What’s with taking 6-year-olds to jail when they get rowdy lately? Two cases come to mind…

  Good Day Humboldt County!

This is what’s come of our education system; two recent cases of 6-year olds (one a boy, the other a girl) who were handcuffed by police and arrested for misconduct at school.

That tells me things are pretty much out of control in the schools when it comes to correct responses to children who act up.

Handcuffing and arresting them? Really? What’s next? Chain gangs for junior high students who misbehave? Where has common sense gone? I shudder to think how many times I would have gone to the pokey for acting up while in grade school! Of course, teachers and principals were in charge back then.

Now they’re so afraid of parents suing their asses off for the slightest infringement of that kid’s rights, they have to call in armed officers to restore order. The bottom line is, some educators are overreacting, instead of dealing with these rowdy children.

See what you think:

“Police in a small Indiana town hauled a six-year-old from his elementary school and charged him with battery and intimidation after he kicked and threatened a principal, police said on Wednesday.

The incident followed one earlier in April where police handcuffed a 6-year-old girl who was screaming and crying and had injured a principal and damaged property at an elementary school in Milledgeville, Georgia. She was not charged.

The Indiana student, who had been suspended from school recently for biting and hitting a staff member, was arrested April 18 at Hendricks Elementary School in Shelbyville, which is about 30 miles southeast of Indianapolis.

"This was not an isolated incident," Shelbyville Police Lieutenant Michael Turner said.

School officials called police, reporting that the student, who was not identified, had kicked Principal Patrick Lumbley and told him and Assistant Principal Jessica Poe that he was going to kill them, a Shelbyville police report said.

The student was yelling and screaming and lying on the floor of Poe's office when police arrived, the report said.” (source)

You know, acting like a 6-year old throwing a tantrum.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

An Outdoor Illusion: That Caterpillar Keeps Chirping…

Just look at that cute, fuzzy little caterpillar.

It has such vibrant colors and those spines seem so unintimidating that they’re mere existence is actually kind of adorable.

But, wait a minute…  An ordinary picture of a caterpillar (no matter how cute it is), would just be weird here. Fortunately, this’s not a little baby butterfly, it’s actually a group of European Bee-eaters cuddling together on a small tree branch. The birds do look so much like a caterpillar though, that photographer José Luis Rodríguez named the image Oruga de Plumas, or “caterpillar of feathers.” Source

Backlash Against Bullies: Public Awareness Grows With Each Case

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This video shocked me as I never considered the possibility of this happening in today’s school systems.

Bullies come in all shapes and sizes. The thing they all have in common is a desire to dominate others for their pleasure. Bullies are cowards, no matter how big they are. This video is the most recent example of bullies at work in the school system. But with a twist. The bullies are the teachers!

I received a very touching e-mail this morning from a reader:

“Thank you for your wonderful article on bullying. I have a response that I would love to get into the paper. Is there a possibility that this could be published in the Times Standard and how can I go about doing this?

Thank you,  The article is attached.”

Debra Patton-Hagan

           I told Debra how to get the following article printed in the T-S. Here it is:

After reading Dave Stancliff’s editorial in the Times Standard April 15th I felt compelled to write on the effects of bullying on entire families. Growing up I was taught that to say “sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me” is basically all that was needed to protect myself from the school yard bullies. That saying is furthest from the truth. Words stick like a stake to the heart. In families physical abuse may not be present but words can have a more lasting effect. These words, verbal transactions between parents or parent to child, then are passed down to the child’s peers.

Stancliff discussed a recent suicide of a Corpus Christi, Texas high School freshman, Teddy Molina, part Korean and part Hispanic who was bullied to death. Where do these children learn this from?  Parents, teachers, media are all part of it.

Schools need to take more action in ways of in-service education for their teachers, counselors, and parents on the warning signs of bullying and depression.  Some signs of bullying may not be as obvious as transactions in hallways or play grounds. Some signs may be in emails or social networking. Others may be in the writings or art work that a student turns in as part as an English journal or art assignment.

