Phoenix Approved Anti-iscrimination Law
 

The Phoenix, AZ <http://www.lgbtqnation.com/tag/phoenix/> City Council on
Tuesday evening approved a measure to expand the city’s anti-discrimination
law to include protections for gays, lesbians,bisexuals and transgender people in city contracts, housing, employment and public accommodations such as restaurants.

After more than five hours of heated debate, council members ultimately
approved the change by a vote of 5-3, with the majority saying Phoenix
would benefit from projecting an image that it welcomes diversity.

LGBT advocates said the move was a long time coming.

They said Phoenix, the sixth-largest city in the country, is playing catch
“catch-up” with at least 166 other U.S. cities and counties that have
adopted similar laws.

Nurse refused to give CPR to elderly woman who later died
 

Bakersfield fire dispatcher Tracey Halvorson pleaded with the woman on the other end of the line, begging her to start CPR on an elderly woman who was barely breathing.

“It’s a human being,” Halvorson said, speaking quickly. “Is there anybody that’s willing to help this lady and not let her die?”

The woman paused.

“Um, not at this time.”

On a 911 tape released by the Bakersfield Fire Department, the woman on the other end of the line told Halvorson that she was a nurse at Glenwood Gardens, a senior living facility in Bakersfield. But on Tuesday, the nurse refused to give the woman CPR, saying it was against the facility’s policy for staff to do so, according to the tape.

The elderly woman was identified by KGET-TV (Channel 17) as 87-year-old Lorraine Bayless. She died Tuesday at Mercy Hospital Southwest, KGET reported.

In the tape, a different Glenwood Gardens employee said that an elderly woman had passed out in the facility’s dining room while eating. She was barely breathing.

For several minutes, Halvorson begged the nurse to begin CPR, saying something had to be done before an ambulance arrived.

After the nurse repeatedly refused, Halvorson asked her to find a passerby or anyone who would be willing to help. Halvorson said she would talk someone through performing CPR.

“I understand if your facility is not willing to do that,” Halvorson told the nurse. “Give the phone to that passerby, that stranger…this woman’s not breathing enough.

“She’s going to die if we don’t get this started.… I don’t understand why you’re not willing to help this patient.”

The nurse could be heard talking to someone else at the facility.

“She’s yelling at me,” she said of Halvorson, “and saying we have to have one of our residents perform CPR. I’m feeling stressed, and I’m not going to do that, make that call.”

When Halvorson asked the nurse if she was going to let the woman die, the nurse said, “That’s why we called 911.”

After a few minutes, the nurse said the ambulance had arrived. The tape ended with Halvorson sighing.

The facility’s executive director, Jeffrey Toomer, sent a statement on behalf of Glenwood Gardens to KGET, the station reported.

“In the event of a health emergency at this independent living community our practice is to immediately call emergency medical personnel for assistance and to wait with the individual needing attention until such personnel arrives,” the statement said, according to KGET.

Bakersfield Fire Battalion Chief Anthony Galagaza said Halvorson followed protocol and that dispatchers give CPR instructions over the phone numerous times each year.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...ater-died.html
-----------------------


Having worked in health care for over 30 years, I have witnessed and heard some bizarre things. This ranks right up there in the wtf category.

Argument against gay marriage in California hinges on accidental pregnancies
 

In a brief filed with the Supreme Court last week, the Obama administration slammed the unusual legal argument now key in the movement against gay marriage: that gay couples cannot become accidentally pregnant and thus do not need access to marriage.

The argument has become the centerpiece of two major cases addressing gay marriage that the Supreme Court will consider at the end of March, Hollingsworth v. Perry, a challenge to California’s gay marriage ban, and United States v. Windsor, which seeks to overturn the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

"Only a man and a woman can beget a child together without advance planning, which means that opposite-sex couples have a unique tendency to produce unplanned and unintended offspring," wrote Paul Clement, a prominent attorney representing congressional Republicans in the DOMA case.

Clement added in his brief to the Supreme Court arguing to uphold that law that the government has a legitimate interest in solely recognizing marriages between men and women because it encourages them to form stable family units.

"Because same-sex relationships cannot naturally produce offspring, they do not implicate the State’s interest in responsible procreation and childrearing in the same way that opposite-sex relationships do," attorneys who are seeking to uphold Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California in 2008, argued in their brief.

In the administration's friend of the court brief, the Justice Department took a dim view of the argument.

"Marriage is far more than a societal means of dealing with unintended pregnancies," the Justice Department wrote. The brief also argued that preventing gay couples from marrying would not help or hurt the quest to encourage straight couples to marry when they have children.

The argument for the government's right to ban gay marriage has evolved over the years. When the Supreme Court was first asked to address the issue in the 1970s—when a gay couple sued Minnesota for the right to legally wed—the justices replied that the request did not even raise a federal question worth answering. Those who wanted to prevent gay marriage argued that the federal government was not discriminating against anyone in adhering to a definition of marriage that had prevailed for centuries.

That was by and large enough of a legal argument to win the day every time, until the Massachusetts state Supreme Court became the first court to legalize same-sex marriage in 2003. The court ruled that the government had no legitimate reason to deny the recognition of marriage to its residents based on sexual orientation.

The one justice who dissented in the ruling, Robert Cordy, is credited with introducing the unintended pregnancy concept in his dissent, when he explained that the government does have a stake in defining marriage as only between men and women. Cordy argued that providing the benefit of legally recognized marriage coaxes straight couples into forming stable family relationships when they have children, which helps society as a whole.

