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Topics - Eliscu2

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31
Torture Against Children and Adults with Disabilities in the United States

MDRI Alleges Torture Against Children and Adults with Disabilities in the United States
Files Urgent Appeal to United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture in Geneva
Washington, DC – April 29, 2010 - Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) has found children and adults with disabilities tortured and abused at a “special needs” residential facility in Massachusetts and has filed an “urgent appeal” with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture to demand the United States government end the torture immediately.

In a report released today, Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC), MDRI  documents the use of electric shocks on the legs, arms, torsos and soles of feet of people with disabilities – for weeks, months and sometimes years. JRC uses punishments as treatment and US advocates have been trying for decades to close the school and end these practices. The school also uses 4-point restraint boards, tying children to the boards while simultaneously shocking them for hours; mock assaults; food deprivation; shock chairs; isolation and long-term restraint. Residents at JRC are diagnosed with a variety of behavioral, intellectual and psychiatric disabilities such as autism, bi-polar disorder and learning disabilities.

Laurie Ahern, President of MDRI, states, “The cruelty perpetrated against children and adults at JRC is psychological and physical abuse, couched in the name of ‘treatment.’ The severe pain and suffering leveled against residents there violates the United Nations Convention against Torture. And to the best of our knowledge, JRC is the only facility of any kind in the US – and perhaps the world –that uses electricity combined with long-term restraint and other punishments to intentionally cause pain to children with behavioral challenges and calls it treatment.”

MDRI calls on the Special Rapporteur, along with the Obama Administration and the Department of Justice, to end the abuses against people with disabilities at JRC. MDRI is an international human rights and advocacy organization dedicated to the rights protection and full participation in society of people with disabilities worldwide. Visit http://www.mdri.org Help us put an end to the torture of children with disabilities in JRC.

http://http://www.mdri.org/PDFs/USReportandUrgentAppeal.pdf

32
News Items / Lawsuit filed in Taycheedah inmate's death
« on: April 17, 2010, 09:47:15 PM »
Lawsuit filed in Taycheedah inmate's death
http://http://www.postcrescent.com/article/99999999/APC0101/704250628/Lawsuit-filed-in-Taycheedah-inmate-s-death

Treatment used alleged to worsen mental state
Poor mental health care as well as a slow response from guards and medical staff contributed to the suicide of a mentally ill prison inmate, a lawsuit alleges.


James Gende, a Waukesha attorney, filed the suit Monday in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee on behalf of Angela Enoch's estate and surviving family members.

Enoch, a mentally ill teen who had been in and out of institutions and foster care, died in June 2005 when she was 18. She used a ripped seam from a pillow to strangle herself in an observation cell of the segregated unit at Taycheedah Correctional Institution, the state's largest prison for women near Fond du Lac.

"I think the system turned her into a throwaway child," Gende said Tuesday. "The treatment she received while incarcerated by the Department of Corrections was a substantial cause of the deterioration of her mental health status, which resulted in her successful suicide."

The suit, which names Gov. Jim Doyle, Corrections Secretary Matt Frank, and 20 corrections employees as defendants, seeks a jury trial and damages of $10 million. Enoch's mother, Roxanne Enoch of Hayward, is named along with Enoch's two minor sisters as plaintiffs.

"We are in the process of reviewing the lawsuit and conferring with our legal counsel and it would be premature to comment on the matter at this time," John Dipko, a Department of Corrections spokesman, said Tuesday. "However, we take any suicide that occurs in our prison system very seriously and we re-evaluate our practices and policies in each instance to see if there are any actions that could have prevented the death and if there are any changes that need to be made."

ACLU, Justice Department also cite Enoch case
The lawsuit comes on the heels of a pending class-action lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and a separate U.S. Department of Justice investigation, both of which allege grossly deficient medical and mental health care at Taycheedah.

The prison, which has about 730 inmates, has the highest ratio of mentally ill offenders of Wisconsin's 19 correctional institutions, state Department of Corrections officials say. About two-thirds of its inmates have mental health needs.

The ACLU suit notes that the suicide rate among inmates in segregated units is 10 times the rate of those in the general-population units in Wisconsin prisons. In segregation, inmates typically spend 23 hours of each day alone in a cell, and are given about one hour outside of it to exercise.

Corrections officials say they have been working to improve mental health care at the prison and now give a closer review of inmates considered for segregation.

Enoch's death is recounted in both the ACLU and Justice Department complaints. But the latest 20-page lawsuit offers new details alleging how Taycheedah's response to Enoch's mental illness ultimately led to her death.

"That because of her severe mental illnesses, Enoch was placed in solitary confinement in (Taycheedah's) Segregation Unit," the suit alleges. "… Solitary confinement results in exacerbation of previously existing mental illnesses. It is also likely that individuals, like Enoch, will suffer permanent harm due to their solitary confinement."

Suit alleges prison failures
Enoch entered Wisconsin's juvenile court system at age 12 and was charged with her first adult crime at 14. She had a history of assaults, as well as self-destructive and suicidal behavior.

She had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, personality disorder, mood disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Despite a court order to give Enoch her prescription medications, Taycheedah staff "failed to take the necessary action in administering (her) prescribed medications in the days immediately preceding her death of June 19, 2005," the lawsuit alleges.

The suit also alleges it took staff six to eight minutes to enter Enoch's cell after observing her strangling herself.

