Dirt & the diplomat

[donsu]

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/11/11/Tampabay/Dirt__the_diplomat.shtml


Early edition: For decades, Richard Bradbury nursed his hostility for former ambassador Mel Sembler — who finally struck back when it got too personal. Now their grudge match has spilled into a public courtroom.

The wealthy, politically connected developer has it all over the jobless guy who can’t remember the last time he paid his taxes. Except for this intangible: Bradbury is on a mission. And he’s obsessed.


For 10 years he combed through the garbage outside Sembler’s home on Treasure Island, meticulously cataloging little treasures he discovered, including documents with the ambassador’s seal and presidential schedules complete with aircraft tail numbers.


Three years ago, Bradbury’s garbage runs hit what for him was the mother lode: Sembler’s discarded penile pump.
Thoughtful soul that he is, Bradbury offered the item on eBay:


“Pump, one of a kind formerly owned by current United States Ambassador to Italy …” Minimum bid: $300,000.

-snip-

The fight goes back more than 20 years, to a massive warehouse in Pinellas Park with blue plastic chairs and too many peanut butter sandwiches.


There, at a drug treatment center called Straight, Inc., 17-year-old Richard Bradbury landed in a world that he says was part Lord of the Flies, part Abu Ghraib prison.


Sembler and his wife, Betty, helped found Straight after they found out one of their sons was smoking pot, according to news reports.


In a book published this year, Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids, journalist Maia Szalavitz contends that dehumanizing practices at prisons and mental hospitals have been repackaged as therapy and sold to parents desperate to control their children. The first two chapters feature Straight, and Richard Bradbury.

-snip-

In 1989, former President George Bush appointed Sembler ambassador to Australia and another Straight co-founder, Joe Zappala, ambassador to Spain. Neither had diplomatic experience, but each had donated more than $100,000 to Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign.


-snip-

Sembler had kept his prostate cancer private. He had even declined to make an appearance for a prostate cancer organization.

-snip-

Bring it on, Bradbury wrote back. He welcomed a lawsuit to “open Pandora’s box” and expose what happened at Straight:


“I will give anything of my life for the victims of Straight,’’ he wrote, “in any legal effort to expose the dishonorable Melvin Sembler and all his actions including but not limited to the fraudulent organized child abuse Straight fraud centers.”

read on
long article
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sorry - I hit the wront button and posted this before finishing it

[peacetalksforall]

1. Bush, Sr. Fascinating that the person who has been written about

in many, many columns that connects the WH to young boy abuse issues is the person who named this guy an Ambassador.

When you are arrogant about your position and your power, do you place limits on your arrogance or are you arrogant about everything?

Funny how abuse stories rise to the surface of public attention ignoring gaps of time.

Torture. Torment. Torture. Torment. The running theme - no difference between physical and mental - better when they are combined?

Very sad all around. The reference to Shakespeare is appropriate.

There are some cultures on the planet that do not abuse children and youth. There are some who honor children and youth.