Over The Years: The Academy Awards' best YouTube moments

Longtime observers of the Oscars sometimes talk about YouTube moments -- essentially onstage highlights or gaffes that become water-cooler fodder for the morning after. Every Oscar producer knows that, for all the constraints put in place to keep the show orderly and dignified (and moving along), a moment of choreographed spontaneity never hurts -- think Hugh Jackman pulling Anne Hathaway up from the audience, Courteney Cox-style, during the opening number two years ago. (True spontaneity, of the David Niven/streaker variety, is nearly unheard of these days.)

Here's our rundown of Oscar's top five YouTube moments -- click on the links to see video -- from the last 25 years.

5) Cuba Gooding's expression of love (1997)
He was a discontented football player in "Jerry Maguire," but he was far more ... exuberant when it came time to accept his supporting actor prize. Gooding shouted his love for everyone in Hollywood even as the orchestra played behind him, a kind of sonic war of wills, while, in the crowd, Tom Cruise, Steve Martin and others couldn't contain their laughter.

4) Anna Paquin's moment of silence (1994)
People always hold their breath when a youngster gets up to accept an award. They just don't expect the winner to do the same. The first 10 seconds or so of the 11-year-old Paquin's speech -- she won for supporting actress in "The Piano" -- featured pauses, sharp inhalations and other false starts, but no words. When she finally spoke, the New Zealand ingenue, rocking a Heidi dress, thanked a few collaborators directly and then left the stage without further ceremony.

3) Roberto Benigni clambering over seats (1999) and James Cameron proclaiming himself king of the world (1998)
There was something similar about their exuberance -- Benigni, winning best actor for "Life Is Beautiful," shouting "I love all of you" after he took the longer route to the podium. And Cameron, upon winning best director, ending a rather prosaic speech with an ode to his "King of the World" line from "Titanic," shouting it and then continuing to hoot and holler even as he was ushered away from the podium.

2) Jack Palance's one-armed loopiness (1992)
Jack Palance had had a remarkably diverse 40-year career in entertainment -- theater, film, music and television -- when, at the age of 73, he won his first Oscar, a supporting actor statuette for his role as a leather-faced cowboy in "City Slickers."  Rather than accepting his career capper with quiet dignity, Palance gave the lie to the notion of a graceful Old Hollywood. He began his speech with "Billy Crystal, I've crapped bigger than him" -- referring to the host and his costar -- soon got down on the floor to do one-armed push-ups and then meandered bizarrely into an off-color routine about prostitutes.

1) Adrien Brody's work of art (2003)
Everyone remembers The Kiss -- maybe because Halle Berry could be seen stage right wiping her lips after it happened. But when Adrien Brody accepted his best actor trophy for his role as a Warsaw Ghetto survivor in in "The Pianist," he also gave one of the most unexpected speeches -- and that was after he planted one on Berry. Brody seemed genuinely flustered at first, and talked his way out of it with a series of self-deprecating jokes. ("There comes a time in life when everything seems to make sense. This is not one of those times.") Then he was overcome with emotion and actually silenced the music, successfully, when the orchestra tried to prod him off the stage. These Oscars were held just at the start of the Iraq war, and Brody wrapped up his remarks with an unexpectedly emotional plea about the troops and Allah that got the audience on its feet. It was like three speeches in one. Or one great YouTube moment. --Steven Zeitchik, LA Times

Horrific US Medical Experiments Come to Light

Shocking as it may seem, U.S. government doctors once thought it was fine to experiment on disabled people and prison inmates. Such experiments included giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital.

Much of this horrific history is 40 to 80 years old, but it is the backdrop for a meeting in Washington this week by a presidential bioethics commission. The meeting was triggered by the government's apology last fall for federal doctors infecting prisoners and mental patients in Guatemala with syphilis 65 years ago.

U.S. officials also acknowledged there had been dozens of similar experiments in the United States - studies that often involved making healthy people sick.

AP

In this June 25, 1945 photo, a doctor exposes a patient to malaria-carrying mosquitoes at Stateville Penitentiary in Crest Hill, Ill. A series of malaria studies at Stateville and two other prisons were designed to test antimalarial drugs that could have helped soldiers fighting in the Pacific during World War II.

An exhaustive review by The Associated Press of medical journal reports and decades-old press clippings found more than 40 such studies. At best, these were a search for lifesaving treatments; at worst, some amounted to curiosity-satisfying experiments that hurt people but provided no useful results.

Inevitably, they will be compared to the well-known Tuskegee syphilis study. In that episode, U.S. health officials tracked 600 black men in Alabama who already had syphilis but didn't give them adequate treatment even after penicillin became available.

These studies were worse in at least one respect - they violated the concept of "first do no harm," a fundamental medical principle that stretches back centuries.

"When you give somebody a disease - even by the standards of their time - you really cross the key ethical norm of the profession," said Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics.

Some of these studies, mostly from the 1940s to the '60s, apparently were never covered by news media. Others were reported at the time, but the focus was on the promise of enduring new cures, while glossing over how test subjects were treated.

Attitudes about medical research were different then. Infectious diseases killed many more people years ago, and doctors worked urgently to invent and test cures. Many prominent researchers felt it was legitimate to experiment on people who did not have full rights in society - people like prisoners, mental patients, poor blacks. It was an attitude in some ways similar to that of Nazi doctors experimenting on Jews.

"There was definitely a sense - that we don't have today - that sacrifice for the nation was important," said Laura Stark, a Wesleyan University assistant professor of science in society, who is writing a book about past federal medical experiments.

The AP review of past research found:

-A federally funded study begun in 1942 injected experimental flu vaccine in male patients at a state insane asylum in Ypsilanti, Mich., then exposed them to flu several months later. It was co-authored by Dr. Jonas Salk, who a decade later would become famous as inventor of the polio vaccine.

Some of the men weren't able to describe their symptoms, raising serious questions about how well they understood what was being done to them. One newspaper account mentioned the test subjects were "senile and debilitated." Then it quickly moved on to the promising results.

-In federally funded studies in the 1940s, noted researcher Dr. W. Paul Havens Jr. exposed men to hepatitis in a series of experiments, including one using patients from mental institutions in Middletown and Norwich, Conn. Havens, a World Health Organization expert on viral diseases, was one of the first scientists to differentiate types of hepatitis and their causes.

A search of various news archives found no mention of the mental patients study, which made eight healthy men ill but broke no new ground in understanding the disease.

-Researchers in the mid-1940s studied the transmission of a deadly stomach bug by having young men swallow unfiltered stool suspension. The study was conducted at the New York State Vocational Institution, a reformatory prison in West Coxsackie. The point was to see how well the disease spread that way as compared to spraying the germs and having test subjects breathe it. Swallowing it was a more effective way to spread the disease, the researchers concluded. The study doesn't explain if the men were rewarded for this awful task.

-A University of Minnesota study in the late 1940s injected 11 public service employee volunteers with malaria, then starved them for five days. Some were also subjected to hard labor, and those men lost an average of 14 pounds. They were treated for malarial fevers with quinine sulfate. One of the authors was Ancel Keys, a noted dietary scientist who developed K-rations for the military and the Mediterranean diet for the public. But a search of various news archives found no mention of the study.

