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ayittey1 · 4 years ago

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The Removal of Chiefs From Power

Most indigenous African societies applied various restrictions against the office of chieftaincy so that whoever occupied the "stool" would act "properly." Of course, the restrictions varied from ethnic group to tribe. In some tribes, the king was not to venture out of his palace into town except under the cover of darkness. The king was never to speak to his people directly, except through a linguist (okyeame as in the case of the Akan). The Akan chief or king was forbidden to meet with any foreigner except in the presence or company of a member of the council of elders. The paramount chief was forbidden to see the burial place of chiefs; two paramount chiefs could not shake hands nor should a chief exchange clothes with another man or eat from the same dish with him.

Some of these injunctions were intended to enhance the sanctity of the office. But there were others which were clearly designed to check despotic tendencies and misuse of power. One that is of interest which was adopted by many indigenous West African societies was the prohibition against property holding.

AAmoah (1988) explained,

In some societies, especially the Akans of Ghana, the danger of a ruler using his position to amass wealth for himself was obviated by the custom that the king could not, except in a few circumstances, own any personal property while he was in office. Everything that the ruler acquired while he was in office, unless the elders knew that he was acquiring it for himself and consented to it, automatically became stool property. That ruled applied to the wives of the ruler as well. To make the rule effective, the administration of stool funds and property was put in the hands of the Sanaahene (treasurer). The ruler was debarred from any close contact with the stool finances. He was neither permitted to hold the scale used for weighing out gold dust nor to open the leather bag in which the gold was kept (p.177).

While this prohibition is fascinating and akin to requiring an American president to place his private holdings of stock in a "blind trust," it may have contributed to the myth of communal ownership. When the Akan said, "The chief does not own anything. Everything he owns belongs to the stool" it was easy for Europeans to take that practice to imply "communal ownership" rather than as an injunction against personal aggrandizement. Every gift to the chief will also belong to the stool.[1]

Even in modern times, chiefs are still held accountable and corrupt chiefs are destooled :

An unspecified number of members of the `Oyoko' clan, King‑makers of the Okumaning stools, have been rounded up by Kade Police for allegedly beating up their chief, Nana Karikari Appau II. The King‑makers have preferred 13 destoolment charges against the chief. These include the alleged embezzlement of C50,000 ($18,182) land compensation belonging to the entire Oyoko family at Okumaning and the signing of a land agreement with an Italian firm, Greenwhich Chemicals Company, involving some 16,000 acres without the consent of the entire family (Daily Graphic, 28 October, 1981; p.8).

The Cief of Akyem Osorase near Oda in the Eastern Region (of Ghana), Barima Adu-Baah Kyere and his supporters including the Gyaasehene have allegedly fled the village to unknown destination following assassination attempts on them.

A pick-up vehicle being used by the chief was said to have been burnt to ashes by the irate mob which besieged the palace.

A police source said there has been a dispute between Barima Adu-Baah and section of the people of Osorase over accountability on the village's revenue (Ghana Drum, June, 1994; p.12).

Nana Sobin Kan II, the Chief of Asansi Dompuase traditional area in the Ashanti region, was destooled on Feb 7, 2012. The charge was

“continuously showing gross disrespect and disregard to kingmakers and elders of the stool. He had continuously sown seeds of confusion and litigation in the traditional area through the rampant sale of stool lands to private developers without plot numbers and site plans. He was also accused of having received huge sums of money as compensation on behalf of the Adansi-Dompuase traditional areas from AngloGold Ashanti last year but failed to disclose the amount involved to kingmakers.” (Daily Guide, Feb 10, 2012; p.17)

THE PARAMOUNT Chief of the Nsawkaw Traditional Area in the Tain District of the Brong Ahafo Region, Nana Kutu Ayim Baffour II, has been destooled (removed from office).

Kingmakers of the traditional area yesterday performed customary rites to destool the Omanhene after they accused him of denigrating the Nsawkaw Stool.

As a result, a sheep was slaughtered followed by the pouring of libation to symbolize his destoolment.

The announcement of the Omanhene's destoolment was greeted with thunderous applause from a large crowd that emerged at the forecourt of the Krontihene's Palace, where the event took place.

