TresSugar

Politician's Idea: Paying Poor Women $1,000 to Get Tubes Tied

CitizenSugar — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 07:51:16 -0700

One Louisiana politician's brainstorm for stopping generational welfare - welfare recipients having children who also end up on assistance - is giving birth to huge controversy. The idea? Offering $1,000 to poor women to get their tubes tied. State Rep. John LaBruzzo has a host of other controversial plans including paying poor men to get vasectomies and giving tax incentives to college-educated, wealthy couples for having children - and the plan is causing some medical professionals to point to its similarities to eugenics programs.

LaBruzzo says he's since modified his plan to include temporary forms of birth control, not just sterilization and argues criticism like this, "I don't know how it's eugenics if it's voluntary, and how can it be racist if the majority of people on welfare are white?"

Of the genesis of the idea, the crushing cycle of poverty, LaBruzzo says:

After this recent storm, we had some issues where these people were going into shelters and taking their cigarettes and welfare but didn't have diapers or insulin for diabetic kids, and they felt they were entitled to say, 'Give me, give me.' None of them didn't want to set up cots or do anything.

To see how incentive programs have worked, read more.

Local policy makers say that the number of welfare recipients in Louisiana have actually dropped since 1991, disputing the need for an incentive program - but Planned Parenthood has actually tried it. In 1989 the group ran a program in Denver paying teen mothers a dollar a day not to get pregnant again. The program seemed to work then, though a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood says now:

Such bribes don't work. It doesn't solve the underlying issues - access to health care and paying jobs. If he'd like to ensure that men and women aren't having too many children, then he should propose legislation to make sure that health care and education to prevent unwanted pregnancy is available to everyone.

Following on the heels of Liberty's post yesterday about the judge who ordered a woman to stop having kids, does the idea of providing an incentive not to have kids seem like a creative response to a big problem - or is it a little bit like a Modest Proposal for the modern age? Good idea or dreadful concept?

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Infamous Reform School For Girls Closes Its Doors

TresSugar — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0700

The idea of a reform school for girls seems to come straight out of a B-movie from the '50s, complete with stock characters like the naïve innocent, the hardened mean girl with a heart of gold who ends up plotting a way for them both to escape, and an evil warden who gets in their way. It's hard to believe that such a place could still exist.

Until August of this year, the notorious Beloit reform school for girls in Beloit, KS did exist, and the school, founded in the 1890s, only recently shut down because the state could no longer afford to house the remaining 21 girls to the tune of $200,000 a year.

Although the school's founders had good intentions, Beloit's dark history includes the severe mistreatment of girls, many of who were running away from physically and sexually abusive homes. In effect, the abused were shipped off to be further abused. How bad did it get? In the '30s, a superintendent who was influenced by Nazi eugenics practices had 62 of her charges involuntarily sterilized. To read more about the history of Beloit and how it evolved, read more

Beloit was founded and in part funded by the suffragist and pro-Prohibition group The Women's Christian Temperance Union in the 1890s. Sometimes, the girls there were practically "indentured" by farm families in this rural town in order to earn the food they ate. (This was all before the state took over.)

At the time, according to Russell Jennings, commissioner of the Kansas Juvenile Justice Authority, girls "were really viewed in our society much more as property." They didn't even have to run away to be deemed "incorrigible" or "wayward." They only had to be, as he put it, "a pain in the neck."

In a file from a girl housed (incarcerated?) at Beloit in the '30s, her offenses were that she "associated with Mexican men" and "became intoxicated at dances." Another woman was sent to the reform school for "being immoral (with father)."

A federal law passed in the mid-1970s ended the practice of sending girls to reform school when their offenses, if they'd been committed by adults, would not be considered crimes. But their incarceration continued in Kansas until 1983. Now, troubled teenage girls are sent to community centers where they can get the help that they need.

In spite of its history, for some who stayed there, Beloit was a haven from abuse at home. "I will always believe that because of Beloit and the staff, I am where I am today," said a 50-year-old who is happily married with three children and counsels survivors of sexual abuse. "They saved the lives of unwanted children."

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Hillary Apologizes For RFK Remark. Was "Sorry" Necessary?

CitizenSugar — Sat, 24 May 2008 09:00:37 -0700

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton used the example of Robert Kennedy's June 1968 assassination while she was explaining why she's still in the race. The world seems to have done a collective jaw-drop. She has apologized for the parallel drawn saying:

I regret that my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy.

But was her apology necessary? Was the statement, as Michelle Obama worries, a reference to violence that could befall Obama? Or was it merely an unfortunate way to put historical perspective on the month of June in a campaign year? Here's Hillary's whole original quote:

My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand [calls to drop out]."

