Support the Saints and Lady Saints tennis team with your donation to the annual Serve-a-thon. Donations may be made by the number of successful serves made out of 100 attempts during the Serve-a-thon or you may make a flat donation of any amount. All money raised will help fund players' uniforms, travel expenses, and scholarships as well as team equipment and facility upgrades.
THANKS AGAIN FOR SUPPORTING SCCC/ATS TENNIS PROGRAM!


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Business News of Saturday, 9 May 2015
Gov't considers introduction of bullet trains
Government is putting in place plans to build a bullet train that will reduce transportation from Accra to Kumasi to 1.4 hours from station to station.
The Minister of Public Private Partnerships (PPP), Rashid Pelpuo, through the Office of the President has engaged a New York Investment bank Chesterfield Faring Ltd. (CFL) to devise a Request for Proposal (RFP).
The CEO of CFL Mr. Lawrence J. Selevan visited with the Honorable Dr. Pelpuo last week in Accra, Ghana. During his stay, Mr. Selevan met with the Departments of Transportation, Housing, and Finance to coordinate the underwriting of the RFP.
In a quote from Mr. Selevan, "I believe that Ghana is ready for a state of the art mass transit system that will speed up the commute for millions of everyday citizens in both Accra and Kumasi".
The plan is to build an elevated light rail mass transit commuter system linked to the Kotoka International Airport.
Initial estimates for Phase 1 of the RFP is USD $12 billion growing to USD $30 billion over the balance of the decade. Bids will be considered after the master plan of the rail and TOD are completed in the RFP.
"Also, the USD $30 billion should have a 3.0-3.5 multiplier effect increasing immediate economic activity to almost USD $100 billion before the end of the decade, as well as the aftermath of the investment; increasing GDP by almost 3% per annum, growing to over USD $2.0 billion annually".
"The immediate impact will be apparent as vehicular congestion allows more access and an easier flow of traffic, both for commuters and freight transportation."
The Honorable Dr. Pelpuo remarked, "We sought out the best firm with the greatest vision to improve the everyday lives of all of our citizens through an improved affordable transit system. We will be building beautiful sustainable 'cities within our city' that will be a model for all of Africa into the future."
Mr. Earl N. Caldwell II and Mr. Kevin A. Copeland of The Catalyst Group, a Ghanaian based real estate developer, has provided local guidance to CFL to navigate the local markets, demand drivers, and interpreted the macro vision for the RFP.
The light rail mass transit commuter system will include trade zones, which will have shops, public and private parks and gardens, office towers, hotels and 1,000 unit residential towers.
This article has 69 comment(s), give your comment

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


As a beauty blogger and someone who suffers from dry skin, I was absolutely delighted to have been sent samples of the "Caraderm" Seaweed products, thanks to Inish Pharmacy. This product had been featured on Dragons Den and had the added bonus of being made in Northern ireland, which, as always, really appealed to me. I love to support local.
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text:
Q: Best way get header link urls for paginated data using RestTemplate? I am looking for simplistic way to get it done using RestTemplate.
I have got response header like following:
content-length: 123456
content-type: application/json;charset=utf-8
link: <https://domain/v1/api/posts?page_no=1&per_page=5>; rel="first",<https://domain/v1/api/posts?page_no=1&per_page=5>; rel="current",<https://domain/v1/api/posts?page_no=2&per_page=5>; rel="next",<https://domain/v1/api/posts?page_no=76&per_page=5>; rel="last"
x-total-count: 120

Here the x-total-count is the total data count. And rel: "next" is the next page link.
What's the best way to get next page URL till end?
Or is there any other way to recursive requests till end of data count using RestTemplate?
Thanks!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


When, way back in 2004, Green Day released American Idiot it was a clarion call for the disaffected youth of the US. It leapt up the charts on a wave of critical acclaim and commercial success and was much beloved of a certain callow young music blogger in provincial Portsmouth. Fast forward 15 years and I don't perhaps listen to the album very often now but it still holds significance as it's first theatrical incarnation was one of the first theatre pieces I reviewed and quite probably the point that convinced me to start this site. Now, a good few years later here I am again in Southampton for the launch of a new national tour.


text:
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« Tragic Magic
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News | Production News
Peapod Prods go on the Moonlit Road
July 15, 2014 | By Thom Dibdin	| Reply More
Autumn tour steps out on Halloween
Edinburgh-based shoestring company Peapod Productions will take to the road this autumn with a spooky production based on the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, M.R. James, Bram Stoker and, crucially, Ambrose Bierce.
Graphic for the Moonlit Road © Anne Kingscott
The Moonlit Road and other ghostly tales will be performed by Philip Kingscott, who founded and runs the company, and who adapted the stories with director Andy Corelli. The company has had previous triumphs with the Reindeer Monologues, The Garden and Passing Through.
Explaining why he turned to horror for his next production, Kingscott told Æ that his parents would use tapes of books to stop him and his brother fighting on long car journeys.
"The ones we loved the most were ghost and horror stories," he said. "I can vividly remember listening to The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce [the story which forms the framework for the whole play] on a family holiday to the Lake District when I was six or seven and being completely terrified!"
Moving on to read ghost and horror stories for himself in his early teens, Kingscott loves the way a good story creeps into the brain and can stay there for days or weeks after it has first been read. A big favourite then was La Horla by Guy de Maupassant, which he has re-read several times since.
"More recently, I've rediscovered listening to ghost stories again, thanks to the repeats of The Man In Black on BBC Radio 4 Extra over the past few years – read by the terrifying Edward de Souza – so it seemed like the obvious choice when I was thinking of the next Peapod show to do."
The show will open on Halloween, appropriately enough, at the Howden Park Centre in Livingston before touring round Scotland, arriving in Edinburgh for a three-night stay at the Scottish Storytelling Centre on November 13.
"I was really keen the show should open at Howden Park Centre," says Kingscott. "I saw my first ever theatre at Howden Park; my first job was as an usher there and I attended the nearby youth theatre Firefly Arts for seven years – which I'm now on the board of and is now based in Howden. In fact The Moonlit Road is being performed in Firefly's own space."
The production sees Kingscott team up with Edinburgh-based director Andy Corelli, who directed him in Passing Through.
"Between the two of us we're adapting classic ghost stories to fit the play," says Kingscott. "We'll then ask a professional writer to give us some feedback which we can work on in rehearsals to help create the final piece.
"Andy's really good at making theatre which can be easily adapted to a wide range of spaces – he did to great effect with Passing Through. The Moonlit Road is being performed in 500 seaters like Carnegie Hall to tiny village halls, and has to be just as gripping a performance in either venue."
After this autumn tour, The Moonlit Road will do a short UK tour next spring, before touring Italy and Switzerland in May 2015.
The Moonlit Road listings
Howden Park Centre, Livingston
31 October: 8pm
Harbour Arts Centre, Irvine
2 November: 8pm
Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline
Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh
13-15 November: 8pm
The Moonlit Road will then tour village halls in the Scottish Borders including:
Longformacus Village Hall
22 November: 7.30pm
Further Scottish Borders dates will be announced in the autumn and will also be at www.watchpromotions.org
Peapod Productions website: www.peapodproductions.co.uk
Tags: Andy Corelli, Horror, News, Peapod Productions, Philip Kingscott, Production News, Theatre
Ending Sun 19 Jan.
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Assembly expands ART award
Hidden Door open call
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text:
Q: How to join (merge) multiple files (by rows) using multiple columns I have multiple files with content like:
==> file1.tab <==
Contig  Position    TS-568_ALLELE   TS-568_FREQUENCY    TS-568_COVERAGE
ch00    11009393    A/C 0.02/0.97   93
ch00    11009395    A/C/T   0.01/0.97/0.01  96
ch00    11009416    A/G/T   0.12/0.83/0.04  97
ch00    11009421    A/G 0.17/0.82   97
ch00    11009427    A/C/T   0.02/0.96/0.00  101
ch01    11009436    C/T 0.99/0.00   103
ch01    11009437    G/T 0.00/0.99   104
ch02    11009441    A/G 0.07/0.92   101
ch02    11009445    G   1.0 96

==> file2.tab <==
Contig  Position    TS-602_ALLELE   TS-602_FREQUENCY    TS-602_COVERAGE
ch00    11009393    C   1.0 7
ch00    11009395    C   1.0 7
ch00    11009416    G   1.0 5
ch00    11009421    G   1.0 5
ch00    11009427    C   1.0 4
ch01    11009436    C   1.0 4
ch01    11009437    T   1.0 4
ch02    11009441    G   1.0 5
ch02    11009445    G   1.0 5

==> file3.tab <==
Contig  Position    TS-586_ALLELE   TS-586_FREQUENCY    TS-586_COVERAGE
ch00    11009393    C   1.0 34
ch00    11009395    C   1.0 35
ch00    11009416    A/G/T   0.07/0.89/0.02  39
ch00    11009421    A/G 0.10/0.89   39
ch00    11009427    A/C 0.02/0.97   37
ch01    11009436    C   1.0 44
ch01    11009437    T   1.0 44
ch02    11009441    A/G 0.06/0.93   45
ch02    11009445    G   1.0 44

