Missouri’s Task Force on the Prevention of Sexual Abuse of Children has made 22 recommendations to the Governor and legislature.
The Task Force was created by lawmakers in 2011, and brought together advocates, legislators, educators and professionals to better protect children in Missouri from sex abuse. Joy Oesterly with Missouri Kids First says shortly after the task force was created, the sex abuse scandal at Penn State broke, bringing national attention to the problem.
Oesterly says the recommendations focus on community-based support, mental health services, changes in statute and preventative education. She also stresses the importance of mental health services — both for child victims as well as youth who exhibit inappropriate or illegal sexual behavior. She says hope and recovery is possible for the future of both of them.
Here’s a list of the recommendations:
1: Community-based child abuse prevention education needs to be expanded and be comprehensive in nature.
2: All schools and youth-serving organizations should have specific child sexual abuse prevention policies.
3: Existing state child abuse prevention programs should include programing targeted at preventing child sexual abuse.
4: Expand home-visiting programs and specifically include child sexual abuse prevention in these programs.
5: Create and implement standardized training for all mandated reporters.
6: Fund the creation and implementation of standardized, discipline-specific training for members of the multi- disciplinary team (MDT) and judges.
7: Identify and fund discipline-specific expert technical assistance for MDT members.
8: Establish discipline-specific best practices or standards for multi-disciplinary teams, law enforcement, prosecutors and medical providers.
9: Establish mechanisms for addressing the secondary trauma experienced by individuals who work to address and prevent child sexual abuse.
10: Assess for and address domestic violence when investigating child sexual abuse and providing services to victims and caregivers.
11: Identify and fund evidence-based early intervention and treatment for youth with illegal/inappropriate sexual behaviors.
12: Identify and fund the expansion of mental health services to children who have been sexually abused.
13: Create and fund a child sexual abuse public awareness campaign.
14: The General Assembly should consider increased investment in preventing child sexual abuse in order to reduce the substantial financial, health and social costs associated with childhood trauma.
15: Private foundations in Missouri should increase funding to prevent and address childhood trauma.
16: Submit to Missouri voters a proposed constitutional amendment allowing evidence of signature crimes, commonly referred to as propensity evidence, to be used in child sexual abuse cases.
17: Modify 210.115 RSMo. to require mandatory reporters to directly report suspected child abuse and neglect to Children’s Division.
18: Clarify the term “immediately” in the mandatory reporting statute, 210.115 RSMo., and school reporting statute, 167.117 RSMo.
19: Clarify 544.250 RSMo. and 544.280 RSMo. to allow for hearsay evidence at preliminary hearings.
20: Amend 491.075.1 RSMo. to clarify that the statute allows for the use of child witness statements relative to prosecutions under Section 575.270.
21: Modify the definition of deviate sexual intercourse in 566.010 RSMo. to include genital to genital contact.
22: Modify 556.037 RSMo. to eliminate the statute of limitations for the prosecutions of first-degree statutory rape and first-degree statutory sodomy.
THIS REPORT SHOULD BE USED AS A MODEL FOR IMPLEMENTATION WORLD-OVER!
LAWMAKERS/PARENTS/EDUCATORS/ATTORNEYS/CLERGY --- WORLDWIDE --- DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT:
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EFF Urges Court to Block Dragnet Subpoenas Targeting Online Commenters
CLICK! For the full motion to quash: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/hersh_v_cohen/UOJ-motiontoquashmemo.pdf
Monday, January 07, 2013
Sunday, January 06, 2013
Somehow, the victims never seem as important as the rabbi... "People shouldn’t know, in other words, that Jews are just like everyone else."...
No Religious Exemption When It Comes to Abuse
Yeshiva University High School in Manhattan let rabbis accused of sexual abuse "go quietly."
Just as we think we know what an abuser looks like, we think we know what an abusive religious community looks like.
We may think it is highly insular — like the Satmar Hasidic community in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, a prominent member of which was convicted last month of sexually abusing a young girl sent to him for help. Or it is hierarchical and bureaucratic: if the Roman Catholic Church did not have so many bishops and archbishops who refused to dismiss or defrock molesters in their ranks, would so many pedophile priests have been able to carry on for so long?
But we don’t know a thing. Consider Yeshiva University.
As Paul Berger reported last month in the Jewish newspaper The Forward, two rabbis at the Modern Orthodox high school run by the university were accused of sexually abusing students in the 1970s and ’80s. Leaders, Mr. Berger wrote, responded by “quietly allowing them to leave and find jobs elsewhere.” The university president at the time, Norman Lamm — until last month a titan of contemporary Judaism — told Mr. Berger that he had let the staff members “go quietly.”
“It was not our intention or position to destroy a person without further inquiry,” Dr. Lamm said.
But Yeshiva University is supposed to be modern, engaged, contemporary. Its rabbis are not treated as infallible demigods. The school’s graduates work and live in the secular world. The culture of Yeshiva is supposed to permit, even encourage, argument, not punish or ostracize critics. So surely there were no impious skeletons in the closet, right?
But the truth is, there are not two kinds of religions — the enlightened and the medieval. Every religion has evildoers stalking its corridors. They just survive, and thrive, with different strategies.
Take Zen Buddhism, the paragon of open, nonhierarchical spirituality. Anyone may practice Zen meditation; you do not have to convert, be baptized or renounce your old religion. Yet leaders of major Zen centers in Los Angeles and New York have recently been accused, on strong evidence, of exploiting followers for sex. This weekend, Zen teachers ordained by Joshu Sasaki, the semiretired abbot of the Rinzai-ji Zen Center in Los Angeles, are holding a retreat to discuss sexual harassment accusations against Mr. Sasaki. The Zen Studies Society, in New York, is under new leadership after its longtime abbot, Eido Shimano, was forced out after he was accused of inappropriate sexual liaisons with students and other women.
Paul Karsten, a board member of the Rinzai-ji Zen Center, said the intense relationship between Zen teacher and student can be trouble. For example, in private meetings, some teachers touch students. The touching is never supposed to be sexual, but there can be misunderstandings, or outright abuse. “I know of stories I have heard,” Mr. Karsten said, “where people feel like this experience has been very important to them, and others where they feel like it has been the opposite.”
Mr. Karsten acknowledged complaints against Mr. Sasaki — largely on the Internet, some anonymous — that the teacher went beyond what most reputable teachers would consider appropriate. But Mr. Karsten seemed torn between valuing extremely close teacher-student relationships and acknowledging the dangers.
“People see there has been something going on with students that on the one hand has been remarkable, and on the other hand has been inappropriate in teacher-student practice,” Mr. Karsten said. “And consensual, or nonconsensual?”
Questions e-mailed to Mr. Karsten for Mr. Sasaki, who is 105, were not answered.
Some churches have checks and balances that discourage unethical behavior. “A lot of it is secrecy versus transparency,” said Hugh Urban, author of “The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion.”
“If you have a church like the Episcopal Church, with a fair degree of transparency, that is going to make a difference,” he said. “But Scientology — almost every aspect of it from early on has tended toward secrecy.”
Scientology is known for both secrecy and, at the highest levels, extreme insularity. Committed Scientologists may fear that if they complain about abuses, they will lose their friends, even their families. Mr. Urban mentioned one woman who had told him about human-rights abuses at the church headquarters in Clearwater, Fla.
“I said, ‘Why don’t you go down the street and talk to the police?’” Mr. Urban said. “Her answer was, once you are so deep in, invested in that community, it doesn’t seem like a real possibility to go talk to the police.”
Then there is the fear of bringing shame on the community, particularly prevalent in minority groups. “When I started in 1982,” said Phil Jacobs, the editor of Washington Jewish Week, “there was an 11th commandment — ‘Thou shalt not air thy dirty laundry.’ ” He learned that commandment in Baltimore, writing about the high percentage of Jews in a treatment program for compulsive gambling. “When I started calling people, they said, ‘You’re not going to put this in the paper, are you?’ So I found out Jews didn’t get AIDS, didn’t get divorced, didn’t abuse their wives or children.”
That fear of embarrassment may be why Dr. Lamm — who is still at Yeshiva and declined to be interviewed — stayed quiet about the abusive rabbis at Yeshiva. Perhaps he loathed what they had done, and wept for their victims. But, he also may have thought that people shouldn’t hear bad things about Jews. People shouldn’t know, in other words, that Jews are just like everyone else.
That is everyone else, not just religious people. The Satmar Hasidim may have wanted to protect a beloved member, the Modern Orthodox administrators probably worried about their community’s reputation — and the Penn State loyalists enabled Jerry Sandusky.
Somehow, the victims never seem as important as the rabbi, the Zen master, the coach. In the words of a once-revered rabbi, Norman Lamm, may as well let the perpetrators “go quietly.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/us/no-religious-exemption-when-it-comes-to-abuse.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y&_r=0
Yeshiva University High School in Manhattan let rabbis accused of sexual abuse "go quietly."
Just as we think we know what an abuser looks like, we think we know what an abusive religious community looks like.
We may think it is highly insular — like the Satmar Hasidic community in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, a prominent member of which was convicted last month of sexually abusing a young girl sent to him for help. Or it is hierarchical and bureaucratic: if the Roman Catholic Church did not have so many bishops and archbishops who refused to dismiss or defrock molesters in their ranks, would so many pedophile priests have been able to carry on for so long?
But we don’t know a thing. Consider Yeshiva University.
