Yes. This is probably worse for Nasser's reputation than the Six Day War.
Locally it's resulted in some unfortunate phrasing in a headline.
Shit a brick: that's tastelessness worthy of Apo himself
Mormons don't even see double entendres.
I keep hearing comparisons to the Sandusky scandal. Given that this was the actual college athletes being abused, rather than misuse of resources and status to abuse kids not associated with the university, I'm hoping for strong punishments, resignations, and heads rolling. I hope Michigan State pays for this for much, much longer than Penn State although I think that's unlikely. Because fuck everything. Those poor girls (and women). I am amazed that so many are testifying. Good for them.
I'll just copy my earlier comment from the WTF thread:
For additional non-Beltway WTFuckery how about the Dr. Larry Nassar scandal? At least 140 girls for 20 years? And people in responsible positions had been warned? When are their trials?
It took me an embarrassingly long time to understand that the Michigan State doctor who molested all these girls was the same scandal as the gymastics girls who were testifying against their former coach/boss/authority figure of some sort. Basically I saw lots of headlines without clicking through.
7/8: it has been in the news in Michigan for months. Since fall. Given how long it took for national media to pick up (with the broad outline well understood), I am pretty sure it's going to be a much smaller scandal than Sandusky, media-wise and sanctions-wise. It should be huge. Heads should roll.
I don't think it will be as Penn State because football is bigger than gymnastics.
I mean it's no excuse but for the other scandals but who the fuck is this Nassar guy? Just the team doctor. He's no Weinstein powerhouse. Why cover for this asshole?
I've been wondering 11, too. How hard is it to get a new doctor? Why the loyalty? Were people worried that if he got fired, he'd come back at them and somehow drag them down with him? I don't get it.
A journalist I follow has been asking this identical question. How hard is it to find a new doctor? Especially with the gobs of money the Olympic associated entities presumably have access to?
It took me an embarrassingly long time to understand that the Michigan State doctor who molested all these girls was the same scandal as the gymastics girls who were testifying against their former coach/boss/authority figure of some sort.
Same. Didn't realise it until this thread, in fact.
Were people worried that if he got fired, he'd come back at them and somehow drag them down with him?
The optimistic interpretation is that they thought "this has been going on for years and we didn't do anything, so if we do something now then we still look bad for not acting before, but if we keep doing nothing then maybe it will go away".
The pessimistic interpretation is that he knew all kinds of dirt, or, really, just one kind of dirt, on the people who were in a position to fire him.
I'm guessing that people in charge ignored girls complaining because, you know, girls, for long enough that the neglect was a scandal in itself, at which point they were covering up their own neglect, which entailed letting him go on molesting more girls.
I have sene speculation that there are more shoes to drop -- that there were other men involved in the molestation -- but I can't see how that story wouldn't have broken already given the number of gymnasts talking.
And pwned on both points by Ajay.
My dark thought is that everyone already assumed all the gymast girls were being sexually abused, and that's the answer to why no one did anything, and why it's not a bigger deal. Although it's been near that top of the news for a while now. Maybe the real answer is Trump monopolizing our national attention.
The one difference with Sandusky (well, two: Sandusky molested boys) is that someone actually saw Sandusky in the act and reported it, and still not much was done to curb him.
20.2: The difference I keep coming back to is that Nasser was molesting the athletes of the organization employing him. Sandusky was molesting unaffiliated boys. I feel like the institutional control aspect is really different. Michigan press is saying the president of MSU heard multiple complaints from the athletes over the years, so it was definitely being reported to the appropriate people there. No idea what kind of mess the Olympic team had on their hands. Probably less reporting, since the enviroment was more isolated and high pressure and the girls younger.
Also, Sandusky molested younger kids who, AFAIK, weren't affirmatively coming forward themselves to complain, unlike the gymnasts. I think the boy-girl thing is probably a large part of the story -- that the complaints from gymnasts were dismissed partially because management waved them off as girls complaining about something where maybe the doctor was enjoying the exam a little, but it was NBD, you can't judge a man for something like that. Molesting boys is going to come off more binary, it happened or it didn't, whereas with girls you're going to get a lot more men thinking that a little sexual exploitation is just to be expected and nothing to make a fuss about.
17.1 reminds me of Hinterland except (Spoiler Alert) nobody drowned Nassar in his own pond.
More to Ogged: Of course, lots of people saw Nassar in the act and reported him, many more than saw Sandusky in the act. They were just teenage girl people.
I have sene speculation that there are more shoes to drop -- that there were other men involved in the molestation -- but I can't see how that story wouldn't have broken already given the number of gymnasts talking.
One possibility is that Nasser is not in a position to get revenge on the gymnasts, hence the gymnasts are talking about him, but the others are in such a position, hence the gymnasts aren't talking about them.
17-18 is really quite disturbing in the perfection of its pwning (and the timestamps are the same). I should make it clear that LB and I are definitely still two different people.
I don't really know enough about the Nassar case to know if there are parallel elements, but the Sandusky case was a political land-mine and I'm sure that delayed it coming into public. Our previous governor, Corbett, was criticized for being slow to bring the case forward when he was attorney general, but he did convene the grand jury and he did support the Freeh report. I've seen moderately convincing analysis that Corbett would have won re-election if the scandal hadn't been brought to light or if he'd have actively tried to block all NCAA and other penalties to Penn State. The football-fanatic, central PA Republican voters stayed home rather than vote for the guy who let the university fire Paterno.
27 last: FFS. Professional sports seems more and more a cancer with no redeeming virtues.
In a better world, Corbett would have lost because he basically sold the state to the natural gas industry for peanuts and used funding cuts to schools and universities to make up for revenue he didn't get from taxes on drilling.
28: Let me explain the "scholar-athlete" to you.
AND LYNCHED BY THE FANS AFTERWARDS
28: This is amateur sports, hence the lack of unions.
I'm guessing that people in charge ignored girls complaining because, you know, girls, for long enough that the neglect was a scandal in itself, at which point they were covering up their own neglect, which entailed letting him go on molesting more girls.
What makes this so weird is that in all the articles about this it seems like virtually all the people at Michigan State who worked with Nassar, or above Nassar, or in any position to do anything about Nassar, including the college president, were women. Still their friendship with Nassar, or desire to have him continue to lend prestige to their athletic program, and not wanting to make waves, trumped any curiosity about whether the girls were seriously being mistreated in any way.
33 That is reslly weird. I keep coming back to what Witt said in that other thread.
I don't know anything at all about the stories, I've only been skimming past them, so this is unsupported bitterness rather than knowledge. But in stories at all like this, I have noticed a systematic tendency to emphasize the role of any women around, and inflate their individual responsibility (e.g., Weinstein's PAs). Doesn't mean the women in this case were innocent, but I would speculate that your impression that virtually all the people in power were women is an artifact of skewed reporting.
I want to blame the Romanians because Putin makes me want to just re-start the Cold War.
35 Really rings true, liked those fucked up posters blaming Meryl Streep of all people for Harvey Weinstein.
I guess the focus has been on the people whom the victims went to personally for help (women in the athletic program) but who then failed to help. However the people with the real power (aside from the college president) were men in the medical school, where Nassar had his appointment. So you're right about that.
