Violet and Zoe Michener came home from school sporting these severe sunburns.

It was raining when her children left for school on Tuesday, so Jesse Michener did not slather them in sunscreen, even though she knew they’d be outdoors for field day later that afternoon. But the sun came out around noon and, when the kids came home, two of them were so severely sunburned that they had to go to the hospital.

“We’ve never done a field day at the school before,” Michener told Yahoo! Shine in an interview on Thursday. “They were outside for over five hours.”

A freelance photographer, she posted pictures and described her daughter’s sunburns on her blog. “Two of my three children experienced significant sunburns. Like, hurts-to-look-at burns,” Michener wrote. “Violet is starting to blister on her face.” Both Violet, 11, and her sister, Zoe, 9, “have headaches, chills and pain” and had to stay home from school the next day. (Her youngest daughter, 7-year-old Eleanor, was also sunburned, but not badly.) The girls did not stay overnight at the hospital, and Michener said they are being treated at home with cool baths and over-the-counter pain medications.

To make matters worse, Zoe, has a form of Albinism — and teachers and staff at Point Defiance Elementary School were aware of her extreme sensitivity to the sun. She even has a written agreement — a 504 plan — with the school because of it. And yet, teachers refused to send the girls indoors or allow them to apply sunscreen themselves, according to her mom.

“My children indicated that several adults commented on their burns at school, including staff and other parents,” Michener wrote on her blog. “One of my children remarked that their teacher used sunscreen in her presence and that it was ‘just for her.’ So, is this an issue of passive, inactive supervision? Where is the collective awareness for student safety?”

Tacoma Public School district spokesman Dan Voelpel told Yahoo! Shine that the school district’s sunscreen policy — which forbids teachers from applying sunscreen to students, and only allows students to apply it to their own bodies if they have a doctor’s note authorizing it — is based on a statewide law.

“Our policy follows the state law which allows district to establish the rules for how medications, both over-the-counter and prescription medication, is handled in the school,” he said. “Our policy is that any of that medication requires a doctor’s order for kids to take it at school. This is really to protect other students who could be exposed to various medications that they could be allergic to.” The federal Food and Drug Administration considers sunscreen to be an over-the-counter medication.

While Michener says that she takes full responsibility for not making them put on sunscreen before bringing them to school that day — none of her kids have ever come home from school with sunburns before, she notes. She also points out that teachers had other options besides breaking the law: They could have sent the girls indoors when they noticed the burns getting bad, or called Michener and asked her to come to school and put sunscreen on them herself. (The FDA suggests that sunscreen be reapplied every two hours.)

“Something as simple as a sun hat might seem to bypass the prescription issue to some extent,” she wrote. “Alas, hats are not allowed at school, even on field day.”

“It was an exceptional day, with exceptional inability to serve these kids,” she told Yahoo! Shine.

Michener is asking the school district to consider crafting a more “parent-friendly” policy on sunscreens, one that would allow parents to sign a waiver giving teachers permission to apply sunscreen while at school, or one that would allow teachers to act in their students’ best interests. Voelpel told Yahoo! Shine that there currently is not a procedure in place for parents who have trouble getting a doctor’s note, but “We periodically review our policies as situations change,” he said. “I can’t say whether this one will be revised based on this case.”

Michener says that her daughters’ sunburns are really part of a larger problem.

“My biggest beef is that teachers are not able to make good decisions about kids safety,” she said. “Fear of litigation is preventing us from living our lives and taking care of our kids.”

http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/kids-come-home-school-bad-sunburns-responsible-172200498.html

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Alice Walker wants to boycott Israel until it changes its policies toward the Palestinian residents of Gaza and the West Bank.

Alice Walker has refused to allow a new Hebrew translation of her Pulitzer-winning novel, “The Color Purple” to be published in Israel, which she says is “guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people.”

Walker, 68, has long been a member of the boycott, divest and sanction movement, which wants Israel ostracized economically and culturally on the international stage until it changes its policies toward the Palestinian residents of Gaza and the West Bank.

She compared Israel to the South Africa of yesteryear — as well as American segregation.

“I grew up under American apartheid and this was far worse,” Walker says in an open letter to Israeli publisher Yediot books, which is affiliated with the daily newspaper Yediot Ahronoth and was planning a new translation.

That letter appeared on the website for the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel on Sunday.

Describing how she years ago refused to have the film version of “The Color Purple” shown in apartheid South Africa, she writes: “I would so like knowing my books are read by the people of your country, especially by the young, and by the brave Israeli activists (Jewish and Palestinian) for justice and peace I have had the joy of working beside. I am hopeful that one day, maybe soon, this may happen. But now is not the time.”