As Paul Berger reported last month in the Jewish newspaper The Forward, two rabbis at the Modern Orthodox high school run by the university were accused of sexually abusing students in the 1970s and ’80s. Leaders, Mr. Berger wrote, responded by “quietly allowing them to leave and find jobs elsewhere.” The university president at the time, Norman Lamm — until last month a titan of contemporary Judaism — told Mr. Berger that he had let the staff members “go quietly.”
“It was not our intention or position to destroy a person without further inquiry,” Dr. Lamm said.
But Yeshiva University is supposed to be modern, engaged, contemporary. Its rabbis are not treated as infallible demigods. The school’s graduates work and live in the secular world. The culture of Yeshiva is supposed to permit, even encourage, argument, not punish or ostracize critics. So surely there were no impious skeletons in the closet, right?
But the truth is, there are not two kinds of religions — the enlightened and the medieval. Every religion has evildoers stalking its corridors. They just survive, and thrive, with different strategies.
Take Zen Buddhism, the paragon of open, nonhierarchical spirituality. Anyone may practice Zen meditation; you do not have to convert, be baptized or renounce your old religion. Yet leaders of major Zen centers in Los Angeles and New York have recently been accused, on strong evidence, of exploiting followers for sex. This weekend, Zen teachers ordained by Joshu Sasaki, the semiretired abbot of the Rinzai-ji Zen Center in Los Angeles, are holding a retreat to discuss sexual harassment accusations against Mr. Sasaki. The Zen Studies Society, in New York, is under new leadership after its longtime abbot, Eido Shimano, was forced out after he was accused of inappropriate sexual liaisons with students and other women.
Paul Karsten, a board member of the Rinzai-ji Zen Center, said the intense relationship between Zen teacher and student can be trouble. For example, in private meetings, some teachers touch students. The touching is never supposed to be sexual, but there can be misunderstandings, or outright abuse. “I know of stories I have heard,” Mr. Karsten said, “where people feel like this experience has been very important to them, and others where they feel like it has been the opposite.”
Mr. Karsten acknowledged complaints against Mr. Sasaki — largely on the Internet, some anonymous — that the teacher went beyond what most reputable teachers would consider appropriate. But Mr. Karsten seemed torn between valuing extremely close teacher-student relationships and acknowledging the dangers.
“People see there has been something going on with students that on the one hand has been remarkable, and on the other hand has been inappropriate in teacher-student practice,” Mr. Karsten said. “And consensual, or nonconsensual?”
Questions e-mailed to Mr. Karsten for Mr. Sasaki, who is 105, were not answered.
Some churches have checks and balances that discourage unethical behavior. “A lot of it is secrecy versus transparency,” said Hugh Urban, author of “The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion.”
“If you have a church like the Episcopal Church, with a fair degree of transparency, that is going to make a difference,” he said. “But Scientology — almost every aspect of it from early on has tended toward secrecy.”
Scientology is known for both secrecy and, at the highest levels, extreme insularity. Committed Scientologists may fear that if they complain about abuses, they will lose their friends, even their families. Mr. Urban mentioned one woman who had told him about human-rights abuses at the church headquarters in Clearwater, Fla.
“I said, ‘Why don’t you go down the street and talk to the police?’” Mr. Urban said. “Her answer was, once you are so deep in, invested in that community, it doesn’t seem like a real possibility to go talk to the police.”
Then there is the fear of bringing shame on the community, particularly prevalent in minority groups. “When I started in 1982,” said Phil Jacobs, the editor of Washington Jewish Week, “there was an 11th commandment — ‘Thou shalt not air thy dirty laundry.’ ” He learned that commandment in Baltimore, writing about the high percentage of Jews in a treatment program for compulsive gambling. “When I started calling people, they said, ‘You’re not going to put this in the paper, are you?’ So I found out Jews didn’t get AIDS, didn’t get divorced, didn’t abuse their wives or children.”
That fear of embarrassment may be why Dr. Lamm — who is still at Yeshiva and declined to be interviewed — stayed quiet about the abusive rabbis at Yeshiva. Perhaps he loathed what they had done, and wept for their victims. But, he also may have thought that people shouldn’t hear bad things about Jews. People shouldn’t know, in other words, that Jews are just like everyone else.
That is everyone else, not just religious people. The Satmar Hasidim may have wanted to protect a beloved member, the Modern Orthodox administrators probably worried about their community’s reputation — and the Penn State loyalists enabled Jerry Sandusky.
Somehow, the victims never seem as important as the rabbi, the Zen master, the coach. In the words of a once-revered rabbi, Norman Lamm, may as well let the perpetrators “go quietly.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/us/no-religious-exemption-when-it-comes-to-abuse.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y&_r=0
Friday, January 04, 2013
What Is It About "Putz" That Corbett Doesn't Understand?
http://www.yourdictionary.com/putz
"Not suffering fools gladly"...
"It is used to describe a person who is so passionately committed to a vital cause that he doesn’t have time for social niceties toward those idiots who stand in its way. It is used to suggest a level of social courage; a person who has the guts to tell idiots what he really thinks".
Penn State: Lessons Not Learned
If it were possible to compound the reasons for outrage over the serial child rape committed at Penn State, Gov. Tom Corbett took a brazenly misguided step in that direction Wednesday. The governor filed a federal lawsuit to force the N.C.A.A. to revoke the highly deserved sanctions imposed on the school and its powerful football program for a scandal that reached the highest levels of the university.
Governor Corbett barely mentioned the young victims in complaining that the state’s economy, its citizens, students and, of course, the all-important Pennsylvania State University football fans were being unfairly penalized for the abuse and rape of children by Jerry Sandusky, the imprisoned former assistant coach who for years used the football program as a lure for his young victims.
Surrounded by a claque of business leaders, students, politicians and athletes, Governor Corbett held a pep rally to announce the suit. He denounced the N.C.A.A. as unfairly crimping the lucrative football program — largely ignoring the core finding by a special inquiry last July that “the most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized.”
The inquiry found concern for the vaunted football program led to a long-running cover-up of Sandusky’s behavior by top university officials, including Joe Paterno, the disgraced football coach who died last January. The sanctions were agreed to in July by the university, which is not a party to the governor’s lawsuit. They included a $60 million fine, four years’ suspension from bowl game participation and the expunging of the university’s victory records during the Sandusky years. They were initially endorsed by Governor Corbett, a member of the Penn State board of trustees, as “part of the corrective process.” But Mr. Corbett, who is facing re-election next year, said he since concluded the N.C.A.A. violated its own rules and sought to “pile on” the university to counteract complaints that it was too often “soft” in disciplining misbehavior.
In his foolhardy lawsuit, the governor bypassed incoming state attorney general Kathleen Kane to hire an outside law firm to pursue his case in the name of the state. Ms. Kane declined to comment, but in her election campaign last year she promised to look into why it took so long for the pedophilia scandal to be investigated when Mr. Corbett previously served as attorney general.
In his complaints, the governor only confirmed the inquiry finding that the university’s obsession with football predominance helped drive the cover-up of Mr. Sandusky’s crimes. Mr. Corbett extolled football’s “economic engine” and bemoaned the “diminution in value of the Penn State educational and community experience” because it relied, he emphasized, “in part on the prominence of the Penn State football program.”
It would be hard to imagine a more shortsighted misunderstanding of the scandal that continues to shake Penn State. The university is wise to accept the sanctions, whatever the governor hopes to accomplish. The penalties have caused considerable resentment among the more avid Penn State fans, but Mr. Corbett denied politics underlies his complaint. He pictured Penn State caught in the “eye of a media storm” and left to “clean up this tragedy that was created by the few.”
The governor should know better than anyone that the tragedy is all about the outrageous abuse of children at Penn State, not continuing the business of football for Penn State fans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/opinion/penn-state-lessons-not-learned.html?hp&_r=0
"Not suffering fools gladly"...
"It is used to describe a person who is so passionately committed to a vital cause that he doesn’t have time for social niceties toward those idiots who stand in its way. It is used to suggest a level of social courage; a person who has the guts to tell idiots what he really thinks".
Penn State: Lessons Not Learned
If it were possible to compound the reasons for outrage over the serial child rape committed at Penn State, Gov. Tom Corbett took a brazenly misguided step in that direction Wednesday. The governor filed a federal lawsuit to force the N.C.A.A. to revoke the highly deserved sanctions imposed on the school and its powerful football program for a scandal that reached the highest levels of the university.
Governor Corbett barely mentioned the young victims in complaining that the state’s economy, its citizens, students and, of course, the all-important Pennsylvania State University football fans were being unfairly penalized for the abuse and rape of children by Jerry Sandusky, the imprisoned former assistant coach who for years used the football program as a lure for his young victims.
Surrounded by a claque of business leaders, students, politicians and athletes, Governor Corbett held a pep rally to announce the suit. He denounced the N.C.A.A. as unfairly crimping the lucrative football program — largely ignoring the core finding by a special inquiry last July that “the most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized.”
The inquiry found concern for the vaunted football program led to a long-running cover-up of Sandusky’s behavior by top university officials, including Joe Paterno, the disgraced football coach who died last January. The sanctions were agreed to in July by the university, which is not a party to the governor’s lawsuit. They included a $60 million fine, four years’ suspension from bowl game participation and the expunging of the university’s victory records during the Sandusky years. They were initially endorsed by Governor Corbett, a member of the Penn State board of trustees, as “part of the corrective process.” But Mr. Corbett, who is facing re-election next year, said he since concluded the N.C.A.A. violated its own rules and sought to “pile on” the university to counteract complaints that it was too often “soft” in disciplining misbehavior.
