Underground gay group emerges, shaking evangelical Christian college. Michael Musser / Biola University The emergence of an underground gay group at Biola University has led to a wide-ranging debate about Christianity and homosexuality. By John Boxley and Ashley Bornancin, NBC News LA MIRADA, Calif. -- On the same day President Obama became the first U.S. president to come out in support of same-sex marriage, a group of students announced the presence of the "Biola Queer Underground" at this small evangelical university, touching off a highly-charged debate about Christianity and homosexuality.
The group launched a website and posted flyers around the Biola University campus May 9 with the following message: "We want to bring to light the presence of the LGBTQ community at Biola. The emergence of the group, whose members remain anonymous, has shaken this 104-year-old Christian college in Southern California. But members of BQU, who would only comment for this story anonymously, fear that by "coming out" they would be punished and possibly expelled. Quebec Government Seeks to Trample Rights In Assault on Students and Unions. The language of "terrorism" - Colorlines.com. Police in Southern California have insisted that the brutal beating death of Shaima Alawadi is an isolated incident, and not a crime motivated by hate.
Alawadi was killed after a brutal beating last week in El Cajon, Calif. and the attack has sent shockwaves across the country. At a memorial service this week for the 32-year-old wife and mother of five, Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said it would be irresponsible to jump to conclusions cautioning, “We don’t know if it was a hate crime. We don’t know if it wasn’t a hate crime.” What we do know is that Alawadi 17-year-old daughter Fatima, found a note next to her slain mother’s body that read, “This is my country.
Go back to yours, terrorist.” Those words and the animosity and bigotry experienced by Muslim communities of diverse racial backgrounds is rooted in years of ignorant stereotypes. And we are bombarded with it. Changing the conversation on hate We talked the whole ride home. The price of terror. Nonhuman Personhood Rights (and Wrongs) | The Primate Diaries. "American Chimp" by Nathaniel Gold Americans take their rights seriously. But there is a lot of misunderstanding about what actually constitutes a ‘right.’ Religious believers are correct that they have a right to freely express their beliefs. This right is protected under the First Amendment to the US Constitution that prohibits Congress from making any “law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” However, as a result, devout believers feel it is a violation of their rights when intelligent design creationism is forbidden in the classroom or when prayer during school sporting events is banned.
After all, shouldn’t the First Amendment prohibit the government from interfering with this basic right? The answer is no and represents an important distinction when understanding what a right actually is. This is not as radical an idea as it may sound. But that would be unlikely to happen with whales, dolphins, or even great apes. Same-Sex Marriage Bill Passes in Maryland; Governor Expected To Sign It - Unlike New Jersey's 'Straight Shooter'
New Georgia Bill Further Punishes Protest. Would We Have Drugged Up Einstein? How Anti-Authoritarianism Is Deemed a Mental Health Problem | Personal Health. February 20, 2012 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with hundreds of people previously diagnosed by other professionals with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety disorder and other psychiatric illnesses, and I am struck by 1) how many of those diagnosed are essentially anti-authoritarians; and 2) how those professionals who have diagnosed them are not. Anti-authoritarians question whether an authority is a legitimate one before taking that authority seriously. Some activists lament how few anti-authoritarians there appear to be in the United States. Why Mental Health Professionals Diagnose Anti-Authoritarians with Mental Illness I have found that most psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals are not only extraordinarily compliant with authorities but also unaware of the magnitude of their obedience.
U.S. opening up airspace to use of drones - Technology & science - Science - DiscoveryNews.com. After more than 40 years of development and extensive use by the military, the United States has set the date when the nation’s airspace will be open for drones. Should you be scared? Short answer: No, but like any new technology, unmanned aerial vehicles have their dark side. Legislation passed by Congress last week gives the Federal Aviation Administration until Sept. 30, 2015, to open the nation’s skies to drones. NEWS: Smart Drone Aircraft Makes Debut Flight The first step comes in 90 days when police, firefighters and other civilian first-response agencies can start flying UAVs weighing no more than 4.4 pounds, provided they meet still-to-be-determined requirements, such as having an operator on the ground within line-of-sight of the drone and flying it at least 400 feet above ground.
Currently, UAVs can only fly in restricted airspace zones controlled by the U.S. military. The deadline for full integration of drones into U.S. airspace is Sept. 30, 2015. NEWS: Drones Play ‘Where’s Waldo’ The Most Humane Prison in the World. When one thinks of prisons and prison life, thoughts often drift to depictions found in Oz or the Wire: full of hard living and sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. However, there is one prison is Norway that has been called the most humane prison in the world: Halden Prison. Halden Prison opened early in 2010 with a capacity of 252 prisoners. The prisoner cells include flat-screen televisions, which officials say are necessary so that prisoners have less room for drugs and contraband.
