Happy Mother’s Day. Hold your children extra close every chance you get. Bask in their smiles.
There have been nearly four thousand gun related deaths since Newtown. Too many mothers are spending too much time talking to their children in heaven instead of across the kitchen table. We draw support from the tens of thousands of letters and cards we’ve received from those of you who stand with us. We are emboldened by the courage of victims like Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who have committed their lives to achieve meaningful change. We soldier on, because like all movements, there are tipping points, and we believe this is ours. It is time, as six-year-old Ana Marquez-Greene once said, to “let love win.” There are 150 million parents in this country and it’s our goal to unite them in a place of common ground. This is the Sandy Hook Promise.
This Mother’s Day, we encourage you to make the Sandy Hook Promise with us. Today is not about guns, laws or politics; it is about mothers and love.
As “Sandy Hook Moms,” we often hear the phrase “I can’t imagine what you are going through.” Well, please imagine it. Imagine what it’s like to lose a son or daughter to gun violence and encourage your elected officials to do the same. We never thought our school, our community or these innocent children would ever face the unspeakable. The more we as parents expand the boundaries of our love beyond our family and to all children, the more likely a tragedy like the one that broke our hearts will never happen again.
To join us in making the Sandy Hook Promise, please visit: Sandy Hook Promise
I Promise to do everything I can to encourage and support common sense solutions that make my community and our country safer from similar acts of violence.
In light of the NRAsshole Convention in the great city of Houston, Greater State Of Texas…here is the first really true public service announcement from the NRAsshole Organization for it’s membership….
A ‘Gun Lobby’ commercial reassuring all Americans that 2nd Amendment Gun Rights will not be taken away by the government. Help Support their efforts to keep guns in the hands of those who want them. No questions asked.
The current background check ‘loopholes’ create a very dangerous environment, where anyone can easily bypass the system of safety regulation and get the guns that they desire. Contact your local Senator and tell them that this is unacceptable.
For More Information about how you can support the effort, please visit:
The George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston is prepared for the annual convention of the National Rifle Assn. The event, which begins Friday, is expected to draw more than 70,000 people. (Johnny Hanson / Associated Press / May 1, 2013)
HOUSTON — The National Rifle Assn.’s annual convention begins in earnest Friday in Houston, with leaders who have spent the year defending the group in the wake of mass shootings emboldened by the recent defeat of federal gun control legislation and ready to rally around this year’s theme: “Stand and Fight.”
“If you are an NRA member, you deserve to be proud,” Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s chief executive wrote to members last week, saying they “exemplify everything that’s good and right about America.”
On Friday afternoon, LaPierre is scheduled to appear at the convention with a panel of political leaders who have championed gun rights, including former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin (who some tea party advocates are hoping will make a run for the Senate), Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (also a tea party favorite), Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.
LaPierre will address the membership again Saturday before a “Stand and Fight” rally.
More than 70,000 people from across the country and abroad are expected to attend the three-day event at Houston’s downtown convention center drawn by, among other things, a gun trade show, youth day, firearms classes and a speech by rocker and NRA ally Ted Nugent.
“It is on track to be the largest NRA annual meeting ever,” NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam told the Los Angeles Times. “I think a lot of it has to do with the fight that we’re in. People understand that now more than ever they need to come out and support the 2nd Amendment.”
Gun control advocates also planned to flock to the convention center, and Arulanandam said that shouldn’t cause friction.
“That is people exercising their 1st Amendment rights. We respect their 1st Amendment rights, and we hope they respect our 1st and 2nd Amendment rights,” he said.
Among events gun control groups have planned: a petition drive for expanded background checks of gun purchasers, veterans speaking out against illegal guns, and a vigil near the convention center for victims of gun violence that will start Friday morning and last through Sunday.
The “No More Names” vigil includes the names of those killed in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and others who have died since then in gun violence, said Lauren Weiner, a spokeswoman for Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Change.
When supporters held a similar event last month ahead of the Senate gun control vote, they had collected about 3,300 names, Weiner told The Times.