An "orderly society requires some mechanism for coping with the fact that sexual intercourse [between a man and a woman] commonly results in pregnancy and childbirth. The institution of marriage is that mechanism," he wrote. The institution of marriage sends a message to men that they must help rear children, and thus the state has an interest in encouraging it so that fewer children are raised with only one parent. The state has no such obligation to encourage same-sex couples to wed, however, since they can only procreate together by making a decision to adopt or to use reproductive technology.

Since 2003, Cordy's reasoning has been cited in nearly every gay marriage case, and an evolved version of it is seen in the Proposition 8 case and the challenge to the DOMA law, which prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. Gay marriage is recognized in nine states and the District of Columbia.

One of many potential pitfalls of the argument is whether it follows that the government could pass a law saying that only fertile people are allowed to wed, for example. Or whether the state could ban marriage between elderly people.

"I think there are going to be some justices who are extremely skeptical of it," said Doug NeJaime, a professor at Loyola Law School.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/a...-election.html
--------------------

:seeingstars:
..

New Transgender Student Guidelines Raise Questions At Mass. Schools
 

MEDFORD (CBS) – Schools across Massachusetts are facing new guidelines regarding students and gender identity. “I had all of these problems and everyone kept telling me that they couldn’t help me,” said Logan Ferarro, now on staff at BAGLY, Inc., The Boston Alliance of Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Youth. Logan transitioned from female to male as a senior in High School in Wilmington.

“It ended up being harder than it was because they had no idea what to prepare for they had no idea what was coming,” said Logan. “They had no idea what even transgender was.”

Last summer, Logan and other supporters applauded a change in state law which added nondiscrimination in schools based on gender identity. That led to a recent memo from Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester offering guidance on what the changes mean. In it, schools are required to accept the gender a student recognizes as their own including bathroom and locker room access.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2013/03/0...-mass-schools/

Morning news in Bay Area
 

A Transgender Bill is being introduced in California to protect students rights.

I do not know the particuliars of the bill. I am just glad that there will be some protection.

In Other news a security guard in a San Jose, Ca. mall made a young male couple..asian and latino... leave the mall. They were walking holding hands.

LGBT people in Cornwall encouraged to consider adoption


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-21655901

Violence Against Women Act (2013)
 

President Obama signed the Violence Against Women Act (2013) on March 7th, 2013.

News article & video (here)







Items of interest from the National Network to End Domestic Violence
(webpage here):

What will this renewal of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) change?

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has improved our nation's response to violence. However, not all victims have been protected or reached.

VAWA 2013 will close critical gaps in services and justice.

--VAWA 2013 reauthorized and improved upon lifesaving services for all victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking - including Native women, immigrants, LGBT victims, college students and youth, and public housing residents.
--VAWA 2013 also authorized appropriate funding to provide for VAWA's vitally important programs and protections, without imposing limitations that undermine effectiveness or victim safety.

Justice and safety for Native American Women: Native American victims of domestic violence often cannot seek justice because their courts are not allowed to prosecute non-Native offenders -- even for crimes committed on Tribal land. This major gap in justice, safety, and violence prevention must be addressed. VAWA 2013 includes a solution that would give Tribal courts the authority they need to hold offenders in their communities accountable.

Justice and safety for LGBT survivors: Lesbian, gay, bisexul and transgender survivors of violence experience the same rates of violence as straight individuals. However, LGBT survivors sometimes face discrimination when seeking help and protection. VAWA 2013 prohibits such discrimination to ensure that all victims of violence have access to the same services and protection to overcome trauma and find safety.

Safe housing for survivors: Landmark VAWA housing protections that were passed in 2005 have helped prevent discrimination against and unjust evictions of survivors of domestic violence in public and assisted housing. The law, however, did not cover all federally subsidized housing programs. VAWA 2013 expands these protections to individuals in all federally subsidized housing programs, explicitly protects victims of sexual assault and creates emergency housing transfer options.

Protections for immigrant survivors: VAWA 2013 maintains important protections for immigrant survivors of abuse, while also making key improvements to existing provisions including by strengthening the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act and the provisions around self-petitions and U visas.

Justice on campuses: College students are mong thos emost vulnerable to dating violence. Provisions in VAWA 2013 add additional protections for students by requiring schools to implement a recording process for incidences of dating violence, as well as report the findings. In addition, schools would be required to create plans to prevent this violence and educate victims on their rights and resources.

Maintaining VAWA grant programs: VAWA grants are effectively meeting the needs of millions of victims across the country. VAWA 2013 includes many important improvements to these grant programs, including allowing state domestic violence coalitions to be the lead applicant on the Grants to Encourage Arrest program; ensuring that specific stakeholders, including domestic violence coalitions, play a meaningful role in developing state STOP plans; and providing a formal process for the Office on Violence Against Women to receive coalition and other key domestic violence and sexual assault community input.

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is effective and important:
VAWA creates and supports comprehensive, cost-effective responses to the pervasive and insidious crimes of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking. Since its enactment in 1994, VAWA programs, administered by the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Health and Human Services (HHS), have dramatically improved federal, tribal, state, and local responses to these crimes.

Man ‘guilty’ of fraud for not telling girlfriend he was trans
Scottish transgender man admitted to 'obtaining sexual intimacy by fraud' in two cases, meaning he will face jail time

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/m...as-trans070313

Canada funding opponents of ‘abhorrent’ anti-gay bill in Uganda

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03...ill-in-uganda/

I would be outraged at this if he weren't sleeping with underage girls. That's creepy.

