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)

A now-defunct Web site that catered to gay youth is now ensnared in a federal bankruptcy proceeding that the founder says could result in as many as 1 million profiles being sold to creditors, putting its former subscribers’ privacy at risk.

XY, which billed itself as a young gay men’s magazine and could be found at XY.com, ceased publishing in 2007. Its founder filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year, which could put names, addresses, e-mail addresses, unpublished personal stories, and other information about gay minors into creditors’ hands.

The Federal Trade Commission recently expressed its concerns, saying in a letter to creditors and attorneys involved in the case that “any sale, transfer, or use” of XY’s personal information “raises serious privacy issues and could violate” federal law.

XY’s creditors have hired a lawyer to obtain the personal information held by the magazine and Web site. But because XY.com’s privacy policy said that “We never give your info to anybody,” any personal data should be “destroyed,” wrote David Vladeck, the head of the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection, in a letter this month.

The question of who owns personal data collected by a failed company–and what should be done with it–is not exactly a new question.

A decade ago, as the dot-com bubble collapsed, failed companies scrambled to sell assets to appease creditors. In 2000, Boo.com sold its customer list to Fashionmall.com. The same year, Toysmart.com, majority-owned by the Walt Disney Co., tried to follow suit, but abandoned its plans following pressure from state attorneys general.

But none of those bankruptcy proceedings included information as sensitive as the customer list for a magazine and Web site that targeted gay youth between 13 and 17 years old who were in the process of grappling with their sexual identity.

(more a cnet)

(Ed note: Man, I miss XY Magazine. I still have dozens of copies. It never was on time and it really did just crash and burn, but man was it so satisfying to have that flying the faces of all those fuckers who try to put you down as a gay kid. I highly recommend finding some via the internets.)

One man and five minors were arrested in Piedmont Park on Friday night after an assault and robbery of a gay couple, according to an Atlanta police report.

At approximately 10 p.m., Jarvis Johnson, 19, and five other males ranging in age from 13 to 17 approached two men having a picnic in Piedmont Park, asked if they were gay and then threatened them, the report states. The suspects then began to attack each individual separately.

“We were just finishing up dinner and playing cards when they came up to us and asked if we were gay,” Joshua Noblitt, 32, told the AJC on Tuesday. “It wasn’t very organized. I don’t know if they thought gay men in the park would be an easy target based on stereotypes and stuff, or what.”

Noblitt said one of the suspects used a large stick to assault him, which he grabbed away from him and turned on his assailant.

The report states that Noblitt and his boyfriend, Trent Williams, 25, “began to get the best of the suspects,” and Johnson used his cellphone to call for help from friends.

(more at AJC.com)

High school students and college-age adults have been complaining to District officials that the free condoms the city has been offering are not of good enough quality and are too small and that getting them from school nurses is “just like asking grandma or auntie.”

So D.C. officials have decided to stock up on Trojan condoms, including the company’s super-size Magnum variety, and they have begun to authorize teachers or counselors, preferably male, to distribute condoms to students if the teachers complete a 30-minute online training course called “WrapMC” — for Master of Condoms.

“If people get what they don’t want, they are just going to trash them,” said T. Squalls, 30, who attends the University of the District of Columbia. “So why not spend a few extra dollars and get what people want?”

Health officials and consumer advocates say that in terms of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, there’s no difference between Trojans and the less-expensive Durex condoms that the city is offering.

But because Trojans are considered the better-known brand, city officials say, they are willing to spend an extra few thousand dollars a year to try to persuade sexually active teenagers to practice safer sex. The Durex condoms will still be offered.

“We thought making condoms available was a good thing, but we never asked the kids what they wanted,” said D.C. Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), chairman of the health committee.

The addition of the more expensive Trojan condoms is the latest move in an effort by officials to flood city streets with latex to battle HIV/AIDS.

(more at the Washington Post)

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)

ORCHARD, Texas – A third-grader at Brazos Elementary was given a week’s detention for possessing a Jolly Rancher.
School officials in Brazos County are defending the seemingly harsh sentence. The school’s principal and superintendent said they were simply complying with a state law that limits junk food in schools.

But the girl’s parents say it’s a huge overreaction.

“I think it’s stupid to give a kid a week’s worth of detention for a piece of candy,” said Amber Brazda, the girl’s mother. “The whole thing was just ridiculous to me.”

Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch Monday when a teacher confiscated the candy. Her parents said she was in tears when she arrived home later that afternoon and handed them the detention notice.

According to the disciplinary referral, she would be separated from other students during lunch and recess through Friday.
Jack Ellis, the superintendent for Brazos Independent School District, declined an on-camera interview. But he said the school was abiding by a state guideline that banned “minimal nutrition” foods.

“Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules,” he said.

The state, however, gives each school discretion over how to enforce the policy. Ellis said school officials had decided a stricter punishment was necessary after lesser penalties failed to serve as a deterrent.

Ellis said failing to adhere to the state’s guidelines could put federal funding in jeopardy.

According to the Texas Department of Agriculture’s website, “The Texas Public School Nutrition Policy (TPSNP) explicitly states that it does not restrict what foods or beverages parents may provide for their own children’s consumption.”

Brazos Elementary Principal Jeanne Young, said the problem, in this instance, was that the candy was provided by another student – not the girl’s parents.

The girl’s mother said the incident has taught her daughter a lesson, but not the one her teachers intended.

“I told her, ‘Leighann, unfortunately you’re learning very young that life’s not fair,’” Brazda said.

Gone are the days when the Boy Scouts were rewarded solely for outdoor skills like tying knots and building campfires. The group is now adding two more awards for scouts to win – in video games.

The Scouts will award belt loops and academic pins for video game activities that promote education, teamwork and a familiarity with video game ratings, reports CNET blogger Don Reisinger.

Tiger Cubs, Cub Scouts and Webelos Scouts can earn belt loops by explaining “why it is important to have a ratings system for video games,” according to the Scouts. They must also create a schedule that fits video gaming around chores and homework and choose games that have been approved by a parent or guardian.

To earn the academic pin, scouts will have to do a number of things: find an age-appropriate game, research the differences between two gaming systems, play a game with family members and teach someone else how to play as well.

They also have to play a multiplayer game with a friend for at least an hour, put together a list of tips for others to follow on playing a game, play a game that promotes educational skills, compare prices of games at three stores and install a gaming system under an adult’s supervision.

