Should a 13 yr old sex slave be prosecuted for prostitution and her pimp get off?

Houston Texas, which has been called  the national hub of human trafficking, recently had an interested case of mentally retarded 13 year old runaway girl being  prosecuted for prostitution even though the legal age for consenting to sex  is 14.

The case involves a girl identified as B.W., taken from her mother at age 11 and placed with Child Protective Services. After running away from CPS, she was picked up by Houston Police Department officers two years later after they observed her trying to sell herself on the street. She was booked on charges of prostitution. Later, after her age of 13 became known, she was placed in the juvenile system and charged with delinquency for committing prostitution instead of returning her to CPS.

link

The Texas Supreme Court hearing is here between the lawyers who are arguing whether a child can be prosecuted for prostitution. I watched it in its 45 minute entirety because I was pretty shocked! This is shock and awe material for anyone familiar with how sex slavery is done. It takes a while for the page to load the video, but I believe if you are interested in human trafficking it may be worth your watching to see what we are up against and how our system is so anti  girls who are under the influence of sex traffickers.

Highlights are minute 9:30 where Ann Johnson begins her argument that sending 13 year old girls to jail for prostitution is a bad idea and will just cause a vacuum that will get the human trafficker to find another 13 year old runaway, convince her that he loves her, and then sell her body for sex, pick her up, and then pick her up and her cash after she is done.

After that- go to minute 29:30

Judges : Has anyone gone to see who this alleged boyfriend is?

DA: The record is silent about that. I can’t tell you.

Judge: Do you find that disturbing?

Yes it is disturbing!

http://stmarytxlaw.mediasite.com/mediasite/SilverlightPlayer/Default.aspx?peid=34f4a4037aea4c4da860e9184d7430c3

RIP: Author J.D. Salinger (1919-2010)

Review for “Hope For Haiti Now” Download

I was expecting some nice tunes, but this is music by the greatest musicians giving their best efforts to help out Haiti after the terrible earthquake, like only 2 weeks after the catastrophe happened. I have not heard anything this great from Rock and Roll since the 1971 Concert of Bangladesh with George Harrison and Ravi Shankar and Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr which raised 243K for Bangladesh which had just suffered a cyclone and a terrible war.
This music restores my faith in the power of music and America to do good – a faith that was sorely tested after the slow response to the Katrina disaster in New Orleans.

Here’s my song rundown:

Send Me An Angel – The beautiful voice of Alicia Keyes who “Sometimes I feel like… I don’t belong anywhere” but is begging for an angel to direct her to heaven so that she doesn’t feel like a dove with no wings. Very heartfelt.

A Message of 2010 – ColdPlay plays a catchy tune about how they are not going to take a bath until the message hits home that we should help NOW.

We Shall Overcome – Bruce Springsteen sings that old great spiritual – We shall overcome someday. We are not afraid! Here in my heart we shall overcome day. Haiti will overcome.

Time to Love/Bridge Over Trouble Waters – Stevie Wonder does Bridge Over Trouble Waters with more sheer honesty and spirit than Art Garfunkel.

I’ll Stand By You – Shakira sings that she will “Stand By You” no matter what! I guess even if we believe in voodoo!

Motherless Child – John Legend gets “Sometimes I feel like a…” exactly right. Sometimes he feels like a motherless child. A long, long way from home. A great cover of this bluegrass classic.

Hard Times Come Again No More – Mary J. Blige A plea to Hard Times to not come again to her cabin door no more. Another beautiful voice!

Breathless -Taylor Smith sings about orphan survivors running into her arms breathless. “I will never judge you. I can only love you.”

Lift Me Up – Christina Aguilera wants to be lifted up.

Driven To Tears – Sting gets preachy. A great musical sermon with a great solo.

Halo – Beyonce can see Haiti’s Halo. A beautiful song.

Lean on Me – Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock, and Keith Urban cover “We all need someone to lean on!”. Just call on me brother, when you need a hand. I will remember that.

Like a Prayer – Madonna – in the midnight hour I can feel Your power! Especially when You call out Madonna’s name!

Hallelujah – Justin Timberlake – Bathsheba makes an appearance in this song.

Let it Be – Jennifer Hudson covers the Beatles song.

Many Rivers to Cross – Emeline Michel sings a sad song about the trial of crossing rivers.

Stranded – Jay-Z, Bono, the Edge, Rilianno I’m not going to lead you stranded. A great song written about the Haiti earthquake. “The Saints are Coming” hit of the album. I hope this song is true.