Steubenville Rape Case: What You Haven't Heard
 

The nation's eyes will be focused this week on what happens inside a tiny Steubenville, Ohio, courthouse. The juvenile trial set to begin there is every parent's nightmare and a cautionary tale for teenagers living in today's digital world.

Steubenville is a town used to having media attention lavished on a much different building. In the middle of this city of 18,000 nestled on the Eastern border of Ohio stands Harding Stadium, the crown jewel of this former steel town. Nicknamed Death Valley, the 10,000-seat structure is home to the Big Red football team, one of Ohio's most storied high school programs.

Steubenville is a place where football is more than just a past time; it's a religion. And residents here worship on Friday nights.

Every time Big Red scores, a sculpture of a stallion named Man O' War breathes a 6-foot stream of fire into the night sky over Harding Stadium. But this past season, the team's second-round playoff defeat was overshadowed by a very different firestorm that engulfed the team and the entire town.

Just as the season was gearing up late last summer, two Big Red football players were accused of participating in the rape of a 16-year-old intoxicated girl with friends documenting the alleged crime through cellphone pictures and video. The social media frenzy took on a life of its own, with reports going as far as calling the incident a "gang-rape" of an unconscious girl. In reality, prosecutors contend that Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'lik Richmond, 16, used their hands to penetrate her while she was too drunk to consent, By Ohio law, such a crime constitutes rape, as it does in many places.

At least three other Steubenville students say they witnessed the alleged encounters, and still others heard about them and posted messages, photographs and videos about the incident on social media sites.

The news soon spread beyond Steubenville, leading both hacker-activists and women's advocacy groups to blow the lid off the story nationally, questioning why people who knew about the allegations weren't also charged under an Ohio law requiring people to report crimes of which they're aware.

The uproar surrounding the case soon split the town into two furious camps; one that firmly believes there's a conspiracy to cover up a "rape culture" among the football team, and the other believing that the town's once-stellar reputation is being unfairly tarnished by outsiders who don't know all the facts.

Now, documents and photographs obtained exclusively by "20/20," along with never-before-seen taped police interviews with many of the teenage party goers, are shedding light on many of the facts of the case for the first time.

On the night of Aug. 11, 2012, Big Red ran a scrimmage to show off the team's newest talent. Trent Mays was a quarterback and honors student from a town 15 minutes outside of Steubenville. With a football coach for a father, Trent had the sport in his DNA. Ever since he could remember, he shared a dream that so many boys in this corner of the Ohio Valley do; to one day hear the roar of Big Red fans from the field.

A favorite target for Trent that night was wide receiver Ma'lik Richmond.

Ma'lik came from the rougher side of Steubenville. His earliest memories involve dodging stray bullets in his living room and watching most of his male role models being killed or incarcerated. He had turned to sports early in life as an escape from the realities around him.

That night, Trent and Ma'lik helped propel Big Red to victory. For the faithful who filled the stands, it was tempting to fantasize about winning a 10th state championship. For the players, it was an excuse to party.

Hours after the game, Trent, still relishing his role in Big Red's win, was receiving text messages from a girl he had been flirting with over social media, according to his lawyer. She was from just over the Ohio River in Weirton, W.Va., and, his lawyer says, persuaded him to come to a party where she was with several girlfriends.

Party No. 1:

When Trent and Ma'lik arrived, the narrow street outside the house of the party was crammed with cars. By some estimates, there were as many as 40 to 50 teenagers there and no adults. What was in abundance was alcohol, according to Ma'lik and several of the attendees. Witnesses said the girl who invited Trent was one of the more tipsy teens there.

"She had her arm wrapped around me and one hand on my chest. It just felt like she was coming on to me," Ma'lik told ABC News' Elizabeth Vargas in an exclusive interview for "20/20."

After midnight, the party was breaking up. The intoxicated girl, who would soon be at the center of a rape investigation, made it clear she wanted to leave with Trent, according to the police interviews with several of her friends. They also said she resisted their pleas for her not to leave with a car full of boys.

Nevertheless, the girl got into a car with Trent, Ma'lik and two other boys and drove off. In her interview with police exclusively obtained by ABC News, the alleged victim says there is little she remembers from the time between the first party and waking up the next morning.

"I remember everything that happened at the girl's house I was at but I don't remember anything past the point of me walking off the porch with him," she told them.

Party No. 2:

When the five teenagers arrived at the next house, the group was much smaller. There are contradictory accounts about whether the girl was able to walk into the house on her own or needed help from Ma'lik and Trent.

Feeling ill, the girl was taken to the bathroom where she threw up. When she emerged, a photo of her was taken that would become a flashpoint in the case. The photo shows Trent and Ma'lik's holding the girl by her arms and legs with her head hanging back. It is unclear from the picture whether her eyes are open and witness accounts conflict on the exact context of this photo.

The boy who took it, and ultimately uploaded it to his Instagram account, was another football player for Big Red and an ex-boyfriend of the intoxicated girl in the picture.

"She was just like laughing, we were all talking, just clowning around and that's when her ex-boyfriend was like, 'Let me get a picture of this drunk B. And that's when we took the picture," Ma'lik told ABC News.

The picture, Ma'lik maintains, was intended as a joke; he says the girl was conscious, was playing along and was not carried out of the house that way. The girl's civil attorney, Bob Fitzsimmons, calls this characterization "bizarre."

"It's common sense as to what's going on in that picture," he said.

Adds Fitzsimmons: "My client was unconscious that night. She doesn't have any memory of what happened."

