Saturday, September 15, 2007
No prison for teen who shot stepbrother - Seattle P-I
After hearing from youth's backers, judge shows leniency
[Follow-up from previous posting]
Confounding expectations and ignoring the wishes of prosecutors, a judge Friday spared 16-year-old Jordan Jantoc from prison time in the fatal shooting of his stepbrother and instead sentenced the teen to two years of electronic home-monitoring.Before handing down the sentence, Judge Harry McCarthy listened to an hour of testimony from Jantoc's family, school principal and church pastor -- all of whom pointed out that the shooting had been accidental and that no good would come from incarcerating the impressionable boy. Jantoc had pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter.
King County prosecutor Don Raz acknowledged that Jantoc's actions appeared unintentional. But "they nevertheless were criminal," he said, recommending a three-year sentence for the teen.
...
Michael's biological mother was nearly speechless at the ruling. Michelle Lucero lost custody of her child 14 years ago and said no one informed her of his death until eight months after the fact.
"I thought it was pretty easy," she said of the sentence outside McCarthy's chambers. "I expected him to do some time -- but not at home."
...
Under terms of the sentence, which takes into account time that Jantoc already has served at home, the teen will be monitored for another year, then turned over to the Department of Corrections' community custody division. McCarthy also ordered the boy to speak with other youths about the dangers of firearms.
"That will be your obligation," he told Jantoc.
"If you do your part to educate others, I think that will be of some help." [end]
After hearing from youth's backers, judge shows leniency
[Follow-up from previous posting]
Confounding expectations and ignoring the wishes of prosecutors, a judge Friday spared 16-year-old Jordan Jantoc from prison time in the fatal shooting of his stepbrother and instead sentenced the teen to two years of electronic home-monitoring.Before handing down the sentence, Judge Harry McCarthy listened to an hour of testimony from Jantoc's family, school principal and church pastor -- all of whom pointed out that the shooting had been accidental and that no good would come from incarcerating the impressionable boy. Jantoc had pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter.
King County prosecutor Don Raz acknowledged that Jantoc's actions appeared unintentional. But "they nevertheless were criminal," he said, recommending a three-year sentence for the teen.
...
Michael's biological mother was nearly speechless at the ruling. Michelle Lucero lost custody of her child 14 years ago and said no one informed her of his death until eight months after the fact.
"I thought it was pretty easy," she said of the sentence outside McCarthy's chambers. "I expected him to do some time -- but not at home."
...
Under terms of the sentence, which takes into account time that Jantoc already has served at home, the teen will be monitored for another year, then turned over to the Department of Corrections' community custody division. McCarthy also ordered the boy to speak with other youths about the dangers of firearms.
"That will be your obligation," he told Jantoc.
"If you do your part to educate others, I think that will be of some help." [end]
Labels: suffering
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Freed Iranian-American scholar recounts ordeal in Iran - International Herald Tribune
Haleh Esfandiari, the Iranian-American academic held for four months in solitary confinement in the political wing of Iran's infamous Evin prison, said in Washington that she was able to endure by sticking to a rigorous daily exercise regimen and blocking out anything that reminded her of home.
On the three occasions when the prison dinner was an Iranian dish called adas pollo, a mixture of rice, lentils and raisins that is the favorite of her two young granddaughters back in Washington, she said she refused to even look at it, for example.
"Once in prison I decided I was not going to fall apart," Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a research institute in Washington, said Monday. "To maintain my mental and physical well-being, I imposed a strict discipline on myself." ...
Esfandiari, 67, looking vibrant in a dark suit, orange scarf and gold brooch, spoke about her ordeal during an hourlong news conference at the Wilson Center and in a separate telephone interview with The New York Times.
It remained a mystery to her, she said, why she was imprisoned on May 8 after months of interrogation by intelligence agents. She was prevented from leaving Iran in December after a weeklong visit to her 93-year-old mother. ...
Haleh Esfandiari, the Iranian-American academic held for four months in solitary confinement in the political wing of Iran's infamous Evin prison, said in Washington that she was able to endure by sticking to a rigorous daily exercise regimen and blocking out anything that reminded her of home.
On the three occasions when the prison dinner was an Iranian dish called adas pollo, a mixture of rice, lentils and raisins that is the favorite of her two young granddaughters back in Washington, she said she refused to even look at it, for example.
"Once in prison I decided I was not going to fall apart," Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a research institute in Washington, said Monday. "To maintain my mental and physical well-being, I imposed a strict discipline on myself." ...
Esfandiari, 67, looking vibrant in a dark suit, orange scarf and gold brooch, spoke about her ordeal during an hourlong news conference at the Wilson Center and in a separate telephone interview with The New York Times.
It remained a mystery to her, she said, why she was imprisoned on May 8 after months of interrogation by intelligence agents. She was prevented from leaving Iran in December after a weeklong visit to her 93-year-old mother. ...
Labels: suffering
West Bank Boys Dig a Living in Settler Trash - N.Y. Times
... Most dig diligently for metal, which they dump into the ripped nylon sacks they carry.
Nearby, on a hill of garbage 10 feet high, a boy sat alone. He had found a plastic pack of crackers; he chewed them slowly, almost thoughtfully.
The boys are part of a loose-knit colony of scavengers, nearly 250 people who scramble over fetid hills of other people’s trash to eke out a living for their families and themselves. Most are younger than 16; some sleep here during the week to maximize the hours they can hunt for goods to sell. Many are related, from a few large clans, and they have a kind of organization, with a 23-year-old bulldozer driver who settles disputes, and a code of conduct, so that every digger’s finds are respected.