-For a study in 1957, when the Asian flu pandemic was spreading, federal researchers sprayed the virus in the noses of 23 inmates at Patuxent prison in Jessup, Md., to compare their reactions to those of 32 virus-exposed inmates who had been given a new vaccine.

-Government researchers in the 1950s tried to infect about two dozen volunteering prison inmates with gonorrhea using two different methods in an experiment at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta. The bacteria was pumped directly into the urinary tract through the penis, according to their paper.

The men quickly developed the disease, but the researchers noted this method wasn't comparable to how men normally got infected - by having sex with an infected partner. The men were later treated with antibiotics. The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, but there was no mention of it in various news archives.

Though people in the studies were usually described as volunteers, historians and ethicists have questioned how well these people understood what was to be done to them and why, or whether they were coerced.

Prisoners have long been victimized for the sake of science. In 1915, the U.S. government's Dr. Joseph Goldberger - today remembered as a public health hero - recruited Mississippi inmates to go on special rations to prove his theory that the painful illness pellagra was caused by a dietary deficiency. (The men were offered pardons for their participation.)

But studies using prisoners were uncommon in the first few decades of the 20th century, and usually performed by researchers considered eccentric even by the standards of the day. One was Dr. L.L. Stanley, resident physician at San Quentin prison in California, who around 1920 attempted to treat older, "devitalized men" by implanting in them testicles from livestock and from recently executed convicts.

Newspapers wrote about Stanley's experiments, but the lack of outrage is striking.

"Enter San Quentin penitentiary in the role of the Fountain of Youth - an institution where the years are made to roll back for men of failing mentality and vitality and where the spring is restored to the step, wit to the brain, vigor to the muscles and ambition to the spirit. All this has been done, is being done ... by a surgeon with a scalpel," began one rosy report published in November 1919 in The Washington Post.

Around the time of World War II, prisoners were enlisted to help the war effort by taking part in studies that could help the troops. For example, a series of malaria studies at Stateville Penitentiary in Illinois and two other prisons was designed to test antimalarial drugs that could help soldiers fighting in the Pacific.

It was at about this time that prosecution of Nazi doctors in 1947 led to the "Nuremberg Code," a set of international rules to protect human test subjects. Many U.S. doctors essentially ignored them, arguing that they applied to Nazi atrocities - not to American medicine.

The late 1940s and 1950s saw huge growth in the U.S. pharmaceutical and health care industries, accompanied by a boom in prisoner experiments funded by both the government and corporations. By the 1960s, at least half the states allowed prisoners to be used as medical guinea pigs.

But two studies in the 1960s proved to be turning points in the public's attitude toward the way test subjects were treated.

The first came to light in 1963. Researchers injected cancer cells into 19 old and debilitated patients at a Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital in the New York borough of Brooklyn to see if their bodies would reject them.

The hospital director said the patients were not told they were being injected with cancer cells because there was no need - the cells were deemed harmless. But the experiment upset a lawyer named William Hyman who sat on the hospital's board of directors. The state investigated, and the hospital ultimately said any such experiments would require the patient's written consent.

At nearby Staten Island, from 1963 to 1966, a controversial medical study was conducted at the Willowbrook State School for children with mental retardation. The children were intentionally given hepatitis orally and by injection to see if they could then be cured with gamma globulin.

Those two studies - along with the Tuskegee experiment revealed in 1972 - proved to be a "holy trinity" that sparked extensive and critical media coverage and public disgust, said Susan Reverby, the Wellesley College historian who first discovered records of the syphilis study in Guatemala.

By the early 1970s, even experiments involving prisoners were considered scandalous. In widely covered congressional hearings in 1973, pharmaceutical industry officials acknowledged they were using prisoners for testing because they were cheaper than chimpanzees.

Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia made extensive use of inmates for medical experiments. Some of the victims are still around to talk about it. Edward "Yusef" Anthony, featured in a book about the studies, says he agreed to have a layer of skin peeled off his back, which was coated with searing chemicals to test a drug. He did that for money to buy cigarettes in prison.

"I said 'Oh my God, my back is on fire! Take this ... off me!'" Anthony said in an interview with The Associated Press, as he recalled the beginning of weeks of intense itching and agonizing pain.

The government responded with reforms. Among them: The U.S. Bureau of Prisons in the mid-1970s effectively excluded all research by drug companies and other outside agencies within federal prisons.

As the supply of prisoners and mental patients dried up, researchers looked to other countries.

It made sense. Clinical trials could be done more cheaply and with fewer rules. And it was easy to find patients who were taking no medication, a factor that can complicate tests of other drugs.

Additional sets of ethical guidelines have been enacted, and few believe that another Guatemala study could happen today. "It's not that we're out infecting anybody with things," Caplan said.

Still, in the last 15 years, two international studies sparked outrage.

One was likened to Tuskegee. U.S.-funded doctors failed to give the AIDS drug AZT to all the HIV-infected pregnant women in a study in Uganda even though it would have protected their newborns. U.S. health officials argued the study would answer questions about AZT's use in the developing world.

The other study, by Pfizer Inc., gave an antibiotic named Trovan to children with meningitis in Nigeria, although there were doubts about its effectiveness for that disease. Critics blamed the experiment for the deaths of 11 children and the disabling of scores of others. Pfizer settled a lawsuit with Nigerian officials for $75 million but admitted no wrongdoing.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general reported that between 40 and 65 percent of clinical studies of federally regulated medical products were done in other countries in 2008, and that proportion probably has grown. The report also noted that U.S. regulators inspected fewer than 1 percent of foreign clinical trial sites.

Monitoring research is complicated, and rules that are too rigid could slow new drug development. But it's often hard to get information on international trials, sometimes because of missing records and a paucity of audits, said Dr. Kevin Schulman, a Duke University professor of medicine who has written on the ethics of international studies.

These issues were still being debated when, last October, the Guatemala study came to light.

In the 1946-48 study, American scientists infected prisoners and patients in a mental hospital in Guatemala with syphilis, apparently to test whether penicillin could prevent some sexually transmitted disease. The study came up with no useful information and was hidden for decades.

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The Guatemala study nauseated ethicists on multiple levels. Beyond infecting patients with a terrible illness, it was clear that people in the study did not understand what was being done to them or were not able to give their consent. Indeed, though it happened at a time when scientists were quick to publish research that showed frank disinterest in the rights of study participants, this study was buried in file drawers.

"It was unusually unethical, even at the time," said Stark, the Wesleyan researcher.

"When the president was briefed on the details of the Guatemalan episode, one of his first questions was whether this sort of thing could still happen today," said Rick Weiss, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

That it occurred overseas was an opening for the Obama administration to have the bioethics panel seek a new evaluation of international medical studies. The president also asked the Institute of Medicine to further probe the Guatemala study, but the IOM relinquished the assignment in November, after reporting its own conflict of interest: In the 1940s, five members of one of the IOM's sister organizations played prominent roles in federal syphilis research and had links to the Guatemala study.

So the bioethics commission gets both tasks. To focus on federally funded international studies, the commission has formed an international panel of about a dozen experts in ethics, science and clinical research. Regarding the look at the Guatemala study, the commission has hired 15 staff investigators and is working with additional historians and other consulting experts.

The panel is to send a report to Obama by September. Any further steps would be up to the administration.