I read about join in bash, but my problem here is that I need to join them based on two first columns, not a single one (ch00   11009427 is a unique identifier, ch01   11009427, or ch03   11009427 can also be in the list).
So, the expected output will be:
==> file_all.tab <==
Contig  Position    TS-568_ALLELE   TS-568_FREQUENCY    TS-568_COVERAGE TS-602_ALLELE   TS-602_FREQUENCY    TS-602_COVERAGE TS-586_ALLELE   TS-586_FREQUENCY    TS-586_COVERAGE
ch00    11009393    A/C 0.02/0.97   93  C   1.0 7   C   1.0 34
ch00    11009395    A/C/T   0.01/0.97/0.01  96  C   1.0 7   C   1.0 35
ch00    11009416    A/G/T   0.12/0.83/0.04  97  G   1.0 5   A/G/T   0.07/0.89/0.02  39
ch00    11009421    A/G 0.17/0.82   97  G   1.0 5   A/G 0.10/0.89   39
ch00    11009427    A/C/T   0.02/0.96/0.00  101 C   1.0 4   A/C 0.02/0.97   37
ch01    11009436    C/T 0.99/0.00   103 C   1.0 4   C   1.0 44
ch01    11009437    G/T 0.00/0.99   104 T   1.0 4   T   1.0 44
ch02    11009441    A/G 0.07/0.92   101 G   1.0 5   A/G 0.06/0.93   45
ch02    11009445    G   1.0 96  G   1.0 5   G   1.0 44

The files are sorted based on column 1 and column 2 and the number of rows are equal among them. And there are about 150 of those files with the total size of 6.5 GB

A: awk may achieve what you desire.
awk -v OFS='\t' 'BEGIN{PROCINFO["sorted_in"]="@ind_str_asc"} {for(i=3;i<=NF;i++) a[$1 OFS $2]=a[$1 OFS $2] OFS $i}END{for(i in a)print i,a[i]}'

Brief explanation,

*

*OFS='\t': set the output field separator as \t

*PROCINFO["sorted_in"]="@ind_str_asc": Order the array by indices in ascending order compared as strings. Reference here for more details.

*for(i=3;i<=NF;i++) a[$1 OFS $2]=a[$1 OFS $2] OFS $i: save the value to the specific indice in the array.

*END{for(i in a)print i,a[i]}: print the indice and its corresponding value in the array.


Problems with cash flow, billing, and guaranteed return are real, especially among law firms, and they're getting worse each year.
With realization rates steadily dropping for lawyers, the average attorney is only making $86 for every $100 billed. That's neither logical nor the norm in any other industry—solos and small firm lawyers are essentially working billable hours for free. Why?
We explore obstacles to getting paid in our latest infographic, "From Billing to the Bank." A comprehensive breakdown of client patterns and alternative payment solutions will help you get paid on-time, in full, simplifying your cash flow qualms.
This post was published on February 1, 2016 . Last updated: February 1, 2016 .


text:
South Canterbury Drama League presents
World Premiere written by Robert Duncan
Friday to:
The Playhouse
198 Church St, Timaru
Before being able to select tickets, please enter the access code below:
Includes light supper
Interval: 15 minutes
iTICKET vouchers can be used for Complimentary tickets for the whole season. Select your tickets then enter your Voucher information in the provided fields.
Newmans MusicWorks Timaru
Mon-Fri 8:30AM - 5:30PM; Sat 9:30AM-12:30PM
117 Stafford St, Timaru Central, Timaru 7910
Timaru Information Centre
Mon-Fri 10:00AM - 4:00PM; Sat-Sun 10:00AM - 3:00PM
Landing Service Building, 2 George Street, Timaru 7910
Parker's Stationery
Mon-Fri 8:45am- 5:15pm & Sat 9:45am-12:00pm
103 Queen Street, Waimate 7924
"CUT!" is a murder mystery comedy written by British playwright Robert Duncan. Robert has penned a fantastic script based on the board game "Cluedo". It has all the twists, turns and torments you could expect.
Otto Steinburger (that dastardly film producer) has gathered together six guests for an evening of entertainment at their expense, only someone is murdered. Who did it, and how? The young starlet? The ex-lover? The housekeeper? The War veteran? The Vicar? Or maybe the special effects expert? Can the Inspector (with the help of the Sergeant) solve the crime before dawn? Of course he can - this is theatre, but can you detect the murderer before the Inspector does?
Little Theatre is proud to be the first in the world to reveal Robert's latest offering this coming March. Mark your diary, this is a "must see".
Please contact iTICKET if you require disabled seating (0508) 484 253
Bar will be open before and after each performance.


text:
SUBCHAPTER I
§ 12593
42 U.S. Code § 12593 - Terms of service
As a condition of receiving a national service education award under division D, a participant in an approved national service position shall be required to perform full- or part-time national service for at least one term of service specified in subsection (b).
(b) Term of service
(1) Full-time service
An individual performing full-time national service in an approved national service position shall agree to participate in the program sponsoring the position for not less than 1,700 hours during a period of not more than 1 year.
(2) Part-time service
Except as provided in paragraph (3), an individual performing part-time national service in an approved national service position shall agree to participate in the program sponsoring the position for not less than 900 hours during a period of not more than 2 years.
(3) Reduction in hours of part-time service
The Corporation may reduce the number of hours required to be served to successfully complete part-time national service to a level determined by the Corporation, except that any reduction in the required term of service shall include a corresponding reduction in the amount of any national service educational award that may be available under division D with regard to that service.
(4) Extension of term for disaster purposes
(A) Extension
An individual in an approved national service position performing service directly related to disaster relief efforts may continue in a term of service for a period of 90 days beyond the period otherwise specified in, as appropriate, this subsection or section 12613(d) of this title or in section 4954 of this title.
(B) Single term of service
A period of service performed by an individual in an originally-agreed to [1] term of service and service performed under this paragraph shall constitute a single term of service for purposes of subsections (b)(1) and (c) of section 12602 of this title.
(C) Benefits
An individual performing service under this paragraph may continue to receive a living allowance and other benefits under section 12594 of this title but may not receive an additional national service educational award under section 12595 of this title.
(c) Release from completing term of service
(1) Release authorizedA recipient of assistance under section 12571 of this title or a program sponsoring an approved national service position may release a participant from completing a term of service in the position—
for compelling personal circumstances as determined by the organization responsible for granting the release, if the participant has otherwise performed satisfactorily and has completed at least 15 percent of the term of service; or
for cause.
(2) Effect of release for compelling circumstancesIf a participant eligible for release under paragraph (1)(A) is serving in an approved national service position, the recipient of assistance under section 12571 of this title or a program sponsoring an approved national service position may elect—
to grant such release and certify the participant's eligibility for that portion of the national service educational award corresponding to the portion of the term of service actually completed, as provided in section 12603(c) of this title; or
to permit the participant to temporarily suspend performance of the term of service for a period of up to 2 years (and such additional period as the Corporation may allow for extenuating circumstances) and, upon completion of such period, to complete the remainder of the term of service and obtain the entire national service educational award.
(3) Effect of release for cause
A participant released for cause may not receive any portion of the national service educational award.
(Pub. L. 101–610, title I, § 139, as added Pub. L. 103–82, title I, § 101(b), Sept. 21, 1993, 107 Stat. 810; amended Pub. L. 111–13, title I, § 1314, Apr. 21, 2009, 123 Stat. 1510.)
[1]  So in original. Probably should be "originally-agreed-to".
2009—Subsec. (b)(1). Pub. L. 111–13, § 1314(1)(A), struck out "not less than 9 months and" before "not more than 1 year".
Subsec. (b)(2). Pub. L. 111–13, § 1314(1)(B), substituted "during a period of not more than 2 years." for "during a period of—
"(A) not more than 2 years; or
"(B) not more than 3 years if the individual is enrolled in an institute of higher education while preforming all or a portion of the service."
Subsec. (b)(4). Pub. L. 111–13, § 1314(1)(C), added par. (4).
Subsec. (c)(1)(A). Pub. L. 111–13, § 1314(2)(A), substituted "as determined by the organization responsible for granting the release, if the participant has otherwise performed satisfactorily and has completed at least 15 percent of the term of service" for "as demonstrated by the participant".
Subsec. (c)(2)(A). Pub. L. 111–13, § 1314(2)(B)(i), substituted "certify the participant's eligibility for that portion of the national service educational award" for "provide to the participant that portion of the national service educational award".
Subsec. (c)(2)(B). Pub. L. 111–13, § 1314(2)(B)(ii), struck out "to allow return to the program with which the individual was serving in order" before "to complete the remainder".
Amendment by Pub. L. 111–13 effective Oct. 1, 2009, see section 6101(a) of Pub. L. 111–13, set out as a note under section 4950 of this title.
Section effective Oct. 1, 1993, see section 123 of Pub. L. 103–82, set out as an Effective Date of 1993 Amendment note under section 1701 of Title 16, Conservation.


