Sextexting - The Danger We Supply To Our Children

Five years ago when my son was 14, I had to renew my cell phone contract and upgrade to newer technology. The company offered me the opportunity to share my minutes with another person. My son was starting high school and for the first time in his life would be out on his own traveling to and from school. So, I thought it would be a good idea to get him a phone so he could keep in touch with me. Plus, having a phone, in my mind, was a safety feature in case of an emergency.

We both got the same phone and it was loaded with features. It could text, had a camera and could be customized with special ring-tones. I even bought the package to allow us to send a certain number of text messages.

At the time, I thought I was being a responsible adult. And, as with most parents and children, we had our ups-and-downs. Sometimes I would call and, rather than answer the phone, he would ignore the call and let it go to voicemail. And because my cell phone plan offered free nights and weekends, he would spend hours on the phone with all of his friends, thus saving me the charges on my home phone line. I am sure many parents have done the same as I did - supplied their children with cell phones because we've seen it more in terms of safety and security.

Now, cell phones have become a tool for the world of child pornography. How? Because as parents we haven't kept up with technology and current teenage and young people crazes. And the current one for young people is called "sexting," which is the combination of the words sex and texting.

As many of the newer cell phone models have cameras, our boys and girls are taking nude pictures of themselves. That phenomenon is most prevalent amongst young girls, but boys are not exempt. They take nude pictures of themselves using their cell phones and then send the photos to their friends. Girls are sending their pictures to their boyfriends or boys that they like. Boys are doing it because they think it is funny or exploring their sexuality. They can even upload their photos to the internet where the images can remain for a long time.

And if parents haven't kept up with technology and current trends, then neither has the law. When most of us hear the term "child pornography," we think of dirty old men taking advantage of unwilling and under age children. We think of young people who are forced into doing something against their will or too young to have a say so in what is being done to them. But in recent days, a number of young people under the age of 18 have been hit with child pornography charges. How does that happen? Well, most laws are written to be incident specific and not necessarily age specific for the perpetrator. So in New Jersey for example, a14-year-old girl who posted nude photos she took of herself on her MySpace page has been charged with distribution and possession of child pornography.

There have also been incidents all over the country of boys receiving nude photos of girls sent to them via the girl's cell phone. Those boys, once they have ended a relationship with the girl, have shared the photos with their friends as payback. The boy who sends the photo is subsequently charged with distribution of child pornography. If a young boy gets a nude photo of an underage girl and is found with the image still on his cell phone, he can be charged with possession of child pornography. In both cases, the children who are both victim and perpetrator in these situations can be forced to register as sex offenders.

I am urging all parents to talk with their children about their cell phones and what they use it for. Too often, our children only think in terms of how much fun doing something wrong might be. Or, that they are young rebels and out to change the world. They are not aware of how a moment's indiscretions can, in today's world, follow them around for the rest of their lives.

Austin Residents Fill Potholes Themselves!

From the Chicago Tribune:

What to do when there are potholes on your street and the city won't pave them fast enough?

Patch them yourself.

That's what a West Side organization did today. Residents from the Austin neighborhood bought four bags of Quikrete from Home Depot for $50 and used shovels, rakes and a roller to fill about seven holes on the 4800 block of West Van Buren Street.

"The city's not doing it so residents need to take the matter into their own hands," said Elce Redmond, organizer with the South Austin Coalition.

The group fronted the $50 for the bags of asphalt mix. Neighbor Ernest Roberts luckily had a 50 pound roller in his garage -- left behind by a previous owner.

Roberts complained about Mayor Daley's slow efforts in repairing potholes in the neighborhood.
"He's too slow to getting around to here," he said.

Chicago Department of Transportation spokesman Brian Steele said that the agency plans repairs based on the volume of 311 pothole complaints and the amount of traffic streets experience.