Several witnesses said that once outside, the girl needed to stop in the street because she was sick again. "She throws up on her blouse and takes her blouse off," Ma'lik said. "And then she asked for something to drink and I gave her my jacket to cover her up."

After several minutes, the girl got back into the car with those same four boys. It is during this ride that prosecutors contend Trent raped the alleged victim. One of Trent's teammates, who was seated in the backseat, told police that he used his phone to videotape Trent exposing the girl's breasts and penetrating her vaginally with his fingers. The girl was talking but he could not decipher her slurred speech, he told police.

But Ma'lik, who was seated in the front passenger seat, told ABC News that she was participating. "I turned around and I can see the flash on his phone. Trent was rubbing on her breasts and she was kissing his neck. And then he was trying to unbutton her pants," Ma'lik said.

Police would never see the video because, by the next morning, he had deleted it from his phone.

Party No. 3

That same boy who videotaped the alleged rape in the car, and who is now a key prosecution witness, testified that when the car arrived at his home, the alleged victim was again taken to the bathroom to throw up.

When the girl emerged, prosecutors say, a second alleged rape occurred. The eyewitness told police that he saw Trent trying to get the girl to perform oral sex on him while she was lying on the floor. Next, he says he saw both Trent and Ma'lik's lying beside her, sexually touching the girl's groin area with their hands. At least one other witness claims to have seen the alleged rape.

"I wouldn't say she was completely passed out but she wasn't in any state to make a decision for herself," one of the eyewitnesses told police.

A defense attorney for Ma'lik told Vargas of "20/20" that the alleged victim was conscious enough to provide the pass codes for her cellphone at some point after the second alleged assault.

"That doesn't sound like a person that's incapacitated to the point where they cannot answer a question, let alone consent," defense attorney Walter Madison said.

The girl's civil attorney challenges such an assessment, saying, "The mere fact that someone presents an argument doesn't make it true."

The Steubenville rumor mill was already beginning to churn with speculation about what happened to the intoxicated girl. Naked photos of the girl that were circulated that night fueled a series of tweets and also one YouTube video of an 18-year-old former Steubenville baseball player named Michael Nodianos. In the rambling 12-minute rant, Nodianos, who wasn't present during the alleged rapes, made jokes about the incident, repeatedly referring to the victim as "dead."

When the sun finally rose over Steubenville the next morning, the 16-year-old alleged victim woke up naked in a home she had never been to before. Her girlfriends, who spent much of the previous night trying to contact her and anxiously reading tweets posted about her, soon were summoned to pick her up.

ABC News has learned that one of the girls who picked up the alleged victim told police, "She and Trent were just lying on the couch together as if nothing happened. She looked hung over but then she got up and was completely fine."

By the next day, so much had been written and uploaded to social networking sites that the town was abuzz with rumors and innuendo. Even the girl's parents found out by word of mouth.

They brought her to the hospital Aug. 13, more than 24 hours after the incident. By then, she had already showered and her clothes from that night had been washed. No physical evidence of a rape was recovered.

Nevertheless, 10 days after the alleged assault, on the strength of the witness accounts, Ma'lik Richmond and Trent Mays were arrested in the middle of the night and charged with rape and kidnapping (the kidnapping charge was later dropped.) Trent was also charged with disseminating child pornography for texting naked photos of the underage alleged victim.

"They sent three or four police cars," Trent's mom, Linda Mays, told ABC News. "They surrounded the house and it was surreal."

By this time, many of the social media posts and pictures had been deleted. But not all were lost. ABC News has learned that, in addition to the picture of the defendants' carrying the alleged victim, they also recovered two additional photos from Trent's phone. One of the photos shows the alleged victim lying naked and face down on the floor and the other shows her naked on the couch seemingly asleep.

The intersection of idolized athletes, social media over-sharing and reckless teen behavior proved an explosive combination and the story soon went national. In December, the Nodianos video was re-posted by an offshoot of the Internet hacking group Anonymous called Knight Sec.

The video quickly went viral and appeared to be proof to online activist groups and even the National Organization for Women that other athletes either witnessed or knew of the alleged assault and were never charged with a crime.

Such sentiments have fueled much speculation of a cover up in Steubenville. Nodianos, who until this winter was attending Ohio State University on an academic scholarship, told police he only saw the alleged victim in passing that night as she left the second location. The details he talked about in the video came from viewing one photo of the alleged victim and talking to the other boys who were with her that night, he said.

His lawyer has since issued an apology on his behalf for the shameful comments he made on the video posted on YouTube.

Prosecutors have not commented on the specifics of the case but at the probable cause hearing in October, prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter said, "She was a toy to them that night and the bottom line is we don't have to prove that she said no. All we have to prove is when she's being penetrated that she was unresponsive and not in a position to consent and they knew it."

Attorneys for Trent and Ma'lik insist that their clients are not guilty of any crime, claiming that she was sober enough throughout the night to consent.

"What we believe we will be able to support is that she voluntarily proceeded throughout the night with our client," Trent's attorney, Brian Duncan, told ABC News. "There is no indication that she was somehow so intoxicated that she could not have consented to any of the contact that occurred."

Ma'lik's attorney, Walter Madison, is equally confident in his client's innocence. He questions the prosecution's dependence on testimony from the three teenage witnesses.

"They all have immunity and have been granted deals not to be prosecuted for their involvement," he said. "When you give a child an option to have a seat at the trial table or tell us what we need to know and in exchange we won't prosecute you, they're probably going to tell you what you want to hear."

