Battle to Save Corporal Punishment In New Orleans Catholic School

Posted: June 1, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: children, Civil Rights, physical abuse, Surreality, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 22 Comments

Do you get the feeling the bad old days are coming back? U.S. economy has returned us to 1930s-style levels of unemployment, evil Republicans like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are trying to recreate the poverty of those years by removing the social safety net, and Republicans are working as hard as they can to make sure women have no control over their bodies or their lives.

Now we have students of a Catholic school in New Orleans and their parents demanding Archbishop Gregory Aymond reverse his decision to end corporal punishment, and school alumni aresuing the educational consultant who recommended the policy change!

Can this really be the 21st Century?

From yesterday’s New Orleans Times-Picayune:

The controversy over corporal punishment at St. Augustine High School resurfaced Tuesday when several alumni sued a consultant [read the suit here (pdf)] who advised Archbishop Gregory Aymond that St. Augustine students had been injured by paddling.

The claim isn’t true, the alumni said.

For months Aymond, who as archbishop exerts some control over the Catholic school, has sought to end St. Augustine’s decades-old practice of paddling students. He has said it is not consistent with Catholic values.

But backers of corporal punishment, who include St. Augustine administrators, parents and alumni, say it is part of St. Augustine’s formula for success.

According to the story, the consultant, Monica Applewhite, convinced the Archbishop to ban paddling of students against the decision of the review committee.

In late 2009 Aymond asked Monica Applewhite, described as a educational safety consultant based in Austin, Texas, to look into discipline at St. Augustine.

As Aymond’s representative, Applewhite sat in on St. Augustine’s internal review of its corporal punishment policy. The review committee elected to continue the policy, with modifications.

But the lawsuit says that Applewhite privately advised Aymond that she learned during her inquiry that parents had taken three students to the hospital after paddling, and that others had been paddled “day after day and more than 5 or 6 times a day.”

Archbishop Aymond says he has been contacted by former students and parents of students who were injured by corporal punishment in the school. He made this statement at a news conference today:

“I feel it necessary at this time to share that since the issue of paddling at St. Augustine has become public, I have been contacted both in writing and in person by individuals and parents of individual students who were injured as a result of being paddled at school,” Aymond said in a statement. “Those who have shared this information with me have done so in confidence, but at this juncture, the public should know that my concerns over paddling at St. Augustine go beyond Dr. Applewhite’s report to first-hand accounts.”

I also want to point out that paddling at St. Augustine’s is routinely used to discipline students for such shocking infractions as “tardiness, sloppy uniform dress or other minor rules infractions.”

Frankly, I thought that corporal punishment had been eliminated in the U.S. But I was wrong. According to this report on corporal punishment research, paddling is still common in a number of states.

The US Supreme Court decided in 1977 that spanking or paddling by schools is lawful where it has not been explicitly outlawed by local authorities. It is true that the incidence of CP has declined sharply in recent years, but only 31 states (plus D.C. and Puerto Rico) have actually abolished it, either de facto or de jure. CP is still used in the other 19 states, and it remains a fairly common practice in three of them, all in the South: Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi.

It is also routine, but only in a minority of (often rural or small-town) schools, in five more southern states: Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.

The latest states to abolish were Delaware, in 2003, after an eight-year gap in which no abolitions took place at state level; Pennsylvania, in 2005; Ohio, in 2009; and now in 2011 New Mexico (documentation in next update). The number of paddlings had already fallen to a low level in these states.

On the other hand, efforts to ban school CP by legislation have failed in 2003 in Wyoming and repeatedly in Missouri, and also in North Carolina in 2007 and Louisiana in 2009.

The New York Times had a story about corporal punishment in September 2006. This chart was published with the article.

The pattern suggests that corporal punishment is more accepted in southern states and red states. Perhaps there is something to notion that Republicans and conservatives generally tend toward authoritarianism.

In my opinion, paddling is child abuse and should be illegal. Furthermore, I think children have rights just like adults do. I guess if the Supreme Court disagrees with me, our only hope is for sanity in state legislatures. Good luck with that.

Thanks to Dakinikat for alerting me to this story.