...
The scene is reminiscent of the third world, of places like Manila’s notorious garbage mountain, but this desperate place is next door to a country with the highest per capita income in the Middle East: Israel.
...
On a good day, working here from 5 a.m. until dusk, the boys make about $4.75.
...
Most of the other children walk, some of them 15 miles, then sleep here in makeshift shacks or blanket tents, before walking home again for the Muslim Sabbath.
He wore a stained cap bearing the symbol of Fatah. He said he found it in the trash. Muhammad Rabai interrupted, saying: “We don’t care for any of them, for Fatah or Hamas. We’re from the party of bread.”
...
The Ammour home in Yatta has two rooms for the family of 10 and no windows, just holes in the walls covered with yellow fabric that does little to block the sun.
The larger room is covered in mattresses. In the smaller room, set carefully on a green, sparkly cloth, is Fadi’s prized possession: a computer, which he patched together from parts salvaged from the dump. With a small boxy screen, and wires showing through cracks in the plastic, it functions. ...
... Most dig diligently for metal, which they dump into the ripped nylon sacks they carry.
Nearby, on a hill of garbage 10 feet high, a boy sat alone. He had found a plastic pack of crackers; he chewed them slowly, almost thoughtfully.
The boys are part of a loose-knit colony of scavengers, nearly 250 people who scramble over fetid hills of other people’s trash to eke out a living for their families and themselves. Most are younger than 16; some sleep here during the week to maximize the hours they can hunt for goods to sell. Many are related, from a few large clans, and they have a kind of organization, with a 23-year-old bulldozer driver who settles disputes, and a code of conduct, so that every digger’s finds are respected.
...
The scene is reminiscent of the third world, of places like Manila’s notorious garbage mountain, but this desperate place is next door to a country with the highest per capita income in the Middle East: Israel.
...
On a good day, working here from 5 a.m. until dusk, the boys make about $4.75.
...
Most of the other children walk, some of them 15 miles, then sleep here in makeshift shacks or blanket tents, before walking home again for the Muslim Sabbath.
He wore a stained cap bearing the symbol of Fatah. He said he found it in the trash. Muhammad Rabai interrupted, saying: “We don’t care for any of them, for Fatah or Hamas. We’re from the party of bread.”
...
The Ammour home in Yatta has two rooms for the family of 10 and no windows, just holes in the walls covered with yellow fabric that does little to block the sun.
The larger room is covered in mattresses. In the smaller room, set carefully on a green, sparkly cloth, is Fadi’s prized possession: a computer, which he patched together from parts salvaged from the dump. With a small boxy screen, and wires showing through cracks in the plastic, it functions. ...
Labels: suffering
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
India's poor are denied a painless death - International Herald Tribune
It was a neighbor screaming in pain 35 years ago that set M.R. Rajagopal on the path to his nickname: India's "father of palliative care."
"He was dying of cancer, with lots of tumors on his face and scalp," Rajagopal said. "His family asked if I could help, and I couldn't. I was just a medical student."
Today, the same neighbor with the same cancer would almost certainly die the same way - unless he lived in the tiny state of Kerala, where Rajagopal runs his Pallium India clinic here in the capital. Although opium was one of the chief exports of British India and the country still produces more for the legal morphine industry than any other country, few Indians benefit. They end up like millions of the world's poor: spending their last days writhing in agony, wishing death would hurry.
...
Elsewhere, the state laws enforcing the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, passed in 1985 to curb drug trafficking, are complex and harsh. The book outlining them is 1,642 pages, and even minor infractions can mean 10-year sentences. Legal morphine use in India plummeted 97 percent after 1985, reaching a low of 40 pounds in 1997. It has since crept up.
...
Rajagopal's manner is soothing; he sits on beds, holds hands and even strokes patients as he questions them.
"For a senior doctor in India, that's just unheard of," Leng said. "They usually keep a formal distance."
Talking unravels fears. Chandraprabha, 40, who like many people here uses only one name, avoided her hourly pills because she could not bear to look at a clock. it reminded her she was dying and her children would go to a stepmother she detested.
Abdulaziz, 62, said that what upset him more than death was that he felt too unclean to pray.
"My body is not pure," Abdulaziz said. "Also, because of the bandage, it's difficult to bathe."
He had sung the call to prayer at his mosque for 20 years, but had to stop in January when mouth cancer left him able only to mutter. Then the aggressive tumor ate through his face, making a beefy crater. as if a firecracker tucked in his cheek had gone off. Then, worse: A fly got under his bandage, and maggots began emerging, leading his imam to "excuse" him from attendance.
That was something Rajagopal's team could help with, cleaning out the ghastly invaders. And the six five-milligram morphine pills Abdulaziz takes daily have taken away what he called "a catching pain, like a fishhook in my face."
...
As a young anesthesiologist, he helped a professor with a cheek tumor by injecting alcohol to kill the nerve. It worked - but the professor hanged himself two nights later."I learned from his cousin that the fact that I had treated him for his pain alone was what told him his condition was incurable," Rajagopal said, still feeling guilty about it. "None of us had ever asked him what he knew about his disease, or how he felt. If only we had, maybe his children could have had their father for a couple of years more." ...
It was a neighbor screaming in pain 35 years ago that set M.R. Rajagopal on the path to his nickname: India's "father of palliative care."
"He was dying of cancer, with lots of tumors on his face and scalp," Rajagopal said. "His family asked if I could help, and I couldn't. I was just a medical student."
