movetheboat
Well-Known Angler
Iran Holds Unannounced Air Defence Drill Over Nuclear Town Natanz
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/a...heard-above-natanz-site-of-nuclear-facilities
the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread
- Thread starter wader
- Start date
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/a...heard-above-natanz-site-of-nuclear-facilities
JackPrintMD
Well-Known Angler
Cool!
I think he was spotted looking to buy property by Wader in Onacock. @cany , you heard that, right?
This would make more sense if it was a Scot wearing a kilt "interacting" with the sheep...
By Vimal Patel
Dec. 6, 2021
A 73-year-old volunteer died on Saturday after she was repeatedly rammed by a sheep while working at a Massachusetts farm that uses animals in mental health therapy, the authorities said.
The volunteer, Kim Taylor, who worked at Cultivate Care Farms in Bolton, about 40 miles west of Boston, had been caring for livestock in a pen alone when the animal charged at her, Warren Nelson, the chief of police, said in a statement.
Ms. Taylor suffered serious injuries and went into cardiac arrest shortly after the Bolton police and emergency medical workers arrived, the police said. She was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead, they said.
The attack occurred at about 8:30 a.m. during a volunteer shift but no witnesses were present, according to a statement from the farm. It described Ms. Taylor as a “treasured volunteer.”
“Kim was beloved by all who worked with her during the 14 months she volunteered at the farm,” Megan Moran, the director of Cultivate Care Farms, said in the statement.
On its website, the company states that it is committed to improving the lives of children through “farm-based therapy,” describing itself as a pioneer in the model, which it hopes to establish as a form of mental health treatment comparable to other models like cognitive behavioral therapy.
“Cultivate Care Farms strives to create a safe, supportive and inclusive space to promote wellness for all people and to diminish barriers created by mental health stigma,” the website states.
In its statement, the company said that it is working with investigators while the death is being reviewed, and that it has no more details. The authorities and the farm did not release any more information about the animal. Male sheep, known as rams, can occasionally behave aggressively, researchers say, but fatal attacks on humans are extremely rare.
A message left for the city’s animal control services was referred to the police chief. The police said that the staff at Cultivate Care Farms was working with animal control officials to determine “the future outcome of the sheep.”
Ms. Taylor’s daughters, Candice and Samantha Denby, said in a statement that Ms. Taylor, of Wellesley, Mass., was a great mother and grandmother and “a huge animal lover.”
“She found joy in her weekly volunteering at Cultivate Care Farms,” they said. “This accident was tragic and we are so very sad.”
Ms. Taylor was a nurse for more than 30 years and recently retired. She worked in the critical care unit at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Mass., the statement continued.
“She was an avid knitter, cook and Red Sox fan,” it said. “She greeted others while walking her dogs and always found joy on these outdoor walks.”
Volunteer Dies After a Sheep Charges at Her on a Therapy Farm
Kim Taylor, 73, went into cardiac arrest after being attacked while caring for livestock at a Massachusetts farm, the police said.By Vimal Patel
Dec. 6, 2021
A 73-year-old volunteer died on Saturday after she was repeatedly rammed by a sheep while working at a Massachusetts farm that uses animals in mental health therapy, the authorities said.
The volunteer, Kim Taylor, who worked at Cultivate Care Farms in Bolton, about 40 miles west of Boston, had been caring for livestock in a pen alone when the animal charged at her, Warren Nelson, the chief of police, said in a statement.
Ms. Taylor suffered serious injuries and went into cardiac arrest shortly after the Bolton police and emergency medical workers arrived, the police said. She was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead, they said.
The attack occurred at about 8:30 a.m. during a volunteer shift but no witnesses were present, according to a statement from the farm. It described Ms. Taylor as a “treasured volunteer.”
“Kim was beloved by all who worked with her during the 14 months she volunteered at the farm,” Megan Moran, the director of Cultivate Care Farms, said in the statement.
On its website, the company states that it is committed to improving the lives of children through “farm-based therapy,” describing itself as a pioneer in the model, which it hopes to establish as a form of mental health treatment comparable to other models like cognitive behavioral therapy.
“Cultivate Care Farms strives to create a safe, supportive and inclusive space to promote wellness for all people and to diminish barriers created by mental health stigma,” the website states.
In its statement, the company said that it is working with investigators while the death is being reviewed, and that it has no more details. The authorities and the farm did not release any more information about the animal. Male sheep, known as rams, can occasionally behave aggressively, researchers say, but fatal attacks on humans are extremely rare.
A message left for the city’s animal control services was referred to the police chief. The police said that the staff at Cultivate Care Farms was working with animal control officials to determine “the future outcome of the sheep.”
Ms. Taylor’s daughters, Candice and Samantha Denby, said in a statement that Ms. Taylor, of Wellesley, Mass., was a great mother and grandmother and “a huge animal lover.”
“She found joy in her weekly volunteering at Cultivate Care Farms,” they said. “This accident was tragic and we are so very sad.”
Ms. Taylor was a nurse for more than 30 years and recently retired. She worked in the critical care unit at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Mass., the statement continued.
“She was an avid knitter, cook and Red Sox fan,” it said. “She greeted others while walking her dogs and always found joy on these outdoor walks.”
wader
Well-Known Angler
China's moon rover spots a mysterious cube-shaped object, and the internet is intrigued
China's Yutu 2 rover spotted the mysterious object on its 36th lunar day on the moon, and it will now go investigate what it is.
World's gone mad
nypost.com
Controversial ‘suicide pod’ that ‘kills peacefully’ gets go-ahead in Switzerland
Individuals are asked a series of questions before they can press a button, which brings oxygen down to a critical level.
nypost.com
wader
Well-Known Angler
Beware!!!
May want to let the women in your life see this.
www.yahoo.com
May want to let the women in your life see this.
Woman uncovers alleged stalking tactic increasing in popularity: ‘Seems it’s happening to a lot of people’
This is the latest development in what appears to be a disturbing trend.
With those short arms, he ain't getting it off...
The T. rex on display in the Natural History Museum in London took on a decidedly less threatening appearance this week. Credit...Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London
Behold the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex — all swaddled in a cozy Christmas sweater.
The replica T. rex at the Natural History Museum in London is an enormous, ferocious-looking beast that was built to scale, standing about 60 percent the size of the 40-foot-long prehistoric creature.
The animatronic attraction, which features roaring sound effects, often startles visitors, but on Monday, the predatory edge was somewhat softened when visitors found the T. rex bedecked in a giant blue, red and green holiday sweater, replete with cheerful Christmas trees and snowflakes.
The turtleneck, created by a British company that has also dressed members of Parliament, fit snugly around the T. rex’s wide upper body and neck, then tapered into sleeves short enough to encircle the dinosaur’s wee arms.
“There is nothing more funny than a jumper fitted for a dinosaur that has the tiniest arms in the world,” said Carla Treasure, a buyer and product developer at the museum. “I think it makes it slightly less scary.”
But not for everyone, according to Snahal Patel, chief executive of Jack Masters, the knitwear company in Leicester, England, that made the sweater.
“A few kids were crying,” he said.
Still, most people were delighted, Mr. Patel said, and “in hysterics” as the animatronic creature, which responds to visitors through motion sensors in its eyes, bucked and turned toward the crowds.
The idea came to Mr. Patel in April, when he and Ms. Treasure were trying to come up with a sweater that the museum could sell in its gift shop that would cheer up the public and draw back crowds that had dwindled since the pandemic.
The museum has recently moved toward selling more sustainably made products, Ms. Treasure said. Mr. Patel’s company makes sweaters from recycled cotton and plastic bottles.
But Mr. Patel suggested going “a bit bigger” than just a gift-shop sweater.
“Let’s just put a Christmas jumper on a dinosaur,” he recalled suggesting.
Ms. Treasure proposed the idea to the museum’s board of trustees, which approved it. Ms. Treasure said she specifically recommended that the T. rex wear a Christmas jumper — a garish staple of the holiday season that self-deprecating Britons have come to embrace.
The entire process of knitting a sweater that would fit a dinosaur took about 100 hours to complete, she said. Mr. Patel said the first sweater was too large. Getting a turtleneck over the head of the dinosaur was also a problem, said Mr. Patel, who recalled trying to push and pull the material on.
They ultimately decided to add a zipper to the sweater’s back. During the fitting process, museum technicians were on hand to pause the T. rex’s movements while Mr. Patel and his staff measured the dinosaur using large step ladders and extra-long measuring tape.
On Monday, Mr. Patel and his employees arrived early at the museum to put the finishing touches on the sweater, which measured nearly four feet around the neck, nine and a half feet around the shoulders and just over 10 feet around the body.
On Twitter, images of the T. rex in the sweater met with gleeful reactions.
“Most heartwarming news story of the year,” one person wrote.
“The Jurassic Park / Home Alone crossover looks excellent,” wrote Michael Moran, a British tabloid journalist.
On the museum’s Instagram account, photos of the dinosaur in the jumper had more than 23,000 likes.
“This is the thing I never knew I needed in my life until this exact moment,” one Instagram user wrote in reply to the photos.
The sweater will stay on the T. rex until Christmas Eve.
Mr. Patel said he expected to get the sweater back. It will then be shredded into material that can be reused for something different, like carpet underlay. But Ms. Treasure said she was hopeful that the sweater could be converted into another product that could be donated to charity.
Mr. Patel said that after successfully styling an animatronic dinosaur, he felt equipped to outfit other massive animal displays with Christmas sweaters.
“If the New York museum wants to do something next year,” he said, referring to the American Natural History Museum, “we are ready.”
Just in Time for Christmas: Knitwear Fit for a T. Rex
The Natural History Museum in London outfitted its animatronic Tyrannosaurus rex in a colorful Christmas sweater.
The T. rex on display in the Natural History Museum in London took on a decidedly less threatening appearance this week. Credit...Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London
Behold the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex — all swaddled in a cozy Christmas sweater.
