The difference in time between parts 1 and 2 and parts 2 and 3 should show you just how quickly this issue snowballed, as should the following sentence. On Monday night, October 22, the local curfew law was repealed. This comes about a month after the village board proposed the bill to repeal it. And what a month it has been.

Shortly after the bill was proposed, I was contacted by a reporter from The New York Times, who found out about the campaign through the New York Civil Liberties Union. I spoke to him for a while, and the article came out the following week. In print, it had a good picture of me and a few other members of the club that they didn’t put on the site. Oh, well. Picking up on the story in the Times, two radio stations covered the story and a local TV station interviewed me for a very good segment they ran that night. An article in a regional paper came out the following day, and a local paper followed a couple weeks later.

Following this publicity, I printed out piles of paper with petitions for people to sign and talking points for why the curfew should be repealed. A friend of mine made a nice informative flyer that we gave out as well. In the middle of all of this, I had a meeting with the deputy chief of police. I hoped to get the support of the police, since a major reason that the curfew was being kept was that the police liked it. The meeting wasn’t as successful as I had hoped, but it was worth a try.

Finally, the day of the bill’s public hearing arrived. On Monday, I gave out last-minute reminders to village residents who had said they would attend the meeting (and told them to bring parents, since unfortunately, elected officials listen more to the people who can remove them from office.) A little after 7, a friend and I drove over to the meeting. Butterflies in my stomach, I parked in the lot by the village hall, and noticed something I definitely didn’t expect. A news van was parked in the next row. As was another news van. Now even more nervous, we walked inside and were greeted by a crowd of high school students, at least three times as many people as I had expected. There were opponents there as well, of course, but they were outnumbered. (I found out later that a number of the students came from other towns as part of a government class assignment where they had to attend a village board meeting, and they decided that this was the most interesting local issue on Long Island.) It was really quite intimidating speaking at the meeting. As soon as you stood up, you were handed a microphone so the people who were overflowing into the next room and outside the building could hear, and three TV cameras and a number of microphones swiveled toward you (turns out several of my friends were quoted on local news channels and I was on the radio). One after the other, a former mayor, myself, and a cascade of students and worried residents made their cases. With a few exceptions, I was extremely impressed.

Then, finally, the board ended the discussion and voted, unanimously, in favor of the bill. The only regret any of us had was that it is effective after this year, and so the curfew is still on for this Tuesday and Wednesday, giving the village a year to consider what measures they can put in place (up to and including another curfew) for next year. I signed up to be on a committee to decide what should be put in place of the curfew, and I will, of course, argue against another curfew. However, there are a lot of people arguing very vocally for it to be put back on the books, and they may get their way. However, at least the status quo is now on our side, and if nothing else is pushed through before October 30th, 2008, there will be no curfew next year. This shows just how much any of us can do with a few dedicated people, some good, respectful, well-reasoned arguments and a slow news month.

To hopefully not be continued.

Comments(0)

The following is a rough transcript of this video.

I’ve lived in the DC area my whole life. I ride metro sometimes. I love the Redskins.

But there is one thing about the city that I am utterly ashamed of, and that is that Washington DC has a youth curfew law in effect. Under the law, if you’re under the age of 17, you cannot be out past 11pm. The city officials created this law back in 1999 (I think?) to make residents believe they were doing something about a crime problem. But it doesn’t make any sense. How exactly do you solve a crime problem by blaming on a scapegoat demographic, a group of people everybody already hates anyway?

And this is dangerous. If there is a crime problem, then it’s because law enforcement is inadequate. All a curfew law does is give inadequate law enforcement more to do. Last year, there were several hundred counts of homicide, several hundred counts of sexual assault, and two thousand counts each of car theft, assault with a deadly weapon, robbery, arson, and of all kinds of other things.

What do you tell these victims when you’re sending law enforcement after innocent teenagers?

What do you tell a woman who was raped, but the cops were busy arresting a 16-year-old who was coming home from work a little bit late?

What do you tell a family when their house was broken into late at night when the police were waiting outside a club somewhere that was full of teenagers so they could arrest good kids for curfew violation?

What do you tell little kids when Daddy won’t be coming home anymore because he was shot to death by a 30-year-old mugger while the police were busy hassling a 19-year-old who looked like he was too young to be out?

