Music of the Hang

Hangdrum Performance By James Winstanley & Daniel James Waples  shot in Arambol, Goa, India by Suzi & Rakesh Kashyap, Shimla

Amazing Hang Playing Duo, Danny Cudd and Markus Johansson

Starry Night Revisited

Controversial Shampoo Ad on Turkish Television

From the "what the hell were they thinking" file:

(CBS/AP) ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's Jewish community is protesting a Turkish commercial that uses an old film footage of Adolf Hitler to sell shampoo.

The Jewish community and the Chief Rabbi's office on Monday called Hitler "the most striking example of cruelty and savagery" and said using his image in a commercial was unacceptable.

The statement also demanded a public apology from the advertising company "to repair the damage this commercial has caused to society's conscience."

According to Reuters, the Biomen commercial lasts 13 seconds and shows black-and-white archival footage of Hitler at a political rally. Hitler appear to be shout in a dubbed-over Turkish voice: "If you are not wearing women's dress, you shouldn't be using women's shampoo either!"

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57404690/turkey-jewish-community-protests-hitler-shampoo-ad/ 

In all fairness, I have watched television  quite a bit and I haven't seen this ad. Whoever thought it was clever should probably not be working in the advertising industry.

Contact information: BioMen
Address : Emek Mah. Ordu Cad. Sıvat Road N0: 9 SANCAKTEPE-ISTANBUL
Telephone : (216) 643 00 00
Fax : (216) 641 40 95
E-mail : info@biomen.com.tr

Trailer for "Hello Anatolia"

I'd like to share this film trailer with you. Valantis is a friend of mine and he has been working on this project for some time now. It looks like his efforts have paid off. Tell me what you think.

Announcement...

Lately I've been working hard at another blog  that deals with American politics. It's always an interesting but sometimes sordid and depressing topic. I just love the investigation, the education and the research. It keeps my mind working. Also I am an extraordinarily curious person. I ask myself why such and such happened, or what such and such means? And off I go. In my past life, I was probably an encyclopedia. 

Well, lately I decided that instead of contributing to somebody else's blog, I had enough posts (essays, really) that perhaps they needed a new home. The blog I had been writing with had a lot of readers, many of them well-informed and as curious as I am. So it meant losing my audience for the sake of independence. If blog owners are possessive, you can also find that long-time blog readers can be quite cliquish. (It's not the exact word.) 

http://nomadicpolitics.blogspot.com/

If you are interested in American politics- and I'll warn you, I lean toward the liberal side- then I'd like to invite you to stop in and become a follower. 

In the next couple of weeks, I am posting my older things (mostly from the past year). In the fast-moving world of politics, anything from last year is pretty stale. I will soon be serving the newer vintage material this week. 

For example, starting on Thursday (March 1) I will have a two-part series which asks the question:

In 2012, Is Ronald Reagan Electable? (The answer, of course, is, NO, mainly because he is dead. But then the Republicans seem a lot more in love with Reagan now that he is not among the living.) 
But actually, the basic thesis of the essay is this: Given the general level of intolerance and the lack of compromise, who on earth could ever fit the bill? 

On the weekend, I will present another two part post which explains why, if there is a brokered convention in the GOP party this year, "Jeb" Bush is probably not a wise choice. If you thought Newt Gingrich has baggage, that's an old lady's change purse compared to this Bush. 

If you enjoy reading, or perhaps you are interested in being a contributing writer, let me know. Just pitch my your idea, and let's take it from there. In any case, do drop in and tell me what you think.

Indoctrination

Third graders in in Gwinnett County, Ga., were given math homework Wednesday that asked questions about slavery and beatings.

Christopher Braxton told ABC News affiliate WSB-TV in Atlanta that he couldn't believe the assignment his 8-year-old son brought home from of Beaver Ridge Elementary school in Norcross.

"It kind of blew me away," Braxton said. "Do you see what I see? Do you really see what I see? He's not answering this question."

The question read, "Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?"

Another math problem read, "If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?"

Another question asked how many baskets of cotton Frederick filled.

"I was furious at that point," Braxton said.

"This outrages me because it just lets me know that there's still racists," said Stephanie Jones, whose child is a student at the school.

"Something like that shouldn't be imbedded into a kid of the third, fourth, fifth, any grade," parent Terrance Barnett told WSB-TV. "I'm having to explain to my 8-year-old why slavery or slaves or beatings are in a math problem. That hurts."