I found my son’s English journal after the funeral. Aaron received an “A+ Excellent and Very Creative!” as a grade. Nothing was ever pointed out or discussed about the topic. Reading the poems tears streamed down my face. How could they not see the pain he was enduring and why was no one called? Parents and teachers need to work together to combat bullying and help prevent suicide of these sensitive children. Now 12 years later our family still mourns on April 26th and everyday for all the Aaron’s.

I AM

I am all alone and crave the answers,

I wonder why everyone leaves me,

I hear the lone crickets at night,

I want to be loved by a young maiden,

I am alone and crave the answers.

I pretend it doesn’t bother me at all,

I feel like breaking down inside,

I touch the hearts of so many individuals,

I worry about the lives of others,

I cry when they laugh at me,

I am alone and crave the answers.

I understand outer beauty counts,

I say the inner is more important,

I dream everyone will set aside their bias attitude,

I try to explain my feelings to people,

I hope the world will change but until then,

I am alone and crave the answers.

-Aaron Hagan-

June 17, 1982 – April 26, 2000

Giant Sailboats on the Horizon? ‘Wind Challenger’ Could Reduce Fuel Consumption…or Not

   Good Day Humboldt County!

 Proof there’s nothing new under the sun comes from some Japanese ship builders who’ve turned the clock back on sailing.

One twist; metal sails. It’s all about saving money on shipping costs in a future where fuel will surely be more expensive.

I like the idea of looking down the road at ways to save fuel and using alternative energies (wind power).

That said, I wouldn’t want to be The Wind Challenger’s maiden voyage (after testing the prototype) because those metal sails don’t seem right to me! I can just see it, the modern day Titanic but it doesn’t sink…it flies into a deadly headwind!!! I’ll try to be serious for a moment while I share this story:

“Modern cargo vessels burn millions of gallons of low-grade fuel to get where they're going, but it wasn't so very long ago that their predecessors plied the waves with nothing but the wind in their sails. The Wind Challenger project hopes to combine the two by equipping ships with enormous metal sails. They claim that fuel consumption could be reduced by as much as 30 percent.

Shipping by sea is slow work, but the immense capacity of the ships makes them cost-efficient. But it also means that a large amount of force is necessary to propel them -- much more than was needed for the galleons and clippers of the 19th century. And even the toughest sailcloth would stretch and tear at the size necessary to move something of their bulk.

But engineers at the University of Tokyo believe that they have created a sail system that can handle the forces involved and make shipping more efficient. The enormous aluminum and fiber-reinforced plastic "sails" would be 164 feet tall, 50 feet wide, and able to retract downwards when not needed. A ship would have several along its length, each independently configurable to maximize thrust from the wind.

Don't expect to see these giant sailboats any time soon, though. They're still highly theoretical, and even if all goes well, it would be 2016 before they can begin trials at sea in a reduced-size prototype. And while the estimated cost (around $2.5 million per sail) would eventually be paid for by the fuel savings, the whole thing may strike the shipping industry as a bit too whimsical.” -  Devin Coldewey

Time for me to walk on down the road…

New Book: ‘The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz – The Jewish Engineer Behind Hitler’s Volkswagen’ by Paul Schilperoord

“The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz” tells the astonishing story of Josef Ganz, a Jewish engineer from Frankfurt, who in May 1931 created a revolutionary small car: the Maikäfer (German for May Bug). Seven years later Hitler introduced the Volkswagen. The Nazis not only “took” the concept of Ganz’s family car—their production model even ended up bearing the same nickname. In this biography, which reads like a thriller, Schilperoord tells how Ganz was arrested by the Gestapo, then fled Germany, and was hunted by the Nazis beyond Germany’s borders, narrowly escaping assassination.

(Right)  The 1931 Model Volkswagon

Go here to read more and see more photos.

The Devil Didn’t Make Me Do It …. My Brain Did!

  Good Day Humboldt County!

At some time in your life I’ll wager you heard the words, “I can’t help myself,” when it comes to eating or sex. A new study out talks about how our brain reward center responds to food and sexual cues.

“According to research out of Dartmouth College, in some people, hyperactivation of the nucleus accumbens, a key reward structure buried within the brain's striatum, predicted the eating and sexual behaviors of people.