Some experts say that given such a tight deadline, it would be a surprise if the commission produced substantive new information about past studies. "They face a really tough challenge," Caplan said.

AP news researchers Susan James and Julie Reed Bell contributed to this report.

Scientist At Work : Palace of the Mayan Kings

I have been stuck in the trench at the East Court for three seasons and have been supervising operations there since 2006. We decided to excavate there because we thought that the buildings around this elevated plaza might have been used as the royal palace of Ceibal during the last years of its occupation, in the period called the Terminal Classic (about A.D. 830 to 980).

We also wanted to explore the earlier occupation phases of this seven-meter-high platform and see how they may be related to its final use by the kings of Ceibal. Two early test excavations by the Harvard project had shown substantial Preclassic construction layers.

It turned out that the East Court was indeed the royal palace during the last years of Ceibal. We found a magnificent building with a throne room and a painted stucco facade flanking two other buildings in the courtyard. The investigations by Harvard indicated that during the preceding period (A.D. 600 to 830) the kings of Ceibal probably lived at a more defensible location, while our evidence of the earliest occupation of the site points to its use as the city’s ceremonial center. By the beginning of the end of Ceibal, the last rulers built a new palace complex in the East Court, and one of our questions is, why here?

After exposing the latest buildings, we started several deep trench excavations in front of the Terminal Classic buildings to get information about the earlier constructions in this area. Last year one of these excavations reached 7.4 meters in front of the stuccoed building, revealing 27 floors and an occupation as early as that found in the “Big Pit” and the Central Plaza. We still had not reached bedrock by the end of the season. Deep excavations in front of the other buildings of the court revealed massive Middle Preclassic (600 to 300 B.C.) constructions with large buildings that formed a courtyard very similar to the very latest configuration in the Terminal Classic 1,300 years later. These excavations showed us that this area had been a very important place since the beginning of the site and that all of the seven-meter-high platform that we see today was built by the Maya.

The Terminal Classic was a politically unstable period, and most of the big Maya cities in the region had already been abandoned. Ceibal itself had come under the power of another kingdom in the eighth century and only around A.D. 800 emerged from this political domination. We think that the Terminal Classic kings built their new palace here precisely because it had been an important place since time immemorial. By building their palace in this spot, they deliberately emphasized their connection to their very remote ancestors, the founders of Ceibal, which helped them to legitimize their rule and to reconsolidate their power.

But we still needed to find out where settlement first took place. When we arrived this year, ready to continue the deep pit in front of the palace building, we found that part of it had become unstable. Obviously we could not continue working in this excavation. A part of another deep trench also became somewhat unstable, and we decided to secure one area of this excavation with lime mortar to be able to dig deeper. Because of these difficulties, we expanded the old Harvard excavation into a 4-by-5-meter area, so that we would have more space to take it to the origins of occupation.

I would like to thank the readers of this blog who were concerned for my safety. I can assure you that I am not suicidal and that my husband does not want to get rid of me — or at least I think he doesn’t. I am even more zealous about pit safety than about excavation forms or the stomachs of the crew, especially as my workers and I have to go down there all the time. The fills are very solid clays that are not moving, and where we detect potential problems we either shore areas up with planks or consolidate them with lime mortar. For instance, in the deep pit that caused so much concern, we spent a week consolidating the section of problematic fill. But thank you again for looking out for me.

By DANIELA TRIADAN 

http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/maya-kings-and-their-ancestors/?hpw 

Mahoney Disgraceful Through The End

New chapter in church sex abuse scandal is written in Cardinal Roger Mahony's final weeks.

By Steve Lopez; L.A. Times

A priest who admitted to being a molester kept his job, joined the Los Angeles Archdiocese advisory panel on sexual abuse, and contacted his former victim decades after the abuse. He was dismissed only this month.

Cardinal Roger Mahony is down to his last week on the job, but my invitation to the going-away party must have been lost in the mail.

Before His Eminence passes the torch, I put in one last request for an interview, to no avail. That keeps my record intact, but it's a shame because I had several questions about the latest scandal at the archdiocese. This one involves a priest who admitted he was a molester but remained in ministry. The good reverend was even appointed, if you can believe this, to Mahony's sexual abuse advisory board.

The priest in question is the Rev. Martin O'Loghlen, who was abruptly dismissed Feb. 10 from his post at a parish in San Dimas. The next day, another clergyman lost his job. Mahony accepted the resignation of Msgr. Michael Meyers, who was vicar of clergy for the archdiocese and directly responsible for vetting priests who are assigned to parishes.

These events transpired after a member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests went to the New York Times with information about O'Loghlen's past, and the L.A. Times and other news organizations followed with stories. In reading those accounts, though, it wasn't clear to me exactly what Mahony might have known about O'Loghlen and when he knew it.

Here's the background.

While assigned to Bishop Amat High School in La Puente back in the 1960s, O'Loghlen had a series of sexual encounters with a teenage student in his debate class. Three decades later, O'Loghlen began leaving phone messages for his former victim, Julie Malcolm, who had moved to Phoenix. She filed a complaint with the diocese there.

"I am deeply sorry for our becoming involved and readily accept the fact that I was the responsible one in our relationship," O'Loghlen said in a letter to Malcolm in which he called himself a sex addict.

In the creepiest part of the letter, he wrote: "I sincerely hope that there were some moments of joy for you in our relationship."

Relationship? Moments of joy?

Malcolm was outraged at the suggestion and felt abused all over again. She said that the liaisons with O'Loghlen when she was 16 and 17 left her a mess. She felt intimidated by the priest, who was more than twice her age, and she was afraid to speak up, though she said she did report O'Loghlen to a parish priest, to no avail.

"I was a suicidal, crazy little girl when all this was happening," she told me from Phoenix, where she has retired from a nursing career with a stress-related disability after years of psychological trauma.

Malcolm said the first phone message from O'Loghlen, when he tried to contact her after decades, was chilling.

"I was making macaroni and cheese for my 4-year-old when the phone rang, and I ignored it. When I played it back, he said, 'Hello, Julie, this is Martin O'Loghlen.' I couldn't believe it. He said he wanted to get together with me. Get together? Like hell I would."

Malcolm sued O'Loghlen and his religious order, the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and settled the case in 1999 for $100,000.

And yet O'Loghlen did not lose his job. In fact, after psychiatric evaluation and therapy and an exchange of letters between Los Angeles Archdiocese officials and leaders of O'Loghlen's order in Rome, O'Loghlen was quickly cleared to return to work.

"I am happy to tell you that there are no restrictions placed on your ministry," Msgr. Richard Loomis, Mahony's vicar of clergy, wrote to O'Loghlen on Oct. 10, 1996. "I also want to take this opportunity to thank you for your willingness to serve on the Sexual Abuse Advisory Board. Cardinal Mahony, Father Curtis Bryant ... and myself, all feel that you will bring valuable insights to the work of the Board."

Valuable insights?

Members of the abuse board, established by Mahony, were supposed to review allegations against priests like O'Loghlen. Did they think a molester would know how to sniff out other molesters?

O'Loghlen served on that board for about two years before becoming a pastor in the Philippines for five years. In 2009, he was assigned to San Dimas despite having been named in Mahony's 2004 "Report to the People of God" for sexual misconduct.

How could that have happened?