Religion, secularism and the state: in defence of the middle ground!
The proximity of two recent judgements apparently challenging the right of Christians to practise their faith has led to much media interest including the headline 'Christianity on the Rack'. One of the two concerned public prayers at council meetings.
Responses have included 'a plague on both your houses' from those who dislike the fervour of the National Secular Society as much as that of the Christian Institute; an attack on 'militant secularism'; and a narrow analysis that the scope of the judgements was not the broad brush attack on faith that it seems.
Now, I approach these rulings as a lawyer who believes in human rights; but from that perspective the growth of a secular society is neither inevitable, nor even a preferred direction of travel.
My unusual, but hardly unique starting point, is that Christianity itself lost its way, somewhat, when it was appropriated as a state religion under Constantine; and that requiring it to sink or swim without state support in competition with every other faith or belief, is fine. I've no truck, then, with the 'Christian country, Christian heritage' kinds of arguments. If someone is intolerant enough to insist on asking a judge the question, I have no quibble with the answer the judge gave.
However, there are two dangers that appear to have been widely missed. Both emerge from the debate about the boundary between public and private life.
Our liberal right is to manifest faith, "alone or in community… in public or in private". It may well be that faith should not be state-sponsored. But it should be allowed to be a part of public life, not a purely personal, still less a secret activity.
The second danger, again accepting that faith should not be state-sponsored, is that if we are to secularise state-sponsored public life, we need a clear understanding of the boundary between public and private life; and we need enough of life to be on the private side of that boundary for faith to be able to thrive.
Three growth areas in state activity concern me in this regard: regulation, privatisation, and criminalisation. As a social worker, I draw my examples from social work, surely the epitome of the interface between state-sponsored public life and private life.
By regulation, I refer to the State's involvement in setting and enforcing standards. Checking that restaurants are clean seems innocuous enough. Requiring us to register if we look after each other's children is more problematic. Oh, I understand the pubic interest in the welfare of children readily enough, the problematic is the boundary between public and private spheres of activity. Something that was once a purely private activity becomes the State's concern.
Consider this for a moment. The threshold for compulsory intervention in family life is significant harm; a threshold that serves as a reminder that in the absence of significant harm the State may seek to persuade, but cannot coerce it's views on how to bring up a child. But if I want to bring up someone else's child, I need the State's approval. Despite the fact that we know children would be better off in families than in corporate care, we check those new families not against the 'significant harm' threshold but against the State's best practice standards. Further developments mean we are under pressure to treat kinship and non-kinship arrangements comparably. Again, I understand the whys and wherefores, just observe that kinship care, surely once the epitome of the private sphere, has become the State's concern.
Paragraph 5.8 of the GSCC's Code of Practice – a standard enforceable against social workers under the Care Standards Act, and one frequently cited in misconduct cases, provides a further example. An Act of Parliament makes provision for a Code which in turn allows an organ of the State to monitor and censure the private lives of social workers.
Now, why should privatisation represent an expansion of the State's area of influence, rather than a contraction? The answer is that what it represents is a blurring of the State's sphere of influence. Certain activities, health or social care, for example, were once clearly in the public domain, or clearly in the private domain. But when the private domain contracts with the public domain, and the same commercial providers supply both, the boundaries are blurred.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than by the fallout from the House of Lords' decision in YL v Birmingham City Council & Ors  UKHL 27 (20 June 2007). An 83 year old woman with dementia was unable to assert her human rights against her care provider because she was placed in a privatised care setting, the provider being held not to be performing a 'public function'. In the fallout from that decision, there has been a call to expand the definition of 'public function' to cover privatised services.
There should surely be nothing objectionable in that, if I believe, as I do, in human rights? Well, it does seem to me that YL's human rights ought to have arisen because of her humanity, not because of some technical ruling about the scope of the State. And if we are to expand the scope of what is a 'public function' it does seem we are going to need to tread with care lest we also believe that means 'secular'.
Two characteristics of the criminal law may be said to be that it represents society's minimum standards of behaviour, and that it is the State that polices them. So a surge in new criminal offences (approximately one new offence a day under the previous administration) also corresponds with a growth in the scope of activity that the State polices.
Now, to be fair, there has been public support, media support, democratic support, for the growth of the state. Indeed, it seems that nothing can go wrong in the private sphere without a clamour going up for the state to intervene. But the State needs to resist. To know its place. To behave in a way that does not tyrannise the minority. To respect human rights.
Both religion and the State have been capable of great harm in history, most frequently when they have been intertwined. A secular state is no less capable than a religious one of excesses, intolerance, even atrocity. But both religion and the State also have the potential for great good; and I would rather see them operating as checks and balances on each other, than either one surging forward to overwhelm the other.


Finn Harps held a press conference ahead of the new season in Letterkenny on Tuesday night.
Harps open with a trip to Drogheda United on Friday night and they're likely to be without captain Ciaran Coll because of injury.
The captain's armband is expected to be given to Keith Cowan who will play his first competitive game since suffering a serious injury in October 2016. Cowan also attended Tuesday night's press conference along with club secretary, John Campbell.
Harps boss, Ollie Horgan, said he's looking forward to the new season, but with the number of quality sides in the division, picking a winner is anyone's guess.


