I honestly don't know what to say here. I can think of no valid reason that these doctors would make such a claim.
A case will be registered against two doctors who had wrongly stated that a 10-year-old dalit girl was sexually assaulted in Anwarpur village last Saturday, a senior police official said.
Dr Poonam Mani and Dr Sadhna Tiwari of Saraswati Institute of Medical Science in Pilakhuwa had stated this about the minor dalit girl who later succumbed to burn injuries, SSP Raghubir Lal said today.
Lal said that the postmortem did not confirm rape, but it stated that the 80 per cent burn injuries was the reason for the victim's death.
The victim was engulfed in flames when the door of the room was broken in order to save her, he said.
The SSP did not rule out suicide angle, besides family rivalry for the death.
Link: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/up-case-to-be-filed-against-2-doctors-for-false-rape-statement/811093/
Thursday, June 30, 2011
UP: Case to be filed against 2 doctors for false rape statement
I honestly don't know what to say here. I can think of no valid reason that these doctors would make such a claim.
A case will be registered against two doctors who had wrongly stated that a 10-year-old dalit girl was sexually assaulted in Anwarpur village last Saturday, a senior police official said.
Dr Poonam Mani and Dr Sadhna Tiwari of Saraswati Institute of Medical Science in Pilakhuwa had stated this about the minor dalit girl who later succumbed to burn injuries, SSP Raghubir Lal said today.
Lal said that the postmortem did not confirm rape, but it stated that the 80 per cent burn injuries was the reason for the victim's death.
The victim was engulfed in flames when the door of the room was broken in order to save her, he said.
The SSP did not rule out suicide angle, besides family rivalry for the death.
Link: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/up-case-to-be-filed-against-2-doctors-for-false-rape-statement/811093/
A case will be registered against two doctors who had wrongly stated that a 10-year-old dalit girl was sexually assaulted in Anwarpur village last Saturday, a senior police official said.
Dr Poonam Mani and Dr Sadhna Tiwari of Saraswati Institute of Medical Science in Pilakhuwa had stated this about the minor dalit girl who later succumbed to burn injuries, SSP Raghubir Lal said today.
Lal said that the postmortem did not confirm rape, but it stated that the 80 per cent burn injuries was the reason for the victim's death.
The victim was engulfed in flames when the door of the room was broken in order to save her, he said.
The SSP did not rule out suicide angle, besides family rivalry for the death.
Link: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/up-case-to-be-filed-against-2-doctors-for-false-rape-statement/811093/
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Man arrested over false sexual assault claim
Isn't this an interesting occurrence? A man has been arrested for filing a false sexual assault claim, but he isn't named.
The accusation was that Louis Walsh, a music industry manager and judge on the show X-factor, groped a man in the restroom at a club during an appearance of a band Walsh manages.
The part that I am happy to see is that Mr. Walsh is planning to pursue a libel action against the accuser. Mr. Walsh's statement says it all:
The accusation was that Louis Walsh, a music industry manager and judge on the show X-factor, groped a man in the restroom at a club during an appearance of a band Walsh manages.
The part that I am happy to see is that Mr. Walsh is planning to pursue a libel action against the accuser. Mr. Walsh's statement says it all:
"...While I obviously welcome today's confirmation from the Garda that the matter has been dropped I remain outraged that this story ran in the first place in the Sun and I have instructed my libel lawyer to vigorously pursue legal action against the paper and they will also be taking action in relation to a number of other equally serious related matters.Link: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0628/breaking44.html
"I have no intention of letting this matter rest until I have received total and absolute vindication. This has been a hugely distressing time for me but I would like to thank all my friends and colleagues for their support and I am now just looking forward to getting back to work."
Man arrested over false sexual assault claim
Isn't this an interesting occurrence? A man has been arrested for filing a false sexual assault claim, but he isn't named.
The accusation was that Louis Walsh, a music industry manager and judge on the show X-factor, groped a man in the restroom at a club during an appearance of a band Walsh manages.
The part that I am happy to see is that Mr. Walsh is planning to pursue a libel action against the accuser. Mr. Walsh's statement says it all:
The accusation was that Louis Walsh, a music industry manager and judge on the show X-factor, groped a man in the restroom at a club during an appearance of a band Walsh manages.
The part that I am happy to see is that Mr. Walsh is planning to pursue a libel action against the accuser. Mr. Walsh's statement says it all:
"...While I obviously welcome today's confirmation from the Garda that the matter has been dropped I remain outraged that this story ran in the first place in the Sun and I have instructed my libel lawyer to vigorously pursue legal action against the paper and they will also be taking action in relation to a number of other equally serious related matters.Link: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0628/breaking44.html
"I have no intention of letting this matter rest until I have received total and absolute vindication. This has been a hugely distressing time for me but I would like to thank all my friends and colleagues for their support and I am now just looking forward to getting back to work."
The safety net in Michigan
Poverty in the United States has increased measurably in the past ten years, and this is particularly visible in the state of Michigan. (Here is a webpage provided by the Michigan Department of Human Services with some basic information on poverty in the state.) State departments of human services and non-profit organizations alike are being stretched by the need for poverty-related services -- food assistance, childcare, heating assistance, job training, and the like. So how good a job are we doing to ensure that poor people in the United States have reasonable access to the necessities of life?
In general, the answer to the question seems mostly to be -- not a very good job. The amount of money available for services to the poor is under pressure in most state legislatures. The processes through which low-income people need to pass in order to apply for assistance are confusing and needlessly lengthy. And the "front doors" for providers are highly decentralized, so the potential recipient of assistance needs to conduct a lengthy search simply to find a possible source.
The United Way of Southeast Michigan is a highly capable social service agency that is genuinely committed to helping to improve the situation of Michigan's poorest residents (link). Here is a UWSEM report on the status of basic needs of the population in Michigan. The report is worth reviewing in detail. One point stands out very starkly -- a strikingly high percentage of the state's population falls in the status of poor or near-poor. The report provides a very legible description of the composition of the 40% of Michigan's population who are "at-risk":
This is a truly sobering statistic: two out of five residents of Michigan fall within the groups of the persistent poor, working poor, newly poor, and potentially poor.
One of the United Way's current priorities is to do a careful review of the system of assistance as a whole in the state. Generally, their finding is that resources, agencies, and strategies are highly fragmented in the state, so it is easy to guess that the provision of services is somewhat sporadic and inefficient. More importantly, their analysis shows that over a billion dollars of federal assistance to individuals are left unused year after year -- at a time when the need for assistance is greater than it has ever been. (This report should appear on the UWSEM website sometime soon.)
It's worth looking closely at the data compiled by UWSEM. Over $34 billion are expended on assistance to the poor in Michigan, with over 55% of the funds coming from Federal sources ($19.9 billion). The state's own resources represent roughly half that amount ($9.4 billion). Foundations and private resources make up the rest. Second, these $34 billion are expended through a large number of state agencies -- treasury, school aid, public housing, the department of human services, etc. And finally, the funds flowing from these multiple agencies then re-aggregate at the level of the users in a variety of basic categories of need: workforce development, housing, family preservation, food, cash assistance, and healthcare.
There are several key conclusions that emerge from the UWSEM analysis. One is that this is a process that is plainly designed for providers and auditors, not users. The idea that the system of social services should be streamlined in such a way as to allow maximum access for eligible residents is clearly not the guiding design principle.
A second point is that the system is needlessly complex for the user. It should be possible to streamline services and application processes in such a way as to increase the impact of available resources for eligible people.
A third point is that it should be possible to use the Internet to significantly increase the accessibility and transparency of the system. It should be possible for the poor person to enter a single "portal"; enter his/her information into a database; and find out on one screen what programs and benefits for which he/she is eligible.
In short, it would appear that there are significant opportunities for public "safety net" providers in Michigan to increase the efficiency and reach of their services with some intelligent redesign of the delivery systems. And we certainly need to make sure that the billion dollars of unexpended federal benefits find their way to eligible citizens.
(Here is a nice example of how universities and communities can work together to address the issues of poverty that their region faces (link). This collaboration between Western Michigan University and various organizations in Kalamazoo, Michigan is aimed at providing easy access to data about poverty and well-being in Kalamazoo that can help guide programs and resources towards effective reduction of poverty.)
In general, the answer to the question seems mostly to be -- not a very good job. The amount of money available for services to the poor is under pressure in most state legislatures. The processes through which low-income people need to pass in order to apply for assistance are confusing and needlessly lengthy. And the "front doors" for providers are highly decentralized, so the potential recipient of assistance needs to conduct a lengthy search simply to find a possible source.
The United Way of Southeast Michigan is a highly capable social service agency that is genuinely committed to helping to improve the situation of Michigan's poorest residents (link). Here is a UWSEM report on the status of basic needs of the population in Michigan. The report is worth reviewing in detail. One point stands out very starkly -- a strikingly high percentage of the state's population falls in the status of poor or near-poor. The report provides a very legible description of the composition of the 40% of Michigan's population who are "at-risk":
This is a truly sobering statistic: two out of five residents of Michigan fall within the groups of the persistent poor, working poor, newly poor, and potentially poor.
One of the United Way's current priorities is to do a careful review of the system of assistance as a whole in the state. Generally, their finding is that resources, agencies, and strategies are highly fragmented in the state, so it is easy to guess that the provision of services is somewhat sporadic and inefficient. More importantly, their analysis shows that over a billion dollars of federal assistance to individuals are left unused year after year -- at a time when the need for assistance is greater than it has ever been. (This report should appear on the UWSEM website sometime soon.)
It's worth looking closely at the data compiled by UWSEM. Over $34 billion are expended on assistance to the poor in Michigan, with over 55% of the funds coming from Federal sources ($19.9 billion). The state's own resources represent roughly half that amount ($9.4 billion). Foundations and private resources make up the rest. Second, these $34 billion are expended through a large number of state agencies -- treasury, school aid, public housing, the department of human services, etc. And finally, the funds flowing from these multiple agencies then re-aggregate at the level of the users in a variety of basic categories of need: workforce development, housing, family preservation, food, cash assistance, and healthcare.
There are several key conclusions that emerge from the UWSEM analysis. One is that this is a process that is plainly designed for providers and auditors, not users. The idea that the system of social services should be streamlined in such a way as to allow maximum access for eligible residents is clearly not the guiding design principle.
A second point is that the system is needlessly complex for the user. It should be possible to streamline services and application processes in such a way as to increase the impact of available resources for eligible people.
A third point is that it should be possible to use the Internet to significantly increase the accessibility and transparency of the system. It should be possible for the poor person to enter a single "portal"; enter his/her information into a database; and find out on one screen what programs and benefits for which he/she is eligible.
In short, it would appear that there are significant opportunities for public "safety net" providers in Michigan to increase the efficiency and reach of their services with some intelligent redesign of the delivery systems. And we certainly need to make sure that the billion dollars of unexpended federal benefits find their way to eligible citizens.
(Here is a nice example of how universities and communities can work together to address the issues of poverty that their region faces (link). This collaboration between Western Michigan University and various organizations in Kalamazoo, Michigan is aimed at providing easy access to data about poverty and well-being in Kalamazoo that can help guide programs and resources towards effective reduction of poverty.)
The safety net in Michigan
Poverty in the United States has increased measurably in the past ten years, and this is particularly visible in the state of Michigan. (Here is a webpage provided by the Michigan Department of Human Services with some basic information on poverty in the state.) State departments of human services and non-profit organizations alike are being stretched by the need for poverty-related services -- food assistance, childcare, heating assistance, job training, and the like. So how good a job are we doing to ensure that poor people in the United States have reasonable access to the necessities of life?
In general, the answer to the question seems mostly to be -- not a very good job. The amount of money available for services to the poor is under pressure in most state legislatures. The processes through which low-income people need to pass in order to apply for assistance are confusing and needlessly lengthy. And the "front doors" for providers are highly decentralized, so the potential recipient of assistance needs to conduct a lengthy search simply to find a possible source.