"(Taycheedah) staff's reaction to Enoch's self-strangulation was unreasonably delayed and in violation of their standard operating procedures for response to an emergency situation, which was a substantial cause of Enoch's death," the suit reads.

Among the violations of law, the suit alleges wrongful death, cruel and unusual punishment, violation of equal protection, and violations of the federal Rehabilitation Act and the American with Disabilities Act.

The suit also alleges gender-based disparities. Female prisoners are not afforded the same level of psychiatric care available to male offenders at the Wisconsin Resource Center, a specialized mental health facility administered by the state Department of Health and Family Services through a partnership with the Department of Corrections.

"If Angela had been a man, she never would have been in that segregation unit," Gende said. "She'd have been in a mental health facility."

The Department of Corrections' Committee on Inmate/Youth Deaths reviewed Enoch's suicide, Dipko said. However, the committee's findings are confidential under state law, he added.

In Doyle's proposed two-year budget, the state Building Commission has approved an $11 million proposal for a 45-bed female inmate treatment facility at the Wisconsin Resource Center. His budget also includes a request for 33 additional permanent positions for medical and mental health care at the prison, at a cost of $2.7 million.

Wendy Harris can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext. 526, or [email protected]. Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers contributed to this report.

I just want to bring an important issue to everyones attention....................
Angela was my good friend for about a year.
She killed herself at 18. (honestly I do not blame her)
This girl was funny and beautiful and talented.
The State of Wisconsin TORTURED her for years. :suicide:
http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjGgy1iibio
The Good news is I have a presentation to do for D.H.S. and D.O.C. on Monday.

33
News Items / Bill Looks to Curb Medicating State Foster Kids
« on: April 16, 2010, 11:07:51 AM »
Bill Looks to Curb Medicating State Foster Kids

http://http://cbs4.com/local/florida.legislators.legislation.2.1629212.html

Bill Is Named For 7-Year-Old Gabriel Myers

TALLAHASSEE (CBS4) ? Florida lawmakers are scheduled to discuss a measure
Tuesday designed to curb the prescription of mental-health drugs to children in state care. Senate Bill 2718, also known as the Gabriel Myers Bill, would allow officials to more closely monitor the powerful psychiatric drugs dispensed to Florida foster care children.

The proposal is largely based on the findings of a task force formed after Gabriel locked himself in a bathroom and hung himself with a shower cord last April in his Margate foster home. Gabriel was on Seroquel, used to treat bipolar disorder, and other psychiatric drugs linked by federal regulators to potentially dangerous side effects, including suicide, but the risks may not have been adequately communicated to his foster parents. The drugs are not approved for use by young children. But doctors often prescribe them 'off-label,' for purposes for which the drugs have not been approved.

Sen. Ronda Storms (R)-Brandon, who filed the bill, said prescribed drugs have replaced talk therapy and are over-prescribed to subdue unruly children.

The proposed law would require the state Department of Children and Families to assign volunteer guardians to oversee each child's mental health care. It prohibits foster children from being the subject of clinical drug trials and raises the age at which children are allowed to take these drugs from 6 to 11 in many cases.

It would also give children some say in the drugs they take because it would require foster children to agree to the use of the psychiatric drugs and would require caseworkers to explain to children, in a manner they can understand, why the drugs are necessary and what risks they carry.

The measure would also require an independent review before psychiatric drugs can be administered to children 10 or younger. The bill also requires children to have a mental health treatment plan that includes counseling for children prescribed such drugs.

The state's growing use of adult medication on emotionally and mentally troubled children has sparked debate for years. Florida has approximately 19,000 children in state care and of those about 3,200 are in Miami-Dade County, according to DCF spokeswoman Flora Beal.

Gabriel's death prompted a statewide investigation that found 13 percent, or 2,699, of all foster children are on such drugs, according to a DCF study. That compares with only an estimated 4 percent to 5 percent of children in the general population.

A state appointed panel recently reviewed all cases and released a report that found that the policies requiring parental consent or a second opinion were not uniformly followed. Gabriel Myers was on psychotropic medications without the required consent, the panel concluded.

34
State Supreme Court denies Skakel new trial in Moxley murder

http://http://www.ctpost.com/default/article/State-Supreme-Court-denies-Skakel-new-trial-in-445274.php#page-1

The state's highest court denied Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel a new trial Monday for the 1975 slaying of his Greenwich neighbor, Martha Moxley, discrediting evidence that linked two other men to the crime.

In the 4-1 ruling released Monday morning, the state Supreme Court sided with a lower court's 2007 decision to uphold Skakel's conviction, finding that the evidence implicating others in Moxley's death was not strong enough to warrant a new trial.

The court's decision has been pending for more than a year after lawyers for Skakel argued that evidence, including videotaped testimony, pointed to two other men as Moxley's killers.

The videotape involves Gitano "Tony" Bryant, cousin of NBA star Kobe Bryant, who told private investigators hired by Skakel's family that two of his friends bragged about getting Moxley "caveman style" after the murder occurred.

But the high court found no credibility in Bryant's account, according to the ruling.

"There is no evidence, independent of Bryant, to corroborate any significant aspect of his account of the events of the night of Oct. 30, 1975, whereas there is a plethora of evidence to contradict his account," Justice Joette Katz wrote for the majority.

