Archive for June, 2009

It is undeniably true that the man who ably served the First State for almost forty years and who is now but a heartbeat away from the Presidency is but a shadow of his former self – especially mentally. A man reknowned for his intellectual prowess has become a gaff machine and the fodder for late night comedians. He reveals state secrets in press interviews; he misstates numbers and facts; he calls countries and people by the wrong names.
Now we might know ‘why’. Sources close to both Women’s Watch and the Veep have suggested that Biden is perhaps suffering from E.D.
E.D. is sometimes associated with other circulatory issues including some involving memory and cognition, which could explain a lot.
But who knows? Certainly not I.
However since it is viewed as fair game to comment on women leaders menstrual cycles, hormones and overall sexual components when I heard this rumor I thought it only fair to pass it on and offer an explanation to otherwise inexplicable behavior.
I am sure that Todd Purdum , a writer for Vanity Fair would approve. He spent 12 pages writing about Gov. Sarah Palin’s
‘slutty’ looks and “possible post-partum depression” while giving scant mention of her political acumen and non sexual accomplishments.
o what’s good for he goose is good for the gander and I think it is time for writers and supporters to treat male politicians to the same observations. Hence when I heard the rumor about our Vice President’s problems in the nether regions I thought it might offer an explanation for some rather bizarre public performances.
Does he or doesn’t he? Only his urologist knows for sure.

Jun 30 11:42 AM US/Eastern

Al-Qaeda’s North Africa wing threatened on Tuesday to take revenge on France for its opposition to the burka, calling on Muslims to retaliate against the country, the US monitoring service SITE Intelligence reported.

Earlier this month, President Nicolas Sarkozy said the burka, which covers the whole face, was not welcome in the strictly secular country.

“Yesterday was the hijab (the Islamic headscarf long banned in French schools) and today, it is the niqab (the full veil),” Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, head of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was quoted as saying.

“We will take revenge for the honour of our daughters and sisters against France and against its interests by every means at our disposal.”

The group also called on Muslims to retaliate for what it called French “hostility” against the community and its attempt to obstruct Islam’s practice on its territory.

“For us, the mujahedeen … we will not remain silent to such provocations and injustices,” Abdul Wadud said without elaborating, according to SITE.

“We call upon all Muslims to confront this hostility with greater hostility, and to counter France’s efforts to divide male and female believers from their faith with a greater effort … (by) adherence to the teachings of their Islamic sharia.”

He said Muslims in France, who are estimated at around five million, are “increasingly concerned about the practices of French politicians and leaders and their harassment”.

On June 22, Sarkozy said the burka was not a symbol of religious faith but a sign of women’s “subservience,” adding that the head-to-toe veil was “not welcome” in staunchly secular France.

The French National Assembly set up an inquiry into the rising number of Muslim women who wear the burka.

France is home to Europe’s largest Muslim community and faces a dilemma between accommodating Islam and maintaining secularism. In 2004, it passed a law banning headscarves or any other “conspicuous” religious symbols in schools to uphold a separation between church and state.

Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri criticized the law, saying the decision showed “the grudge the Western crusaders have against Islam.”

France is the only state in Europe to have such a ban.

It is not known how many women wear the burka in France.

The majority of Muslim clerics around the world do not regard wearing the burka, unlike the head cover, as a religious obligation under Islam.

Original Article CLICK HERE

Speaking before a group of business and civic leaders in Boston on Tuesday, Sen. John Kerry let fly with an ill-advised attempt at humor. The butt of the joke, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is not likely to be amused. In a reference to South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who was, at the time the joke was told, believed to be talking a prolonged, solitary hike on the Appalachian Trail, the Massachusetts Democrat told the crowd:

“Too bad,” Kerry said, “if a governor had to go missing it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin.”

The fact that Kerry, like the rest of us, did not know that Sanford was really down in Argentina with the woman with whom he’s been having an extramarital affair is beside the point. This joke is simply awful. A) Hoping for a person’s disappearance, even in jest, and even if she is a political enemy, is just not nice. B) Sanford and Palin are on virtually equal footing in terms of their political leanings. Both are far-right, Christian conservatives. So why single Palin out in such a crass way?

Perhaps Kerry should consider leaving the comedy routines to the likes of David Letterman… oh, wait. On second thought…

