South Carolina Responsible Journalism Resgistry Law

Republican South Carolina representative Mike Pitts, pictured above, has sponsored a bill in his state's congress, which will be called the South Carolina Responsible Journalism Registry Law if it gets passed. Before covering matters related to government, a journalist would be required to undergo a background check, similar to the background check required before buying a handgun, to report the news. No one who has written anything controversial, or who has written anything that has garnered complaints about government, petitions, or boycotts would be allowed to cover state events. There would also be a non-refundable fee for the background check to report the news, effecting a charge to tell the truth! Also, every journalist in South Carolina would have to be listed in a registry. Hmm....where has your blogger heard something like this before? This sounds an awful lot like the German Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service in 1933, which was aimed at forcing Jews out of any professional field in Nazi Germany.

This bill is such a gross violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution that it will never pass. Still, the question that needs to be answered is this: why is South Carolina so afraid of writers and journalists?

Look Mom! No Background Check!

Surprise, surprise! The state of Kansas does not require background checks for all public school employees. Teachers must be vetted, but bus drivers, secretaries, para-professionals and cafeteria workers are welcome to add a criminal record, complete with a listing in the sex offender registry, to their resumes. Commission of a crime by a teacher while employed by a school is not a problem for many "unified" school districts in Kansas, either. As long as parents can be intimidated by school administration and the local "unified" school board to keep quiet about any criminal activity or behavior by teachers, it can go undetected.

Amber Alert Cancelled For Hailey Owens

The Amber Alert from Missouri that was initiated last night for Hailey Owens has been cancelled. It took me awhile to figure out how to write about this, since it she never needed to disappear in the first place, but it seems that the driver of the gold Ford Ranger, Craig Wood, was an athletic coach and a para at Hailey's school. Now; where, in the entire vicinity of the televised airings of the amber alert, have we heard about something like this happening? Just one hop across the state and a couple of hours travel, and Frankfort High School can be observed supplying the same type of school employee with a paycheck for similar dereliction of duty. Granted, the child who was abandoned and left to her own devices on a dirt road in an isolated area four miles away from the nearest town was extremely lucky, and lived to tell about it. Hailey was not so lucky. The Ford Ranger belonged to a school employee, and as soon as it was located at the address to which it was registered, a search warrant was obtained for that residence. Then, Hailey was found; unfortunately, deceased. Why?

There have been rumors that Craig Wood had used different names in the past, but I have seen no real evidence of this. Even so, a school can still conduct a decent background check. Women often change their names when they marry, and many marry more than once. Reasonably accurate background checks are carried out in those circumstances every day. I have even done background checks on potential employees whose backgrounds were mostly not national, and I even had to speak to providers of references in other languages on a few occasions concerning applicants who have not always used surnames. There was no problem, in any instance, performing the background checks. And none of the three companies for whom I did this had any reason as important as teaching or childcare for checking applicants' references. 

Checking references of school employees and weeding out the ones whose past histories contraindicate contact with children is a no-brainer and a requirement on paper in most states and counties. Why aren't we doing it? Why does a teacher with politically well connected parents have free reign to endanger children with impunity? Why does a teacher who graduated from the same school where he abuses and neglects remain employed at that school? Why do "friends" feel like they are doing him a favor by protecting him? Only the shadow knows! And how did a para and athletic coach with drug problems that were unearthed in a matter of minutes by journalists fly under the radar of whoever checked references and ran background checks at the Missouri school? 

Several people have commented about this, stating that the school should not be held responsible in any way. I disagree. Hailey was, most likely, encouraged to trust and respect authority. Children are rarely taught to question authority anymore. Parents who teach their children that valuable lesson are stigmatized and marginalized by "good, upstanding" koolaide drinking school administrators. Life is often hell for the parent who loves his children enough to tell them that teachers, principals, coaches, guidance counselors, and para professionals do not always have their best interests at heart. But; while life is often hell, it would be more hellish to have to say goodbye to a beloved son or daughter because the lesson of questioning authority had not been taught.

Kansas Lunatics Encourage Hitchhiking

 

How thrilling. We now have a group of brilliant and wonderful individuals in Lawrence, Kansas, who want the city council to legalize hitchhiking within city limits. A non profit group called Lawrence Onboard would like hitchhiking to become an accepted mode of transportation within pre-established parameters, such as background checks and registration of drivers with City Hall, and hitchhikers carrying large signs announcing destinations. The registered driver would stop and pick up the hitchhiker, if possible. Bumper stickers announcing the connection to Lawrence Onboard would also be available. Any bad drivers or bad riders could be reported, and the whole idea could become reality with no problems whatsoever. Where's the eye-rolley when I need it?

 

I don't know what non-profit groups smoke for breakfast in Lawrence, but some of the folks at Lawrence Onboard obviously need to establish a working relationship with Reality. City Hall is actually going to employ a person whose job will be to conduct background checks on would-be ride givers and keep tabs on the state of hitchhiking in Lawrence? Sure, no problems there! Anyone with bad intentions yet no existing criminal record can pass a background check. A driver with a serious drinking problem, but no DWI's or accidents yet, can also pass a background check. There are also criminals who have records, but still pass background checks for reasons ranging from identity theft to incompetence of the person running the background check. And what if the boogieman steals or borrows the car of a legitimate Lawrence Onboard driver? It's not a risk for which I would want responsibility, and it's not a risk I would take.

 

There really is no way of keeping track of hitchhikers via background checks. The number of people who need rides from day to day in any city is always going to fluctuate. A would-be rider can get information from City Hall and carry a sign with a destination written on it, but that does not confer safety in allowing strangers into one's vehicle. This idea may seem innocuous at the surface, but it is really an engraved invitation to criminals. Finding vulnerable victims through a program that sanctions hitchhiking might even be easier than luring victims through networks like Craigslist! There isn't always a way to be sure if a hitchhiker is carrying a weapon or not, and once you accept a ride and get into someone's car, you have no control over where that car travels.

 

Sanctioned hitchhiking a`la Lawrence Onboard is truly one of the worst ideas I've heard lately. It carries a great deal of potential to perpetuate all kinds of crime, from petty theft to murder. Hopefully, the city of Lawrence will simply tell the folks of Lawrence Onboard that carpooling and vanpooling is a much safer, and legal alternative.  

 

 

Once A Kansas Teacher, Always A Kansas Teacher

There is a push to start fingerprinting teachers in Kansas while performing criminal background checks, in an ongoing effort to curb the renewals of licenses of those teachers who have committed serious crimes both before and after starting their careers. But what good will that do? As has already been noted, in addition to criminal background checks for new hires, Kansas already has a law mandating that law enforcement and county prosecutors report any known criminal activity on the part of an educator to the Kansas Department Of Education, yet, during the past two years, only fourteen of the one hundred and five county prosecutors in Kansas reported such incidents as directed by law!

The problem does not lie in identification of these cases, it lies in proper documentation and reporting of same. In a more heavily populated or multi-lingual area, communication could present a possible problem in reporting and documentation, but here in Kansas, the problem with renewal of teaching licenses for criminals is much more likely to be cover-up and protection of cronies. Since this is probably not going to change without the help of citizens who care about the quality of the education received by our children, the most logical step a parent can take, after making sure that appropriate police reports are made, is to report any legally defined child endangerment incidents directly to the Kansas Department Of Education. This would relieve the political burden on the shoulders of the elected, and thereby recallable, county prosecutors. The telephone number one would call is 785-291-3678.

 

Robert Poe III And Your Tax Dollars At Work

As a bit of a sequel to this post, here is another eyebrow raising piece of information that followed closely on it's heels: while federal and state authorities in Kansas were interviewing the victims of Michael Arnett, the driver/paramedic/all-time-helpful-social-services-approved driver to provide foster children in Kansas with transportation to visit their parents and attend appointments, (he's in jail now, for sexually abusing those children as he drove them from one place to another) his victims kept bringing up another name......Robert Poe III. It seems that Michael Arnett was not only abusing the children as a solo act, but stopping by the home of his friend, Mr. Poe, who also abused the children, and used a gun to gain their cooperation. All this, done to children who have already been exposed to stress that is heartbreaking, all by itself. Is there any way at all Kansas could have done, or could..... in the future...... do a better job in the area of background checks? Not that foster children matter terribly much in Kansas. After all, once a Kansas foster child has been  abused  or inexplicably "lost" by a foster parent or other custodial guardian employed by the state, the social worker simply moves the court to terminate the natural parents' rights and sever all ties between the child and his or her natural siblings, right Kansas? That way, no one who might actually love the child will ever speak up about the human rights abuses you allow daily to be leveled against these children.

 

Kansas, Don't Get Your Clergy At Kmart

As a bit of an update to to this post, and in answer to a question someone had, here is more information about the charming Hugh Cranford, the lovely Lutheran youth paster in Topeka who likes liturgical positions that give him access to children. His former place of "vicarage" was Concordia, in Saint Louis, Missouri. The final outcome of pending matters against Cranford there is unclear; but the whole disgusting matter is still quite recent, and the wheels of our justice system have a reputation for turning slowly at times. He was ousted from their church and school in the summer of 2011.

Something that should concern the Luthern community in Topeka Kansas is this, according to the Capitol Journal, "Dale Meyer, president of the seminary, said Monday after hearing about the allegations in early June the seminary immediately suspended the vicarage and prevented Cranford from enrolling in any other classes.
Meyer also said the alleged incidents didn’t take place at Faith Lutheran Church or Topeka Lutheran School. He said they also had no word that the alleged incidents took place on the seminary’s campus." Now; who cares WHERE his alleged assaults on children took place? The deal is this: parents were told by the church that they could trust this man with their children. As it happened, they could not. The information was readily available through a criminal background check AND through a reference check. This, apparently, was not performed. Now the church wants to distance itself from any responsibility in the matter at all. Someone at the church may have even given Hugh Cranford the information that charges were being filed, and assisted him in leaving town before law enforcement could find him. It's entirely possible. Hugh Cranford is still at large, and Dale Meyer is more concerned with damage control than with child safety. This is why I do not allow my children at attend Christian churches in Kansas. It's dangerous.

 

Hugh Cranford, without his Neo-Nazi beard.