Ten-year-old Aboriginal girl kills herself in far north Western Australia

It's odds-on that she was abused by Aboriginal men in her community.  Child abuse is rife in such communities.  So I fail to see that this is the responsibility of whites.  To do anything real about it, you would have to change the responses of Aboriginal men -- and it would take very tough intervention to do that.  All the social workers in the world would achieve nothing.  Aborigines in the Kimberly are very close to their tribal ways so have little to restrain them from being rough on women and children

A 10-year-old Aboriginal girl has taken her own life in far north Western Australia, the youngest of 19 Indigenous people to kill themselves in remote areas of the state since December.

Guardian Australia understands the girl died on Sunday in the small community of Looma, 3,912km north of Perth.

It is one of the youngest reported suicides of an Aboriginal person in WA and follows the death of an 11-year-old Geraldton boy, Peter Little, on 19 October 2014, which prompted the state government to announce a $26m suicide prevention program.

A suicide researcher, Gerry Georgatos, will travel to Looma to support the community in his role as a coordinator for the Indigenous suicide critical response unit, a $1m federally funded trial program that aims to provide culturally appropriate assistance to curb the flow-on effects of suicide.

“This tragedy has affected not only her community but surrounding communities that she had been moved around within,” Georgatos told Guardian Australia. “Many families and communities need support.”

It’s the 16th such trip he has made since taking up the position. The first was to support a community in the Goldfields, near Kalgoorlie, where three people took their lives within a month. “We buried three kids in five days,” Georgatos told Guardian Australia. “The graves were alongside each other, three in a row.”

The youngest on that occasion was a 15-year-old girl.

WA’s mental health minister, Helen Morton, said it was “devastating that a child of 10 would even consider taking their own life”. She said: “Circumstances are not yet clear but I find it deeply concerning.”

Morton said the girl was not in the care of the department of child protection, but the department had been providing support to her extended family “and will continue to do so during this very difficult time”.

Scullion said the interim advice he had received was that existing suicide response services were often not well-coordinated or delivered in a culturally appropriate way, which led to the funding of the Indigenous suicide critical response unit.

“The minister is deeply saddened by the news of the latest Indigenous child suicide in the Kimberley and it has reinforced his resolve to do everything he can to prevent suicide and the enormous grief it causes families and communities,” a spokesman for Scullion told Guardian Australia.

Wes Morris is coordinator of the Kimberley Aboriginal Language and Culture Centre which runs the Yiriman Project, a culture-based program led by elders from four language groups that aims to reduce suicide by making young people resilient in their culture. He said suicide would be raised as an issue at regional meetings to discuss the state’s remote community reform plans this week.

“What we need to be investing in is culturally appropriate programs of resilience and healing, to show young people where they fit into their culture and possibilities for their future,” Morris said.

SOURCE






Gamers are SMARTER and perform better at school: Study finds a link between playing games and higher intelligence in children

This is another one in the eye for the brown-nosing "Baroness" Greenfield.  The Royal Society did well to give her the boot

Playing video games has a positive effect on young children, improving their performance at school and their intelligence levels, according to a new study.

Researchers have found a direct link between the amount of time spent playing video games and the mental health, cognitive, and social skills of young children.

By studying children aged six to 11, the psychologists also discovered that children who spent more time playing video games had no increase in mental health problems.

Each of the children were enrolled in the School Children Mental Health Europe project and the research was carried out by the scientists from Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and Paris Descartes University.

The study found that one in five primary school children spent more than five hours per week playing games.

Those that played the most games had fewer relationship problems with other children.

After adjusting for the age, gender, and family size of the children, they report that the most active gamers were 1.75 times as likely to show 'high intellectual functioning'.

There was a slightly greater effect at school, with high gamers being 1.88 times as likely to demonstrate high overall school performance.

Parents and teachers assessed their child's mental health, and the children themselves were also quizzed through an interactive tool.

Academic success was assessed by teachers.

The study found the keenest gamers were boys, at the older end of the range, and from medium-sized families.

Those with a less educated or single mother spent less time playing video games.

'Playing video games is often a collaborative leisure activity for children,' said Dr Katherine Keyes, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health, New York.