Original Article CLICK HERE

The New York Post is reporting that the EX Governor of New York State told a colleague quote, :”I’m no Mark Sanford. I never fell in love with THEM.”
By “THEM”,ex-Gov and still swine, is referring to the young women, most barely out of their teens whom he paid enormous sums to dress in grade school uniforms and then screw.
Despite being paid large sums of cash,some of the young sex
workers aka prostitutes refused to service him a second time
because reportedly he “refused to use protection, got a little rough and SMELLED”… Yes SMELLED. Well that’s logical – dead, rotting things always smell.
According to the Post, Spit-zer appeared to feel his indiscretion was not even comparable with the Governor of South Carolina who was actually in love with the woman for whom he betrayed his marriage vows.(Read the e-mails – it’s true.)
“I never fell in love with THEM.” That statement says it all when it comes to the self-righteous Spit-zer’s real attitude toward women.
Here it is: some women, usually from the lower strata of society are THINGS to be used like Kleenex or trash bags. One must never view them as human beings when dealing with them and never develop feelings for them. One is to use them for the purpose you need at the time, not to have a relationship with them. Then there are other women with whom one forms a relationship. They bear ones children, work to advance one’s career and even suffer humiliation by standing beside one when one has been caught with one’s trouser’s down — or off completely.
Presumably it would be o.k. to love those women.Those women after all are at some level human unlike the “hookers”.
Silly Mark Sanford – it’s one thing to destroy your career because you have a “call girl” habit but for “love”? Don’t be ridiculous !
Eliot Spit-zer never went to jail for the crimes he committed (ASK the Attorney General why not) but all of the women involved in the “Escort Service”, with the exception of the young prostitute who turned state’s evidence, went to jail. Now there’s equal justice under the law.
We can only hope that, Spit-zer’s three teenage daughters run into men more like Mark Sanford, jerk that he is, than their own swinish father, who if he didn’t recognize their humanity would use them, abuse them and lose them because he would never “love THEM.”

NEW CASTLE, Del. (WBOC/AP) – Detectives say they have charged a former Department of Correction employee for raping a 24-year-old woman at a treatement center in New Castle, Del.

Delaware State Police say on Wednesday morning, detectives arrested Roger L. Thompkins with second-degree rape, third-degree unlawful sexual contact, sexual relations in detention facility, official misconduct with unauthorized exercise of official functions and acts constituting coercion.

According to investigators, the victim is an offender at the Women’s Work Release Treatment Center located at 620 Baylor Blvd. in New Castle.

The victim says that on the afternoon of April 11, Thompkins had her go to the laundry room located in the treatment center. Police say the suspect was aware that the victim was coming up on a disciplinary hearing and he told her that he sometimes sits in on the hearings.

Authorities say Thompkins claimed that if she did not have intercourse with him, he would ensure that she got sent back to the Baylor Women’s Correctional Institute. According to authorities, the suspect proceeded to have sexual intercourse with the victim in the laundry room.

When Thompkins finished his shift and left the center, the victim told a supervisor of the incident and security video captured the suspect and victim entering and leaving the hallway to the laundry room, authorities say.

Detectives say DNA evidence was collected and is pending analysis. Thompkins turned himself in Wednesday morning and was released after posting a $34,000 secured bail. The Department of Correction Public Information Office says that Thompkins has since resigned from the treatment center.

Original Article CLICK HERE

On June 25 the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, died.
To be sure it is a tragedy for his family which includes three young children and his creditors to whom he reportedly owes 400 million dollars. (This includes a pharmacy which sued him for $100,000 for unpaid drug deliveries.) But I find it completely baffling that his death is being treated as the loss of a world healer, leader or saint.
Michael Jackson was an extremely talented song and dance man – maybe even a genius. And for his talent and hard work he was handsomely rewarded having sold over 750 million recordings. This allowed him to live a fantasy life. He bought whatever he wanted including children.And that’s where the ugliness begins, continues and should end.
By his own admission he shared his bed with young children, boys mostly. Sometimes it was at Neverland, his own fantasy land and sometimes it was at their houses with their parents permission. On a major network interview he admitted to sleep overs with the children while vehemently denying anything happened. Maybe it didn’t but if 45 year old Gus the gas station attendant was having sleep overs with 9 year olds down the street what would you think?
Then there was the “Jesus Juice” , the meds on the night stand and the “girlie magazines” in plain view of the children. All perfectly normal. Uh Huh.
The guy, talented as he was, had problems. All this behavior finally led to two indictments, big payoffs to accusing kids and their pimp parents and finally a salacious child molestation trial. He was acquitted mostly because the jury hated the boy’s mom. The Law set him loose to wrestles with those demons that he saw in the mirror and which he mutilated himself to destroy.
Now he is dead probably a victim of his own self loathing.
Society should say a prayer for his repose and admire his contribution to the musical and choreographic arts.
But the idolatry being displayed by our culture syas way more about us than Michael Jackson.
At the core of it Michael Jackson was an entertainer , possibly a genius and possibly a child molester. His great talent does not overshadow the fact that he was a danger to children, whether he wanted to be or not.
And his great entertainment value for us as a society does not excuse the way we devalue women and children and their health and safety in the face of great charisma, money and glitz. Shame on us. We should remember the words from “Billie Jean” – “My mama always told me be careful who you love” If we are not careful we”ll be mutilating what we see in the mirror.

(CNN) — Farrah Fawcett, the blonde-maned actress whose best-selling poster and “Charlie’s Angels” stardom made her one of the most famous faces in the world, has died. She was 62.