The replica T. rex at the Natural History Museum in London is an enormous, ferocious-looking beast that was built to scale, standing about 60 percent the size of the 40-foot-long prehistoric creature.
The animatronic attraction, which features roaring sound effects, often startles visitors, but on Monday, the predatory edge was somewhat softened when visitors found the T. rex bedecked in a giant blue, red and green holiday sweater, replete with cheerful Christmas trees and snowflakes.
The turtleneck, created by a British company that has also dressed members of Parliament, fit snugly around the T. rex’s wide upper body and neck, then tapered into sleeves short enough to encircle the dinosaur’s wee arms.
“There is nothing more funny than a jumper fitted for a dinosaur that has the tiniest arms in the world,” said Carla Treasure, a buyer and product developer at the museum. “I think it makes it slightly less scary.”
But not for everyone, according to Snahal Patel, chief executive of Jack Masters, the knitwear company in Leicester, England, that made the sweater.
“A few kids were crying,” he said.
Still, most people were delighted, Mr. Patel said, and “in hysterics” as the animatronic creature, which responds to visitors through motion sensors in its eyes, bucked and turned toward the crowds.
The idea came to Mr. Patel in April, when he and Ms. Treasure were trying to come up with a sweater that the museum could sell in its gift shop that would cheer up the public and draw back crowds that had dwindled since the pandemic.
The museum has recently moved toward selling more sustainably made products, Ms. Treasure said. Mr. Patel’s company makes sweaters from recycled cotton and plastic bottles.
But Mr. Patel suggested going “a bit bigger” than just a gift-shop sweater.
“Let’s just put a Christmas jumper on a dinosaur,” he recalled suggesting.
Ms. Treasure proposed the idea to the museum’s board of trustees, which approved it. Ms. Treasure said she specifically recommended that the T. rex wear a Christmas jumper — a garish staple of the holiday season that self-deprecating Britons have come to embrace.
The entire process of knitting a sweater that would fit a dinosaur took about 100 hours to complete, she said. Mr. Patel said the first sweater was too large. Getting a turtleneck over the head of the dinosaur was also a problem, said Mr. Patel, who recalled trying to push and pull the material on.
They ultimately decided to add a zipper to the sweater’s back. During the fitting process, museum technicians were on hand to pause the T. rex’s movements while Mr. Patel and his staff measured the dinosaur using large step ladders and extra-long measuring tape.
On Monday, Mr. Patel and his employees arrived early at the museum to put the finishing touches on the sweater, which measured nearly four feet around the neck, nine and a half feet around the shoulders and just over 10 feet around the body.
On Twitter, images of the T. rex in the sweater met with gleeful reactions.
“Most heartwarming news story of the year,” one person wrote.
“The Jurassic Park / Home Alone crossover looks excellent,” wrote Michael Moran, a British tabloid journalist.
On the museum’s Instagram account, photos of the dinosaur in the jumper had more than 23,000 likes.
“This is the thing I never knew I needed in my life until this exact moment,” one Instagram user wrote in reply to the photos.
The sweater will stay on the T. rex until Christmas Eve.
Mr. Patel said he expected to get the sweater back. It will then be shredded into material that can be reused for something different, like carpet underlay. But Ms. Treasure said she was hopeful that the sweater could be converted into another product that could be donated to charity.
Mr. Patel said that after successfully styling an animatronic dinosaur, he felt equipped to outfit other massive animal displays with Christmas sweaters.
“If the New York museum wants to do something next year,” he said, referring to the American Natural History Museum, “we are ready.”
This will be interesting...
pressherald.com/2021/12/07/the-supreme-court-will-hear-a-maine-case-that-could-have-an-impact-on-school-choice-nationwide/
By Megan Gray December 8, 2021
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear a legal challenge from Maine that could have a national impact on school choice.
Maine allows students in towns with no public high schools to put taxpayer money toward the cost of an outside school, public or private. But the law bars them from using those funds at religious schools. The families who filed this lawsuit want to do away with that rule.
The program has survived four previous challenges, but none reached the nation’s highest court. The conservative shift on the Supreme Court could give these plaintiffs a greater chance at success, and the case has attracted more than three dozen briefs from national groups on both sides of the issue.
If the justices overturn the law, the direct impact would likely be limited. It applies to a relatively small number of Maine students who live in school administrative units that do not have public high schools. The only state with a comparable law is Vermont.
But the indirect impact could be significant. Legal experts said the ruling could either put a damper on or bolster school choice programs that seek to use public funds for religious options.
“The implications are national in scope,” said John Maddaus, an associate professor emeritus at the University of Maine Orono.
Maine has 260 school administrative units serving nearly 180,000 students from kindergarten to 12th grade. More than half do not have their own secondary schools, and many sign contracts or make agreements with other schools to provide those services. The law says SAUs that do not have public high schools can pay outside public or private schools to accept their students, so long as those schools aren’t “sectarian.” An SAU canpay up to the statewide average tuition rate – $11,275 last year — and the balance is the parents’ responsibility.
More than 4,500 students attended private schools through a contract or the tuition program during the 2017-2018 year, according to court documents. The state says nearly all attended one of 11 private schools known as “town academies,” like Thornton Academy in Saco. Another 208 students are receiving public funding at other private schools this year, a Maine Department of Education spokeswoman said on Tuesday. It is not clear how many students in Maine attend religious schools at their own expense, or how many would do so if the court overturned the current law and they could use state tuition money.
The Maine Attorney General’s Office has argued that this program helps the state meet its obligation to provide free public education to all students. The state also has said the First Amendment doesn’t require the government to subsidize religious education.
“While typically a public education would be provided through public schools, the lack of public schools in some parts of Maine means that this (is) not always possible,” Attorney General Aaron Frey wrote in the state’s brief. “So, a small number of children are eligible to attend an approved private school of their choosing at public expense. This is not a voucher, scholarship, or subsidy program. Rather, it is simply a method to deliver a free public education. And because Maine is using private schools as part of its public education system, schools that promote a particular religion or present material through a religious lens are not eligible. The education provided in such sectarian schools is simply not comparable to a public education.”
In this case, three families filed a federal lawsuit in 2018. One is no longer involved in the litigation. The plaintiffs are represented by the Institute for Justice, a national law firm that takes cases on religious liberty and school choice. The same group has been involved in previous challenges to Maine’s law.
They decided to try again in light of a 2017 Supreme Court decision. In that case, Missouri barred a church from participating in a state program that reimbursed the cost of rubberizing playground surfaces. The court ruled that religious organizations cannot be excluded from state programs if they have secular intent, and Missouri had discriminated against this church based solely on its religious status.
Last year, while the lawsuit from Maine was pending, the Supreme Court issued another opinion that is likely to be important to the arguments on Wednesday. The court considered a scholarship program in Montana that provides tax credits for donations to private scholarship organizations. When the state said those scholarships could not be used at religious schools, parents sued. The justices ultimately said the state could not exclude religious schools.
The plaintiffs in the Maine case have said the state’s law violates their constitutional right to exercise their religion.
“Maine’s sectarian exclusion discriminates against families who are eligible for the tuition assistance program and believe that a religious education is the best option for their child,” their attorneys wrote in their brief. “The exclusion forces such families to choose between a public benefit to which they are entitled and their right to send their child to a religious school.”
David and Amy Carson live in Glenburn and met when they were students at Bangor Christian Schools. David Carson is a general contractor, and Amy Carson helps run the business. When it was time for their only daughter to start kindergarten, they enrolled her at Bangor Christian Schools as well. Their town doesn’t have a public high school, so they could have used the tuition program to send their daughter to John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor or another approved school. But they chose to keep her at Bangor Christian Schools. Olivia Carson, now 19, graduated this year, and is a business student at Husson University.
Amy Carson said her daughter excelled in a small class of two dozen, and the family valued the Bible classes that were part of the school routine. Because their daughter has graduated, the family will no longer qualify for the tuition reimbursement if the Supreme Court overturns the law. But Amy Carson said the family signed onto the lawsuit anyway because she knows there are other families who could not afford to make the same choices. She estimated they spent more than $20,000 on tuition over the four years of high school.
“It would have been great to have the benefit while she was in high school,” Amy Carson, 45, said. “But we look at all the other families that would benefit from it, whether it would be somebody right down the road from me or in another town.”
Maddaus, the associate professor emeritus at UMaine, researched the state program in the 1980s and 1990s, and his writing is cited in the briefs in this case. If the court overturns the law, he said some families might enroll their children in religious schools for the first time or move to SAUs that would then be required to pay tuition at religious schools.
“It’s certainly possible that it will have some implications in Maine in terms of an increase in the number of students who are enrolled through town tuitioning,” Maddaus said.
Arif Panju, a managing attorney at the Institute for Justice, said multiple states expanded their school choice programs in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Montana case. His organization represented those plaintiffs.
“You’ve got tons of families waiting for more educational options,” he said.
The principal of Bangor Christian Schools said Tuesday that she would not comment on the case. The superintendent of another school mentioned in the lawsuit, Temple Academy in Waterville, did not return a message Tuesday. The state said those two schoolsdiscriminate against teachers and students based on sexual orientation and gender identity, so they would be forced to change those policies or reject public funds even if a Supreme Court ruling meant that religious schools had to be included in the tuition program.
Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, said she is concerned the court could endorse such discriminatory policiesby overturning Maine’s law. The ruling could show how far the conservative majority will shift the precedent on the separation of church and state, she said.
“I think Maine was chosen as a test balloon to try to constitutionalize discrimination on the basis of other characteristics as a matter of the free exercise of religion,” Wehle said.
The U.S. District Court of Maine and the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston both found Maine’s tuition program to be constitutional. More than two years ago, the first ruling in the case foreshadowed its national importance.
“It has always been apparent that, whatever my decision, this case is destined to go to the First Circuit on appeal, maybe even to the Supreme Court,” U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby wrote in June 2019. “I congratulate (the parties) on their written and oral arguments in this court. I hope that the rehearsal has given them good preparation for the First Circuit (and maybe even higher).”
