Second Circuit in Thomas.

This reasoning isn’t quite as shocking as it appears at a glance. The court isn’t blatantly announcing that “free speech” is protected so long as students aren’t very effective in getting the word out, but now that they have a wider audience more limitations are in order. The court couldn’t reason that, of course—it would undermine the meaning and purpose of the protection of free speech. The reasoning, carried over from a 2008 decision, is this:

the line between on-campus and off-campus speech is blurred with increased use of the internet and the ability of students to access the internet at school, on their own personal computers, school computers and even cellular telephones. As technology allows such access, it requires school administrators to be more concerned about speech created off campus – which almost inevitably leaks onto campus – than they would have been in years past. J.S. v. Blue Mt. Sch. Dist., No. 3:07cv585, 2008 WL 4279517, at *7 n.5 (M.D. Pa. Sept. 11, 2008).

It’s a valid point and, in addition, the decision in the Connecticut case hinged at least as much on the fact that the punishment related only to exclusion from extracurricular activities—which precedent deems a privilege and not a right—as it did with the speech itself.

But whether or not that was the initial intent, the ramifications are clear: student speech outside of school can’t be punished unless it’s getting the job done. That can’t be what our forefathers had in mind.

Rational Outrage Articles| Rational Outrage

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:12:30 +0000

It started in the early 1990s: a great new idea to track sex offenders who had been released from prison. The intent was good and the motivation sensible; the program would allow law enforcement to keep track of released sex offenders and, as it developed let people know when a convicted sex offender was living down the street.

There was a flaw in the plan right from the start. As a parent, sure, I’d like to know if there’s a sex offender living next door. I’d also like to know if there was a child batterer, a drug dealer, or a murderer living next door…but for some reason the legislatures didn’t think those things were quite so pressing. Sex offenders got special treatment. The selectivity had some absurd results, too. My family was safe from the 19-year-old kid who’d had six with his underage girlfriend. In most states, that makes him a sex offender subject to registration requirements and doomed to show up on watch lists and websites for years to come—maybe even for the rest of his life. Just the price he has to pay to keep my family safe. Well, except from armed robbers and kidnappers and burglars and identity thieves and serial killers and stuff.

It is useful, though, to be able to find out when there are convicted child molesters in the neighborhood. And if child murderers also happen to have been convicted of some sexual misconduct, we might be able to find out about them to. As a mother, I sincerely appreciate that. Or I appreciated it in concept, anyway, until I attempted to USE my local sex offender website. You see, the extreme thoroughness that put every person convicted of a crime tangentially related to sex had an unintended effect: it buried the real threats in a landslide of relatively petty criminals and people whose sole offenses had occurred many years ago.

But at least the records weren’t cluttered up with murderers and such.

After a while, though, registration and websites weren’t enough. Legislatures started having more great ideas—ideas like restricting where convicted sex offenders could live. Again, the concept made sense: let’s make sure convicted child molesters don’t set up shop across the street from the elementary school. But in many states, they neglected to confine the restrictions to child molesters (although it’s extraordinarily rare for an offender to target both children and adults), and in some of those states it wasn’t just schools and playgrounds that were off limits.

In Georgia, for instance, no sex offender may reside within 1,000 feet of a child care facility, church, school, or "area where minors congregate." Those areas are defined as: parks, recreation facilities, playgrounds, skating rinks, neighborhood centers, gymnasiums, school bus stops, public libraries and public and community swimming pools. In some communities, that makes it virtually impossible to find housing that doesn’t violate the law—and the law applies even to those convicted of crimes of indecency such as public urination.

Not feeling too sorry for the convicted sex offender who has trouble finding a home after he’s released from prison? You’re undoubtedly in good company. But you might want to consider this: homelessness not only makes offenders harder for parole and probation officers to track and makes notification of neighbors impossible, it increases the likelihood of recidivism. Thus, by making it difficult or impossible for convicted sex offenders to find stable housing, we’re minimizing the ability to monitor them and making them more likely to commit new crimes.