Farrah Fawcett rose to fame in the 1970s, thanks to a best-selling poster and the hit show “Charlie Angels.”

Fawcett, who checked into a Los Angeles, California, hospital in early April, had been battling anal cancer on and off for three years.

Ryan O’Neal, Fawcett’s romantic partner since the mid-1980s, recently told People magazine that the sex symbol was declining.

“She stays in bed now. The doctors see that she is comfortable. Farrah is on IVs, but some of that is for nourishment. The treatment has pretty much ended,” he said in a story posted May 7.

Fawcett’s cancer journey has been documented in a television special partly shot by the actress. Fawcett began shooting “Farrah’s Story,” by taking a camera to a doctor’s appointment. Eventually, the film expanded to include trips overseas in hopes of treating the cancer.

The documentary aired on NBC on May 15.

Fawcett’s beauty — her gleaming smile was printed on millions of posters — initially made her famous. But she later established herself as a serious actress. She starred as a battered wife in the 1984 TV movie “The Burning Bed.” She appeared on stage as a woman who extracts vengeance from a would-be rapist in William Mastrosimone’s play “Extremities.” Watch Fawcett accept her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame »

She reprised the “Extremities” role on film in 1986. Other Fawcett films include “Logan’s Run” (1976), “Saturn 3″ (1980), “The Cannonball Run” (1981), “The Apostle” (1997) and the Robert Altman-directed “Dr. T and the Women” (2000).

To many, Fawcett will always be best known for her red-swimsuited image on the pinup poster, which sold a reputed 12 million copies after its release in 1976.

Fawcett was a model best known for bit parts, commercials and as “Six Million Dollar Man” actor Lee Majors’ wife when she shot the poster in early 1976 at the behest of Pro Arts, a Cleveland, Ohio, company.

Photographer Bruce McBroom placed Fawcett — then known as Farrah Fawcett-Majors — in the Indian blanket-draped front seat of his 1937 Chevy and snapped away. Fawcett did her own hair — a long, tousled cascade of blonde locks — picked out the red bathing suit and chose the frame later used for the poster, according to a story in the Toronto Star.

The poster, with Fawcett’s million-dollar smile front and center, became a sensation.

Soon after the photo shoot, Fawcett was asked to join the cast of a new Aaron Spelling TV show, “Charlie’s Angels,” about a trio of female detectives who work for a mysterious man named Charlie, whose only appearance in the show was through his voice (supplied by John Forsythe). Watch Fawcett talk about why she left “Angels” »

Fawcett, who played Jill Munroe, was the last to be cast. Co-star Kate Jackson was the known name at the time, but thanks to her poster, Fawcett became the breakout star.

The highly rated TV series kicked off what came to be known as “jiggle TV,” series full of pretty actresses who appeared in bikinis at the drop of a hat.

“Denunciations of ‘massage parlor television’ and ‘voyeurism’ only brought more viewers to the screen, to see what the controversy was about,” wrote Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh about “Charlie’s Angels” in their indispensable reference, “The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows.”

ABC’s “Three’s Company” and CBS’s “The American Girls” were among the shows that immediately followed, and shows such as “Baywatch” owe “Charlie’s Angels” a debt.

But Fawcett didn’t stay with “Angels” long. At the end of the first season, unhappy with her contract, she left the show and was replaced by Cheryl Ladd.

Fawcett’s career stagnated for a time after “Charlie’s Angels.” She appeared in a handful of forgettable films and divorced Majors.

But her career received a major boost with her starring role in “The Burning Bed,” a 1984 TV movie co-starring Paul Le Mat. Fawcett played an abused wife who sets fire to her husband’s bed as he lies sleeping. Fawcett received an Emmy nomination for her performance.

Fawcett also became romantically involved with O’Neal around this time. The pair had a son, Redmond, in 1985.

In recent years, Fawcett has appeared sporadically in the public eye. She posed nude for Playboy in 1995. In 1997, she appeared on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” an interview that became notorious for Fawcett’s apparent incoherence. She later said she was just having fun with Letterman.

She reunited with her “Charlie’s Angels” co-stars, Jackson and Jaclyn Smith, for an awards show in 2006.

Fawcett was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1947. She married Majors in 1973; they divorced nine years later.

She was diagnosed with cancer in 2006.

Original Article CLICK HERE

One of the most striking aspects of the “Green’ Revolution taking place in the Islamic Republic of Iran is the prominent place women have taken in moving it forward.
In the cell phone pictures being smuggled out, after the foreign media was expelled, crowds that are at 25 to 50 percent are evident. And for good reason. It is women who have borne the brunt of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Under the Shah, no democrat he, the treatment of women had moved substantially forward from the 15th century they had been moored in culturally. They did not forget this small taste of freedom even after thirty years. So it is not surprising to see them marching, bleeding and dying in the streets of Tehran. They are speaking out for the right not to be imprisoned in a burrka, arrested for wearing lipstick or nail polish, stoned to death on an accusation of immodesty or beaten for showing a lock of hair in public. It is women who have the most to gain and the most to lose and so they fight on with the most fervor. Let’s support them.

