Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

By Simone Sebastian January 9 at 7:51 PM

Simone Sebastianis an assistant editor of Outlook.

Cameron Clarkson was a 16-year-old football player when he suddenly landed in the middle of a sex crime investigation at his St. Paul, Minn., high school. Lawyers grilled him on the details of his sexual history. School officials, in a statement to the press, cited him for not invoking the schools sexual harassment policy and said he bragged to fellow students about what had happened. His car was vandalized with red-dyed tampons and smeared with peanut butter, to which he is fatally allergic, by an unknown assailant. The shape of a penis was burned into his front lawn with bleach.

People kept reminding me that I ruined that poor girls life, Clarkson says.

The poor girl was a teacher at his school. Gail Gagne, a 25-year-old basketball and lacrosse coach, was a full-time substitute teacher at Cretin-Derham Hall High School and a couple of months away from becoming a regular physical education instructor. One day, she offered to give Clarkson a ride home after he left the school gym, leading to what he describes as the first of a series of sexual encounters between them in 2008 in Gagnes car, in their homes, in hotels. He says their relationship ended two months later; another student told school officials about it the next spring.

Gagne was fired and charged with two felony counts of criminal sexual conduct with a student. But in the investigations that followed, Clarkson was treated more like the perpetrator than the victim. Gagne, meanwhile, faced an easier path in some ways. She denied any sexual contact with Clarkson but entered an Alford plea, in which a defendant does not admit guilt but recognizes that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict her. The deal reduced her charges to a fifth-degree gross misdemeanor with a one-year sentence, which was suspended a far lighter punishment than the possible four-year prison sentence for the felony charges she faced. (Gagnes lawyer still says there was no sexual contact.)

For male victims of sexual abuse, this is how it goes. Growing evidence shows that boys who are sexually preyed upon by older female authority figures suffer psychologically in much the same way that girls do when victimized by older men. But in schools, courts and law offices, male victims are treated openly with a double standard, according to interviews with a dozen experts in law, psychology and social work. Some say boys should get the same protective care that girls do; other people who work with these cases argue that male teens are driven by raging hormones and are only too happy to explore their new sexuality with older women. But all of the experts agree that the discrepancy in the treatment of victims of nonviolent sexual abuse by their high school teachers is real. And it shows: Male victims typically receive lower awards in civil cases, the experts say, and female perpetrators get lighter sentences.

There is a clear hierarchy in courtrooms, lawyers say. Cases involving a male teacher and a female student result in the most severe punishments and the highest damages. Los Angeles-based lawyer David Ring, whose firm Taylor & Ring represents plaintiffs in sexual abuse suits, has worked on hundreds of teacher-student cases and says its not unusual for those against male teachers to end with judgments of more than $1 million. In one example, a jury awarded $5.6million to a high school girl in a sexual abuse case involving her 40-year-old teacher. The teacher was convicted of a felony, sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay 40 percent of the civil damages to the student, who was 14 at the time of the encounters. (Chino Valley High School was ordered to pay the other 60 percent.)

But jurors and prosecutors dont have nearly the same outrage for abusive female teachers, Ring says: So what? Good for him. Thats how society looks at it. Male students, in his experience, rarely collect damages of more than $200,000. In November, Clarkson settled his case against Cretin-Durham Hall High School for $75,000. The case against Gagne settled for just $1.

Clarksons attorney, Sarah Odegaard, says her team made a strategic choice: They stood to win a larger award from the school, so they agreed to a token gesture from Gagne in lieu of a trial in which she would have denied the sexual relationship. In cases like this with an attractive, young female defendant jury bias doesnt work in favor of the victim, Odegaard says. Its not a bias we want to acknowledge, but we have to, she says. There have been some successes involving female teachers and coaches, but more often, you see lower verdicts.

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He was abused by a female teacher, but he was treated like the perpetrator

Washington Post/Marvin Joseph

There are people who believe that I cannot possibly be a victim of abuse, says Cameron Clarkson, now 22.

Cameron Clarkson was a 16-year-old football player when he suddenly landed in the middle of a sex crime investigation at his Minnesota, US, high school.

Lawyers grilled him on the details of his sexual history. School officials, in a statement to the press, cited him for not invoking the school's sexual harassment policy and said he "bragged to fellow students about what had happened."