"In this one, the teachers were trying to do a cross-curricular activity," Gwinnett County school district spokeswoman Sloan Roach said.

http://news.yahoo.com/fred-got-two-beatings-per-day-homework-asks-230717586--abc-news.html

Occupy 2012

Interior Landscape

Children Under Attack: A Culture of Unpunished Exploitation 2/2

This is a reprint of an article I wrote from another blog. The subject is somewhat unpleasant but it is important nonetheless. Here is Part 2. It deals with the strange career of Ronald Roskens.

Second Strike

Strangely enough, within a year after Ronald Roskens allegedly being dismissed from the University of Nebraska in 1991, President George H.W. Bush selected Roskens to head the Agency of International Development (AID).  (For a map of the Roskens’ connections, Try this link ) 
His promotion is definitely unusual because such an important government position would no doubt have involved a great deal of vetting to prevent such things as blackmail or, as in the events above, scandal. In the past the agency had provided millions of dollars in U.S. goods and services to foreign governments around the world so the possibility of corruption through extortion should have set off alarm bells. (Some have claimed the agency was nothing more than a CIA front- not such an easy allegation to dismiss as we soon see.)

And yet, nobody in the Bush administration seems to have taken any notice of Roskens dubious past. If they did, it didn’t seem to bother them at all. It didn’t take very long to see problems with Roskens however.

As Eric Konigsberg, writer for The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, pointed out back in June, 1992

If he couldn't run a university, why should he be entrusted with a $7.5 billion government agency? Probably because his sponsor was Dick Herman, a Republican National Committeeman from Nebraska whose South Bay Beer Distributors company in Los Angeles, one of the largest Anheuser Busch distributors in the country, has listed James Baker and Bob Strauss as shareholders.

Unfortunately, failure didn't exactly chasten Roskens. At AID, he promptly ushered in friends like Katherine Morgan, his new head of the foreign aid policy office, whose resume included no work in government or international development, but stints as a nun, patent lawyer, and dean of college admissions. And then there was "consultant" Kermit Hansen, a regent at the University of Nebraska.

But the director has also had some help from the White House. To White House personnel staffer Tom Kranz, AID was a safe and profitable place to dump Sally Montgomery, a friend and former stewardess; there, she earns $90,000 a year as a deputy assistant administrator.

While there's not always direct correlation between bad appointees and bad governance, under Roskens' leadership AID seemed to specialize less in international development than in the development of personal wealth. Since Roskens appointment, an impressive number of AID contractors and administrators have been sent to prison for rigging contracts, accepting bribes, and padding expense accounts. Roskens himself was forced to pay back more than $3,000 from an AID subcontractor for violation of ethical standards. And on three recent occasions, the federal government has required Roskens to reimburse private organizations, two of which are AID contractors, for honoraria or travel expenses he accepted illegally.

By October of 1992, after a year long investigation, Congressman John Conyers, Jr., chairman of Legislation and National Security Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, confirmed that AID Administrator Roskens had abused his public office for private gain. While none of the charges in the investigation involved sexual abuse, they did outline a pattern of financial and ethical misconduct. In his letter to the Speaker, Conyers states:

Although the AID Inspector General investigated and referred this same misconduct, the Justice Department declined to prosecute Dr. Roskens on charges of conflict of interest, illegal gratuity, and dual compensation. And when senior AID officials referred the Inspector General's findings to the White House, Presidential Counsel C. Boyden Gray only criticized two instances in which the Administrator inadvertently and unknowingly failed to comply with applicable standards of conduct, and demanded repayments from Dr. Roskens. No other disciplinary action was taken against the AID Administrator, although his domestic travel schedule fell dramatically.

A Textbook Example

In fact, Roskens, the University of Nebraska and AID had already had an on-going relationship even before President Bush, Sr. made this appointment. That relationship might go a long way in explaining how this unusual appointment occurred. While chancellor at University of Nebraska, Roskens had negotiated an exchange program with Kabul University in Afghanistan, and oversaw development of the center for Afghanistan studies.

Under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center, the agency spent $51 million on the university education program in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994. One part of that grant involved the publishing of textbooks in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtu. In an effort to fight communism, and specifically the Soviet occupation, the textbooks were filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance.

President Reagan meets with Afghan "Freedom Fighters"

It must have sounded like a good idea at the time, the indoctrination of children to generate Islamic militancy.

The Mujahideen, Afghanistan's freedom fighters, used the classroom to prepare children to fight the Soviet empire. The Russians are long gone but the textbooks are not. The Mujahideen had wanted to prepare the next generation of Afghans to fight the enemy, so pupils learned the proper clips for a Kalashnikov rifle, the weight of bombs needed to flatten a house, and how to calculate the speed of bullets. Even the girls learn it.