Israel’s supporters lashed out at the author.

The right-leaning Commentary magazine called Walker’s letter “among the most egregious acts of discrimination against Israel by leftist intellectuals.”

And Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a City University trustee and a vocal supporter of Israel, called Walker a “lunatic” and suggested she and her ilk “need serious counseling.”

Incidentally, Walker’s ex-husband is Jewish civil rights lawyer Mel Leventhal. They had one daughter together, 42-year-old Rebecca Walker, whose books include “Black White and Jewish.”

Her mom’s criticism of Israel has been even more strident in the past.

Asked last year by Foreign Policy magazine if Hamas was a terrorist group, she replied: “I think Israel is the greatest terrorist in that part of the world. And I think, in general, the United States and Israel are great terrorist organizations themselves.”

That interview was given as Walker attempted to board “Freedom Flotilla II,” which was to pass through the Israeli maritime blockade of Gaza. A previous flotilla had left nine activists dead after they were confronted with Israeli forces seeking to stop their ships. The second flotilla was ultimately thwarted without violence.

Walker published “The Color Purple,” based on her own childhood in Jim Crow Georgia, in 1982 to great acclaim. The following year, she became the first woman of color to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

In recent years, she has devoted an increasing amount of time to political activism.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/alice-walker-stops-hebrew-version-color-purple-blames-israel-persecution-article-1.1098779#ixzz1yZBFYryp

Politico have suspended their White House correspondent Joe Williams after he made comments that suggested Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is more comfortable around white people.

Speaking as a contributor during Martin Bashir’s MSNBC show, Williams, who is African-American said that Romney is more at ease when he makes his frequent appearances on Fox News Channel and implied that race is a consideration.

Saying that Romney ‘is very, very comfortable’ during his appearances on ‘Fox and Friends’, Mr Williams went on to comment, ‘They’re white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company.’

Joe Williams speaking on Martin Bashir’s MSNBC show where he made controversial comments regarding Mitt Romney

With a history of describing Romney and other Republicans in a controversial manner on his Twitter account, Williams was suspended after a meeting with Politico’s founding editors John Harris and Jim VandeHei.

‘Regrettably, an unacceptable number of Joe Williams’s public statements on cable and Twitter have called into question his commitment to this responsibility,’ said the pair.

His comment about Governor Romney earlier today on MSNBC fell short of our standards for fairness and judgment in an especially unfortunate way.

‘This appearance came in the context of other remarks on Twitter that, cumulatively, require us to make clear that our standards are serious, and so are the consequences for disregarding them.

Mitt Romney has made numerous appearances on Fox News Channel especially on ‘Fox and Friends’

‘This is true for all POLITICO journalists, including an experienced and well-respected voice like Joe Williams.

‘Following discussion of this matter with editors, Joe has been suspended while we review the matter.’

Making frequent references to racial factors during his MSNBC appearances, Mr. Williams stepped over the line it seems with his opinions yesterday.

‘It’s very interesting that he does so many appearances on ‘Fox & Friends,’ said Williams as he spoke about Romney during his fateful MSNBC appearance yesterday.

Joe Williams has been suspended from the website Politico after a cumulative series of controversial remarks aimed at Mitt Romney and his presidential campaign

‘And it’s unscripted. It’s the only time they let Mitt off the leash. But it also points out a larger problem he’s got to solve if he wants to be successful come this fall.

‘Romney is very, very comfortable, it seems, with people who are like him.

‘That’s one of the reasons why he seems so stiff and awkward in town hall settings, why he can’t relate to people other than that.

‘But when he comes on ‘Fox & Friends,’ they’re like him.

‘They’re white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company.’

The suspension of Williams follows his continued ridicule of Romney on his Twitter feed.

One of the jibes aimed at Mitt Romney from Joe Williams which pokes fun at his perceived wealth and eating habits

He has made tweets that allude to Romney being served his food by a butler: ‘Jeeves knows my tastes’ he wrote when Romney said he has never eaten anything surprising.

And last week, Mr. Williams felt that it was impossible not to place race at the centre of Daily Caller White House correspondent Neil Munro’s decision to heckle President Obama during a speech.

‘It’s very, very difficult to place race outside of this context,’ said Williams on MSNBC last week.

‘Mostly because a lot of the interruptions, a lot of the disrespect has been unprecedented.

‘A lot of people will suggest it’s because the Republican party has moved so far to the right that they’re willing to do things that were unthinkable.

‘But certainly in my experience, it’s hard to divorce that because this president doesn’t look like the others.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2163348/Politico-reporter-Joe-Williams-suspended-saying-Mitt-Romney-Is-comfortable-white-people.html?ito=feeds-newsxml