His car was vandalised with red-dyed tampons and smeared with peanut butter, to which he is fatally allergic, by an unknown assailant. The shape of a penis was burned into his front lawn with bleach.

"People kept reminding me that I ruined that poor girl's life," Clarkson says.

The "poor girl" was a teacher at his school. Gail Gagne, a 25-year-old basketball and lacrosse coach, was a full-time substitute teacher at Cretin-Derham Hall High School and a couple of months away from becoming a regular physical education instructor. One day, she offered to give Clarkson a ride home after he left the school gym, leading to what he describes as the first of a series of sexual encounters between them in 2008 in Gagne's car, in their homes, in hotels. He says their relationship ended two months later; another student told school officials about it the next spring.

Gagne was fired and charged with two felony counts of criminal sexual conduct with a student. But in the investigations that followed, Clarkson was treated more like the perpetrator than the victim. Gagne, meanwhile, faced an easier path in some ways. She denied any sexual contact with Clarkson but entered an Alford plea, in which a defendant does not admit guilt but recognises that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict her. The deal reduced her charges to a fifth-degree gross misdemeanour with a one-year sentence, which was suspended a far lighter punishment than the possible four-year prison sentence for the felony charges she faced. (Gagne's lawyer still says there was no sexual contact.)

For male victims of sexual abuse, this is how it goes. Growing evidence shows that boys who are sexually preyed upon by older female authority figures suffer psychologically in much the same way that girls do when victimised by older men. But in schools, courts and law offices, male victims are treated openly with a double standard, according to interviews with a dozen experts in law, psychology and social work.

Some say boys should get the same protective care that girls do; other people who work with these cases argue that male teens are driven by raging hormones and are only too happy to explore their new sexuality with older women. But all of the experts agree that the discrepancy in the treatment of victims of nonviolent sexual abuse by their high school teachers is real. And it shows: Male victims typically receive lower awards in civil cases, the experts say, and female perpetrators get lighter sentences.

Continued here:
Abused by female teacher, treated like the perpetrator

Our ScheduleConsistency. Customers demand it. We understand it.

Our crew will show up to mow your lawn on the day were supposed to.

Pricing

Most lawns are $26.50 per mow

Corner lots are $1 extra per mow

TermsWeeklymowing customers agree to a sixmow minimum and must subscribe to our lawn fertilization & weed control program. You may cancel service at any time once the six mowminimum has been met. If you cancel service before the sixmow minimum has been met, we will charge the one time rate for all the mows youve already taken, which is $20 extra per mow. We automatically assume your business next spring unless you contact us to cancel mowing service.

Season Start and EndOur service goes weekly from mid-March to mid-October. In mid-October, we automatically switch all of our clients to ever-other-week. Our service ends in mid-November.

First MowUsually, we are able to mow the lawn the first time for the normal price. However, if we show up for the very firstlawn mowing and the lawn is too overgrown to mow in the normal amount of time, we will have to charge by the hour for the first lawn mowing. After that, eachlawn mowingwill be the normal price as long as you stay on our service.

Whats Included?Our lawn mowing service consists of mowing all lawn areas, edging all concrete edges with a blade edger, line trimming along all borders and dispersing all clippings with our blowers.

Whats Not Included?We do not rake leaves for free. If you have large deciduous trees that produce a lot of leaf drop in the winter, and you dont get it cleaned up, we will not clean it up for free when we return in the spring for the first lawn mowing. We will simply run our mowers over the leaves and disperse them to the best of our abilities with our blowers. Over time, with each mow,the leaves will become less noticeable. Please dont expect our crews to do a leaf clean-up for free. If you would like to have us clean your leaves, we are available at our normal hourly rates.

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Marin Landscape Architect, Designer and Contractor - Mystical Landscapes
http://www.mysticallandscapes.com/ - Mystical Landscapes is a Marin based landscape architect and landscape design company that assists clients with all thei...

By: Dane Rose

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Okay, so whats the difference? Vegetable gardens are generally thought of as a square or rectangular plot set aside solely for growing food. Edible landscapes are an exciting way to offer an alternative to conventional landscapes which use strictly ornamental plants.

Edible landscapes require creativity and can be just as attractive, if not more so, than conventional designs; yet produce fruits and vegetables for home use. This can be an aesthetic way to relive your worries about contaminated foods as well as helping with your grocery budget. You can incorporate simple edible elements into your existing yard or garden or you can install an entirely edible landscape. Consider color, texture, height, and form when choosing which edible plants to use. The possibilities are endless.