“We don’t want to add any more names to the list. That’s our goal ideally through passing legislation,” Weiner said.
Among those expected to attend the convention is Erica Lafferty, daughter of slain Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung. Lafferty has become an outspoken proponent of gun control legislation.
Weiner said the failure of gun control legislation has emboldened rather than demoralized supporters, citing an incident earlier this week in which Lafferty and others confronted Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) over her vote.
“We look at it as a first step in a process,” Weiner said of the legislation’s defeat. “It has galvanized folks — you’ve seen it in New Hampshire this week. Folks realize that we need to be louder,” particularly relatives of those killed in Newtown.
Kim Russell, national field director for the gun control group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said their membership grew and donations poured in after the Senate vote (20% of their total donations to date came within 24 hours). They, too, plan to have a presence in Houston.
“That Senate vote was the second alarm. Newtown was the first,” Russell told The Times. “There’s a backlash now.”
Two-year-old Caroline Sparks killed by five-year-old brother’s rifle…
Here’s a photo……..
Two-year-old gets shot and killed and, yawn, it’s just another day in America
And here’s a photo you may have missed as well, of a couple of other children killed by guns/assault weapons in the past 140 days…..
How Many People Have Been Killed by Guns Since Newtown?
Answer is: 3,810 American lives erased since December 14th, 2012…known simply as 12/14. Thats Three Thousand, Eight Hundred & Ten humans removed from this Continent in 140 days time.
Written By Ruth Jacobs…..C&P By Jueseppi B. ( ° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Soul Destruction
I am writing a series of novels entitled Soul Destruction, which expose the dark world and the harsh reality of life as a call girl. The first novel in the series, Soul Destruction: Unforgivable, will be released on 29 April 2013 by Caffeine Nights. I studied prostitution in the late 1990′s, which sparked my interest in the subject. As well as drawing on my research and the women I interviewed for inspiration, I also have firsthand experience of many of the topics I write about such as post traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, abuse in childhood, rape, and drug and alcohol addiction. In addition to my fiction writing, I am also involved in non-fiction for charity and human rights campaigning in the areas of anti-sexual exploitation and anti-human trafficking.
In 1998, I was researching prostitution for a dissertation examining psychological and social issues and theories of crime. Spending time in London’s underworld, some of my friends were call girls, and three of them kindly agreed to participate in video interviews with me.
I had much in common with my friends and many other women in prostitution. 75% of women in prostitution have been sexually and physically abused as children, 70% have experienced multiple rapes, 67% meet the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, and 95% have issues with problematic drug use.
I suffered sexual assaults as a child, I had been raped twice in my twenties, though only once at the time of this project, and I had post traumatic stress disorder, which I still suffer from today. And in those days, I was a drug addict, an intravenous user of heroin and crack.
As well as interviewing my friends, I also used accounts from other women in prostitution between the 1970′s to the 1990′s. This was because there was a lack of firsthand information at the time. The few books available on the subject were mostly written by people who neither had firsthand experience of prostitution nor used interviews or accounts from women in prostitution.
One of the video interviews I had conducted and fully transcribed back in 1998 was published on Amazon in 2012. The woman interviewed was a very dear friend of mine. She is referred to as Q. Because Q and I were so close, I am sure that is what enabled her to be so open in her interview with me. Her words show how prostitution affected her psychologically, emotionally and socially. As she is no longer alive, all the royalties from that short publication,In Her Own Words… Interview with a London Call Girl, are donated to Beyond the Streets, a charity working to end sexual exploitation.
The other women I interviewed, referred to as R and S, though also friends of mine, were guarded. There was much more I knew about their lives and their feelings about their work, shared when we were out at nightclubs and indoors smoking crack, than they disclosed in front of the camera.
I had and still have an understanding and compassion for the need to hold back. I was in my own denial back then. I presented as a happy junky to the outside world, and they too presented happy – ‘happy hooker’ being a popular term. But I have never known a happy hooker as I have never known a happy intravenous user of heroin and crack.
