when i listened to the news story, that (in red) is what stood out to me also. complete lack of explanation for those of us who, depending on identity, show no signs of being more or less masculinized or feminized. i'm getting really tired of the stereotyping.

and it's not Adam and Eve and the apple i'm worried about. it's the extremists who will now start looking for the gene they want to weed out in order to have straight kids. i've already heard one "see, homosexuality is a birth defect" story that resulted from this research. next thing you know, fundamentalists everywhere will start swamping abortion clinics when they find out their baby carries the "gay gene".

wait. fundamentalists. abortion clinics? :thud:

Another shooting...
 

http://www.courant.com/news/breaking...,3969911.story

Please respond with updates when you have them. Thank you.

27 People Dead, Mostly Children, at Connecticut Elementary School Shooting
 

More than two dozen people, mostly elementary school children, were shot and killed at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school this morning, federal and state sources tell ABC News.

The massacre involved two gunmen and prompted the town of Newtown to lock down all of its schools and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today.

One shooter is dead and a manhunt is on for a second gunman. Police are searching cars. One shooter was described as a 24-year-old armed with four weapons and wearing a bullet vest, sources told ABC News.

It's unclear how many people have been shot, but 25 people, mostly children are dead, multiple federal and state sources tell ABC News. That number could rise, officials said.

Today's shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, which includes 450 students in grades from kindergarten through fourth grade. The town is located about 12 miles east of Danbury.

http://gma.yahoo.com/breaking-conn-s...opstories.html

This makes every problem I have seem so insignificant....I just can't wrap my head around folks shooting babies! :candle:Sending prayers and healing to all of the families.

From our President
 

:'(
 

It's a sad day and a sad world we live when our schools have to partake in regular drills on what to do if somebody enters the school armed with guns and starts shooting .
That's all I have to say about this .

I can't imagine the grief in that little town in Connecticut tonight.
 

Dear Father, We have gathered as a community,
not because
we wanted to, but because we felt compelled to;
because we couldn't not be here––for one another,
for the families of the victims
We gather as citizens who love our God
and who love the good land God has given us;
who cherish the freedoms we enjoy,
and who lament our innocence lost.
With anger we come, and with sorrow;
with confusion and concern.
Our spirits boil with emotion;
our minds are ajumble with nagging implications.
We come
to pray,
to listen,
to speak to God and to one another;
to lament our losses
and lift up our wounded hearts for healing. ♥♥♥

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/...ack/index.html

Beijing (CNN) - Twenty-two primary school children were wounded in a knife attack Friday in central China, authorities said.

The attack took place at the entrance to the Chenpeng Village Primary School in Henan province, according to the public information department of Guangshan county, the area where the school is located. An adult was also wounded, it said.

Several of the children are in critical condition, the state-run website Chinanews.com said, citing local authorities.

Police say they have detained a suspect, a 36-year-old man from the village, state media reported.

Initial assessments suggest the man is mentally ill, Chinanews.com said, citing Guangshan authorities.

China was hit by a spate of knife and cleaver attacks that targeted school children in 2010.

A number of measures were introduced at the time, including increased security at schools across the country and a regulation requiring people to register with their national ID cards when buying large knives.

CNN's Shao Tian in Beijing and journalist Pan Xinlei in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

I have been wondering why no one is talking about how the guy got into the school. They had a buzzer and a monitor. I heard he pushed his way in. Does anyone know how?

I've been wondering that too. I haven't seen the Times today.

His mother was either a former teacher or a volunteer at the school. They might have just "known" him.

I imagine they are looking over the evidence to see why he was let in. I would think they want to make sure the person who is responsible for this followed the procedures. I can't imagine being the person who let him in and how they must feel.

In my Ontario, Canada city (and high school I work at), one can just walk in the front door to a school. People come in and out and report to the main office--parents dropping off things, late arriving students or returning from appointments, office deliveries, supply teachers coming in etc. It's odd (and sad) to think of my entire school locked up during the day. No one buzzes people in or anything like that.

USA schools are all locked up during the day?