Today, the same neighbor with the same cancer would almost certainly die the same way - unless he lived in the tiny state of Kerala, where Rajagopal runs his Pallium India clinic here in the capital. Although opium was one of the chief exports of British India and the country still produces more for the legal morphine industry than any other country, few Indians benefit. They end up like millions of the world's poor: spending their last days writhing in agony, wishing death would hurry.
...
Elsewhere, the state laws enforcing the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, passed in 1985 to curb drug trafficking, are complex and harsh. The book outlining them is 1,642 pages, and even minor infractions can mean 10-year sentences. Legal morphine use in India plummeted 97 percent after 1985, reaching a low of 40 pounds in 1997. It has since crept up.
...
Rajagopal's manner is soothing; he sits on beds, holds hands and even strokes patients as he questions them.
"For a senior doctor in India, that's just unheard of," Leng said. "They usually keep a formal distance."
Talking unravels fears. Chandraprabha, 40, who like many people here uses only one name, avoided her hourly pills because she could not bear to look at a clock. it reminded her she was dying and her children would go to a stepmother she detested.
Abdulaziz, 62, said that what upset him more than death was that he felt too unclean to pray.
"My body is not pure," Abdulaziz said. "Also, because of the bandage, it's difficult to bathe."
He had sung the call to prayer at his mosque for 20 years, but had to stop in January when mouth cancer left him able only to mutter. Then the aggressive tumor ate through his face, making a beefy crater. as if a firecracker tucked in his cheek had gone off. Then, worse: A fly got under his bandage, and maggots began emerging, leading his imam to "excuse" him from attendance.
That was something Rajagopal's team could help with, cleaning out the ghastly invaders. And the six five-milligram morphine pills Abdulaziz takes daily have taken away what he called "a catching pain, like a fishhook in my face."
...
As a young anesthesiologist, he helped a professor with a cheek tumor by injecting alcohol to kill the nerve. It worked - but the professor hanged himself two nights later."I learned from his cousin that the fact that I had treated him for his pain alone was what told him his condition was incurable," Rajagopal said, still feeling guilty about it. "None of us had ever asked him what he knew about his disease, or how he felt. If only we had, maybe his children could have had their father for a couple of years more." ...
Labels: compassionate people, suffering
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Buried brothers survive on urine, coal and humour - Times (U.K.)
Two brothers who were trapped underground survived for six days by eating coal, drinking each others’ urine and cracking jokes about their wives before digging their way out of a collapsed mine shaft with their bare hands. Rescuers had called off their search and families had burned ghost money at the entrance to the pit and left offerings of steamed buns, cakes and canned food to assist the “deceased” miners in the afterlife. But Meng Xianchen and Meng Xianyou emerged after more than 130 hours trapped in the illegal mine in the Fangshan district of Beijing displaying the humour that helped to keep them alive.
...
They dug through half a metre in three hours, taking turns to work because the tunnel was so narrow. “At the end, we were so hungry we ate coal and thought it tasted delicious,” Meng Xianchen said.
...
China’s coalmines claim more lives than pits anywhere else in the world, with an average of 13 deaths a day from fires, explosions and floods. News of the brothers’ escape came as rescuers in Shandong province tried to reach 181 miners trapped in two flooded mine shafts. They have been missing underground for 11 days.
Two brothers who were trapped underground survived for six days by eating coal, drinking each others’ urine and cracking jokes about their wives before digging their way out of a collapsed mine shaft with their bare hands. Rescuers had called off their search and families had burned ghost money at the entrance to the pit and left offerings of steamed buns, cakes and canned food to assist the “deceased” miners in the afterlife. But Meng Xianchen and Meng Xianyou emerged after more than 130 hours trapped in the illegal mine in the Fangshan district of Beijing displaying the humour that helped to keep them alive.
...
They dug through half a metre in three hours, taking turns to work because the tunnel was so narrow. “At the end, we were so hungry we ate coal and thought it tasted delicious,” Meng Xianchen said.
...
China’s coalmines claim more lives than pits anywhere else in the world, with an average of 13 deaths a day from fires, explosions and floods. News of the brothers’ escape came as rescuers in Shandong province tried to reach 181 miners trapped in two flooded mine shafts. They have been missing underground for 11 days.
Labels: suffering
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Faces of the storm: how New Orleans is coping 2 years on - Fort Worth Star-Telegram
... New Orleans police officer David Hunter hung up his badge in April after 28 years, the last 20 months spent attempting to help people who were hurt and stranded by Hurricane Katrina.
Hunter also was trying to replace his home. His wife and newborn daughter became seriously ill. And he banged up his personal boat when someone shot at him while he was plucking victims from the flooding.
It got worse:
An insurance company denied Hunter's claim after learning he had damaged his party barge while using it for police work — to help people — rather than to party on.
...
It has been a rough two years for Ricky Scales and his family, ever since Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters sent them on a long journey of frustration, fright, uncertainty and joblessness.
Their troubles began even as they tried to escape the black water spilling from New Orleans' broken levees, when Ricky, wife Tamika and 10-year-old Alfrenisha were separated from the family's four other children. The parents and daughter landed on the crest of a downtown bridge as they tried to make their way to shelter in the Superdome.
As they continued on, Ricky waded into water over his head. When he re-emerged, Tamika and Alfrenisha had disappeared.
...
For nearly a month after the storm, Ricky did not know whether his wife, three children and two stepchildren had survived. He was evacuated to a military-training base in Oklahoma, while Tamika and the five children landed in a Dallas jail, which had been turned into an evacuee center.
