Kiowa Trustees say “No” to Pot
The Town of Kiowa Board of Trustees voted 4 to 2 with 1 non-vote, against placing a measure on the November ballot to hold a vote on allowing a marijuana store to open in the town.
Below is an audio recording of the discussion on the motion. Trustee Trevor Smith gave an eloquent and persuasive rebuttal to the motion. Non-voting town administrators argued in favor.
In public comments prior to the discussion, Sheriff Norton gave the most concrete analysis of the negative consequences to Elbert County from bringing in a marijuana store – numerous and serious.
Had I been given a chance to speak, I would have recalled my experience with child protection and the stressors that can combine to cause bad outcomes to kids. Some time ago, over a span of many years, I provided citizen oversight on Elbert County’s child protection team – a weekly meeting between social workers, law enforcement, and child advocates to discuss ongoing cases.
The common elements to many cases were substance abuse, alcohol abuse, divorce, single parents, unemployment, poor education, etc. Life without these complications is plenty difficult, but add in the above elements and things can get toxic – especially to the kids least able to self protect. That’s when kids got harmed and the harm was often lasting.
Now come the marijuana advocates who talk about filling potholes with marijuana tax revenues and allowing the people to have a vote. They talk about marijuana as if it’s an alternative to alcohol, not an addition to other substances. It’s not an “OR” proposition. It’s an “AND”.
Child protection services were busy 10 years ago. I doubt the case loads have diminished. Oddly, no one from Elbert County was present at the meeting to make the CPT case to the town.
The State of Colorado decriminalized marijuana, but subordinate government bodies have no obligation to accelerate the negative consequences of marijuana by facilitating the marketing of it.
Kiowa Trustees made the right decision. Just barely.
a choice? a right?
This is not a right to choose. It’s a license for homicide.
Blood Confession – How Lying Marketers Sold America on Unrestricted Abortion – David Kupelian
“In 1985, intrigued by the question of what really happens during an abortion in the first three months of a pregnancy, Nathanson decided to put an ultrasound machine on the abdomen of a woman undergoing an abortion and to videotape what happens.
“We got a film that was astonishing, shocking, frightening,” he says.
“It was made into a film called The Silent Scream. It was shattering, and the pro-abortion people panicked. Because at this point, we had moved the abortion debate away from moralizing, sermonizing, sloganeering and pamphleteering into a high-tech argument. For the first time, the pro-life movement now had all of the technology and all of the smarts, and the pro-abortion people were on the defensive.”
Nathanson’s film provoked a massive campaign of defamation on the part of the pro-abortion movement, including charges that he had doctored the film. He hadn’t. “I was accused of everything from pederasty to nepotism. But the American public saw the film.”
In 1987 Nathanson released another, even stronger film called Eclipse of Reason, introduced by Charlton Heston. “The Silent Scream dealt with a child who was aborted at twelve weeks,” said Nathanson. `But there are four hundred abortions every day in this country that are done after the third month of pregnancy. Contrary to popular misconception, Roe v. Wade makes abortion permissible up to and including the ninth month of pregnancy. I wanted to dramatize what happens in one of these late abortions, after the third month.
“They took a fetuscope, which is a long optical instrument with a lens at one end and a strong light at the other. They inserted the fetus-cope into the womb of a woman at 19 1/2 weeks, and a camera was clamped on the eyepiece and then the abortionist went to work. [Read more…]
abortion and the holocaust
In the latter days of World War II, the crematoriums in Germany burned 24 hours a day to dispose of Europe’s declared undesirables. Many Germans benefited economically from the redistribution of wealth and property from those undesirables, and from the occupied territories. The Reich kept the existence of the ovens quiet and attempted to destroy all evidence of them as the Allies advanced on positions where they had operated. At Dachau the American army found the crematorium wired with explosives and were able to defuse it before it could be blown up.
Though it took more than a decade for the status of the undesirables to deteriorate from persecution to extermination in the holocaust, in the end the linkage between extermination and the improvement of the average German’s economic status was firmly established.
A very similar linkage exists today with the practice of abortion sanctioned by the U.S. Supreme Court, and with the perpetuation of sexualized lifestyles in America and escape from the financial and liberty burdens presented by raising children.
The holocaust and abortion both involve mass death linked to benefits conferred upon a demographic majority. America, Russia and their allies defeated the culture of death that the Third Reich had become. Today, who will save America from the genocide it now perpetrates on the most defenseless of its own people?
Every baby should see a sunrise.
cpt needs citizen oversight
Child Protection Team [CPT] really needs citizen oversight. I’m not doing it anymore because I ended up getting poached on by the sheriffs department for revenue and the only way I could send a message to the powers that be that poaching on citizens is wrong was to withdraw my services as that citizen. It wasn’t a great solution but you don’t always get to make perfect choices.
