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the blog of a bear

this is where a bear will post stuff.

news articles

we learn why once again certain people shouldn't raise chhildren.

May 30, 2014 by stickbear Leave a Comment

In my ever expanding news crawling, I am astounded by some of the stuff I’m reading.
including locking your grandchild up for two years?
I’ve been dealing with a lot lately, and this story just made me outright cry for the second time in 24 hours.

Jane Fitzgerald, executive director of London Children Aid’s Society, said she is grateful that a vulnerable child has been rescued.
“We’re just getting to know this boy but what I can tell you is that among the first things he wanted was regular food and he wants to go to school,” said Fitzgerald.

The first thing you wanted was regular food? I am shocked, outraged, and trying to wrap my mind around this and can’t find further words to express myself at this time.
Thank you for reading.

Filed Under: children, news, news articles

violation of this child's first amendment rights? yes, please. Sue the school? totally do it!

June 20, 2013 by stickbear Leave a Comment

this
this apalling story
may be old, but it scrolled across my twitter feed for some reason and still pissed me off, so you can be pissed right along with me. Comments follow.

Sign Language Ban Imposed on N.J. Girl
By Bryan Robinson Jan 7, 2006, 10:13 AM
School officials have threatened a hearing-impaired girl with suspension if she uses sign language to talk to her friends on the school bus, the girl’s parents say.
Danica Lesko and her parents say sign language is the only way to for the 12-year-old to communicate, especially while riding to school on a noisy bus.
But officials at Stonybrook School — which is not a school for the hearing-impaired — and district officials in Branchburg, N.J., apparently believe signing is a safety hazard. They have sent a letter to the Lesko family ordering Danica to stop using sign language on the school bus or risk a three-day suspension.
The March 30 letter from her principal that said Danica was “doing sign language after being told it wasn’t allowed on the bus.”
The Leskos may file a lawsuit over the sign language ban, claiming officials are violating Danica’s civil rights and violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“She has a hearing problem, and now she’s being punished for using sign language,” Mary Ann Lesko, Danica’s mother, told The Star-Ledger of Newark. “It’s absurd.”
Danica’s parents told the paper that other students who rode to school with their daughter made fun of her, and refused to stay in their seats as they teased other girls who were using sign language. They said school officials are singling out Danica and not addressing those who should really be reprimanded.
Schools Officials: Safety First
In a statement released through the school district’s attorney, David Rubin, the Branchburg Board of Education refused to discuss the details of Danica’s case, saying only that its version of events differs from the parents’ version.
However, the board insisted it has not violated anyone’s rights and is only trying to protect other students who must ride on the school bus.
“The Board is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to all students with disabilities, and is satisfied that there has been no violation of that policy in this case,” officials said in the statement. “The Board is also committed to assuring the safety of all students who travel on District buses, and will continue to take appropriate steps to accomplish that goal.”
One deaf-rights advocate said Danica’s parents have a strong basis for a lawsuit because sign language could be a considered a foreign language, and school officials could be violating the girl’s First Amendment right to communicate.
“Why should there be a ban?” asked Charlotte Karras, outreach coordinator for the Edison, N.J.-based Alliance for Disabled in Action. “It’s a violation of her communication rights. She’s said it’s the only way she can communicate with her friends … It’s [the ban] against the ADA and violates the First Amendment and her family can file a discrimination suit citing the Americans With Disabilities Act.”
Karras said her organization would be willing to help the Leskos with any legal action.
Danica’s parents say she began losing her hearing last November, when a classmate allegedly shot a bottle rocket near her ear. They have already sued the Branchburg School District over that incident.

I don’t know why this came across my twitter feed, but let’s pick it apart, with a bunch of questions, in list form.
questions.

  • how is sign language a safety risk?
  • why would you suspend a hearing impaired 12 year old?
  • your already in deep shit for the bottle rocket thing, so why the hell would you pull a boneheaded move like this?

comments and opinions.

  • this schoolboard’s moronic, needs a swift kick, and should not be a schoolboard.
  • you are violating this little lady’s right to communicate so how about we rip out your vocal cords, then talk, k?,/li>

Final thoughts.
The comment boards. use them

Filed Under: accessibility, articles, children, feelings, general ranting, news, news articles, opinion, people needing a clue, rantings, rants, response, school

This is exactly the type of thing I want to be reading this close to flying to the states.

April 25, 2012 by stickbear 2 Comments

So as I prepare to fly to Origan in less than 2 weeks.
this is exactly the kind of thing I want to see the TSA doing.
note the oozing sarcasm, ladies and gentlemen.