Tuesday Reads

Posted: May 24, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: child sexual abuse, children, morning reads, Republican presidential politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 34 Comments

Good Morning!! I know I shouldn’t keep complaining about my weather, with all the tornadoes and floods in other places, but I sure wish we’d get a little bit of spring here in Beantown. It has been raining almost every day for the past couple of weeks. We had 1-1/2 nice days on Friday and Saturday, and then went back to rainy and soggy. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be 80 degrees, but still raining. And it’s rain, rain, and more rain for the foreseeable future. Ugh! This kind of weather tends to make the news seem even more depressing than usual.

A couple of days ago, Sima posted a wonderful story about a fawn that was rescued by firefighters. That really cheered me up, so I decided to offer you some heartwarming animal rescue stories this morning.

72-Year Old Florida Man Saves Pet Dog from Alligator Attack

Gary Murphy, 72, was at his home in Palm City, about 80 miles north of Miami, on Thursday evening when he heard his West Highland terrier named “Doogie” making noise in the backyard.

Murphy found his beloved pet in the mouth of an alligator that had entered the yard from marshland behind the property, and launched a rescue bid by jumping on the reptile’s backing and hitting it on the head.

“I had loafers on and I hit the back of that gator. It was like jumping on a pile of rocks,” Murphy told the newspaper.

The alligator let go of Doogie, who needed veterinary treatment for deep gouges, lung injuries and liver damage, but was expected to make a full recovery.

Nemo

Kitten Rescued From Island In Detroit Park

The Michigan Humane Society said animal rescuers used a canoe to reach a kitten that was stranded Monday on an island in Detroit’s Palmer Park.

The organization said it didn’t know how the three-month kitten got there, or how long it had been stuck.

The kitten’s rescuers have named him Nemo.

He was taken to the MHS Detroit Center for Animal Care and checked out by veterinarians, who said he’s in good health.

Animal rescue team dispatched to Joplin

The Humane Society of Missouri is deploying a 15-person disaster response team to Joplin, Missouri to rescue and shelter pets affected by Sunday’s devastating tornado.

The team is made up of trained professionals, as well as a veterinarian to help care for sick and injured animals.

The HSMO field assessment team will work in conjunction with Joplin Animal Control and the Jasper County Emergency Management Agency to operate an animal shelter on the campus of Missouri Southern State University and to set up a separate pet shelter to care for hundreds of animals who are unable to be sheltered at MSSU.

For more information on donations to help this and future needs, please visit the Humane Society of Missouri’s website.

In other news, the Obama administration is raising objections to the new Indiana law that bans all government assistance to Planned Parenthood.

The changes in Indiana are subject to federal review and approval, and administration officials have made it clear they will not approve the changes in the form adopted by the state.

Federal officials have 90 days to act but may feel pressure to act sooner because Indiana is already enforcing its law, which took effect on May 10, and because legislators in other states are working on similar measures.

If a state Medicaid program is not in compliance with federal law and regulations, federal officials can take corrective action, including “the total or partial withholding” of federal Medicaid money. The mere threat of such a penalty is often enough to get states to comply. Actually imposing the penalty would, in many cases, hurt the very people whom Medicaid is intended to help.

Hmmm… that doesn’t sound so good. Isn’t there a better way? Fortunately, Mitch Daniels isn’t going to run for President. Tim Pawlenty is running, however, and a Minnesota reporter, Nick Pinto, has published a couple of embarrassing stories in honor of Pawlenty’s throwing his hat in the presidential ring.

Jeremy Giefer, accused child molester, got Pawlenty pardon to open childcare center

Child molester Giefer and friend Tim Pawlenty

Jeremy Giefer served time in jail in 1994 for having sex with a 14-year-old girl. But you wouldn’t know it to look at the record of the man now charged with sexually molesting his daughter more than 250 times over the last eight years.

That’s because two years ago, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Attorney General Lori Swanson, and then-Chief Justice Eric Magnuson unanimously voted to wipe Giefer’s record clean, granting him a pardon extraordinary.

One reason Giefer wanted his record cleared? His wife wanted to open a childcare center in the house where they live–the same house where Giefer allegedly molested his young daughter throughout the six years prior.

Watch Nick Ayers, Tim Pawlenty’s presidential campaign manager, get arrested for DWI [VIDEO]

Back in the fall of 2006, Ayers, then only 24, was running the reelection campaign of Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue.