This suggests one’s ability to say “no” is not just a matter of willpower, but brain wiring. 

The study, published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, used fMRI brain imaging and pictures depicting food, erotica, landscapes, and people to gauge how the test subjects' accumbens reacted to each stimulus. (The 48 women who completed the study had no idea what it was actually about.)

Bill Kelley, associate professor of Dartmouth's department of psychological and brain sciences, says the study shows that the activation of one brain region proved to be a strong predictor of later behavior, demonstrating that the stronger the “liking” response to a stimulus, the less able we are to “hear” our rational brain saying “no.”

As for the findings, the thought that all people are equally capable of self-control is naïve.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Turning the clock back to the 1950s: "We Add Nuclear Power To Everything."

 Fans of the old, but still wonderful, Road Runner cartoons might remember Wile E. Coyote's favorite one-stop-shop for mayhem: The Acme Company. A clever person – not one of us, alas – once said that Acme's slogan should be "We Add Rockets To Everything."
This, in a kind of round-about way, gets us to the 1950s and the near-obsession that certain engineers had back then with a certain power source. To put it another way, their slogan should have been: "We Add Nuclear Power To Everything."

(images via 1, 2)

In all fairness, at first we thought that reactors have proven – for the most part – to be pretty reliable (we are now re-evaluating this again, in view of recent Japanese disaster). Submarines, commercial power plants, and even monstrous icebreakers have proven that nuclear power can be handy if not essential. But back just a few decades ago there were plans, and even a few terrifying prototypes, that would have made the Coyote green with envy – and the rest of us shudder in terror.

(image via)

Both the US and the Soviet Union had engineers with lofty plans to keep bombers in the air indefinitely by using nuclear power. Most folks, with even a very basic knowledge of how reactors work, would think that was a bit (ahem) risky, but what's even scarier is how far along some of those plans got.

Take, for example, the various projects the US undertook. In one case, arguably the most advanced, they made plans to power a Convair B-36 Peacemaker bomber with a reactor. Scary? Sure, but what's even more so is that they actually flew the plane, with an operational reactor, a total of 47 times.

(Right) Newsweek cover, 1957 - image via)

"Miss Atomic    Bomb", 1957 -

(image via)

It's ironic that -- what with the need to urgently replace our finite and global-warming fossil fuels – that many are suggesting a new look at the power of the atom. We can only hope that we, today, can be as imaginative about it as they used to be back in the 1950s ... and a lot more responsible.
Love and Radiation: (Truly, "Till Death Do Us Part"?)                                   Originally posted here.

Cool frog sitting by the dock at the end of the bay…

It looks like frog posed for this shot. He’s got a pretty stern look going on there don’t you think?

Somebody get this frog a book or a fishing rod, and this scene will be complete.

In a scene straight out of the children's classic "Frog and Toad Are Friends," this guy is just chillin' on a bench, hands resting on his delicious hips, wastin' time Otis Redding-style. And you know what? I bet he's earned it. "He's probably just taking a quick rest on that bench cause he's been hopping around doing frog stuff all day," wrote one YouTube commenter. What else can you say, really? (Source)

Going Bugs on Monday: Let’s see how huge bugs can get to be

                  Good Day Humboldt County!

I got to wondering about big bugs the other day and discovered the 16 largest insects in the world. I’ve seen big big creepy crawlers in Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam, but none of them can touch this group of big bugs.

The little boy on the left is holding a Titan Beetle in French Guiana. They’re also found in Brazil. Interesting fact about the Titan Beetle: The larvae have never been found, but are thought to feed inside wood and may take several years to reach full size before they pupate.

 

You’re looking at the worlds largest Cockroach nestled in this guys hand (photo right). The Giant Burrowing Cockroach can  be found in Australia. These bugs “down under” rate pretty high in my creepy factor index.

  When I was in Southeast Asia I never got the opportunity to see one of these Atlas Moths. In India, Atlas moths are cultivated for their silk. Just look at the size of this moth.

The Elephant Beetle (bottom photo) can be found from Mexico to Venezuela. They have a short lifespan of about three months. Meanwhile they munch on whatever they want!