Copies of the statement that heralded his destoolment have been sent to the Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Regional Police Commander, Presidents of the National/Regional Houses of Chiefs, Minister of Chieftaincy Affairs, among other institutions.

The embattled chief is currently facing criminal charges at a Techiman Circuit Court for fraud and impersonation, after the Attorney General's Department found him culpable of forging documents to facilitate his enstoolment” (Daily Guide Aug 11, 2013)

The traditional ruler and the paramount ruler of Mahin kingdom, in Ilaje Local government Area of Ondo State in Nigeria, Oba Lawrence Omowole, was removed from office for “ceding Aboto community which is an important part of Mahin kingdom to another person either in the garb of a king or otherwise.” He denied the allegation (Nigerian Tribune, February 18, 2017).

Consider the case of Oba Samuel Aderiyi Adara of the Ode-Ekiti community of Ekiti State in Nigeria, who was dethroned for non-performance:

The traditional ruler, who is a born again Christian, was accused of not contributing enough to the progress of the community and of frustrating the celebration of the yearly festival.

The monarch was equally blamed for the deaths of some notable indigenes, including four professors, one of them a former don of the University of Ado-Ekiti.

The traditional ruler was invited to the community meeting where he was accused of failing in his duty of moving the town forward. But attempts by the monarch to extricate himself from the allegations failed when he was asked to mention his personal contribution to the growth of the town since he became the king. He was lambasted for not informing the state government of the pathetic socio-economic situation in his domain and asked to vacate the throne for a more progressive minded personality in the town.

While the meeting was still going on, some youths in the town invaded the venue, removed the dress of the traditional ruler, including his royal beads and crown, and chased him out of the town. Shortly after, traditional trees in strategic shrines were cut down, symbolizing the demise of the Oba.

The spokesman for the community said it was the collective decision of both the old and young to dethrone the monarch, saying his reign was "disastrous, woeful and sorrowful" (The Guardian, July 24, 2003; p.4).

In Yoruba culture, removal of the royal beads and dress constituted destoolment. The "primitive peasants" of Africa had the sense to remove a king whose tenure was “disastrous” but not so the "educated" elites of modern Africa. The rule of so many post colonial African leaders has been more than “disastrous.”

Togo's former Security Chief, Colonel Senyi Memene, accused of diverting a staggering $1.5 million into foreign bank accounts, has been compelled to regurgitate part of his loot from Switzerland.

In addition, a minister of state, Kawo Ehe, ex-minister of Commerce and Transport, and a prominent Trade Union leader, Nanbog Barnabo, have been forced to refund a total of CFA27.5 million (about $94,000) to the national exchequer (New African, Jan. 1990; p.19).

Political Pressure from Various Groups And Associations

In June, 1990, Kenya's President, Daniel arap Moi, threatened to hunt down "like rats" those who were calling for political reform (The Economist, June 23, 1990; p.39). The African chief never threatens his people. Nor does he talk thus to his people:

Lusaka, Zambia. August 14, 1990 (Reuters) -- President Kenneth D. Kaunda of Zambia, under growing pressure from advocates of democratic change, mounted a campaign against the revival of multiparty system in his country.

Mr. Kaunda, who abolished political pluralism in 1973, accused the democracy movement of receiving funds from outside the country and of abusing the freedom to campaign in a referendum on multiparty rule.

`I have bent backward in the spirit of patience and tolerance and have allowed multiparty supporters to behave as though they were a registered party in Zambia,' he said at a news conference. `I am now going to unleash UNIP forces,' he added, referring to the ruling United National Independence Party, `to go and explain the dangers' of multiparty government in Zambia.

The 66-year-old President, who has ruled his country of 8 million since independence from Britain in 1964, said advocates of political pluralism are bent on destroying Zambia (The New York Times, Aug. 15, 1990; p.A6).

First, it was not the role of the African chief to "unleash" his forces "to go and explain the dangers" of a particular political course. Rather, it was the governed who told the ruler how they wished to be ruled. Second, it was not the function of an African chief "to bend backward" and allow a political movement to exist. Freedom of association was a right in traditional Africa.