The seventh-grade girl at Cumming’s Liberty Middle School sent the nude photo of herself by cell phone to three boys at three middle schools in Forsyth County.

The 10th-grade boy at Forest Park High School sent the naked image of himself with his phone to a 16-year-old girl at his Clayton County school and it was forwarded to four other students, one of them 14.

The girl and boy were punished the same day last month in metro Atlanta school systems about 40 miles apart. Their consequences were quite different.

(more)

Maybe one day in the future we’ll figure out that our naked bodies aren’t inherently evil. And maybe one day legislatures will create laws that make functional and practical sense. And maybe one day monkeys will fly out of my butt. If so, I’ll make sure to take a pic of it and send it to you okay?

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Microsoft on Monday had pulled a portion of a Kin video ad showing a teenager “sexting” a photo of his bare chest using the technology giant’s new smartphone.

“Microsoft has deleted the inappropriate portion of the Kin video,” the US firm’s SaferOnline Team said in an apologetic message posted at microblogging service Twitter. “We take sexting very seriously, and are sorry it happened.”

Microsoft last week unveiled a new line of Windows-powered mobile phones called “Kin” aimed at young users which emphasize social networking.

The company came under fire in blog posts at Consumer Reports and other online outlets for the ad that appeared to promote “sexting,” the sending of nude photos of oneself using camera-equipped smartphones, in a Kin ad.

The ad showed a teenage boy taking a picture under his shirt and then sending it to a nearby girl in an email.

Really? Really? Is this what we’re becoming?

Andrey Ternovskiy is at the centre of a bidding war. The 17-year-old Russian is sitting on one of the internet’s hottest properties since Facebook and wealthy investors are offering millions to buy the concept. But the teenager is not selling — not yet, anyway.

Mr Ternovskiy is the creator of Chatroulette, a site that allows users to make random connections with strangers — to see and to speak to them — anywhere in the world. When people visit the site, their webcam is automatically switched on and they are linked to another user.

After this, there are no rules. People can speak through a video link, try to entertain one another, or — as is invariably the case — click “next” to find a more interesting stranger.

Since its launch last November with 500 users, Chatroulette has grown at breakneck speed and now has ten million visitors a month. The expansion has caught the eye of investors who want to buy into the web’s next big thing.

(more at Times Online)

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Five middle school students are facing criminal charges for attacking a DeKalb County student, police said.

A school district police report said the 12-year-old boy was held by several students, touched inappropriately, then stuffed in a locker.

It happened March 10 at Stephenson Middle School in Stone Mountain.

The 12-year-old victim said he went into the locker room to change clothes after track practice, and that’s when the group of six boys approached him, the report said.

Channel 2 Action News investigative reporter Jodie Fleischer spoke to parents about the incident. “This is something I had to talk to my son about because, he saw, and I’m trying to explain to him that’s something not supposed to happen at school and you’re not supposed to see this,” said Troy Ray.

Two 14-year-olds are facing sexual battery charges, three more students are facing reckless conduct charges and the sixth boy is not criminally charged, the report said. All students detained are facing school discipline.

“This was an incident, a situation that is intolerable, that’s not accepted by DeKalb County School system and we’re addressing it,” said district spokesman Dale Davis.

Davis also said this was an isolated incident and that the school environment in DeKalb is safe.

COCHRAN — Derrick Martin had a question he couldn’t answer, so he did what any 18-year-old would. Fingers tapping, he logged on to his computer last December and Googled the following words, which changed his life:

“I’m gay. Can I go to the prom?”

He can, and will. But those eight little words have done more than ensure the high school senior can take a same-sex date to Bleckley High School’s prom next month.

Seeking that answer has thrust him to the forefront of a national discussion. It’s touched off heated discussions in beauty salons and restaurants here and elsewhere, and made this small middle Georgia town a focal point in the debate over gay rights. Some applaud him for bravery. Others say his soul’s in peril.

All he really wanted, he says, was a night to remember.

“I didn’t anticipate this,” Derrick said earlier this week, a few days after news got out that he would bring his boyfriend, a young man from Tift County, to his prom. “I thought this might run on the second page of the paper.”

Instead, he’s Derrick Martin, sudden celebrity. As he sat on a bench underneath a bare oak tree outside a Bleckley school building, a Ford pickup, kids hanging out of its cab, zipped by. Derrick! Derrick! young voices belled.

A Honda sped past. It sprouted arms from every window. Hey, Derrick!

Derrick sighed. “If I could have just brought him without asking, I would have done that.”

‘You better sit down’

Derrick Martin is young enough that his facial hair is still spotty; like the rest of him, it’s not done growing. His 160 pounds are stretched across a frame nudging 6-foot-3. He is as long and narrow as a church pew, and only slightly more comfortable discussing all that’s happened since his Google query.

As he searched Web sites, Derrick came across the legal defense site for the national gay-rights organization Lambda. A representative of the group told him that if a school system didn’t have rules forbidding same-sex dates, then Derrick likely could bring his boyfriend.

“They did warn me that the school system could cancel the prom,” he said.

That wasn’t just conjecture. School officials in Itawamba County, Miss., canceled a prom recently after 18-year-old Constance McMillen said she wanted to bring a girl to her school’s April 2 dance. The American Civil Liberties Union, claiming the school board violated her right to free expression, has demanded that McMillen be allowed to attend.

Nothing like that occurred in January, when Derrick requested a meeting with Bleckley High Principal Michelle Masters. Because his date isn’t a Bleckley student, school rules required Derrick to fill out a form identifying him. He decided to check with Masters first.

“You better sit down,” he began.

Masters took the request to the Bleckley County Board of Education. When the board next met, it also discussed another Martin — Derrick’s father, Ray, a math teacher at the high school. Board members named him Bleckley’s teacher of the year.

Then they turned to his son. In early March, the board announced that Derrick could bring his boyfriend to the prom. School Superintendent Charlotte Pipkin, who declined comment, earlier this week released a two-paragraph statement.

The board decision, the statement said in part, “is not an endorsement of any particular practice or life style, but rather recognition of the legal environment in which public schools operate today.”

Bleckley High School, home of the Royals, would hold its prom April 17, as originally planned. The junior class would plan it, as well as decorate the school gym. This is a BHS tradition.