In their ruling, the court agreed with prosecutors that it was hard to believe no one would have noticed the three Bronx, N.Y., teenagers in the largely white, private community the night of the murder.

"These three young men did not look like the average 14- or 15-year-olds who would have blended into the crowd," wrote Katz. "Particularly not in an area that was described by one witness as `a fairly lily-white community.' "

Bryant and one of the teens he implicated are black. The other teen implicated has been described as mixed race with Asian ancestry. All three have all asserted their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination since Bryant gave the videotaped statement.

Senior Assistant State's Attorney Susan Gill, who argued against the granting of a new trial, said she hoped the ruling would spare "the Moxley family from any further ordeal," in a statement released Monday. "Despite numerous claims of newly discovered evidence, the majority of the court has found nothing that undermines its confidence in the guilty verdict rendered by the jury in 2002," Gill said.

However, Skakel's Hartford-based attorneys, Hubert Santos and Hope Seeley, criticized the ruling and vowed to continue fighting for Skakel's freedom.

"We are disappointed that the Connecticut Supreme Court refused to grant a new trial to an innocent man," wrote Skakel's attorneys in a statement. "The jury that convicted Michael Skakel in 2002 simply did not have all the evidence. It is a travesty that the Connecticut courts continue to deny Mr. Skakel's request that the new information be examined and considered by a jury."

"Mr. Skakel's appeals are not over, and we will continue to vigorously pursue both his state and federal habeas corpus actions," the attorneys said.

In a concurring opinion released Monday, two justices wrote that Bryant's statements were "inadmissible hearsay" that would not change Skakel's fate in court.

"None of Bryant's statements that exculpate the petitioner would be admissible, and, therefore, the Bryant evidence could not produce a different result at a new trial," Justice Peter Zarella wrote.

Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison in June 2002 for beating Moxley to death with a golf club on Oct. 30, 1975, when they were 15. Skakel has maintained his innocence.

State Superior Court Judge Edward Karazin denied Skakel's bid for a new trial in 2007 based on the Bryant evidence, ruling it was not credible, sending the case to the state's high court.

Justice Richard Palmer was the sole judge to rule in favor of Skakel on Monday, saying he believed the evidence might have swayed a jury against convicting Skakel. At the March 2009 oral arguments in Hartford, Palmer called the videotape "pretty compelling."

"I reach this conclusion because the evidence that Bryant provided during the course of his lengthy and detailed video-recorded interview satisfies all of the requirements necessary for a new trial," Palmer wrote. "Finally, at the very least, it is likely that this new evidence, when considered in light of the state's thin case against the petitioner, would give rise to a reasonable doubt about whether the petitioner was involved in the victim's murder."

John Moxley, brother of Martha Moxley, said Monday he was "flabbergasted" Palmer sided with Skakel.

Moxley said he was pleased the majority of the court denied the motion for a new trial. "There was no credibility (to Bryant's story), and so I would have been very surprised had they granted the motion," Moxley said.

The justices also said there wasn't enough evidence to support a claim that a book deal affected the outcome. The defense said that the lead investigator in the Moxley case, Frank Garr, and journalist Leonard Levitt entered a book deal during the trial, and that tainted the verdict.

Since his conviction, Skakel has lost numerous bids seeking to overturn his conviction.

In March 2006, Skakel lost an appeal before the state Supreme Court after his lawyers claimed, among other things, that the statute of limitations had expired when he was charged in 2000. That same year, Skakel's lawyer filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court asserting that Skakel's due process rights were violated by the state Supreme Court decision. The U.S. Supreme Court denied Skakel's request to review his case in November 2006.

Skakel still has an appeal pending in federal court. He is incarcerated at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield.

35
Open Free for All / Seeking Submissions for New Reader on Trauma
« on: April 12, 2010, 02:47:50 PM »
Seeking Submissions for New Reader on Trauma
Submitted by Icarus Project on Tue, 12/01/2009 - 6:51am.
Related topics: alternative treatmentsbooksicarus organizationalpopular education materials
Call for submissions:
 
SCARSONGS
An Anthology Articulating the Terrain of Trauma and Resilience
 
Trauma matters.
When safety and connection are shattered, when we live through pain and horror, when we experience mutual support and resilience, fault lines erupt across our lives and divide our communities. Exploring the fallout is not a sign of weakness; it is an essential part of preparing to rejoin struggles for sanity, peace, and liberation. When we spend time healing and articulating the contours of our experience, we become capable of illuminating the way for others and building a movement that can sustain itself in the long term.

We believe it is time for a reader that tells our stories and gathers our poems, radiates with our art and speaks our thoughts. Understanding and being able to relate, calling out and hearing other voices can help us to find individual and collective strength in the face of political, ecological, social and personal trauma.

Your input can be very valuable to other people.

This project is a collaboration of the Icarus project, the Bay Area Radical Mental Health Collective, and Activist Trauma Support. Our aim is to create a beautiful, creative, readable document about trauma and resilience, drawing from a diversity of communities and backgrounds and addressing a wide range of topics and experiences. We invite submissions in a range of formats, including, but not limited to, essays, interviews, stories, poems, songs, illustrations, photographs, paintings, and collage. We invite submissions on

- The wounding and the pain - abuse, assault, rape, war, death, police brutality, oppression, physical and structural violence, ritualistic and systematic abuse, natural disasters, catastrophic and chronic illness, birth and generational trauma, and political repression. Fear, anxiety, panic, dissociation, nightmares, addiction, post traumatic stress, depression, self-mutilation, self-harm, suicide.

