A National Treasure Has Died In Memphis, Tennessee

From my first day at the Coast Guard Academy in July 1964, I loved to listen to my favorite singer from home in Memphis, Tennessee. He was the Blues Man with the silky satin voice, Bobby "Blue" Bland.

Bobby "Blue" Bland

Bobby "Blue" Bland (born Robert Calvin Bland on January 27, 1930 in Rosemark, Tennessee) was an American singer, who created tempestuous arias of love, betrayal and resignation, set against roiling, dramatic orchestrations, and left the listener drained but awed. We called it the Blues. He was an original member of The Beale Streeters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZMNEieo44k

Bland's son Rodd said that failing health had forced his dad off the stage earlier this year 2013. "He had a hole in his stomach that had become tumorous, and it was emptying into his bloodstream."

He said Bland passed away from natural causes at his home in Germantown, Tennessee. "He was in my arms," his son said. "But I'm not going to lie. I could have used at least 20 more years."

A website in Bland's name credits the singer with being "one of the main creators of the modern soul-blues sound."

"He never b**ched about not getting his due," said his son, who formerly was a drummer in his father's band. "When I took him to Beale Street for ribs and catfish, fans would come up to him. He was always courteous, polite and kind. And humble. That's what I admired."

Bland's song "Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City" was sampled on Jay-Z's 2001 album, "The Blueprint.Bobby 'Blue' Bland, who has died aged 83, was among the great storytellers of blues and soul music. In songs such as I Pity the Fool, Cry Cry Cry and Who Will the Next Fool Be, he created tempestuous arias of love, betrayal and resignation, set against roiling, dramatic orchestrations, and left the listener drained but awed.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSo47llUMWg
It was a skill that came gradually. His husky voice was gorgeous from the start, but as a young man he followed BB King – for a while literally, as his valet and chauffeur – and his singing took on a special character only after he began to study the recorded sermons of the Detroit preacher CL Franklin, Aretha's father. "That's where I got my squall from," he recalled. That alchemy of blues and gospel cadences would create one of the most affecting voices in black music.
He was born just north of Memphis in Tennessee and in his late teens he hung out in the city with King, the pianist Rosco Gordon and the singer Johnny Ace, an informal musical gang known as the Beale Streeters. He made a few recordings for Chess and Modern, and then signed with Duke. After a few inconsequential singles, he began working with the bandleader Bill Harvey and the arranger Joe Scott, and within a few years, in pieces such as Little Boy Blue and I'll Take Care of You, this collaboration transformed his recordings from the equivalent of low-budget B-movies to widescreen epics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZYSiRvUA7M
For much of the 50s Bland toured the "chitlin' circuit" of southern clubs and theatres with Duke's other star, the singer and harmonica player Little Junior Parker, in a revue called Blues Consolidated. That was also the title, in 1958, of their first, shared, album, notable not only for hits such as Bland's Farther Up the Road, which topped the R&B chart in 1957, but also for its overheated sleevenotes by "Dzondira Lalsac" (probably Duke's proprietor Don Robey), in which Bland becomes "the freewheeling master rogue of the Blue Note, rockin' 'em this and that-a-way, across the forty-eight!!!".
Some of Bland's best work, done under Scott's direction in 1960-63, appeared on the albums Two Steps from the Blues, Here's the Man... and Call on Me, such as the ferocious homily Yield Not to Temptation, the joyous Turn on Your Love Light and a virtuoso reading of the blues standard (Call It) Stormy Monday, featuring a guitar line by Wayne Bennett that has become a blues guitarists' set piece. Occasionally, saccharine songs and lush orchestrations would move Bland rather more than two steps from the blues, but his admirers endured his straying and waited for him to find his way back with poised renderings of strong material such as Blind Man and Black Night.
During the 60s Bland placed more than a dozen records in the R&B top 10, reaching No 1 with I Pity the Fool and That's the Way Love Is, but his kind of soul music was being eclipsed by the catchier sounds of Motown and the funkier ones of Stax, and by the end of the decade he was working less and drinking more. Duke was sold to ABC, which made Bland the object of crossover marketing, rebranding him as a mainstream soul singer. Bland dutifully strolled into the Technicolor sunsets of His California Album (1973), Dreamer (1974) and Reflections in Blue (1977), and in Get On Down with Bobby Bland (1975) he sauntered along Nashville's Music Row.
Bobby 'Blue' Bland's core audience was African American, mature and predominantly female. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives Some relief from this high-sugar diet was provided by recorded encounters with his old friend King, the first in 1974 at a studio-recorded junket where they genially reminisced and swapped favourite songs, the second in 1976 at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles, where Bland, previously rather the junior partner, was more assertive and received top billing. They continued to give joint concerts for years afterwards.

