Blue_Tires
Blue_Tires's JournalAdmitted child abuser keeps his Navy career
VIRGINIA BEACH
When a Navy officer was accused of sexually molesting two of his children, city social workers investigated and concluded that the allegations were credible. They placed his name on the State Child Abuse and Neglect Registry.
He was forbidden under court order from going within 2 miles of the home, school or workplace of any of his four children until they turn 18.
But when the Navy examined the same allegations, the result was the opposite. The officer was cleared. He has faced no criminal prosecution. To the contrary, he has been promoted and allowed to stay in his $96,000-a-year job unhindered.
Meanwhile, the Navy lieutenant is divorcing his wife, who has been left destitute. The family home in Virginia Beach has been lost to foreclosure. The wife and four children have moved five times in four years, ending up in a cockroach-infested motel room at the Oceanfront, where they live among the homeless and drug addicts.
The judge in the divorce case, persuaded that the allegations were impeding the officer's Navy career, has declared his wife in contempt of court and sentenced her to 10 days in jail - time that she will have to serve unless she pays a $5,000 fine.
She has no money to pay the fine. She is barely able to feed her children.
How could this happen?
http://hamptonroads.com/2013/12/admitted-child-abuser-keeps-his-navy-career
I finally saw "Rear Window" for the first time...
Who knew this "Grace Kelly" was such a hottie?
Man puts wife up for sale along with Harley:
Bob White, of Charles City, Virgina, posted an ad on craigslist reading: "Wife says: 'Harley goes or she goes'... Your choice. Both in excellent condition: $5,900."
Mr White says he will consider best offers under his target price and also trade-ins. He is also offering either a pick-up or delivery service.
His humourous ad reads: "Sportster: 2006 XL1200L Sportster in excellent condition. Wife: 1959 model year in excellent condition, considering.
"Sportster: Only 6,500 miles (less than 900 miles per year!). Wife: High Mileage.
"Sportster: Well maintained... and it shows - see the pictures. Wife: High maintenance - and it shows - see the pictures."
He goes on to describe the Harley as "great for beginners or seasoned riders alike" and a "beautiful bike, pearl white with black and orange accent strips".
While his wife, who he does not name, is described as "the expert's only model" and "beautiful edition, white with a mean streak".
And he concludes: "Sportster: Come out and test ride before you buy. Wife: Don't even go there."
http://web.orange.co.uk/article/quirkies/Man_invites_offers_for_wife_or_Harley_Davidson?WT.mc_id=ON_MEC_A_AffWin_Skimbit&WT.tsrc=Affiliate&awc=3515_1386357624_95921c886a46dee8bf3f0afc7a3a3ba4
http://gawker.com/wife-tells-hubby-to-choose-between-her-and-harley-hubb-1477955024/@neetzanz
I'll hazard a guess and say Bob White of Charles City is the DUer we call "underpants" 
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the 2015 Ford Mustang:
http://www.ford.com/cars/mustang/2015/I drive an '11 and my reaction to this is kinda mixed at the moment....
32 Mugshots of Black Men on Cover of Tenn. Newspaper Cause Uproar
Tenn. Paper Catches Heat for Front Page Array of Mug Shots
"On Nov. 5, the Times Free Press published a front-page story about the arrests of 32 men charged with gun and drug crimes after a four-year local and federal investigation. Chattanooga Police Chief Bobby Dodd called the suspects the 'worst of the worst' in Chattanooga's criminals," Alison Gerber, editor of the Chattanooga Times Free Press in Tennessee, wrote to readers on Sunday.
"We heard no reaction from readers. Not a peep.
"On Nov. 17, the newspaper published a second front-page story about the suspects and their criminal histories. This time, we were barraged with feedback. Some of the words used to describe the report: irresponsible, distasteful, racist.
"The difference? The second story included the mugshots of all 32 suspects. And the photos highlighted something: All 32 suspects are black men.
"See their faces all in one grouping and you can't ignore that. You can't just shrug it off.