What do you tell a good mother who must go to the police station late at night to pick up her 14-year-old daughter, who was picked up for being outside, and to have to be told that she is an irresponsible parent because she allowed her daughter to be out?

What do you tell a disabled uncle, whose only helper is his 15-year-old nephew, and he needs an errand run late at night, but if that 15-year-old were to help him, he’d be a criminal?

Who’s helping any of these people? The curfew isn’t protecting anybody. Instead it’s just distracting the main protection that they have. You’re sending law enforcement after a scapegoated demographic and not after criminals, which makes everybody more vulnerable, everybody more unsafe.

Curfews aren’t the answer. They just increase crime. You can’t solve a crime problem by just discriminating against people and taking away their constitutional right to be outside. It doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t do anyone any good. It’s just a “feel good” law which accomplishes nothing.

So please, if you want to solve a crime problem, get rid of the curfew, strengthen law enforcement, and go after the real criminals!

Comments(0)

Alright, let’s get the unfortunate necessities of this topic out of the way. I am not endorsing drug use. I think drugs are generally bad and harmful, especially to people my age who take them and thus retard their development in some way, whether it by psychologically or physically or some intriguing combination of the two. That is not what’s being discussed here. I’m not talking about drug use being a good idea, I’m talking about the law.

At a school in Morris Hill New Jersey is thinking of instituting mandatory random drug tests for its students. A lot of parents are in favor of such a program, and I can understand where they’re coming from; not having to trust your kids must certainly be a burden lifted from their shoulders.

Now the program sounds nice enough:

Chris Steffner, principal of Hunterdon Central Regional High School, spoke about the program in her district, which was the first to start random drug testing in 1996. Students who test positive are not expelled or suspended, just referred to a counseling program, she said. There is no notification of law enforcement, nor do the test results go in student records.

The idea, she said, is to deter students and give them another reason to say no to drugs and alcohol. Steffner likened the tests to a parked police car that causes motorists to slow down.

But students have rightly pointed out, that parked police cars slow you down for all of 10 seconds. But that’s not really the issue. The issue is that students are being suspected guilty until proven innocent. Adults, except professional athletes and a few others, cannot be randomly drug tested by the police without probable cause, it’s basically like searching someone’s house. Now, if you’ve been arrested for possession the police can certainly test you, but they can’t just walk up to you on the street and say “Here, pee in this cup.” Though I have a feeling people would have very interesting views of the police if they did.

Sadly, the response to a very logical legal argument (Supreme Court say that searches require “Probable Cause”) is generally countered by a much less logical emotional argument :

Sarah Martucci, a sophomore at Morris Knolls, told the room about a family friend whom she lost to drugs. “If there were more programs like this, then maybe I would still have (my friend) in my life today,” she said.

While such tragedies are always regrettable, one person abusing drugs does not mean that you treat that entire person’s generation like a bunch of potential drug abusers. Yes, you might catch someone who will slip under the radar, but rights can’t just be seen as a cost/benefit analysis. Would we be safer if the government videotaped everyone of us from dawn until dusk and had the capability to go through all that info to see who was breaking the law? Sure we would. There’s a reason we don’t do that. It’s a violation of our American, some would say human, rights. This is no different.

Comments(0)

Being a citizen in the wealthiest nation on the face of the planet affords you comforts that other countries could scarcely imagine. It also ensures that certain standards of treatment, climate control, clean water, sanitary food, are things that no person should have to worry about. The technology exists, and there is certainly enough money. So could someone please, please, tell me why a school in New Jersey has kids eating off the floor?

I would understand (maybe, though probably not) if this school was in some of the poorest neighborhoods of a suffering city like Detroit, or Chicago, but it’s not. It’s in a town called Mahwah, a small town in New Jersey where the median income (middle income in the area) is a whopping $79,500, a full $30,000 over the national average. How is it possible then, that their school system is so decrepit that a school of 1,000 has a cafeteria that only fits 300? Obviously the math teachers in that school need to go back and relearn arithmetic.

Now, as if eating on the floor like a dog isn’t insult enough, apparently, it’s also not very good for you. Who knew?!

Renowned microbiologist Dr. Philip Tierno warns 80 percent of all infectious diseases are spread through contact. So when a child touches the floor to sit, then touches a sandwich, whatever is on the floor can then be ingested.

