In early November, NYRA’s project, the Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth were invited to speak at the North Carolina conference of the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA). IECA is a trade organization representing educational consultants, many of whom refer parents (and their teens) to abusive behavior modification programs. These referrals constitute a major pipeline into dangerous, abusive and emotionally destructive programs. Despite their unusually hostile reception, it is admirable they invited CAFETY to their conference.

Reports indicate the debate was one of the most discussed and highest profile events of their conference. It was definitely an event that put CAFETY and all of us opponents of abusive behavior modification programs on the radar of educational consultants. For those interested in it, IECA described the debate.

One of the most interesting parts of the debate centered on the question of the age of medical consent. Washington state requires that all individuals 13 and up consent to medical treatment. This law, as best we can tell, has had a major impact on reducing or eliminating abusive programs in Washington state and limiting the number of Washington state youth sent to programs in other states. As people debate the benefits of regulating the residential treatment industry (especially with HR 911 on the table), medical consent is a law that NYRA, CAFETY and others have thought of as an ideal, youth rights-centered way to reduce or eliminate the harm of the troubled teen industry. I am glad to see it be a major topic of discussion at the IECA conference.

Obviously this idea wasn’t discussed without some controversy or opposition. One member of the panel, Lon Woodbury, an educational consultant and well known advocate of teen behavior modification, was especially critical of the idea of medical consent. He followed up last month with an essay using teen brain research to blast the medical consent idea:

It is our job as a society to protect our children! Giving them rights before they are able to responsibly handle them does no service to children, especially those who like to “live on the edge.” We need to rethink the whole question of children’s rights in light of research on the functioning of the adolescent brain.

I am not in the least surprised to see Woodbury make an argument in defense of residential treatment using brain science. One common theme I’ve seen in my exposure to the residential treatment world is the tendency to invalidate one’s own experiences. Your views, your conceptions of yourself, your hopes and desires are declared wrong in a program. The only one who can tell you what is real or true is the program itself. NYRA board member and CAFETY President Brian Lombrowski talks about breaking kids down and building them up again from scratch in the program’s image.

This style of “treatment” flows quite naturally when your conception of youth is that they do not have the maturity, reasoning, or brain faculties to understand themselves, their lives and their desires. When you assume they are incapable of thinking for themselves or looking out for themselves it is easy for parents to conclude their kids are lying when they call home with tales of abuse. It is far easier as well for society to excuse abuse if it is done in the name of trying to help.

Our concept of “human” is that of a rational, sentient animal. When we picture youth as inherently irrational then we don’t fully regard them as human. When we don’t fully regard them as human than all manner of abuse and mistreatment will occur. Regardless of how benign our intentions may be.

It is very important for advocates in this field to stop and think about why the victims of this industry are all young. Surely adults have mental health issues and need treatment as well. Why aren’t they forced into similar abusive programs?

Because they have rights and the ability to consent.

The entire reason this industry exists is because young people have neither. The existence of the residential treatment industry is a symptom of our wider devaluation of young people and their capacity. I did not go to medical school but I understand treating symptoms is not the ideal way to address problems.

We could (and absolutely should) enact additional safeguards, oversight, and regulation of these programs (i.e. HR 911) but ultimately these changes won’t solve the problem. We can invent (and programs surely will) kinder/gentler ways to strip down one’s humanity, we can invent physical restraints that are less likely to cause death and injury, we can take the rough edges of the facilities we lock up our children in, but they will still be locked up.

The juvenile justice system was created to offer a kinder, more understanding alternative to adult jails. In many cases residential treatment positions itself as a kinder, more understanding alternative to the juvenile justice system. We can invent new alternative systems today, but have we really made much progress?

CAFETY board member, Dr. Charles Huffine, MD takes issue with Woodbury’s interpretation of brain science:

It is not just Woodbury, there seems to be gross misunderstanding of how to interpret the research. I want you all to keep in mind that the frontal lobe immaturity shows up in high emotive situations! That is why juvenile crime is adjudicated differently - most crimes by juveniles are committed in a state of fear, excitement, being overwhelmed, shame, anxiety, etc. In calm circumstances the data shows that youth at least by 14 can make as valid a consent as an 18 yr old or 25 yr. old.

Dr. Huffine is correct. Youth DO have the ability to consent and understand their decisions. Will they always make the right decisions? Of course not. Neither do adults. Yet somehow our society survives allowing adults to make wrong decisions. Even though, as parents & bread winners, their poor decisions have far more of an impact on others than the decisions of teens.