This was the main article I read:
According to the Detroit News, the people who were told of Nassar's abuse include former MSU head gymnastics coach Kathie Klages, current volleyball team trainer Lianna Hadden, current gymnastics team trainer Destiny Teachnor-Hauk, former MSU clinical psychologist Dr. Gary Stollak and officers at the Meridian Township Police Department.
Dr. Gary Stollak retired in 2010 after suffering a debilitating stroke, so nobody will get answers from him.
Here are the people being sued. What did Dr. Strampel and Dr. Kovan know?
MSU is providing lawyers for three other defendants in the Nassar lawsuits: Kathie Klages, who recently retired as MSU women's gymnastics coach; Dr. William Strampel, dean of MSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine, and Dr. Jeffrey Kovan, former MSU director of sports medicine and currently a doctor for the clinic, Cody said.
33: this article from the Detroit News http://www.detroitnews.com/story/tech/2018/01/18/msu-president-told-nassar-complaint-2014/1042071001/ goes through several cases of athletes who were assaulted, told someone ("athletic trainers, assistant coaches, a university police detective and an official who is now MSU's assistant general counsel") and were hushed up or discouraged from reporting.
It names some of the people:
MSU President Lou Anna Simon
MSU's then-head gymnastics coach, Kathie Klages
her coach, Kelli Bert
Destiny Teachnor-Hauk, an athletic trainer at MSU
MSU clinical psychologist Dr. Gary Stollak
unnamed officers at the Meridian Township Police Department
three MSU medical manipulation specialists -- Dr. Brooke Lemmen, Dr. Lisa DeStefano and Dr. Jennifer Gilmore
Dr. William Strampel, dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine
Is "medical manipulation" the O.G. osteopathic thing from back when they were quacks?
23: Oh good, I'd been meaning to ask if you'd watched the last season. Disappointing, I thought, particularly that part.
There was a great deal of build-up that seemed to rush to a conclusion too quickly. But I didn't mind the drowning per se.
Anyway, it was pretty-well telegraphed that the (*spoiler edited out*) wasn't going to be the rapist and that (*same*) was, but I wasn't sure how the guy who drowned the rapist was involved. I thought it was kind of on topic because of the way the rapist used the relatively minor transgressions of others to prevent them from acting against him and then use that lack of action to keep them in line because their lack of action now implicates them.
41: Maybe that's part of the story? That is, if he was part of a group of defensive semi-quack osteopaths (not that osteopaths generally are quacks, but a practice group that was into systematically medically questionable spinal manipulation or whatever), they might have been dismissing complaints based on a belief that people just didn't understand the weirdo treatment methodology?
"Relatively" being very important in the case of the guy who eventually drowned the rapist and being no long applicable after he threw (*spoiler edited out*) over the (*same*).
I have really been wondering what is the place of Osteopathic Medicine in society these days. A D.O. seems to be functionally interchangeable with an M.D., although D.O. are only seen in certain fields. A College of Osteopathic Medicine seems to be the same thing as a lower-tier College of Medicine. Most of them are independent and privately run, but some of them (like at Michigan State and Ohio University) aren't and even have research programs and PhD students. If you ask what the difference is between the programs, you hear that the D.O. program is the same as the M.D. program PLUS the other weird manipulation stuff.
What I've heard positively in favor of D.O. programs is that they have the same science background as MDs but more emphasis on holistic/healthy lifestyle/diet/exercise and so on, and that no one really takes the manipulation stuff seriously. But I figure there have to be pockets of people who are still holding on to faith in the manipulation thing in a more intense way.
I'm not sure why the president would be implicated but not the Athletic Director.
A College of Osteopathic Medicine seems to be the same thing as a lower-tier College of Medicine.
They put it differently on the brochure.
I had to look up "osteopath" because I didn't know exactly what it was and had vaguely thought it was just an American word for "orthopaedics" or some such sub-discipline of medicine, but, wow, that's a lot weirder than I was expecting.
they might have been dismissing complaints based on a belief that people just didn't understand the weirdo treatment methodology?
The Detroit News article makes it sound like this happened on at least one occasion:
"The report includes interviews with the victim's mother and three of her friends, plus Nassar and three MSU medical manipulation specialists -- Dr. Brooke Lemmen, Dr. Lisa DeStefano and Dr. Jennifer Gilmore -- plus Teachnor-Hauk, the MSU athletic trainer. All told investigators that Nassar's behavior was medically appropriate, according to the report.
All three doctors also said they don't do skin-to-skin contact, even though it makes it easier to feel for soft tissue changes.
"She does it over clothes because, as a woman, she is sensitive to the fact that skin-to-skin contact may be uncomfortable for some," according to the report's summary of the interview with DeStefano, chairwoman and associate professor in the Department of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine.
The Title IX complaint concluded that Nassar's conduct was not of a sexual nature."
54: And that's still not exculpatory -- that is, it still requires the osteopaths to be telling the complaining victims that they're hysterical ninnies who can't tell the difference between medical treatment and being molested. But being part of a group of embattled quacks is an explanation for why the other doctors were protecting him.
Osteopathy started out as a completely alternative system of medicine, but it's mainstreamed. Unlike a lot of alternative medicine, it responded to evidence that mainstream medicine largely works, by largely adopting mainstream medical principles. A success story.
What about homeopathy? That's weirder and it's more mainstream in Europe than it is here.
Are there practicing homeopaths like doctors, or is it mostly just a type of nonsense OTC medicine?
There's no such thing as an "osteophobe," so I'm guessing it's better.
Yes! We even have a homeopathic hospital, right next door to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, which must lead to some serious side-eye in the car park.
I see osteopathy guy was an inventor/tinkerer:
Still was fascinated by machines, and whenever faced with a mechanical problem, his answer was always to devise a better approach. In the 1870s, he patented an improved butter churn.[18] He made improvements to a mowing machine designed to harvest wheat and hay, but before a patent could be submitted, his idea was stolen by a visiting sales representative from the Wood Mowing Machine Co.[18] In 1910, he patented a smokeless furnace burner[19] but had "some difficulty producing a full-sized working model. Heartbroken after his wife, Mary Elvira's, death in May 1910, he did not have the will to pursue the matter further, and the invention was never successfully marketed."[20]
I wouldn't let him make any improvements to my bones? Although, the Wright Brothers and all that.
My guess: It was generally known or suspected that the Dr. was prescribing something semi- or not legal that was performance enhancing for gymnasts (Human Anti-Growth Hormone? The Olympians started pre-adolescent, and several fortuitously stopped growing short of five feet.). So he wan't easily replaceable, and he could blackmail. A guy you don't want to take on, even if a tiny girl accuses him of something.
61: Sad to say, it's six floors up and about a quarter of a city block.
58: Best 30 Homeopathic Doctors in Columbus, OH with Reviews - YP.com
Plenty of them!
Is it very very small?
Yeah, I would think 1 or homeopaths should be able to cover the world's population.
It certainly seems plausible, but I've not heard nobody saying that was a factor.
67: Yes, it does seem like a good theory. But wouldn't he have revealed this by now?