But tradition, people soon learned, was about to get a test.

A town debates

Cochran, about two hours south of Atlanta, is a confluence of U.S. and state roads that come together for a few blocks before fanning out again across rolling land that yields peanuts and cotton. A museum near the police department is dedicated to those agricultural staples.

About 5,200 people live here. Wednesdays at noon, much of downtown adheres to a practice that has just about gone the way of the mule. Stores close. People head to the municipal golf course, visit Macon to shop, or catch up on the latest events.

A lot of catching up these days focuses on Derrick’s decision, and how it reflects change — not just in Cochran, either.

Barbara Anderson’s shears snipped quickly, as if they were as indignant as she.

“I think they [the school board] ought to do like that other state and cancel the prom,” said Anderson, who owns a styling salon here. “They won’t allow us to have God in school, but they’ll allow this?”

Across the street, waitress Victoria Cagle took a break after the lunch rush. She is a 2009 Bleckley grad who hopes to attend nearby Middle Georgia College and teach high school biology.

“I think what they [the board] did was the right thing,” said Cagle, 19. “I think what he’s doing is awesome.”

Merchant Jason Ledbetter isn’t so sure.

“It bothers me,” said Ledbetter, 47, part-owner of a downtown music store. “By him doing that, it shows we accept it.”

Business partner Kenny Laney wasn’t as ruffled as Ledbetter. “It’s like an inter-racial couple,” said Laney, 54. “I thought we would have gotten over that by now, and gotten over this, too.”

The boys may face a divine reckoning, said resident Faye Ortiz. “What they do is up to them,” said Ortiz, 45, who recently moved back to central Georgia from Texas. “They’ve got to answer to God.”

Dealing with fallout

Opinions aside, Derrick’s action has come at a cost. He’s no longer living at home. Staying there, he said, became intolerable as news spread that he was taking his boyfriend to the prom. For now he’s staying with a friend, the girl he escorted to last year’s prom.

“She’s my best friend,” he said.

He also has friends who are gay, Derrick said. He expected some of them to stand with him when he took his request to school officials.

“I thought I would have had a little bit of backup,” he said, disappointment creeping in his voice. “But it’s just me.”

His boyfriend, who’s also 18 and a school senior, has not made any public comments. Derrick’s parents are remaining silent, too.

So Derrick talks. He talks about school. Kids there have known he is gay for a while. Most of them, he thinks, are on his side.

He talks about work. He is an after-school tutor for elementary and middle school kids at risk of not passing state tests.

He talks about the future. He’s planning to attend Georgia Southern University, which he said has given him a scholarship in recognition of his 92.5 average. He wants to go to law school, maybe someday become the state or U.S. attorney general. “That would just be so awesome.”

He also thinks about what has happened these past few months.

“I only wanted to be honest,” he said. Now, he feels an obligation. If he has to be the face of gay rights, OK.

A big lesson to learn from eight little words.

TV bosses in the US have apologized after preview clips of the Playboy channel were accidentally played out on two children’s channels.

A Time Warner Cable (TWC) spokesman said a “technical glitch” was to blame for the mistake, which lasted two hours in parts of North Carolina on Tuesday.

The company was made aware of the error after parents called in to report it.

TWC said it had procedures in place to catch errors, but it was not picked up as it affected only a small area.

‘Worst time’

“We’re very, very sorry it happened – we know parents are concerned,” spokesman Keith Poston told local news station WRAL.

“It took about an hour or so once we were notified of the problem to actually get it fixed.

“It was a technical glitch and unfortunately it hit at the worst possible time on the worst possible channels,” he added.

The error occurred on the Kids On Demand and Kids Preschool On Demand channels where clips from Playboy TV appeared in the top right hand corner.

Although a menu of available children’s programming was listed on the left side of the screen, previews showing nude women engaged in explicit conversations were shown where previews of children’s shows normally would appear.

Mr Poston said the explicit content aired from about 0615 to 0815 local time in parts of Cary, Garner, Morrisville, Wilson, Goldsboro, Willow Spring and Johnston County, but added most areas just went black when the equipment failed.

Time Warner said it regretted the glitch and had fixed the problem so it would not happen again.

Not only do we have the kissy-kissy picture I posted yesterday causing the stir, you can add to that the following.

Prom in Mississippi school called off when it was found out a lesbian was going to bring her girlfriend.

Virginia politicians first undo then kind of half-assedly redo protections against gay discrimination.

Florida legislators are pondering using tax breaks as a way to mold family-values, making sure to try and exclude gay stuff.

And of course, homophobia abounds in the fall out over the Eric Massa shit.

That’s just a couple days worth of news that I uncovered during my regular looking over things on the interbutts. I didn’t even include things that are happening in other parts of the world.

So what’s the deal? Is it because we got pussy-acting Democrats in control over both houses of Congress and the Presidency that now the other side is all revved up and ready to trample over basic human rights? Because, let me tell you something, if the Bush Years made everyone so goth damned depressed… I have to suggest that maybe we homos should feel even more goth damned depressed now.

You’re in luck if you ordered Thin Mints. Or Samoas. Or even the Tagalongs.

But the Lemon Chalet Creme Girl Scout cookies probably won’t taste as good this year, according to the company that makes the popular treats.

Some people have reported an “off taste and smell” from certain packages of the lemon cookies, according to a statement on the Little Brownie Bakers Web site.

The Louisville, Ky., company says the cookies are safe to eat. They’re just not as tasty as they could be.

“The cookies are still edible, but are not recommended for consumption as they are not up to our quality standards,” according to the company’s statement.

The company says certain lots of the lemon cookies contain oils that may be breaking down. No illnesses have been reported.

All of the Girl Scout councils that have received the smelly cookies are being notified, according to the company.

Dictionaries have been removed from classrooms in southern California schools after a parent complained about a child reading the definition for “oral sex”.

Merriam Webster’s 10th edition, which has been used for the past few years in fourth and fifth grade classrooms (for children aged nine to 10) in Menifee Union school district, has been pulled from shelves over fears that the “sexually graphic” entry is “just not age appropriate”, according to the area’s local paper.

The dictionary’s online definition of the term is “oral stimulation of the genitals”. “It’s hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we’ll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature,” district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the paper.