Weeping four-year-old girl accused of carrying a GUN by TSA officers after she hugged her grandmother while passing through securityBy Hugo Gye
PUBLISHED: 05:11 GMT, 24 April 2012 | UPDATED: 10:14 GMT, 24 April 2012
Of all the many complaints about airport security and the TSA, one of the most common is that they make little distinction between plausible security threats and passengers unlikely to be doing anything wrong.
And a recent incident in Wichita, Kansas has reinforced that argument, as a four-year-old girl was apparently subjected to a humiliating ordeal after she hugged her grandmother while she was waiting in line.
The girl was accused of having a gun and declared a ‘high security threat’, while agents threatened to shut down the whole airport if she could not be calmed down.
When asked about the overbearing treatment the girl received, a TSA spokesman did not apologise and insisted that correct procedures had been followed.
Terror threat? Four-year-old Isabella was subjected to a full body pat-down and accused of carrying a gun in an airport
Four-year-old Isabella’s horrific experience in Wichita earlier this month was recounted on Facebook by her furious mother Michelle Brademeyer.
The family was in Kansas for a wedding, and was travelling home to Montana with Ms Brademeyer’s mother.
Ms Brademeyer and her two children had passed through security when the grandmother was detained after triggering an alarm on the scanners.
Isabella then, according to her mother, ‘excitedly ran over to give her a hug, as children often do. They made very brief contact, no longer than a few seconds.’
The young girl was immediately detained by security agents, who apparently shouted at her that she would have to be frisked too, and refused to let her mother explain what has happening.
Ms Brademeyer wrote: ‘It was implied, several times, that my mother, in their brief two-second embrace, had passed a handgun to my daughter.’
Nightmare: The TSA has been criticised for being over-zealous (file photo)
In her terror, Isabella tried to run away rather than face a full body pat-down, which unsurprisingly enraged the TSA officers further.
One officer even told the girl’s mother that the airport would have to be shut down and every flight cancelled if the four-year-old did not co-operate.
They also apparently described the little girl as a ‘high security threat’.
As Isabella was taken into a side room for a pat-down, accompanied by her mother, she could not stop crying and refused to let the agents touch her.
An officer repeatedly said she had ‘seen a gun in a teddy bear’ in the past, in an apparent attempt to justify the situation.
Ms Brademeyer continued: ‘The TSO loomed over my daughter, with an angry grimace on her face, and ordered her to stop crying.
‘When my scared child could not do so, two TSOs called for backup saying, “The suspect is not cooperating.” The suspect, of course, being a frightened child. They treated my daughter no better than if she had been a terrorist.’
Airport: Isabella’s family was flying out of Wichita at the time of the incident
Isabella continued to cry, and officers said the family would have to leave the airport as the TSA was unable to frisk the four-year-old.
When a manager was called, he decided that the distraught Isabella could be checked alongside her mother, and let the family pass through security at last.
But their nightmare was not yet over, as on a connecting flight in Denver, an airport employee demanded to know which of the family was Isabella – and ‘looked really confused’ when the girl was pointed out to her.
Ms Brademeyer concluded her Facebook post by drawing attention to TSA rules against separating children from their parents, and added: ‘I feel compelled to share this story in the hope that no other child will have to share in this experience.’
When The Consumerist approached the TSA for comment on the bizarre incident, a spokesman said: ‘TSA has reviewed the incident and determined that our officers followed proper current screening procedures in conducting a modified pat-down on the child.’
Last month the agency came in for criticism when a video of a three-year-old boy in wheelchair having a full pat-down and being swabbed for explosives circulated on the internet.

The TSA really needs to be better trained in handling children, that is all I have to say.
More later.

Filed Under: articles, children, news, news articles, opinion

Squeeze" based Debian Edu version released

March 11, 2012 by stickbear Leave a Comment

This scrolled across my desk thanks to a list.
This may be of interest to some.

Subject: “Squeeze” based Debian Edu version released
Resent-Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:50:22 +0000 (UTC)
Resent-From: [email protected]
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2012 17:49:01 +0100
From: Francesca Ciceri
To: [email protected]
————————————————————————
The Debian Project http://www.debian.org/
First “Squeeze” based Debian Edu version released [email protected]
March 11th, 2012 http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311
————————————————————————
March 11th, 2012
The Debian Edu Team is pleased to announce the release of Debian Edu “Squeeze” 6.0.4+r0! Debian Edu (aka “Skolelinux”) is a Debian Pure Blend specifically targeted at schools and educational institutions, and provides a completely configured school network environment out of the box. It covers PXE installation, PXE booting for diskless machines, and setup for a school server, for stationary workstations, and for workstations that can be taken away from the school network. Several educational applications like Celestia, Dr. Geo, GCompris, GeoGebra, Kalzium, KGeography and Solfege are included in the default desktop setup.
Besides including everything provided by the fourth update of Debian “Squeeze” (6.0.4), this new release of Debian Edu introduces some interesting improvements, including: replacement of LWAT with GOsa² as the LDAP administration interface; updated artwork and new Debian Edu / Skolelinux logo; a new LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE
(default) and GNOME (LXDE and GNOME are available only with the CD installation method); faster LTSP client boot; improved handing of removable media on thin clients; a new roaming workstation profile for laptops; full Samba NT4 domain support for Windows XP/Vista/7; etc.
The Debian Edu Team has also worked intensively on the documentation, improving and extending the manual which is now fully translated to German, French and Italian, while partial translations exist for Danish, Norwegian Bokmål and Spanish. The installation process has also been improved, integrating the new version of debian-installer, allowing copying of ISO images to USB sticks and changing partitioning for Standalone installs to have a separate /home and no /usr.
When asked about the [1] advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu, Nigel Barker
replied: “For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the workstation, or the LTSP. It’s all of them, and it’s all configured ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is designed to be set up and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who doesn’t necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with Japan.”
1:
http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html
For those who want to give Debian Edu “Squeeze” a try, [2] complete download and installation instructions are available, including detailed instructions in the [3] “Getting Started” chapter of the manual explaining the first steps, such as setting up a network or adding users.
2:
http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/en/debian-edu-squeeze-manual.html#Installation
3:
http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/en/debian-edu-squeeze-manual.html#GettingStarted
Those who are already using rc1-3 can upgrade to this version by using for example “apt-get upgrade” – users upgrading from beta3 must make sure they keep the existing gosa.conf file when dpkg asks how to handle the changed file during upgrade.
The sha1sums of the released ISO images:
f4184237f0eb2a509c6729b3f8039b71f5f4394a debian-edu-6.0.4+edu+r0-CD.iso 64681588fffa7a20f5d9e67c726f010580e35b9f debian-edu-6.0.4+edu+r0-DVD.iso
087d0c69da17b4a98a2966ff752fcfea8e30ec23
debian-edu-6.0.4+edu+r0-source-DVD.iso
Would you like to give your school’s computer a longer life? Are you
tired of sneaker administration, running from computer to computer
reinstalling the operating system? Would you like to administrate all
the computers in your school using only a couple of hours every week?
Check out Debian Edu Squeeze!
Skolelinux is used by at least two hundred schools all over the world,
mostly in Germany (in 2009 the region of Rhineland-Palatinate decided
to use it in all its schools) and Norway.
About Debian Edu
—————-
The [4] Skolelinux project was founded in Norway in 2001 with the aim of
creating a GNU/Linux distribution for schools and other educational
institutions. After merging with the French Debian Edu project in 2003,
Skolelinux became a [5] Debian Pure Blend. Today the system is in use in
several countries around the world, with most installations in Norway,
Spain, Germany and France.
4: http://www.skolelinux.org/
5: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianPureBlends
About Debian
————
The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
volunteers from all over the world work together to create and maintain
Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a huge range
of computer types, Debian calls itself the “universal operating system”.
Contact Information
——————-
For further information, please visit the Debian web pages at
http://www.debian.org/ or send mail to .