text:
Current: Diaspora Jews Embracing the Indictments of Their Enemies
Diaspora Jews Embracing the Indictments of Their Enemies
Dr. Kenneth Levin, February 1, 2007
Dr. Kenneth Levin
Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel, World Jewry
* Jewish, Anti-semitism, Democrats, Diaspora, Jews, Roosevelt, US
Publication: Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism
Jews embracing as truth the indictments of their enemies has been a fixture of Jewish life throughout the history of the Diaspora. It became even more widespread with the weakening of Jewish communal institutions in recent centuries in the context of the emergence of modern nation-states.
Segments of populations under chronic siege commonly take to heart the indictments of their besiegers, however bigoted and outrageous. They hope that by doing so and reforming accordingly they can assuage the hostility of their tormentors and win relief.
The paradigm on the level of individual psychology is the psychodynamics of abused children. Such children almost invariably blame themselves for their predicament, ascribe it to their being "bad," and nurture fantasies that by becoming "good" they can mollify their abusers and end their torment.
The embrace by members of an abused community of the indictments of their abusers is obviously both debilitating and dangerous. It is debilitating insofar as it entails perceiving oneself and one's community as tainted and reprehensible. And as the history and indeed current predicament of world Jewry amply illustrate, it is dangerous when it diverts the individual's, and community's, gaze from genuine external peril, and from essential defensive measures, to focus instead on self-reform.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as the issue of extending citizenship rights to Jews was first being considered in the states of Central Europe, those opposed to granting such rights pointed to characteristics of the Jews that ostensibly rendered them unfit. Whatever such indictment was offered of the Jews, however bigoted or outrageous, some within the Jewish community invariably endorsed the charges.
For example, it was claimed that Yiddish was a crude, bastardized, unwholesome language that reflected the degenerate nature of the Jews and illustrated their unfitness for citizenship rights. Many Jewish leaders and members of the Jewish cultural elite embraced this assessment of Yiddish and condemned it as, in the words of one such figure, "a language of stammerers, corrupt and deformed, repulsive to those who are able to speak in a correct and orderly manner."1 He also remarked, "I am afraid that this jargon has contributed more than a little to the immorality of the common man."2
Jews were also criticized at the time for being primarily engaged in trade. It was interpreted as another mark of their degeneracy and inappropriateness for citizenship, and this too won the endorsement of some Jews. Indeed, a major effort of the maskilim – the devotees of the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment – was to encourage and even force Jews to cast off their supposedly reprehensible endeavors and take up more wholesome occupations like farming and the crafts. This, it was thought, would make them more worthy of acceptance by their neighbors.
In the course of the nineteenth century, Jews in substantial numbers abandoned Yiddish as their primary language to speak, for example, "good" German. Significant segments of the community also succeeded in leaving behind the commercial occupations of their fathers to become poets, composers, philosophers, and intellectuals of various other stripes.
Many leading voices in the surrounding society then argued that Jews might gain command of the German language, or master German poetic or musical forms or the subtleties of German philosophy, but still were doing so with alien Jewish minds and sensibilities. Such voices maintained that Jews were still unable to apply their learning to true aesthetic or intellectual creativity but instead were subverting what they had learned to some lesser, alien end. Even this indictment was embraced by some in the Jewish community, who insisted that Jews were indeed being too pushy in their cultural endeavors and that most who took part in these were, in fact, introducing alien and lesser "Jewish" elements that were coarsening German culture.3
All these instances of Jewish absorption of anti-Jewish indictments were propelled by Jews' desires to propitiate their attackers, and they all reflected delusions of propitiation. It is common within besieged communities – whether minorities marginalized, denigrated, and perhaps attacked by the surrounding society or small states under chronic siege by their neighbors – that some members of the community will take to heart the indictments of the assailants, however absurd and biased. The hope is that by doing so and reforming to address the indictments, they can win relief.
The Paradigm of Abused Children
The paradigm on the level of individual psychology is the response of children subjected to chronic abuse. Such children almost invariably blame themselves for their suffering. Although this has most often been ascribed to children's naїveté, their taking at face value accusations of blame, the deeper explanation lies in the existential predicament of such children. They can, on the one hand, acknowledge that they are being unfairly victimized and are powerless to change their situation, and reconcile themselves to its hopelessness. Or they can blame themselves, interpret their predicament as a consequence of their being "bad," and endure the self-criticism that this perspective entails but thereby sustain a fantasy of control. In such a fantasy, by becoming "good" they will elicit more benign behavior from their tormentors and win relief. Children almost invariably seek to avoid hopelessness at all costs, and adults do the same.
The embrace by members of an abused community of the indictments of their abusers is obviously both debilitating and potentially dangerous. It is debilitating insofar as it entails perceiving oneself and one's community as tainted and reprehensible. And it is dangerous in those instances where it diverts the individual's, and the community's, gaze from genuine external peril, and from essential defensive measures, to focus instead on self-reform.
But communities are not entirely helpless in the face of the psychological depredations of chronic assault. Communal institutions, if strong enough and possessing sufficient moral suasion, can be effective in conveying a countervailing message. Such a message will emphasize that there is an essential integrity and goodness to the community, that the attacks of its enemies are unfair, and that ultimately the community will move beyond current travails to enjoy better fortune.
On the level of the abused-child paradigm, a similar role can be played by a caring adult, a grandparent perhaps, who conveys to the child that he or she does not deserve ill-treatment, that the "bad" party is the abuser, and that ultimately the child will escape current tribulations and go on to a better life. Such an adult may not be able to help end the child's current difficulties but can help arm him or her against all the debilitating psychological consequences of the child's embracing the tack of self-blame and propitiation.
In the history of the Diaspora, it has been a virtually constant phenomenon that some Jews embrace the indictments of the Jews' tormentors. But the emergence of modernity and the modern nation-state was accompanied by a dramatic weakening of Jewish communal institutions. This entailed a weakening of the countervailing messages those institutions offered and left Jews significantly more vulnerable to the psychological corrosiveness of surrounding communities' anti-Jewish depredations.
Another noteworthy aspect of this phenomenon is that those who take to heart the indictments of the Jews' tormentors typically cast their stance not as an effort to assuage anti-Jewish attitudes but rather as reflecting some higher moral or ethical position. For example, those who criticized Jewish involvement in commerce typically argued that there was indeed something intrinsically reprehensible in commercial endeavors and morally superior in other types of employment.
Similarly, in response to claims by anti-Jewish voices that the Jews were only interested in their own wellbeing, pursuing solely their own parochial agendas, Jews often aggressively sought to avoid focusing on the needs of the Jewish community, even as the community suffered disabilities that were unique to it. Such Jews sought instead to enlist in broader causes, and cast their doing so not as attempting to assuage those who accused them of parochialism but rather as a righteous emphasis on broader social needs.
In a related vein, another indictment by people who sought to deny Jews citizenship rights was that the Jews were a separate nation and so should not be absorbed as equal citizens. One Jewish response to this occurred within reformist congregations that were founded by Jewish communities in the German states. These congregations, among other accommodations, often sought to expunge longings for Jerusalem and a return to Eretz Israel from the Jewish liturgy as a means of demonstrating that Judaism entailed a purely religious and not national identity. Those who advocated such reforms did not cast their doing so as an effort to appease anti-Jewish opinion but rather as representing a progression of the Jewish faith toward an exclusively universal ethical message and mission. In such a context, any longing for Return was seen as narrow-minded and atavistic.
Again, this reflects a pattern discernible in abused children's interpretation of their predicament as being caused by their own behavior. Such children's images of becoming "good" are clearly driven by fantasies of pleasing their abusers in a manner that will win relief. However, they typically comprehend what constitutes their being "bad" and what it would mean to reform and become "good" as representing transcendently meaningful ethical and moral choices.
Categorical Thinking
One can argue that attempts by minorities to accommodate the wider society can and do at times succeed in winning them greater acceptance. This is true; for example, Jewish exertions to give up Yiddish and master normative German could be perceived as having been a pragmatic step. But that is very different from endorsing the derogation of Yiddish as intrinsically primitive, inferior, and corrupting. Such endorsements were founded on the desire to believe that Jews were regarded with distaste and loathing and treated as inferior because they spoke an inferior language and had been coarsened by it. Becoming linguistically equal to their neighbors, then, would assure their being treated as equal – a wish-driven delusion.
Similarly, it was not unreasonable that Prussian Jews, at the time of Prussia's struggle against Napoleon, might look to demonstrations of patriotism as positive, pragmatic steps toward winning the acceptance of the surrounding society. But note the more wishfully definitive expectations contained in a call to arms issued by two leaders of the Berlin Jewish community, Eduard Kley and Siegfried Gunsburg: "There upon the battlefield of honor…where all work for a single goal: for their fatherland…there also will the barriers of prejudice come tumbling down…. Hand in hand with your fellow soldiers you will complete the great work; they will not deny you the name of brother, for you will have earned it."4
From 1813 to 1815, seventy-two soldiers from the small Prussian Jewish population won the iron cross; fifty-five Prussian Jewish officers died at Waterloo.5 Nevertheless, as has so frequently happened, the Jews in post-Napoleonic Prussia faced hostile political and social forces that transcended anything they as a community did or did not do.
These last examples reflect a propensity for "categorical" thinking – that is, choosing to think in absolute, categorical terms about what may be simply pragmatic steps that could or could not have salutary consequences. Such a predilection is driven by the desperate desire for acceptance and a consequent wishful thinking that acceptance could inexorably be won by the right communal policies. The same mindset can be seen in other stances as well.
For example, Central European liberals – some on the basis of principle, others for pragmatic reasons – were generally more receptive to the extension of rights to Jews than were more conservative elements. But many Jews, in aligning themselves with liberal groups, chose to construe this sympathy not as at least partly driven by a convergence of political interests that could change in the future. Instead, in their desperation for support and for opportunities to diminish Jewish vulnerability by linking their fate to broader, and more powerful, social identities, they wishfully construed the link with liberal parties as having transcendent significance and endurance. Likewise, they chose to see the liberals as the force that was certain to shape the future.
Gabriel Riesser was a leading German Jewish liberal activist in the mid-nineteenth century and almost unique among Jewish political activists at the time in his vocal and energetic pursuit of the cause of Jewish legal equality. In addition to those Jews who responded to anti-Jewish indictments by embracing them at face value and urging Jewish reform, some Jews reacted, of course, by choosing to separate themselves from the tainted identity of "Jew." Still others even took the further step of joining the Jews' tormentors as a way of more definitively casting off the taint. It was common for Jews who entered politics in the German states to take one of these latter paths.
Riesser, for his part, eschewed any position that would appear too parochially Jewish and wishfully linked the Jews' fate to presumably sympathetic broader forces. Thus, he repeatedly articulated stances that subsumed the problem of Jewish disabilities to more general political and nationalist matters and that put unbounded faith in liberal support. Riesser declared at one point: "Give me Jewish equality in one hand and the realization of the beautiful dream of Germany's political unification [primarily a liberal objective at the time] in the other…and I will unhesitantly choose the latter, for I am convinced that unification also encompasses equality."6
The extent to which many Jews chose to idealize the connection with German liberals and the fruits of Jewish self-effacement is captured in an exchange between Riesser and the conservative German academic and theologian H. E. G. Paulus. Paulus argued that as long as Jews adhered to their religion they constituted a separate nation and were entitled to be protected subjects in Germany but not full citizens. Paulus also suggested that the Jewish push for full integration as Germans would end in their expulsion or even extermination. Riesser responded that German unification would inexorably be built on liberal Enlightenment principles of justice and equality and so would inevitably entail the granting of full equality to the Jews.7
The issue is not that Riesser proved so catastrophically wrong. It was not impossible that events could have unfolded very differently and more in keeping with his hopes. The point is his willful, self-deluding certainty, despite much countervailing evidence, that the right Jewish alliances and self-effacements would inevitably yield the results he desired.
Identification with the Left