Portions of the Georgia law were struck down as unconstitutional in 2007, but the legislature was determined, and a modified but substantially similar law is back on the books.

In California, the number of homeless sex offenders today is more than 12 times what it was just over two years ago, when voters approved residency restrictions in an initiative. A state panel is reporting that there is no evidence suggesting that the restrictions decrease recidivism, and has asked the governor and legislature to change the law. Meanwhile, California officials determined not to let those offenders slip through the cracks are spending nearly $25 million/year to house convicted sex offenders who are unable to find legal lodging under the law. In addition to the expense and ineffectiveness of the operation, it often has the undesirable effect of grouping convicted sex offenders together in temporary housing or residential hotels—precisely counter to the usual effort to separate released convicts.

One small town recently considered a revised proposal about sex offender living restrictions: the initial plan would have prohibited sex offenders from living in 98% of the town, while the revised plan cut that figure back to 84%.

It’s easy to say “That’s fine—we don’t want sex offenders in our town!” Probably no one does. But restricting where they can live isn’t going to make them disappear: it’s been tried in more than 20 states and the proven result is that it drives them underground.

Sex offender registration in its current form ruins the lives of people as the result of very minor transgressions. A man who was arrested for urinating in an alley on his way home from a bar one night in college might find himself, years later, unable to work in (or even live near) a school. The teenage girls recently charged criminally for sending nude pictures of themselves to their boyfriends’ cell phones could face similar restrictions. Perhaps it’s easy to shrug that off—however petty, they did commit crimes, and in today’s climate it’s arguable that everyone should know that a very wide range of activity to criminal charges and lifelong consequences.

But what about the children these laws were intended to protect?

The simple fact is that mass sex offender registration, without charge-specific filtering, provides little or no value—and whatever minimal value it does provide comes at the expense of something far more important: the ability to track and monitor sex offenders in a stable environment that may reduce recidivism.

It’s time we stopped racing to the polls to vent our emotions and pass laws that make us feel better, and started thinking about the kind of law that might make a difference.

More Sex Offender Registration / Restriction Absurdities Unveiled

How to Stay 30 Feet Away from Kids

Florida Housing Sex Offenders Under Bridge

How to Deal With Sex Offenders

Banishment by a Thousand Laws: Residency Restrictions on Sex Offenders

How to Stop a Predator: The Rush to Enact Mandatory Sex Offender Residency Restrictions and Why States Should Abstain

Never Going Home: Does it Make Us Safer?

Additional Resources on the Impact of Sex Offender Registration and Restrictions

Rational Outrage Articles| Rational Outrage

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:55:12 +0000

The Greater Ramifications of Cyber-Bullying

Over the years, subtle forms of youth aggression, otherwise known as "bullying" have increased in young students on schools grounds, primarily in the middle school grades. Perhaps we have become more aggressive in general, or perhaps we have begun to recognize the tangible effects of bullying over the years. Either way, it has become a real problem both in real life, and online.

So much so, that at least one person has now been convicted of misdemeanors related to a cyber-bullying case. Megan Meier, a young girl with a history of depression had been bullied online, which resulted in her suicide. According to USA Today, the woman being held responsible is 49 year old Lori Drew, the mother of a Sarah Drew who was reportedly having problems with Megan Meier at school over rumors.

There are a few remarkable things about this case, most notably however, is a parent engaging in bullying, and encouraging her daughter and another young woman to bully their peers, even though the end result was foreseeable and devastating to the intended target.

As a parent, you are charged with the responsibility of setting a proper example, as well as holding your own child responsible for their actions towards others. Her involvement has set a dangerous example for youths that bullying is the proper, condoned way to resolve schoolyard issues.