“I would categorize it as stupid,” Tierno said. “I would characterize it as primitive, and the scourge of third world countries.

“You may be stepping on the fecal matter, sputum, blood, urine.”

Hmmm, fecal matter, sputum, blood and urine you say? Damn, that’s the worst secret sauce for the mystery meat I’ve ever heard of! Well, at least now the kids can complain about more than just the lack of robust flavor in cafeteria food. Oh but wait, it gets better!

The school would not release their own specific results from bacterial swab tests, but a parent forwarded those results sent home Wednesday, confirming the presence of dangerous pathogens like E. coli and enterococcus found in feces.

Since our interview, the school says it forbids the floor dining, opting instead for gym bleachers and other seating.

I gotta hand it to the school, some people would build a bigger dining hall to house everyone. Others might do something as radical as making 3 lunch periods so as to minimize the number of people without tables, but instead, the school just throws the rest of them in the gym. It’s tragic to think that the town can’t find the money to fix this, I can’t help but wonder what would change if the kids themselves could vote on the matter. Who knows, maybe they like E. Coli, I hear it tastes like candy.

Comments(0)

When the Government Accountability Office actually uses the word “nightmare” in a report about you.

It would appear that the Federal government is finally paying attention to something that’s so glaringly obvious that it would require a lobotomy not to take notice of; behavioral modification camps are both ineffective and potentially deadly. In a report released by the Government Accountability Office, (GAO) the group responsible for issuing reports on everything Congress looks at, there was documented a whole host of deaths from “behavioral modification camps” or, as our organization calls them rather succinctly, “Gulag Schools.”

These are the places where “problem children” are sent by their parents to be “straightened out” and made productive members of society. Sounds good so far right? I mean, who doesn’t think that there are a few kids who might do well with a slightly more authoritative method of discipline? While you can (and I certainly would) question who gives the parents the right to send their children to places that brag of being like military boot camp, you can’t question the disaster the can result. The GAO report actually spells it out far better than I could attempt to:

Roberto Reyes, 15, died of complications from a spider bite in November 2004 at Thayer Learning Center in Missouri, which describes itself as “a military based, Christian boarding school.” A state investigation concluded that the staff “did not provide adequate treatment,” the GAO said, but the state does not license such programs, and no criminal charges have been filed.

The staff tied a 20-pound sandbag around his neck when he was too sick to exercise, the GAO said. The family settled a civil lawsuit against Thayer for about $1 million. The facility’s owners denied wrongdoing. Messages left at the school and with its lawyer were not returned.

Ah yes, the ‘ole “Stop the spread of deadly spider toxin by tying a 20lb sandbag around the kid’s neck” trick! I must have skipped that day of first aid training back in Boy Scouts. But wait! There’s more!

At the American Buffalo Soldiers boot camp in Arizona where Anthony Haynes, 14, died in 2001, children were fed an apple for breakfast, a carrot for lunch and a bowl of beans for dinner, the GAO said.

Haynes became dehydrated in 113-degree heat and vomited up dirt, according to witnesses. The program closed, and the director, Charles Long, was sentenced in 2005 to six years in prison for manslaughter.

Must have missed a day in medical school when they talked about nutrition, because I’m pretty sure that an apple, a carrot and a bowl of beans don’t exactly fufill the FDA’s recommended daily amount of nutrients and calories. But hey, I’m no doctor, and apparently, neither are they. And since when is starving a kid to death only worth Manslaughter charges? What in the world was that DA thinking?

Thankfully, this report is part of a Congressional investigation led by Representative George Miller (D-CA). NYRA was actually at the hearing held Wednesday to listen to the various parents tell their horror stories. The hearing started inauspiciously enough, with Congressman Miller giving his views on the matter (the investigation was his idea) and then Congressman Howard McKeon (R-CA) the ranking Republican member of the committee put forth his own view on the matter. Unsurprisingly for a conservative, McKeon felt that this was a matter of the states and the industry itself to regulate. By about halfway through the hearing, he actually went back on what he said, claiming:

“It’s amazing to me, as the chairman said, if a parent just was recored abusing the child, the child would be taken away and the parents would go to jail. Then they’d have to prove their innocence. And yet here we have, just form the witnesses today, three deaths, and it looks to me that there’s no criminal action taken. Except for like a 5000 dollar penalty and maybe probation or something. What are the police doing about this?”