"The failure to fully check records before granting priestly faculties is a violation of archdiocesan policy," Mahony said in a news release. In other words, Meyers didn't do a full records check, so he was relieved along with O'Loghlen while Mahony posed as a reformer, saying "we owe it to victims" to make sure policies are "scrupulously followed."
Tod Tamberg, director of media relations, told me Mahony was not aware that O'Loghlen had been assigned to San Dimas. In Mahony's defense, I suppose it's possible he has trouble keeping track of so many pedophiles, given the fact that his archdiocese was forced into a $660-million settlement with 508 people who alleged they were abused by priests as children.
But surely Mahony had to remember O'Loghlen's appointment to the sexual abuse advisory board, right?
"Cardinal Mahony does not remember Father O'Loghlen," Tamberg said by e-mail.

 Wouldn't Mahony have been aware of an exchange of letters with Rome regarding O'Loghlen's abuse?

"Cardinal Mahony does not remember Father O'Loghlen," Tamberg said again.

So in the letter that said the cardinal thought O'Loghlen would bring "valuable insights" to the board, Mahony wasn't in the loop?

Tamberg's response: "Cardinal Mahony does not remember Father O'Loghlen."

You say it enough times, it almost sounds like a prayer.

Editorial From the NY Times: 'Spreading Anti-Union Agenda'

Like a wind-whipped brush fire, the mass union protests that began in Madison, Wis., last week have spread to the capitals of Ohio and Indiana where Republican lawmakers also are trying to cripple the bargaining power of unions — and ultimately realize a cherished partisan dream of eradicating them. In each case, Republican talk of balancing budgets is cover for the real purpose of gutting the political force of middle-class state workers, who are steady supporters of Democrats and pose a threat to a growing conservative agenda.

In Ohio, Republican legislators, backed by Gov. John Kasich, have introduced a bill to end collective bargaining for state employees, in addition to imposing budgetary givebacks. Former Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat who was defeated by Mr. Kasich last year, has called the bill a “coordinated attack on the working middle class.” Thousands of union supporters showed up at the Capitol in Columbus on Tuesday, but the party appears to have the votes to pass the measure.

Across the border, Republicans are pushing a bill that would make Indiana what is misleadingly known as a “right-to-work” state. That means workers cannot be required to join public- or private-sector unions or pay dues, starving unions of the money they need to operate. Democrats in the Indiana House left the state to prevent a vote, tying up all legislation for two days. Thousands of workers have rallied on the Statehouse grounds. Gov. Mitch Daniels (who ended collective-bargaining rights for state workers in 2005) has supported the bill’s concept but on Tuesday urged Republicans to drop it because it could interfere with other items on his agenda.

Conservative leaders in most states with strong unions have in the past generally made accommodations with organized labor, often winning support on social issues in return. That changed this year after wealthy conservatives poured tens of millions of dollars into the election campaigns of hard-right candidates like Mr. Kasich and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

As Eric Lipton reported in The Times on Tuesday, the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, who have long been staunch union opponents, were among the biggest contributors to Mr. Walker. (Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group financed by the Kochs, will begin running anti-union broadcast ads in Wisconsin in the next few days.)

Some public sector unions have contracts and benefits that are too rich for these times, but even when they have made concessions, Republican officials have kept up the attack. The Republicans’ claim to be acting on behalf of taxpayers is not believable.

In Wisconsin, union leaders agreed to concessions requested by Mr. Walker: to pay nearly 6 percent of their wages for pension costs, up from nearly zero, and double payments for health insurance. At that point, most governors would declare victory and move on. Instead, Mr. Walker has rejected union concessions and won’t even negotiate. His true priority is stripping workers of collective-bargaining rights and reducing their unions to a shell. The unions would no longer be able to raise money to oppose him, as they did in last year’s election, easing the way for future Republicans as well.

The game is up when unionized state workers demonstrate a sense of shared sacrifice but Republican lawmakers won’t even allow them a seat at the table. For unions and Democrats in the Midwest, this is an existential struggle, and it is one worth waging.

Lest We Forget : Re-Calculating the True Cost of Deepwater Horizon

Just one more look back, please, lest we forget. The Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico provides a telling example of how to calculate the true cost of "progress." As economists join with scientists, we are moving from observation and study to predictable measurement and advance calculation of the true value of natural resources -- the cost of their development, of their loss, of the mitigation and adaptation required by their consequence, and of their implementation without first taking into consideration the broader and deeper financial implications for the community, immediately and downstream.

Historically, the conventional corporate argument, typically made to local communities, regulators, and state and federal legislators, has been that the presence of an offshore drilling industry be valued in terms of jobs created, taxes and royalties paid, and value added to the overall financial health of the local, national, and indeed global economy. Given the quarterly financial reports of the oil companies, this evaluation adds up to substantial profit. But so much is left out of the calculation.

For example, we tend to forget that the natural resources within any national 200-mile limit are owned by the public and that, as such, government is obliged to exploit that capacity for the national good. In many cases, the legislation enabling the licensing of these resources requires royalty payment frequently designated to restricted funds for specific purposes: scientific research, education, environmental protection or historic preservation. While that may be true on paper, those royalties most often end up not in support of those designated purposes, but in the general fund.

Moreover, it is evident that the royalties collected are only a fraction of the market value of those resources, and the profits generated, even after all the substantial costs of administration, exploration, drilling, transportation, refining, distribution, and conversion into innumerable oil-based products, when distributed to the shareholders, represent a not so visible but very real transfer of value from owners to investors, from public sector to private sector, from the many to the few, in not necessarily equitable percentage. Most of us are left out, or in to pay yet again at the gas pump.

In addition, government provides enormous public subsidy to the oil industry in the form of incentives and tax credits for exploration and research, technology development, depreciation, and many, many other legislative amendments, regulatory adjustments, and management decisions along the way made for the benefit of the industry. And, of course, there is the continuing presence of politicians and government officials, chosen for their influence, working as lobbyists or sitting on the boards of these companies and expected to avoid direct and indirect conflicts of interest.

What, then, is the true value of an oil well drilled a mile down offshore in a unique ecological zone subject to multiple uses? Is it simply the cost of the well or the price of the product? The real calculation must include all the ancillary expense and revenue, and the cost of their loss. When you begin to add up what the public has paid for DeepWater Horizon versus what has been gained -- and when you add the hidden subsidy -- and when you add the cost of dealing with the immediate consequence of the disaster -- and when you add the value of loss to the environmental refugees and communities affected -- and when you add the value of damage to the productive ecology and the future revenues lost -- and when you add the value of reparation, mitigation and restoration of lost resources going forward -- and, ironically, when you add collapsed shareholder investment in a wounded international company -- you have a dramatically different equation. From a balance sheet perspective, what in the near term seems profit is in the long term a financial disaster, visualized just a few months ago in the photos of oil slicks, wide and deep, fouled beaches, dead wildlife, destroyed wetlands, unemployed fishermen, bankrupt tourism businesses, depressed local economies, ruined communities -- all now rapidly forgotten, business as usual, as BP moves on to Russia.

Why would anyone invest in this strategy for the future?

by Peter Neill

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-neill/lest-we-forget-re-calculating-the-true-cost-of-deepwater-horizon_b_826276.html

Retiring Boomers Find 401(k) Plans Fall Short

The 401(k) generation is beginning to retire, and it isn't a pretty sight. 

