Beating the Immigration System

The following link is for an article about a young Asian man who wore a disguise and fooled airport authorities, claiming refugee protection when he was caught.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131140737

From NPR, Growing Up With A Schizophrenic Mom

November 5, 2010

One of Showaye Selassie's earliest memories of her mother involves a puppet and Chef Boyardee.

It was Selassie's fifth birthday, and her mom had made a can of ravioli — Selassie's favorite meal.

"I went to stick my finger in to get the little gooey bits of ravioli from the inside of the can, and I cut myself," Selassie says.

Her mom went into the kitchen to get a rag to clean the cut, but instead of bringing back the rag, her mom reached around the kitchen wall with a yellow bunny rabbit puppet.

Selassie was laughing so hard she forgot she had cut herself. "I loved it," she says.

Selassie, now 28, tells her friend, Susan Greenfield, that her mother is one of the most interesting people she will ever meet.

"She was a paranoid schizophrenic," Selassie says. "She thought that people were trying to poison us, kidnap us."

She says that when her mom dropped her off at school, her mom would often wait outside.

"So I was able to look out the window and see my mother," Selassie says. "The kids would kind of make fun of me."

And eventually her mom got worse, Selassie says. "She ended up locking me in my room."

But Greenfield notes that those events have not hindered Selassie. "You're not the kind of person who someone meets and goes, 'Oh my God, what a life she had,'" Greenfield tells her friend.

Selassie is still anxious when she meets new people, though. "Because I'm always wondering ... are they wondering if something's wrong."

Selassie says she's read a lot of articles on mental illness because she is worried that it is something that could happen to her at any time. That it could just "fall out of the sky," she says.

But her life could have been much worse, she says. "I could have had a parent that didn't care about me."

Produced for Morning Edition by Nadia Reiman. The Senior Producer for StoryCorps is Michael Garofalo.

from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131063265&sc=fb&cc=fp

gender blogged

There is some mild langauge in this article:

http://nerdyapplebottom.com/2010/11/02/my-son-is-gay/

Why do we continue to respond to males dressing up as girls so strongly?

Health Reform Hits Main Street

Confused about how the new health reform law really works? This short, animated movie -- featuring the "YouToons" -- explains the problems with the current health care system, the changes that are happening now, and the big changes coming in 2014.

Morning or Mourning?

This was sent to me in an e-mail:

2 Videos. 26 years apart. One is from 1984, the other produced as a homage to that ad with a twist of today's lack of optimism.

You can make up your mind whether you think the second ad is fair...

Transgender Athlete keeps playing Women's hoops

What do you think of this?

From http://msn.foxsports.com/collegebasketball/story/Transgender-athlete-keeps-playing-womens-basketball-110210?GT1=39002

Updated Nov 2, 2010 11:04 PM ET

Kye Allums is several things all at once: a student at George Washington University, a women’s basketball player and a transgender person who has decided to identify as a man.

Allums is going to continue to be all of those and has been more than pleased by the reaction since the news broke this week at Outsports.com.

Kye Allums, once known as Kay-Kay Allums, is the first Division I basketball player to publicly acknowledge transgender status.

Mitchell Layton

"I've had numerous Facebook messages, text messages, people calling me, people I don't even know, telling me how they're proud of me and how I'm a really brave person, and it's been really positive," Allums told TheWashington Post.

Allums, who has changed his name from Kay-Kay to Kye, apparently is the first Division I basketball player to publicly acknowledge transgender status. Though he has identified as a man, because Allums is postponing surgery and hormone treatments, he is allowed to continue playing women’s basketball by the NCAA, the university says.

Robert Chernak, GW’s senior vice provost and senior vice president for student academic and support services, said in a statement: "The university consulted the NCAA regarding his competitive status. Kye will continue to be a member of the women's basketball team," The Postreported.

Allums, a junior guard who averaged 7.4 points last season, plans to put off any medical treatment until after he has used up his college eligibility.

"I didn't choose to be born in this body and feel the way I do,” Allums told The Post. “I decided to transition, that is change my name and pronouns because it bothered me to hide who I am, and I am trying to help myself and others to be who they are. I told my teammates first, and they, including my coaches, have supported me. My teammates have embraced me as the big brother of the team. They have been my family, and I love them all."