While some parents have praised the move – “[it's] a prestigious dictionary that’s used in the Riverside County spelling bee, but I also imagine there are words in there of concern,” said Randy Freeman – others have raised concerns. “It is not such a bad thing for a kid to have the wherewithal to go and look up a word he may have even heard on the playground,” father Jason Rogers told local press. “You have to draw the line somewhere. What are they going to do next, pull encyclopaedias because they list parts of the human anatomy like the penis and vagina?”

A panel is now reviewing whether the Menifee ban will be made permanent. The Merriam Webster dictionary joins an illustrious set of books that have been banned or challenged in the US, including Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, which last year was suspended from and then reinstated to the curriculum at a Michigan school after complaints from parents about its coverage of graphic sex and violence, and titles by Khaled Hosseini and Philip Pullman, included in the American Library Association’s list of books that inspired most complaints last year.

Dacula, GA: Ryan Lewallen was supposed to meet Jacob Bullock and Marvens Mathurin, fellow eighth-graders at Osborne Middle School, in a Dacula subdivision Saturday afternoon. But he was running a little late.

Lewallen’s father, David, can’t help but wonder what would have happened had Ryan gotten there earlier. The day before, David Lewallen had lectured his son not to try walking on their iced-over swimming pool.

“Children being children, you don’t know what could have happened,” David Lewallen said Sunday. “I would like to think he would have stopped them altogether.”

Bullock, 14, and Mathurin, 13, died after falling in an iced-over lake in the Daniel Park subdivision. Another friend, Mill Creek High freshman Alex Paul, was able to climb out of the water. He suffered hypothermia but was released from the hospital late Saturday night.

The boys were playing in the middle of the lake when the thin sheet of ice cracked, fire officials said.

David Lewallen said Mathurin fell in first, prompting Bullock and Paul to try to save him.

Rescue workers were dispatched at 2:29 p.m. Saturday. Paul was out of the water and trying to find the other two when crews arrived, Fire Capt. Tommy Rutledge said.

The lake, surrounded by houses, sits beside a covered pavilion, basketball courts and a grassy area where neighbors say the boys likely accessed the lake. Rescue workers backed their trucks into the grass to try to rescue the boys.

Firefighters used a boat to move across the lake, through broken ice. Using 10-foot poles, they were able to locate the boys at the bottom of the lake, estimated at 8 to 10 feet deep.

“They were in there for almost an hour,” Rutledge said.

On Friday, Ryan Lewallen and his 8-year-old sister were in the backyard talking about walking on their frozen swimming pool.

“That’s children — they’re drawn to that,” their father said. “Even my 15-year-old, he’s like, ‘Dad, I can walk on that. Even if you fell through, you can just come right back up.’ I was trying to explain to him, ‘Son, it’s not that simple. When you’re talking about freezing water, it doesn’t happen that way.’”

Bullock and Mathurin were pronounced dead Saturday evening at Gwinnett Medical Center. Rescue workers had hoped their youth would help them survive the incident.

“This is a very tragic situation,” Rutledge said. “Our thoughts and prayers are now with the family and friends.”

The teens’ deaths come after nearly 30 reports of children playing on frozen bodies of water in Gwinnett County, Rutledge said. Although frozen ponds and lakes might look safe to walk across, they’re often not strong enough to support a person’s weight.

“We cannot stress [it] enough,” Rutledge said. “We know it is tempting, but it is important that people stay off the ice.”

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.”

The Cobb County district attorney plans to move forward with the prosecution of a teacher who had sex with a 17-year-old student, even though a judge last week found that a similar romance was “gross” and “awful” but not illegal.

Cobb County Superior Court Judge Robert Flournoy ruled Dec. 9 that former Marietta High School teacher Christopher King was not guilty of sexual assault charges stemming from a relationship with a 17-year-old female student.

The judge’s decision echoed a Georgia Supreme Court ruling in June that stated it is not illegal for a teacher and a student who is 16 or older to have sex. The age of consent in Georgia is 16.

Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head said he disagrees with Flournoy’s ruling. He plans to move forward with the case against Steven Martin Parkman, a former teacher at Harrison High School in west Cobb.

Parkman, 34, is accused of having consensual sex with a 17-year-old female student.

“The judge and I differ on our opinion about whether expert testimony regarding consent is a factual issue for the jury or not,” Head said in an e-mail. “Obviously, I think it is and he does not.”

Head said he will ask a grand jury to reindict Parkman within the next few weeks and add a charge of sodomy against the former orchestra teacher. Parkman resigned in lieu of termination before his arrest April 14, 2008.

Parkman’s lawyer, Noah Pines, said the continued prosecution of his client is “ridiculous.”

Letters, texts and Facebook posts indicate that the alleged victim willingly had sex with Parkman, Pines said.

Pines said he will file a motion to dismiss the sodomy charge on the grounds that it is unconstitutional if his client is reindicted. The state law prohibiting sodomy, which is defined as either oral or anal sex, is seldom enforced when it involves consenting adults.

Sodomy is a felony punishable by one to 20 years in prison and a lifetime on the sex offender registry. The punishment is much harsher for a couple caught engaging in oral sex than it is for a couple caught having intercourse in public. Public indecency is a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum of 12 months in prison and a $1,000 fine.

Parkman told investigators that he had sex with the student in the orchestra room at school and in his car. The student has since graduated from high school and entered college, Pines said.

“If they present the case on sodomy, they are selectively prosecuting my client,” Pines said. “The law applies to anyone who gives or receives [oral sex]. She is just as guilty as my client.”

A Cobb County judge used a rare procedure to rule that a former Marietta High teacher was not guilty of sexual assault charges stemming from an affair with a 17-year-old student.

Judge Robert Flournoy bypassed the jury and issued a directed verdict Wednesday afternoon in the case against 36-year-old Christopher King, who admitted to having a sexual relationship with the girl.

“It’s gross, it’s awful, but it ain’t illegal,” said Flournoy. “This was a consensual relationship.”

In June, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that, when the student is a willing participant and is 16 or older, the student’s consent can be a defense for teachers facing a sexual assault charge. The judge referenced that decision in his ruling.

“I have a feeling the Georgia Legislature is going to amend this law,” Flournoy said.

Defense attorney Scott Semrau said it wouldn’t be surprising if this case were used by legislators as a reason to change the consent defense. Semrau doesn’t know of any similar case that’s been prosecuted since the state Supreme Court ruling.