The United Way of Southeast Michigan is a highly capable social service agency that is genuinely committed to helping to improve the situation of Michigan's poorest residents (link). Here is a UWSEM report on the status of basic needs of the population in Michigan. The report is worth reviewing in detail. One point stands out very starkly -- a strikingly high percentage of the state's population falls in the status of poor or near-poor. The report provides a very legible description of the composition of the 40% of Michigan's population who are "at-risk":
This is a truly sobering statistic: two out of five residents of Michigan fall within the groups of the persistent poor, working poor, newly poor, and potentially poor.
One of the United Way's current priorities is to do a careful review of the system of assistance as a whole in the state. Generally, their finding is that resources, agencies, and strategies are highly fragmented in the state, so it is easy to guess that the provision of services is somewhat sporadic and inefficient. More importantly, their analysis shows that over a billion dollars of federal assistance to individuals are left unused year after year -- at a time when the need for assistance is greater than it has ever been. (This report should appear on the UWSEM website sometime soon.)
It's worth looking closely at the data compiled by UWSEM. Over $34 billion are expended on assistance to the poor in Michigan, with over 55% of the funds coming from Federal sources ($19.9 billion). The state's own resources represent roughly half that amount ($9.4 billion). Foundations and private resources make up the rest. Second, these $34 billion are expended through a large number of state agencies -- treasury, school aid, public housing, the department of human services, etc. And finally, the funds flowing from these multiple agencies then re-aggregate at the level of the users in a variety of basic categories of need: workforce development, housing, family preservation, food, cash assistance, and healthcare.
There are several key conclusions that emerge from the UWSEM analysis. One is that this is a process that is plainly designed for providers and auditors, not users. The idea that the system of social services should be streamlined in such a way as to allow maximum access for eligible residents is clearly not the guiding design principle.
A second point is that the system is needlessly complex for the user. It should be possible to streamline services and application processes in such a way as to increase the impact of available resources for eligible people.
A third point is that it should be possible to use the Internet to significantly increase the accessibility and transparency of the system. It should be possible for the poor person to enter a single "portal"; enter his/her information into a database; and find out on one screen what programs and benefits for which he/she is eligible.
In short, it would appear that there are significant opportunities for public "safety net" providers in Michigan to increase the efficiency and reach of their services with some intelligent redesign of the delivery systems. And we certainly need to make sure that the billion dollars of unexpended federal benefits find their way to eligible citizens.
(Here is a nice example of how universities and communities can work together to address the issues of poverty that their region faces (link). This collaboration between Western Michigan University and various organizations in Kalamazoo, Michigan is aimed at providing easy access to data about poverty and well-being in Kalamazoo that can help guide programs and resources towards effective reduction of poverty.)
In general, the answer to the question seems mostly to be -- not a very good job. The amount of money available for services to the poor is under pressure in most state legislatures. The processes through which low-income people need to pass in order to apply for assistance are confusing and needlessly lengthy. And the "front doors" for providers are highly decentralized, so the potential recipient of assistance needs to conduct a lengthy search simply to find a possible source.
The United Way of Southeast Michigan is a highly capable social service agency that is genuinely committed to helping to improve the situation of Michigan's poorest residents (link). Here is a UWSEM report on the status of basic needs of the population in Michigan. The report is worth reviewing in detail. One point stands out very starkly -- a strikingly high percentage of the state's population falls in the status of poor or near-poor. The report provides a very legible description of the composition of the 40% of Michigan's population who are "at-risk":
This is a truly sobering statistic: two out of five residents of Michigan fall within the groups of the persistent poor, working poor, newly poor, and potentially poor.
One of the United Way's current priorities is to do a careful review of the system of assistance as a whole in the state. Generally, their finding is that resources, agencies, and strategies are highly fragmented in the state, so it is easy to guess that the provision of services is somewhat sporadic and inefficient. More importantly, their analysis shows that over a billion dollars of federal assistance to individuals are left unused year after year -- at a time when the need for assistance is greater than it has ever been. (This report should appear on the UWSEM website sometime soon.)
It's worth looking closely at the data compiled by UWSEM. Over $34 billion are expended on assistance to the poor in Michigan, with over 55% of the funds coming from Federal sources ($19.9 billion). The state's own resources represent roughly half that amount ($9.4 billion). Foundations and private resources make up the rest. Second, these $34 billion are expended through a large number of state agencies -- treasury, school aid, public housing, the department of human services, etc. And finally, the funds flowing from these multiple agencies then re-aggregate at the level of the users in a variety of basic categories of need: workforce development, housing, family preservation, food, cash assistance, and healthcare.
There are several key conclusions that emerge from the UWSEM analysis. One is that this is a process that is plainly designed for providers and auditors, not users. The idea that the system of social services should be streamlined in such a way as to allow maximum access for eligible residents is clearly not the guiding design principle.
A second point is that the system is needlessly complex for the user. It should be possible to streamline services and application processes in such a way as to increase the impact of available resources for eligible people.
A third point is that it should be possible to use the Internet to significantly increase the accessibility and transparency of the system. It should be possible for the poor person to enter a single "portal"; enter his/her information into a database; and find out on one screen what programs and benefits for which he/she is eligible.
In short, it would appear that there are significant opportunities for public "safety net" providers in Michigan to increase the efficiency and reach of their services with some intelligent redesign of the delivery systems. And we certainly need to make sure that the billion dollars of unexpended federal benefits find their way to eligible citizens.
(Here is a nice example of how universities and communities can work together to address the issues of poverty that their region faces (link). This collaboration between Western Michigan University and various organizations in Kalamazoo, Michigan is aimed at providing easy access to data about poverty and well-being in Kalamazoo that can help guide programs and resources towards effective reduction of poverty.)
The safety net in Michigan
Poverty in the United States has increased measurably in the past ten years, and this is particularly visible in the state of Michigan. (Here is a webpage provided by the Michigan Department of Human Services with some basic information on poverty in the state.) State departments of human services and non-profit organizations alike are being stretched by the need for poverty-related services -- food assistance, childcare, heating assistance, job training, and the like. So how good a job are we doing to ensure that poor people in the United States have reasonable access to the necessities of life?
In general, the answer to the question seems mostly to be -- not a very good job. The amount of money available for services to the poor is under pressure in most state legislatures. The processes through which low-income people need to pass in order to apply for assistance are confusing and needlessly lengthy. And the "front doors" for providers are highly decentralized, so the potential recipient of assistance needs to conduct a lengthy search simply to find a possible source.
The United Way of Southeast Michigan is a highly capable social service agency that is genuinely committed to helping to improve the situation of Michigan's poorest residents (link). Here is a UWSEM report on the status of basic needs of the population in Michigan. The report is worth reviewing in detail. One point stands out very starkly -- a strikingly high percentage of the state's population falls in the status of poor or near-poor. The report provides a very legible description of the composition of the 40% of Michigan's population who are "at-risk":
This is a truly sobering statistic: two out of five residents of Michigan fall within the groups of the persistent poor, working poor, newly poor, and potentially poor.
One of the United Way's current priorities is to do a careful review of the system of assistance as a whole in the state. Generally, their finding is that resources, agencies, and strategies are highly fragmented in the state, so it is easy to guess that the provision of services is somewhat sporadic and inefficient. More importantly, their analysis shows that over a billion dollars of federal assistance to individuals are left unused year after year -- at a time when the need for assistance is greater than it has ever been. (This report should appear on the UWSEM website sometime soon.)
It's worth looking closely at the data compiled by UWSEM. Over $34 billion are expended on assistance to the poor in Michigan, with over 55% of the funds coming from Federal sources ($19.9 billion). The state's own resources represent roughly half that amount ($9.4 billion). Foundations and private resources make up the rest. Second, these $34 billion are expended through a large number of state agencies -- treasury, school aid, public housing, the department of human services, etc. And finally, the funds flowing from these multiple agencies then re-aggregate at the level of the users in a variety of basic categories of need: workforce development, housing, family preservation, food, cash assistance, and healthcare.
There are several key conclusions that emerge from the UWSEM analysis. One is that this is a process that is plainly designed for providers and auditors, not users. The idea that the system of social services should be streamlined in such a way as to allow maximum access for eligible residents is clearly not the guiding design principle.
A second point is that the system is needlessly complex for the user. It should be possible to streamline services and application processes in such a way as to increase the impact of available resources for eligible people.
A third point is that it should be possible to use the Internet to significantly increase the accessibility and transparency of the system. It should be possible for the poor person to enter a single "portal"; enter his/her information into a database; and find out on one screen what programs and benefits for which he/she is eligible.
In short, it would appear that there are significant opportunities for public "safety net" providers in Michigan to increase the efficiency and reach of their services with some intelligent redesign of the delivery systems. And we certainly need to make sure that the billion dollars of unexpended federal benefits find their way to eligible citizens.
(Here is a nice example of how universities and communities can work together to address the issues of poverty that their region faces (link). This collaboration between Western Michigan University and various organizations in Kalamazoo, Michigan is aimed at providing easy access to data about poverty and well-being in Kalamazoo that can help guide programs and resources towards effective reduction of poverty.)
In general, the answer to the question seems mostly to be -- not a very good job. The amount of money available for services to the poor is under pressure in most state legislatures. The processes through which low-income people need to pass in order to apply for assistance are confusing and needlessly lengthy. And the "front doors" for providers are highly decentralized, so the potential recipient of assistance needs to conduct a lengthy search simply to find a possible source.
The United Way of Southeast Michigan is a highly capable social service agency that is genuinely committed to helping to improve the situation of Michigan's poorest residents (link). Here is a UWSEM report on the status of basic needs of the population in Michigan. The report is worth reviewing in detail. One point stands out very starkly -- a strikingly high percentage of the state's population falls in the status of poor or near-poor. The report provides a very legible description of the composition of the 40% of Michigan's population who are "at-risk":
This is a truly sobering statistic: two out of five residents of Michigan fall within the groups of the persistent poor, working poor, newly poor, and potentially poor.
One of the United Way's current priorities is to do a careful review of the system of assistance as a whole in the state. Generally, their finding is that resources, agencies, and strategies are highly fragmented in the state, so it is easy to guess that the provision of services is somewhat sporadic and inefficient. More importantly, their analysis shows that over a billion dollars of federal assistance to individuals are left unused year after year -- at a time when the need for assistance is greater than it has ever been. (This report should appear on the UWSEM website sometime soon.)
It's worth looking closely at the data compiled by UWSEM. Over $34 billion are expended on assistance to the poor in Michigan, with over 55% of the funds coming from Federal sources ($19.9 billion). The state's own resources represent roughly half that amount ($9.4 billion). Foundations and private resources make up the rest. Second, these $34 billion are expended through a large number of state agencies -- treasury, school aid, public housing, the department of human services, etc. And finally, the funds flowing from these multiple agencies then re-aggregate at the level of the users in a variety of basic categories of need: workforce development, housing, family preservation, food, cash assistance, and healthcare.
There are several key conclusions that emerge from the UWSEM analysis. One is that this is a process that is plainly designed for providers and auditors, not users. The idea that the system of social services should be streamlined in such a way as to allow maximum access for eligible residents is clearly not the guiding design principle.
A second point is that the system is needlessly complex for the user. It should be possible to streamline services and application processes in such a way as to increase the impact of available resources for eligible people.
A third point is that it should be possible to use the Internet to significantly increase the accessibility and transparency of the system. It should be possible for the poor person to enter a single "portal"; enter his/her information into a database; and find out on one screen what programs and benefits for which he/she is eligible.
In short, it would appear that there are significant opportunities for public "safety net" providers in Michigan to increase the efficiency and reach of their services with some intelligent redesign of the delivery systems. And we certainly need to make sure that the billion dollars of unexpended federal benefits find their way to eligible citizens.
(Here is a nice example of how universities and communities can work together to address the issues of poverty that their region faces (link). This collaboration between Western Michigan University and various organizations in Kalamazoo, Michigan is aimed at providing easy access to data about poverty and well-being in Kalamazoo that can help guide programs and resources towards effective reduction of poverty.)
Atrocity: Man tried for 'rapes' allegedly committed 37 years ago
A man is on trial, accused of raping two sisters when he babysat them.
The alleged rapes occurred -- brace yourself -- between February 1974 and February 1975. The man, now 51, was 14 years old at the time. He denies that he did it, but still he is on trial. Story: see here.