Clint McCance Talks With Anderson Cooper

This is an amazing interview with the school board official who attacked gays on his Facebook account.





What do you think?

ABC What Would You Do? - Who Defends Gay Parents 19-05-10

This is clip from the show What Would You Do? The set up is a gay or lesbian couple who take their children out to eat and the waiter is verbally abusive to them. The show captures people's reactions to the waiter and whether or not they choose to do something about it.
I think it's important to ask ourselves, what would we would do in a similar situation? Are we willing to stand up for people, even if we may not agree with their choice of lifestyle? Or are we more likely to be bystanders to the situation unfolding before us? I think it's also interesting to see which people choose to speak up and which ones to not.

Arkansas officials condemn anti-gay comments made by School District Vice President

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/10/27/arkansas.anti.gay.bullying/index.html?hpt=C1

I thought this was an interesting story that deals with what we have talked about in class about gay-rights and intolerance.

The Arkansas Department of Education has condemned anti-gay comments made by a local school board member and posted on a social networking site.

Midland School District Vice President Clint McCance wrote on his personal Facebook page that he wanted gay people to commit suicide, according to The Advocate, a newspaper focusing on gay news. McCance used the terms "queer" and "fag" repeatedly, promised to disown his own children if they were gay, and stated that he enjoys "the fact that [gay people] often give each other AIDS and die."

A strongly worded statement signed by Dean Stanley, superintendent of the Midland School District, disavowed the remarks. "The district strives to foster an environment that discourages all forms of bullying," the statement read, "and an environment that encourages a safe and productive educational climate of all of our students. The district is very diligent in pursuing and addressing bullying of any variety on our campuses."

A separate statement sent to CNN by Julie Thompson, director of communications for the Arkansas Department of Education, said the department is "dismayed to see that a school board official would post something of this insensitive nature on a public forum like Facebook."

Because McCance is an elected official, the department cannot deal with him directly, according to the statement. But staff will be monitoring schools to provide a quick response in case students are bullied because of McCance's comments, it said.

The posts were made, according to The Advocate, in response to a bullying awareness campaign sponsored by GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. The "Spirit Day" campaign aimed to foster recognition of bullying directed at gays and the effects it can have on young people through a series of events held on October 20.

One aspect of the campaign encouraged people to wear purple to honor young people who had committed suicide because of anti-gay bullying, and to show solidarity with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered youth who face the same pressures.

According to the screen grab at The Advocate, McCance wrote the following about the event: "Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers committed suicide. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed therselves because of their sin." (sic)

There is now a page on Facebook encouraging the Midland School District to fire McCance.

On Tuesday, the federal government warned that bullying and harassment in schools often includes violations of federally protected civil rights. Officials warned that school administrators who fail to properly deal with harassment risk being cited for civil rights violations. In extreme cases, such violations could lead to cuts in federal funding.

An 18-year-old Rutgers University student, Tyler Clementi, committed suicide in September, after a secretly taped sexual encounter between him and another man was posted on the internet. It was the most recent in a string of suicides by gay youths that have received increased media scrutiny in the context of an anti-bullying push by advocacy groups.

Swedish police hunt serial shooter

As the topic of discussion in class is beginning to shift towards immigration, I felt it appropriate to post the following article. It disturbed me to know that immigrants are the specific targets of a series of shootings in Sweden. And with our country's immigration issues, I hope Americans are not resorting, and will never resort, to such extremes.

Stockholm, Sweden (CNN) -- A suspected serial shooter is keeping a city in southern Sweden on edge.

Police say as many as 15 shootings in Malmo over the last year may be linked to a single perpetrator who is targeting immigrants living in the city. Investigators have no suspects.

The shootings have all been well planned, under the protection of darkness and at places familiar to the shooter, according to CNN's Swedish affiliate TV4, citing police.

Several of the shootings have occurred in recent weeks, police say.

On Thursday evening, two immigrant women were wounded when shot through their apartment window.

"I'm almost afraid of turning on the light in my apartment at night now," Shukrije Berisha, who lives in the same building, told the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet.

In similar incidents, two men of an "ethnic minority background" were recently shot while waiting at bus stops, according to police.

One of them "was lucky to be alive after being shot in the torso," Malmo police superintendent Hans Nilsson told CNN.