In fact, freedom of association was so common feature of indigenous African systems that it was taken for granted. The commoners could form associations, religious, economic or political, with whom they wished and when. The chief or king had no power to ban these associations. Some of them brought political pressure to bear on despotic rulers and to check misrule or abuse of power.

As noted earlier, the Akans had a commoners' association whose leader was called the Nkwankwaahene, which was not a hereditary position. Qualities for this position were eloquence and bravery. Through him, the commoners complained to the council of elders and forced the elders to consider any representation he made on behalf of the commoners. "In this way, the office of the Nkwankwaahene provided an effective channel for expressions of popular criticisms against the ruler and his government. It enabled the elders to take action against the ruler without being charged with disloyalty or jealousy" (Amoah, 1988; p.175).

There were various other associations and commoner societies: for example, asafo companies, age-grades, and secret societies. The asafo companies of the Akans of Ghana were primarily warrior organizations of the common people or the youth. They were often organized in the face of external aggression to defend the chiefdom. But the asafo companies also performed a number of social services such as road work, sanitation and other duties that arose during annual festivals. They might refuse to perform these services to show their displeasure at a tyrannical chief. Moreover, they became an effective political force in the enstoolment and destoolment of chiefs. "No chief would remain on the stool for long if the asafo companies were united against him" (Amoah, 1988; p.176).

The age-grade system of the Igbo provided a variety of checks against despotism. The age-grades were arranged in order of seniority. Members of each age-grade stood together and acted together as one body in public affairs. Each age-grade controlled the moral conduct of its members. "If a member stole, for example, the rest of the age-grade called on him to restore the stolen articles to the owner and to pay a fine in kind to the grade" (Amoah, 1988; p.176).[2]

These age-grades were ranked in an order of seniority. There were the senior, intermediate and junior grades. Within the society as a whole, the power, authority, rights and duties of each person depended on the position of his age-grade in the hierarchy of the age-grade system. Thus, the senior age-grade of the elders constituted the governing class of the society, while a number of intermediate grades combined to act as the executive organ of the government.

Members of each grade jealously safeguarded their own status and the correct relationship that should exist between their grade and those subordinate and superordinate to theirs. The age-grade system, therefore, provided an effective balance of power in the society especially in those societies which had no centralized machinery for political and administrative control like the pre-colonial Igbo societies (Amoah, 1988; p.177).

Political checks were also applied against African chiefs by secret societies. The African continent in the pre-colonial days was the home of numerous such societies, many of which continued to exist even during the colonial period. "One writer enumerated about 150 of such societies in 1929" (Amoah, 1998; p.177). They were abolished in Nigeria in 1978.

Some were mystic societies, some patriotic and a few others were subversive and criminal. For example,

In order to gain admittance to the society of leopard-men of Cameroon and Central Africa (Manja and Banda), the applicant had to kill a close relative (mother, son, or first wife in preparation for a ritual festivity. The members of this society, citing the need for vengeance as their justification, abducted and murdered people who had been accused of witchcraft. For these rituals they disguised themselves as leopards, either wearing skins of that animal or tattooing their bodies with colored mixtures in imitation of leopard skins. They walked on all fours, touching the ground only with their toes, so as to make their footprints resemble the leopard's, and they voiced similar cries. The same atmosphere of tension and collective terror, leading to self-destruction, prevailed in Zaire among the amiotes and leopard-men of the northeast, by the Ubangui River, and, in the crisis of the 1930s, in the Wamba and Bunia regions (Coquery-Vidrovitch, 1988; p.191).

Most secret societies, however, were founded to enforce, maintain and teach tribal tradition, the custom and beliefs of their respective ethnic groups. More importantly, they "could bring pressure to bear on the rulers and restrain them from pursuing unpopular measures" (Amoah, 1988; p.177).

[1] This is similar to modern day practice in the United States. “The National Archives and Records Administration stores gifts to the president — many of which end up in their official libraries — as well as the vice president and member of their families. Under a 2006 rule, recipients may not keep gifts from foreign officials that are worth more than $305, for fear of the potential influence on U.S. policy. They are accepted, however, on behalf of the American people” (The Washington Times, Dec 8, 2007; p.A2).

