This is pretty shocking. Dateline, Coushatta, LA:

Nine black children attending Red River Elementary School were directed last week to the back of the school bus by a white driver who designated the front seats for white children.

The situation has outraged relatives of the black children who have filed a complaint with school officials. Superintendent Kay Easley will meet with the family members in her office this morning.

More on this here. So, is it an isolated instance?

by TChris

Reasonable minds can differ about the degree to which illegal downloading of music harms artists or recording companies. Some argue that few artists ever see their royalties anyway, and that the free distribution of their music encourages more people to attend concerts where artists are more likely to profit. Others argue that recording companies can't stay in business if music is stolen rather than purchased.

However you come out on that debate, the recording industry's heavy-handed practice of suing parents, grandparents, and other unwitting computer owners for file sharing by kids or grandkids, often without their consent or knowledge, isn't creating sympathy for the industry. Papers are filed in court and the defendants are given an ultimatum: pay us a few thousand dollars or we seek a lot more in court, including attorney's fees. Everyone settles, and the settlement proceeds fund more suits. For some people, it's an expensive lesson: pay attention to what your kids are doing on the computer. For others, it's a nightmare.

Iola Scruse of Louisville, a 66-year-old grandmother on Social Security, said her three teenage grandchildren downloaded music using an Internet account in her name. Her case ended up as a default judgment because she did not respond to the lawsuit. So Scruse, who also is racking up medical bills for dialysis, must pay $6,000 for the 872 songs her grandchildren downloaded, in addition to court fees.

What an outrage! Las Vegas has made it a crime to give food to the homeless in city parks. Primarily aimed at soup kitchens, the law carries a penalty of up to six months in jail and a $1,000.00 fine.

In an effort to curb charity that is having unintended consequences, the City Council has made it illegal to give food to homeless people in city parks. Residents complained that the large numbers of homeless gathering in the parks make it impossible for others to use them, said city spokesman David Riggleman.

Not only that, but check out the definition of "homeless person."

by Last Night in Little Rock

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

And, at our southern border, we will build a wall to keep you out. If we can't keep you out, we will jail you.

We will deny you any social benefits, even if you are a taxpayer, until you can pry citizenship loose from the government.

Let's just be honest about it: We should build a wall around the Statue of Liberty, too, to keep people out as a symbol of our suddenly discovered election year "immigration problem."

She is, after all, becoming merely an historical artifact.

by TChris

Five African American and two Hispanic police officers sued the Greenwich Police Department, alleging a pattern of race discrimination in hiring and promotions, of creating a hostile work environment, and of racially disparate law enforcement:

[The lawsuit] charges that the department disproportionately detained and arrested members of minorities and cites other examples of what the plaintiffs consider questionable conduct, including the use of highly offensive language to refer to racial minorities and a tendency to "mock African-American complainants, witnesses and arrestees, imitating their speech and mannerisms."

by TChris

Five days after Estephanie Izaquirre graduated from high school in Des Moines, Iowa, immigration officials sent her an email that talked about "completing paperwork." Izaquirre thought she was going to get her green card, but the email was a ruse. When Izaquirre arrived at the office, she was arrested and detained for deportation.

It's a crime for you to lie to the government, but just fine if the government lies to you.

[Iowa Gov.] Vilsack, at a news conference Friday touting a new program that provides guidance and living expenses for vulnerable Iowa youths who age out of the foster care system when they turn 18, said it was "disappointing" that immigration officials were less than straightforward with Izaquirre.

by TChris

There may be a legitimate public interest in limiting the number of people who are permitted to occupy a single residence, but that interest doesn't justify an ordinance that permits families to live together if the parents are married to each other while prohibiting them from living together if the parents are unmarried. The St. Louis suburb of Black Jack nonetheless thinks it has the right to keep unmarried couples with more than one child from occupying the same home.

The mayor said those who fall into that category could soon face eviction.... Mayor Norman McCourt said starting Wednesday the city will begin trying to evict groups who do not fit into Black Jack's definition of family, reports CBS affiliate KMOV-TV in St. Louis.

Putting aside whether the law is so arbitrary as to violate the constitutional right to equal protection, or whether it invades a couples' personal privacy interest in deciding whether to marry before cohabiting, the ordinance is poor public policy. Does putting families out on the street promote family values?

by TChris

Why doesn't the Culture of Life focus on this?

An estimated 2 million babies die within their first 24 hours each year worldwide and the United States has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world, according to a new report.

American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan, and newborn mortality is 2.5 times higher in the United States than in Finland, Iceland or Norway, Save the Children researchers found.

The "pro-life" movement's anti-contraception focus compounds the problem.

The report said that family planning and increased contraception use leads to lower maternal and infant death rates

Update: The GOP solution: a plan that could permit health insurers to "offer plans that exclude childhood immunizations and other important services."

by TChris

About 47,000 high school seniors who failed California's exit exam may be allowed to graduate anyway if, as this article predicts, Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman rules in a class action lawsuit that California can't withhold diplomas from a group of students it failed to educate.

Freedman said he was apt to agree with the plaintiffs' argument that the test infringes on students' rights by virtue that not all California students have access to the same quality of education. ...

Among the complaints is contradictory curriculum taught in schools that does not match what is being tested on the exams, and a lack of qualified teachers.

by TChris

The FDA's recent claim that marijuana has no medical benefit is a triumph of politics over science, of turf protection over compassion.

Several officials in the 11 states that allow medical marijuana disputed the F.D.A.'s contention that there was no research supporting the drug's medical use. They noted, in particular, a 1999 review by the National Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific advisory panel, which found marijuana to be "moderately well-suited" to some conditions, including wasting disease from AIDS and the nausea that often results from chemotherapy.

The scientists who authored the National Institute of Medicine report have good reason to take issue with the FDA.

by TChris

Parents of students at the Nacogdoches High School are criticizing police and school officials for their response to an alleged "riot" that resulted when students from Nacogdoches provoked students who were displaced from New Orleans.

[Shirley] Gentry said she didn't understand why, "when the kids here jumped on the New Orleans kids, the New Orleans kids were the ones who were thrown in jail and put in alternative school."

Some parents think the incident exemplifies a larger issue of racial injustice.

There are double standards regarding punishment at NHS by the police and administration, according to [Pam] Martin.

"Just last week, students were being sent to ISS for dress code violations (mostly black and Hispanic), while white students were overlooked, and one white student was allowed to call her parents for clothes," Martin said. "Black students are arrested and slowly taken out by the police in handcuffs through the commons at lunch time, while white students are taken out through side doors while class is going on."

by TChris

A federal appellate judge has taken a stand in favor of a compassionate approach to enforcement of immigration laws.

Judge Maryanne Trump Barry wrote in a court opinion this week that immigration regulations designed to combat terrorism sometimes left judges no choice other than to order the deportation of "decent men and women."

She asked U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to intervene to prevent the deportation of Malachy McAllister, making reference to the famous poem by Emma Lazarus welcoming immigrants at the Statue of Liberty.

"I refuse to believe that 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ...' is now an empty entreaty. But if it is, shame on us," Barry wrote in a concurring opinion to a ruling Monday by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld the deporation order for McAllister.