Jews' categorical identification with parties of the Left became commonplace throughout Central and Western Europe. It was driven both by a desire to eschew what might be condemned as Jewish particularism and by wishful thinking that embedding Jewish aspirations in larger movements could assure Jewish wellbeing. For some, this identification went beyond liberal parties to socialist and communist groups.
In Western Europe, many of those Jews who embraced socialism did so because they had become disenchanted with the liberal parties, which provided, for example, no bulwark against de facto discrimination and the rise of anti-Semitic political parties in the wake of German unification. Some Jews hoped that in immersing Jewish concerns in the struggle of other disadvantaged groups, particularly the working class, and in seeking a more radical restructuring of society, they might win relief from persisting Jewish disabilities. Some hoped in particular that by Jews distancing themselves from the bourgeoisie and the excoriated Jewish link with the middle class, many of their enemies would be mollified. Other Jews in Western Europe embraced parties of the far Left in an effort to divest themselves of a Jewish identity entirely, assuming the alternative identity of champion of the working class.
In Eastern Europe, which at this time meant most notably czarist Russia, Jews retained more of a national consciousness and more robust communal institutions than elsewhere. Hence, in response to czarist depredations, Jews formed parties of the Left that were specifically Jewish, in contrast to Jewish socialists elsewhere who were more typically inclined to break with the Jewish community. But in Russia as elsewhere, Jews who affiliated with the socialist parties commonly took to heart anti-Jewish assaults on the Jewish bourgeoisie. They tended to view both the Jewish middle class and traditionally religious Jews as the true targets of Jew-haters and their own path as at once progressive and future-oriented and an escape from the shadow of anti-Semitism.
Throughout Europe, those Jews who supported socialism while retaining a sense of Jewish identity nevertheless tended to ignore or even give some credence to the intense anti-Jewish rhetoric that was almost everywhere an element of socialist cant. As for Jews who embraced socialism as an alternative identity and sought to shed any link to the Jewish community, they often endorsed anti-Jewish socialist rhetoric.
Supporting the Democrats
European Jewish immigrants to America, both from Central Europe and from those eastern areas where the vast majority of Jewish immigrants originated, brought their political predilections with them. Although in the first decades of the twentieth century this translated into some support for American socialist parties, with the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt Jews became overwhelmingly aligned with the Democratic Party.
Both pragmatism and principle figured in this embrace of the Democrats. At a time of intense anti-Semitism in America, starting in the post-World War I years and exacerbated by the socially corrosive effects of the Depression, Jews suffered expressions of bias that affected their basic capacity to function in the society. As historian and rabbi Arthur Hertzberg noted of this period, "Almost no Jew could make a free, personal decision about his education and career. At every turn, the fact of his Jewishness meant that many, if not most, options were simply not available to him." The public employment and other programs Roosevelt introduced as part of the New Deal were largely open to Jews at all levels and broke the prevailing blackballing of Jews.
In addition, the Jewish predilection to seek to immerse Jewish objectives in broader social agendas, and to pursue alliances of the disadvantaged as a means of winning greater acceptance, converged with Roosevelt's building of his grand Democratic alliance of the disadvantaged.
At the same time, one can see operative during these years delusional elements similar to those at work in Jewish communities in Europe and reflective of Jewish vulnerability and Jewish embrace of anti-Jewish canards. These include a fear of appearing to pursue "parochial" interests, a casting of eschewing such a course as actually reflecting a higher, ethical commitment to broader social agendas, a wishful thinking that inclined Jews to construe pragmatic and possibly transient alliances as representing transcendent and enduring convergences of interests and goals, and a consequent debilitating blindness to changes in the political landscape and slowness to respond to them
With the rise of the Nazis in Germany, and even with the revelation, in late 1942, of the Nazis' program to exterminate all of Europe's Jews, these elements of Jewish political life in America compromised the American Jewish community's response. To be sure, effectively promoting the rescue of Jews from Europe faced great hurdles related to prevailing anti- Jewish attitudes and, more particularly, the hostility of the State Department. Yet it was primarily through the efforts of a small group of Jews acting outside the mainstream leadership that the Roosevelt administration was finally prevailed upon to create the War Refugee Board in early 1944. These Jewish activists were the so-called "Bergson group" led by Hillel Kook, a Revisionist Zionist emissary in the United States at the time who adopted the pseudonym Peter H. Bergson. The War Refugee Board succeeded, despite persistent administration obstruction, in contributing to the rescue of perhaps two hundred thousand Jews.
Although the Jewish leadership did try to promote rescue, its exertions were compromised both by fear of an anti-Jewish backlash and by loyalty to Roosevelt.
Some in the mainstream leadership worried about Jewish advocacy of rescue being seen as Jewish parochialism and lack of patriotism in a time of war. This concern, however, was often cast as reflecting not fear of anti-Semitic responses but a morally correct eschewing of particularist objectives. (It was very often non-Jews who led the way in asserting that the Nazi assault on the Jews was not just a Jewish issue but a crime against humanity.) For example, throughout the Nazi era the American Jewish leadership avoided campaigning for increasing Jewish immigration to the United States for fear of an anti-Jewish backlash.
Roosevelt's Indifference to Jewish Plight
In addition, key elements of the Jewish leadership were averse to criticizing Roosevelt, even though it was very clear that he could have saved large numbers of people at minimal political cost to himself and that he was at best indifferent to the plight of Europe's Jews. Simply insisting that the State Department stop erecting additional barriers to the issuing of visas and to the use of visas that had already been issued, and that it allow Jews to immigrate at least to the extent allowed by immigration quotas, would likely have saved several hundred thousand people; but Roosevelt refused to do so. At times he even parroted Nazi anti-Jewish assertions.
For example, at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, while discussing possible projects for resettling rescued Jews in North Africa (projects subsequently torpedoed, mainly by the United States), Roosevelt suggested restricting the number of relocated Jews allowed to practice the professions. This "would further eliminate the specific and understandable complaints which the Germans bore towards the Jews in Germany, namely that while they represented a small part of the population, over 50 percent of the lawyers, doctors, school teachers, college professors, etc. in Germany were Jews."9 The figure for Jewish involvement in these occupations is, of course, wildly exaggerated.
Caught up in categorical thinking about who was with them and who was not, it was very difficult for many Jews to look objectively at Roosevelt. They essentially refused to acknowledge that the leader who had forged the alliance of the underprivileged, whose administration employed Jews at all levels in a manner that contrasted dramatically to the obstacles to employment Jews routinely encountered in the wider society, was not interested in offering succor to the Jews of Europe being murdered by the thousands daily in a program of total annihilation.
Rabbi Stephen Wise, leader of the American Jewish community and its efforts to promote rescue, defended Roosevelt even as he repeatedly encountered the administration's obstructionism. "[Roosevelt] is still our friend, even though he does not move as expeditiously as we would wish," he declared,10 and he took to task Jewish critics of the president. In June 1944, the Republican National Convention put a strong pro-Zionist plank in its platform for the upcoming election and criticized Roosevelt for not pressing Britain to open Mandate Palestine to Jewish refugees. In reaction, Wise wrote to Roosevelt, "As an American Jew and Zionist, I am deeply ashamed of the reference to you in the Palestine Resolution adopted by the Republican National Convention. It is utterly unjust, and you may be sure that American Jews will come to understand how unjust it is."11
This loyalty to Roosevelt also led the Jewish leadership to limit its engaging of the president's political foes in efforts to promote rescue. In contrast, the small group outside the leadership that did succeed in bringing about the creation of the War Refugee Board did not hesitate to work with sympathetic Republicans, and doing so was a key factor in its success.
US Anti-Semitism Diminishes
In the years after World War II, anti-Semitism in America dramatically diminished. Yet American Jews, according to polls, continued to believe otherwise. A 1990 survey of affiliated Jews showed that some 75 percent considered anti-Semitism a serious problem in America.12 Perhaps for this reason elements of the community have continued to display psychological stigmata associated with besieged groups, such as the taking to heart of anti-Jewish canards.
American Jews also believe anti-Semitism is more rife among American conservatives than liberals, even though actual surveys of American opinion regarding Jews do not support this assumption.13 This is linked with that tendency to categorical thinking about political "allies," a wish to see protection in immersing Jewish interests in larger groups, particularly alliances of the disadvantaged, and a consequent difficulty recognizing that perceived allies may not see things the way one imagines and wishes. American Jews have, in fact, largely redefined the Jewish vocation, or Jewish identity, to focus mostly on alliances with or in support of the disadvantaged, alliances around so-called "social justice" issues. A 1988 survey by the Los Angeles Times found that when Jews were asked which among three facets of Jewish identity they most valued, many more chose the pursuit of social justice and equality (50 percent) than either Israel (20 percent) or religion (20 percent).14
Although support for Israel could be seen as a particularist issue that the American Jewish community has energetically embraced, such support is made easier by the fact that Americans have generally been sympathetic to the Jewish state. Sometimes Israel has come under greater criticism, particularly in the American media, and has been a target on American campuses and in so-called "liberal" churches. In such situations, it appears that segments of the Jewish community, particularly those whose political predilections make them sympathetic to the biases of the media, the campuses, or the "liberal" churches, have been more inclined to voice similar criticisms of the Jewish state.
A notable related phenomenon is that even though support for Israel has in recent years been significantly stronger among Republicans than Democrats, American Jews remain overwhelmingly Democrat. Illustrative of the former point is a poll of American opinion conducted in August, during the Israel-Hizballah war, by the Pew Research Center. To a question presenting various choices of what should be America's position on the war, 54 percent of Republican respondents favored supporting Israel and 5 percent preferred criticizing it. In contrast, 31 percent of Democrats chose support for Israel, 11 percent criticism. To a question of who was most responsible for the war, 55 percent of Republicans answered Hizballah, 9 percent Israel. Among Democrats, 33 percent said Hizballah, 15 percent Israel.
Regarding the political affiliation of American Jews, in October 2006 the American Jewish Committee released its "Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion" reflecting polling from late September to mid-October. It turned out that 54 percent of American Jews identified themselves as Democrats and 15 percent as Republicans (29 percent as Independents). In the 2004 presidential election about three-quarters of American Jews voted for the Democratic candidate, and in the recent congressional elections at least that percentage again voted for Democrats.
For those who, in the face of collective memories of anti-Jewish depredations, have hollowed out their "Jewish" identity to reduce it largely to a political commitment to the Left imagined as some righteous alliance of the traditionally targeted and disadvantaged, current political predilections are not likely to change. For those whose Jewish identity is richer and in whom the dissonance between Jewish wellbeing and old political assumptions might arouse some inner tension, that tension could result in a shift in traditional political allegiances.
But in America, as in Israel itself, the besiegement of the Jewish state will continue to generate among significant segments of the Jewish community an impulse – as in the abused child – to take indictments by Israel's enemies to heart, and to urge Jewish self-reform and amends in the hope of thereby winning relief. Such reactions will continue to compromise Jewish wellbeing and even undermine Israel's survival.
Kenneth Levin is a psychiatrist and historian and author of The Oslo Syndrom: Delusions of a People under Siege (Hanover, NH: Smith & Kraus, 2005).
1. Moses Mendelssohn, cited in Sander L. Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 102.
2. Cited in Michael Meyer, The Origins of the Modern Jew (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1967), 44.
3. Perhaps the best-known expositor of this view was the Austrian Jewish writer Karl Kraus. See, e.g., Harry Zohn, Karl Kraus (New York: Twayne, 1971).
4. Ibid., 139.
6. Cited in Shmuel Ettinger, "The Modern Period," in H. H. Ben-Sasson, ed., A History of the Jewish People (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), 830.
7. "Gabriel Riesser," Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol.14, 166-69, at 167.
8. Cited in Barry Rubin, Assimilation and Its Discontents (New York: Times Books, 1995), 86.
9. Cited in Deborah Lipstadt, Beyond Belief (New York: Free Press, 1986), 47-48.
10. Cited in Rafael Medoff, The Deafening Silence (New York: Shapolsky, 1987), 113.
11. Ibid., 178.
12. Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab, Jews and the New American Scene (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 69.
14. Ibid, 54, 134.
Kenneth Levin is a psychiatrist and historian and author of The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People under Siege (Hanover, NH: Smith & Kraus, 2005).
View all posts by Dr. Kenneth Levin
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Israel Must Fight Back Against the ICC and Not Be Intimidated by Its Charges
The International Criminal Court's Flawed Decision to Recognize ICC Jurisdiction over the Territories
Why Israel is Right to Doubt that New Negotiations with Iran Will Work
Anti-Semitism Viewed from the Hungarian Perspective
Amb. Szabolcs Takács


