Chez Chesler

BostonHerald.com - Local / Regional News: Center’s ‘shrinks’ legal? State investigates youth facility

Michael Femmia, [attorney for the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton] ... called allegations regarding the burned child “false.” [referring to a device used to administer electric shocks as part of aversion therapy.]

“No one has been hurt by the device,” Femmia said.

Excuse me, but isn't that the entire purpose and proper functioning of the device?

BostonHerald.com - Music News & Reviews: Young drops bomb on prez: New album rips Bush, war on Iraq: "“Impeach” may be the most flammatory. In it, Young calls the president a liar, and wonders if Bush would have paid more attention to the people of New Orleans if al-Qaeda, rather than Hurricane Katrina, had destroyed the city’s levees. " What does Young expect Bush to do to discourage the next hurricane?

Judge rescinds deal for Duke lacrosse player�-�Metropolitan�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper This came up in the Duke lacrosse team rape accusations.

At yesterday's hearing, Mr. Finnerty -- dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and green tie and accompanied by his family's priest -- stood quietly as Judge John H. Bayly rescinded the terms of the diversion program Mr. Finnerty entered after being charged with simple assault.

According to the terms of the program, the charges would have been dismissed had Mr. Finnerty completed 25 hours of community service and stayed out of trouble.

I don't get it. If Finnerty was involved in the rape of the stripper, throw the book at him, but until the evidence against him has been tested, why isn't he presumed innocent of the new charges, and presumed to have stayed out of trouble, in the Washington case?

Parents may sue school over gay book- from Pink News- all the latest gay news from the gay community - Pink News

The book, “King & King,” where a prince marries a fellow prince instead of a princess, was used in a lesson teaching different types of weddings. Lexington Superintendent of Schools Paul Ash said the school has no legal obligation to tell parents about the book, ''We couldn't run a public school system if every parent who feels some topic is objectionable to them for moral or religious reasons decides their child should be removed. ''Lexington is committed to teaching children about the world they live in, and in Massachusetts same-sex marriage is legal."

In Massachusetts it is also a legal requirement that parents be notified of sex ed. Ash appears to be picking and choosing which laws to hide behind. MGL Chapter 71, section 32A states

Every city, town, regional school district or vocational school district implementing or maintaining curriculum which primarily involves human sexual education or human sexuality issues shall adopt a policy ensuring parental/guardian notification. Such policy shall afford parents or guardians the flexibility to exempt their children from any portion of said curriculum through written notification to the school principal. No child so exempted shall be penalized by reason of such exemption.

Besides the poor grammar (curriculum is singular) it's not clear what the law actually requires. If Ash is going to claim that "King and King" is not part of a curriculum that primarily involves human sexuality, any school can get around this law by combining 51% calculus with 49% sex ed. The simplest reading of that section means that every parent who feels some sex topic is objectionable to them for any reason at all may remove their child; and all parents already have the right to remove their children from the public schools, though that's the only way they're going to get the education their taxes suppport. Is Ash suggesting that if gay marriage were illegal he wouldn't teach it in his school? Somebody should point out to him that being king is illegal in Massachusetts (US Constitution, Article I, section 9, "No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States"), and I'm not aware that fornication and adultery laws have been explicitly overturned here, but I doubt Ash supports "abstinence until marriage" sex ed.

BostonHerald.com - Local / Regional News: Heartbreak crash kills mom, newborn

Lancaster police say David E. Zoller, 33, of Littleton was driving a white van Saturday night [April 22, 2006] that crossed the center line on Route 62 and crashed into the side of the car where seat-belted, 21-year-old expectant mother [Katelyn M.] Disessa was sitting.

Just something to remember the next time a traffic cop says he's never had to unbuckle a dead victim.

Danielle Simas of Shewsbury was killed in a crash on February 25, 2000 after her 1994 Nissan Maxima skidded off Interstate 290. State Police Sgt. Timothy White noted that Simas was ejected through the rear window even though she was wearing a seatbelt.