"It was an in-your-face presentation, and some readers thought it was a mistake, that we should not have published the mugshots at all. Even some in the newsroom disagreed with the decision to run them — or thought we should have placed them on an inside page where they wouldn't be as noticeable and would be seen by fewer people.
"Many argued with the choice to refer to the men as the 'worst of the worst,' even though those words were chosen by Dodd, a man who's been in law enforcement for a quarter of a century.
"The combination of those two things — the photos of 32 faces and the label 'worst of the worst' — prompted a visceral reaction.
http://www.theroot.com/blogs/journalisms/2013/11/_25_mugshots_of_black_men_on_cover_of_chattanooga_times_free_press_cause.html
Talking Trayvon with kids isn't exclusive to African-American parents
(CNN) -- Amiyrah Martin of Edison, New Jersey, an African-American mom of two, says she and her husband are still trying to figure out how to sit their 8-year-old son down and explain the Trayvon Martin case and its conclusion -- without getting emotional.
"My biggest issue is ... giving him the facts rather than getting upset and giving him how I feel, because I want him to come to his own consensus," the host of the blog Four Hats and Frugal said in an interview. "My husband is the same way. He's very emotional about it ... so he doesn't want him to think, 'Well, Dad feels this way so I should.' He wants him to create his own opinion."
When Martin, who is not related to Trayvon Martin's family, ultimately has the conversation with her little guy, who always "likes to know the why," he'll no doubt ask about race, she said.
"We're going to have to tell him that it may have been due to Trayvon's race, and this is how it happened, and this is how George Zimmerman decided to react to it," she said. "It's going to be very hard to sit him down and have the conversation, but we know we have to do it."
While not everyone agrees that Martin was racially profiled, the case and the protests that followed have led to larger conversations between parents and kids. Some are focusing on race -- Martin was black and Zimmerman identifies as Hispanic, so it's not just a black and white issue. Still, others aren't even talking about race but are focusing on behavior.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/18/living/parents-trayvon-martin-conversations/index.html
Oh, there's a word to describe those who still claim he wasn't profiled...
Shannon Harkins, the face of African American ballet dancers’ struggle
The Washington Ballet rehearsal studio is warm and humid from bodies in motion. Overhead lights reflect the sheen on the young dancers’ foreheads, and for the fourth time, Shannon Harkins and her fellow “Nutcracker” castmates have to start their routine again.
“Can you soft! Soft!” demands teacher Vladimir Djouloukhadze, demonstrating to the group the artistic, “flowy” hands the Chinese scene calls for — a nearly imperceptible difference from what the dancers had been doing. He runs over to Harkins. “Always keep this vertical,” he barks, straightening the umbrella she carries while she dances on point.
Harkins, 13, nods. She doesn’t especially like being singled out, although in the elite world of ballet, she is often singular. “Again,” says Djouloukhadze, and the dancers from the first cast — who dance the premiere shows with the company stars — scramble back into their starting positions.
Shannon is the only African American girl in the lineup.
This is Harkins’s eighth year at the Washington School of Ballet and her seventh year in “The Nutcracker.” She’s been a party girl, a soldier, a butterfly. She’s a Chinese girl in this year’s production, but she’s aiming for corps of ballet roles, such as a snowflake. After that, she wants a professional role such as the Sugar Plum Fairy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/shannon-harkins-the-face-of-african-american-ballet-dancers-struggle/2013/11/26/06c28738-5083-11e3-a7f0-b790929232e1_story.html
Memphis Officials Propose an African-American Trail
Memphis, Tenn., officials have pitched the idea of an African-American historical trail to the City Council, the Associated Press reports.
The trail, which would be dedicated to black leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., would include new monuments around the downtown area, according to the AP.