Having since been in contact with a number of exited women, I have become aware that the trauma from prostitution is usually not felt until after exiting. Before then, like XLondonCallGirl says, you live in denial, and like Q said in her interview, you live in a fantasy-land. I was with them in my own fantasy-land and in my own denial.
Denial and dissociation are part of a protection/coping mechanism that enables the women to carry on with a veneer of toughness, the appearance of being a ‘happy hooker’, and without falling apart. On the outside being a call girl may well appear to be glamorous, but on the inside, it is not. It can take years to recover from, and I am sure many never fully recover, certainly from the women I know.
As well as dispelling the ‘happy hooker’ myth, I hope with my novels and my non-fiction work to change the stigma much of society has against women who work in prostitution. They are often judged and looked down upon. These women have mainly had painful and tormented childhoods and traumatic present lives. For most, they do not choose prostitution, but prostitution chooses them. These women and equally women who say they choose prostitution deserve to be seen and respected as any other women.
Soul Destruction: Unforgivable is dedicated to Q.
Enter the bleak existence of a call girl haunted by the atrocities of her childhood. In the spring of 1997, Shelley Hansard is a drug addict with a heroin habit and crack psychosis. Her desirability as a top London call girl is waning.
When her client dies in a suite at The Lanesborough Hotel, Shelley’s complex double-life is blasted deeper into chaos. In her psychotic state, the skills required to keep up her multiple personas are weakening. Amidst her few friends, and what remains of her broken family, she struggles to maintain her wall of lies.
During this tumultuous time, she is presented with an opportunity to take revenge on a client who raped her and her friends. But in her unbalanced state of mind, can she stop a serial rapist?
Soul Destruction: Unforgivable is released 29 April 2013. Available worldwide from all major online retailers in paperback and e-book. Pre-orders are available direct from Caffeine Nights.
Enter the bleak existence of a call girl haunted by the atrocities of her childhood. In the spring of 1997, Shelley Hansard is a drug addict with a heroin habit and crack psychosis. Her desirability as a top London call girl is waning.
When her client dies in a suite at The Lanesborough Hotel, Shelley’s complex double-life is blasted deeper into chaos. In her psychotic state, the skills required to keep up her multiple personas are weakening. Amidst her few friends, and what remains of her broken family, she struggles to maintain her wall of lies.
During this tumultuous time, she is presented with an opportunity to take revenge on a client who raped her and her friends. But in her unbalanced state of mind, can she stop a serial rapist?
Ruth Jacobs studied prostitution in the late 1990′s, which sparked her interest in the subject. Her Soul Destruction series of novels expose the dark world and the harsh reality of life as a call girl. She draws on her research and the women she interviewed for inspiration. She also has firsthand experience of some of the topics she writes about such as post traumatic stress disorder, and drug and alcohol addiction.
Soul Destruction: Unforgivable, Ruth’s debut novel, follows Shelley Hansard, a heroin addicted, crack psychotic, London call girl who gets the opportunity to take revenge on a client who raped her. Soul Destruction: Unforgivable will be published in April 2013 by Caffeine Nights. Ruth’s second novel, Soul Destruction Diary: Inescapable, can be read on her website http://www.soul-destruction.com. The story follows Nicole O’Connell, Shelley Hansard’s closest friend in the first book, as she travels to Sydney, Australia, in the hope of breaking her heroin habit. The diary charts Nicole’s time there – the numerous people she meets and the situations, some dangerous and life threatening, in which she finds herself.
In 2012, Ruth published In Her Own Words… Interview with a London Call Girl, which is available to download from Amazon. All the royalties received from this publication are donated to Beyond the Streets, a charity working to end sexual exploitation.
A Young Lady Is Missing. Believed To Have Been Lured Away By A Male Predator Using Facebook. Please Help Find... fb.me/26AGtuXI5Still A MilitantNegro 1 hour ago
A Young Lady Is Missing. Believed To Have Been Lured Away By A Male Predator Using Facebook. Please Help Find... fb.me/H4eA6qoZStill A MilitantNegro 1 hour ago
Jueseppi B.