 When blues singer Bobby "Blue" Bland was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, his longtime friend B.B. King, considered one of the most successful and influential blues singers of the 20th century, praised Bland not just for the blues recordings he'd been making for decades, but he also added, "There's no better singer in any genre."
While King and other blues artists were increasingly performing for young white listeners, Bland preferred to tour the southern circuit and play to his core audience: African American, mature, predominantly female. Having spent the early 80s making half a dozen lavish albums for MCA in a vaguely Barry White manner, in 1985 he signed with Malaco, a Mississippi company specialising in southern soul, and the move brought him closer to the people who cared for him most. This last stage of his recording career produced 10 albums of well-honed material by Malaco's inhouse writers and producers, in which he embarked again on the stormy seas of heartbreak and ecstasy with an even surer hand on the wheel. His last release was Blues at Midnight in 2003.
Bland was admired by artists including Van Morrison, who featured him at some of his concerts, and Mick Hucknall, who made the album Tribute to Bobby in 2008. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1981 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and received a Grammy lifetime achievement award in 1997.
He is survived by his wife, Willie Martin Bland, and his son Rodd, who is also a musician.
• Bobby Bland (Robert Calvin Brooks), blues and soul singer, born 27 January 1930; died 23 June 2013
 He released a couple of unsuccessful singles for Chess Records in 1951, and Modern Records in 1952. That year, Bland entered the Army and returned to music upon his discharge in 1955. His first successful single was "It's My Life Baby", showcasing a new, more mature sound. He was signed to the Duke Records label in 1956.
Bland's glottal gargle sound was patterned after Aretha Franklin's father, the Reverend C. L. Franklin. For all his rough and raw vocal projections, Bland was backed by a band that delivered some of the smoothest and most modulated arrangements in the Blues genre. Sometimes referred to as "the Lion of the Blues", Bland was as regal in appearance as his band was musically mellow. His album covers tell the story, showing Bland beautifully manicured in the sportsman style, his large frame nattily dressed and dripping with conspicuous, but tasteful jewelry. Though not conventionally handsome, Bland had a certain magnetism that had a profound affect on his fans.
Guitarist Pat Hare contributed to Bland's first national hit, "Farther Up The Road" (1957). Clarence Holliman was his guitarist for most of his 1950s sides, including "Loan A Helping Hand", "I Smell Trouble", "Don't Want No Woman" and "Teach Me (How To Love You)". In the 1960s, Bland was working with Wayne Bennett, including "Turn On Your Love Light" (1961) and "Yield Not To Temptation" (1962); he was by then a superstar and world-famous entertainer. Other popular records from this period were "Grits Ain't Groceries," "Little Boy Blue," "I Pity the Fool," "Stormy Monday Blues" and "Two Steps from the Blues."
After Duke was sold to ABC Records in 1973, Bland's career began to diminish. Though he continued recording throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Bland never regained his former fame on recordings, but toured and became a major influence on the Soul blues sound.
In 1992, Bobby Bland was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Bobby 'Blue' Bland, who has died aged 83, was among the great storytellers of blues and soul music. In songs such as I Pity the Fool, Cry Cry Cry and Who Will the Next Fool Be, he created tempestuous arias of love, betrayal and resignation, set against roiling, dramatic orchestrations, and left the listener drained but awed.
It was a skill that came gradually. His husky voice was gorgeous from the start, but as a young man he followed BB King – for a while literally, as his valet and chauffeur – and his singing took on a special character only after he began to study the recorded sermons of the Detroit preacher CL Franklin, Aretha's father. "That's where I got my squall from," he recalled. That alchemy of blues and gospel cadences would create one of the most affecting voices in black music.
He was born just north of Memphis in Tennessee and in his late teens he hung out in the city with King, the pianist Rosco Gordon and the singer Johnny Ace, an informal musical gang known as the Beale Streeters. He made a few recordings for Chess and Modern, and then signed with Duke. After a few inconsequential singles, he began working with the bandleader Bill Harvey and the arranger Joe Scott, and within a few years, in pieces such as Little Boy Blue and I'll Take Care of You, this collaboration transformed his recordings from the equivalent of low-budget B-movies to widescreen epics.
For much of the 50s Bland toured the "chitlin' circuit" of southern clubs and theatres with Duke's other star, the singer and harmonica player Little Junior Parker, in a revue called Blues Consolidated. That was also the title, in 1958, of their first, shared, album, notable not only for hits such as Bland's Farther Up the Road, which topped the R&B chart in 1957, but also for its overheated sleevenotes by "Dzondira Lalsac" (probably Duke's proprietor Don Robey), in which Bland becomes "the freewheeling master rogue of the Blue Note, rockin' 'em this and that-a-way, across the forty-eight!!!".
Some of Bland's best work, done under Scott's direction in 1960-63, appeared on the albums Two Steps from the Blues, Here's the Man... and Call on Me, such as the ferocious homily Yield Not to Temptation, the joyous Turn on Your Love Light and a virtuoso reading of the blues standard (Call It) Stormy Monday, featuring a guitar line by Wayne Bennett that has become a blues guitarists' set piece. Occasionally, saccharine songs and lush orchestrations would move Bland rather more than two steps from the blues, but his admirers endured his straying and waited for him to find his way back with poised renderings of strong material such as Blind Man and Black Night.
During the 60s Bland placed more than a dozen records in the R&B top 10, reaching No 1 with I Pity the Fool and That's the Way Love Is, but his kind of soul music was being eclipsed by the catchier sounds of Motown and the funkier ones of Stax, and by the end of the decade he was working less and drinking more. Duke was sold to ABC, which made Bland the object of crossover marketing, rebranding him as a mainstream soul singer. Bland dutifully strolled into the Technicolor sunsets of His California Album (1973), Dreamer (1974) and Reflections in Blue (1977), and in Get On Down with Bobby Bland (1975) he sauntered along Nashville's Music Row.
Bobby 'Blue' Bland's core audience was African American, mature and predominantly female. (Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives) Some relief from this high-sugar diet was provided by recorded encounters with his old friend King, the first in 1974 at a studio-recorded junket where they genially reminisced and swapped favourite songs, the second in 1976 at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles, where Bland, previously rather the junior partner, was more assertive and received top billing. They continued to give joint concerts for years afterwards.
While King and other blues artists were increasingly performing for young white listeners, Bland preferred to tour the southern circuit and play to his core audience: African American, mature, predominantly female. Having spent the early 80s making half a dozen lavish albums for MCA in a vaguely Barry White manner, in 1985 he signed with Malaco, a Mississippi company specialising in southern soul, and the move brought him closer to the people who cared for him most. This last stage of his recording career produced 10 albums of well-honed material by Malaco's inhouse writers and producers, in which he embarked again on the stormy seas of heartbreak and ecstasy with an even surer hand on the wheel. His last release was Blues at Midnight in 2003.
Bland was admired by artists including Van Morrison, who featured him at some of his concerts, and Mick Hucknall, who made the album Tribute to Bobby in 2008. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1981 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and received a Grammy lifetime achievement award in 1997.
 Though he possessed gifts on a par with his most accomplished peers, Mr. Bland never achieved the popular acclaim enjoyed by contemporaries like Ray Charles and B. B. King. But he was nevertheless a mainstay on the rhythm-and-blues charts and club circuit for decades.

His vocals, punctuated by the occasional squalling shout, were restrained, exhibiting a crooner’s delicacy of phrasing and a kind of intimate pleading. He influenced everyone from the soul singers Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett to rock groups like the Allman Brothers and The Band. The rapper Jay-Z sampled Mr. Bland’s 1974 single “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City” on his 2001 album, “The Blueprint.”

Mr. Bland’s signature mix of blues, jazz, pop, gospel and country music was a good decade in the making. His first recordings, made in the early 1950s, found him working in the lean, unvarnished style of Mr. King, even to the point of employing falsetto vocal leaps patterned after Mr. King’s. Mr. Bland’s mid-’50s singles were more accomplished; hits like “It’s My Life, Baby” and “Farther Up the Road” are now regarded as hard-blues classics, but they still featured the driving rhythms and stinging electric guitar favored by Mr. King and others. It wasn’t until 1958’s “Little Boy Blue,” a record inspired by the homiletic delivery of the Rev. C. L. Franklin, that Mr. Bland arrived at his trademark vocal technique.

“That’s where I got my squall from,” Mr. Bland said, referring to the sermons of Mr. Franklin — “Aretha’s daddy,” as he called him — in a 1979 interview with the author Peter Guralnick. “After I had that I lost the high falsetto. I had to get some other kind of gimmick, you know, to be identified with.”

The corresponding softness in Mr. Bland’s voice, a refinement matched by the elegant formal wear in which he appeared onstage, came from listening to records by pop crooners like Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett and Perry Como.

Just as crucial to the evolution of Mr. Bland’s sound was his affiliation with the trumpet player and arranger Joe Scott, for years the director of artists and repertory for Duke Records in Houston. Given to dramatic, brass-rich arrangements, Mr. Scott, who died in 1979, supplied Mr. Bland with intricate musical backdrops that set his supple baritone in vivid relief.

The two men accounted for more than 30 Top 20 rhythm-and-blues singles for Duke from 1958 to 1968, including the No. 1 hits “I Pity the Fool” and “That’s the Way Love Is.” Steeped in vulnerability and emotional candor, his performances earned him a devoted female audience.

Though only four of his singles from these years — “Turn On Your Love Light,” “Call on Me,” “That’s the Way Love Is” and “Ain’t Nothing You Can Do” — crossed over to the pop Top 40, Mr. Bland’s recordings resonated with the era’s blues-leaning rock acts. The Grateful Dead made “Love Light” a staple of their live shows. The Band recorded his 1964 single “Share Your Love With Me” for their 1973 album, “Moondog Matinee.” Van Morrison included a version of “Ain’t Nothing You Can Do” on his 1974 live set, “It’s Too Late to Stop Now.”

Mr. Bland himself broke through to pop audiences in the mid-’70s with “His California Album” and its more middle-of-the-road follow-up, “Dreamer.” But his greatest success always came in the rhythm-and-blues market, where he placed a total of 63 singles on the charts from 1957 to 1985. He signed with the Mississippi-based Malaco label in 1985 and made a series of well-received albums that appealed largely to fans of traditional blues and soul music.

Mr. Bland was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 1997.

Robert Calvin Brooks was born on Jan. 27, 1930, in Millington, Tenn., just north of Memphis. His father, I. J. Brooks, abandoned the family when Bobby was very young. His mother, Mary Lee, married Leroy Bridgeforth, who also went by the name Leroy Bland, when Bobby was 6.

Mr. Bland dropped out of school in the third grade to work in the cotton fields. Though he never learned to write music or play an instrument, he cited the music of the pioneering blues guitarist T-Bone Walker as an early influence.

After moving to Memphis in 1947, Mr. Bland began working in a garage and singing spirituals in a group called the Miniatures. In 1949 he joined the Beale Streeters, a loose-knit collective whose members at various points included Johnny Ace, Rosco Gordon, Earl Forest and B. B. King, all of whom went on to become popular blues performers as solo artists.

Mr. Bland also traveled as a part of the Johnny Ace Revue and recorded for the Chess, Modern and Duke labels before being drafted into the Army in 1952. Several of these recordings were made under the supervision of the producer Sam Phillips at Sun Studios in Memphis; none sold particularly well.

After his time in the service Mr. Bland worked as a chauffeur, a valet and an opening act for the Memphis rhythm-and-blues singer Junior Parker, just as he had for Mr. King. He toured as a headliner throughout the ’60s, playing as many as 300 one-night engagements a year, a demanding schedule that exacerbated his struggles with alcohol. He performed widely, in the United States and abroad, until shortly before his death.