In his foolhardy lawsuit, the governor bypassed incoming state attorney general Kathleen Kane to hire an outside law firm to pursue his case in the name of the state. Ms. Kane declined to comment, but in her election campaign last year she promised to look into why it took so long for the pedophilia scandal to be investigated when Mr. Corbett previously served as attorney general.
In his complaints, the governor only confirmed the inquiry finding that the university’s obsession with football predominance helped drive the cover-up of Mr. Sandusky’s crimes. Mr. Corbett extolled football’s “economic engine” and bemoaned the “diminution in value of the Penn State educational and community experience” because it relied, he emphasized, “in part on the prominence of the Penn State football program.”
It would be hard to imagine a more shortsighted misunderstanding of the scandal that continues to shake Penn State. The university is wise to accept the sanctions, whatever the governor hopes to accomplish. The penalties have caused considerable resentment among the more avid Penn State fans, but Mr. Corbett denied politics underlies his complaint. He pictured Penn State caught in the “eye of a media storm” and left to “clean up this tragedy that was created by the few.”
The governor should know better than anyone that the tragedy is all about the outrageous abuse of children at Penn State, not continuing the business of football for Penn State fans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/opinion/penn-state-lessons-not-learned.html?hp&_r=0
Thursday, January 03, 2013
Top Lawyer Takes Yeshiva Abuse Case
Kevin Mulhearn Won Settlement From Brooklyn's Poly Prep
Twersky said that he has been inundated with emails — some supportive, some derogatory — since the first Forward story was published in December. They include many tales from former students who say they were abused and have since suffered broken marriages, substance abuse, and are plagued by suicidal thoughts.
An attorney who just won a landmark sex abuse lawsuit against an elite private school has been retained to represent a former student with similar claims against Yeshiva University.
Kevin Mulhearn has been hired by Mordechai Twersky, the first of almost two dozen students to come forward claiming they were abused decades ago while studying at Y.U.’s High School for Boys, in Manhattan.
Mulhearn said that he hoped more victims would join in any potential lawsuit against Y.U. “I think there is a substantial benefit in consolidating these claims as much as possible,” Mulhearn said.
Twersky says that not only was he abused by Rabbi George Finkelstein, who went on to become principal of the Y.U.- run high school, but Y.U. also knew of Finkelstein’s and other staff members’ abusive behavior and covered it up for decades.
Since the Forward first reported Twersky’s allegations, on December 13, 2012, more than 20 men have come forward to say they were sexually, physically or emotionally abused by Finkelstein or by Rabbi Macy Gordon, a Talmud teacher at the school. The two men were employed by Y.U. for a combined period of more than 50 years, between 1956 and 1995. Finkelstein, who lives in Israel, resigned from his position at the Jerusalem Great Synagogue after the Forward story was published. Gordon, who also lives in Israel, was put on indefinite leave from his teaching job. Both men deny the allegations.
The appearance of Mulhearn in the widening abuse allegations at Y.U.’s high school raises the legal and financial stakes considerably. At the end of December, Mulhearn won an undisclosed sum for 12 men who said they were sexually abused by football coach Phil Foglietta at Brooklyn’s Poly Prep Country Day School.......
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE: http://forward.com/articles/168655/top-lawyer-takes-yeshiva-abuse-case/
Twersky said that he has been inundated with emails — some supportive, some derogatory — since the first Forward story was published in December. They include many tales from former students who say they were abused and have since suffered broken marriages, substance abuse, and are plagued by suicidal thoughts.
An attorney who just won a landmark sex abuse lawsuit against an elite private school has been retained to represent a former student with similar claims against Yeshiva University.
Kevin Mulhearn has been hired by Mordechai Twersky, the first of almost two dozen students to come forward claiming they were abused decades ago while studying at Y.U.’s High School for Boys, in Manhattan.
Mulhearn said that he hoped more victims would join in any potential lawsuit against Y.U. “I think there is a substantial benefit in consolidating these claims as much as possible,” Mulhearn said.
Twersky says that not only was he abused by Rabbi George Finkelstein, who went on to become principal of the Y.U.- run high school, but Y.U. also knew of Finkelstein’s and other staff members’ abusive behavior and covered it up for decades.
Since the Forward first reported Twersky’s allegations, on December 13, 2012, more than 20 men have come forward to say they were sexually, physically or emotionally abused by Finkelstein or by Rabbi Macy Gordon, a Talmud teacher at the school. The two men were employed by Y.U. for a combined period of more than 50 years, between 1956 and 1995. Finkelstein, who lives in Israel, resigned from his position at the Jerusalem Great Synagogue after the Forward story was published. Gordon, who also lives in Israel, was put on indefinite leave from his teaching job. Both men deny the allegations.
The appearance of Mulhearn in the widening abuse allegations at Y.U.’s high school raises the legal and financial stakes considerably. At the end of December, Mulhearn won an undisclosed sum for 12 men who said they were sexually abused by football coach Phil Foglietta at Brooklyn’s Poly Prep Country Day School.......
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE: http://forward.com/articles/168655/top-lawyer-takes-yeshiva-abuse-case/
"There is no limit on what is so often a lifetime of suffering and anguish for victims of child sex abuse"
Queens lawmaker Margaret Markey says Poly Prep sex abuse scandal should lead to elimination of statute of limitations for victims
"As this case demonstrates, adding a few extra years to current law is not enough," Markey said of the Poly Prep scandal.
Poly Prep Country Day School last week settles a lawsuit claiming it put its reputation ahead of student safety while former football coach Phil Foglietta sexually abused boys.Related Stories
Queens Assemblywoman Margaret M. Markey (D-Maspeth)New York state assemblywoman Margaret Markey has introduced legislation since 2006 that would permit victims of childhood sexual abuse to seek criminal charges and file civil lawsuits until their 28th birthday.
But the Queens Democrat said the Poly Prep Country Day School lawsuit and other sex abuse scandals have pushed her to call for a complete end to the criminal and civil statute of limitations when she introduces the Child Victims Act later this month.
"As this case demonstrates, adding a few extra years to current law is not enough," Markey said of the Poly Prep scandal.
As the Daily News first reported last week, the attorney who represented the 12 men who last week settled the explosive lawsuit which accused Poly Prep administrators of covering up decades of sexual abuse by longtime football coach Phil Foglietta said he welcomes the change in the legislation.
"I think the statute of limitations for sexual abuse victims is one of the most absurd and asinine statutes on the books in New York state," Orangeburg lawyer Kevin Mulhearn said. "It does not reflect the reality that for many survivors of sexual abuse, it takes decades to realize the extent of the damage they have suffered."
Current state law requires survivors of childhood sexual abuse to file a case by the time they are 23 years old. Previous versions of Markey's Child Victims Act would have extended the deadline by five years.
The Poly Prep lawsuit, as well as sex-abuse scandals at Penn State, Syracuse and at other institutions, showed that most victims aren't prepared to address the damage they have suffered until they are in their 40s or 50s, said Mike Armstrong, a spokesman for Markey.
"The world has changed," Armstrong said. "It's time to confront the issue in New York state."
Armstrong said advances in DNA science now make it possible for law-enforcement agencies to prosecute sexual predators who would have escaped justice in the past.
The latest version of the Child Victims Act will retain a controversial one-year window that would allow sex-abuse victims who had been previously barred from bringing civil litigation because of the statute of limitations to file lawsuits.
"There is no limit on what is so often a lifetime of suffering and anguish for victims of child sex abuse," Markey said. "Likewise, there must be no limit on the ability of society to prosecute abusers and to hold accountable the institutions and organizations who protect and hide them."
The Catholic Church and other institutions have vociferously opposed Markey's bill. Dennis Poust, a spokesman for the New York State Catholic Conference, said he could not comment on Markey's latest bill because he has not yet seen it. The church, he said, does support legislation introduced by State Sen. Andrew Lanza (R-Staten Island) that extends the statute of limitations.
Poust said Catholic leaders do not oppose extending the statute of limitations, but they do oppose the window that would allow lawsuits to be filed by victims. Poust said the window is discriminatory against private and religious institutions because victims abused by public school teachers and other public employees have to file a notice of claims months after they are assaulted, he said.
The News reported last week that the explosive suit filed against Poly Prep in 2009 — which claimed officials knew their coach was a sexual predator, but ignored complaints because they didn't want to jeopardize the institution's athletic reputation and fund-raising efforts — had been settled. Terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.
Mulhearn and several of his clients appeared at a news conference in Albany last February to urge lawmakers to pass Markey's bill.
Poly Prep attorneys argued that the suit, filed in Brooklyn federal court, should have been dismissed because it was filed long after the statute of limitations had expired. But U.S. District Court Judge Frederic Block, in what may be a watershed moment for sexual abuse survivors, ruled in August that portions of suit could proceed because administrators may have lied about when they said they did not become aware of the abuse allegations until 1991.
"The law now allows institutions to hide behind the statue of limitations and profit from their own misconduct and cover-ups," Mulhearn said.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-team/poly-case-vicims-shouldn-limited-seeking-legal-action-article-1.1231848#ixzz2GsqTqvCz
California's new laws for 2013 address mortgages, gun laws, child sex abuse
Coaches and administrators in K-12 schools as well as higher education employees who have regular contact with children will be required to report suspected child sexual abuse. AB 1434 and AB 1435 were prompted by the scandal involving former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, who was convicted of sexually abusing 10 boys. Authorities say some former co-workers knew of the abuse but failed to report it to law enforcement.
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_22290043/californias-new-laws-2013-address-mortgages-gun-laws
Wednesday, January 02, 2013
By far, the most vexing aspect in the struggle to prevent child sexual abuse is the fact that it is most likely perpetrated by the very adults responsible for protecting the victims.