As soon as the egg of a quote was laid, Liberty and I rushed to the Church of Wikipedia to see exactly what the state of the 1968 election was in June. Was Bobby well ahead, or was the contest still alive? That seems to be the crucial detail to me - was the mention of the assassination just a calendar signpost? A way of saying, of course we all remember the day, it happened in June? Apparently, at the moment of Kennedy's assassination, the delegate totals were: Hubert Humphrey, 561; Robert F. Kennedy, 393; Eugene McCarthy, 258.

Hmm. Kennedy was in second place in the delegate totals. Just like Hillary. And we're heading into June. Were people too quick to offense on this statement? Was it just, as a Clinton spokesperson has said, "historical examples of the nominating contest going well into the summer. Any reading into it beyond that is inaccurate and outrageous." Or is any reference to an assassination - especially a Kennedy - despicable?

Want to know more about that tragic night in June? New York magazine has a powerful narrative all about it, out this week.

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Giggle Links

GiggleSugar — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:07:08 -0700

Jeepers creepers! Make the marvelous crooning child sing you a song! - Eugene Mirman
Dude! It's Marilyn Manson's blog! Well, kinda, sorta. - News Groper
The eight least impressive Guinness World Records. - Cracked
I would kill to see this headline. - The Onion
Walt Disney was only being ironic, yes? - College Humor
Spring break is upon us! You know what that means: half-naked group jogging. - LAist
Harness the green power that is the Renee Zellweger Ikea self-illuminating lamp. - Circus Hour
The latest edition of the most gratuitous use of breasts to sell something. - Copyranter

GiggleSugar Reader Spotlight: Suzanne

GiggleSugar — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 15:42:23 -0700

Suzanne is one of GiggleSugar's top talkers and a dynamo on wheels. (That picture below of her with comedian/talk show host Craig Ferguson occurred when she sneaked out of her daughter's bridal rehearsal dinner to attend a book signing so she could meet him. Ha!) She's a riot. Be sure to check out her image gallery at the end of the interview.

GS: What is your motto? Suzanne: “Don’t waste your stress!!! You might really need it someday” - which is my way of saying that some things might seem like they’re going to be a big problem, but in the end they may turn out to be nothing at all… so don’t stress until you actually know you have to!

GS: Where are you from? Suzanne: We Rhode Islanders must be a barrel of laughs, because, like Moni B, I’m from Rhode Island too… born and raised in Providence… Ha! How random is that!

GS: What do you do? Suzanne: My kids always said it was a trick question when they had to fill out forms and say what Mom did. I started out as a registered nurse, then got a job writing and photographing for a newspaper. After that, I was a relocation assistant. My job was to convince executives they’d like to live in Birmingham, AL. We loved it! That was one sweet job! Then I went back to nursing – rehab this time, then hemodialysis. I was not allowed to work when we lived in Paris. Woohoo! Now, I run a ladies’ accessory business that I started with three of my 4 children.

GS: How would you describe your sense of humor? Suzanne: Ridiculous, impulsive and out of control!

GS: What’s your favorite GiggleSugar post? Suzanne: Today’s… no really, I’m still laughing at the Nigerian Scam video. I get those emails every day. Who doesn’t!?! The letters are as dramatic as that video depicts. The letters themselves crack me up. They try to sound so real in their own broken English, terrible spelling, and atrocious grammar kinda way!

GS: Who’s the cutest funny man and woman? Suzanne: Heck, I don’t know!?! My grown kids--they always keep me laughing!

GS: Who are your favorite comedians? Suzanne: Now don’t laugh, but I really like Craig Ferguson. (GS: I have a major crush on him, Suzanne. We're going to have to fight for him!) Suzanne: I’ve liked his humor from the start. Well, maybe not when he was on Drew Carey, but on his late night show. I just find him funny! What can I say!? I like that he stood his ground to not bash Britney and I saw his kind heart the night he spent the entire monologue talking lovingly about his father who had just passed away. I also really like SNL’s Rachel Dratch. We saw her regularly when she was part of Chicago’s Second City’s main stage. We loved her humor then and still do now!

GS: Thanks, Suzanne!

View 10 Photos ›

(Top row Suzanne and husband Dennis with grandchildren, S & grandson, daughter Denise and her husband, grandchild; middle row left grandchildren, her family's faces superimposed on a Eugene Delacroix painting (!), S & Dennis & grandchildren; bottom row left newest grandchild, daughter Lori and family, comedian Rachel Dratch.)

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