Filed Under: computers, internet, news, news articles, technology

you didn't want the public to know that you can't manage your own networks?

February 26, 2012 by stickbear Leave a Comment

As someone that’s been watching the
rogers
vs
crtc
go round and round since october, 2010, it came as no surprise when the following
story
rolled across my desk.

CRTC Slaps Rogers for Throttling Non-P2P Traffic
Posted by Jason Koblovsky on Saturday, January 21, 2012 – 01:38
January 20, 2012 – The Canadian Gamers Organization got word today that the CRTC’s enforcement division has found Rogers to not be non-compliant with CRTC net neutrality policy, and that it’s throttling software and hardware are actively misclassifying a wide range of applications and communication ports. The CRTC has cited evidence obtained and published by Cisco Systems (the hardware and software vendor Rogers uses for throttling), and has threatened a show/cause hearing on this subject if Rogers’ response is insufficient or fails to respond. If it goes to a hearing, the CRTC could file an order with the courts to force Rogers to reimburse affected customers.
In its letter the CRTC stated:
As you know, prior Commission approval is required pursuant to section 36 of the Act, as described at paragraphs 126 and 127 of TRP CRTC 2009-657, for implementing a technical ITMP that results in:
• noticeable degradation to time-sensitive traffic, or
• the slowing of non-time-sensitive traffic to the extent that it amounts to blocking the content and therefore controlling the content and influencing the meaning and purpose of the telecommunication.
Within two weeks, I look forward to you either presenting us with a rebuttal of our evidence or providing us with a plan to come into compliance with the Act. Failure to provide a meaningful rebuttal or an effective plan will result in my recommendation to Commissioners to hold a show-cause hearing. I look forward to your response by 12:00 pm, February 3, 2012.
“This is a historic day in Canadian tech and telecom history. This is a big win for not just Canadian Internet users but also for game developers, who have also been extremely frustrated with the use of throttling. We hope that the evidence uncovered today by the CRTC’s investigations will also help game developers improve online environments. Their product is being hindered by Cisco’s throttling equipment causing problems with connectivity and lag in a lot of gaming environments.” Co-Founder Jason Koblovsky stated.
Co-Founder Teresa Murphy added, “I think we’re all just glad that the CRTC looked further into the issue and essentially agreed with our October 14th response to the Commission where we stated other games and programs were being affected by faulty throttling equipment and software. Jason, myself, and I’m sure many other gamers on Rogers Cable Internet, are all looking forward to the day that this entire fiasco is resolved, as its been a long time coming now. I hope in the future, Rogers will run more extensive testing of their throttling rules before pushing them to all their systems. I also hope that in the future, if a Rogers employee promises to their customers that they’ll have the update reverted because it caused problems with multiple programs (as what happened in October 2010 on the Rogers forum on DSLReports.com – a forum which Rogers employees release official statements on), Rogers will actually follow through on the promise instead of leaving customers blowing in the wind.”

In other words, they got owned, hard.
Because I was curious, I pulled the PDF copy of the letter from
here

