Child Abuse

On May 25th, 2005, I wrote the following about Lawrence Lessig :

Today we're all having one of those days : the four of us woke up somewhat askew. Whether it is allergies or a cold, we're not feeling well. So I decided to not take the kids to their usual martial arts class. But to minimize the askweness of the day, we followed part of our Monday "script" and procured the "start of the week" stash of candy.

And then, to make things more "different" I bought New York Magazine because this week's cover story caught my eye. Simply titled, The Choirboy, the hook goes : "The American Boychoir School in Princeton was a twisted sanctuary for the sexual abuse of children. Why is one of America's most famous lawyers taking it on? He was one of the victims". Needsless to say, I had to get this magazine. With all the child abuse scandals plaguing the Catholic Church, I was intrigued. So I immediately went on to page 28 while my two little boys were enjoying their Monday afternoon treat and I immediately broke down.

The lawyer and former abused choirboy is none other than Lawrence Lessig; a man who could only be described as force of nature on the internet.

There on page 29 of this week's New York Magazine, is a man that I have long admired, not just because of his books championing freedom of speach on the Internet, not just because he founded Creative Commons, but because Lawrence Lessig was one of the few people to come to our family's rescue and tell us "everything is going to be alright". Back in 1997 my husband became on of the first artists to be threatened with intellectual property lawsuits for derivative work displayed and distributed through the internet and Lessig was one of the few people who was able to offer some advice --because nothing like this had happened to any artists on the net.

It's because of this that nowadays, when working on a project, we always ask WWLLD? or "What would Lawrence Lessig do?" : We're not religious people but we do believe in the legal judgement of Lessig.

As one of the commenters over at Lessig's said, "Having high-profile, successful people step forward with their stories is important. It makes the burden easier to carry for others, and it shows in a practical way that though such a past will always -color- you to some degree, it doesn't need to -define- you."

Yet it's the fact that he took on this legal challenge after losing one of the biggest and most important legal fights in his area of special --copyright and intellectual property-- that is more poignant.

Protecting Our Children National American Indian Conference on Child Abuse Neglect

Type of Event: Conference
Hosted By: NICWA
Event Dates: 4/20/2008 - 4/23/2008
Event Location: Minneapolis, MN
Contact: Isla Dane
Contact Phone:503-222-4044
Website: http://www.nicwa.org/conference/

Course Description:This year’s conference will focus on the future of Indian child welfare and how each of us—tribal leaders, ICW workers, and other stakeholders—share the important responsibility in continuing this work. Workshops and presentations will feature innovative strategies to effectively meet the needs of our children and families through strong, collaborative partnerships.

How to Register: http://www.nicwa.org/conference/

Humiliation has been on my mind and as one of the significant metaphors for 2006 ---right up there with comeuppance and truthiness.

Nothing best describes 2006 like the story of, yet again, another christian extremist pastor having to step down after accusations of sexual abuse of minors.

PageOneQ | Huge Southern Baptist Church rocked by sexual abuse charges:
Pastor Paul Williams, who directs prayer programs and special projects at the Bellevue Baptist Church outside of Memphis, has been forced to take a leave while a church committee investigates charges that Williams sexually molested a family member 17 years ago. Williams has been at Bellevue for 34 years, reports Agape Press, a news service run by the American Family Association.

This after yet another minister stepping for sexual (read: homosexual) misconduct. His name? James Beard.

Which brings me to the idea of humiliation as defining of American culture:

I've enjoyed a half-century of thrilling school sports -- personally I bleed orange and blue -- but I'm prepared to argue that it is immoral and degenerate (if not downright sick and twisted) to school little kids as if they were competitive commodities in big-money academic sports franchises.

September 11, 2006
NEWSWEEK Cover Story
The New First Grade: Too Much Too Soon
Among affluent families, the pressure to succeed at younger and younger ages is an inevitable byproduct of an increasingly competitive world. . .Parents are acutely aware of the pressure on their kids, but they're also creating it. . .
"There comes a time when prudent people begin to wonder just how high we can raise our expectations for our littlest schoolkids," says Walter Gilliam, a child-development expert at Yale University. Early education, he says, is not just about teaching letters but about turning curious kids into lifelong learners. It's critical that all kids know how to read, but that is only one aspect of a child's education.
. . . childhood takes time.