[2] This self-policing aspect of the age-grade system might be of interest to African Americans in combating the soaring crime rate in black neighborhoods.

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chocolateheal · 6 years ago

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Why You Should Not Go To European Abstract Painting | european abstract painting

The Guggenheim Museum’s annoying new appearance is Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future. First, a précis. Amid 1906 and 1915, the Stockholm-based af Klint (1862–1944) created 193 paintings and works on cardboard to adorn a never-built multilevel temple. It’s religious art. They’re mostly abstract, with swirling, spiraling, and geometric forms corrective in active colors.

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These works, some ten anxiety tall, are a alternation conceived as a progression, added or beneath a storyline on the advance of the soul, so at the Guggenheim we accept a absolute program. So all-inclusive a apperception and beheading in itself is extraordinary. It has parallels in circuitous religious spaces busy at the aforementioned time by the aforementioned artisan or advised by a distinct art administrator and implemented by artists beneath his or her direction. Anticipate Giotto’s Arena Chapel, area aggregate is anchored and anniversary vignette is allotment of a unified narrative.

She never awash annihilation from the series. She was never allotment of the boilerplate European art market, by her choice. Neither was any artisan alive in Stockholm. She didn’t display these works, admitting she was a admired allotment of the art enactment there. Back she died — she was hit by a bus — the art went to her nephew. She assured that annihilation could be apparent for 20 years, as she acquainted the apple wouldn’t be accessible until then. Time flies, and it’s 2019. Starting in the 1980s, her assignment became a Swedish story. She was again advised an aberrant who attenuated French symbolism, bounded folk art, and art-nouveau appearance into article abnormal but audibly Swedish. Now, we accept this remarkable, abundant discussed show.

Af Klint is a paradox. She isn’t a transformative artisan herself, admitting the appearance seeks to bang the accepted art-history timeline by injecting her appearance of authentic absorption a few years afore Mondrian’s or Malevich’s or Kandinsky’s. That’s axial baseball. I don’t anticipate anyone cares who did what first. There was a lot of abolitionist change in art accident at the time, incrementally and abruptly. This isn’t the Kentucky Derby.

It’s safe to say that it’s consistently been a big apple with lots of bodies authoritative lots of art, about all bad or inconsequential, some arbitrary good, some cool good, and some, like af Klint, who ability be active beneath a bedrock somewhere, accomplishing article absolutely visionary. The art-history assize — who did what back and who did it able-bodied — is no added set in accurate than any allotment of history. Af Klint removed herself from not alone the art bazaar but the museum, scholarly, and analytical cultures of her day as able-bodied as the public. The evolving opinions of anniversary jostle and amalgamate to actualize and acclimatize canon.

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Will she add added than a dash to art history? I’m not sure. Her temple was never built. We don’t apperceive how, in her time, or if, it would accept answer airy feeling. Her adventure is as abundant one of Lutheran canon and the history of religion. I saw the appearance at the Guggenheim a few canicule afore I saw the appearance at the Morgan Library on J. R. R. Tolkein, the columnist of The Lord of the Rings. They are agnate in that both created abundant immaterial worlds, chastening spiritual, his fantastic. Now that she is allotment of the dialogue, her abode in art history will evolve, as it should. I anticipate the accustomed account of her assignment afore the Guggenheim appearance — in my words, “an aberrant alloy of French symbolism, bounded folk art, and art-nouveau appearance into article abnormal but audibly Swedish” — is apparently still a complete and fair one.

But, still, abstracted she is. Af Klint believed she was abbreviating and cogent a new appearance of the world, animal life, the soul, and the afterlife. Allotment of her attraction as able-bodied as her accountability is the absence of ego. She saw herself as a medium. She formed for abounding years with a accumulation of women, accepted in Stockholm as The Five, captivation seances during which they summoned airy forces. She never saw herself as a ability alive solo, which is how art historians like to present abundant artists. Her art is refreshingly ego-free and communal. The actuality of a boss alone ability is beneath accordant back she and others communed calm with the spirits.