In an inspiring and gripping article, Sports Illustrated’s December 17, 2012 edition features the stories of Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey and Judo Gold Medalist Kayla Harrison. Both are survivors of child sexual abuse. R.A. Dickey suffered abuse by a 13-year-old babysitter and later a teenage boy and Kayla Harrison by her coach of many years. The article details their struggles and shows how predators can easily gain access to children. In Kayla’s case, her own olympic dream was used by her predator coach to gain access to her. The author, Gary Smith, points out that “the athletes with the biggest futures could be the easiest prey, blackmailed by their own dreams”.
CLICK:http://sexualabusect.tremontsheldon.com/2012/12/
Indeed, in as many as 93 percent of child sexual cases, the perpetrator is a relative, family friend, coach. or teacher -- someone known and often trusted by the victim. This reality makes both preventing child sexual abuse and identifying and prosecuting offenders especially difficult, setting child sexual abuse apart from other crimes.
Garden State Topic: Child Sexual Abuse Must Step Out of the Shadows, Into the Light
A recent Sports Illustrated cover story focusing on young athletes subjected to child sexual abuse reminds us once again that the pernicious scourge of child sexual abuse continues to haunt the playing fields, playgrounds, and backrooms of our nation.
Among the social ills facing our nation, child sexual abuse stands alone in its epidemic proportions, and the devastation it sets upon its young victims cannot be overstated. Despite high-profile and well-publicized instances within institutions like the Catholic Church, Boy Scouts of America, and Penn State, among others, child sexual abuse remains among the least discussed and most impactful problems our nation faces, while it tarnishes the lives of large swaths of each new generation.
Whether you measure the harm of the individual victims, or the costs to society as a whole, there is ample reason to prioritize child sexual abuse in our national dialogue and adopt policies and practices that help protect children.
The most compelling way to understand the power and enormity of child sexual abuse is through the experience of individual victims. Because child sexual abuse primarily leaves emotional scars instead of physical, its full impact on victims remains under-appreciated. Child sexual abuse occurs at a tragically high rate and can rob young people of self-determination, self-esteem, and potential, sometimes setting in motion a lifelong chain of events and decisions. Many victims don’t readily speak of the trauma they suffer as a result of child sexual abuse. This reluctance has a variety of roots: manipulation by the abuser, fear of not being believed, misplaced shame, fear of stigma, and just plain discomfort with a painful topic.
Nevertheless, despite the absence of reports from those victims who do not disclose what happened to them, the data on frequency of child sexual abuse remains staggering. Adult retrospective studies show that one in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before the age of 18, meaning that more than 42 million adult survivors live in the United States today.
Although research on the relationship between child sexual abuse and other social problems is still emerging, existing studies suggest that it is a major risk factor for such pressing community challenges as sexual and domestic violence, poverty, sex work, incarceration, mental illness, health problems, and homelessness. Sexually abused girls, for instance, are four times more likely to develop psychiatric disorders than girls who are not sexually abused. Further, children and adolescents who have been sexually victimized are at increased risk for unplanned pregnancy, HIV infection, and revictimization. Cumulative costs related to child sexual abuse are estimated at $23 billion annually in the United States.
By far, the most vexing aspect in the struggle to prevent child sexual abuse is the fact that it is most likely perpetrated by the very adults responsible for protecting the victims. Indeed, in as many as 93 percent of child sexual cases, the perpetrator is a relative, family friend, coach. or teacher -- someone known and often trusted by the victim. This reality makes both preventing child sexual abuse and identifying and prosecuting offenders especially difficult, setting child sexual abuse apart from other crimes.
Despite this complexity, plenty can be done to significantly prevent instances of child sexual abuse and pave the way for better outcomes for victims.
Our top priority should be a focus on prevention, and a good place to start is organizations that serve young people.
Newspaper headlines provide countless examples of sexual abuse of children participating in organizations like the American Boychoir, Boy Scouts, and Second Mile. Too few of the institutions in which we trust adults to care for our children have effective policies, practices, and accountability systems in place to prevent child sexual abuse. Even where people are aware of the threat of child sexual abuse, most lack the knowledge and tools to address it in our respective spheres of life; guidelines and established practices can make the difference.
New Jersey needs a state standard for child sexual abuse prevention practices for youth-serving organizations, including after-school programs, sports programs, and schools. Moreover, the state and federal government should require all youth-serving organizations that receive state or federal government funding to adopt such policies and practices and have systems of accountability to ensure they’re followed.
A second critical step is to expand victims’ access to justice through the courts. It often takes years for a victim of sexual abuse or assault to come forward; victims need time to recognize the extent of the harm done to them and have the courage and security to pursue justice. Both criminal and civil statutes of limitations must reflect the nature of the crime and recovery, giving victims ample time to seek justice.
Although New Jersey rightly has no statute of limitations for criminal charges of sexual assault, its civil statute of limitations provides recourse for very few. Victims wanting the opportunity to pursue civil lawsuits against abusers and the institutions that protect them in New Jersey have only two years from age 18 or discovery of the abuse to file a lawsuit. These laws protect institutions like the Catholic Church and the American Boychoir while individual victims struggle against tremendous obstacles to recovery, including costly therapy.
Sen. Joe Vitale has sought to correct this injustice by introducing legislation that would expand the legal avenues for child sexual abuse victims. The most meaningful thing that New Jersey legislators and Gov. Chris Christie could do to demonstrate their concern for child sexual abuse victims is to pass Sen. Vitale’s legislation to expand the civil statute of limitations, demonstrating that the needs of victims takes priority over protecting abusers or institutions that protect or enable them.
Finally, we must ensure that our law-enforcement professionals have ample training and resources to investigate reports of sexual violation thoroughly, promptly, and in a manner that respects the sensitivity of the crime. Every police agency should have a critical mass of trained male and female personnel to address child sexual abuse and assaults, making sex offenses among the highest law-enforcement priorities to reflect the large-scale devastation such crimes create.
In addition to adequate personnel, prosecutors should have prompt and high-quality forensic support. In New Jersey’s poorer counties like Essex, for example, prosecutors often have to wait several months for state lab analysis of DNA evidence that would help police identify suspects in existing unsolved cases, bring perpetrators to justice, and prevent potential future assaults.
Despite the enormity and complexity of the problem of child sexual abuse, we’ve only just begun to take steps to prevent it and provide recourse for victims. For the most part, our political leaders have focused energy and resources on punishing perpetrators through the criminal justice system rather than prioritizing the needs of victims and would-be victims.
If our leaders have a true commitment to child safety and the best interests of crime victims, they will enact these recommendations and look for more ways to prevent incidences of child sexual abuse and provide paths to justice for victims.
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/12/12/23/child-sexual-abuse-must-step-out-of-the-shadows-into-the-spotlight/
Monday, December 31, 2012
Perhaps now more than ever, organized religion must defend the faith. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s argument, like most of these attempts, falls short.
The Moral Animal?
I believe the author of the article below is overly naive as to his illogical conclusion! The utter failure of "good people" to grasp the world beyond their own tiny community, is mind-numbing!
Global hunger persists as the world's population grows - latimes.com Jul 22, 2012 ... Nearly 1 billion people are malnourished, and a child dies of hunger every 11 seconds. ... More people die of hunger-related causes every year than succumb to AIDS, ... Today, with nearly twice as many people on the planet, his words seem sadly prescient. .... It is called "The stork is the bird of war".
READ:
www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/population/la-fg-population-matters3-20120726-html,0,2752228.htmlstory *
IT is the religious time of the year. Step into any city in America or Britain and you will see the night sky lit by religious symbols, Christmas decorations certainly and probably also a giant menorah. Religion in the West seems alive and well. (Is there NO world beyond the West? -UOJ)
But is it really? Or have these symbols been emptied of content, no more than a glittering backdrop to the West’s newest faith, consumerism, and its secular cathedrals, shopping malls?
At first glance, religion is in decline. In Britain, the results of the 2011 national census have just been published. They show that a quarter of the population claims to have no religion, almost double the figure 10 years ago. And though the United States remains the most religious country in the West, 20 percent declare themselves without religious affiliation — double the number a generation ago.
Looked at another way, though, the figures tell a different story. Since the 18th century, many Western intellectuals have predicted religion’s imminent demise. Yet after a series of withering attacks, most recently by the new atheists, including Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, still in Britain three in four people, and in America four in five, declare allegiance to a religious faith. That, in an age of science, is what is truly surprising.
The irony is that many of the new atheists are followers of Charles Darwin. We are what we are, they say, because it has allowed us to survive and pass on our genes to the next generation. Our biological and cultural makeup constitutes our “adaptive fitness.” Yet religion is the greatest survivor of them all. Superpowers tend to last a century; the great faiths last millenniums. The question is why.
Darwin himself suggested what is almost certainly the correct answer. He was puzzled by a phenomenon that seemed to contradict his most basic thesis, that natural selection should favor the ruthless. Altruists, who risk their lives for others, should therefore usually die before passing on their genes to the next generation. Yet all societies value altruism, and something similar can be found among social animals, from chimpanzees to dolphins to leafcutter ants.
Neuroscientists have shown how this works. We have mirror neurons that lead us to feel pain when we see others suffering. We are hard-wired for empathy. We are moral animals.
The precise implications of Darwin’s answer are still being debated by his disciples — Harvard’s E. O. Wilson in one corner, Oxford’s Richard Dawkins in the other. To put it at its simplest, we hand on our genes as individuals but we survive as members of groups, and groups can exist only when individuals act not solely for their own advantage but for the sake of the group as a whole. Our unique advantage is that we form larger and more complex groups than any other life-form.
