Russia calls us on our crap.

I love that the US likes to pretend that it's the omnipresent police force of the universe.  A report was compiled about human trafficking, and of course Russia and former Soviet Union nations got a bad grade.  It's true, when you think about trafficking humans, you automatically think of some dirty mafia thug kidnapping little girls from the school yard.  Do I picture him being Russian or Slavic? Maybe.  That or some Asian drug-king recruiting young women to be "entertainers and bartenders."

But Russia says that's not fair.  You know, they're right.  The US is a main importer of these women.  US men go on sex tours in Japan and Singapore, and other eastern countries--number one customers.  Russians and Asians may kidnap the girls, but heck, we Americans pay for them to do it.  We are the demanders looking for the supply which happens to be poor souls looking for money, whether it be male recruiters/managers/kidnappers or innocent/desperate women trying for a better life.  Yeah, we pay for them.  In reality, the heart of the problem is poverty on one end, and intense sexual perversion and greed on the other.  We're the greedy, sex hungry ones...obviously.  If there wasn't a demand, wouldn't the trade dwindle?  But it's not.  It's thriving.

In fact, it's surpassing the drug trade.  Drugs are a commodity that once used, the supply must be replenished, regrown, etc.  But a woman/child is a commodity that can be used over and over again.  It is estimated that one woman alone earns $250,000 a year.  Around 14,500 to 17,500 foreign nationals are smuggled into our nation every year.  That's over $3.5 billion to $4.3 billion a year.  And just so you know, the numbers of women and children trafficked are probably vastly underestimated.  This is international organized crime.  And we, ladies and gentleman, are the main customers.

Alas...

I am married.  Why, yes, I am.  I am utterly and completely exhausted from making up the sorry-excuse we have for an apartment.  I've nearly gone mad with decorations.  

I suppose you may want to know about Puerto Vallarta.  It was unbelieveable gorgeous, as is to be expected.  It also was no hotter than 90 degrees and the ocean was fantastically warm.  I loved it.  It rained every night, some nights more than half a foot.  The rich Mexicans barely navigated the flooded streets with their Jeeps and Ford trucks.

What a strange feeling, being in another world--one that is bipolar and starkly different than it's posh resorts.  Breck and I took the bus and accidently ended up in the ghetto.  By ghetto, I mean smalll one bedroom cement houses with thrown together tin roofs.  Many had the front doors wide open, and you could easily step into their world.  Beds close together, children on aunts' and uncles' laps, watching an old small television from the 1970s, if they were lucky. The mothers may have been cooking or just getting off.  it was around 8:30 and that seemed to be a big shift change, as everyone hopped on the already crowded buses to make it home. I wonder how their roofs held up in the torrential rains.  A tour guide told us it rained eight feet last year in the month of August.  Now that, my folks, is insane.  The locals kept apologizing for the weather, adding that if we had come in May or June, it wouldn't be so rainy.  We told them that we didn't mind, coming from 110 degree plus weather with less than 1/4 of the rainfall than usual this year.  We have wild fires and dying trees.  But we're still better than Dallas.  Everything is dead there right now.

When we ended up in the ghetto, we managed to tell the non-English speaking driver about our hotel, and he then directed us to another bus.  The bus drive home took another hour and fifteen minutes, because the driver litterally stopped every five feet to pick up another local.  Usually it was women toting their toddlers or babies, or lone men getting off of the job late.  None of them looked at us or acknowledged we were even there.  We just watched them, silently. 

The buses have no air conditioning...absolutely stifling.  Needless to say...I am glad to be home in the states.

Final Questions

1.  Blogging is an important way to catch the attention of younger readers.  My generation is more likely to hear of news on Facebook and Twitter than in a newspaper or on cable.  Blogging is a way to draw the reader in with a more personalized style and writing.  Blogging is more flexible, and it may be journalisms new medium within the next 20 years.