Af Klint ability at times arm-twist the aged augur Madam Arcati in Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit, or, added precisely, Margaret Rutherford arena Madam Arcati. Leave all of this aside. She’s not on a asinine mission. She advised herself a abstruse with admission to secrets including the agent of life, the appearance of God, and the bugged accent of nature. Automatic writing, in this case painting or drawing, was her language.

In the 1870s, her altogether Christian, mystical behavior were organized into a movement alleged Theosophy. These behavior were abstinent and anti-materialist and aggregate by abounding artists, such as Kandinsky, who saw themselves as agog Christians. It’s allotment of a alluring and acute bracken of new acceptance systems cartoon from abounding sources, including Freemasonry, a Christian adaptation of the Kabbalah, and revolutions in science. Her art is abstract, but that doesn’t beggarly it’s not representational. Af Klint believed she conveyed the concealed but real.

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My basal botheration is that I don’t anticipate the art she fabricated for her temple activity is, overall, all that good. She was able-bodied accomplished and allotment of Stockholm’s art establishment. She’s absolutely competent. To a eyewitness who knew annihilation about the artist, they arise as artful objects, generally solemn, buoyant, and intriguing, sometimes all three. That’s a claiming to achieve. An artful booty charge be a starting point, and I would altercate it’s usually an end point, too, back art exists aboriginal and foremost as a freestanding article we apperceive with the senses. Its abject is the artful realm.

I anticipation the oil and metal-leaf pictures from the Altarpiece alternation from 1915 were great. Abounding of the Swan pictures, additionally from 1915, are ugly, clumsy things. Mostly, she formed in the cruel average of tempera. There, change is absurd back the acrylic dries instantly. Back af Klint believed she was audition all-powerful choir while she worked, I don’t anticipate she begin this a problem. If some of her assignment feels contemporary, in allotment it’s because it has a advance look. The colors and forms amalgamate a fun pop-art affection that glides against the agrarian ancillary as if nudged by a wee nip of acid. Some of it looks like bad assurance painting. Some of the edgier art uses grids and diagrams and evokes the belly of a computer.

The Guggenheim is adventurous to do the show, accustomed that she’s around unknown. It consumes best of the museum. The ambagious Guggenheim architecture is itself different and altogether ill-fitted to her work, in which spirals and beating amoebic forms are foundation motifs. The appearance delivers an impressive, appropriate assignment in how axial religious acceptance has consistently been to artists. It will accord best visitors a new compassionate of how abnormally alive abstruse art can be. It’s a well-presented assignment in the bookish and airy abet of fin-de-siècle Europe, too. It’s able-bodied account seeing.

The archive is acute and succinct. The best allotment of it is a archetype of a accessible chat amid bristles artists and advisers discussing her work. Their observations are subtle. They see af Klint’s assignment as accessible to abounding takes. As I apprehend the transcript, I can see how they’re alive through the pictures alone and in concert. I ambition added catalogues would broadcast discussions like this. They acquaint us abounding things, the best important is that a assurance of acceptable art is its artlessness to assorted interpretations. The accumulation was smart, undogmatic, and coherent. Now, that’s a attenuate combination. A big allotment of their altercation complex how abundant af Klint’s adventures should or charge acquaint her art.

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I’ve accounting generally on the sad, amazing conflict amid art historians and religious art, or, added precisely, art historians and acutely religious artists. It’s like that daydream date amid two admirable bodies who can’t assume to get the pieces of the addle to fit together. Advisers usually run from adoration and do aggregate they can to advance civil apropos as key motivational armament for artists back a airy actuation was far added divisive. In af Klint, there is no mistaking her 18-carat Christian feeling. The appearance tries to advance this basal actuality after giving the consequence it’s a abominable job or, worse, an autopsy.

I’m not absolutely elderly, but in the Oriental rug business, I’d be a semi-antique with some wear. Still, the affluence of adolescent bodies seeing the appearance was auspicious as able-bodied as a little sad. On the one hand, I’m captivated to see them attractive at art, and the Guggenheim is a magical, alarming abode for it. On the other, they’re attractive for article spiritual, article above the vendettas and airs of their day, admission to a soulfulness that their ability is busily thwarting.