“That ruling really guts the prosecution,” Semrau said.

The judge’s decision followed Wednesday morning testimony from the girl, who as a state witness testified the affair was consensual.

Asked by Semrau if she ever felt intimidated or coerced by King, the girl responded, “Absolutely not.”

“Have you ever wavered on that point?” Semrau asked. “No,” the girl said.

The girl looked in King’s direction several times during her testimony, smiling nervously. Though she admitted to jitters, her answers were resolute.

If he had been convicted of sexual assault, King faced 10 to 30 years in prison.

“[The student] was obviously persuasive, ” said Semrau. “She was thoroughly knowledgeable about what she wanted.”

Semrau said his client, who is now a salesman, would like to resume his relationship with the girl.

“I know he cares very deeply about her, but at this point the ball’s in her court,” he said. As for teaching again, Semrau said, “Realistically, [King]‘s put [that] behind him.”

The girl’s testimony revealed that King began personal correspondences in the fall of 2008, soon after they first met as student and teacher. “He called about a Steelers game,” the student said.

Her father, who testified Tuesday, said he was concerned that a teacher was contacting his daughter at home about an issue not related to school.

“My dad overreacts to everything,” she said. “He has very high moral standards. He’s never gotten a speeding ticket.”

Since the romance with King became public her relationship with her father has suffered, she said.

Her involvement with King was much more relaxed, she said.

“We’d go shopping, we’d go out to dinner, we’d go to movies … things dating couples do,” she said. “Piedmont Park, that was like our place.”

King was in the process of divorcing his wife, with whom he has two small children, when they began dating, she said.

“He was unhappy in his marriage,” she said.

She confirmed details that were revealed in court Tuesday about when their relationship became sexual.Their first tryst took place at a hotel on Barrett Parkway, she said.

“It evolved the way I assume any sexual encounter does,” she said.

She said when the relationship became public after King’s arrest she lost some friendships and transferred to a college preparatory program at Kennesaw State from Marietta High.

On Tuesday, Semrau acknowledged that his client was engaged in a sexual relationship with the girl.

“They were in love,” Semrau told jurors. “This may be a bad idea, it may be taboo, but it’s not illegal.”

Cobb County prosecutor Maurice Brown unsuccessfully argued that King used his position to take advantage of a romantically naive teenager. “He led her to believe he was in love with her,” Brown said in his opening statement. “He led her to believe she was in love with him.”

Brown refused comment following the verdict.

King’s relationship with his student turned physical last March, when the two met for a hike at Kennesaw Mountain. There, they shared their first kiss, and within a month they were having sexual intercourse, facts neither side disputes.

“The only thing that ended this relationship was Mr. King’s arrest (on May 27),” Semrau said.

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)

The War On Kids: Official Site
Interview with Stephen Colbert

Schools have become prisons. In fact, they are designed by the same architects.
Natural child-like behavior has become criminalized.
Zero Tolerance has replaced common sense.
There is a war on kids, and now there is a documentary about just that.

CALABASAS, Calif. (AP) – Three boys have been arrested for investigation of bullying red-haired students after a Facebook message promoted “Kick a Ginger Day” at a Southern California school.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said Monday that two 12-year-olds were arrested for suspicion of misdemeanor battery, and a 13-year-old was booked for misdemeanor cyberbullying. They were released to their parents.

A total of eight boys are suspected in the Nov. 20 attacks on seven students at A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas.

Authorities believe the shoves and kicks were prompted by a message referring to a “South Park” episode satirizing racial prejudice.

Nobody was seriously hurt.

(Ed note: lol, cyberbullying is a crime now? Oh shit. Guess I should take back all those mean things I said about others in all of those archive posts.)

NORTON SHORES, Mich. – Police in southwestern Michigan no longer are looking for a man they initially believed had bitten a teenager’s neck following a recent screening of the hit vampire film “The Twilight Saga: New Moon.”

Norton Shores police on Wednesday told The Muskegon Chronicle, WOOD-TV and WZZM-TV that a 17-year-old girl who told them she was bitten Friday by an unknown man in the theater wasn’t completely truthful.

Detective Lt. Timothy LaVigne says the teen now faces possible criminal charges.

Police talked with the girl and concluded that much of her story was exaggerated.

The case will be turned over to the Muskegon County prosecutor’s office for review.

And people think homos are fucked up?

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) – A 39-year-old Southern California man has been arrested for misdemeanor child annoyance after allegedly paying a teenager $31 to spit in his face. The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department says Charles Hersel was arrested Wednesday in a sting operation at a mall in Thousand Oaks. He’s free from jail pending a court hearing.

A sheriff’s statement says Westlake High School students claimed Hersel paid them to yell profanities, spit and slap him in the face. Several also claimed he offered them cash to urinate and defecate on him.

A motive wasn’t clear.

Authorities say Hersel contacted some teens through the MySpace social networking site.

Hersel couldn’t be reached for comment Friday. He had no listed phone number in Thousand Oaks.

(Ed note: ‘A motive wasn’t clear.’ Really? REALLY? Nobody has a small inkling of maybe why someone would want such to be done? REALLY? REALLY? Also, what is misdemeanor child annoyance? If anything they should be charged for annoying me! STOP KICKING MY SEAT!!)

Fans of 15-year-old singing sensation Justin Bieber might typically run a bit younger than most chart-toppers — but as the “One Time” singer learned Friday, that apparently doesn’t make them any less dangerous.

A young girl was hospitalized after fans mistakenly started a stampede at the Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island, New York.

Moments after the incident, Bieber updated his fans with a message on his Twitter account. Alluding to a difficult day for himself, his fans and security team, he tweeted, “The event at roosevelt mall is cancelled. please go home. the police have already arrested one person from my camp. I dont want anyone hurt.”

Someone in the mall falsely screamed that Bieber was inside the Abrocrumbie Kids, causing a flood of young kids rushing toward his mistaken location. In addition to the young girl’s hospitalization, several fights allegedly occurred.

In addition, Newsday reported that by 2:30 p.m. Friday afternoon, the crowds had grown so big and unwieldy that Nassau County police were called in. The crowds had gathered for a performance at the tween clothing store Justice, where Bieber was scheduled to perform songs from his eight-song CD My World, which just came out on Tuesday.

