Pedophiles

Absolutely shocking news.
Court Convicts 62 in France Child Rape Ring
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
ANGERS, France — A court convicted 62 defendants Wednesday in a mass pedophilia trial and sentenced some of them to up to 28 years in prison for their roles in a network that systematically raped and prostituted children in western France (search).
In the harrowing case, prosecutors said 45 children between the ages of 6 months and 14 years were raped and abused by their parents, grandparents or acquaintances in a working-class neighborhood of Angers (search) from 1999 to 2002 — at times in exchange for small amounts of money, food, alcohol or cigarettes.
Three of the 65 defendants were acquitted.
Defendants appeared one by one to hear their sentences. One of the alleged ringleaders, Eric J., pounded on the table and started an argument as the court read out his 28-year sentence. Police escorted him from the room.
Eric J. was described by prosecutors as an "ogre" accused of raping or abusing 15 children.
Victims and suspects in the trial cannot be identified by full names because of French laws designed to preserve the anonymity of child victims.
The other man handed a 28-year sentence, Philippe V., was convicted of raping three of his grandchildren. During the trial, he coldly stated he "didn't give a damn" about his own children. He had already been convicted in 1991 of raping his son.
His son, Franck V., also participated in the ring and received an 18-year sentence. Accused of 12 rapes, he was also blamed for allowing much of the abuse to occur at his apartment. His ex-wife, Patricia M., was given a 16-year term.
Pascal Rouiller (search), a lawyer for Franck V., had argued in the trial that state social workers were to blame for leaving dozens of children vulnerable to the ring that preyed on them.
More than half of the accused, aged 27 to 73, were unemployed and living off benefits in state-supported housing. Defense lawyers have said some suspects were illiterate and appeared not to fully understand the charges against them.
Moise C., who had already been convicted twice on pedophilia charges, was found guilty of rape and sexual aggression and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Considered by prosecutors as one of the most dangerous defendants, he allegedly wore a mask to hide his face while raping children.
"He needed to watch pedophile cassettes just to fall asleep," prosecutor Yvan Auriel (search) said earlier this month.
The case surfaced in 2000, when a 16-year-old girl alleged she had been raped by her mother's boyfriend and his brother.
Three couples at the heart of the case lured their children and those of their friends, relatives and neighbors by saying they were going to "play doctor," according to the prosecution's 420-page legal filing charges. One girl allegedly was raped 45 times.