Why would these sisters make up something like that? If you seriously need to know the answer to that, you are not a reader of this blog. Spend a few months reading through this blog (that's how long it will take you if you devote a few hours to it each day) and you will never ask that question again.
Let us ask the more important question: how can a man possibly defend himself with respect to something that supposedly happened 36 or 37 years ago, when he was a boy, other than to say, I didn't do it? Any evidence of alibi (e.g., that he wasn't babysitting the sisters the days they claim they were raped) has long disappeared, and there is no possibility that he will be able to reconstruct those days. None.
For you folks old enough to remember, do you have any more than a vague recollection of your lives from February 1974 to February 1975?
Trying this man under these circumstances is an atrocity, an affront to justice. There need to be statutes of limitations for rape not exceeding a few years in duration.
Yes, it would be a terrible thing if some rapists escaped because the claims against them are time-barred. It is an even more terrible thing to subject an innocent man to charges he can't possibly defend against because the passage of time has stripped him of a defense.
The alleged rapes occurred -- brace yourself -- between February 1974 and February 1975. The man, now 51, was 14 years old at the time. He denies that he did it, but still he is on trial. Story: see here.
Why would these sisters make up something like that? If you seriously need to know the answer to that, you are not a reader of this blog. Spend a few months reading through this blog (that's how long it will take you if you devote a few hours to it each day) and you will never ask that question again.
Let us ask the more important question: how can a man possibly defend himself with respect to something that supposedly happened 36 or 37 years ago, when he was a boy, other than to say, I didn't do it? Any evidence of alibi (e.g., that he wasn't babysitting the sisters the days they claim they were raped) has long disappeared, and there is no possibility that he will be able to reconstruct those days. None.
For you folks old enough to remember, do you have any more than a vague recollection of your lives from February 1974 to February 1975?
Trying this man under these circumstances is an atrocity, an affront to justice. There need to be statutes of limitations for rape not exceeding a few years in duration.
Yes, it would be a terrible thing if some rapists escaped because the claims against them are time-barred. It is an even more terrible thing to subject an innocent man to charges he can't possibly defend against because the passage of time has stripped him of a defense.
Atrocity: Man tried for 'rapes' allegedly committed 37 years ago
A man is on trial, accused of raping two sisters when he babysat them.
The alleged rapes occurred -- brace yourself -- between February 1974 and February 1975. The man, now 51, was 14 years old at the time. He denies that he did it, but still he is on trial. Story: see here.
Why would these sisters make up something like that? If you seriously need to know the answer to that, you are not a reader of this blog. Spend a few months reading through this blog (that's how long it will take you if you devote a few hours to it each day) and you will never ask that question again.
Let us ask the more important question: how can a man possibly defend himself with respect to something that supposedly happened 36 or 37 years ago, when he was a boy, other than to say, I didn't do it? Any evidence of alibi (e.g., that he wasn't babysitting the sisters the days they claim they were raped) has long disappeared, and there is no possibility that he will be able to reconstruct those days. None.
For you folks old enough to remember, do you have any more than a vague recollection of your lives from February 1974 to February 1975?
Trying this man under these circumstances is an atrocity, an affront to justice. There need to be statutes of limitations for rape not exceeding a few years in duration.
Yes, it would be a terrible thing if some rapists escaped because the claims against them are time-barred. It is an even more terrible thing to subject an innocent man to charges he can't possibly defend against because the passage of time has stripped him of a defense.
The alleged rapes occurred -- brace yourself -- between February 1974 and February 1975. The man, now 51, was 14 years old at the time. He denies that he did it, but still he is on trial. Story: see here.
Why would these sisters make up something like that? If you seriously need to know the answer to that, you are not a reader of this blog. Spend a few months reading through this blog (that's how long it will take you if you devote a few hours to it each day) and you will never ask that question again.
Let us ask the more important question: how can a man possibly defend himself with respect to something that supposedly happened 36 or 37 years ago, when he was a boy, other than to say, I didn't do it? Any evidence of alibi (e.g., that he wasn't babysitting the sisters the days they claim they were raped) has long disappeared, and there is no possibility that he will be able to reconstruct those days. None.
For you folks old enough to remember, do you have any more than a vague recollection of your lives from February 1974 to February 1975?
Trying this man under these circumstances is an atrocity, an affront to justice. There need to be statutes of limitations for rape not exceeding a few years in duration.
Yes, it would be a terrible thing if some rapists escaped because the claims against them are time-barred. It is an even more terrible thing to subject an innocent man to charges he can't possibly defend against because the passage of time has stripped him of a defense.
New Site up for Female Offenders
For those who don't visit A Voice for Men on a regular basis, there is a new site up, that several people have collaborated to get up.
It is called Register-her.com, and lists voilent offenders, false accusers, killers, etc. who all should be serving lengthy sentences, but suprise, are not.
Please feel free to stop by.
It is called Register-her.com, and lists voilent offenders, false accusers, killers, etc. who all should be serving lengthy sentences, but suprise, are not.
Please feel free to stop by.
New Site up for Female Offenders
For those who don't visit A Voice for Men on a regular basis, there is a new site up, that several people have collaborated to get up.
It is called Register-her.com, and lists voilent offenders, false accusers, killers, etc. who all should be serving lengthy sentences, but suprise, are not.
Please feel free to stop by.
It is called Register-her.com, and lists voilent offenders, false accusers, killers, etc. who all should be serving lengthy sentences, but suprise, are not.
Please feel free to stop by.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Janelle Martinez gets a 5 year sentence for false sexual assault claim
A five year sentence. Please take a moment for that to sink in. Five years. To this point, that is the largest sentence I have heard of being handed down for a false claim of sexual assault.
The only problem? It has been suspended to time served and 5 years probation. What is unclear in the article, is how much time has already been served. Based on the article, Janelle Martinez was confronted in April of 2010 with the inconsistencies of her story and she admitted to making up the claims, and was charged with 3 counts of filing a false police report. On the 10th of this month, she was sentenced to the 5 years. So if she was charged in April of last year, and sentenced in June of this year, then the maximum time she would have spent in custody would be 1 year and 2 months.
She claimed that 3 men had sexually assaulted her. After those men were interviewed, and evidence was collected for evaluation, it appears that there were some inconsistencies in her story. The evidence didn't match her claim, nor did the information the 3 men supplied.
Link: http://www.wmbfnews.com/story/14970222/mb-woman-convicted-of-making-up-sexual-assault
The only problem? It has been suspended to time served and 5 years probation. What is unclear in the article, is how much time has already been served. Based on the article, Janelle Martinez was confronted in April of 2010 with the inconsistencies of her story and she admitted to making up the claims, and was charged with 3 counts of filing a false police report. On the 10th of this month, she was sentenced to the 5 years. So if she was charged in April of last year, and sentenced in June of this year, then the maximum time she would have spent in custody would be 1 year and 2 months.
She claimed that 3 men had sexually assaulted her. After those men were interviewed, and evidence was collected for evaluation, it appears that there were some inconsistencies in her story. The evidence didn't match her claim, nor did the information the 3 men supplied.
Link: http://www.wmbfnews.com/story/14970222/mb-woman-convicted-of-making-up-sexual-assault
Janelle Martinez gets a 5 year sentence for false sexual assault claim
A five year sentence. Please take a moment for that to sink in. Five years. To this point, that is the largest sentence I have heard of being handed down for a false claim of sexual assault.
The only problem? It has been suspended to time served and 5 years probation. What is unclear in the article, is how much time has already been served. Based on the article, Janelle Martinez was confronted in April of 2010 with the inconsistencies of her story and she admitted to making up the claims, and was charged with 3 counts of filing a false police report. On the 10th of this month, she was sentenced to the 5 years. So if she was charged in April of last year, and sentenced in June of this year, then the maximum time she would have spent in custody would be 1 year and 2 months.
She claimed that 3 men had sexually assaulted her. After those men were interviewed, and evidence was collected for evaluation, it appears that there were some inconsistencies in her story. The evidence didn't match her claim, nor did the information the 3 men supplied.
Link: http://www.wmbfnews.com/story/14970222/mb-woman-convicted-of-making-up-sexual-assault
The only problem? It has been suspended to time served and 5 years probation. What is unclear in the article, is how much time has already been served. Based on the article, Janelle Martinez was confronted in April of 2010 with the inconsistencies of her story and she admitted to making up the claims, and was charged with 3 counts of filing a false police report. On the 10th of this month, she was sentenced to the 5 years. So if she was charged in April of last year, and sentenced in June of this year, then the maximum time she would have spent in custody would be 1 year and 2 months.
She claimed that 3 men had sexually assaulted her. After those men were interviewed, and evidence was collected for evaluation, it appears that there were some inconsistencies in her story. The evidence didn't match her claim, nor did the information the 3 men supplied.
Link: http://www.wmbfnews.com/story/14970222/mb-woman-convicted-of-making-up-sexual-assault
Rape lie leads to arrest of two innocent men
A chilling story out of Connecticut.
Brittany Reith, 20, showed up twelve hours late to the apartment she shares with her boyfriend because she'd been out on the town having a good time with a 31-year-old man. To cover up, Reith made a sworn, written statement to police claiming she'd been kidnapped by three men, held against her will, and repeatedly raped.
The man Reith had been with, 31-year-old Joseph Gay and his cousin, 30-year-old Anthony Lee, were arrested on felony sexual assault and battery charges.
Anthony Lee was arrested even though he was working for most of the time when he was allegedly holding Reith against her will and raping her.
Joseph Gay was also arrested, even though a video camera proved he was eating lunch with Reith at a Wendy's, and trying to get into a club with her, not holding her against her will.
Lee, a former standout Norwalk High School basketball player, had no criminal record. Gay had never been arrested for a violent crime.
Both men were initially held on "extremely high bonds" because of the violent nature of the accusations.
Read that last sentence again: a rape accusation is enough to lock up a male before any investigation and, for most men (except the wealthy), there's no real chance he'll get out before trial unless the claim was clearly a lie.
But then, Norwalk detectives and investigators from the State's Attorney's Office conducted what one newspaper called "further investigation" into the matter and found several pieces of evidence that contradicted Reith's story. Specifically, the video of the Wendy's and the information about being at the club.
Far from being held against her will and raped repeatedly, Reith and Mr. Gay spent a night on the town, then caught a ride to Lee's home and slept on his couch.
When Reith told police her rape lie, patrol officers went to Lee's home and found the two men sleeping. The men were immediately arrested.
That's all it took. Just her word.
Yet a police officer said this: "We can't take things at face value, and we don't."
Did you get that? Arresting two innocent men and holding them on extremely high bonds before any investigation is conducted is not taking things at "face value."
Down, down, down the rabbit hole we go.
In contrast, Reith's bond has been set at $5,000. Meaning she's probably out already, partying, going to Wendy's, and scanning the Internet for stories about her. I hope she sees this one.
I don't know what scares you, but this story scares the hell out of me.
SOURCES:
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/policereports/article/Norwalk-woman-charged-with-falsely-reporting-rape-1443251.php#ixzz1QbFa6VBH
http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/story/f91ba1d4d2d0406dbd0161a5672c77fc/CT--Rape-Hoax/
http://www.thehour.com/register/?storyid=507282
Brittany Reith, 20, showed up twelve hours late to the apartment she shares with her boyfriend because she'd been out on the town having a good time with a 31-year-old man. To cover up, Reith made a sworn, written statement to police claiming she'd been kidnapped by three men, held against her will, and repeatedly raped.
The man Reith had been with, 31-year-old Joseph Gay and his cousin, 30-year-old Anthony Lee, were arrested on felony sexual assault and battery charges.
Anthony Lee was arrested even though he was working for most of the time when he was allegedly holding Reith against her will and raping her.
Joseph Gay was also arrested, even though a video camera proved he was eating lunch with Reith at a Wendy's, and trying to get into a club with her, not holding her against her will.
Lee, a former standout Norwalk High School basketball player, had no criminal record. Gay had never been arrested for a violent crime.
Both men were initially held on "extremely high bonds" because of the violent nature of the accusations.
Read that last sentence again: a rape accusation is enough to lock up a male before any investigation and, for most men (except the wealthy), there's no real chance he'll get out before trial unless the claim was clearly a lie.