You can use edible plants just about anywhere ornamental plants are used. Most, but not all, fruits and vegetables do best when receiving at least six hours of direct sunlight each day and have well drained soils. If you must plant in partial shade, try fast-growing, cool-season crops such as lettuce and spinach.

Borders & edges Start to think of strawberry lined borders. The alpine varieties of strawberries form runnerless clumps, flower and fruit all year long, while providing white or pink blossoms. (Just imagine nibbling on luscious red berries while weeding, yum.) You might prefer a border of white-flowering garlic chives or the more common purple-flowering variety. Both are good in soups, herbal breads, salads or atop a baked potato. For a fuller border, add some parsley, creeping thyme, oregano, or cilantro. The last three also make great ground covers. A pretty contrasting border combines parsley and/or lettuce (red and green) with alyssum. Dont forget the hot peppers. Their colorful fruit can make things exciting.

Small areas, containers, and window boxes Grow a colorful salad in a small plot or container using pansies, violas, lettuce, calendula, and nasturtiums (all edible). Use determinate or bush type tomatoes. They are less likely to get rangy. Cherry or grape tomatoes add a nice visual spark.

Shrubs and hedges Sweet corn can make a good backdrop for flower gardens. Ornamental corn and some popcorn varieties are beautifully colored. They tend to be shorter than sweet corn. Rhubarb can be a focal point of any garden, especially set among small-leaved plants. Fennel and asparagus both have feather leaves that mingle well with cosmos flowers and make a nice backdrop for flower beds. Blueberries, gooseberries (can replace a barberry hedge), currants, elderberries, blackberries, raspberries, or pest-and disease resistant Rugosa roses are all good choices in place of ornamental shrubs. The Rugosa rose hips are loaded with 60 times more vitamin C than oranges and can be made into teas or jams or eaten raw. (Note: this species can be somewhat invasive and should not be planted in agricultural or meadow areas.)

Vines Grapes and purple-podded beans are good for growing on trellises along with or in place of morning glories or other flowering vines.

Trees You do not have to create an orchard to have fruit trees in your yard. Many varieties require very little care. Use disease-resistant hybrids of apple, crabapple, peach, pear, plum, and cherry. Most are available in dwarf or semi-dwarf sizes for easy care and picking. If you are adventurous, you might try growing Pawpaw, the banana of the north. The pyramidal shape of this tree and the custard-like fruit, which matures in mid to late summer, will be the talk of the neighborhood. Another interesting choice would be the American persimmon, with its spectacular autumn foliage and sweet golden-yellow and orange fruits. (I love persimmon cookies!) One more, the Serviceberry, also known as the Juneberry (Amelanchier) is gaining popularity. Some varieties resemble trees and others tall, showy shrubs. They all feature sweet blueberry sized fruits equally loved by birds and other wildlife.

Edible plants can be featured anywhere ornamental plants might have been used, and can prove equally attractive. Treat edible landscapes more like a hobby than a chore. If you are concerned about being overwhelmed, just start small. Groom them just as you would an ornamental landscape. Edible plants need pruning and weeding and deadheading (harvesting). The upside is that you get to snack while laboring. Take special care to select pesticides and fertilizers that are appropriate and safe on plants to be consumed. Your county Extension office can provide recommendation on pest management.

The possibilities are limitless. Dare to be different and add an incredible edible landscape to your property.

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At Home Living: Edible landscapes a new twist on gardens

IT'S LIKE "THE DAILY SHOW"... BUT NIGHTLIER.

COMEDY CENTRAL'S "THE NIGHTLY SHOW WITH LARRY WILMORE" DEBUTS ON MONDAY, JANUARY 19 AT 11:30 P.M. ET/PT

Shenaz Treasury, Ricky Velez and Mike Yard Join the Series as Contributors

NEW YORK, January 9, 2015 - Stewart & Wilmore, late night comedy's new power hour begins. Comedy Central's "The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore" premieres on Monday, January 19 at 11:30 p.m. ET/PT and air weeknights following "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

Continuing in Comedy Central's grand tradition of producing groundbreaking late night formats, "The Nightly Show" (twitter: @NightlyShow) will provide viewers with Larry Wilmore's deconstructive point of view and comedic take on current events and pop culture. Hosted by Wilmore, the series will feature a diverse panel of voices including Contributors Shenaz Treasury, Ricky Velez, Mike Yard and guests who will participate and offer a perspective largely missing in the late night television landscape.