After many fans had waited in line for a day or more, Bieber (who recently co-starred with Diddy in the YouTube clip “Justin Bieber’s 48 Hours with Diddy”) learned that many of them hadn’t left the mall, even after the incident with the injured girl. As the Nassau County police attempted to get the crowd to disperse, Bieber used Twitter to ask his followers to leave.

“[The girls] are inside crying,” fan Alexandra Levine told Newsday. “They don’t want to come out because they think he will still show up.”

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?

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.”

WASHINGTON — The Secret Service has determined that a juvenile was behind the online survey that asked whether people thought President Barack Obama should be assassinated, an agency spokesman said Thursday.

No criminal charges will be filed against the juvenile or the juvenile’s parents, spokesman Edwin Donovan said. Donovan would not identify the names of the child or parents or say where they are from.

The poll, posted Saturday on Facebook, was taken off the popular social networking site quickly after company officials were alerted to its existence. But, like any threat against the president, Secret Service agents took no chances.

The poll asked respondents “Should Obama be killed?” The choices: No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts myhealth care.

After Secret Service agents met with the child and the child’s parents, they determined there was no intent to harm the president.

“Case closed,” Donovan said. “I guess you could characterize it as a mistake.”

The poll was not created by Facebook, but by an independent person using an add-on application that had been suspended from the site, Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said earlier this week.

Kind of linked over to this site via Milkboys when he featured a news story about an author who was asked to speak to a middle school class via Skype but only if it was made so that he couldn’t see the children himself. You know, because they were worried about privacy and safety and other foolish nonsense.

Parents who install a leading brand of software to monitor their kids’ online activities may be unwittingly allowing the company to read their children’s chat messages — and sell the marketing data gathered.

Software sold under the Sentry and FamilySafe brands can read private chats conducted through Yahoo, MSN, AOL and other services, and send back data on what kids are saying about such things as movies, music or video games. The information is then offered to businesses seeking ways to tailor their marketing messages to kids.

“This scares me more than anything I have seen using monitoring technology,” said Parry Aftab, a child-safety advocate. “You don’t put children’s personal information at risk.”

The company that sells the software insists it is not putting kids’ information at risk, since the program does not record children’s names or addresses. But the software knows how old they are because parents customize its features to be more or less permissive, depending on age.

Five other makers of parental-control software contacted by The Associated Press, including McAfee Inc. and Symantec Corp., said they do not sell chat data to advertisers.

One competitor, CyberPatrol LLC, said it would never consider such an arrangement. “That’s pretty much confidential information,” said Barbara Rose, the company’s vice president of marketing. “As a parent, I would have a problem with them targeting youngsters.”

The software brands in question are developed by EchoMetrix Inc., a company based in Syosset, N.Y.

In June, EchoMetrix unveiled a separate data-mining service called Pulse that taps into the data gathered by Sentry software to give businesses a glimpse of youth chatter online. While other services read publicly available teen chatter, Pulse also can read private chats. It gathers information from instant messages, blogs, social networking sites, forums and chat rooms.

EchoMetrix CEO Jeff Greene said the company complies with U.S. privacy laws and does not collect any identifiable information.

“We never know the name of the kid — it’s bobby37 on the house computer,” Greene said.

What Pulse will reveal is how “bobby37″ and other teens feel about upcoming movies, computer games or clothing trends. Such information can help advertisers craft their marketing messages as buzz builds about a product.

Days before “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” opened in theaters on July 15, teen chatter about the movie spiked across the Internet with largely positive reactions.

“Cool” popped up as one of the most heavily used words in teen chats, blogs, forums and on Twitter. The upbeat comments gathered by Pulse foreshadowed a strong opening for the Warner Bros. film.

Parents who don’t want the company to share their child’s information to businesses can check a box to opt out.

But that option can be found only by visiting the company’s Web site, accessible through a control panel that appears after the program has been installed. It was not in the agreement contained in the Sentry Total Home Protection program The Associated Press downloaded and installed Friday.

According to the agreement, the software passes along data to “trusted partners.” Confidentiality agreements prohibit those clients from sharing the information with others.

In recognition of federal privacy laws that restrict the collection of data on kids under 13, the agreement states that the company has “a parent’s permission to share the information if the user is a child under age 13.”

Tech site CNet ranks the EchoMetrix software as one of the three best for parental control. Sales figures were not available.

The Sentry and FamilySafe brands include parental-control software such as Sentry Total Family Protection, Sentry Basic, Sentry Lite and FamilySafe (SentryPC is made by a different company and has no ties with EchoMetrix).

The Lite version is free. Others range from $20 to download and $10 a year for monitoring, to about $48 a year, divided into monthly payments.

The same company also offers software under the brands of partner entities, such as AmberWatch Lookout.

AmberWatch Foundation, a child-protection nonprofit group that licenses its brand to EchoMetrix, said information gathered through the AmberWatch-branded software is not shared with advertisers.

Practically speaking, few people ever read the fine print before they click on a button to agree to the licensing agreement. “Unless it’s upfront in neon letters, parents don’t know,” Aftab said.

EchoMetrix, formerly known as SearchHelp, said companies that have tested the chat data using Pulse include News Corp.’s Fox Broadcasting and Dreamworks SKG Inc. Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures recently signed on.

None of those companies would comment when contacted by the AP.

EchoMetrix has been losing money. Its liabilities exceeded its assets by nearly $25 million as of June 30, according to a regulatory filing that said there is “substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

To get the marketing data, companies put in keywords, such as the name of a new product, and specify a date range, into Pulse. They get a “word cloud” display of the most commonly used words, as well as snippets of actual chats. Pulse can slice data by age groups, region and even the instant-messaging program used.

Pulse also tracked buzz for Microsoft Corp.’s “Natal,” a forthcoming Xbox motion-sensor device that replaces the traditional button-based controller. Microsoft is not a client of Pulse, but EchoMetrix used “Natal” to illustrate how its data can benefit marketers.

Greene said children’s conversations about Natal were focused on its price and availability, which suggested that Microsoft should assure teens that there will be enough stock and that ordering ahead can lock in a price.

Competing data-mining companies such as J.D. Power Web Intelligence, a unit of quality ratings firm J.D. Power and Associates, also trolls the Internet for consumer chats. But Vice President Chase Parker said the company does not read any data that’s password-protected, such as the instant message sessions that EchoMetrix collects for advertisers.

