Tag: abuse

Former (and some would add disgraced) Navy Chaplain Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt has joined in on the battering of Florence, Colorado teen “Jane Doe,” who the Pacific Justice Institute has falsely accused of harassing girls in the restrooms and locker rooms.  Klingenschmitt, who is running for the Colorado House in District 15, has accused the trans teen of “visually raping” teenage girls.

Now the public school children are being told by a demonic spirit, “You must open up your daughter’s privacy to our perversion.”  And this demonic spirit inside of this boy is now violating, and for all intents and purposes, he’s raping – at least visually – these teenage girls.

There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly unique about Jane Doe; she simply had the misfortune of existing in a community where a few intolerant families rallied against her and used an anti-LGBT group to draw national attention to her.  But PJI is simply using Jane as an example.  There are trans young people in schools all across the country just like Jane who simply want to be safe in school – to be able to go the bathroom or change clothes for phys ed without being ostracized to a staff bathroom or nurse’s office.  How that has any impact on other students remains unclear.

—Zack Ford, ThinkProgress

Jane is now said to be on suicide watch after her family decided she needed professional intervention.  There is something to worry about when some right-wing voices say she deserves to die.

Teaching Tolerance

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

Since I was a child he hounded me.  She stalked me.  I was bullied, intimidated, tormented not by a single person, but by a throng of thoughts.  Why did another child, adolescent, nay adult ever bully me.  What was it about me that kept me safe from harm or a persecutor’s pointed proclamations?  

I am and have always been a vocal proponent of therapy, medication, and introspection.  All three in tandem have proven to be invaluable to my own understanding of self, as well as an effective treatment plan.  I am not the only person who has reaped great benefit from them, too.  Recent developments, however, have given me a greater understanding of the limitations of each of these methods of attaining mental health.  By this I mean that a friend recently pointed out once again my infamous difficulty in setting adequate boundaries for myself and alongside it, unintentionally exhausting people with my need to constantly reach out.

Just a few items. Short, but not sweet.

Court rejects Calif. plan to cut prison population

October 21, 2009

AP

SACRAMENTO, Calif. —  A federal judicial panel has rejected the Schwarzenegger administration’s plan for reducing California’s prison population because it failed to meet the terms of an earlier court order.

In August, the panel ordered California to reduce its inmate population by roughly 27 percent, or 40,000, over two years. The courts have found that prison overcrowding is the main cause of negligent medical and mental health care.

This is a roundup of news and commentary regarding prisons and prisoners. I have focused to a fair extent (though not entirely) on stories where there is some question of prisoner abuse, or miscarriage of justice.

Crossposted from DailyKos.

This is Really Hard to Believe is the name of a new article by Barry Nolan that is now up on the ePluribus Media journal. The title of this diary reflects three things this non-diary diary represents: a shameless plug about a shamefully neglected topic, and the unbelievable stories that Barry encounters at the Battered Mother’s Custody Conference (YouTube link) that was recently held in Albany.

You need to read Barry’s piece. Make the jump for a little more info, a minor rant, and the opportunity to flame me in comments if this diary offends you.

The fact that this topic often fails to receive the attention that it deserves offends me.

WE’RE GOING TO HELL IN A HAND BASKET

Cross posted from SanchoPress

http://sanchopress.com/frontPa…

I remember my grandfather saying this. He meant our nation. I remember my mom saying this. She meant America.

It had already begun before my grandfather said it. It had gained momentum when my mom was saying it.

Now I say it. I say it meaning the United States. I also say it meaning the world. The momentum the hand basket had when my mom said it has turned into a flying hand basket. A jet propelled hand basket.    

The descent of the hand basket and all it contains, seems to be caught in a tsunami, a hurricane, an avalanche. At times it feels like there is no hope of stopping the hand basket from reaching it’s stated destination .

Yet, we must try. If we don’t, what do we tell our young children or our grandchildren? What do we say when they ask the inevitable questions?

