Shortly before Thanksgiving 2004, I took my three kids camping in Mistletoe State Park near Augusta, Ga., with my best friend and his two kids. After six years in Savannah, my family was about to move to France for my wife’s new job as an administrator for an American company. We had all been camping together before and figured the trip would be a great getaway from all of the packing, painting and stresses of moving, and would allow the kids to be together for one last time. Our wives decided to stay home to organize the packing and spend some quiet time together to say goodbye.

For us, camping has always been a back-to-basics experience. We pack in all food and supplies to our remote site and take out trash and whatever is not consumed. For toilets, we dig holes with entrenching shovels and cover our traces. We teach our kids respect and responsibility in the forest. And we teach them to have a good time.

During the three-day weekend trip, we fished and cooked kielbasa, hot dogs and marshmallows over an open fire. We pitched our tents near the tip of a small peninsula jutting into Clarks Hill Lake, where red clay beaches rimmed our site. We scoured the water’s edge for mussel shells and arrowheads and skipped sleek stones on the water. The days were clear and cool, with high blue skies and wisps of moving clouds. Although the nights were cold, the weekend was as perfect as we could have hoped for.

The kids ran from one thing to the next with abandon, one minute scavenging wood for a fire, and the next returning breathlessly to tell us they had spotted a deer. At night, the tall pines sawed in the wind as my friend, whom I’ll refer to as Rusty, melted aluminum cans in the campfire using a tin can as a crucible. His crude alchemy and the sudden sense of the world as laboratory lighted our imaginations as he poured the quicksilver-like liquid over the rocks ringing the fire. The kids grew excited and impatient, studying the metal-coated rocks and waiting for the aluminum to cool into odd-shaped medallions they salvaged as mementos.

Later, after the kids had gone to bed in their tent and the cold descended, Rusty and I sat in our camp chairs, having a beer and warming our boots a little too close to the fire. I still wear that pair of Wolverines with the half-melted soles. And every time I put them on, I think of what happened when we returned from that weekend and how it changed all of our lives.

As usual during the trip, we took several photos. Because I forgot my digital camera, I bought a disposable camera at a gas station on the way to the campground. I took pictures of the kids using sticks to beat on old bottles and cans and logs as musical instruments. I took a few of my youngest daughter, Eliza, then age 3, skinny-dipping in the lake, and my son, Noah, then age 8, swimming in the lake in his underwear, and another of Noah naked, hamming it up while using a long stick to hold his underwear over the fire to dry. Finally, I took a photo of everyone, as was our camping tradition, peeing on the ashes of the fire to put it out for the last time. We also let the kids take photos of their own.

When we returned on Sunday, I forgot the throwaway camera and Rusty found it in his car. He gave it to his wife, whom I’ll call Janet, to get developed, and she dropped it off the next day with two other rolls of film at a local Eckerd drugstore. On Tuesday, when she returned to pick up the film, she was approached by two officers from the Savannah Police Department. They told her they had been called by Eckerd due to “questionable photos.”

One officer told Janet “there were pictures of little kids running around with no clothes on, pictures of minors drinking alcohol,” she recounted for me in an e-mail. “I asked to see the pictures and was told I couldn’t. I explained there must be a mistake. I was kind of laughing, you know, ‘Come on guys. There must be an explanation. This is crazy. Let me see the pictures.’ The officer told me that he personally did not find [the photos] offensive and that he had camped himself as a kid and knows what goes on.” But the officer also told Janet that “because Eckerd’s had called them and that because there were pictures of children naked, genitalia and alcohol, they would have to investigate.”

(more at salon.com)

NEW YORK — A 10-year-old boy in New York has set a new world record for wearing the most underpants. Jack Singer spent his birthday stepping into more than 200 pairs of undies. His family helped him with the challenge. At one point, the boy’s feet fell asleep. They placed him on the ground and kept going. It took 18 minutes for Jack to put on 215 pairs of underwear. That beat out the previous record of 200. In the end, Jack looked a bit bottom-heavy and tired. The boy used his record to raise money for a local marine who was wounded in Iraq.

A 7-year-old boy accused of being a spy was hanged by Taliban militants, according to published reports Thursday.

The child was allegedly put on trial by the militant group and later found guilty of working for Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s government, reports the Daily Mail.

Karzai called the act a “crime against humanity.”

“I don’t think there’s a crime bigger than that that even the most inhuman forces on earth can commit,” Karzai said.

The child was publicly hanged in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand province, a local official told The Associated Press.

“A 7-year-old boy cannot be a spy,” Karzai added. “A 7-year-old boy cannot be anything but a seven-year-old boy, and therefore hanging or shooting to kill a seven-year-old boy… is a crime against humanity.”

Violence is on the rise in June as the U.S. prepares a major summertime operation to cleanse the region of Taliban commanders.

At least 17 U.S. service members have been killed in the past four days, including four Americans who died Wednesday when insurgents in Helmand province’s Sangin district – one of the most volatile in the country and where the 7-year-old boy was hanged – shot down a NATO helicopter.

As news of the hanging unfolded, the war-torn country was hit with further tragedy as a suicide bomber hit a wedding party, killing at least 40 and severely wounding more than 70 people.

Several children were among the dead and wounded. Bits of flesh and severed limbs covered the site.

A Taliban spokesman denied responsibility for the deadly attack.

The governor of the province rejected the denial.

“The Taliban are doing two things at once,” Gov. Tooryalai Wesa said.

“On one side they target people who are in favor of the government, then at the same time they don’t want people to know their real face.”

A boy and girl flying separately under Delta Air Lines supervision Tuesday wound up at the wrong destinations when the airline accidentally swapped their paperwork.

The boy was ticketed for Boston and the girl was headed to Cleveland, but he wound up in Cleveland and she in Boston.

They both were flying under Delta’ unaccompanied minor program and were routed through Minneapolis-St. Paul. That is where the paperwork mix-up occurred, airline spokeswoman Susan Chana Elliott said.

“It was a unique situation,” Chana Elliott said. “Once we discovered it, we reacted quickly to resolve it.”

The guardians for both children were notified, and the kids were flown to their proper destinations later Tuesday, Chana Elliott said.

(more at the local paper, event though it’s not really a local story, but yanno whatever.)

For many 13-year-old boys, the journey from childhood to manhood begins with their first job, shaving feathery whiskers or discovering girls. But for Jordan Romero, it is unfolding in an attempt to become the youngest person to reach the summit of Mount Everest. On Saturday he departed base camp with his father, Paul Romero, and Paul’s companion and professional adventure racing teammate, Karen Lundgren.

“This was not my idea; he’s provided the inspiration and motivation to keep it going,” Romero wrote recently in an e-mail message from base camp. “Jordan is taking us on the Seven Summits quest and we are merely facilitating his wishes.”

Jordan’s attempt to climb the highest mountains in all seven continents, and particularly his attempt of Everest during the narrow window of the spring climbing season, has stimulated a rousing dialogue in the climbing community and beyond. How young is too young, and does a 13-year-old have the physical and emotional maturity to take on this extreme altitude endeavor?

And yet, Team Jordan, from Big Bear, Calif., has already climbed five of the Seven Summits over the last three years, starting with Kilimanjaro (19,340) in Africa, Elbrus (18,510) in Europe and Kosciusko (7,310) in Australia. If Jordan, who is 5 feet 10 inches and 160 pounds, crests Everest (29,035 feet), climbing Vinson Massif (16,067) in Antarctica would complete an achievement held by about 200 people.

“I really have dreamed about standing on top of the world since I was a little kid.” Jordan wrote in an e-mail message before leaving base camp at about 17,000 feet. “I don’t feel like I am rushing. Everest just happens to come now when I am 13 and I don’t think age matters so much.”

