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boann
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ice queen colorado
Sep 2000
time: 22:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Dissident
makes me want to commit suicide. I just can't stand being amongst human like this.
I wish the news would report on good human beings, to reaffirm my faith in the human race. As of now, I have none. |
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something from the local paper..
not everyone is evil...
Leaving the slopes to save an island (01/29/05)
By BRIAN NEWSOME THE GAZETTE
PERALYA, Sri Lanka - Bruce French is a chef to rock stars. Bruce Springsteen and members of U2 and Red Hot Chili Peppers, to name a few.
French, 45, was looking forward to a winter of snowboarding near his Telluride home before going on tour with Pearl Jam this summer.
Then, while cooking for a wealthy San Francisco couple vacationing in the mountains, French watched on TV as devastation unfolded in South Asia.
He decided to hang up his apron - and his snowboard - to help. He cashed in his frequent flier miles and flew to Sri Lanka early this month.
"Some people can offer money," he said. "I figured I could offer sweat and spirit."
Established relief agencies aren't necessarily enthused about the influx of unattached volunteers, and they warn of the dangers of showing up with no plan except to help tsunami survivors.
French, however, has fared well, helping organize impromptu relief efforts in the village of Peralya on the island's southwest coast. It's turned into an enclave of volunteers who work side by side with villagers to tile roofs and install water purifiers.
Now the village has a makeshift school, a medical clinic, a dental tent and an $8,000 bank account. Fishing boats have been replaced. Hundreds of temporary homes are being built.
Workers wear laminated name badges.
Peralya is becoming a destination for other Sri Lankans seeking medical care. And some of the volunteers are venturing to other villages.
It's almost all been accomplished without the help of a formal relief agency. Only this week did the U.S. Agency for International Development bring heavy machinery to help clear debris.
Peralya was a far different place when French and some of the other volunteers arrived. While still in Telluride, French had offered his services to the Red Cross and other agencies, but they weren't looking for spontaneous volunteers. The San Francisco couple he was cooking for had a friend who was also bound for Sri Lanka. French met up with Oscar Gubernati, an Italian living in New York, in the Colombo airport two weeks after the tsunami hit.
Gubernati was accompanied by his girlfriend, Australian nurse Alison Thompson. They happened upon another volunteer with no specific plans at the airport, stuffed medical supplies into a rented van and headed south. Two more like-minded people joined along the way.
Most of the relief caravans passed by Peralya on their way to the bigger town of Galle. More curious travelers stopped at the village to gaze at the wreckage of a passenger train that had been washed off the tracks, killing at least 2,000 people.
French's entourage stopped. And stayed.
The place was "just a stew of debris and logs," French said. The villagers - about 500 families - were still dazed.
The outsiders helped them re-tile the roof of their library, originally built by UNICEF. The library books had washed away, so Thompson set up a medical clinic in the building. People who ingested salt water and sand had respiratory problems. Others had injured their feet fleeing the tsunami.
More volunteers stopped instead of passing through, and the transformation began. A group of Christian dentists, doctors and counselors - quickly formed after the tsunami - took up residence.
The wrecked train remains an attraction. Village children carry buckets among the visitors to collect donations. Some people give money, others bring in supplies.
One month after the calamity, the village bustles. Children go to school in a tent. Bulldozers clear vast piles of rubble. Newcomers just pitch in.
French's mission, as an organizer, has grown more complex than tiling roofs. Some volunteer leaders held a business meeting Friday with a dozen villagers upstairs in a water-damaged building overlooking the ocean. The group discussed how to pay one woman's hospital bill.
French, Gubernati and four others agreed to pay half the bill, with the other half covered by the village's new bank account.
Later that day, Gubernati approached French to say that false rumors of another tsunami were rampant in the town of Galle and would no doubt spread to Peralya soon. They enlisted the village "mayor" to maintain calm.
Then French talked with some workers about where to put a tank for fresh water. When they found a spot, covered in debris, he tracked down a front-end loader to clear it.
"I don't think any of us had a clear picture of how this was going to come together," French said. "I never dreamed we'd be able to accomplish this much."
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shawnmmcc
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Don't worry, once they are convicted their fellow prisoners will make their life hell. I just hope none of them get too anxious. Remember Dahmler? Even protected, and an obvious nutcase (still responsible for his actions, however, he was nuts - my wife will kill me for not using a proper DSM IV revised diagnosis, but I'm massively sleep deprived) and not in the general population, a fellow inmate killed him.
And the foster system in the USA is obscene, and the politicians and voters indifference to it equally so. It is one of the most shameful things about our country I am aware of, look at the prognosis of a kid committed to our foster care system. It's hideous.
I once gave a talk to a group of kids at a location my wife was doing an internship at. It was in Appalachia (poor, low economic and education region of the US) and the school system was warehousing "problem" kids. So you have boys who were acting out because their parents were too tired after a hard days work (I am NOT making this up) to actually work with them warehoused with the boy whose father had raped him from grade school age (public record, daddy went to prison) and whose pictures, which I photographed for my wife and cannot discuss, were utterly chilling juxtipostions of everyday items.
He was in a group home, getting minimal treatment, warehoused with juvenile deliquents, and was expecting to be on the streets of Columbus, OH when he turned 18 and dead by 22. I gave a talk to the boys over surviving abuse, and when he didn't want to sit down and mess up his nice jeans (we were outside the director, who was off that day, ran it as his own little fiefdom - the kids could do nothing for Halloween because it was satanic) instead let him sit on my coat, and he almost broke out in tears because it was a normal human kindness and connection he didn't receive. I still wonder what happened to him. I wonder what will happen to these poor children in the underfunded and overworked CPS and foster sytem in Florida.
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shawnmmcc
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I cannot discuss the details, as in what was specifically in the art work the adolescent did (versus a generalized statement). I knew some jerk would probably ask about details, so I phrased it that way to cut off such queries.
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shawnmmcc
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Context, General Ludd, everything is context. Look at the public record of the father's crime, and then use your imagination. Unless you are very imaginitive, I doubt you'll get it. If you do, you are a seriously disturbed individual.
By the way, I realize that I am being less than consistant in my postings on justice versus this extra-judicial hell I wish for these people. Mistreatment of children is a major hot spot for me. I watched my brother's personality slowly dissolve under the tender ministrations of my father. I suspect I could not serve on a jury in a case like this. However, note that this does meet my criteria for "caught the bastard red-handed" versus "reasonable doubt". The few details already point to a monstrous situation, and I seriously doubt that they will get any better as additional facts come to light.
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shawnmmcc
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General Ludd - it's his past, not mine. I can share details of my life as I see fit. I probably should not have stated what I did, but the intersection of his life and mine has helped influence my thinking, in fact my feelings, on issues like this. I try to keep it germane, and to give a context and the fact to me these children are real, they have faces, feelings, and mangled lives. They aren't some faceless kids in foster care who are getting substandard care while I ***** that my taxes are too high - which I don't, by the way, for reasons exactly like this.
This occurred sufficiently long ago, over two decades if my math isn't off, so the conviction is probably not on a public database. Plus the fact that if I gave his father's name (which to be honest I don't remember, only the boy's first name, because that's how I talked to him) then his choice would be removed, if he is still alive. My wife will no longer have those notes, she was actually an officer of the court and serving under the probation department (I did mention they were warehousing messed up kids, didn't I?) who would retain any records. Even if I asked her, she absolutely could not help me at all, especially if I told her the context of the request. So stop trolling, please?
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05-02-2005 12:56
. (when coming from the southen states).
I want to know what can be so chilling about "everyday items".
)?
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