 

Patti and Bob Webster had planned to retire in North Carolina but say they need to keep working.

The retirement savings plans that many baby boomers thought would see them through old age are falling short in many cases.

The median household headed by a person aged 60 to 62 with a 401(k) account has less than one-quarter of what is needed in that account to maintain its standard of living in retirement, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve and analyzed by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College for The Wall Street Journal. Even counting Social Security and any pensions or other savings, most 401(k) participants appear to have insufficient savings. Data from other sources also show big gaps between savings and what people need, and the financial crisis has made things worse.

This analysis uses estimates of 401(k) balances from the end of 2010 and of salaries from 2009. It assumes people need 85% of their working income after they retire in order to maintain their standard of living, a common yardstick.

Facing shortfalls, many people are postponing retirement, moving to cheaper housing, buying less-expensive food, cutting back on travel, taking bigger risks with their investments and making other sacrifices they never imagined.

"Inevitably, we find that, for the average person, there is not enough there," says financial adviser Paul Merritt of NTrust Wealth Management in Virginia Beach, Va., who has found himself advising many retirement-age people with too little savings. "The discussion turns out to be: What kind of part-time work do you want to do after you retire?"

He has clients contemplating part-time work into their 70s, he says.

Tax-deferred 401(k) retirement accounts came into wide use in the 1980s, making baby boomers trying to retire now among the first to rely heavily on them.

The problems are widespread, especially among middle-income earners. About 60% of households nearing retirement age have 401(k)-type accounts, according to government data, and those represent the majority of most people's savings. The situation is less dire for those in a higher income bracket, who tend to save more outside their 401(k) accounts and who have more margin for error if their retirement returns fall below the recommended 85% figure.

Steven Rutschmann, 60 years old, manages the buildings and grounds at a Midwest research facility. His employer recently offered him a bonus if he retired early.

Mr. Rutschmann's 401(k) is well into six figures. His wife has a 401(k) and expects a small pension from her nursing job. An outdoorsman, he dreams of spending time hunting, fishing and hiking.

So he consulted a financial planner at Ernst & Young and learned that even with the bonus, his savings could run out before he turns 85. Now he expects to work for several more years.

"I was disappointed," says Mr. Rutschmann, whose 401(k) balance was damaged by the financial crisis and who still has a large mortgage.

In general, people facing problems today got too little advice, or bad advice. They didn't realize that a 6% annual contribution, with a 3% company match, might not be enough.

Some started saving too late or suspended contributions when they or their spouses lost jobs. Others borrowed against 401(k) accounts for medical emergencies or ran up debts too close to their planned retirement dates.

In the stock-market collapses of 2000-2002 and 2007-2009, many people were over-invested in stocks. Some bailed out after the market collapse, suffering on the way down and then missing the rebound.

Initially envisioned as a way for management-level people to put aside extra retirement money, the 401(k) was embraced by big companies in the 1980s as a replacement for costly pension funds. Suddenly, they were able to transfer the burden of funding employees' retirement to the employees themselves. Employees had control over their savings, and were able carry them to new jobs.

They were a gold mine for money-management firms. In 30 years, the 401(k) went from a small program to a multi-trillion-dollar industry supporting thousands of financial planners and money managers.

But a 401(k) also requires steady, significant savings. And unlike corporate pension plans, which are guaranteed by the U.S. government, 401(k) plans have no such backstop.

The government and employers aren't going to pay more for people's retirements. Unless people begin saving earlier and contributing more to their 401(k) plans, advisers say, they are destined to hit retirement age with too little money.

Vanguard Group, one of the biggest providers of 401 (k) plans, has changed its advice on how much people should save. Vanguard long advised people to put 9% to 12% of their salaries—including the employer contribution—in their 401(k) plans. The current median amount that people contribute is 9%, counting the employer contribution, Vanguard says.

Recently, Vanguard has begun urging people to contribute 12% to 15%, including the employer contribution, because of the stock market's weak returns and uncertainty about the future of Social Security and Medicare.

Plans of younger people have been affected too. Of those 45 to 59 who had substantial retirement assets prior to the downturn, 40% planned to work longer, according to a study by the Center for Retirement Research.

Gloria Moss has been contributing to a 401(k) since 1985, when she went back to work after having children. Especially after divorcing, she wasn't able to contribute as much as she wished and when her children finished college, she focused on repaying college loans. She says she lost more than half her savings in the recent financial crisis, then shifted heavily to bonds and missed the stock rebound.

"I thought I was doing the right thing, and found out otherwise," she says. When she consulted a financial adviser, "I got a report that said, 'You have a 5% chance of reaching your retirement goal'."

In her early 60s, she is ready to retire, but if she does that now, "I will have $25,000 to $30,000 a year less than I anticipated having," she says.

To retire at her current standard of living, she figures, she needs nearly twice the savings she has now.

Dr. Moss, who has a Ph.D. in education, also made good decisions along the way. She saw trouble coming at the educational software company where she worked and found a new job a week after losing hers.

Now she has sold the condominium she loved, near the Atlantic Ocean, and moved to a cheaper house. She cut back on vacations and meals out. She adores the theater but hasn't been to a play in at least a year.

She works extra hours each week and contributes to her employer's version of a 401(k), but doesn't feel financially able to contribute the maximum amount.

"I am going to probably have to work considerably longer than I anticipated," she says. "It is a nice job but I had not planned to be working well into my sixties," she says. "A lot of people are doing that. They need the money."

It isn't possible to calculate precisely how many people are able to cover the recommended 85% of their pre-retirement income, but Federal Reserve data suggest that many people can't.

Consider households headed by people aged 60 to 62, nearing retirement, with a 401(k)-type account at their jobs.

Such households had a median income of $87,700 in 2009, according to data from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, which derived this and other numbers by updating Fed survey data, at The Journal's request. The 85% needed for retirement would be $74,545 a year.

Experts estimate Social Security will provide as much as 40% of pre-retirement income, or $35,080 a year for that median family. That leaves $39,465 needed from other sources. Most 401(k) accounts don't come close to making up that gap.

The median 401(k) plan held $149,400, including plans from previous jobs, according to the Center for Retirement Research. To figure the annual income from that, analysts typically look at what the family would get from a fixed annuity.

That $149,400 would generate just $9,073 a year for a couple, according to New York Life Insurance Co., the leading provider of such annuities— less than one-quarter of the $39,465 needed.

Just 8% of households approaching retirement have the $636,673 or more in their 401(k)s that would be needed to generate $39,465 a year.

Some families do have other income. Just under half expect pension income of a median $26,500 a year. Added to the $9,073 in 401(k) income, that still falls short. Some families have other savings, but Federal Reserve and other data suggest that those don't fill the gap for most people.

These data don't even include people who are in the direst situations: Those who have lost their jobs, stopped contributing to 401(k) plans or shifted to jobs without 401(k) plans. The numbers also don't account for inflation, which would further eat into income from a 401(k).

Some researchers question the Fed numbers because they are based on surveys rather than on records of actual contributions.

Jack VanDerhei, head of research at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a group supported by 401(k) providers, estimates the median person actually has about $158,754, based on data from 401(k) providers. That is based on individuals in their 60s who have been at the same company for more than 30 years, a somewhat different group than that measured by the Fed data.

