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Thursday, November 25, 2010

A jawbone found in Aruba is not that of missing American Natalee Holloway, who was a recent high school-graduate at the time of her disappearance. Officials confirmed the news after Dutch scientists completed tests on the bone. The jawbone, which also had a wisdom tooth with it, was found by an American tourist close to the Phoenix Hotel. A second bone had also been found by another tourist earlier this month.

The bone was sent to the Netherlands Forensic Institute where scientists completed tests. They compared the bone to dental records given to them by Natalee’s father, from which they confirmed the the bone was not that of Natalee, although it was human. It was said to be unlikely that the bone was Holloway’s as there is no physical evidence that she was murdered.

Taco Stein, the Aruban Solicitor General, released a statement after the announcement was made. He commented on the speed of the identification; he said that they had quickly ruled out Holloway because her records had shown that she had her wisdom teeth previously removed.

Tim Miller, the Director of the Texas EquuSearch, released a statement after talking to Natalee’s father. He said “Dave [Natalee’s father] has been in contact with Aruban authorities and spoke with FBI this morning, the agent working the case. Dave believes it is Natalee.”

An attorney for Natalee’s mother, Beth Twitty, released a statement saying “Beth accepts the forensic conclusions, is emotionally exhausted from the inexplicably long wait, and deeply disappointed in the time and manner in which she learned of the results.” He commented on the Aruban authorities saying that “Apparently Aruban prosecutors were more sensitive to media concerns than the painful vigil of a mother.”

Natalee Holloway disappeared on the island in 2005 while on a school trip. She was last seen leaving a nightclub with three men, one of which was later identified as Joran van der Sloot. Van der Sloot was detained twice by police but has never been charged with Holloway’s disappearance. He is currently in Peru facing a different murder charge. Aruban authorities have said that they are checking neighboring islands to find a match for other missing persons.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

A passerby pushed a man, who was threatening to commit suicide, off Haizhu Bridge in Guangzhou, China.

The 66-year-old passerby, Lai Jiansheng, told China Daily that “I pushed him off because jumpers… are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interests.”

Lai initially volunteered his services to police to persuade the man not to jump, but police rejected these. Following this, Lai broke through a police barrier to push the man.

The pushed man, Chen Fuchao, survived with spinal and elbow injuries, because he landed on a partially-inflated air cushion 8 metres (26 feet) below. Lai was taken away by police.

The man threatening to jump was in 2,000,000 yuan (U.S.$293,000) of debt.

At least 12 people have threatened to jump off the bridge since the start of April, causing “traffic … to become worse” according to a spokesman for the Guangzhou public security bureau.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Dave Arneson, co-creator of the first roleplaying game, Dungeons and Dragons, died on Tuesday of cancer, at the age of 61.

A close friend of Arneson, Bob Meyer, reported on April 5 that he had taken a turn for the worse and was admitted to a hospital. Family later confirmed that he was in a facility “where we can focus on keeping him comfortable.” Reported at that time, the doctor indicated that he had days to live.

The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design in 1984 inducted Arneson into their Hall of Fame. Pyramid Magazine in 1999 named him as one of The Millennium’s Most Influential Persons, “at least in the realm of adventure gaming”.

Arneson started out as a wargamer including naval games. He soon developed some for his personal use due to the major publishers’ slow release of games. With David Wesley and the other members of the Midwest Military Simulation Association, Arneson developed the basis of modern role-playing games with individual miniatures representing one person and having non-military objectives.

Arneson attended the University of Minnesota as a history student. He was a founder, along with Gary Gygax, of the Castle & Crusade Society as a medieval miniature chapter of the International Federation of Wargamers. With Gygax in 1972, he authored Don’t Give Up the Ship!, a naval wargame.

Arneson’s Blackmoor was the first role-playing game, a genre in which players describe their characters in thorough detail and can attempt almost any action the character plausibly could. Ernest Gary Gygax, then a close friend of Arneson, worked with him during 1972–73 to develop the extensive set of rules (in this case three volumes) that such a game requires. This became the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons. With his experience with David Wesley, Arneson tried it with fantasy miniatures free style calling his game, Blackmoor. He then latched on Gygax’s Chainmail miniature game and Fantasy supplement for resolution of battles. He showed Gygax what he was doing. Gygax got involved and started preparing a set of rules to supplement Chainmail. They shopped the game, Dungeons & Dragons, around to various gaming companies but got turned down. Gygax started a business partnership, Tactical Studies Rules, to publish the game in 1974. The game launched a whole new category in gaming.