Each school set up will be unique to the building. Some have a double set of doors scenario. Where you can go in the first set of doors and then be buzzed through the 2nd after checking in. You can push your way in if others are entering/exiting at the same time. Especially at a high transition time like the morning.

And for Soon.... yes all outside doors are locked during the day. Only one set of doors is open where folks can be buzzed in.

they are now saying he shot the gun thru a window. he was not buzzed in. his mother was not a teacher at the school. and.... it was not the oldest of the 2 boys it was the younger one.

again who really knows?

Canada is a type of country i wish we had. Seriously. i practically grew up in Crystal Beach, hell it was about a 40 minute ride from home. we spent holidays and summers there.

i honestly wish we were more like Canada

Ok thanks for the update!

It is maddening
 

Mike Huckabee
 

I worked in a high school in a very dangerous neighborhood. A continuation high school. Our metal detectors were broken. The doors were never locked.

If you are going to solve this with security, it's going to be very expensive. And guess what, once again, the U.S. will show by its actions that the lives of poor kids don't matter.

Not all public schools in the US are locked up...........It depends on the paranoia level of the school officials. I would suggest if someone wants to kill someone in a school they will find a way in......

I have belief that we are a much better nation and much more carring than you feel we are.

The kids in Conn. were not poor and they had a security system set up that failed.

This issue is not just about the poor it is about children.

Do we know the security failed? The guys mother worked in the school and he may have visited her many times. My sister was a teacher and I went in and out of her school/classroom all the time.

So no one should get in a school except the teachers and the kids?

Okiebug, I too believe there are many caring and good people in our country. I see it almost daily because I look for them or else I would be greatly disheartened overall by what is on the news daily.

I do believe that the majority of Americans care about our children (even if they are not related to us). We can care and have the best of intentions and still not grasp the totality of things happening in our nation every day.

I cannot help but wonder why as I watch this latest tragedy unfolding why our nation does not react with such magnitude when everyday a brown, black or poor white child is killed. It is as if we accept it on some level. That is the way things are and the best we can do is distance ourselves from such lives and neighborhoods.

When it happens in a community that is much like the community many of us live in or aspire to live in, then we are shocked and outraged. I don't think most Americans conciously realize that this reaction or lack there of is in fact collectively our responce to everday gun violence and violence in general.

IMHO I think we do react with the same intense feelings however since it was a MULTITUDE of children or adults killed it doesn't get reported nationally as these stories do.


To me some of the blame for how somethings r reported as to do with the shock factor. Over the yrs our news has gotten this shock them fully mentality. The bigger they make it the better the ratings. What happened to reporting what wad known and NOT making a media circus out of it.

Again IMHO I think if it wasn't reported like the next coming of Christ maybe ppl who r planning this would see their 15 mins of fame isn't going ro happen

I disagree TB. I do think race and class makes a huge difference when things get noticed and acted upon in our country. In part the magnitude of yesterdays tragedy and because it was primarily children was reported widely. Also our colletive reaction to it.

I am willing to bet you are white or perceived to be white. I don't think being white makes you a bad person but it can give you a perspective that is completely divorced from the perspective of POC and the things that happen daily in a poor urban environment.

I don't expect what I am saying is going to be heard easily. I understand. Some of the realities of our nation are not pretty nor easy. That goes for all races and cultures.

In the last couple weeks there have been several photos on the front page of the New York Times showing dead or bleeding children in Syria and around the world.

The distance you refer to closed when it was children in the U.S.

But it should never be there.

Good point. I am referring to the children in the U.S.

Grayson

My race or perceived race has nothing to do with my perspective. I went and listened to a lady whose son committed suicide in the talk she addressed issue she told us that many times she had been asked the question if she thought that the latest person who committed suicide after being bullied was getting more attention then the death of her on since she wax white and he wasn't. She told us that he still gets attention years after his death and that there was and still is the same amount of coverage.

I think the shear numbers of ppl killed really plays into how something is reported.

I can and do appreciate ur opinion on this

Wrong. You may be unable to realize it, recognize it but it does not make what you believe, a fact.

I too have appreciated your willingness to post your opinion. We need to hear all opinions in order to have a conversation and hopefully change.I wish you well but we are going to continue to disagree on this one.

