It’s hard buying gifts for people. I’ve already decided , but what to buy for my fellow MR’s? Since giftcards to Liquor Mart are a little out of my range, I’m thinking of another group activity that can bring us all together … maybe a board game?
“Is the Pope Catholic!?! - The Catholic Nostalgia game. The objective is to become the Pope, starting as an altar boy, and advancing by answering questions that require a Catholic background to appreciate.”
I wonder what would happen if we mixed it up a little, say, with this ol’ chestnut:
Exciting! Ha! My friend and I tried to play this one as young ‘uns. Sadly, all we had was a case of warm Narragansett Beer.
I don’t remember this game at all:
“The game where you create what your opponents draw or charade. Situations occur in a barroom, bedroom, dating or outdoors. Definitely an adult game!”
Oh, it’s time to read the news from “back home.” I’m thinking cocoa with Fluff, a nice warm fireside, snow on the trees … but NO!
Critics of the Rotenberg school say the case shows that school officials have failed to live up to their public promises to deliver electric shocks only sparingly and with great oversight.
WHAT?!
Prank led school to treat two with shock
Special ed center duped, report says
Two special education students at the controversial Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton were wrongfully delivered dozens of punishing electrical shocks in August based on a prank phone call from a former student posing as a supervisor, a state investigative report has found.
School staffers contacted state authorities after they realized they had been tricked on Aug. 26 into delivering 77 shocks to one student and 29 shocks to another, according to Cindy Campbell, a spokeswoman for the Department of Early Education and Care, which drafted the report. Both students were part of a Rotenberg-run group home in Stoughton for males under age 22.
The Judge Rotenberg center, which serves about 250 adults and children from across the country, has been under fire for more than two decades for its unorthodox behavior-modification treatments, including electric shock treatments. Its defenders say that the school takes in troubled students, some with self-damaging behavior, who have been rejected by other schools. The center, which Massachusetts officials have tried twice to close because of its treatment methods, focuses on serving people with autism, mental retardation, and emotional problems. Ernest Corrigan, a spokesman for the Rotenberg center, said the school contacted law enforcement “within hours” after discovering the prank, and that such an incident has never before happened at the school. Corrigan said they have instituted new safeguards to prevent such occurrences. He also said that while the school regrets the incident, the two male students who received the wrongful shocks did not experience any serious physical harm and did not need medical treatment afterwards.
The shock devices, which are strapped to some students’ arms, legs, or torsos, deliver two-second electric jolts to the skin. The devices are controlled remotely by teachers.
State officials said the identity of the prankster is known to law enforcement authorities, but they would not release his name publicly and he has not been arrested. The identity of the staffer who was fooled into administering the shocks has also not been released. State officials indicated that some disciplinary action took place, though they would not specify what it was.
Police expect no charges in youth group diaper skit
Saturday, December 08, 2007
By Mary Niederberger, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A skit at a local Christian youth group meeting had teenage boys taking off some of their clothes, wearing adult diapers, bibs and bonnets and being spoon-fed by girls as they sat in their laps.
Some say it’s just crazy, goofy teenage fun. But others, including one boy’s mother and the Mt. Lebanon School District, aren’t comfortable with it. The skit took place during the Nov. 29 meeting of the Mt. Lebanon Young Life club, a nondenominational Christian youth group directed by youth minister O.J. Wandrisco.
Laurie Metz, whose 14-year-old son was one of the boys who took part in the skit, said she found it inappropriate, demeaning and sexually perverse. Mr. Wandrisco and a national spokesman for Young Life say the skits are all in fun and meant to be used as “icebreakers” at the youth group meetings.
He declined to comment on the Mt. Lebanon teens being asked to undress before they put on the diapers and bibs or whether he thought the Mt. Lebanon skit was appropriate.
Ms. Metz said at the Nov. 29 Young Life meeting, after her son and two other boys were selected to take part in the skit, they were taken to a rest room by an older teen and given adult diapers, bibs and bonnets and directed to take their clothes off and put the diapers, bibs and bonnets on. Her son took off his pants, but kept on boxer undershorts, his shirt, shoes and socks.
The boys returned to the group, where they were asked to sit in the laps of three girls. The girls spoon-fed baby food to the boys and then gave them baby bottles filled with soda pop. The first boy to finish was the winner.