I think though that most youth, most of the time, will make mostly good decisions. The same as adults. I think that is the most we can or should hope for. As Dr. Huffine said, science does suggest that. In fact I have a study that examines youth (some of whom are quite young) who make competent, mature end-of-life choices. I can’t imagine a more stressful, important decision a person could make than one involving their own death. It is worth a read.

Social values precede and inform the science that we do regarding young people. Our social values do not regard young people very highly. This has an enormous impact on research, and an even bigger impact on our understanding of that research. Research done on women or blacks in the 1890s is far different than research done today. I’m sure we are all aware that homosexuality was considered a disorder by the AMA for some time.

These social values which limit our understanding of youth not only cause us to restrict their ability to make decisions, they cause us to restrict the information that allows them to make decisions. The alcohol issue makes this problem plain. Due to our much vaunted research we have determined that young people cannot responsibly handle alcohol. So not only do we pass laws that stop them from drinking, we restrict their ability to learn about drinking. Our only official form of alcohol education is based on stirring up fear over how deadly, dangerous and harmful alcohol is and instructing youth to stay away. Now, after taking away all balanced, useful information through abstinence-only education we confirm our poor impressions of youth decision making when they do, in fact, make poor, uninformed decisions. Thus we feel more confident in their inability to make sound decisions and the cycle continues.

Our ability to understand what young people truly want and need is colored by many factors and is far from perfect. Instead of asserting that we know what is best for youth and invalidate the thoughts and feelings of youth like so many programs we oppose, we should trust them as people, as humans, and as equals to make the soundest decisions possible with the information they have at hand. Our role therefore should be to give them all the information available and all the honest support, understanding and friendship they desire to help them make quality decisions.

BCS DECLARES GERMANY WINNER OF WORLD WAR II
US Ranked 4th

After determining the Big-12 championship game participants the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.

“Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work–including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule–our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking.”

Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated “The US only had two major victories– Japan and Germany . The computer models, unlike humans, aren’t influenced by head-to-head contests–they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event.”

German Chancellor Adolph Hiter said “Yes, we lost to the US ; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks.” Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn ’style points’ to enhance Germany ’s rankings. Hitler protested “Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces.”

The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented ” France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2.”

Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines .

Yahoo’s fantasy football game has inexplicably already called a winner and a score in tomorrow’s Packers-Lions game.

Do they know something we don’t?

Ugh, what a rag. Even stories whose slant or point I may agree with I still can’t stand to read. Their points are so slimy and obnoxious that I just have to put it down. People are right that there is a liberal bias in mainstream papers, however it is a bias I can live with. Papers like the Washington Post, New York Times, etc are cases where liberal reporters try to write a balanced piece and unfortunately fall short just because of their base assumptions and experiences. Papers like the Examiner or Washington Times, etc seem to have conservative reporters who make no attempt to be balanced and instead try to twist every story and every fact to fit an agenda. Drives me nuts.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE59824J20091009?sp=true

Praise and skepticism greet Obama Nobel award

LONDON (Reuters) - A surprised world greeted the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama with a mixture of praise and skepticism on Friday.

In its announcement, the Norwegian Nobel Committee hailed Obama’s “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg referred to Obama’s work for peace and disarmament, saying: “This is a surprising, an exciting prize. It remains to be seen if he will succeed with reconciliation, peace and nuclear disarmament.”

Afghanistan’s Taliban mocked the award, saying it was absurd to give it to Obama when he had ordered 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan this year.

“The Nobel prize for peace? Obama should have won the ‘Nobel Prize for escalating violence and killing civilians’,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency — awarded the prize in 2005 — said: “I cannot think of anyone today more deserving of this honor. In less than a year in office, he has transformed the way we look at ourselves and the world we live in and rekindled hope for a world at peace with itself.”

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in a statement: “The award of the prize to President Obama, leader of the most significant military power in the world, at the beginning of his mandate, is a reflection of the hopes he has raised globally with his vision of a world without nuclear weapons.”

In the Middle East, chief Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat said the award could be a good omen for peace in the region.

“We hope that he will be able to achieve peace in the Middle East and achieve Israeli withdrawal to 1967 borders and establish an independent Palestinian state on 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital,” he told Reuters

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told army radio he believed the award would enhance Obama’s ability “to contribute to establishing regional peace in the Middle East and a settlement between us and the Palestinians that will bring security, prosperity and growth to all the peoples of the region.”

The Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and opposes a peace treaty with Israel, was more skeptical.

“Unless real and deep-rooted change is made in American policy toward recognizing the rights of the Palestinian people I would think such a prize would be useless,” Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas prime minister in the Gaza Strip, told reporters after Friday prayers.

