I am not sure what this story shows but it is pretty sad:
Four American soldiers have been charged with cruelty and maltreatment of an 19-year-old soldier who committed suicide after being in Iraq for 10 days, the U.S. military told NBC News Friday.
The four Multi-National Division-South soldiers are accused of hazing Private Keiffer P. Wilhelm of Ohio. They abused Wilhelm with excessive physical fitness, said Lt. Col. Kevin Olson, a military spokesman.
One defense official told NBC News that Wilhelm eventually stopped going to public areas to avoid being harassed repeatedly for being overweight
I guess one question might be, how did the commanders let this happen?
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Posted by John Rove as Words at 6:56 PM UTC
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As someone who has been drifting around the workplace a little bit lately I can see why this is happening. It is really easy to get trapped into a job, because both their are not a whole lot of opportunities and if you want to keep your health insurance you are pretty much stuck with your employer. A real public option in insurance might cut down suicides, at least it would give people a chance to leave bad employers.
Posted by John Rove as Words at 10:24 AM UTC
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Does Micheal Vick deserve a second chance? Mr Bettor from the comments makes a great point, when he says convicted felons should be allowed to work. In fact recidivism would probably decrease if companies were not allowed to discriminate against convicted felons, but at the same time if the persons previous job contributed to them committing a crime they probably should not be allowed to return to that job. For example you wouldn’t let a school teacher caught molesting children return to the classroom, both for the sake of other children and why tempt the molester with easy prey.
As Vick’s dad points out the money in the NFL enabled vick to fight dogs:
Eventually, psychoanalyzing Vick became commonplace in Atlanta. Vick’s own estranged father told the Journal-Constitution about his dogfighting operation: “I wish people would stop sugarcoating it. This is Mike’s thing. He likes it, and he has the capital to have a setup like that.”
And now he is right back to where he has the capital to do it again, plus now he has Andy Reid and Tony Dungy to cover-up for him as they seem to desperately want to show what happened with their own children was not their fault; at some point it seems very likely that they will cover-up for Vick rather than admit they screwed-up again.
This all seems very familiar, hopefully their will be a different result, but doing the same thing usually leads to the same result.
Update: Here is an e-mail from the Humane society regarding dogfighting and Micheal Vick:
On a chilly evening last fall, a raid on a dogfight in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood on the south side turned up more than 50 people, including a pregnant woman and a few juveniles, in a basement watching dogs fight a bloody battle.
This summer, young men and their pit bulls gather on hot evenings in that same neighborhood to compete much more constructively (watch the video). The owners learn positive training methods and new ways of thinking about their dogs. The pit bulls, some of whom start the classes wildly aggressive, learn to run an agility course and show off their new obedience skills. Participants shower their dogs with praise and treats and start to see their canine companions as friends instead of fighters.
The HSUS’ End Dogfighting program makes the difference in Englewood and other troubled neighborhoods where dogfighting is all too common. People from the community spread the word about our “Pit Bull Training Team” and invite dogs and their owners to attend free classes.
The healthy competition in our classes has turned around many dangerous situations. Greg and his 95-pound bruiser Bolo struggled at first when Bolo tried to attack other dogs. Greg took Bolo out of the room sometimes because of his barking and lunging. Working with Bolo alongside more advanced dogs got him to settle down and make progress. Eventually, Bolo could sit calmly while other dogs wrestled in front of him — unthinkable at the start of the session.
One famous face symbolized the dangers of dogfighting last week: quarterback Michael Vick. To a rapt young audience in Chicago, he described his downfall by dogfighting and urged them to care for animals, not fight them.
Vick also gave his first interview since prison on last night’s edition of 60 Minutes. He says he has a new attitude toward animals and that he’s committed to helping boys and young men in inner cities break away from the horrors of dogfighting. On the show, I explained that we need to tackle this larger problem, and that Vick might even be able to help with it
You can read more from the Humane society here
Posted by John Rove as Words at 12:24 PM UTC
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In case you haven’t heard the Eagles signed Michael Vick. I just heard Andy Reid in an interview explaing that he felt the Eagles locker room was strong enough to help Micheal Vick become a batter person, Blay, Blah.
First, he is supposed to be running a football team not a half-way house for felons.
Second, one of the problems the Eagles have faced for the last five years is a lack of discipline. I have watched almost every Eagles game since the year they lost the superbowl, and usually twice a year stupid mistakes will cost them a game and last year they lost to an Arizona team that seemed to have inferior talent. The Eagles do not have a “strong” locker room and they just made it worse.
It is also interesting that Donavan McNabb says he is a very close friend of Micheal Vicks’. If that is true it seems pretty likely that he was present at some of the dog fights, or at least knew about them. Maybe the NFL needs to investigate how many other players were involved in Vick’s dog fighting and gambling ring.
This is a really bad day for the NFL.
Posted by John Rove as Words at 3:08 PM UTC
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I think Hillary could have handled this better. And apparentely so do other people.
Hillary’s KO in the Congo on Monday made the covers of both New York tabloids. Using tough hand gestures not seen since “The Sopranos” went off HBO, Hillary snapped back at an African college student who asked about the growing influence of China on Africa and then, according to the translator, wanted to know: “What does Mr. Clinton think?”
It turned out that the student was trying to ask how President Obama felt about it. But before he was able to clarify, the secretary of state flared: “Wait, you want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not the secretary of state. I am.”
This raw, competitive response showed that the experiment in using the Clintons as a tandem team on diplomacy may not be going as smoothly as we had hoped; once more, as with health care, the conjugal psychodrama drags down the positive contribution the couple can make on policy.
Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton have shown they can accomplish quite a bit together, for example the release of the reporter in North Korea, and working together they accomplished quite a bit in the nineties, for whatever reason Hillary Clinton seems to really resent the idea that Bill Clinton had anything to do with the couples success. I am sure their are some psychological insights to be gained from the Clintons but it might be better if they just concentrated on U.S foreign policy.
Posted by John Rove as Words at 6:52 PM UTC
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I take back some of the stuff I said about Hilary Clinton
Posted by John Rove as Words at 6:44 PM UTC
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A anti-healthcare protestor looking for donations for his medical bills. If the guy really was assaulted I feel bad for him, but the irony is pretty thick.
Posted by John Rove as Words at 10:26 AM UTC
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Micheal Steele trys to walk back from the brink of madness that is a republican at a healthcare townhall meeting. In a related note I am going to try to make it to a Townhall meeting in Boulder Colorado, it will be interesting to see if the GOP stormtroopers show up there.
Posted by John Rove as Words at 9:58 AM UTC
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Right-wing activists seem to have a rallying cry: “Keep the government out of medicare”. This seems to show the problem with a rational health care debate, only one side is rational, and the other side is pretty clearly uninformed and perhaps crazy.
The anti-health care zealots do seem to be showing a need for mental health counseling among a large portion of the U.S population, hopefully they will provide for that in the final health care bill.
Posted by John Rove as Words at 2:50 PM UTC
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