I’m sure we’re all surprised to learn that Larry Nassar’s boss was also a terrible human being:
A Michigan State University official who oversaw a clinic that employed Larry Nassar was charged on Tuesday with sexually harassment and compiling nude student selfies on his work computer, in the first charges to spring from an investigation into how complaints against the disgraced former sports doctor were handled.
The stuff Nassar got away with for so long couldn’t have happened without enablers. There will probably be more of them.
I’d never heard of NXIVM, a New York-based group that supposedly provided business seminars, until this story broke last night:
Keith Raniere, the co-founder of the NXIVM corporation, a secretive Colonie-based organization that an expert has called an “extreme cult,” was arrested in Mexico this week by the FBI based on a federal criminal complaint filed in the Eastern District of New York.
[…] The federal complaint alleges that Raniere, known as “The Vanguard,” took part in forming a secretive group within NXIVM in which women said they were coerced into joining a slave-master club and later branded with a design that included the initials of Raniere and Allison Mack, an actress and NXIVM associate who is identified in the complaint as an unnamed co-conspirator.
Colonie is an Albany suburb. Since he had a female accomplice, maybe “shitty humans” would be a better title, but I’ll leave it as is.
TenguPhule
W-T-F.
Baud
I feel like the nation is undergoing the mother of all colonics.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
An enema wrapped in an enigma?
reid
I grew up just south of Albany. Going to Colonie Center, the local mall, was a big treat back in the day (that day being in 1983). So, um, nice to hear news from home?
Mnemosyne
Wait, Allison Mack who used to be on “Smallville,” or a different actress? Because that seems like a really bizarre pairing.
PJ
@Mnemosyne: Same actress. The NYT had a big article on the group last year: nytimes.com/2017/10/17/nyregion/nxivm-women-branded-albany.html?pagewanted=all. Apparently the leader fled to Mexico after the article was published, but I wonder why it took so long to indict him.
ETA: And here’s an article from the Albany Times Union from 2012: timesunion.com/local/article/Secrets-of-NXIVM-2880885.php
schrodingers_cat
Can we have a thread where we don’t discuss about the dregs of humanity?
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
It’s a piddle wrapped in smegma inside an enema.
Patricia Kayden
@Mnemosyne: Is this her? Never watched the show.
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat: Co-signed. All things – including dregs – in moderation.
ETA: FP’ers: Can we haz cute animal pix please?
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
Please provide us some cute cat pictures, then.
PJ
It should definitely be “shitty humans”, because outside of Raniere, the cult was mostly made up of and enforced by women.
debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
I don’t know about the television show, but the move was great.
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
That cuts down a massive amount of current affairs to discuss.
I think it leaves pets, billinglendale’s pictures and Alan’s on the road series……
ETA Not to say that would be the worst thing in the world but it does take an informed public to have any success of changing it.
different-church-lady
@Baud: I dunno, seems more like projectile vomiting at the end of a long bender.
Raoul
Speaking of moral paragons
Tom Scheck, who reported this, is a fixture in Minnesota Public Radio land. If he says this, I’d tend to believe it.
Mnemosyne
@PJ:
Oh, look, here’s a shock:
Mack wouldn’t be the first actress to get caught up in a cult. Sad.
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: Is there any of that left?
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
These are the days when I cling to the Oregon Zoo’s Twitter feed. Lincoln, Prince of Sea Pups.
schrodingers_cat
@Ruckus: We can have one of those or one featuring the Parkland teens in their own words (not Steve King’s or some photoshopped image made by a random RWNJ)
GregB
That hypocritical sociopath, Ayn Rand, has really been a time release bomb of moral destruction.
schrodingers_cat
@Ruckus: Just one post. Constant negativity can be draining.
raven
@schrodingers_cat: Hey, what do you know about the Baghwan? I just started the series last night.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
And it’s not like there is a shortage of cults in the land. I can think of a rather big one off the top of my head.
Mnemosyne
There’s an entire Twitter account for cute sea otter photos and videos.
You’re welcome.
schrodingers_cat
@raven: Not much other than he was a conman who took many folks for a ride.
Calling himself Bhagwan (God) is a tell in my opinion.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mnemosyne: Schweet! Thank you.
WereBear
For those in need of some soothing:
My cat Tristan kneads his favorite person
raven
@schrodingers_cat: We’re just getting going but I look at the “western” people and think, damn I’m glad I dodged that and heroin!
O. Felix Culpa
@WereBear: Very nice. And, Cheryl has granted our wish (at least the wish of some of us) – a new kitty and non-negative post. A cuteness respite before heading back into the fray.
schrodingers_cat
@raven: His “ashram” was quite close to my uncle’s house in Pune.
Schlemazel
Hallelujah in acapella.
parodyproject.com/hallelujah-parody-wayne-pierre-nra/
bemused
@WereBear:
We have a kneader kitty too. Let’s me know it’s time to clip their claws, that’s for sure.
raven
@schrodingers_cat: Ohhh, they split from there at the end of episode one.
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes, yes it can. It can also be informative and invigorating. I think that not wanting to know about it is part of what’s gotten us here to this level in the first place. It’s easy to put our fingers in our ears and sing La,la,la,la,la, I can’t hear you…… Would you know of all the shootings that take place daily around here if it wasn’t for stories about them, about the kids? We have right around the same number of gun deaths per yr as we do vehicle deaths. But we all drive or are exposed to driving on a regular basis and we aren’t exposed to guns that often. That exposure to vehicle deaths has helped, MADD, air bags, safer cars. Nothing about guns has been made safer, just the opposite.
I know that we get tired of this, we get overloaded, I’m no different in that regard but as I said to make change we have to know why and where we are, where we’d like to get to so we can discuss how. We live in a democracy, hell you know this as well as anyone, having not that long ago become a citizen, and a true democracy the only way true and reasonable change happens is by the people demanding it, making enough of our representatives as or more uncomfortable as we are. And that doesn’t happen when enough of them and us have our heads in the sand. Or up their asses.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Lincoln is just killer adorable!
I find I look forward every weekend to Digby’s “Friday Evening Soother,” and every weekday morning to Wonkette’s “Nice Time.” Between them, one can get a fairly decent fix of otters, penguins, and baby goats.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@schrodingers_cat: I linked to a not so good(it was taken outside the cave, so extreme light pollution) Milky Way pic this morning. Here’s the pic, more of a proof of concept than anything else.
SiubhanDuinne
@WereBear:
How old is Tristan? I remember when he was just a tiny kotteb! Seems very recent, but it must actually be a few years by now.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus:
Headquartered in Hollywood? Rather large blue building(used to be the old Ceders of Lebanon Hospital)?
Ladyraxterinok
@Ruckus: And the recipe posts and the gardening posts.
Alain the site fixer
@Ruckus: yes the morning post is meant to inspire and excite and help us forget, even if just for a moment, this crappy timeline.
schrodingers_cat
@raven: No this was Koregoan Park, where he came back after being kicked out of the United States.
cynthia ackerman
@raven:
Longtime Oregonian here, many direct experiences with Rajneesh and his enthusiasts.
What do you want to know?