N.Y. Teacher Accused of Raping Boy: Fox News

A 42-year-old teacher at a Catholic school who was charged with rape for allegedly having sex with an underage male student posted a $20,000 bond Tuesday and was released from jail.

Authorities said Sandra Beth Geisel had sex with four students from the Christian Brothers Academy in Colonie, N.Y., but in three of the cases the boys were 17-years-old and therefore were legally able to give their consent. Geisel faces sexual assault charges for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old boy.

John Aretakis, who has represented alleged victims of clerical sexual abuse and is now the lawyer for a 17-year-old CBA student who allegedly had sex with Geisel, said the school ignored her "bizarre and irresponsible behavior" for months.

John Aretakis has been mentioned before in this blog. He has represented many victims of sexual abuse in the Albany diocese.

Other articles discuss the double standard when it comes to treating male perpetrators differently from female perpetrators.

Follow-up on vandalism to statue of St. Anne

After Saints Preserve Us, She Returns the Favor : NY Times

George Ferrandi has seen saints at their worst - stained by lipstick, burned, cracked and faded - and with skilled hands and the tools of her trade, she skillfully restores them. She gives them a makeover and has built a career out of it.

Saints preserve us, the saying goes, but Ms. Ferrandi helps preserve saints.

Ms. Ferrandi (who goes by George even though her name is Georgina) combined the knowledge from her graduate degree in sculpture with her experience in her father's church restoration business to found her own company that fixes religious statuary, primarily Roman Catholic figures.

When St. Francis needs retouching or there is a crack in the Madonna, Ms. Ferrandi, 38, is the one who gets the call.

Her phone rang again recently after a 25-year-old man who the police said had a history of mental illness attacked a granite statue of St. Anne, the mother of Mary, outside a Roman Catholic church in Queens Village with a sword and a shotgun, decapitating the sculpture. Two police officers responding to emergency calls were shot and wounded by the man outside SS. Joachim and Anne Roman Catholic Church.

An infinity of lies

I'm blogging on what in New York is major news: Pataki is doing something about something.

The lies start with: (1) Artificial contraception (although "artificial" is often dropped as it is implied) is good while abortion is bad. The truth is artificial
contraception is a violation of natural law as well as abortion (the killing of the unborn).

(2) Lie: So-called emergency contraceptives prevent conception. Although there's a little more honesty among the promoters now, it's clear that they are designed to prevent implantation. They make the uterus a toxic environment to the unborn child (aka human zygote).

(3) Lie: Pregancy commences after implantation triggers detectable horomone changes in the mother. In this lexicon they don't have a word to describe a woman carrying in her body a non-implanted unborn child (aka human zygote).

(4) Lie: Emergency contraceptives need to be available over the counter to minors. These are drugs which have dangerous side effects. We've raised the mimium drinking age in New York to 21. It seems to be a different set of rules when it applies to sex.

(5) Lie: Emergency contraceptives prevent abortions. This is a lie if you accept that life begins at fertilization. Scientifically, this is the point where a unique individual of the human species takes on a form for which the design is immutable from this point forward.

Pataki spokesman Kevin Quinn had said Sunday night the governor was prepared to veto what he called the "politically expedient" legislation primarily because it "fails to include any commonsense protections for minors." (Newsday)

Yeah, it's a politically motivated veto, but a good politically motivated veto. Pataki has stated that he will not run for a fourth term in 2006 and it is speculated that he might run for the Presidential nomination.