CDOT received just one call about potholes in the 4800 block of Van Buren in the last two months, he said. The agency has repaired about 300,000 potholes since Dec. 1 and hasn't received state funding for resurfacing since 2006, he said.

Watch out Folks - Now its the Drywall From China That Can Kill You!

From the Christian Science Monitor:

There was something that always bothered Rene Galvin when she walked in the front door of her new condo - an eye-watering, rotten egg smell that clung to the four walls and everything contained within them, from the furniture to her carpet and clothes.

She could never quite put her finger on the cause of the foul odor that seemed to pervade every pore. "I'd just stand there, look around and say to myself: 'One day, I'll find out whatever it is that died inside these walls'," she says.

But there were further problems to come; mirrors that corroded around the edges, drains that rusted on the baths, pitted faucets, the television, computer, dishwasher, coffee pot, telephones, and air-conditioning system that all inexplicably broke down. Even the treasured gold-dipped necklace she wore around her neck turned black. Then there were the headaches, throat and sinus troubles.

"I had no idea what was going on. I thought 'Boy, the Florida air sure is bad'," she says with a wry laugh.

Humor, though, is not something that comes easily these days when she talks about her $500,000 home in Bonita Springs, Florida, that now sits empty after it was found to contain contaminated drywall from China.

The discovery of sulfur-emitting compounds within the imported construction materials has sparked a national investigation, numerous lawsuits, and a scandal that is feared to have affected as many as 100,000 homes, a majority so far in Florida. Reparations could run into the billions of dollars.

So dire is the situation – with US suppliers and builders reluctant to take the heat, the overseas manufacturer resisting liability, and insurance companies denying claims, while victims are faced with having their homes gutted if not entirely bulldozed – that lawmakers are pushing for a state of emergency to be declared in Florida, to start the flow of federal financial aid.

"This is an acute and growing crisis," US Rep. Robert Wexler (D) urged the state's governor, Charlie Crist, in a letter, noting serious health and safety implications. "This is a significant statewide problem whose devastating impact on families and our state is similar to a natural disaster such as a hurricane, fire or flood."

Over 500 million pounds of drywall were imported from China between 2004 and 2007 when the construction boom was at a peak and domestic materials in short supply, with demand exacerbated by the reconstruction programs that followed hurricanes Katrina and Wilma.

Knauf Tianjin – the main Chinese manufacturer so far singled out for blame – says it was responsible for only around 20 per cent of that supply, and the firm complains that because it was the only company that stamped its name on its product that it is being unfairly targeted.

Laboratory tests carried out for Florida's Department of Health showed that samples of Chinese-made drywall - including Knauf's - contained strontium sulfide, which gives a rotten egg odor when moistened and reacts with hydrogen in the air to take on corrosive powers capable of eating through metals and electrical wires.

"This is a noxious, pungent chemical compound. If it can corrode metals in your house, I hate to think what it's doing to residents and their children and pets," said Jordan Chaikin of Florida legal firm Parker Waichman Alonso, which has launched a federal class-action lawsuit against Knauf in the US District Court in Fort Myers.

"People are stuck with these homes, they can't afford to leave, they put their life's savings into them or they're mortgaged and they're turning to builders for help," he said. "But in some cases builders have filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy so there can be no claims against them. Some homes need to be bulldozed, in other cases gutted entirely, and that's very expensive for builders."

The crisis has woven a tangled economic and legal web. Among the builders on the receiving end of consumers' wrath is Lennar Homes of Miami, which has identified tainted drywall in over 80 of its properties and has pledged to pay the costs of replacing it and relocating residents in the interim.

Lennar Homes is the subject of some lawsuits. But, in turn, it has launched a suit itself against Knauf and another Chinese drywall manufacturer, Taishan Gypsum. It is also suing independent US contractors for installing the defective product in Lennar homes.

"They have refused to take responsibility for their defective product, leaving us no other option but to seek redress in a court of law," the company asserted in a written statement.