In addition to his son, Rodd, Mr. Bland’s survivors include his wife, Willie Mae; a daughter, Patrice Moses; and four grandchildren. Rodd Bland said his father had recently learned that the blues singer and harmonica player James Cotton was his half-brother.

Mr. Bland’s synthesis of Southern vernacular music and classy big-band arrangements made him a stylistic pioneer, but whatever he accomplished by way of formal innovation ultimately derived from his underlying faith in the emotional power of the blues.

“I’d like to be remembered as just a good old country boy that did his best to give us something to listen to and help them through a lot of sad moments, happy moments, whatever,” he said in a 2009 interview with the syndicated “House of Blues Radio Hour.”

“Whatever moments you get of happiness, use it up, you know, if you can, because it don’t come that often.”

He is survived by his wife, Willie Martin Bland, and his son Rodd, who is also a musician.

If Mr. Bland lacked the pop-music name recognition of B.B. King and Ray Charles, that did not make him any less influential as an artist. Many of Mr. Bland’s recordings, such as the blues “Further On Up the Road” (1957), later covered by Eric Clapton, and the gospel-flavored “Turn On Your Love Light” (1961), covered by the Grateful Dead, became rock music standards.
Van Morrison, who covered Mr. Bland’s 1964 hit “Ain’t Nothing You Can Do,” often cited him as a seminal influence, and the two singers later recorded together. Mr. Bland’s version of T-Bone Walker’s “Stormy Monday,” with an extended solo from guitarist Wayne Bennett, inspired a later version by the Allman Brothers Band. Rapper Jay-Z recently sampled Mr. Bland’s 1974 recording “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City” on his 2001 album “The Blueprint.”
Mr. Bland placed 23 top-10 hits on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues charts between 1957 and 1975 and had a strong following on the so-called “chitlin’ circuit,” the ballrooms and clubs that catered to predominantly black audiences. He played as many as 300 one-nighters a year.
Other soul-blues singers such as Little Milton, Z.Z. Hill and Artie “Blues Boy” White borrowed heavily from Mr. Bland’s style, though none approached his career longevity.
“Bobby Bland brought the sound of black gospel music into the blues and thereby helped transform black music of the 1950s into the soul style of the 1960s,” rhythm-and-blues historian Robert Pruter said in an interview. “He is considered the pioneer of a distinct form of rhythm and blues called ‘soul-blues,’ thereby influencing a host of later blues singers.”
“It is not an exaggeration to say that Bobby Bland is one of the titans of late 20th century African-American music, close to equal in importance to Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke and James Brown,” Pruter added.
Mr. Bland could bring a tender, soothing vulnerability to the often-machismo world of the blues. When the warm, gentle side of his singing gave way to a harsh guttural scream, it served to emphasize the tension inherent in his songs.
He developed the squalling style from recorded sermons by Rev. C.L. Franklin, Aretha’s father, and adapted the rough, gargling sound that the senior Franklin used to exhort the congregation to his own singing voice.
During his affiliation in the 1960s with Duke Records, a Houston-based company, Mr. Bland’s work was often defined by the collaboration with trumpeter and arranger Joe Scott. Scott’s urbane horn charts, rooted in the big band era and modern jazz, contrasted with the brash soul sounds of Motown and Stax records. Mr. Bland’s slow songs such as “Two Steps From the Blues” were lushly scored, and his up-tempo songs pulsed with brassy fanfare that often built to a crescendo.
Bland, who died Sunday at 83 at his home in Memphis, Tenn., of complications from an ongoing illness, never achieved the broad-based recognition of fellow blues musicians such as King, Muddy Waters and Lightnin' Hopkins. But he was lauded almost universally by blues enthusiasts for his vocal mastery that spanned the gamut from throat-searing growls to gossamer sighs throughout an up-and-down career that ran more than 60 years.

"I often joke that people can sit around in bars all night arguing over who the greatest blues instrumentalists are," Jay Sieleman, president and chief executive of the Memphis-based Blues Foundation, said Monday. "But if they're talking about the greatest blues singers, they wouldn't get past the first beer without mentioning Bobby 'Blue' Bland." Best known for hits including "Farther Up the Road," "Turn On Your Love Light," "I Pity the Fool" and "Stormy Monday Blues," Bland carved out a distinctive niche that bridged the gap between earthy rural blues singers such as Robert Johnson, Charley Patton and Muddy Waters and more urbane jazz vocalists like Nat King Cole and Charles Brown, prizing meticulous diction as much as soul-wrenching emotion.
He's been cited as an important influence by many blues, rock and pop singers and groups who followed, notably Van Morrison, Eric Clapton and the Band. Even B.B. King, for whom Bland once worked as a driver before his own career took off, has said if there were another singer he could sing like, it would be Bland.
He placed more than 60 singles on the R&B charts over a near-three decade span from 1957 to 1985, the majority of them making it to the Top 30. The bouncy, gospel-inflected "Turn On Your Love Light" was subsequently recorded by dozens of other artists, including Jerry Lee Lewis, the Righteous Brothers, Delbert McClinton, James Cotton, the Sir Douglas Quintet and the Grateful Dead, but it was Bland's definitive recording that was voted into both the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
"He was such an inventive singer," said Lauren Ontkey, the rock hall's vice president of education and public programs. "He sang real hard blues but also had this incredible melodic sense and could sing around a really snarly guitar as well as around a string section."
Robert Calvin Bland was born an only child on Jan. 27, 1930, in Rosemark, Tenn., about 25 miles northeast of Memphis. He was raised by his mother, and did not meet his father until after he became famous.
As a youth he began singing with the gospel group the Miniatures, and gravitated to Memphis where he started hanging out with King, Herman "Little Junior" Parker and other musicians who frequented the clubs on Beale Street.
Referring to King, Bland once told the Washington Post, "He'd let me hang around and get some kind of experience. I drove his car; I did anything I could to get my foot in the door. He gave me the opportunity and I still thank him today."
That scene in Memphis gave rise to a group of musicians who began performing and touring together under the name "the Beale Streeters," with Bland among their ranks.
He recorded in the early '50s for producer Sam Phillips' Sun Records label, several years before Phillips launched the careers of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins, but those records didn't generate much attention beyond Memphis.

Bland found a style of his own after having his musical career interrupted by a three-year stint in the U.S. Army. Having been exposed to smoother West Coast-based singers including Cole and Brown, Bland incorporated their suave sophistication with the grittier style he'd grown up with. Emerging from the military just as rock 'n' roll was starting to explode, Bland began to hit his stride, establishing his name at Duke Records in 1957 with "Farther Up the Road," which went to No. 1 on Billboard's R&B chart and reached No. 43 on the overall pop listing.
He struggled with alcohol dependence in the late '60s and early '70s, but eventually recovered. He remained popular among longtime blues and R&B audiences and toured regularly until recently, when health issues forced him to cut back.
One possible reason Bland never received the kind of recognition beyond blues circles accorded King, Waters and John Lee Hooker was that he wasn't a guitarist.

"In this day and age," the Blues Foundation's Sieleman said, "I think it's easy to overlook people who just sing. The guitar has become such a prominent part of our musical culture [in the blues]. But the more you listen to Bobby, the more you appreciate the phrasing, the way he could deliver a song. They call him the Frank Sinatra of the impeccable phrasing and what he could do with a song." Bland was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997 and selected for the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1981.

• Bobby Bland (Robert Calvin Brooks), blues and soul singer, born 27 January 1930; died 23 June 2013

Labels: Original American Art. The Blues.

1 Comments:

 ichbinalj said... Aretha Franklin is the greatest singer in Rock n' Roll era, acccording to a new Rolling Stone magazine poll.

She's already the Queen of Soul, but now Aretha Franklin has been named the greatest singer of the rock era in a poll conducted by Rolling Stone magazine.

Franklin, 66, came in ahead of Ray Charles at No. 2, Elvis Presley at No. 3, Sam Cooke at No. 4 and John Lennon at No. 5, according to the magazine's survey of 179 musicians, producers, Rolling Stone editors, and other music-industry insiders.

