SivaGanesha

I agree with everything that you said, skygypsie. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I know I promised to stop commenting on this but I'm afraid I do have a bit more to say. I'm 48 years old and I've been hearing about these issues from women since I was 16 years old. Women have been "making me feel it" for over three decades. I think that I'm aware of what it feels like at this point. I've heard of that scene in that movie but actually viewing it would be a trigger for me as well that would do nothing to increase my understanding of sexual assault at this stage in my life. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I truly do "get" what you are saying about a tandem being an important milestone in a woman's recovery. But I still feel that the key ingredient in providing positive, healing tandems of the type you describe is the human touch of a DZO who fosters an environment of respect for women--and not a query of a federal database. That is why I would still leave the final decision up to the DZO (and, of course, the decision of where/whether to jump at their DZ is up to the jumper). Anyways you started this thread by asking people's opinions. I've stated mine and won't have anything more to say on this subject. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

But here's the thing. That kind of language used to describe a tandem jump--"rubbing up on a woman's ass"--makes me extremely uncomfortable regardless of whether the guy is a registered sex offender or not. It makes it sound like there's something sexual about a tandem jump at least when the passenger is of the gender that the TI is attracted to. It makes it sound like TI's are getting some sort of pleasure of an inappropriate kind from these jumps but most are just smart enough not to cross a line where they become registered sex offenders. If that's how tandem is seen, it makes me uncomfortable with the whole concept of tandem. It makes me uncomfortable, for example, giving a tandem jump as a gift to a female family member. I don't like the idea of the TI somehow getting that kind of pleasure from such a jump regardless of whether he is a registered sex offender or not. I don't want TI's getting sexual pleasure from their work. If that's how the job of a TI is seen then THAT is the problem--and we're focusing on the wrong thing when we talk about registered sex offenders. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Although I've argued against direct, high level, USPA involvement in this thread--in such a circumstance I would make an exception. In such a circumstance, I would feel that the absolute least that the USPA board of directors could do would be to support the bereaved husband in any way possible. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Also up to the DZO. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Well I'm a guy and I think my position on this is quite simple: it is up to the DZO. Period. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Most of my early jumps from 1983-1985 were under Sierra round canopies--which are quite different from square canopies but also, I think, not quite the same as the parachutes used in WW2 on D-day, etc. The Sierra had some forward speed but not as much as a square--you could certainly steer it with toggles and control what direction you were going. Unlike a square it didn't create any lift, so you didn't so much fly it as just ride it down to the ground. It had some advantages, though. I found it easier to focus on the PLF than with a square because, when landing, basically ALL you did was focus on doing a good PLF. That's different from a square where you have to simultaneously focus on doing a good flare. You set up into the wind and focused on the PLF. Landing seemed to me a more passive process--feet and knees together and look out at the horizon--whereas with a square there is a lot you have to be doing actively. After awhile I was able to occasionally do a stand up landing under a round by pulling down on the back risers, but most landings were PLF's. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Then it's not my place to try to tell you how to run your business. But if you go beyond that role and start asking USPA to make changes I disagree with on a sport-wide basis--beyond your own DZ--I will exercise my right to vote for candidates more in keeping with my own views. (Although, just to tell it like it is, as a DZO you will probably have more clout than I.) "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

OK--but there are ways of making this determination today without having to exclude those guilty of lesser crimes that might, technically, be considered sex offenses. I think almost everyone agrees that it is desirable to exclude rapists and anything involving a child (where "child" does NOT mean either of two close-in-age adolescents). I can't agree with your solution that you admit "stinks" of excluding all sex offenders no matter how minor the offense. There are better solutions--viable at present--that don't "stink" or at least don't "stink" as badly. But if a given DZO wants to exclude a given person for whatever reason that is their choice. I don't have any say in what the DZO does. I do--at least in theory--have a say in what USPA does through my vote for the Board of Directors. If a candidate for Board of Directors presented your solution I wouldn't vote for them. Period. As for your concern that a minor crime might be a plea bargain down from something more serious--yes, that is always possible but I feel it is not a good basis to make a decision. If you used that as a basis, where would it stop? I mean, even someone getting a speeding ticket might be fleeing the scene of a rape for which the police never got enough evidence to charge. Are we going to bar everyone with speeding tickets? I do agree with two points you've repeated a couple of times: (1) This is definitely a real problem that should be addressed and (2) Your proposed solution stinks. There are better solutions that solve this problem at least as well as it can be solved and which don't stink as badly. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