- The healing and resilience – community support, creativity, grieving, nature, self-care, personal ritual, expression, therapy, activism, holding abusers and oppressors accountable, connecting with allies, looking inwards and speaking out.

- The importance of trauma work to building movements of collective liberation and social justice.

- Experiences of trauma support on an individual, community and political scale.



We understand trauma as self-defined and submissions can stay anonymous if desired.

The deadline for submissions has been extended to May 1st, 2010. You can also send us your ideas and ask for feedback on whether they would fit.

For more info and submissions, email: http://www.theicarusproject.net
http://www.radicalmentalhealth.net
http://www.activist-trauma.net
 

---------

10 good reasons why trauma matters in political activism:

1.    We’re not immune: We are behind the mainstream, which has long taken the issue seriously. Many of us still think we’re not affected by traumatic experiences and that we don’t carry all the shit we have lived through around with us. The truth is that we are human beings and our systems react to distress just like everybody else’s.
2.    It can sabotage us: Trauma impacts our ability to be efficient in our work and get along with each other. Developmental trauma (the way we have been shaped by hardship in upbringing and society) plays out in the way we behave in meetings, collectives, actions, demos... We have great ideas but are often stuck in deeply entrenched, unhelpful patterns of behavior. Raising our awareness around trauma can help us to align our behavior with our intentions and to free up a lot of energy.
3.    We care!: About the planet and its people, and especially about our comrades. We don’t want to leave them alone when they are suffering; we want them to feel our support. When somebody feels held, they are more able to really show up, connect with the people in their lives, invest their energy in the work, and take risks.
4.    Knowledge is power: Understanding traumatic responses can help us understand dynamics in ourselves, in our groups and collectives, and even in wider society. Trauma patterns are also prevalent in history, especially regarding systemic oppression and internalized oppression. Integrating the lens of trauma into our grasp of history and the present moment is essential so that we can break the cycles and move beyond history repeating itself.
5.    More resilient movements: After a shock trauma (meaning a major traumatic experience) people can be unable to function for a long period of time. If we help each other and ourselves heal, we can move through it. If we ignore it, the symptoms will last longer, people will suffer more, often ending up disillusioned and leaving political work.
6.    Taking care of the whole person: Though wounds from traumatic experiences are not always visible, they are often more painful than physical ones. They are also often accompanied with great shame and guilt. We need a paradigm shift that takes us into account as whole people and that supports taking care of ourselves.
7.    Trauma work is radical! One – Social transformation goes along with personal transformation. One without the other is bound to fail. Two - If we believe in mutual aid, it needs to include a basic understanding of trauma and social context, so that we can support others and ourselves effectively. Three – trauma work challenges old and often gendered belief systems and messages like “just tough it out”, “pull yourself together”, “boys don’t cry”, “women do the emotional work”, etc. and gives us a chance to come up with new ways of behaving.
8.    You’re not alone: When we acknowledge trauma, we don’t have to take everything personally anymore. Our psychobiological systems react to stress. It’s normal. It does not mean we are weak or bad activists. Just imagine how much more powerful we can be if we can do away with identifying with our symptoms and focus on healing them instead.
9.    Becoming strong: Healing from trauma can be empowering for yourself and the people around you. Working your way through it can give you greater perspective, meaning and strength. Especially if you feel supported throughout the process. Stronger people make stronger movements.
10.    Compassion is a muscle: Exercising this muscle is crucial on our way towards social transformation. It counters the destructive socialization of western civilization that teaches us to avoid strong feelings and isolate, withdraw, consume, and become alienated. And it builds our capacity for a felt sense of safety and connection that fuels our collective strength in the struggle.

36
Tacitus' Realm / Polish president killed in plane crash in Russia
« on: April 10, 2010, 02:31:20 PM »
Polish president killed in plane crash in Russia

By Megan K. Stack
Los Angeles Times
April 10, 2010 | 4:15 a.m.


http://http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fgw-polish-president-crash11-2010apr11,0,3292908.story

President Lech Kaczynski was aboard a plane that went down in the thick fog of Smolensk. Also on the plane and presumed dead are the head of the Polish military, the central bank chief, members of parliament and the president's wife.

Reporting from Moscow
Polish President Lech Kaczynski was killed when his presidential plane crashed Saturday trying to land in thick fog in the Russian city of Smolensk.

There were no survivors of the crash of the Tupolev 154 plane. The head of the Polish military; the head of the presidential administration; the Polish central bank chief, members of parliament and the president's wife were also killed.

"The Polish presidential plane did not make it to the runway while landing," Smolensk region Gov. Sergei Anufriyev told reporters. "Tentative findings indicate that it hit the treetops and fell apart. Nobody has survived the disaster."

Kaczynski was on his way to visit Katyn, the site of a 1940 massacre of thousands of Polish prisoners of war at the hands of Soviet secret police. The dead included officers, wealthy landowners and even scouts. The slaughter of the Poles was denied for decades by the Soviet government, and has remained a painful point of contention between Russia and Poland.

Kaczynski was to meet there with Polish veterans, family members of the slain prisoners and human rights monitors.