The 100-strong list will be published on Friday 14 November 2008, when Rolling Stone hits the newsstands with four different covers. (11/11/2008 Reuters)
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Expert On Gender and Violence To The Rescue

Christopher Kilmartin, a professor from Virginia will spend the upcoming academic year teaching courses on gender at the (USAFA) Air Force Academy to combat sexual assaults.
He is a psychology instructor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va., and will serve as a visiting professor at USAFA, teaching "Men and Masculinity" in the fall and "Interpersonal Violence" in the spring.
Neither course is required of students. But so many have registered for the lone section of "Men and Masculinity" that the academy is considering adding another, said Col. Gary Packard, head of the academy's Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership.
"When I looked at his background, he became my No. 1 candidate" for the department's visiting professor position, Packard said. "We need him here to deal with these issues, especially those related to masculinity."
Kilmartin will conduct research and consult with leaders during his time at the academy, Packard said.
Kilmartin has previously worked with the U.S. Naval Academy to revise its sexual assault and harassment prevention curriculum. He also wrote a script for an Army training film on the same topic.
His knowledge of military culture "gives him credibility right from the start," Packard said.
Another trait Packard says will serve Kilmartin well at the academy: his sense of humor.
Kilmartin is also a stand-up comedian.
"I think the cadets will gravitate toward him," Packard said. "More importantly, I think commanders and leadership will connect with him as well."
During Kilmartin's two-plus decades of teaching courses on masculinity, the majority of his students have been females.
That's less likely to be the case at the academy, where the majority of students are male.
"One of the biggest struggles in teaching that area is getting men into the room," said Kilmartin, the author of the textbook "The Masculine Self."
"The way gender roles are constructed, a lot of men don't feel comfortable expressing interest in it. It takes a pretty self-aware man to get interested in gender."
Kilmartin's fall class will examine how masculinity is constructed, how men are socialized and how individuals form gender ideology.
"There's a lot of theory in the first part" of the class, he said. "The second part includes discussion of men's issues: work, mental health, physical health, relationships, sexuality, violence, and contemporary topics like the prison problem, pornography and prostitution."
As part of their coursework, Kilmartin will assign his students to journal about gender stereotypes they observe in their everyday lives.
"It's a really powerful assignment, he said. "By mid-semester, they realize it's everywhere. Then they get mad at me because they think they can't watch TV anymore.
"Before, they tend to look at things uncritically. When they get a new pair of lenses to look at the world, it can be annoying. You can pay a price for it, but it can be of enormous benefit as well."
His spring class will offer an opportunity to examine violence committed by males, a topic that is often overlooked because "people in dominate groups have the luxury of having their identity remain invisible," Kilmartin said.
It will also examine the origins and consequences of, and remedies to, interpersonal violence, he added.
Kilmartin's short-term goal is to increase sexual assault reporting rates at the academy so that perpetrators, most of whom are serial offenders, are stopped, he said.
"I'm not going to come in there and do magic, but I'd like to do something," he said. "Sometimes we forget that these are young adults, that many of them don't have a lot of experience with relationships and sexuality. We forget that because we put them in uniform and they look like these machines and we think they have it all together. But they're kids in some ways. We need to talk with them like kids."
His ultimate goal is to "take a public health approach and reduce the incidence of sex assault at the academy and the military at large."
Arming cadets with knowledge on the topics of gender and violence isn't just the right thing to do, he said.
It's good for their careers.
"We wouldn't dream of sending leaders out into the world without computer skills, management skills, leadership abilities," he said. "There is no way any commander is going to get out in the world and not have to deal with people in his or her command who are women, who are gay men, lesbians, maybe even someone transgendered.
"If you don't understand these different forms of identity and how they play out in your organization, you're just not going to be a good commander."
During the 2011-2012 academic year, sex assault reports involving Air Force Academy cadets increased by about 50 percent over the previous academic year, accounting for the majority of reported assaults across the nation's three military academies, according to a Defense Department report released late last year. (NOTE: West Point, Annapolis, and AFA at Colorado Springs are not the only military academies in the U.S.. There is a Coast Guard Academy at New London, CT..)
Cadets have attended annual sexual assault prevention training since 2005. An increase in reporting rates is a sign that those training sessions are working, victim advocate at the academy told The Gazette in January. (By Erin Prater)

Military Judge: Obama’s Comments On Military Sex Abuse An “Undue Command Influence”

Two defendants in military sexual assault cases cannot be punitively discharged, if found guilty, because of “unlawful command influence” derived from comments made by President Barack Obama, a judge ruled in a Hawaii military court week of June 10.

Navy Judge CDR. Marcus Fulton ruled during pretrial hearings in two sexual assault cases — U.S. vs. Johnson and U.S. vs. Fuentes — that comments made by Obama as commander in chief would unduly influence any potential sentencing, according to a court documents obtained by Stars and Stripes.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Fulton approved the pretrial defense motions, which used as evidence comments that Obama made about sexual assault at a May 7 news conference.

The judge’s pretrial ruling means that if either defendant is found guilty, whether by a jury or a military judge, they cannot receive a bad conduct discharge or a dishonorable discharge. Sailors found guilty under the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s Article 120, which covers several sexual crimes including assault and rape, generally receive punitive discharges.

“A member of the public would not hear the President’s statement to be a simple admonition to hold members accountable,” Fulton stated. “A member of the public would draw the connection between the ‘dishonorable discharge’ required by the President and a punitive discharge approved by the convening authority.

“The strain on the system created by asking a convening authority to disregard [Obama's] statement in this environment would be too much to sustain public confidence.”

The ruling sets the stage for defense attorneys to use the same arguments in sexual assault cases throughout the military.

Should other judges accept the same line of reasoning, commands would have to consider issuing lesser administrative discharges to servicemembers found guilty of sexual assault. In some cases, this could allow servicemembers found guilty of sex crimes to retain veterans benefits, according to Defense Department regulations.

“I think that as a defense attorney, I would raise this argument in virtually any [sexual assault] case I had,” said Victor Hansen, vice president of the National Institute of Military Justice and former instructor at the Army’s JAG school.

President Barack Obama said that he has “no tolerance” for sexual assault in the military, comments made in the wake of a new Pentagon report showing the instances of such crimes have spiked since 2010.

The president said he had spoken today with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to urge him to “exponentially step up” efforts to identify suspects in assaults, and aggressively prosecute those cases.

“The bottom line is: I have no tolerance for this,” Obama said at a press conference following his meeting with South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

‘I expect consequences,” Obama added. “So I don’t just want more speeches or awareness programs or training, but ultimately folks look the other way. If we find out somebody’s engaging in this, they’ve got to be held accountable – prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged. Period.”

(…)

“For those who are in uniform who’ve experience sexual assault, I want them to hear directly from their commander in chief that I’ve got their backs,” the president said. “I will support them. And we’re not going to tolerate this stuff, and there will be accountability.”

What constitutes “undue command influence” is, at least in part, established by Article 37 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice:

(a) No authority convening a general, special, or summary court-martial, nor any other commanding officer, may censure, reprimand, or admonish the court or any member, military judge, or counsel thereof, with respect to the findings or sentence adjudged by the court, or with respect to any other exercises of its or his functions in the conduct of the proceedings. No person subject to this chapter may attempt to coerce or, by any unauthorized means, influence the action of a court-martial or any other military tribunal or any member thereof, in reaching the findings or sentence in any case, or the action of any convening, approving, or reviewing authority with respect to his judicial acts. The foregoing provisions of the subsection shall not apply with respect to (1) general instructional or informational courses in military justice if such courses are designed solely for the purpose of instructing members of a command in the substantive and procedural aspects of courts-martial, or (2) to statements and instructions given in open court by the military judge, president of a special court-martial, or counsel.