Letter Ottawa, 20 January 2012
Our Reference: 545613
BY EMAIL
Mr. Ken Thompson
Director and Counsel Copyright and Broadband Law
Rogers Communications Inc.
333 Bloor Street, East
Toronto, ON M4W 1G9
[email protected]
Dear Mr. Thompson:
Re: File 545613,
Internet Traffic Management Practice (“ITMP”),
Section 36 of the Telecommunications Act, S.C. 1993, c. 38, as amended (“Act”), and Paragraphs 126 and 127 of Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2009-657 (“TRP CRTC 2009-657”)
I am writing with respect to the above noted file that was transferred to the Compliance and Enforcement Sector by the Telecommunications Sector on October 27, 2011.
Compliance and Enforcement Sector staff has been reviewing this file since its referral to our sector. Based on the preliminary results of our ongoing investigation, Commission staff is of the belief that Rogers Communications Inc. (“Rogers”) applies a technical ITMP to unidentified traffic using default peer-to-peer (“P2P”) ports. On the basis of our evidence to date, any traffic from an unidentified time-sensitive application making use of P2P ports will be throttled resulting in noticeable degradation of such traffic. Enclosed please find a summary of our evidence. Full details, if necessary can be obtained by request through my office.
As you know, prior Commission approval is required pursuant to section 36 of the Act, as described at paragraphs 126 and 127 of TRP CRTC 2009-657, for implementing a technical ITMP that results in:
noticeable degradation to time-sensitive traffic, or
the slowing of non-time-sensitive traffic to the extent that it amounts to blocking the content and therefore controlling the content and influencing the meaning and purpose of the telecommunication.
Within two weeks, I look forward to you either presenting us with a rebuttal of our evidence or providing us with a plan to come into compliance with the Act. Failure to provide a meaningful rebuttal or an effective plan will result in my recommendation to Commissioners to hold a show-cause hearing. I look forward to your response by 12:00 pm, February 3, 2012.
Sincerely,
Andrea Rosen
Chief Compliance and Enforcement Officer
Summary of Evidence
File 545613
This attachment summarizes evidence pursuant to the above noted file, which is an ongoing investigation of Rogers Communications Inc.’s (“Rogers”) Internet Traffic Management Practice (“ITMP”) by the Compliance and Enforcement Sector.
The Compliance and Enforcement Sector’s ongoing investigation includes examining a number of key performance indicators (“KPIs”), such as:
TCP resets, TCP syn/acks, connection status
Latency in milliseconds
TCP Window size
Packet loss
Packets per second
Average packet sizes
Retransmission of packets
Dropped connections
Active connections/sessions
Upstream available bandwidth limits
Packet sequence numbers
Other TCP and UDP traffic statistics and analysis.
As Cisco is Rogers’ vendor,1 the Compliance and Enforcement Sector had and continues to have tests conducted against information from the website of Cisco Systems, Inc. (“Cisco”). Preliminary testing results indicate that unidentified traffic using default P2P ports, as identified in the Cisco SCA BB Protocol Reference Guide,2 is throttled. Such results further indicate that:
default P2P ports for TCP traffic are subject to throttling, except port 6969, and
until December 20, 2011, all default P2P ports for UDP traffic were subject to throttling.
Compliance and Enforcement Sector staff also notes Rogers’ disclosure of its network management policy, which indicates that an application may not attain full speed if encrypted and not using a standard port for the application/protocol in question.3 Moreover, while Rogers has stated that misclassification occurs in only a few cases,4 staff notes that Cisco identifies various applications that may have been misclassified.5
——————————————————————————–
1 Rogers letter dated September 27, 2011, at 3.
2 Cisco SCA BB Protocol Reference Guide: [Cisco SCA BB Protocol Reference Guide].
3 Rogers Network Management Policy: [Rogers Network Management Policy].
4 Rogers letter, supra note 1 at 3.
5 Cisco Service Control Application for Broadband Protocol Pack Notes, available online: [Cisco PP Notes].

So I monitored this story to it’s conclusion this February, and we have a
promise
from rogers indicating they’d stop throttling by the end of 2012.

Rogers promises to end internet throttling
Phased-in approach will begin next month, with all customers included by end of year
Prithi Yelaja CBC News Posted: Feb 3, 2012 3:33 PM ET Last Updated: Feb 3, 2012 6:55 PM ET
Rogers has decided to end internet throttling by the end of this year in response to a CRTC probe.
net throttling?Rogers has promised to stop “throttling” internet traffic on its network by the end of this year, in response to an investigation by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
In a letter to the CRTC Friday, Rogers stated it would stop all traffic shaping including bandwidth throttling — limiting a user’s upload or download speeds — through a phased-in approach that is to begin next month.
“New technologies and ongoing investments in network capacity will allow Rogers to begin phasing out that policy starting in March 2012,” wrote Kenneth Engelhart, senior vice-president of regulatory affairs.
“These changes will be introduced to half of Rogers existing internet customers by June 2012 and to its remaining customers by December 2012.”
The move follows a similar decision by Bell to cease throttling on its network starting March 1.
Internet traffic management
Internet traffic management refers to techniques used by network managers to slow down some types of traffic in favour of others. In particular, some internet service providers say they slow down applications that use large amounts of bandwidth, but don’t dramatically affect the user’s ability to use the application when they are slowed down, such as peer-to-peer file sharing.
They say that allows them to guarantee higher speeds and better quality of service for time-sensitive applications such as video streaming that don’t work properly when they are slowed down. However, problems can arise if the technology used to distinguish different types of applications mistakenly classifies time-sensitive traffic as peer-to-peer.
“This is a huge step for internet openness in Canada, and [comes] after a long uphill battle with big telecom,” said Steve Anderson of OpenMedia.ca, a grassroots advocacy group that has protested usage-based billing and is credited with preventing bills allowing electronic surveillance from being tied into the government’s omnibus crime bill.
“Within months of one another Bell and Rogers have announced that they will stop throttling the internet and limiting online choice. This has been a long time coming — more and more Canadians are up in arms about threats to internet openness, and it’s about time that big telecom bends to the public interest.”
OpenMedia.ca pushed for and won Internet openness rules in 2009, but has since been pushing for enforcement of those rules, said Anderson.
“The consumer complaints process is the sole mechanism in place and Rogers’ response to the CRTC represents a potential first step in changing this broken system,” he said.
However, Jason Koblovsky, founder of the Canadian Gamers Organization had some concerns about Rogers’ intention to end throttling.
“Rogers failed to provide the CRTC with technical data as to which games and applications they have tested themselves. Without the technical data from their tests on online games, [we] worry that Rogers’ response may be an attempt to mislead the CRTC and the public. We continue to call on Rogers to make these numbers public,” Koblovsky said.
Last month, the CRTC notified Rogers it was violating federal net neutrality rules by deliberately slowing or throttling time-sensitive internet traffic, specifically online games.
The CRTC based its findings on the results of an investigation in collaboration with Cisco Systems, the hardware and software vendor that Rogers uses.
The probe was launched last year after a complaint by the Canadian Gamers Organization that accused Rogers of hindering online games, such as World of Warcraft and Call of Duty: Black Ops, in violation of the federal regulator’s guidelines.
The Telecommunications Act and CRTC regulations allow throttling of peer-to-peer file sharing programs like BitTorrent, but not of time-sensitive internet traffic like video chatting or gaming.
Rogers had until Friday to either rebut the evidence gathered by the probe or provide the CRTC with a plan to comply with the act — or face a hearing on the matter.
As part of its rebuttal, Rogers said it would cease all traffic shaping by the end of 2012.
The company successfully dealt with the issue of throttling last March, and the CRTC’s “tests were of an issue that had nothing to do with gaming,” Engelhart told CBC News in a phone interview Friday.
“We’re pretty confident we solved those problems last year,” he said.
However, “out of an abundance of caution we have toggled the equipment so it does not slow down unclassified traffic on peer-to-peer file sharing ports.”

