Woman suing Salvation Army; claims sex abuse
A woman is suing The Salvation Army, claiming the organization moved a minister from Oahu to Maui after she reported he sexually abused her in the 1950s . Nancy Spencer’s lawsuit filed on Maui this week claims she was 11 when Maj . Richard Taba molested her .
She says her mother told The Salvation Army what happened and believed he had been terminated . But Spencer read in Taba’s obituary last year that he continued to serve as the Salvation Army’s chaplain on Maui for 40 years . A spokeswoman for The Salvation Army in California said Thursday the organization will try its best to investigate the allegations .
The lawsuit is possible because of a 2012 state law that suspends the statute of limitations for sex abuse cases until April 2014.
Whats For Dinner Tonight ! – General Discussion and Dating Stories …
We all have that thought at some time through the day everyday, what are we going to have for dinner tonight, it’s a pain and trying to please all, especially those with young kiddies and teenagers, let alone ourselves, so post what you think of whether it be pics, recipies, mums or nanna’s, your own recipies or something different….. !
As for me tonight……..I haven’t made my mind up yet 
!
Shakesville: The Army's Sexual Assault Problem, Here It Is
(Content note: military sexual trauma, rape culture, hostility to consent]
After nearly two years of requests from Stars and Stripes, the U.S . Army finally released the 28-page report of a task force convened to address the problems of sexual assault at Army installations in South Korea.
If you have the spoons, you may want to read the whole thing1, as it very thoroughly goes over the rape culture problem of the Army, many of which are familiar territory (i.e., survivors are afraid to speak out for fear of being disciplined themselves; there are insufficient numbers of female unit victim advocates, etc.)
The report particularly singles out problems in the leadership . It notes, for example, that sexual assault prevention isn’t taken seriously, but “perceived as a mandated check-the-block requirement to be quickly completed rather than training to a level of working knowledge.” In light of that, it is depressing but unsurprising that the task force’s findings also included the following (bold emphasis mine):
There is a lack of knowledge among leadership about how to handle reported sexual assaults .
The report implied that leaders, along with their subordinates, might not even be able to distinguish between consensual sex and sexual assault .
Questions remain about what constitutes consent, the draft said.
“Might not even be able to distinguish.” “Questions remain.” Sure.
And is the Army getting right on task with addressing the report’s findings ?
Well, not so much:
According to military officials at the time, the task force was initially scheduled to present its findings to the Eighth Army commander within a matter of months.
However, nearly two years later, Eighth Army officials say that the report has yet to be finalized and approved by leadership, even though some of the task force s recommendations, such as the installation of closed-circuit cameras in barracks, were enacted more than a year ago.
I have plumbed the depths of my vocabulary of profanities, and still I find no words for how contemptible this is.
References
- ^ read the whole thing (www.stripes.com)
Jorge Rafael Videla: Death of a Dirty War criminal | The Economist
JORGE RAFAEL VIDELA, an Argentine former military dictator who ordered the torture, murder and disappearance of thousands of civilians during the country s seven-year military rule, died on May 17th in his prison cell on the edge of Buenos Aires, where he was serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity.
Dubbed the “Pink Panther” for his lanky frame and stealthy gait, Videla seized power in 1976 when left-wing militants, runaway inflation and corruption had begun to rattle Isabel Per n s civilian government. He said that military rule was necessary to protect national security and human rights. In power, however, he had a selective vision of who was entitled to such rights.
Not suspected leftists, certainly; nor anyone who did not ascribe to his totalitarian ideology. He viewed his mission as sacred, and those who disagreed with it as sinful enemies, says Federico Finchelstein, an Argentine historian at the New School university.
In what Videla called a process of national reorganisation , Argentines deemed threatening were kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured and killed. Suspects were snatched from their families, subjected to electric shocks, starved, beaten, raped, and held underwater for minutes at a time.
Others were pushed out of military aircraft into the River Plate or the Atlantic to drown. Abducted mothers were separated from their babies, who were sometimes adopted by the military officers responsible for their capture.
Videla cast his net wide, persecuting academics, journalists, students and social workers as well as leftist guerrillas. The opaqueness of the junta s reasoning made popular the phrase por algo ser , or it must have been for something , among Argentines trying to justify their own inaction.