According to the Washington Post

During that time of Soviet occupation, regional military leaders in Afghanistan helped the U.S. smuggle books into the country. They demanded that the primers contain anti-Soviet passages. Children were taught to count with illustrations showing tanks, missiles and land mines, agency officials said. They acknowledged that at the time it also suited U.S. interests to stoke hatred of foreign invaders...

AID dropped funding of Afghan programs in 1994. But the textbooks continued to circulate in various versions, even after the Taliban seized power in 1996.

Officials said private humanitarian groups paid for continued reprintings during the Taliban years. Today, the books remain widely available in schools and shops, to the chagrin of international aid workers.

“The pictures [in] the texts are horrendous to school students, but the texts are even much worse,” said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, an Afghan educator who is a program coordinator for Cooperation for Peace and Unity, a Pakistan-based nonprofit.

An aid worker in the region reviewed an unrevised 100-page book and counted 43 pages containing violent images or passages.

According to The Genesis of Global Jihad in Afghanistan, quoted by Pervez Hoodbhoy, Pakistani nuclear physicist, essayist and political-defence analyst.

The program ended in 1994 but the books continued to circulate: ‘US-sponsored textbooks, which exhort Afghan children to pluck out the eyes of their enemies and cut off their legs, are still widely available in Afghanistan and Pakistan, some in their original form.

Another Twist of the Tale

As repulsive as this saga is, following it to its logical conclusion requires a very strong stomach.

After the invasion of Afghanistan of 2002, news reports about the militant textbooks made headlines. The headlines, however, failed to mention the actual source of the books. In response to this news, George W. Bush announced in a radio address that 10 million U.S.-supplied books would be shipped to Afghan schools would teach “respect for human dignity, instead of indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry.”

The first lady stood alongside Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai on Jan. 29 to announce that AID would give the University of Nebraska at Omaha $6.5 million to provide textbooks and teacher training kits.

Thus the same people who printed the original textbooks which preached religiously-inspired violence to children would now be the same people who would print books teaching secular respect for human dignity.

Most remarkably, at the time, the mainstream media were nearly completely fooled. (One notable exception was the Washington Post.) For example, Elizabeth Neuffer in the Boston Globe, March 17, 2002, wrote in an article about the obstacles to education in Afghanistan, a year after the US invasion:

The obstacles to accomplishing that goal are enormous. What few schools impoverished Afghanistan once had – about 2,000 – are now all virtually destroyed, pummeled by gunfire or turned into refugee camps. Teachers here have not been paid for months, even years. Those schoolbooks that still exist are pro-Taliban screeds and deemed unusable.

By not mentioning the source of the textbooks, Neuffer gives the impression that the books were written by the Tablian- or some other militant Islamic organization- and not the University of Nebraska, under the supervision of the US government.

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), March 25, 2002, gives an even more misleading impression:

“Afghan children ran, skipped and dawdled to their classrooms like pupils everywhere yesterday for the start of a new school year — with girls and women teachers back in class and subjects like math replacing the Islamic dogma of the Taliban.

“In a symbolic break from a war-scarred past, children opened new textbooks written by Afghan scholars based at universities in the US.

“There are even pictures of people — images banned by the fundamentalist Taliban.”

Closer to home, the Omaha World-Herald declared that,

“Afghanistan stands at least a chance of hauling a modern, healthy society up out of the ashes of war and oppression,” partly because University of Nebraska at Omaha “officials and staffers” will be “cranking up their presses in neighboring Pakistan” to churn out schoolbooks, all funded by “a $ 6.5 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development [AID].”

That promotional editorial is, at least explainable. The former publisher and Chief Executive Officer of the Omaha World-Herald, Harold W. Andersen, was also the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the University of Nebraska Foundation. (It’s possible he even wrote the article but I cannot verify that.)

It is clear that Andersen also had connections to the Franklin Credit Union. He had headed a Franklin volunteer advisory board and back in 1986, led Franklin's building fund drive with $600,000 to pay for a renovation of the Franklin Credit Union. However, as one source tells us:

These money-raising efforts lost some of their luster in 1989, when it was revealed that the money was used to build an addition to the credit union, the most prominent feature of which was a bedroom. The retreat was equipped with "a brass bed, a fluffy white comforter, a stereo and a television," according to former Franklin employee Noel Seltzer, quoted in the March 5, 1989 Lincoln Journal. Others said King used it for afternoon trysts with his homosexual lovers.

Former Nebraska State Senator John DeCamp, author of the book The Franklin Cover-up, specifically implicated Harold Andersen as one of the top-five perpetrators in the child sex scandal. Those claims were based on hours of interviews with victims.