Alone and Forsaken – Dave Matthews and Neil Young sing about tragedy and God.

Rivers of Babylon/Yele – Wyclei Jean starts out with Psalm 137 and then goes crazy! Actually I think this is the greatest song on the album! The earth shake! But the soul of the Haitian people will never break!

Stranded – an even better version of “I am not going to leave you stranded!”

Truly a great download with the money going to a great cause!

(I published this review on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Hope-For-Haiti-Now/product-reviews/B0035QNFGW/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?ie=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=1&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

Dreaming on Martin Luther King Jr Day

I have a dream that many guys would man up and commit to love one woman for a lifetime, and that all children would have 2 parents that love and do not abuse each other. Cohabitation is destroying the concept of marriage, not gay marriage.

I have a dream that many young people and couples would become missionaries in Africa. They can pay off their VISA’s and Mastercard’s just as well over there as over here.

I have a dream that American churches would adopt African villages and build a well of clean water for each and every village.

I have a dream that there would be no invisible children in Uganda.

I have a dream that church on Sunday would be not the most segregated hour of the week, but the most desegregated.

I have a dream that churches would have both English and Spanish and sign language services in America.

I have a dream that there will be a pro-life health care bill and all the Democrats will vote for it and all the Republicans will vote against it.

I have a dream that instead of sending Soldiers to kill the children of Afghanistan and Iraq, that the United States would be sending Nurses and Doctors and School Teachers.

I have a dream that blacks would have the same life spans as whites.

I have a dream that Houston would stop building the biggest abortion extermination center outside of China (78000 ft, 6 floors, clinics designed for late 2nd trimester term abortions) which is aimed at aborting minority children in that city. http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pphset/moving.htm

I have a dream that every child, black, white or Spanish,  in Houston will receive good education and health care.

I have a dream that Sarah Palin would not be our next president or secretary of state.

I have a dream that they would design a stun gun that doesn’t kill people and that cops would carry these instead of real guns.

I have a dream that revival would break out in America, starting with the cities. Maybe starting in Philadelphia.

I have a dream that there would be no nuclear weapons in ANY country, including the USA.

I have a dream that no country would use water boarding (simulated drowning) – which is torture.

I have a dream that the Taliban would discover peace and Jesus Christ and start respecting women.

I have a dream that the news of Jesus Christ would spread throughout the entire world – Asia, Africa, Europe, Americas, Antartica, the North Pole – and the result of this would be prosperity for all, instead of prosperity for the few, and the advancement of the Kingdom of God.

Christmas 100 years ago – December 25, 1909

East Coast Christmas in 1909 is unique  to Christmas 2009 in that both Christmas’s had huge 20 inch snow storms before them! New York City was caught completely by surprise and the city was not ready to clear the streets of the snow. The broadway theater crowd got out of their plays and found that public transportation was not moving. They spent Christmas Eve stuck on trolleys and trains or Manhatten hotel rooms. There was an 86 year old crazy lady who escaped from a Sanitorium by car, and everyone was concerned about her driving ability in the snow. Twelve people died in weather related accidents. Mark Twain’s 29 year old daughter, Jean,  died on Christmas Eve. She had an epeleptic fit and was discovered dead, drowned in the bathtub,  by the maid. Mark Twain (also known as Samuel Clemens)  was to die in 1910 (with Haley’s comet) in April at age 75, outliving his wife, and all his children except for one married daughter in Europe. The big New York City news item of the day was a huge strike by girl clothing makers. Twenty thousand  girls were striking for a 52 hour work week, and a raise in their 8 cents an hour pay, and the right to unionize, and to be paid as much men (equal pay for equal work). Another item everybody was following was a guy named Frederick  Cook, who said he had reached the North Pole, but nobody believed him, so he had a nervous breakdown.

Most of this information was gotten from reading the front pages on the New York Times for December 1909.

Review of Taken

The movie “Taken” is out on DVD, and I watched it this weekend.  Five Stars.

Taken and Liam Neeson does the same thing for being a super dad, that Airforce One and Harrison Ford did for being a good president. I hate human trafficking, especially when it is in my backyard, and I can totally understand why someone like this ex-spy dad would yield the baseball bat and start knocking off the bad guys to rescue his innocent daughter who is kidnapped from under her Hotel French bed! Mostly, he just inflicts “flesh wounds”. It is a very well researched entertaining movie about the world we actually live in today. I strongly recommend this good dad movie to anyone who is mad about the modern human slave trade and/or raising a teenage daughter.