Anyway, my problem has nothing to do with the necessity of having a citizen sit on that weekly committee. The CPT committee must have a citizen representative who is personally outside of the system. That means one who is not in any law enforcement agency, not in the provision of mental health services, not in the department of social services, not in the child advocacy program, not in the district attorney’s office, not a school counselor, and not a local physician. CPT is the nexus where all of those powers cooperate, and taken together, they can bring a tremendous amount of power–force–to bear in citizens’ lives. [Read more…]
a parent barometer
Dr. Robert Findling on ADHD mp3 audio, 2 megs
Citation: Ellis B, Nigg J. Parenting Practices and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: New Findings Suggest Partial Specificity of Effects. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2009;48(2):146-154.
Robert L. Findling, MD, Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Department of Psychiatry, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio; Director, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University Hospitals Case Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio
Whose Legacy?
“I think we need to appreciate what we have and protect it.”
Nature vs. Greed, What Legacy Are You Teaching Your Children? from: Abe21.net 6/22/08
“A world without children will be a poorer world — grayer, lonelier, less creative, less confident. Children have always been a great blessing, but it may take their disappearance for the world to remember why.”
A World Without Children – Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe
The tension is between those who don’t have kids yet who are, ostensibly, trying to save the world for the kids of tomorrow, and those who are trying to figure out a way to live with their kids in the world of today. But those most active in preserving nature don’t appear too interested in having messy little kids muck around in their pristine wilderness.
So who really are the greedy ones in this paradigm? The folks who want to lock up vast tracks of mostly other people’s land because they like the way it looks, or the folks who want to mortgage their lives away for a small piece of property on the fringe of the metro area in the hope of securing a small piece of the American dream to raise a family?
taxpayer costs of divorce
imprudence
Consider that the sheriff’s department knew ahead of time of the potential perpetrator and the potential threat to Legacy Academy, knew enough to make sure that the student was not admitted to the school, and only after trashing out the school day for Legacy Academy, interviewed the boy to determine that he was not a threat.
Also consider that the sheriff’s department did not notify Elizabeth PD of any of this. Elizabeth PD found out about the sheriff’s activities at Legacy from 3rd parties.
Did the sheriff exploit a situation for media attention? Again?
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Poor Enough to be Eligible?
Poor Enough to be Eligible? Child Abuse, Neglect, and the Poverty Requirement
Susan Vivian Mangold
University at Buffalo Law School
The State University of New York
joint investigation protocols
DSS & Law Enforcement Joint Investigation Protocols
We are a nation and culture of laws. Laws provide the means that protect us from each other and from the state. When it comes to protection from other people, when our personal safety is threatened, we can act in self defense. For lesser degrees of protection not rising to the level of personal safety, we have civil legal remedies available to us through the courts. Any citizen can freely use these mechanisms for protection when necessary.
The state, however, is not a citizen with the same rights as everyone else. Citizens cannot protect themselves from the state in the same way they protect themselves from other citizens. To be clear, when I say the “state,” I mean all government entities – law enforcement agencies, ministerial and executive bodies, legislative bodies, regulatory agencies, public health, public schools, etc., i.e. any group funded directly or indirectly through taxation or public assessments.
American citizens protect themselves from the state with the set of laws that originate in the Constitution. Short of revolution, respect for the Constitution is all we citizens have to protect us from excessive state intervention in our lives. That is why our public servants swear an oath to defend and protect the Constitution when they take office. That is why all of our legislation and regulation is tested to see if it’s “constitutional.” We don’t care about official promises to protect us directly. We want a promise to protect the law that protects us. Law is far less fickle than personal promises. [Read more…]
Weld County protocol
Weld County Child Abuse Protocol
(4 megs)
child protection and law enforcement
http://www.futureofchildren.org/information2827/information_show.htm?doc_id=74221
“Given the evolving research about children’s suggestibility, caution is in order. Exaggerated claims that children, including preschool children, can never accurately report or always accurately report are not supported by the literature. In addition, because there is growing knowledge about factors contributing to suggestibility, as well as practical ways to lower it, it is important that those who do interview children are properly trained and that professional groups develop model protocols or guidelines for interviewing children. Some efforts in this regard are under way. For example, in a recent three-year study of multidisciplinary interview centers in Sacramento and Orange counties in California, child interview specialists received a specialized 40-hour course on interviewing children. The research and evaluation panel for this project concluded that trained child interview specialists were critical to the success of the centers and recommended that such specialists receive extensive start-up and ongoing training in child development, forensically defensible interviewing, and the informational needs of investigative agencies. The panel further recommended that California certify professionals who complete requirements established by the state for child interview specialists.36 We believe that this is a promising approach and that all states should explore the merits of certifying specially trained child interviewers.”
Reporting, Investigation and Adjudication