(more at the NYT)

(A young boy smokes a hash pipe while attending the annual 420 smoke-in at the Art Gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia)

A mother has warned of the risk of children spending hundreds of pounds on “free” online games available through Facebook after her 12-year-old son ran up bills of more than £900 without her knowledge.

The woman, who prefers to remain anonymous, discovered last month that her son had spent more than £900 on FarmVille. He had emptied his own savings account of £288 and had used her credit card to the tune of £625 to pay the bills.

FarmVille, one of the most popular games on Facebook, allows members to manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting crops, trees and livestock. New users are given virtual coins to set up their farm, and the revenue from matured crops can be used to maintain it. But those who are desperate to progress more quickly can buy extra virtual coins using real cash.

The mother said: “The first use of my card was on 14 March. I discovered it on the 29th and the card was stopped at that point. Any transactions after that date were already in the system, so what I thought was a £427 spend turned into £625 over the next few days.

“The total spend is about £905, but the credits are still rolling in. Facebook and [game creator] Zynga will not refund anything as [the son] lives in my house. Facebook has disabled his account and Zynga has unhelpfully suggested I use password protection on computers in the future.”

She contacted her credit card company, HSBC, but was told she would only qualify for a refund if she reported her son to the police and obtained a crime number. “He would be cautioned and I have been told that this caution would stay with him. Obviously the idea of a stupid farm simulation jeopardising his future earnings is not something that I want to consider,” she said.

She added that her son was “very shocked” when confronted with the amount he had spent, but it was clear he knew what he was doing. “When I asked him why he did it he said that they had brought out ‘good stuff that I wanted’.”

She does not blame Facebook, Zynga or HSBC, saying that her son was the one using the card and is entirely at fault. But she added: “I do think they need to shoulder some responsibility in this business and put systems in place to stop this happening again. The fact that he was using a card in a different name should bring up some sort of security and the online secure payment filter seems to be bypassed for Facebook payments.”

A spokeswoman for HSBC said that had the credit card been used on a gambling site it would have started alarm bells ringing for “unusual usage”. But because the card had been used to buy Facebook credits HSBC did not consider the transactions to be suspicious, even though £625 was spent in just two weeks.

Michael Arrington, founder of the Techcrunch blog, criticised Zynga last year for “monetising” the game, and warned that people who didn’t have access to a credit card to buy extra virtual money could use “pay by mobile” companies instead.

The indebted 12-year-old has not used his mobile to pay for virtual money, his mother said, but only because his older brother lost all his credit buying a ringtone a couple of years ago.

“We sound terribly technologically unaware don’t we? I wouldn’t mind but I am always explaining that all of these online offers, ringtones and games are a scam designed to take money off stupid people. Kids know best though.”

Guess what’s back? Back again? Shotalicious is back. Tell a friend.

The last few months have been cold and dark. Not just in the real world as I’ve mentioned, but also on the series of tubes we’ve come to affectionately call The Internet. Sure, pixiesticks.org has been here to keep you occupied with Very Serious Business like Johnny Weir, the continued attack on gay culture, and random animals found roaming around Atlanta, GA. And the site will continue to be here, just as it has been for the last NINE years.

But PIXIE has decided he really needed to bring sexy/back.

So, with the added bonus of the ease of use that WordPress brings, and the explicit desire to make it more about the delicious art rather than focus on the site as a job or something, shotalicious.org officially reopens today.

Now, it’s technically been back since March 1st. But he wanted to get a head start, kind of surreptitiously posting some things so everyone will have a little bit of stuff to enjoy on day one. So, check your old bookmarks, make sure any links you may have posted places are pointing to the right place, and most importantly make some noise. Because PIXIE is back posting shotalicious boys.

MomoCon, the downright cheap excuse for an anime convention held on the campus of Georgia Tech, is coming very soon. In fact, it’s two weeks away! Now, presale tickets for the exact cost of $0.00 have already been sold out. I say that, because, well, because the previous conventions have been so well attended (even during inclement weather) they have to put a cap on how many can come this year.

That doesn’t mean you still can’t see what all the fuss is about.

If you pony up some cash in a donation by March 7th, then you can get a pass mailed to you. Of course, those who registered for free badges (that will have to pick them up during the convention) you all should bring a few extra bucks to throw at this thing too. It ain’t a huge ass convention, so it needs all the love you can give it.

I’ll be there along with dozens of much more talented folks than I am hocking their anime wares. Come and have a great time with me trying to convert others to shotaluv March 20th and 21st.

For more information, you can visit the MomoCon website.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating employees at the Kennedy Airport air-traffic control tower for apparently allowing at least two school-age children to transmit directions to pilots.

CBS 2 has learned on two separate occasions in February, an air traffic controller from Long Island brought a child with him to work at JFK. The first incident occurred on Feb. 16, and the FAA told CBS 2 on Wednesday that a second child was brought into the tower by the controller a day later on Feb. 17.

At least one of the children was said to be 7 years old.

The 7-year-old spoke with several departing flights.

Child: Jet Blue 171 cleared for take-off.
JB 171: Cleared for takeoff, JetBlue 171.
Controller: Aero Mexico 403, Kennedy, 31L position and hold.
AMX 403: Position and hold Aero Mexico 403.
Controller: Here’s what you get, you guys, when the kids are out of school
Child: JetBlue 171 contact departure.
JB 171: Over to departure, JetBlue 171, awesome job

On the tape, the boy speaks only to planes on the ground awaiting takeoff and then clearly at the direction of the adult on duty, but experts say the boy’s mere presence in the control tower represents an inappropriate distraction and a security breach.

At the time though, the pilots and controller seem more amused than alarmed.

Controller: Cactus 14, Kennedy following an RJ, wind 310 at 15, 31 R cleared to land.
Son: Contact departure, adios amigos.
JB 195: Adios amigos, over to departure JetBlue 195.

Even people who are sympathetic with the childcare needs of a working parent are baffled by the judgment of this air controller.

“That’s scary for everybody. You can’t do that. That’s risking a lot of people’s lives,” said JFK air passenger Shamir Ali. .

The child is heard communicating with multiple pilots on an active runway at one of the nation’s busiest airports. Though some of the pilots seem to be impressed, FAA officials are not, saying in a written statement:

“Pending the outcome of our investigation, the employees involved in this incident are not controlling air traffic. This behavior is not acceptable and does not demonstrate the kind of professionalism expected from all FAA employees.”

As punishment for bad grades, a Georgia mother forced her 12-year-old son to kill his pet hamster with a hammer, police said.

The day after he was forced to kill his pet, the child told his teacher, Meriwether County Sheriff Steve Whitlock told the AJC Thursday evening.

The teacher reported the incident to DFCS authorities, who contacted police, Whitlock said. The pet’s death allegedly took place at the family’s Warm Springs home.

On Friday, 38-year-old Lynn Middlebrooks Geter was arrested, Whitlock said. Geter faces one charge each of animal cruelty, child cruelty and battery.

Geter remained in the Meriwether County jail Thursday evening, Whitlock said.

In a recent email I wrote to a long lost friend. Actually, he’s not long nor lost. Well, he may be long — I never got to check and ew — but he’s certainly not lost. He moved to Maine, you see. Anyway, where was I? Oh shit, still the beginning? Well then, lemme start over.

I wonder if I’m like a circling airliner, just waiting for my runway. Ugh, metaphors? Come on, Jonathan, you’re a talented writer but that talent comes from NOT doing stupid shit like using terrible metaphors. Start over again!

Fine, fine!

