The Atheist Mama

A couple of the editorials in today’s Columbus Dispatch informed me of Teenscreen, or the effort to strain our children as they pass through the mess that we call public education.
I had heard about this program briefly, a month or two ago, but I didn’t really pick up on what it was all about. So this morning I set out to educate myself on the subject.

First, let’s start with what this program is all about. The Teenscreen website sums it up this way:

>The goal of the Columbia University TeenScreen Program is to ensure that all parents are offered the opportunity for their teens to receive a voluntary mental health check-up. The program’s primary objective is to help young people and their parents through the early identification of mental health problems, such as depression.

[emphasis mine]

So that’s nice. They’re offering a computerized psych evaluation to students for free. It’s voluntary. How thoughtful. So I continued reading and researching and I came across an article on PsychSearch.net. The article does a great job of breaking the program down.
Here is how step one goes:

>TeenScreen lures kids as young as 9 years old into doing the suicide survey by offering them free movie passes, food coupons, “I completed TeenScreen” stress balls and pizza parties, if they consent to the procedure.

After the child agrees to go through the screening they send this form home to the parents. If you read the form, you can see that it says:

>The purpose of this letter is that your child has agreed to participate and now we need to obtain your consent to allow participation in the screening process.

Ummm… What. The. Fuck???

>TeenScreen Project Coordinator, Kathleen Cigich, was quoted as saying: “We found early on, though, that sending out letters directly to parents is prohibitively time consuming and gets a low response rate. We thought, why not go to students themselves and offer a $5 video store coupon to anyone who brings back a parental consent form within a two-day turnaround period. It works. Our response rate is extremely high.”

Another strategy is to send home a “passive consent” form, knowing that many parents are just too busy to be bothered. Hmmm, if they are giving the children gifts for participating, I wonder if this form is even making it to the parents? Probably not…

The article on PsychNet.com also gives a list of questions that may be asked during the “test.”

>* Has there been a time when nothing was fun for you and you just weren’t interested in anything?

>* Has there been a time when you felt you couldn’t do anything well or that you weren’t as good-looking or as smart as other people?

>* How often did your parents get annoyed or upset with you because of the way you were feeling or acting?

>* Have you often felt very nervous when you’ve had to do things in front of people?

>* Have you often worried a lot before you were going to play a sport or game or do some other activity?

>* Have you tried to kill yourself in the last year?

>* Are you still thinking of killing yourself?

>* Have you thought seriously about killing yourself?

>* Have you often thought about killing yourself??

>* Have you ever tried to kill yourself?

They then send the results off to a “clinician” who comes up with a diagnosis. Check out the “labeling checklist.”Go to this article and read more of what they have to say. It’s great stuff.

Now, I don’t know about any of you, but they would have put me in a padded room, along with the rest of my friends, if they had put me through this little program. I would have been heavily medicated and possibly tied to the floor. I know that not all teenagers have a hard time in life, but most of the teenagers I knew did.

According to the article I found at Citizens Commission on Human Rights, Teenscreen is handing out diagnoses like these:

developmental-arithmetic disorder - for the child who doesn’t like doing math assignments;

oppositional-defiant disorder - for those children who like to argue with their parents;

noncompliance-with-treatment disorder - for those who are critical of a diagnosis similar to the two above.

The above disorders and 350 other “mental disorders” are listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

>In Ohio, under the governor’s Executive Budget for 2006 and 2007, the Department of Mental Health has specifically earmarked $70,000 for TeenScreen for each of those years, reports investigator Sue Weibert.

Go to this article to read more. Another excellent source of information.

I’ve been trying to find information on where Teenscreen is conducting their screening, but I found this:

>4. Where are all the schools that use TeenScreen?
It’s all a big secret. According to TeenScreen’s director Leslie McGuire, they are fearful there will be an uprising against mental health screening, therefore TeenScreen refuses to divulge their locations. They use a canned e-mail message: “We get a lot of requests from people who are interested in locating and speaking directly with local TeenScreen sites and this can become a burden on them. We are not authorized to give out our sites contact information unless we have requested their permission to do so.”