A result is that we have two patterns of reaction in the brain, one focusing on potential danger to us as individuals, the other, located in the prefrontal cortex, taking a more considered view of the consequences of our actions for us and others. The first is immediate, instinctive and emotive. The second is reflective and rational. We are caught, in the psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s phrase, between thinking fast and slow.
The fast track helps us survive, but it can also lead us to acts that are impulsive and destructive. The slow track leads us to more considered behavior, but it is often overridden in the heat of the moment. We are sinners and saints, egotists and altruists, exactly as the prophets and philosophers have long maintained.
If this is so, we are in a position to understand why religion helped us survive in the past — and why we will need it in the future. It strengthens and speeds up the slow track. It reconfigures our neural pathways, turning altruism into instinct, through the rituals we perform, the texts we read and the prayers we pray. It remains the most powerful community builder the world has known. Religion binds individuals into groups through habits of altruism, creating relationships of trust strong enough to defeat destructive emotions. Far from refuting religion, the Neo-Darwinists have helped us understand why it matters.
No one has shown this more elegantly than the political scientist Robert D. Putnam. In the 1990s he became famous for the phrase “bowling alone”: more people were going bowling, but fewer were joining bowling teams. Individualism was slowly destroying our capacity to form groups. A decade later, in his book “American Grace,” he showed that there was one place where social capital could still be found: religious communities.
Mr. Putnam’s research showed that frequent church- or synagogue-goers were more likely to give money to charity, do volunteer work, help the homeless, donate blood, help a neighbor with housework, spend time with someone who was feeling depressed, offer a seat to a stranger or help someone find a job. Religiosity as measured by church or synagogue attendance is, he found, a better predictor of altruism than education, age, income, gender or race.
Religion is the best antidote to the individualism of the consumer age. The idea that society can do without it flies in the face of history and, now, evolutionary biology. This may go to show that God has a sense of humor. It certainly shows that the free societies of the West must never lose their sense of God.
Jonathan Sacks is the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth and a member of the House of Lords.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/opinion/the-moral-animal.html?hp
Not One Religious Person In The Entire Group:
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-25-most-generous-people-in-america-2012-2?op=1
NEW YORK TIMES READERS RESPOND TO RABBI SACKS:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/opinion/religions-role-in-altruism-and-survival.html?hp&_r=0
The Power Of One!
What if it all depended on me?
To change the world.
To change the world?
What if my only responsibility was to change the world.
To change the world? Let me be the ONE.
To start a revolution.
Let me sing my song to the people of the
world. It all begins with.
ONE -- THE POWER OF ONE.
JOINING THE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE BELIEVING IN ONE.
THE POWER OF ONE. DON’T HANG AROUND.
STAND UP OR SIT DOWN.
AND BELIEVE WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD TOGETHER
WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD TOGETHER
What kind of love can conquer disease.
And change the world. And change the world?
What can I do to make poverty history.
And change the world. And change the world?
Let me be the ONE. To start a revolution.
Let me sing my song to the people of the world.
To the children of the world.
It all begins with...
ONE -- THE POWER OF ONE.
JOINING THE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE BELIEVING IN ONE.
THE POWER OF ONE. DON’T HANG AROUND. STAND UP OR SIT DOWN.
AND BELIEVE WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD TOGETHER --
WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD TOGETHER
Please don’t close your eyes
Please don't turn away. Let your voices rise.
Put love on display. And make a difference now.
I believe you and me. Can make a difference now.
It all begins with ONE!...........
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Giving Voice to the Trauma of “Immeasurable Fear” of Millions of Children!
Only if someone prominent – someone famous – allows the voice of those traumatized to be heard can others know they are not alone. As someone who has devoted much of my life to protecting children from abuse, there can be no more noble cause.
One of my first jobs out of law school was an Assistant Attorney General handling child protective cases. In that job I saw hideous photos – including scars from child sex rape. Child sex abuse usually happened within a family and usually was considered a private matter until recent decades. I know.
My mother was possibly the longest serving child protective investigator in America -- so child sex abuse matters to me.
It matters so much that when I was elected to my legislature, a top focus for me was initiating laws to better protect children from sexual predators. I’ve also spent multiple times on tour with Richard Dawkins.
This combination leads me to offer a distinct perspective on the experience of a woman who at age seven was sexually fondled by a priest.
In addition to this trauma, this woman, at about the same age, faced the horror of a childhood friend dying while having the “knowledge” -- drummed into her as a child -- that her friend would burn in hell. Why? Because this other child happened to be Protestant -- not Catholic. The woman said she never lost sleep based on the “yucky” (her words) fondling. She was deeply traumatized by the “knowledge” of hellfire for her friend. She recounted: “I spent many a night being terrified that the people I loved would go to Hell. It gave me nightmares.” She felt “cold, immeasurable fear.” She concluded that, in her experience, the emotional abuse of threatened hellfire was worse than fondling. (While each child abuse experience is unique, her experience is no less valid).
Would you condemn this woman? Is this woman “militant”? Is she “fundamentalist?” My guess is you’d say no such thing. Yet many have described Richard Dawkins this way for daring to recount her experiences and her conclusion. A Catholic online publication called Dawkins “infamous” as it went on to say that hell was real and a “matter of choice.”
While Richard Dawkins faced a bad experience that I have not (child molestation), I have extensive experience dealing with public policy and child sex abuse. I chaired a Commission on the topic and worked on the issue for years.
To me threatened hellfire has, from my childhood, been no more real than Thor, but, as an adult, I’d see photographs of trauma after child rape. So when this woman, who was fondled, says hellfire mythology is worse, I might be inclined to differ -- but NOT after going on three speaking tours with Richard Dawkins.
Prof. Peter Higgs recently insinuated Prof. Dawkins was “fundamentalist.” I’d ask Mr. Higgs, whom I greatly respect, to listen to people -- the many people -- I meet on a Dawkins tour. Time and again – literally hundreds of times now – I’ve seen people tell Prof. Dawkins -- or tell me or tell our Executive Director Dr. Elisabeth Cornwell – how Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion, freed them from trauma of hellfire, similar to the trauma that this woman described as worse than sexual abuse.
Yet somehow we witness the intellectual acrobatics that Richard Dawkins must be condemned as harsh, or fundamentalist, because he dares to have compassion for a woman in this situation. Think of it. There’s nothing in this woman’s statement that should be dismissed. Yet Richard Dawkins must be condemned for daring to recount her trauma?
The woman victim -- terrorized by her religion (a religion not typically labeled fundamentalist) – has experienced a trauma that she describes as “immeasurable fear” with “sleepless nights.”
Millions of people face this fear, the same sleepless nights – and yet they often think they are totally alone. How dare Richard Dawkins be so rude - so impolite - as to let these victims be heard!? And remember: this cruelty is imposed by organized powerful institutions. Challenge the powerful on behalf of children!? How awful.
Only if someone prominent – someone famous – allows the voice of those traumatized to be heard can others know they are not alone. As someone who has devoted much of my life to protecting children from abuse, there can be no more noble cause.
Richard Dawkins has chosen to give voice to the trauma this woman experienced. Doing so challenges accepted order, established tradition. Whenever one does the right thing for those in the shadows, the powerful rush to condemn, conformists rush to agree.
Others, including many non-religious people, including the justly-admired Peter Higgs, may choose not to give voice to these victims -- and to the trauma they suffered. These victims – millions of victims, millions terrorized – are given hope by Richard Dawkins, a hope I’ve seen by the hundreds on every tour with this decent and honorable man.
I hope Peter Higgs, also an honorable man, and the millions like him (and like me) who have never been subjected to the terror of hellfire will take a step back, step back from the inclination to avoid controversy, the inclination to not ruffle the prominent feathers -- and face the stark reality that human beings are harmed by this terror. I hope they will do the right thing for these victims, and tell the truth about dogmatic childhood indoctrination. I have seen the truth set many people free. In my first hearing as a legislator, a Harvard man was nominated for a judgeship. The insiders -- the “right people” -- were on his side, but women came forward testifying to his sexual harassment. I’m as proud now to stand by the victims of abuse -- who’s story Richard Dawkins has told -- as I was proud to stand by the women who were sexually harassed despite the discomfort it caused “the right people.”
Anyone who really cares about child abuse will stand with Richard Dawkins. In another time, the fight against child sex abuse, that has been so much of my career, was considered a “private” matter.
It takes courage to bravely face the form of child abuse that society has yet to face.
http://richarddawkins.net/foundation_articles/2012/12/29/child-sex-abuse-richard-dawkins-an-unusual-perspective-on-giving-voice-to-the-trauma-of-immeasurable-fear-of-millions-of-children
Friday, December 28, 2012
Let's Ban Child Rape!
America is a great country, but we can be an even greater country if we just banned everything... for the children.
Americans are in love with anything on wheels. This is the country of the Corvette and the Hog where driving fast is considered a national birthright despite the toll in lives and pollutants. And most of the rest of us have come to accept that.
We may shake our heads at the billions wasted on gasoline, on air fresheners and dashboard ornaments that could have been used to feed the starving children of the world. But when tragedy strikes it is important for us to set aside the political rhetoric and have a serious discussion about assault vehicles.
Let’s talk about motorcycles.
Unlike cars, motorcycles have no practical purpose. No one commutes to work on a motorcycle. No one drives to pick up their children from soccer practice on a motorcycle. But for some people a motorcycle is a symbol of their masculinity and that symbol has become death on wheels.