What’s this tell me about the major cable provider?
They can’t manage their network to save their lives, they’re looking for ways out and not providing all the data, because they want to Hhide.
As this year progresses, we’ll soon see what changes are committed to the network over the year.
Happy commenting.

Filed Under: articles, internet, news, news articles, opinion, response, technology, thought, Uncategorized

I…. can't find words.

December 7, 2011 by stickbear 3 Comments

I get being angry, I get your stressed, irritated, what have you. But did you really have to shoot your own children, and kill yourself because you didn’t get foodstamps? This article now indicates the 12YO child is dead.
The article follows.

Laredo, TX Welfare Shooting Claims Another Victim
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The grandmother of two children shot by their mother inside a Texas welfare office said Wednesday her former daughter-in-law had a history of mental problems leading up to the standoff in a state building where the struggling family had been denied food stamps.
One of the children, 12-year-old Ramie Grimmer, died Wednesday night at a San Antonio hospital, Laredo police spokesman Joe Baeza said. The girl’s brother, 10, remained in critical condition.
Ramie appeared to post a chilling update on Facebook while her mother squared off with police Monday at a Laredo welfare office. Her profile was updated to read “may die 2day” just hours before authorities say her mother shot the girl and her brother, then killed herself to end the seven-hour standoff.
The family had moved this summer to the border city, where they lived in a rundown trailer. The state denied Grimmer’s application for food stamps in August, but Mary Lee Shepherd said her grandchildren’s mother had problems beyond trying to feed her family.
“My son knew she was mentally ill and tried to get her help,” said Shepherd, who lives in Helena, Mont. Shepherd said her son Dale Grimmer, the children’s father, was flying Wednesday from Montana to San Antonio hospital to be with the children.
Dale and Rachelle Grimmer divorced six or seven years ago, after Rachelle and the children moved from Montana to Ohio, Shepherd said. Dale Grimmer also moved to Ohio and was able to visit the children from time to time, but Rachelle Grimmer moved and did not inform him or the court, Shepherd said.
Shepherd said she or her son contacted social workers in Montana twice and in Ohio once because they were concerned that Rachelle Grimmer could harm the children. Shepherd declined to detail her former daughter-in-law’s mental problems or say what caused them to make those calls.
Shepherd’s claims could not immediately be verified Wednesday with state child welfare officials in Montana and Ohio. However, Texas Department of Family and Protective Services reported finding two cases Wednesday involving Grimmer and her children.
In the first case, reported Sept. 15, 2010, the department received a possible neglect report after Rachelle Grimmer and her two children were found living in a tent on a South Texas beach. Investigators found no evidence of neglect and closed the case, spokesman Patrick Crimmins said.
In a report made last June, Corpus Christi police said Rachelle Grimmer had come to police headquarters with her two children and reported that she had been a domestic violence victim. Caseworkers checked on her and the children, determined the children were not at risk and took no further action, Crimmins said.
The findings had been delayed until Wednesday because Grimmer’s surname had been spelled differently in the department database, and she was listed under a different first name, Crimmins said.
Rachelle Grimmer, 38, was found dead inside the building later that night, along with her two wounded children. She arrived around 5 p.m. and asked to speak to a caseworker about her rejected food stamps application. Officials said Grimmer was taken to a private room, where she then pulled out a gun.
About two dozen people inside the building were let go unharmed. Grimmer rattled off a litany of complaints against government agencies during the negotiations with police, Laredo police investigator Joe Baeza said.
The state rejected Grimmer’s request for food stamps because her application was incomplete, said Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Health and Human Services. She described Grimmer’s contact with the state as sporadic, including the mother not following up about her denied benefits until more than three months had passed.
Shepherd said the standoff and shooting never should have happened, but that she hopes this case will result in people
treating such intervention requests more seriously.
“They should have gave her the food stamps and followed up and then got the children out of there,” Shepherd said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, and my son is terribly distraught, but you know, something good can come out of this where somebody will start listening.
Goodman said an agency supervisor tried calling Grimmer on her cellphone five days before the shooting, but no one answered and the voicemail box was full.