He pressed the GAO Investigator to provide answers, obviously unsatisfied with the facts being revealed to him:

“I’m sure that there are young people who have gone to these programs and benefited. I would imagine not that many people, but I think that is something we really need to look at. The concern I have is that there is apparently no law enforcement involvement in theses things. So you can have a bad actor, and no matter what field you’re in you can have a bad actor… my concern is if there is an incident where death and abuse occur, and there is some attention brought to them and there is some slight action brought to them as we’ve seen here, they might move to a new state and start all over again. While I’m generally opposed to government involvement, there are times where it has to happen. And if you have a case here where people can simply move to a different state to avoid prosecution, you need federal legislation.”

When testimony is so damning that it makes a Congressman immediately go back on what he said in under an hour, you know you’re onto something. The full video of the hearing (it’s somewhat dry procedural stuff, but the testimony from parents is both moving and tragic) can be found here.

I’m glad the issue is finally getting its proverbial day in court, not only that but that people are being moved by the tragic insanity of the situation. Hopefully, these investigations will lead to Congress finally passing laws to force these hell-holes to treat kids humanely, or at least hold themselve up to at least the minimum standards of treatment used by the United States Marine Corps that, while giving people the skills to fight wars, doesn’t seem fit to starve them to death or kill them through medical neglect.

Comments(0)

So far, interning for NYRA has been an excellent opportunity. As an incoming freshman at American University and a student of a program where along with being a full time student I acquire an internship, I was supposed to find an organization that pertained to my interests. At the time, political activism was not exactly something I had envisioned myself doing, especially due to the fact that being politically aware was something I was not. In fact, I would probably say politics was something I was more afraid of then excited about. However, after attending an internship bazaar and encountering NYRA, I realized the truth behind many of the hypocrisies and injustices our society imposes upon youth, and decided I would be enthusiastic and dedicated in supporting NYRA’s causes.

So far, my main job here has been to encourage and aid intents in forming local chapters across the country. Although at first I felt rather intimidated due to my inexperience in this area, I slowly have become quite comfortable with my position. I generally begin with emailing the members who have expressed interest, but have not been contacted in a long time. If they respond and are still interested, I provide them with all the details and information they should need to start an organization at their local school/university. Generally, this means sending them the chapter formation handbook along with advice to investigate and become familiar with their school’s recognition process. Although it isn’t required, being recognized is extremely advantageous for it allows use of school grounds, facilities, and even possible funding. I also of course usually recommend that they spread word across campus to friends in order to alert their community of their intentions in order to recruit as many other students as possible. Because I don’t want to discourage them with what seems like an overload of work and commitment, I attempt to research their specific school’s student organization policies. Generally about a week or so later, I then check up on them via phone, Facebook, or through email to see how their progress is coming along and send them any further information I may have.

Another great aspect of this internship so far is my ability to make an outreach on campus’s and at important events throughout the area. For example, on September 15, I helped set up a table and recruit members at the peace rally held directly behind the white house. Although this was my first hands-on experience and of course I felt a little intimidated, by the end of the day we accumulated nearly 130 emails and names of people interested in our organization. Along with this great accomplishment, I also began feeling well versed and far more comfortable on these issues, and not to mention our organization’s arguments and claims.

Several weeks later, yet another opportunity to spread awareness of youth rights came at University of Maryland’s two day club fair at College Park. With hopes of starting a chapter here, we knew that this was even a better chance to get people active due to the sheer size of the school, which has a student body of nearly 25,000. Like myself, I knew these were college kids with similar interests and struggles, and that they would certainly be outraged and anxious to combat the “ageism”, as we like to call it, that exists in our society. With our table set up and our paraphernalia out including articles, fliers, pins, and clipboard, we were ready to recruit. After two days at the fair, and what seemed as thousands of rhetorical discussions, we recruited nearly 300 people, including 9 who explicitly stated interest in starting a chapter.