Attorney General DeWine denied that any deals have been made and won't rule out future charges for those witnesses.

The alleged victim is slated to take the stand, but because she says she has little memory of the night in question, her testimony is not expected to clarify the events of Aug. 11-12. Defense attorneys say the intense scrutiny the case has garnered is creating another challenge for them.

"We have found it very difficult to find people willing to talk to us," Duncan, Trent's attorney, said. "People have either not returned calls or they have lawyers that are involved. We have material subpoenas that have been issued."

A West Virginia judge Friday refused to enforce those subpoenas for three juveniles who reside just outside of Ohio. The judge cited a lack of legal precedence for compelling an underage witness to testify in a juvenile proceeding out of state.

When the trial commences Wednesday, there will be no jury involved. Instead, a juvenile judge will decide the fates of Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, who face incarceration in a detention center until their 21st birthdays and the almost-certain demise of their dreams of playing football.

http://gma.yahoo.com/steubenville-ra...opstories.html

This is why this case and the discussions around it disgust me so deeply. The scare quotes around "gang rape" in the bolded section above set the tone for the rest of the article. By law, any nonconsensual penetration is rape. Period. But in this POS article it's just a little harmless fingering of an unconscious girl. By a few football players. Who would call that "gang rape"?

One of the rapists goes on to say that the ex who took one of the most damning photos called her a drunk B. He later contends that she was consenting. How does she get to consent when she's a drunk B? I'm really touched that he claims to have given her his coat to "cover her up".

And besides some very damning photos and videos, there's no physical evidence of rape. Because rape only happens when semen is deposited in a vagina. Let's put more scare quotes around "rape" again. It was just fingering. And those poor boys were charged "nevertheless".

The final paragraph ratchets up even more sympathy for the rapists. They face the almost certain demise of their football playing dreams. Those poor boys. What a pity!

Little league raffles off AR-15 rifle to raise money
 

A youth baseball league in Illinois is raffling off an AR-15 military-style assault weapon to raise money for its kids.

The Atwood-Hammond group partnered with the local armory for the raffle, which launched on Tuesday. "It has been going gangbusters," Charidy Butcher, co-owner of the Atwood Armory, told RawStory.com. “My phone has been ringing nonstop since 4:30 this morning. It’s just been crazy."

The winner of the rifle—a Rock River Arms Tactical Operator AR-15—will have to go through a standard background check, Butcher added. The rifle is similar to the one used in the Dec. 14 shootings in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

According to Atwood-Hammond commissioner Steven McClain, the league is in desperate need of new equipment. "When you don't have enough stuff to even practice with, it's hard to run a team," McClain told WAND-TV.

It's not the first gun fundraiser for the Atwood Armory. Earlier this month, the shop raised more than $7,000 for a cancer charity with a similar raffle.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...133837381.html

Philadelphia church reverses decision, will let girls play football
 

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - An 11-year-old girl won her fight to play football with boys in the Philadelphia-area Roman Catholic youth leagues when the Archdiocese reversed an earlier decision and said on Thursday it would permit co-ed play.

The case of Caroline Pla, of suburban Buckingham Township, drew international attention when an online petition on her behalf drew 108,000 supporters, according to her mother, Seal Pla.

The girl's family was told last fall that Caroline could no longer play on the team, as she had done for two seasons. She was the only girl on the team.

But on Thursday, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, headed by Archbishop Charles Chaput, told the family it changed its mind.

"At the direction of the Archbishop, the Archdiocese will allow for co-ed participation in CYO football, effective in the 2013 season," the church said in a statement.

The decision was made despite the recommendation of a panel drawn up by the church of parents, clergy, coaches and other experts which studied the issue and said it believed that the Catholic Youth Organization should continue to ban girls' participation.

Chaput opted to override that recommendation, the statement from the archdiocese said.

The girl's mother said the family was notified of the change of heart at the archdiocese by email.

"She was jumping up and down, she was so happy," Seal Pla said. "Issues relating to how the church treats its young people are really important right now, and this is a huge positive step forward.

"For Caroline, this was never about just her, but about all girls who want to play the sports they love. It was about allowing kids like Caroline the opportunity to grow physically and spiritually."

According to the church statement, the old policy reflected the church's thoughts on the importance of gender differences and the development of mature male and female identities.

Caroline was not available for comment Thursday night. She was attending a banquet for her basketball team.

Other archdioceses, such as those in Cleveland and Wilmington, Delaware, have no gender exclusion like the one that was in effect in Philadelphia.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/philadelphi...1195--spt.html

(Link originally posted by LeftRightFemme)

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/m...as-trans070313


The underage thing is not okay. But I don't know. Do transpeople have an obligation to tell partners they were once presenting as a different sex? How do we arbitrate how much of a person's history is subject to compulsory sharing? Interested to hear other people's opinions.

Appointment of Pope Francis "a bad sign for LGBTI rights": Argentina LGBT Federation



http://www.fridae.asia/newsfeatures/...gbt-federation


I'm not surprised, but I am horribly disappointed. They had a chance to turn the church around and ease the suffering of over a billion people, but instead they chose this.....it's just so sad.

Settlement, Payout Announced in Air Force Major’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Discharge Case


http://www.queerty.com/settlement-pa...case-20130315/

check it...
 

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=10871821


we don't normally have earthquakes in da north island, it's a south island thang. if anathnag, we have volcaonoes. what da hey...