Designer furniture, mini-fridges, and en suite bathrooms complete the prison cells. Can You Get a DUI While Riding a Bicycle? Ever thought about going out for a night on the town and really turn up the fun but were concerned about how you were going to get home? Did you then wonder if you could just ride your bike up the block to the local tavern and ride it back down after your night of fun? Hopefully this article can answer your questions about whether or not you can be charged with driving under the influence (DUI) for riding a bike drunk. Before I begin, however, let me point out that this article is for informational purposes only. I have not done a comprehensive search of each state's laws regarding this question, so your state's rules might be different. Before you decide to go out on the town and ride your bike drunk (or even ride your bike after drinking), please consult an attorney in your area just to make sure. Let's set the scene here to help answer our question.
The question no becomes, is riding a bicycle while intoxicated a criminal act? But not so fast. Welcome to. JotForm takedown shows anti-SOPA hysteria wasn't alarming enough. February 17, 2012, 1:20 PM — Top execs at the SOPA-promoting RIAA said over and over that the process of addressing alleged copyright infringements would be open and fair, not the secret-accusations-in-a-back-room affair most SOPA opponents imagined it would be.
All opponents had to go on was the language in the act, which described a process in which those claiming to own copyrights could make accusations to law enforcement agencies, which would go enforce the law without having to validate that the accusations were true or that the accuser actually owned the copyright. That's all silly politics, right? Propaganda. Hating from the pro, hating from the con. The process would be ruled by the U.S. legal system, so enforcement would not be random, mysterious, unexplained or capricious. Right? Apropos of nothing, JotForm is back online. Jotform is the digital-forms site that was shut down by the U.S. Can childbirth cause PTSD? It’s the P in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that seems to trip people up.
The idea that when the crisis has passed and you’re ostensibly well and safe, you might still be jumpy and tearful, anxious and withdrawn. What’s the matter with you, anyway? Everything is OK, isn’t it? But post-traumatic stress doesn’t work that way. The body doesn’t care if the mind tells it there’s no danger. The body doesn’t care if friends and commenters on the Internet say that trauma is only for war veterans and violent crime survivors, not people who’ve endured otherwise survivable events.
Opening up about the PTSD that hit her after an emergency C-section and the premature birth of her daughter, Valenti writes: “The eight weeks that Layla was in the hospital – while the emergency was still in full force – I was fine.” That’s why Valenti deserves kudos for illuminating the harsh, often horrifying reality of PTSD. Stress doesn’t go away the moment life gives the “all clear” signal. Bathrooms: the new transgender battleground. It’s a quiet little provision in a meaningful victory for equal rights. On Tuesday, Baltimore County approved measures prohibiting discrimination “on the basis of gender identity and expression and sexual orientation when it comes to housing, employment, public accommodations and financing.”
It’s that “public accommodation” part of Bill No. 3-12 that is especially hard-won, and so deeply meaningful. It was just last April that Chrissy Lee Polis, a 22-year-old transgender Baltimore woman, was beaten, kicked, dragged and spit upon by two teenaged girls after trying to enter a McDonald’s ladies room. A video shot by McDonald’s employee Vernon Hackett, who kept filming even as Polis went into a seizure, swiftly went viral. In it, several red-shirted McDonald’s workers can be seen plainly standing around and doing nothing to intervene. What unfolded next turned the bathroom into a battleground, or at least, as the Montreal Gazette called it, a “washroom debate.” Justice Kagan sides with the Right on Miranda. What can primates feel? - Science Books. Farming the Unconscious. The Architecture Department at the Royal College of Art had some thought-provoking projects at the work in progress show.
Architectural Design Studio 1's exhibition was looking at how a dense and vertical architecture can bring back food production and consumption in the city. Image courtesy André Ford One of the students of the course, André Ford, looked at the intensification of the broiler chicken industry. Each year, the UK raises and kills 800 million chickens or 'broilers' for their meat.
Broiler rearing might be unethical and unsustainable but it is now the most intensified and automated type of livestock production. Broiler chickens spend their 6-7week lives in windowless sheds, each containing around 40,000 birds. Philosopher Paul Thompson, of Purdue University is a proponent of The Blind Chicken Solution.