Oral arguments in Carson v. Makin will begin at 10 a.m. Wednesday and will be streamed live on the Supreme Court website. A decision is not expected until next year.
U.S. Supreme Court will hear a Maine case that could have an impact on school choice nationwide
By Megan Gray December 8, 2021
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear a legal challenge from Maine that could have a national impact on school choice.
Maine allows students in towns with no public high schools to put taxpayer money toward the cost of an outside school, public or private. But the law bars them from using those funds at religious schools. The families who filed this lawsuit want to do away with that rule.
The program has survived four previous challenges, but none reached the nation’s highest court. The conservative shift on the Supreme Court could give these plaintiffs a greater chance at success, and the case has attracted more than three dozen briefs from national groups on both sides of the issue.
If the justices overturn the law, the direct impact would likely be limited. It applies to a relatively small number of Maine students who live in school administrative units that do not have public high schools. The only state with a comparable law is Vermont.
But the indirect impact could be significant. Legal experts said the ruling could either put a damper on or bolster school choice programs that seek to use public funds for religious options.
“The implications are national in scope,” said John Maddaus, an associate professor emeritus at the University of Maine Orono.
Maine has 260 school administrative units serving nearly 180,000 students from kindergarten to 12th grade. More than half do not have their own secondary schools, and many sign contracts or make agreements with other schools to provide those services. The law says SAUs that do not have public high schools can pay outside public or private schools to accept their students, so long as those schools aren’t “sectarian.” An SAU canpay up to the statewide average tuition rate – $11,275 last year — and the balance is the parents’ responsibility.
More than 4,500 students attended private schools through a contract or the tuition program during the 2017-2018 year, according to court documents. The state says nearly all attended one of 11 private schools known as “town academies,” like Thornton Academy in Saco. Another 208 students are receiving public funding at other private schools this year, a Maine Department of Education spokeswoman said on Tuesday. It is not clear how many students in Maine attend religious schools at their own expense, or how many would do so if the court overturned the current law and they could use state tuition money.
The Maine Attorney General’s Office has argued that this program helps the state meet its obligation to provide free public education to all students. The state also has said the First Amendment doesn’t require the government to subsidize religious education.
“While typically a public education would be provided through public schools, the lack of public schools in some parts of Maine means that this (is) not always possible,” Attorney General Aaron Frey wrote in the state’s brief. “So, a small number of children are eligible to attend an approved private school of their choosing at public expense. This is not a voucher, scholarship, or subsidy program. Rather, it is simply a method to deliver a free public education. And because Maine is using private schools as part of its public education system, schools that promote a particular religion or present material through a religious lens are not eligible. The education provided in such sectarian schools is simply not comparable to a public education.”
In this case, three families filed a federal lawsuit in 2018. One is no longer involved in the litigation. The plaintiffs are represented by the Institute for Justice, a national law firm that takes cases on religious liberty and school choice. The same group has been involved in previous challenges to Maine’s law.
They decided to try again in light of a 2017 Supreme Court decision. In that case, Missouri barred a church from participating in a state program that reimbursed the cost of rubberizing playground surfaces. The court ruled that religious organizations cannot be excluded from state programs if they have secular intent, and Missouri had discriminated against this church based solely on its religious status.
Last year, while the lawsuit from Maine was pending, the Supreme Court issued another opinion that is likely to be important to the arguments on Wednesday. The court considered a scholarship program in Montana that provides tax credits for donations to private scholarship organizations. When the state said those scholarships could not be used at religious schools, parents sued. The justices ultimately said the state could not exclude religious schools.
The plaintiffs in the Maine case have said the state’s law violates their constitutional right to exercise their religion.
“Maine’s sectarian exclusion discriminates against families who are eligible for the tuition assistance program and believe that a religious education is the best option for their child,” their attorneys wrote in their brief. “The exclusion forces such families to choose between a public benefit to which they are entitled and their right to send their child to a religious school.”
David and Amy Carson live in Glenburn and met when they were students at Bangor Christian Schools. David Carson is a general contractor, and Amy Carson helps run the business. When it was time for their only daughter to start kindergarten, they enrolled her at Bangor Christian Schools as well. Their town doesn’t have a public high school, so they could have used the tuition program to send their daughter to John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor or another approved school. But they chose to keep her at Bangor Christian Schools. Olivia Carson, now 19, graduated this year, and is a business student at Husson University.
Amy Carson said her daughter excelled in a small class of two dozen, and the family valued the Bible classes that were part of the school routine. Because their daughter has graduated, the family will no longer qualify for the tuition reimbursement if the Supreme Court overturns the law. But Amy Carson said the family signed onto the lawsuit anyway because she knows there are other families who could not afford to make the same choices. She estimated they spent more than $20,000 on tuition over the four years of high school.
“It would have been great to have the benefit while she was in high school,” Amy Carson, 45, said. “But we look at all the other families that would benefit from it, whether it would be somebody right down the road from me or in another town.”
Maddaus, the associate professor emeritus at UMaine, researched the state program in the 1980s and 1990s, and his writing is cited in the briefs in this case. If the court overturns the law, he said some families might enroll their children in religious schools for the first time or move to SAUs that would then be required to pay tuition at religious schools.
“It’s certainly possible that it will have some implications in Maine in terms of an increase in the number of students who are enrolled through town tuitioning,” Maddaus said.
Arif Panju, a managing attorney at the Institute for Justice, said multiple states expanded their school choice programs in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Montana case. His organization represented those plaintiffs.
“You’ve got tons of families waiting for more educational options,” he said.
The principal of Bangor Christian Schools said Tuesday that she would not comment on the case. The superintendent of another school mentioned in the lawsuit, Temple Academy in Waterville, did not return a message Tuesday. The state said those two schoolsdiscriminate against teachers and students based on sexual orientation and gender identity, so they would be forced to change those policies or reject public funds even if a Supreme Court ruling meant that religious schools had to be included in the tuition program.
Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, said she is concerned the court could endorse such discriminatory policiesby overturning Maine’s law. The ruling could show how far the conservative majority will shift the precedent on the separation of church and state, she said.
“I think Maine was chosen as a test balloon to try to constitutionalize discrimination on the basis of other characteristics as a matter of the free exercise of religion,” Wehle said.
The U.S. District Court of Maine and the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston both found Maine’s tuition program to be constitutional. More than two years ago, the first ruling in the case foreshadowed its national importance.
“It has always been apparent that, whatever my decision, this case is destined to go to the First Circuit on appeal, maybe even to the Supreme Court,” U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby wrote in June 2019. “I congratulate (the parties) on their written and oral arguments in this court. I hope that the rehearsal has given them good preparation for the First Circuit (and maybe even higher).”
Oral arguments in Carson v. Makin will begin at 10 a.m. Wednesday and will be streamed live on the Supreme Court website. A decision is not expected until next year.
And for those of you with daughters/granddaughters in Babylon HS...
School District Investigates Claims of Longtime Sexual Misconduct by Teachers
In late October, the school board in the bayside village of Babylon, on Long Island, sent out a letter that said an unidentified teacher had been removed from his post, pending an investigation into unspecified “disturbing allegations.”
As the letter pinged across social media, current and former students posted experiences, in doing so depicting a decades-long culture of toxicity at Babylon High School and claiming that lascivious behavior, bullying and even sexual relationships between teachers and students had been tolerated or ignored.
About a week later, Brittany Rohl, 28, who graduated in 2011, sent her own letter to the board. She detailed a relationship with a married teacher who she said had begun grooming her when she was 16 years old. They began a sexual relationship shortly after her 18th birthday, she said.
Ms. Rohl said that she had asked to read the letter aloud virtually from her home in Gainesville, Fla., at a school board meeting on Nov. 15 but that the board had denied her request, saying only people who were physically present could speak, Ms. Rohl said.
So she booked a plane ticket to New York.
At the board meeting, Ms. Rohl found she was not alone. Over a dozen alumnae followed her remarks at the podium. One after another, they spoke of sports coaches who had touched them inappropriately when demonstrating techniques, teachers who had texted privately with students and had them at their homes unsupervised, and a predatory culture so well-known that older girls would warn incoming seventh graders which teachers they should stay away from.
For many it was a moment long past due, the #MeToo movement at last sweeping through Babylon, forcing a confrontation with a culture that they believe put students in danger.
“This is so normalized that in retrospect, if a teacher came over and touched you — touched your shoulder, touched your hair, commented on your body — the thought that it would ever be something worth reporting was not on anyone’s radar,” Ms. Rohl said in an interview.
After the meeting, which stretched past midnight, five additional teachers were placed on paid leave while the concerns were being investigated, according to several people present and news reports. The school district would not say whether the removals had resulted from the allegations. According to the Suffolk County Police Department and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, no charges have been filed relating to any of the allegations.
Linda J. Rozzi, the Babylon schools superintendent, did not respond to an email requesting a response to the allegations.
Deirdre Gilligan, a spokeswoman for the school district, declined to respond to any specific allegations, including claims that school officials, including the superintendent, had known about the issues for years and had done nothing. In an email, Ms. Gilligan said little more than that the school district had received the reports and was investigating.
“The district does not tolerate abuse of any kind, takes all allegations very seriously and is committed to acting upon each and every claim we receive,” Ms. Gilligan wrote in a statement. “We commend the brave individuals for coming forward and sharing their voices.”
The New York Times contacted the six teachers who were placed on leave, as well as other teachers who have been accused of wrongdoing, but did not receive responses from any. The Times is not naming those who have been accused because they have not been criminally charged and the accusations are still under investigation.
The school district has taken some steps to try to address the allegations. This month, the Crime Victims Center, a Long-Island based nonprofit group that advocates for victims, will begin providing sexual harassment training for all school personnel. The center will also conduct training for employees on their obligation to report child abuse or neglect; under New York State law, all school staff members who have contact with children must report such claims. The rule has been in effect for teachers since 1973.