Trapped by weather, she treated her own breast cancer

BOSTON – Dr. Jerri Nielsen FitzGerald, who diagnosed and treated her own breast cancer before a dramatic rescue from the South Pole, has died. She was 57.

Her husband, Thomas FitzGerald, said she died Tuesday at their home in Southwick, Mass. Her cancer had been in remission until it returned in August 2005, he said Wednesday.

She was the only doctor among 41 staff at the National Science Foundation’s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in winter 1999 when she discovered a lump in her breast. At first, she didn’t tell anyone, but the burden became too much to bear.

“I got really sick,” she told The Associated Press in a 2003 interview. “I had great big lymph nodes under my arm. I thought I would die.”

Rescue was out of the question. Because of the extreme weather conditions, the station is closed to the outside world for the winter. She had no choice but to treat the disease herself, with help from colleagues she trained to care for her and U.S.-based doctors she stayed in touch with via satellite e-mail.

She performed a biopsy on herself with the help of staff.

A machinist helped her with her IV and test slides, and a welder helped with chemotherapy.

She treated herself with anti-cancer drugs delivered during a gripping mid-July airdrop by a U.S. Air Force plane in blackout, freezing conditions.

In a headline grabbing rescue, she was lifted by the Air National Guard in October, one of the earliest flights ever into the station when it became warm enough — 58 degrees below zero — to make the risky flight.

After multiple surgeries in the U.S., including a mastectomy, the cancer went into remission until 2005.

“More and more as I am here and see what life really is, I understand that it is not when or how you die but how and if you truly were ever alive,” she wrote in an e-mail to her parents in June, 1999 from the South Pole.

Nielsen FitzGerald never lost her adventurous spirit and even returned to desolate Antarctica several more times.

“She had incredible zest and enthusiasm for life,” said her husband, whom she first met 23 years ago when they were both on vacation in the Amazon. “She was kindest soul I ever met, she was intelligent, with a great sense of humor, and she lived each day to the fullest.”

She documented her ordeal in the best-selling book “Ice Bound: A Doctor’s Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole.” It was later made into a TV movie.

The disease made her stronger, she said in November 2001.

“I would rather not have it. But the cancer is part of me. It’s given my life color and texture. Everyone has to get something. Some people are ugly, some people are stupid. I get cancer,” she said at lecture in Denver.

Nielsen FitzGerald spent the last decade speaking around the world about the cancer and how it changed her life, and also worked as roving ER doctor in hospitals all over the Northeast.

“She fought bravely, she was able to make the best of what life and circumstance gave her, and she had the most resilience I have ever seen in anyone,” said her husband. “She fought hard and she fought valiantly.” The couple would have celebrated their third anniversary next week.

In addition to her husband, the Ohio native and graduate of the University of Toledo Medical Center is survived by parents Lorine and Phil, brothers Scott and Eric, and three children from a previous marriage, Julia, Ben and Alex.

Memorial and funeral arrangements are pending.

Original Article CLICK HERE

(CNN) — A 4-year-old Ohio girl who vanished more than three weeks ago was found alive and in good condition, halfway across the country in southern California, authorities said.

Haylee Donathan was found with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, fugitive sex offender Robbie Potter.

Haylee Donathan, her mother Candace Watson and Robbie Potter were discovered hiding for the past week at The Morning Star Ranch, a retreat in Valley Center, near San Diego, said Peter Elliott, United States Marshal for the Northern District of Ohio.

Potter is a registered sex offender, officials said. He was being sought by the U.S. Marshal’s Service.

Late Tuesday Haylee was in the custody of a children’s protective services agency in the San Diego County area, Elliott said. She was doing well but may have chicken pox, he added.

“We understand she is healthy and happy and I believe, waiting to come back to her grandmother here,” he said. Watch authorities announce their find »

The journey west took them more than two thousand miles from Mansfield, the north-Central Ohio city where the girl and her mother live.

“I am very happy that my granddaughter’s coming home,” said Mary Watson, Haylee’s grandmother. “And I just want to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart.”

Watson, 24, and Potter, 27, were arrested without incident and held by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department. When asked their reaction, Elliott said, “I believe a little shocked that we were able to find them.”

Potter and Watson were still using the same vehicle, a 1980s blue Chevrolet pickup truck they drove from Ohio, Elliott said.

Watson’s hair was a bit darker and Potter also changed his appearance slightly.

Authorities had feared Haylee was endangered. Potter, a sex offender, had escaped a half-way house on May 28, the day the girl and her mother fell out of sight.

Countless tips came in while they were missing but one in particular led to the breakthrough on Tuesday, Elliott said without elaborating.

But a tip from members of the ranch could have lead to the raid and arrest, a ranchmember told CNN.