"Nassar would place "his ungloved hand into my vagina to get my hips to 'pop' and 'adjust' my back."
It really is shocking and sad that some adult or other professional didn't immediately stop that kind of abuse. It really says a lot that the girls were trained to be so deferential to it and led to believe it was appropriate medical treatment and that no other professional did not stop it.
It seems a pretty easy rule to say "No penetration unless it is your gyn." It seems like the moment someone mentions penetration, all kinds of alarms would go off.
the girls were trained to be so deferential to it
Well, lots of them did complain. That is, we know about it at all because they weren't uniformly deferential.
And the fact that teenagers on a high-pressured sports team were obedient to the professionals running the team isn't unusual or specific to a situation where there's abuse at all: blind obedience is what you expect as a baseline there. What's surprising is that they did come forward and stand up for themselves and their teammates.
71.last: and what's more surprising, and more laudable, is that they kept coming forward despite plenty of evidence that no one in authority was on their side. AIMHB on the whistleblowing thread the other day, one of the best ways to encourage whistleblowing is not rewards or protection, but simply to convince potential whistleblowers that they will be listened to and their warnings acted on. The opposite was the case for these girls; nevertheless, they persisted.
People that age seem like they would be really easy to abuse just because adults obviously keep a lot of secrets from children, and only let them into the secrets slowly. We don't talk about periods, or sex. A young person is not going to know that "osteopath sticks his fingers in your vagina" isn't one of those things that all adults know but don't talk about.
|| I got a kick out this (banned) analogy
Sullivan has convinced himself that testosterone makes him stronger and more driven much like Dumbo convinced himself that he could only fly with the aid of a magic feather ||
https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/01/andrew-sullivans-ode-to-testosterone-is-rooted-is-stereotypes.html?via=recirc_recent
When did Sullivan return to being talked about? I thought the fifth column finally got him because he loved freedom too much or something.
I'm sure that testosterone is great, but I love my balls too much to cheat on them with a hormone-dealing pharmacist.
75 Funny how Andrew Sullivan and Johann Hari made comebacks at the same time. This shit comes in cycles. Cycles of shit.
75: No kidding. He vanished so completely I assumed he died.
EVERYBODY SHOULD READ MY OPINION PIECE ABOUT WHAT A DUMB FUCK SULLIVAN IS.
I don't think I've ever read Andrew Sullivan. He's like dark matter; his existence can only be guessed at because of his effect on things I do observe.
74
The weak point of Sullivan's argument is that testosterone levels do not have anything to do with what we should do about sexual abuse. Men don't abuse women because their testosterone level is high and they can't stop themselves. They do it because they want to and they think they can get away with it.
The magic feather comment is off base because testosterone did significantly increase self reported overall health, sexual desire, energy level, and walking ability over a placebo in the study mentioned in the slate article. (Some of this may be just be over-confidence since actual tests of health and walking ability didn't show anything significant.) Plus, they did not even test for strength and drive. The broscience is clear on testosterone supplementations effect on strength.
(Some of this may be just be over-confidence since actual tests of health and walking ability didn't show anything significant.)
Isn't that exactly the magic feather point?
The magic feather was a placebo and testosterone supplementation worked different than the placebo. If it was just a magic feather then they should be equally over confident.
Unless there are some physical effects of testosterone supplementation that make it possible to be pretty sure you're getting the treatment rather than the placebo. I mean, no one's claiming that testosterone has no perceptible physical effects, just that it doesn't reliably do everything Sullivan thinks it does.
The weak point of Sullivan's argument is that testosterone levels do not have anything to do with what we should do about sexual abuse.
For fuck's sake, he really tried to connect the two? I didn't read the article because I thought it would be stupid, but I didn't figure on that stupid.
63: I've heard (i.e. only anecdata, although from a former gymnast) that doing a lot of gymnastics at a young age leads to being shorter as an adult; or at least that this is received wisdom among people that do gymnastics. If true, that would explain the height thing - although I'm not trying to detract from your overall point, which could well be true.
70: I'm wondering whether a partial explanation could be that this behaviour or something similar is accepted practice among osteopaths? I say that because I once cycled across Europe and a guy I met en route told me the following story: he and his then-gf had been in Southeast Asia and wanted to score some opium. They asked around and were told that a Dutch expat was their best bet. They met him in a bar and went back to his place to get high. When they were high, the Dutch guy asked my cycling companion what was up with his arm, or something like that (I forget the part of the body) - he'd hurt himself a couple of days previously doing something drunk and stupid. The Dutch guy told him that he was an osteopath and convinced him to undress and then, surprisingly, fixed the injured bodypart with the magic of osteopathy, and much loud cracking and popping. Here's where the story gets a bit weird - he then told the guy that he could tell that he'd badly broken his coccyx in the past and never had it treated. This, as it happened, was true. Guy is all freaked out because there's no way the Dutch guy could have known about an unpleasant snowboarding accident some years before, but his coccyx was all messed up and had never since been entirely comfortable. Mr Opium Dealing Dutch Osteopath then offers to correct it, however, this will involve him inserting his fingers into Cycling Companion's rectum, to "pop" it back into place. Cycling Companion refuses, and the Dutch guy tells him that he can instruct the gf and she can insert her finger instead. They're understandably freaked out and leave, but - at least when he told me the story, years later - he could never shake the idea that the guy was offering to fix his coccyx in good faith, and not for weird high sexual gratification.
So, maybe colleagues were rallying around the guy because they really didn't think he was abusing the athletes, and that rather he was doing something weird-but-to-their-eyes-medically-justified?
If the Dutch guy had longer fingers, he could have reached the cooccyx by going down the throat.
Exogenous testosterone also leads to low sperm counts and infertility. He probably doesn't care about that, but...
88: Not sure about that. Cycling Companion was quite tall - he obviously hadn't been subjected to gymnastics in his youth.
So, maybe colleagues were rallying around the guy because they really didn't think he was abusing the athletes, and that rather he was doing something weird-but-to-their-eyes-medically-justified?
This is possible, but still not really exculpatory. Having a doctor stick his fingers in your twat for non-obvious reasons is something a reasonable person could find disturbing, and the colleagues were faced with reasonable gymnasts being disturbed. Just waving them off was irresponsible, as opposed to taking some kind of action to make Nassar stop freaking them out -- explain the medical necessity, have other people present and aware of what he was doing, whatever. What he was doing would have been unprofessional and possibly needlessly traumatic even if he hadn't been doing it for sexual gratification.
Like, Dutch guy didn't walk up behind Cycling companion and ram his hand up the guy's butt, even with good intent, because he sanely understood that it's the sort of thing that requires fully informed consent. Even if Nassar's colleagues thought he wasn't a molester, they knew he was treating his patients less professionally than a Dutch opium dealer.
91: In case it wasn't clear (in retrospect it probably wasn't) - I'm not intending to defend Nassar or his colleagues. I just found it striking that literally the only story I know about osteopathy also involves fingers in orifices, and was wondering whether this was an accepted thing to do in this particular form of quackery, and if so whether that helps to explain the obvious in-group protection thing that had been going on.
92: Point taken. Regardless of whether there could have been a "valid" reason for what he was doing, it's still inexcusable.