On October 25, just days before the election, Trooper First Class J.W. Rickett of the Georgia State Patrol saw Ayers’ Chevy Tahoe weaving and doing 50 in a 35-mph zone. Rickett followed the truck, which turned into a parking lot, sped up, and nearly hit another vehicle in an apparent effort to hide.

As the dash-cam video of the incident shows, Ayers’ first words to Rickett are: “We’re with Governor Perdue’s campaign headquarters.”

Ayers claims he’s only had one Jack Daniels and Diet Coke, but Rickett’s report states he smelled strongly of alcohol.

Ayers’ association with the governor apparently doesn’t impress the trooper, who puts him through a field sobriety test, which he fails.

Ayers then refuses to take a breath test, so he’s arrested and put in handcuffs.

You can watch the video at the link.

This is a strange one from Raw Story: Alan Greenspan had to be convinced that he existed before meeting Ayn Rand

A friend had to convince Greenspan that he actually existed prior to a meeting with Ayn Rand in the 1950s.

Nathaniel Branden told the story about Greenspan in the BBC 2 documentary “All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace,” according to The Spectator. Part one of the three part series premiered Monday.

“You have to realize that Alan Greenspan was, and is, a brilliant mind doing brilliant things in the real world but in his 20s he is sitting with me in my apartment telling me that he cannot say with certainty that he exists, he cannot say for certain that I exist and he cannot say for certain that this conversation exists,” Branden recalled.

“That aside he’s got lots of opinions about everything… My challenge became to persuade him that he can be certain that he exists,” he explained.

Apparently, Ayn Rand didn’t like Greenspan much, but Brandon convinced her to allow him to join her group anyway. Greenspan went on to make major contributions to the destruction of the economy of the United States of America.

The U.S. Supreme Court wouldn’t help a poor young girl who was forced to cheer for her rapist, but today they ordered the state of California to release tens of thousands of convicts from state prisons because of overcrowding.

The court gave the state two years to shrink the number of prisoners by more than 33,000 and two weeks to submit a schedule for achieving that goal. The state now has 143,335 inmates, according to Cate.

Monday’s 5-4 ruling, upholding one of the largest such orders in the nation’s history, came with vivid descriptions of indecent care from the majority and outraged warnings of a “grim roster of victims” from some in the minority.

In presenting the decision, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a Sacramento native, spoke from the bench about suicidal prisoners being held in “telephone booth-sized cages without toilets” and others, sick with cancer or in severe pain, who died before being seen by a doctor. As many as 200 prisoners may live in a gymnasium, and as many as 54 may share a single toilet, he said.

Kennedy, whose opinion was joined by his four liberal colleagues, said the state’s prisons were built to hold 80,000 inmates, but were crowded with as many 156,000 a few years ago.

If they let small-time drug users go, that would be fine with me, but I hope they continue to keep Charlie Manson, Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie van Houten behind bars, along with other vicious murders.

I’ll end with the latest rapture news: Radio host says Rapture actually coming in October

California preacher Harold Camping said Monday his prophecy that the world would end was off by five months because Judgment Day actually will come on October 21.

Camping, who predicted that 200 million Christians would be taken to heaven Saturday before the Earth was destroyed, said he felt so terrible when his doomsday prediction did not come true that he left home and took refuge in a motel with his wife. His independent ministry, Family Radio International, spent millions — some of it from donations made by followers — on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 RVs plastered with the Judgment Day message.

But Camping said that he’s now realized the apocalypse will come five months after May 21, the original date he predicted. He had earlier said Oct. 21 was when the globe would be consumed by a fireball.

{Sigh…}

So what are you reading and blogging about today?

What Matters is the Abortion, not the Child Sexual Abuse

Posted: May 7, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: abortion rights, child sexual abuse, children, fetus fetishists, religious extremists, Reproductive Rights, Women's Rights | Tags: , | 21 Comments

Steven Tyler and underage girlfriend Julia Holcomb

Don’t read this post unless you’re prepared to be repulsed, sickened, nauseated, enraged. I just thought it would be fair to warn you. A few days ago, the National Review ran this op-ed by Kevin Burke, in which he tries to make a case for “post-abortion trauma” using Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler as an example. Here’s how the article begins:

Long before he won accolades as an American Idol judge, Steven Tyler was a bona-fide rock star, with all that that implied. In 1975, when he was in his late 20s and the lead singer for the band Aerosmith, Tyler persuaded the parents of his 14-year-old girlfriend, Julia Holcomb, to make him her legal guardian so that they could live together in Boston.