Kevin Carlin, a member of the ranch in the neighborhood of Valley Center, told CNN in a telephone interview that ranch members became suspicious when a former ranch guest saw billboards urging help in finding Haylee and the two adults.

Elliott also praised intense national news coverage from programs such as HLN’s Nancy Grace and Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell, as well as local media and Clear Channel, which put up missing child billboards across the country.

When she is returned to Ohio, Haylee will be placed in the custody of her grandmother, Elliott said. The U.S. Marshals Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force had offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of 27-year-old Potter.

Potter was wanted on a state warrant for parole violation and a federal warrant for probation violation. He is a convicted tier three sex offender, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, a unit of the Justice Department.

While on the run, Potter and Watson were reportedly seen on surveillance video on May 31 at a Wal-Mart Store in Marion, Ohio, 40 miles from Mansfield. Haylee was not on that video.

Adding to concerns, Watson’s roommate, Samantha Covert, said last week in an interview on Nancy Grace that she saw the little girl in bed with her mother and Potter the morning they disappeared. Covert said Watson carried a basket of clothing, pillows and blankets.

Watson will likely face state charges, including harboring a fugitive, according to Elliott.

In addition to other charges, he said Potter may be prosecuted under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, a federal sex offender registration and self-reporting law that carries a multi-year felony sentence if violated.

On its Web site, the Morning Star Ranch describes itself as “a community of growers of organic, pesticide-free avocados, grapefruit, persimmons, nuts, and other produce.”

Elliot said he believed it is a rehab facility and also called it a Christian retreat.

Original Article CLICK HERE

MOSCOW — Russian police have taken into care a 5-year-old girl who has been shut up in a flat in the company of cats and dogs for her entire life, police said on Wednesday.

The girl, who lived in the Eastern Siberian city of Chita, could not speak Russian and acted like an dog when police took her into care.

“For five years, the girl was ‘brought up’ by several dogs and cats and had never been outside,” a police statement said.

“The unwashed girl was dressed in filthy clothes, had the clear attributes of an animal and jumped at people,” it said.

The flat had no heat, water or sewage system.

A police spokeswoman said the girl, known as Natasha, is being monitored by psychologists in an orphanage. Her mother was being questioned but her father has not been found yet.

She appears to be about 2-years-old, though her real age is five, refuses to eat with a spoon and has taken on many of the gestures of the animals with which she lived, police said.

“When carers leave the room, the girl jumps at the door and barks,” the police said.

Feral children, the stuff of folklore all over the world, usually exhibit the behavior of the animals with whom they have had closest contact, a condition known as the Mowgli Syndrome after the fictional child from Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” who was raised by wolves in the jungle.

Such children have usually built strong ties with the animals with whom they lived and find the transition to normal human contact extremely traumatic.

PARIS (AP) – President Nicolas Sarkozy lashed out Monday at the practice of wearing the Muslim burqa, insisting the full-body religious gown is a sign of the “debasement” of women and that it won’t be welcome in France.

The French leader expressed support for a recent call by dozens of legislators to create a parliamentary commission to study a small but growing trend of wearing the full-body garment in France.

In the first presidential address in 136 years to a joint session of France’s two houses of parliament, Sarkozy laid out his support for a ban even before the panel has been approved—braving critics who fear the issue is a marginal one and could stigmatize Muslims in France.

“In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity,” Sarkozy said to extended applause in a speech at the Chateau of Versailles southwest of Paris.

“The burqa is not a religious sign, it’s a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement—I want to say it solemnly,” he said. “It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic.”

In France, the terms “burqa” and “niqab” often are used interchangeably. The former refers to a full-body covering worn largely in Afghanistan with only a mesh screen over the eyes, whereas the latter is a full-body veil, often in black, with slits for the eyes.

Later Monday, Sarkozy was expected to host a state dinner with Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Al Thani of Qatar. Many women in the Persian Gulf state wear Islamic head coverings in public—whether while shopping or driving cars.

France enacted a law in 2004 banning the Islamic headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols from public schools, sparking fierce debate at home and abroad. France has Western Europe’s largest Muslim population, an estimated 5 million people.

A government spokesman said Friday that it would seek to set up a parliamentary commission that could propose legislation aimed at barring Muslim women from wearing the head-to-toe gowns outside the home.

The issue is highly divisive even within the government. France’s junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, said she was open to a ban if it is aimed at protecting women forced to wear the burqa.

But Immigration Minister Eric Besson said a ban would only “create tensions.”

A leading French Muslim group warned against studying the burqa.

Original Article CLICK HERE

A second-grade girl’s religious song is the subject of controversy in a California public school.

The Vintage Parkway Elementary School in Oakley, California, recently held auditions for their after-school talent show. Second-grader Bette Ouellette decided to perform sign language to one of her favorite songs and was praised by the judges for her talent. However, school officials barred her from participating in the talent show because the song she performed was Christian in nature.

Bette’s father believes the school overreacted, so he contacted the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI).