I am thirty-one years old. I live south of Atlanta, GA with my mother, my sister, and her boyfriend whom I dubbed Kid Rock Boyfriend. I don’t know what the deal is, but I think I’m waiting for something.

I have a job that I like most days that I go. I think to myself, honestly, isn’t that more than I can say for many people out there? Often, I’ll make more than 15 dollars an hour, and yet just as often, I will mishandle the money so poorly, I’ll barely make it from month-to-month with my simple but very real bills.

There are a few people I have keyed into my phone that I consider my friends. Sometimes I can’t get a hold of them, and I don’t ever see them as often as I want to. Some because they don’t live here and exist only on the internets, some because they have busy lives and I don’t think they’re waiting for anything like I am.

I don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t even have prospects for boyfriends, though you may find me occasionally making out with someone when I got to the bar or nightclub. I’m not exactly sure why that is, but then again, I do live with my mom, my sister, and her Kid Rock Boyfriend. I think more importantly though, I have an aura about me that is warding people away most of the time.

I used to run a website for one of my interests. I closed it when I felt like it was taking up too much of my time without really being all that rewarding. The anime characters used to turn me on, but I stopped really seeing them in that way after a while. Unfortunately, because I closed the site down, I lost pretty much all of my online popularity.

It will absolutely make sales of my upcoming fourth novel decline. I kind of took that into consideration when I pulled the plug, but also kind of ignored it to my own chagrin. Part of me thought that it didn’t really matter. I always said, if I sold one copy that’s all that matters. I’ve also said that if only one person came to pixiesticks.org, it’d be worth it.

I lie to myself, but never to others.

I think I’m waiting on something, but I don’t know what it could be. It’s not like I don’t try and alter the above to make for a more rewarding experience on the planet. I’m about to start editing that upcoming novel. I have new hobbies I find a lot of interest in. I try to approach people and try to make their lives more interesting either as a friend or French Kissing partner. I want my home life situation to be as painless as possible since I still have to stay here, and the same goes for my work.

So… really… what is it?
I don’t know.
Maybe part of it is just this. Putting down what is going on in my life into words and posting them onto pixiesticks. I only post personal posts when something I consider interesting is happening in my life.

But that wasn’t always the case. I was younger… I wrote more about feelings, dreams, desires. Older now, I still have feelings, dreams, desires, but I have to say, it seems they are dull and not colored so brilliantly with idealism. I seem to save that for my novels, as someone critically said about “Freakshow” once.

I am waiting for something. But it’s not a passive form of waiting. It’s not like I am sitting here, watching the calender change. It’s an active form of waiting, if there is such a thing. It’s like I’m trying to hold my ground and maybe even occasionally darting a hand out to claw forward, all while waiting and trying and hoping that things will get better for me.

More than 12% of youths in juvenile prisons are sexually abused while in custody there, according to a Justice Department study out Thursday, and the vast majority of cases involve female staff and boys under their supervision.

In the worst facilities surveyed — in Indiana, Maryland, North Carolina and Texas — more than 30% of youths reported they had been sexually victimized. The study, the first of its kind, shows a rate of sexual assault more than seven times higher than that indicated by a 2008 Justice Department report that collected sexual abuse claims to juvenile facility administrators. It is also higher than a similar study of adult prisons because of the “very high rate of staff sexual misconduct,” said Allen Beck, who directed the survey for the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The survey of 9,198 youths ages 13 to 21 — all in custody by order of a juvenile court — included methods to eliminate interviews considered unreliable. The survey covered 195 facilities, at least one in each state. Approximately 26,550 juveniles — 91% of them boys — are held in more than 500 such facilities around the country.

The survey showed that 10.3% of youths reported the sexual contact was with staff, compared with 2.6% who reported sexual victimization by other youths. In nearly half the incidents with staff, youths reported having sexual contact as a result of force.

The study sets a wider definition of sexual contact than rape, Beck said. Nonetheless, “these are all things that in the outside world would be considered violent or, by definition in law, they are illegal,” he said.

Sexual victimization of youths in custody “is one of those hidden closets of the system,” said Bart Lubow, director of the juvenile justice and strategy group for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which advocates for children. The rates at the worst facilities are “so high they’re stunning,” he said. “I am, on the other hand, never surprised as people peel the layers of the youth corrections onion and expose more and more things that make you cry.”

Linda McFarlane of Just Detention International, an advocacy group focused on eliminating sexual abuse in prison, called the highest rates of abuse “shocking beyond belief.”

“The incredibly high rates of staff misconduct is shocking and disturbing,” McFarlane said. “We just need to do a better job with training and recruitment and hiring and supervision.”

The survey showed that gay youths reported higher levels of sexual abuse from other juveniles, and so did youths who had been abused before coming to the facility.

That makes the survey valuable for juvenile facilities other than the type covered in the survey, she said. “While we can’t say we know what’s happening in, say, the smaller group-home settings … we can look at the information in this report and use it to protect those (particularly vulnerable) kids.”

In Maryland, where 36% of youths surveyed at Backbone Mountain Youth Center said they had been victimized, the state Department of Juvenile Services said in a statement Thursday there will be an independent investigation by the state human resources and health agencies.

At Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility in Indiana, which also had among the highest rates of abuse in the study, four female guards were suspended a month ago after a report of sexual abuse, said Edwin Buss, state corrections commissioner.

Indiana officials say their own surveys show a much lower rate of sexual victimization.

“We’re not denying that this happens,” said Amanda Copeland, executive director of research and technology for the state Corrections Department. “We would be foolish to say that it never happens. We’re just questioning the extent to which it’s being reported” by the Justice Department. But the survey “gives us something to work with. Whether we agree with the percentages or the ratings or not, we recognize that we have issues and we need to address them, and we’re taking steps to do so.”

SELMA, Ind. — Police say a fifth-grader handed out about $300 to others on the bus ride to his eastern Indiana school. Problem is, they say, the cash was among some $10,000 he took from his grandparents’ safe.

Delaware County Sheriff George Sheridan says the boy was riding the bus to Selma Elementary School when he handed out the money on Friday, the last school day before Christmas vacation began.

Children who received the ones, fives and twenties told teachers and the principal, and the sheriff’s department was called.

Officers found the boy carrying the rest of the cash, which was returned to his grandparents. Police weren’t certain what he intended to do with the money or how he got it from the safe.

As you can see, we’re back to having new buttons and banners around here. Sorry to say I won’t be bringing back the snowfall. LOL. That kind of got out of hand in the past, and I don’t see a reason to really annoy people with it again this year.

I did bring back the shota button, but as you’ll quickly notice, it does not lead to shotalicious.org. That site is dead, people. I killed it. It was so much work. So much hard hard work and while I loved doing it for you wonderful people, I just couldn’t enjoy it myself anymore. Okay? I know it’s hard to let it go, but you got to start the process.

Or you could just go to the site I link and enjoy whatever they got there.

WASHINGTON — Think your kid is not “sexting”? Think again. Sexting — sharing sexually explicit photos, videos and chat by cell phone or online — is fairly commonplace among young people, despite sometimes grim consequences for those who do it.

More than a quarter of young people have been involved in sexting in some form, an Associated Press-MTV poll found.

That includes Sammy, a 16-year-old from the San Francisco Bay Area who asked that his last name not be used.

Sammy said he had shared naked pictures of himself with girlfriends. He also shared naked pictures of someone else that a friend had sent him.

What he didn’t realize at the time was that young people across the country — in Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania — have faced charges, in some cases felony charges, for sending nude pictures.

“That’s why I probably wouldn’t do it again,” Sammy said.

Yet, “I just don’t see it as that big of a problem, personally.”

That was the view of nearly half of those surveyed who have been involved in sexting. The other half said it’s a serious problem — and did it anyway. Knowing there might be consequences hasn’t stopped them.