Ohio teens guilty of rape, face year-plus in jail
 

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio (AP) — Two members of the high school football team that is the pride of Steubenville were found guilty Sunday of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl in a case that bitterly divided the Rust Belt city and led to accusations of a cover-up to protect the community's athletes.

Steubenville High School students Trent Mays and Ma'Lik Richmond were sentenced to at least a year in juvenile jail, capping a case that came to light via a barrage of morning-after text messages, social media posts and online photos and video. Mays was sentenced to an additional year in jail on a charge of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material, to be served after his rape sentence is completed.

The two teens broke down in tears after the verdict was read and later apologized to the victim and to the community. Both were emotional as they spoke, and Richmond struggled at times to talk through his sobs. Richmond's father, Nathaniel, also asked that the victim's family "forgive Malik and Trent for the pain they put you through."

Mays, 17, and Richmond, 16, were charged with digitally penetrating the West Virginia girl, first in the back seat of a moving car after an alcohol-fueled party on Aug. 11, and then in the basement of a house.

The case roiled the community amid allegations that more students should have been charged — accusations that Ohio's attorney general pledged to look into — and led to questions about the influence of the local football team, a source of a pride in a community of 18,000 that suffered massive job losses with the collapse of the steel industry. Their arms linked, protesters who sought guilty verdicts stood outside the courthouse Sunday morning, some wearing masks.

The trial opened last week as a contest between prosecutors determined to show the girl was so drunk she couldn't have been a willing participant that night, and defense attorneys soliciting testimony from witnesses that would indicate that the girl, though drunk, knew what she was doing.

The teenage girl testified Saturday that she could not recall what happened the night of the attack but remembered waking up naked in a strange house after drinking at a party. The girl said she recalled drinking, leaving the party holding hands with Mays and throwing up later. When she woke up, she said she discovered her phone, earrings, shoes, and underwear were missing, she testified.

"It was really scary," she said. "I honestly did not know what to think because I could not remember anything."

The girl said she believed she was assaulted when she later read text messages among friends and saw a photo of herself taken that night, along with a video that made fun of her and the alleged attack. She said she suspected she had been drugged because she couldn't explain being as intoxicated as defense witnesses have said she was.

"They treated her like a toy," said special prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter.

Evidence introduced at the trial included graphic text messages sent by numerous students after the night of the party, including by the accuser, containing provocative descriptions of sex acts and obscene language. Lawyers noted during the trial how texts have seemed to replace talking on the phone for contemporary teens. A computer forensic expert called by the state documented tens of thousands of texts found on 17 phones seized during the investigation.

In sentencing the boys, Judge Thomas Lipps urged everyone who had witnessed what happened in the case, including parents, "to have discussions about how you talk to your friends, how you record things on the social media so prevalent today and how you conduct yourself when drinking is put upon you by your friends."

The girl herself recalled being in a car later with Mays and Richmond and asking them what happened.

"They kept telling me I was a hassle and they took care of me," she testified. "I thought I could trust him (Mays) until I saw the pictures and video."

In questioning her account, defense attorneys went after her character and credibility. Two former friends of the girl testified that the accuser had a history of drinking heavily and was known to lie.

"The reality is, she drank, she has a reputation for telling lies," said lawyer Walter Madison, representing Richmond.

The two girls testified they were angry at the accuser because she was drinking heavily at the party and rolling around on the floor. They said they tried unsuccessfully to get her to stop drinking.

Nathaniel Richmond urged during the sentencing that parents speak to their children about "the dangers of alcohol and how it can lead to bad decisions that will affect the rest of your life." He said he himself was an alcoholic.

The accuser said that she does not remember being photographed as she was carried by Mays and Ma'Lik Richmond, an image that stirred up outrage, first locally, then globally, as it spread online. Others have testified the photo was a joke and the girl was conscious when it was taken.

The photograph led to allegations that three other boys, two of them members of Steubenville High's celebrated Big Red team, saw something happening that night and didn't try to stop it but instead recorded it.

The three boys weren't charged, fueling months of online accusations of a cover-up to protect the team, which law enforcement authorities have vehemently denied.

Instead, the teens were granted immunity to testify, and their accounts helped incriminate the defendants. They said the girl was so drunk she didn't seem to know what was happening to her and confirmed she was digitally penetrated in a car and later on a basement floor.

After Mays and Richmond were taken into custody Sunday, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said he planned to convene a grand jury next month to investigate whether anyone else should be charged in the case.

Noting that 16 people refused to talk to investigators, many of them underage, DeWine said possible crimes to be investigated include failure to report a felony and failure to report child abuse.

"This community desperately needs to have this behind them, but this community also desperately needs to know justice was done and that no stone was left unturned," he said.

Mays and Richmond were determined to be delinquent, the juvenile equivalent of guilty, Lipps ruled in the juvenile court trial without a jury.

The length of their sentence beyond the minimum one year will be determined by juvenile authorities; they can be held until they're 21. Lipps said that "as bad as things have been for all of the children involved in this case, they can all change their lives for the better."

http://news.yahoo.com/ohio-teens-gui...6028--spt.html

-----------------------------------

The misogyny and sexism through this case has been deplorable. Blaming the victim, questioning her character, innuendo about what determines consent vs no vs incapable of giving consent etc.

Am also not happy that message people seem to want to focus on is be careful when posting or using social media. The message should be rape is not ok period.

This is not necessarily breaking news, but this was news to me. There are several factors that have led to the depletion of the ozone layer, specifically the thinning/hole over the arctic region:

http://www.weather.com/news/science/...cause-20130313

Seriously WTF??
 