"The shooter was most likely waiting in the bushes before firing his weapon," Nilsson said.

Victim Basi Hassan told TV4, "I was standing here at the bus stop when I suddenly heard a shot. I don't know where it came from. Then I saw my own blood and I started feeling dizzy."

The latest report of a shooting came late Friday evening, when a male immigrant reported he was shot at while riding his bicycle.

The Swedish National Murder Commission and the Swedish National Criminal Police have launched a major operation together with local police to find the gunman.

A group of psychologists is trying to profile the shooter's behavior before, during and after the attacks.

Police have also increased the number of officers and K-9 units patrolling the city.

In Malmo, where nearly a third of the residents are immigrants, many now fear for their safety. One 17-year-old girl, identified only as Fatima, told TV4 that she refuses to go to school by bicycle or bus and will only travel by car now.

"I couldn't sleep last night. I just couldn't stop thinking about it," she said.

The shootings also bring back memories of Sweden's "Laser-man," a shooter who was targeting immigrants in Stockholm in the 1990s with a laser-aimed rifle.

"We haven't had anything this big here in Sweden since the Laser-man was around," Nilsson said.

The recent slew of shootings has also prompted a mobile phone text message that has circulated among Malmo's youth. According to Nilsson, the text states: "A killer is loose in Malmo so stay indoors."

"We are very clear that we are not behind this text message, but we can also understand that people are worried," he said.

Malmo Mayor Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh says she is angered by the shootings.

"It is awful that people should have to be worried and feel fear for walking our streets," she said.

Advances in medical science have 

allowed geneticists to map out the 

ever finer details of the mysterious 

Y chromosome. Geneticists the world

over have been astir over the recent

discoveries of the following gene loci,

which had previously been observed for 

centuries but, up to now, never been 

associated directly with genetic or 

environmental factors in the male Homo

Sapien species:

- - - - ____

   11.32 /____\ --- Testis Determining Factor (TDF)

         |____|

   11.31 |    | --- Three Stooges Appreciation

         |    |         (Curly Stimulation Factor, CSF)

 p       |    | --- Gadgetry (MAC-locus)

   11.2  |    | -\

         |    |   ] Channel Flipping (FLP)

         |    | -/

         |----| --- Catching and Throwing (BLZ-1)

   11.1  |    | --- Self-confidence (BLZ-2) (unlinked to ability)

  _ _ _ _ \--/

          /--\

   11.1  |    |     Ability to remember and tell jokes (GOT-1)

         |----| --/

         |    | --- Sports Page (BUD-E)

   11.21 |    ||--- Addiction to death and destruction movies (T-2)

         |    | \-- Air Guitar (RIF)

   11.22 |____|  \- Ability to identify aircraft (DC-10)

         |____|

 q       |    ||--- Preadolescent fascination with Arachnida/Reptilia

         |    |                                                 (MOM-4U)

   11.23 |    ||--- Spitting (P2E)

         |    | \-- Sitting on toilet reading (linked to Sports Page)

         |    |

         |____||--- Inability to express affection over the phone (ME-2)

         |    |  \- Selective hearing loss (HUH?)

         |    |   \

   12.0  |    |     Total lack of recall for dates (OOPS)

         |    |

         |    |

         |    |

  - - - - \--/

 Gender stereotyping at it's finest... 
 This was forwarded to me.
Is this how men really are? Are these 
characteristics really genetically 
linked? Are these factors related to
Nature vs. Nurture? Or are these just
culturally imposed stereotypes? 
 Although this is a comical 
description of male behavior, the 
stereotypes that it represents are 
not funny. These stereotypes negatively
effect both men and women. The effects 
of these generalized stereotypes are far
reaching indeed.

Westboro Baptist Church

I came across this website because this organization is picketing at a funeral of a young man from my hometown. This young man was a soldier who died in Afghanistan while protecting another soldier. The Westboro Baptist Church is of the opinion that every soldier who dies is a way of God showing his wrath because America won't ban homosexual activity. I was shocked when I saw the announcement of the picketing (especially when a family is mourning a death!) and even more shocked when I investigated the website.



Website: http://www.godhatesfags.com/index.html

And a documentary on them: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-most-hated-family-in-america/