A parent's complaint over a 'sexually graphic' definition has seen dictionaries removed from southern Californian schools. Dictionaries have been removed from classrooms in southern California schools after a parent complained about a child reading the definition for "oral sex".
Merriam Webster's 10th edition, which has been used for the past few years in fourth and fifth grade classrooms (for children aged nine to 10) in Menifee Union school district, has been pulled from shelves over fears that the "sexually graphic" entry is "just not age appropriate", according to the area's local paper.
The dictionary's online definition of the term is "oral stimulation of the genitals". "It's hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we'll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature," district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the paper.
While some parents have praised the move – "[it's] a prestigious dictionary that's used in the Riverside County spelling bee, but I also imagine there are words in there of concern," said Randy Freeman – others have raised concerns. "It is not such a bad thing for a kid to have the wherewithal to go and look up a word he may have even heard on the playground," father Jason Rogers told local press. "You have to draw the line somewhere. What are they going to do next, pull encyclopaedias because they list parts of the human anatomy like the penis and vagina?"
A panel is now reviewing whether the Menifee ban will be made permanent. The Merriam Webster dictionary joins an illustrious set of books that have been banned or challenged in the US, including Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, which last year was suspended from and then reinstated to the curriculum at a Michigan school after complaints from parents about its coverage of graphic sex and violence, and titles by Khaled Hosseini and Philip Pullman, included in the American Library Association's list of books that inspired most complaints last year.
(CNN) -- A man on trial for gunning down a Kansas abortion provider in church said he had no regrets because "abortion is murder."
Scott Roder, 51, said he shot and killed Dr. George Tiller as services began on May 31 to save the lives of the unborn.
"There was nothing being done and the legal process had been exhausted, and these babies were dying every day," Roeder said. "I did what I thought was needed to be done to protect the children."
Roeder is charged with one count of first-degree murder for the death of Tiller, who ran a women's clinic in Wichita where abortions were performed, including the controversial late-term procedure.
Roeder was the only witness for the defense, which rested its case Thursday. Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert told jurors closing arguments will be held Friday morning, depending on the weather.
Tiller, 67, was one of the few U.S. doctors who performed late-term abortions. He had already survived one attempt on his life and a clinic bombing before he was slain.
During Roeder's testimony Thursday, Tiller's widow, Jeanne, and other family members sat in the gallery. Initially stoic, they began to dab at tears as Roeder described putting a gun to Tiller's head.
Asked if he regretted what he did, Roeder said, "No, I don't." Upon learning that Tiller's clinic was shut down after his death, he said he felt "a sense of relief."
Dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and a red patterned tie, Roeder calmly testified that he had a long-standing belief that Tiller should die.
He thought about different ways to kill the doctor -- driving a car into him, perhaps, or shooting him with a rifle. His main concern, Roeder said, was that he might harm others.
Under cross-examination by Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston, he said he also considered cutting Tiller's hands off with a sword, but decided that would not be effective, as Tiller would still be able to train others.
Roeder said that through the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue he learned that Tiller took measures to protect himself -- traveling in an armored car, using a security escort, wearing a bulletproof vest and living in a gated community.
He decided to kill Tiller at his church, he said, because "I felt that actually if he was to be stopped, that was probably the only place he could have been stopped. ... It was the only window of opportunity I saw."
Roeder said he visited the church four or five times before Tiller's death. The week before the shooting, on May 24, he carried a .22-caliber handgun with him, he testified, but Tiller did not attend church that day.
On May 31, though, the doctor was greeting congregants in the foyer of Reformation Luthern Church before Roeder walked up to him and shot him at point blank range.
"The lives of those children were in imminent danger if someone did not stop George Tiller," Roeder said. "I shot him."
Under questioning from Foulston, Roeder acknowledged that he "somewhat" admired those who previously had committed violence against abortion providers.
He said his anti-abortion beliefs "go hand in hand" with his religious beliefs. He said he became born again in 1992 after watching an episode of "The 700 Club."
Asked if there are any circumstances in which he believes abortion is acceptable, Roeder said he thought it could be if the mother's life was in "absolute" danger.
