Supreme Court To Hear School Strip-Search Case
Redding says she was then asked to strip down to her underwear and stood there while the nurse and secretary inspected her clothes and shoes.
“Then, you know, I thought they were going to let me put my clothes back on, but instead they asked me to pull out my bra and shake it, and the crotch on my underwear, too,” Redding says.
Redding says her whole body was visible to the school administrators. She kept her head down so the nurse and the secretary couldn’t see her fighting back tears.
“When you’re that age, you’re going through puberty, [and] you’re embarrassed of your body as it is,” Redding says. “Let alone to have to sit there and stand pretty much naked in front of professional people that you would see every day almost. It’s just pretty horrible.”
School officials found nothing, but Redding was not allowed to return to class that day.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1985 that schools may conduct searches of a student’s purse or backpack without a warrant, but the court did not then address the question of an intimate search.
Among the reasons given to justify the search: One youngster had already ended up in the hospital from taking drugs, and another student had reported more drugs were about to be given out. School administrators said Redding was seen at a dance early in the year among a group of kids believed to have had alcohol on their breath. Probably most damaging, one youngster who had been found with 400 milligrams of prescription-strength ibuprofen said on the day of the search that she got it from Redding.
Because kids always speak the truth.
After freshman year, I recognized the unnecessary amount of materials and resources I burned through on a regular basis. I took the steps adopted by hippie college kids during sophomore year: eliminated plastic water bottles from my daily use and decreased plastic bag use (through reusable bags). Very much the mainstream at certain colleges (including mine). This school year, I’ve reduced food waste. With Earth Day tomorrow, I began to think that I have definitely made great strides in not only ecological awareness, but in actual (and perhaps quantifiable) reductions in waste. But it’s important not to sit on my laurels. I should use Earth Day as many people use New Years. I normally dislike the notion of using an arbitrarily assigned date to create personal change, but it may help me to avoid the maintenance of a status quo. I am also not going to use Earth Day as the ONLY time to make a change (i.e., delaying a behavior change because it’s not yet April).
So my new goal will be to unplug as many appliances when I am not using them.
I love you so much, Earth! Sorry I have sucked it up and continue to suck, but now I’m definitely trying!! <3.
Cancer culprits in tobacco smoke revealed
I don’t know why people still have such a hard time with the correlation and causation distinction. If the “cancer culprits” were truly “revealed” the number of patients with increased (and mind you, they’d have to specify exactly how much) NNAL would have to be 100%! I recognize the high correlation, but womp everyone needs to learn the difference!! So frustrating!
California takes on King Corn
The proposal would work like this: If increased production of corn-based ethanol in the U.S. raises corn prices and accelerates the conversion of rainforests and conservations lands to farmland worldwide, greenhouse emissions and loss of the carbon sink associated with such deforestation and disruption must be counted towards the biofuel’s total emissions.
Pushed by industry and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering upping the percentage of ethanol in the nation’s gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent. All of that, at least in the near-term, would likely come from corn.
Promises to be an interesting battle.
Picking Letters, 10 a Day, That Reach Obama
Mr. Emanuel added that he had seen the president turn to policy advisers in meetings and say, “No, no, no. I want to read you a letter that I got. I want you to understand.”
My heart swells!
Not-So-Secret Holiday Hints at Change for Marijuana Advocates
“And any time you’ve got Glenn Beck and Barney Frank agreeing on something, it’s either a sign that change is impending or that the end times are here.”
For fans of the drug, perhaps the biggest indicator of changing attitudes is how widespread the observance of April 20 has become, including its use in marketing campaigns for stoner-movie openings (like last year’s “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay”) and as a peg for marijuana-related television programming (like the G4 network’s prime-time double bill Monday of “Super High Me” and “Half Baked”).
In recent years, the April 20 events have become so widespread that several colleges have urged students to just say no. At the University of Colorado, Boulder, where thousands of students regularly use the day to light up in the quad, administrators sent an e-mail message this month pleading with students not to “participate in unlawful activity that debases the reputation of your university and degree.”
A similar warning was sent to students at the University of California, Santa Cruz — home of the Grateful Dead archives — which banned overnight guests at residence halls leading up to April 20.
None of which, of course, is expected to discourage the dozens of parties — large and small — planned for Monday, including the top-secret crowning of Ms. High Times.
“You can see twice the amount of smoke as you do at a regular show,” said B-Real, a rapper in the group. “And it’s a great fragrance.”
Report
I do not know anything about the issue, but it breaks my heart for the civilians.
Task to Aid Self-Esteem Lifts Grades for Some
Yaaay. I love when something I have learned appears in the mainstream news. It makes me feel as though something I have learned has real world application. It’s also interesting to see it in the news second and have a different (hopefully more knowledgeable) perspective.
Third-World Stove Soot Is Target in Climate Fight
While carbon dioxide may be the No. 1 contributor to rising global temperatures, scientists say, black carbon has emerged as an important No. 2, with recent studies estimating that it is responsible for 18 percent of the planet’s warming, compared with 40 percent for carbon dioxide. Decreasing black carbon emissions would be a relatively cheap way to significantly rein in global warming — especially in the short term, climate experts say.
In fact, reducing black carbon is one of a number of relatively quick and simple climate fixes using existing technologies — often called “low hanging fruit” — that scientists say should be plucked immediately to avert the worst projected consequences of global warming.
Better still, decreasing soot could have a rapid effect. Unlike carbon dioxide, which lingers in the atmosphere for years, soot stays there for a few weeks. Converting to low-soot cookstoves would remove the warming effects of black carbon quickly, while shutting a coal plant takes years to substantially reduce global CO2 concentrations.
Urging these villagers to make roti in a solar cooker meets the same mix of rational and irrational resistance as telling an Italian that risotto tastes just fine if cooked in the microwave.
“I’m not going to go to the villagers and say CO2 is rising, and in 50 years you might have floods,” said Dr. Ibrahim Rehman, Dr. Ramanathan’s collaborator at the Energy and Resources Institute. “I’ll tell her about the lungs and her kids and I know it will help with climate change as well.”