Dad of the year

Below are copied parts of a report in today's Yahoo!News.




"Baby's body recovered, three missing, after raft carrying migrants capsizes in Rio Grande

By Andrew Hay (Reuters) 

The body of a 10-month-old boy was recovered on Thursday and three other migrants, including two children, were still missing after their raft capsized as they crossed the Rio Grande in Texas, U.S. Border Patrol said.

The rubber raft flipped over on Wednesday night near Del Rio, Texas, and all nine of its occupants were swept away in the cold, fast-flowing water, according to the father of the dead child, U.S. Border Patrol said in a statement.

The father swam to safety. A Border Patrol agent jumped into the river and rescued his wife and 6-year-old son. The boy was given emergency care and then rushed to a hospital for advanced treatment. Another man and his son were found on the river bank.

The missing were believed to include the 7-year-old nephew of the dead child’s father, a girl and an adult male, according to the statement.

"What we’re dealing with now is senseless tragedy,” Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Raul Ortiz said in a statement.

The baby’s body was found several miles downriver by a Border Patrol search and rescue team.

Drownings are common on the Rio Grande, which makes up part of the U.S.-Mexico border, as migrants try to cross on often overcrowded, makeshift rafts with no life jackets...

In the past seven months, Border Patrol has apprehended over 418,000 migrants on the southwest border, already surpassing the 2018 fiscal-year total. Most of those arrested were Central American families, many of them crossing the border in large groups that can number over 400 people.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 283 deaths on the border in 2018, ranging from heat-related fatalities to drownings... Migrant advocates say the death toll is far greater as many bodies are never recovered from deserts and the Rio Grande."

Nothing good can come out of emigration culture, i.e. regarding emigration to a more prosperous country as the default path to success, and those who stay and work in their homeland as failures. It drives people to emigrate at any cost, legally or not, and ultimately leads to deaths. At least, once this man's loved ones were in the cold turbulent waters of Rio Grande as a result of his poor decisions, he could try to bring them out, instead of swimming to safety himself and leaving their rescue to the Border Patrol. Moral: do not concent to a perilous journey if the man leading you is a coward and a loser. Of course, dragging one's family through deserts and rivers to cross a border illegally and earn detention is the sort of idea that comes exactly to losers, so wives should just say "no".

Iranian woman lawyer convicted for defending women

Nasrin Sotoudeh (image source: Amnesty International)

From a March 6 report by Jon Gambrell, Associated Press, via Yahoo! News:

"A prominent human rights lawyer in Iran who defended protesters against the Islamic Republic's mandatory headscarves for women has been convicted and faces years in prison, an activist group said Wednesday.

The conviction of Nasrin Sotoudeh, who previously served three years in prison for her work, underlines the limits of challenging Iran's theocracy as it faces economic pressure exacerbated by the U.S. pulling out of Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers...

It shows "the insecurity the regime has to any peaceful challenge," said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, which reported Sotoudeh's conviction. "It knows a large segment of the country . are fed up with the hijab laws."

Sotoudeh, 55, was convicted in absentia after she refused to attend the trial before Tehran's Revolutionary Court as she was unable to select her own counsel, Ghaemi said. The Revolutionary Court conducts closed-door hearings over alleged threats to Iran's government.

The charges range from her membership in a human rights group to "encouraging corruption and prostitution." That suggests her detention in part relates to her defense of women who protested the mandatory hijab.

Sotoudeh's conviction was not immediately reported by Iranian state-run media. Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The Center for Human Rights in Iran relied on information about Sotoudeh's case provided by her husband Reza Khandan, who separately faces a six-year prison sentence over providing updates on her case on Facebook, Ghaemi said...

One of Sotoudeh's clients in the hijab protests received a 20-year prison sentence, showing the sensitivity authorities felt about the case...

The hijab and chador — the flowing, all-encompassing robe for women — have long been parts of Persian culture. They became political symbols in 1936, when Iran's pro-Western ruler Reza Shah Pahlavi banned the garments amid his efforts to rapidly modernize Iran. The ban became a source of humiliation for some pious Muslim women in the country.

As the 1979 Islamic Revolution took hold, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered female civil servants to wear the chador. At first, thousands of women protested the decision in Tehran and Khomeini later said officials should not insult women who chose not to wear it — though he also called the chador "the flag of the revolution."

The hijab and loose-fitting clothing later became mandatory for all women in Iran..."

On March 8, my sympathy to Ms. Sotoudeh and the suffering Iranian women.

Update: Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes. Amnesty International has a petition to free her - please sign if you care!

Christian family tortures 7-yr-old boy to death for not knowing Bible verses

In April last year, 7-year-old Ethan Hauschultz from Manitowoc (Wisconsin) was killed. His photo above has been provided by his mother Andrea Everett. Because of alleged neglect and abuse, Ethan and his three siblings were taken from her by the authorities and put under the guardianship of their grand-uncle Timothy Hauschultz and his wife Tina. These two individuals, together with their 15-yr-old son Damian, are now charged for his death.