According to further research, the 10yo is still alive, and in critical condition.
As I’ve read and researched this article for this blog, what crosses my mind is this.
If the 10year old survives? He’s gonna be rather pissed off.
I can’t find words, I’m reading this over and over again, the article above, has probably pissed a lot of people off, the comment boards await you.

Filed Under: news, news articles

An ongoing news story catches my eye, then comes up in psych class.

September 13, 2011 by stickbear Leave a Comment

Some of you may or may not be familiar with the name Jordan Brown. Well ok, I get it, it’s a common name, so you’ve probably heard it somewhere. His case came up in adolescent psych the other day while we were discussing whether a 15-year-old mother should be allowed to make major medical decisions involving her child by herself, or should others be involved to assist her in the making of those decisions.
So the scenario looke something like this. The girls 15, baby’s daddy’s 17 and just got out of jail on assault charges. He’s hanging out at the hospital, having a grand old time, making all these free phone calls to god knows who, kinda going, “Look at me! I just got out of jail!”
So he’s doing that, and this 15 year old mother, who’s HIV positive, whose child is also, is making all these oh my god huge decisions, that really, no parent should be forced to make alone.
Jordan Brown came up when we were asked, is the father an adolescent or an adult? I’d seen an update on his case, which I’d been eyeballing for awhile, Over here a few days prior to the discussion we had.
Jordan Brown should have been the typical 11-year-old kid. He was adjusting to a divorce or breakup of his parents, and that’s difficult for any child that age. However, on February 20, 2009, this child took a youth-sized gun, and shot his soon-to-be stepmother. His dad, Chris, had given the gun to the child as a Christmas present. He’d also proposed to the deceased on the same day.
First, why would you give your 11-year-old a shotgun? I mean, I get it if you want to teach your child to shoot, for hunting purposes, like this guy did, but couldn’t you see signs of trouble before?
Ok, so I’m a bit biased here, but I would never hand my 12-year-old brother a gun! That’s just asking him to use it stupidly. I can see giving a kid a small youth-model gun when they’re around 15 or 16, because by that time, one hopes, his sense of morality has developed. But to give a kid in a precarious or new situation a gun, at age 11… No.
What was the father thinking? hadn’t there been reports from the school, teachers, principal, whoever else have you, that would indicate to any sensible person with a working brain in their cranium, “Um, by the way,this kid shouldn’t be in possession of an unregistered firearm.”
No, apparently, in Pennsylvania, you don’t have to register children’s firearms. I’m now curious as to whether that’s the case everywhere, must look it up later. If the child shoots and kills an adult, is he fully responsible for his actions? Could part of the blame be placed on Dad for giving the kid a gun and not locking it up in the first place? Ok, I guess I can see allowing a kid a gun, if you’re smart, and you lock the thing up in a safe after each use. But this genius let his 11-year-old kid keep a gun, out in the open, in his room.
So the kid’s 11, he’s jealous and angry that his new stepmom’s having a new baby. Reportedly he tells one of his little friends that he wants to shoot his stepmom. Dad, why weren’t you paying attention here? Obviously, this kid wasn’t psychologically equipped to be owning, shooting, or keeping a firearm in his room!
My other question here is, can an 11-year old premeditate a murder? Children, at age 11, especially boys, can be very immature for their age. Is the ability to premeditate present yet? In the beginning, his dad says it was an accident.
There’s been tons of controversy surrounding this case because noone was really sure whether Brown should be tried as a child or an adult. Obviously, were he tried as a child, his sentence would be lighter than had he been tried as an adult.
Eventually, a judge ruled he should be tried as a juvenile. His reasons, if you look at update 4 over here make sense.
Apparently, none of the defense’s claims held up according to this judge, so if Brown is found guilty, he gets out of prison in 2018. Had he been tried as an adult, they’d have most likely nailed him with life in prison, no parole. It took 2 years for this child to be discertified as an adult, for a crime he was charged with at age 11.
It seems like much of this was because there are those who genuinely believe this kid didn’t do it, and that if he did, he’s a low-risk offender. How do we know that, though? We don’t. This kid committed a murder at age 11. He was only a child, with an underdeveloped sense of morality. Besides, how can you prove he didn’t do it? His prints are all over that gun, even if he did ditch the shell casing on the way to school. Assuming he’s guilty, there’s no real way of determining whether he’s a high or low-risk offender, because he was only 11 at the time and one is not fully developed at that age. I realize that the victim’s family wanted him tried as an adult, and with good reason, but I think the judge was right. You can’t try a 14-year-old kid as an adult for a crime he committed at age 11. The understanding of what he did, if he is guilty, wasn’t fully there at the time. He new what he was doing in the moment, but wasn’t aware of the consequences of his actions, as is the case with most children at age 11.
Kids at that age love to test buttons. I have a 12-year-old brother who seems to believe that because I’m treated like a child by my parents, he doesn’t have to do as I ask.
There’s no excuse for what this kid did if he’s found guilty, but as mentioned above, the parents should’ve been a little more emphatic about firearm safety and use. there is no reason that child should have had that gun in his room, left out in the open. The father is partially to blame, too. No reasonable adult lets a kid keep a gun in his bedroom. There’s no reason you couldn’t have purchased a safe with the weapon and given that to the child along with the gun.
I’ll agree he should be tried as a juvenile, I’ll agree he’s at fault if he’s found guilty. But Dad’s not receiving anything from the looks of it over here, for being an idiot. (Well ok so you can’t legally charge someone with being stupid)… But why isn’t the father receiving a legal slap on the wrist for letting the kid have the gun in his room unsupervised? I know he was supervising the instruction and use of the weapon outdors, but you can’t just hand a gun to a kid and say, “take this upstairs to your room.”