2.  I will still blog.  I have a passion for women, and I will dedicate myself to having a job that would help women who are in abusive situations.  I love writing blogs, and now that I've quite Outback, I'll have more time to research feminist issues.

3.  If I were to change it, I would make my subject broader than sexual abuses, to abuses against women in general.  That way I would have more information to write about, and I could cover an array of subjects.

India for jobs anyone?

The recession is an unrelenting beast that's tearing at my current job...you know, the one waiting tables.  The other day I walked out of there with $5.  Does that tell you anything?  And even if people do come out and we're busy, I still make half of what I made four years ago as a college freshman who knew absolutely nothing about waiting tables.

I need money.  I eat maybe once a day.  I barely pay my bills.  I buy clothes and makeup because my mom lends me money.  You know me, I can't let my looks go away all together.  I'm forever exhausted, and there is never enough time to breathe, let alone sleep.

I am looking for any job that I can make a decent amount on, not $10,000 a year.  From the looks of it, a foreign correspondent in India makes more, and it sure does sound like more fun.  I want to be done with this part, but I'm not even sure if I'm graduating this semester.

In India, my discipline is growing phenomenally.  Here it's dying tragically with thousands of readers losing interest or passing away.  The future of the newspaper is in the hands of baby boomers who are retiring and even dying.  Younger people are looking elsewhere for their news.  Definitely not in places where it costs to obtain credible information.  This is depressing to me.  Knowledge is the base of our democracy...and most of us really don't want to know.  We just want to feel.  I want to go somewhere on the other side of the world.  I want to be where people are hungry for words, and even hungrier for the knowledge that feeds a democracy.  Can I become one of them?  Can I be a part of something big that is happening now?  The things that are happening here are falling on deaf ears.

Voy a Puerto Vallarta

¿Cómo se dice I'm excited?  Reservations are set for July 31, 2011 for a six day, five night stay at the Fiesta Americana resort.  My passport is being processed, and I'm presently nagging my fiance to renew his.  My mother is very worried about me, and she says that Mexico is a dangerous place to be.  Up north by the border, most certainly.  And I'm sure there are dangers, but I think traveling internationally always poses its hazards. 


We will be flying, and the trip itself doesn't cost half as much as our plane tickets.  That's the sad part.  But I am holding on to the thought of this trip to get me through the next couple of weeks, for sure.  It's my happiness and I am trying to push out the thoughts of stresses school and wedding related.  It's life.

No puedo esperar para ir.  I have been asking my friendly Hispanic and Guatemalan friends about words and phrases.  Praise God.  The end is near.  Now, I only need a job.  But I think I'm going to post some rules about traveling and safety in Mexico and trafficking hazards that might possibly be there.  Keep in touch!

Pimping 15-year-olds? Wow.

I got this stories off of ABC news online.  Sounds incredibly like the Elizabeth Smart story, you know the one of the girl who was abducted to be a sex slave for a creepy couple.  Ugh.  It makes me very sad.

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=1596778&page=1

I used to be a gullible person, too, and at the age of 15, I definitely was. Offers of modeling and show business, fellow children who pretend to be your friends and push you into a car...would you fall for it?  I can't imagine how long it would take for a little girl like that to recover from such a terrible and frightening tragedy.  How would  someone move on?  Mine was only one night blurred in pieces and fragments of memories, but several months or even years of captivation?  My mind couldn't even fathom.

In Other News...

Women's Funding Network made a big boo-boo and used a bogus study to wage an assault on underage prostitution, and though the fight is a just one, the study was classified as intellectual guesswork by several independent officials.

Fighting for a good and noble cause is great, but make sure that you have the right numbers, my friends.  Not doing so portrays sex trafficking activists as fools in a portrait that is already muddled and skewed.  It's part of what I've said before...misrepresentation of the issue causes people to not pay attention.  This issues isn't a single issue, there are many complex issues in of itself.  Eh...I love when people guess.  I also love when reporters don't double check their sources.  Tisk, tisk.

Women's Funding Network sex trafficking study is junk science.