"I struggle with that decision," he said, "because I believe that ultimately, it is up to our heavenly father. But if there was a time, that would be it."
He said he did not believe abortion was justified in the case of rape.
"You are taking the life of the innocent. You're punishing the innocent life for the sin of the father. Two wrongs don't make a right."
Asked about incest, he said his beliefs were the same: "It isn't our duty to take life, it's our heavenly father's."
Roeder's testimony was peppered with objections from prosecutors. Many objections were sustained by Wilbert, who has maintained he does not want the trial to become a forum on abortion.
In a conference out of the presence of jurors, Wilbert cautioned Roeder, saying specifics on medical procedures would not be allowed. Roeder's testimony will proceed, Wilbert said, "on a question-by-question basis."
Roeder recounted conducting what he called "sidewalk counseling" at Kansas City abortion clinics, handing pamphlets and other literature to women as they went inside. "Some of them did ultimately change their mind," he said.
In opening statements Thursday, defense attorney Steve Osburn told jurors Roeder "killed Dr. Tiller because he believed that was the only way, necessary to save the lives of the unborn."
Defense attorneys claim Roeder was also motivated by authorities' failure to punish him through the judicial system.
Wilbert refused to allow former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline to testify on behalf of the defense. On Wednesday, he refused to allow testimony from current Deputy Attorney General Barry Disney. Kline unsuccessfully attempted to prosecute Tiller in 2006. Disney charged Tiller with 19 misdemeanor counts, but a jury acquitted the doctor.
Wilbert said Roeder can testify about the cases and how they affected his beliefs, but to allow testimony from Kline would "get into legal matters that do not concern this jury."
And, the judge said, the cases do not give Roeder a basis to state absolutely that Tiller's actions were illegal, since the doctor had never been convicted.
Roeder testified he was "very frustrated" by Tiller's acquittal, saying it "seemed like that was the last attempt by the state of Kansas to find if there was anything at all going on illegally in George Tiller's clinic."
Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, told reporters outside the courtroom the trial is "a railroad, a kangaroo court, where they are denying critical evidence about what was on Scott Roeder's mind when he pulled the trigger."
"Perhaps if the Sedgwick County prosecutors had done a better job prosecuting Tiller for how he illegally killed babies, he would still be alive," Terry said.
Even though this is horribly detestable, I still have a strong gut reaction against the whole late-term abortion thing. Really, I'm not terribly fond of abortion to begin with, but I understand that sometimes it's the better option. But I have less sympathy for late-term abortion... when the baby is that developed it seems worse to me.
Obviously not enough to kill someone... this guy clearly is fucked up. But still, makes me think of that distinction.
We've spoken to someone who traveled to Haiti on a Scientology plane — and witnessed firsthand the ineptitude, quackery and irresponsibility of the church's minions in a disaster zone. Here's his account.
I arrived at JFK last week, ready to go.
I knew we were traveling with doctors and EMTs, but I didn't expect to see 50 scientologists, in their yellow shirts with Volunteer Minister on them. They were completely unprepared for going to a third world country, let alone a disaster zone. One girl was in designer cowboy boots. I asked her if she'd brought any sturdier footwear.
"Oh no, these'll be fine."
I asked another guy what he'd packed and he said he hadn't bothered to bring soap or toilet paper or food, but that he'd just "buy whatever I need at Port-au-Prince airport." I couldn't break it to him.
They had no place to stay, and no supplies — their idea was to use the ton of money they had to buy food to distribute when they got there. But there was no food and no water. That was the point.
By the time we arrived in Haiti, after a stopover in Miami, we had missed three landing slots at the airport. Aid agencies — genuine aid agencies — from other countries were being turned away, refused permission to land. But we still got a slot straight away. The guy who ran our charter seemed to think that the Scientologists had some real influence with the US Government, who were assigning the slots.
The doctors and EMTs in our party headed straight downtown to start working. The Scientologists had nowhere to go, and nowhere to put up the big yellow tent they'd brought for touch healing people in. They went to the UN, and managed to get on to their list of approved NGOs somehow. That meant they could set up in the UN grounds.