When Miss Holcomb and Tyler conceived a child, his longtime friend Ray Tabano convinced Tyler that abortion was the only solution. In the Aerosmith “autobiography,” Walk This Way (in which recollections by all the band members, and their friends and lovers, were assembled by the author Stephen Davis), Tabano says: “So they had the abortion, and it really messed Steven up because it was a boy. He . . . saw the whole thing and it [messed] him up big time.”

Okay, there is so much wrong with this, I hardly know where to begin. Burke tells us that a 27-year-old Tyler basically bought a 14-year-old girl from her parents, moved her into his home and impregnated her. Then he got her an abortion, and he is traumatized.

But Burke doesn’t even register the horror that he has described–a child given up by her parents so a wealthy rock star can exploit her. His only focus is on the fact that Tyler was upset by the abortion.

He provides a quote from Aerosmith’s “autobiography ” Walk This Way, in which Tyler describes the experience (Julia was called “Diana” in the book).

“It was a big crisis. It’s a major thing when you’re growing something with a woman, but they convinced us that it would never work out and would ruin our lives. . . . You go to the doctor and they put the needle in her belly and they squeeze the stuff in and you watch. And it comes out dead. I was pretty devastated. In my mind, I’m going, Jesus, what have I done?”

See that ellipsis? Burke left something out of the quote, so I’ll provide the entire passage:

Burke left out the part where “they” (doctors?) told Tyler Julia was too young to have a baby! Burke also left out the part about how Tyler was providing a little girl with drugs and how he dumped her right after the abortion. Burke expresses zero concern for how traumatic all this must have been for Julia Holcomb. And BTW, what kind of abortion is that? It sounds like a very late term one to me. I suppose a rock star would be able to get one of those for his underage girlfriend….and then he got involved with a Playboy playmate and sent Julia back to her parents.

And check this out (h/t Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon)

Um…did it bother Burke that Tyler made Julia dress up in little girl outfits? I guess not. Anyway he goes tries to argue that Tyler suffers from “post-abortion trauma.”

For many post-abortive men and women, the anxiety associated with an abortion can surface at unexpected times, triggered by events such as a subsequent pregnancy, the death of a pet or a loved one, or some other person, place, or thing that in some way connects with the traumatic memory.

Because Burke runs something called Rachel’s Vineyard Ministries, which puts on workshops and retreats for “post-abortive” people.

Rachel’s Vineyard weekends for healing after abortion are offered throughout the year in locations across the United States and Canada, with additional sites around the world. We also offer a 15-week support group model for Rachel’s Vineyard. Rachel’s Vineyard is a ministry of Priests for Life

The program is an opportunity to examine your abortion experience, identify the ways that the loss has impacted you in the past and present, and helps to acknowledge any unresolved feelings that many individuals struggle with after abortion. Because of the emotional numbness and secrecy that often surrounds an abortion experience, conflicting emotions both during and after the event may remain unresolved. These buried feelings can surface later and may be symptoms of post abortion trauma.

Married couples, mothers, fathers, grandparents and siblings of aborted children, as well as persons who have been involved in the abortion industry have come to Rachel’s Vineyard in search of peace and inner healing. The weekend is a lot of work but yields a fruitful harvest for all who are willing to labor there.

Good grief! Well at least they accept women. I wonder if they have to stand up and “confess” in front of the group? But come on–grandparents and siblings of aborted “children?” What about cousins, aunts and uncles?

I told you this was going to be a sickening post. I could make a remark about about maybe Burke isn’t so concerned about child sexual abuse because he’s a priest… Ooops! Did I say that?

Hillary Clinton initiates project “MAMA”

Posted: May 3, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: children, Hillary Clinton, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , | 6 Comments

The State Department and Secretary of State Clinton announced an exciting initiate today called MAMA.

Today, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced a new partnership, the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA), which will harness the power of mobile technology to deliver vital health information to new and expectant mothers.

The partnership leverages the collective resources of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Johnson & Johnson, with support from the United Nations Foundation, Health Alliance and BabyCenter LLC. The partnership was developed in collaboration with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Department of State.