Still, calling the reports “troubling,” Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, announced an investigation into the high school last month.
Former students blamed the insular culture of Babylon, a mostly white, middle-class community, known for its quaint village atmosphere and beaches, as partially to blame. The small school has only about 100 students per grade, according to students; teachers have often taught entire families, sometimes several generations, fostering familiarity that can slip into intimacy, several alumnae said.
“You think that you’re in this respectable little town where nothing goes wrong — you don’t lock your doors at night,” said Darcy Orlando Bennet, 30, who graduated in 2009. “But you end up getting sexually assaulted by your teacher, and nobody believes you.”
The concerns go beyond the six teachers who were reassigned. During her 10th-grade year, Ms. Bennet and others recalled, a tennis coach was investigated by the school after a student accused him of things like tapping students on the behind and lifting their skirts with his racket.
The coach was removed from his position with the tennis team but remained a teacher of special education, she said. He retired in 2018, and no legal action was ever taken, she said. The school district did not respond to questions about the events. The man did not respond to a message left on his cellphone requesting comment.
Some of the behavior being reported by alumnae rises to the level of illegality, including sexual harassment, endangering the welfare of a child, sexual abuse and sexual assault, said Laura A. Ahearn, the executive director of the Crime Victims Center. Since the school board meeting, Ms. Ahearn said, victims have contacted the center, which works with the county to provide support services for crime victims.
In interviews with nine former students, several said that the first time they had spoken of their concerns was at the school board meeting. But others, like a New York City police officer who graduated from Babylon in 2008, said they had reported incidents to counselors and school officials while seeking help at the time, only to be rebuffed or even threatened with punishment themselves, accused of instigating the inappropriate behavior.
The officer, Barbara Maier, 31, who asked to go by her maiden name because she said she wanted to maintain her privacy as a victim of sexual assault, said that when she reported it, school officials had threatened her with suspension, saying she had broken school rules by kicking her attacker and leaving campus without permission.
“Knowing what I know now and comparing it to all these things from the past, my wheels started turning,” Ms. Maier, who still lives in the community, said. “I thought: ‘Wait, how come no one reported anything that was going on? How did this go on for so long?’”
Corinne Samon, 52, never reported an incident from 1982, in which she said a teacher had approached her in a shop room at Babylon and slapped her on the behind while making a lewd comment. She was 12 years old and in the seventh grade, she said.
“As a 12-year-old, there is so much shame and self doubt and blame,” Ms. Samon said, “and just this feeling of, ‘What did I do wrong?’ When we did nothing wrong.”
In November, nearly four decades after the incident, Ms. Samon filed a police report, she said. Though the time for filing under the statute of limitations had expired, and no charges could be pressed, the exercise felt cathartic, she said.
“I felt so good when I finally did that,” she said.
School District Investigates Claims of Longtime Sexual Misconduct by Teachers
Six teachers from Babylon High School have been placed on leave as the investigation continues and alumnae come forward with claims.School District Investigates Claims of Longtime Sexual Misconduct by Teachers
In late October, the school board in the bayside village of Babylon, on Long Island, sent out a letter that said an unidentified teacher had been removed from his post, pending an investigation into unspecified “disturbing allegations.”
As the letter pinged across social media, current and former students posted experiences, in doing so depicting a decades-long culture of toxicity at Babylon High School and claiming that lascivious behavior, bullying and even sexual relationships between teachers and students had been tolerated or ignored.
About a week later, Brittany Rohl, 28, who graduated in 2011, sent her own letter to the board. She detailed a relationship with a married teacher who she said had begun grooming her when she was 16 years old. They began a sexual relationship shortly after her 18th birthday, she said.
Ms. Rohl said that she had asked to read the letter aloud virtually from her home in Gainesville, Fla., at a school board meeting on Nov. 15 but that the board had denied her request, saying only people who were physically present could speak, Ms. Rohl said.
So she booked a plane ticket to New York.
At the board meeting, Ms. Rohl found she was not alone. Over a dozen alumnae followed her remarks at the podium. One after another, they spoke of sports coaches who had touched them inappropriately when demonstrating techniques, teachers who had texted privately with students and had them at their homes unsupervised, and a predatory culture so well-known that older girls would warn incoming seventh graders which teachers they should stay away from.
For many it was a moment long past due, the #MeToo movement at last sweeping through Babylon, forcing a confrontation with a culture that they believe put students in danger.
“This is so normalized that in retrospect, if a teacher came over and touched you — touched your shoulder, touched your hair, commented on your body — the thought that it would ever be something worth reporting was not on anyone’s radar,” Ms. Rohl said in an interview.
After the meeting, which stretched past midnight, five additional teachers were placed on paid leave while the concerns were being investigated, according to several people present and news reports. The school district would not say whether the removals had resulted from the allegations. According to the Suffolk County Police Department and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, no charges have been filed relating to any of the allegations.
Linda J. Rozzi, the Babylon schools superintendent, did not respond to an email requesting a response to the allegations.
Deirdre Gilligan, a spokeswoman for the school district, declined to respond to any specific allegations, including claims that school officials, including the superintendent, had known about the issues for years and had done nothing. In an email, Ms. Gilligan said little more than that the school district had received the reports and was investigating.
“The district does not tolerate abuse of any kind, takes all allegations very seriously and is committed to acting upon each and every claim we receive,” Ms. Gilligan wrote in a statement. “We commend the brave individuals for coming forward and sharing their voices.”
The New York Times contacted the six teachers who were placed on leave, as well as other teachers who have been accused of wrongdoing, but did not receive responses from any. The Times is not naming those who have been accused because they have not been criminally charged and the accusations are still under investigation.
The school district has taken some steps to try to address the allegations. This month, the Crime Victims Center, a Long-Island based nonprofit group that advocates for victims, will begin providing sexual harassment training for all school personnel. The center will also conduct training for employees on their obligation to report child abuse or neglect; under New York State law, all school staff members who have contact with children must report such claims. The rule has been in effect for teachers since 1973.
Still, calling the reports “troubling,” Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, announced an investigation into the high school last month.
Former students blamed the insular culture of Babylon, a mostly white, middle-class community, known for its quaint village atmosphere and beaches, as partially to blame. The small school has only about 100 students per grade, according to students; teachers have often taught entire families, sometimes several generations, fostering familiarity that can slip into intimacy, several alumnae said.
“You think that you’re in this respectable little town where nothing goes wrong — you don’t lock your doors at night,” said Darcy Orlando Bennet, 30, who graduated in 2009. “But you end up getting sexually assaulted by your teacher, and nobody believes you.”
The concerns go beyond the six teachers who were reassigned. During her 10th-grade year, Ms. Bennet and others recalled, a tennis coach was investigated by the school after a student accused him of things like tapping students on the behind and lifting their skirts with his racket.
The coach was removed from his position with the tennis team but remained a teacher of special education, she said. He retired in 2018, and no legal action was ever taken, she said. The school district did not respond to questions about the events. The man did not respond to a message left on his cellphone requesting comment.
Some of the behavior being reported by alumnae rises to the level of illegality, including sexual harassment, endangering the welfare of a child, sexual abuse and sexual assault, said Laura A. Ahearn, the executive director of the Crime Victims Center. Since the school board meeting, Ms. Ahearn said, victims have contacted the center, which works with the county to provide support services for crime victims.
In interviews with nine former students, several said that the first time they had spoken of their concerns was at the school board meeting. But others, like a New York City police officer who graduated from Babylon in 2008, said they had reported incidents to counselors and school officials while seeking help at the time, only to be rebuffed or even threatened with punishment themselves, accused of instigating the inappropriate behavior.
The officer, Barbara Maier, 31, who asked to go by her maiden name because she said she wanted to maintain her privacy as a victim of sexual assault, said that when she reported it, school officials had threatened her with suspension, saying she had broken school rules by kicking her attacker and leaving campus without permission.
“Knowing what I know now and comparing it to all these things from the past, my wheels started turning,” Ms. Maier, who still lives in the community, said. “I thought: ‘Wait, how come no one reported anything that was going on? How did this go on for so long?’”
Corinne Samon, 52, never reported an incident from 1982, in which she said a teacher had approached her in a shop room at Babylon and slapped her on the behind while making a lewd comment. She was 12 years old and in the seventh grade, she said.
“As a 12-year-old, there is so much shame and self doubt and blame,” Ms. Samon said, “and just this feeling of, ‘What did I do wrong?’ When we did nothing wrong.”
In November, nearly four decades after the incident, Ms. Samon filed a police report, she said. Though the time for filing under the statute of limitations had expired, and no charges could be pressed, the exercise felt cathartic, she said.
“I felt so good when I finally did that,” she said.
Reminds me of a an old joke with the punchline, "But you picked the ugliest sheep!!"
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Saudi authorities have conducted their biggest-ever crackdown on camel beauty contestants that received Botox injections and other artificial touch-ups, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported Wednesday, with over 40 camels disqualified from the annual pageant.
Saudi Arabia's popular King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, which kicked off earlier this month, invites the breeders of the most beautiful camels to compete for some $66 million in prize money. Botox injections, face lifts and other cosmetic alterations to make the camels more attractive are strictly prohibited. Jurors decide the winner based on the shape of the camels' heads, necks, humps, dress and postures.
Judges at the monthlong festival in the desert northeast of the Saudi capital, Riyadh, are escalating their clamp down on artificially enhanced camels, the official news agency reported, using “specialized and advanced” technology to detect tampering.
This year, authorities discovered dozens of breeders had stretched out the lips and noses of camels, used hormones to boost the beasts' muscles, injected camels' heads and lips with Botox to make them bigger, inflated body parts with rubber bands and used fillers to relax their faces.
“The club is keen to halt all acts of tampering and deception in the beautification of camels,” the SPA report said, adding organizers would "impose strict penalties on manipulators.”