Suresh Vittal, principal analyst at Forrester Research, said EchoMetrix might have to make its disclosures more apparent to parents.

“Are we in the safeguarding-the-children business or are we in the business of selling data to other people?” he said. If it’s the latter, “it should all be done transparently and with the knowledge of the customer.”

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.

A controversial new doll is leaving some parents wishing for the good old Cabbage Patch days.

A Spanish toymaker known as Berjuan has developed a breast-feeding doll that comes with a special halter top its young “mothers” wear as they pretend to breast-feed their “babies.” The halter top has daisies that cover the little girls’ nipples and come undone just as easily as the flaps of a nursing bra would.

The doll — called Bebe Gloton, which translates as “gluttonous baby” — makes sucking noises as it “feeds.”

Like many other dolls, Bebe Gloton can cry, signaling she wants more milk.

Although many health care providers promote the benefits of breast-feeding, parents around the world have criticized Berjuan, saying the idea of breast-feeding is too grown-up for young children — and may even promote early pregnancy.

“That’s not cool,” Lori Reynolds, of El Paso, Texas, told KFOXTV.com. “No, I would never get that for my child.”

But other moms said they support the product.

“I think that it’s great that people want to have a doll that promotes breast-feeding,” said Rose Haluschak, also of El Paso. “Most dolls that are purchased come with a bottle. That is the norm in society, an artificial way to feed your baby.”

Dr. Manny Alvarez, managing health editor of FOXNews.com, said although he supports the idea of breast-feeding, he sees how his own daughter plays with dolls and wonders if Bebe Gloton might speed up maternal urges in the little girls who play it.

“Pregnancy has to entail maturity and understanding,” Alvarez said. “It’s like introducing sex education in first grade instead of seventh or eighth grade. Or, it could inadvertently lead little girls to become traumatized. You never know the effects this could have until she’s older.”

Alvarez said breast-feeding reduces childhood infections, strengthens maternal bonding and increases the child’s immune system. But introducing breast-feeding to girls young enough to play with dolls seems inappropriate, he said.

“What’s next?” wrote Eric Ruhalter, a parenting columnist for New Jersey’s Star Ledger. “Bebe Sot — the doll who has a problem with a different kind of bottle, and loses his family, job and feelings of self-worth? Bebe Limp — the male doll who experiences erectile dysfunction? Bebe Cell Mate — a weak, unimposing doll that experiences all the indignation and humiliation of life in prison?

“Toy themes should be age appropriate. I think so anyway.”

(Ed note: As usual, I kind of want to completely gloss over the story to get to the middle point that was made about sex education. The moronic health editor of FOXnews — inherently moronic because they work for FOXnews — suggests that teaching sex ed in first grade is essentially a bad idea.

Breastfeeding is so fucking natural. Sexuality is so fucking natural. But we apparently continue even in the 21st Century want to continue to hide and peek at the realities of life through our fingers, feigning horror when we our so called moralities are slighted.)

CINCINNATI — Police say the owner of an Ohio sports bar took an 11-year-old girl’s skateboard at gunpoint and has been charged with armed robbery.

Police say 50-year-old Jack Connerton was angry over children cutting through his parking lot on skateboards. He was arrested on the felony count Saturday after police say he pointed a gun, took the girl’s skateboard, and snapped photosof four children.

The girl’s mother, Misty Bragg, says neighborhood children have to pass Connerton’s Towerview Sports Pub in Cincinnati to get to a recreation center and park. She says they stay on the sidewalk and are respectful.

Bragg says police seized Connerton’s camera and got her daughter’s skateboard back.

(Ed note: Obviously I think it’s terrible some grumpy old bastard thinks it’s okay to rob a loli of her skateboard at gunpoint or otherwise. But I cannot let the second point go in that the police seized the camera. If the children were in a public place, or even more importantly, on his property, wouldn’t taking the photographs be legal? Is it now illegal to take photographs of children period now?)

AS anyone who has seen the box-office phenomenon “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” surely noticed, the movie’s main characters have grown up. And so has its audience: many of those who are streaming to theaters are in their 20s.

The sixth film in the series was released almost a dozen years after the book that started it all: “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

The generation that ignited Pottermania as preadolescent readers is approaching college graduation or entering the workplace, and they have kept alive this flame of their early adolescence.

Indie rock bands have sprung up inspired by their obsession, with names like Harry and the Potters, the Half Bloods, and Voldie and the Wiz Kidz, playing songs inspired by Potter lore.

Last fall, teams from Princeton, Vassar, Boston University and a dozen other schools competed in the Quidditch World Cup, in which students play a real-life version of the soccer-like contact sport featured in the books and films. (They can’t fly, but still compete with brooms between their legs.)

The continuing pull of all things Potter is a testament to the franchise’s enduring sway. But it also seems like something else: the advent of Generation Y nostalgia.

(more at the NYTimes website)

A fight over books depicting sex and homosexuality has riled up a small Wisconsin city, cost some library board members their positions and prompted a call for a public book burning.

The battle has stirred much of West Bend, a city of roughly 30,000 people about 35 miles north of Milwaukee. Residents have sparred for months on blogs, airwaves and at meetings, including one where a man told the city’s library director he should be tarred and feathered.

The row even spread to this year’s Fourth of July parade, which included a float featuring a washing machine and a sign that read “keep our library clean.”

“If you told me we would be going through a book challenge of this nature, I’d think, ‘Never in a million years,’ ” said Michael Tyree, director of the West Bend Community Memorial Library.

The strife began in February when West Bend couple Jim and Ginny Maziarka objected to some of the content in the city library’s young-adult section. They later petitioned the library board to move any sexually explicit books — the definition of which would be debated — from the young-adult section to the adult section and to label them as sexually explicit.

Ginny Maziarka, 49, said the books in the section of the library aimed at children aged 12 to 18 included homosexual and heterosexual content she thought was inappropriate for youths.

She and her husband also asked the library to obtain books about homosexuality that affirmed heterosexuality, such as titles written by “ex-gays,” Maziarka said.

“All the books in the young-adult zone that deal with homosexuality are gay-affirming. That’s not balance,” she said.

The library did not agree with the Maziarkas’ suggestions, and the couple appealed to the library board. Ginny Maziarka, a mother of four, began blogging about the issue and the local newspaper picked up the dispute, sparking the opposition.

