Sláinte!

Pseudo-Happy Ending

Lately, I have been talking a lot about an article for which Brendon emailed me a link that reports the awful world of investigating Internet child pornography.

Brendon’s emailed description of the original story published by the LA Times:

The [above] link goes to an LA Times article about special units dedicated to wiping out child porn/molestation. It is a great article and worth reading, but be forewarned, it will also make you really sad and/or mad. Put tears in my eyes and I almost stopped reading. Judge for yourselves… (and it’s probably worth sending up more than a few prayers for these kids and their offenders)

The main victim covered in the story (Disney World Girl, pictured left in a police photo) has been rescued and her adoptive father, the man believed to have taken the pictures is behind bars.

Here’s the Associated Press follow-up published on Yahoo News.

I call it a pseudo-happy ending because, yeah she is safe, but as the first article explains, they rescue less than five hundred victims per year. “We’re doing a terrible job,” [Sgt. Paul Gillespie of the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit] says in his office at police headquarters. “Five hundred kids of 50,000? What is that?” Even after they rescue these children, the horror continues. Psychological trauma leaves deep, permanent scars. The victims will never lead normal lives.

Want to cry? Want to fight? Want to change the world?

Me too.

What now?

Shared Hope International is an organization already devoted to rescuing child-victims of sexual abuse. Nicole and I have been donors for nearly a year now. It’s something about which we feel very passionate. We hate reading the newsletters delivered to our mailbox which detail one or two stories of a fraction of the horror innocent children endure as much as we hated reading the LA Times article, but it is important not to ignore this. It is important to take the red pill (Matrix reference). Ignorance and complacence enables this torturing and killing of innocent children to continue.

Take a look.
Read Inez’s Story.
Then, do what your heart tells you.

This is a call to action!

Funny Soldier

I found this in an old (12/8/2003) US News & World Report a while back. I think I’ve looked at it about 50 times and laugh every time. I just love Jenkins’ facial expression here (upper left).

Do you think it’s posed? I would love to learn more about this photo. Does anyone know anything about it?

Here’s what I know:

• The soldier’s last name is most likely, “Jenkins” from the Army’s 1st Armored Division
• It was published in US News & World Report on December 12, 2003

You can read the article which accompanied this photo in the US News archives.

Vote for: My Buddy Icon

I have memberships to two sites (Last.fm and Flicker.com which encourage its users to upload a buddy icon.
bud·dy i·kon (bd  kn) n. A small (48×48 pixel) picture which represents/symbolizes someone’s personality.

So, I’ve made four (for now) which you can view as a set in my flickr account. Leave comments on this blog entry or on my flicker image space — the pictures are links to their homes on flickr.

Here’s a list for ya.

Part of the reason I haven’t spent much time developing the new SoulSoap site:

1. I don’t have a really good definition for the word/concept of SoulSoap.
2. I have hardly any time to work on it.
3. I write code all day at work. Sometimes I just don’t want to sit down and write some more.
4. I’m not a good designer. I’m pretty sure that the next one will be from some type of open-source design farm… that’s farm, not firm.
5. I have difficulty writing content.
6. You haven’t been hassling me enough. I respond well to nagging.
7. Flickr is a better place for pictures than a home-grown picture database. (I’ll probably still just redesign my picture pages to link to my Flickr pages
8. Nobody really visits anyway.

Gatsby: Standing Tall

So, here’s my first flickr photo. Brendon said it was cool, now I’m hooked. Stay tuned…