The operative question here is whether the comments by President Obama and others in the chain of command, which based on how they are set forth in the opinion seem to be little more than generalized statements about the need for increased vigilance against sexual assault in the military constitute an attempt to “coerce or, by any unauthorized means, influence the action of a court-martial or any other military tribunal or any member thereof, in reaching the findings or sentence in any case, or the action of any convening, approving, or reviewing authority with respect to his judicial acts.”  In his ruling, the presiding Judge found that there was sufficient reason to believe that the President’s insistence that members of the military who have engaged in sexual assault should be “prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged” constituted at least potential undue influence over the sentencing phase of the hearing in the case before him. Consequently, he ruled that if the Defendant is convicted, the military jury would not be able to impose a dishonorable discharge or similar punishing upon him. As noted above, this would potentially mean that the Defendant would remain fully eligible for all veterans benefits despite having been convicted of a crime while in the military.

I don’t have the expertise in military criminal law to comment on the Judge’s decision here, however the immediate consequences of his ruling. Defense attorneys representing members of the military facing similar charges will without a doubt file similar motions in the cases they are involved in, and we’re likely to get contradictory rulings on the matter from the presiding Judges in each of those cases. Additionally, the ruling in these cases will likely end up being appealed, likely before the trial actually starts. As for the President’s statement itself, I can’t help but think that the Judge got it wrong here. On it’s face, what the President said struck me as a general, benign, statement regarding future policy and the message that the Commander in Chief wishes the military to take the issue of sexual assault far more seriously than it has been. Is that “undue command influence?” As I said, I’m not an expert in this area so I’ll leave that to others, but it does feel to me like the Judge went a little over the top here. I suppose we can be grateful that he didn’t dismiss the cases completely.

On a general level, though, this case does point out the importance of the White House in general, and the President specifically, not getting involved in criminal investigations and prosecutions that occur under his watch, whether in the civilian or military spheres. Recently, for example, the White House has been criticized for not commenting directly on the Justice Department’s investigation of leaks that includes pursuing information from journalists using subpoenas and search warrants. There has also been a lot of criticism directed at the White House from the right for it failure to officially designating the November 2009 Ford Hood massacre as a terrorist act, and that Major Nidal Hasan continues to receive his military pay while awaiting trial on those charges. In both cases, the White House has pointedly refused to comment on the cases at hand, and that was entirely the appropriate reaction. Specific comments from the President regarding guilt or innocence of a Defendant would be highly inappropriate and would likely result in defense attorneys moving for mistrials at any criminal proceeding. The comments the President made here, of course, were not about a specific  case, but this ruling is a pretty good reminder of what could happen if Presidents started bending to the demands of reporters or political opponents that they make comment on such matters.

He -said, She-said, Just Like The Webster Smith Case, almost

Academy Instructor Acquitted of Raping Midshipman

Jun 01, 2013

A former Naval Academy instructor was found not guilty of raping a former Midshipman when a court martial jury panel delivered their verdict late Friday night.
Marine Maj. Mark A. Thompson was found not guilty of aggravated sexual assault, but he was convicted of five lesser charges that included committing an indecent act. He faces up to ten years in confinement with his sentencing hearing scheduled to begin on Monday morning, according to Naval Academy officials.
Thompson, who was a history instructor at the Naval Academy at the time of the alleged assaults, was charged with one count of aggravated sexual assault, one count of committing an indecent act, two counts of fraternization, and three counts of conduct unbecoming an officer.
The charges stemmed from a full day of binge drinking at a croquet match between the Naval Academy and St. John's College, a liberal arts school in Annapolis, on April 30, 2011.
A female midshipman, who allegedly had been having an affair with Thompson, brought along a second female midshipman to Thompson's apartment after the match later that night. They continued drinking and played strip poker, according to the charge sheet.
The prosecution said Thompson later had sex with both midshipmen in which he forced himself onto one of them. It's this act that led to one charge of aggravated sexual assault and one charge of committing an indecent act.
The jury panel of seven Navy officers, including two women, and two Marines, decided there was not enough evidence that Thompson forced one of the midshipmen to have sex with him and did not convict him of aggravated sexual assault.
The maximum sentence for aggravated sexual assault under the Uniform Code of Military Justice is confinement for 30 years.
Thompson knew the two female midshipmen because he served as the officer representative to the rifle team. One of the midshipmen was the rifle team manager and the other was a rifle team member.
Both midshipmen graduated in 2012 and received their commissions as officers. Ensign Sarah Stadler is a gunnery officer aboard the USS Howard. The other is a Marine second lieutenant.
The case came to a verdict during a difficult week for the Naval Academy, which acknowledged that the Navy is investigating three Naval Academy football players for raping a female midshipman at an off-campus party in April 2012.
The Thompson case also came to a conclusion one week after President Obama spoke at the Naval Academy's commencement ceremony. In his address, Obama challenged the newly commissioned Navy and Marine Corps officers to end increasing problem of sexual assault in the U.S. military.
A recent Defense Department survey said that sexual assault incidents in the ranks increased in 2012 to 26,000 from 19,000 in 2010. A survey of the service academies also found an increase in sexual assault within all three academies.
Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Michael Miller will serve as the convening authority and will review the record of trial after sentencing. This responsibility has come under scrutiny after two Air Force three-stars have thrown out two sexual assault convictions for two officers since 2012.
The House and Senate have both voted to remove the power of the convening authority from a commander.
The four-day court martial included a parade of witnesses who shared conflicting versions of the events after the croquet match on April 30, 2011.
The key witness in the court martial was Ensign Sarah Stadler, the female midshipman that had an affair with Thompson and one of the two the jury panel ruled had sex with him on that night.
The defense tried to prove Thompson didn't have sex with either midshipmen, and spent a good deal of the court martial calling witnesses to the stand to question Stadler's character. In their closing arguments, both the prosecution and defense acknowledged to the nine member jury the difficulty of deciding a case that depended on the credibility of witnesses giving conflicting testimony.
"This is a case about contrasts" in the veracity between witnesses for both sides, said Navy Cmdr. Aaron Rugh, the chief prosecution counselor.
Rugh repeatedly told the jury panel of seven Navy officers, including two women, and two Marines, that "there is no silver bullet" that directly pointed to Thompson's guilt.
In his summation, Marine Maj. Joseph Grimm, the chief defense counsel, told the panel that Thompson never had sex with either Stadler or the lieutenant.
"There is no evidence whatsoever that Maj. Thompson had sex with these two girls,"Grimm told the panel.
Grimm portrayed Stadler as a promiscuous "stalker" who coaxed the second lieutenant into going along with her plan to implicate Thompson. Grimm called the charges "bologna" and said Stadler "lied about lying."
In his opening remarks, Grimm said the increased scrutiny on the rising problem of sexual assault put Thompson at risk of not receiving a fair trial. He even warned that President Obama's commencement address on May 24 would influence the jury.
In his speech one week before, Obama said sexual assault threatens national security.
"Those who commit sexual assault are not only committing a crime, they threaten the trust and discipline that make our military strong," Obama said in his remarks. "That's why we have to be determined to stop these crimes, because they've got no place in the greatest military on Earth."

Military.com| by Michael Hoffman and Richard Sisk

(© Copyright 2013 Military.com. All rights reserved. )

Balboni Case Was A Precursor Of Today's Toxic Environment

(LTJG Christine D. Balboni and her attorney, LCDR London Steverson at her hearing on sexual harassment allegations at Coast Guard Base Alameda California in 1984) 

Today Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, (Dem,N.Y.) said  "Commanders can’t always be objective, nor can all of them distinguish between a “slap on the ass” and more serious cases such as rape.

Lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives led by Senator Gillibrand, who serves on the Armed Services panel, have introduced legislation that would remove sexual-assault cases from the military chain of command.

“After speaking to victims, they have told us that the reason they do not report these crimes is because they fear retaliation,” Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, told the military leaders at the hearing. “You have lost the trust of the men and women who rely on you that you would actually bring justice” in their cases.

Victims’ advocacy groups say service members who are attacked often are reluctant to step forward in a system in which commanding officers decide whether to bring charges, choose the military jury and can reduce or overturn a sentence.

The Sexual Harassment case of LTJG Christine D. Balboni was a harginger of today's military environment.  In that case the military was treated to a preview of the toxic environment that the Senators are hearing about today. The Coast Guard did not take the warning that the Balboni Case presented them with. The military did not accept it as an omen.