(Photo from wbay)

Timothy required the children to memorize verses from the Bible and, when not satisfied, punished them by forcing them to carry around for hours logs heavier than 20 kg. On the fateful day, Timothy went out and ordered his son Damian (then 14) to oversee Ethan's punishment. Because the 7-yr-old kept dropping the log, Damian "hit and kicked the younger boy 100 times, rolled the heavy log over his chest and stood on his head and body while Ethan was face-down in a puddle. He then allegedly buried him in "his own little coffin of snow"" (Damian's words to the investigators; he laughed). When Timothy returned and found little Ethan lifeless, he rushed him to a hospital but it was too late: Ethan died from "hypothermia and blunt force injuries to his head, chest and abdomen".

It is not easy to find this case in the news without explicit searching - it is buried, like Ethan himself. It should be front-page news and send shock waves all across the Christian world. And also in child protection services, who rip children from allegedly unfit parents just to place them under the care of monsters who kill them. In another US case from last year (the Hart case), two crazy women killed their six adopted children in a murder-suicide after starving and otherwise abusing them for years.

Headscarves: photo evidence of cultural regression

Ex-Muslims of North America have declared today, Feb. 1, as No Hijab Day, to support the right of women to not wear the hijab (Islamic headscarf). The two sets of photos above speak for themselves. Both are from the Twitter feed of Roxy, hattip Prof. Coyne. I hope that the women shown (in the bottom photo, not actually shown) will eventually enjoy the freedom to express themselves and to feel the wind in their hair.

Do you believe in Santa?

Today is the second day of Christmas, and I hope everyone is having a good holiday. Every year, there is a discussion around Christmas time among a certain age group whether Santa (or whatever his equivalent is called) is real. Below, I am copying a brilliant comment on the subject, posted on Prof. Jerry Coyne's site by Justin Zimmer (I don't know whether this is all his original text):

"Typical non-believers. I don’t believe in the same Santa you don’t believe in. Year after year I hear the same old arguments rolled out against the literal interpretation of Father Christmas, but never do any of you address the best arguments for Santa Claus. Of course there isn’t an obese, bearded, cis-gendered, heterosexual, white male with bad taste in winter wear and an outmoded, non-vegan, yet carbon-neutral animal based transportation system who knows when you are sleeping, or awake and judges you based on adherence to a parental and often patriarchal set of rules. That’s simply ridiculous and no self-respecting possessor of Christmas cheer truly believes that. Only children would be so naive. What is “Santa Claus” really but the spirit of goodwill towards your fellow non-gender specific human beings, the ground-of-being jolly in the cold winter months and the joy of giving to those in need. No, Santa Claus is not a literal person you can write letters to beseeching consumerist trinkets in exchange for good behavior but the natural desire to do good by others, a sensus-saint-nicolatus if you will. When you sit down to write that letter to jolly old Saint Nick, you aren’t really expecting anything in return, just submitting to the hope that somehow good things will come your way and towards others. Santa is hope, Santa is love, and who would argue against hope or love? Jerks like you of course. That coal in your stocking is merely a metaphor for the blackness of your know-it-all, a-santa-ist hearts."

Kurds betrayed again

Throughout the war against the Islamic State, Kurds have been the most valiant and committed fighters. And now, after the USA has used them, President Trump betrayed them. He suddenly announced withdrawal of US troops from Syria, which will leave the Kurds at the mercy of their enemies. And this is just the umpteenth time in history when the so-called free world betrays them. About the Islamic State, Trump says it has been defeated and will not come back. We'll see.

Creationism wrapped in two sentences

Prof. Jerry Coyne recently reported how a creationist tried to troll his site. Below the post, commenter "Pray Hard" beautifully summarized the nonsense of creationism in two short sentences:

"I stopped trying to convince people about evolution long ago. If they can look at a fossil in stone and tell me that God put it there to test their faith, I don’t see much point in continuing."

Crazy ideas about motherhood, kidnapping and everything

See what I have just found on Yahoo!News. Shanara Mobley, a Florida mother whose newborn daughter Kamiya was abducted as a newborn from the hospital in 1998, was very happy when the girl was found alive and well last year. However, Kamiya (raised by her kidnapper as Alexis Manigo and continuing to use this name) didn't accept her mother and remained bonded to the kidnapper Gloria Williams even after she learned the truth. Now, Shanara Mobley admits that she has blocked her daughter's phone and wishes that “they never would have found her.” What impresses me most in this sad story is that almost all commenters support the daughter and say the mother should be more understanding to the young woman's hostility. Some even say that the mother should have demanded leniency for the kidnapper, "the only mother the girl knew". (Williams was sentenced to 18 years, Mobley wanted a death sentence. The daughter regularly calls her imprisoned fake "mother".)