Just last week, however, was an even more fascinating opportunity. I was sent to represent NYRA at the Democracy 2.0 conference hosted by Mobilize. Not only was this extremely daunting due to the fact that I would have to represent the entire organization by myself, but I soon found out that this summit was to be held at the Homeland Security office building. As I arrived early in the morning, I had no idea what the following day would entail, especially due to the fact that there were fully armed guards with automatic rifles posted near the entrance to the building. However, after finding the meeting and settling in, it was not nearly as bad as I had anticipated. In fact, in a very lax format, we took survey questions discussing problems and solutions our generation has as the youth in society, discussed them in small groups, and then voted on which would be added to our declaration. Similar to NYRA, most of the other organizations represented at the summit were various youth advocacy groups, and it was very interesting meeting people from all across the country united under one cause; advancement of youth in society.

Overall, I hope that my work here at NYRA not only brings aid to the organization, but helps make a difference and hopefully helps gain more respect for our voice in society as a whole. So far, two intents have proclaimed starting a chapter, and one even claims he is in the process of setting up his first meeting. I think this is a great start, and I hope it is the first of many, many more to come.

Comments(1)

Ladies and gentlemen, a straw poll if you’ll indulge me. How many people drive a car? How many critique their parents when their parents drive the car? How many people have parents who critique them when the roles are reversed? How many people have their parents install a GPS reciever that immediately sends an email to the parent’s email address whenever you drive faster than 70 miles per hour?

Last question made you stop and scratch your head I’d be willing to bet. Well obviously, you haven’t been following the news recently. When I first saw the headline, I thought “Oh cool! A way that I can actually fight an unfair speeding ticket? Sign me up!” And then I read this:

“He and Karen Kahn, Malone’s mother, stress that the goal of the GPS tracker is not to help the teen beat a ticket but to make him a safer driver.

The system sends out a data signal every 30 seconds that reports the car’s speed, location and direction. It’s designed so that if the teen driver ever hits 70 mph, his parents receive an e-mail alert.”

WHAT?! I’m sorry. I must have read that wrong. Hold on…

Nope, I was right. It’s weird, all those words make sense, but seeing them used together in a sentence like that is definitely a new experience.

So parents can now track your driving from the safety of your home computer? They know how fast you’re driving and where exactly you are at any given time? Sounds innocent right? “Only those who’ve done something wrong have anything to fear,” you might say. I suppose you may have a point there, except, the thing about living in America, the wonderful thing about it, is that we don’t do things that way. You’re allowed to do what you want and no one has a right to watch over you like Big Brother unless they have reason to think you’re breaking the law.

“But teenagers are untrustworthy and don’t listen to what parents say!” you might also say. You’re going to make the case that teenagers are less trustworthy than 35 year olds? While I don’t think there’s been any studies done on the subject, I’d be willing to bet teenagers lies about as often as the average person and can be trusted about as far. However, the average adult doesn’t need to answer for their actions nearly as often as the average teenager, so I think they can be forgiven for not always being forthcoming with their parents. Besides, they have as much obligation to be forthcoming to their parents as any adult would, when you’re 40, would you want your 80 year old mother to ask about your driving? Or install a GPS system in your car to make sure you stayed out of bad parts of town? You’d be rightly offended and feel disrespected.
The big issue here is trust. Parents should trust their kids enough to let them drive without an electronic watch dog. Could you imagine if all cars had this feature with the police monitoring and ticketing you every time you exceeded the speed limit in an area? There’d be a public outcry like you wouldn’t believe. Such a use would be unconstitutional (though I’d put money on Scalia and Thomas finding some reason to allow it) by any reasonable reading of the document however. Why? Because it’s a gross invasion of privacy. The fact that it would be unconstitutional for adults does not mean it’s okay for teenagers. It would be like having an alarm clock that sent your parents an email if you ever had sex without a condom (which I hear we’ll have in stores by Christmas, be on the lookout for web cams in the future, so your parents can analyze and critique your choice of positions).

The teenager in question, is rightly annoyed by it:

“A B-average student, Malone works part time to pay for gas, insurance and other car-related expenses. Should he lose in court, he also will be on the hook for the ticket, his parents said.

‘It sounds harsh, but when he got his car, we said it was going to be a cop magnet,’ Rude said.

Malone declined to be interviewed, but in an earlier story said he loathed the GPS system, which he considers an unnecessary invasion of his privacy.”