But then, Norwalk detectives and investigators from the State's Attorney's Office conducted what one newspaper called "further investigation" into the matter and found several pieces of evidence that contradicted Reith's story. Specifically, the video of the Wendy's and the information about being at the club.
Far from being held against her will and raped repeatedly, Reith and Mr. Gay spent a night on the town, then caught a ride to Lee's home and slept on his couch.
When Reith told police her rape lie, patrol officers went to Lee's home and found the two men sleeping. The men were immediately arrested.
That's all it took. Just her word.
Yet a police officer said this: "We can't take things at face value, and we don't."
Did you get that? Arresting two innocent men and holding them on extremely high bonds before any investigation is conducted is not taking things at "face value."
Down, down, down the rabbit hole we go.
In contrast, Reith's bond has been set at $5,000. Meaning she's probably out already, partying, going to Wendy's, and scanning the Internet for stories about her. I hope she sees this one.
I don't know what scares you, but this story scares the hell out of me.
SOURCES:
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/policereports/article/Norwalk-woman-charged-with-falsely-reporting-rape-1443251.php#ixzz1QbFa6VBH
http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/story/f91ba1d4d2d0406dbd0161a5672c77fc/CT--Rape-Hoax/
http://www.thehour.com/register/?storyid=507282
Rape lie leads to arrest of two innocent men
A chilling story out of Connecticut.
Brittany Reith, 20, showed up twelve hours late to the apartment she shares with her boyfriend because she'd been out on the town having a good time with a 31-year-old man. To cover up, Reith made a sworn, written statement to police claiming she'd been kidnapped by three men, held against her will, and repeatedly raped.
The man Reith had been with, 31-year-old Joseph Gay and his cousin, 30-year-old Anthony Lee, were arrested on felony sexual assault and battery charges.
Anthony Lee was arrested even though he was working for most of the time when he was allegedly holding Reith against her will and raping her.
Joseph Gay was also arrested, even though a video camera proved he was eating lunch with Reith at a Wendy's, and trying to get into a club with her, not holding her against her will.
Lee, a former standout Norwalk High School basketball player, had no criminal record. Gay had never been arrested for a violent crime.
Both men were initially held on "extremely high bonds" because of the violent nature of the accusations.
Read that last sentence again: a rape accusation is enough to lock up a male before any investigation and, for most men (except the wealthy), there's no real chance he'll get out before trial unless the claim was clearly a lie.
But then, Norwalk detectives and investigators from the State's Attorney's Office conducted what one newspaper called "further investigation" into the matter and found several pieces of evidence that contradicted Reith's story. Specifically, the video of the Wendy's and the information about being at the club.
Far from being held against her will and raped repeatedly, Reith and Mr. Gay spent a night on the town, then caught a ride to Lee's home and slept on his couch.
When Reith told police her rape lie, patrol officers went to Lee's home and found the two men sleeping. The men were immediately arrested.
That's all it took. Just her word.
Yet a police officer said this: "We can't take things at face value, and we don't."
Did you get that? Arresting two innocent men and holding them on extremely high bonds before any investigation is conducted is not taking things at "face value."
Down, down, down the rabbit hole we go.
In contrast, Reith's bond has been set at $5,000. Meaning she's probably out already, partying, going to Wendy's, and scanning the Internet for stories about her. I hope she sees this one.
I don't know what scares you, but this story scares the hell out of me.
SOURCES:
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/policereports/article/Norwalk-woman-charged-with-falsely-reporting-rape-1443251.php#ixzz1QbFa6VBH
http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/story/f91ba1d4d2d0406dbd0161a5672c77fc/CT--Rape-Hoax/
http://www.thehour.com/register/?storyid=507282
Brittany Reith, 20, showed up twelve hours late to the apartment she shares with her boyfriend because she'd been out on the town having a good time with a 31-year-old man. To cover up, Reith made a sworn, written statement to police claiming she'd been kidnapped by three men, held against her will, and repeatedly raped.
The man Reith had been with, 31-year-old Joseph Gay and his cousin, 30-year-old Anthony Lee, were arrested on felony sexual assault and battery charges.
Anthony Lee was arrested even though he was working for most of the time when he was allegedly holding Reith against her will and raping her.
Joseph Gay was also arrested, even though a video camera proved he was eating lunch with Reith at a Wendy's, and trying to get into a club with her, not holding her against her will.
Lee, a former standout Norwalk High School basketball player, had no criminal record. Gay had never been arrested for a violent crime.
Both men were initially held on "extremely high bonds" because of the violent nature of the accusations.
Read that last sentence again: a rape accusation is enough to lock up a male before any investigation and, for most men (except the wealthy), there's no real chance he'll get out before trial unless the claim was clearly a lie.
But then, Norwalk detectives and investigators from the State's Attorney's Office conducted what one newspaper called "further investigation" into the matter and found several pieces of evidence that contradicted Reith's story. Specifically, the video of the Wendy's and the information about being at the club.
Far from being held against her will and raped repeatedly, Reith and Mr. Gay spent a night on the town, then caught a ride to Lee's home and slept on his couch.
When Reith told police her rape lie, patrol officers went to Lee's home and found the two men sleeping. The men were immediately arrested.
That's all it took. Just her word.
Yet a police officer said this: "We can't take things at face value, and we don't."
Did you get that? Arresting two innocent men and holding them on extremely high bonds before any investigation is conducted is not taking things at "face value."
Down, down, down the rabbit hole we go.
In contrast, Reith's bond has been set at $5,000. Meaning she's probably out already, partying, going to Wendy's, and scanning the Internet for stories about her. I hope she sees this one.
I don't know what scares you, but this story scares the hell out of me.
SOURCES:
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/policereports/article/Norwalk-woman-charged-with-falsely-reporting-rape-1443251.php#ixzz1QbFa6VBH
http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/story/f91ba1d4d2d0406dbd0161a5672c77fc/CT--Rape-Hoax/
http://www.thehour.com/register/?storyid=507282
Microfoundationalism
detail: Lynn Cazabon photo
The philosophy of social science encompasses several important tasks, and key among them is to provide theories of social ontology and social explanation. What is the nature of social entities? What is needed in order to substantiate a claim of social causation? What constitutes an acceptable social explanation?
The concept of microfoundations is relevant to each of these domains. A microfoundation is:
a specification of the ways in which the properties and structure of a higher-level entity are produced by the activities and properties of lower-level entities.In the case of the social sciences, this amounts to:
a specification of the ways that properties, structural features, and causal powers of a social entity are produced and reproduced by the actions and dispositions of socially situated individuals.This concept is relevant to social ontology in this way. Social entities are understood to be compositional; they are assemblages constituted and maintained by the mentality and actions of individuals. So providing an account of the microfoundations of a structure or causal connection -- say a paramilitary organization or of the causal connection between high interest rates and the incidence of alcohol abuse -- is a specification of the composition of the social-level fact. It is a description of the agent-level relationships and patterns of behavior that cohere in such a way as to bring about the higher-level structure or causal relationship.
The concept of microfoundations is directly relevant to explanation. If we assert a causal or explanatory relation between one social entity or condition and another, we must be prepared to offer a credible sketch of the ways in which this influence is conveyed through the mentalities and actions of individuals.
Much turns, however, on what precisely we mean to require of a satisfactory explanation: a full specification of the microfoundations in every case, or a sketch of the way that a given social-level process might readily be embodied in individual-level activities. If we go with the second version, we are licensing a fair amount of autonomy for the social-level explanation; whereas if we go with the first version, we are tending towards a requirement of reductionism from higher to lower levels in every case. I am inclined to interpret the requirement in the second way; it doesn't seem necessary to disaggregate every claim like "organizational deficiencies at the Bhopal chemical plant caused the devastating chemical spill" onto specific individual-level activities. We understand pretty well, in a generic way, what the microfoundations of organizations are, and it isn't necessary to provide a detailed account in order to have a satisfactory explanation.
The ontological position associated with microfoundationalism falls in the general area of methodological individualism and reductionism, in that it insists on the compositional nature of the social. However, there is a recursive aspect of the theory that distinguishes it from strict reductionism. The individuals to which microfoundations are traced are not a-social; rather, their psychology, beliefs and motives are constituted and shaped by the social forces they and others constitute. So the microfoundational account of the workings of a paramilitary organization may well refer to the locally embodied effects of that organization on the current psychology of the members of the organization; and their behavior in turn reproduces the organization in the next iteration. This is why I prefer the idea of methodological localism over that of methodological individualism (link).
The theory of microfoundations is also very consistent with the idea of social mechanisms. When we ask about the microfoundations of a social process, we are asking about the mechanisms that exist at a lower level that create and maintain the social process.
One way of motivating the theory of microfoundations is to observe that it is a prescription against "magical thinking" in the social realm. There is no "social stuff" that has its own persistent causal and structural characteristics; rather, all social phenomena are constituted by patterns of behavior and thought of populations of individual human beings. And likewise, social events and structures do not have inherently social causal properties; rather, the causal properties of a social structure or event are constituted by the patterns of behavior and thought of the individuals who constitute them and nothing else.
The theory of supervenience is often invoked to express the idea that social entities and properties are constituted by individuals. (Jaegwon Kim is the primary creator of the theory of supervenience in the philosophy of mind; Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays.) This basic idea is expressed as:
No difference at level N without some difference at lower level K.The advantage of the theory of supervenience is that it provides a way of recognizing the compositional nature of higher-level entities without presupposing explanatory reductionism from one level to the lower level.
The explicit idea of microfoundations appears to have been first developed in the domain of microeconomics; there it referred to the necessity of deriving macroeconomic phenomena from the premises of rational economic behavior (Weintraub, Microfoundations: The Compatibility of Microeconomics and Macroeconomics). (Here is an interesting article by van den Bergh and Gowdy on recent analysis of the microfoundations debate in economics.) Maarten Jansen describes the theory of microfoundations in economics in his entry in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law
:The quest to understand microfoundations is an effort to understand aggregate economic phenomena in terms of the behavior of individual economic entities and their interactions. These interactions can involve both market and non-market interactions. The quest for microfoundations grew out of the widely felt, but rarely explicitly stated, desire to stick to the position of methodological individualism ..., and also out of the growing uneasiness among economists in the late 1950s and 1960s with the co-existence of two subdisciplines, namely microeconomics and macroeconomics, both aiming at explaining features of the economy as a whole. Methodological individualism, as explained in the entry on the topic, is the view according to which proper explanations in the social sciences are those that are grounded in individual motivations and their behavior.The idea of microfoundations is now important in many areas of the social sciences, including especially sociology and political science. Particularly important were ideas formulated by James Coleman in Foundations of Social Theory
. Coleman doesn't use the term "microfoundations" explicitly in this work, but his analysis of the relationship between the macro and the micro seems to imply a requirement of providing microfoundations as a condition on good explanations in the social sciences. The Coleman boat (link) seems to be a graphical way of representing the microfoundations of a macro-level fact.A second mode of explanation of the behavior of social systems entails examining processes internal to the system, involving its component parts, or units at a level below that of the system. The prototypical case is that in which the component parts are individuals who are members of the social system. In other cases the component parts may be institutions within the system or subgroups that are part of the system. In all cases the analysis can be seen as moving to a lower level than that of the system, explaining the behavior of the system by recourse to the behavior of its parts. This mode of explanation is not uniquely quantitative or uniquely qualitative, but may be either. ... I call [this] the internal analysis of system behavior. (2)Coleman's view here is complex, though, and isn't entirely unambiguous. Consider this qualification a few pages later, which refers unexpectedly to "emergent phenomena" and intermediate levels of explanatory mechanisms between the macro and the micro:
Those readers familiar with debates and discussions on methodological holism and methodological individualism will recognize that the position taken above on explanation is a variant of methodological individualism. But it is a special variant. No assumption is made that the explanation of systemic behavior consists of nothing more than individual actions and orientations, taken in aggregate. The interaction among individuals is seen to result in emergent phenomena at the system level, that is, phenomena that were neither intended nor predicted by the individuals. Furthermore, there is no implication that for a given purpose an explanation must be taken all the way to the individual level to be satisfactory. The criterion is instead pragmatic. (5)Other more explicit advocates of the microfoundations principle are Jon Elster, John Roemer, Adam Przeworski, and other contributors to the theories of analytical Marxism (Analytical Marxism
). Here is how I attempted to synthesize some of this thinking in 1994:Marxist thinkers have argued that macro-explanations stand in need of microfoundations: detailed accounts of the pathways by which macro-level social patterns come about. These theorists have held that it is necessary to provide an account of the circumstsances of individual choice and action that give rise to aggregate patterns if macro-explanations are to be adequate. Thus in order to explain the policies of the capitalist state it is not sufficient to observe that this state tends to serve capitalist interests; we need to have an account of the processes through which state policies are shaped or controlled so as to produce this outcome. ("Microfoundations of Marxism," reprinted in D. Little, Microfoundations, Methods, and Causation, 4)As noted in a prior post, the idea of microfoundations is also a core constituent of the methodology of analytical sociology (Peter Hedström, Dissecting the Social: On the Principles of Analytical Sociology
).In short, a fairly wide range of social science research today embraces the general idea of providing microfoundations for macro-level assertions. And this seems to be a very reasonable requirement, given what we know about how social entities, processes, and forces are composed.