I have a dozen more big bugs to share with you via the folks at BuzzFeed …

GO HERE

Time for me to walk on down the road…

AS IT STANDS: Americans worry less about pollution in down economy

      

“Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.”
- Cree Indian Prophecy
                                                  

By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard

   Americans are dying every day from polluted air, land, rivers, and oceans. Our food chain is polluted with pesticides, steroids, and hormones. Study after study warns us we can’t keep going on like this. In a twist of irony, Americans' concerns about environmental problems have decreased with the drop in support for various environmental policies and the higher priority currently assigned to economic growth, according to an April 13th Gallup Study (“Worry about U.S. Water, Air Pollution at Historical lows”). The economic downturn has forced Americans to focus more on bread-and-butter economic issues than quality-of-life issues, the study concluded. The future is uncertain. 

   Over 29 percent of America’s bees (located in California and Florida) have vanished and scientists are concerned. It’s been predicted that if we lose our bees, we will only have a few years of food left.
  “One in every three bites of food you eat comes from a plant, or depends on a plant, that was pollinated by an insect, most likely a bee," said Dennis vanEngelsdorp of Penn State University's College of Agricultural Sciences, during a recent Associated Press interview.
   They found a wide variety of pesticides and other chemicals in the hives, but didn’t think any one chemical was strong enough to be lethal. However, they did feel it was possible that some of the chemicals could combine in harmful ways not yet understood.
   "The 98 pesticides and metabolites detected in mixtures up to 214 ppm parts per million in bee pollen alone represent a remarkably high level for toxicants in the brood and adult food of this primary pollinator," Mullin and his colleagues wrote in the journal Public Library of Science-One.

  The run off from factories and air fallout into the oceans have increased the contaminates in our fish so much that the fish oils we purchase for our omega 3 healthy oils, contain traces of mercury, PCBs and dioxins.
  Our soil is getting heavily polluted by toxic materials and dangerous microorganisms, which enter through air, water and the food chain. These soil pollutants come from;Agricultural waste, Industrial waste, Urban waste, and Hazardous waste.
  The biggest offender by far is industrial waste discharged from paper and pulp industries, conventional and atomic power plants, mining and smelting operations, etc.
   A recent pollution concern is that components could fail at the nation’s largest radioactive cleanup site, a first-of-its-kind $12 Billion waste treatment plant in at Hanford in Washington State. It’s designed to last 30 years, another shortsighted solution to a huge problem.
   The Department of Energy began looking into potentially serious flaws at the Hanford Site facility in January. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wants more tests and analyses to validate the designs for key components of the plant, which is meant to stabilize and contain 56 million gallons of radioactive waste.

  With all this scary information on hand you’d think people would want to be more proactive and cooperative.  We all live on the same planet. Breath the same air. Drink the same water. Common sense would suggest we work together on our common challenges.
   Unfortunately, common sense has taken a back seat to partisan ideologies more concerned with making money by any means possible, than with the public’s safety. No amount of man-made disasters, like the Deep Water Horizon tragedy, seems to stop the money mongers’ pursuit of oil.
   Lobbyists protect our polluters/corporations with massive amounts of money to corrupt politicians who write the laws. There’s no respect for the land. Environmentalists are belittled by right-wing conservatives who serve their money God.
   I’ve heard people compare the fall of the Roman Empire to America’s rapidly crumbling infrastructure, but our downfall will be even more devastating. No kingdoms will rise in its place, because America will be a polluted wasteland, unfit for animal or human habitation for eons to come.
    Until that time comes, thousands of Americans will continue to die every day, victims of politics that protect the polluters. Bit players in a slowing dying civilization that lost it’s way a long time ago.
    Forgive me for painting such a bleak future. I know there are people fighting to correct our numerous pollution problems, but when I read the daily news it seems the bad guys are winning.
    As It Stands, our country’s fate reflects the biblical passage from Galatians 6:7 “… whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”

Websites carrying this column:

1) Greentemple

2) Medical Discussions

3) Air Pollution

4) Creation Care For Pastors

5) Entomology News

6) Silobreaker