“There’s definitely the invincibility factor that young people feel,” said Kathleen Bogle, a sociology professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia and author of the book “Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus.”

“That’s part of the reason why they have a high rate of car accidents and things like that, is they think, `Oh, well, that will never happen to me,’” Bogle said.

Research shows teenage brains are not quite mature enough to make good decisions consistently. By the mid-teens, the brain’s reward centers, the parts involved in emotional arousal, are well-developed, making teens more vulnerable to peer pressure.

But it is not until the early 20s that the brain’s frontal cortex, where reasoning connects with emotion, enabling people to weigh consequences, has finished forming.

Beyond feeling invincible, young people also have a much different view of sexual photos that might be posted online, Bogle said. They don’t think about the idea that those photos might wind up in the hands of potential employers or college admissions officers, she said.

“Sometimes they think of it as a joke; they have a laugh about it,” Bogle said. “In some cases, it’s seen as flirtation. They’re thinking of it as something far less serious and aren’t thinking of it as consequences down the road or who can get hold of this information. They’re also not thinking about worst-case scenarios that parents might worry about.”

Sexting doesn’t stop with teenagers. Young adults are even more likely to have sexted; one-third of them said they had been involved in sexting, compared with about one-quarter of teenagers.

Thelma, a 25-year-old from Natchitoches, La., who didn’t want her last name used, said she’s been asked more than once to send naked pictures of herself to a man.

“It’s just when you’re talking to a guy who’s interested in you, and you might have a sexual relationship, so they just want to see you naked,” she said, adding that she never complied with those requests.

“But with my current boyfriend, I did it on my own; he didn’t ask me,” she said, adding that she was confident he would keep the image to himself.

Those who sent nude pictures of themselves mostly said they went to a boyfriend, girlfriend or romantic interest.

But 14 percent said they suspect the pictures were shared without permission, and they may be right: Seventeen percent of those who received naked pictures said they passed them along to someone else, often to more than just one person.

Boys were a little more likely than girls to say they received naked pictures or video of someone that had been passed around without the person’s consent. Common reasons were that they thought other people would want to see, that they were showing off and that they were bored.

Girls were a little more likely to send pictures of themselves. Yet boys were more likely to say that sexting is “hot,” while most girls called it “slutty.”

Altogether, 10 percent said they had sent naked pictures of themselves on their cell phone or online.

Criminal charges aren’t the worst consequences. In at least two cases, sexting has been linked to suicide. Last year in Cincinnati, 18-year-old Jessica Logan hanged herself after weeks of ridicule at school; she had sent a nude cell phone picture to her boyfriend, and after they broke up, he forwarded the picture to other girls.

And three months ago, 13-year-old Hope Witsell hanged herself, after relentless taunting at her school near Tampa, Fla. She had sent a nude photo of herself to a boy she liked, and another girl used his phone to send the picture to other students who forwarded it along. The St. Petersburg Times first reported on Hope’s death this week.

Other teenage suicides have been linked to online bullying, also a subject of the AP-MTV poll. Half of all young people said they have been targets of digital bullying.

That can mean someone wrote something about them on the Internet that was mean or a lie, or someone shared an e-mail or instant message that was supposed to be private. Less often, it can be more serious, such as taking pictures or video of someone in a sexual situation and sharing it with others.

The AP-MTV poll was conducted Sept. 11-22, and involved online interviews with 1,247 teenagers and adults ages 14-24. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

The poll is part of an MTV campaign, “A Thin Line,” aiming to stop the spread of digital abuse.

The survey was conducted by Knowledge Networks, which initially contacted people using traditional telephone and mail polling methods and followed with online interviews. People chosen for the study who had no Internet access were given it for free.

(Ed note: Ah yes, your body is dirty. Your body is sinful. Shame! Shame! Shame!Send all your sexting pictures to pixiesticks@gmail.com)

14 Year Olds are the most dangerous Sex Offenders in America?

It’s a very strong and sadness inducing argument toward a lot of the things I have, and others have said for a while now. What are we doing? What are we doing?

Ex-Pedophile Shares Tips On How To Make Your Kids Less Attractive

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A Colorado sheriff said Sunday it was hoax when parents reported that their 6-year-old son was in a flying saucer-like helium balloon hurtling away from their home when he was actually hiding in the garage.

Sheriff Jim Alderden said Richard and Mayumi Heene “put on a very good show for us, and we bought it.”

“We believe that we have evidence at this point to indicate that it was a publicity stunt done with the hopes of marketing themselves or better marketing themeslves for a reality television show at some point in the future,” Alderden said.

The sheriff says no charges had been filed yet, and the parents weren’t under arrest. He said he expected to recommend charges of conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor,making a false report to authorities and attempting to influence a public servant.

Some of the most serious charges each carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

He said all three of the Heenes’ sons knew of the Thursday hoax, but likely won’t face charges because of their ages. The oldest son is 10.

Some of the most serious charges each carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

Heene, a storm chaser and inventor, and his family have appeared on the reality show “Wife Swap.”

Alderden said interviews with the parents Saturday resulted in enough information to get a warrant to search the house. He said they were looking for computers, e-mails, phone records and financial records.

The sheriff said they discovered the balloon basket 6-year-old Falcon was made of a thin piece of plywood and cardboard held together with string and duct tape.

Aldreden said the children were still with the parents, and child protective services has been conacted to investigatethe children’s well-being.

Suspicion that the balloon saga was a hoax arose almost immediately after Falcon was found hiding in the garage.

Alderden initially said there was no reason to believe the incident was a hoax. Authorities questioned the Heenes again after Falcon turned to his dad during a CNN interview Thursday night and said what sounds like “you said we did this for a show” when asked why he didn’t come out of his hiding place.

Falcon got sick during two separate TV interviews Friday when asked again why he hid.

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A 6-year-old boy was found hiding in a cardboard box in his family’s garage Thursday after being feared aboard a homemade helium balloon that hurtled 50 miles through the sky on live television.

The discovery marked a bizarre end to a saga that started when the giant silvery balloon floated away from the family’s yard Thursday morning, sparking a frantic rescue operation that involved military helicopters and briefly halted some departures from Denver International Airport.

Then, more than two hours after the balloon gently touched down in a field with no sign of the boy, Sheriff Jim Alderden turned to reporters during a news conference, gave a thumbs up and said 6-year-old Falcon Heene was “at the house.”

“Apparently he’s been there the whole time,” he said.

The boy’s father, Richard Heene, said the family was tinkering with the balloon Thursday and that he scolded Falcon for getting inside a compartment on the craft.

He said Falcon’s brother saw him inside the compartment and that’s why they thought he was aboard the balloon when it launched.

But the boy had fled to the garage, climbing a pole into the rafters and hiding in a cardboard box, at some point after the scolding. He was never in the balloon during its two-hour, 50-mile journey through two counties. “I yelled at him. I’m really sorry I yelled at him,” Heene said, choking up and hugging Falcon to him during a news conference.

“I was in the attic and he scared me because he yelled at me,” Falcon said. “That’s why I went in the attic.”

Heene said the balloon wasn’t tethered properly, and “it was a mishap. I’m not going to lay blame on anybody.”

The boys’ parents are storm chasers who appeared twice in the ABC reality show “Wife Swap,” most recently in March.

Richard Heene adamantly denied the notion that the whole thing was a big publicity stunt. “That’s horrible after the crap we just went through. No.”

The sheriff said he would meet with investigators on Friday to see if the case warranted further investigation.

“As this point there’s no indication that this was a hoax,” Alderden said.