So, what do you think? Are you homeschooling yet?? There is soooo much more on this subject, but I only have so much time. I’m probably late to this party, but oh man, am I glad that I’m here.

I wonder what a child who says that they don’t believe in God would be diagnosed with.

I was looking around on the FSM forums and found a thread entitled “Separate Science Fairs for home schoolers (often religious).” It was written in response to the article in The Wallstreet Journal online: “The Politically Incorrect Science Fair.”

>Separate science fairs are cropping up to cater to the growing number of home schoolers — about 7% more each year between 1999 and 2003, according to the most recent figures from the Department of Education — and some entrants have gone on to regional and national fairs. Home schoolers, often from religious backgrounds, have sometimes undertaken projects dealing with intelligent design, the theory that some natural processes are so complex they must have stemmed from an intelligent or supernatural cause.

Read the article. The beginning covers the students from public schools, and then end gets to homeschooled children. It’s very interesting to see the difference in the types of projects being done by public school and homeschool students. It’s sad, in my opinion. This article makes homeschooled children look ignorant, when compared to other students. But then, the students that they have written about in the article are all from religious backgrounds (I’m not making a statement here, just an observation).

>In central California, creationism advocate Russ McGlenn is visiting home-schoolers and offering science-fair-project ideas like “Why do we have pimples? Did God goof?”

Ugh… This is a science fair project??

Note: When I say “public school” above, I am actually referring to students who are not being homeschooled. I realize that some students may be from private schools as well.

You may remember my post about James Randi’s heart attack…
I just read at the Bad Astronomy Blog that Randi is “definitely on the road to recovery.” You can read the full “report” here.
He still has a long road ahead, but he’s on his way. Great news!!

Yesterday I posted a link to “The Hot Issue” at The Columbus Dispatch website.
I just wanted to bring attention to the comment that Dan made (both here and there).

>…Singling out evolution for critical analysis is like telling kids ‘Keep an eye on Mr. Smith’ - it implies Mr. Smith is bad. Given current events (and 2000+ years of sectarian violence), maybe it’s high time we have our schools single out religion for some critical analysis.

Now that sounds logical.

So I heard Rover talking about this on my way to my son’s school.

Valley of the Wolves: Iraq (this goes to the low bandwidth site, for high bandwidth, go here) is a film that was made in Turkey. It’s the most expensive Turkish movie ever made - $10 Million.

The Washington Post says:

>U.S. soldiers shoot small children at point-blank range, harvest kidneys from Iraqi prisoners for shipment to Tel Aviv, blow a Muslim cleric out of his minaret and, to top it all off, display utter contempt for Turkish foreign policy. The feature film set a box office record in its first weekend, after opening in more theaters than any movie in Turkish history.

The American actors are Gary Busey and Billy Zane. They went to another country to make a movie that depicts U.S. soldiers as monsters during a time of war.

Would you have taken a role in the movie??

Thanks for Phil Plait for his post on Heliocentrism Day: February 17th - a comprimise between Copernicus’ birthday (February 19th) and Galileo’s birthday (February 15th).

Swarthmore College has more on Science Literacy Month including Darwin Day, Origin of Life Day, and Round Earth Day. Coming soon: “Big Bang” Day.

As a mom, I totally appreciate this. I’m thrilled that in this time of struggle for science, the educators and scientists are trying to keep science on top. Thank you all. These people are heros in my opinion.

>False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.
~Charles Darwin

Is there an event celebrating Darwin Day near you?

Yesterday I went to the monthly HCCO meeting (the first monthly meeting I had been to) and Dr. Susan Fisher, of the OSU Department of Entomology, was the guest speaker. She gave an excellent presentation on Darwin, his works and his life. It was a great meeting, and there were probably over 35 people present. Lots of good conversation and there was even dinosaur cake. :-)

I also learned that Mayor Robert L. McPherson of Reynoldsburg, Ohio issued an official proclamation proclaiming (can I use those two words together?) today as Darwin Day after receiving a letter from the President of the HCCO. Wooo Hooo!! Great job all around!!

