In this world, there will always be something refreshing about children: innocent, wholesome, naïve and with whole lives filled with journeys and memories ahead of them. However, not all children are so fortunate.

Hence, the 2009 case of the 18-month-old girl who died in a car accident on the way to the emergency room after she fell out of her bed. Rather than having her in her car seat, she was sitting on her aunt’s lap when another vehicle ran the stop sign, hitting the car and killing the toddler. After social workers looked further into the case, it was revealed there was neglect in the toddler’s home and her two other brothers were placed in foster care for a year.

The case has brought to light several considerations that the child welfare system should be acting upon. Finally, the California Supreme Court has decided to do just that.

According to the Associated Press’ statement last week, “The California Supreme Court ruled that a “breach of ordinary care” with fatal results is enough reason for child welfare agencies to act because it poses an inherent concern for the safety of siblings, and that Welfare officials can take children from parents who negligently cause the death of a son or daughter, such as failing to place them in a car seat, even if there was no criminal harm.”

Regarding the 2009 case, Assistant County Counsel James M. Owens, who represented the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services stated, “It’s a big case for us, and it is a big case for the child welfare community.”

However, several parents and residents of the state of California are upset about this ruling and are speaking out about it. In the past few days, the California Supreme Court has received countless letters regarding the ruling, including that of one Beverly Hills resident, Stella Resnick:

“I am appalled at the misguided ruling of the California Supreme Court to allow social workers to place children in foster care after a car accident in which a sibling died as a result of not being restrained by a car seat or seat belt. The measures taken by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services have nothing to do with child welfare or protection. This is state-sanctioned child abuse with life-altering consequences. Removing a child from parents who have no history of neglect or abuse and placing them in foster care compounds their tragedy. Case workers put children at greater risk by seizing them from parents who love and fight for them, only to place them in the care of strangers.”

While residents are outraged at the ruling, statistics for child abuse speak another tune. According to childhelp.org, five children die a day as a result of some form of abuse while every 13 seconds a child is abused in America alone. And of those that die as a result of abuse, 80% of them are under the age of four. So when we think of children, their innocence, naivety, and futures, we need to think about their safety and well-being before anything else.

The article California Cracks Down on Child Welfare: Residents Speak Out appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

There have been several episodes of drug war violence in Mexico in recent months, however, it seems that the episodes are escalating as with the most recent one, which took the lives of 49 people who had been brutally killed and left in a public place.

The bodies were found in the city of San Juan on a non-toll highway that connects Monterrey in northern Mexico to the U.S. border at around 4 a.m. Sunday morning. Of the bodies found, 43 of them were men and the rest were women.

Federal police officers immediately shut down the highway and according to Nuevo Leon state Attorney General Adrian de la Garza, speculation ensued that it was indeed an act connected to the ongoing drug war. He stated that organized crime groups often make very public body dumps with multiple victims as warnings to their rivals, however he did not want to rule out the possibility that the victims were U.S.-bound migrants, according to The Guardian.

What is leading citizens of the area and federal officers to believe that this was a drug related war, according to Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Jorge Domene, is that “a banner left at the site bore a message with the Zetas drug cartel taking responsibility for the massacre.” According to Domene, “the fact the bodies were found with the heads, hands and feet cut off will make identification difficult. The bodies were being taken to Monterrey for DNA tests.”

Attorney General De La Garza believes that the victims could have been killed up to two days ago and then transported to San Juan, however, there is no evidence to support this at this time.

According to the Associated Press, these are the most recent episodes of drug war violence in Mexico alone:

• May 9: Police find 18 dismembered bodies close to Mexico’s second-largest city, Guadalajara.
• May 5: The bodies of 23 people are found hanging from a bridge or decapitated and dumped near city hall in the border city of Nuevo Laredo.
• April 17: Police find the mutilated bodies of 14 men in a minivan abandoned in downtown Nuevo Laredo, along with a message from an undisclosed drug gang.
• April 12: The tortured and bound bodies of seven men are dumped in the Pacific port city of Lazaro Cardenas along with messages signed by allies of the Sinaloa drug cartel.
• March 18: Gunmen ambush and kill 12 police officers who had been sent to Guerrero state to search for the bodies of 10 people whose severed heads were found earlier.

The war is worsening between the Mexican drug cartels as they fight over who controls the local drug markets and smuggling routes into the United States, and unfortunately, innocent lives are being brutally lost as a result of three things, money, greed and power.

The article 49 Mutilated Bodies Found in Mexico appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on the New York Post to apologize for publishing a political cartoon that the Muslim civil rights group says “evokes anti-Semitic themes” through its depiction of hook-nosed terrorists objecting to the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) widespread campaign of spying on Muslims without warrants or evidence of wrongdoing.

View the cartoon:
http://tinyurl.com/7s6llpm

CAIR is also asking American Muslims and other people of conscience to contact the newspaper and to politely ask that they apologize for the offensive cartoon. E-Mail: letters@nypost.com, Copy to:info@cair.com

The cartoon by Sean Delonas was published Friday in the Post and shows the turban-wearing, hook-nosed terrorists preparing bombs and weapons in an apartment, with an NYPD vehicle in the street. One of the terrorists is depicted on the phone with The Associated Press news agency, and says: “Hello, AP Press?. . .I’d like to register a complaint against the N.Y.P.D. for spying on us.”

The cartoonist’s reference is to a series of Associated Press investigative articles exposing the NYPD’s spying on Muslim individuals, students, businesses, and religious institutions –- a campaign that has been condemned as unconstitutional by American Muslim and civil liberties groups.

Video: NJ Muslims Condemn NYPD Spying (CAIR)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2ioUX1-h5Y

CAIR-NJ: Muslims Denounce ‘Complete Betrayal’ of NYPD Surveillance
http://tinyurl.com/6msj2z3

NYPD Spying Program Aimed at Muslims
http://tinyurl.com/6sf8myz

“This offensive and inaccurate political cartoon evokes anti-Semitic themes that would be recognized by any historian of pre-war Nazi Germany,” said Zead Ramadan, board president of CAIR’s New York chapter. “The cartoon is not only offensive in its portrayal of a religious minority; it is also inaccurate in its depiction of those targeted by the NYPD spy campaign in that there is no evidence that those monitored were suspected of wrongdoing of any kind.”

CAIR is America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

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Image Courtesy of     http://www.flickr.com/photos/icpja2/

The article CAIR Calls on the NY Post to Apologize for Offensive Political Muslim Cartoon appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.