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October 5th – International Day of No Prostitution – Just Think They're Someone's Child!

Today October 5th is the International Day of No Prostitution. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if there were no prostitution? While I doubt that it will ever be eliminated, I applaud all those fight for its eradication. From Wikipedia….

International Day of No Prostitution (IDNP) is an awareness day that was first observed in 2002. Locations at which IDNP was observed in its inaugural year included the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States[1] and Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.[2] The day is celebrated annually on October 5 as a manner of opposing prostitution.[3] In 2005, the University of the Philippines Institute of Human Rights and the Asia-Pacific chapter of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) organized an IDNP event at which they discussed the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003.[4] In 2008, there was an IDNP candlelight vigil in Phoenix, Arizona.[5] The vigil took place again in 2010, and city leaders and former prostitutes were among the participants….
….In 2010, CATW observed IDNP by opposing the decision in Bedford v. Canada to strike down Canada’s anti-prostitution laws.[7] A group of former human trafficking victims and sex workers in Canada also opposed the striking down of these laws; they picketed a courthouse in downtown Toronto, Ontario in recognition of IDNP. Picketers included Natasha Falle, Trisha Baptie, Bridget Perrier, Katarina MacLeod, and Christine Barkhouse. At the protest, Falle said that “only 1% of prostitutes say they enjoy sex with johns and 97% say they want to get out.”[8] Baptie asked “Why do we think it’s OK for men to buy sex? How is that a sign of an egalitarian society?” Read More read more

This Date in History – Oct. 4, 1363 – Chinese rebel forces met in one of the largest naval battle in history!

An example of a louchuan (tower ship) employed in the battle (Example a Song Dynasty ship)

Today marks the 651st anniversary of one of the largest naval battles in history. Yes, you read that correctly 651 years ago in the year 1363 five hundred years before the American Civil War the Battle of Lake Poyang in China ended with the Chinese rebel forces of the Ming rebels under Zhu Yuanzhang defeating his rival, Chen Youliang of the Han. The battle has begun on August 30th and was one of the final battles fought in the fall of China’s Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming and the Han, along with the Wu the three most powerful groups seeking to topple the Yuan Dynasty. read more

Today in History – Oct 3, 2009 – The Turkic Council is formed by Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey

Flag of the Turkic Council

Ok so when most Americans hear Turkey they think first of the Thanksgiving Day bird and maybe secondly the country in the Middle East. The American elementary and secondary education system spends little time on world history and when we do study world history it is usually limited to European history. We spend very little time on Mid-Eastern or Asian History, maybe we touch on China and the Mongols and the Ottoman Empire, but little else.

Today, when I was reviewing events that happened on today’s date I came to 2009 when the presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey sign the Nakhchivan Agreement on the Establishment of Turkic Council. My first reaction was huh?? I had never thought much of the former Soviet Republics of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan having a tie to Turkey but…. read more

Today Oct 2nd – The International Day of Non-Violence, Born Oct 2, 1869 Mahatma Gandhi!

“Non-Violence”, a sculpture by Karl Fredrik Reutersward, permanently exhibited outside UN Headquarters in New York. (Paulo Filgueiras/UN Photo)

I hope that all police officers in the US today were told at morning roll call that today is The International Day of Non-Violence and that maybe they should take a moment, and if they are faced with a crisis, stop and think, “How Can I handle this situation non-violently?” and if the answer is TRULY that it can’t be then take the least violent action that will handle the situation!!

The International Day of Noni-violence is celebrated on the birthday of the Father of Non-Violent action Mahatma Gandhi. From the United Nations website for the day…… read more

Sunday Reads: It’s Time, even employers want it!! Raise the Minimum Wage!

So we all know that since the 2008 collapse recovery has been slow, especially for people, and since Corporations are people how come they are not feeling any pain!! Not only aren’t these faux people not feeling any pain, they are really doing pretty well particularly in relation to the people who work for them. According to the post Corporate Profits Grow and Wages Slide at the New York Times, corporate profits are at their highest levels since 1929 and employer pay the lowest since 1949!!! Consider those dates 1929 was just before the Depression and in 1949 we were just recovering from the war. Anyway the point is that things are NOT going to get better until we shrink the gap between profits and wages! read more

Sunday Reads: It's Time, even employers want it!! Raise the Minimum Wage!

Unsung Founding Father – Oliver Ellsworth and the Judiciary Act of 1789!

Not long ago I commented that one of the important things that we need to remember is that not all the time is history made by the big names For example we all know the names of many of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Washington, Adams Madison, Franklin But do you know the name Oliver Ellsworth? I know I didn’t, when I came across his name last Wednesday, September 24th the date the Judiciary Act of 1789 was signed into law. While the Constitution created the three branches of government – the executive, the legislative and the judicial in Article III Section 1 of the constitution where it stated that the “judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court,” and such inferior courts as Congress saw fit to establish the Constitution did not spell out the composition or the procedures of any of the courts. The specifics were left up to Congress to decide. The Congress did so with the Judiciary Act of 1789. read more

Exploring the Neo-Prog of the UK's Cosmograf – Capacitor – Electrifying!

So once again I listen to a band, I like their music , I go to read about the band and I find, the band is mostly a one-person band and the music fits into the Neo-Prog sub-genre!! In this instance, the band is Cosmograf and the rock project leader is Robin Armstrong, a multi-instrumentalist from Waterlooville (near Portsmouth) in the United Kingdom. (We pause now to give in to my ADD and to find out more about Waterlooville)

Waterlooville is a town in Hampshire, England, near the southern cost of England, approximately 8 miles north of Portsmouth. From Wikipedia: read more

Today in History – The Birthday of Three Music Icons and the Anniversary of an Infamous Baseball Play!!

So three music icons share September 23rd as their birthday. First born in 1926 the great jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, next, born in 1930 the incomparable Ray Charles and finally in 1949 Bruce Springsteen. Quite a lineup, I could play music clips from these guys all day long!!

All three musicians appear in my music collection.The Greatest Hits of Ray Charles appeared first in the late 1960s, while “Greetings From Asbury Park” came with its release in 1973, when I heard about this new Bob Dylan! Coltrane’s music has entered the library in the last few years…. read more

On this Day in History September 20th – Let's Visit Georgia, Azerbaijan and Central African Republic!

One of the aspects of my job at Lippincott Jacobs the I really enjoyed was making maps to be included in various reports. Typically, they were environmental maps showing the soils, geology, or the drainage areas on an around the area of a proposed project. To develop these maps I used several various GIS software. The point is that I love maps and geography, I like to know where places are in relationship to me and the rest of the world and it really upsets me when people, like my wife, don’t know or care where countries are located.I know it doesn’t really matter to your everyday life, but I just like that it is important as a citizen of the world that you know where countries are!! With that said, as I was looking through the various anniversaries and holidays that are observed around the world today, I thought maybe that’s a way to get a little geography in this blog. So here goes..
September 20 th read more

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