Americans are in love with motorcycles. 9 percent of Americans own 11 million motorcycles as part of the 18 billion dollar motorcycle industry. Some Americans even own more than one motorcycle, even though one motorcycle is the most that any normal person could possibly need.
Motorcycle deaths have risen sharply in the last ten years and the motorcycle industry is to blame for preventing us from addressing this horrifying epidemic of highway death.
In 1994, there were 2,320 motorcycle deaths. In 2012 that number increased to 4,500 as the assault vehicles greased their wheels with the blood of innocent men, women and children.
1 in 7 US traffic deaths is now caused by the motorcycle. Or what we should properly rename the Assault Cycle. Unfortunately movies like Easy Rider glamorize motorcycle culture and the motorcycle industry preys on the vulnerable male psyche as riders chase after some escapist fantasy of personal autonomy.
Motorcycle culture has always been associated with violence and the escalating death toll now threatens our moral standing as a country. America was once known as a nation that the rest of the world looked up to, but now whenever I visit Lichtenstein or Luxembourg for an environmental conference, one of the first questions that I am asked is when Americans will join the rest of the civilized world in restricting the manufacture and sale of assault cycles. And I can only sadly shake my head while downing another Shirley Temple.
But perhaps tragedy will serve as a wake-up call. In Fairfield, California, an off-duty California Highway Patrolman is killed in a collision with a pickup truck. In Duarte, California, former MLB pitcher Frank Pastore died of injuries resulting from a motorcycle accident. In Florence, Kentucky, a motorcycle driver lost control of his assault vehicle and collided with a utility pole. In Tarpon Springs, Florida, a woman riding as a passenger on the back of a motorcycle fell off and was run over by a passing vehicle. These are just a few of the deaths caused by assault cycles that have taken place in the last week.
We cannot meet these awful tragedies with apathy. Only immediate unthinking action will suffice. A serious dialogue must begin in which all options are on the table. The politicians who have been in thrall to the motorcycle industry must look at these dead people that I have just mentioned and completely ignore the law and all other considerations to do whatever I want.
No one is talking about completely banning the motorcycle, except for those who are, but we must work together to reach a sensible solution. Motorcycle owners will still be able to keep and even drive their toys, but we must take action against the deadliest overpowered assault cycles with too much horsepower that have no legitimate purpose.
There is no reason for any law-abiding motorcycle owner to own one of the “superbikes” whose accident rate is 30 times higher than that of cars. These insanely overpowered assault vehicles, such as the Suzuki GSXR1000 and the Kawasaki Ninja, are literal killing machines. Although assault cycles only account for 10 percent of the motorcycles on the road, they account for 25 percent of all fatal motorcycle accidents.
200 horsepower is far too much for any legitimate street bike and it’s time that our elected officials stood up to the motorcycle industry and said no to the assault cycle.
And it cannot end there.
As pernicious as motorcycle culture is, car culture is even deadlier. Millions of children will grow up coughing and wheezing from asthma attacks because they live near a highway. And many more will die in the daily car accidents that mar our nation’s roads, bridges and tunnels.
Americans are in love with their Assault Sedans and their Murder Hatchbacks. The U.S. had 246 million registered vehicles for just 209 million drivers in a country of 311 million. There is no better evidence of the power of car culture than the fact that some people actually own more than one car, so that they can perhaps crash their first car into a crowd, and then get into their second car and crash that it into a crowd too to maximize the death toll.
40,000 people die in car crashes a year. That’s 400,000 a decade or 4 million over a century. That is the grim ugly face of America’s macabre love affair with cars. America leads the world in car ownership, aside from Monaco, and if we are going to take a horrible place like Monaco as our role model, then I no longer want to be an American.
The children, the most innocent among us, are the real victims of America’s insane car culture.
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children from 2 to 14 years old. An average of 6 children die every day in car crashes… and 700 more are injured. Some of those injuries will cripple them for life.
Any decent person, even a car owner, can’t help but look at these statistics and demand immediate unthinking action of some kind. It is up to decent people like us, and even them, to join together and call for that action. It is up to us to capitalize on the deaths of these sweet innocent children for the greater good of all.
No one is talking about banning all cars. Some cars, like those that drive environmental activists to environmental conferences, are strictly necessary. But there is a big difference between legitimate and illegitimate cars.
There’s no reason for a law-abiding driver to own a car that goes faster than 35 miles per hour. Above that speed is when most fatal accidents occur and closing that speed loophole will save millions of lives. Cars that travel faster than 35 miles per hour, let’s call them assault vehicles, have no purpose except to cater to a sick car culture that values speed over the lives of innocent children. We owe it to our children to give them a better world. A world where 35 miles per hour isn’t just the speed limit in my gated community, but throughout the entire land.
An assault vehicle ban will also be good for the environment. Many drivers will discover that they can get to work faster by riding a bike than by driving their fume-spewing murder machines.
Speaking of bicycles, there has unfortunately been a sharp rise in cyclist deaths as well. I remember many hours of joy riding my bike up and down the street as a child, and I still put in a few miles on my exercise bike when my schedule allows for it, but these innocent vehicles are being upstaged on the road by killing machines that have very little in common with my 12 inch Huffy and exist only to race and kill.
I have never understood why there must be any bikes with more than 6 speeds. The bike industry, the bike lobby and the bike culture is irresponsibly pushing multi-speed bikes that are completely unnecessary. These Assault Bicycles which have 18 speeds are murder vehicles of death.
It might be best if we put an end to vehicle culture altogether. It might be best if everyone just walked. So long as they walk responsibly.
The number of pedestrian deaths has risen sharply in 2012 and the problem may lie with what I like to call, Assault Walking, or walking too fast, not to mention Assault Running.
To all the paranoid alarmists out there, no one is talking about banning you from going on a light jog or even a brisk walk; so long as you keep it under the speed indicated on your government issued Citizen Pedometer with built-in breathalyzer. If you wish to walk faster than that, you will have to apply for a license, undergo a psychological evaluation, give up your health insurance and then wait six weeks.
Let's talk about child-rape:
Let's ban those rapists; We're certain to get rid of all child-rape by just banning it.
Rape & Child Sex Abuse Laws & Registering Sex Offenders Have Done Nothing to Stop Offenders: CLICK ON LINK:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2972409/posts
America is a great country, but we can be an even greater country if we just banned everything… for the children.
http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/daniel-greenfield/its-time-we-had-a-serious-discussion-about-assault-vehicles/2012/12/23/
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Boy Scout sex abuse files: What do they tell us? [Video Discussion]
The Times this week released about 1,200 previously unpublished files kept by the Boy Scouts of America on volunteers and employees expelled for suspected sexual abuse.
The files, which have been redacted of victims' names and other identifying information, were opened from 1985 through 1991. They can be found in a database along with two decades of files released by order of the Oregon Supreme Court in October. The database also contains summary information on about 3,200 additional files opened from 1947 to 2005 that have not been released publicly.
Together, the material in the database represents the most complete accounting of suspected sexual abuse in the Scouts that has been made public. All of the material was obtained as a result of lawsuits against the Scouts by alleged abuse victims or by media organizations. The Boy Scouts kept the files for nearly a century for internal use only, to keep suspected abusers from rejoining.
About as many files were opened in the six years before 1991 as in the previous two decades. At least in part, that reflects greater reporting of accusations, as awareness of child sexual abuse rose in the Scouts and society at large. About that time, the Scouts launched a concerted effort to train youths and adults on how to identify and prevent sexual abuse.
The files do not represent a complete accounting of alleged abuse in Scouting. Experts say many cases probably were not reported to the national office, and the Scouts say the organization destroyed an unknown number of files over the years.
The latest dossiers — used as evidence in a 1992 court case — are among those reviewed by The Times for a series of stories over the last year, which detailed the Scouts' repeated efforts to keep allegations from police, parents and the public and its resistance to performing criminal background checks on all volunteers. The BSA's inaction or delayed response to allegations at times allowed alleged molesters to continue sexually abusing children. Alleged abusers consistently violated a policy, instituted in 1987, prohibiting adults from being alone with Scouts.
The alleged abusers — including doctors, teachers, priests and other professionals — commonly preyed on children without father figures or gained the trust of both parents.
Re “Scouts employ aggressive tactics in abuse defense,” aka "The Agudath Israel Defense."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/la-le-a-disgusted-eagle-scout-20121226,0,565676.story
I applaud The Times for reporting the disgusting practices of the Boy Scouts of America. The overwhelming evidence that shows how the Boy Scouts went after the victims rather than protecting young boys says everything we need to know about this corrupt organization.
I am an Eagle Scout and had the privilege of having four Scoutmasters who were wonderful and brilliant teachers. These men were educators first and dedicated their careers to bettering young people's lives. I never heard a discriminatory word out of their mouths.
But today the Boy Scouts has an unacceptable way of determining who is and who isn't eligible for membership and leadership, homosexuals and non-Christians being the most discriminated against. Unfortunately, child molesters are evidently not on the blacklist.
I'm the first in line to return my badge and distance myself from what has become a repulsive entity.
Tony Ferdyn
Santa Barbara
Apparently the Boy Scouts interprets “be prepared” as mandating tactics right out of the Scientology litigation playbook.
David R. Ginsburg
Los Angeles
Interesting that the Boy Scouts discriminates against gays but protects pedophiles. Does it remind you of another major institution?
Nelson Schwartz
Venice
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
The Not So Silent Epidemic in New York!
Erin Merryn has had an eventful fall.
In October, Glamour Magazine chose her as one of its 10 Women of the Year. She finished her third book — all it needs now is a title — and most recently got engaged when her boyfriend proposed on Black Friday.