Microfoundationalism
detail: Lynn Cazabon photo
The philosophy of social science encompasses several important tasks, and key among them is to provide theories of social ontology and social explanation. What is the nature of social entities? What is needed in order to substantiate a claim of social causation? What constitutes an acceptable social explanation?
The concept of microfoundations is relevant to each of these domains. A microfoundation is:
a specification of the ways in which the properties and structure of a higher-level entity are produced by the activities and properties of lower-level entities.In the case of the social sciences, this amounts to:
a specification of the ways that properties, structural features, and causal powers of a social entity are produced and reproduced by the actions and dispositions of socially situated individuals.This concept is relevant to social ontology in this way. Social entities are understood to be compositional; they are assemblages constituted and maintained by the mentality and actions of individuals. So providing an account of the microfoundations of a structure or causal connection -- say a paramilitary organization or of the causal connection between high interest rates and the incidence of alcohol abuse -- is a specification of the composition of the social-level fact. It is a description of the agent-level relationships and patterns of behavior that cohere in such a way as to bring about the higher-level structure or causal relationship.
The concept of microfoundations is directly relevant to explanation. If we assert a causal or explanatory relation between one social entity or condition and another, we must be prepared to offer a credible sketch of the ways in which this influence is conveyed through the mentalities and actions of individuals.
Much turns, however, on what precisely we mean to require of a satisfactory explanation: a full specification of the microfoundations in every case, or a sketch of the way that a given social-level process might readily be embodied in individual-level activities. If we go with the second version, we are licensing a fair amount of autonomy for the social-level explanation; whereas if we go with the first version, we are tending towards a requirement of reductionism from higher to lower levels in every case. I am inclined to interpret the requirement in the second way; it doesn't seem necessary to disaggregate every claim like "organizational deficiencies at the Bhopal chemical plant caused the devastating chemical spill" onto specific individual-level activities. We understand pretty well, in a generic way, what the microfoundations of organizations are, and it isn't necessary to provide a detailed account in order to have a satisfactory explanation.
The ontological position associated with microfoundationalism falls in the general area of methodological individualism and reductionism, in that it insists on the compositional nature of the social. However, there is a recursive aspect of the theory that distinguishes it from strict reductionism. The individuals to which microfoundations are traced are not a-social; rather, their psychology, beliefs and motives are constituted and shaped by the social forces they and others constitute. So the microfoundational account of the workings of a paramilitary organization may well refer to the locally embodied effects of that organization on the current psychology of the members of the organization; and their behavior in turn reproduces the organization in the next iteration. This is why I prefer the idea of methodological localism over that of methodological individualism (link).
The theory of microfoundations is also very consistent with the idea of social mechanisms. When we ask about the microfoundations of a social process, we are asking about the mechanisms that exist at a lower level that create and maintain the social process.
One way of motivating the theory of microfoundations is to observe that it is a prescription against "magical thinking" in the social realm. There is no "social stuff" that has its own persistent causal and structural characteristics; rather, all social phenomena are constituted by patterns of behavior and thought of populations of individual human beings. And likewise, social events and structures do not have inherently social causal properties; rather, the causal properties of a social structure or event are constituted by the patterns of behavior and thought of the individuals who constitute them and nothing else.
The theory of supervenience is often invoked to express the idea that social entities and properties are constituted by individuals. (Jaegwon Kim is the primary creator of the theory of supervenience in the philosophy of mind; Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays.) This basic idea is expressed as:
No difference at level N without some difference at lower level K.The advantage of the theory of supervenience is that it provides a way of recognizing the compositional nature of higher-level entities without presupposing explanatory reductionism from one level to the lower level.
The explicit idea of microfoundations appears to have been first developed in the domain of microeconomics; there it referred to the necessity of deriving macroeconomic phenomena from the premises of rational economic behavior (Weintraub, Microfoundations: The Compatibility of Microeconomics and Macroeconomics). (Here is an interesting article by van den Bergh and Gowdy on recent analysis of the microfoundations debate in economics.) Maarten Jansen describes the theory of microfoundations in economics in his entry in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law
:The quest to understand microfoundations is an effort to understand aggregate economic phenomena in terms of the behavior of individual economic entities and their interactions. These interactions can involve both market and non-market interactions. The quest for microfoundations grew out of the widely felt, but rarely explicitly stated, desire to stick to the position of methodological individualism ..., and also out of the growing uneasiness among economists in the late 1950s and 1960s with the co-existence of two subdisciplines, namely microeconomics and macroeconomics, both aiming at explaining features of the economy as a whole. Methodological individualism, as explained in the entry on the topic, is the view according to which proper explanations in the social sciences are those that are grounded in individual motivations and their behavior.The idea of microfoundations is now important in many areas of the social sciences, including especially sociology and political science. Particularly important were ideas formulated by James Coleman in Foundations of Social Theory
. Coleman doesn't use the term "microfoundations" explicitly in this work, but his analysis of the relationship between the macro and the micro seems to imply a requirement of providing microfoundations as a condition on good explanations in the social sciences. The Coleman boat (link) seems to be a graphical way of representing the microfoundations of a macro-level fact.A second mode of explanation of the behavior of social systems entails examining processes internal to the system, involving its component parts, or units at a level below that of the system. The prototypical case is that in which the component parts are individuals who are members of the social system. In other cases the component parts may be institutions within the system or subgroups that are part of the system. In all cases the analysis can be seen as moving to a lower level than that of the system, explaining the behavior of the system by recourse to the behavior of its parts. This mode of explanation is not uniquely quantitative or uniquely qualitative, but may be either. ... I call [this] the internal analysis of system behavior. (2)Coleman's view here is complex, though, and isn't entirely unambiguous. Consider this qualification a few pages later, which refers unexpectedly to "emergent phenomena" and intermediate levels of explanatory mechanisms between the macro and the micro:
Those readers familiar with debates and discussions on methodological holism and methodological individualism will recognize that the position taken above on explanation is a variant of methodological individualism. But it is a special variant. No assumption is made that the explanation of systemic behavior consists of nothing more than individual actions and orientations, taken in aggregate. The interaction among individuals is seen to result in emergent phenomena at the system level, that is, phenomena that were neither intended nor predicted by the individuals. Furthermore, there is no implication that for a given purpose an explanation must be taken all the way to the individual level to be satisfactory. The criterion is instead pragmatic. (5)Other more explicit advocates of the microfoundations principle are Jon Elster, John Roemer, Adam Przeworski, and other contributors to the theories of analytical Marxism (Analytical Marxism
). Here is how I attempted to synthesize some of this thinking in 1994:Marxist thinkers have argued that macro-explanations stand in need of microfoundations: detailed accounts of the pathways by which macro-level social patterns come about. These theorists have held that it is necessary to provide an account of the circumstsances of individual choice and action that give rise to aggregate patterns if macro-explanations are to be adequate. Thus in order to explain the policies of the capitalist state it is not sufficient to observe that this state tends to serve capitalist interests; we need to have an account of the processes through which state policies are shaped or controlled so as to produce this outcome. ("Microfoundations of Marxism," reprinted in D. Little, Microfoundations, Methods, and Causation, 4)As noted in a prior post, the idea of microfoundations is also a core constituent of the methodology of analytical sociology (Peter Hedström, Dissecting the Social: On the Principles of Analytical Sociology
).In short, a fairly wide range of social science research today embraces the general idea of providing microfoundations for macro-level assertions. And this seems to be a very reasonable requirement, given what we know about how social entities, processes, and forces are composed.
Microfoundationalism
detail: Lynn Cazabon photo
The philosophy of social science encompasses several important tasks, and key among them is to provide theories of social ontology and social explanation. What is the nature of social entities? What is needed in order to substantiate a claim of social causation? What constitutes an acceptable social explanation?
The concept of microfoundations is relevant to each of these domains. A microfoundation is:
a specification of the ways in which the properties and structure of a higher-level entity are produced by the activities and properties of lower-level entities.In the case of the social sciences, this amounts to:
a specification of the ways that properties, structural features, and causal powers of a social entity are produced and reproduced by the actions and dispositions of socially situated individuals.This concept is relevant to social ontology in this way. Social entities are understood to be compositional; they are assemblages constituted and maintained by the mentality and actions of individuals. So providing an account of the microfoundations of a structure or causal connection -- say a paramilitary organization or of the causal connection between high interest rates and the incidence of alcohol abuse -- is a specification of the composition of the social-level fact. It is a description of the agent-level relationships and patterns of behavior that cohere in such a way as to bring about the higher-level structure or causal relationship.
The concept of microfoundations is directly relevant to explanation. If we assert a causal or explanatory relation between one social entity or condition and another, we must be prepared to offer a credible sketch of the ways in which this influence is conveyed through the mentalities and actions of individuals.
Much turns, however, on what precisely we mean to require of a satisfactory explanation: a full specification of the microfoundations in every case, or a sketch of the way that a given social-level process might readily be embodied in individual-level activities. If we go with the second version, we are licensing a fair amount of autonomy for the social-level explanation; whereas if we go with the first version, we are tending towards a requirement of reductionism from higher to lower levels in every case. I am inclined to interpret the requirement in the second way; it doesn't seem necessary to disaggregate every claim like "organizational deficiencies at the Bhopal chemical plant caused the devastating chemical spill" onto specific individual-level activities. We understand pretty well, in a generic way, what the microfoundations of organizations are, and it isn't necessary to provide a detailed account in order to have a satisfactory explanation.
The ontological position associated with microfoundationalism falls in the general area of methodological individualism and reductionism, in that it insists on the compositional nature of the social. However, there is a recursive aspect of the theory that distinguishes it from strict reductionism. The individuals to which microfoundations are traced are not a-social; rather, their psychology, beliefs and motives are constituted and shaped by the social forces they and others constitute. So the microfoundational account of the workings of a paramilitary organization may well refer to the locally embodied effects of that organization on the current psychology of the members of the organization; and their behavior in turn reproduces the organization in the next iteration. This is why I prefer the idea of methodological localism over that of methodological individualism (link).
The theory of microfoundations is also very consistent with the idea of social mechanisms. When we ask about the microfoundations of a social process, we are asking about the mechanisms that exist at a lower level that create and maintain the social process.
One way of motivating the theory of microfoundations is to observe that it is a prescription against "magical thinking" in the social realm. There is no "social stuff" that has its own persistent causal and structural characteristics; rather, all social phenomena are constituted by patterns of behavior and thought of populations of individual human beings. And likewise, social events and structures do not have inherently social causal properties; rather, the causal properties of a social structure or event are constituted by the patterns of behavior and thought of the individuals who constitute them and nothing else.
The theory of supervenience is often invoked to express the idea that social entities and properties are constituted by individuals. (Jaegwon Kim is the primary creator of the theory of supervenience in the philosophy of mind; Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays.) This basic idea is expressed as:
No difference at level N without some difference at lower level K.The advantage of the theory of supervenience is that it provides a way of recognizing the compositional nature of higher-level entities without presupposing explanatory reductionism from one level to the lower level.