There is almost a consensus that the kidnapper gave Kamiya a "loving home" and, hence, was not so bad after all. Also, the fact that Shanara was very young, single and poor at the time of birth is cited as an argument that the baby was lucky to be kidnapped. Some even hint that Gloria was a Good Samaritan motivated by an urge to save the baby from a miserable ghetto life with a deadbeat birth mom. People also blame the mother for receiving money from a settlement with the hospital and for being "vengeful" to the kidnapper. There is a universal sympathy to Kamiya and the way she feels about the two women who shaped her life.

On another page, I found information about what Gloria Williams said in court:

"Twenty years after she took a newborn from a Jacksonville hospital and brought the baby to South Carolina to raise as her own daughter, Gloria Williams is telling the court why.

Williams says she was in an abusive relationship with a man, Charles Manigo... She says Manigo wanted her to have a baby, and she thought that would help bring peace to their home, so she ultimately got pregnant. Williams says she miscarried as a result of the stress of the abuse... but even after she got it medically confirmed, she didn’t tell anyone.

In July 1998, Williams says she was leaving work, when she essentially went in to autopilot... She says she doesn’t know why she drove down I-95 from her home in South Carolina... “It was definitely not to take a baby, that’s for sure,” she says. That blank slate continued as she walked in to the hospital...

 

Williams says she went and looked at the other babies and thought about the one she had lost, and then walked in to Shanara Mobley’s room, again telling the defense she wasn’t sure why.

Williams says she spent a lot of time talking with Mobley and helping her out. She was still wearing scrubs from her job, and while she told the prosecutor that she didn’t claim to be a nurse at the hospital, she admitted that she knew that’s what Mobley thought. Then the newborn, Kamiyah Mobley, was brought in to the room.

“I was thinking about, you know, maybe this baby could help Charles, that’s what I was thinking. It was like, she [Shanara] was so young, and she just wasn’t real sure about what she was gunna do, and just my mindset at that time wasn’t logical, it definitely wasn’t logical. But for what I was thinking at that time, it seemed right, it seemed right,” Williams says.

Williams would ultimately take the baby back to her home in South Carolina, renaming her Alexis Manigo, and telling Charles Manigo it was his baby. She says the baby did not bring peace to their home after all, though, and when she ultimately had a custody agreement with her two sons from a prior marriage changed because of the abuse, she decided to leave with Kamiyah as well...

The defense walked Williams through a series of photos showing awards, celebrations and gatherings featuring Kamiyah while she was growing up. Williams further said Kamiyah was always cared for and provided for.

Things changed, when Kamiyah decided she wanted to start working. Williams says Kamiyah asked for her birth certificate and social security card, so she could finish all the paperwork on a job she had already lined up.

“I said, ‘you’re not my daughter’. I said, ‘I took you a long time ago’,” Williams says she told Kamiyah at that time.

Williams says she offered to turn herself in at that time, but Kamiyah told her not to. They went on another year and a half or so before the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office ultimately learned about Kamiyah and reached out...

Williams agreed that how this went is the “worst” possible outcome for Kamiyah... Upon questioning from the prosecution, Williams said her motivation for taking the baby was not out of concern for how Mobley would raise her, but for selfish reasons..."

So you see that by Williams' own admission, her kidnapping was not motivated by a wish to protect the baby from a hard life. It was motivated by an obsession to maintain a relationship with an abusive boyfriend. Being obsessed about sex doesn't exactly make one a good parent. Williams may have been financially better off than Mobley, but I don't think she gave Kamiya a "loving home". You also see from this short text that Williams is a master manipulator. One cannot help pitying young Kamiya. As a minority of commenters remarked, she was brainwashed and is now suffering of Stockholm syndrome.

But Kamiya is no longer a child. She is a 20-yr-old young adult who knows her situation and makes her choices. And she behaves like a worthy quasi-child of her kidnapper, unable and unwilling to tell right from wrong and lies from truth. In her immense selfishness, she uses her feelings as a substitute for the moral compass she lacks, sides with her evil impostor "mother" and victimizes her true mother for a second time. What if "the only mother she knew" had killed her actual mother? There is a tiny chance that Kamiya could reform as she matures, but my observation is that at 20, the core of personality has already hardened.

The mother says: "I shouldn't have to compete with a kidnapper... I didn’t know this kidnapper had such a hold on her. I can see that it’s my child, but I can also see traits from the kidnapper in her. She would defend the kidnapper to me. She blames me for everything. I think she blames me that this woman is sitting in jail. She’s blocked now because I don’t want to argue with her. I’m tired of being hurt."

Nevertheless, the majority of people think that the mother should shut up and put up with the fact that the piece of shit who kidnapped her daughter 20 years ago conferred her personality to the girl, making Kamiya a similar piece of shit. People think that Shanara should be all sympathy and understanding. Modern Western society loves to put unrealistic demands to parents, especially mothers, and to smear them for nothing. Maybe this is one of the reasons why mothers are increasingly in short supply.

I also think the psycho kidnapper should not be allowed any contact with her victim.