Even that amount of 401(k) savings generates much less than what is needed.

The difficulties have been worsened by the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Since the housing and financial markets began to collapse, about 39% of all Americans have been foreclosed upon, unemployed, underwater on a mortgage or behind more than two months on a mortgage, says Michael Hurd, director of the Rand Corporation's Center for the Study of Aging.

In 2008, when he was 59, John Mastej figured he was on track to retire in his early 60s. He and his wife both were working, with 401(k) plans. Counting all their savings, they had close to $200,000. Mr. Mastej was putting 20% of his salary into his 401(k).

The financial collapse cut their savings in half and left Mr. Mastej out of work for two years, with no 401(k) contributions. He had to dip into other savings and use up an inheritance to pay the mortgage. He found a new job in a specialty food store, but it paid much less than his old one in a plastics factory.

Today, Mr. Mastej figures he has about $90,000 in savings left, including about $50,000 from the two 401(k)s, now mostly in a fixed annuity that isn't affected by the stock market. He and his wife have canceled their satellite television and drive 11-year-old cars to work.

They buy some food at discounted prices through their church, but are proud they have remained current on their mortgage, home-equity loan, insurance and property taxes.

"We don't go out to dinner. We don't do much entertaining," Mr. Mastej says. "I will probably end up having to work for another 10 years."

Carol Dailey is continuing to work at age 71. Ms. Dailey spent 10 years as an executive assistant at America Online and had stock options she figures were once worth $1.7 million. The options' value collapsed with the company's stock.

Now she relies on her 401(k), which took a hit in the 2008 market plunge. She has cut back spending for entertainment and organic food, and continues to work three days a week as an office manager for an Internet security company.

"At AOL, we were buying $60 bottles of wine and not blinking. Now I drink box wine," she says.

Eventually, she wants to retire completely. Then, to make ends meet, she plans to take bigger investment risks. Her financial adviser then will shift some of her savings out of an annuity and into high-yielding bonds and real-estate investment trusts, aiming to double the return on that money to 10% a year.

Some people were done in by the twin collapses of the housing and stock markets.

Patti and Bob Webster had accumulated a six-figure balance in their 401(k) accounts and were building a dream house in North Carolina in 2007. They planned to retire there in about a year. Then their builder went out of business and the stock collapse knocked 40% off their savings. They temporarily suspended 401(k) contributions.

"We thought we had the perfect plan," says Patti Webster. "When the bottom fell out of the market, it kind of fell out of our perfect plan as well."

Today in their mid-60s, they have completed the house but have worked two years longer than planned and expect to work two years more.

"We are having to spend another two years in just trying to catch up with what the market did to us," Ms. Webster says.

From the Huffington Post  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703959604576152792748707356.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

Write to E.S. Browning at jim.browning@wsj.com

What Is The "National Youth Advocacy Coalition"??? Find Out Here!

Dear Friends,

This is King, reporting that I recently joined on as part of the National Youth Advocacy Coalition (NYAC). To those of you unfamiliar with NYAC, its the ONLY LEADING national organization dedicated to fight discrimination against youth, especially those who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) and assist them to becoming the future.

The organization was founded in 1993, with a vision to direct programs that would empower youth to change their communities, on a local, state, and national level. Such conflict resolution trainings, peer engagements, oppression fighting workshops, and policy efforts made NYAC an innovator at promoting the leadership and wellness of LGBTQ youth and their allies.

Many of you may know about my work profile, but do not know the course of events that spurred me into such actions. My personal belief is that it's essential for an organization's members to be open about their own personal lives and their intentions in order for everyone to succeed.

My journey first started with major lows in elementary school where I was constantly bullied and taunted for being outspoken and "different." I grew up in a household that embraced traditional religious views on families and looked down upon those who were not part of the norm. After enduring so much harassment and now knowing whom I could turn to, I developed a deep depression and turned towards self-injury as an escape. Exerting pain on myself and wishing I wasn't alive plagued my mindset constantly during my middle school and early high school experience. The homophobic slurs that surrounded my campus got too much for me to handle and I dropped out of high school. As a last resort, I wounded myself greatly and tried to overdose on a combination of various prescription medications. After miraculously surviving such circumstances, my dad guaranteed me that whatever inner demons I was facing, he was going to be there no matter what.

With his acknowledgment, I was finally able to come to terms with my own sexual orientation and find a balance with it in accords with my spirituality. I decided that with his support, I would go back and attain that coveted high school diploma. I started my junior year at a new [continuation] high school to reinvent myself and make up for loss time. It wasn't before long that I met other youth who underwent similar struggles and were scrutinized by everyone around, including their own families, for wanting an education. In addition, I saw derogatory slurs and bullying happen in front of my eyes... an indicator of my past memories. My desire to stop this injustice once and for all led me to find resources that would promote peace among individuals, know what rights youth were entitled to, bridge the divide that caused homophobia/transphobia, and encourage other high schoolers to take initiative to be leaders. In return, I stepped up to the mantle, took charge, and became a fierce presence in my school. I became affiliated with the most powerful clubs, founded my school's first-ever GSA club - under the inclusive alias "Alliance for Equality" and met local leaders who introduced me to the entire social justice movement.

It didn't get easier (yet) - I will tell you that much. I didn't come out to my parents until much time had passed since my intervention. By becoming involved, I learned it was important for other youth to know that such dedicated individuals like myself were also out to their parents, regardless if they were supportive or not. I took the chance and though my dad didn't say anything at all, it hit my mom the hardest and completely caught her off-guard. She was baffled, confused, asking if it was her own fault, etc. Afterwards, she looked at me, her oldest son, with the most scornful look and told me to not come back. I was devastated and heartbroken, not knowing what to do next.

However, this vulnerable period of sorrow didn't last for long. The new friends I made at my school and in my community became a second family. They took me in during my homelessness, with their parents encouraging me to use the potential I had to graduate from high school no matter what and continue persevering with an ardent spirit.

I took their welcoming arms as a herald - that it was okay to be someone who was raised in a working-class area, to be a person of color, to be someone of faith, to be someone who was a first-generation American, and to also be queer. Their compassion led me to gaze beyond the present and to aspire for a better future.

And guess what... I continued onwards. My passion for advocacy kept increasing and I partnered with non-profits and government departments to keep the youth momentum going. With the assistance of my school faculty, my local community mentors, and my friends, I not only graduated high school a semester early; I also did it with college credits and honors. My proudest achivement came in the form of being a recipient of my school district's 2010 Inspiring Students of the Year!

When I was asked to join NYAC and assist in developing new programs and ways to help disenfranchised youth, I was extremely anxious. After some pensive consideration, I realized I wanted to be associated with the envoy who started the youth movement and was restructuring itself to pave the way for the incoming batch of student leaders all over the map. I was hooked after having one-on-one conversations with incoming NYAC members, who dreamed of fostering a leading example for other social justice organizations - specifically those working with LGBTQ youth - in providing the necessary programs and services targeting youth of color, youth of religious/ethnic affiliation, youth in rural areas, and youth who survived traumatic ordeals.

My thoughts go to youth who I interacted with, from all across the nation with various upbringings.

