John Jay College Study "blames Woodstock" for the abuse problem of the Church

NYTimes

A five-year study commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to provide a definitive answer to what caused the church’s sexual abuse crisis has concluded that neither the all-male celibate priesthood nor homosexuality were to blame.

Instead, the report says, the abuse occurred because priests who were poorly prepared and monitored, and were under stress, landed amid the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s.

Known occurrences of sexual abuse of minors by priests rose sharply during those decades, the report found, and the problem grew worse when the church’s hierarchy responded by showing more care for the perpetrators than the victims.
The “blame Woodstock” explanation has been floated by bishops since the church was engulfed by scandal in the United States in 2002 and by Pope Benedict XVI after it erupted in Europe in 2010. [...]

Recording of Agudah's conference on the child abuse

Just received this letter from Dr. Asher LIpner with permission to post it
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Recording of the Aguda Conference May 16, 2011

Please be advised that I am still preparing my detailed response to the lecture.  It has raised many, many questions for me from a halachic perspective as well as a practical one.  Let me just ask the following for now, in the name of Rabbi Blau:

The lecture makes clear that according to Rabbi Gottesman's interpretation of halacha, abuse should never be reported without first consulting with a rabbi who is an expert on abuse for a halachic determination of the evidence.  However, in Lakewood the rabbis who were appointed to deal with this issue in an informal beis din have all resigned, and appear not to want that particular responsibility.  

(I believe there were two reasons for their resignation and disbanding the beis din.  The rabbi apparently realized that in a case of a false allegation they could be held liable, and since they are not trained forensically, or psychologically or legally in the area of sexual abuse, their expertise in halacha does not qualify them as experts and they would have no leg to stand on should they be sued, which actually did happen once. 

Furthermore, an Asbury Park Press article quoted the Ocean County Prosecutor Collen Lynch as saying that it is illegal for rabbis to hear allegations of abuse and not report it to child protective services.  The reason she said this because in New Jersey they are mandated reporters, and failure to report is a crime punishable with a fine and possible jail time.)

So, the question is, if you can't go to the rabbis as this tape advises, and you can't go to the police without talking to the rabbis as this tape advises, Rabbi Blau and I and many, many people in Lakewood would like to know, is there anything at all that people are allowed to do to stop abusers in Lakewood, New Jersey according to halacha? 

Growth Chemical Leads to Exploding Watermelons in China

Time

Safety goggles may become required for eating watermelons. It seems the wrong chemicals in the hands of the wrong farmers can lead to some pretty fascinating results, such as exploding watermelons. Yup, exploding watermelons. And this isn't some science experiment gone wrong—or right, depending on how fun your science teacher was—this is farming in China.

According to The Guardian, farmers tending fields throughout eastern China injected forcholorfenuron, a growth accelerator, into their crops of watermelons. The result had these ultra-plump melons literally bursting at the seams, unable to contain their own chemically laden power.[...]

Vatican Gets Tough on Child Abuse, but Not Tough Enough

Time

When the Vatican issued a letter on Monday ordering bishops across the world to draw up tough guidelines for dealing with priests who rape or molest children, it addressed only half the scandal that has been rocking the Catholic Church.

To be sure, when it comes to the abusive clerics, the Vatican's new edict takes a firm stand, obliging local bishops to cooperate with local law enforcement in reporting sex crimes and recommending that policies be put in place to exclude accused priests from public ministry if they pose a continued danger to minors or could be a "cause of scandal for the community."

But what Monday's letter fails to do is put in place any sanctions on the bishops who oversee those clerics, should they fail to follow through with the recommendations. Child abuse is by no means unique to the Catholic Church. What sets the scandal apart is the sustained and widespread effort by church authorities to cover up for and protect the accused. And, in this regard, the new guidelines change little. "No threat of penalty will deter a child molester from committing a child sex crime," says David Clohessy, national director of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which criticized the proposal as too lax. "But penalties can deter bishops from ignoring or concealing those crimes."

'Defiant' Wendi Runge receives 10 years for fraud

Press-Citizen

Wendy Weiner Runge tried to appear contrite Tuesday as she faced sentencing for fraud, telling a judge she was truly sorry for deceiving the state while trying to make movies in Iowa.

But outside the Polk County courtroom, the Minnesota filmmaker has been defiant about her culpability in Iowa's long-running film tax-incentive debacle - a move that got the 46-year-old mother of four a 10-year sentence in the Mitchellville women's prison.

Judge Douglas Staskal criticized Runge, the head of Polynation Pictures, for attacking prosecutors and judges in public statements she has made and blaming her plight on anti-Semitism and "some sort of political conspiracy."

Staskal said sentencing Runge to 10 years was a difficult decision because she had no prior criminal history, but he could not ignore the "complete arrogant and defiant" way in which she had denied responsibility for her crime. [...]

Another Ponzi scheme - "smart" investors lose $30 million

Hartford Courant

The architect of one of the state's biggest financial frauds — an investment scheme that could result in $30 million in losses and already has cost victims their homes, retirements and college education funds — was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison.

Michael Goldberg, 40, of Wethersfield, was accused of operating a Ponzi scheme that began by attracting small sums from friends and neighbors and ultimately collapsed under the weight of as much as $25 million put up by so-called sophisticated Florida investors.

Law enforcement experts say they believe that more than $100 million changed hands over the life of the scheme, which began in 1987 and ended in October 2009, when Goldberg turned himself in — first to his lawyer, Richard Brown of Hartford, and days later to the FBI.

Brown said Monday at U.S. District Court that Goldberg confessed because he is a "moral person" who had become consumed by the guilt associated with "living a lie for so long a period of time." But Assistant U.S. Attorney David Novick argued that Goldberg confessed because he could not keep up with the so-called interest payments he was obligated to make to the Florida investors who had begun to sue. [,,,,]

Behind the Israel Protest Turmoil: A Middle East Without a Peace Process

Time

Welcome to the post-peace process: The drama that unfolded on Israel's boundaries on Sunday as 12 Palestinians were killed in a wave of unarmed civil disobedience was but a taste of things to come. That was the warning from Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Sunday night, and he's certainly got reason to worry: Rather than pin their hopes on a moribund peace process, Palestinians have begun instead to align themselves with the Arab Spring  by pressing for their own rights through acts of people power. Even if there's no immediate followup to Sunday's protests, they represent a political crisis of epic proportions, not only for Israel and the United States, but also potentially even for the Palestinian leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas (and even, possibly, for his new Hamas partners in government).