The explicit idea of microfoundations appears to have been first developed in the domain of microeconomics; there it referred to the necessity of deriving macroeconomic phenomena from the premises of rational economic behavior (Weintraub, Microfoundations: The Compatibility of Microeconomics and Macroeconomics). (Here is an interesting article by van den Bergh and Gowdy on recent analysis of the microfoundations debate in economics.) Maarten Jansen describes the theory of microfoundations in economics in his entry in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law
:The quest to understand microfoundations is an effort to understand aggregate economic phenomena in terms of the behavior of individual economic entities and their interactions. These interactions can involve both market and non-market interactions. The quest for microfoundations grew out of the widely felt, but rarely explicitly stated, desire to stick to the position of methodological individualism ..., and also out of the growing uneasiness among economists in the late 1950s and 1960s with the co-existence of two subdisciplines, namely microeconomics and macroeconomics, both aiming at explaining features of the economy as a whole. Methodological individualism, as explained in the entry on the topic, is the view according to which proper explanations in the social sciences are those that are grounded in individual motivations and their behavior.The idea of microfoundations is now important in many areas of the social sciences, including especially sociology and political science. Particularly important were ideas formulated by James Coleman in Foundations of Social Theory
. Coleman doesn't use the term "microfoundations" explicitly in this work, but his analysis of the relationship between the macro and the micro seems to imply a requirement of providing microfoundations as a condition on good explanations in the social sciences. The Coleman boat (link) seems to be a graphical way of representing the microfoundations of a macro-level fact.A second mode of explanation of the behavior of social systems entails examining processes internal to the system, involving its component parts, or units at a level below that of the system. The prototypical case is that in which the component parts are individuals who are members of the social system. In other cases the component parts may be institutions within the system or subgroups that are part of the system. In all cases the analysis can be seen as moving to a lower level than that of the system, explaining the behavior of the system by recourse to the behavior of its parts. This mode of explanation is not uniquely quantitative or uniquely qualitative, but may be either. ... I call [this] the internal analysis of system behavior. (2)Coleman's view here is complex, though, and isn't entirely unambiguous. Consider this qualification a few pages later, which refers unexpectedly to "emergent phenomena" and intermediate levels of explanatory mechanisms between the macro and the micro:
Those readers familiar with debates and discussions on methodological holism and methodological individualism will recognize that the position taken above on explanation is a variant of methodological individualism. But it is a special variant. No assumption is made that the explanation of systemic behavior consists of nothing more than individual actions and orientations, taken in aggregate. The interaction among individuals is seen to result in emergent phenomena at the system level, that is, phenomena that were neither intended nor predicted by the individuals. Furthermore, there is no implication that for a given purpose an explanation must be taken all the way to the individual level to be satisfactory. The criterion is instead pragmatic. (5)Other more explicit advocates of the microfoundations principle are Jon Elster, John Roemer, Adam Przeworski, and other contributors to the theories of analytical Marxism (Analytical Marxism
). Here is how I attempted to synthesize some of this thinking in 1994:Marxist thinkers have argued that macro-explanations stand in need of microfoundations: detailed accounts of the pathways by which macro-level social patterns come about. These theorists have held that it is necessary to provide an account of the circumstsances of individual choice and action that give rise to aggregate patterns if macro-explanations are to be adequate. Thus in order to explain the policies of the capitalist state it is not sufficient to observe that this state tends to serve capitalist interests; we need to have an account of the processes through which state policies are shaped or controlled so as to produce this outcome. ("Microfoundations of Marxism," reprinted in D. Little, Microfoundations, Methods, and Causation, 4)As noted in a prior post, the idea of microfoundations is also a core constituent of the methodology of analytical sociology (Peter Hedström, Dissecting the Social: On the Principles of Analytical Sociology
).In short, a fairly wide range of social science research today embraces the general idea of providing microfoundations for macro-level assertions. And this seems to be a very reasonable requirement, given what we know about how social entities, processes, and forces are composed.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Girl detained for Bolton taxi rape lie
Another taxi driver, another false accusation. This after the taxi driver gave her a ride home, despite the fact that she didn't have the fare.
The second article link below gives a bit more detail, that not only was she given a 12 month detention, she was given a training order as well.
AfOR, or anyone else for that matter, if you can please give an explanation of what a training order consists of?
A teenager who lied about being raped by a taxi driver in Greater Manchester has been detained for 12 months.
A detective of the Greater Manchester Police said it well:
Link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-13879783
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/9101809.Teenager_is_jailed_for_false_rape_allegation/
The second article link below gives a bit more detail, that not only was she given a 12 month detention, she was given a training order as well.
AfOR, or anyone else for that matter, if you can please give an explanation of what a training order consists of?
__________________
A teenager who lied about being raped by a taxi driver in Greater Manchester has been detained for 12 months.
A detective of the Greater Manchester Police said it well:
The man took the girl home when no other driver would and even allowed her to pay her fare the following day, yet she repaid his kindness with a wicked lie that landed him in a police cell.Add to the fact that she was drinking and doing drugs, I would guess this was an accusation used to get out of trouble with her parents.
He had to deal with the associated stigma of being accused of such a grave offence and we wasted a lot of time, effort and money on the investigation when it could have been better spent serving the community.
The scope of our investigation in this incident proves how thoroughly we investigate all reports of rape and I hope this girl's inexcusable actions in no way deter genuine victims from coming forward.
Link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-13879783
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/9101809.Teenager_is_jailed_for_false_rape_allegation/
Girl detained for Bolton taxi rape lie
Another taxi driver, another false accusation. This after the taxi driver gave her a ride home, despite the fact that she didn't have the fare.
The second article link below gives a bit more detail, that not only was she given a 12 month detention, she was given a training order as well.
AfOR, or anyone else for that matter, if you can please give an explanation of what a training order consists of?
A teenager who lied about being raped by a taxi driver in Greater Manchester has been detained for 12 months.
A detective of the Greater Manchester Police said it well:
Link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-13879783
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/9101809.Teenager_is_jailed_for_false_rape_allegation/
The second article link below gives a bit more detail, that not only was she given a 12 month detention, she was given a training order as well.
AfOR, or anyone else for that matter, if you can please give an explanation of what a training order consists of?
__________________
A teenager who lied about being raped by a taxi driver in Greater Manchester has been detained for 12 months.
A detective of the Greater Manchester Police said it well:
The man took the girl home when no other driver would and even allowed her to pay her fare the following day, yet she repaid his kindness with a wicked lie that landed him in a police cell.Add to the fact that she was drinking and doing drugs, I would guess this was an accusation used to get out of trouble with her parents.
He had to deal with the associated stigma of being accused of such a grave offence and we wasted a lot of time, effort and money on the investigation when it could have been better spent serving the community.
The scope of our investigation in this incident proves how thoroughly we investigate all reports of rape and I hope this girl's inexcusable actions in no way deter genuine victims from coming forward.
Link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-13879783
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/9101809.Teenager_is_jailed_for_false_rape_allegation/
Sexual Grievance Industry Complains that Rape News Reports Fails to Sufficiently Pin Blame on the Male Accused of Rape
Among the innumerable canards posited by the sexual grievance industry is that the news media contributes to "victim blaming," thus discouraging female rape victims from "coming forward," by failing to place the blame squarely on the male rapist in news accounts of alleged rapes. The theory is that the crime of rape is reported as something that happens to women as opposed to something that men do.
This is a relatively recent canard of the SGI, and is one that is gaining currency. (Another is that there is no typical rapist -- that rape cuts across every socioeconomic demographic. That is not only insulting to our intelligence, it obscures some critically important issues: http://goldenstatesociety.blogspot.com/2011/04/elephant-in-room-there-is-typical.html)
An example of this thinking from last week's news: “Frequently the way crimes are reported contributes to the problem of victim blaming,” explained Kathy Agnon, Coordinator for the Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women. “Headlines typically read ‘Woman Gets Raped’ instead of 'Man Rapes Woman,' which only serves to put the focus of the event on the survivor, instead of the aggressor.” http://santacruz.patch.com/articles/myths-about-sexual-assault-and-domestic-violence-still-keep-victims-from-seeking-justice
This is yet another made-up assertion, concocted out of victim whole cloth to reinforce the view that society fails to protect rape victims. It is palpably absurd on its face.
Let us talk about the way rape is reported to demonstrate the gross error.
Anonymity for accusers, not for the men accused
Rape and its related sex offenses are the only alleged crimes where the name of the accuser is not reported. Far from "blaming the victim," rape accusers are afforded protections that no other alleged crime victim enjoys.
We do women no favors by treating them the way we treat infants and the insane. It only underscores a terrible stereotype about female helplessness.
While rape accusers are enshrouded in anonymity, men accused of rape are publicly named and humiliated. Often, it is enough to destroy their lives. And if you need examples of this, spend a month or so reading this blog for several hours a day (that's how long it will take you).
Why is this a special problem for rape claims? I am amazed that I am even forced to explain this.
First, let's use me as an example. The chances of me being falsely accused of any other serious crime -- burglary, murder, robbery -- are infinitesimal. No one would take seriously a claim that I robbed a bank. Moreover, even if it did happen (and it couldn't), the chances of me not being able to clear my name almost immediately if I were accused of any other serious crime is essentially non-existent.
Not so with rape. Any male capable of having sex, and even boys too young, are fair game as far as rape claims go. Is it surprising that false rape claims are made multiple times more often than false claims of any other crime, as we've shown on this blog time and time again? Is that so shocking, given the ease with which false rape claims are made, and given that every post-pubescent male is fair game for a rape claim?
Moreover, once a rape charge is made, it's almost impossible to fully clear your name, even if the woman recants. People will always think "something" happened. With rape charges, very often the only phsyical evidence of the "crime" is the same evidence of the most intimate act of love, practiced somewhere in the world multiple times every second of every day since the world began. An act of love can be transformed into an alleged crime for terribly improper reasons, as we see on this blog every day of the week.
Second, rape and its related crimes are widely regarded as loathesome in a way other crimes aren't. Watch what happens to a young man convicted of rape when he goes to prison. He is often the target of repeated, brutal rapes, even if he's innocent.
Rush to judgment
Complaining that men aren't sufficiently targeted in news reports about rape would be laughable if the subject weren't so serious. Rape accusations are typically reported as if a rape occurred. The male accused is typically treated as a rapist. News reporters become little more than stenographers for police, who typically don't reveal the weak points of their cases to the news media.
Take the false claim at Hofstra: TV reporters described the supposed event with a frightening gravitas. The transcript of one particular chilling news report (set forth below in its entirety) underscores the rush to judgment that marked the entire affair. Not only did the reporter parrot what police told her, she did not make it clear that the evidence for the alleged rape was just the word of an 18-year-old woman. Nor did she bother to explain that the four young men told consistent stories, which contradicted the accuser's tale. Nor did she bother to point out the holes in Ndonye's narrative. The four young men were identified, and the accuser was not. As you read the transcript, note that virtually every sentence uttered turned out to be grossly incorrect:
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: She was tied up in a men's bathroom stall where five men, one by one, would rape her.
CHIEF STEVEN SKRYNECKI, NASSAU CO. POLICE DEPT: It's possible that her cries were not heard.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: An 18-year-old Hofstra student recounted her traumatic ordeal to police. It all happened Sunday around 3 a.m. The student first met one of her attackers, Jesus Ortiz, at a dance held on the Hofstra campus. Police say Ortiz snatched her cell phone as a way of getting the girl to go back to a dorm with him.
CHIEF STEVEN SKRYNECKI, NASSAU CO. POLICE DEPT: We believe he lured her into a dormitory, ah, for purposes of engaging in sexual activities with her.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: Trying to get her phone back, the girl followed Ortiz back to a dorm close by. That's where her attackers were waiting with the rope ready to tie her down and rape her.
CHIEF STEVEN SKRYNECKI, NASSAU CO. POLICE DEPT: Ultimately pushed her into a stall within the bathroom, bound her within the stall, and then began to have sex with her.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: At that point, three other men showed up. Seeing them, she was relieved, at first. She pleaded for help. But then she soon realized they were there to rape her, too. Now, four of the men are charged with five counts of rape. Police are still looking for a fifth man. Only one of the men actually attended Hofstra, but regardless, students on campus are horrified by the incident.