The thing is that you make it sound like under the "current system" there are no alternatives besides issuing a blanket denial to everyone on the sex offender list. Although I agree with you that nothing is ever perfect, we can definitely do better than that already. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

One reason why I'm cautious about agreeing with you is that I'm unsure of what direction you are heading in. When you opened this thread, your first post seemed extremely reasonable: how do we keep the violent rapists/molesters out of these roles (something most would agree with) without punishing the basically innocent folks like the 18 year old sleeping consensually with a 16 year old girlfriend. However, you seem to be evolving into a more intolerant, less reasonable, stance--more recently saying that you absolutely do want to bar the 18 year old kid and also using what I'm sure you realize is very loaded language: referring to an 18 year old sleeping with a 16 year old as "something involving a child". In my opinion it definitely is not. You started out being reasonable but you've moved away from that position--so you are going in an unhealthy direction IMHO. That is part of the reason I find it hard to agree with you. If you'd continued on the tack you started on I would be extremely supportive. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

In certain respects, society seems inclined to be harsher to rapists/sex offenders even than to murderers. For example, when murderers (involved in a non-sex crime murder) do happen to get out on parole after many years, society doesn't seem to subject them to a lifetime of shame in quite the same way that we do for rapists. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I would still--as I think you proposed earlier in this thread--leave it up the DZO. And the DZO doesn't decide who gets certified--only who gets hired or can do tandems on their own DZ. The reason is that I think the general issue of what we should do about sex offenders is something that has to be resolved at a societal level--and there are many people in society at large who are thinking about these issues--including but not limited to politicians who I'm paying (through my taxes) to deal with these issues. I'm not saying that society has got it right but I AM saying that the general problem needs to be solved by society as a whole, not by USPA. When it comes to USPA, I'm a member. And I want my $55/year (or whatever it is) to go SOLELY to focusing on skydiving issues--not these sex offender matters. No matter how valid a concern the sex offender matters are at a societal level, I'm simply not paying the USPA to focus on these matters. I'm paying the USPA to focus on skydiving--period. I do realize that USPA recently introduced a BSR related to under-18 jumpers. But I feel that the USPA overstepped in that matter and I feel that if they wade into the sex offender issue they'll be overstepping again. But an individual DZO is running a business and it isn't up to me to tell them how to run that business. If they choose to do background checks on their employees/contractors--which may include checking the sex offender lists but may also include other criminal background checks--that is their prerogative and simply none of my concern as I'm not a DZO. That's why I think it should be up to the DZO. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

It occurs to me that there is a HUGE risk for the DZO in hiring a registered sex offender that doesn't exist for most business owners--and that no one has mentioned yet in this rather long thread. A TI or other employee of the DZ will often end up living in a trailer at the DZ. The registered sex offender will then, as a condition of their registry, have to report that address to law enforcement. Thus when people look up those sex offender maps that are available on the Web, the arrow will point directly to the DZO's business. Probably not the kind of publicity the DZO wants. This is a problem that wouldn't exist in industries (like most industries) where it isn't customary for the employees to live at their place of work. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Sorry but I can't quite agree with this perspective. I do not think that the victims of one injustice should just keep quiet because it allegedly might help prevent another injustice. Moreover, I can't even agree that the scenario billvon described is a "stupid mistake". How can a university students possibly avoid being nude in front of minors? It's going to happen in the showers in the gym or dorm if nowhere else. Maybe those are the same sex but discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender is illegal. Really it goes back to an ethical principle I learned in kindergarten and still believe in: two wrongs don't make a right. As an adult, of course I realize the world doesn't always work that way but I still feel it is an ideal worth striving for. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Distal radius fracture for me on a jump on Jan 26 of this year. Basic cause, IMHO, was unfamiliarity with flying the pattern at an unfamiliar DZ. This resulted in a low turn and a hard landing. I should have attempted a much less demanding jump (relative to my skill level) for my first jumps at an unfamiliar DZ, and also spent more time getting a DZ briefing. Surgery on Feb 12. Cleared medically to begin putting normal weight on the wrist/arm on May 5 and finished occupational/physical therapy on May 21. Expect to get back in the air soon but do expect to be a bit nervous. So I'm going to do things properly this time--do a proper recurrency jump followed by fairly simple jumps until I'm used to flying again in freefall and under canopy. I don't expect to ever regain full range of motion in the wrist but it has healed a great deal since the first weeks after surgery--and at this point I'm not really feeling any limitations on my normal non-skydiving day-to-day activities. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Four decades total for me, despite not having many jumps overall: 1980's, 1990's, 2000's, and 2010's. Only 3 jumps total in the 1990's, one of which was a tandem. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