"The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore" was created by Jon Stewart and will be produced by Stewart's Busboy Productions with Stewart, Wilmore and Rory Albanese serving as Executive Producers, Amy Ozols as Co-Executive Producer and Sue Fellows as Supervising Producer. The series' Head Writer is Robin Thede.

Well-known to fans of "The Daily Show" for his role as the "Senior Black Correspondent" on "The Best F*

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Shenaz Treasury, Ricky Velez and Mike Yard Join "The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore" as Contributors; "The Nightly ...

But the truth is that, as the European Cup kicks off again next weekend for its final two pool rounds, Ulster are almost certainly out of contention, while Leinster and Munster face tricky challenges to qualify in this revamped competition.

Munster are behind both Clermont Auvergne and Saracens in Pool One and play Saracens at Allianz Park next weekend before finishing with Sale at home. Ian Keatleys last-minute penalty did earn them a vital losing bonus point in the last round at Clermont, but defeat at Saracens would surely rule them out of even one of the three runners-up spots available.

Leinster have the most realistic chance of qualification. They stand equal top of Pool Two with Harlequins, and should win with a bonus point at home against uninterested Castres next weekend. But they then have to travel to Wasps on the last weekend.

Even if Leinster do scrape through, you could not see them having a home draw (Clermont, Toulon, Toulouse and Northampton look the best bets) and certainly not challenging for the title. As former Ireland flanker Alan Quinlan says: Munster and Leinster arent at that level this season. The standard has increased so much that its left them behind.

How things have altered. This time last year Munster, Leinster and Ulster were all top of their pools and it stayed that way as they progressed into the knockout stages. Now money really is beginning to talk, as Saracens recent gripe, having lost last seasons final to Toulon, about the salary cap demonstrates.

To compete in both European and domestic competitions you need top-class cover in all positions, something Bath, who have not targeted Europe this season, have been addressing, most recently with their signing of Rhys Priestland to complement George Ford.

In Ireland matters are different because players are centrally contracted, even if private investors are now being used to ensure players such as Jonathan Sexton, who returns to Leinster next season, do not move abroad.

But still the lack of big names to give Toulon-like depth has made hackles rise. As another former Ireland flanker, Stephen Ferris, says: There is talk of Toulon bringing in Richie McCaw after the World Cup, while we [his former province, Ulster] are bringing in Clive Ross. No disrespect to Clive Ross, but hes been playing for Lansdowne for the last couple of seasons and is trying to make the big step up.

It is a delicate balance between home-grown player development and potential triumphs offered by hired foreign hands.

The sands are undoubtedly shifting in the general club-international power stakes, but surely Irish supporters would be happy to see Six Nations and World Cup success at the expense of reduced European achievements? I really hope so.

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Money starts to talk in Europe where French clubs' depth of talent is dominant

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RESIDENTS have continued to express their disgust at plans to build up to eight houses in a village.

Les Stephan Planning Ltd has submitted proposals to build the homes on land near Stone Road by the Slaters Country House Hotel in Hill Chorlton.

Nearly 50 villagers met at Maer Village Hall this week to discuss the plans.

Judith Oppenheimer, of Baldwins Gate, is also awaiting a decision on whether 113 houses will be built in her village.

Mrs Oppenheimer, of the Baldwins Gate Action Group, said: While I live in Baldwins Gate, my long-term home is in Hill Chorlton and the development would spoil a beautiful landscape.

If the Baldwins Gate development is permitted, the countryside around it will be up for grabs by greedy developers and land owners.

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Villagers continue to express disgust at plans to build up to eight houses in Hill Chorlton

land clearing pic movie 76C9A958 3DF2 43F7 BE53 7181B7617258

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Horseshoe Baltimore Oriole Palace and Ruby 8 by T. Murao Design, Inc.
Interior Design, Art Coordination, Pre-production, Construction management: T. Murao Design, inc Kitchen Consultant: Kathy Melehan of Jem Associates, Inc. Interior Designer: Taki H. Murao...

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Horseshoe Baltimore Oriole Palace and Ruby 8 by T. Murao Design, Inc. - Video