The crash dealt a stunning blow to Poland, felling many of its top leaders and imposing yet another national tragedy on a place that has long festered in Polish psychology as the epicenter of Soviet-era suffering.

"I just have this feeling that Katyn is a sort of diabolical place in Polish history," said Tomasz Lis, a prominent Polish journalist and author. "It's just unimaginable; it's horrible."

Officials were unclear on how many other passengers were aboard. Some reports said 132 were killed; others had the death toll at 87. Police told Interfax they were unsure how many were on the plane.

Concerned about navigating through the dense fog, ground controllers had urged the pilot to land in Moscow or Minsk rather than risk the poor visibility, Ekho Moskvy radio reported.

"The plane caught fire after the crash," a Polish foreign minister spokesman told Reuters in Warsaw. "Teams began attempting to pull out passengers from the badly damaged airplane."

The crash throws Polish politics into uncertainty. Kaczynski was to run for reelection in October; the vote is now likely to be moved to June.

The leading left-wing candidate, Jerzy Szmajdzinski, was believed to have been aboard the plane. And Polish law calls for another of the candidates, speaker of the lower chamber of parliament Bronislaw Komorowksi, to take over as head of state after the president's death.

Kaczynski, 60, was elected to the presidency in 2005. A former justice minister and mayor of Warsaw, he was imprisoned in the 1980s for his opposition to communism.

Kaczynski and his twin brother were Soviet-era child actors who grew up to cut a prominent path through Polish politics. Kaczynski rose from the ranks of the Solidarity trade union before falling out bitterly with Lech Walesa.

From 2005-2007, in the early years of Kaczynski's presidency, his twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski served as prime minister.

The circumstances of Kaczynski's death carry a particular irony because much of his legacy is tied up with his interest in shedding light on some of the more painful moments of Poland's past.

As mayor of Warsaw, he championed the construction of the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising, a tribute to the crushed resistance to the Nazis in 1944. During his presidency, Kaczynski was known for referring to the heroic days of the Solidarity movement's fight against communism.

"Poland needs to reconsider its mistakes," he said in 2005. "But more than that, it needs a consensus based on truth."

Earlier this week, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk traveled to Katyn to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the massacre. In what was regarded as a turning point in the two countries' often frosty relations, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin also attended the ceremony.

Kaczynski, who was frequently critical of Moscow, was reportedly not invited to the ceremony.

Unlike Tusk's visit, Kaczynski's plans to attend Saturday's commemoration were all but invisible in the Russian press. A few weeks ago, the Russian foreign ministry publicly griped that it had not received official word of Kaczynski's visit, but had learned of it from press reports.

Shortly after the crash, Putin announced that he would head the investigation into its causes.

[email protected]
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

  ::OMG::

37
Open Free for All / A D.A. in Wisconsin Tries to Criminalize Sex Ed
« on: April 10, 2010, 01:59:56 PM »
What’s Up With Wisconsin? A DA Tries to Criminalize Sex Ed

http://http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/04/09/whats-up-with-wisconsin-a-da-tries-to-criminalize-sex-ed/

Posted by Ellen Friedrichs at 7:42 pm
April 9, 2010

As a health teacher, nothing irks me more thank encountering stories of teachers who’ve gotten into trouble for discussing sex. For many of us, this is a subject that just naturally comes up during the course of a typical lesson.

But the situation in a Wisconsin county is making the usual debates about comprehensive sex education versus the abstinence-only variety seem almost quaint in comparison. That’s because teachers in this state are facing an impossible situation.

Recently, Wisconsin mandated a sex education curriculum that required teachers to teach about condoms and other forms of birth control. Sounds pretty straight-forward, right? It would have been, but last week, a D.A. named Scott Southworth announced that teachers who followed this law, could end up in jail for breaking another: namely, contributing to the delinquency of minors.

According to the LA Times: http://http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-sex-ed-wisconsin,0,4648990.story

A letter sent to five school districts by Juneau County District Attorney Scott Southworth said the instruction could amount to contributing to the delinquency of a minor if teachers know students are sexually active. He said the districts should drop sex education until the law is repealed. Southworth also argued that teaching contraceptive use encourages sexual behavior among children, which equates to sexual assault because minors can’t legally have sex in Wisconsin.

Southworth isn’t the first person to try to keep a discussion of sex out of the classroom. Legions of abstinence-only supporters have been working on that for 15 years. Nor is he the first to try to make talking about sex by teachers a crime. Indeed, a few years ago, something similar happened in Utah, when a Salt Lake City teacher with over 30 years experience was put on paid administrative and threatened with criminal charges after she answered students’ questions about oral sex, masturbation and what it meant to be gay. That incident prompted Representative Carl Wimmer, (he of criminalizing miscarriage fame), to suggest introducing a law that would both make it illegal for teachers to answer students’ sex questions, and would also set up a teacher registry listing the names of those educators who dared to do so!

Thankfully, that law didn’t pass. But this new incident in Wisconsin is a reminder that such thinking is still alive and well. Yes, there are teachers out there who have engaged in criminal sexual behavior involving students. But the average teacher talking about sex ed, sure isn’t one of them. Like supporters of abstinence-only education, supporters of muzzling teachers, are working under the premise that kids who don’t know about sex won’t have it.