But they had no-one who spoke Creole, and they brought the weirdness of touch healing into a very superstitious society. They'd leave the tent and come into the general hospital downtown, and try healing people. One of the doctors and one of the nurses told me that the wounded started coming to them to tell them they didn't want to be treated by the people in the yellow shirts.
One nurse told me that the Scientologists actually caused harm — they gave food to people who were scheduled to go into surgery. That then led to complications in the operating theater.
On the way back, the plane stopped in Miami and did not go on to New York, stranding all the doctors and EMTs and journalists who expected to get back. After much fighting, the Scientologist representative agreed to fly any of the EMTs that "absolutely couldn't afford the ticket" on Jet Blue from Fort Lauderdale. I heard there were complications but had bought my own ticket because I was fed up with their weirdness.
Maybe! Who knows? I am in the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), a subsidiary (lol) of SOCOM. So we roll down to places as soon as shit goes down. The folks from my shop who were called a few hours after the earthquake happened were on an airplane within two hours. That's what we do. That's Special Operations. We're the "Tip of the Spear".
I went down to Haiti about a week and a half after they'd already been there. They sent two radio guys home (the radios were good) and brought down myself (for network administration) and a power production guy (they already had one, but wanted a second so they could keep an eye on our generators 24/7).
By the time we (AFSOC) left (just this past Wednesday evening), an Air Expeditionary Group and an Army Battallion had already set up base on the field around the airstrip. I don't know much about Army deployments (which can be up to 18 months under normal circumstances), but I do know that the personnel rotation in an AEG is 4 months. Also, when I was leaving, they had already started pouring concrete around their tent city. Coupled with the fact that the AEG's supporting communications squadron brought down a system that is meant to run an ENTIRE BASE'S network - I'd say we'll be in Haiti for awhile.
And just like I was slotted to go to Iraq for four months, I could very well be slotted to go back to Haiti for four.
A soldier waterboarded his four-year-old daughter because she was unable to recite her alphabet.
Joshua Tabor admitted to police he had used the CIA torture technique because he was so angry.
As his daughter 'squirmed' to get away, Tabor said he submerged her face three or four times until the water was lapping around her forehead and jawline.
Tabor, 27, who had won custody of his daughter only four weeks earlier, admitted choosing the punishment because the girl was terrified of water.
The practice of waterboarding was used by the CIA to break Al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay. Detainees had water poured over their face until they feared they would drown. President Barack Obama has since outlawed the practice.
Tabor, a soldier at the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Washington, was arrested after being seen walking around his neighbourhood wearing a Kevlar military helmet and threatening to break windows.
Police discovered the alleged waterboarding when they went to his home in the Tacoma suburb of Yelm and spoke to his girlfriend.
She told them about the alleged torture and the terrified girl was found hiding in a closet, with bruising on her back and scratch marks on her neck and throat.
Asked how she got the bruises, the girl is said to have replied: 'Daddy did it.'
During a police interview Tabor allegedly admitted grabbing his daughter, placing her on the kitchen counter and submerging her face into a bowl of water.
Sergeant Rob Carlson said the punishment was carried out because the girl would not recite the alphabet.
Police have not revealed Tabor's military service, but his base is home to units that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tabor has been charged with assault and ordered to remain on his base and have no contact with his daughter or girlfriend, who has not been named. He is due to appear in court this week.
The girl has been taken into care. Her natural mother lives in Kansas but Tabor had been granted custody by a court.
There's no evidence that he's ever even been deployed. If he has, who knows if he's been to a combat zone? Not everybody in the military deploys. He could just be a fucking psychopath.
On Sunday, Cheney pronounced himself "a big supporter of waterboarding," a near-drowning technique that has been regarded as torture back to the Spanish Inquisition and that has long been treated by U.S. authorities as a serious war crime, such as when Japanese commanders were prosecuted for using it on American prisoners during World War II.