Nobody tell this story to the U.S. ambassador to the Hague.
74: there are people even now with other serious mental illnesses who have sexual offender issues who receive chemical castration therapy.
These cases seem pretty different from the abuse that's coming to light now, but there are actual medical professionals, not just Andrew Sullivan-and I'm not saying they're right- who are willing to attack the problem along these lines.
I googled osteopathy coccyx and whaddya know:
My partner recently consulted an osteopath for low pack pain and he diagnosed the symptoms were coming from her coccyx and then undertook an examination of her coccyx rectally. Is this standard practice for osteopaths to perform? Also, the examination was performed by the osteopath without any other persons present - no nurse, chaperone etc. My partner was naturally uncomfortable with the procedure and rather embarrassed by the circumstances.
Then I looked up some osteopathy videos on youtube, and now think that it's basically institutionalized sexual abuse. But I didn't see anyone rubbing his dick on the patient's feet, so Nasser really was an innovator.
It's spelled Nassar. (An Arabic name. But this might be a little close to home for Trump to draw attention to it. The fact that that's not even internet snark says...nothing good.)
Wait...wait...that's what osteopaths do? I had assumed, in as far as I'd ever thought about them, that they were basically physios but with more bullshit?
I've had osteopathy.
It was basically physio with more bullshit. And, actually quite useful. Whether or not you believe the supposed model underlying it, what I got out of it was a couple of useful stretches that helped with the back issue I had.
Wait...wait...that's what osteopaths do?
Also, they pimp showgirls to John Profumo and Lord Astor.
104: I know I should stop myself from compulsively making these jokes but they WOULD, wouldn't they?
Also, the examination was performed by the osteopath without any other persons present - no nurse, chaperone etc.
Certainly doctors don't have a general practice to call in witnesses when they stick a finger up your butt. Though I suppose it is different for back pain.
100: I'm glad to see substance to support my desire to blame Romanians.
Though I suppose it is different for back pain.
Right. If you go in for blood in your stool, you can reasonably be expected to know that it will involve a rectal exam, and the doctor will let you know, and tell you that it might be a bit uncomfortable, etc. Osteopaths should understand that their patients won't know what to expect, and that they definitely won't be expecting The Shocker when they go in for back pain.
If you get old enough, being a man is the functional equivalent of blood in your stool.
Now I'm surprised there hasn't been a #Slatepitch about how actually we need to realize that MSU doesn't have a medical school, it has an osteopath school and we need to realize that osteopaths can be expected to spend the bulk of their examination time burrowing into various orifices.
Where I am, osteopaths in practice are the slightly cut-rate version of MDs or maybe PCPs - they're licensed to perform the same range of services, can be hired into similar positions, little to no woo. Very different from chiros, despite the history.
That's my impression of D.O.s generally -- I think the ones who focus on the manipulation stuff as a big part of their practice are a minority.
Sullivan said exogenous testosterone gave him: a "rush of energy, strength, clarity, ambition, drive, impatience and, above all, horniness"
The slate author became more horny, less likely to cry, had a narrower range of emotion but more impatience. The author said it did not affect his "strength, ambition, and clarity". The "ambition and clarity" part is pretty subjective but consistent with an improvement in mood that some people on exogenous TST get. If exogenous testosterone does not improve strength, everybody owes Barry Bonds an apology.
none of this has anything to do with #metoo.
There is a bunch of ideology associated with testosterone as a "masculine" hormone, but it isn't a placebo.
Just chiming in that my experience with DOs has been no different so far than my experience with MDs (or Nurse Practicioners, for that matter).
I've learned that DOs get angry when you say "DO" like Home Simpson says "D'oh". As in, this is "John Smith, D'oh".
Also, I'm curious what the parents on this thread have done to make clear to their children that this type of behavior shouldn't happen to them, and that they can tell their parents (you) if it does.
My own situation was complicated, and wouldn't (I don't think) have happened if I had been living with a competent parent, but also wouldn't have been prevented just by "bad touch/good touch" kinds of lessons.
It wasn't directed squarely at this sort of behavior, more at pseudo-romantic grooming, but I brought it up explicitly with my kids as a thing that happens and that they should watch out for. (This wasn't a particularly clearly thought out plan, it just came up in conversation.) Watching out for this kind of bad doctor thing never really occurred to me, but mine never had occasion to spend much time with doctors.
My kids' school, though nice in many ways, had what I thought of as weirdly low social boundaries between the teachers and the students, and I brought that up specifically with my kids as something that, although it was pleasant, had downsides in terms of enabling grooming. And then there was a scandal a couple of years ago where a teacher did make a pass at one of my daughter's friends (he was arrested and convicted of endangering a minor, I think largely because his approach included buying her a couple of beers). I got a surprising amount of credit from my daughter for having specifically identified the teacher two years beforehand in question to her as exactly the kind of person I'd expect to do something like that (I actually don't recall having warned her about him specifically, but I certainly had the thought, and given that she remembered it I must have said it).
None of this was coherently planned out. Um, pay attention to the adults your kids spend time with, and openly talk to them about molestation as a thing that happens? I really don't know about the doctor thing specifically.
Speaking of abuse, my abusive advisor blew up at another female student in almost the same way she did to me. Female student X and male student Y had co-written a conference proposal to be funded by an organization that advisor is the head of. The conference got funded, but advisor dragged in female student to berate and humiliate her. She accused her of being an irredeemably bad thinker and writer and told her that everyone hated the proposal (though apparently not enough to not fund it), and that X had purposely added Y's name to "drag him through the mud" and attempt to sabotage his career. Y had come to the meeting to support X, and tried to intervene, but advisor shut him up and was like, "this is not about you." Anyways, X was sort of like, "fuck this bullshit," and Y was like, "crap this woman is fucking insane." Of course, nothing is going to happen because taking down your advisor as being an abusive bully does nothing but blow up your own career. It seems also that she likes to attack her female students right when they do something objectively successful (publish an article, get a conference funded).
I'm really lucky in that I have a large committee including two very famous faculty who will go to the mat for me against advisor (and I'm pretty sure they already did during my exams), but Y has two more junior faculty and she's worried insane advisor will bully them into not letting her finish.
I haven't read the whole thread but am furious all over again and feel like anger-typing. Why the fuck would you have a male doctor for hundreds of pre-teen and teenage girls in the first place? Dealing at all with a male doctor at that age can be seriously weird* or intimidating, and these girls are dealing with girl-specific things, like their first period or delayed puberty or PMS or starting to have noticeable breasts. Their bodies are under constant scrutiny from male coaches and judges and spectators; why not give them a fucking break in this department?
This is a purely rhetorical question since we all know that male doctor = most competent.
*Still is for me. I don't get why any woman would want to see a male GYN if she has another option. If I'm going to trust the care of my body to someone, I'd rather she have the same basic parts and that we have some common experiences. Gusty bus and all; I just can't relate.
118: My approach is also complicated but they all absolutely know that children shouldn't have any kind of contact with others' genitals and that once they reach independent wiping age their own would only be looked at or touched a) for medical reasons and b) by a parent after conversation about the problem or by a doctor while a parent is in the room. This is all just matter-of-fact, no shaming or alarmism. I suspect the children read it more as a reminder for those of them who tend toward the nudist side of the spectrum to keep things private than that there's any realistic possibility of violation from outside.