I could have quoted many posts. For brevity I choose this one.

We do have many in this nation that care.

The security of children in SOME places is in place.

The inequalities exist. Children in poor schools/districts or that are poor are at more risk. Do we address their needs adequately when it comes to safety? I believe we do not. I believe race, income and how we view children in our society is reflected in the media's presentation and our reaction. The context of our personal realities can't be denied as part of how we react, talk and perceive this event.

Can we send children to fortresses to protect them from every possibility no matter their income level? I think that won't address the issue of safety in society. Nor do I think that is the learning environment I'd want for children.

On another tangent... The perprator, while we have limited information about him... was affluent and an adult. Yet, I note the mother shaming happening in the news. I am horrified.

Let me inform u and others I LOOK white however part if mt family is native American. No I don't feel the need broadcast my heritage. I was raised outside looking in so my perspective isn't typical by no means. So please understand that to me race isn't what I focus on when we r talking about a group ANY group.

I like u can't tell other ppl how they believe we r or should
. To me and my family color of ur skin isn't what makes u WHO u r or ur worth to us. I wish others would could realize just that. What a more understanding place it could b

Victims in Connecticut shooting are identified
 

****Trigger Warning******


By NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
December 15, 2012

All of the children killed by a gunman at a Connecticut elementary school were shot multiple times, according to the state's chief medical examiner, who said that it was worst scene he had witnessed in three decades examining crime scenes.

“This is a very devastating set of injuries,” said Dr. H. Wayne Carver II, the chief medical examiner for the state.

Carver said that parents were shown photos of their children to spare them from seeing the gruesome results of the shooting rampage, which left 20 children dead, along with six adults at the school. The gunman, identified by law enforcement officials as Adam Lanza, 20, shot and killed his mother at his home before going to the school, then killed himself after the rampage. Carver said that they had not yet completed examinations of Lanza and his mother.

Carver that in the seven autopsies he himself had performed, the victims had from three to 11 wounds.

With the examinations complete and the families informed, the authorities released the names of those killed.

They ranged in age from 6 to 56. Among the children, there were 12 girls and eight boys; all were in the first grade, officials said, and all were 6 or 7 years old.

As families began to claim lost loved ones, there were new and tragic details about what took place in Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The principal and the school psychologist were shot as they tried to tackle the gunman “in order to protect her students,” the school superintendent said Saturday.

The superintendent, Janet Robinson, said teachers and staff members who were caught up in the nation's second-deadliest school shooting had managed to save students' lives with “incredible acts of heroism.”

But it was not enough: First responders described a scene of carnage in the two classrooms where the children were killed, with no movement and no one left to save, everything perfectly still. On Saturday, a police spokesman, Lt. J. Paul Vance, said Lanza had forced his way into the school, which had a security system requiring visitors to be buzzed in.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, used his weekly radio and Internet address to mourn the victims, saying that “every parent in America has a heart heavy with hurt.” Republicans, who normally prepare a reply to the president's address, did not do so this time.\

Children:
Charlotte Bacon, 6
Daniel Barden, 7
Olivia Engel, 6
Josephine Gay, 7
Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 6
Dylan Hockley, 6
Madeleine F. Hsu, 6
Catherine V. Hubbard, 6
Chase Kowalski, 7
Jesse Lewis, 6
James Mattioli, 6
Grace McDonnell, 7
Emilie Parker, 6
Jack Pinto, 6
Noah Pozner, 6
Caroline Previdi, 6
Jessica Rekos, 6
Avielle Richman, 6
Benjamin Wheeler, 6
Allison N. Wyatt, 6

ADULTS
Mary Sherlach, 56
Victoria Soto, 27
Anne Marie Murphy, 52
Lauren Rousseau, 30
Dawn Hocksprung, 47
Rachel Davino, 29

Gay Employee Led Customers To Safety in Oregon Mall Shooting

(make sure to watch the video at the bottom)

http://www.advocate.com/crime/2012/1...regon-shooting

Westboro Baptist Church to picket funerals of Newtown shooting victims


Vile