Although the court ruled that Drew's actions were misdemeanors, and that this was not a case of "cyber-bullying" that could be prosecuted as such, the fact remains that an adult woman played part in activities that resulted in a young girl's death. As Megan Meier's mother points out, "Drew is an adult". When did the harassment and bullying of minors become the "cool" thing for parents to do?

To make matters even worse, Drew is now claiming to be a victim of harassment herself. While outright acts of violence towards another aren’t something to be excused, the situation is ironic at best, and sympathy for her plight is lacking. But the real question here is that of parental responsibility, societal conscientiousness, and keeping the welfare of a minor as a priority. When her daughter complained of rumors about her being spread, she should have gone to the school principle, not to a MySpace account. Thus the mother incited a situation that spiraled into a tragic story.

Drew's attorney states that the ruling sets a dangerous precedent, to boot. According to an interview on The Today Show, he purports that now we are all in danger of prosecution should we so much as send an angry e mail.

Perhaps he is right, if that e mail is so vicious that it instigates the suicide of a person, particularly a minor. But much like a verbal argument in person, it's only a crime if the argument results in, or incites violence. Our angry words are still otherwise protected by the first amendment, with a few exceptions such as libel or slander, or words that specifically incite violence towards a person or group. There is a lesson to be learned here, but I'm afraid Mrs. Lori Drew has missed it.

Freedom of speech, and freedom of action comes with a great deal of responsibility, and if one is not willing to shoulder the burden or consequences of one's words or behaviors, it's best to refrain from speaking or acting in a manner that will not net desirable results. Particularly when it concerns children.

For resources on bullying, cyber bullying, and what you can do, please go to:
Cyberbullying.org
Cyberbullying.us
National Crime Prevention Council
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
National Youth Violence Prevention

More statistics, resources, and news sources concerning bullying:
Rassmussen report on bullying
The US Communications Decency Act of 1996
Cyber stalking and the law
LATimes

Anok Kropotkin is a freelance writer, socio-political observer, commentator, and rabble rouser. She has been published by Populist America, Alex Jones, and Ezine Articles. Currently, you can read more ramblings at Identity Check.

Rational Outrage Articles| Rational Outrage

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:24:47 +0000

From the author of Globally Rational

The differences between the “bad guys” and the “good guys” in recent wars have been clear. The bad guys recklessly bomb innocent civilians, while the good guys drop targeted missiles on military hotspots. The bad guys oppress their people, while the good guys fight for freedom. Above all, the bad guys have no respect for the sanctity of life, while the good guys maintain that their first priority is the protection of human rights.

So we can only assume that most of the world’s human rights groups share NATO’s views on the latest developments in the Middle East… right? We are the good guys, so we must not be targeting civilians. If we accidentally kill some innocent villagers in Pakistan, they are just collateral damage; that doesn’t give Pakistan the right to defend its borders. If Israel sprays Lebanon with cluster bombs, which cover wide areas (and, consequently, kill many civilians) rather than specific targets, it is just a necessary evil; that doesn’t give anybody the right to call them “aggressors.” If Georgia drops illegal cluster bombs on Russians, then they are freedom fighters; when Russia allegedly drops them on Georgians, then they are oppressors.

Why do we allow countries like Russia to spread large clusters of bombs over Georgia? We all know that only American allies are allowed to circumvent international treaties, so why is it that our only reaction is to condemn the Russians for ignoring basic human rights? Is there something that we want to hide?

Right now, there are thousands of unexploded bombs lining the ground in villages and cities across Vietnam, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Lebanon. Young children are often injured or killed when they unsuspectingly pick up an explosive that has been sitting undisturbed since the day that it first fell out of an American or Israeli or Soviet plan. Lebanon, for instance, found itself on the receiving end of over a million deadly explosives during their 2006 war with Israel – one for every four people in the entire country.