“I don’t think anybody in their right mind would watch a sign language performance by a second-grader and say to themselves, ‘What is the government trying to communicate to me?’” says PJI staff attorney Matthew McReynolds.

McReynolds says his organization sent a letter to the school explaining that it violated the student’s free-speech rights. Since then, school officials have not expressed any regret and were upset that the media got hold of the story.

“We’re still looking for an amicable resolution with the school district,” McReynolds adds. “We don’t want to have to file a lawsuit or anything like that.”

If the school district does not offer an apology, McReynolds says PJI will have no choice but to file a lawsuit. The legal firm has asked the school to clarify its position in the matter by Thursday (June 18).

Original Article CLICK HERE

There she was still as night, wrapped in the shroud of her daily dress – blue jeans and the black shador, required of all women in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The only bright color visible against the dark blue and black was the blood trickling from the corner of her 16 year old mouth and the single bullet exit wound in her head.
Neda, as she has been named was studying philosophy at the University. She and her father were in the street putting some of those philosophical ideas , such as freedom, sovereignty and self-expression into practice. Her witness was cut short by the actions of someone who disagreed with her position but rather than debate her he shot her. Because of modern communication technology which captured the moment his violence only served to magnify that voice. In fact that is what “Neda means – the “Voice.”
Please listen because Neda is speaking to all of us who want and work for self-determination and liberty.

This is a hoot, but I suspect the minister didn’t appreciate it.

A minister was completing a temperance sermon. With great emphasis he said, “If I had all the beer in the world, I’d take it and pour it into the river.”

With even greater emphasis he said, “And if I had
all the wine in the world, I’d take it and pour it into the river.”

And then finally, shaking his fist in the air, he
Said, “And if I had all the whiskey in the world,
I’d take it and pour it into the river..”

Sermon complete, he sat down.

The song leader stood very cautiously and announced
With a smile, nearly laughing, “For our closing song,
Let us sing Hymn #365, ‘Shall We Gather at the River.’”

Smile, life is too short not to!
If this brightened your day
Don’t let it stop here
Pass it on with a smile
Keep spreading the Cheer.
See you at the river

Dave Letterman made yet another attempt to apologize for the “joke” about statutory rape directed at the 14 year old daughter of a sitting U.S Governor, Sarah Palin of Alaska and a major league baseball player, Alex Rodriguez.
But Dave just doesn’t get it. He didn’t insult two individuals he insulted the entire female sex and demeaned young women and girls everywhere. Rape is never funny and can never be seen as an acceptable subject for comedy.
Today in the Southwestern part of the United States the underwear of very yong women will festoon trees and cacti after they have been raped by the smugglers who brought them across the border. Pretty funny stuff huh?
So Dave the “sorry” words ring hollow in light of the horrific evidence of indifference in our misogynist culture. You need a vacation to think about the matter sort of the kind Don Imus was given – a year should do.
And speaking of the Imus incident Al Sharpton insists that the Imus incident was not even comparable to the Letterman situation. According to the Sharpton Imus “insulted a whole group of people.” News flash Al women are PEOPLE and ALL women were insulted by a joke about RAPE. It demeans ALL women not just the mentioned target.
Maybe there is room in the consciousness raising class with Dave for Al who should also apologize for such careless remarks.

By JOSEPH P. SMITH • Gannett New Jersey • June 15, 2009

A Cumberland County high school teacher is accused of taking two juvenile girls to a Cape May hotel for sex over the Memorial Day weekend, authorities said Friday.

Michael S. Drebes, 37, a math teacher at Memorial High School in Millville, is charged with aggravated sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child and other offenses.

Cape May County authorities identified Drebes as a resident of Chew Road in Waterford, but Cumberland County authorities said he had moved to Millville.

Authorities alleged Drebes sexually assaulted a 14-year-old student in Camden, Cumberland and Cape May counties during an ongoing four-month relationship. The other alleged victim is a 16-year-old former student, officials said.

Drebes, who was in custody Friday, is the fifth staffer at an area school district to be accused of sexual misconduct this year.

Detectives, acting on a tip from a student, determined Drebes “had sexual intercourse with two juvenile females in a hotel room in the city of Cape May during Memorial Day weekend,” said Cape May County Prosecutor Robert Taylor.

The three reportedly traveled together from Cumberland County to the shore, he said.

Drebes was arrested June 4 on multiple charges involving both girls. The arrest was not made public until Friday while investigators worked to build their case.

The investigation continues.

Drebes faces charges in Cape May and Cumberland counties, with accusations pending in Camden County, according to officials. The Camden County charges could not be determined Friday.

Millville school Superintendent Shelly Schneider said Drebes was suspended with pay. He could be suspended without pay if he is indicted.

“All I can verify is he is a teacher of math at the Memorial School for five years,” Schneider said.

Authorities said Drebes is married but separated.

