Random Lengths Article About Possible Violation of Americans with Disabilities Act

Link to my April 21, 2017 article in Random Lengths News about a lawsuit that charges the Los Angeles Unified School District is perhaps violating the Americans with Disabilities Act in its accommodation (or lack thereof) of students with special needs:

http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/2017/04/rights-special-ed-students-stake/

Here are the lead graphs:

Does LAUSD Policy Violate Rights of Special Ed Kids?

By Lyn Jensen, Carson Reporter

Rights of thousands of children with special needs in the Los Angeles Unified School District are at stake in a lawsuit that’s spent four years bouncing between United States District Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. LAUSD is the defendant in a class action suit filed in 2013 by several parents with special needs children.

At issue is whether the LAUSD is complying with a 1975 federal law and a consent decree issued in 1995.

“The LAUSD has routinely been violating the rights of the special needs children,” charges Eric Jacobson via e-mail. He’s an attorney representing the parents who, on behalf of their children, allege the LAUSD has engaged in a district-wide pattern of improper activities in violation of the 1975 federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, by forcing students with special needs into general education schools.

Often referred to as IDEA, the law says each student with special needs must be assessed as to the “least restrictive” placement on an individual basis. The parents argue that for their children, a special education center is the least restrictive environment. 

Anthology Review: Erotique

by Lyn Jensen
From 1981 to 1996 Yellow Silk:  A Journal of the Erotic Arts served as an anthology for sexually explicit material--of high literary and artistic quality, with redeeming social value, of course. It provided a much-needed outlet where feminist writers could present eroticism that countered male-dominated expressions of power and subjugation.
Today the closest the publishing world may have to Yellow Silk is Erotique: The Wapshott Journal of Erotica.  You may buy current and back issues at wapshottpress.com where Ginger Mayerson has edited seven collections--and counting--since 2009.
Mayerson presents many flavors of sexual activity throughout these publications, and one of the best early collections is found in Issue 3 (Winter 2013). Your mind--and your passions--will be bent by five stories that demonstrate the breadth and depth of possibilities when writers travel into adult territory:

• "Sky Clad" by Sharanya Manivannan--in an exotic setting there's a brutal coupling and break-up that you may not get even after reading it repeatedly.
• "The Priestess and the Sorcerer" by David W. Landrum--a Viking priestess takes metaphysical revenge on evil Christians who raped her, and Game of Thrones fans will probably be pleased.
• "Escape on the Paracosm Express" by Carolyn Foulkes--a paracosm is a prolonged fantasy world invented by sensitive intelligent people who have been traumatized, a condition that includes its own geography, time, and history. A woman lives in three such paracosms. In one she's a fifties' housewife seducing an innocent boy, in the next she's a Depression-era innocent abused by an older man, and finally she learns to appreciate her womanhood with a lesbian at a seventies' protest march.
• "Too Late" by Raven Ramsey--geeky Hobbit-loving friends become more, helping the girl achieve self-confidence, thanks to her two guy friends.
• "Bonfire" by Raven Ramsey--in the woods behind a bonfire, a young man shares a secret with his married crush, but their secret may not stay secret for long.

Issue 5 (Winter 2014) is also highly recommended, including five short stories by Raven Ramsey, Butch Lee Rivers, Paullette Gaudet, Colleen Leah, Anne Namyr, Roger Leatherwood, and Rory Ondine. It's a collection you can let your mother read, provided your mother keeps Lady Chatterley's Lover on the coffee table.

Starting with Issue 6 (Autumn 2015) Mayerson has formatted the journal to feature a single author--either a collection of short stories or one work of 20,000-50,000 words. Issue 6 is a collection of short stories by Landrum, who contributed "The Priestess and The Sorcerer" to Issue 3. Issue 7 (Spring 2016) presents several short stories by Robert Earle.