REAL CHANGE

Saleh al-Mutlaq, a senior Iraqi Sunni Muslim lawmaker, told Reuters: “I think he deserves this prize. Obama succeeded to make a real change in the policy of the United States — a change from a policy that was exporting evil to the world to a policy exporting peace and stability to the world.”

In Indonesia, Masdar Mas’udi, deputy head of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization Nahdatul Ulama, said: “I think it’s a good thing. I think it’s appropriate because he is the only American president who has reached out to us in peace. On the issues of race, religion, skin color, he has an open attitude.”

In Pakistan, Liaqat Baluch, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a conservative religious party, said: “It’s a joke. How embarrassing for those who awarded it to him because he’s done nothing for peace. What change has he brought in Iraq, the Middle East or Afghanistan?”

South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu, awarded the prize himself in 1984, hailed the award as “a magnificent endorsement for the first African American president in history.”

Two other former recipients, Mikhail Gorbachev and Wangari Maathai, were among the first to offer their congratulations.

Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader awarded the prize in 1990, was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying: “In these hard times people who are capable of taking responsibility, who have a vision, commitment and political will should be supported.”

Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist who won in 2004, referred to Obama’s mixed heritage of a Kenyan father and American mother, called it “another very encouraging event for Africa.”

From Obama’s ancestral village of Kogelo in western Kenya his uncle Said Obama told Reuters: “It is humbling for us as a family and we share in Barack’s honor. We congratulate him.”

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangarai, who had been among the favorites to win this year, said Obama was an extraordinary example.

“I wish to congratulate President Obama. I think he is a deserving candidate,” he told Reuters during a visit to Spain.

Even most of the international folks praising his choice talk more about the things they hope Obama will do rather than the things he has done. I am certainly in the camp that has high expectations that he will one day do something worthy of a Nobel peace prize, but…. he hasn’t yet. He hasn’t really done much of *anything* yet. I agree the tone has changed, and that is important, but seriously, a Nobel? Already? WTF?

Can people win multiple peace prizes? If not then, when he really does something momentous (as I hope he does) then there won’t be any recognition for it. Instead we have recognition for the hope of doing something. Very, very strange.

I found the full text of Obama’s speech, and while no one really cares what I think, I’ll give my thoughts on each of his points anyhow, just like I did with John Mackey’s proposal earlier.

- Those people with insurance who are happy with it won’t have to change. (good)
- “against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition” (good)
- “against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most” (good)
- “They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime.” (good)
- “We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses” (I don’t get this, does that mean that high deductible insurance plans will be banned? What does this mean?)
- “insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care” (generally good)
- “creating a new insurance exchange - a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices.” (I think this is a great idea. I assume this will be, what John Mackey and others talked about allowing consumers to shop across state lines. Seems like there are dozens of reasons this is a great thing to do. If it takes the government to create some “exchange” to encourage competition between various insurance companies, then so be it, lets do it.)
- “For those individuals and small businesses who still cannot afford the lower-priced insurance available in the exchange, we will provide tax credits” (good)
- “we will immediately offer low-cost coverage that will protect you against financial ruin if you become seriously ill” (I don’t entirely know what this means. He said it was John McCain’s idea. It is probably good and benign, but I’m not totally clear on it.)
- “individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance” (I couldn’t disagree with this point more. I am very, very much against this. As he noted, I am young and I am healthy. That doesn’t make me irresponsible to not get insurance that makes me SMART. Why pay money for something I don’t need? Why should I have to choose between my rent and health insurance that I don’t use and won’t benefit me? This is bullshit and not only a bad policy but it goes against a campaign promise he made to be against health insurance mandates. Without a doubt this is the low point of his plan for me. Ugh.)
- “public insurance option” (On principle I don’t like this, but as far as these things go it is something I could live with. It is hardly a “government take over of health care”, especially if the CBO is right (and they rarely seem to be) that less than 5% of the people will opt for it. Plus, as he said, it will be cheap & non-profit, but not free. Again, if he is right that it’ll be funded entirely by the consumers who opt for it, it seems quite acceptable. Government run, but not tax-payer funded. Now obviously those are some really big IFs. But I at least am not totally opposed to the idea, guess it depends on the implementation.)
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Sad:

An Arab couple whose one-year-old daughter was expelled from an Israeli day-care center on her first day are suing a Jewish mother for damages, accusing her of racist incitement against their child.

Maysa and Shuaa Zuabi, from the village of Sulam in northern Israel, launched the court action last week saying they had been “shocked and humiliated” when the center’s owner told them that six Jewish parents had demanded their daughter’s removal because she is an Arab.