...
When Katrina floodwaters overcame his home, swamped his neighborhood and carried away his new Lincoln, Johnnie Montgomery, then 82, decided to take a stroll in the chest-deep water, tethered to his grandchild's air-filled ball.
"It was hot, and I was trying to stay cool," said Montgomery, an old-fashioned preacher, retired longshoreman and World War II veteran.
Montgomery still is keeping his cool, in a city still reeling with despair, with a determination to overcome his losses by keeping his faith. ...
... New Orleans police officer David Hunter hung up his badge in April after 28 years, the last 20 months spent attempting to help people who were hurt and stranded by Hurricane Katrina.
Hunter also was trying to replace his home. His wife and newborn daughter became seriously ill. And he banged up his personal boat when someone shot at him while he was plucking victims from the flooding.
It got worse:
An insurance company denied Hunter's claim after learning he had damaged his party barge while using it for police work — to help people — rather than to party on.
...
It has been a rough two years for Ricky Scales and his family, ever since Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters sent them on a long journey of frustration, fright, uncertainty and joblessness.
Their troubles began even as they tried to escape the black water spilling from New Orleans' broken levees, when Ricky, wife Tamika and 10-year-old Alfrenisha were separated from the family's four other children. The parents and daughter landed on the crest of a downtown bridge as they tried to make their way to shelter in the Superdome.
As they continued on, Ricky waded into water over his head. When he re-emerged, Tamika and Alfrenisha had disappeared.
...
For nearly a month after the storm, Ricky did not know whether his wife, three children and two stepchildren had survived. He was evacuated to a military-training base in Oklahoma, while Tamika and the five children landed in a Dallas jail, which had been turned into an evacuee center.
...
When Katrina floodwaters overcame his home, swamped his neighborhood and carried away his new Lincoln, Johnnie Montgomery, then 82, decided to take a stroll in the chest-deep water, tethered to his grandchild's air-filled ball.
"It was hot, and I was trying to stay cool," said Montgomery, an old-fashioned preacher, retired longshoreman and World War II veteran.
Montgomery still is keeping his cool, in a city still reeling with despair, with a determination to overcome his losses by keeping his faith. ...
Labels: suffering
N.Y. Workers Gain Allies in Protest of Wages, Conditions - Washington Post
The deliverymen of Saigon Grill labored for years at the bottom of Manhattan's food chain. Biking swiftly down the avenues in biting cold and searing heat, they schlepped up high-rises and walk-ups with bags of steaming noodles and shrimp fried rice.
The 30 men -- all immigrants, including undocumented workers frustrated with the poor conditions and low wages that are often a fact of life in America's underground economy -- banded together in an effort to unionize. They demanded an end to what they say were salaries less than half the minimum wage, and to penalties that included $20 fines for late deliveries and $50 for shutting the restaurant's glass doors with a bang.
...
When the restaurant's owner, Simon Nget, an ethnic Chinese Cambodian who had fled the Khmer Rouge and came to New York in the 1980s, discovered their plan, the deliverymen say he offered to increase wages from $1.60 to $4 an hour. But only if they dropped their unionization bid. When they refused, they said, he fired them. ...
The deliverymen of Saigon Grill labored for years at the bottom of Manhattan's food chain. Biking swiftly down the avenues in biting cold and searing heat, they schlepped up high-rises and walk-ups with bags of steaming noodles and shrimp fried rice.
The 30 men -- all immigrants, including undocumented workers frustrated with the poor conditions and low wages that are often a fact of life in America's underground economy -- banded together in an effort to unionize. They demanded an end to what they say were salaries less than half the minimum wage, and to penalties that included $20 fines for late deliveries and $50 for shutting the restaurant's glass doors with a bang.
...
When the restaurant's owner, Simon Nget, an ethnic Chinese Cambodian who had fled the Khmer Rouge and came to New York in the 1980s, discovered their plan, the deliverymen say he offered to increase wages from $1.60 to $4 an hour. But only if they dropped their unionization bid. When they refused, they said, he fired them. ...
Labels: suffering
Friday, July 06, 2007
The Wages of Hate - Newsweek
David Ritcheson was brutally beaten and sexually assaulted in 2006. This spring, he testified before Congress in favor of stiffer hate-crimes laws, and seemed to be putting his life back together. He didn't quite make it. David's story.
...
Then Tuck and his sidekick, Keith Robert Turner, spent the next several hours beating and torturing Ritcheson while shouting “White power!” according to court testimony. They stripped him, burned his skin with cigarettes, poured bleach on his wounds, rammed the end of a patio umbrella into his anus and kicked it with steel-toed boots deep enough to rupture his internal organs, according to witness testimony. They started to carve a swastika in his chest, but some of the onlookers thought that was going too far. Ritcheson told members of Congress that God had spared him the memory of what happened that night, but “today I still bear that scar on my chest like a scarlet letter.” Tuck and Turner, who pleaded not guilty, were convicted of aggravated sexual assault; Tuck received a life sentence, while Turner received a 90-year sentence.
...
Yet Ritcheson did seem to be slowly mending himself. Though he refused counseling, his family and friends didn’t insist on it because he appeared to be recovering so well, both physically and mentally, says Leon, the family attorney, who grew close to Ritcheson in the last year. “David was very upbeat, in spite of everything that happened to him,” says Leon. “He was a very caring guy, and he wanted everyone around him to think that he was happy.”
...