"The builders are victims too," says Howard Ehrsam, a civil engineer who founded Chinese Drywall Screening, of Port St Lucie, Florida, to meet growing demand from homeowners for diagnosis and advice.

Insurance companies "don't know what to do," he says, since contaminated drywall counts neither as a covered peril nor as an exclusion. "Meanwhile you've got the manufacturer, the supplier, the builder, the installer ... a whole chain of custody, so for an attorney it's a case of 'Woo-hoo, we've got all these layers we can sue.'"

He adds: "I've never seen a crisis in the construction industry to this degree ... this is widespread and far-reaching."

For many affected by the contamination scandal, or striving to bring resolution, there is anger and frustration that this is just the latest in a series of health and safety scares relating to imported Chinese goods. Toxic baby toys, tainted animal feed and toothpaste, hazardous high-chairs, and infant formula contaminated with melamine have all been the focus of product recalls or warnings over the past 18 months.

"We need stronger and better quality control coming out of China," says attorney Ervin Gonzalez of Miami, who is suing Knauf on behalf of 150 drywall victims. "And if China isn't doing it, the countries buying from them need to do a better job themselves."

Amid questions as to why it has not done a better job of screening imports for dangerous defects, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, a federal body charged with protecting the public from such risks, is now mounting an investigation into the drywall issue. It has dispatched toxicologists, electrical engineers, and compliance staff to Florida to speak with victims and take samples from their homes.

"We are working towards initiating a testing program and liaising very closely with federal parties and state departments of health," says spokesman Scott Wolfson. "We are following the facts."

In recent months, the commission has also started posting staff at US ports to work alongside customs officials in scrutinizing imports more closely. "Now we have the ability to focus on looking at where these products come in, and what can we be doing better to look at their quality and safety," says Mr Wolfson.

For a while, Mrs Galvin lodged with friends and at hotels until moving to New Jersey while still struggling to pay the mortgage on her uninhabitable condo in Florida. She owns a boutique in Atlantic City and has cleared out all items marked "Made in China" from her inventory. New additions to her stock include T-shirts that she has had printed with the words: "No more toxins from China."

"This whole problem has wiped people out, both economically and emotionally," she says.

"We don't know what to do, we can't get answers and the banks still want their mortgage money. But at least now I know I'm not allergic to Florida; I was just being poisoned by my house."

Shootings Here, Shootings There, Shootings Everywhere

Before publishing the column shown below, one of my editors asked me was I serious when I mentioned the person wanting to get a gun and shoot the family that lives next door.

And yes, that person was serious. So now as we watch the news, we have another moron killing cops "just because". Last week it was Oakland, today Pittsburg. Yesterday it was the man in New York.

This is not the same America that went thru a depression in the twenties. This is the "me-me" generation, that has never suffered any setbacks. That doesn't expect to ever have to suffer.

I fear it will get much worst before it gets better!
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PITTSBURGH - A man opened fire on officers during a domestic disturbance call Saturday morning, killing three of them, a police official said. Friends said he recently had been upset about losing his job and that he feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.

Neighbors described how a quiet street in the city’s Stanton Heights neighborhood turned into a battlefield with hundreds of rounds cracking through the morning air and fallen police officers lying bleeding in the street, their colleagues unable to reach them.

Three officers were killed, said a police official at the scene who spoke on condition of anonymity because was not authorized to talk to the media. Police spokeswoman Diane Richard would only say that at least five officers were wounded, but wouldn’t give any other details.

Friends identified the suspect as Richard Poplawski, 23, but police would not immediately confirm his name. The gunman was arrested after a four-hour standoff, police said.

The shooting occurred just two weeks after four police officers were fatally shot March 21 in Oakland, Calif., in the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001. The officers were the first Pittsburgh city officers to die in the line of duty in 18 years.

Neighbors said the shooting began at about 7 a.m. and that two officers were shot almost immediately.