In the first legal action of its kind in Israel, the Zuabis are claiming $80,000 from Neta Kadshai, whom they accuse of being the ringleader.

The girl, Dana, is reported to be the first Arab child ever to attend the day-care center in the rural Jewish community of Merhavia, less than one kilometer from Sulam.

However, human rights lawyers say that, given the narrow range of anti-racism legislation in Israel, the chance of success for the Zuabis is low.

Since its founding in 1948, Israel has operated an education system almost entirely segregated between Jews and Arabs.

However, chronic underfunding of Arab schools means that in recent years a small but growing number of Arab parents have sought to move their children into the Jewish system.

Dana was admitted to the day-care center last December, according to the case, after its owner, Ivon Grinwald, told the couple she had a vacant place. However, on Dana’s first day six parents threatened to withdraw their own children if she was not removed.

Kadshai, in particular, is said to have waged a campaign of “slurs and efforts aimed at having [Dana] removed from the day-care center, making it clear that [her] children would not be in the same center as an Arab girl.” Zuabi was summoned to a meeting the same evening at which Grinwald said she could not afford to lose the six children. She returned the contract Zuabi had signed and repaid her advance fees.

Zuabi said that while she was in the office Grinwald received a call from Kadshai again slandering Dana and demanding her removal.

Grinwald refused to speak to the media last week. However, last December, when the Zuabis first complained, she told Army Radio: “The [Jewish] parents called her a girl from ‘the [Arab] sector,’ they said this is a day-care center for Jewish children and that it should stay that way … I can’t change the world, I have to look out for my livelihood.”

Although Israel lacks a constitution, the Zuabis’ lawyer, Dori Kaspi, is suing Kadshai under the terms of the 1992 Basic Law on Human Freedom and Dignity, the nearest legislation Israel has to a bill of rights.

In previous cases when Arab children have been excluded from schools, the parents have launched a legal action for discrimination against the education authorities or the school itself.
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John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc., wrote an excellent op-ed about health care reform for the Wall Street Journal. Unlike the often over-the-top bile health care reform has attracted from conservatives, Mackey doesn’t just criticize universal health care (though it looks like the actual bill will fall far short of the universal health care half our country is terrified of), he offers 8 alternative ways to reform our system. I’m fully on board with six of them.

• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs).

I’m not sure what legal obstacles there are, but by all means remove them. For myself I’d much prefer a high-deductible health insurance plan and an HSA over other options. The health care plan Whole Foods offers their employees sounds absolutely perfect.

Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

This I’m also 100% behind. My employer doesn’t provide health insurance for me, if anything I’d like to get some myself (I don’t have any currently). Why should I be punished for getting an individual plan?

Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

Makes perfect sense to me. If the best deal is in California or Tennessee, then why can’t I buy insurance from there?

Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

I’m somewhat torn on this one. He makes a good point that costs go up when insurance companies are forced to cover more expensive illnesses and treatments, but I’m sure those illnesses wouldn’t make any insurance company money and most would drop them if given the option. What happens to those people with those specific illnesses? I suppose if you were able to buy insurance from companies in any state that one would think at least someone would provide coverage for x, y or z treatment. But would it then be too expensive for anyone to afford? Even if such a move would make health care cheaper for 80, 90 or 99% of the population what about those left over? I guess, ironically, the best option if this reform happened would be for the government to cover those left out.

Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

This has also been a big conservative talking point about health care reform. I’m not terribly sure. If the hospital removes the wrong leg and I end up without any legs because of someone’s mistake, you better believe I’d want to sue and would be justified in getting every last nickle out of the bastards. Capping damages or anything else would no doubt reduce health care costs, but by circumventing our legal system it seems it would hurt victims of medical malpractice.

Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

I think this is a huge and valuable point. The markets works best when there are informed consumers, but no one really seems to know or care how much their treatment costs. At least not as much as they should. So people don’t make the best decisions, and will opt for expensive, sometimes unnecessary treatment because, what the hell, the insurance takes care of it. They don’t even need to think about what it costs if they aren’t getting the bill. At the grocery store people will pick the can of beans that is 20 cents cheaper but go in for thousands of dollars of medical testing without giving it much thought. People need to apply some frugality to medical care, it’d drive down the price for everyone and those people who really need that expensive treatment or testing would probably find it cheaper.

Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.

Not a point with many specifics, but sure, we need to reform Medicare.

Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

I don’t see how anyone could object to this one. Lets do it.

According to Real Clear Politics, fully 35 percent of Democrats believe George W. Bush had advance knowledge of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Fully 28 percent of Republicans believe Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States.Meet the fanatical third.

That is a shocking number of crazies. And people think youth are too ill-informed to vote?