Though he hated people associating him with the violence unleashed on him and “he didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him,” says Leon, he chose to make such a public appearance because of his commitment to strengthening state and federal hate-crime laws. His own case was never tried as a hate crime, since it didn’t fit the federal statutes and under Texas criminal law, first-degree felonies are exempt from hate-crimes provisions. ...
David Ritcheson was brutally beaten and sexually assaulted in 2006. This spring, he testified before Congress in favor of stiffer hate-crimes laws, and seemed to be putting his life back together. He didn't quite make it. David's story.
...
Then Tuck and his sidekick, Keith Robert Turner, spent the next several hours beating and torturing Ritcheson while shouting “White power!” according to court testimony. They stripped him, burned his skin with cigarettes, poured bleach on his wounds, rammed the end of a patio umbrella into his anus and kicked it with steel-toed boots deep enough to rupture his internal organs, according to witness testimony. They started to carve a swastika in his chest, but some of the onlookers thought that was going too far. Ritcheson told members of Congress that God had spared him the memory of what happened that night, but “today I still bear that scar on my chest like a scarlet letter.” Tuck and Turner, who pleaded not guilty, were convicted of aggravated sexual assault; Tuck received a life sentence, while Turner received a 90-year sentence.
...
Yet Ritcheson did seem to be slowly mending himself. Though he refused counseling, his family and friends didn’t insist on it because he appeared to be recovering so well, both physically and mentally, says Leon, the family attorney, who grew close to Ritcheson in the last year. “David was very upbeat, in spite of everything that happened to him,” says Leon. “He was a very caring guy, and he wanted everyone around him to think that he was happy.”
...
Though he hated people associating him with the violence unleashed on him and “he didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him,” says Leon, he chose to make such a public appearance because of his commitment to strengthening state and federal hate-crime laws. His own case was never tried as a hate crime, since it didn’t fit the federal statutes and under Texas criminal law, first-degree felonies are exempt from hate-crimes provisions. ...
Girl lost intestines in Minnesota pool - Seattle Times
A 6-year-old girl who sat on an open drain in a wading pool lost part of her intestinal tract to the drain's powerful suction, her family said.
Abigail Taylor was injured in the wading pool June 29, according to her family.
Her father, Scott Taylor, said the suction caused a 2-inch tear in Abigail's rectum and pulled out much of her small intestine. Doctors had to remove the part of her intestines that remained, according to the family's lawyer, Bob Bennett. Abigail remained in intensive care at Children's Hospital on Thursday and appeared to be improving, Bennett said.
Bennett said the swimming pool's drain was improperly uncovered. However, the general manager of the club where the pool is located denied a problem with the pool. He referred questions to the attorney for the club's insurance company, who declined to comment. [end]
A 6-year-old girl who sat on an open drain in a wading pool lost part of her intestinal tract to the drain's powerful suction, her family said.
Abigail Taylor was injured in the wading pool June 29, according to her family.
Her father, Scott Taylor, said the suction caused a 2-inch tear in Abigail's rectum and pulled out much of her small intestine. Doctors had to remove the part of her intestines that remained, according to the family's lawyer, Bob Bennett. Abigail remained in intensive care at Children's Hospital on Thursday and appeared to be improving, Bennett said.
Bennett said the swimming pool's drain was improperly uncovered. However, the general manager of the club where the pool is located denied a problem with the pool. He referred questions to the attorney for the club's insurance company, who declined to comment. [end]
Labels: suffering
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Survivor of hate-crime attack jumps from cruise ship, dies - International Herald Tribune
A teenager who survived a brutal pipe beating and later testified before the U.S. Congress in support of a hate crimes bill died after jumping from a cruise ship into the Gulf of Mexico, his father said Monday.
...
Ritcheson, a Mexican-American, was beaten unconscious and sodomized with a plastic pole by two men shouting "White Power!" during a drug-fueled party in April 2006. He was hospitalized for more than three months and endured more than 20 painful surgeries in the months following the attack. ...
A teenager who survived a brutal pipe beating and later testified before the U.S. Congress in support of a hate crimes bill died after jumping from a cruise ship into the Gulf of Mexico, his father said Monday.
...
Ritcheson, a Mexican-American, was beaten unconscious and sodomized with a plastic pole by two men shouting "White Power!" during a drug-fueled party in April 2006. He was hospitalized for more than three months and endured more than 20 painful surgeries in the months following the attack. ...
Widows Suffer in Afghan Village - A.P.
Fatama's husband left home one night to smuggle drugs from their mud-thatch border village into Iran. The next morning, her brother-in-law gave her the news: Her husband had been killed.
Fatama joined hundreds of other bereaved women in Bunyat, known locally as a "widows village'' because so many of its men have died during Afghanistan's long wars, or because of a more recent plague - the highly profitable but dangerous business of opium and heroin smuggling.
Among the 1,000 or so families who live here, there are 350 widows, village elders said.
Fatama, who is about 30, was left to raise four children. Sometimes widows are cared for by other male relatives, but many must support themselves by weaving carpets, baking bread or doing laundry and cleaning. ...
Fatama's husband left home one night to smuggle drugs from their mud-thatch border village into Iran. The next morning, her brother-in-law gave her the news: Her husband had been killed.
Fatama joined hundreds of other bereaved women in Bunyat, known locally as a "widows village'' because so many of its men have died during Afghanistan's long wars, or because of a more recent plague - the highly profitable but dangerous business of opium and heroin smuggling.
Among the 1,000 or so families who live here, there are 350 widows, village elders said.