The camel beauty contest is at the heart of the massive carnival, which also features camel races, sales and other festivities typically showcasing thousands of dromedaries. The extravaganza seeks to preserve the camel's role in the kingdom's Bedouin tradition and heritage, even as the oil-rich country plows ahead with modernizing mega-projects.
Camel breeding is a multimillion-dollar industry and similar events take place across the region.
Dozens of camels barred from Saudi beauty contest over Botox
Saudi media says that authorities have conducted their biggest-ever crackdown on camel beauty contestants that received Botox injections and other artificial touch-upsDUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Saudi authorities have conducted their biggest-ever crackdown on camel beauty contestants that received Botox injections and other artificial touch-ups, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported Wednesday, with over 40 camels disqualified from the annual pageant.
Saudi Arabia's popular King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, which kicked off earlier this month, invites the breeders of the most beautiful camels to compete for some $66 million in prize money. Botox injections, face lifts and other cosmetic alterations to make the camels more attractive are strictly prohibited. Jurors decide the winner based on the shape of the camels' heads, necks, humps, dress and postures.
Judges at the monthlong festival in the desert northeast of the Saudi capital, Riyadh, are escalating their clamp down on artificially enhanced camels, the official news agency reported, using “specialized and advanced” technology to detect tampering.
This year, authorities discovered dozens of breeders had stretched out the lips and noses of camels, used hormones to boost the beasts' muscles, injected camels' heads and lips with Botox to make them bigger, inflated body parts with rubber bands and used fillers to relax their faces.
“The club is keen to halt all acts of tampering and deception in the beautification of camels,” the SPA report said, adding organizers would "impose strict penalties on manipulators.”
The camel beauty contest is at the heart of the massive carnival, which also features camel races, sales and other festivities typically showcasing thousands of dromedaries. The extravaganza seeks to preserve the camel's role in the kingdom's Bedouin tradition and heritage, even as the oil-rich country plows ahead with modernizing mega-projects.
Camel breeding is a multimillion-dollar industry and similar events take place across the region.
wader
Well-Known Angler
Why is this allowed to stay on line in the US & other countries??
www.yahoo.com
As Matthew van Antwerpen, a 17-year-old in suburban Dallas, struggled with remote schooling during the pandemic last year, he grew increasingly despondent. Searching online, he found a website about suicide.
“Any enjoyment or progress I make in my life simply comes across as forced,” he wrote on the site after signing up. “I know it is all just a distraction to blow time until the end.”
Roberta Barbos, a 22-year-old student at the University of Glasgow, first posted after a breakup, writing that she was “unbearably lonely.” Shawn Shatto, 25, described feeling miserable at her warehouse job in Pennsylvania. And Daniel Dal Canto, a 16-year-old in Salt Lake City, shared his fears that an undiagnosed stomach ailment might never get better.
Soon after joining, each of them was dead.
Most suicide websites are about prevention. This one — started in March 2018 by two shadowy figures calling themselves Marquis and Serge — provides explicit directions on how to die.
The four young members were among tens of thousands around the world who have been pulled in. On the site’s public forums, in live chats and through private messaging, they discuss hanging, poison, guns and gas.
Though members are anonymous, The New York Times identified 45 who had killed themselves in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada and Australia — and found that the trail of deaths is likely much longer.
More than 500 members wrote “goodbye threads” announcing how and when they planned to end their lives, and then never posted again.
Most of the narratives cited the same lethal method: a preservative used for curing meat, The Times found. By promoting the preservative as a poison, the site has helped give rise to a means of suicide that is alarming some coroners and doctors.
The site now draws 6 million page views a month, on average — quadruple that of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, according to data from Similarweb, a web analytics company.
Most members reported that they had experienced mental illness and were 30 or younger, according to a survey last year by the site. That age group roughly aligns with the demographic in the United States — 15 to 24 — that had the sharpest rise in suicide rate from 2009-19, the most recent data available.
Among them was Matthew. Despite the strain of virtual high school, he had appeared to be looking to the future. He had applied to Texas A&M University and intended to become a public defender.
His other plans took shape quickly and secretly. In only 29 days, Matthew joined the site, learned of the lethal preservative and ended his life.
“My son committed suicide at 17 two weeks ago,” Sharon Luft tweeted in January, calling out the site. “They told him how to, encouraged him after he took the mix.”
“Please help me,” she wrote, joining the calls of other parents for Marquis and Serge to be held accountable and for the banning of the site, called Sanctioned Suicide.
Australia, Germany and Italy succeeded in restricting access to the site within their borders, but U.S. law enforcement officials, lawmakers and technology companies have been reluctant to act.
While most states have laws against assisting suicide, they are inconsistent, rarely enforced and don’t explicitly address online activity. Federal law shields website operators from liability for most harmful content posted by users. Court decisions have left unsettled questions about protected speech.
And when asked to stop steering visitors to the suicide site, the world’s most powerful search engine deflected responsibility. “Google Search holds a mirror up to what is on the internet,” a senior manager for the company wrote to Australian officials in February 2019.
Marquis and Serge have vowed to fight any efforts to take down the site. They have experience running websites with dark content: They operate several online forums for “incels,” or involuntary celibates, men who believe that women will never have sex with them because of their looks or social status. Many on those sites openly discuss a fatalistic outlook, including thoughts of self-harm.
The two men have worked to shield the suicide site and to frustrate efforts to learn who is behind it. The servers have been moved from country to country. Marquis and Serge use multiple aliases and have removed nearly every trace of their real identities from the internet. Still, The Times found them, thousands of miles apart, in the capital of Uruguay and a city in Alabama.
Daniel Dal Canto, a high school junior, arrived on the suicide site with little idea of how to end his life.
Three years earlier, he had been depressed, prompting his parents to steer him into months of therapy and medication. Now he was drumming in a jazz band, playing video games with friends and getting straight A’s.
But in September 2019, Daniel, expressing anxiety over his stomach pain, was gathering information and advice from the website.
It came online after Reddit shut down a group where people had been sharing suicide methods and encouraging self-harm. Reddit prohibited such discussion, as did Facebook, Twitter and other platforms.
While some of those drawn to the website described suffering from physical pain, most mentioned depression, bipolar disorder or other mental illnesses. About half were 25 or younger, the survey showed; like Daniel, some were minors.
The suicide rate has risen over the past 20 years in the United States. About 45,000 people take their own lives each year — more than die from traffic accidents. (That figure does not count the hundreds of physician-assisted deaths in the nine states where they are legal and restricted to the terminally ill.)
Within several weeks, Daniel settled on the lethal preservative, sodium nitrite, one of the most discussed topics on the website. Members guided one another to online sellers. They advised on obtaining it without alerting family. And they shared directions for using it.
On Oct. 3, the teenager posted a photograph of a bottle of the lethal preservative and announced that he would take it that weekend. But hours later, he posted again. Things had changed: A disagreement with his parents had prompted him to move up his plans.
At 2:30 a.m. the next day, Daniel's mom found him dead in his bed.
In December 2019, two months after Daniel’s death, a coroner in England called for a government inquiry after discovering that members of the site had advised a troubled young woman on ending her life. German officials had already begun an investigation, worried about potential harm to children.
And Australia’s eSafety Commission, the nation’s regulator for online safety, had been looking into the site for months, after a father reported that his 22-year-old son had poisoned himself with the preservative.
Serge and Marquis were determined to protect the site — and themselves.
The two men had taken pains to scrub their personal identifying information from the internet and obscure the names of companies hosting the website, making it difficult for authorities and families of the deceased to take action against them.
As Australia began its investigation, the site was moved to a new server, according to a post by Marquis.
In March 2020, after the site was removed from online search results in Germany, the company hosting the site threatened to take it down over its “violation of German law.” Once again, the site was moved.
The sites rely on search engines to drive traffic. About half of all visits to the suicide site come that way, according to data from Similarweb.
But when Australian officials asked Google, the dominant business, and Microsoft’s Bing in 2019 to remove the site from their search results, they refused to do so absent a legal requirement.
It was not Google’s role to pass judgment on any sites containing content that was legal, “as objectionable as it might be,” a senior manager told the Australians.
As for Bing, a Microsoft spokesperson said the company was continually working “to help keep users safe.”
While federal law protects the site operators from being held liable for most content posted by users, the members could be vulnerable to criminal charges.
But the definition of a crime depends on the jurisdiction. State suicide laws vary. Some specify that assistance must be physical. Only a handful criminalize encouragement.
Some law enforcement officials outside the United States have also declined to investigate the operators and members of the site, believing the online activity falls outside their jurisdiction.
Officials in several countries consider the forum an American website. Italian investigators said they concluded that because a site administrator — apparently Marquis, using another of his fake names — provided them with a business address in the United States.
The Times investigation led to an elegant three-story apartment building in Montevideo, Uruguay, and a modest two-bedroom town house in Huntsville, Alabama.
The man calling himself Serge is Diego Joaquín Galante; Marquis is Lamarcus Small.
Reporters pieced together their identities and roles with the site from domain registration and financial documents, their online activity, public documents including court records, and interviews with seven people who had interacted with either of them.
Records show that Galante, 29, resides in the Montevideo apartment with his family — several siblings, his mother and his father, who is a lawyer. Small, 28, lives with his mother and brother in the town house.
In two recent phone interviews, Small said that he did not know how his credit card number, name, address and phone number had appeared on an invoice for the suicide website domain name.
Galante, when reached by phone, initially said he knew nothing about the suicide website and hung up. Days later, after receiving a letter from The Times, he acknowledged in an email that he had posted on the site as Serge, but he denied that he was a founder or operator of it.
In his email to The Times, Galante defended the site as a positive influence that improved the lives of some members. But, he said, “I am deeply sorry that there are people who decide to end their life.”
© 2021 The New York Times Company
Where the Despairing Log On, and Learn Ways to Die
As Matthew van Antwerpen, a 17-year-old in suburban Dallas, struggled with remote schooling during the pandemic last year, he grew increasingly despondent. Searching online, he found a website about suicide. “Any enjoyment or progress I make in my life simply comes across as forced,” he wrote on...
