The Adolescent Brain

Teenagers

Trayvon Benjamin Martin was a teen ager when he was shot through the heart and died at the age of 17 years and 21 days.

Ye Mengyuan was a 16-year-old teenager when she died.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is 19 years old.

Two of these teenagers are dead.  Without doubt, Ye Mengyuan is the most “innocent.”

Henry Kissinger supposedly said, “Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you.”  Just because you are a teenager doesn’t mean you were misbehaving.  Ye Mengyuan was not.  Where is justice for her?

“Beautiful Brains” by David Dobbs in the Best American Science and Nature Writings in 2012 available as an e-book from Amazon explains the baffling phenomena of teen brain development.

The first full series of scans of the developing adolescent brain – a National Institutes of Health (NIH) project that studied over a hundred young people as they grew up in the 1990s—showed that our brains undergo a massive reorganization between our twelfth and twenty-fifth years.  The brain doesn’t actually grow very much during this period.  It has already reached 90 percent of its full size by the time a person is six, and a thickening skull accounts for most head growth afterward.  But as we move through adolescence, the brain undergoes extensive remodeling, into the resembling a network and wiring upgrade.

Dobbs says that the teens desire for thrills peaks at 16.  Dobbs differs with the “work in progress” view of adolescent and writes:

The resulting account of the adolescent brain –call it the adaptive-adolescent story—casts the teen less as a rough draft than as an exquisitely sensitive, highly adaptable creature wired almost perfectly for the job of moving from the safety of home into the complicated world outside.

Presented with the circumstances of February 2012, Trayvon may have yielded to teen thrill seeking tendencies.

Dzhokhar's behavior is consistent with thrill seeking.  Ye Mengyuan’s thrill seeking was to come to the United States of America as a 16 year old girl.

A Child

His arm in a cast and his face swollen, a blase-looking Dzhokhar Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombing in a seven-minute proceeding that marked his first public appearance since his capture in mid-April.

As victims of the bombing looked on, Tsarnaev, 19, gave a lopsided smile to his sisters upon arriving in the courtroom. He appeared to have a jaw injury and there was swelling around his left eye and cheek.

He faces 30 federal charges, including using a weapon of mass destruction to kill, and could get the death penalty if prosecutors choose to pursue it.

Some states, including Florida, have passed laws that allow a person accused of an extremely heinous crime, such as murder, to be tried as an adult, regardless of age. These laws, however, have been challenged by the  American Civil Liberties Union.  An estimated 250,000 youth are tried, sentenced, or incarcerated as adults every year across the United States each year.

http://www.campaignforyouthjustice.org/documents/KeyYouthCrimeFacts.pdf

Sheer Stupidity 001

"The Court" is out of touch with reality.  Appellant believed that no alimony could be verified as "needed" until Appellee's real estate assets were identified.  Petitioner had enough income for "the Court" to find that "her" Hilton Head timeshare(s) were non-marital but not enough to pay any legal fees.

Appellee’s Response to Motion to Supplement the Record is viewable at  https://edca.5dca.org/DCADocs/2012/3815/123815_35_05152013_12144153_e.pdf.

The Court ordered the mortgages to be paid out of Appellant’s employer’s 401k until the account was exhausted.  This had the consequence that all the funds used to pay the mortgages were taxed as ordinary income. 

The Appellant paid off the mortgages so that his “income” would not be over $48,000 more than it should be/need be.

The Court’s major concern, as described in the first complete paragraph on page three is:

“The point is that they should equally share in the tax write-off from the payment of the second and third mortgage.  She’s going to pay the first mortgage, so she gets the entire write-off from the payment of the first mortgage.”

The Court did not allow mortgage payments to be made out of required minimum distributions from accounts other than Harris until that account was exhausted.  Not good tax planning.

The Court “found” that the Apellant had income over $9,000 per month.  This included double counting of the required minimum distribution from a pre-marital 403b which should not be included at all.  It also included double counting for Dreyfus IRA.

The payments, as described in the Amended Final Order, generated additional tax liabilities and increased Appellant’s Part B Medicare premium by about $200 per month.  The Court undid the Medicare premium increase by an 8-month “nunc pro tunc”.

One of four issues raised by Appellee is that the Court did not distribute husband's bank account income.  During most of this case, Drefus Liquid Assets did not pay any "interest."  Husband's bank account income is far less than what he lost by maintaining a significant position in readily available cash.

“The Court” was concerned about tax write-offs when it should have been concerned about Petitioner complying with the mandatory disclosure list and filing a credible Financial Affidavitt.  The Court would have seen the wisdom in no alimony and have devoted its attention to developing a fair and equitable distribution of assets.

I want to see the CPA’s findings that Ms. Hodge needs alimony.

(DR)2H

Reversed and Remanded?

Truth:

I. The Trial Court Improperly Calculated the Husband’s Income By Failing to Reduce his Rental income by the Expenses Associated with Upkeep of the Old Dominion Property

II. The Trial Court Improperly Failed to include Investment Income Attributable to the Wife’s Equitable Distribution And Improperly Attributed the Same Income in Determining His Ability to Pay

III. The Trial Court Improperly Awarded Alimony in Excess Of the Wife’s Stated Need

IV. The Tria! Court Improperly Awarded the Wife the Marital Home as Lump Sum Alimony

V. The Trial Court Improperly Calculated the Premarital Portion of the Equity in the Old Dominion Property Contrary to the Supreme Court’s Decision in Kaaa y. Kaaa.