“The whole premise of the skit is questionable,” Ms. Metz said. “I see no purpose that it would serve, especially not in a Christian youth group setting. It’s perverse.”
She said even if there is no police action taken, she felt it important to speak out so that other parents know what goes on at the meetings. She said at an earlier meeting girls ate jelly beans in chocolate pudding out of adult diapers.
Mr. Wandrisco, in an interview, acknowledged that the Nov. 29 skit had taken place as Ms. Metz described and that the group had also participated at an earlier date in the skit that involved eating chocolate pudding out of diapers.
In what can only be described as a crime against nature, hundreds of bottles of — some of it a century old — might be poured down the drain.
Here’s a sobering thought: Hundreds of bottles of Jack Daniel’s whiskey, some of it almost 100 years old, may be unceremoniously poured down a drain because authorities suspect it was being sold by someone without a license.
Officials seized 2,400 bottles late last month during warehouse raids in Nashville and Lynchburg, the southern Tennessee town where the whiskey is distilled.
“Punish the person, not the whiskey,” said an outraged Kyle MacDonald, 28, a Jack Daniel’s drinker from British Columbia who promotes the whiskey on his blog. “Jack never did anything wrong, and the whiskey itself is innocent.”
Indeed, Mr. MacDonald, the whiskey is innocent.
The whiskey never hurt anyone.
In fact, it may be argued that the whiskey has life-sustaining powers more powerful than any herb, vitamin or elixir.
Issues of health aside, the disposing of century-old Jack Daniels that never hurt anyone and exists only to bring a little light into our otherwise bleak lives is a sin. I liken it to burning perfectly good weed, just because someone was selling it illegally.
Think of the good work that could be done with the whiskey. Think of the money that could be raised by auctioning it off. Think of the spirits that could be lifted simply by letting bloggers in L.A. drink it.
I’ve got a friend with Kansas City connections. And every time he returns from the Midwest, he brings me a bottle of Jack, from a vintage not available easily in Los Angeles. How I look forward to that first, smooth sip … it’s mother’s milk.
Tonight, I’ll go home and pour myself a few fingers of the amber liquid. And I’ll lift the glass to my lips and drink, slowly to savor the smooth taste. And as I roll my friend Jack around my mouth before swallowing, I’ll say a little prayer for innocent whiskey wasted.
white after labor day - the list of wrongs just grows!
According to a statement by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), Benedict is missing a “golden opportunity” to confront the crisis head-on. Victims’ activist Anne Barrett Doyle told the Agence France Presse that the Pope is avoiding Boston for fear of protests. She added that his three days in New York is a sign of papal support for the city’s Archbishop, Cardinal Edward Egan, who has refused to release documents about accused priests, in contrast to the Boston archdiocese’s belated disclosure of similar documents. “So the pope is sending the signal that he is honoring the cardinal who may be his most successful keeper of secrets,” Doyle said.
I’m from Boston - you don’t have to tell me:
Boston was where the first spiral of revelations from victims of abusive clerics began to emerge, and where the head of the Archdiocese, Cardinal Bernard Law, was eventually forced to resign after admitting that he’d protected a priest whom he knew had sexually abused young members of his church.
Cardinal Law. I know. Where is he now? At the Vatican, of course.
Just when you thought it was over, look at this:
Nun, 79, declines to fight sex case
St. Patrick said he had sexual contact with the nun more than 100 times, beginning when he was in 7th grade, often after she removed him from class and took him to a bathroom in her office, the complaint alleged. St. Patrick told authorities that “her actions caused him to be confused because he had been taught that nuns were married to Jesus,” the complaint said.
According to the complaint, Giannini admitted to an archdiocesan review board in 1996 that she had sex with the two boys. In Kobs’ case, she said the abuse occurred after school during music lessons in the convent and in the school office. Giannini said St. Patrick was a paperboy who delivered newspapers to the convent on his route.
She said she never forced sex on the boys, though both were below the age of consent, according to the complaint. “I thought I was in love with both of them,” she told the panel. She also claimed that she never engaged in sex with children after she moved to the Chicago area. “I never intended to hurt a child,” the complaint quoted her as telling the panel.
Oh - the Pope won’t be stopping in Chicago, either.
fills us in on the invasion of picketers at the Van Ness gate, in the shadow of our favorite Hollywood apartment building, Alexander, Ruler of the World! (Somehow, you just have to add the punctuation.)