“When I looked down I saw two police officers laying in the street,” said Don Sand, who lives across the street and was awoken by the sound of gunfire.

A short time later, more officers, SWAT teams and other law enforcement arrived and a third officer was shot, Sand said.

“They couldn’t get the scene secure enough to get to them. They were just lying there bleeding,” Sand said. “By the time they secured the scene enough to get to them it was way too late.”

Witness: Hundreds of shots fired
Gail Moschetti, who lives diagonally across the street from the Poplawski house, said she heard hundreds of shots as she and her husband took refuge in their basement. Tom Moffitt, 51, a city firefighter who lives two blocks away, said he came to the scene and heard “hundreds, just hundreds of shots.”

Police planned to release more details at a mid-afternoon news conference Saturday.

Edward Perkovic said Poplawski, his best friend, feared “the Obama gun ban that’s on the way” and “didn’t like our rights being infringed upon.” Another longtime friend, Aaron Vire, said Poplawski feared that President Barack Obama was going to take away his rights, though he said he “wasn’t violently against Obama.”

Perkovic, 22, said he got a call at work from him in which he said, “Eddie, I am going to die today. ... Tell your family I love them and I love you.”

Perkovic said: “I heard gunshots and he hung up. ... He sounded like he was in pain, like he got shot.”

Vire, 23, said Poplawski once had an Internet talk show but that it wasn’t successful. Vire said Poplawski had an AK-47 rifle and several powerful handguns, including a .357 Magnum.

Gunman reportedly out of work
Another friend, Joe DiMarco, said Poplawski had been laid off from his job at a glass factory earlier this year. DiMarco said he didn’t know the name of the company, but knew his friend had been upset about losing his job.

The last Pittsburgh police officers killed in the line of duty were Officers Thomas L. Herron and Joseph J. Grill, according to a Web site that tracks police killings. They died after their patrol car collided with another vehicle while chasing a stolen car on March 6, 1991.

According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 133 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in 2008, a 27 percent decrease from year before and the lowest annual total since 1960.

Poplawski had often fought with neighbors and had even gotten into fistfights with a couple, Sand said.

“This is a relatively really quiet neighborhood except for him,” Sand said. “He was just one of those kids that we knew to stay clear from.”

Rob Gift, 45, who lives a block away, said the well-kept single-family houses with manicured lawns are home to many police officers, firefighters, paramedics and other city workers.

“It’s just a very quiet neighborhood,” Gift said.

Cooler heads should prevail during hot summer

Even though spring is barely upon us and winter is still a vivid memory, I wonder and fear what the summer will bring. Because this will be the first summer that everyone in Austin will spend knowing the rough economic times we're in. Now for some folks, their economic conditions have never changed. They were doing badly five years ago and they are still doing badly today.

But for others, this will be their first summer struggling to hold on to what they have. And because they are struggling, the long hot summer is sure to magnify everything. From job loses, to higher taxes, an uncertain economic future, and our inability to be civil towards each other, we are in for one hell of a ride this summer. Especially when you add into the mix the people who have given up and just don't care.

Now, I'm not talking about just anybody who "doesn't care." I'm speaking of the people who are dealing with so many first-time frustrations - those that have taken the "I-just-don't-care" mantra. For example: a while back, I ran into a friend who was telling me about their next door neighbor. My friend loves to take care of their property. Keeping it clean, mowing the lawn, and just enjoying living in their home. The next-door neighbor has a bunch of children who do everything they can to upset my friend.

They throw paper on the ground and into the yard. They walk across my friend's lawn, squishing their feet like they are trying to kill the grass. They stand in front of the house hollering and screaming so that my friend can't sit in the living room and watch television. And the adults in the household who should be in charge of the children are not receptive to anyone saying anything about what those children do. To a large degree, they even encourage the children to behave as such. So what does the economic times have to do with a situation like this?