Fatama, who is about 30, was left to raise four children. Sometimes widows are cared for by other male relatives, but many must support themselves by weaving carpets, baking bread or doing laundry and cleaning. ...
Labels: suffering
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Soccer team provides hope for refugees, coach - MSNBC.com
Players have escaped war, but not poverty and racism
... But the members of this soccer team, aptly named the Fugees, are anything but typical American teens. They have come to this small town on the outskirts of Atlanta to escape their war-torn homes in Afghanistan and Sudan and Bosnia. In a way, this soccer team, started by a young woman who once felt lost herself, provides an escape from the hardships that they now face as refugees starting over America.
...
“One kid on my team saw his dad shot to death. I’ve had another kid see his dad’s fingers cut off in front of him and then his shoulder slashed. Some of the moms have been raped. These kids, the rebels take them and they say, oh, you’re gonna be a soldier for us. And they give them drugs. They give them weapons. They’re giving them a bandana to identify which group they’re with. And they send them out to kill and you’re thinking about them and you’re like, how can — you know, how did — how did you survive that?”
...
While they are physically safe now, Luma knows that life in America poses its own challenges. Most of the kids’ parents have no education so the poverty at home is often crushing. They battle constant racisim on and off the field. Some of her players told Luma it feels as if they have exchanged one war for another.
...
In one game, Luma instructed her players to smile no matter what. The team obliged, even when the opposing coach got ejected for calling one of them the "n" word.
...
Luma has become more than just a coach to her players, who range in age from 9 to 17. She has become an advocate, fighting for better fields; she is a source of income, having started a cleaning business that employs six refugee women; and she is a pivotal figure in her players' attempts to integrate. She knows the soccer field may be their refuge, but the classroom is their future. So with the help of volunteers, she’s instituted tutoring sessions after each practice. ...
Players have escaped war, but not poverty and racism
... But the members of this soccer team, aptly named the Fugees, are anything but typical American teens. They have come to this small town on the outskirts of Atlanta to escape their war-torn homes in Afghanistan and Sudan and Bosnia. In a way, this soccer team, started by a young woman who once felt lost herself, provides an escape from the hardships that they now face as refugees starting over America.
...
“One kid on my team saw his dad shot to death. I’ve had another kid see his dad’s fingers cut off in front of him and then his shoulder slashed. Some of the moms have been raped. These kids, the rebels take them and they say, oh, you’re gonna be a soldier for us. And they give them drugs. They give them weapons. They’re giving them a bandana to identify which group they’re with. And they send them out to kill and you’re thinking about them and you’re like, how can — you know, how did — how did you survive that?”
...
While they are physically safe now, Luma knows that life in America poses its own challenges. Most of the kids’ parents have no education so the poverty at home is often crushing. They battle constant racisim on and off the field. Some of her players told Luma it feels as if they have exchanged one war for another.
...
In one game, Luma instructed her players to smile no matter what. The team obliged, even when the opposing coach got ejected for calling one of them the "n" word.
...
Luma has become more than just a coach to her players, who range in age from 9 to 17. She has become an advocate, fighting for better fields; she is a source of income, having started a cleaning business that employs six refugee women; and she is a pivotal figure in her players' attempts to integrate. She knows the soccer field may be their refuge, but the classroom is their future. So with the help of volunteers, she’s instituted tutoring sessions after each practice. ...
Labels: compassionate people, suffering
Anger and despair in Balochistan - BBC News
A cyclone has caused devastating floods in Pakistan's Balochistan, with 800,000 people hit and many thousands of homes destroyed.
The scene is one of total devastation.
Gushing flood waters from the Kech Kaur river ploughed through a vast area on both sides, levelling entire villages, chopping down date palms and destroying crops over thousands of acres.
"The floods came with a roar, and they were upon us before we knew," says Bijar Baloch.
As the dykes of the river gave way to the rising tide of water, Mr Baloch and around 30 others worked on in their date palm orchards near Solband village, believing they would be out of the area by the time the water reached their fields.
But a stream broke through from the hills on the other side, surrounding them completely. "Before they knew, the water was up to their knees and the roads had breached. The only way left was up - to the rooftop of a nearby mosque," says Mr Baloch.
They were rescued from there by a Pakistan Navy helicopter 38 hours later.
...
"Everything is lost. Our crops, our food stores, our irrigation system, our water wells," says Gulab Ahmad. "Our roads have turned to ditches and our villages have become riverbeds. I cannot even imagine how we are going to bring it back to life."
...
A cyclone has caused devastating floods in Pakistan's Balochistan, with 800,000 people hit and many thousands of homes destroyed.
The scene is one of total devastation.
Gushing flood waters from the Kech Kaur river ploughed through a vast area on both sides, levelling entire villages, chopping down date palms and destroying crops over thousands of acres.
"The floods came with a roar, and they were upon us before we knew," says Bijar Baloch.
As the dykes of the river gave way to the rising tide of water, Mr Baloch and around 30 others worked on in their date palm orchards near Solband village, believing they would be out of the area by the time the water reached their fields.
But a stream broke through from the hills on the other side, surrounding them completely. "Before they knew, the water was up to their knees and the roads had breached. The only way left was up - to the rooftop of a nearby mosque," says Mr Baloch.
They were rescued from there by a Pakistan Navy helicopter 38 hours later.
...
"Everything is lost. Our crops, our food stores, our irrigation system, our water wells," says Gulab Ahmad. "Our roads have turned to ditches and our villages have become riverbeds. I cannot even imagine how we are going to bring it back to life."