121.1 is also a piece, though some of the girls' specialists (GI and audiology, maybe others) are men. Finding a pediatric gynecologist who's a woman of color was really helpful and not negotiable. That she's also politically active and awesome is a bonus.
This just popped up in my twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/thegymterdotnet/status/955868215263023106
JFC
Looks like so many of the victim statements have named the coach Geddert as a major abuser (specifically verbal and physical abuse) that he was just in the past 24 hours suspended. They're saying it was him as bad cop, Nassar as good.
In the last week, national and Michigan media have reported on abusive treatment allegedly perpetrated by Geddert against his gymnasts, including assaults reported to the police. In some instances, Nassar intervened to protect Geddert and convince the family not to make reports. In public statements in Nassar's sentencing hearing, many of the survivors of Nassar's sexual abuse who attended Twistars say they trusted Nassar implicitly because of his seemingly warm and protective stance toward them in contrast to the physical and mental cruelty they allege that Geddert forced them to endure in the gym.
What can you even say. There are times when the belief in a vengeful and righteous God is a comfort.
107: IME doctors most certainly do have a witness there when they give you that kind of exam, indeed pretty much any exam that involves exposing body parts usually covered--even the abdomen. the nurse pulls the curtains closed and gets your gown/blanket ready and then stays while the doctor comes in and does the exam. that any doctor would examine and treat girls without a nurse standing there is already bizarre and suspicious.
It's presumably different with minors and possibly also with women.
I would hope it's different for girls. They don't even have an prostate and probably not even hemorrhoids.
131: Oh you sweet summer child.
Slightly over half of pregnant women have an prostate.
Twitter is noting that this is the highest-victim-count serial rape case in American (world?) history - bigger than Sandusky.
132: I'm assuming that not many girls and even fewer girl gymnasts have been through pregnancy and childbirth (at least not more than once).
"If I'm going to trust the care of my body to someone, I'd rather she have the same basic parts and that we have some common experiences"
Back off, woman! Get me a proper man doctor! And a male nurse! And I'm not too happy about that radiographer either!
OT: I have finished Hinterland and wish to watch more morose or actually depressed British people solve murders in scenic settings. Is Broadchurch the next thing for that?
Don't give up on Wales just yet!
And as well as Broadchurch, you could also try something like Wire In The Blood, or The Missing (British protagonist but set in France) or Top of The Lake (purely New Zealand, but NZ is kind of like Wales so it counts).
That woman from the picture in your link is the woman who decided "They think I killed somebody" is a good reason to sleep with somebody. Can't go wrong there.
I found Broadchurch immensely cathartic, first and third seasons especially. It may not hit the spot for people who haven't had to deal with a loved one's crimes or who don't swoon with joy whenever a detective is respectful to a rape survivor.
Here's another, of which I've seen some or all of Broadchurch, The Fall, and Hinterland.
The Fall is pretty intense in comparison to the other two.
137: The Missus, whose judgment is reliable on these things, is a big fan of Broadchurch. I can vouch for Happy Valley being terrific.
The lead actress, Sarah Lancashire, is also really good in Last Tango in Halifax, which is a weirdly morose story of a romance between two senior citizens. Not much crime, but it does have one death that takes place in ambiguous, and potentially criminal, circumstances.
How about people who see "Barty Crouch" and get a little freaked about how he used a magic potion to copy the shape of his mother and then everybody acted like it was an astounding escape instead of really fucked up?
I didn't actually like Wire in the Blood much, but Hermione Norris is tremendously fun to watch. (In addition to Spooks, I also loved her as Stephen Fry's sister in Kingdom.)
That brings my total count of fictional characters or people with that name to 4.
Speaking of British people (cinematic version) just watched Dunkirk and it has been a long time since I hated a movie that viscerally. I suppose it will win Best Picture given that we're in the Biff/Trump timeline. Wretched beyond all measure.
The nature of this timeline is that the newest American men's tennis hope is pizzagater.
wish to watch more morose or actually depressed British people solve murders in scenic settings
I recommend watching a flamboyant Australian solve murders in gorgeous 1920s clothes. If you ignore the crashingly old-fashioned racial politics, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries are a delight.
We kind of liked Public Enemy -- Walloon detectives. Season 1 is on Sundance Now.
You Are Wanted (Amazon Video) worked for me. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5462886/
148: I saw a couple of those. Everybody was too cheerful.
149: I hadn't heard it that. Thanks.
151 Belgium is happening: https://variety.com/2016/tv/global/miptv-public-enemy-entre-chien-et-loup-playtime-1201744790/
I'd been putting off watching High Rise, because I felt like too much was riding on the combination of JG Ballard and Amy Jump & Ben Wheatley, and that I'd be disappointed. I've just finished watching it, and I wasn't disappointed.
wish to watch more morose or actually depressed British people solve murders in scenic settings
If by British people you mean Scandinavian people and by referring to television shows you mean movies, then I recommend the Swedish Insomnia (not the American remake one.)
(Relevant to Moby's original OT, because Wheatley/Jump get at something deeply weird and British; and suburban and rural Britain provides a lot of the flavour in many of their films: Down Terrace, Sightseers, Kill List, A Field in England. They're tapping into something relating to provinciality and gusts of wind and soggy grass and overbrewed tea and cement and sudden homicidal rage that also informs morbid British detective series.)
If by British people you mean Scandinavian people, but you do indeed mean television, you should watch Wallander. The BBC version has better cinematography, but the Swedish version is significantly less crap. I'm a sucker for good cinematography, but there's a limit.
153 interesting, I'm still not going to watch it though for fear of being disappointed.
Is the Danish version of The Killing available with English subtitles. I remember looking when I watched the American version and it didn't look like there was an English language release (or there was, but not in the U.S. and I didn't look into figuring out how to get it).
158: I think I also had problems with the casting of Tom Hiddleston, who's always felt to me like a poor man's Michael Fassbender. But he was fine in the role in the end (and the rest of the casting is very good).
154: Additionally, if TV = movie and British = French / Dutch, then I recommend Spoorloos a lot (also subject to a less-good Hollywood remake)
The BBC did a subbed version of Forbryldelsen, available by fair means or foul.
Beau Sejour (🇧🇪) is a good entry in the procession. A bleak continental procedural, plus a single major supernatural premise layered on to play itself out. And it's Flemings!
Also Lava Field (🇮🇸).
I didn't like Forbryldelsen. Too much fucking about. We may or may not have found a crucial piece of evidence and the council vote is tomorrow! But none of this will matter in three episodes' time!
142 - I'm no expert on these shows but I just started Happy Valley and like it. Also it's a police procedural about a middle-aged woman cop (and apparently showrun by women, judging from credits) which for me gives it a pleasingly new vibe versus other cop shows. I also like the two mystery-solving priest shows (Grantchester and Father Brown, Grantchester is slightly better because let's face it Anglicanism rules) for that special feeling of watching something
pitched at the over-70 demographic.
I also like Shetland because it has lots of shots of the Shetlands, my hopeful retirement locale.