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News Sports Rockland Westchester Food Data Obituaries eNewspaper Legals
Standout Rockland quartet takes County Center stage
Josh Thomson
jthomson@lohud.com
Rickey McGill%2C Kai Mitchell%2C Luke McLaughlin and Conor McGuinness are all 1%2C000-point scorers.
To one extent or another%2C the four seniors all grew up playing together or head-to-head.
McGill%2C Mitchell %28Spring Valley%29 will meet McLaughlin %28Tappan Zee%29 in Wednesday's Class A semis.
McGuinness and Clarkstown South play top-seeded Arlington in Friday's Class AA semifinals.
SPRING VALLEY – With just 11 teams in a 76-team landscape, Rockland County is a small elbow of Section 1 boys basketball. But as the teams have proven, what may be small can also be mighty.
In the last six years alone, Rockland schools have gobbled up nearly 30 percent of the sectional semifinal berths in Class AA and Class A. This year, the county's representatives are Clarkstown South in Class AA, and Spring Valley and Tappan Zee in Class A.
"It's not like we have to go across the bridge to see great players play," Clarkstown South senior Conor McGuinness said. "We have great players in Rockland County, so there's a great game every night."
McGuinness is one of four seniors who will step on the County Center court during Championship Week as proof. He, Tappan Zee's Luke McLaughlin and the Spring Valley duo of Rickey McGill and Kai Mitchell began playing together and head-to-head in grade school and have pushed one another to succeed ever since.
All four seniors have scored more than 1,000 career points and made multiple semifinal appearances at Section 1's proving ground.
McGill, who, along with Mitchell, is committed to Iona College, sits sixth on the county's all-time scoring list and broke the school record for career points earlier this season.
He and Mitchell were the only juniors among the six players honored as first-team all-Lower Hudson Basketball Coaches Association selections last season, joining Pearl River's Kevin Degnan, who won "Mr. Basketball." McGill believes the county's senior quartet deserves the same honor.
"I feel like we should be recognized," McGill said. "Rockland is mad small compared to Westchester. There are a lot of kids over there, but I feel like we're the best four in the section."
It's hard to quibble with their credentials. All four are four-year varsity players. McGill and Mitchell are future Division I players. McGuinness will play on scholarship at Adelphi, and McLaughlin has received widespread Division II interest.
McGuinness and McLaughlin are making their third trip to the County Center in four years, and Spring Valley — last year's Class AA runner-up and this year's Class A favorite — is making its second straight trip.
"We've always been close, and it's been great because we've always pushed each other," said McLaughlin, who has averaged 26 points, 14 rebounds and five assists this postseason.
That journey began at age 5 when McGuinness and McLaughlin — family friends — played alongside 8-year-olds at the Jewish Community Center in West Nyack. Soon after, McLaughlin's father, Mike, began to drive the boys to Memorial Park in Spring Valley. They met McGill, and later competed against Mitchell in CYO.
"He was a man child," the elder McLaughlin said of Mitchell. "The kids were all scared of him.'
Through the years, some combination of the four played for McLaughlin's AAU team, the New York Falcons, and later at the House of Sports in Ardsley. There may be some bittersweet feelings at 8:15 Wednesday night when Spring Valley meets Tappan Zee in the Class A semifinals.
"I was thinking about that the other day. 'Damn, someone's going to have to go home,' " McGill said. "We just have to go harder. We don't want to lose."
McGuinness, whose team doesn't play until Friday night against Arlington, guaranteed he would be in the crowd — just as he watched Tappan Zee's games with Spring Valley, just as McLaughlin made certain he had a front-row seat when Mitchell and McGill scored their 1,000th points.
"It's been a great journey throughout the years to see how great we've all done," McLaughlin said.
Twitter: @lohudinsider
Rockland boys basketball all-time scoring list
(Revised: February 20, 2015)
Player: School: Graduation: Points:
1. Brendan McManus Pearl River 2005 (4) 1583
2. Bill Kurisko Nanuet 1987 (3+) 1444
3. Jeff Brown Clarkstown South 1978 (3+) 1428
4. Bob Mathias Clarkstown/Clarkstown No. 1972 (4) 1427
5. Mike McCahey Clarkstown South 2012 (4) 1424
6. Rickey McGill Spring Valley 2015 (4) 1363
7. Matt Grossbard Pearl River 2009 (4) 1307
8. Pat Peterson Tappan Zee 2012 (4) 1293
9. Ernest Watkins Nyack 1989 (3) 1287
10. Kai Mitchell Spring Valley 2015 (4) 1265
11. Mitch Norotsky Tappan Zee 1981 (3+) 1248
12. Tyler Sayre Albertus Magnus 2012 (3+) 1231
13. Alan Sofen Pearl River 1980 (3) 1223
14T. Darryl Brown Nanuet 1971 (3) 1188
14T. Jim McLaughlin Clarkstown North 1981 (3) 1188
16. Enndy Basquait Spring Valley 1982 (3) 1178
17. Vaughn Heyliger Spring Valley 2005 (4) 1149
18. Jess Cohen Pearl River 1988 (3) 1134
19. Gerry McNair Nyack 2000 (3) 1123
20. Luke McLaughlin Tappan Zee 2015 (4) 1121
21. Kevin Degnan Pearl River 2014 (4) 1120
22. Eric Wooten Spring Valley 1993 (3) 1114
23. John Sarto Spring Valley 1970 (3) 1082
24. Michael Mack Nyack 1997 (3) 1074
25T. Ron Edwards Nyack 1962 (3) 1069
25T. Michael McNair Nyack 2006 (3) 1069
27. Antoine Duvert Albertus Magnus 1994 (3) 1066
28. Nigel Morris Nyack 2003 (4) 1065
29. Mike Mulroe Pearl River 1999 (3) 1063
30. Howard Levy Suffern 1981 (3) 1059
31. Jerry Houston Jr. Pearl River 1990 (3) 1049
32. John Thomason Ramapo 1997 (3) 1048
33. Tony Russo Ramapo 1980 (3) 1043
34. Ryan Sheridan Tappan Zee 2008 (4) 1042
35. Conor McGuinness Clarkstown South 2015 (4) 1034
36. Jim Mack Nyack 1971 (3) 1031
37. Brett Harvey Clarkstown North 2006 (3) 1028
38. Gary Custick Clarkstown 1970 (3) 1027
39. Tim Harris Spring Valley 1983 (3) 1017
40. Mike Brown Clarkstown South 1981 (3) 1013
41. Carl Goodman Spring Valley 1980 (3) 1002
42. Ronald Lewis Albertus Magnus 2004 (4) 1001
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text:
Researchers say U.S. policies on drugs and addiction could use a dose of neuroscience
by Nathan Collins, Stanford University
Professor Keith Humphreys is one of the leaders of the Stanford Neuroscience Institute's Neurochoice Big Idea initiative. Credit: L.A. Cicero
Tens of thousands of Americans die from drug overdoses every year – around 50,000 in 2015 – and the number has been steadily climbing for at least the last decade and a half, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Yet a team of Stanford neuroscientists and legal scholars argues that the nation's drug policies are at times exactly the opposite from what science-based policies would look like.
"Drug policy has never been based on our scientific understanding," said Robert Malenka, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and a coauthor on the paper. Instead, it is based mostly on culture and economic necessities – and a misguided desire to punish drug users harshly.
The time has come, he and coauthors write June 22 in the journal Science, to do better.
"We have an opioid epidemic that looks like it's going to be deadlier than AIDS, but the criminal justice system handles drug addiction in almost exactly opposite of what neuroscience and other behavioral sciences would suggest," said Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and one of the leaders of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute's Neurochoice Big Idea initiative.
(Not) thinking about the future
A central problem, the authors argue, is that drug use warps the brain's decision-making mechanisms, so that what matters most to a person dealing with addiction is the here and now, not the possibility of a trip up the river a few months or years from today.
"We have relied heavily on the length of a prison term as our primary lever for trying to influence drug use and drug-related crime," said Robert MacCoun, a professor of law. "But such sanction enhancements are psychologically remote and premised on an unrealistic model of rational planning with a long time horizon, which just isn't consistent with how drug users behave."
What might work better, Humphreys said, is smaller, more immediate incentives and punishments – perhaps a meal voucher in exchange for passing a drug test, along with daily monitoring.
The environment in which individuals live matters, too, Humphreys said – especially when that environment pushes alcohol, cigarettes and prescription painkillers hard. Cigarette advertising, for example, works to make smoking seem like a pleasant escape from the grind of daily life. Meanwhile, drug companies' advertising campaigns helped push American doctors to prescribe painkillers at much higher rates than in other countries, a fact that has likely contributed to the country's growing epidemic of opioid addiction.
Pragmatism, not apologetics
The scientists argue that basing policy on science rather than on a desire to punish addicts would improve lives, including victims of drug-related crime.
"To learn that addictive drugs distort the choice process is not the same as showing that addicts are incapable of making choices. Addicts already know full well that their behavior is inappropriate and stigmatized," MacCoun said. "But mostly I think questions of morality distract from very practical questions about what works and what doesn't work to reduce drug-related harm."
And, the researchers say, the costs of current policy are staggering: on average 78 Americans die every day from opioid overdoses.
Basic science for the public good
The new commentary is timed to appear four days before a much-anticipated report from a presidential commission on drug addiction. While it may not have an impact on that particular report, Humphreys and his coauthors say they hope the commentary and the Neurochoice Initiative it is part of will make a difference in a critical area of public policy.
To that end, Neurochoice brings together neuroscientists, psychologists, public policy scholars and others to tackle drug addiction and find better treatments and policies for dealing with the problem. It has already produced some intriguing results. Professor of Psychology Brian Knutson and colleagues, for example, recently showed that brain scans could help predict which adolescents would initiate excessive drug use in the future. Those are the kinds of results, the authors write, that might guide better laws and practices in the future.
Ohio sues five drugmakers over role in opioid crisis
More information: Brains, environments, and policy responses to addiction. Science (2017). science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi … 1126/science.aan0655
Journal information: Science
Provided by Stanford University
Citation: Researchers say U.S. policies on drugs and addiction could use a dose of neuroscience (2017, June 23) retrieved 18 July 2019 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-06-policies-drugs-addiction-dose-neuroscience.html
Overhaul of US drug policy is long overdue, expert says
Americans favor treatment, not enforcement, to address opioid crisis
Could targeting oxtyocin help treat opioid addiction?
Helping communities tackle the opioid epidemic
Checking patient's drug history may help curb opioid abuse
Addicted to video games? This treatment might help
Brain imaging may help identify teens at risk of increasing alcohol use
Neuroscience research questions current alcohol limit
Cold weather increases the risk of fatal opioid overdoses
Parents' lenient attitudes towards drinking linked to greater alcohol use among children
Last figure I saw was 30,000 opioid deaths last year. Not 50,000. By comparison, about the same number of people die in car crashes every year; somehow, that's not a crisis.
Meanwhile, prescription drugs kill 250,000 a year, and medical malpractice probably accounts for another 100,000 or so deaths. I don't know how you protect the public from prescription drugs or incompetent doctors, but the "OPIOID CRISIS" is relatively easy to end --- because the black market garbage that is killing people would disappear from the streets overnight if Prohibition were to be repealed and replaced by a neuroscience-based approach.
Junkies need soft drugs, not hard time. Addiction experts have found that most junkies "move on" from addiction after about 10 years: how about looking for ways to shorten the time it takes folks to accomplish that?
Report Block
Spaced out Engineer
Anonym,
Last figure I saw was 30,000 opioid deaths last year....
...how about looking for ways to shorten the time it takes folks to accomplish that?
The USA consists of 60% of the world's opioid usage, 40% of our food is waste(http://www.fao.or...gs/en/). This is not about numbers for the public or even minimizing effort.
Shortening time from 10 years will hurt and help some. Legalization will kill the hard core junkies quicker. Uptake inhibitors already exist. Burning out circuits quicker is not as good of a solution as awareness.
The USA was never about empowering people's choice. The FDA won't even track their prescriptions. Yet the government is killing people by tracking them, just to see who is at work (http://www.bigger...n.com/).
The ruling class is more concerned about their illusion of control, oppression, and dominance, than sustainment, informed experimentation, and humility before process control.
SKULLTRAP
End the de-Humanizing War on Drugs. Release all prisoners for drug offenses, expunge said offenses from the records, return or recompense all seized property to rightful parties & legalize all illicit drugs now.
Bart_A
If people's hearts don't change, all of these methods will ultimately fail.
We have to get back to teaching and living moral lives.
aksdad
These neuroscientists apparently don't understand human behavior very well. Ironic, that. The reason these drugs are illegal is to deter people from using them in the first place. And when you make something illegal you need a consequence otherwise what's the point of making it illegal? Contrary to what these self-appointed saviors say, law enforcement has long recognized the need to help addicts get treatment ant there are programs all around the country focusing on treatment over punishment. The harsh prison sentences aren't for users, they're for dealers; the ones trying to hook the next generation of addicts. That's evil and should be severely punished. The rub is that a lot of dealers are also addicts who deal to help pay for their addiction. Sad, but what's even more sad is that they have passed their addiction on to others and spread the misery by peddling drugs. I say punish them.
koitsu
aksdad, you don't seem to know too much about the rehab "programs" generally given to users. Yes, they are different from prison. What people don't seem to realize is that, to the punished, they are every bit as dehumanizing, depriving and humiliating as prison. Not to mention the MOST SIGNIFICANT ISSUE: it is often a *felony* conviction--just like dealing. That means you have virtually no good opportunities when you get out. The best you can manage is low level work even if you were doing well before. It's a modern day scarlet letter, and just as asinine. "We'll treat you. But we'll also take away the majority of opportunities from you so that you'll REALLY be in a hard place when you get out." Oh, that's just genius for long-term recovery! As far as the current modes of "treatment," go ahead and google around for recidivism rates. You'll see what we've got isn't working too well.
nrauhauser
End the de-Humanizing War on Drugs.
I upvoted you, SKULLTRAP, but I'm not in 100% agreement. Illegalized marijuana was a political decision, our opiate prohibitions are aimed the people of color, as are the enhanced penalties for crack cocaine. We should have legalized marijuana long ago, organic psychedelics are a legitimate part of several religions, and we could do some across the board easing of access to non-opiate pain care.
Under no circumstances do drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine, etc need to be legal. Things that steal one's volition are always going to be a problem for individuals and societies.
The harsh prison sentences aren't for users, they're for dealers; the ones trying to hook the next generation of addicts.
You have at most a reading knowledge of how such things work here. That position is barely supportable without factoring in the race and income inequality angle behind the problem.
That means you have virtually no good opportunities when you get out.
Our incarceration rate is as even bigger joke than our health care system, as difficult as that is to believe. We've lost two generations of predominantly black men and for profit prisons are the 21st century equivalent of slavery. We eliminate it, or it will destroy us as a nation.
All addictions have a common root in the limbic system. This is basic neuroscience. Putting people in prison for being drug addicts and engaging in addiction behaviors is basically the same as thinking that prison would cure obesity (food addicts), workaholics, gambling addicts, sex addicts, video game addicts, all of which are recognizably idiotic treatment options for those disorders.
puccio219
There's a great TedX talk about addiction. The way we treat addicts is not working. Other countries have tried different ways with great success. The talk is by Johann Hari and its called Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong
lewr2
I would completely disagree with this paragraph. Addicts are addicts before they get into trouble, and none (including myself) that I know of, didn't believe their actions were appropriate with no stigma. Then problems come and you recognize you are an addict.
Secondarily, it IS a moral issue, but people don't like to think of them as such. Why do that? You'll only wreck the fun times! Our societial and governmental structures are teaming with industry to push state sponsored syringes, dime bags and tell you you go about your business.