Nightmare of conscious

I had a nightmare last night; it was so awful it woke me up.
My dad announced suddenly that he had enrolled me in a youth seminar/camp for a few days, I was delighted and he said, “There is no time to lose, we must go now!” (Now that I think of it, why the heck was I so delighted?) So I stuffed some random necessities into a readily available duffle bag – notebook, pens, makeup-kit, math workbook (in case I get bored, I hate having nothing to do), purse, toothbrush kit and hat.
We arrived there and dad left. I went to my assigned tent and met my roommates. While we were chatting a distracting speakerphone kept blaring “Those who wish to phone may use our facilities now.” Then it was dinnertime and everyone was supposed to bring his or her own dinner, so everyone left to eat in the mess hall. I was like “What?” and double-checked my duffle, telling my new friends that I’d catch up later. Finally I went to look for the manager of the camp, who happened to be my junior high disciplinarian* and whom I recently discovered had been transferred to my new High school (There’s no escape!).
“Can I please call my mom because I didn’t bring any clothes to change, bathing objects or any dinner.”
“No, we aren’t allowing students to phone home anymore and play pretend house in our camp, in fact, we’re disconnecting the public phone lines tomorrow so you can’t phone home.”
“But they were using the phone earlier to call home!”
“They were allowed to call friends, not family.”
“What? So what should I do?”
Her eyes glazed over with a why-should-I-care-about-your-well-being look, “You didn’t bring any extra clothes?”
“No.” I said, smiling sweetly and apologetically, hoping against hope.
“Well, you’ll just have to wear this same outfit for three days, won’t you?”
My face fell with the anticipation of what my roommates would think of me grunging about three days sweaty and smelly. Not to mention what that would do to my allergic skin condition.
“Or, you could pack your bags tonight and wait in the front of the facility for you mom to pick you up,” I brightened a bit at this, “using psychic abilities to contact her. When you fail you may walk home.”
My face twisted into one of those unnatural expressions that sometimes denote constipation and mostly denote pain. “I’ll figure it out.” I said, trying to smile, and limping away.
I got back to my tent (which by some means seemed grungier and smaller than I remembered) and pulled out my duffle, then ventured towards a public phone the furthest corner from where lady disciplinarian was posted. Then I saw this narrow, twisted corridor behind a molding billboard that seemed to house some public phones and which would effectively conceal me from her sight, so I dove under it quickly and raced to the phones. My idea was, since the phones are to be disconnected tomorrow, they’re still usable to phone home now. Hopefully they won’t track me down, better yet I might convince mom to bring my stuff so I could still attend this extremely desirable seminar and nobody would discover this fiasco.
I tell you, it was a nightmare, I woke up at this point. Stress tends to hurt my sleep.
Interpretation of dream: My greatest fear is being unprepared for things which lie ahead (with my kind of imagination, can quickly see hell). I have a way harsher view of this woman than I previously believed, no wait, if she were as sweet as she seems, sometimes, why would she have attended a military school? I really must get to know her better and acknowledge her as a better human.
And there’s lacking certain mental skills that could give me better ideas than the one I had previous. I mean, how obvious could I be? If she were truly that evil and not pulling one on me she would have noted where I went after our talk.
Note to self: Never, ever go unprepared, for anything!
Nervous habit acquired: Check, check, double check!
Really, so that’s what’s bothering me, it took me two hours last night to fall asleep because I was worrying about going to school. Getting good grades, getting into med school, getting my diploma, getting a job….oooh, the list is endless.

*For those who don’t know what a disciplinarian is, it’s a term I made up for lack of proper vocabulary describing this special type of person we have here. I have never heard of them elsewhere, so forgive me for this liberal use. They are a role similar to a Matron in a private school; only most of them are guys. These people come out from military schools armed with the knowledge of handling refractory teenagers bent to destruct school ordinances – dyed hair, bullying, destroying property, too short skirts and fighting…etc. This particular disciplinarian I’m mentioning had interest in me because I was always tardy and she was always there to mark me down (or exonerate me, as her mood deemed). She claimed she had never seen a student who was so innocent and obedient in every way (well, I added the innocent) but was tardy so often. It’s not an honorable trait, I admit. Anyway, I’m curious how I’ve never heard this breed of people mentioned anywhere in English. I mean, they were a pretty powerful force in my junior high. They could nab you for things that weren’t in the school ordinances (like being cheeky to teachers, I swear I checked and it wasn’t there, we were suppose to be trusted to be respectful by our own volition because the teachers deserved it? Not a lot of kids in my district bought that) and punish you with whatever their imagination reckons appropriate. Those kids balancing buckets of water on their heads while immobilized with bent knees? Nasty.