163: sounds a bit like the first two seasons of the U.S. version.
Speaking of which, Michael Fassbender was really good in the third season. I checked the fourth season out of the library after the last time I brought it up on Unfogged but it's been so many years since I watched it, I found it hard to follow. Also, somehow they didn't bother closed captioning it, and as a suspiciously quiet loner who likes to watch things late at night at relatively low volumes* I found that approach to presentation incompatible with my lifestyle. In other words, I returned it without watching a full episode.
*Some of this stems from having upstairs neighbors once who pretty clearly wanted me to turn the volume down late at night** while watching crime films where there was a lots of gunfire.
**I routinely stayed up until 3 or 4 as a grad student. I suppose messages sent via loud noises on the floor are not unambiguous, but given that the loudest noise followed a pretty loud tv sequence and the pattern didn't fit any other patterns of upstairs noise, I took it pretty clearly as a sign to turn the tv down.
164.last: Surprisingly disappointing on the knitting front, though!
If by British people you mean Scandinavian people...
On reflection, maybe where the male lead lost his wife because he couldn't get over his inability to prevent the death of his children and where the female lead learns that the father of her child is a much bigger coward than she ever knew, you've already crossed into Sweden without noticing.
But you've automatically excluded anything Australian because Neighbors.
I also like the two mystery-solving priest shows
Me too. One funny thing about Father Brown: it takes place in a Cotwolds village in the 1950s, and almost every other character is a Catholic!
The whole mystery-solving priest thing makes me think of Tom Bosley and I can't watch after that.
Not that I mind Tom Bosley per se. I just have trouble with him as solving mysteries because Jessica Fletcher did all the heavy lifting when he was sheriff.
One funny thing about Father Brown: it takes place in a Cotwolds village in the 1950s, and almost every other character is a Catholic!
That's a change from the books then. Father Brown's parish was in Cobhole in Essex.
Counter-productive arguments #2435: It wasn't sexual harassment when I lashed out on learning that my employee was starting a serious relationship with somebody else because we are soulmates.
At this level of humiliation I think Meehan's only option now is suicide.
I don't think that's good advice. He'd just leave a note blaming his soulmate.
I just looked up his district. It's nice to see that when the Republicans did an unconstitutional gerrymander to protect their members, his was the gerrymanderest of them all.
It LOOKS the most gerrymandered, but we really shouldn't use that as a guideline. If we make a law that a district can only have a maximum of 20 topological vertices or something, it will still be just as easy to gerrymander.
That exact topography is written on his soul, next to the part where it says he's supposed to form intense, one-sided attractions to younger women that are perfectly fine because really he's not going to have sex with them. Unless they would happen to insist or something.
. He'd just leave a note blaming his soulmate.
Or based on past form, the Schumer Shutdown.
People who need people who need their paycheck from them are the luckiest people of all.
OT: The Chinese have cloned a monkey. I think we should try for a gorilla. To try for a human, unethical. To not try for something harder than a monkey, backing down in the face of international competition.
The NYT has more on Meehan. Turns out that the aide "specifically invited" his intimate communications. Bet you all feel silly now for blaming him.
There's some good stuff at the end. She apparently talked him into voting against Obamacare repeal.
"As I walked this evening and glanced over at the White House I smiled at the irony that on a day that I had to say 'no' to the President and to the Speaker of the House, I got to say 'yes' to you," Mr. Meehan wrote. "I hope that the former will be judged as a vote of conscience and the latter as an expression of care."
I'm going to need a script, Martin Sheen, and Margot Robbie.
And where's that kid with my latte?
I'll settle for 100,000 monkeys with typewriters, Emilio Estevez, and a now-adult former child star of a Disney show.
184: It's the first step towards their eventual production of military grade gorilla-shark hybrids.
Nassar will apparently die in prison.
175 years. Handed down by a judge who likes to 'get medieval' in her closing remarks, helping no one.
188: is it ok if the monkeys are gentically identical?
190 I was just at a farewell dinner for a cow-orker at a really fancy place that has TVs all over the place (I know) and a number of them were tuned to CNN International coverage of the sentencing. Not something you want to be looking at while having an expensive dinner and saying your fond farewells. I wish I still had my TV-B-Gone.
186: Meg Ryan is too old for romantic comedy, but I'm not!
We weren't planning on the Congressman being likeable enough for you to take the role.
Also, can you give Helen Hunt my phone number?
I feel like there should be a lot more random noise in 196 and 197, if I've understood the creative process correctly
You're thinking of the monkeys writing the script. I'm the associate producer.
Upthread people were talking about the timing of this becoming big news. But the initial news stories came out (if I have the timeline right) shortly before the '16 election, so bandwidth was pretty full up. The recent testimony, AFAICT, is the first big news hook since then (especially since this guy was already in prison for child porn, a fact I somehow only just learned???), so there wouldn't have been a perp walk.
Also, not clear to me whether the many gymnasts who testified recently were publicly known before then. Wasn't Maroney under an NDI?
Not to excuse any of the coverage, but if I understand the timeline right, it's not entirely surprising (and, obviously, a less-big story pre-Weinstein, even though it should have been big post-Sandusky, and also post-the existence of basic decency).
I should have thought of the other roles: marmoset dresser, baboom mic, etc. To say nothing of SFX! Although you won't need so much for a capuchin-stroker like this. It's not a Mel Gibbon macaquetion movie, after all.
200: I see guys like Nassar and Trump and marvel at their inability to hide their own loathsomeness. But why hide it, or even learn how to hide it, if nobody is going to hold you accountable?
OK, so now I see a piece of theatre where a judge tears up a defendant's letter and tosses it aside. The contents of the letter may be misconceived: there's surely nothing to be gained by judicial grandstanding and a tremendous amount to lose. An unrepentant convict loses the chance of parole because they are demonstrably untrustworthy, and that's all. Retribution and humiliation play no part in any of it.
a tremendous amount to lose
Like what?
I'm inclined to think that a woman judge being mean to a sexual abuser of girls in a very public case can only be salutary for any young women watching.
I don't understand the rules and the timeline for this, but for a judge to explicitly demand that somebody pleading guilty admits their guilt isn't retribution or humiliation. It's the judge's actual responsibility to do so.
What's lost, or undermined, is the legitimacy of the institution. 'Being mean' just isn't a component of justice.
To be clear (and not to be chauvinist, in the nationalistic sense) this is not new, and American courtrooms have seen too much of this already. Usually from judges who are men.
Was the letter written to the judge? Because pleading guilty and then writing at letter asking for a lighter sentence because you aren't really guilty is really not a good idea regardless of which judge you have.
Grandstanding by judges doesn't seem out of the ordinary to me. As long as she does everything by the book.
We literally give judges a grand stand to judge people from. On high!
I looked it up. He did write the letter to the court.
Anyway, it was a bit much when she said, "You will therefore be taken to the Dune Sea and cast into the Pit of Carkoon, the nesting place of the all-powerful Sarlacc. In his belly, you will find a new definition of pain and suffering, as you are slowly digested over a thousand years." But she really did have every need to reiterate what he he was being sentenced for and demand he say if he did it or not.