Parallel port JTAG interface, can be used with all ARM devices for programming and debugging. JTAG has ARM's standard 2x10 pin JTAG connector. 20 pin FRC Cable is included with the Package. No need of any extra power supply. Compatible with Keil and IAR EWARM compilers. Works with ARM7, ARM9 & Cortex cores.


Highland Dance is a style of competitive solo dancing developed in the Scottish Highlands in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is often performed to the accompaniment of Highland bagpipe music, and here in Utah it is a popular style of dance performed at Scottish festivals and at other community events.
The Mountain West Highland Dance Association, or MWHDA, is a nonprofit organization which is dedicated to the preservation, study, teaching, and enjoyment through express of the ethnic history and traditional dance of Scotland, through performances, workshops, and competitions.


Functional training attempts to adapt or develop exercises which would allow individuals to perform the activities of daily life more easily and without injuries.
The exercises integrated in our functional training classes include work on flexibility, core, balance, strength and power, focusing on multiple movement planes. A variety of props and tools are used in our functional training class such as, kettlebells, battle ropes, dumbbells, medicine balls, bosu, suspension system-TRX, and weighted bands just to name a few. Cardiovascular exercises are included using either traditional forms such as treadmill, jogging, jumping rope or by combining complex actions using your own bodyweight to get the heart pumping.