As Matthew van Antwerpen, a 17-year-old in suburban Dallas, struggled with remote schooling during the pandemic last year, he grew increasingly despondent. Searching online, he found a website about suicide.
“Any enjoyment or progress I make in my life simply comes across as forced,” he wrote on the site after signing up. “I know it is all just a distraction to blow time until the end.”
Roberta Barbos, a 22-year-old student at the University of Glasgow, first posted after a breakup, writing that she was “unbearably lonely.” Shawn Shatto, 25, described feeling miserable at her warehouse job in Pennsylvania. And Daniel Dal Canto, a 16-year-old in Salt Lake City, shared his fears that an undiagnosed stomach ailment might never get better.
Soon after joining, each of them was dead.
Most suicide websites are about prevention. This one — started in March 2018 by two shadowy figures calling themselves Marquis and Serge — provides explicit directions on how to die.
The four young members were among tens of thousands around the world who have been pulled in. On the site’s public forums, in live chats and through private messaging, they discuss hanging, poison, guns and gas.
Though members are anonymous, The New York Times identified 45 who had killed themselves in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada and Australia — and found that the trail of deaths is likely much longer.
More than 500 members wrote “goodbye threads” announcing how and when they planned to end their lives, and then never posted again.
Most of the narratives cited the same lethal method: a preservative used for curing meat, The Times found. By promoting the preservative as a poison, the site has helped give rise to a means of suicide that is alarming some coroners and doctors.
The site now draws 6 million page views a month, on average — quadruple that of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, according to data from Similarweb, a web analytics company.
Most members reported that they had experienced mental illness and were 30 or younger, according to a survey last year by the site. That age group roughly aligns with the demographic in the United States — 15 to 24 — that had the sharpest rise in suicide rate from 2009-19, the most recent data available.
Among them was Matthew. Despite the strain of virtual high school, he had appeared to be looking to the future. He had applied to Texas A&M University and intended to become a public defender.
His other plans took shape quickly and secretly. In only 29 days, Matthew joined the site, learned of the lethal preservative and ended his life.
“My son committed suicide at 17 two weeks ago,” Sharon Luft tweeted in January, calling out the site. “They told him how to, encouraged him after he took the mix.”
“Please help me,” she wrote, joining the calls of other parents for Marquis and Serge to be held accountable and for the banning of the site, called Sanctioned Suicide.
Australia, Germany and Italy succeeded in restricting access to the site within their borders, but U.S. law enforcement officials, lawmakers and technology companies have been reluctant to act.
While most states have laws against assisting suicide, they are inconsistent, rarely enforced and don’t explicitly address online activity. Federal law shields website operators from liability for most harmful content posted by users. Court decisions have left unsettled questions about protected speech.
And when asked to stop steering visitors to the suicide site, the world’s most powerful search engine deflected responsibility. “Google Search holds a mirror up to what is on the internet,” a senior manager for the company wrote to Australian officials in February 2019.
Marquis and Serge have vowed to fight any efforts to take down the site. They have experience running websites with dark content: They operate several online forums for “incels,” or involuntary celibates, men who believe that women will never have sex with them because of their looks or social status. Many on those sites openly discuss a fatalistic outlook, including thoughts of self-harm.
The two men have worked to shield the suicide site and to frustrate efforts to learn who is behind it. The servers have been moved from country to country. Marquis and Serge use multiple aliases and have removed nearly every trace of their real identities from the internet. Still, The Times found them, thousands of miles apart, in the capital of Uruguay and a city in Alabama.
Daniel Dal Canto, a high school junior, arrived on the suicide site with little idea of how to end his life.
Three years earlier, he had been depressed, prompting his parents to steer him into months of therapy and medication. Now he was drumming in a jazz band, playing video games with friends and getting straight A’s.
But in September 2019, Daniel, expressing anxiety over his stomach pain, was gathering information and advice from the website.
It came online after Reddit shut down a group where people had been sharing suicide methods and encouraging self-harm. Reddit prohibited such discussion, as did Facebook, Twitter and other platforms.
While some of those drawn to the website described suffering from physical pain, most mentioned depression, bipolar disorder or other mental illnesses. About half were 25 or younger, the survey showed; like Daniel, some were minors.
The suicide rate has risen over the past 20 years in the United States. About 45,000 people take their own lives each year — more than die from traffic accidents. (That figure does not count the hundreds of physician-assisted deaths in the nine states where they are legal and restricted to the terminally ill.)
Within several weeks, Daniel settled on the lethal preservative, sodium nitrite, one of the most discussed topics on the website. Members guided one another to online sellers. They advised on obtaining it without alerting family. And they shared directions for using it.
On Oct. 3, the teenager posted a photograph of a bottle of the lethal preservative and announced that he would take it that weekend. But hours later, he posted again. Things had changed: A disagreement with his parents had prompted him to move up his plans.
At 2:30 a.m. the next day, Daniel's mom found him dead in his bed.
In December 2019, two months after Daniel’s death, a coroner in England called for a government inquiry after discovering that members of the site had advised a troubled young woman on ending her life. German officials had already begun an investigation, worried about potential harm to children.
And Australia’s eSafety Commission, the nation’s regulator for online safety, had been looking into the site for months, after a father reported that his 22-year-old son had poisoned himself with the preservative.
Serge and Marquis were determined to protect the site — and themselves.
The two men had taken pains to scrub their personal identifying information from the internet and obscure the names of companies hosting the website, making it difficult for authorities and families of the deceased to take action against them.
As Australia began its investigation, the site was moved to a new server, according to a post by Marquis.
In March 2020, after the site was removed from online search results in Germany, the company hosting the site threatened to take it down over its “violation of German law.” Once again, the site was moved.
The sites rely on search engines to drive traffic. About half of all visits to the suicide site come that way, according to data from Similarweb.
But when Australian officials asked Google, the dominant business, and Microsoft’s Bing in 2019 to remove the site from their search results, they refused to do so absent a legal requirement.
It was not Google’s role to pass judgment on any sites containing content that was legal, “as objectionable as it might be,” a senior manager told the Australians.
As for Bing, a Microsoft spokesperson said the company was continually working “to help keep users safe.”
While federal law protects the site operators from being held liable for most content posted by users, the members could be vulnerable to criminal charges.
But the definition of a crime depends on the jurisdiction. State suicide laws vary. Some specify that assistance must be physical. Only a handful criminalize encouragement.
Some law enforcement officials outside the United States have also declined to investigate the operators and members of the site, believing the online activity falls outside their jurisdiction.
Officials in several countries consider the forum an American website. Italian investigators said they concluded that because a site administrator — apparently Marquis, using another of his fake names — provided them with a business address in the United States.
The Times investigation led to an elegant three-story apartment building in Montevideo, Uruguay, and a modest two-bedroom town house in Huntsville, Alabama.
The man calling himself Serge is Diego Joaquín Galante; Marquis is Lamarcus Small.
Reporters pieced together their identities and roles with the site from domain registration and financial documents, their online activity, public documents including court records, and interviews with seven people who had interacted with either of them.
Records show that Galante, 29, resides in the Montevideo apartment with his family — several siblings, his mother and his father, who is a lawyer. Small, 28, lives with his mother and brother in the town house.
In two recent phone interviews, Small said that he did not know how his credit card number, name, address and phone number had appeared on an invoice for the suicide website domain name.
Galante, when reached by phone, initially said he knew nothing about the suicide website and hung up. Days later, after receiving a letter from The Times, he acknowledged in an email that he had posted on the site as Serge, but he denied that he was a founder or operator of it.
In his email to The Times, Galante defended the site as a positive influence that improved the lives of some members. But, he said, “I am deeply sorry that there are people who decide to end their life.”
© 2021 The New York Times Company
wader
Well-Known Angler
California school district reportedly encourages using witchcraft on people who say 'all lives matter'
A California school district is facing backlash after it promoted placing hexes on people who said things like "all lives matter."
wader
Well-Known Angler
WHAT??!?!?!?!
www.yahoo.com
Mother tried to flush pet monkey down lavatory after offering it cocaine
A pet monkey was offered cocaine by its owner before being flushed down a lavatory, a court heard on Friday.
Well this sucks, glad that "Genny" is on station...
pressherald.com/2021/12/11/rolling-blackouts-possible-this-winter-new-england-power-grid-warns/
By Associated Press December 11, 2021
AUGUSTA — Rolling blackouts may hit New England if there’s an extended cold snap this winter, as the regional power grid operator warns of a “precarious” situation due to snags in the natural gas supply.
Much of the grid’s power comes from burning natural gas, and right now that fuel is in shorter-than-normal supply and is subject to supply chain disruptions, said Gordon van Welie, CEO of ISO New England.
The region’s grid is often near the limit during winter months, but severe weather combined with high natural gas prices and pipeline constraints could push the grid past the tipping point and prompt mandatory usage restrictions.
“We’re depending on an energy supply chain in the region that is quite fragile, particularly during the wintertime,” van Welie said this week.
Marc Brown, New England director for Consumer Energy Alliance, said people should be concerned. Natural gas prices remain about 50% higher than a year ago despite a drop in recent weeks.
“We need to be worried. We’ve seen it in other places, like California, with controlled power outages,” he said.
Natural gas supplies are already having an impact. In Maine, electricity bills are going up $30 per month on average for residents who adopt the “standard offer” rate starting Jan. 1. High natural gas prices are being blamed for the increase.
New England is trying to shift to greener energy alternatives but that transition is going to take time.
Van Welie noted that the Massachusetts-funded New England Clean Energy Connect in Maine, which aims to bring up to 1,200 megawatts of Canadian hydropower to the grid, could help.
With that project stalled, following a rebuke by Mainers in a statewide referendum, it’ll take more time to find additional electrical supply in coming years through wind, solar and other projects.