Sadly, the demand for chicken is rising and methods of production will need to intensify in order to meet this increase. Questions to the architect: Absolutely. Thank you André! Gentle, Public Activism: Magnusson’s I-75 Project. Don Waisanen at Thick Culture highlighted Norm Magnusson’s I-75 project. The project involves installing historical markers with a primarily political instead of historical message. Some examples: About the project, Magnusson writes: …unlike most artworks on social or political themes, these markers don’t merely speak to the small group of viewers that seek out such work in galleries and museums; instead, they gently insert themselves into the public realm.
“Are they real?” Is a question viewers frequently ask, meaning “are they state-sponsored?” I love this confusion and hope to slip a message in while people are mulling it over.These markers are just the kind of public art I really enjoy: gently assertive and non-confrontational, firmly thought-provoking and pretty to look at and just a little bit subversive. Waisanen concludes: Man With 4th Amendment Written On His Chest Sues The TSA. Taser’s Latest Police Weapon - The Tiny Camera and the Cloud. “I told him to drop his weapon, twice,” the police officer then in Fort Smith, Ark., said. But after repeated viewings of a video of the shooting, captured by a minicamera he was wearing, he said, “it turned out it was nine different times.
He kept telling me to drop my weapon.” When Mr. Berry raised his .45-caliber pistol on the officer and leaned at an angle that could improve his marksmanship, Sergeant Davis said, he shot Mr. Berry in the heart. The shooting, tragedy that it was, was speedily cleared by his superiors because the entire incident was captured on tape. “It happened at noon on a Wednesday,” Sergeant Davis said. Sergeant Davis, who now works on the police force in nearby Greenwood, was testing a new kind of camera, to be worn by an officer, when his fatal encounter was recorded in November 2009. Although it is sold as a nonlethal weapon, the device’s safety has been repeatedly questioned. Mr. But the camera system, called Axon, is one way to defuse the controversies. Jon Stewart Rips Fox News Christians For Comparing Obama Birth Control Mandate To Nazi Germany. If there's one thing Jon Stewart can't stand, it's public figures making unfair comparisons to Hitler.
Unfortunately, during his week off from "The Daily Show" last week, he was presented with yet another Nazi analogy courtesy of Fox News -- this time in reference to President Obama's birth control policy. The President's healthcare plan requiring contraception to be included in insurance coverage has started a "firestorm" among Christians (or, as Stewart pointed out, "just the old dudes who run it") who do not want hospitals, colleges or other religious organizations to provide birth control. Obama's recent compromise that exempts religious figures from directly providing free birth control isn't sitting well either, with the likes of Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and, yes, Fox News pundits sounding off on how big an issue this is for the right.
"First of all, when the Nazis came for people, they also left with them. It wasn't a metaphor," Stewart said. "Hitler did not 'start small.' White Grandfather Detained While Walking With Black Granddaughter: Scott Henson Cuffed By Texas Police. A crime and politics blogger living in Austin, Texas, claims he was cuffed and detained by police for simply walking home with his five-year-old granddaughter. The reason this happened, he says, is because he is white and she is black. Scott Henson, a political consultant who blogs about the criminal justice system at Grits For Breakfast said he was walking home from a roller skating rink with his 5-year-old granddaughter Ty last Friday night when he was stopped by a female deputy. The officer told him that there were reports of a white man kidnapping a black girl and he was ordered to step away from Ty as the officer questioned the girl, the New York Daily News reported.
"He's my Grandpa! " was Ty's response, according to Henson's blog. After a few minutes of questioning, Henson and Ty were allowed to walk home. They were just two blocks away when they were stopped by five flashing police cars and a crowd of police. Collection and Credit Firms Facing Broad New Oversight. How an Attractive, Undercover Cop Posed as a Student -- Then Entrapped a Smitten Teen to "Sell" Her Marijuana. When the President Was a Sex Predator. Love for Life? 12 Animals That Are (Mostly) Monogamous [Slide Show] Strange Sex Laws Around The World. Mobile Apps Take Data Without Permission.
The prettiest boy in the world - Imprint. Why Are So Many Americans In Prison? Jeffrey Rosen: A Grave New Threat To Free Speech From Europe. Obama’s Crackdown On Military Whistleblowers. What's Wrong with Cities' Fight Against Sex Shops, Strip Clubs, and Sleaze? Obama's unprecedented war on whistleblowers - WikiLeaks. California Court To Rule Whether SeaWorld Whales Are Illegal ‘Slaves’ The civil rights battle ignored by the U.S. media. Porn's taboo transsexual stars - Sex. Kelly Pierce - AVN’s Inequality & Segregation Needs to Stop!