Israel’s official statement effectively summarized the world’s justification for using such horrible weapons, which have caused about 300 innocent civilian casualties after the end of their war with Lebanon (in addition to the hundreds more in Vietnam, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan), by eloquently stating that “International law does not include a sweeping prohibition of the use of cluster bombs.” Others have made statements along the lines of “everybody does it; why can’t we?” Several countries – including the US, Israel, Russia, and China – have declined to join the new treaty that forbids the use of weapons that aim to destroy broad areas rather than specific targets.

What was that old saying about the company you keep?

Rational Outrage Articles| Rational Outrage

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:56:45 +0000

A Beautiful Language Silenced by Neglect:

Danieal Kelly's Heart-Wrenching Story

On August 4, 2006, Philadelphia teenager Danieal Kelly was found dead on a filthy mattress in a stifling hot, airless room. Her body left a permanent imprint in the mattress. Maggots ate the open bedsores that covered a large portion of her body. Feces covered the floor. She was 14 years old and weighed a mere 42 pounds.

Her mother Andrea and seven siblings were in the home while Danieal lay dying alone in a dark room, but no attempts were made to save her. According to the Grand Jury report, her mother Andrea forbade her concerned brother Daniel from calling an ambulance. It wasn't until Danieal had died and flies were swarming around her emaciated body that Andrea called the paramedics.

Danieal's death was ruled a homicide. Danieal had cerebral palsy and was an embarrassment to her mother, who refused to feed her, to change her, or to be seen with her daughter in public. Despite concern from friends and requests from authorities, Andrea refused "for years to take her disabled child to the doctor, to enroll her in school, and to obtain readily available home services for her disability." Danieal's last words were cries for water.

Danieal's short life was tumultuous right from the beginning. Concerned about her well-being if left in her mother's care, Danieal's maternal grandmother convinced her estranged father Daniel to take her and her brother Daniel, Jr. when they were young children. Although life in Arizona with her father wasn't rosy, Danieal did attend school occasionally. Ms. Levin, a special education teacher for 37 years, described Danieal as:

… a really nicely put together little gal. Her hair was always combed nicely and she wore cute little dresses and she had a huge smile. And she loved music and she loved to sing. She didn’t generate a lot of spontaneous conversation, but she was very articulate when she did speak. She had beautiful language. And . . . put on a record or a CD or a tape and she was there; she’d sing every single word. And she actually had a beautiful voice. One of the music teachers who was always impressed with her actually said something in regards that she had almost perfect pitch. . . . Danieal was always eager to learn, always. She was always smiling. Never one time, never one time did she ever say, I can’t do this, ever.

In 2003, Danieal was back with her mother; her father soon after disappeared from his daughter's life. After several attempts by authorities to have Andrea register her daughter for school, the school psychologist Dr. Wendy Galson finally made a home visit to test Danieal for school placement. The psychologist found Danieal sitting in the dark, with a scarf wrapped around her head and wearing a jacket, even though it was June – no doubt to hide the signs of malnourishment and neglect. Danieal was no longer "the engaging, smiling, singing girl with 'beautiful language' described by her Arizona teacher." Instead Dr. Galson found a child with minimal expressive communication, except for crying intensely. Unlike in Arizona, where she reached for food to feed herself, Dr. Galson found she had little arm movement and manual dexterity; she had no muscular development and her forearm was "just bone".

Two months later, Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Edwin Lieberman, a 16-year veteran of the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s office, performed Danieal's autopsy, remarking that she reminded him of “many pictures of people in the concentration camps; that’s how skinny, malnourished this child appears.”

On July 31, 2008, the Grand Jury released its lengthy and disturbing report. The Grand Jury recommended charges against Andrea Kelly and Daniel Kelly for their daughter's death.

However, the horrific story does not end there. The Grand Jury also recommended charges against several of Philadelphia's Department of Health Services' (DHS) employees – individuals paid to protect children at risk, and two employees of the private agency MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc. contracted to provide weekly support services to the Kelly family.