How many more pregnant teens with STDs does this country need to realize this will never be the case?

Ellen Friedrichs runs the GLBT Teens Site at About.com. She also teaches middle and high school health education and human sexuality at Brooklyn College.

38
Open Free for All / Catholic Sex Abuse Cover-Up
« on: April 09, 2010, 09:03:33 AM »
Glaxo, Paxil and the Catholic Sex Abuse Cover-Up: Drug Implicated in Priest's Suicide :suicide:

http://http://industry.bnet.com/pharma/10007579/glaxo-paxil-and-the-catholic-church-sex-abuse-cover-up-drug-implicated-in-suicide-of-priest/

39
The Troubled Teen Industry / Calvary Christian Academy?? Anyone..
« on: April 01, 2010, 06:50:15 PM »
I know this kid that got sent to Calvary Christian Academy.
He is home for Easter Break.
I just saw him riding his skateboard Downtown.
He said he had to be home by six because his Mom is forcing him to go to Church tonight.
He told me a little about the School.
Here is their website: http://http://www.ccaeagles.org/
"Calvary Christian Academy, a ministry of Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale, is not just a Christian school. It is a community, brought together by God to shine His light to the world. We invite you to browse throughout our site to get but a glimpse of what our school is all about. The following news pieces were written by CCA students. Catch the vision through their eyes and in the process, stay up to date with CCA news. To read more, simply visit The Messenger, CCA's online high school newspaper."
I checked the "Fornits-Wiki and it is not listed.
2401 West Cypress Creek Rd
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: 954-905-5100
Anyone know anything???

40
Open Free for All / Senate Passes H.R. 911
« on: April 01, 2010, 09:00:09 AM »
April Fools!  :roflmao:

41
Feed Your Head / Beam me up!
« on: March 30, 2010, 06:17:08 PM »
March 29, 2010

This is Matthew, with loving greetings from all souls at this station. From entertainment to the economy to earthquakes, the darkness in some individuals has been motivating them to create distractions, disruptions or destruction around your world. The peak members of the Illuminati are tenaciously grappling with the ever-intensifying light by using whatever means they can to hang onto the tattered remnants of their global empire. No matter where or how they direct their nefarious efforts, and even though some may appear to be working in their favor, any effectiveness will be short-lived.

Let us speak about a specific example in this regard. The earthquake in Chile, just as the one in Haiti, was caused by manmade technology, and once again, the location and timing were strategically selected. The earthquake was designed to present Chile's new president with immense reconstruction efforts that would doom his intentions to keep his country financially strong without foreign control of its wealth in natural resources. As destructive as that quake and its aftershocks were, our space family used their technology to prevent the far greater damage and death toll that the Illuminati intended. They also failed in their goal—President Pinera's intention to stabilize and increase his country's prosperity while loosening multinational corporate control will be only delayed, not derailed.

In a previous message we spoke about the souls who made transition during Haiti's catastrophic earthquake: Most left physical lifetimes by soul contract choice, and those whose lives were cut short prior to contract completion are being given the opportunity in Nirvana to wind up third density karmic choices and evolve into fourth density; at the same time, they are sending light to ease the pain of their families and to uplift all in their country. The very same is true of the far lesser number of people who died in Chile, and just as we and myriad other beings of light are doing for the traumatized survivors in Haiti, all of us are sending healing love energy to those who are grieving and facing hardships in Chile.

Whether an earthquake is manmade or of Mother Earth's initiation, the aftershocks are a natural effect and collectively can release as much negativity as the quake that set them in motion. Also, a powerful quake in one area of the planet can set off milder quakes and volcanic eruptions in other places—just as one errant cell in your body can affect any of the countless other cells, so it is with every cubic inch of Earth's planetary body.

Earth had decided that no more geophysical events of her own making were necessary, that the remaining negativity could be released and transmuted by the intense light being generated on the planet and constantly in-beamed from afar, so you can know that all events of that nature henceforth will be manmade. But you also can know that one mission of some of the massive fleet of spacecraft surrounding your planet is continuous monitoring so they can soften, or level out, upheavals in Earth's crust wherever they occur. And since more negativity must be released and soul contracts are close to completion for many persons, any hand of darkness in future earthshaking occurrences will be an aid in those respects.

Let us speak about your entertainment venues, which are not meant to be the REcreation leisure time all of you need, but rather a distraction that plants seeds of fear. That is the purpose of films about evil extraterrestrials posing as friendly and new films about old wars, waging war in space against civilizations that want to invade and conquer, and the potential devastating end of your world in 2012; and then there is the inundation of electronic games of that same design. The dark minds want to keep you fearful not only of aliens, but also every manner of "what if…?"; and if they cannot produce outright fear, then the deluge of that kind of viewing will inure your psyches to the inevitability of brutality and war and ET conquerors. Another purpose of these kinds of entertainment is to distract your attention from important issues or thinking about what is behind "the news" or giving thought to how you can better your life and your world.

In this, too, the Illuminati's aims are falling short. There have been so many sightings of spacecraft around the planet that there is widespread acceptance that not only do other civilizations exist, but their presence overhead proves that they are far advanced from you technologically and intellectually. And contrary to their violent portrayal in "entertaining" films, most of you believe that if the strangers in those craft had come with harmful intentions, they would have taken over long ago.