It just seems so out of character with her lyrics. I'm sad about this one.

The rape victim from Steubenville has received threats and harassment:


http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...ng-rape-victim

Okay so she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in the 80s and received electroshock treatment which led to her stage name. I'm not going to worry too much what she thinks of gay people - just hope she gets some help.

Girls not allowed to wear tuxedos to prom at a high school in San Bernadino.

:|

http://m.nbcsandiego.com/nbcsandiego...tguid=Rk4d8RSJ

CVS Pharmacy Wants Workers' Health Information, or They'll Pay a Fine
 

new policy by CVS Pharmacy requires every one of its nearly 200,000 employees who use its health plan to submit their weight, body fat, glucose levels and other vitals or pay a monthly fine.

Employees who agree to this testing will see no change in their health insurance rates, but those who refuse will have to pay an extra $50 per month - or $600 per year - for the company's health insurance program. All employees have until May 1, 2014, to make an appointment with a doctor and record their vitals.

"The approach they're taking is based on the assumption that somehow these people need a whip, they need to be penalized in order to make themselves healthy," Patient Privacy Rights founder Dr. Deborah Peel said.

Critics are calling the policy coercion, and worrying that CVS or any other company might start firing sick workers.

"It's technology-enhanced discrimination on steroids," Peel said.

The policy change was introduced to employees in a memo highlighting the change in the health insurance plan.

CVS, which is based in Rhode Island, said the health screening was voluntary and the company would never see the test results. In an email to ABC News, CVS explained that its "benefits program is evolving to help our colleagues take more responsibility for improving their health and managing health-associated costs.

"The goal of these kinds of programs is to end up with a healthier work force. If your employees are healthy they're going to work better and they're going to cost the employer a lot less money," ABC News' chief health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser said.

CVS insists that the use of health screenings by employer-sponsored health plans is a common practice. A quick search of the Internet shows many websites and message boards filled with questions from families asking if similar programs and policies are legal.

Brad Seff, a former Broward County, Fla., employee, learned the hard way that it is legal, according to one court. Seff sued the county in April 2011 after it charged him an extra $40 per month for health insurance after he refused health screenings.

In the suit, Seff said the wellness program violated the Americans With Disabilities Act because the county was making medical inquires of its employees. Seff lost his suit.

----------

Health profiling?

When I worked for OfficeMax they changed their policy where you had to sign off as a non smoker living in a non smoking house with no children at home or away at college that were smokers. If you didn't sign off your insurance rates were much higher. The company actually provided smokers with whatever help and supplies they needed to stop smoking. As an ex smoker I didn't have any problems with it. I do though have major problems with the route CVS is taking. Since they are publically owned I would want to see the reports of the Executive level health made public.

I thinks it's more than just health profiling: I am inclined to believe that it's an organizational tool of compliance (read: Coercion).

I also think practices of this organizational type are: highly invasive and an example of poorly veiled prejudice, which seems to skirt violating poorly written law at local, county, state-wide or federal levels of codified law.

And, until Jurisprudence is able to draw succinct connections among violations between civil and human rights issues, I am inclined to think that it will not be too soon before social justice can offer redress in cases such as the account in the article above.

Thank you Kobi for sharing this news article.

eta: I wish there were a lawyer of the caliber that of Thurgood Marshall
to go after causes like this.

A preview of our upcoming national policies?

Pediatrics Group Backs Gay Marriage, Saying It Helps Children


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/he....html?hp&_r=1&

Is Torrington another Steubenville?
 

Two high school football players are accused of sexual assault. Their fellow students take to social media to defend the pair, taunting and blaming the victims.

An athletic director brushes aside the allegations—along with separate hazing, felony robbery and assault charges against the school's athletes—as "not any different than any other community."

Administrators are reluctant to immediately address the accusations and make it appear like a cover-up.

The online hacktivist group Anonymous pledges to expose the truth and publicly shame those who engage in cyberbullying and victim-blaming.

Except this isn't Steubenville, Ohio—it's Torrington, Conn., where two 18-year-olds, Edgar Gonzalez and Joan Toribio, stand accused of second-degree sexual assault of two 13-year-old girls. The investigation has led to the arrest of a 17-year-old male for an alleged assault on one of the 13-year-old girls last fall, police say, and more arrests could be forthcoming.

Gonzalez and Toribio, who live in the same Torrington apartment complex, were arrested last month on the sexual assault charges stemming from separate incidents that occurred around the same time period in February, a Torrington police official said on Wednesday. Both pleaded not guilty.

The investigation is ongoing, Torrington police say, and more arrests could be forthcoming.

"It's very involved," Torrington Police Lt. Mike Emanuel told reporters on Wednesday. "It's very difficult to follow, even for us."

The victims and their alleged attackers knew one another, Emanuel said. "The reason that this is a sexual assault is that there is more than a three-year age difference. That's what we have to keep in mind."

When asked if the sexual contact was consensual, Emanuel said, "Statutorily it is not consensual."

Gonzalez, who had already been facing felony robbery charges related to a March 2012 incident, is being held at a New Haven correction center. Toribio, who was charged with two counts of second-degree sexual assault, was released on $100,000 bond and is being electronically monitored.

Sealed by a Litchfield court, the case had been kept under wraps by school officials until this week, when the Register Citizen reported that "dozens of athletes and Torrington High School students, male and female," taunted the victims on Twitter:

Students flocked to social media in the days surrounding the arrests of Gonzalez and Toribio, with several students offering support for the two football players and others blaming the victims for causing the incident. References included calling a 13-year-old who hangs around with 18-year-olds a “whore,” and claiming the victims “destroyed” the lives of the players.