Giving little kids TIME to love reading and learning sounds great, doesn't it? But see how once again we twist general good into specific harm. As usual, we do it simply by misapplying force instead of respecting the individual. We love both nature and humans -- why such little love for the nature of little humans?

Twenty two years after losing his parents and 5 siblings to Union Carbide's criminal negligance at Bhopal, India, activist Sunil Kumar Verma has committed suicide after fighting for years with paranoid schizophrenia an illness which affected many Bhopal survivors.

Meanwhile, Union Carbide and its successor, Dow Chemical, has largely gotten off scott free.

From the International Capaign for Justice in Bhopal:

On the night of Dec. 2nd and 3rd, 1984, a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, began leaking 27 tons of the deadly gas methyl isocyanate. None of the six safety systems designed to contain such a leak were operational, allowing the gas to spread throughout the city of Bhopal.[1] Half a million people were exposed to the gas and 20,000 have died to date as a result of their exposure. More than 120,000 people still suffer from ailments caused by the accident and the subsequent pollution at the plant site. These ailments include blindness, extreme difficulty in breathing, and gynecological disorders. The site has never been properly cleaned up and it continues to poison the residents of Bhopal. In 1999, local groundwater and wellwater testing near the site of the accident revealed mercury at levels between 20,000 and 6 million times those expected. Cancer and brain-damage- and birth-defect-causing chemicals were found in the water; trichloroethene, a chemical that has been shown to impair fetal development, was found at levels 50 times higher than EPA safety limits.[2]Testing published in a 2002 report revealed poisons such as 1,3,5 trichlorobenzene, dichloromethane, chloroform, lead and mercury in the breast milk of nursing women.[3] In 2001, Michigan-based chemical corporation Dow Chemical purchased Union Carbide, thereby acquiring its assets and liabilities. However Dow Chemical has steadfastly refused to clean up the site, provide safe drinking water, compensate the victims, or disclose the composition of the gas leak, information that doctors could use to properly treat the victims.

This is meant within the context of, the "fair use" provision of copyright law, under which this site posted the new family's image. It's meant to raise important cultural issues here where we can examine them as free citizens:

Now retired from a public education career and home with my own children, I dedicate daily effort these days to supporting parents in making their own (legal, non-abusive) discretionary decisions about their own children, from whether to have them in the first place, to how to help them learn without signing them over to the government. Parents are the creators of, and therefore the primary protectors-decision makers for, their own baby and child. That's one important principle at play here.

But that doesn't make everything biological parents decide to do wise, or ethical, or best for the child. Or for modern society at large. That's a whole different conversation and one that society MUST be able to have. I don't see any parent's right to sell exclusive images of such private moments as a given, any more than I'd reflexively defend Michael Jackson dangling his baby out of a hotel balcony for the world to gawk at, as long as no actual physical harm resulted - in other words, if he got away with the exploitation without immediate, demonstrable and actionable injury to the child. (Dropping it)

My co-worker suggest's I re-name this one "Great Job, Doily."

Here's the latest from my Target the Corrupt Republican blog:

The so-called "moral" Republican party has been beset by so many corruption charges that it is hard to take their claims of morality seriously anymore. With Jack Abramoff and Randy Cunningham in jail and with Tom DeLay facing impending corruption charges, the Republicans are looking might immoral these days. But there is another aspect to the "Immoral Republican Party"--sex.

Now I have nothing against sex. Unlike so many Republicans, I believe what people do on their own time in their own house is none of my business as long as all participants are consenting. Consenting adults are free to play scrabble, engage in homosexual sex or even watch Fox News and it is none of my business. Republicans feel that they have the right to dictate to you and me what we are allowed to do in private. But they are often so hypocritical about this that once again one wonders how anyone believes the myth of Republican morality.

Awhile back I covered the story of the extreme right wing, anti-gay Republican mayor of Spokane, WA who was caught soliciting homosexual sex over the internet in exchange for city jobs. The fact that he was publicly anti-gay but privately a practicing homosexual is merely hypocritical. We are used to Republican hypocrisy. Doing it over the internet when he had something to hide was outright stupid. Well, with Bush as our "president" we are used to Republicans being stupid. But to offer city jobs in exchange for homosexual sex is criminal. So, the Republican mayor of Spokane displayed extreme stupidity, criminality and hypocrisy all at once. To their credit, the voters of Spokane ousted him from office.