The Kelly family was not unknown to DHS; child neglect complaints against Andrea dated back to 1997. But that knowledge did not result in action. In fact, even though Danieal was identified at high risk of neglect and in urgent need of services, her case file was found at the bottom of a large cardboard box filled with unopened mail and food wrappers in intake worker Dana Poindexter's cubicle. When another DHS employee arranged for MultiEthnic to provide the "highest level of service" to the Kelly family in the last months of Danieal's life, such services were not rendered, even though DHS paid for them.

Several people could have easily saved the young girl's life by merely doing the job they were paid to do, yet they chose to do nothing to protect her.

Adding yet another twist to the heart-wrenching story, the neglectful parents have filed, on behalf of Danieal's estate, a wrongful death lawsuit against the city, its child-welfare agency, the state, and several caseworkers for failing to protect their daughter, and thus, should compensate the family for its loss. (Her parents' names were later removed from the lawsuit after public outcry.) According to the lawsuit, the death of Danieal, who was denied life's basic necessities and left alone in a dark room crying for water, has deprived her parents and her nine siblings of her "love, tutelage, companionship, support, comfort and consortium" as well as the "economic value of her life expectancy." The wrongful death lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount, as well as reimbursement for medical bills, funeral and burial expenses, and attorneys' fees; even her mother had not taken her to the doctor in years. Any money recovered in the lawsuit would potentially go to Danieal Kelly's siblings, "most of whom are impoverished children in foster care", which means the taxpayers would be paying twice to raise these children.

Editor’s Note: On November 7, Danieal Kelly’s mother was bound over for trial on murder charges and one social worker on involuntary manslaughter charges. The other 7 people charged in the case were not afforded preliminary hearings, based on the extensive information in the coroner’s report and the fact that they had been charged with lesser crimes. While it is heartening to see the legal system taking Danieal’s life seriously now, and we may hope that these prosecutions will encourage those charged with the safety of children to take those responsibilities seriously in the future, the fact remains that this is a systemic problem. Numerous people had the opportunity to help Danieal and did not; that lapse runs deeper than an unfit mother or an overworked social worker who didn’t care enough.

Sources:

Presentment - http://www.phila.gov/districtattorney/pdfs/Presentment-DHS.pdf

Grand Jury Report -

http://www.phila.gov/districtattorney/pdfs/Grand_Jury_DHS_new.pdf

____

Glenda Watson Hyatt avidly writes about disability-related Issues. In her autobiography I'll Do It Myself, she intimately shares her life living with cerebral palsy to show others that cerebral palsy is not a death sentence, but rather a life sentence. She blogs at Do It Myself Blog (www.doitmyselfblog.com) and Disaboom (http://www.disaboom.com/Blogs/Left_Thumb_Blogger/Default.aspx). She does all this by typing with only left thumb.

Rational Outrage Articles| Rational Outrage

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 04:19:34 +0000

Back in 2006, a meatpacking company in Kansas had a great idea: it would test every cow for bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE), commonly known as “mad cow disease”. It was a great idea because the U.S. Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) tests only a very small percentage of cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat beef from infected cattle.

Creekstone Farms Premium Beef was willing to undertake the testing of every cow at its own expense. In fact, the company built a laboratory and sent its employees to France for training with the company whose test kits it intended to use. But then Creekstone ran into a problem: test kits for BSE could be sold only to laboratories approved by the U.S.D.A., and the U.S.D.A. said no to the testing.

In fact, although the division later sought to explain away the statement, a senior veterinarian with the U.S.D.A.’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) told a reporter that Creekstone could face criminal liability if it tested its animals for BSE.

Creekstone sued for the right to test its own cattle for the deadly disease, and won in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson—the same judge who authored the District Court opinion in the groundbreaking Guantanamo case, Hamdam v. Rumsfeld, and resigned from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in apparent protest over President Bush’s decision to use wiretaps to gather information about U.S. citizens without first seeking court approval—ruled that the U.S.D.A. had exceeded its authority under the 1913 Virus-Serum-Toxin Act.