On New Year's Day just after 4 A.M., the police chief of Peachtree City, Georgia called 911 to say he'd accidentally shot his wife.
Admittedly, the first thing I thought of was the Brame homicide from 2003. Domestic violence occurs at a higher rate in law enforcement families than the general population, twenty to fifty percent of them depending on which study you're referencing.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has released the 911 tape, and while I don't think the public should be listening to the victim's cries of agony, comments all over the web are addressing the chief's rather detached demeanor as he speaks to the dispatcher.
How law enforcement agencies in Georgia respond to this incident is critical at a time when cops are being executed in America's streets. This is a time at which objectivity must prevail and there can be no hint of the wagons circling to protect a member of the law enforcement profession. To preserve or restore people's faith in policing, this police chief should not get any special treatment.
This what I sincerely wish the unions that back officers no matter how dark their deeds and government officials would keep in mind– if you make exceptions for your uniformed personnel, you are stirring up public distrust and endangering the lives of your officers, including your decent ones. Murderous thugs and terrorists do not differentiate; they just see a faceless body in a uniform. They don't see a dad or a brother or a daughter or fellow human being– they see a target.
Do we know what happened on January 1st in the McCollums' bedroom? No. We can't instantly condemn this man as the next David Brame or Drew Peterson. That's not right. But do I understand why so many people were instantly suspicious that the shooting was not accidental? Yes. As a survivor of police officer-involved domestic violence that involved repeated firearms threats, including in bed, who went on to study OIDV as the focus of my M.A., I get it.
According to some unverified information I found, Chief McCollum has been married four times and twice to his current wife. He's been a police officer for about 30 years and is or has been a firearms instructor. I do not know if there are any previous allegations of domestic violence, and it's not unusual for cops to be married multiple times. He'd only been the chief of police in his town for a short time. Please correct me if you've heard otherwise.
Given his professional qualifications, I have a hard time with the claim that he accidentally shot his wife in the back in bed while he was moving the gun. That violates basic firearms safety rules that he was well-acquainted with. Even if this is determined to be an accident, he could still face charges for his negligence, especially if there was alcohol or drugs involved.
Listening to the 911 call, initial information seems to indicate that the victim was shot twice, which was widely reported in the media. McCollum does say, "yes" when the dispatcher asks him if the victim was shot twice. Later the record was set straight– Margaret McCollum was shot once.
McCollum had to be told by the dispatcher to put direct pressure on the wound, something he should already know. He could be in shock and not thinking– many of us are quick to criticize until we're in that situation. Trauma can easily stun us. Also, people respond to emergencies in different ways, especially when it involves family members. I've been in a family situation in which I immediately called 911 and began first aid before a first responder present acted.
On that note, if this were me I hope my first aid training would kick in and I'd already be applying direct pressure to that wound as I'm on the phone with 911. Personally I tend to slip into Army general mode in certain emergencies as well– you do this, you do that, do it now. Again, we're all different, yet I find the chief's robotic responses odd, like he's just standing there looking at his wife instead of helping her. It could be shock. I also considered that it could be satisfaction or gloating over her suffering.
Here's where the public is going to need assurance that GBI is doing their best– it would be very easy for a well-liked, high ranking police official to claim that this was an accident. This wouldn't by any means be the first time that a law enforcement officer has claimed his spouse was shot accidentally, or with his/her service weapon. Cops, unfortunately, do sometimes try to hide behind their badges when committing acts of violence against family members.This makes conditions arguably more dangerous for the victims of OIDV than other victims.
Reports say that Chief McCollum has been at his wife's bedside as she lies in critical condition. Some citizens are asking whether, if he were just a regular guy, he'd be locked up. I don't know how they do that in Georgia. As for me, I'm thinking that if this was domestic violence and/or attempted murder, how utterly horrific for Margaret McCollum that he's right there with her, monitoring everything she might be able to say.
I think back to another situation in which the victim was doped up after the alleged accident and passed away without being able to communicate. It happened at an extremely questionable time and was one of a string of incidents with a Munchausen syndome by proxy (technically Factitious disorder imposed on another) flavor. In that case I'd told others for years that their life was in danger, but so far, it's still considered an accident. It can be difficult to prove otherwise.
Any investigator worth their salt will look into not only the suspect's history but also the victim's. Had there been hints of abuse before, in any form? Abuse escalates; it might start as verbal or financial and in time become physical. What's the victim's relationship history? Was he/she attracted to a certain type? Had their been other accidents in their life and the lives of others associated with the suspect? In this case, why was this the second time they've been married and why were they divorced before? That one's a red flag.
Had there been any recent financial or insurance changes? Do they make more money or have a higher paying job than the suspect? Were they considering a breakup or divorce? Had they ever tried to tell anyone that things weren't right in the relationship? Did they feel marginalized or controlled? You have to build a complete picture of everyone involved in order to prove guilt or innocence.
Too often in cases that involve public figures we focus on whether the general perception of people in their world consider them "a great guy." Many are quick to rush to defend those with fame or titles, acting like there's no way that person could be capable of a crime because of their fame or title. Others want to instantly blame the victim for being "crazy" or provoking the incident.This is thinking with emotion rather than reason.
Instead, I would ask who involved in any given case had something to gain and something to lose, and ask who benefits. I also harp on the concept of "start by believing," in which you take an allegation of abuse, sexual assault, stalking, etc. seriously and investigate objectively. You must always think beyond the obvious and consider all angles, whether or not they jive with your education and experiences.
It also helps, in incidents involving LEOs, to pay attention to those who aren't so high-ranking or in the limelight. Rank and file officers, as well as civilian employees, often know a great deal about their department's inner workings, politics, and secrets, yet aren't called upon for their input. Investigators often go right to those at the top for information and leave it at that. This only allows those proverbial wagons to circle even tighter if it's the type of agency that has wagons. And the faith of lower ranking officers in their agency's leadership can falter mightily when the higher ups take care of their own.
So what really happened here? The GBI will have to find out. They have some notable talent, and it is prudent and necessary to have an agency at that level investigate. Too often departments get to investigate their own employees or themselves, or have a neighboring agency with a circle the wagons culture do it. I don't know if this is SOP in Georgia but it was a good call. It's also good that they're not giving opinions one way or the other about what happened. They did not instantly defend Chief McCollum or talk about what a notable relationship he has with their agency that I've seen.
Was this just a terrible accident, a duty weapon "going off" in the middle of the night when being moved? Or was it someone who's high on the power they've been entrusted with showing the victim of their wrath who's boss? There are other possibilities as well, but my initial observations are that I won't be surprised at all if it is domestic violence-related. We've seen it happen too many times before not to consider that might be the case (like in this case involving a former officer whose department wisely cut him loose long before). If it is a reckless accident, then the professionals will deal with it accordingly. Either way, us praying people should be praying for everyone involved.
Additionally, many of us have strong suspicions about accidental shootings that anyone commits. Yes, sometimes they happen, but generally not in bed during the high stress holiday season when domestic violence tends to peak. I used to do ride alongs on holidays, and inevitably there would be domestic violence call after domestic violence call. Family politics, finances, future plans, football loyalties, and more can work their way into a furious froth around Christmas and New Year's.
Ultimately, this is an opportunity for this department and the GBI to show the public how just such an investigation is done. If the man is guilty, he needs to be held to the same standards as anyone else. Period. He is subject to the same laws. If he is innocent, then damage control needs to be done so that the anarchists and angry mobs with pitchforks don't unjustly take their ire out on him and his family. The media already put their house and address on the news. No matter what he is, his wife should be afforded all the precautions, protections, and advocates necessary. No one should be assuming that she's safe.
Frankly stated, the police in general need to be transparent when investigating members of their profession. This does not mean releasing all information on the victim. It does mean communicating with the outside world in bullet points while the investigation is going on and not being secretive about the rationale behind the findings. It does mean that department leadership must conduct itself in a way that commands respect from its officers and other employees. It does mean that the public should be confident that everything possible was done to protect the victim and seek justice. After all, the police are public servants.
Without increased doses of this transparency, integrity, and impartiality, widespread hatred of cops will continue to grow. Millions see them as a secretive brotherhood who always protect their own and believe they're exempt from the rules everyone else is expected to live by. Not all are like this, but this is the lens many people see them through. Even a few bad apples can make the whole bunch appear rotten when they're not.
This has to change. Officers are being painted with a broad brush even when they don't deserve it. I'll say it again– leaders who allow otherwise are putting their officers in danger. They are also making it very difficult for honest cops to stay safe and employed. I have people in that line of work– please do not make it more difficult for my people. One already lost his job when the wagons circled to protect a buddy of the higher ups. Years later some modicum of justice was achieved in court, but the costs to him and his family were catastrophic.
This is not the time or place in history to be causing your officers to face more threats than they already do. We have a world filled with terrorists and nut jobs and criminals who'd gladly take out an officer if it means not getting caught. It seems like we hear about another officer down every day. Leaders also must be accountable to the public. This is not optional. This is where many departments need help, and why I invite the participation of much-dreaded public review boards.
As I was writing this I thought about Frank Serpico, a former New York officer who paid a terrible price for speaking out against corruption in that department in the early 1970s. More than 40 years later, he still gets hate mail and death threats. In October he penned a piece for Politico called The Police Are Still Out of Control: I should know.
6. Last but not least, police cannot police themselves. Develop permanent, independent boards to review incidents of police corruption and brutality—and then fund them well and support them publicly. Only this can change a culture that has existed since the beginnings of the modern police department.
Number four is obviously relevant to this situation in Peachtree City, Georgia. Now is the time for investigators in this incident to shine and so far they seem to be doing a great job. Even if this turns out to be a terrible and embarrassing accident, they can do a fantastic job proving it and cause others to be confident in their findings.
Overall, the curious case of Chief William McCollum is somewhat of a litmus test in police response during a very dangerous time for cops. If ever there was a time for the law enforcement profession to sincerely improve its image– regardless of how good a certain agency already is, and I know some good ones along with some amazing officers– it's now.
©2015 H. Hiatt/wildninjablog.com. All articles/posts on this blog are copyrighted original material that may not be reproduced in part or whole in any electronic or printed medium without prior permission from H. Hiatt/wildninjablog.com.
Justice Cafe, a blog following the Drew Peterson case, has posted the transcript of Peterson's speech to the court yesterday: http://petersonstory.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/i-did-not-kill-kathleen-read-drew-petersons-full-courtroom-speech/.
On any given day, anyone with Internet access can go to websites like Behind the Blue Wall and Injustice Everywhere (now the National Police Misconduct Reporting Project) to view the latest news reports of domestic violence committed by police officers.
Reviews of last night's Drew Peterson: Untouchable movie on Lifetime are mocking the script, chortling that Rob Lowe is too good-looking to pull off the slovenly, bloated Peterson, and rightfully noting that viewers couldn't tell which characters exist in real life and which don't. At least a few websites are saying you should watch it just for the laughs.