Posts by Lilith __
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A tangent, but this speaks to the War on Drugs and the dangers children face:
Troubling stories were circulating about the so-called crack babies. They had small heads and were easily agitated and prone to tremors and bad muscle tone, according to reports, many of which were anecdotal. Worse, the babies seemed aloof and avoided eye contact. Some social workers predicted a lost generation - kids with a host of learning and emotional deficits who would overwhelm school systems and not be able to hold a job or form meaningful relationships. The "crack baby" image became symbolic of bad mothering, and some cocaine-using mothers had their babies taken from them or, in a few cases, were arrested.
It was amid that climate that Hurt organized a study of 224 near-term or full-term babies born at Einstein between 1989 and 1992 - half with mothers who used cocaine during pregnancy and half who were not exposed to the drug in utero. All the babies came from low-income families, and nearly all were African Americans.
The results were surprising, to say the least. Read the whole story here .
[thanks to Hilary and Jolisa for the link] -
Capture: Two Tales of a City, in reply to Just thinking,
So Nuk is still in with a chance?
For Banks Peninsula Council seat? Currently running second but it’s close. Actually (looking again) it's a 3-way race there, could all change with special and late votes.
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Provisional CCC results here .
Notable: Ngaire Button and Aaron Keown out of Council.
Hagley-Ferrymead Community board (my local): at least 4/5 greeny-labour-lefties.
Lianne Dalziel our new mayor, with Vicki Buck and Yani Johanson set to be a strong force in Council.
Looks like big changes ahead for Chch. In a good way!
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Capture: Spring Breaks, in reply to JacksonP,
Bit of fluff.
Aww. Warm fuzzies. :-)
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I was going to say
not guilty = we can't be sure if they did it or not
BUT prosecutions can also fail because of technical cock-ups, nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of the defendant. -
Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to Don Christie,
Evidence has been weighed up, subject to extreme scrutiny and rejected.
Not guilty =/= didn’t do it.
Remember OJ Simpson? Found not guilty of murder in a criminal court, but convicted in a civil case of 2 counts of "causing wrongful death".
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Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to Don Christie,
But not guilty is not innocent
I keep seeing this and I object. Not guilty *is* innocent. Sorry, that’s how the system works, remember…Innocent until proven guilty.
It would be nice if the media remembered that occassionally.
Legally innocent unless proven guilty. "Not Guilty" means the prosecution failed to prove the accused committed the crime. Whether a person is actually innocent is another matter.
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Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to Carol Stewart,
better for a guilty person to go free than for an innocent person to be locked away
Further thought -- I guess you can have both of these at once. If an innocent person is imprisoned for a crime, the guilty person GOES FREE, causing 2 injustices. So it's doubly important to be sure.
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Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to Carol Stewart,
a lawyer friend once told me that there is a legal principle that it is better for a guilty person to go free than for an innocent person to be locked away
One of the difficulties with murder cases as I understand it is that it's almost always a one-off, an exceptional situation the killer is in, which won't be repeated.
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Capture: Spring Breaks, in reply to Nora Leggs,
some brick warping
Remarkable, Nora!