Today in Columbus, Eric Rothschild (the lead ACLU attorney in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial) will be speaking on “An Inside Look at the Dover Intelligent Design Case and What it Means for Ohio.” This will be at Tifereth Israel. Tammy Kitzmiller, the lead plantiff, will be there too.

Also, Rob Boston from AU will be speaking at the 1st UU Church of Columbus.

This has been cancelled due to a blizzard in DC!

Unfortunatly, I don’t think I’ll be able to attend any of the above events, but I’m going to try to “pop-in” to hear a bit of what Rothschild has to say.

So sit down to a “Phylum Feast” tonight and celebrate the work of Charles Darwin!
If you are interested in more ideas, the Agnostic Mom has a couple of great posts on Darwin Day activities.

Last Thursday, (Feb 2nd), James Randi of JREF, underwent bypass surgery after suffering a heart attack. He is in serious but stable condition; doctors expect recovery.
JREF is accepting cards for Randi. Go there for more info.
Also, see the Bad Astronomy Blog for info from Phil Plait on Randi’s condition.

From DC Indymedia

BORDC

Today is the day! Join the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and tens of thousands of allies throughout the U.S. in an overwhelming grassroots response to the PATRIOT Act and other governmental excesses.

Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006

From: “Bill of Rights Defense Committee”

Subject: Jan. 25 PATRIOT Act Call-In Day

January 25, National PATRIOT Act Call-In Day!

Please join the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and tens of thousands of allies throughout the U.S. in an overwhelming grassroots response to the PATRIOT Act and other governmental excesses. Your phone calls to your senators and representative can help end Big Brother run amok.

The USA PATRIOT Act gave the FBI increased authority to wiretap your phone and monitor your e-mail. It also enabled the government to demand your medical, financial and student records from third-parties such as banks, vendors, doctors’ offices, and libraries, without linking you to a terrorism investigation. Furthermore, it prevents anyone who is required to turn over your records from ever telling you or anyone else, even if the records turned up no wrongdoing.

Very soon Congress will have a chance to repair some of the PATRIOT Act’s worst excesses. In December 2005, a bipartisan group of senators filibustered to stop the passage of a bill to reauthorize the 16 PATRIOT Act provisions that would have expired, because the bill did not protect our civil liberties. Congress’s temporary extension of those provisions will run out on February 3, 2006.

Your phone calls to your senators and representative in support of meaningful reforms can make the difference in restoring our rights to privacy, free speech, and due process.

Please phone both your Senators and your Representative and urge them to work for a PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill that truly preserves privacy and free speech, and that restores checks and balances, including judicial review and much greater congressional oversight.

* Click here [ bordc.org/callin.php ] for talking points and phone numbers, and to let us know how your calls went, OR

* Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 (24 hours), and ask the operator to connect you.

Other organizations supporting the call-in day (partial list) include the Alliance for Justice, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, American Civil Liberties Union, American Library Association, Amnesty International USA, Campaign for Reader Privacy, Center for Democracy and Technology, Code Pink, Council on American-Islamic Relations, First Amendment Foundation, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Global Exchange, League of United Latin American Citizens, League of Women Voters, Liberty Coalition, MoveOn.org Political Action, National Lawyers Guild, People For the American Way, Rights Working Group, San Francisco Labor Council, True Majority, Unitarian Universalist Association, and United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.

Tags:
politics, bill of rights, patriot act, Bush

Go and check it out at Skeptics Rant. It’s very nicely done! (but if you are having problems viewing it, here’s a link to the text)
Phil Plait from Bad Astronomy has an entry that is really great.

Wow… I’ve really neglected this blog!!

Well, on Dec. 23rd, I drove myself and the kids out to Northern Virginia and stayed until Dec. 30th. Then I drove to Northern New Jersey for New Year’s Eve. My husband flew out to NY and met me that night.
Our 4th anniversary was on December 31st, and we got to spend the entire evening alone. The boys stayed with my grandmother and my mother. It was so excellent.
Got back to Ohio on Jan 2nd, and have been busy trying to get back into the swing of life. My house is just a disaster, and I can’t seem to catch up. But I’m getting there, slowly…

I’ve been busy with the boys - Jesse’s school and therapies and Jeremy’s new tantrum phase.