Robertson’s opinion made good sense, since that statute was intended to protect against substandard veterinary care, and the animals in question were being tested after they were dead. Creekstone did not propose to replace or interfere with U.S.D.A. testing of its beef. Rather, as a purely supplemental measure, it proposed to perform additional testing to ensure the safety of its beef.

The concern, rather, seemed to be that Creekstone might use the additional testing as a marketing point—it might, in short tell people that all of its beef had been tested. That, the U.S.D.A said, was “inconsistent with USDA's mandate to ensure effective, scientifically sound testing for significant animal diseases and maintain domestic and international confidence in U.S. cattle and beef products.” In other words, it might make the companies that didn’t choose to test every animal look bad, and consumers and other countries to which U.S. beef is exported might notice that Creekstone beef was safer than other U.S. beef.

Unfortunately, this past week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia bought into that argument, and Creekstone (along with any other meatpacker that might get some crazy idea about making sure that its meat was safe for human consumption) is legally prohibited from testing its cattle.

So we might be at risk for “mad cow disease” and see our brains waste away, but at least we don’t have to worry about those big meat packing companies feeling pressured or anything, right?

Rational Outrage Articles| Rational Outrage

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:33:54 +0000

From the author of Globally Rational

We want a President who can make decisions that will benefit us all. We want somebody who promises actions rather than words. We want him to tell us what he will do and then we want him to do it. So how can somebody possibly have the audacity to face us with the crazy idea that he will make changes? How can he say that he will “change” Washington without reiterating all of his ideas in each of his speeches? Why are the most educated people in the country still siding with somebody who uses complex “plans” and unpopular “expert opinion” instead of just telling us that he’ll cut taxes and lower gas prices?

The McCain campaign has been quick to point out that Barack Obama repeatedly promises reform without repeatedly saying how to achieve that reform. But we really need him to repeat himself? He has a clear plan in place for the war, the economy, the energy problem, healthcare, and all of the other issues… but effective plans are rarely simple enough to explain in a one-minute segment of a ten-minute speech. He knows that offshore drilling will fuel our oil addiction faster than it fuels our cars; that doesn’t mean, as McCain says, that he doesn’t want to produce more energy. He knows that the gas tax holiday will create long-term economic problems as a consequence of its slight short-term relief; that doesn’t mean that he is against economic improvement. He knows that the Bush/McCain upper-class tax cut will only increase the budget deficit; that doesn’t mean that he wants to raise taxes for all Americans.

We like simple ideas. We would love to believe that we can reduce our dependence on oil by drilling for more oil. We would love to believe that we can keep our troops all over the world without having to pay for it in taxes. But in the real world, effective policies require intricate plans based on detailed economic analysis. Obama’s plans are well-known, but he can’t explain the policy analysis in every speech that he delivers; does that make him “vague”? We can have a President who just tells us what we want to hear… or we can have a President who actually does what we want him to do without much regard for whether or not we know that he’s doing it.

Any top Democrat will be able to tell you exactly what Obama’s stance is on any given issue. McCain, meanwhile, seems like he failed to effectively explain his “big ideas” even to Bobby Jindal, one of the frontrunners for his VP position. Instead, Jindal reverts to saying things that are obvious and popular; he was sure to mention, for instance, that McCain “understands that the energy crisis is [our] biggest economic obstacle.” Big-time Republicans like Mitt Romney and Mark Sanford also suffered the same fate as Jindal did. Does that mean that Jindal, Romney, and Sanford are all incompetent? Or does it just mean that they were all right to insinuate that the McCain energy policy, and the rest of his ideas, promise no improvement over the Bush administration?