...
Labels: suffering
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Afghan Mothers Use Opium As Surrogate Medicine - Der Spiegel
More and more people in Afghanistan are using opium as a painkiller due to a severe lack of medical supplies in the country. Some mothers are even giving it to their children, much to the concern of the UN.
...
Many of them take opium without knowing about its dangers, smoking the brownish-black substance through a hookah, because there is no medication in the villages. Opium contains morphine, which initially acts as a painkiller. It also contains codeine which suppresses coughs -- something which almost everyone in the valleys, especially children, suffer from due to the harsh winters.
...
Opium consumption has tended to be the exception in Afghanistan until today, despite the fact that the country is the world's leading opium producer, with an output of 6,100 tons last year. The use of intoxicants is prohibited to the deeply religious Afghans, as decreed in the holy Koran. ...
But now, with a series of record harvests, more and more Afghans are falling prey to the drug. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that a million people between the Hindu Kush mountains and the deserts of southern Afghanistan have now become addicted to opium. ...
More and more people in Afghanistan are using opium as a painkiller due to a severe lack of medical supplies in the country. Some mothers are even giving it to their children, much to the concern of the UN.
...
Many of them take opium without knowing about its dangers, smoking the brownish-black substance through a hookah, because there is no medication in the villages. Opium contains morphine, which initially acts as a painkiller. It also contains codeine which suppresses coughs -- something which almost everyone in the valleys, especially children, suffer from due to the harsh winters.
...
Opium consumption has tended to be the exception in Afghanistan until today, despite the fact that the country is the world's leading opium producer, with an output of 6,100 tons last year. The use of intoxicants is prohibited to the deeply religious Afghans, as decreed in the holy Koran. ...
But now, with a series of record harvests, more and more Afghans are falling prey to the drug. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that a million people between the Hindu Kush mountains and the deserts of southern Afghanistan have now become addicted to opium. ...
Labels: suffering
Photo gallery: Portraits of Alzheimer's patients and the family members who care for them - Newsweek
... John Hummel, 50, lifts his mother, Virginia, 91, in their St. Louis apartment. Hummel quit his job as an auto mechanic and moved in with his mother because he believed that the nursing home where she had been living was neglectful. He says that he does not regret his decision. He is his mother's only child and remembers how she left her career when he was born. 'It's time I do that and take care of her. I feel turnaround is fair play,' he says. ...
... John Hummel, 50, lifts his mother, Virginia, 91, in their St. Louis apartment. Hummel quit his job as an auto mechanic and moved in with his mother because he believed that the nursing home where she had been living was neglectful. He says that he does not regret his decision. He is his mother's only child and remembers how she left her career when he was born. 'It's time I do that and take care of her. I feel turnaround is fair play,' he says. ...
Labels: compassionate people, sickness, suffering
Woman dies in ER lobby as 911 refuses to help - A.P.
Tapes show operators ignored pleas to send ambulance to L.A. hospital
A woman who lay bleeding on the emergency room floor of a troubled inner-city hospital died after 911 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility, newly released tapes of the emergency calls reveal.
Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, died of a perforated bowel on May 9 at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. Her death was ruled accidental by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.
Relatives said Rodriguez was bleeding from the mouth and writhing in pain for 45 minutes while she was at a hospital waiting area. Experts have said she could have survived had she been treated early enough.
... Relatives reported she died as police were wheeling her out of the hospital after the officers they had asked to help Rodriguez arrested her instead on a parole violation. ...
Tapes show operators ignored pleas to send ambulance to L.A. hospital
A woman who lay bleeding on the emergency room floor of a troubled inner-city hospital died after 911 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility, newly released tapes of the emergency calls reveal.
Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, died of a perforated bowel on May 9 at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. Her death was ruled accidental by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.
Relatives said Rodriguez was bleeding from the mouth and writhing in pain for 45 minutes while she was at a hospital waiting area. Experts have said she could have survived had she been treated early enough.
... Relatives reported she died as police were wheeling her out of the hospital after the officers they had asked to help Rodriguez arrested her instead on a parole violation. ...
Labels: suffering
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Understanding and coping with tremors - International Herald Tribune
... For Shari Finsilver, who never even told her parents about the hand tremors that began at age 11, the surgery she underwent in her 50s, called deep brain stimulation, was "a life-altering experience, like someone awakened from a lifetime coma."
As she wrote in Wisniewski's book, "I immediately began doing all the things I had not been able to do for 40 years: write by hand, use a camera, cut with scissors, make change at the cash register, sign checks and credit card receipts, enroll in a public speaking course, dance with men other than my husband and son — all the things most people take for granted.
"But best of all, I was able to walk down the aisle at my children's weddings, and cradle my grandchildren in my arms with steady hands." ...
... For Shari Finsilver, who never even told her parents about the hand tremors that began at age 11, the surgery she underwent in her 50s, called deep brain stimulation, was "a life-altering experience, like someone awakened from a lifetime coma."
As she wrote in Wisniewski's book, "I immediately began doing all the things I had not been able to do for 40 years: write by hand, use a camera, cut with scissors, make change at the cash register, sign checks and credit card receipts, enroll in a public speaking course, dance with men other than my husband and son — all the things most people take for granted.
"But best of all, I was able to walk down the aisle at my children's weddings, and cradle my grandchildren in my arms with steady hands." ...
Labels: suffering
Monday, June 04, 2007
Moroccan family barred from toilet - BBC News
A family living in a public toilet in Morocco have spent seven years requesting more hygienic accommodation.