Mobile health messages are able to quickly and easily disseminate information that will inform women of ways to care for themselves during pregnancy, dispel myths and misconceptions, highlight warning signs, connect women with local health services, reinforce breast feeding practices, explain the benefits of family planning, and make new mothers aware of how best to care for their babies.

Over the next three years, the partnership, which is expected to mobilize $10 million, will work across an initial set of three countries — Bangladesh, India, and South Africa — to help coordinate and increase the impact of existing mobile health programs, provide resources and technical assistance to promising new business models, and build the evidence base on the effective application of mobile technology to improve maternal health. Lessons learned from these and other initiatives will be shared globally in a coordinated exchange of information. The partnership will foster collaboration among similar initiatives in other countries to accelerate efforts to reach millions of women with mobile phone access around the world.

“If we are going to improve public health across the developing world, our solutions must be focused on reaching the hard to reach with health information they otherwise would not receive,” said USAID Administrator Raj Shah. “This partnership will harness the power of mobile technology to provide mothers with information about pregnancy, childbirth, and the first year of life, empowering these women to make healthy decisions for themselves and their families.”

“Better health for communities starts with better health for expectant and new moms. This public-private partnership adds another way we are extending our commitment to moms everywhere,” says Bill Weldon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Johnson & Johnson. “It’s part of fulfilling our commitment to the UN Secretary General’s Global Strategy to advance the Millennium Development Goals.”

“Instead of imagining a world where the health of mothers benefits from mobile phones, we are answering the call today to make it happen,” said Kathy Calvin, CEO of the UN Foundation and member of the Partnership Board of the Health Alliance. “This new initiative will take the vision that world leaders and the UN Secretary-General announced last year and turn it into action.”

Among the attendees today was CEO from Johnson & Johnson William Weldon who is one of the partners in this public/private partnership.    Secretary Clinton has always been a strong advocate for women and children.  This is some great, positive news at a time when many people in congress seem to seek to de-fund anything that benefits women and children.

Bad News at Good News Camp

Posted: April 6, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: child sexual abuse, children, physical abuse | Tags: , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Last night I posted that prosecutors are looking into sexual abuse allegations relating to an employee at the Good News Christian Camp on Cape Cod–the same camp at which Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown says he was sexually abused by a counselor when he was a young boy.

Today an employee at the camp shot himself. And officials say he is the employee who was recently accused by another man who was abused at the camp when he was 10 years old. From The Boston Globe:

An employee of a Christian summer camp on Cape Cod shot himself to death today just days after he became the focus of a criminal investigation into allegations that he sexually abused a camper during the 1980s, officials said.

In a joint statement released this afternoon, Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe and Sandwich Police Chief Peter Wack said the man was dead when he was found near his vehicle on the grounds of Camp Good News this morning.

[….]

The dead man’s name was not released by authorities. But Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represents a former camper who brought a sex abuse allegation to prosecutors on Monday, said the employee was his client’s alleged abuser: Charles “Chuck” Devita, 43, who is listed on the camp’s website as part of the leadership team and director of the physical plant.

Devita left behind notes insisting “that he never did anything being alleged and was, indeed, sick of being accused,” according to a law enforcement official.

What a coward. He spends decades abusing vulnerable young boys, and when he’s finally caught he checks out, leaving a note claiming innocence.

Meanwhile, Scott Brown says his abuse took place in the 1970’s, more than 40 years ago. He refuses to identify his abuser, but now we know that the Camp has employed at least two pedophiles.

According to the Boston Herald:

Garabedian tells the Herald his client was supposed to meet with a state police investigator about today’s death. Garabedian said his client alleges he was repeatedly sexually assaulted at the overnight camp in 1985 by Devita.

Garabedian said three other people have now come forward today alleging they were also sexually assaulted at the camp — two from Devita and one from another man.

“Another individual has come forward alleging that he was molested by a different individual. I am currently investigating,” Garabedian said.

So…maybe three pedophiles have worked for this “Christian” camp. Let’s hope parents in Massachusetts stop sending their kids to this place, and learn to be vigilant about what is going on with their kids in the future. Parents need to be aware that pedophiles seek out jobs where they will have access to children.

It’s important for parents to discuss these kinds of situations with children in age appropriate ways. If nothing else, being open with your kids might help them feel safe to talk to you if, goddess forbid, they are approached by a sexual abuser.

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