The flying saucer-like craft tipped precariously at times before gliding to the ground in a dirt field 12 miles northeast of Denver International Airport. Sheriff’s deputies secured it to keep it in place, tossing shovelfuls of dirt on one edge.

With the child nowhere in sight, investigators searched the balloon’s path. Several people reported seeing something fall from the craft while it was in the air, and yellow crime-scene tape was placed around the home.

Neighbor Bob Licko, 65, said he was leaving home when he heard commotion in the backyard of the family. He said he saw two boys on the roof with a camera, commenting about their brother.

“One of the boys yelled to me that his brother was way up in the air,” Licko said.

Licko said the boy’s mother seemed distraught and that the boy’s father was running around the house.

Licko said he didn’t believe any hoax was involved.

“Based on what I witnessed in the backyard in the morning with the parents, I don’t think that’s the case,” Licko said. “They’re better actors than I thought they were if that’s the case.”

In a 2007 interview with The Denver Post, Richard Heene described becoming a storm chaser after a tornado ripped off a roof where he was working as a contractor and said he once flew a plane around Hurricane Wilma’s perimeter in 2005.

Pursuing bad weather was a family activity with the children coming along as the father sought evidence to prove his theory that rotating storms create their own magnetic fields.

Although Richard said he has no specialized training, they had a computer tracking system in their car and a special motorcycle.

While the balloon was airborne, Colorado Army National Guard sent a UH-58 Kiowa helicopter and a Black Hawk UH-60 to try to rescue the boy, possibly by lowering someone to the balloon. They also were working with pilots of ultralight aircraft on the possibility of putting weights on the homemade craft to weigh it down.

Alderden said he didn’t have an estimate of how much the search cost. Capt. Troy Brown said the Black Hawk helicopter was in the air for nearly three hours, and the Kiowa helicopter was airborne for about one hour. The Black Hawk costs about $4,600 an hour to fly, and the Kiowa is $700 an hour, Brown said.

Col. Chris Petty, one of the pilots aboard the Black Hawk, said he was thrilled the boy was OK.

Asked what he would say to the 6-year-old if he saw him, Petty said: “I’m really glad you’re alive, I’m very thankful, but I’d sure like to know the rest of the story.”

The episode led to a brief shutdown of northbound departures from one of the nation’s busiest airports between 1 p.m. and 1:15 p.m. MDT, said Lyle Burrington, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association representative at the Federal Aviation Administration’s radar center in Longmont, Colo. The balloon was about 15 miles northwest of the airport at that time.

Before the departure shutdown, controllers had been routing planes away from the balloon, Burrington said.

The Poudre School District in Fort Collins, where the boys attend, did not have classes for elementary schools Thursday because of a teacher work day.

Jason Humbert said he was in a field checking on an oil well when he found himself surrounded by police who had been chasing the balloon.

“It looked like an alien spaceship you see in those old, old movies. You know, those black-and-white ones. It came down softly,” Humbert said. “I asked a police officer if the boy was OK and he said there was no one in it.”

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Native Alaskans say a fourth-grader may have become the youngest person to kill a whale, delivering the fatal blow to a 32-foot bowhead during a hands-on hunting lesson from his uncles.

The crew landed the whale last Tuesday as hunters approached the city of Barrow’s annual quota of 22 bowheads.

His uncle and whaling crew captain, Qulliuq Pebley, says 9-year-old Paul Patkotak is the youngest whaler in memory credited with a kill. He says the youngest before Paul was a 15-year-old.

Paul’s father, Ellis Patkotak, describes him as a shy kid who loves snowmobiling, playing the “Rock Band” video game and hunting.

Paul joined his uncle’s crew during the city’s largely unsuccessful spring whaling season. The crew came home empty-handed, but Paul proved himself.

The uncle asked Paul if he wanted to play a bigger role in the fall season. The boy said he did.

“This day we were very, very fortunate,” Pebley said of landing the whale. “I gave him what he asked for because he’s such a hard-working little man.”

Another uncle, Pauyuuraq Brower, first harpooned the whale using a darting gun. The weapon is a harpoon with an apparatus that fires an explosive charge into the whale upon impact.

The initial blow didn’t kill the whale, so Brower used a shoulder-fired rifle to launch a second explosive into it, Pebley said, but that charge did not explode.

“That’s when I told him I wanted Paul to go up front and throw the harpoon in again. Put another bomb into it,” Pebley said.

Paul was given a darting gun with a handle carved from a birch tree. It was about eight feet long and weighed 30 pounds when loaded, Pebley said. Paul, 9, weighs about 75 pounds.

“He’s kind of a little guy but he’s pretty tough for his age,” Pebley said. Brower aimed the harpoon for the boy and told him when and where to throw it.

“Paul did the rest. He threw like he had been doing it for years and years,” Pebley said.

The bomb exploded, killing the whale.

The whole thing took about 10 minutes, Pebley said. Butchering the bowhead lasted another three or four hours, and Paul’s family received hundreds of pounds of meat, his father said.

Paul’s role in the hunt drew fresh attention to Barrow whaling, and subsistence whale hunting inside and outside Alaska.

After photos of Paul and the whale were posted online earlier this week, it was copied to a social-networking site for animal welfare advocates. The story drew dozens of comments from people who called the news “disgusting” and “horrific.” A few defended the traditional hunt, while others wrote personal attacks against the young hunter.

“What a proud little murderer,” wrote one person, adding: “These people can buy their food for the winter at the store.”

More than 300 miles above the Arctic Circle, Barrow is the northernmost town in North America. Most residents are Inupiat natives, according to the state Division of Community and Regional Affairs. Local leaders call whaling a unifying tradition. The borough mayor is a captain himself.

Pebley was aware of the Internet comments.

“For me it’s just like everybody has a right to their own opinion,” he said. “I don’t judge them on their opinion. One of the values I was taught was not to judge people by what they do or say.”

(Ed note: The kid’s already wiser than pretty much most of the rest of humanity.)

TOKYO — Police on Tuesday sent prosecutors papers on an alleged case of child prostitution involving a 14-year-old boy in Kanagawa Prefecture who paid 60,000 yen to have sex with a 13-year-old girl he met on an online dating site. The boy, a third grader at a Tokyo junior high school, paid out of the more than 100,000 yen he had saved in cash allowances from his parents, Kanagawa police said.

They sent local prosecutors documents on the boy’s ‘‘indecent act’’ in a railway station toilet in Sagamihara on March 1, when the girl was a 13-year-old first grader at a junior high school. Police quoted the boy as saying that he carried out the act because he ‘‘had money and was interested in sex.’’ He enticed the girl by portraying himself as an 18-year-old in a message posted from a personal computer at his home.

Sitting cross-legged on the cushioned floor of a family friend’s house, Mohammed Jawad furrowed his brow and fidgeted nervously as he struggled to explain his extraordinary ordeal over the past seven years.

In December 2002, when he says he was only 12, he was arrested on suspicion of throwing a grenade into a Jeep carrying US special forces soldiers through Kabul, wounding two of them and an interpreter. He was taken first to an airbase north of Kabul, then to the US prison in Guantánamo Bay, where he remained until his release a few days ago after a ruling by a US judge that his confession had been obtained by force.

One of the youngest and most controversial prisoners in Guantánamo, Mr Jawad is now finally a free man after being flown back to Kabul on Monday and reunited with his family and friends.

But after seven years in custody — six of them in Guantánamo — he faces a long struggle to pick up the pieces of his lost childhood and teenage years, and to build a future for himself in a country still at war with the Taleban.

“This is one of the happiest moments in my life — to be back in Afghanistan after all this time,” he told The Times.

“I hadn’t done anything — they took me for nothing. All I could do was hope that one day I’d be free and back home in Afghanistan with my mother.”