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investmart007 · 6 years ago

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HARRISBURG, Pa. | Prosecutor: Priests 'weaponized' the faith to abuse kids

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HARRISBURG, Pa. | Prosecutor: Priests 'weaponized' the faith to abuse kids

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Roman Catholic priests across Pennsylvania used religious rituals, symbols of the faith and the threat of eternity in hell to groom, molest and rape children, a grand jury found, in what the state’s top prosecutor called the “weaponization of faith.”

An 884-page report on the statewide grand jury’s investigation, released Tuesday, detailed how “predator priests” used the children’s own religious faith and trust in them as religious leaders to victimize and then silence them.

One priest tied up a victim with rope in the confessional in a “praying position,” the grand jury wrote. When the victim refused to perform sex, the angered priest used a 7-inch crucifix to sexually assault him, the report said.

Another victim recounted how a priest used a metal cross to beat him.

At a parish rectory, the report said, four of the priests made a boy strip and pose as Jesus on the cross while they took photos.

“He stated that all of them giggled and stated that the pictures would be used as a reference for new religious statues for the parishes,” the jury wrote. Two of those priests later did jail time for sexually assaulting two altar boys.

Another priest told a boy he was fondling that it was OK because he was “an instrument of God.”

Priests also found in the sacrament of confession the opportunity to perpetrate acts against children, the report said.

The investigation of six of Pennsylvania’s eight dioceses— Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton — is the most extensive investigation of Catholic clergy abuse by any state, according to victims’ advocates. More than 1,000 children — and possibly many more — were molested since the 1940s, the report said.

The dioceses represent about 1.7 million Catholics.

The Philadelphia Archdiocese and the Johnstown-Altoona Diocese were not included in the probe because they have been the subject of three previous scathing grand jury investigations.

Diocese leaders on Tuesday expressed sorrow for the victims and unveiled, for the first time, a list of priests accused of some sort of sexual misconduct.

“Predators in every diocese weaponized the Catholic faith and used it as a tool of their abuse,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said at a news conference Tuesday unveiling the grand jury’s report, which documented allegations against 301 priests over seven decades.

Only two of the priests have been charged with crimes as a result of the grand jury investigation, though a number were prosecuted in years past. Over 100 have died, and many others have retired.

Church leaders say most of the offenses occurred some time in the past and note that major reforms were adopted starting in 2002 to safeguard children.

Terence McKiernan, president of the watchdog group BishopAccountability.org, said the ritualization of abuse was a fundamental part of how children were sexually exploited.

“Even when the Catholic rituals and doctrines are not specifically mobilized by the priest, they are in play,” he said.

Threats of eternal damnation were not uncommon, the grand jury found. Priests told children they would “go to hell” if they told anyone what happened and “nobody would believe a lying child over a man of God’s word.”

One priest was quoted as telling altar boys they should serve naked beneath their cassocks “because God did not want any man-made clothes to be worn next to their skin during Mass,” the jury wrote.

In one church, a priest told a boy who confided he had been gang-raped as a 7-year-old that he had to provide sex to get to heaven. He would then be molested for three years before the priest was transferred.

In a case highlighted on the day the grand jury report was made public, a priest rinsed a boy’s mouth with holy water after abusing him.

The predator priests used any opportunity they could to molest children while they had them alone, the investigation found. Several priests used hypnosis during counseling sessions to manipulate their victims. Helping a priest grade papers in his rectory somehow became a session of nude weightlifting. One boy was abused when he went to collect his report card from school.

When a bishop asked the Vatican to remove a priest who used physical force and threats to abuse children, the bishop noted the priest “invoked the name of God to justify his actions against his victims while using their faith and the priesthood to manipulate them and secure their silence.” Parishioners were never told why he was removed in 2006.

The grand jurors pointedly wrote that the investigation was not an attack on the faith, noting many are Catholics themselves.

“People of all faiths and of no faith want their children to be safe,” the grand jurors wrote. “But we were presented with a conspicuous concentration of child sex abuse cases that have come from the church.”