207 - Your position is contrary to basic understandings of justice in this country. Retribution plays no part in deciding whether a person is guilty or innocent of a crime. The issue here, though, was sentencing -- how much "retribution" should the state impose on a person who was (in this case admittedly) guilty. In that context retribution is, in essence, the point. So is, if appropriate, stern words or even humiliating ones from a judge, particularly if the defendant does not show appreciation of the gravity of the crime. The institution loses legitimacy if -- again at the sentencing stage, not the underlying trial -- retributive justice is not applied.
The below is, if you haven't seen it, is absolutely remarkable. In addition to being a damning and unanswerable condemnation of USA Gymnastics and MSU, it is simply one of the best and most powerful rhetorical displays I've ever seen in a courtroom. What an amazing human being Rachel Denhollander is.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/01/little-girl-worth
I'm now, in a fit of civic-minded desire to understand our justice system, reading the wikipedia entry on Boba Fett.
213: then your country has it wrong.
Generically, I'm with Charlie that judges should be dispassionate, and that American norms where they berate defendants aren't good ones. In this specific case, though, the judge was acting well within those norms, and she was talking to the serial rapist with the highest identified victim count I believe ever? This seems like the wrong case to hang a general critique of American judicial behavior on. Search YouTube for "Judicial pwnage!!!" or something, and I'm sure you can find a judge being abusive to some poor hapless kid who vandalized a playground or something.
215 - It's probably not fair of me, and I am trying not to get into these kinds of fights, but dropping in after mostly (exclusively? not sure if I've encountered you before) silence for the sole purpose of concern trolling about angry comments made by a judge in sentencing of (at least one of) the worst and most egregious rapes in American history is not a good look. You may want to think carefully about your own priorities -- whatever your principled stand on judicial comments in sentencing (?) was this really the time to go all in on expressing that stance?
217: (A) You are so pwned, and (B) Charlie has been around here off and on forever, and is generally decent, even if I'm being disagreeable about this thing specifically.
I withdraw 217. which actually wasn't fair. I do think this isn't the time and the place for a highly abstract discussion of the appropriate level of demonstrated emotion from judges in sentencing, however.
Or, to put it another way, that this judge isn't the example to talk about the issue with. Hard cases make bad law, and world-historically horrific criminals make overheated judicial rhetoric. Having the judge go over-the-top on this specific case would have been unsurprising and forgivable regardless of the norms.
220.1: Or, to put it another way, that this judge isn't the example to talk about the issue with.
Shockingly, Matt Yglesias and Jonathan Chait apparently disagree. (At least they did earlier today; I'm guessing they may be having second thoughts...)
Yggles got killed for commenting along these (Charlie W's) lines on Twitter, and in fact contritely deleted his post.
What was interesting was that the people I spotted who had posted virtually the same thing were Josh Barro and Jon Chait; that's quite the trifecta of ostensibly liberal, resolutely clueless pundits to be on the wrong side of such an issue.
It is literally hard to imagine a defendant more deserving of the judge's open contempt.
The other thing is that an equally condemnatory, but more tonally dispassionate/understated rage statement* from a male judge would almost certainly not have aroused anyone's ire. Which is not to accuse anyone of sexism but I doubt that impressions of permissible emotional-ness of judges are unmediated by the gender of the judge.
*honestly, I prefer that tone myself, but equally honestly the preference is essentially just an aethetic one.
This is something where I wouldn't judge anyone all that harshly for being on the other side of this from me. I really agree that the expectation that a judge should properly be abusive toward criminal defendants is a bad one: I'd like judges to be striking a balance, generally, between dispassion and mercy.
So a knee-jerk reaction to any story of a judge really ripping into a defendant as "judges shouldn't do that" seems like it's usually going to be a good knee-jerk reaction. This is just a bad story for it.
(And specifically, anything that suggests that the judge in the case is in any way unusually inappropriate is just wrong. If you're a hardline fanatic about how you think judges should treat defendants, the most I think you can say in this case is that the judge is behaving perfectly ordinarily by speaking harshly to the defendant, and that if harshness is ever justified it is justified in this case, but that nonetheless, harshness is literally never justified from a judge to a defendant.)
US judges are elected, they have to grandstand. And yes, saying something like "I have just signed your death warrant" after sentencing someone to a long prison term would be ludicrously unacceptable in a British court and would probably sign the death warrant for that judge's career, as well as getting them publicly reprimanded, held up for ridicule in the press, and seriously debriefed without coffee by the Lord Chancellor, but that's cultural differences for you.
US judges are elected
Only at the state level, and not in all states. I don't know about Michigan.
And even in lots of place where they're elected, that's not a motivation for grandstanding. In NY, electing judges is a bad idea, but it doesn't turn into contested elections where judges are trying to please voters by looking tough on crime: it's mostly quiet political patronage. Being abusive to defendants is just culture.
"Debriefed without coffee" is an excellent phrase.
My great-uncle the federal judge apparently sentenced someone to several consecutive life sentences and 30 days contempt of court, to be served first. That's all that's come down in family lore about grandstanding, but he was notably slow to anger.
227: Elected but nonpartisan.
The letter thing is weird. My high school band teacher went to jail a few years ago for having a sexual relationship with a student, and he read a bizarre statement/poem prior to sentencing. I suspect in his head, it was like a movie where a beloved teacher makes a heartfelt plea that changes the outcome, but the judge at some point stopped him and also told him he was a child molester (or similar) who didn't seem to be taking the process very seriously. Is this a thing with these people?
Presumably, there's a lawyer telling them not to write that letter. But maybe at a certain point (like after the client already has a 60 year federal sentence) the lawyer stops trying.
I'm guessing that for some set of child/teen molesters, they really believe that they were entitled to do what they did, and feel a need to explain how justified they were.
That was you writing 234 or you are supporting 234 because it fits with your experience?
That makes some sense. I was thinking it was immaturity of some sort, but entitlement seems much more correct.
The former. I'm on a new phone.
"New Phone or Child Molester" would be a very bad game show.
218, 219, 226 Charlie W is British btw.
218, 219, 226 Charlie W is British btw.
"Debriefed without coffee" is an excellent phrase.
The army, unsurprisingly, has a wide variety of phrases meaning "shouting at people".
226: On the other hand, making a fairly commonsense ruling upholding the sovereignty of parliament gets you branded an enemy of the people in the UK, so maybe the cultural differences aren't all in the UK's favour.
Also, re: the letter. Regardless of rhetoric, should a judge be destroying court documents?
I don't know from the appropriate procedure, which means I don't know to what extent that letter was a 'court document'. But it's perfectly plausible that it wasn't a proper part of the file and could be discarded.
It would be nice to think that she'd checked on the legality of that before she did her little act. What are the odds?
I'm sure she did.
I wasn't thrilled with the "I have just signed your death warrant" language because I took it as too close to "You know they stab guys like you in prison". But I'm fine with it interpreted as "This sentence is intended to keep you in prison for the rest of your natural life."
247: Absolutely certain, or the next thing to it. I don't know myself whether that letter was required to be preserved for the file, and she might have destroyed it even if it should have been preserved. But she would almost certainly have known offhand one way or the other -- that's not a tricky question if that's what you do all day.