VERONICA DESOUZA (STUDENT): Someone takes your cell phone and you want it back. I mean, she didn't know that she was going to be tied up and and raped in a bathroom.
DOUG TEMPLE (STUDENT): It happened ah right below us, actually. It was kind of, freaked me out.
LINDSAY DWYER (STUDENT): Its just a horrible thing to hear about somebody. Especially, she was a freshman, like, your second week of school, like, it's just, it's horrible.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: Those who knew the student Rondell Bedward are especially stunned.
VICTORIA LIRO (STUDENT): He's been in, like, my room with me, you know I, it's crazy. That's scary.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: The four men arrested all pleaded not guilty and are each being held on a $500,000 bond. If convicted, all face up to 25 years in prison. In Hempstead, New York, Bonny Ghosh, the Associated Press.
______________________
In light of what we now know, we must wonder if the reporter's name was even Bonny Ghosh, or if she got that wrong, too.
If that wasn't chilling to you -- in light of what we now know -- if the crucifixion of these innocent young men by a news reporter doesn't sicken you, you've got serious problems.
I wish Bonny Ghosh would write to this blog to explain herself. Her story was a disgrace.
Just imagine if that story had made it clear that the only evidence for the alleged rape was the word of the young accuser, and that the four arrested men told consistent stories that no rape occurred. Imagine further if Ms. Ghosh had pointed out that no one on the floor heard anything, when typically, everyday sounds presumably far less tumultuous than a vicious gang rape are heard on the floor. Imagine further if Ms. Ghosh had revealed that the alleged rope that supposedly tied the woman up was not found at the scene, but that used condoms were. And imagine if Ms. Ghosh had pointed out that even the accuser admitted that the alleged rapists asked her to come with them after the alleged rape.
In short, imagine if Ms. Ghosh, the New York Post, and everyone else had reported the facts in a complete, fair, and objective manner instead of doing the journalistic equivalent of jumping out of the bushes and yelling "boo." If the facts had been reported fairly, it is likely that most people would have been skeptical of the rape claim, to say the least. Instead, the news media chose to present a naked allegation as a scary rape, and to brand four young minority males as vicious rapists.
Yet, according to members of the sexual grievance industry, news reports don't do enough to place the blame for alleged rapes on men.
That lie absolutely sickens me.
This is a relatively recent canard of the SGI, and is one that is gaining currency. (Another is that there is no typical rapist -- that rape cuts across every socioeconomic demographic. That is not only insulting to our intelligence, it obscures some critically important issues: http://goldenstatesociety.blogspot.com/2011/04/elephant-in-room-there-is-typical.html)
An example of this thinking from last week's news: “Frequently the way crimes are reported contributes to the problem of victim blaming,” explained Kathy Agnon, Coordinator for the Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women. “Headlines typically read ‘Woman Gets Raped’ instead of 'Man Rapes Woman,' which only serves to put the focus of the event on the survivor, instead of the aggressor.” http://santacruz.patch.com/articles/myths-about-sexual-assault-and-domestic-violence-still-keep-victims-from-seeking-justice
This is yet another made-up assertion, concocted out of victim whole cloth to reinforce the view that society fails to protect rape victims. It is palpably absurd on its face.
Let us talk about the way rape is reported to demonstrate the gross error.
Anonymity for accusers, not for the men accused
Rape and its related sex offenses are the only alleged crimes where the name of the accuser is not reported. Far from "blaming the victim," rape accusers are afforded protections that no other alleged crime victim enjoys.
We do women no favors by treating them the way we treat infants and the insane. It only underscores a terrible stereotype about female helplessness.
While rape accusers are enshrouded in anonymity, men accused of rape are publicly named and humiliated. Often, it is enough to destroy their lives. And if you need examples of this, spend a month or so reading this blog for several hours a day (that's how long it will take you).
Why is this a special problem for rape claims? I am amazed that I am even forced to explain this.
First, let's use me as an example. The chances of me being falsely accused of any other serious crime -- burglary, murder, robbery -- are infinitesimal. No one would take seriously a claim that I robbed a bank. Moreover, even if it did happen (and it couldn't), the chances of me not being able to clear my name almost immediately if I were accused of any other serious crime is essentially non-existent.
Not so with rape. Any male capable of having sex, and even boys too young, are fair game as far as rape claims go. Is it surprising that false rape claims are made multiple times more often than false claims of any other crime, as we've shown on this blog time and time again? Is that so shocking, given the ease with which false rape claims are made, and given that every post-pubescent male is fair game for a rape claim?
Moreover, once a rape charge is made, it's almost impossible to fully clear your name, even if the woman recants. People will always think "something" happened. With rape charges, very often the only phsyical evidence of the "crime" is the same evidence of the most intimate act of love, practiced somewhere in the world multiple times every second of every day since the world began. An act of love can be transformed into an alleged crime for terribly improper reasons, as we see on this blog every day of the week.
Second, rape and its related crimes are widely regarded as loathesome in a way other crimes aren't. Watch what happens to a young man convicted of rape when he goes to prison. He is often the target of repeated, brutal rapes, even if he's innocent.
Rush to judgment
Complaining that men aren't sufficiently targeted in news reports about rape would be laughable if the subject weren't so serious. Rape accusations are typically reported as if a rape occurred. The male accused is typically treated as a rapist. News reporters become little more than stenographers for police, who typically don't reveal the weak points of their cases to the news media.
Take the false claim at Hofstra: TV reporters described the supposed event with a frightening gravitas. The transcript of one particular chilling news report (set forth below in its entirety) underscores the rush to judgment that marked the entire affair. Not only did the reporter parrot what police told her, she did not make it clear that the evidence for the alleged rape was just the word of an 18-year-old woman. Nor did she bother to explain that the four young men told consistent stories, which contradicted the accuser's tale. Nor did she bother to point out the holes in Ndonye's narrative. The four young men were identified, and the accuser was not. As you read the transcript, note that virtually every sentence uttered turned out to be grossly incorrect:
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: She was tied up in a men's bathroom stall where five men, one by one, would rape her.
CHIEF STEVEN SKRYNECKI, NASSAU CO. POLICE DEPT: It's possible that her cries were not heard.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: An 18-year-old Hofstra student recounted her traumatic ordeal to police. It all happened Sunday around 3 a.m. The student first met one of her attackers, Jesus Ortiz, at a dance held on the Hofstra campus. Police say Ortiz snatched her cell phone as a way of getting the girl to go back to a dorm with him.
CHIEF STEVEN SKRYNECKI, NASSAU CO. POLICE DEPT: We believe he lured her into a dormitory, ah, for purposes of engaging in sexual activities with her.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: Trying to get her phone back, the girl followed Ortiz back to a dorm close by. That's where her attackers were waiting with the rope ready to tie her down and rape her.
CHIEF STEVEN SKRYNECKI, NASSAU CO. POLICE DEPT: Ultimately pushed her into a stall within the bathroom, bound her within the stall, and then began to have sex with her.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: At that point, three other men showed up. Seeing them, she was relieved, at first. She pleaded for help. But then she soon realized they were there to rape her, too. Now, four of the men are charged with five counts of rape. Police are still looking for a fifth man. Only one of the men actually attended Hofstra, but regardless, students on campus are horrified by the incident.
VERONICA DESOUZA (STUDENT): Someone takes your cell phone and you want it back. I mean, she didn't know that she was going to be tied up and and raped in a bathroom.
DOUG TEMPLE (STUDENT): It happened ah right below us, actually. It was kind of, freaked me out.
LINDSAY DWYER (STUDENT): Its just a horrible thing to hear about somebody. Especially, she was a freshman, like, your second week of school, like, it's just, it's horrible.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: Those who knew the student Rondell Bedward are especially stunned.
VICTORIA LIRO (STUDENT): He's been in, like, my room with me, you know I, it's crazy. That's scary.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: The four men arrested all pleaded not guilty and are each being held on a $500,000 bond. If convicted, all face up to 25 years in prison. In Hempstead, New York, Bonny Ghosh, the Associated Press.
______________________
In light of what we now know, we must wonder if the reporter's name was even Bonny Ghosh, or if she got that wrong, too.
If that wasn't chilling to you -- in light of what we now know -- if the crucifixion of these innocent young men by a news reporter doesn't sicken you, you've got serious problems.
I wish Bonny Ghosh would write to this blog to explain herself. Her story was a disgrace.
Just imagine if that story had made it clear that the only evidence for the alleged rape was the word of the young accuser, and that the four arrested men told consistent stories that no rape occurred. Imagine further if Ms. Ghosh had pointed out that no one on the floor heard anything, when typically, everyday sounds presumably far less tumultuous than a vicious gang rape are heard on the floor. Imagine further if Ms. Ghosh had revealed that the alleged rope that supposedly tied the woman up was not found at the scene, but that used condoms were. And imagine if Ms. Ghosh had pointed out that even the accuser admitted that the alleged rapists asked her to come with them after the alleged rape.
In short, imagine if Ms. Ghosh, the New York Post, and everyone else had reported the facts in a complete, fair, and objective manner instead of doing the journalistic equivalent of jumping out of the bushes and yelling "boo." If the facts had been reported fairly, it is likely that most people would have been skeptical of the rape claim, to say the least. Instead, the news media chose to present a naked allegation as a scary rape, and to brand four young minority males as vicious rapists.
Yet, according to members of the sexual grievance industry, news reports don't do enough to place the blame for alleged rapes on men.
That lie absolutely sickens me.
Sexual Grievance Industry Complains that Rape News Reports Fails to Sufficiently Pin Blame on the Male Accused of Rape
Among the innumerable canards posited by the sexual grievance industry is that the news media contributes to "victim blaming," thus discouraging female rape victims from "coming forward," by failing to place the blame squarely on the male rapist in news accounts of alleged rapes. The theory is that the crime of rape is reported as something that happens to women as opposed to something that men do.
This is a relatively recent canard of the SGI, and is one that is gaining currency. (Another is that there is no typical rapist -- that rape cuts across every socioeconomic demographic. That is not only insulting to our intelligence, it obscures some critically important issues: http://goldenstatesociety.blogspot.com/2011/04/elephant-in-room-there-is-typical.html)
An example of this thinking from last week's news: “Frequently the way crimes are reported contributes to the problem of victim blaming,” explained Kathy Agnon, Coordinator for the Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women. “Headlines typically read ‘Woman Gets Raped’ instead of 'Man Rapes Woman,' which only serves to put the focus of the event on the survivor, instead of the aggressor.” http://santacruz.patch.com/articles/myths-about-sexual-assault-and-domestic-violence-still-keep-victims-from-seeking-justice
This is yet another made-up assertion, concocted out of victim whole cloth to reinforce the view that society fails to protect rape victims. It is palpably absurd on its face.
Let us talk about the way rape is reported to demonstrate the gross error.
Anonymity for accusers, not for the men accused
Rape and its related sex offenses are the only alleged crimes where the name of the accuser is not reported. Far from "blaming the victim," rape accusers are afforded protections that no other alleged crime victim enjoys.
We do women no favors by treating them the way we treat infants and the insane. It only underscores a terrible stereotype about female helplessness.
While rape accusers are enshrouded in anonymity, men accused of rape are publicly named and humiliated. Often, it is enough to destroy their lives. And if you need examples of this, spend a month or so reading this blog for several hours a day (that's how long it will take you).
Why is this a special problem for rape claims? I am amazed that I am even forced to explain this.
First, let's use me as an example. The chances of me being falsely accused of any other serious crime -- burglary, murder, robbery -- are infinitesimal. No one would take seriously a claim that I robbed a bank. Moreover, even if it did happen (and it couldn't), the chances of me not being able to clear my name almost immediately if I were accused of any other serious crime is essentially non-existent.
Not so with rape. Any male capable of having sex, and even boys too young, are fair game as far as rape claims go. Is it surprising that false rape claims are made multiple times more often than false claims of any other crime, as we've shown on this blog time and time again? Is that so shocking, given the ease with which false rape claims are made, and given that every post-pubescent male is fair game for a rape claim?