Filed Under: articles, children, news articles, opinion, random posts from random locations, thought, Uncategorized

Why is that news article choosing this evening to roll across my desk?

September 9, 2011 by stickbear Leave a Comment

Well ok. My floor. Since I don’t have a desk to speak of at this current time. . You know, because give it a few days and I won’t have a place to live. But we already went over that earlier. So let’s just um, go down here, use my limited web design skills, and learn about what happens when stupid people/organizations do stupid things.
So, there’s this dude. You know, the guy who wrote this thinggy over here.
That guy who wrote that thing up there that’s used for the social network which shall not be named of which I may or may not be a member, goes to Florida State University.
Well, Florida State’s math department, you see, has this nasty little habit. They like to
force their blind students to use inaccessible software for math courses.
Well, this dude doesn’t like this very much. You se, he, ladies and gentlemen, is blind, in the event you didn’t read that thing over there in your other browser tab. So what did Florida State do that pissed him off enough to get the NFB involved? Well, to refresh your memories, and mine, because it’s half past holy crap o’clock in the morning and I haven’t even had dinner yett, let’s play a li’l game. One of my favorites. it’s called Peel and Stick. It works, kinda like this, wherein I take a piece of that article in that other tab of mine and go… Well, let’s see what they did, now, shall we?

The suit alleges that FSU’s Department of Mathematics discriminated against Mr. Toth
and Ms. Principato by failing to provide them with proper accommodations so that
they could successfully complete required math courses for their respective degree
programs. The violations include requiring the students to use an inaccessible Web-based
application to complete homework assignments, tests, and quizzes; requiring the use
of clickers that cannot be used by a blind person to respond to in-class questions
and obtain bonus credit; failing to provide Braille versions of the required textbooks
in violation of agreed-upon accommodation plans; and engaging in retaliatory actions
when the students complained of these violations. In all cases, faculty members
in the Department of Mathematics were generally uncooperative, unhelpful, and even
hostile, and did not provide meaningful alternative methods for Mr. Toth and Ms.
Principato to successfully complete the required courses. As a result, both students
are currently unable to continue their degree programs and find their careers indefinitely
on hold.

Who are you, FSU math department, to deny these two blind students an education? And who are you, FSU disability services, for allowing the math department to treat students who *you* are supposed to be assisting, so poorly? And don’t even get me started. Inevitably, some fucktard’s gonna waltz on in here and say disability services could have known nothing about it. I’m calling bullshit. I’m calling bullshit based on the fact that other students in other state universities all across the country get treated like this daily. But you know what? As long as the books look pretty, it doesn’t matter how students are treated. Because nobody who works for a state university actually gives a fuck about the students. No. All they care about is their form letters and their handbooks and their rules. as long as it looks good on paper, nobody actually cares! Nope, because as long as their reports look pretty for whomever the hell they report to, they can just carry on treating people like garbage and get away with it.
You can’t rightfully sit here and tell me Florida State didn’t know about the treatment these two students were receiving. (In fact, I wish I could grab the one I have on my mesenger and ask him what disability services actually did about the situation, but unfortunately, right now, I can’t seem to find him.) Um, well, it is 1:26 AM. You normal people that are lucky an that have everything, you’re sleeping right now, wile I’m scrounging for a place to live. yeah. Especially you lucky sighties, who have jobs. And you all sat at home, in your normal houses, with your normal families, this evening, and did normal things. While I bounced around the state with a backpack, a duffel, a cane and a person guiding me, trying to find a place to crash this evening that wasn’t gonna get a friend of mine from high school evicted from her apartment, you people, probably some of the very ones I’m currently being persecuted and treated like a criminal by, get to live your lives like nothing’s wrong. You get to sleep in your own bed, in your own house, while I worry about whether my next move is to court so I dont get put in a group home by my insane mother, or worse, end up under her guardianship, and living in my house for the rest of my pathetic, broken, useless life. Hope you’re proud of yourselves, because I would rather like to start planning ways of getting rid of myself so you all have nothing to worry about anymore. Yeah. remember how someone told me I should kill myself? Suicidal ideations. again. thanks assholes. Just how I wanted to spend an evening in an unfamiliar place. and I thought I was gonna get away with not being a medicated zombie for the rest of my life? Well, guess I’m quite sure who to thank for that.

Filed Under: accessibility, articles, computers, court, facebook, FSU stupid, internet, news articles, opinion, people needing a clue, random posts from random locations, rants, stupid people, technology

what, that extra-large wasn't big enough?

August 30, 2011 by stickbear 2 Comments

so yesterday, tim hortons said they were
changing
their cup sizes and removing the small completely.
It’s being tested in a couple of test markits for a month to see the reaction.
All I’m gonna say is. welcome to 24 oz extra large, kids.
Here’s the entire article.