There's always the chance God told her to destroy it even though she wasn't supposed to.
Barry Lubin, aka "Grandma the Clown" in the Big Apple Circus, has resigned after admitting to taking "pornographic" pictures of a 17-year old acrobat. We used to go to that circus for years when it was in town and my kids were little.
Odds are pretty good that the clerk's office has its own copy of the letter.
252: The judge's reputation will be ruined if it comes out that she just tore up a copy of the letter.
I assume it was a bench copy made of the actual exhibit. The idea of it being the only copy is a great ArrestedDevelopment-like farce idea though.
Honestly though, everyone should just watch the video linked in 213. It's so much more worth your time than worrying about the judge.
252, 254: This is obviously right -- I have no idea why I was visualizing the letter as having been handed up to the bench for the first time at the sentencing hearing.
I'll second the Denhollander video recommendation.
honestly, I prefer that tone myself
Who are you and what have you done with Halford?
Obviously, justice should be meted out with the tenor and restraint of online fora.
It needs to be said, contra Charlie W, that British judges are quite capable of ripping people to shreds when sentencing them, and often do. It's just that they do so in a uniquely orotund and Oxbridge way that sounds as if they're reading from the Preface to Coke upon Littleton unless you analyse what they're actually saying.
222: beloved yggles! never be in agreement with chait on a hott take, and you can never go too far wrong! that this hand-wringing has much to do with the judge's gender is unquestionable. oh my stars and garters, she's too swayed by her emotions in facing perhaps the most prolific rapist in US history, someone who had 6- and 9-year-old victims! and she didn't say, "I hope you get simultaneously shanked and man-raped," she said, "I sentence you to so many years you will never see the outside of a prison." it's different.
231, 234: if I had had the support/wherewithal to try to get my middle/high-school photography teacher in any legal trouble I have zero doubt he would have submitted a copy of the novel he wrote about me (gawd) as proof that his love was real and he therefore shouldn't get in any trouble. this was his actual position and he felt that I had wronged him terribly (as I learned from former friends). I never read it because even as a 17-year-old I thought...hmm, do I want to know? occasionally I feel curious and wish I had taken a copy, but it must have been so mind-numbingly awful that I'm better off as it is.
since writing what I did about how nassar should have been under observation when he conducted his "examinations," I read an article explaining that he often was but concealed whet he was doing with his body, and that in no few cases the parent was there, one mom reading her phone. god I would hang myself.
259: the testimony in 213--which, as ogged and halford have said, is worth watching (if one can stomach it)--mentions that he carefully shielded parents who were in the room so that they couldn't see him raping their daughters.
260 Fucking hell, that must have been part of his method, I mean why think anything wrong really happened if your mother is right there? So fucking evil.
Since commenting earlier, I saw that the Nassar judge had stated, prior to sentencing:
The monster who took advantage of you is going to wither, much like the scene in the 'Wizard of Oz' where the water gets poured on the witch and the witch withers away. That's what's going to happen to him, because as you get stronger, as you overcome -- because you will -- he gets weaker and he will wither away. Prison is no place for a human being to live.
and
Our Constitution does not allow for cruel and unusual punishment. If it did, I have to say, I might allow what he did to all of these beautiful souls -- these young women in their childhood -- I would allow someone or many people to do to him what he did to others.
Perhaps this can just be put down to culture and accepted. I do not think it should be accepted. However, I didn't intend to make any comparison of judicial processes between countries: lapses and mis-steps can occur anywhere. I did check to see what might have been said during a similarly high profile trial in the UK, for the 2002 Soham murders:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/4293158.stm
Nothing stands out to me there. My commenting here was motivated by noting the thread earlier, noting that the trial had ended, and - on reading the report of that - seeing what to me looked like judicial rhetoric of a sort that can only make a human disaster - the multiple crimes of a serial abuser given a position of trust - yet worse. This was a high profile case: that's why it has been commented on widely.
Yglesias has 300K+ followers: ipso facto I'd hesitate to draw any conclusions about his considered view. My view is the same as it was yesterday: I think we should not support the vocalisation of revenge scenarios, especially when done by officials, in our name.
Perhaps this can just be put down to culture and accepted. I do not think it should be accepted.
You can accept it or not, but it's not unusual and it's not judicial misconduct by American standards. Being horrified by what American judicial norms are is fine, there are all sorts of things wrong with the American criminal justice system.
Criticizing this judge specifically on the grounds that you believe that Nassar was treated unusually badly is just mistaken.
If you want to be horrified by the state of Michigan instead of American standards, I know a song about it.
I don't get Charlie W's reaction at all. If Nassar was beaten to death by a mob, I would agree with the Psalmist who wrote "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether".
I'm opposed by mob-beating deaths.
Also, opposed to attributing them to God, if only because then insurance won't cover them.
I feel like the whole point of that psalm is to not confuse the judgments of God with human judgments. The fake Samuel L. Jackson bible quote from Pulp Fiction seems more apropos.
I keep trying to find the part that explains far you need to be from the open the Ark of the Covenant to have it not melt off your face you don't shut your eyes.
I just cant get too worked up about this judge. Judges shouldn't promote retribution or suggest abusing a defendant. They just shouldn't. And in my experience those kinds of comments by a judge would be very unusual. (If a judge makes this comments about Nassar, they will prob make them about much less powerful criminal defendants tomorrow.)
But I just cant get too worked up about it, because I am much more interested in how impressive the victims were. Such powerful statements. Loved the "Where are all the people who defended Nassar now?!?!? None have apologized." Damn!
Pulp Fiction is my favorite Julia Sweeney movie.
Huh. I just read what purported to be a full transcript of the judge's sentencing remarks and the rape comment isn't in there (the 'death warrant' comment is). That's from some other occasion, but I haven't found exactly when or what the context is.
Let's just say she's very strict on not parking more than 6 inches out from the curb.
"It is literally hard to imagine a defendant more deserving of the judge's open contempt."
On the other hand:
"So thinking about these cases in terms of it being okay to treat this particular defendant badly, because he's guilty of something awful, is always going to lead you to erode constitutional protections." http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_16258.html#1980434
274: Yeah, I'm pretty comfortable distinguishing between eroding substantial rights and speaking intemperately.
It's kind of late to ask for a lawyer when you already have one and went to trial and were convicted and are being sentenced.
276: If a judge speaks intemperately during a trial, it could mislead the jury; if a judge speaks intemperately during sentencing, it could affect parole decisions.
Not really. To the extent parole is available under Michigan criminal law (I have no idea, and in any event it's not available to Nassar) it is extraordinarily unlikely that a judge's comments, as opposed to findings, would affect a parole decision in any way.
The only way Nassar gets parole is if the Republican Party has to face the choice between legalizing heterosexual pedophilia or not cutting taxes on billionaires.
I think 'extraordinarily unlikely' understates the case here.
I've seen folks concern trolling that it makes for an 'easy appeal.' Uh, no.
In case anyone wants to reanalyze the bloodthirsty behavior of US judges, the British equivalent of the Nasser trial just ended so maybe there's a transcript somewhere of that judge's closing remarks and how Bennell was confronted by his victims.