"I never thought I would find a man (whom) I could trust," she said. "It was easier for me to love somebody than to trust them."
At 27, Merryn still thinks about the men who raped and molested her as a child. It's her passion for fighting child sex abuse that led to her other major achievement this fall: Nearly three years after she launched a nonstop campaign against what she calls a "silent epidemic," Illinois lawmakers appear poised to pass a bill aimed at teaching children about sex abuse.
The bill would extend state-mandated sexual abuse and assault education to elementary and middle schools. Only high schools are required to teach it under current law. But as Merryn learned from her own childhood, those lessons often come far too late.
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday. It first happened to Merryn when she was 6. Without knowing that what her neighbor had done to her was wrong, she kept it a secret. Her older cousin later molested her when she was between the ages of 11 and 13. Once again, she remained silent.
It wasn't until Merryn was a sophomore in high school that she first learned about sexual abuse in class. By then, she said, she had suffered through years of failed therapy, nightmarish flashbacks and dwindling grades.
"If someone gave me the right message, I would have spoken up," she said. "I was consumed with this fear that no one would believe me. I kept quiet so I didn't get in trouble."
In April 2010, Merryn quit her job as a youth and family counselor to work full time on her national awareness campaign. She considers the Illinois bill a milestone in her ongoing fight against child sexual abuse. It's the culmination of two published books, hundreds of speaking events and hours of testimony.
The Illinois House of Representatives passed the bill 97 to 10 earlier this month. Its fate is now in the hands of the Senate, which lawmakers say will likely vote on it in early January. And if the bill passes, Gov. Pat Quinn — an outspoken supporter of Merryn — could sign it by Valentine's Day.
The young activist says she's only getting started. She has taken her campaign on the road with a time-tested pitch and newfound sense of urgency.
Outraged by the string of recent child sex abuse cases — from Penn State University to the Boy Scouts of America — Merryn says lawmakers are more willing than ever to listen to her message.
"These examples show it isn't the 'stranger danger' going after all your kids," she said. "There are those cases, but they happen only seven percent of the time."
Various studies show that between seven and 25 percent of child sex offenders don't know their victims, according to the Crimes Against Children Research Center. The center estimates up to a third of offenders are family members.
Realizing the window for change may be brief, Merryn testified in six states this year and plans to testify in 10 more in 2013.
Four states have passed versions of "Erin's Law," which creates the task force charged with writing recommendations for how schools should teach sex abuse education. The law is pending in nine others.
"Erin's Law" passed two years ago in Illinois without receiving one "no" vote. But unlike the task force the law created, the proposals outlined in the more recent bill aren't free of controversy.
While praising the sex abuse education bill's objective, Republican lawmakers who voted against it said they ultimately couldn't support its unfunded mandate.
"You can't do good things with bad legislation," said Rep. Richard Morthland, a tea party conservative. "And an unfunded mandate is bad legislation."
Morthland added that state lawmakers should leave education reform to individual school districts, which he considers better equipped to respond to the needs of students.
Merryn and her supporters hope the public fervor sparked by the string of recent sex abuse scandals overwhelms any opposition to the bill. But with national attention already fading, they know that passing it isn't going to get any easier.
Danny Langloss, Dixon police chief and chairman of the "Erin's Law" task force, says Illinois could become an example for the rest of the county to follow. His hope is Merryn's mission — to pass "Erin's Law" in every state.
"The importance of Penn State is that it helped raise awareness," Langloss said. "It has given this issue some incredible momentum."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-sex-abuse-teaching-20121226,0,570313.story
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
2012 a year of unparalleled justice for child sex abuse victims!
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| Nechemya Weberman aka THE ANIMAL |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Experts say 2012 was a year of unparalleled justice for child sex abuse victims, but whether the string of high-profile convictions will translate into a turning point for juvenile safety remains to be seen.
The year's headlines heralded the criminal convictions of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, Monsignor William Lynn of the Catholic Church's Philadelphia Archdiocese and ultra-Orthodox Jewish therapist Nechemya Weberman, a prominent figure in New York's Satmar Hasidic sect.
Sandusky, 68, was sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars for raping and molesting 10 boys, some in the campus football showers. Lynn, 61, was ordered to prison for up to six years for covering up for pedophile priests. Weberman, 54, faces up to 25 years' imprisonment when he is sentenced on January 9 for sexually abusing a girl during counseling sessions.
Each conviction hinged on the testimony of victims brave enough to shatter years of silence surrounding the abuse. Each verdict was reached by a jury determined to decide fairly in the shadow of a revered institution that, at best, ignored the crimes, sometimes for years.
"2012 is a landmark in the drive to reduce and deter community-based abuse," said Marci Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University and an advocate for victims of clergy sex crimes.
"The key here is modern-day courage," Hamilton said. "It took extraordinary courage for survivors to break ranks from their communities and accuse those inside the community."
Decades of secretiveness have shrouded child sex abuse within institutions that turned a blind eye, said David Clohessy, director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
One development encouraging victims to come forward today is more women in law enforcement and criminal justice who may seem more approachable, experts say. Another is a growing acceptance of homosexuality, which could help ease the victims' humiliation, and the idea that survivors with calamitous lives may nevertheless be telling the truth, experts say.
"We're learning that victims inevitably seem troubled and flawed. It's very rare that someone can be sexually violated as a child and live a charmed, perfect life," Clohessy said.
Heightened publicity has also drawn out victims who now know they are not alone, said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.
"The climate is so much better for survivors than it was a decade ago when they felt isolated and like a freak," Finkelhor said.
"Almost everyone knows this happens to other people now. It's not nearly as stigmatizing," he said.
The momentum in prosecuting child sex abuse cases depends upon many factors, including whether state legislatures broaden the time frame for victims seeking justice, a move under discussion in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
By the time a child victim is able to confront an assailant, a state's statute of limitations may prevent prosecution. If victims are still eligible to file civil lawsuits, however, the surrounding publicity may draw out other victims and could lead to subsequent criminal prosecutions, advocates say.
"When a predator is exposed in any way, in any form, it encourages victims, witnesses, whistle-blowers to step forward and perhaps file criminal charges," Clohessy said.
"Obviously, kids are safest when predators are jailed," he said. "Sometimes civil suits lead to criminal prosecution. Even when they don't, they warn people about a potentially dangerous child molester."
http://news.yahoo.com/video/hasidic-leaders-sex-abuse-trial-162110238-cbs.html
“Daddy, I love you.”
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| LIFE LESSONS: Jeffrey Wright with his son, Adam, who has a developmental disorder, in a scene from “Wright’s Law.” |
Laws of Physics Can’t Trump the Bonds of Love
Jeffrey Wright is well known around his high school in Louisville, Ky., for his antics as a physics teacher, which include exploding pumpkins, hovercraft and a scary experiment that involves a bed of nails, a cinder block and a sledgehammer.
But it is a simple lecture — one without props or fireballs — that leaves the greatest impression on his students each year. The talk is about Mr. Wright’s son and the meaning of life, love and family.
It has become an annual event at Louisville Male Traditional High School (now coed, despite its name), and it has been captured in a short documentary, “Wright’s Law,” which recently won a gold medal in multimedia in the national College Photographer of the Year competition, run by the University of Missouri.
The filmmaker, Zack Conkle, 22, a photojournalism graduate of Western Kentucky University and a former student of Mr. Wright’s, said he made the film because he would get frustrated trying to describe Mr. Wright’s teaching style. “I wanted to show people this guy is crazy and really amazing,” Mr. Conkle said in an interview.
The beginning of the film shows Mr. Wright, now 45, at his wackiest. A veteran of 23 years teaching, he does odd experiments involving air pressure and fiery chemicals — and one in which he lies on a bed of nails with a cinder block on his chest. A student takes a sledgehammer and swings, shattering the block and teaching a physics lesson about force and energy.
But each year, Mr. Wright gives a lecture on his experiences as a parent of a child with special needs. His son, Adam, now 12, has a rare disorder called Joubert syndrome, in which the part of the brain related to balance and movement fails to develop properly. Visually impaired and unable to control his movements, Adam breathes rapidly and doesn’t speak.
Mr. Wright said he decided to share his son’s story when his physics lessons led students to start asking him “the big questions.”
“When you start talking about physics, you start to wonder, ‘What is the purpose of it all?’ ” he said in an interview. “Kids started coming to me and asking me those ultimate questions. I wanted them to look at their life in a little different way — as opposed to just through the laws of physics — and give themselves more purpose in life.”
Mr. Wright starts his lecture by talking about the hopes and dreams he had for Adam and his daughter, Abbie, now 15. He recalls the day Adam was born, and the sadness he felt when he learned of his condition.
“All those dreams about ever watching my son knock a home run over the fence went away,” he tells the class. “The whole thing about where the universe came from? I didn’t care. … I started asking myself, what was the point of it?”
All that changed one day when Mr. Wright saw Abbie, about 4 at the time, playing with dolls on the floor next to Adam. At that moment he realized that his son could see and play — that the little boy had an inner life. He and his wife, Nancy, began teaching Adam simple sign language. One day, his son signed “I love you.”
In the lecture, Mr. Wright signs it for the class: “Daddy, I love you.” “There is nothing more incredible than the day you see this,” he says, and continues: “There is something a lot greater than energy. There’s something a lot greater than entropy. What’s the greatest thing?”
“Love,” his students whisper.
“That’s what makes the why of what we exist,” Mr. Wright tells the spellbound students. “In this great big universe, we have all those stars. Who cares? Well, somebody cares. Somebody cares about you a lot. As long as we care about each other, that’s where we go from here.”