Be that as it may, what about Ronald Roskens, you ask? On November 18 1992, after only two and a half years at the agency, he became one of the first Bush agency chiefs to announce his resignation. Under a cloud of shameful scandal? I hear you asking. No. Not one little bit. More of a lateral move. Despite what others might consider a less than auspicious career, Roskens was apparently on the path to greater success.

In 1993, Roskens became president and chief executive officer of Action International, a think tank comprised of 35 former heads of state and other policy leaders. Just two years later, the Omaha, Nebraska, resident was named honorary consul general of Japan and was elected to the board of the Friends of the World Food Programme, a United Nations agency headquartered in Rome, Italy.

Additionally Roskens is listed in the “Who’s Who in America,” “Leaders of the English Speaking World,” and “Community Leaders of America.” Additionally Roskens has also received twelve Honorary Degrees from institutions of higher education around the world.

Interestingly- given the rumors in his past, Roskens was also honored with an induction in DeMolay Hall of Fame on June 25, 1993. According to its website, Related to the Freemasons, the DeMolay organization is:

dedicated to preparing young men to lead successful, happy, and productive lives. Basing its approach on timeless principles and practical, hands-on experience, DeMolay opens doors for young men aged 12 to 21 by developing the civic awareness, personal responsibility and leadership skills so vitally needed in society today. DeMolay combines this serious mission with a fun approach that builds important bonds of friendship among members in more than 1,000 chapters worldwide.

That is not to imply that this organization has anything to hide or that it has done anything wrong. Over the years, it has apparently accomplished a lot of good things to help young people rise out of their less-than-promising backgrounds. However, the same could be said for Sandusky’s Second Mile, which had also achieved many good things. It is all the more unfortunate that a single individual has been allowed to undo all that work and close the doors for any further assistance. As John Kennedy once said, “A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.” The same is also true for organizations, such as DeMolay.

The story of Ronald Roskens is one of a systematic failure; namely, a consistent inexplicable tendency by authorities to reward improper conduct and poor performance. Governments, universities and corporations seem to expend greater energy attempting to cover pernicious wrong-doing rather than trying to remove the source and prevent its recurrence. Brushing it under the carpet and hoping the problem is never discovered seems to be the only reaction. In the Roskens affair, keeping lids on and brushing things under the carpet has been remarkably distressingly successful. But who suffers most? Clearly it’s the children. It’s the ones who are the most defenseless. 
For at the end of the day, with the help of men like Roskens, we, as a nation, have helped to create a whole generation of anti-imperialist Islamic jihadist with school textbooks filled with hateful propaganda. We then armed their older brothers and fathers and uncles to fight our Cold War enemies without the slightest thought to the future. It never seemed to occur to anybody that these children, the children we indoctrinated with hatred and bitterness would someday grow up, that they would not simply disappear once they had served our short-term needs. 
And when that did happen, when it was our turn to face their grownup seething hatred, what was our solution? 


It was to exterminate them.

----------------------

Image of the Day

A helicopter surveys the Maltese-registered cargo ship TK Bremen, which ran aground on Kerminihy beach at Erdeven, spilling oil from its engines on the coast of Brittany in western France, December 16, 2011. Winter storm Joachim has battered France's western seaboard since yesterday.

Courtesy of /Stephane Mahe for Rueters

Expectations and Reality

Check out all of the photo examples that highlight the vast gap between what we expect and what we end up with. http://pleated-jeans.com/2011/07/20/expectations-vs-reality-17-pics/

Children Under Attack: A Culture of Unpunished Exploitation 1/2

Lately the Sandusky case has been making a lot of news. Recently I wrote an article for another blog. I will reprint here in two parts. (I found that it was way too long in its entirety. Here is Part one.

“They've done it before and they'll do it again and when they do it -- seems that only the children weep. "― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Beyond Complacency and Dissimulation

Jerry Sandusky

The revelations in the Jerry Sandusky case have made the headlines recently, involving accusations of the sexual abuse of boys by a former coach of Penn State University and a director of Second Mile, a charity to benefit needy children. The Second Mile program said it cut ties with Sandusky in 2008.

Sandusky faces 40 criminal counts accusing him of sexually abusing eight boys beginning in the mid-1990s. Some of the assaults, say authorities, happened on Penn State's campus and were reported to administrators. Apparently however, the campus officials didn’t inform police agencies. The charges followed a nearly three-year grand jury investigation. Since the news broke, accusations from other victims have been added.

Sandusky has pleaded innocent to the charges, telling interviewers,

“I shouldn’t have showered with those kids...I could say that I have done some of those things...I have horsed around with kids. I have showered after workouts. I have hugged them and I have touched their legs without intent of sexual contact.”

