Category Archives: Essays & Op-Ed

In every struggle there is a moment that is afterward recognized as the point when the tide began to turn, when success became sure. Those who have struggled, over the past two decades especially, to bring the reality of children’s … Continue reading →

Keynote: Current THinking / New Directions Conference, Friday 18 June 2004, Sheraton Hyannis Resort, sponsored by Children’s Cove: Cape Cod Child Advocacy Center and Michael O’Keefe, Barnstable County District Attorney. It is a great honor to address you this morning, … Continue reading →

Recent articles in the press have discussed the case of an Air Force policeman, Paul Busa, who has come forward to bring charges against the Rev. Paul Shanley. After viewing TV coverage of other allegations against the notorious self-professed proponent … Continue reading →

Far in the woods they sang their unreal songs, Secure. It was difficult to sing in face Of the object. The singers had to avert themselves Or else avert the object. – Wallace Stevens, “Credences of Summer” Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer … Continue reading →

(An edited version of this essay appeared as an op-ed under the title “Changing the language of sex-crimes against children,” Boston Globe, 11/23/98.) My ten-year-old daughter brought us the news. She told of a little boy across town who had … Continue reading →

“To employ a textual structure which cracks wide open the whole literary convention of an age seems in more than one case to be the only means by which truth and literature can be reconciled.” – Richard Coe When the … Continue reading →

It’s violence, not sex Suit should expose indefensible criminality A jury’s award of 328 million dollars to the Curley family in their wrongful death suit against their son Jeffrey’s killers is a step, a large step, in the right direction. … Continue reading →