In other recent cases, Jeffrey Doogan of Medford, a teacher’s aide at Shawnee High School in Medford, pleaded guilty last month to sexual contact with a 14-year-old student. He was charged in January.

Also: Bryan Broughton, a Glassboro High School music teacher, was charged in April with sexual assault and official misconduct. And teacher Eric L. Johansen Jr. of Mount Laurel was accused in March of sexual contact with a girl at Seneca High School in Tabernacle.

James J. Atkinson III of Pitman, a longtime music teacher at West Deptford High School, pleaded guilty in January to Internet possession of child pornography.

Staff writer Jim Walsh contributed to this report. Reach Joseph P. Smith at jsmith@thedailyjournal.com

Original Article CLICK HERE

To all who want to file a complaint about David Letterman’s “jokes” about the statutory rape of a 14 year old girl you may go on line to object about these obscene remarks of June 8 to the Federal Communications Commission.
The address is : www.esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm

The phone number is 1 888 CALL FCC.

The phone number for CBS New York is 1-212-975-3247  or 1-21-975-4321

The address for the Baseball Commissioner Budd Selig is: Commissioner of Baseball
245 Park Avenue 31st floor
New York, New York 10167
Ask the Commissioner to redeem the reputation of his player
who Letterman insinuated committed rape.

Women and men of good will must complain each and every time women are denigrated, put down and degraded
by whomever it is said. We must stand up and STAND TOGETHER.

Colleges in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh said Wednesday that female students would be banned from wearing jeans and other Western clothes to halt sexual harassment by male classmates.

“Girls who choose to wear jeans will be expelled from the college,” Meeta Jamal, principal of the Dayanand girls’ college in Kanpur city told AFP. “This is the only way to stop crime against women.”

A growing number of colleges in Uttar Pradesh have decided to outlaw jeans, shorts, tight blouses and miniskirts on campus in an attempt to crack down on “Eve-teasing” — as sexual harassment is known in India.

But many of the students, who are aged between 17 and 20, said the new rules punished innocent females rather than tackling the men who treated women badly.

“Banning any clothing will certainly never solve the issue of sexual harassment,” said Uzma, a graduate student from Lucknow University who declined to give her full name.

Hindu extremist groups have in recent months attacked women drinking in pubs and threatened couples who make public displays of affection.

The vigilantes claimed they were acting to protect India’s conservative values against the spreading influence of Western culture.

Some colleges elsewhere in the country have previously banned the wearing of jeans, but protests from students forced the dress regulations to be reversed.

Original Article CLICK HERE

Last night David Letter made an attempt to justify his “JOKE” about the statutory rape of a 14 year old girl by a baseball player. He stated he would “never” encourage sex with any underage girl. Huh ? Excuse me David but that is EXACTLY what you did do. Now you say you dint mean it and of course it’s the girl’s parents and those crazy women who can’t take a joke .
You are right David. RAPE IS NEVER FUNNY – NOT EVER.
Excuse not accepted.

To be amazed at how low David Letterman will stoop in order to humiliate Sarah Palin means we still think of him as an entertainer, instead of what he is: a leftist ideologue willing to do whatever it takes to destroy a perceived threat to the Democrat majority. Letterman’s nothing special or unique. He’s merely joined the whole of the entertainment industry in sacrificing his place as an entertainer and legacy as an artist to wage ideological war.

Maybe our first step in fighting back is to wake up to this fact and stop being amazed.

Once upon a time I loved David Letterman. I loved him because Johnny Carson did, and that was good enough for me. Before he found his place in Late Night, Letterman had a short-lived daytime show. Some of you might remember it. I never missed an episode, and like Johnny, I thought Dave deserved the “Tonight Show” spot … but we were both wrong.

Johnny Carson defined show business class and so it’s not hard to imagine what he would’ve thought of a comedian willing to use an innocent 14-year old girl as a political weapon of humiliation. But to have learned it was Letterman…

There’s a whole lot more here, including John Ziegler’s interview with Governor Palin and her response to Letterman. Glenn Reynolds. Ace.  Jim Treacher. Protein Wisdom.

To be clear: Glenn Reynolds and Ace have both noted that the daughter in question, the one who accompanied Governor Palin to the Yankee game, was Willow Palin, born 1995 … 14-years old.

UPDATE: Conservatives4Palin posted these statements from Todd and Sarah Palin:

“Any ‘jokes’ about raping my 14-year-old are despicable. Alaskans know it and I believe the rest of the world knows it, too.”

- Todd Palin

“Concerning Letterman’s comments about my young daughter (and I doubt he’d ever dare make such comments about anyone else’s daughter): ‘Laughter incited by sexually-perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity aimed at a 14-year-old girl is not only disgusting, but it reminds us some Hollywood/NY entertainers have a long way to go in understanding what the rest of America understands – that acceptance of inappropriate sexual comments about an underage girl, who could be anyone’s daughter, contribute to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others.’”