The grand jury reports are detailed and explicit and painful to read. Victims’ charges have been supported by witnesses. For example, according to unconfirmed claims in the report, when a graduate student accidentally walked in on Sandusky having sex with a boy in the showers at the university, he immediately reported the incident to various authorities, including Joe Paterno, the head football coach. Later he repeated the story to Tim Curley, Penn State athletic director and Gary Schultz, the Senior Vice-President for Finance and Business. They assured him that steps were being taken.

Graham Spanier

Sandusky, according to the testimony of Curley, was asked to return his keys to the university facilities. Furthermore, authorities at Second Mile were informed of the incident. While the University President Graham Spanier was informed, apparently none of the people who knew thought it was important enough to inform the University police or any other police agency. That event occurred back in March of 2002.

And Schultz told the grand jury that he was aware of an earlier charge of a similar incident with Sandusky back in 1998. Both incidents involved minor boys in the showers with Sandusky behaving in a sexually inappropriate manner.

Besides that, there were other warning signs that authorities had ignored. The report suggests that Sandusky used his privileged status in the university sports department to impress and seduce his victims. Meanwhile, he also reportedly used his position at the charity to find his targeted children. The mother of Victim 6, upon discovering suspicious activity between her son and Sandusky, reported her complaints to University police. According to the grand jury report:

After a lengthy investigation by University Police Detective Ronald Shreffler, the investigation was closed after then Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar decided there would be no criminal charges. Shreffler testified that he was told to close the investigation by the director of the campus police, Thomas Harmon. That investigation included a second child, B.K. also 11, who was subject to nearly identical treatment in the shower as Victim 6, according to Detective Schreffler.

It should also be added that the district attorney mentioned above later disappeared in 2005 under very mysterious circumstances.

One sportswriter, Mark Madden, brought out another rumor that had been circulating. The rumor suggested that accused Sandusky was also running some kind of child sex ring for rich donors to his Second Miles Foundation. Certainly the names of donors on the organization’s website are quickly being “cleansed” but that’s hardly unexpected given the circumstances. Without any real evidence, the rumor is fairly easy to dismiss. On the other hand, it would go a long way in explaining how such a sorry state of affairs could have continued for so long.

For me, the most tragic and inexcusable aspect of this shocking story is the fact that so many responsible people had an opportunity and a duty to investigate the matter and bring a halt to the sexual abuse, but did nothing. All of the warning signs were clearly there, reports were made, people were informed. Apparently, however, the immediate- in fact, the only- response was to turn away, to ignore and, later to cover up, what they had known; complacency and dissimulation crossing the border into complicity and a criminal failure to act.

As a society, we seem willing to accept a culture of the sexual exploitation of our children and to tolerant the fact that the guilty are allowed to go unpunished. In these two posts, I would like to examine this theme in detail with separate cases, involving children, sexual abuse and the corruption of justice.

Ghosts of Scandals Past

In the Sandusky case, the grounds for a conspiracy are unavoidable, it seems, but, even if one choose to dismiss that possibility, it is still difficult to explain how so many people could have allowed things to go so far, knowing that the probability that the whole matter would eventually come out.

After all, Graham Spanier's educational background in marriage and family counseling should have afforded him some kind of insight, or, at the very least, allowed him to understand the gravity of the charges.

Ronald Roskens

Furthermore, Spanier should have known how damaging even the accusation of sexual misconduct could have been since he had served as chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, from November 1991 to July 1995, not long after a similar scandal erupted involving Ronald Roskens, a former chancellor of the University of Nebraska- Omaha.

Roskens had abruptly been fired as president of the University of Nebraska, in a secret meeting of the state Board of Regents in July 1989. No public explanation was given for his removal. However, the rumored reason was, at least according to some reports, that evidence of his involvement in various orgies had been reported (incl. surveillance photos of nude young boys in Rosken's home). Gossip like that could be easily ignored had it not been Omaha.

Lawrence E. "Larry" King, Jr.

Omaha had earlier been the epicenter of the infamous- though now largely forgotten- Franklin Credit Union scandal. On November 4, 1988, the Franklin Credit Union was raided and closed by the FBI and the IRS. Thirty-nine million dollars was missing. Franklin Credit Union had been founded back in 1968 in a minority neighborhood in Omaha, Nebraska. Its primary purpose was to provide loans to minorities. In August, 1970, Lawrence E. "Larry" King, Jr., (not to be confused with the former CNN talk show host) was fast-rising "star" in the Republican party, became manager and principle executive.

