If you would like to be horrified, just read these sad Twitter and FB responses to Chris Brown's performance at the Grammys last night.

For all his questionable policy decisions - and there are many! - and public gaffes, domestic and teen dating violence is one area in which Governor LePage has chosen to lead.

The Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee is reviewing a domestic-violence related bill at the State House: LD1704, which would effectively tighten the reins on bail for alleged perpetrators of domestic assault.

Today's Time Magazine issue has a large article on American militia groups and others plotting various ways to overthrow or undermine the federal government. Included on the third page, at least online, is an extensive account with new (and literally explosive) details about a man who abused his wife and was later killed by him, in Belfast, Maine, in 2008

In this week's paper, I have a story about a new Caring Unlimited report that shed lights on what happens in the courtroom during domestic violence case hearings. (I'll put the link up once it's available online.) I wasn't able to catch York County DA Mark Lawrence, whose office prosecutes such cases, before my deadline, but I was able to speak with him this afternoon.

Read this disturbing op-ed in today's NYT, about New York's "choking loophole," which makes it so that "choking by compressing someone’s neck is not considered assault unless there is evidence that the victim suffered physical injury."

"And yet choking very often leaves few or no visible signs," reads the op-ed, which was written by two women's-rights advocates.

Domestic-violence and GLBT-equality activist/organizer Jill Barkley is running for Maine representative; she'll offiically announce her candidacy at the North Star on Sunday (and yes, PPH commenter, the North Star is actually JUST within her hopeful district lines). The 28-year-old, who works as public awareness and policy coordinator at the Maine Coaltion to End Domestic Violence, hoping to represent District 119, a compact zone that covers downtown/Parkside/Bayside and is currently served by longtime politician Herb Adams (his term is up this year).

With several disturbing domestic violence stories in Maine's newspapers over the past few weeks, this Village Voice article about how young people perceive the Rhianna-Chris Brown incident is worth a read.

In the article, author Raquel Cepeda offers a thought-provoking quote from Elizabeth Mendez Berry, a New York City–based journalist who wrote "Love Hurts," about DV in the hip-hop community: "I think women are often socialized to empathize more with men than with other women," Mendez Berry says, referring to women's tendency to at least partially blame Rhianna's alleged infidelity for the violent incident.

For those who think I don't give credit where it's due, I am announcing that the Blethen Maine Newspapers have today published a must-read piece. Naomi Schalit, opinion page editor at the Kennebec Journal and Central Maine Morning Sentinel, has an excruciating - and no less so for its nobility - account of domestic violence in her own life, and in the lives of others