 The uniformed leaders of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, in a Senate hearing room with dozens of other military officers, admitted to lawmakers that the Defense Department had failed to effectively prevent or respond to sexual assaults despite years of trying.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., grew heated in questioning military leaders during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearingtoday, June 4, 2013.

 The Pentagon doesn’t know how many members are raped or sexually assaulted because surveys don’t distinguish between “predatory” behavior and an “unhealthy” working environment, she said at the hearing.

The military has “sexual predators who are not committing crimes of lust,” she said. “This isn’t about sex.” Rather it’s about “domination” and violence, she said.

When asked by Levin, only the chiefs of the Coast Guard and Army said that leaders have been relieved of command as a result of a climate of sexual assault and harassment. (Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Papp relieved a Captain of command in 2007 because of inappropriate relationships. It is too bad he was only a junior officer and was not in a position of senior leadership in 1980 when LTJG Balboni filed her case against three senior Coast Guard officer aboard the USCGC Rush WHEC in Alameda, California.)



BALBONI v. DOT; USCG; L. Telfer, P. Keyes, A. Cascardi.

United States Coast Guard Civil Rights Hearing, DOT Case No. 82-177.

Case was heard February 6, 1984 and following at U.S. Coast Guard Base Alameda, Ca. before The Honorable Paul E. Weil, Administrative Law Judge for the Department of Transportation.

APPEARING for the United States Coast Guard;
LCDR Gary Heil, 12th Coast Guard District, Government Island, Alameda, Ca. 94501

APPEARING for Captain Larry Telfer; an Alleged Discriminating Official (ADO)
LCDR Tom Barrett, Commandant (G-L)

APPEARING for Commander Phil Keyes; an Alleged Discriminating Official (ADO)
Lcdr. Robert Allard, Commandant (G-L)

APPEARING for LT Andrew Cascardi; an Alleged Discriminating Official (ADO)
Lcdr. Michael Kudalis Commandant (G-L)

APPEARING for the COMPLAINANTS LT(jg) Christine D. Balboni and CWO Charles VanMeter,
Lcdr. London Steverson, Chief, Investigating Officer, MIO, New York, NY.

WITNESSES:
LTJG Christine D. Balboni, USCG
LTJG Ann Flamang, aka Gang-bang Flamang, USCG,
LTJG Jodie Turner, aka Diesel Dyke Turner, USCG,
LTJG Margaret Carlson, USCG Communications Officer onboard USCGc RUSH (WHEC)
Mr. Jeremiah Healy, formerly a Coast Guard enlisted man, ST2 Jerry Healy.
MST1 Smith.
CDR Phil Keyes, USCG, Executive Officer onboard USCGC RUSH (WHEC)
LT Andrew Cascardi, USCG Operations Officer onboard USCGC RUSH (WHEC)
CAPT Larry Telfer, USCG, Commanding Officer, USCGC RUSH (WHEC)
CWO Charles Van Meter, USCG.

(Regulatory Authority: Pursuant to Department of Transportation (DOT) Order 1000.8A, and the U. S. Coast Guard Civil Rights Manual Commandant USCG Instruction M5350.11B)

COMPLAINT: The Complainant, LTjg Christine D. Balboni, alleges and contends that the three Alleged Discriminating Officials (ADO) discrininated against her on the basis of her sex; that they sexually harassed her; that they verbally abused and slandered her; that they created a hostile and intimidating work environment for her onboard the USCGC RUSH (WHEC) that made it impossible for her to do her job; that they circulated rumors and malicious gossip concerning her among the other officers and the enlisted men on the ship; that they memorialized this same gossip and rumors when they reduced it to writing in the form of regular and special officer fitness for duty reports that they swore to and forwarded up the chain of command; and that they did it recklessly and with knowledge of its probable affects upon her Coast Guard career. The Complainant further alleges and contends that this conduct on the part of the ADOs was unbecoming of an officer and a gentlemen, and that it was to the predjudice of good order and discipline.

EXCERPTS from the Official Transcript of the Formal Hearing on the record.

OPENING STATEMENT: (LCDR L. Steverson, Counsel for the Complainants.)
May it please the Court, Your Honor, the United States Coast Guard is the last bastion of white male supremacy among the Armed Forces of the United States. Discrimination, bias, prejudice, abuse of power, hatred, and harassment have all been employed to keep it that way. These are evils that withstand the winds of logic by the depth and toughness of their roots in the past.
It was inevitable that this case maybe even others would have to be brought to see which way the Coast Guard would go and to see wherein does justice lie.
It is only be happenstance that the Complainant in this case is LTjg Christine D. Balboni, or that the Alleged Discriminating Officials are Captain Larry Telfer, Commander Phil Keyes, and Lieutenant Andy Cascardi. They are all victims of the twin forces of history and destiny.
We believe that the evidence in this case will show that the Complainant, Ms. Balboni, has been greatly wronged. The evidence will show that the workplace onboard the U. S. Coast Guard Cutter RUSH was pervaded with sexual slurs, insults and innuendo; that Ms. Balboni was personally the object of verbal sexual harassment; that this harassment took the form of vulgar and offensive, sexually-related epithets addressed to and employed about her by the ADO's.
We will show that she was forced to work in a hostile and intimidating environment where the walls were papered with the pictures of nude women; where pornographic movies were were regularly shown on the ship's videotape T.V. monitors; where a prophylactic was unrolled and taped to her state room door; where male crew members bursted into her room uninvited around midnight; where she could not even close her state room door in privacy whenever a friend or a crew member of the opposite sex was in the room; where she was prohibited, ordered not to associate with the only friend that she had on the ship; where she was accused of compromising acts that had actually been done by other female members of the crew, and other acts that, in one instance, had not even occured; where she was penalized with adverse officer performance ratings, or fitness reports, as you will, because of these incidents where she was falsely accused and where no investigation or verification of the facts had been done; where her pleas to higher authority for help fell on deaf ears, or she was further demeaned by being told that she did not have the right plumbing, an obvious reference to her sex and that she was not a man, all in an atmosphere of motion pictures depicting fellatio, cunnilingus, "menage-a-tois" in the officer's ward room during the evening meal and Sunday morning breakfast.
The Complainant, Ms. Balboni, was accused of being immoral, unethical, and unprofessional simply because she whispered and giggled with and had a close platonic friendship with a fellow officer who happened to be married.
The evidence will show that LTjg Balboni was never seen holding hands or kissing or anything else with Chief Warrant Officer Van Meter; that she was never seen by Commander Phil Keyes sitting in Chief Warrant Officer Van Meter's lap with her arms around his neck; that she was never seen by a crew member in a male officers state room naked or with no bra on while a male officer was present. Yet she has been accused of these very acts. She has been reprimanded for these very acts.
The evidence will show that the incidents of harassment in this case were so pervasive that all of the Alleged Discriminating Officials and maybe even their supervisors were aware of them, that they had actual and constructive knowledge of the existence of a sexually hostile working environment and that they took no prompt action or in some cases no action at all to remedy the situation.
Thank you, Your Honor.


OPENING STATEMENT: (LCDR Gary Heil, Counsel for the US Coast Guard)
May it please the court, Your Honor, this case is going to be a case that if limited to the allegations, will show something significantly different than what was described by LCDR Steverson. Some of what Mr. Steverson has described possibly, you know, may be shown at the Hearing. Much of it is not going to be that way, I think.

I would like to prepare you for what's going to happen with the evidence from the Government's perspective along the lines of the specific allegations made by Ms. Balboni that were certified to be heard at this Hearing.

The first one being that she was discriminated against by CAPT Larry Telfer because he prohibited her association with CWO Charles Van Meter. The evidence will show clearly that neither CAPT Telfer nor CAPT Phil Kies nor LCDR Andrew Cascardi nor anybody else in the Coast Guard tried to prohibit her association with Mr. Van Meter.

What the evidence will show is that the officers in question tried to limit the outward manifestations of those behaviors in the workplace. They tried to limit the amount that these officers were seen together in ways that could be perceived by the crew as being somewhat unprofessional in their relationship.

The Second Allegation is Ms. Balboni's allegation that she was discriminated against because of her sex by CAPT Telfer because he asked for her immediate transfer to keep her from associating with Mr. Van Meter.

Your Honor, I think the evidence will show that CAPT Telfer requested her immediate transfer because, after repeated counselling with Ms. Balboni and Mr. Van Meter refused to act in a way that would quell the kind of rumors and the kind of problems that had caused them real problems in the workplace.
For instance, the evidence will show that the Engineering Officer had to become the first line supervisor because of their relationship when Mr. Van Meter could not be found.
For instance, the evidence will show that Ms. Balboni's work sufferred tremendously because of their relationship in that when they were suppossed to be working or she was supposed to be working on Morale work, they were working together doing something else and the Morale job never got done.

In the Third Allegation, Your Honor, she says that she was discrimated against because the crew was allowed to believe that she was involved in two incidents that occurred on 28-29 August and 7 September 1981 which never were investigated until nine months later.

Your Honor, neither CAPT Telfer nor Capt Kies did anything with the crew, as the evidence will show, to promote that these things were Ms. Balboni. As a matter of fact, in at least one instance, the evidence will show that they didn't know who it was, and that the informer who brought up the incident in question wasn't even asked who it was for some period afterwards.

She alleges in her next allegation, Your Honor, that she was discriminated against because of her sex by CAPT Telfer who wrote a special fitness report on her because he did not approve of her friendship with CWO Van Meter.

Your Honor, again, this is the same allegation as we stated. The evidence will show that it wasn't the friendship that the Coast Guard objected to. What they objected to was the continual presence of the two in each other's company in their state rooms, on the Bridge, and on watch.

The evidence will show and other officers will testify that whenever they wanted to find them, they found them together. It was this togetherness that caused them management problems at work that they absolutely refused to change.

The evidence will show that when this Open-door policy was instigated by CAPT Telfer, the other officers on theship tried to keep a low profile as to any relationships that were happening at work, where on the otherhand Ms. Balboni and Mr. Van Meter flaunted their relationship.

The evidence will show also, Your Honor, that their relationship or friendship was more than a normal friendship between ward room officers.

The next allegation says that Ms. Balboni was discriminated against because of her sex by CAPT Telfer when he promulgated a ship-wide policy on male-female relationships designed to weaken and destroy her relationship with Mr. Van Meter, and the next one that required women to have open doors anytime they were in the same room or space with someone of the opposite gender.

Your Honor, such a policy, the evidence will show was promulgated. The evidence will show that the purpose of such a policy was not to destroy a friendship-- it applied evenly between males and females. What the policy, the evidence will show, was to do was to deter the kind of rumors that Ms. Balboni complains about.

There were rumors about the ship, and the evidence will show that. What the Command was interested in stopping is the rumors, because the rumors were causing them specific management problems on te jobs which took their time and counseling to do.

The evidence will show, Your Honor, that the rumors were not unfounded. They were not rumors of no basis. The evidence will show that Ms. Balboni herself had physical relationships of types with members of the crew on the ship and while the ship was underway away from home port.

We will hear from enlisted men, such as, MST1 Smith and ST2 Healy. We will hear from MST1 Smith about the incident in the O Lab in which MST1 Smith will say contrary to Ms. Balboni's sworn statement, that this was not the first time that they were in the O Lab behind a locked door.
MST1 Smith will say that this was the fourth time behind the locked door, and he will say that they kissed, that they hugged, and that they petted.
I have a sworn statement from ST2 Healy, and he will testify also that similar behavior happened on a custody crew in which Ms. Balboni was stationed when they rode a Korean vessel back to the shores.

Your Honor, I also have a tape of a sworn statement from when ST2 Healy was interviewed by a Coast Guard Intelligence Agent. I have a transcript of the taped interview; and, I have a a statement from the investigator who took Healy's statement. ST2 Healy will testify that Ms. Balboni and he met where Ms. Balboni was staying on the Korean vessel, on several occasions, and I quote "acted like high school kids, light petting". Those are the words that Healy used. MST2 Smith will testify to similar behavior from Ms. Balboni in the MST lab behind locked doors. Healy said that Ms. Balboni came on to him. I might add that he was super protective of Ms. Balboni. We believe that Healy withheld evidence because he has an axe to grind against the Coast Guard. But his statement still has a lot of information in it. The statement is very important because it speaks of the exact same kind of behavior, Your Honor, that MST1 Smith will testify to. This is the kind of information that CAPT Telfer himself couldn't know when he did the investigation because he never asked the right questions.

The rumors that were happening, Your Honor, they were not unfounded, gossipy rumors. They were true and they were causing real management problems, and CAPT Telfer's open-door policy was not an attempt to break up their friendship, but an attempt to corral these kinds of rumors so that he could manage the ship so that they could get the job done.

I will point out that the evidence will show that both of these people who we have statements from of this kind of conduct worked in the same Division as Ms. Balboni, the Operations Division.

Next, Ms. Balboni is alleging that she was harassed because of her sex when CAPT Telfer ordered her to stand at attention for two-wnd-q-half hours while he yelled and screamed at her about her relationship with Mr. Van Meter.

Your Honor, the evidence will show that she was allowed to stand easy; she was asked if she wanted to sit down, and it was a counseling session, a correctice counseling session where two officers didn't see eye to eye, that kind of relationship at work, not because of her sex, merely because of her behavior in failing to keep her professional conduct professional at work.

Next, Your Honor, she's alleging that CAPT Telfer harassed her because he accused her of being the cause of the marital problems between Mr. and Mrs. Van Meter.
I think the evidence will show that that wasn't harassment, Your Honor, but I think what the evidence will show is that the captain did ask her or relay to her that he had been told that she was the problem. The evidence will show that Mrs. Van Meter made numerous complaints to officers on the ship and to their wives that Ms. Balboni was breaking up their marriage.

The evidence will show that Mrs. Van Meter told an officer in the ward room who will testify here, Your Honor, that if she didn't stay away from her husband that Mrs. Van Meter was going to do her bodily harm.

The evidence will show that Mrs. Van Meter called CAPT Telfer on at least one occasion to complain and to ask him to take action. The evidence will show that CAPT Kies got repeated calls from Mrs. Van Meter asking where her husband was at 2:00 o'clock in the morning, and asking "How come he had to leave for the ship?"

The evidence will show, Your Honor, that specific problems in a closed unit where you have to manage a system that lives together day and night was causing so many problems that the ward room started to break apart, there were personal problems going back and forth, and those were the problems they had to manage somehow.

The evidence will show that they did have an open-door policy and they did try to counsel the complainant, Ms. Balboni, about those issues; but, not to the point of discriminating against her because of her sex.

The next allegation, Your Honor, says that she was harassed by CAPT Telfer when he called her the sexpot of the world.

I think, Your Honor, the evidence will show that what happened was that CAPT Telfer said words to the effect that she should be behaving in a way that didn't lead the crew and everybody else to believe that she was the sexpot of the world, or words to that effect.

He was counseling her to stop the behavior that was causing her problems day in and day out. That is what the evidence will show, Your Honor.

Ms. Balboni alleges that she was harassed by CAPT Telfer because of her sex when he referred to rumors and perceptions and ordered Ms. Balboni not to be friends with CWO Charles Van Meter.

Your Honor, I think that CAPT Telfer, the evidence will show, did refer to those rumors and the gossip. Those were the specific rumors and gossip that caused CAPT Telfer, CAPT Kies and LT Cascardi problems day in and day out in trying to lead Ms. Balboni to do a job. I think that, as I said earlier, the evidence will show that CAPT Telfer never ordered her not to be friends CWO Van Meter.

As a matter of fact, Your Honor, the evidence will show that when he recommended transfer to two units within the 12th District, within this District, he was trying to transfer them to units close enough to each other so that they could still have a friendship.
What he wanted, the evidence will show, what he wanted was a relationship where they could continue discreetly off the ship because it was causing management problems for him.

As a matter of fact, the evidence will show that CAPT Kies said very specifically, "I don't care what you and Van--'as CAPT Kies referred to CWO Van Meter'--what you and Van do off the ship, but on the ship you've got to cool it. You've got to stop behaving like this because it is causing me problems, and it's causing LT Cascardi problems". It was because of those problems that CAPT Telfer felt he needed to take some action.

Next, Ms. Balboni alleges that she was discriminated against because of he sex by CAPT Kies, the Executive Officer, when he informed her that, "you are not accepted by the Operations Officer because you don't have the right plumbing".

Your Honor, I submit that on the face--I'm not sure what this one means, the words, but what the evidence will show actually happened with the allegation is that CAPT Kies told Ms. Balboni, when Ms. Balboni came to him for counseling, that there was a difference between men and women and that with an integration into any social system, we all know tat there are differences. Everybody was treated the same.

CAPT Kies will testify that he probably did not use the right words whe he said "the right plumbing", but the clear intention was not that she didn't have the right plumbing but that he was pointing out that everyone is different and that we have to get along, not that Mr. Cascardi didn't like her because she was a woman. (sic)

Ms. Balboni alleges that she was discriminated against when CAPT Kies informed her that her fitness report was graded down because of her friendship with CWO Van Meter.

Your honor, again the evidence will show it's not the friendship; it's the outward manifestation of their behavior together not their presence in the wardroom. As a matter of fact this is part of the problem that they had in trying to get their job done that caused the problem. It was the rumors and inuendoes, the evidence will show, that was caused as much by Ms. Balboni herself and her ability not to have relationships with other members of the crew underway which caused the rumors and gossip and which caused the management problems which, of course, led to more counseling, which made it harder to get the job done, and poor work performance. It was the work performance that was the issue, not the friendship.

The evidence will show, Your Honor, on the next charge that Ms. Balboni's own admission in her own statement, not her own affidavit, the agreement, when she finished her appointment at the Human Rights District Office for which she had permission to be there, she was ordered to return immediately to the ship because there was a performance problem that Mr. Cascardi was responsible for getting done that was not done.

Ms. Balboni says that she was discriminated against by LT Cascardi because LT Cascardi ordered her to return to the ship even though at the time she had permission to be at the District Office.
The evidence, from her own testimony, will show that she was ordered to rush back from the offices when she was finished. She alleges that she was discriminated against by LT Cascardi because of her sex by his assigning extra work to the women.

Well, LT Margaret Carlson, who also worked for LT Cascardi, will testify that the women didn't get any more extra work than the men. The evidence will show that not only didn't Ms. Balboni get any more work than anyone else, the evidence will clearly show that she did not do the work that she was assigned and the work was no more than anyone else had.

The evidence will show that CWO Van Meter did much of the work that Ms. Balboni was assigned. The evidence will show that Mr. Van Meter did this work for Ms. Balboni even when he was not assigned as her assistant as Morale Officer.

The evidence will show that CWO Van Meter was relieved as assistant Morale Officer at some time in early December and that he continued to do her work for her, including morale reports, after specifically being ordered not to do so by CAPT Kies.

The evidence will show that CAPT Kies ordered CWO Van Meter relieved of the assistant Morale Officer because the time they were spending together was causing rumors and inuendos and he was trying to protect her from those rumors and inuendos. So, he had CWO Van Meter relieved, and still Mr. Van Meter and Ms. Balboni continued to flaunt their relationship.

The last allegation, Your Honor, says that she was the victim of continued and repeated harrassment from January 25 to Aprl 26 by CAPT Kies and LT Cascardi.

I don't know what the evidence will show on that, Your Honor, because as we talked before in the Motions before trial, that's hardly specific enough for me to understand what the harrassment would be.

In short, Your Honor, it's a simple case of a management problem which was caused by the Claimant's own behavior. The Captain heard the rumors; he heard the inuendos; he heard the gossip. It caused him some management problems. He instituted ruls, most of the other officers accepted the rules, whether they liked it or not.

The evidence will show that they put down the command in front of everyone on the ship; they made comments about the captain. The evidence will show that they were derogatory in nature, made to undermine; that Ms. Balboni specifically had relationships on the ship with enlisted members of the crew which caused the rumors to get worse, to cause the management problems to get worse.

When CAPT Telfer had to take some action, Balboni and Van Meter were counselled on several occasions; they did not take any action about it; their relationship continued; and Mr. Van Meter was warned that Mrs. Van Meter kept calling everyone on the ship and trying to get some action from everyone on the ship; that Mr. Van Meter and Ms. Balboni put the Command in such an awkward position that to get the job done became very difficult.

When it became very difficult, what the Command did was treat both of them very evenly--counsel themm, give them a chance to correct their conduct. Still they continued to flaunt their conduct, to the point of, as the evidence will show, that they were always together and the engineers had trouble finding Mr. Van Meter, and everytime they did find hhim, 90 percent of the time he was in Ms. Balboni's stateroom. What we have here is a management problem that became impossible to solve because of the recalcitrance of the two complainants.

Thank you, Your Honor.


FINDINGS OF FACT:

ADJUDGED AND ORDERED:


EPILOGUE:
Not one of the Alleged Discriminating Officials was disciplined or punished. The sworn charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice against all three officers were dismissed by the Commandant of the Coast Guard. No rational reasons were given. Captain Larry Telfer was transferred to Coast Guard Headquarters. Commander Phil Keyes was promoted to Captain and selected to attend post graduate training at the Command and Staff College. Lieutenant Andy Cascardi was promoted to Lieutenant Commander.
As the allegations in her complaint were proved to be true, all of the relief that LTjg Balboni requested was granted. She was not transferred from the CGC RUSH prematurely. The regular reports and the special fitness reports written concerning her were expunged from her service record. They were replaced with new reports for continuity purposes. She was never passed over for promotion.
Christine D. Balboni was rehabilitated and welcomed back into the brotherhood of the officer corps. She received her Masters of Science degree from George Mason University in 1995. She is presently a Captain on active duty in the United States Coast Guard.

Lcdr Steverson congratulates Balboni on her continued good fortune at her wedding.


Lcdr. London Steverson, Ensign Balboni's attorney was the only officer punished after the sorry saga of sexual harassment on the high seas. He had not asked for the case. He had been ordered to take it and to represent her zealously within the bounds of the law. He did his job too well. He was passed over for promotion to the next higher rank. He was passed over every year for the next ten years. He was forced to retire from active duty in 1988 having not been selected for promotion to commander.
He was Black.

(POST SCRIPT) Twenty-nine years later the U. S. Navy is hit with a similar incident of sexually explicit videos being shown on board a vessel. How did the Navy handling of the situation differ from that of the Coast Guard?

USS ENTERPRISE VIDEO SCANDAL: NAVY COMMANDER REVEALED AS THE MASTERMIND BEHIND RAUNCHY VIDEOS.
UPDATED: This story has been updated to include the full statement released by the U.S. Navy on matters addressed in the story below.

Owen Honors, Captain of the Norfolk-based USS Enterprise, was revealed as the producer of a series of "raunchy" videos made aboard the Navy carrier several years ago in a report released by the Virginian-Pilot on Saturday.

Filmed in 2006 and 2007 when Honors was the Enterprises's executive officer, the clips were reportedly shown to 6,000 sailors and U.S. Marines on the ship as part of what was called "XO Movie Night."
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/01/uss-enterprise-video-scandal_n_803263.html)

In one scene, two female Navy sailors stand in a shower stall aboard the aircraft carrier, pretending to wash each other. They joke about how they should get six minutes under the water instead of the mandated three.

In other skits, sailors parade in drag, use anti-gay slurs, and simulate masturbation and a rectal exam. Another scene implies that an officer is having sex in his stateroom with a donkey.

The videos created onboard USS Enterprise in 2006-2007 and written about in The Virginian-Pilot article on Saturday, January 1, 2011, are clearly inappropriate. Production of videos, like the ones produced four to five years ago on USS Enterprise and now being written about in The Virginian-Pilot, were not acceptable then and are not acceptable in today's Navy. The Navy does not endorse or condone these kinds of actions. Those in command, Commanding Officers, Executive Officers, and Command Master Chiefs (the command triad) are charged to lead by example and are held accountable for setting the proper tone and upholding the standards of honor, courage and commitment that we expect Sailors to exemplify. U.S. Fleet Forces Command has initiated an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the production of these videos.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cNEyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Pu8FAAAAIBAJ&dq=london%20steverson&pg=1336%2C997934

http://militarynjustice.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/female-officer-defends-honor/