Shortly thereafter, strange fantastic reports began to circulate concerning pornography, videotapes, and photographs which had been confiscated from the Franklin Credit Union by the FBI. In no time at all, the dam broke, and other allegations began to flood in. These allegations, more detailed and serious, involved drugs, sexual misconduct involving children, pornography- even satanic ritualized activity. Things became surreal when some eighty children came forward with allegations against prominent individuals in the Omaha community. Big-wigs trembled in penthouses and dimly-lit offices. Late night phone calls by nervous-sounding voices. Even top names in the local law enforcement and the local branch of the FBI were mentioned as participants.

Incidentally, another famous name has recently surfaced in regards to this scandal. (Admittedly, the connection is interesting and suggestive but in fact, probably leads nowhere. Other websites have attempted to make some link nevertheless.) That man is the former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain. Cain had served as chairman of the Omaha branch of the Kansas City Federal Reserve and was connected in a peripheral way to Lawrence King. (Nothing directly connected however.) Cain and a group of investors actually had purchased the ailing Godfather's franchise from Pillsbury which had formerly been owned by William “Willy” Theisen. Theisen was a name that came up in the investigation of Franklin Credit. (In fact, Theisen sold the company to Pillsbury in the mid-1980s and stepped down from actively managing the company. In 1986, Pillsbury named Herman Cain CEO and President of the brand.) 

In his autobiography, This is Herman Cain!, Cain writes that in September 1988, “we closed on a leveraged buyout and we are now the heavily in debt owners of Godfather’s Pizza, Inc,” with help from CitiBank. Whether there were any financial arrangements made through Franklin Credit Union is never mentioned. 

Another person reportedly involved in the scandal was Harold W. Andersen, the owner of the Omaha World-Herald, was also on the Board of Directors for Omaha branch of the Kansas City Federal Reserve between 1973-1979. (We shall hear more about this man later.)

Apparently, Ronald Roskens was also implicated in this scandal. According to an investigator in the Franklin Credit Union Sex Scandal, Gary Caradori's daily notes for Feb. 19, 1989:

I was informed that Roskins [sic) was terminated by the state because of sexual activities reported to the Regents and verified by them. Mr. Roskins was reported to have had young men at his residence for sexual encounters. As part of the separation from the state, he had to move out of the state-owned house because of the liability to the state if some of this sexual behavior was "illegal." Upon Roskins vacating the house, he was provided a house by Joe Seacrist [sic) of the Lincoln Journal-Star.

Gary Caradori

If you’d like to ask what Caradori meant by “illegal,” I’m afraid you won’t be able to. On July 11, 1990, Gary Caradori was killed along with his 6-year old son in the crash of his small plane, after a mid-air explosion, the cause of which was never discovered. It is known that Caradori had met with a key witness in the case, had interviewed him and had been given highly incriminating photographic evidence. (According to one source, a deputy sheriff first at the crash site said there was child pornography scattered all over the farmer’s field.) 

Jed Killian, writing for Deadline Live explains in more detail.

As author Nick Bryant notes, Caradori got incriminating photos from Nelson and flew back with them. Writes Bryant: “The pictures showed who the adults were and who the kids were. I (Nelson) gathered that the purpose was blackmail and it was political. The contents of the pictures, and the events surrounding them, would be an instant end to a politician’s career.” That evidence was allegedly taken away by persons unknown, and never seen again.

Admittedly this charge from Caradori against Roskens is only hearsay and not proof of anything, but, in the Roskens affair, we continually see this pattern repeated- of ignoring the serious charges and pushing the accused down the conveyor belt of his career. But why? Why not allow justice to take its course? The reasons would soon become clear.

New York Times Article

On May 19, 1989, Lawrence King was indicted by a Federal grand jury. He was later tried and convicted of fraud and income tax evasion directly related to the Franklin Credit Union matter. Eventually he served his time and was released in 2001. (He reportedly lives the suburbs of the nation’s capital.) No, to answer your question, he never served prison time for the sex abuse charges, or for prostituting children, or for exhortation.

He never faced any of the more horrendous allegations in court. Those charges were summarily dismissed when one of the key witnesses recanted. It was later revealed that that witness had been pressured by threats of long jail time if he proceeded. And that was not an idle threat at all.

When it came to the Franklin Credit Union Scandal, simply telling the truth was a dangerous enterprise. As the witnesses were soon to find out, it was also a punishable offense.

According to sources, Alisha Owen, who had testified in March of 1990 before a grand jury about her own victimization at the age of 14, painfully recounted how she was repeatedly and various occasions raped by the Omaha Chief of Police, Robert Wadman. She also gave testimony about many other King activities, including being transported to parties where she was pimped the wealthy and powerful elite. This included various important politicians, on both a state and national level.