Moreover, once a rape charge is made, it's almost impossible to fully clear your name, even if the woman recants. People will always think "something" happened. With rape charges, very often the only phsyical evidence of the "crime" is the same evidence of the most intimate act of love, practiced somewhere in the world multiple times every second of every day since the world began. An act of love can be transformed into an alleged crime for terribly improper reasons, as we see on this blog every day of the week.
Second, rape and its related crimes are widely regarded as loathesome in a way other crimes aren't. Watch what happens to a young man convicted of rape when he goes to prison. He is often the target of repeated, brutal rapes, even if he's innocent.
Rush to judgment
Complaining that men aren't sufficiently targeted in news reports about rape would be laughable if the subject weren't so serious. Rape accusations are typically reported as if a rape occurred. The male accused is typically treated as a rapist. News reporters become little more than stenographers for police, who typically don't reveal the weak points of their cases to the news media.
Take the false claim at Hofstra: TV reporters described the supposed event with a frightening gravitas. The transcript of one particular chilling news report (set forth below in its entirety) underscores the rush to judgment that marked the entire affair. Not only did the reporter parrot what police told her, she did not make it clear that the evidence for the alleged rape was just the word of an 18-year-old woman. Nor did she bother to explain that the four young men told consistent stories, which contradicted the accuser's tale. Nor did she bother to point out the holes in Ndonye's narrative. The four young men were identified, and the accuser was not. As you read the transcript, note that virtually every sentence uttered turned out to be grossly incorrect:
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: She was tied up in a men's bathroom stall where five men, one by one, would rape her.
CHIEF STEVEN SKRYNECKI, NASSAU CO. POLICE DEPT: It's possible that her cries were not heard.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: An 18-year-old Hofstra student recounted her traumatic ordeal to police. It all happened Sunday around 3 a.m. The student first met one of her attackers, Jesus Ortiz, at a dance held on the Hofstra campus. Police say Ortiz snatched her cell phone as a way of getting the girl to go back to a dorm with him.
CHIEF STEVEN SKRYNECKI, NASSAU CO. POLICE DEPT: We believe he lured her into a dormitory, ah, for purposes of engaging in sexual activities with her.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: Trying to get her phone back, the girl followed Ortiz back to a dorm close by. That's where her attackers were waiting with the rope ready to tie her down and rape her.
CHIEF STEVEN SKRYNECKI, NASSAU CO. POLICE DEPT: Ultimately pushed her into a stall within the bathroom, bound her within the stall, and then began to have sex with her.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: At that point, three other men showed up. Seeing them, she was relieved, at first. She pleaded for help. But then she soon realized they were there to rape her, too. Now, four of the men are charged with five counts of rape. Police are still looking for a fifth man. Only one of the men actually attended Hofstra, but regardless, students on campus are horrified by the incident.
VERONICA DESOUZA (STUDENT): Someone takes your cell phone and you want it back. I mean, she didn't know that she was going to be tied up and and raped in a bathroom.
DOUG TEMPLE (STUDENT): It happened ah right below us, actually. It was kind of, freaked me out.
LINDSAY DWYER (STUDENT): Its just a horrible thing to hear about somebody. Especially, she was a freshman, like, your second week of school, like, it's just, it's horrible.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: Those who knew the student Rondell Bedward are especially stunned.
VICTORIA LIRO (STUDENT): He's been in, like, my room with me, you know I, it's crazy. That's scary.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: The four men arrested all pleaded not guilty and are each being held on a $500,000 bond. If convicted, all face up to 25 years in prison. In Hempstead, New York, Bonny Ghosh, the Associated Press.
______________________
In light of what we now know, we must wonder if the reporter's name was even Bonny Ghosh, or if she got that wrong, too.
If that wasn't chilling to you -- in light of what we now know -- if the crucifixion of these innocent young men by a news reporter doesn't sicken you, you've got serious problems.
I wish Bonny Ghosh would write to this blog to explain herself. Her story was a disgrace.
Just imagine if that story had made it clear that the only evidence for the alleged rape was the word of the young accuser, and that the four arrested men told consistent stories that no rape occurred. Imagine further if Ms. Ghosh had pointed out that no one on the floor heard anything, when typically, everyday sounds presumably far less tumultuous than a vicious gang rape are heard on the floor. Imagine further if Ms. Ghosh had revealed that the alleged rope that supposedly tied the woman up was not found at the scene, but that used condoms were. And imagine if Ms. Ghosh had pointed out that even the accuser admitted that the alleged rapists asked her to come with them after the alleged rape.
In short, imagine if Ms. Ghosh, the New York Post, and everyone else had reported the facts in a complete, fair, and objective manner instead of doing the journalistic equivalent of jumping out of the bushes and yelling "boo." If the facts had been reported fairly, it is likely that most people would have been skeptical of the rape claim, to say the least. Instead, the news media chose to present a naked allegation as a scary rape, and to brand four young minority males as vicious rapists.
Yet, according to members of the sexual grievance industry, news reports don't do enough to place the blame for alleged rapes on men.
That lie absolutely sickens me.
This is a relatively recent canard of the SGI, and is one that is gaining currency. (Another is that there is no typical rapist -- that rape cuts across every socioeconomic demographic. That is not only insulting to our intelligence, it obscures some critically important issues: http://goldenstatesociety.blogspot.com/2011/04/elephant-in-room-there-is-typical.html)
An example of this thinking from last week's news: “Frequently the way crimes are reported contributes to the problem of victim blaming,” explained Kathy Agnon, Coordinator for the Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women. “Headlines typically read ‘Woman Gets Raped’ instead of 'Man Rapes Woman,' which only serves to put the focus of the event on the survivor, instead of the aggressor.” http://santacruz.patch.com/articles/myths-about-sexual-assault-and-domestic-violence-still-keep-victims-from-seeking-justice
This is yet another made-up assertion, concocted out of victim whole cloth to reinforce the view that society fails to protect rape victims. It is palpably absurd on its face.
Let us talk about the way rape is reported to demonstrate the gross error.
Anonymity for accusers, not for the men accused
Rape and its related sex offenses are the only alleged crimes where the name of the accuser is not reported. Far from "blaming the victim," rape accusers are afforded protections that no other alleged crime victim enjoys.
We do women no favors by treating them the way we treat infants and the insane. It only underscores a terrible stereotype about female helplessness.
While rape accusers are enshrouded in anonymity, men accused of rape are publicly named and humiliated. Often, it is enough to destroy their lives. And if you need examples of this, spend a month or so reading this blog for several hours a day (that's how long it will take you).
Why is this a special problem for rape claims? I am amazed that I am even forced to explain this.
First, let's use me as an example. The chances of me being falsely accused of any other serious crime -- burglary, murder, robbery -- are infinitesimal. No one would take seriously a claim that I robbed a bank. Moreover, even if it did happen (and it couldn't), the chances of me not being able to clear my name almost immediately if I were accused of any other serious crime is essentially non-existent.
Not so with rape. Any male capable of having sex, and even boys too young, are fair game as far as rape claims go. Is it surprising that false rape claims are made multiple times more often than false claims of any other crime, as we've shown on this blog time and time again? Is that so shocking, given the ease with which false rape claims are made, and given that every post-pubescent male is fair game for a rape claim?
Moreover, once a rape charge is made, it's almost impossible to fully clear your name, even if the woman recants. People will always think "something" happened. With rape charges, very often the only phsyical evidence of the "crime" is the same evidence of the most intimate act of love, practiced somewhere in the world multiple times every second of every day since the world began. An act of love can be transformed into an alleged crime for terribly improper reasons, as we see on this blog every day of the week.
Second, rape and its related crimes are widely regarded as loathesome in a way other crimes aren't. Watch what happens to a young man convicted of rape when he goes to prison. He is often the target of repeated, brutal rapes, even if he's innocent.
Rush to judgment
Complaining that men aren't sufficiently targeted in news reports about rape would be laughable if the subject weren't so serious. Rape accusations are typically reported as if a rape occurred. The male accused is typically treated as a rapist. News reporters become little more than stenographers for police, who typically don't reveal the weak points of their cases to the news media.
Take the false claim at Hofstra: TV reporters described the supposed event with a frightening gravitas. The transcript of one particular chilling news report (set forth below in its entirety) underscores the rush to judgment that marked the entire affair. Not only did the reporter parrot what police told her, she did not make it clear that the evidence for the alleged rape was just the word of an 18-year-old woman. Nor did she bother to explain that the four young men told consistent stories, which contradicted the accuser's tale. Nor did she bother to point out the holes in Ndonye's narrative. The four young men were identified, and the accuser was not. As you read the transcript, note that virtually every sentence uttered turned out to be grossly incorrect:
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: She was tied up in a men's bathroom stall where five men, one by one, would rape her.
CHIEF STEVEN SKRYNECKI, NASSAU CO. POLICE DEPT: It's possible that her cries were not heard.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: An 18-year-old Hofstra student recounted her traumatic ordeal to police. It all happened Sunday around 3 a.m. The student first met one of her attackers, Jesus Ortiz, at a dance held on the Hofstra campus. Police say Ortiz snatched her cell phone as a way of getting the girl to go back to a dorm with him.
CHIEF STEVEN SKRYNECKI, NASSAU CO. POLICE DEPT: We believe he lured her into a dormitory, ah, for purposes of engaging in sexual activities with her.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: Trying to get her phone back, the girl followed Ortiz back to a dorm close by. That's where her attackers were waiting with the rope ready to tie her down and rape her.
CHIEF STEVEN SKRYNECKI, NASSAU CO. POLICE DEPT: Ultimately pushed her into a stall within the bathroom, bound her within the stall, and then began to have sex with her.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: At that point, three other men showed up. Seeing them, she was relieved, at first. She pleaded for help. But then she soon realized they were there to rape her, too. Now, four of the men are charged with five counts of rape. Police are still looking for a fifth man. Only one of the men actually attended Hofstra, but regardless, students on campus are horrified by the incident.
VERONICA DESOUZA (STUDENT): Someone takes your cell phone and you want it back. I mean, she didn't know that she was going to be tied up and and raped in a bathroom.
DOUG TEMPLE (STUDENT): It happened ah right below us, actually. It was kind of, freaked me out.
LINDSAY DWYER (STUDENT): Its just a horrible thing to hear about somebody. Especially, she was a freshman, like, your second week of school, like, it's just, it's horrible.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: Those who knew the student Rondell Bedward are especially stunned.
VICTORIA LIRO (STUDENT): He's been in, like, my room with me, you know I, it's crazy. That's scary.
BONNY GHOSH, ASSOCIATE PRESS: The four men arrested all pleaded not guilty and are each being held on a $500,000 bond. If convicted, all face up to 25 years in prison. In Hempstead, New York, Bonny Ghosh, the Associated Press.
______________________
In light of what we now know, we must wonder if the reporter's name was even Bonny Ghosh, or if she got that wrong, too.
If that wasn't chilling to you -- in light of what we now know -- if the crucifixion of these innocent young men by a news reporter doesn't sicken you, you've got serious problems.
I wish Bonny Ghosh would write to this blog to explain herself. Her story was a disgrace.
Just imagine if that story had made it clear that the only evidence for the alleged rape was the word of the young accuser, and that the four arrested men told consistent stories that no rape occurred. Imagine further if Ms. Ghosh had pointed out that no one on the floor heard anything, when typically, everyday sounds presumably far less tumultuous than a vicious gang rape are heard on the floor. Imagine further if Ms. Ghosh had revealed that the alleged rope that supposedly tied the woman up was not found at the scene, but that used condoms were. And imagine if Ms. Ghosh had pointed out that even the accuser admitted that the alleged rapists asked her to come with them after the alleged rape.
In short, imagine if Ms. Ghosh, the New York Post, and everyone else had reported the facts in a complete, fair, and objective manner instead of doing the journalistic equivalent of jumping out of the bushes and yelling "boo." If the facts had been reported fairly, it is likely that most people would have been skeptical of the rape claim, to say the least. Instead, the news media chose to present a naked allegation as a scary rape, and to brand four young minority males as vicious rapists.
Yet, according to members of the sexual grievance industry, news reports don't do enough to place the blame for alleged rapes on men.
That lie absolutely sickens me.
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