Overall, the power grid operator is anticipating a relatively mild winter based on long-term forecasts by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
But extended cold snaps can happen any winter and the failure of the Texas grid last winter helped to put things into perspective, van Welie said.
“I think that what Texas drove home for me is that with almost 15 million people living in this region need to understand is that we are in a precarious position particularly when we get into cold weather,” he said.
The Maine Public Utilities Commission said the power grid operator has been sounding the alarm about the state’s reliance on natural gas.
The problem happens in extremely cold weather, as demand from homeowners using gas for heat clashes with demand by power plant operators who need it to power the grid, officials said.
Furthermore, natural gas prices are higher right now in Europe and Asia, so suppliers have incentive to sell to those markets.
“Although it’s not uncommon for ISO-NE to suggest there may be a need to reduce consumption during peak periods, market conditions this year have perhaps contributed to a heightened concern,” said Susan Faloon, spokesperson for the Maine PUC.
Rolling blackouts possible this winter, New England power grid warns
By Associated Press December 11, 2021
AUGUSTA — Rolling blackouts may hit New England if there’s an extended cold snap this winter, as the regional power grid operator warns of a “precarious” situation due to snags in the natural gas supply.
Much of the grid’s power comes from burning natural gas, and right now that fuel is in shorter-than-normal supply and is subject to supply chain disruptions, said Gordon van Welie, CEO of ISO New England.
The region’s grid is often near the limit during winter months, but severe weather combined with high natural gas prices and pipeline constraints could push the grid past the tipping point and prompt mandatory usage restrictions.
“We’re depending on an energy supply chain in the region that is quite fragile, particularly during the wintertime,” van Welie said this week.
Marc Brown, New England director for Consumer Energy Alliance, said people should be concerned. Natural gas prices remain about 50% higher than a year ago despite a drop in recent weeks.
“We need to be worried. We’ve seen it in other places, like California, with controlled power outages,” he said.
Natural gas supplies are already having an impact. In Maine, electricity bills are going up $30 per month on average for residents who adopt the “standard offer” rate starting Jan. 1. High natural gas prices are being blamed for the increase.
New England is trying to shift to greener energy alternatives but that transition is going to take time.
Van Welie noted that the Massachusetts-funded New England Clean Energy Connect in Maine, which aims to bring up to 1,200 megawatts of Canadian hydropower to the grid, could help.
With that project stalled, following a rebuke by Mainers in a statewide referendum, it’ll take more time to find additional electrical supply in coming years through wind, solar and other projects.
Overall, the power grid operator is anticipating a relatively mild winter based on long-term forecasts by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
But extended cold snaps can happen any winter and the failure of the Texas grid last winter helped to put things into perspective, van Welie said.
“I think that what Texas drove home for me is that with almost 15 million people living in this region need to understand is that we are in a precarious position particularly when we get into cold weather,” he said.
The Maine Public Utilities Commission said the power grid operator has been sounding the alarm about the state’s reliance on natural gas.
The problem happens in extremely cold weather, as demand from homeowners using gas for heat clashes with demand by power plant operators who need it to power the grid, officials said.
Furthermore, natural gas prices are higher right now in Europe and Asia, so suppliers have incentive to sell to those markets.
“Although it’s not uncommon for ISO-NE to suggest there may be a need to reduce consumption during peak periods, market conditions this year have perhaps contributed to a heightened concern,” said Susan Faloon, spokesperson for the Maine PUC.
Must have been a contract dispute...
The camel was “taken into custody” and returned to its owners, per an Instagram post by the Bonner Springs Police Department
Runaway Camel Flees Nativity Scene, Runs Amok Through Kansas Town Before Safely Being Caught
Runaway Camel Flees Nativity Scene, Runs Amok Through Kansas Town Before Safely Being Caught
The camel was “taken into custody” and returned to its owners, per an Instagram post by the Bonner Springs Police Department
Runaway Camel Flees Nativity Scene, Runs Amok Through Kansas Town Before Safely Being Caught
Talk about an endless loop of getting high, getting the munchies, eating some brownie, getting high, getting the munchies...!!!!
pressherald.com/2021/12/13/massachusetts-company-weeds-out-competition-bakes-850-pound-pot-brownie/
By Associated Press December 13, 2021
NORWOOD, Mass. — A Massachusetts cannabis company celebrated National Brownie Day Dec. 8 with what it believes is the “largest THC-infused brownie ever made.”
MariMed Inc. said the massive confection is 3-feet-by-3-feet square and 15 inches tall, weighs 850 pounds, and contains 20,000 mg of THC.
The brownie was also made to celebrate the launch of the company’s new line of cannabis-infused edibles, called Bubby’s Baked, according to a statement from the Norwood-based company that also has facilities in several other states.
What happens to the brownie now? Company spokesperson Howard Schacter said it will be sent to its Middleborough dispensary and ultimately sold to a medical marijuana patient. As to what the customer plans to do with it, Schacter couldn’t say.
The purchase price is still being determined, he said.
Massachusetts company weeds out competition, bakes 850-pound pot brownie
By Associated Press December 13, 2021
NORWOOD, Mass. — A Massachusetts cannabis company celebrated National Brownie Day Dec. 8 with what it believes is the “largest THC-infused brownie ever made.”
MariMed Inc. said the massive confection is 3-feet-by-3-feet square and 15 inches tall, weighs 850 pounds, and contains 20,000 mg of THC.
The brownie was also made to celebrate the launch of the company’s new line of cannabis-infused edibles, called Bubby’s Baked, according to a statement from the Norwood-based company that also has facilities in several other states.
What happens to the brownie now? Company spokesperson Howard Schacter said it will be sent to its Middleborough dispensary and ultimately sold to a medical marijuana patient. As to what the customer plans to do with it, Schacter couldn’t say.
The purchase price is still being determined, he said.
As a counter protest, maybe parents should tell their children there Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden is a bullchit story...
ROME — All that separated the giddy Sicilian school children from meeting Old Saint Nick — arriving on horseback with his long white beard, crimson robe and bag full of gifts — was a Christmas message from the bishop of Noto.
“Santa Claus,” thundered Bishop Antonio Staglianò, “is an imaginary character.”
Children’s jaws dropped and the holiday wool fell from their eyes as, for many long minutes in the Santissimo Salvatore Basilica, the bishop continued to stick it to Santa, who he said had no interest in families strapped for cash.
“The red color of his coat was chosen by Coca-Cola for advertising purposes,” the bishop said. Big soda, he added, “uses the image to depict itself as an emblem of healthy values.”
The bishop’s broadside against Babbo Natale, as Father Christmas is called here, constituted only the latest installment in what has become a new Italian holiday tradition. Just about every year, Roman Catholic clerics insist that for Italians to keep Christ in Christmas, Santa must be kept out of it.
In 2019, a priest in the northern town of Magliano Alpi told children that there was no man dressed in red who “magically” delivered gifts. In 2018, in the Sardinian city of Quartu Sant’Elena, another priest drew tears by revealing that Santa Claus was in fact none other than their moms and dads.
This year’s episode, on Dec. 6, the feast day of St. Nicholas, was especially brazen, said Giuliana Scarnato, one of the teachers accompanying the children, none older than 9, on a school trip to the church in Noto.
She said the bishop “could have left Santa Claus out of it,” but made a point to call Father Christmas “fantastical, that he never existed.” She said that when one of the children protested, telling the bishop that her parents had assured her Santa was real, the cleric responded that the child should tell her parents “you tell lies.”
In an interview, Bishop Staglianò said he remembered putting it more tactfully, and insisted he simply explained that the roots for Santa — whom he depicted as a noxious product of the industrial-soft drink-consumerism complex — lay in the historical personage of St. Nicholas, a charitable fourth-century bishop of Myra, in modern-day Turkey, who, tradition holds, looked after the poor.
He had strong feelings on the matter.
“Is Father Christmas everyone’s father, or just some?” he said, poking holes in the case for Santa Claus. “In the lockdown, Father Christmas didn’t visit the families that he used to. Why? It’s definitely not for fear of the coronavirus.”
The bishop recalled warmly the days when Italian children would address their wish lists to the Baby Jesus, “Not Santa Claus and the reindeer and let’s go to the movies and go bowling and all this American junk.”
This year, nationalists opened a new front in Italy’s fight over the shape of Christmas. Desperate for an issue with popular appeal in a period of political stability, they have picked up on the American right’s claim to be opposing a war on Christmas.
For them, the main target has been not Santa Claus but the European Union.
In November, a conservative Italian newspaper discovered that a European Union commissioner’s office had drafted guidelines for internal correspondence, calling for more inclusive, gender-neutral and less holiday-specific language.
“Not everyone celebrates the Christian holidays, and not all Christians celebrate them on the same dates,” read the document, which advised staff to avoid phrases like “Christmas time can be stressful.” Better, it suggested, would be “Holiday times can be stressful.”
The stress came immediately, with far-right leaders going to town.
Matteo S
But Francis has so far not rallied to defend Santa from his own bishop’s remarks, and the Vatican has not returned a request for comment.
Bishop Staglianò argued he was fully in line with Francis.
“With all due respect,” he said, “Santa Claus only brings gifts to those who have money” whether the children are naughty or nice.
alvini, the nationalist leader and former deputy prime minister, posted on social media a picture of a decapitated statue of the Virgin Mary in a ditch.
Mr. Salvini, who is not especially religious but often portrays himself as a defender of Christianity, wrote on Facebook, “The European Commission invites us not to celebrate Holy Christmas to not offend others, and some moron does these gross things.”
Another right-wing nationalist politician, Giorgia Meloni, told the conservative newspaper Libero that the E.U. guidance was “shameful.”
“No one can feel offended by a child who is born in a manger,” she added.
Even Pope Francis — who has suggested that nationalist leaders are un-Christian for their opposition to migrants — has echoed them when it comes to canceling Christmas.