The result? She was later convicted of first offense perjury in 1991 and was sentenced on August 8, 1991, to nine to 27 years in prison. During her prison term, she was in solitary confinement for a period longer than any female citizen in the history of the State of Nebraska.

Paul Bonacci

A careful investigation of the proceedings reveals numerous problems with the perjury cases against Owen.

Another victim, Paul Bonacci said he had been active in the operation of the satanic cult/sex/drug ring network since 6 years of age. Paul Bonacci first reported his abuse by Larry King, Alan Baer and others in 1986, to the Omaha Police Department, a full two years before the Franklin Credit Union case had broke. (Decide for yourself, the videotaped interviews conducted by investigators at that time are online.) Not long after the Franklin case became public in 1989, Paul Bonacci was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison for briefly touching a young boy on the outside of his pants. (Doctors have stated that he suffers from mental deterioration caused by years of abuse.)

In all, after a few other victim/witnesses were treated similarly, the seventy-six other children recanted their reports of sexual abuse in the Franklin matter. Despite credible witness/victims providing verifiable details about the activities, the grand jury threw out the child sex abuse charges and dismissed the claims as a hoax.

But then, perhaps it shouldn’t really surprise anybody that justice was denied. The extent of the scandal and who may have been involved comes from an unauthorized biography.

Way back in 1985, a young girl, Eulice (Lisa) Washington, was the center of an investigation by Andrea L. Carener, of the Nebraska Department of Social Services. The investigation was instigated because Lisa and her sister Tracey continually ran away from their foster parents, Jarrett and Barbara Webb. Initially reluctant to disclose information for fear of being further punished, the two girls eventually recounted a remarkable story, later backed up by other children who had been fostered out to the Webbs...

Lisa, supported by her sister, detailed a massive child sex, homosexual, and pornography industry, run in Nebraska by Larry King. She described how she was regularly taken to Washington by plane, with other youths, to attend parties hosted by King and involving many prominent people, including businessmen and politicians. Lisa specifically named George Bush as being in attendance on at least two separate occasions.

George H.W. Bush

According to her allegations, she attended a party in Chicago with King and several male youths in September or October 1984.. She indicated George H.W. Bush was present at this party. (Indeed, according to the Chicago Tribune of October 31, 1984, Bush was in Illinois campaigning for congressional candidates at the end of October.) Lisa Washington witnessed Bush give money to King in exchange for “access” to a black nineteen-year-old named Brent. This testimony was given well before the Franklin Credit Union Scandal began. It was, however, later corroborated by another witness, Paul Bonacci, during the sex scandal investigation, who claimed to have witnessed sex between the vice-president and the young man.

When a retired United States Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent In Charge and head of the Los Angeles FBI, Ted Gunderson, interviewed Boncacci, the stories grew even more detailed and horrifying.

According to Bonacci, many of the child victims were kidnapped off the streets. He gave precise details about the operation in interview with the investigator.

Bonacci told me that when he was 10 to 14 years old, he was used as a decoy in malls, parks, etc., to lure other children his age near an automobile so the adult members could grab the victims and force them into the car. Paul and another youth would then jump on the victims and place a chloroform cloth over their mouth and nose. The victims would be taken to a secluded location and later auctioned off for up to $50,000.00 in Las Vegas, Nevada or Toronto, Canada. Bonacci advised me that the auction location in Nevada is approximately 50 miles north of Las Vegas on an air strip and that he saw children auctioned off, then placed in unmarked airplanes operated by foreigners with accents wearing turbans. Other children who were auctioned off were placed in campers after being drugged to ensure that they would be asleep in the event that the camper was stopped by the police.

And the operation apparently had the backing of US goverment agency officials.

Bonacci also told Gunderson that DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) airplanes were used to transport children who had been abducted into these pedophile rings from one place to another. The children were always made available to serve their elite sponsor's twisted appetites.

According to the information gleaned from Bonnaci, the conspiracy went to the top levels of government.

Most important was this revelation by Bonacci to Gunderson, who later reported, "Paul and other children told about youngsters, both male and female, being taken from orphanages, foster-homes, and Boys Town in Omaha, Nebraska, driven to Sioux City, Iowa (184 miles), and then flown to Washington, D.C. for sex orgy parties with dignitaries, congressmen, and high level public officials at Larry King's Embassy Row condominium. Larry King rented this condominium for $5,000.00 per month while earning a salary of only $17,000 per year." This bears repeating: Foster homes, Boy's Town, and orphanages, were being used to procure a virtually unlimited supply of children for elite controlled, organized, satanic pedophile rings.

Washington Times article

The Franklin Credit Union merged with another sex scandal which rocked Washington.