True. However, I think in a lot of cases the plaintiff's attorney in a civil case would actually have a strong DISincentive to try to pressure a prosecutor to file criminal charges. The reason is that if criminal charges are filed, the defendant may well switch their priorities and their financial resources to defending the greater legal risk: the criminal case. This could leave the defendant unable to pay a civil settlement so the plaintiff's civil attorney won't get paid. Never a happy outcome for any attorney. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

As others have also said, I'm concerned about expanded definitions of "sex offender" rendering the term almost meaningless. If it's a child molester or rapist, then never, ever allow them in any position working with customers. But what if it's an 18 year old sleeping with a 17 year old? Someone caught peeing in public? A teen charged w/child porn for taking "selfies" of themselves nude? In those cases, I'd say let them enjoy the sport for awhile but as a participant, not an instructor. But let's say that after a few years they've (a) not been in trouble with the law again and (b) developed a reputation for always acting like a gentleman or a lady at the DZ. At that point I would take them at their word that they just had trouble with the law due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time--and entrust them with more responsibility. Again, I'm NOT talking about violent predators. Keep the violent predators out of situations involving trust forever. I'm talking about basically good people who ended up as registered sex offenders due to technicalities in the law. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

The problem with this advice is that the OP is about to get his 'A' license and one of the problems with getting an 'A' license is that you sometimes lose access to the instructors who might have been able to answer such a question. This advice is great for a student who is always jumping with instructors--but once you get your 'A' you may no longer be jumping with instructors and there may be no one who is both qualified to answer the OP's question and has seen the OP in action. At least that is how it seems to me in the USA. An 'A' license seems to mean different things in different countries. Here in the USA, it seems to me that an 'A' license gives you lots of privileges--for example, being able to participate in unlimited group jumps--but at the same time you lose access to the mentors who might be able to give advice as to what you can do safely (as opposed to what is just technically legal). That can be a problem--at least with the way the 'A' license works in the USA. I don't know the procedures in Argentina where the OP is located. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

You may well be correct. If you are correct, the effect will be that the white race will tend to disappear as a separate race faster than other races--although I think the first two factors I listed are demographically more significant. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

As I said at the outset of my post and will say again: I'm addressing only what I see actually happening. I'm not offering any opinions on what should or should not be happening. If I see a particular trend happening, I can extrapolate that trend into the future, while still keeping private my opinions as to whether that should or should not be happening. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I don't think the situation (regarding people) is entirely symmetrical, no. I do think that if current trends continue, eventually all races will cease to exist as separately recognizable races. But I also think that the white race will be the first to disappear as a separately recognizable race. Whether that is a good or bad thing I will leave for others to judge--I'm simply offering a prediction. I make this prediction for a few reasons: Although people tend to make bland statements about people moving more freely around the globe, it seems to me that immigration doesn't always occur in equal numbers in both directions. There is much more permanent immigration from countries that are mostly non-white to countries that are (or were in the past) mostly white such as the USA, Canada, or Australia. There is significantly less permanent immigration in the other direction, meaning there are still many countries in the world which are pretty solidly of one (non-white) race and a shrinking number of predominantly white countries. Birth rates tend to be dropping--a LOT--in the Western world (ie countries that are or used to be mostly white). Actually this is happening worldwide--and that's good for the planet--but it is happening faster in the West. For a variety of reasons (this thread isn't the place to drill down in more detail), it seems to be culturally much more difficult for Westerners to form families these days than it was for prior generations--and the families they do form are smaller than in the past. Again, this is happening worldwide but the trend is stronger in the West. The third factor is really just a matter of semantics, but it seems to me that people with both white and non-white ancestry tend to prefer to call themselves people of color rather than white. People, when they have a choice, don't seem to be proud to call themselves white. The most visible example at present: our fearless leader, Mr. Obama. Although this may initially appear to be an issue of semantics, it will have a real impact. If very few people want to identify themselves as white, it will tend to lead to very few white couples forming, so the white race--as a separate race--will disappear. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Perhaps the SSA is contending here that the original error was that the payments continued, in error, a little beyond the 18th birthday, at which point the children could indeed be held legally liable for the debt. That said, if the checks were made out in the parents' name after both the children and parents were legally adults, it is hard to see how there is a basis for recouping that money from anyone but the parents. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014