Flowers for Algernon

What does intelligence have to do with memory?
If I try to measure my intelligence by my memory, I would be horribly dim. My mind is like a sieve, in many ways. I look at books and write about them, but if I haven’t looked at a book for a week, I wouldn’t be able to write about it. After a month, I couldn’t tell you ten facts about it. Some have accused me of brilliance, but they don’t realize that I’m nothing without continual nurture. I hate going back and forth with “where, where” as the custom requires us to show humility, however false, so I just smile and say nothing. Think I’m a pompous ass? No, just a lazy one.
What lies ahead troubles me, daily. Will I be able to cope or will I sink under the mire of pressure because the curriculum was designed for geniuses, not dim-dumbs like me? Challenges excite me, too much depresses me. Most of all, I fear going under people’s expectations. For example: Suppose you meet a ball, it’s shiny and round. After you get to know the ball better, you realize it doesn’t bounce, and has flaws on the surface, just like any other ball. You would dismiss it more because it’s good points are the ones you anticipated and saw in the first place, but it’s flaws have let you down so you think less of it then ordinary balls because you thought at first to admire it and it was lower than your expectations, though not substantially, enough to make you discard it. Continual brilliance is not my thing, making a good first impression is. It’s a horrible flaw. I aim to please anyone I meet, but I hate doing it. I’m just smile and no talk, or talk and no action. It’s not completely sincere because the reason behind all the smiles is the agenda of not being punched in the face or pushed aside. I know ordinary people don’t punch complete strangers in the face, but I want to live every opportunity to meet new people to the full, because I believe everyone has great potential and good qualities in them that might make awesome friends, and by attracting them in the first round, I will have more opportunities and get to know them better later on.
It makes me angry that a girl would dismiss a guy so readily just because he didn’t match her expectations of a ‘good-looking match’. People cannot choose how they look, though they can choose a little how they look in the long run. A cruel person will look cruel when he/she is forty, a kind person will look kind vice versa. As teenagers, we can’t tell. So don’t diss someone on first sight, you might have lost a wonderful friend and created an enemy.
The fact that popular teen-magazines endorse such behavior is very disturbing.
From Cosmogirl.com's guyblog:
Worst. Date. Ever.
We've all had dating mishaps at some point, and in the moment it might seem like the world is ending, but once it is all said and done, it makes for a funny story. One of the WORST dates that I have ever been on was actually my junior prom. I went to a very small all-girls high school and for me, meeting guys was more like a search; I didn't just have them right at my fingertips.
Well because I had no guys that I could convince to go with me, I took the initiative and made a phone call to this random guy (the best friend of a friend's friend) exactly one week before the event. Sure, my heart was racing and my palms were sweating when I made that phone call, but I knew it was something that I had to do and I was glad when he agreed to go with me.
BIG MISTAKE!! The night of prom, I see this 6' 3" (which is a foot taller than me) scrawny kid with braces walk up to my front porch. All I wanted to do was hide and pretend that I was sick, but my parents wouldn't let me. After all, he was doing me a favor. I didn't talk much the whole night. I just sat and listened to him blab on about his aspirations to be a pilot. We had nothing in common, so let's just say the conversation was lacking. Since I didn't know he was going to be a giant (well next to me that is) I wore shoes with only small heels, and when it came time to dance, he literally had to pick me up to dance with me! The date ended with him dropping me off at my door and us never talking again.
Yes, it was pretty awful, but now whenever I'm on a date that seems bad, I just think about the prom guy and it all seems better (P.S. I ended up dating his friend my senior year!). What about you: have you ever gone on a date with some guy you didn't know too well and it turned out to be a disaster? Tell us what happened!
XO, Trish, Features Intern (and guest blogger)
7/21/2005 10:28:00 AM

Returned to Taiwan

I've just returned to Taiwan, and it was a most interesting journey too. Got the newest Harry Potter book for less than 16 dollars, psyched! Met a 31 year old guy from Taipei who was returning to Taiwan in seek of a job after taking his graduate in Calif. Our flight was delayed 10 hours due to the typhoon ravaging Taiwan and, to escape boredom and loneliness, we chatted and wandered about searching for a clothes store so I could get clothes to change into, seeing how I was going to go without a bath for a longer time than I anticipated (which I hate, feeling grungy does not boost one's morale), turns out the clothes were way over my budget and ratty to boot, gotta love our Taiwan brandless. I ditched the idea and instead we went to my room and played video game together on my computer. Not smart of me, I know, inviting a complete stranger into my room? Don't imitate. Anyway, he was the perfect gentleman. We went to the airport to wait for our flight and I let him read my HP book while I perused a racy Cosmopolitan. I caught winds of disapproval fromt the row of male Asians sitting across from me. It's not a mag that would give a good impression on your mentality. (Big hint: Don't read when you are waiting to be interviewed for a job). He flipped through my mag too and I asked him, with a hidden smirk, what he thought of it. He stuttered, it was amusing. Wonderful person.
Waiting for the flight to Kaohsiung I happened to meet this girl who, of all things, is going to be a senior at my new Highschool and was in the same class too. She's also the president of the debate team, which I had planned to join, and gave me some great tips. She told me even if the debate team is so hot, she'd give me special pass because she's guaged my personality more. I'm thrilled that she liked me and thought me to be a useful addition to the debate team, but am quite worried that I may eventually turn out to disappoint her. High expectations cause problems. Her description of the school's general attitude makes me love it even more, it's a school that is more tolerant for diversity and fun.
When my dad picked me up he had this credit card point thing where you enter the points you have and get food in exchange, no extra charge. A year ago I would have felt dead imbarrassed being with my dad eating 'meal ticket' food outside the store waiting for the rain to stop, but I know that will hurt my dad. Trying to achieve a shallow standard like that is not worth hurting people I love. If you're comfortable with who you are and what you do so long as it doesn't hurt anyone it's never uncool. (well, except for the pulling up one pant leg thing, and running through your school naked).