On the morning of June 29, 1989, The Washington Times headlined: "Homosexual Prostitution Probe Ensnares VIPs with Reagan, Bush." The Times continued: "A homosexual prostitution ring is under investigation by Federal and District authorities and includes among its clients key officials of the Reagan and Bush administrations, military officers, congressional aides and U.S. and foreign businessmen with close ties to Washington's political elite.'' Craig Spence, a high ranking Republican operative, was highlighted as the 'call boy' power broker behind the scenes. Paul Bonacci swore he had been one of the children who had toured the White House on several of those after hour 'call boy' tours. To back up his claim, Bonacci drew a map/sketch that depicted a private area of the White House that was deemed to be accurate by those in the know. Larry King and Craig Spence were working the "White House pedophile circuit" together.

Like so many of these things, the news broke and then seemingly faded away without a whimper, with hardly a twitch in the collective memory of most Americans. It was far easier not to think about the possibility that it was true. Admittedly it was a distasteful subject for most people. It was far easier to dismiss the whole thing without much consideration. Perhaps, despite all the evidence, people simply refused to believe that there were actually people this evil roaming the halls of government. (We have seen a similiar reaction regarding the fake pregnancy allegations against Sarah Palin. A strange unwillingness to look into the issue.)

Omaha World Herald article

The Omaha World-Herald, owned by one of the men implicated in the scandal, was particularly aggressive in portraying the entire incident as a hoax.

But not everyone dismissed the allegations nor accepted the orchestrated “smearing” of the victims/witnesses and investigators. Perversely, despite the court’s ruling that the Franklin Credit Union child sex ring was merely a “hoax,” Bonacci was awarded $1 million dollars in a lawsuit against King. (Bonacci has never received a penny of the court ordered one million dollars awarded to him.) The federal court obviously believed Bonacci’s testimony in spite of declaring that there was no truth in the allegations and incarcerating other victims for testifying.

And so the case was closed, putting to rest one of the most grievous examples of a miscarriage of justice in US legal history.
As far as Ronald Roskens, the sordid story was only just beginning.

----------------------------------

In the second part of this post, we will examine the eventful life of Roskens and  his surprising career.

Happy Birthday Miss Jones

Norman Rockwell was much more than a painter. He was also a story teller.

Today is Teacher's Day in Turkey, by the way. In Turkey, Teacher's Day is celebrated on 24th of November. Kemal Atatürk dedicated November 24th to honor teachers and their profession. In the profession of teaching is regarded as something incomparable and sacred.

The Nomadic Press

I am now the proud owner of my very own newspaper. Well, actually it is a cool site that I joined recently, that allows me to compile news of interest to me and my friends. I scour the net and find interesting news and then add them. If I am too busy, it goes into auto-pilot for me. (You can also find my latest political writings there, posted at the Politicalgates site.)
Here is a link:

The People's Park

A Question from a Reader

A new reader has written this email and I wanted to post it. Perhaps somebody here in Turkey can offer some assistance.

Hi there! I was just searching for reputed blogs on Turkey and find yours.
Right now I'm thinking on fleeing the harsh Bulgarian winter and travel to beautiful Turkey to a warm and nice spot.
These last days I was busy searching on the web houses for rent in the area of Antalya, Mugla, Fethiye... It is indeed a tricky task as there are so many web sites with tourist prices. And when I finally found some Turkish sites they were all rather dull, obsolete and hard to navigate through.
I wonder if you or somebody who reads this can please help me, does anybody know any efficient and serious rental agents or some way to get a nice house for a reasonable prize? We are looking for a small or medium sized villa for a 6 months period, from November untl April or March. I understand the area of Antalya and Mugla have mild winter temperatures. Anybody knows some other warm areas in Turkey to spend the winter?
Well, just to say how much I like this blog, it has many interesting pictures and political stuff!

Any ideas?

Nomadic Politica

Recently I have been contributing to another blog, PoliticalGates, writing about politics. Generally I stick to American politics but I have occasionally opened it up to write about International subjects. My last big post (three part) deals with the Confirmation Hearings of Clarence Thomas. So many things I learned while researching too.

I find researching a topic quite interesting because you never know where it will take you. Anyway, in order not to monopolize another person's blog, I have decided to open a new blog which will showcase my political articles. Here is the link. http://nomadicpolitca.blogspot.com/

If you like reading about politics, then be sure to stop by. Right now there is a three part investigation about a certain Fox News show host, her husband and their Scientology connections.

LiveJournal Tags: Blog,News Politics

Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011

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Dear Sarah

A Small Bit of Common Sense From Elizabeth Warren

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I love this woman and I hope she keeps marching forward.

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