Well, in good times, my friend could tolerate it. But with so many forces working against my friend, they are at their rope's end. So when my friend told me about getting so angry with those kids that they wanted to get a gun and shoot everyone in the house, well, that is a threat not to be ignored.

But that was last year. My fear now is what this summer will bring. As people like my friend find themselves under so many pressures, how will they respond to situations that under better times would have been handled more calmly? Will small things turn into larger issues as people so frustrated with life are giving up hope? In the news recently are two incidents I see as examples of people losing it and not caring. The first is the case of Nova Henry.

She is the young woman who had dated and gave birth to the child of former Chicago Bull center Eddie Curry. She used an attorney, Fred Goings, to file a paternity suit against Curry. She later gave birth to a daughter whose last name was Goings. But it turned out that Eddie Curry was the father of that child.

It's now alleged that Fred Goings shot and killed Henry and the baby. Henry was shot six times, including in the head, back arms and legs. The baby was shot in the head and back. That is a lot of pent-up rage and frustration going on inside the killer's mind, whoever that person is.

Or, take the case of Kerby Revelus in Massachusetts. No one is clear what exactly set off the 23-year-old man on a killing spree. As police entered his residence responding to a disturbance call, he was decapitating his 5-year-old sister's head. Boston police officers shot him dead as he then attacked his 9-year-old sister, who survived and was hospitalized. They found that he had also stabbed his 17-year-old sister to death.

These two cases involved black-on-black killings. But the cases also show that for many of us, the old adage that "blacks just don't do those sort of things" is forever thrown out the window. Black people are now serial killers and mass murderers, capable of committing any heinous crime that years prior we would only attribute to the white society at large.

As the summer approaches, I'd like to see those in position of leadership do something they haven't done in a long time: actually lead. I'd like to see the same anger displayed when a cop kills an innocent citizen. I'd like to see the multitude of churches-especially all the storefront ones-open every single day to give the kids a place to go and something to do. I'd like to see every neighborhood in Austin have an active block club where neighbors can work out their differences.

Lastly, for each and every one of us who are losing their temper over dumb stuff, let's just take a moment to pause and think before we act. Every molehill doesn't have to be made into a mountain.

Daley Has the City in HIs Back Pocket

I am an active voter. But not just for politicians. What I do best is vote with my taxable dollars where and with whom I spend my money. And I am sure that many others in the Chicago area do the same thing. For example, I will not buy gas in Cook County. I was working a part-time job that took me to the South Side three times a week. I wasn't too far from the Indiana border, so when the gas got low, I drove into Indiana and filled up my tank. My tax dollars went to Indiana and not Illinois. And guess what? I wasn't alone.

Even the Illinois vans that deliver Meals on Wheels were filling up at a gas station in Indiana. How many people now buy their bottled water in the suburbs? I do. Ever since the mayor and his band of 50 aldermen decided that a nickel tax on each bottle of water was what people should pay, I now stock up whenever I go to Sam's Club in Northlake. So the city not only lost regular taxes out of me on the water, they also won't get the special taxes as well.

I was watching the news the other day and a female newscaster explained how she was now going to the malls to get her nails done. She had tired of dealing with the parking meters and the limited amount of time. So her regular nail technician lost a customer, and the city has lost out on any additional revenue she might have spent.

I've just read a story where the Maxwell Street Market, since relocated to Canal Street, is now losing vendors. Say what you may about the market, but it did draw people out to spend money-and the merchants there benefited from the throngs of people shopping. Many of the vendors are now opting for Swap-O-Rama at 41st and Ashland. So far, they haven't left the city, but how long before they too-tired and fed up-start looking elsewhere?

For all the talk the mayor does about shortfalls in the city's budget, there's one area needing increased revenue and a great deal more of the mayor's attention: encouraging people to shop in the city. Who in their right mind wants to drive downtown and pay over $20 for parking just to shop? Who wants to spend their money trying to figure out the complex parking meter rules and regulations? Who really wants to go downtown to see a bean (a.k.a. Millennium Park's Cloud Gate)? Is Chicago for Chicagoans or are we the mere background players in the mayor's grandiose quest to have listed in his political obituary the line, "And he brought the Olympics to Chicago."