An inconsistency in humanitarian philosophy

I have discovered a germ in all our youthful ideals that holds the key to ourselves becoming like our decaying fathers. We house an underlying goal that is completely incompatible to our noble dreams, this fact we are incongruously unaware of.
Take me, for instance. I wish to become rich enough to donate regularly to charities, own a personal library that I may donate to the community after I die, become a prestigious psychiatrist so I can tend to these horrible social problems whilst on my free hours make enough to buy a great deal of books to read…etc. There is a personal gain to all my apparent giving. If I were born with nothing would I desire to give anything? Most likely not. It is only after I have (hypothetically) procured more than enough that I am willing to give.
Few of us are able to accept the nit and grit it takes to be a truly giving individual.
Even after realizing thing, I cannot get up the gumption to change my so called ‘noble ideals’. We think of a rich person giving to charity and going to impoverished areas with gifts and songs as extremely kind and noble creatures. But they can afford the time and gifts.
Most of us will, in the next ten years or more, be willing to ditch a few regulations and disregard some principles in order to achieve our ideal financial security (awesome ride, wardrobe, house…etc.)
The major portion of the individuals who are truly giving with upright moral codes will never see the light of a news camera and never be truly recognized for their efforts because they do not do it to gain fame and those who wish to claim the fame for their own often undermine them. (Remember that dreadful sinking feeling you got when reading ‘the little mermaid’ where the prince woke up to see a pretty land girl and mistakenly took her to be his rescuer?)
Certain religions say such good sacrificial behavior shall be rewarded after the mortal body perishes. In Christianity, I always wonder if the good Samaritan in Jesus’ parable will ever get to heaven because obviously he’s a heathen, even a good one, and has never heard the ‘good news’. Why would Jesus use a faulty parable to praise one when he says that the kingdom of heaven is only through him? I fear truly that there is no place our ‘eternal souls’ can go after death, that, like in Philip Pullman’s “His dark materials”, our ghosts shall dissipate into dust, doesn’t that make all our lives meaningless, whether we have been good or bad? There is no one, solid solution to the horrible question, is there? Maybe all those founders of the religions pondered this so long that they finally thought “Chuck it, we just need some fantastic dream for people to conform, so we’ll put down these regulations for our model utopia and add a supreme being/sphere so the individual who plays nice will gain some satisfaction in their afterlife.”
Ugh.
My dad, for instance, is the most upright man I have ever met. He is horribly modest, reluctant to spend money on anything other than the bare necessities, and never thinks twice about returning surplus government grants even though it takes years for the grant applications to get through. He is often tricked by his less scrupulous colleagues, taken advantage of by greedy relatives who feed off his filial piety to get ‘never-gonna-paya-back’ loans and generally will never pass mediocre because he is never willing to ‘shove when it comes to push’. What I find powerful about him is that he never, ever feels resentful about all these slights, I would probably have never heard about them if not for my mom, who has a lot of unresolved issues.
I believe that if everyone had his conciliatory, justice oriented, giving attitude, nobody would be more powerful than others and the world would be as Karl Marx had originally envisioned – total equality. (This reminds me of this amazing movie called ‘Dinotopia’ with their ideal world, lovely) Marx’s method was faulty because it relied on the government’s autocracy and attempts at brainwashing civilians (at least that is how it turned out), which won’t work forever unless it turns out like that dark planet in ‘a wrinkle in time’ where all actions are controlled by one big brain and nobody is ever truly happy. Change has to come from the heart, otherwise we will always wish for something better, something more, something we ‘deserve’. We must aggressively instill knowledge into people so everyone will be more mature and voluntarily be giving, moderate individuals.
Unfortunately, we would be fighting a losing battle because with each generation comes the same rebellion and want, and our lives are so short that when we realize that personal material pleasure does not create life long satisfaction and happiness, we are already too old and infirmed or unattractive to become effective role models to the young hot-bloods. Our ancestors sensed this and wished to leave us the legacy of ‘tradition’ so that we need not go through the learning pains, but this was ineffective because, not being able to understand the concept of these traditions, we tore them down. They are considered detrimental to progress and restricting our wild desire to express our selfish individuality and want.
This proves that our noble ideals do not “die” due to the barrage of society’s expectations, but that they fall away gradually to reveal our true desires and goals. Perhaps if we were taught better by more mature and adequate mentors and role models… but no, we’re fixed.

