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Showing posts from December, 2014

Donate Smart-Donate Locally

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As we again come upon the busiest fund-raising season of the year I, urge you to know your charities and to donate locally.  It is not a coincidence that amid a frenzy of holiday solicitations, predators claiming to be victims and fake organizations, try to capitalize on the “season of giving”. Additionally, real organizations can also mislead donors, omit material facts, and/or create a deliberate misimpression regarding the tax-deductibility and use of your gifts. So – fake charities, real charities asserting fake claims, and pretend victims with fake needs, though operating all year round, step up their efforts during the holidays. You can end up trying to claim a nondeductible gift, (an unincorporated self-proclaimed rescue group soliciting funds) or giving to an east coast organization like aspca with nearly 200 million dollars instead of to a charity that desperately needs funds for local pets, How many of you reading this did not know that the aspca and hsus are not national...

stop calling rape victims "accusers"

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Courtesy Google Images The media needs to stop calling victims of rape and sexual assault "accusers''. It implies that there is no victim, but rather a shrill, angry, mean accuser who is victimizing the rapist. It is not done with any other crime. If you are robbed, killed, kidnapped or pick pocketed - you are a victim. Why is a rape victim an accuser? Why is the universally accepted legal language changed? In fact, it is the people of a state that accuses the defendant on behalf of the victim. This perversion of language and inversion of sympathy began with the allegation that Kobe Bryant raped a woman. Somehow, either the media on its own or in response to pressure from his legal and/or public relations team, began to refer to the woman as the "accuser" to soften the charge and to subliminally suggest that Bryant was the real victim. (That case was settled,) Now again, the 13 or so women alleging rape and sexual misconduct against another celebrity, Bill Cosby,...