Their pleas fell on deaf ears, and Aze Adine Ould Baja has had to endure the ignominy of having "Sidi toilets" as the official address on his identity papers.
...
But a few days later the local authorities moved in to block up the toilet's entrance with cement and concrete.
Mr Baja, his wife and three children now find themselves barred from the only home they had.
...
His troubles began several years ago when his daughter was kidnapped and he had to sell everything to try to find her.
She was eventually found, but he could not afford to rent the place where he had been living and the family moved into the toilet as a temporary measure. ...
A family living in a public toilet in Morocco have spent seven years requesting more hygienic accommodation.
Their pleas fell on deaf ears, and Aze Adine Ould Baja has had to endure the ignominy of having "Sidi toilets" as the official address on his identity papers.
...
But a few days later the local authorities moved in to block up the toilet's entrance with cement and concrete.
Mr Baja, his wife and three children now find themselves barred from the only home they had.
...
His troubles began several years ago when his daughter was kidnapped and he had to sell everything to try to find her.
She was eventually found, but he could not afford to rent the place where he had been living and the family moved into the toilet as a temporary measure. ...
Labels: suffering
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Brick making sustains peasant families in India - International Herald Tribune
... Much of that work is done by migrant labor families like the Khabhus, who trek from their home villages near and far to brickyards for eight months of the year, except during the monsoon season, when rains halt production.
The Khabhus said they gave up when seawater from the nearby Gulf of Kutch crept in and killed their fields. ...
The Khabhus’ home... is locked up for the season. A thorny bundle of dead brush blocks their front door. It is a billboard announcing that they will be back only when the rains come and the brickyards close. Nearly half of the homes in Manomara’s low-caste Dalit quarter are locked.
Of all the backbreaking work available to the poorest Indian peasant, making bricks offers some of the best earnings. It pays better than making salt, or working in the roof-tile factories. It can allow families to build a proper house, pay for a wedding or buy a goat or a television.
But the work is hazardous, especially at kilns like this one. Smoke spills out everywhere. Within minutes it chokes a novice hovering nearby. It is so laden with heavy soot that it blackens nearby mango blossoms, to say nothing of the lungs of the people like the Khabhus, who live and breathe bricks. Home is a small room made of bricks, on the edge of the kiln. They sleep on cots outside.
On most days, they work 14 hours, breaking for meals and sleep during the hottest part of the afternoon, when temperatures climb to more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and that is not counting the heat that rises from the kilns day and night. ...
... Much of that work is done by migrant labor families like the Khabhus, who trek from their home villages near and far to brickyards for eight months of the year, except during the monsoon season, when rains halt production.
The Khabhus said they gave up when seawater from the nearby Gulf of Kutch crept in and killed their fields. ...
The Khabhus’ home... is locked up for the season. A thorny bundle of dead brush blocks their front door. It is a billboard announcing that they will be back only when the rains come and the brickyards close. Nearly half of the homes in Manomara’s low-caste Dalit quarter are locked.
Of all the backbreaking work available to the poorest Indian peasant, making bricks offers some of the best earnings. It pays better than making salt, or working in the roof-tile factories. It can allow families to build a proper house, pay for a wedding or buy a goat or a television.
But the work is hazardous, especially at kilns like this one. Smoke spills out everywhere. Within minutes it chokes a novice hovering nearby. It is so laden with heavy soot that it blackens nearby mango blossoms, to say nothing of the lungs of the people like the Khabhus, who live and breathe bricks. Home is a small room made of bricks, on the edge of the kiln. They sleep on cots outside.
On most days, they work 14 hours, breaking for meals and sleep during the hottest part of the afternoon, when temperatures climb to more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and that is not counting the heat that rises from the kilns day and night. ...
Labels: suffering
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Great escape: survivors reveal horror of North Korean concentration camps - The Independent
Two survivors of a North Korean concentration camp have spoken out about the grim conditions in the gulag where inmates are left to die in tiny cells, in the latest accounts to shed light on the human rights atrocities carried out in the world's most isolated country.
...
... they faced torture and imprisonment for "betraying their homeland" by trying to flee the famine-hit North Korean "socialist paradise" in search of food. least five of the seven were dispatched to North Korea's Camp Number 15, known as Yodok in the West, where inmates labour 15 hours or more a day on meagre rations for such deeds as criticising the government or trying to escape because of famine ...
The only woman among the seven - Pang Young Sil - "shrivelled to the size of a dog" by the time she arrived in Yodok in July 2000 after months of torture by North Korea's notorious National Security Agency and died in the camp two months later, Mr Kim said.
Ms Pang fled North Korea because her parents would not allow her to marry her boyfriend ...
Two survivors of a North Korean concentration camp have spoken out about the grim conditions in the gulag where inmates are left to die in tiny cells, in the latest accounts to shed light on the human rights atrocities carried out in the world's most isolated country.
...
... they faced torture and imprisonment for "betraying their homeland" by trying to flee the famine-hit North Korean "socialist paradise" in search of food. least five of the seven were dispatched to North Korea's Camp Number 15, known as Yodok in the West, where inmates labour 15 hours or more a day on meagre rations for such deeds as criticising the government or trying to escape because of famine ...
The only woman among the seven - Pang Young Sil - "shrivelled to the size of a dog" by the time she arrived in Yodok in July 2000 after months of torture by North Korea's notorious National Security Agency and died in the camp two months later, Mr Kim said.
Ms Pang fled North Korea because her parents would not allow her to marry her boyfriend ...
Labels: suffering
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