By MARK SCOLFORO , Associated Press

#Church leaders #counseling sessions #diocese weaponized #Harrisburg #jurors pointedly #Parishioners #Priests weaponized #Prosecutor #religious rituals #Roman Catholic #TodayNews

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newstwitter-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on News Twitter

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BBC: AAAS chief puts weight behind protest march

Image copyright AAAS

Image caption Holt, a research physicist, represented Central New Jersey in Congress

The head of the world’s largest scientific membership organisation has given his backing for a planned protest by researchers in Washington DC.

Rush Holt, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), said that people were “standing up for science”.

His remarks reflect growing concern among researchers that science is disregarded by President Trump

Scientists across the US plan to march in DC on 22 April.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my entire career,” the former Democratic congressman told BBC News.

Image caption A letter of concern was drawn up at MIT

“To see young scientists, older scientists, the general public speaking up for the idea of science. We are going to work with our members and affiliated organisations to see that this march for science is a success.”

Mr Holt made his comments at the AAAS annual meting in Boston as President Trump appointed a fierce critic of the Environmental Protection Agency as its head. Scott Pruitt has spent years fighting the role and reach of the EPA.

Campaigners accuse him of being too close to the oil and gas industry, and allege that he is “lukewarm” on the threat posed by climate change.

Rush Holt says that the concern among US scientists has gone well beyond the usual uncertainty that comes with a change in the Oval Office.

“It is partly because of the previous statements of the president and his appointees on issues such as climate change and vaccination for children which have not been in keeping with good science,” the AAAS CEO told BBC News.

“But mostly by what we have seen since the new administration has come in, [which] is silence about science. Very few appointments to positions are filled by people who understand science, very few comments about the importance of science; there is no science advisor in the White House now and we don’t know whether there will be one.

“And so the silence is beginning to sound ominous.”

Image copyright Reuters

Image caption Donald Trump has yet to appoint a senior advisor on science and technology issues

There has been unease among researchers ever since Mr Trump was elected in November. More than 600 professors from one of the country’s leading research Universities, MIT, signed an open letter before his inauguration expressing their concerns.

It stated: “The president-elect has appointed individuals to positions of power who have endorsed racism, misogyny and religious bigotry, and denied the widespread scientific consensus on climate change… Science is not a special interest; it is not optional. Science is a foundational ingredient in how we as a society analyse, understand, and solve the most difficult challenges that we face.”

Among the signatories’ worries are the president’s statement that climate change is a hoax, his alleged muzzling of environmental agencies and his apparent interest in setting up a commission to investigate whether vaccines cause autism.

Prof Nancy Kanwisher, who is a brain researcher at MIT, explained why she helped organise the petition.

“This is the most frightening and serious threat we have faced in my lifetime,” she told BBC News.

“The political tactic of denying scientific fact is a huge threat to the health of our people. It is also a huge threat to our planet from climate deniers.”

Image caption Prof Nancy Kanwisher: “The most frightening and serious threat we have faced in my lifetime”

Sarah Schwettmann, who is a PhD student working with Prof Kanwisher, said that many of her fellow students felt just as strongly as their professors.

“Science has unfortunately taken a political beating,” she argued. “It has been drawn into a realm where we have to stand up for the necessity of science in informing public policy and potentially averting the global crisis we see in environmental change and climate change.”

Ms Schwettmann has designed black-hooded sweatshirts for protestors. On the back is “MIT” in the shape of a clenched fist. On the sleeves is the electrical symbol of resistance.

But President Trumps supporters, such as Myron Ebell, who is a director at a libertarian advocacy group, Competitive Enterprise Institute, accuses the academics of being an out-of-touch elite – and says they should listen to the electorate.

“The people in the heartland of America who make stuff, dig up stuff and grow stuff for a living voted for Donald J Trump as president,” he told BBC News.

“The people living in New York City and working in the university towns across America did not vote for him. They lost the election and they are going to have to get used to it.”

There is little sign of that happening. All across the country many scientists are preparing for their march for science on Washington. They are in a battle to win the hearts and minds of their countrymen.

Image copyright AP

Image caption Scientists, environmental advocates, and their supporters demonstrated in Boston on Sunday

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