Maria Hanrahan, also a West Bend mom, set up a rival blog to argue the other side.

“I’m against any other party telling me what’s appropriate for my child and what isn’t,” said Hanrahan, 40, who also created a West Bend Parents for Free Speech group. “We don’t mean to say these are appropriate for everyone, but we don’t feel they should be set apart from other materials or restricted from the young-adult section.”

By this time, many more people had become caught up in the issue, which was generating heat. When Hanrahan appeared on a local radio, callers attacked her views, she said.

“People were being very passionate on both sides of the issue. I think it divided the community a little bit,” she said.

With the debate raging, the city council voted in April against renewing the terms of four library board members, in part because council members thought the board was dragging its feet, library director Tyree said.

The Maziarkas were still fighting to have books moved, having identified 82 questionable titles — more than double their original list. Then they stopped targeting a list of books and circulated a petition that asked the board to label and move to the adult section any “youth-targeted pornographic books” — including books that describe sex acts in a way unsuitable for minors. The books could still be checked out freely by anyone.

“We’re not talking about educational material. We’re talking raunchy sex acts,” Maziarka said.

One book she objects to is “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” in which a fictional teenage boy tells about his freshman year in high school, including rape and homosexual and heterosexual sex between teens.

Tyree said book excerpts found on Maziarka’s blog had been taken out of context and, in the case of “Wallflower,” the criticism missed some of the book’s points.

“In this book, there were consequences of … rape, of indiscriminate sex. Those were not portrayed so glowingly,” he said.

By the time the library board met on June 2, each side had collected more than 1,000 signatures backing their position. Dozens of residents spoke at the meeting before the board — still including the outgoing members — unanimously voted to keep all policies the same.

The demand to move the books was always going to be problematic because no authority has determined that any of the titles are pornographic or obscene, Tyree said.

Book challenges aren’t new. More than 500 were reported in the United States in 2008, mostly in schools and public libraries, Deborah Caldwell-Stone of the American Library Association said.

But this one was attracting extra attention. Caldwell-Stone, who monitored the dispute, said moving any young-adult book to the adult section would have been a form of censorship, even if teens were free to check them out.

“The whole intent was shelving books not on the basis of age or reading ability, but because they disapprove of the content with the intent of restricting access. That’s a burden on First Amendment rights,” Caldwell-Stone said.

Outside West Bend, the fight caught the attention of Robert Braun, who, with three other Milwaukee-area men, filed a claim against West Bend calling for one of the library’s books to be publicly burned, along with financial damages.

The four plaintiffs — who describe themselves as “elderly” in their complaint — claim their “mental and emotional well-being was damaged by [the] book at the library.”

The claim, unconnected to the Maziarkas, says the book “Baby Be-bop” — a fictional piece about a homosexual teenager — is “explicitly vulgar, racial and anti-Christian.”

Braun, who says he is president of a Milwaukee group called the Christian Civil Liberties Union, said he singled out the book because it “goes way over the line” with offensive language and descriptions of sex acts.

The call for burning the book showed his passion, Braun, 74, said. “I don’t sit on the fence when I do these things. When I make a decision to speak up on something, I go for it.”

The ALA will help the library oppose the claim if it goes forward, Caldwell-Stone said, adding she felt that was unlikely because “it has very little basis in law.”

Back in West Bend, the Maziarkas and their supporters are gearing up for another go at the library, in part because the board now has its four new members. They do not want books burned, but they do want action.

“We want parents to decide whether they want their children to have access to these books … and we want the library’s help in identifying [them through labeling and moving],” Maziarka said. “It’s just common sense.”

(Ed note: Looks like some people need to re-read the Constitution. It’s probably also available for check out at that library, though I can understand that people obsessed with homosexual sex may not really be all that interested in such things.)

LONDON — Britain’s National Health Service has a message for teens: Sex can be fun.

Health officials are trying to change the tone of sex education by urging teachers to emphasize that sexual relations can be healthy and pleasurable instead of simply explaining the mechanics of sex and warning about diseases.

The new pamphlet, called “Pleasure,” has sparked some opposition from those who believe it encourages promiscuity among teens in a country that already has high rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

The National Health Service in the city of Sheffield produced the booklet, which has a section called “an orgasm a day” that encourages educators to tell teens about the positive physical and emotional effects of sex and masturbation, which is described as an easy way for people to explore their bodies and feel good. Like more traditional sex education guides, it encourages demonstrations about how to use condoms and other contraceptives.

Some professionals have hailed the new approach as a welcome antidote to traditional sex education, which they say can be long on biological facts but short on information about the complexity of human relationships.

The booklet suggests ways in which teachers can encourage sexual awareness and responsibility while teaching young people that sex is something that is meant to be enjoyed.

Steve Slack, who helped produce the leaflet as Director of the Center for HIV&Sexual Health in Sheffield, said one goal is to help young people learn to resist peer pressure and delay having sex until they are emotionally ready.

“Far from promoting teenage sex, it is designed to encourage young people to delay losing their virginity until they are sure they will enjoy the experience,” he said.

Slack said some of the ideas in the booklet came from the Netherlands, which is well known in Europe for its liberal attitude toward sexual behavior.

But the pamphlet is condemned by some educators who believe it will lead to more casual sex among teens.

“Some of it is good sense, but I think it’s wrong is to suggest that 16-year-olds should wantonly enter into having sexual intercourse for pleasure,” said Anthony Seldon, headmaster of Wellington College, a school for teens.”I think this is medically wrong and emotionally wrong and will increase teenage pregnancy and impact negatively on the formation of a long-term loving relationship.”

He said teens should be taught about the value of a long-term commitment, not simply about the pleasures of sexual intercourse.

Ruth Smith, news editor of Children&Young People Now magazine, said one goal of the new booklet is to help young people become more comfortable with their sexuality and to let them know they can speak out if they are abused or forced into a situation they don’t like.

“Research shows young people feel pressured to have sex before they’re ready,” she said.”This booklet is intended to give them the skills to discuss it. It’s not a license to go out and have sex, it’s saying if you do, do it, wait until you’re ready and enjoy it. It makes them more confident and more able to say no.”

She said the instruction guide will not be given to students but is intended to suggest ways in which teachers can start a conversation about sex.

“It’s trying to find what works with young people,” she said.