NYRA DC

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We’ve got all kinds of youth rights issues in Maryland, Virginia, and the District. Want to get involved? Great! There’s a few things you can do:

-help us recruit
-join the NYRA forums and meet other youth rights folks, get ideas, discuss issues, etc.
-help us fundraise
-contact your friendly neighborhood DC chapter people to find out how you can get involved! One of those people is, well, me, and you can e-mail me at kgmoncure@mail.com. We’ll work something out.

Come back to this page every once in a while. I’ll put more stuff up.

Every Wednesday night on ABC, an hour or two is reserved for perhaps the most dangerously anti-youth program ever. Nine teens, ages 14-17, have been forced out of their homes, blindfolded, and sent to this horrible place called SageWalk in Oregon to have their behavior modified. The show is called Brat Camp, and it’s sole existence is in support of gulag schools and wilderness camps, an industry that every year injures, cripples, and sometimes kills thousands of people ages 17 and under (and some 18!). Apparently, these kids are out of control and their parents are at the end of their rope. Some “out of control” activities include talking back, being gay, questioning the family’s religion, trying marijuana, dressing in a way the parents don’t like, being friends with the “wrong” people, or anything else, a wide majority of which would NOT be considered wrong if an adult were doing it.
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For blow by blow action of the Drinking age horde in VT, visit www.oneandfour.org, the fantastic blog of our benevolent prez, Alex Koroknay-Palicz. Along with our own DC people Dave Varney, Alexis Grant, and Rio Samsie, he’s been running around the Green Mountain state educating people about lowering the drinking age to 18. So far, it’s been successful in getting people thinking about it. Even caused an opinion letter in a Maine newspaper that is afraid of it spreading there. Hehehe.

Well, read One and Four to know more. This is the NYRA-DC blog!

Okay, people. Next meeting is March 5. Cleveland Park library, upstairs. 3pm. Be there! We need to tackle this DC video game ban. Sadly, other states are considering it as well. We need to work on how we’re going about combating it. Also, what other ideas do you have? We definitely need fundraisers and, above all, more members! Recruiting events! So gather up all your pro-youth ideas and bring them to the meeting on Saturday. Hope to see a good turnout this time!

For info on how to get to Cleveland Park library, click here.

See you there!:)

-Katrina

There were three people at this meeting.

Dave Varney, NYRA-DC secretary
Alex Koroknay-Palicz, NYRA President
Katrina Moncure, NYRA-DC member (me!)

Some important issues for our chapter are the DC Video Game ban and, of course, recruiting recruiting recruiting! Dave found out info about the bill (which I’ll post in a minute), and we’re thinking of going to DC high schools to circulate a petition on it. I’ll be making up the quarter sheets.
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I haven’t yet referred to the DC proposal to ban the sale of certain video games to minors, it seems so self-evidently stupid and pisses me off so much I couldn’t really mount much of an educated response. So instead I’ll just quote someone else’s thoughts on the subject. Not quite scholarly, but dead on:

District political, religious and community leaders gathered at a Southeast Washington church yesterday to support a proposed ban on the sale of violent and sexually explicit video games to minors. They summed up their objections in a word: poison.

‘Why are they selling this game to our children?’ said Ronald Moten, a leader of Peaceaholics, which mentors troubled youths in the District and Maryland. He and others drew a direct line between the make-believe mayhem in such video games as Grand Theft Auto and the very real pain they see in their neighborhoods.

Yes, they draw that line because they are idiots. GTA was built to mimick the problems in those neighborhoods. Problems that existed a long time before desktop computers were common.

I suppose no one ever robbed, killed, raped, assaulted, carjacked, joined a gang, or did any of these things before the obvious evil of videogames.

Morons. Generation after generation, and they never learn. Video games this decade, TV last decade, movies before that, books before that, poetry before that….

Ban uncovered faces, ban bared ankles, ban books other than the Bible, ban everything but a bland existence filled with nothing but unobjectionable pap — and you’ll find human beings still spend their days creating misery for themselves and others.

Exactly. Don’t forget to ban baggy pants.

This weekend at American University is the National Conference on Organized Resistance. We of course tabled this event, although being stuck in a cramped room in the basement wasn’t that great. Nonetheless, Alex and I got quite a few people signing up for the e-mail list and at least sparking interest. Even sold an anti-ageism button to a little boy who couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old! Great to see younger and younger ones interested! Neither Alex nor I will be there tomorrow, but Dave Varney will be. Go keep him company!
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Greetings, youth rights supporters of Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Our first NYRA-DC meeting of the year is coming up soon! I hope to see a lot of you there! There is much to discuss.:)

WHERE:
Cleveland Park Library
3310 Connecticut Avenue, NW (at Macomb Street)
Washington, DC 20008

One block south of Cleveland Park metro stop, Red Line

WHEN:
Saturday, February 12, 2005
3:00 pm, EST

WHAT TO BRING:
Yourself and lots of ideas!

WHY:
Youth are the most legally discriminated against people in the country, and we need to work on changing that!

If you have any questions, or want to come but can’t make it, e-mail me at kgmoncure@mail.com. See you on the 12th of February!

-Katrina G. Moncure

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