Cheney was unrepentant about his support for the technique. He answered with an emphatic "yes" when asked if he had opposed the Bush administration’s decision to suspend the use of waterboarding – after it was employed against three "high-value detainees" sometimes in repetitive sequences. He added that waterboarding should still be "on the table" today.
Cheney then went further. Speaking with a sense of impunity, he casually negated a key line of defense that senior Bush officials had hidden behind for years – that the brutal interrogations were approved by independent Justice Department legal experts who thus gave the administration a legitimate reason to believe the actions were within the law.
However, on Sunday, Cheney acknowledged that the White House had told the Justice Department lawyers what legal opinions to render. In other words, the opinions amounted to ordered-up lawyering to permit the administration to do whatever it wanted.
In responding to a question about why he had so aggressively attacked President Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism policies, Cheney explained that he had been concerned about the new administration prosecuting some CIA operatives who had handled the interrogations and "disbarring lawyers with the Justice Department who had helped us put those policies together. …
"I thought it was important for some senior person in the administration to stand up and defend those people who’d done what we asked them to do."
Cheney’s comment about the Justice lawyers who had "done what we asked them to do" was an apparent reference to John Yoo and his boss, Jay Bybee, at the Office of Legal Council (OLC), a powerful agency that advises the President on the limits of his power.
In 2002, Yoo – while working closely with White House officials – drafted legal memos that permitted waterboarding and other brutal techniques by narrowly defining torture. He also authored legal opinions that asserted virtual dictatorial powers for a President during war, even one as vaguely defined as the "war on terror." Yoo’s key memos were then signed by Bybee.
In 2003, after Yoo left to be a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and Bybee was elevated to a federal appeals court judgeship in San Francisco, their successors withdrew the memos because of the sloppy scholarship. However, in 2005, President George W. Bush appointed a new acting chief of the OLC, Steven Bradbury, who restored many of the Yoo-Bybee opinions.
Legal Fig Leaf
In the years that followed, Bush administration officials repeatedly cited the Yoo-Bybee-Bradbury legal guidance when insisting that the "enhanced interrogation" of "war on terror" detainees – as well as prisoners from the Iraq and Afghan wars – did not cross the line into torture.
In essence, the Bush-Cheney defense was that the OLC lawyers offered honest opinions and that everyone from the President and Vice President, who approved use of the interrogation techniques, down to the CIA interrogators, who conducted the torture, operated in good faith.
If, however, that narrative proved to be false – if the lawyers had colluded with the policymakers to create legal excuses for criminal acts – then the Bush-Cheney defense would collapse. Rather than diligent lawyers providing professional advice, the picture would be of Mob consiglieres counseling crime bosses how to evade the law.
Though Bush administration defenders have long denied that the legal opinions were cooked, the evidence has long supported the conspiratorial interpretation. For instance, in his 2006 book War by Other Means, Yoo himself described his involvement in frequent White House meetings regarding what "other means" should receive a legal stamp of approval. Yoo wrote:
"As the White House held its procession of Christmas parties and receptions in December 2001, senior lawyers from the Attorney General’s office, the White House counsel’s office, the Departments of State and Defense and the NSC [National Security Council] met a few floors away to discuss the work on our opinion. …
"This group of lawyers would meet repeatedly over the next months to develop policy on the war on terrorism. "
Yoo said meetings were usually chaired by Alberto Gonzales, who was then White House counsel and later became Bush’s second Attorney General. Yoo identified other key players as Timothy Flanigan, Gonzales’s deputy; William Howard Taft IV from State; John Bellinger from the NSC; William "Jim" Haynes from the Pentagon; and David Addington, counsel to Cheney.
Yoo’s Account
In his book, Yoo described a give-and-take among participants at the meeting with the State Department’s Taft challenging Yoo’s OLC view that Bush could waive the Geneva Conventions regarding the invasion of Afghanistan (by labeling it a "failed state"). Taft noted that the Taliban was the recognized government of the country.
"We thought Taft’s memo represented the typically conservative thinking of foreign ministries, which places a priority on stabilizing relations with other states – even if it means creating or maintaining fictions – rather than adapting to new circumstances," Yoo wrote.