It is violent and contains strong language.

Practical things to do about human trafficking

Be on the lookout for signs of human trafficking such as underage children working in restaurants, massage parlors, etc. If you suspect that human trafficking is happening in your neck of the woods call this anti-trafficking  hotline number – 888-3737-888 to report it. This is implemented by the Polaris Project and paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. If you do this to tell me what happens! (email me or leave a comment below)

Avoid buying stuff made by slaves. You may need to do internet research to do this (see next step). Now a lot of grocery stores sell FAIR TRADE chocolate and coffee and other food items, sometimes located in the organic food section. The FAIR TRADE label is a guarantee by a third party that the product was not made using slave labor. I just bought a bag of fair trade coffee from The Daily Audio Bible.

Buy local food when possible. Gretchen and I buy food from a local farmer – pay for it in the winter and then get it in the  Spring, Summer, and Fall directly from them. http://markcole.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/farm-party/

Set up news alerts for human trafficking and your city or county using google news search.

Inform your friends about modern day slavery. There are tens of millions of slaves in our global market place, producing products that we buy, and over a million sex slaves, mainly women and children,  in the global sex trade. All of this needs to be ended now.

Here are sites for more information:

http://www.polarisproject.org/

http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/

http://www.invisiblechildren.com/home.php

http://hatcloset.blogspot.com/2009/12/ethical-holidays.html (Gretchen’s post)

more tips and trafficking news:

http://humantrafficking.change.org/

That should get you started! I am drinking a Mexican coca-cola from the local corner Mexican grocery store and it is refresco! Its in one of those old fashioned glass bottles and the Mexicans have better coke than the US does! Do not overlook tiny food stores that might be in your own very neighborhood, on the way to your supermart!

Best wishes in changing the world!

Craziness in Mozambique

This sounds like something from 1984.

“I can’t believe in justice anymore. I am not informed. There is no respect…They just want us to forget. If you do not have money to pay nothing happens… ” – Chimène Costa, partner of Augusto Cuvilas who was shot and killed by the police in December 2007

The right to life … is the supreme right from which no derogation is permitted even in time of public emergency … The protection against arbitrary deprivation of life…. is of paramount importance. … States parties should take measures not only to prevent and punish deprivation of life by criminal acts, but also to prevent arbitrary killing by their own security forces. – Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 6, the right to life

INTRODUCTION

In the early hours of the morning of 8 November 2007, Julião Naftal Macule was asleep in a hotel room in Massinga, Inhambane, when police from the Rapid Intervention Force (FIR) suddenly pushed open the door and shot him. The police said they had been told that a wanted criminal — “public enemy number one” — was in the hotel room and when they burst into Julião’s room they immediately shot and killed him. Soon after his death police authorities announced they had captured and killed Agostinho Chauque, “the most wanted criminal in the country”. It was only after journalists asked to see the body that the police said they had not actually caught Agostinho Chauque, but had nevertheless caught and killed “a dangerous criminal”.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/KHII-7XX3UZ?OpenDocument

News item from Mozambique, Africa.

 

Moon Rocks are disappearing all over the planet

This looks like great fodder for a conspiracy theory or at least a SF story. Moon rocks are disappearing all over the planet.  Scientists cannot find 5 moon rocks that were given to the state of Hawaii:

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20091023/NEWS01/910230366/Hawaii+s+moon+rocks+go+missing

but it is not just in Hawaii, it is moon rocks generally that are disappearing. According to the above article:

“But Hawaii isn’t alone. Gutheinz said that only about three dozen of the 368 gift moon rocks given to countries and states can now be accounted for.”

So that makes 332 moon rock gifts stolen or unaccounted for, 36 left to go.

Some more articles about this strange phenomena:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3912829.stm

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/main.php?id=47888&cat_id=1

The Love, Hope, and Eat Statues by Robert Indiana

The Love Statue is an icon that is in a lot more places than Love Park in Philadelphia. There is also a Love Statue in Hebrew:

That is located in Jerusulem, Israel.

Robert Indiana’s newest creation is called “Hope” and here is a photograph of that:

And before the Love Statue and the Hope Statue … his first great statue had the word Eat on it:

It debuted at the New York World’s fair in 1964, but hungry people were expecting to get fed when they saw it, so they removed the lights.

Here is the Love Statue in Love Park in Philadelphia: