By Aaron Kupchik/The Conversation

Children across the U.S. have now returned to school. Many of these children are going to schools with sworn police officers patrolling the hallways. These officers, usually called school resource officers, are placed in schools across the country to help maintain school safety.
According to the most recent data reported by the Department of Education, police or security guards were present in 76.4 percent of U.S. public high schools in the 2009-2010 school year.
In many of these schools, police officers are being asked to deal with a range of issues that are very different from traditional policing duties, such as being a mental health counselor for a traumatized child. This is an unfair request.

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Posted on September 7, 2016

By Philip Almond/The Conversation

In 2002, the Vatican officially recognized as a miracle the healing of an Indian woman’s cancer of the abdomen. This occurred as the result of the application of a locket containing Mother Teresa’s picture. The woman, Monica Besra, said a beam of light had emanated from the picture, curing her cancerous tumor.
This one miracle was sufficient for Mother Teresa to be beatified in 2003. This meant that she had the title “Blessed” bestowed on her and that she was, from then on, able to intercede with God on behalf of individuals who prayed in her name.

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Posted on September 6, 2016

By James J. Nolan/The Conversation

How should we understand the violence, counterviolence and civil unrest that mark American policing? And, based on this understanding, what can we do to stop it?
Rather than focus on the characteristics of “bad apple” police officers or angry, vengeful citizens, sociologists like me tend to look at the context in which the violence occurs or at how individuals within this context interact.
For example, sociologists might study a sport like soccer. Participants learn the rules of the game, what behaviors they expect of each other, how to score points and what it means to be considered a “good” player.
Policing also has rules and logic that makes certain actions the right things to do and other actions the wrong things.

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Posted on September 5, 2016

By Richard Painter/The Conversation

Hillary Clinton’s critics claim that federal ethics laws were broken when her subordinates at the State Department arranged meetings and other favors for donors to the Clinton Foundation.
Evidence is still surfacing as to who at the State Department did what and why. But as a former chief White House ethics lawyer in the Bush administration, I can tell you that allegations of favoritism for donors is nothing new. There were plenty such allegations during the Bill Clinton administration. If nothing changes, I believe it will be more of the same in a Hillary Clinton administration.
As I illustrate in my book, Getting the Government America Deserves, there was also favoritism for donors in the Reagan administration and both Bush administrations. Same for Congress over many years. The same is arguably true for the Obama administration. One case in point: access to staff in the White House and Department of Energy granted to investors in the Solyndra Solar Energy Company. The Clinton Foundation may be a novel twist to an old problem, but donors get high-level access every day in Washington.

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Posted on September 1, 2016

By SIU Press

With a population of about 2,000, Pembroke Township, one of the largest rural, black communities north of the Mason-Dixon Line, sits in an isolated corner of Kankakee County, 65 miles south of Chicago.
It is also one of the poorest places in the nation.

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Posted on August 25, 2016

A Look At The ‘Shock!’ Horror Library That Started A TV Craze!

“A fun read . . . answers a lot of the ‘frequently asked questions’ viewers usually ask of me!” – Rich Koz, “Svengoolie”

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Posted on August 15, 2016

By AP

“Filmmaker Ema Ryan Yamazaki digs into lives of ‘Curious George’ creators H.A. Rey and Margret Rey in a new documentary under the working title, Monkey Business: The Adventures of George’s Curious Creators.”

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Posted on August 8, 2016

By Steve Rhodes

“The man responsible for the success of the Suicide Squad as both a book and a concept is John Ostrander. After spending the early ’80s working primarily on his own characters (such as the futuristic mercenary Grimjack), Ostrander made the move to DC in 1987. Alongside Len Wein and John Byrne, he plotted the modern Squad’s first appearance in Legends, which included the first look at the character who would go on to define the team in all its further appearances: Amanda Waller,” Tim O’Neil writes in his deep, fascinating “How Suicide Squad Went From WWII Military Heroes To Today’s Silver-Screen Villains” for the A.V. Club.
“It would be difficult in hindsight to overstate just how radical a concept Waller was when she first appeared. After years of government bureaucrats being portrayed as, at best, feckless, or worse, downright sinister, here was a career civil servant who not only fought on the side of the angels (sort of, most of the time), but was brutally effective in doing so. A single mom who lost part of her family to violence growing up in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects, she quickly rose to prominence in Washington as a congressional aide with a reputation for efficiency and bluntness. It was these talents that put her in a position to pitch President Reagan on a revamped and streamlined Task Force X.”

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Posted on August 5, 2016

By Nancy Simon

There’s a popular contemporary song by the musical artist Andra Day entitled “Rise Up,” in which Day sings “You’re broken down and tired of living life on a merry-go-round and you can’t find the fighter, but I see it in you so we gonna walk it out and move mountains . . . I’ll rise up, I’ll rise like the day, ooh, ooh, ooh.”
Those words help connote the sentiment behind a term that has taken center stage at a time when society has become tired of the status quo, frustrated with elected officials, angry at law enforcement officers, and anxious for change.
If you had to encapsulate in a singular word what the lyrics of “Rise Up” are trying to relay – that there is a fresh idea, a new movement, rapidly gaining momentum that offers promise and hope and the opportunity to move in a new direction away from all things Establishment – you are likely to hit upon the word groundswell.

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Posted on July 27, 2016

By James Cockayne/The Conversation

After a dramatic Republican National Convention in Cleveland which saw Donald Trump finally become the party’s official nominee, Hillary Clinton will this week accept the formal nomination of the Democratic Party.
U.S. national conventions have always been big business opportunities. As one long-time ally of the Bush family reportedly said, “For people who operate in and around government, you can’t not be here.”
Although some of the usual donors to the Republican National Convention, like Ford and UPS, stayed home this year, the host committee was able to raise nearly $60 million from American businesses.
Yet historically the “people who operate in and around government” are not only legitimate businesses but also, sometimes, less-than-legitimate ones.
Take the 1932 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

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Posted on July 25, 2016