'These results indicate that children who frequently play video games may be socially cohesive with peers and integrated into the school community.'

However, Dr Keyes does not recommend letting children play unlimited video games and cautions against over interpretation of these results: 'Setting limits on screen usage remains an important component of parental responsibility,' she added.

The research is published in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.

SOURCE







Trump mocks political correctness

Donald Trump dressed down a journalist at a press conference on Tuesday who reportedly asked about the Republican presidential frontrunner's public use of explicit language.

According to Time magazine's Zeke Miller, NBC News reporter Peter Alexander asked Trump to elaborate on how parents should explain to their children the expletives he sometimes uses in his stump speeches.

"Oh, you're so politically correct, you're so beautiful," Trump shot back sarcastically as supporters laughed. "Oh, you've never heard a little bad language."

He continued: "You're so perfect. Aren't you perfect? You're such a perfect young man. Give me a break. You know what? It's stuff like that that people are tired of."

Trump held the press conference Tuesday night to celebrate his primary wins in Michigan and Mississippi. Two other states, Idaho and Hawaii, also voted Tuesday but had not yet been called at the time Trump spoke.

The real-estate developer frequently criticizes reporters who he believes aren't fielding fair questions. Trump has previously brushed off Alexander's questions in past press conferences.

SOURCE






Catholic Bishop: Gay Marriage Is ‘Repulsive’ And Will Seek ‘To Destroy Everything Christian’

Commenting on the damage to society caused by homosexual “marriage,” retired U.S. Catholic Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz said such unions are “repulsive”; to paint them as a “human rights issue” is “preposterous”; and that the entire agenda persecutes Christians, and will seek “to destroy everything Christian” that opposes the gay “degeneration.”

“It is very devastating,” said the former bishop of the Diocese of Lincoln, Neb.  “I think it is surprising the power and strength of the propaganda. I can’t believe that a tiny minority of the human race would perpetuate and try to not just seek tolerance but actually seek acquiescence and support for perversion that is repulsive to the normal human beings that anyone can encounter.”

“And how we would be subjected to manipulation by the media, and by this insidious insinuation into the very fabric of our society of perversion and degredation and degeneration is astonishing,” said the bishop.

The prelate  made his remarks in an interview with LifeSiteNews Editor-in-Chief John Henry Westen.  Bruskewitz, popular with conservatives, served as the bishop for Lincoln from 1992 to 2012, at which point he retired, having reached the mandatory retirement age of 75.

Continuing his comments in reference to homosexuality, gay marriage, and the persecution of Christians,  Bishop Bruskewitz said, “I think that to say that this [homosexual marriage] somehow resonates with a human rights issue, or with racial justice or some of these other issues, is preposterous. But how it can link in the minds of manipulatable human beings, that’s the case. And if you dare to speak out, you’re a bigot.”

“Now, of course, it’s persecution as has been pointed out,” he said.  “We had bakers refuse to bake cakes for gay marriages, and as a result they’re imprisoned or fined, they have to go out of business.  We’ve seen things such as florists who don’t supply flowers, and so on.”

“I’m convinced that there’s going to be every effort made to destroy everything Christian that would in the least bit oppose this kind of degeneration,” said the bishop.

He continued, “I think there are military chaplains, those who administer the ordinariate of the military in our country, who are fearful about what is going to happen if two lesbians, who claim to be Catholic, for example, come in and insist that they be married by the Catholic chaplain and he refuses.”

“So these persecutions are in the offing,” he continued.  “And I think they're not going to go away. And the minute that one tries to protest, they are denounced as a bigot, and a racist, and God knows what else sort of things are heaped upon you. So that's the danger, the danger of the persecution. So I think it's probably coming.”

“Cardinal George [former archbishop of Chicago] said it and later he sort of repented of it, but he said he was going to die in his bed,” recounted Bishop Bruskewitz.  “He said the next archbishop of Chicago will probably die in prison. And the archbishop after that will probably be put to death for the faith.”

“Whether that’s a prediction or just an ominous warning, I don’t know,” said Bishop Bruskewitz.  “It sounds horrible but, right now, given what we’ve experienced in this cultural upheavel, I don’t see that it’s that far off the mark.”

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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