When he was reunited with her, she refused initially to believe he was her son because he had changed so much, and fainted in a fit of hysterics, according to a family friend. Only when she came round and checked for a distinctive bump on the back of his head, did she embrace him as her offspring, said Sher Khan Jalalkhil, a close friend of Mr Jawad’s father.

Mr Jawad is not the first Afghan prisoner to be released from the Guantánamo prison. But he is believed to be the youngest — although the Pentagon says that bone scans indicated that he was 18 when sent to Guantánamo in 2003.

He has thus become a cause célèbre for human rights activists … and something of a celebrity in Afghanistan. President Karzai even offered to give him a house in Kabul when he met him on Monday night. The Defence Minister, Abdul Rakhim Wardak, offered to pay for him to study overseas.

When Mr Jawad was arrested, he was living with his mother in Kabul — his father having been killed fighting the Soviets in the 1980s.

“We searched for him for nine months,” said Mr Jalalkhil. “We didn’t know if he had been killed, or kidnapped, or got lost. His mother went crazy.” Finally, a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross visited their house to show them documents proving that Mr Jawad was in Guantánamo.

They were relieved at first to hear he was alive, but then they started to hear reports about conditions there.

Since returning, Mr Jawad has accused his captors of torturing prisoners, depriving them of food and sleep, and insulting Islam and the Koran.

He has described having his hands bound and stretched behind his back, and being forced to eat by bending over and putting his mouth into a plate of food.

Yesterday he was reluctant to go into details, saying that he would describe everything in full at a press conference in Kabul today. “It was a jail and I wasn’t happy there — I didn’t feel very good,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “They threatened me a little. I will tell all of this tomorrow.” Human rights activists say that he was moved around often, and in one seven-day period was subjected to 152 episodes of mistreatment.

Eric Montalzo, his lawyer, says that he was treated like an adult despite his young age. “He has been in a cage for seven years. So it’s very difficult for him,” Mr Montalzo said. “He is a fragile human being and we need to protect him and his interests.”

Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that there should be compensation for prisoners such as Mr Jawad, and no immunity from prosecution for the torture of terror suspects.

Some human rights activists accept the Pentagon’s assertion that Mr Jawad was 16 or 17 when arrested. But they also say that it could take years for him to recover from the trauma of being detained in such a way for so many of his formative years.

Mr Jawad, meanwhile, is making plans to resume his studies — first in Afghanistan, then maybe overseas — and train to become a doctor.

Asked if he would consider studying in the United States, he hesitated and looked to the assembled elders for advice, before answering: “I have not made any plans yet.” As the interview began, the elders had asked him teasingly whether he learnt English in Guantánamo. He said no and spoke only in his native Pashto during the interview.

But when thanked at the end, he smiled shyly and said, with only a slight accent: “No problem.”

Previously I shipped any images that weren’t necessarily safe for work over to shotalicious to be admired. Well, August (which is in a few days yanno) will mark an end to that policy.

While I’m not looking to reunite this site with the yaoi and shota it was previously hosting, I thought why not, at least briefly, shake things up a little over here.

ALEX NICOLA, who will be 5 in August, enjoys being naked as frequently as possible at home.

“In the morning he gets up and takes his pajamas off, and rather than get dressed right away, he walks around naked,” said Dawn Nicola, Alex’s mother, a stay-at-home parent in Castle Rock, Colo.

After school, he likes to take off his pants, recline on his stuffed animal chair and watch an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants while snacking on cheese-flavored crackers.

“I call him my little naked boy,” Mrs. Nicola, 44, said affectionately.

Alex’s desire to be unclothed is not shared by his twin brother, Andrew, or by his 6-year-old sister, Gabrielle. “It’s a stage he’s going through, and he’ll grow out of it,” said John Nicola, 39, Alex’s father, a sales executive at First Data Corporation.

Usually Alex’s state of undress is a non-issue. Several weeks ago, however, it caused something of a stir when a classmate of Gabrielle’s and her mother came over for a play date. Alex asked his sister and her friend to paint his fingernails and then suggested a fleshier canvas.

“Apparently, he decided to take off his clothes and was like, ‘Put nail polish on me! Put nail polish on my bottom!’ ” Mrs. Nicola said.

The girls obliged, and after creating a shapely pink masterpiece, ran down to the kitchen to confess to their mothers. Mrs. Nicola was taken aback, but after admonishing the girls and examining her son’s backside, she found the situation mildly amusing.

The classmate’s mother, however, was horrified. “The mom was sort of appalled that Alex got naked in front of her daughter,” Mrs. Nicola said. “She expressed concern that we hadn’t talked enough about private parts. She said, ‘In our family, we always talk about how certain parts of the body are not for anyone else to touch.’ ”

For many parents, allowing a child to run around naked at home is perfectly natural, an expression of physical freedom that represents the essence of childhood, especially in the summer. But for others, unclad bodies are an affront to civility, a source of discomfort and a potentially dangerous attraction for pedophiles. These clashing sensibilities can create conflict, even when the nudity in question takes place at home.

(more on the NYTimes Website)

(Ed note: It takes them a while, but eventually they get to the inevitable, “fear of pedos” situation involving children and nudity. If you look for monsters everywhere, don’t be surprised if you find you become one yourself.)

An Iowa man was convicted of possessing child pornography last week because some of the books in his vast collection of Japanese manga (comics) appeared to depict minors engaged in sexual acts. How exactly can a court determine whether a comic book character is a “minor” or not?

39-year-old Christopher Handley, an office worker, was brought up on charges of possessing child pornography in 2006 when customs officials seized a package for him. It contained several manga, some of which were “lolicon” that showed what officials said were children being sexually abused. There were also images of bestiality. Handley has a huge collection of manga, and only a few are lolicon. He also had absolutely no child pornography of any description in his house or on his computer.

Nevertheless, Handley entered a guilty plea. According to Threat Level, it was simply because his attorney had exhausted all other options:

“It’s probably the only law I’m aware of, if a client shows me a book or magazine or movie, and asks me if this image is illegal, I can’t tell them,” says Eric Chase, Handley’s attorney.

Chase says he recommended the plea agreement (.pdf) to his client because he didn’t think he could convince a jury to acquit him once they’d seen the images in question. The lawyer declined to describe the details. “If they can imagine it, they drew it,” he says. “Use your imagination. It was there.”

The manga collector faces up to 15 years in prison for possessing comic books.

Handley is the first person to be convicted under the controversial Protect Act, which makes drawings of fictional characters into potential child pornography. How did this happen?

In 2002, the Supreme Court struck down the so-called Morphing Law, which held that fictional cartoon or photoshopped images depicting minors having sex would would also be treated as obscene (Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition). Under that decision, last week’s conviction of Handley could not have happened. But in 2003, the Protect Law passed, which held that “a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting” showing children in sexual situations could be ruled illegal if local community standards consider it “obscene.” This is particularly relevant given that Handley was tried in an area, Southern Iowa, where average community members may not be aware of the styles and content of typical manga.

In the United States, the original intent of the child pornography laws was to protect children from sexual abuse. The idea is that when actual, living children (not images of them) participate in the making of sexual images, they are harmed. The US Supreme Court heard a case in 1982 (New York v. Ferber) whose outcome, in short, made any sexual images containing minors obscene and illegal – even if those images had redeeming social value. New York v. Ferber did not cover fictional images, only photography and film which involved actual children.

The Protect Act dramatically expands the scope of laws permitted under Ferber. But will actual children be protected by sending a man to prison for collecting fictional comic books?

As Comic Book Legal Defense Fund executive director Charles Brownstein put it:

This art that this man possessed as part of a larger collection of manga … is now the basis for [a sentence] designed to protect children from abuse. The drawings are not obscene and are not tantamount to pornography. They are lines on paper.