When will we as citizens, who continue to vote with our pocketbooks by not spending money in the city, work to get others to vote this mayor out of office? A mayor whose greed for a possible Chicago Olympics has him repaving roads in Washington Park while the rest of us risk our lives in our neighborhoods with potholes the size of small craters.

When will we as citizens demand a true accounting of the city's finances? Why is there always a budget shortfall that ends up resulting in taxes increasing? Yet, there are millions of dollars in TIF funds that the mayor spends like it's his own personal checking account.

Pay attention Chicago, pay attention. We are in an economy where every dime matters. When those who are in charge of the money become careless with it, we need to hold them accountable.

When money suddenly becomes available to make the ride on city streets comfortable for the visiting Olympic committee, but there's no money to make the city's residents' ride comfortable, the message becomes clear-we the citizens are not the ones for whom the mayor serves.

My mantra to Chicago has been to Pay Attention. Is it working?

I am so glad to hear of the destruction of parking meters where people are pissed off in an economy where every dime matters to let the mayor, his band of fifty theives and others know that Chicagoans aren't going to sit back and allow meters to be outdoor bandits.

Next will be those red light cameras. A paint ball gun and black or orange paintballs can send an even better message.

THEN IN FEBRUARY 2011, VOTE OUT THE VILLAGE IDIOT!




FROM CHANNEL 2 NEWS:

They are taking more of your quarters every day. And Chicagoans are in revolt. While some are saying enough by avoiding them, others are taking out their frustrations on the parking meters - literally! CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports with the anger behind the new meter rate increases.

You think eight is enough? How about 12? That's how many quarters buy an hour of parking time in some places now. And its why some people have had enough.

Near Broadway and Addison, meter after meter are broken.

"I called the company and I said I don't want a ticket," one woman said.

LAZ is a Chicago company which collects the money for the New York owner which paid the city $1.2 billion to lease the city's 36,000 meters for 75 years. They've pasted new stickers on them, doubled the rates to as much as a quarter for five minutes in the Loop. That's $3 an hour to $2 an hour in many other neighborhoods. People are angry.

"People come into this neighborhood for entertainment reasons, and you can't anymore because meters are so expensive," said Joe DiSalvo.

And people are frustrated.

"It's jammed," a woman said.

CBS 2 called the company, too; twice to New York, another to Chicago. They didn't call back. We also called the city. They called back but basically said, 'not our meters anymore, not our problem anymore.'

Enter a guy who calls himself 'Mike The Parking Ticket Geek.' He contacted us via Twitter and showed us his website, theexpiredmeter.com, which he used to give people advice on how to beat parking tickets. The site has become a lightning rod for peoples' complaints about the new rates and operators.

Mike says the people who are writing to him have a sense of "anger, frustration, rage in some cases."

To the point where some, it appears, are vandalizing the meters. Pictures on Mike's website show meters deliberately smashed, taken apart, spray-painted, or deliberately jammed.

"People suggest taking a quarter, putting some super glue on it, and putting it in the coin slot," Mike said.

That jams the meter and everyone parks for free. Or not at all.

All over the city, we saw stretches of meters empty in places where people had been fighting for spots. Having to put in 12 quarters an hour was either too inconvenient or too expensive.

The credit card meters, promised for the entire city within six months, are still rare. And peoples' patience is wearing thin.

"Some people write me and say, 'this is the last straw, my condo is for sale, sales tax, red light cameras.' It's just too much for some people,'" Mike said.

The meter people have said they hope to get things straightened out by April 10th. Some have suggested a moratorium on tickets until they do. But with the city having given up the proceeds from the meters but still getting the revenue for the tickets, the meter revolt may fall on deaf ears.