Housing and Community Development Director Robert Lipscomb reportedly said that the concept for the trail, which was still in its early stages, includes new monuments in the downtown area that visitors could learn about with the help of a cellphone app. Officials are looking for grants to absorb the cost of the trail.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2013/12/memphis_officials_propose_an_african_american_trail.html
Trof, you have to blame my grandmother
Although my grandmother's family is spread out all over AL and the south in general, they are mostly overwhelmingly Auburn fans (my grandmother as you know was born in Brewton and lived almost all of her life in Tuskegee, where my mom and her brothers were born and raised)...Ironically, even though we've had close family friends on the Auburn coaching staff in past years, to my knowledge not one relative has ever played football for them -- But we have had one play for Alabama...Go figure...
My grandmother was a diehard Auburn fan UNTIL Saban got hired...As far as she's concerned, Saban built rockets in Huntsville, stared down George Wallace in 1963, started Mardi Gras in Mobile, and built the Hyundai plant...Every time she's watching football we have this exchange:
Grandmother: "Did you know Saban gave $100,000 to the City of Tuscaloosa for aid after that storm went through?"
Me: "But Saban makes a jillion dollars per season! He makes more than the governor and legislature combined! That's like you or me donating $20!"
Grandmother: "I don't care -- We both know he didn't HAVE to give ANYTHING!"
(My grandmother then starts to list all the wonderful things Saban's wife has done for the community, but by then I've tuned her out)
Suffice it to say, my grandmother is the jinx...Anyone who cheers on Auburn for decades and then decides to cross over is hauling a truckload of bad sports karma...
Reversing Broward County's School-to-Prison Pipeline
When, after a nationwide search, he was hired two years ago to serve as superintendent of Florida’s Broward County Public Schools, Robert Runcie began brainstorming ways to close the racial achievement gap. At the time, black students in the sixth-largest district in the country had a graduation rate of only 61 percent compared to 81 percent for white students. To find out why, Runcie, who once headed a management-consulting firm, went to the data.
“One of the first things I saw was a huge differential in minority students, black male students in particular, in terms of suspensions and arrests,” he says. Black students made up two-thirds of all suspensions during the 2011-2012 school year despite comprising only 40 percent of the student body. And while there were 15,000 serious incidents like assaults and drug possession reported that year, 85 percent of all 82,000 suspensions were for minor incidents—use of profanity, disruptions of class—and 71 percent of all 1,000-plus arrests were for misdemeanors. The last statistic, says Runcie, “was a huge red flag.”
Like most large school districts in the United States, discipline policies in Broward reflected the idea that the best way to maintain an orderly classroom is to get rid of disruptive students, an approach known as zero tolerance. Zero tolerance policies help explain why 81 percent of all suspensions in New York City Schools in the 2012-20 13 school year were for minor infractions and 70 percent of all arrests were for misdemeanors; why 67 percent of all school-based arrests in Florida in 2011-2012 were for misdemeanors; and why 97 percent of half a million suspensions and expulsions recorded in an eight-year Texas study published in 2011 were not required under state law. A 2008 survey from the American Psychological Association titled “Are Zero Tolerance Policies Effective in Schools?” found that “recent research indicates a negative relationship between the use of school suspension and expulsion and school-wide academic achievement.” While factors outside of school, like family income, matter most for academic success, “there’s a direct correspondence between the achievement gap and discipline,” says Pedro Noguera, a professor of education at New York University. According to a nationwide study from UCLA 24 percent of black secondary-school students were suspended at least once during the 2009-2010 school year versus 7 percent of white students. That same year, the graduation rate for black students was 66 percent compared to 83 percent for white students.
Broward announced broad changes designed to mitigate the use of harsh punishments for minor misbehavior at the beginning of this school year. While other districts have amended their discipline codes, prohibited arrests in some circumstances, and developed alternatives to suspension, Broward was able to do all these things at once with the cooperation of a group that included a member of the local NAACP, a school board member, a public defender, a local sheriff, a state prosecutor, and several others. In early November, The Miami Herald reported that suspensions were already down 40 percent and arrests were down 66 percent. Yet these changes required years of advocacy. The hard scrabble road to Broward’s success also helps explain why zero tolerance policies have persisted.
http://prospect.org/article/reversing-broward-countys-school-prison-pipeline
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