I remember Zach, an emboldened leader from Kansas, who recently founded the first Gay-Straight Alliance club in his conservative area, as well as organized the first Day of Silence event in his community to increase awareness of youth suicides and the bullying epidemic. His action made me grateful I was still alive and how I would carry on the legacy of youth whose lives were cut so short.

I also reminisced of my friend Vivica, a gender non-conforming youth who used creative art projects to battle transphobia in her area and promoted a safer learning environment for all.

There was also Keil, from South Dakota, who tackled both brain cancer and LGBTQ activism at the age of sixteen! Nowadays, he's bouncing back, training professionally in basketball, hoping to play in the big leagues someday. He's a role model in his own right, who propels me wanting to do more.

Another youth who came to mind was Jacob, a heterosexual youth who used to say something homophobic after each sentence. By interacting with him and educating him about the constant struggles of youth who were both queer and a person of color, he was ready to change his language and become an openly proud ally in his community of San Bernardino, California.

I accepted the invitation to join NYAC based on a burning passion to advocate for pertinent issues the mainstream LGBTQ movement lost sight of. My goals are to introduce youth to financial management/stability services, to material that discusses sexual abuse and crisis medition, as well as how to collaborate with folks of different generation-oriented mindsets, and become acquainted with stratagems designing them to be the next agents of change.

The NYAC I know is like a mythical phoenix, ready to take flight after years of discovering where the youth movement should head next. Over the years, NYAC has accumulated connections with youth members, adult allies, and organizations supportive of LGBTQ youth and representing them in many ways possible. The newly established Board has grown from 4 to an impressive 16 members, 14 of who are people of color, including six youth of color who are under 25 years old, such as myself!!

I am extremely honored to continue mobilizing communities on behalf of NYAC, as well as brainstorm new methods that this organization and its associated partners can transcend into a new era of programs that are created by youth, directed by youth, and executed by youth.

As a result of this restructuring, NYAC is changing old methodologies and needs financial support to leap into the next decade. I'm proud to be a sustainer of NYAC's own work through a monthly donation, and most of all, I'm proud to be a part of the NYAC family, serving as a youth representative who will convey the wants and needs of the next generation of LGBTQ leaders and activists.

My biggest goals are to introduce youth to resources via various media outlets, create regional youth conferences preparing them to mobilize in their own areas, and in the coming year, design a national conference training to youth engage with representatives in the social, political, and economic realms.

Today, I invite you to join the NYAC family by becoming a patron of our work. I am diligently set on raising a minimum of $1500 before the end of the fiscal year (March 31st). No gift is too small, $100... $50... $10... $5... even $1 a day will help me reach my goal of raising the funds to create new programs for NYAC. I'm altruistically giving $100 this year, and I invite you to match my donation with a lump sum gift or monthly contribution of $10. I guarantee that any amount given will go a long way!

My little page is a sign of my transparency and will allow you to track how close I'm getting. All donations are secure and sent directly to the National Youth Advocacy Coalition, who will mail you a record of your donation. By becoming part of the NYAC family, you'll know everything that I am doing to ensure all funds go nowhere but to the youth; https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5476/t/11981/my/donate.jsp?supporter_my_donate_page_KEY=2074 

Please join me and help me reach my goal of raising $1,500 for NYAC. Also, please feel free to send my page on to anyone who might be interested in contributing! Thank you all!

In solidarity,

King Chan

PHILADELPHIA: 37 Priests Under Investigation For Molestation

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (CNN) - The Catholic Church in Philadelphia will investigate as many as 37 priests identified in a grand jury report as remaining in "active ministry with credible allegations of child sexual abuse," Cardinal Justin Rigali, archbishop of Philadelphia, said Wednesday.

"Sexual abuse of children is a crime. It is always wrong and gravely evil," Rigali said in a news release. "The grand jury report makes clear that for as much as the archdiocese has done to address child sexual abuse, there is still much to do."
He also announced that three priests were placed on administrative leave pending a review.
"The actions we announce today build on the changes that the church has already announced," Rigali said.
He noted the church had already hired a victim services consultant and a compliance officer, and created a new position of delegate for investigations to assist with the review.
"Many people of faith and in the community at large think that the archdiocese does not understand the gravity of child sexual abuse," Rigali said. "We do."
Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams on Wednesday lauded the church announcement.
"I commend Cardinal Rigali and the archdiocese for this latest action," Williams said. "The cardinal's strong words and recent efforts are the correct steps at this time."
Last week, three Philadelphia priests and a parochial school teacher were charged with raping and assaulting boys in their care, while a former official with the Philadelphia Archdiocese was accused of allowing the abusive priests to have access to children, the city's district attorney's office said.
CNN Senior Vatican Analyst John Allen said the charges against the former church official appeared to be unprecedented and could have national implications.
"This is apparently the first time that a Catholic leader has been charged criminally for the cover-up as opposed to the abuse itself," he said. "It sends a shot across the bow for bishops and other diocesan officials in other parts of the country, who have to wonder now if they've got criminal exposure, too."
Edward Avery, 68, and Charles Engelhardt, 64, were charged with allegedly assaulting a 10-year-old boy at St. Jerome Parish from 1998 to 1999.
Bernard Shero, 48, a teacher in the school, is charged with allegedly assaulting the same boy there in 2000, Williams said at a Thursday press conference.
James Brennan, another priest, is accused of assaulting a different boy, a 14-year-old, in 1996.
Monsignor William Lynn, who served as the secretary for clergy for the under then-Philadelphia Archbishop Anthony Bevilacqua, was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child in connection with the alleged assaults, Williams said.
From 1992 until 2004, Lynn was responsible for investigating reports that priests had sexually abused children, the district attorney's office said.
The grand jury found that Lynn, 60, endangered children, including the alleged victims of those charged last week, by knowingly allowing dangerous priests to continue in the ministry in roles in which they had access to kids.
"This behavior will not be tolerated - ultimately they will be judged by a higher authority," Williams said. "We want to ensure that all victims of abuse can call us directly and don't have to filter their story with anyone else."
Avery, Engelhardt and Shero were charged with rape, indecent sexual assault and other criminal counts following the results of the grand jury investigation of clergy sexual abuse, Williams said. The names of the alleged victims, who are now in their 20s, have not been publicly released.
The grand jury believed that more than 30 priests have remained in ministry in Pennsylvania despite solid, credible allegations of abuse, Williams said.
Rigali had initially challenged that claim.
– CNN's Sarah Hoye contributed to this report

Feb 3rd---Letter To The President Sent In Dec.

The President of the United States,

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

For decades now, I have followed closely the debate regarding gays in the military, same-sex unions and marriage, and homosexuals in society, in general. Recently, at your end-of-year press conference (last week), you used the curious but hopeful word, “evolving,” to describe your attitude regarding these complex issues. If I may, I would like to suggest another window that could provide the clearest view yet of a resolution to the debate that swirls around this intricate storm of biology, morals, attitude and culture. Our research group and many other colleagues of ours have studied the intricate processes that produce a male or a female. I want to suggest to you an avenue of argument that incorporates science and neuroscience into the debate, that I hope will enlighten the debate. It comes to a simple argument: how does one define “male” and “female?” Allow me to provide some background.