(PIXIE says: Obviously this is a real problem for fans in the United States of this genre. I just want you to know that shotalicious isn’t going anywhere. If our web host takes us down, we’ll be back using another one. And unless I’m arrested, I’ll be here posting shota on shotalicious.org.

Director of “Up,” Pete Docter, auditioned 400 boys in a nationwide casting call for the part. Jordan Nagai, who is Japanese American showed up to an audition with his brother, who was actually the one auditioning.

Docter realized Nagai behaved and spoke non-stop like Russell and chose him for the part. Docter encouraged Nagai to act physically as well as vocally when recording the role, lifting him upside down and tickling him for the scene where Russell encounters Kevin.

Asian Americans have positively noted Pixar’s first casting of an Asian lead character, in contrast to the common practice of casting non-Asians in Asian parts.

“Up” is in theatres nationwide in both 2D and Disney Digital 3D and made an estimated 68.2 million dollars opening weekend.

(Ed note: I saw it on Saturday and give it an overwelming A+)

Thunder Bay, Canada: A Thunder Bay woman is demanding an explanation after a teacher’s aide at her son’s school cut his long hair — an action her lawyer says is clearly assault while the Crown insists there are no grounds for charges.

CBC News is not naming the family to protect the child’s identity.

The seven-year-old boy had chin-length hair before the incident last month. His mother said staff at McKellar Park Central Public School were aware her son was letting his hair grow so that he could take part in traditional First Nations dancing.

The mother told CBC News she was stunned when her son told her it was a teacher’s assistant who lopped off 10 centimetres of his hair.

“I said, ‘Why did she do this? Did she say anything?’” said the mother. “And he said, ‘No, and after she cut my hair, she took me by the shoulders and forced me to stand in front of the mirror. She made me stand there and said look at you now.’”

Lawyer Julian Falconer is representing the family.

“We have a classic example of the vulnerabilities of a seven-year-old being taken advantage [of] by someone with a pair of scissors who lifted that child on a stool and proceeded to violate the child,” Falconer said. “The question becomes how could the police and the Crown attorney’s office turn a blind eye to this?”

Thunder Bay police took head shots of the child as part of their investigation of the incident and also interviewed the school principal, the teacher’s assistant involved and the mother and boy, said police spokesman Chris Adams.

“The Crown got back to us and indicated that there were no grounds for criminal charges, and it wasn’t in the public interest according to the Crown,” he said.

A spokesperson for Lakehead Public School Board confirmed the “unfortunate incident” took place but declined to comment further.

The teaching assistant has been suspended, but the mother said that does not go far enough.

An Omaha child born a boy will start the next school year with a new name and a new identity — as Katie, a girl.

According to the Omaha World-Herald, the parents of the 8-year-old say the child they first named Ben exhibited girlish tendencies as young as 2, when he would create long hair using scarves. A year later, he donned a tiara and dressed as a princess for Halloween.

The child’s mother told a CNN affiliate that she’s come forward to tell her family’s story so people will understand. The Omaha newspaper reported that it is difficult to accurately estimate the number of people in Western countries who are transgendered, meaning they see themselves as a different gender, according to the American Psychological Association.

“If the child is truly transgender, it’s not going to go away,” said counselor Megan Smith, whom the family consulted.

Ben’s family looked at his school drawings that expressed his frustration with feeling like a girl, but looking like a boy. They asked him what he liked about being a boy, and he always answered, “nothing.”

Finally, they decided to let Ben be what he wants — Katie.

“This really isn’t our journey,” his mother told the newspaper. “We’re kind of observers on this path.”

State health officials have confirmed a case of swine flu involving a 14-year-old student at Eagles Landing Christian Academy in McDonough.

The private Henry County school is now closed for the next 14 days, officials said.

Elizabeth Ford, director of the state Division of Public Health, also revealed more information on three additional probable cases of swine flu: A 36-year-old pregnant woman from DeKalb County; an 8-year-old girl from Clayton County; and a 3-year-old boy from Cobb County.

Ford said the testing indicates there is a high likelihood that the three probable cases also will be confirmed as swine flu by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ford said the 14-year-old at Eagle’s Landing may have obtained the illness from a younger sibling who had flu-like symptoms during the school spring break. That 12-year-old sibling is now well.

Eagle’s Landing is about 25 miles south of Atlanta. According to the school’s Website, it has an enrollment of over 1,100 on its 86-acre campus.

On Monday, 16-year-old Matthew Calhoun recalled how anytime classmates coughed last week, they were ribbed for possibly having the H1N1 virus, commonly called swine flu.

But last Friday during a prayer request at the private Christian school, another student asked that they pray for a sick middle-schooler suspected of having the virus.

“Then I just wanted to go home,” he said.

On Sunday, Matthew received a text from his best friend that school was canceled because of suspected swine flu. Moments later, officials from the school in Henry County phoned his father, Dwayne Calhoun, and said school was canceled indefinitely as authorities tried to determine whether the unnamed student had contracted swine flu.

The H1N1 virus has sickened more than 200 people and killed one in the U.S., according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

Dwayne Calhoun, whose 6-year-old son also attends Eagle’s Landing, said he was impressed with the school’s handling of the case.

“I’m thankful they are taking the precautions they are,” he said. “They keep the parents pretty well informed.”

Calhoun said his family isn’t alarmed by the news and is taking basic precautions of frequent hand-washing. Matthew said he and his friends are a bit shaken by the news.

“At first there was only one case in Georgia, and then the odds of the second case [possibly] being in our school is pretty wild,” he said.

In the first case, a woman visiting Georgia from Kentucky was sent on to the CDC for final testing, and it tested positive for swine flu. She remains in a hospital in stable condition in LaGrange.

Matthew and his friends do not know the student in question.

On its web site Monday, Eagle’s Landing President Tim Dowdy said the school is undergoing a deep cleaning as a precaution.

Cowdy added that the health department will be contacting any student who may have been exposed to the virus.

(Ed note: Oh lawd! Shota’s got swine flu in my area!)

NEW YORK — Authorities say a 5-year-old boy slipped onto a New York City subway alone and rode for 34 stops from one end of Manhattan to the other before anyone intercepted him.

Samuel Sosa has been reunited with his mother, unharmed, after his hourlong transit odyssey Monday.

Griselda Sosa says her son got away from her around 7:40 a.m. while she got coffee near an elevated station on the No. 1 line in the northernmost part of Manhattan. The boy apparently sprinted up the station’s stairs, squeezed under a turnstile and boarded a southbound train before she could stop him.

Police quickly put out an alert, but Sammy made it to the end of the line before transit workers spotted him around 8:40 a.m.

His mother calls authorities’ response “good and fast.”

PRESCOTT, Ariz. (AP) – A youthful-looking sex offender who posed as a 12-year-old boy to enroll in several Arizona schools was sentenced to more than 70 1/2 years in prison Tuesday.

Neil Havens Rodreick II pleaded guilty last year to seven criminal charges. Most involved child pornography but two stemmed from the charade he pulled off for two years.

Rodreick, 31, didn’t speak at his sentencing, shaking his head ‘no’ when Yavapai County Superior Court Judge Thomas Lindberg asked if he had anything to say.

Lindberg told Rodreick that he found his conduct deceitful and appalling and said he should have received an even longer sentence.

Rodreick attended schools in Surprise, Payson and Prescott Valley starting in 2005.

Authorities said he shaved and wore makeup to help him appear younger, convincing teachers, students and administrators that he was a boy named Casey.