London bombing

London bombing
I saw the United States flag at half-mast.
If it is truly the Muslim radicals that are initiating these attacks on ‘Christian countries’, it shows excessive stupidity on their part. Not all of the people they killed are Christians, many are atheists and even Muslims themselves. These radicals are racially prejudiced, they see people who are not a part of them in the color of hatred and do not consider them as people with feelings and ideas that might be of worth – or that their own ideals may not be so righteous. Who is initiating these hate attacks? Does Ali condone them? Is there any proof that this hatred is anything but the will and passion of men who wish to find an objective in life and instead of focusing on building are intent on destroying, taking an eye for an eye? This hatred is not only a product of religious abuse, but jealousy and culture conditioning that makes them feel helpless to seek justice against wrongs done against them except in revenge – their political and cultural environment does not encourage speaking out constructively to remedy their hurts, so they seek random targets in countries that do not have a seemingly central responsible target for their hatred. Hopefully with this self-destructive approach they will never gain a larger weapon (like nukes) to use.
My heart goes out to those who have suffered under this irrational violence.

Feelings and summary of the book “ten stupid things women do to mess up their lives” by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, circa 1993

When you devote your life to “finding yourself,” you probably won’t. Action is everything.
There is no ‘having’ self-esteem if you cannot earn it. You earn your self-esteem by accomplishing goals, impressing yourself, experiencing failure and willing to go on.
Women can learn from men not wanting to get into a family before having a solid career.
Sometimes, women see their men as their whole life, while men see their women as a mere blip in their life.
“If I tried to make my son my sole purpose in life, I’d probably have psychologically destroyed him with my overwhelming demand that he either fulfill my dreams or display such excellence that my craving for reflected identity would be satisfied.”
“Don’t do anything you can’t talk about – with that person.”
To men sex doesn’t equal romance.
Women should talk about what they really want in the relationship before having sex.
Making babies is not the solution to a bad relationship, it’ll make it harder to escape from it later on.
Don’t think you can ‘change him’, if he’s not mature enough to realize he’s a jackass, dump him.
Plots in movies puzzle me where people seemingly fall in love without meaningful conversations to get to know each other better. Ex: ‘Dirty Dancing’. I have the strongest feeling that if they were to get married, they would find many ‘unexpected’ traits in each other they may not be able to tolerate, and the ‘loving feeling’ will go vamoosh. The movie industry is acting extremely irresponsible as a broad audience media in creating these relationships in an ideal light. Couples who cohabitate with their spouses-to-be have a higher divorce rate than those who don’t. (Did someone just sneeze “Bridget Jones”? ) Though hers is a wonderful relationship, it’s the exception. Now we all like to think we’re special and ‘the exception’, but we should be more realistic and critical about the life that television depicts.
Reading her books makes me want to reiterate my stance on abstinence – don’t have sex before marriage. Even though the feminist movement has given women (in the west) more freedom and less condemnation, the chances of you getting emotionally hurt (because women tend to tie the physical with romance) and unwanted pregnancy is a big risk.

Coming soon: Feelings and summary of the book “ten stupid things men do to mess up their lives” by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, circa 1997