Expect a slew of “wacky apartments” to turn up in sitcoms next season - with a group of unemployed writers across the street, AROTW!’s possibilities are just beginning.
All over Los Angeles. I’m in the Valley and because of the Santa Anas, no sign of fire until now. Even parts of Malibu are smoke free. Coming out of the supermarket, I can see grey stripes across the sky, even darker when I put my sunglasses on. This is bad, which is of course the understatement of the year. It’s bad for Valley residents (I have no geographical shame - I like it here!) because we’re basically an ice-cream-scoop of land, and when the bad air settles in - unless the Santa Anas blow it out - it will linger over us. Two Octobers ago it rained ash as I drove down Ventura Blvd at 8pm, the streets oddly silent and the stores closed, almost as if it were Christmas.
My friend who owns the high desert ranch where I spend a lot of my time lives near San Diego and I think, that’s not possible, to have to go through that again. Last year the Sawtooth fires scorched the high desert, destroying hundreds of years of joshua trees and disrupting the entire ecosystem that depends on them, not to mention burning buildings everywhere. I was there right after the burn, when things were still smoldering, to pick remnants from the ash piles and marvel at how a fireball landed on the cabin just feet away from my hammock, destroying the building in its entirety but leaving my resting place unsinged.
On Saturday I was in Malibu, enjoying the glorious weather and the luxury of being a passenger for once, leaning back in my seat and feeling the cool blue-green air. “We’re so lucky,” I said to my friend as we drove through Malibu Canyon. “I can’t wait to spend this week at the beach.” I think about that and realize how stupid and spoiled it sounds, only three days later.
In the supermarket an elderly man hummed to himself and I saw a paper mask around his neck.
“I was a medic during the war and you cannot do enough to save your lungs,” he told me. “Buy a mask.”
I’m right there with you, The same thing happened to me.
“There is a close-up of a woman having a baby, a close up straight up her vagina, and that’s all you see, and these are thirteen year old boys and girls, and its bloody and disgusting. Within thirty seconds two boys had fainted and the lights went on and they were carried out. I put my hands over my face because I realised I couldn’t watch this.”
The actress, who is married to American director Taylor Hackford, said she was deeply affected by the film: “I swear it traumatised me, I haven’t had children and I can’t look at anything to do with childbirth, it absolutely disgusts me.”
Is she disgusted by gallbladders? This is straight out of Dr. Moreau … or
MONDAY, Sept. 17 (HealthDay News) — French surgeons report removing a gallbladder through a woman’s vagina, joining a handful of surgeons around the world who have tried the novel technique because it eliminates visible scarring and minimizes postoperative pain. In March, surgeons at Columbia University in New York City performed a similar operation, and, last week, so did surgeons at the University of California, San Diego. The procedure has also been used for removing the appendix.
What next? Your Costco groceries? Even kids, for the most part, are “optional,” as is everything else that goes in/out … but not through. Seriously. That is just plain wrong. What sick bastard came up with the “let’s try this exit” approach? I’d rather have a scar on my side then a gallbladder in my - oh, I can barely even write about this. Dame Helen, where are you?
Thank the Virgin Mary that there is someone on our side:
“As a woman, I find it distasteful and invasive to have the vagina used as a midtown tunnel for the traffic of surgery, simply because there are a few surgeons who are looking to find something new to do,” said Dr. Christine Ren, an assistant professor of surgery at New York University School of Medicine.
Think of it this way: knowing that a gallbladder had taken the tunnel would you stop at that rest stop for a bite? I think not.
Dana Johnson, who had her gallbladder removed through her vagina at the University of California at San Diego on Sept. 11, “I think it would be more gross to have it taken out of my mouth, but that’s just me,” said Johnson, 42.
USC players, coaches and supporters aboard the team’s charter flight from Los Angeles endured a harrowing arrival in South Bend, Ind., on Thursday night. Several players, administrative staff and coaches’ spouses said passengers were hurled out of their seats and hit their heads on the ceiling when the plane dropped while making an approach through a lightning storm. The pilot aborted the approach and circled before landing without incident, said Dennis Slutak, USC’s director of football operations. Some of the passengers were not wearing seat belts at the time, but others said their seat belts broke.