I’ve also decided to start studying. No, no school, but studying on my own. Starting with the United States Constitution. So I’ve really been working on that. Yeah, I know that most people learn that kind of stuff in school, but I was too busy doing other things when I was in school. So I have to do it again. Damn it.

I’ll be back to blogging regularly again soon. I just need to find a way to fit it back in to my day.

Oh, and for the bad news - “The board, by a vote of 9-8, refused to reconsider Ohio’s high-school biology standards…”. Since this *will* go to court, let’s hope that we get a Judge like Judge Jones in PA.

UPDATE: I sent The Refiner’s Fire my responses to the questions. He responded to my responses (in italics).

The questions we, at The Refiner’s Fire, would like to pose are as follows:

* Since you are an atheist, why do you celebrate Christmas or Easter? Why do you take vacations during that time? Why do you sing Christmas carols?

I don’t celebrate xmas or Easter. I don’t take vacations (I’m a stay at home mom) and neither does my husband (networks are best worked on when no one is in the office anyway). And I don’t sing xmas carols.

Good for you.

* Nearly every American partakes of the pagan holiday of Halloween. As an atheist, do you allow your children to partake of this “fun” holiday? If so, you are, in essence, bowing down to pagan gods!

Yeah, we “do” Halloween. But since we don’t believe in Pagan Gods, we’re not bowing down to them. It’s not going to hurt the kids to dress up like chickens and beg for candy. It’s not like we’re telling them that a candy god is going to fly across the world being pulled by flying pumpkins to deliver candy to all of the children.

Whether you do it consciously or not, you ARE bowing down to pagan gods. It might not hurt your kids to dress up like chickens, but what about the witches and other weirdos who each year take that time to sacrifice animals to their gods?

Anyone who doesn’t believe in the Creator is bowing down to “other gods.” God gave us all the choice to do things HIS way, or Satan’s. When you’re not doing it His way, well….

* Why do you take a “day of rest”? Do you take off Saturdays and Sundays, or some other day of the week? Why? It was YHWH who commanded us to rest on the seventh day. Since you’re an atheist, why bother taking a day off from work at all?

Again, no vacations for me. My husband usually works on weekends, but from home. His company isn’t open on Saturdays or Sundays, and neither are the companys that he works with. But if given a choice, I’m sure he’d much rather take Mondays or Fridays off!

Maybe YOU don’t, but the rest of the world does. What I was getting at by asking these questions is why the world has latched onto the Sunday Sabbath (actually God said the SEVENTH day is the Sabbath, so “the world” is being deceived, anyway, and making Satan happy). Why does “the world” celebrate Christmas? My atheist relatives all “celebrate” Christmas because it’s a “nice tradition” (never mind that it’s steeped in paganism). Why do Americans have a holiday such as Halloween that is absolutely a pagan holiday which is in direct contradiction with God’s commands to stay away from pagan things?

Ack!! Well this is a discussion that could go on until the end of time (if time has an end, that is).

Tags:
atheism, atheist, christmas

The Westboro Baptist Church (the fanatics that run godhatesfags.com and a few other disturbing sites) didn’t show up for their planned protest today. I’m glad that they didn’t. Regardless of what you believe, people are in mourning over the death of a man. I hope they continue to keep their distance from funerals.

Tags:
Westboro Baptist Church, protest, hate

So on to Rev. E. F. Briggs.
He’s the one responsible for the billboard that Lamar Advertising *will* allow.

Well, here he is. Meet Reverend E.F. Francis Briggs.
This 96 year old Reverend is responsible for such a disgusting, hateful billboard.

You can learn more than you ever wanted to know about him here.
“Associate Briggs has remained Steadfast for God and Country.”

Father Everett Briggs
Near Martyr and a Most Unforgettable Priest
(They forgot hate-monger)
“He has designed and financed billboards attacking the anti-Christian leanings of our social institutions…”

His billboards have been mentioned in The Catalyst (go to this link and scroll to the next heading) -

“GO FATHER BRIGGS!

Congratulations Father Briggs. You’re our kind of guy.”

Apparently, he’s a poet too.

He’s now a resident of St. Barbara’s Nursing Home.