He was caught in January 2007 after spending a day in the seventh grade at a Chino Valley school when school officials became suspicious because his birth certificate and other documents looked forged. They had initially thought they might be dealing with a child who had been abducted.

Authorities didn’t find any victims of sexual abuse at the schools Rodreick attended, but they found an extensive collection of child pornography at his home.

Rodreick originally faced 28 counts, but pleaded guilty to only a quarter of them: four counts of sexual exploitation of a minor stemming from the pornography, and one count each of failure to register as a sex offender, fraud and simple assault. The assault charge involved an allegation that he grabbed a girl’s buttocks at a school in Prescott Valley with the intent to injure, insult or provoke.

Rodreick was arrested with Brian J. Nellis, 36, who was posing as his cousin, and two older men posing as their uncle and grandfather.

Nellis, Lonnie Eugene Stiffler, 63, and Robert James Snow, 46, were indicted on various charges, including child pornography and forgery. Nellis and Snow, both convicted sex offenders, were also charged with failing to register with authorities.

Stiffler was sentenced Tuesday to 14 years in prison, and Snow received 22 years. Nellis was sentenced last month to 51 years in prison with no chance of parole.

Before coming to Arizona, Rodreick was convicted in Oklahoma of lewdly propositioning a 6-year-old boy in 1996. He served about six years in prison.

(Ed note: *snicker*)

A Fulton County jury has awarded $1.8 million in damages to a boy whose penis was severed in a botched circumcision.

The state court jury gave another $500,000 to the boy’s mother in the decision rendered Friday.

The case involves a child, identified only as D.P. Jr., who was born at South Fulton Medical Center in 2004. In a suit filed two years later, his mother contended that the doctor who circumcised him removed too much tissue and that his pediatrician failed to respond when a nurse complained of excessive bleeding.

The tip of the penis was placed in a biohazard bag and might have been reattached if a urologist had attended to the boy within eight hours, one of the mother’s lawyers, David J. Llewellyn of Atlanta, said.

The jury found that both the pediatrician, Dr. Cheryl Kendall, and the physician who performed the circumcision, Dr. Haiba Sonyika, were negligent. South Fulton Medical Center was absolved of liability.

The pediatrician’s lawyer, Roger Harris, said he disagreed that the jury’s decision indicated that Dr. Kendall was negligent because she didn’t go to the hospital. He hinted at an appeal. “We believe there was error committed during the course of the trial,” he said.

Dr. Sonyika’s lawyer could not be reached for comment.

Llewellyn said the money awarded by the jury is to cover the cost of medical treatments and psychiatric counseling for the boy and his family. The jury did not award punitive damages. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is not naming the mother to avoid identifying the child.

“This case does point out one of the dangers of circumcision that every parent must seriously consider when having the procedure done,” Llewellyn said. He contended that parents are not told of the risks of the procedure.

(Ed note: Sure to continue the hot debate over the topic of circumcision. I must reiterate that I do prefer uncut and commercial free guys.)

(previous post)

A DNA test showed a 13-year-old boy in Britain is not the father of a baby born to a 15-year-old he had unprotected sex with once.

Chantelle Stedman told Alfie Patten, who was 12 when he slept with her, he was her newborn daughter Maisie’s father.

The story caused a worldwide media frenzy after it was first reported by Britain’s Sun newspaper, while politicians criticised what they called Britain’s declining morals.

At first Stedman said Patten was the only boy she had ever slept with, but soon after other teens came forward saying they too could be the baby’s father, because they claimed to have had sex with the girl.

It is still not clear who the baby’s father is.

Last month a friend of the Stedman family claimed Patten was scammed by the girl’s parents who wanted to cash in on the sensational story.

The Sun reported last month that Alfie had been seen wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the message: “I’m the daddy, if not fuck you all I’ll still be there”.

Having practically every other theme of maid or cosplay café, Akiba now receives a shota café, called “Cafe B’s Prince”, where comely young boys serve the (male or female) patron enthusiastically with squeaks of “ welcome home, onii-chan!”

For those without a little brother to salivate over, this may be the answer.

The café offers food and drink, as well as a periodical “amusement time” (involving live performances). The “little brothers” are ladies cosplaying young boys.

The company says: “The café uses characters of the type often seen in dating sims, a child-faced ‘shota’ character wearing shorts and speaking with a high-pitched voice. As there are many who interested in this sort of character, we thought ‘wouldn’t it be good to entertain these patrons?’, and with the idea that ‘shota=little brother’, we created the café.”

The café operates from 11:00am to 10:00pm, but due to its special nature is only being opened periodically, with the opening currently set at once every few months.

Official website (in Japanese)

(Ed note: Oh Japan, you never cease to make me lol. Of course, I’d go even though they were girls and not boys. Still, I don’t necessarily equate shota to “little brother” probably because I don’t have any brothers.)

A Connecticut middle school principal has laid down the law: You put your hands on someone — anyone — in any way, you’re going to pay.

A violent incident that put one student in the hospital has officials at the Milford school implementing a “no touching” policy, according to a letter written by the school’s principal.

East Shore Middle School parents said the change came after a student was sent to the hospital after being struck in the groin.

Principal Catherine Williams sent out a letter earlier in the week telling parents recent behavior has seriously impacted the safety and learning at the school.

“Observed behaviors of concern recently exhibited include kicking others in the groin area, grabbing and touching of others in personal areas, hugging and horseplay. Physical contact is prohibited to keep all students safe in the learning environment,” Williams wrote.

Students and parents are outraged. They said the new policy means no high-fives and hugs, as well as horseplay of any kind. The consequences could be dire, Williams warned in the letter.

“Potential consequences and disciplinary action may include parent conferences, detention, suspension and/or a request for expulsion from school,” Williams wrote.

Many think the school’s no tolerance policy goes way too far. Others said it’s utterly ridiculous.

“Now it’s almost as if it’s a sanitized school. Where you have to keep your distance from everybody? And that’s not what school is about,” one father said.

“What if they are out on the playground at recess, or in gym class?” parent Kathy Casey wondered. “You know, gym class is physical.”

A 14-year-old Saginaw boy has been charged with strong-arm robbery and assault in juvenile court after he pushed a woman and broke her cell phone while taking a walk naked with a large white poodle in Hart Township Monday, police say.

Lt. Craig Mast of the Oceana County Sheriff’s Office said a 14-year-old youth walked away from a youth behavioral treatment facility Monday morning, stripped down, and was with a “giant” white poodle when he approached a woman working in her yard just after 11:30 a.m. Monday in the area of Oceana Drive and Lake Road.

“The young naked man approached her with this poodle, and she immediately realized something peculiar,” Mast said.

When the woman asked the boy if he was all right, he told her some statements that didn’t make much sense, Mast said. The boy said his mother had kicked him out of her home in the Saginaw area.

When the woman, 53, of Hart Township, got out her cell phone to call for help for the boy, he assaulted her, pushing her in the upper chest, and took her phone. He fled the scene and broke the phone in half, the sheriff’s office stated.

The woman went to a neighbor’s house and called 911.

Deputies responded to the victim and shortly afterwards they located the boy near Oceana Drive and Lake Road in Hart Township near the American Legion Hall.

Mast said when dispatch gave information about the boy, deputies had an idea of who they were looking for because he had shown up naked along a roadway a few days earlier. He was picked up by a reserve officer and brought back to the placement facility after that incident.

He was taken into protective custody Monday and has since been moved to a more secure facility out of the area.

The boy is being charged with strong-arm robbery and assault and battery as a juvenile through the 10th Circuit Court in Saginaw.

Mast said because the boy is a juvenile he is referred back to his jurisdiction of residence, which is where the incident for his original charges occurred.

The name of the suspect and past charges were not released.