Lighted souls are producing films, books, music and other art forms with spiritual concepts; some churches are beginning to interpret religious doctrines in ways that meet the needs of soul-searchers; seminars and workshops of spiritual and metaphysical basis are flourishing and so are meditation circles; individuals, groups and organizations are expanding efforts to help the needy locally and in distant lands. In short, souls around the world not only are awakening consciously and spiritually, they are taking action! From our vantage point, the light shooting forth from these many millions of people and their benevolent endeavors looks like perpetual fireworks in your skies!

Yes, wars, oppressive governing, corporate corruption and financial greed, disease, toxic pollution and impoverishment still are in your 3D world; but even in the midst of those conditions, souls are discovering their personal power and becoming actively involved as "part of the solution." And yes, the ugliness of duality still is prevalent, but increasingly individuals are seeing common problems, common interests, common goals; and cooperation is replacing contention, apathy and selfish interests in neighborhoods and communities throughout your world. This unstoppable force for goodness and change is expanding in all directions, and often it is the women who are leading the way.

The feminine, or goddess energy that is pouring in to balance the masculine energy that dominated Earth's residents for millennia is giving women everywhere inner strength, courage, confidence and determination to rise above their former status of inferiority or as possessions, a status imposed by those cultures and lands where males are considered superior. We do not mean that you will become a female-dominated society—you won't—or that the goddess energy is not affecting men too—indeed it is; otherwise, this energy in-pouring would only provoke conflict between the sexes instead of accomplishing a balance of the two energies within the peoples. However, it is the change in women's self-perception—from acceptance of subjugation to recognition of self-worth and the growing awareness that their combined power is a force for love, peace and harmony—that is entering the collective consciousness and moving your world ever closer to the Golden Age.

We hasten to add that this does not mean that females cannot have the warrior ruthlessness aspect of male energy or cannot succumb to the depths of dark motives and actions! Some women are working to achieve Illuminati objectives with the same fierce dedication as men in the ranks; and other women, contrary to their soul contract choices, are harming others in families, neighborhoods and communities. Again, this is third density duality in motion, and its time in your world is fast dwindling. Men and women alike who are captivated by darkness are leaving the planet and will continue to do so, each when his or her vibratory level is exceeded as Earth continues apace into successively higher planes of vibrations.

We also mentioned the economy as an example of dark efforts, and this was intended to be distracting, disrupting and destructive. The distraction is mainstream media's deceptive description of the global economic crisis as a recession that is on the upswing after bottoming out so the masses will passively accept a return to same-old, same-old banking and business. The disruption in lives is clear in unemployment, homeless and food bank statistics; and the economic destruction was intended to adversely affect all except the Illuminati themselves. They hadn't factored into their shenanigans to garner even vaster fortunes that the scheme could backfire and open the door to a different economic system that they could not control. They hadn't factored in the ingenuity and fortitude of the peoples to overcome hardships or the strong spirit of sharing and helping or the cooperative productivity, all of which are thriving at grassroots levels around your world. They hadn't factored in that honest folks with sound economic expertise would establish systems of finance and commerce based in spiritual integrity and fairness for all peoples of Earth. And it is change of this broad scope that is happening under the "news radar," so to say.

Many of you still are questioning US President Obama's motives or leadership abilities, therefore we will speak briefly again about this highly evolved soul who all of you agreed prior to birth would be elected to that position and lead your world into an era of peace. We told you before the primary elections that he would become president, and everything we have said about him and his part of the Golden Age master plan in subsequent messages also is as accurate now as then. [For readers who are interested, the pertinent parts of those messages can be easily located by entering Obama in the search feature on Matthew's Messages page on www.matthewbooks.com.]

While opposition to Obama's direction from the Republicans in Congress en masse and some members of his own party too is public knowledge, the power behind the dissension—pressure from the Illuminati global web-work—is not. Except for readers of our messages and those from other sources within the light, it is not known that the vociferous and rancorous disagreements within the US government are not as they appear to be, a stubborn partisan bloc or inflexible ideological differences—it is the influence of the light and of the darkness being played out on the United States government stage.

Yes, the dark ones can claim a measure of success there and on other stages in other countries as well. Their myriad forms of distraction, disruption and destruction have delayed, diluted or gutted efforts for positive change; postponed official recognition by international leaders of the presence of other civilizations; and prevented the emergence of other universal and down-to-Earth truths.

So it is understandable if you have become impatient or disheartened by mainstream reports of progress—or lack thereof. However, you would do well to remember that those reports are issued with deliberately incomplete or inaccurate information by third density minds via third density outlets. What higher density minds are accomplishing in the wings of stages worldwide would astonish you if you could but see the light emanating from the various sources and the significant beneficial changes taking form! These changes are leading light-receptive souls out of third density illusion and lies and into the universal reality of the continuum, where the glories of the Golden Age await!

We know that you would like firm timeframes for specific events, and we wish we could provide those, but attempting to do so would be folly. Nothing in Earth's energy field of potential is clearly delineated—streamers that appear to be going straightaway abruptly zigzag and are overtaken by other activities' streamers. If you remember, at one point a few months ago it appeared that the time of a television announcement of extraterrestrial presence was close at hand, but the barrage of dark actions since then has prevented finalizing some of the major aspects of that program. And, several months ago it appeared that this event would follow the emergence of some truths that have been long hidden; later, it was decided that since the Illuminati were keeping a tight lid on those truths, the program would come first. We can say with assurance that the introduction of our space brothers and sisters is upcoming, but the timing, like the space fleet, is still up in the air.

