Sunday, April 27, 2014

Alison Redford/ Linor Abargil/ Lawrence Hill

Apr. 19 Alison Redford: I’m sure all of you read this email:


I got an email from my friend Michelle saying that Alison Redford was a bad premier for using our tax money for travel expenses.  She told me that Rob Ford helped lower taxes and that Toronto has the lowest taxes in all of North American cities.  I didn’t know that.  Probably because his drug and alcohol addiction and antics overshadow his good work.  I don’t read anything about his good news, but his addiction news.

She CC’d everybody.  So my friends Leslie and Sherry also CC’d their opinion about it agreeing with Michelle.   So I’m going to say this right here:

Redford did say that she didn’t know that the funeral trip to Nelson Mandela’s funeral was going to be $45,000.  She said if she knew, she wouldn’t have gone to it.  I saw a news video clip where she apologized to everybody for spending the money on traveling.  She seemed genuinely remorseful, so I accept her apology. 

Apr. 21 Connor Stevenson: I was watching W-Five on Mar. 15, 2014.  I used to watch this Canadian news magazine show back in college, but stopped.  Some of the topics simply weren’t interesting.

This episode covered Connor Stevenson, a 13 yr old boy who got shot at the Eaton Centre in Toronto.  He was shot in the head and survived.  He lives a normal life.

It was a very intense episode where they talked to the mom Jo-Anne and his 15 yr old sister Taylor.  He got shot, and Taylor was talking to him and trying to keep him awake. 

The show talked to the paramedics who were there and picked Connor up into the stretcher and had to carry him up the escalator because the elevator was being used by the other paramedics and victim.

At the hospital, Taylor called the dad Brian and told him that Connor has been shot.

You can read more here.


Apr. 25 DNA tests: I was reading in the Metro on Apr. 15, 2014 “Police test DNA of all males at school.”  Here it is from NY Post:

“PARIS — French investigators began taking DNA samples Monday from 527 male students and staff at a high school — including boys as young as 14 — as they searched for the assailant who raped a teenage girl on the closed campus.

Testing began at Fenelon-Notre Dame high school in western France. All those who received summonses last week were warned that any refusal could land them in police custody, and no one rejected the sweeping request to test the high school’s male population.

The testing of students, faculty and staff at the school is expected to last through Wednesday, with 40 DNA swabs recovered inside two large study halls. Prosecutor Isabelle Pagenelle said investigators had exhausted all other leads in the Sept. 30 rape of the girl in a dark bathroom at the school.

“The choice is simple for me,” she said. “Either I file it away and wait for a match in what could be several years, or I go looking for the match myself.”

My opinion: In Metro it says 527 male students and teachers will be tested.  I was like: “That’s a lot of work, time, and money to get all the DNA tests to find one rapist.  However, there could be hits on other rape kits so it’s good to get all these DNA tests.”


Suicide assignment: I was reading in Metro on Feb. 5, 2014 “Prof sorry for suicide assignment.”  A professor at St. John’s Newfoundland university called Memorial University had apologized to his computer science class and replaced a question on the assignment.

“The student union said the prof asked them to create a computer program that could help determine whether a rape victim would commit suicide.”

My opinion: I accept his apology.  It was an assignment question.  He didn’t seem like he was trying to offend anyone.

Linor Abargil: I was reading in the Edmonton Journal on Mar. 22, 2014 “Beauty queen an advocate for rape victims” by Aron Heller.  Here’s an excerpt of the article, and you can read all of it in the link.  I find it really inspiring:

“When 18-year-old Israeli beauty queen Linor Abargil was crowned Miss World in 1998, the tears streaming down her cheeks appeared to be the overwhelming joy of a young woman fulfilling a childhood dream. Few knew the painful truth behind them - that just six weeks earlier she had been raped at knifepoint.

Unlike most victims of sexual assault, Abargil refused to keep quiet. She pressed charges, spoke out publicly and testified at a trial that sent her attacker to prison for 16 years. Her ordeal inspired other Israeli women to break their own silence and in the process, she became a national symbol who helped destigmatize rape in the country.

Today, the 34-year-old mother of three's crusade against sexual violence is going global, thanks to an international speaking tour and new documentary, Brave Miss World, in which she details her ordeal and speaks to dozens of other victims, many of whom shared their tales of terror for the first time.

"If you go through something very bad or very hard, the only pill you can take is to tell, to take it out of your system. Because if you don't, it is like a tumour - it becomes bigger and bigger until it kills you," she told The Associated Press this week, shortly after returning from a visit to India. "I feel that I have this privilege to really help other women to open up."

"She gives women legitimacy to come forward, to say 'I am not crazy, it's not my fault. If people believe her maybe someone will believe me,"' Schler said.

Abargil went on to work as a model and an actress before becoming a criminal lawyer. Newly religious, the bikinis and low-cut gowns of her past have been replaced by more modest outfits and a head covering befitting an Orthodox Jewish woman.

She said the "stupid crown" she won for Miss World would have meant nothing to her were it not for the platform it provided to speak out.

"I think I have a lot of very good things to say to women around the world," she said, as her four-monthold daughter cooed in the background. "I realized it (the rape) doesn't define me, it can't define me."


Lawrence Hill: I was reading in the Metro on Mar. 7, 2014 “From high-risk’ to hopeful’ by Lawrence Hill.  He is the author of The Book of Negroes where he writes about his experience of volunteering to help girls at high risk for sexual assault and HIV exposure in Swaziland. 

He was part of the Crossroads International and it’s local development partner, the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA).

Here is the short article:


Body rub parlours: I read in the Metro on Mar. 19, 2014 “City moves to have body rub parlours open longer.”  The parlours used to be open 24 hrs, but then closed at 11pm.  Now they changed it to midnight.  Scott Mackie, the city’s manager says: “We saw a surge in the number of escort licenses which are non-location specific and higher risk.”

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