Videla never admitted to sponsoring assassinations, referring only to disappearances .
In 1979, in response to a journalist s inquiry about the locations of the disappeared, he snapped: The disappeared are just that: disappeared. They are neither alive nor dead. They are disappeared.
The illusive nature of the victims meant that the military controlled their prisoners fate even in death, Mr Finchelstein says.
Videla retired in 1981. The following year his successors dragged Argentina into war with Britain over the Falkland Islands, a conflict that Argentina would lose in humiliating fashion. Defeat spelled the end of military rule.
In 1983, democracy was restored with the election of Ra l Alfons n and the country began to assess the extent of the destruction Videla had wrought. Official documentation put the number of dead at 9,000. Human-rights groups calculated that as many as 30,000 people had died in Videla s purges.
Repairing the psychological damage inflicted by the Dirty War has been even more difficult than obtaining credible estimates of its toll.
Mr Alfons n set up a tribunal that, in 1985, sentenced Videla and several of his henchmen to life sentences. Videla s sentence was annulled five years later by Carlos Menem, who believed that pardoning the junta and the leftist guerrilla commanders accused of terrorism would begin to rebuild the country in peace, in liberty and in justice . In 2006 a judge ruled the pardon unconstitutional.
Following a 2010 trial Videla, by then 84 years old, was again sentenced to life in prison.
For many Argentines, Videla s conviction and death have not brought closure. Although during his 2010 trial he assumed full military responsibility for the actions of the army in the war against terrorism , he was unrepentant about his crimes and died without revealing much about his shadowy rule. The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group of mothers and grandmothers with disappeared children, said of Videla s passing: We feel the weight of the fact that he didn t speak about or divulge the locations of the 30,000 people and 400 grandchildren that we look for even today.
As the search for the missing continues, Argentina is trying to move on from its dark, dirty past.
Adolfo P rez Esquivel, a human-rights activist who won a Nobel Prize for his organising efforts during Videla s dictatorship, wrote on his website: We don t forget, nor do we pardon.
But in contrast to him, we celebrate life, not death.
Mexico’s cosseted elite: Named and shamed
Corruption in Peru: A widening web
References
Policeman's son broke into woman's home to steal knickers and …
Mark Cox, 22, who is appearing at court after breaking into a woman s house to steal her knickers and SEX TOYS
A police officer s son with a bizarre underwear fetish broke into a woman s house to steal her knickers and SEX TOYS, a court heard.
Mark Cox, 22, pocketed a set of house keys belonging to former school pal Emma Pinches, 21, after going to a party at her home in February.
The hospital porter then used the keys to let himself in to the property while Emma was out to pinch her underwear and DILDOS.
Magistrates heard she became suspicious when items of lingerie and sex aids started to go missing over the next few weeks.
Prosecuting Julie Costello said: The day after the party the victim noticed a set of house keys were missing.
Over the next few days she started to notice that items of her underwear were going missing as well as her sex toys.
Emma suspected Cox may be responsible when she received a text from him in March to ask whether she would be out with her boyfriend that evening.
Police then searched Cox s home and found a large quantity of women s underwear, sex toys and lubricant.
When asked why he had a large sized bra he told them it was because he was a large size .
Officers also discovered CS gas spray as well as a police helmet, handcuffs, jacket and stab vest in his bedroom.
Cox claimed he had bought the police uniform items off eBay to use for kinky role-playing sex romps with his ex-girlfriend.
At Northampton Magistrates Court on Monday Cox pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary, one count of possessing a weapon designed for the discharge of CS gas and possessing a police uniform.
Defending Alistair Evans revealed his client had taken the items at a time when he was being driven by a fetish for women s underwear.
He said his client had bought the police uniform as memorabilia because his father and grandfather were both police officers.
He added: He accepts he had taken the items of underwear from the victim s house but there was no element of vandalism and he had caused no form of damage to the woman s house.
The CS spray was bought from a garage in France.
It has never been used.
The court was told Cox has since undergone counselling in a bid to overcome his underwear addiction.
He will be sentenced at Northampton Crown Court next month.
References
- ^ View all posts in News (swns.com)