So he pays his own expenses, and for the priviledge of being allowed to do something he legally is free to do, he has to be under the microscope by his parents every time he’s out of the house. I pity him if he ever makes an unexpected detour to a CVS on the way home. Can you imagine that conversation with parents this paranoid?

“Son, I see at 8:34pm last evening you made a detour to the center of town from your normal route from John’s house to here. What were you doing?”

“Uh, I was thirsty, wanted to get a drink.”

“But if you had only waited .35 miles, you would have seen a 7-11 and been able to get a drink there.”

“They don’t sell the soda I like.”

“That neighborhood is too close to an area where a drug dealer was caught, were you buying drugs?”

“What?!”

“Turn out your pockets now. Rude! Go search his room, I’ll take the car.”

Oh no, imagine if he gets a girlfriend! He’ll have to account for every hour he’s gone, they’ll be able to see if he ever leaves her house.

Does anyone else find a program like this eerily reminiscent of the tele-screens from 1984? Or is it only creepy if the government does it? If parents do it it’s just good parenting? Any thoughts?

Comments(1)

Before you go any further read this news story and try to contain yourself.

Alright? Have you taken it all in? Has the absurdity permeated every small part of your brain and caused you to think “What in the world?” (or probably something more profane, I try to keep my writing “family friendly.”) Do you, like me, think that this is absolutely ridiculous?

Let me give you a small, limited recap of some of the headlines in newspapers across the country today: “Secret US Endorsement of Severe Interrogations” (nytimes, found here) “North Koreans Agree to Disable Nuclear Facilities” (also NY Times, found here) “KKK Marking Was ‘Game Went Too Far’” (from CNN, found here). That’s only three that I could find with a very limited amount of time and effort. But just by looking around, I discovered that the US has endorsed torture, a black student was held down and had swastikas drawn all over him, and North Korea apparently is no longer going to enrich uranium.

Now, I’m no professional, but it would seem to me any of these issues is imminently more important the future of civilization than BANNING PEOPLE FROM WEARING COLOGNE OR PERFUME IN CLASS! The fact that I actually needed to write that sentence out is both amusing and disheartening. Think about it for a moment. Of all the issues a person might get riled up about, of all the various and far too numerous problems the world faces, 20 students, 20, have decided the most important thing they can tackle is people wearing a bit too much perfume. And the school is going along with it!

Don’t the administrators have something better to do like find a way to decrease tuition costs or find a way to get more grants for research? Shouldn’t the doctors, yes doctors, that these people have found to back up their absurd cause, be out… I don’t know… curing diseases or something? Why in the world does something like this matter? And even more importantly, who the heck do these kids think they are trying to get rules in place so they don’t have to be a bit offended by how people smell?

Don’t get me wrong, I find people who smell like they bathed in Aqua Velva unpleasant too. I hate the smell of coconut scented suntan lotion. I would not choose to spend time around people like that, and if I was forced to sit near them, I would find it slightly irritating. I don’t think I would ever, even if I was feeling especially flippant and sarcastic, equate it to something like second hand smoke. That would just be the height of pretension and idiocy. Oh wait:

“They know some people think the idea is silly, but fragrances are akin to secondhand smoke from cigarettes, said Kristin Oosterkamp, a psychology senior.

‘They’re both so volatile, and both you have to breathe in if you are in close range,’ she said.”

As damaging as second hand smoke? Really? So too much perfume causes lung cancer does it? Where in the world did that girl get her medical degree? I’ve heard Scientologists telling me about the evils of Lord Xenu the galactic tyrant that make more sense than her!

As much as I love activism, and trust me, I do, there are certain issues that seem absolutely absurd to devote our moral energy to. Some people look at our organization and wonder “Does it really matter what a bunch of teenagers and 20 year olds think?” I think the answer there is obvious; discrimination is simply contrary to everything a liberal democratic society stands for. Not only that, our positions are well founded in scientific proof and logic. We’re not saying things like smelling too strongly of perfume is like blowing smoke in people’s faces.

Obviously these students have a great deal of passion and energy that they have little else to spend it on. Perhaps they could try petitioning for American action in Darfur, or improving research grants to cure cancer or hey! How about lowering the drinking age? That sounds like a good cause! But seriously, This is just ridiculous, how can there be nothing better for these people to devote their time to?

Comments(0)