Tag: News

  • Two more dumped off in Nebraska

    Teenager Abandoned At Children’s Hospital:

    Two more teens were dropped off at Nebraska safe havens over the weekend.

    A 16-year-old was dropped off late last night at Children’s Hospital in Omaha.

    Earlier on Sunday a ‘mother’ actually flew in from Arizona to drop off her 16-year-old daughter at a hospital in Papillion, Nebraska. The article says that the daughter used to live in Omaha like that’s supposed to make it better. If she would have driven she would have beaten the mileage record. Do you think she got her plane tickets in advance?

    That brings the total up to 26 of those dropped off at Nebraska safe havens and three from out-of-state.

    Beat the rush now before Nebraska changes the law in two weeks.

  • Man drops off 9 under Neb. safe haven law

    Father Talks About Abandoning His 9 Kids:

    The new Nebraska safe haven law just hit another snag. A man in Omaha dropped off his 9 kids at a safe haven.

    His wife died recently and he says he can’t take care of the kids by himself.

    So what do you think readers? Was this man justified or just selfish? Does the law need to be retooled?

    Let your voice be heard in the comments.

  • In Nebraska police stations aren’t safe havens

    Mom Accused After Dropping Off Teen At Police Station:

    Nebraska’s new safe haven law which allows teenagers to be dropped off as well has hit its first snag.

    A woman is being charged for dropping her problem child off at a police station. What’s wrong with that you ask? Well, in Nebraska police stations aren’t safe havens.

    Obviously, the state of Nebraska did not do their best job of letting the public know what is and what isn’t a safe haven.

  • A question about Nebraska’s safe haven law

    Safe Haven Law Used for Boys Over Ten:

    Nebraska’s new Safe Haven Law allows any child up to the age of 17 to be dropped off at a ‘safe haven’ if the parent or guardian can no longer care for them. In most states the safe haven laws only apply to newborns.

    In the past week 2 kids were dropped off at Nebraska safe havens. One was 11 and the other was 15.

    My question to you the reader is this such a bad thing? Isn’t it better for the state to find a home for these kids rather than have them live in a home where they’re not wanted?

  • The Answer?

    The answer to bullies:

    I almost passed this article by because I thought it was going to be just another “feel good” article about bullying with no real solutions. I was wrong…

    In this post-Columbine, zero-tolerance world, Izzy Kalman is something of a revolutionary. He agrees that bullying is a big problem. But he contends that getting rid of bullies is not the solution (and, in fact, is not even possible). What we have to do, he says, is get rid of victims.

    “People have a knee-jerk reaction when they hear that,” said Kalman over lunch last month, while he was in West Palm Beach leading a seminar for school counselors and other mental health professionals. “They say I’m blaming the victims. I’m not blaming the victims, but I am saying that they are the ones who have the problem. Bullies don’t have the problem. They aren’t the ones committing suicide and shooting up schools. Those are the victims, and those are the ones whose behavior we need to change.”

    Kalman, who spent 26 years as a school psychologist and private psychotherapist, wants to make something clear. He is not saying bullying is good. He’s saying it’s inevitable, a natural byproduct of human nature. He’s also saying that, to the extent it helps teach kids resilience and self-sufficiency, it’s useful. And he’s saying that, unless it causes physical harm, it’s also legal, protected under the Constitution.

    “Our Constitution guarantees the right to free speech,” he says. “And that means the right to tell someone they are a big, fat idiot if we want to. Kids today are growing up with the idea that nobody can ever say anything mean to them. We are raising a generation of emotional marshmallows. We’re promoting learned helplessness. And I am really concerned that when these kids grow up, they are going to be unable to handle adversity of any kind, because we learn to handle adversity from dealing with the fairly simple difficulties of childhood.”

    Like being called a big, fat idiot by the class bully.

    Read the rest of the article. It’s definitely worth it.

  • Rampage is Racist

    Rampage is Racist

    Reader’s Representative: Sorrowful news held extra challenges:

    (Log in info) It seems that Kate Parry, the “Reader Representative” of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, has an issue with the way the Red Lake shootings were reported…

    Like anyone, journalists make mistakes, especially when working fast and under difficult conditions. There have been mistakes in the Red Lake coverage, which we’ve corrected. One that can’t really be corrected but warrants discussion is the headline used on the first day of coverage. In large type it read: “Rampage at Red Lake.”

    While the technical definition of “rampage” would accurately describe a shooting that leaves 10 dead, it was a poorly chosen word to describe a catastrophe on an Indian reservation. Portrayals of “rampaging Indians” fed hateful stereotypes in books and movies for many years. Yet I’ve seen the word used in many media around the country to describe the Red Lake shooting.

    Here in Minnesota, where so many neighbors are Native American, we have the opportunity to be better informed about native issues and sensitive to language. Someone should have stopped that headline before it saw print.

    Emphasis mine.

    So the word “rampage” is racist because Jeff Weise was an American Indian. Well, what word or phrase would you have preferred? That he went on a “merry jaunt”? That he “cavorted with bullets”? That he went on a “lead filled excursion”? The kid went on a fucking rampage. But if he was white, or black, or Hispanic, or Asian, then rampage would have been ok? It’s not like the headline read “Him go on warpath after he smoke ’em peace pipe”. Instead of trying to be politically correct, how about reporting this thing called the truth. And sometimes the truth hurts. Deal with it.

    Link via Tongue Tied.