Even though that major happening is not yet at your doorstep, the greater light prevailing is bringing forth a different revelation of great significance: the abusive aspect of duality at the pinnacle of the Catholic church, the Vatican. This is not to pass judgment on the pope or the priest offenders, but rather evidence that supreme reverence for a man and obedience to manmade religious laws is misplaced. Each soul is a part of God and no soul is greater or lesser than another in God's eyes! At this moment it appears that the time for ancient records and the true purpose of religions to be disclosed is quite a ways down the road, comparatively speaking, but with all other sources of energy in tumult, that timeframe also could change in the blink of an eye.

Thus, we urge you to stay steadfast in the light and be patient as to when and how events will unfold. With the massive amount of truth to be revealed, a foremost consideration is to attain a balance between how rapidly startling information can be given and how much psyches can assimilate healthfully.

Now then, please dismiss concerns about any current or proposed laws, bills, doctrines, customs, policies, treaties or procedures that are based in unfairness or unjustness or present harm to mind, body or spirit. Like everything else in your world that derives from darkness, those will end incrementally along Earth's journey to fourth density, where no darkness can exist. And no dark deeds can delay or detour her ascension progress—she is on target to meet the celestial timetable for leaving third density completely.

What is at stake is the destiny of her consciously and spiritually slumbering residents: Will they heed their intuition, the messages from their souls, to waken in time to physically accompany Earth? Many of you have family or friends who are stuck in third density thinking and beliefs. By all means offer to share your awareness with those who are interested, but please do not try to impose it upon those who are not—just as you would feel uncomfortable being force-fed opinions that conflict with your innate knowingness, so would be those who are committed to their beliefs that differ from yours.

And please do not feel sad if persons dear to your heart choose not to awaken in this lifetime. Respect their goodness and honesty in the knowing that it is neither your responsibility nor right to try to change their choice to slumber on. After a lifetime in spirit, they will reincarnate in a third density world with another opportunity to "see the light" and evolve spiritually; and, as the independent yet inseparable souls you all are, during bodies' sleep time you will have reunions with your beloved people in places where your and their vibrations permit.

When and how will people who commit dark actions die? Wouldn't it be helpful to know who they are so we can distinguish them from people in the light who die because they fulfilled their soul contracts? There is no way that you can distinguish between the "dark action" persons and those in the light who completed their contracts, and there is no need to do so. Since there are varying light frequencies in individuals, there can be no mass exodus of those who are darkly-inclined at some specific point in Earth's ascension. Each such person will transition from this lifetime when Earth reaches an energy plane that exceeds that individual's frequency and physical death will come from any of the same causes that exist now.

Where will the souls of all the various densities now living on the planet go if they do not accompany Earth, and will they remember why they did not or will the "veil of forgetting fall?" The souls whose lifetime energy registration was of the basest density—what some would call "pure evil"—automatically will be drawn to the only part of Nirvana that is separate from the flexible layers, the tiny orb near your moon where the density is so great that it holds those souls captive. They are aware of where they are and what they did that led them to that densest part of Earth's spirit world because it is there that they review their entire past lifetime moment by moment and feel their every emotion along with the emotions of everyone whose lives they touched in any way. This review process is the hell of some religious concepts.

Light is constantly beamed to those souls, and if they choose to accept the light, they will embody in a first density placement in primitive forms that have no memories or intelligence, but only an instinctive existence. This allows those souls to start with a clean slate, unencumbered by memories of the dark behavior that led them to that densest of placements in your part of this universe.

Persons whose lifetime energy was of very low density—those who ignored their soul contracts and whose deliberately ruthless actions prevented others from fulfilling their own contracts, but were not as tyrannical or diabolical as the souls consigned to that tiny orb—automatically are drawn to a first density world and start over from scratch. When they accept the light that is beamed continuously into the placement, they can incarnate in a second density world where they will have no memory of other lifetimes but do gain a conscience, a capacity for reasoning, and free will choices. With this greater degree of innate abilities comes the option to act within the light or the darkness, thus they can have many lifetimes in second density, relapse into first, or progress into a third density world.

As for the "veil of forgetting" falling on residents of a third density world—how many of you remember why you are where you are?!

Souls now on Earth who are at fourth or higher density spiritual evolvement who do not continue their physical journey with Earth may choose to spend a lifetime in Nirvana, return to their original homeland, move on to another civilization that is compatible with their evolvement station, or return to Earth and enjoy life in her Golden Age. In all those planes of spiritual awareness there is a great deal of remembering by comparison to the level in any third density world.

However, the eternal life of the soul includes the return to The Beginnings in Creator, so there are eons of layers of forgetfulness to uncover in the unequalled adventure called Life. Light, the pure love essence of Creator Source and the most powerful energy in the cosmos, is available to every soul in every instant, and by accepting the light, each continues evolving by consciously remembering what is known at soul level.

The Golden Age awaits all of Earth's residents who have embraced the light and whose lifetime contract includes several more years on the planet. Do please remember this: Light beings throughout this universe are with you in loving spirit, cheering you on along your pathway toward that wondrous world!
 :peace:

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