Regarding objections from the Pentagon’s judge advocate generals – who feared that waiving the Geneva Conventions would endanger American soldiers – Yoo again stressed policy concerns, not legal logic.
"It was far from obvious that following the Geneva Conventions in the war against al-Qaeda would be wise," Yoo wrote. "Our policy makers had to ask whether [compliance] would yield any benefit or act as a hindrance."
What Yoo’s book and other evidence make clear is that the lawyers from the Justice Department’s OLC weren’t just legal scholars handing down opinions from an ivory tower; they were participants in how to make Bush’s desired actions "legal."
They were the lawyerly equivalents of those U.S. intelligence analysts, who – in the words of the British "Downing Street Memo" – "fixed" the facts around Bush’s desire to justify invading Iraq.
The importance of this question – whether the OLC lawyers were honest brokers or criminal conspirators – was not missed by some of the congressional leaders who pressed for a serious investigation of Bush’s use of torture and other war crimes.
Two years ago, Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, wrote a letter to the Justice Department’s watchdog agencies requesting an investigation into the role that "Justice Department officials [played] in authorizing and/or overseeing the use of waterboarding by the Central Intelligence Agency... and whether those who authorized it violated the law."
In the Feb. 12, 2008, letter, the senators questioned whether the OLC lawyers were "insulated from outside pressure to reach a particular conclusion" and whether Bush’s White House and the CIA played any role in influencing "deliberations about the lawfulness of waterboarding," a technique that creates the sensation of drowning.
Whitehouse, a former federal prosecutor, said those questions were designed to get to the point that having in-house lawyers dream up a legal argument doesn’t make an action legal, especially if the lawyers were somehow induced to produce the opinion.
In the case of waterboarding and other abusive interrogation tactics, Yoo and Bybee generated a memo, dated Aug. 1, 2002, that came up with a novel and narrow definition of torture, essentially lifting the language from an unrelated law regarding health benefits.
The Yoo-Bybee legal opinion stated that unless the amount of pain administered to a detainee led to injuries that might result in "death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions" then the interrogation technique could not be defined as torture.
Since waterboarding is not intended to cause death or organ failure – only the panicked gag reflex associated with drowning – it was deemed not to be torture.
The "torture memo" and related legal opinions were considered so unprofessional that Bybee’s replacement to head the OLC, Jack Goldsmith, himself a conservative Republican, took the extraordinary step of withdrawing them after he was appointed in October 2003.
However, Goldsmith was pushed out of his job after a confrontation with Cheney’s counsel Addington, and the later appointment of Bradbury enabled the Bush White House to reinstate many of the Yoo-Bybee opinions.
Last month, Newsweek reported that Yoo and Bybee had avoided any disciplinary recommendations because a draft report by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility had been rewritten to remove harsh criticism that the two lawyers had violated professional standards, softening the language to simple criticism of their judgment.
The weaker language meant that the Justice Department would not refer the cases to state bar associations for possible disbarment proceedings.
Cheney’s frank comments on "This Week" – corroborating that Yoo and Bybee "had done what we asked them to do" – suggest that former Bush administration officials are confident that they will face no accountability from the Obama administration for war crimes.
Though the ABC News interviewer Jonathan Karl deserves some credit for posing the waterboarding question to Cheney, it was notable that Karl didn’t react with any shock or even a follow-up when Cheney pronounced himself a fan of the torture practice. Cheney’s waterboarding endorsement was only a footnote in ABC’s online account of the interview.
Surely, if a leader of another country had called himself "a big supporter of waterboarding," there would have been a clamor for his immediate arrest and trial at The Hague.
That Cheney feels he can operate with such impunity is a damning commentary on the rule of law in the United States, at least when it comes to the nation’s elites.