Although not involved with rulebooks for later editions of D&D, Arneson did create adventure modules for later editions.

Monday, October 22, 2007

An Associated Press investigation published Sunday revealed findings of more than 2,500 cases of sexual misconduct by educators in the American educational system over a five year period.

The cases reported in the investigation ranged from the merely strange, with cases involving verbal abuse, to the barbarous, with cases involving molestation and rape.

Investigations suggest that many cases of sexual abuse are never reported, and those that are reported often do not lead to punishment for the offender. The cases do not always include enough evidence, and for this as well as other reasons the schools, courts, state governments, and federal governments cannot be sure that they are keeping sexual deviants out of teaching.

Certain academic studies estimate that only about ten percent of victimized children report sexual abuse of any kind to a person who can take action to help them. When sexual misconduct is reported, teachers, administrators and some parents frequently cannot, either subconsciously or consciously, recognize the warning signs of a crime.

After examining records in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the AP found that 2,570 educators had their teaching licenses taken away, denied, surrendered voluntarily or restricted from the period of 2001 through 2005, all as a result of sexual misconduct allegations.

Minors were the victims in at least 1,801 of the cases, and more than 80 percent of those minors were students of the accused criminals. More than half of the educators who were disciplined by their state governments were consequently convicted of crimes related to the allegations of misconduct.

The cases that the AP found were those of all types of educators — teachers, school psychologists, and even principals and superintendents. The accused are often popular with students and parents, and are widely perceived as good teachers. In nearly 90 percent if the cases, the offenders are male. While certain educators were accused of sexual misconduct in school, others were cited for abuse that occurred after hours and did not always involve one of their own students. At least 446 of the cases uncovered by the AP involved educators with multiple victims.

A preponderance of cases involved teachers in public schools since many private schools do not require their teachers to be licensed and most private schools do not allow their disciplinary records to be publicly viewed.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), two large teaching unions, each decried sexual abuse while pinpointing the importance of considering educators’ rights.

“If there’s one incident of sexual misconduct between a teacher and a student that’s one too many,” Kathy Buzad of the AFT told the Associated Press.

“Students must be protected from sexual predators and abuse, and teachers must be protected from false accusations,” said NEA President Reg Weaver in a press release.

However, while the AP found attempts to stop particular offenders, it also discovered a firm resistance towards identifying and preventing abuse. In schools, fellow teachers often ignore the abuse or feel they cannot help. School administrators cut backdoor deals to sidestep lawsuits or bad press. And in state governments and Congress, lawmakers are weary to impose harsher punishments or any national policy in fear of harming an important profession.

For example, in the state of California some of the most sadistic sex abuse is flagged, but state law allows a multitude of offenses to remain confidential in disciplinary records, even when teachers are sentenced to imprisonment and become registered sex offenders.

The dearth of information is evidence of a system of disciplining teachers that, nationwide, is often cloaked in secrecy. It is difficult for states to share necessary information about those accused of misconduct and allows some to find classroom jobs in other states.

An additional problem is that while the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification maintains a listing of educators who’ve been disciplined for any reason, it only shares this information with other state agencies. Also, many teachers do not appear on the list because they resign before losing their licenses.

“(Schools) might deal with it internally, suspending the person or having the person move on. So their license is never investigated,” says Charol Shakeshaft, an expert in educational sexual abuse who leads Virginia Commonwealth University‘s educational leadership department.

“There is the possibility that one of these people could move to another jurisdiction, most likely another state, and you wouldn’t be able to find out their history,” says Todd Spitzer, a Californian assemblyman, former prosecutor, and former high school English teacher.

Another disturbing trend is that cases of misconduct seem to be on the rise in many places. According to a New York State Education Department report, the number of “moral misconduct” accusations against educators in New York has doubled in five years. In 2005, 134 cases of “moral misconduct” were reported involving teachers and other school employees, as compared to just 70 cases in 2001. According to an overview of the cases, almost 75 percent of the “moral conduct” cases involved sexual acts or an improper relationship. In all, 485 misconduct cases occurred over the five year period in New York state.

The AP’s national analysis shows Texas and California with the most sexual misconduct cases, each with two to three times as many cases as New York. Florida proved about the same as New York.

Mary Green, a parent in Washington County who rallied against a teacher she suspected of misconduct, says the key to stopping the abuse is listening.

“If a child says such-and-such a person, teacher, coach or neighbor is `weird,’ the parent should not simply dismiss this comment, but have the child explain why the person is weird,” she said. “Often we simply shush them without finding out why the child feels that way. People tend to think it won’t happen to them.”