My (and many others') research for years has been on the actions of hormones in the brain, including sexual differentiation (viz., the processes by which males become male, females, female). Our recent work examines the Maternal Brain, and its construction via pregnancy hormones. There is a large and replicable literature on the mechanics of brain development in mammals, all of which points to the profound and permanent influence that hormones exert on the neurobiology of the individual. Although these "normal" events are well documented, likewise there are many examples of variations in both genetic and hormonal substrates that lead to variation in sexual differentiation, sexual orientation, and hence, what we call behavior. Nature is nothing if not diverse. And Nature gives not a darn about the means to the end: the strategy either works or it does not. By the way: conservative critics always trot-out the careworn argument that homosexuality is unnatural. I hate to disillusion them (but then, they could read these data if old prejudices and the comfort of ignorance did not prevent them), but homosexuality is the most normal thing in the world: it is rampant and well-described in every species from invertebrates (insects) up to non-human primates. Several recent books document these behaviors. It is merely passing-on one’s genes in a different way (in this case, through kin selection, meaning no direct investment in offspring, [like one’s own children], but rather in relatives and relatives’ offspring who share their genes in common). It would be like one helping one’s brother’s children to thrive, thereby passing along the genes that each share in the process. The mathematics and models show that you can leave behind just as many of your genes in this way as you can by doing it the “Octo-mom” way. Homosexuality is just another strategy, not some insidious plan to undermine heterosexuality or that paragon of monogamy, heterosexual marriage.

In a recent book of ours (Clinical Neuroscience: Psychopathology and the Brain, Lambert, K.G. and Kinsley, C.H.; Oxford University Press, 2011) we argue that understanding the neural causes of behavior in humans, and their legal definitions, will bring about a sea change in the Law. The point I am making here has to do with definitions, as well. The arguments that are advanced for the preservation of marriage is that it should be exclusively "between a man and a woman." Therein lays the problem for me and any other scientist with a modicum of skepticism. Lost in the debate regarding gay marriages is the definition of “man” and “woman,” terms that biology and nature do not recognize as easily as we would be led to believe, and certainly nowhere near as clear as the critics of such policies who routinely use those terms would have you believe. Some examples from the endocrinological clinical literature may help to illustrate the point.

To begin, males look the way they do, as do females, because of the manner in which prenatal and early postnatal hormones act on the body’s tissues. Testosterone (T), the main male hormone, targets specific tissues, including the brain, and exerts powerful and permanent changes to the tissues, the culmination of which is the apparent sex difference we state as male versus female. Females, which lack the male hormones, look the way do because of the relative lack of male hormones.

But, is gender a matter of simple genetics, in which marriage is an XX pairing-up with an XY? If so, what do we do with individuals who are genetically XY, but whose bodies lack the receptors for male hormones, so called “testicular-feminized males.” These individuals have testes, and they secrete T, but the T cannot act on the target tissues because of a genetic fault in the formation of the proper landing sites for the hormones. That is, there are lots of “keys” floating around in the blood stream (the T), but no “locks” (the receptors) to which the T can attach. Hence, the folks look and act just like typical females, but they are male down to their DNA and look like females simply because of lifetime exogenous estrogen and other female hormone treatments.

What about the female equivalent, congenital adrenal hyperplasic (CAH) individuals, whose genotype is female, but whose brains are masculinized by abnormally high levels of neonatal male-like hormones because of an adrenal malfunction leading to dysregulation of hormone exposure? These women(?) are XX-genotypes, but have a male-type brain. What does, or should, exert the greater pull? Who determines who they can marry?

What about those males whose brains, because of genetics or prenatal hormonal conditions, are less virilized by male hormones than the average male, thereby rendering their brain’s anatomy more female-like, with the structures that regulate sexual attraction similarly affected. Or what of “male-to-female transsexuals,” so-called “women trapped in a man’s body,” whose brains regulate their gender identity as “female,” but whose bodies are male and whose sexual attraction is toward other males?

Recently, it came to light that world 800-meter champion Caster Semenya, an Olympic-class athlete, is a hermaphrodite, neither completely female nor completely male. What do you do with an individual like her/him? Who tells these individuals what is normal and by what standard? Apparently some leaders believe –- simplistically and prejudicially, I am afraid – that they can do what nature cannot. Define for me what is meant by male and female. It cannot be done.

Do we say that males who look like males are, therefore, male? Same for females? This argument seems to be the major one advanced by critics of same-sex marriage and gay rights – a thin reed to grasp, indeed. Again, from a legal standpoint, precision counts. Do we deny basic human rights to a person, the right to marry, because the person does not fit a simplistic definition of gender?

As to the argument that sexuality is a choice, that is absolutely untrue. If homosexuality is a choice, then, ipso facto, so is heterosexuality. Do you remember waking-up one morning and saying, “You know, I’ll think I’ll have Cheerios and orange juice, and, oh yeah, be heterosexual.” As a corollary, the so-called “therapy” that claims to convert homosexuals into heterosexuals, has a success rate less than chance, if you’re lucky. Biology cannot be changed by something like a talking therapy. It would be like me trying to change your eye color by talking to you. It’s possible, but highly unlikely, as the data show.

And so it goes. Life is messy, with gray areas cascading into ever grayer ones. A simplistic and legalistic approach toward defining marriage runs the risk of penalizing many individuals for an accident of birth. As we learn more about the brain and the manner in which it controls every thought and behavior, we should develop a greater appreciation for the fact that nature produces variability in its organisms. A simple question then, from the standpoint of the Law and its demand that vagueness be vanquished, is this: What do we mean when we say "man" and what do we mean when we say "woman?" To my neuroscientific colleagues and me the constitutionality of these measures and their ilk, likely lie in that question. Answering that unanswerable question, which Nature merely accepts and does not judge, may occupy those who believe one can legislate that which one does not understand and fears. Ask your legal colleagues to define, as simply as they seem to think they can, woman and man. Like those who believed that the sun orbited the earth, or that the latter was flat, and whose conservative world views were challenged by Science, only the light of science can intrude into the deep dark of ignorance; here as in many other cases. Also, for those whose prejudices hide behind the comfortable veneer of religious thought, ask them why God would create millions of people (estimates place an historical percentage of ~10% of every culture on earth) who offend Him? (Including – oh horrors!! – many of our sports and military heroes.) Don’t ask, don’t tell, indeed.

When equal rights actually exist, then laws such as California’s Proposition 8 will be a dim memory. Its supporters claim to love our Democracy, but there are rights that are guaranteed for minorities, too. Unfortunately, the major quality on display most days is ignorance, sometimes militantly so. Again, broadening the beacon of Science will help advance a better understanding of how biology creates everybody, not just the straight folks. I wish you the best of luck with your struggle and in continuing to fight the good fight, in general. Please do not become disillusioned, Mr. President, with the tone in Washington and your hollow critics. There are many of out there who root for you each day and are impressed by your spirit and vision. Full speed ahead. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Craig Howard Kinsley, Ph.D.

MacEldin Trawick Professor of Neuroscience

Department of Psychology

Center for Neuroscience, B-326/328

Gottwald Science Center and Richmond Hall

University of Richmond

28 Westhampton Way

Richmond, Virginia 23173

[(804) 289-8132 (office)]

[(804) 289-8797 (laboratory)]

[(804) 287-1905 (FAX)]