The fact that the energy crisis is a big economic obstacle does not classify a “big idea”… I’d rather call it a “known fact.” Everybody understands our problems (except President Bush, who recently said that we don’t have any), but not everybody can understand the solution. Obama wants to let the expert number-crunchers figure out the details; McCain has been letting public opinion direct his course. Who do you think can make a better decision about the economy: your next-door neighbor or America’s top economists?

What is “vague”? Is Obama “vague” because the details are irrelevant to his speech? Or is McCain “vague” because the details are irrelevant to his plan?

At Rational Outrage, we're interested in facts and logical analysis--we're not here to promote a particular candidate. Have a conflicting view? Share it with us in the comments or, if you're so inclined, submit an article.

Rational Outrage Articles| Rational Outrage

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:06:21 +0000

From the author of Globally Rational

Once every four years, athletes from nearly every part of the world (yes, that includes Cuba and Palestine) make their way to attend a monumental event that celebrates our unity as humans and our progress towards international understanding. The world finally sees the fact that, through a peaceful series of games, we can identify ourselves not as enemies, but as friends. We can heal our animosity as we drop the labels of "Israeli" and "Palestinian", of "Ethiopian" and "Eritrean", of "Pakistani" and "Indian"; instead, we can learn to label ourselves as "human." We can bask in the beauty of our species as we watch a seemingly malnourished Kenyan finish ahead of his competitors who were trained by the world's top athletic coaches.

But wait… why are they playing The Star Spangled Banner at the award ceremony? I remember that guy wearing a Kenyan uniform in 2004… he's American now? And it seems unusual that all four US table tennis players actually lived in China until it became obvious that they weren't good enough to get to their own national team. Does the US really need to import players to get more recognition in Beijing?

Not surprisingly, China crushed us in the process of earning all four gold medals in table tennis, which effectively supplemented their 47 golds in the rest of the events. The US finished with 36 pieces of gold as a part of their Olympics-leading 110 total precious metal samples. The West and the East meshed together as Russia, Britain, Germany, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Italy, and France capped out the rest of the top ten. But what about everybody in between the West and the East? What about the huge hunk of matter in the Indian subcontinent, which houses 25% of the world's population but only earned 0.3% of Olympic accolade? What about Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America? What about Tibet and Kosovo, who couldn't send a delegation because their National Olympic Committees are not recognized by the International Olympic Committee? How can we leave out some of our biggest problem areas as we applaud the potential for international unity?

We easily dismiss the less athletic regions as they fail to publicize their presence at this global peace conference. It was a big deal – a matter of national pride – when India won a gold medal this year for the first time since 1980. Pakistan and Bangladesh, the 6th and 7th-most populated countries in the world, were far from even getting a bronze. Australia, meanwhile, houses a population that is one-eighth of Pakistan's and boasts a Beijing medal count of 46, which is more than the entire subcontinent has ever earned (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka have amassed a grand total of 32 medals since they sent their first team in 1928). In fact, Bangladesh has never won a medal. The Philippines (the world's 12th-most populated country) have won 9 in their entire history. Vietnam (13th-most populous) has received 2.

I was in Pakistan for the 1992 and 1996 Olympics. We all rallied behind our only hope in Barcelona – the field hockey team that brought home a gold medal from Los Angeles – and felt ashamed to celebrate when the team's bronze finish became our only victory. It was a small pleasure when compared with the jubilant chaos that erupted we won the cricket World Cup earlier that year, but we would have extended our revelry had we known that Pakistan would never win another Olympic medal. The Atlanta games bore no fruit as we painstakingly watched the Australians, with their diminutive population, take over our field hockey bronze medal spot in addition to their 40 other awards. We were crushed; luckily, I would soon migrate to the place whose representatives make standard practice of finding their way to the medal stand.