As the students file out of class, some wipe away tears and hug their teacher.
Mr. Wright says it can be emotionally draining to share his story with his class. But that is part of his role as a physics teacher.
“When you look at physics, it’s all about laws and how the world works,” he told me. “But if you don’t tie those laws into a much bigger purpose, the purpose in your heart, then they are going to sit there and ask the question ‘Who cares?’
“Kids are very spiritual — they want a bigger purpose. I think that’s where this story gives them something to think about.”
Mr. Wright says the lecture has one other purpose: to inspire students to pursue careers in science and genetic research.
“That’s where I find hope in my students,” he said. “Maybe if I can instill a little inspiration to my students to go into these fields, who knows? We might be able to come up with something we can use to help Adam out one day.”
WATCH VIDEO: http://nyti.ms/VrUccz
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/laws-of-physics-cant-trump-the-bonds-of-love/?src=dayp
Monday, December 24, 2012
"Promoter of Justice" - Another Xmas Fraud!
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| Yes, Yes; Come Children Sit On Papa's Lap! |
ROME -- Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday appointed as the Vatican's new sex crimes prosecutor a priest who handled clergy sexual abuse cases in the Roman Catholic Church in Boston at the height of the scandal and for years afterward.
The pope also pardoned his former butler, who was serving a prison term after leaking confidential documents in the Vatican's most embarrassing security breach in decades.
The Vatican said that the Rev. Robert W. Oliver, the top canon lawyer at the Archdiocese of Boston under Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, would be the "promoter of justice" at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's doctrinal office that reviews all abuse cases.
In a statement released by the Boston archdiocese, Father Oliver said, "It is with deep humility and gratitude that I received the news that the Holy Father is entrusting me with this service to the church."
Father Oliver was among the canon lawyers brought in to advise Cardinal Bernard F. Law on sexual abuse cases in Boston, where the church's sexual abuse scandal erupted anew in 2002. He was put in charge of the office investigating charges against accused priests after Cardinal Law was forced to resign in 2002 amid an uproar over revelations thatthe cardinal had kept abusive priests working in parishes.
Father Oliver helped write the archdiocese's new abuse prevention policy in 2003. He has been serving as a canon lawyer for the archdiocese and as a visiting professor of canon law at Catholic University of America in Washington.
Advocates for abuse victims in the Boston Archdiocese criticized his record on Saturday. Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of Bishop Accountability, a watchdog group that maintains an archive of abuse cases and documents, said in an interview, "Reverend Oliver is a champion of accused priests, which obviously does not bode well for the job he will do as promoter of justice."
She said that under Father Oliver's guidance, the Boston Archdiocese reported that between 2003 and 2005 it had cleared 32 of 71 accused priests, about 45 percent, saying it did not find "probable cause" to pursue abuse cases against them. That was a far higher clearance rate than the 10 percent reported by other dioceses nationwide, according to a report in 2005 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
She also said the new policy on abuse that Father Oliver helped write in 2003 allows accused priests to remain in the ministry without being publicly identified while allegations against them are investigated. In contrast, laypeople suspected of abuse who work or volunteer for the church are to be immediately suspended.
Terrence C. Donilon, a secretary for communications for the Archdiocese of Boston. But he said, "Any attacks on Father Oliver's distinguished track record of service to the church and his many contributions to the response to clergy sexual abuse are unfounded and just plain wrong."
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/world/boston-priest-to-lead-oversight-of-vatican-abuse-claims-667568/#ixzz2FzHRfxLd
"Many American families are in denial about who their children are; others see problems they don’t know how to stanch."
Anatomy of a Murder-Suicide
"We need to offer children better mental health screenings and to understand that mental health service works best not on a vaccine model, in which a single dramatic intervention eliminates a problem forever, but on a dental model, in which constant care is required to prevent decay. Only by understanding why Adam Lanza wished to die can we understand why he killed. We would be well advised to look past the evil against others that most horrifies us and focus on the pathos that engendered it."
SUICIDE is not as newsworthy as homicide. A person’s disaffection with his own life is less threatening than his rage to destroy others. So it makes sense that since the carnage in Newtown, Conn., the press has focused on the victims — the heartbreaking, senseless deaths of children, and the terrible pain that their parents and all the rest of us have to bear. Appropriately, we mourn Adam Lanza’s annihilation of others more than his self-annihilation.
But to understand a murder-suicide, one has to start with the suicide, because that is the engine of such acts. Adam Lanza committed an act of hatred, but it seems that the person he hated the most was himself. If we want to stem violence, we need to begin by stemming despair.
Many adolescents experience self-hatred; some express their insecurity destructively toward others. They are needlessly sharp with their parents; they drink and drive, regardless of the peril they may pose to others; they treat peers with gratuitous disdain. The more profound their self-hatred, the more likely it is to be manifest as externally focused aggression. Adam Lanza’s acts reflect a grotesquely magnified version of normal adolescent rage.
In his classic work on suicide, the psychiatrist Karl Menninger said that it required the coincidence of the wish to kill, the wish to be killed and the wish to die. Adam Lanza clearly had all three of these impulses, and while the gravest crime is that his wish to kill was so much broader than that of most suicidal people, his first tragedy was against himself.
Blame is a great comfort, because a situation for which someone or something can be blamed is a situation that could have been avoided — and so could be prevented next time. Since the shootings at Newtown, we’ve heard blame heaped on Adam Lanza’s parents and their divorce; on Adam’s supposed Asperger’s syndrome and possible undiagnosed schizophrenia; on the school system; on gun control policies; on violence in video games, movies and rock music; on the copycat effect spawned by earlier school shootings; on a possible brain disorder that better imaging will someday allow us to map.
Advocates for the mentally ill argue that those who are treated for various mental disorders are no more violent than the general population; meanwhile an outraged public insists that no sane person would be capable of such actions. This is an essentially semantic argument. A Harvard study gave doctors edited case histories of suicides and asked them for diagnoses; it found that while doctors diagnosed mental illness in only 22 percent of the group if they were not told that the patients had committed suicide, the figure was 90 percent when the suicide was included in the patient profile.
The persistent implication is that, as with 9/11 or the attack in Benghazi, Libya, greater competence from trained professionals could have ensured tranquillity. But retrospective analysis is of limited utility, and the supposition that we can purge our lives of such horror is an optimistic fiction.
In researching my book “Far From the Tree,” I interviewed the parents of Dylan Klebold, one of the perpetrators of the Columbine massacre in Littleton, Colo., in 1999. Over a period of eight years, I spent hundreds of hours with the Klebolds. I began convinced that if I dug deeply enough into their character, I would understand why Columbine happened — that I would recognize damage in their household that spilled over into catastrophe. Instead, I came to view the Klebolds not only as inculpable, but as admirable, moral, intelligent and kind people whom I would gladly have had as parents myself. Knowing Tom and Sue Klebold did not make it easier to understand what had happened. It made Columbine far more bewildering and forced me to acknowledge that people are unknowable.
When people ask me why the Klebolds didn’t search Dylan’s room and find his writings, didn’t track him to where he’d hidden his guns, I remind them that intrusive behavior like this sometimes prompts rather than prevents tragedy and that all parents must sail between what the British psychoanalyst Rozsika Parker called “the Scylla of intrusiveness and the Charybdis of neglect.” Whether one steered this course well is knowable only after the fact. We’d have wished for intrusiveness from the Klebolds and from Nancy Lanza, but we can find other families in which such intrusiveness has been deeply destructive.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/opinion/sunday/anatomy-of-a-murder-suicide.html?pagewanted=1&hp
Sunday, December 23, 2012
"I've read that kids with Asperger syndrome are more likely to commit suicide than the population at large."
Dear Paul,
My son Linus loves to play video games, his favorite food is mac 'n cheese, and he was born with Asperger syndrome.
As a mom, I worry most about the isolation and depression that many children with Asperger syndrome suffer from. I've read that kids with Asperger syndrome are more likely to commit suicide than the population at large.
A month ago, Linus was at risk of losing insurance coverage for the treatment he needs to keep him from becoming isolated and depressed. Our insurance company, United Healthcare, can stop covering this kind of treatment when a child in certain states “completes 9 years” of age.
But then I started a petition on Change.org and my health insurance company has now agreed to cover Linus’ treatment even after he turns 9.
United Healthcare did the right thing for my son, but I know that other families might not be so lucky. That’s why I’m asking United Healthcare to set a national standard of covering autism-spectrum related treatment for kids after age 9 and into adulthood.
One big problem is that state laws are inconsistent about who United is required to cover: in Texas, United Healthcare is only required to cover kids up to age 9, but in other states, they are required to cover kids up to age 18 and even into adulthood.
If United Healthcare can extend coverage for my son, they can do it for other children with autism too. Families shouldn’t have to fight with their insurance companies to get coverage for the potentially lifesaving treatment their doctors recommend.
I'm hoping that if enough people speak up for children with Asperger syndrome, United Healthcare will reevaluate their policy and set an example to other top healthcare providers by creating a national standard.
Please sign my petition now and ask your admirers as well to join me in asking United Healthcare to set a national policy covering Asperger syndrome treatment for children after they turn 9 years old and into adulthood.
Thank you so much for your help and all you do for children the world-over.
With admiration and the hope you give to thousands,
Mindy Armbrust
Doylestown, Ohio
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| The Armbrust Family |
http://www.change.org/petitions/united-healthcare-stop-cutting-off-medical-coverage-for-autism-at-age-9-2?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=15742&alert_id=DUZZYPRJbR_WkoENajpPU
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