What did you do to stop the hand basket so my generation wouldn’t be worse off than yours? How did you try to keep the path of the hand basket from making us the first group in America’s history worse off than those before them? Why did you let the hand basket move on and on and leave us on the brink of complete annihilation and destruction of our nation, our world, our planet?

Did you do your best to stop the hand basket cradling our country, our world and our planet? Did you at least try to slow the tide of the tsunami, the winds of the tornado or the avalanche of snow increasing the speed of the hand basket?

What things, people, circumstances, events, difficulties, problems and more are in the hand basket on its way to hell? We can’t even imagine all of what it contains, much less list them all. The hand basket contains all from the beginning of mankind and we’re letting it hurdle to hell at an unprecedented rate.  

To name just some of the recent things to be put in the hand basket from the United States, our actions, our lack of actions, our policies and practices would seem to fill the hand basket until it overflowed and the list would still not be complete.

Even the most recently added to the overflowing hand basket are so very sad, yet, the majority in the hand basket are good.

So, how is it possible that the hand basket is nearing it’s final stop so rapidly?

The bad, negative, evil and worse are the forces propelling the hand basket towards hell. They are only 10% of those in the hand basket. How could 10% possibly be moving the hand basket along at an ever increasing rate? Why would they be doing it? Why doesn’t matter. It may never be known. Maybe it is just that they are greedy, egomaniacs with a never ending lust.  

The rest of us just need to know they, the 10%, are steering the hand basket. They are not only steering the hand basket but they are making it move faster and faster each day.

The good who are the other 90% in the hand basket are desperately trying to put on the brakes, to stop the hand basket or to at least slow down what seems to be the inevitable fate of the hand basket.

Oh, the horrors in the hand basket. Oh, the terrible things in the hand basket just from The United States Of America. Just from the 10% of America’s leaders who are despicable and wretched.

In the hand basket is the war in Iraq. The devastation of a nation that America had no right or reason to invade. The horror of the death and destruction of a people, a nation, a society, a culture.

In the hand basket are the American troops and Iraqis who died. Innumerable others who suffered physical injuries.

Many more and their families who will live forever with the mental torture of TBI, PTSD, mental health issues, divorce, suicide, homelessness and more. All these with little or no help for their problems from the 10% who pushed so vehemently for them to perpetrate this trespass.

In the hand basket are forty seven million uninsured Americans with all the difficulties, heartache and misery this creates for them.

In the hand basket is now the body of Benazir Bhutto on top of Lincoln, Kennedy, Martin Luther, seven million Jews from the holocaust and so many many more bodies of those who died for reasons without just explanation.

In the hand basket are the hungry, the homeless, the forgotten. Many are from the wealthiest nation on earth. In the hand basket are the missing children, those forced into sexual slavery and child pornography. Many are from the richest nation in the world. They will never recover from their scars.

In the hand basket are the children who have been abused. Abused physically, mentally and emotionally. Those who will never be whole again without a great deal of help, if ever. Those who can not trust anyone. Those who feel that almost everyone is out to hurt them. Those that blame others for all their difficulties later in life. Those without the ability to listen to anyone’s direction. Those who spend their life fighting all authority and structure. Those that wallow in self pity. Who can blame them, they were damaged as children. Children are supposed to be our future. They are in the hand basket. Many are now adults and were once the children of our future and they are in the hand basket

Nine years ago this week  — it seems an eternity ago — I was sleeping next to my husband in my parents’ house on a Texas border island, at the end of the most miserable Christmas I have ever spent.

Seven months earlier, my husband and I had sold our house in Virginia, had sold most of the furniture in it, and had embarked on what I had earnestly hoped would be a new life.  He was a professional whose practice had failed, a functioning alcoholic who refused to acknowledge it, and an abuser whose abuse had emerged on the day we were returning from our honeymoon and had grown in spite and fury, and by leaps and bounds, intermittently, in the two years since.