A number of prominent bicyclists are killed in accidents, and more often than not they're wearing helmets.

UpdateTrooper Paul Barry was wearing a seat belt in the early hours of June 15 when, driving-while-tired from working a detail after his regular job with the State Police, he apparently fell asleep at the wheel and drifted into the breakdown lane, where he struck a truck, and later died of his injuries.

On my first day at my new job one of my co-workers told me he'd been to see Jerry Seinfeld, who said something that rang particular true. Jerry liked driving, because when you're driving, you're outside, but you're still inside. I think the same is true for living in a wooden house, and I'm not sure that it's all good. I grew up in brick apartments, most importantly the brick and steel high-rise in Co-op City. When I'm in a house, I'm never that far from the outside. Althoug it turns out one of my children didn't grok the orientation of an upstairs room, generally you can look out a window and see exactly where on the outside corresponds, and it is not inconceivable that with an appropriate ladder one could be immediately outside the room one is inside. OK, there are some attic and rafter spaces that aren't quite accessible, but any place in the house is simply the same space as if the house were not there, separated by enough wood and glass to keep the cold, almost all of the rain, and most of the draft out. An apartment in a building isn't like that. To start with, unless it's a penthouse, there are common walls. That means there aren't windows in that direction, and it's the great unknown. The ingress and egress is extremely constrained, typically one door to a common hallway. (We had a balcony; an older low-rise apartment might have a fire escape. My most recurring dreams involve going back to our Co-op City apartment. In one kind, something drastic has changed, like half the building has been demolished, or an adoining building built, or a sideways-moving elevator has been added. And in the other kind, something from the outside is coming in, through the windows, or through some ladder or elevator or aircraft that leads right outside the windows or balcony.) Maybe it's my laissez-faire housekeeping, but a well-maintained apartment is its own world. In Manhattan, due to rent control, apartments are kept for a long time, and due to their cramped size, a lot of artifice goes into making them homes rather than crash pads. People write about visiting the apartments of gurus, legendary authors or editors. Some of the magic may be the question of "where did they keep it?" We're not surprised that a house has a basement, and things go on in basements that we don't see. But behind the door from the corridor might be a supercomputer for studying Pi or a pony.

Union Leader - Manchester-Boston: It just flies off the tongue - Thursday, Apr. 20, 2006 Manchester New Hampshire Airport, sometimes Manchester International Airport, has renamed itself Manchester-Boston Airport. Predictably Boston is having http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=135869, but the Manchester Union-Leader thinks it's a good idea. I live 10 miles (and a $3 toll) from Logan, about 2 miles from the Logan Express terminal at the Anderson Regional Transportation Center, but the last two times I've flown it's been out of Manchester, and I expect on the next rare occasion I will also drive north. It's more miles, but it takes about as long, and parking is a lot easier and cheaper. Like Green, Worcester and sometimes Hanscom, Manchester is a very reasonable regional alternative to overcrowded Logan. They're all in ZBC, the FAA's Boston Area ARTCC, which has long been called Boston even though it's in Nashua, New Hampshire, and no matter how they label it, that airport is MHT to me.

With the murder of two men who were on the Maine sex offender registry web site there is renewed debate about such sites. The Boston Herald comes out in favor of them, saying they protect the public. In my opinion this scarlet letter ought not to be reserved for sex offenders, but should be applied to all offenders.

The Massachusetts Sex Offender Registration law, MGL Chapter 6 section 178N, Misuse of Information says

Information contained in the sex offender registry shall not be used to commit a crime against a sex offender or to engage in illegal discrimination or harassment of an offender.

It's not clear from the statute what kind of discrimination is illegal. If it's illegal on other grounds (such as race) this is awfully redundant. This is typically summarized, as when the local newspaper announces that an offender is living nearby, that the information may not be used to discriminate. If it can't be used to discriminate, what good is it? Isn't telling my kids "Stay away from that particular neighbor" or even after the fact noting that a re-offender is on the list discriminating?