Huh. So today somebody flew their plane into an IRS building in Austin, it's been all over the news around the country. A friend linked me to the 'manifesto' he posted online, it's a tad bit lengthy but certainly interesting to read. When I first heard that someone had flown their plane into an IRS building, my first thoughts were "Oh, some nut-job got mad with the government and decided he'd take his revenge by flying his fancy plane into the IRS building." After reading what he had to say, though... I dunno. I still don't quite agree with it, but I certainly don't think he was a pathetic nut-job anymore. Figured I'd post it here, I know at least a few OB members who'd find it interesting to read.
Last week, the Utah House and Senate passed a bill that would make it a crime for a woman to have a miscarriage, and would in most instances make induced abortion a crime. The bill still needs the signature of the governor to be signed into law, but already it is causing concern across the United States.
The bill amends Utah's criminal statute to allow the state go charge a woman with criminal homicide for inducing a miscarriage or obtaining an illegal abortion. The case on which the bill was based was one in which a 17-year-old girl who was seven months pregnant paid a man $150 to beat her in an attempt to cause a miscarriage. The gave birth and later gave the child up for adoption, but was initially charged with attempted murder. The charges, however, were dropped because under Utah law at the time, a woman could not be prosecuted for attempting to arrange an abortion, whether it was lawful or unlawful. The bill recently passed by Utah legislature would change that.
The bill does not affect legally obtained abortions, but it does criminalize the actions taken by a woman to induce a miscarriage or an abortion outside a doctor's care. Penalties range up to life in prison.
Perhaps the most troubling part of the bill is a standard that could make women legally responsible for miscarriages caused by so-called "reckless" behavior. Under the "reckless behavior" standard, an attorney only needs to show that the woman behaved in a manner that is thought to cause miscarriage, even if she did not intend to lose the pregnancy. Under this law, if a woman drinks too much and has a miscarriage, she could face prosecution.
Many states have fetal homicide laws, most of which apply only in the third trimester. Utah's bill, however, would apply through the entire duration of a woman's pregnancy. Even common first trimester miscarriages could trigger a murder trial.
The bill does exempt from prosecution fetal deaths due to failure to follow medical advice, accept treatment, or refuse a cesarean section.
Except that whole miscarraige part. Know you're pregnant? Forget to wear a seatbelt and get in an accident, and end up miscarraiging? Criminal homicide.
I have to ask, though, if this law WERE to go into effect, who would be responsible for analyzing the situation and determining if the woman should be prosecuted for murder? It seems almost like one of those laws that sounds like it has far-reaching effects but just won't get reinforced that often.
Not that I'm supporting this law; it sounds horrible. But just wonderin'.
I can see what they are trying to do with this, but it's exactly the sort of law that would be difficult to near impossible to enforce responsibly. It'd be too easy to misuse and abuse a law like this. It really shouldn't stand.
Comments
Ah pish-posh, you merely have a poor sense of bad taste.
*sigh* I just don't even know what to say.
I just don't get it.
What.
Obviously not enough to kill someone... this guy clearly is fucked up. But still, makes me think of that distinction.
Scientologists in Haiti: A Firsthand Account
I went down to Haiti about a week and a half after they'd already been there. They sent two radio guys home (the radios were good) and brought down myself (for network administration) and a power production guy (they already had one, but wanted a second so they could keep an eye on our generators 24/7).
By the time we (AFSOC) left (just this past Wednesday evening), an Air Expeditionary Group and an Army Battallion had already set up base on the field around the airstrip. I don't know much about Army deployments (which can be up to 18 months under normal circumstances), but I do know that the personnel rotation in an AEG is 4 months. Also, when I was leaving, they had already started pouring concrete around their tent city. Coupled with the fact that the AEG's supporting communications squadron brought down a system that is meant to run an ENTIRE BASE'S network - I'd say we'll be in Haiti for awhile.
And just like I was slotted to go to Iraq for four months, I could very well be slotted to go back to Haiti for four.
Joe Stack's Manifesto
Truly, Utah is our most backwards state.
I have to ask, though, if this law WERE to go into effect, who would be responsible for analyzing the situation and determining if the woman should be prosecuted for murder? It seems almost like one of those laws that sounds like it has far-reaching effects but just won't get reinforced that often.
Not that I'm supporting this law; it sounds horrible. But just wonderin'.