Yuck. What an ass.

Tags:
atheism, atheist, american family association, lamar advertising, billboards, columbusblogger, ohio

While on my daily visit to Meet an Atheist, I read one of his most recent posts about Lamar Advertising. You know who that is, right? They do a lot of the billboards that you see on the interstates.

Well, let’s start with one of the billboards that is in Monongah, West Virginia.

This deserves a whole different post. So I’ll address this Reverend Briggs guy later.
But just keep in mind that the above billboard is OK!! It is up and running.

The ones below, however, are not. Why? Because “It’s not in line with community standards.”

From Meet an Atheist -
“And in Georgia, they have refused to run ads for Georgia Equality, a GLBT support group. The ads which depicted doctors, firemen and professionals with the slogan, We are Gay and We are your Neighbors, was refused because it violated local community standards.”

In Wisconsin, Lamar Advertising refused an Environment2004 ad that states “Mercury. It’s what’s for dinner. Served up by the Bush Administration.”

“The primary billboard company in Sioux Falls & Rapid City (in fact the only company in SF), LAMAR, has refused to allow us to put the billboards up. The general manager thinks it is “offensiveâ€Â? and a bad business decision. He doesn’t want to have to put up with a bunch of calls from people who oppose Planned Parenthood. When Kate Looby asked him if he would continue to display abstinence only billboards in SF, he told her he would because nobody has a problem with the abstinence only message.”

Rejected by Lamar Outdoor Advertising, Bressler Outdoor Advertising, Star Outdoor and Outdoor Network Media in Crawford, Texas (near President Bush’s ranch).

“Executives at a major outdoor advertising company refusing to run billboard ads criticizing state legislative leaders for voting themselves 16- to 34-percent raises, have been a steady source of campaign donations for some of those same lawmakers.”
http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/news/12459870.htm

Lamar Advertising also pulled billboards advertising The Headliners Club thanks to pressure from The AFA of Pennsylvania (who is working with The Citizens for Community Values on removing offensive billboards). I tried to find a picture of a billboard but couldn’t.

I agree with Alan and many others who have said that we need to write letters and be heard about this.

Here is the information you need:

Mr. Kevin P. Reilly, Jr.
Chairman & CEO
Lamar Advertising Co.
5551 Corporate Blvd.
Baton Rouge, LA 70808

Call: (225) 926-1000.
Fax: (225) 926-1005.

Lamar Pres and CFO and CEO contacts:

kreilly@lamarhq.com
sreilly@lamarhq.com
kistre@lamarhq.com

Here’s a link to the Executive officers of Lamar Advertising

Thanks to:
Meet an Atheist
The Democratic Party Blog

Tags:
atheism, atheist, american family association, lamar advertising, billboards, columbusblogger, ohio

Ok, the main reason I’m even posting about Gibson is because of this picture of him.

Who does that look like to you??

Thanks Rob!

The Evangelical Atheist has put up a great list of gifts for the godless.

I’d like a couple of GIANTmicrobes, please.

Tags:
Religion, atheism, atheist, christmas, holidays, solstice

John Bartlett, a “Christ-follower, Husband, Father, Friend” said (mistakingly) that he thought of getting into a wreck with a man who had a “Proud Atheist” bumpersticker, just so that he could have a conversation with the guy and try to “reason” with him.
This was on November 15th, and the comments are still going strong!

He did explain later that he had no intention of actually getting into an accident with the guy, but it’s interesting that it crossed his mind, even for long enough to blog about it.

He says that “it shocks me that someone could believe there was no God.”

I guess he’s just as shocked as I am that someone could believe that there is a god.

Tags:
Religion, atheism, atheist, God

Today I got the solstice cards that I ordered from the Freedom from Religion Foundation. I’m really happy with them. I looked all over for cards that were appropriate for our family and the solstice. This site had quite a few that I could have ordered.

Now, if only I could find some solstice stamps…

Tags:
Religion, atheism, atheist, christmas, holidays, solstice

1- Go to www.google.com
2- Type in “Failure”, without the quotes
3- Hit “I’m feeling Lucky”

Tags:
bush, president, Politics, Current Affairs, Iraq