Here in America, we follow the Olympics with the hope of demonstrating our prowess to the rest of the world: we may only have one-fourth of China's population, but we can still manage to earn more medals than they can on their own home turf. In Pakistan, we just had the distant wish that we may hear our national anthem on an international television broadcast, as we did once in 1984. Any hopes of a camaraderie with the West are dismissed as the educated youth decide that they want to live in the country whose flag waves at the end of seemingly every event. It's a big international high school gym class, where the popular football players count how many times they can nail the skinny nerds in a dodgeball game. All of the world's nations get together to be crushed athletically by the people who also run the global economy. And we do it to promote peace.

Rational Outrage Articles| Rational Outrage

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:32:39 +0000

Gardening is a hobby that can quickly become a passion for many people. I am one of those people. You can call me green, crunchy or a compost wacko if you want; my garden appreciates my efforts and I like to think the earth does too.

When I heard the story about a fellow gardener who was taken to court over his method of composting I was quickly outraged. Perhaps I am a bit biased; however, when I related the story to others - even non-gardeners - many had the same feeling. The case brought against John Dragona was nothing short of harassment.

John Dragona and his wife Tulia are avid gardeners. They maintain a well cultivated garden in Cliffside Park, New Jersey.

The Dragonas are both blind. They say that since they are not able drive and few other recreational activities are available to them due to their disability, gardening has become their passion. They regularly feel the ground to pull out weeds by hand and follow other good gardening practices such as composting.

Ahh, the composting. This is where the story really begins.

Composting can be done in many different ways. There are many methods to combine garden and kitchen waste in order to allow it to decompose into nutritious compost to feed the soil, which in turn will naturally feed the plants.

Aside from the fact that composting is a good garden practice, it is also good for the environment. Dried leaves, grass clippings, coffee grounds, egg shells, veggie scraps and numerous other materials are not sent to the landfill if they are composted, and that can only be a good thing. Compost also lessens or eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers which pollute the environment and also require the use of fuel and other natural resources to create, market and distribute.

The method that John and Tulia Dragona used to compost is generally called sheet composting or creating a lasagna bed. They took their compostable materials, both brown carbon materials and nitrogen-rich green scraps and layered them in their garden beds to improve the soil.

Sheet composting is a well-known and generally accepted way of creating compost. I say generally accepted because I know of only one instance in which it was not accepted, and that is the Dragona case.

Earlier this year borough officials issued John Dragona a summons. They considered the composting materials that he layered in his vegetable garden to be "vegetative debris," according to a report by The Record. The officials considered Dragona's method of composting a potential health hazard to the community.

Additionally, a Health Department inspector cited Dragona for "failure to keep property cleaned and maintained" due to his composting technique. Health officials allegedly detected an odor from the compost when they visited Dragona's garden. Compost has a mild and pleasant "earthy" odor. There are no foul odors associated with compost or the composting process.

So for whatever reason, the borough decided to single out and bully Dragona. They threatened to fine him up to $500 if he continued sheet composting on his property.

Thankfully, Dragona did not stop composting and instead got help from attorney Gavin I. Handwerker, of the Nissenbaum Law Group.

I spoke with Mr. Handwerker while preparing this story and asked if he knew of any other cases in the area involving compost. He told me that he was not aware of any.

At the end of July, Dragona appeared in court with his guide dog by his side, ready to fight for his right to maintain good garden practices by composting. However, before the showdown could begin, a generous gesture brought the case to a close.

Mr. Handwerker informed me that an anonymous person decided to end the madness that the borough had created over Dragona's compost. This person set out to purchase a composting unit to donate to the Dragonas. However, when the composter was about to be purchased the seller realized the situation and who it was for and simply gave it to the anonymous donor so that it could be gifted to the Dragonas.

Composting units are usually bins or barrels designed to contain composting materials while they decompose. While not at all necessary, they are used by some to give a more tidy appearance to the composting process.

As a result of this gift, the ridiculous charges were dropped against Dragona and he now composts in a way that is acceptable to the borough.

All's well that ends well. Compost happens. Still, the borough could have avoided wasting time and resources in the first place by not harassing a green gardener.