Foster carer found guilty of murder

"A woman who battered a toddler to death months after she was made the child's legal guardian has been found guilty of murder."

"Eighteen-month-old Keegan Downer, born Shi-Anne, collapsed at the family home in Birmingham on 5 September 2015."

"A post-mortem revealed she died from a combination of septicaemia, infection, blunt chest trauma, and old head injuries..."

 

 

"In January 2015 she went to live with Kandyce Downer who became the child's legal guardian."

"At first the child was `healthy and happy` while living with Ms Downer, who was studying a full-time business course."

"In the three months before her death, Keegan was not seen by any independent care professional, including medical staff or social services."

http://news.sky.com/story/1689450/barbaric-foster-mum-guilty-of-toddler-murder

A crumbling edifice or four stone walls

 

Vote canny Scotland !

 

The powers that be, who already have oppressed you, intend to get through those four stone walls.

 

 

 

With the Named Person.

 

Creating divisions in the family or pushing the boundaries ?

　

 

"[A] group of school children from Glasgow, Clackmannanshire and East Lothian gathered at Children’s 1st’s office in Edinburgh to present films they had made about family rules, discipline and punishment in the home. The films, supported by a grant from the Big Lottery Awards for All fund, were developed by the Children’s Parliament in partnership with Children 1st. The children involved hope that they will initiate conversations within families about home life."

"[They] presented the films to a group of key professionals and organisations including representatives from the Scottish Government, local authorities and health boards and charities such as Barnardo’s Scotland and Parenting Across Scotland."

http://www.children1st.org.uk/what-we-do/news/2016/february/scottish-children-speak-out-on-family-rules-and-discipline-in-the-home/

Children do not have the maturity to understand when they are being manipulated by adults with ulterior motives.

It does not work that way with parents.

On this Date in History, May 1: Birth of Theo Van Gogh, Inness and Beaux

On this date in history: May 1

What happened in the world of Art History on May 1?  During the 19th century three influential figures were born: George Inness in 1825, Cecilia Beaux in 1855 and Theo Van Gogh in 1857.

George Inness, In the Adirondacks, c- 1862. Yale University Art Gallery

In 1825 American landscape painter George Inness (May 1, 1825 – August 3, 1894) was born in New York.

Inness started studying art when he took classes at the National Academy of Design.  He was also very interested in the work of the Hudson River School artists. In the 1850’s he went to Rome to study the Baroque landscape painters and then went to Paris to study the work of the Barbizon school.   

When he returned to America Inness spent his career as a landscape painter on the east coast and painted dozens of works during his lifetime.  He was influenced by all of the earlier landscape artists that he saw, but developed his own style of panoramic views which are infused with deep color.

 

George Inness, On the Delaware River, Brooklyn Museum

Cecilia Beaux, the renowned American portrait painter was born in Philadelphia (May 1, 1855 – September 7, 1942).


Beaux is known as one of the most important American portrait painters of the late 19th and early 20th century.

She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1877-1879 and later returned to teach there, when she was studying at PAFA the painter Thomas Eakins was teaching at the school.  After she studied in Paris.

During her lifetime Beaux had fourteen one-woman shows and won numerous prizes, she was the first female artist to teach at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.  

Dorothea and Francesca, Cecilia Beaux, 1898, Art Institute of Chicago

Vincent Van Gogh's famous brother, art dealer Theo van Gogh, Dutch art dealer (May 1, 1857 – January 25, 1891) was born in the Netherlands.  Besides being a successful art dealer, Theo helped encourage and support his older brother Vincent Van Gogh.  Theo suggested that Vincent move to Paris where he met the French Impressionists, he paid him for many of his paintings and hung them in his gallery in Paris and he gave him a stipend so he could move to Arles. 

Theo also collected and stored his brother's paintings and letters which allowed Theo's widow Johanna to share after his early death at age 33.  If Theo hadn't preserved these and especially if Johanna had not worked to exhibit Vincent's work and have the brothers correspondence published, the world may never know about Vincent Van Gogh.

Today the brothers Vincent and Theo Van Gogh are buried next to each other at the cemetery in Auvers-sur-Oise. 

A Wheatfield with Cypresses, Vincent Van Gogh, 1889

The National Gallery (London)