Asked about the E.U. document earlier this month, Francis said, “This is an anachronism,” and accused the bloc of following in the footsteps of totalitarians. “In history many, many dictatorships have tried” to undercut the church, he said. “Think of Napoleon. From there, think of the Nazi dictatorship, the communist one.”
The poor families and migrants he visits every Christmas, he said, “have never seen Santa Claus.” So he urged the children in the church to ask Santa Claus for even more gifts and, if he showed up, explain to him that they could now give to poor children “given that you never visit them!”
He said none of the mothers in the church dared contradict him and some children, emboldened by his preaching, spoke up with the power of revelation. “I always knew it, that my dad was Santa Claus,” he said one child announced.
Breaking this Christmas “spell” was progress, the bishop said, recalling that as a small child he wrote letters asking Santa for money and put them under his father’s dinner plate. He’d find an envelope with a few thousand old Italian lire under his pillow.
But he knew at age four it was his father, he said, and argued that the 7-year-olds in the pews knew the score full well too. The 62-year-old bishop said he hadn’t shattered any sugar plum illusions.
“If we knew,” he said, referring to his generation, “imagine these kids with their smartphones.”
Tradition holds that St. Nicholas was kind to children and gave gold coins to three poor sisters who would have otherwise turned to prostitution. Over the centuries he became a patron saint of, among other things, children, pawnbrokers and Russia. Still today many Russians travel to the southern Italian city of Bari where his relics, stolen by sailors centuries ago, are kept in the San Nicola Basilica.
The tradition of St. Nicholas eventually spread north, where the Dutch called him Sinterklaas, a variant of St. Nicholas. The Dutch settled New Amsterdam, later New York, where English speakers in the American colonies Anglicized the saint’s name to Santa Claus.
The reindeer, sleigh, Christmas Eve deliveries and big belly were added in the 19th century — as was the red coat, which was standard Santa garb long before Coca-Cola got involved.
But once Santa started hawking sodas, it all went downhill, Bishop Staglianò told the children in the church.
Attempting to contain the fallout, a diocese spokesman, Don Alessandro Paolino, wrote on the diocesan Facebook page, “on behalf of the bishop, I express my sorrow for this declaration which has created disappointment in the little ones, and want to specify that Monsignor Staglianò’s intentions were quite different.”
He then picked up where the bishop left off, decrying “Santa Claus aka consumerism, the desire to own, buy, buy and buy again.”
Bishop Staglianò said that he was not against all gift giving, but that it had to be a considerate present, well selected — when not in stores, then “delivered by Amazon” — and given by hand.
Despite the fervor of his anti-Santa salvo, it was ultimately no match for the sight of Old St. Nick on horseback outside the church. The children clamored around him as he dismounted, took a seat on a red throne and handed out pencils, candy and other gifts, said Ms. Scarnato, the teacher.
“Once they were outside the church the speech wore off because they were smitten with St. Nicholas,” she said. “They were happy.”
Italian Bishop Gives Children Harsh News: There Is No Santa Claus
You’ve been lied to, children heard from a bishop, the latest Catholic clergyman to try to take down Santa Claus and consumerism. Many Italians were not pleased.ROME — All that separated the giddy Sicilian school children from meeting Old Saint Nick — arriving on horseback with his long white beard, crimson robe and bag full of gifts — was a Christmas message from the bishop of Noto.
“Santa Claus,” thundered Bishop Antonio Staglianò, “is an imaginary character.”
Children’s jaws dropped and the holiday wool fell from their eyes as, for many long minutes in the Santissimo Salvatore Basilica, the bishop continued to stick it to Santa, who he said had no interest in families strapped for cash.
“The red color of his coat was chosen by Coca-Cola for advertising purposes,” the bishop said. Big soda, he added, “uses the image to depict itself as an emblem of healthy values.”
The bishop’s broadside against Babbo Natale, as Father Christmas is called here, constituted only the latest installment in what has become a new Italian holiday tradition. Just about every year, Roman Catholic clerics insist that for Italians to keep Christ in Christmas, Santa must be kept out of it.
In 2019, a priest in the northern town of Magliano Alpi told children that there was no man dressed in red who “magically” delivered gifts. In 2018, in the Sardinian city of Quartu Sant’Elena, another priest drew tears by revealing that Santa Claus was in fact none other than their moms and dads.
This year’s episode, on Dec. 6, the feast day of St. Nicholas, was especially brazen, said Giuliana Scarnato, one of the teachers accompanying the children, none older than 9, on a school trip to the church in Noto.
She said the bishop “could have left Santa Claus out of it,” but made a point to call Father Christmas “fantastical, that he never existed.” She said that when one of the children protested, telling the bishop that her parents had assured her Santa was real, the cleric responded that the child should tell her parents “you tell lies.”
In an interview, Bishop Staglianò said he remembered putting it more tactfully, and insisted he simply explained that the roots for Santa — whom he depicted as a noxious product of the industrial-soft drink-consumerism complex — lay in the historical personage of St. Nicholas, a charitable fourth-century bishop of Myra, in modern-day Turkey, who, tradition holds, looked after the poor.
He had strong feelings on the matter.
“Is Father Christmas everyone’s father, or just some?” he said, poking holes in the case for Santa Claus. “In the lockdown, Father Christmas didn’t visit the families that he used to. Why? It’s definitely not for fear of the coronavirus.”
The bishop recalled warmly the days when Italian children would address their wish lists to the Baby Jesus, “Not Santa Claus and the reindeer and let’s go to the movies and go bowling and all this American junk.”
This year, nationalists opened a new front in Italy’s fight over the shape of Christmas. Desperate for an issue with popular appeal in a period of political stability, they have picked up on the American right’s claim to be opposing a war on Christmas.
For them, the main target has been not Santa Claus but the European Union.
In November, a conservative Italian newspaper discovered that a European Union commissioner’s office had drafted guidelines for internal correspondence, calling for more inclusive, gender-neutral and less holiday-specific language.
“Not everyone celebrates the Christian holidays, and not all Christians celebrate them on the same dates,” read the document, which advised staff to avoid phrases like “Christmas time can be stressful.” Better, it suggested, would be “Holiday times can be stressful.”
The stress came immediately, with far-right leaders going to town.
Matteo S
But Francis has so far not rallied to defend Santa from his own bishop’s remarks, and the Vatican has not returned a request for comment.
Bishop Staglianò argued he was fully in line with Francis.
“With all due respect,” he said, “Santa Claus only brings gifts to those who have money” whether the children are naughty or nice.
alvini, the nationalist leader and former deputy prime minister, posted on social media a picture of a decapitated statue of the Virgin Mary in a ditch.
Mr. Salvini, who is not especially religious but often portrays himself as a defender of Christianity, wrote on Facebook, “The European Commission invites us not to celebrate Holy Christmas to not offend others, and some moron does these gross things.”
Another right-wing nationalist politician, Giorgia Meloni, told the conservative newspaper Libero that the E.U. guidance was “shameful.”
“No one can feel offended by a child who is born in a manger,” she added.
Even Pope Francis — who has suggested that nationalist leaders are un-Christian for their opposition to migrants — has echoed them when it comes to canceling Christmas.
Asked about the E.U. document earlier this month, Francis said, “This is an anachronism,” and accused the bloc of following in the footsteps of totalitarians. “In history many, many dictatorships have tried” to undercut the church, he said. “Think of Napoleon. From there, think of the Nazi dictatorship, the communist one.”
The poor families and migrants he visits every Christmas, he said, “have never seen Santa Claus.” So he urged the children in the church to ask Santa Claus for even more gifts and, if he showed up, explain to him that they could now give to poor children “given that you never visit them!”
He said none of the mothers in the church dared contradict him and some children, emboldened by his preaching, spoke up with the power of revelation. “I always knew it, that my dad was Santa Claus,” he said one child announced.
Breaking this Christmas “spell” was progress, the bishop said, recalling that as a small child he wrote letters asking Santa for money and put them under his father’s dinner plate. He’d find an envelope with a few thousand old Italian lire under his pillow.
But he knew at age four it was his father, he said, and argued that the 7-year-olds in the pews knew the score full well too. The 62-year-old bishop said he hadn’t shattered any sugar plum illusions.
“If we knew,” he said, referring to his generation, “imagine these kids with their smartphones.”
Tradition holds that St. Nicholas was kind to children and gave gold coins to three poor sisters who would have otherwise turned to prostitution. Over the centuries he became a patron saint of, among other things, children, pawnbrokers and Russia. Still today many Russians travel to the southern Italian city of Bari where his relics, stolen by sailors centuries ago, are kept in the San Nicola Basilica.
The tradition of St. Nicholas eventually spread north, where the Dutch called him Sinterklaas, a variant of St. Nicholas. The Dutch settled New Amsterdam, later New York, where English speakers in the American colonies Anglicized the saint’s name to Santa Claus.
The reindeer, sleigh, Christmas Eve deliveries and big belly were added in the 19th century — as was the red coat, which was standard Santa garb long before Coca-Cola got involved.
But once Santa started hawking sodas, it all went downhill, Bishop Staglianò told the children in the church.
Attempting to contain the fallout, a diocese spokesman, Don Alessandro Paolino, wrote on the diocesan Facebook page, “on behalf of the bishop, I express my sorrow for this declaration which has created disappointment in the little ones, and want to specify that Monsignor Staglianò’s intentions were quite different.”
He then picked up where the bishop left off, decrying “Santa Claus aka consumerism, the desire to own, buy, buy and buy again.”
Bishop Staglianò said that he was not against all gift giving, but that it had to be a considerate present, well selected — when not in stores, then “delivered by Amazon” — and given by hand.
Despite the fervor of his anti-Santa salvo, it was ultimately no match for the sight of Old St. Nick on horseback outside the church. The children clamored around him as he dismounted, took a seat on a red throne and handed out pencils, candy and other gifts, said Ms. Scarnato, the teacher.
“Once they were outside the church the speech wore off because they were smitten with St. Nicholas,” she said. “They were happy.”
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