"Even if it was all his fault," Mary J. Ramirez, whose Twitter handle is @LoryyRamirez, wrote, "what was a 13 year old girl doing hanging around 18 year old guys[?]"

“I wanna know why there’s no punishment for young hoes,” Twitter user @asmedick wrote, according to the paper.

Torrington school officials said on Wednesday that they would investigate the apparent cyberbullying.

"We’re doing everything we can to provide the safety [the alleged victims] need in schools,” Kenneth Traub, Torrington's Board of Education chairman, said on Wednesday.

As was the case in Steubenville, Anonymous has gotten involved, launching "Operation Raider," a reference to the nickname of the Torrington High School football team.

“#OpRaider is the new #OpRollRedRoll," the group tweeted late Wednesday. "Torrington better take note of #Steubenville because they’re about to go on blast. #endrapeculture"

High school football takes on elevated importance in Torrington, a small town in northwest Connecticut. "Like Steubenville," Doug Barry wrote on Jezebel.com, the case in Connecticut "hinges in large part on the seemingly disproportionate influence a school’s football program has on the surrounding community."

Despite the felony robbery charges, Gonzalez was allowed to play football last fall.

“I reeled the kid in after that, and he walked the line," Dan Dunaj, Torrington's former head football coach, told the Register Citizen. "As a coach I was doing something right.”

Dunaj resigned in December amid an ongoing investigation into a hazing incident involving four football players last fall.

"If you think there's some wild band of athletes that are wandering around, then I think you're mistaken," Torrington High School Athletic Director Mike McKenna told the Register Citizen. "If you look at crime statistics, these things happen everywhere and we're not any different than any other community."

In an editorial published on Thursday, the Register Citizen blasted "the posture of denial and defensiveness" Torrington school officials have taken in response to the case:


The first step in recovering from this is admitting you have a problem. And after reading the social media accounts of average, "good" students at Torrington High School, it's clear that Torrington students need an urgent education about blaming the victim, bullying and harassment, what "consent" means, why statutory rape is rape, period, and where football should stand in relation to their education and the rest of life. Let's hope that starts today.
.

I am not sure what is going on but it was a very upsetting event for many who were in the audience.


A medical diagnosis from the 80's may have little or nothing to do with her political statement and outburst. She was able to book events, negotiate the contracts (no small task), show up, perform. This may just be who she is now.

I don't want to derail things, but this one really stuck in my craw. I did a little look around, no deep research or anything, in fact all I did was google the line I bolded above. I came up with a summary report from 2011 that hits on the high points of what companies of various sizes are doing to prepare for national health care.

This is the Mercer's National Survey I ran across. I am still going through it. Pages 4 and 9 show the ramp up to national care. Page 33-34 is a clearly stated objective. Starting on page 51 are the plan incentive ideas. Page 87 is interesting as well from a retirement point of view. Page 92 and on show the already in place ramifications of the national health policy coming. Page 94 confirms these 'incentives' are here to stay.

A couple of terms tossed around in the report are CDHP: "The concept of a CDHP is to return control of health care dollars to the person who uses them, the consumer. The consumer is given a financial incentive to control costs and as a result tend to become more directly involved in the selection and usage of health care services."

And PPACA: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act

If anyone is interested in this approach to health care that we are seeing, you might want to have a glance, it certainly opened my eyes. This report is a couple of years old and the emphasis is on using positive reinforcement. It would seem that CVS has decided to take the carrot and turn it into a stick. I have seen some plans where a person could protect their privacy for a one time lost discount of maybe $50-100 per year, but at $600 per year as mentioned in the article, I don't think the majority of CVS employees are going to see that as a viable option.

While I agree with the concept of making healthy lifestyle education available to all people (something to counter the current marketing of crap food and latest drugs model), I really don't see forcing it down someones throat as making it somehow more effective. On the contrary, I see it as an effective way to create resentment on a large scale.

I can't wait to see what will be on the table for non-corporate yet required insurance programs for those not currently insured.

Just my .02

Derail/rant over, carry on.

Meet The 83-Year-Old Taking On The U.S. Over Same-Sex Marriage



http://www.npr.org/2013/03/21/174944...e-sex-marriage

Cascadia earthquake, tsunami could cost Oregon economy $32 billion
 

So, it's not 'breaking news' yet; but just as recently as before the Christmas holidays in December, I got this very large post-card mailer from the state of Oregon (as did other households, region-wide) about what to do in the case of a catastrophic emergency - such as an earthquake, not to mention the possibility of Mt. Hood blowing up.

Yesterday, a librarian friend of mine posted on her page at FB that she spent a fortune in upgrades to her house to make it safe if an earthquake of catastophic magnitude should happen in the near future. With emphasis on... "near future."

Ever since I got that post card mailer in the mail, I've struggled with what engineers and developers and state-appointed law makers know that the general, wider public here in Oregon seem to not be 'in-the-know' about.

I've lived here for the last twenty-some-odd years and have observed how our state has tried to address transportation issues, water issues (rivers, watershed areas, etc), and emergency management issues. And quite frankly, the threat of the unimaginable - either an earthquake or Mt. Hood blowing up - causes me to worry because if something of this nature happens, water and food supplies would be lost and telephone and celltower lines would automatically be affected (trans: you couldn't call for help fast enough or even have some reasonable way to call family members to let them know your plight in an emergency, etc).

Here's the link to the article in The Oregonian (link).