- Governor Sarah Palin

Even if Letterman had told this joke about Bristol, is that really any better? It’s a disgusting, degrading comment about anyone, especially an innocent bystander regardless of her age. But a 14-year-old?

I’m guessing Don Imus is pretty curious about where this might be headed.

Video and Original Article CLICK HERE

It would be fool-hardy to equate one’s desire to engage in natural childbirth without the use of epidural as a simple relic leftover from historic religious theory.  Life, the good and the bad, the painful and the pleasurable is always lived on a continuum.  There is unnecessary pain – e.g. extraction of a tooth without novicaine, unavoidable pain – e.g. suffering trauma in an accident with no medications/drugs on hand at the moment, and the free acceptance of some pain for some  higher reward – e.g. childbirth without use of epidural.  Giving birth to a child without epidural does hurt but as soon as the labor is over the pain pretty much stops – not so with labor under epidural.  Likewise, necessity of episiotomy is less likely (I have given birth to 4 children – no episitomy) and likelihood of side effects or after effects due to adverse drug reaction is obviously limited (e.g. no headaches).  Most importantly, when everything goes well and emergency procedures or medications are not required during labor, the biggest payoff is being present in the moment, being fully cognizant of the creation of life and being intimately connected to the moment that that life is brought into full being into this world.  A woman in labor whose senses in addition to her pain are dulled by medications cannot fully be in that moment as some of her faculties are necessarily slowed (which is certainly a choice a woman is allowed to make and no one should be looked at askew for so choosing).  For return on investment and pain minimizer there is simply no drug on earth (natural or synthetic) that provides the “high” that comes from being acutely mentally, physically, and emotionally present at the moment of birth.  Furthermore, unlike he pain relief/”high” provided and felt from other prescribed medications however useful, this is a birth “high” that can be recalled and viscerally felt at later points in time –

I encourage every woman to make her own choices about style, locale, and amount of times of childbirth. However, I also encourage society to be mindful of biases against people who choose to experience life in all its pain and glory – not all of us want to dull our senses or walk through life as if in a daze.  While undue pain may no longer be a societally recognized “good”  certainly, we may still live room for personal choice in regards to the cognition level at which an individual chooses to live her or his own life.

Catherine J. Woods

Associate Counsel &

Sr. Director, Corporate Compliance

excelleRx, Inc.

an Omnicare Company

1601 Cherry Street

Suite 1700

Philadelphia, PA 19102

215.282.1735 (direct)

215.888.2107 (mobile)

215.282.1587 (fax)

cwoods@excelleRx.com

In Iraq’s Red Zone, there is an apartment with no listed address. The two small bedrooms house six women and their children, who comprise a temporary, but closely bound, family. Of the six women, four have been raped. The curtains are drawn tightly against the outside world, but that is not their only defense. One of the women raises her handbag to show that, in case of the worst, she carries a gun.

“FRONTLINE/World” on PBS has produced a piece on the rapid rise in rapes in Iraq, which takes us inside this women’s shelter in the middle of the Red Zone. It is one of very few in existence and forced to operate covertly in the face of threats and danger. Before the war began in Iraq, rape was not a frequently reported crime and when it did occur the legal recourse was clear. Today, though the exact figures are unknown, estimates of rape are in the thousands. On the question of who takes responsibility to prevent and punish rape in Iraq, the short answer seems to be no one.

The rapes are committed by warring religious factions, they are committed by Iraqi security forces, they are committed by foreign soldiers sent there to serve, they are committed by contractors sent there for hire, they are committed by former friends and neighbors, they are committed by strangers. Even knowing who to report a rape to is difficult and dangerous.

In 2006, Steven Green, then a soldier stationed in the middle of an Iraqi combat zone, left the base in the middle of the night with a group of three soldiers. The group headed to the home of 14 year-old girl, where they shot and killed her parents and sister, before gang-raping her and shooting her dead.

Just last week, Green’s trial in a US civilian court, resulted in a sentence of life imprisonment. The defense never denied that Green committed the crimes, nor did they deny that it was premeditated or that Green was the ringleader. The strange and distasteful defense they brought was that the context of the Iraq war and living with the daily stress of combat brought Green to it.

What they didn’t mention was the growing culture of rape in Iraq — ignoring it when it happens, blaming the victims, punishing or even killing the victims. Though Green was tried and convicted, the majority of rapes in Iraq are not punished. They’re often not even reported.

Original Article CLICK HERE

A prominent businessman in Sussex County is being accused of sexual harassment. Debra Holmes who was the assistant restaurant manager at the Baywood Greens Golf Course and Club House in Long Neck from June 2007 to October 2008, has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court accusing Robert W. Tunnell Jr. the owner of Baywood of sexually harassing her two months after her hire up until her termination. According to the lawsuit, Holmes was terminated after she did not reciprocate Tunnel’s sexual advances. So far, WGMD has been unable to reach the other side for comment.  We will have more from  Tunnel’s attorney as the information becomes available.

Original Article CLICK HERE