Tim Hortons super-sizes its coffee; medium becomes new small
Updated: Mon Aug. 29 2011 4:36:32 PM
The Canadian Press
TORONTO — Coffee lovers at two Ontario Tim Hortons outlets may soon be doing a double take at their double-double.
The popular chain is brewing up something new using outlets in Kingston and Sudbury as test markets.
Tim Hortons spokesman Nick Javor says the company is introducing a new extra-large cup size which will hold 24 ounces (710 millilitres).
It will also be changing the names of all the cups to make room for the new extra-large, which will cost $1.90 plus tax.
Javor says the 20-ounce (590 ml) will now be known as large, the 14-ounce (414 ml) will be medium and the 10-ounce (295 ml) will become the small.
At the Kingston test outlet, the eight-ounce (240 ml) size will be called an extra small but at the Sudbury outlet, it won’t be on the menu at all.
The prices for each cup size will not change.
Javor says research shows customers’ tastes are moving to larger sizes. He says it will test the two markets for about a month to see what the reaction is.

Filed Under: news, news articles

That's exactly how you promote accessibility and uphold the law in hamilton. really, it is.

August 29, 2011 by stickbear Leave a Comment

Thanks to a contact on MSN, we have tonight’s stupidity.
this time it come’s from hamilton, and it’s HSR’s
apparent lack of hiring compitent drivers
My comments follow the article.

Mo ther, worker want HSR to apologize to boy in wheelchair
Peach Festival transit pitfalls Dan Provan, 7, with respite workers John Moning, left, Coleen Plate, centre, and his mother Robin. He had trouble riding on a bus to the Peach Festival.
John Rennison/The Hamilton Spectator
Daniel Provan is a seven-year-old with cerebral palsy, epilepsy and is non-verbal. The Our Lady of Lourdes student was born seven weeks early with brain damage and is wheelchair-bound. But he was allegedly denied access to the designated wheelchair space on a Hamilton Street Railway bus.
His mother, Robin, wants an apology from the HSR after her son was made to get on and off the bus without a ramp.
Daniel and his educational assistant, John Moning, set out for the Winona Peach Festival early Friday evening and waited in a long lineup for the free shuttle service at Eastgate Square.
When the bus arrived, the driver did not open the back door, where passengers in wheelchairs usually enter, Moning said. So the EA took the boy to the front.
Once on the crowded bus, Moning said he asked the driver twice to have people occupying the wheelchair seating area move back. He was ignored both times, with the driver finally asking: “Where would you like these people to go?”
Moning ended up having to put the brakes down on Daniel’s wheelchair, behind the yellow line. When they arrived at the Winona festival, the ramp was not lowered for them.
On the return trip from the festival, another bus driver closed the back door before they got out and told them to exit from the front, Moning said, adding the driver had already stepped outside the vehicle to drink a coffee at that point.
Moning told the driver Daniel needed a ramp, but the driver said: “It’s OK. Just back him up, he’ll be fine.”
Moning and a secondary EA, Coleen Plate, ended up lowering Daniel from the bus without the ramp, after Moning had asked the driver three times to lower it.
The city’s public works department spokesperson Kelly Anderson said the director of transit, Don Hull, is assessing the situation to gather more information about the incident.
Daniel’s mother, Robin, sent an email Friday night to Mayor Bob Bratina, who replied Sunday, saying he would ask his staff to “review and comment.”
“I demand an apology. I think Daniel deserves one,” the 43-year-old said. “He didn’t ask to be disabled.”
Robin, who works for the city’s community services department, said this incident shows her that there is still a lot of “ignorance and intolerance” against people with disabilities in Hamilton.
“It was such a shock, such a slap in the face,” the 43-year-old said. “It’s unfortunate that other workers in the city … could treat another human being so shabbily.”
Similar incidents with HSR have happened before during Moning’s outings with Daniel, with whom he has been working for more than a year, but the EA never made a big deal out of it. “They might be having a bad day, whatever.”
But Friday’s events “ticked (him) right off” because it counteracted progress the city has made around accessibility awareness, he said. “Stuff like this happens and you’re going back 10 feet again.”
Moning said he wants to see HSR staff undergo more sensitivity training around the accessibility policies set out by the province.
“(I want) a public apology saying: That never should have happened.”
[email protected]
905-526-2468

Having lived in hamilton, I know what the rules and regulations are regarding this type of situation, and for a city that’s screamed accessibility for years, to allow this, and their only response is their looking into it?
If I were their, both drivers would be suspended without pay for at least 30 days pending a complete investigation, and either forced to undertake serious retraining or lose their jobs, entirely.
You are required by law to secure wheelchairs, and I’ve been on those buses. Nobodey moves to the back, nobody gives a shit.
Packed or not, if their is a wheelchair, the people in designated spots are to be told to move and the chair properly secured in the designated area.
As for the ramp?
That’s again, another form of blatent not giving a crap about the safety of the passenger(s).
If the child or the PSA’s had been hurt? It would be HSR’s neglogince that caused it and hell would be raised.
I feel both drivers shold be removed from their jobs, and a public apology from the drivers in question and from HSR as a whole shold be given to the child and workers who were put in a dangerous situation, and could have died that night because of the driver(s) negligence.
I know some of you are gonna wine that it’s a disability, who gives a fuck, but if you were in that situation, I don’t think you would be saying that, so just keep your mouths shut.
If this had happened here in Ottawa? the city, right alongside the people who live here, those drivers would be removed from the road and a full investigation would come out of it and their wouldn’t just be some lame ass form letter from the city and the mayor saying it was being looked into.
With that, I’m outta here!

Filed Under: accessibility, news, news articles, opinion, people needing a clue

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