ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Curtin's call a good one
Man attempting 100 triathlons in 100 days
By Tully Corcoran
The Capital-Journal
Published Sunday, June 15, 2008

It's sick, it's perverse, it's masochistic.
It's John Curtin's way of helping abused children. Curtin, a 41-year-old chiropractic physician from St. Louis, intends to compete in 100 triathlons in 100 days, in the process setting a Guinness World Record and raising money to support sexually abused children.
The Topeka Tinman Triathlon on Saturday was Curtin's 15th triathlon in 15 days.
"Your sick athletes are the ones that do the best," he said.
Curtin isn't just sick. He's crazy. Really.
"I have a psychologist that's been helping me out, a sports psychologist, and she says I'm crazy," he said. "It's certifiable. I'm crazy, yes. She happens to be my wife."
Today, Curtin is competing in Lawrence, the 16th stop on a punishing tour across the eight states surrounding Missouri, plus Oregon, Arizona and Michigan. Fans can track his progress via his Web site, p3triathlon.com.
Though the Guinness record is a desirable achievement, Curtin says his endeavor is really about the kids.
"I decided to set the record for most consecutive triathlons in one year, and I decided to do it in 100 days," he said. "At the same time, to raise money and awareness for sexually abused children. They're kind of silent victims in our nation that don't get recognized. Money isn't given to them, enough to help them and their families during crisis."
Curtin weighed 207 pounds at the outset and in 15 days has dropped to 188. He said his body feels fine, in large part because he takes extra care to maintain a specific heart rate that maximizes his endurance. With the help of endurance coach Joe Friel, he has been building up to this summer for a year.
He isn't so much concerned with what he does during the triathlons — he finished 14th Saturday in his age division, completing the Tinman's short course in 1:02:50.67 — as what he does between them.
"Mostly I worry about getting enough sleep and drinking a lot of water," he said. "I also get adjusted by a chiropractor on a regular basis. That helps keep me going."
Triathlons have been a longtime passion for Curtin, who competed in his first one at age 13 and was doing half Ironman triathlons a year later.
Curtin thinks anybody could do it.
"I think everybody's cut out for it," he said, "as long as you have the motivation, the desire and the training behind you."

MOTHER AND BOYFRIEND ABUSE CHILD

The mother surrendered to the LAPD on torture charges after a public appeal was issued to find her. Her live-in girlfriend was arrested a day later.
By Ari B. Bloomekatz and Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
June 15, 2008

The mother of a 5-year-old-boy and her live-in girlfriend have been arrested in connection with what authorities describe as "unbearable physical and psychological abuse" of the child, police said Saturday.

The mother, Starkeisha Brown, 24, turned herself in to the Los Angeles Police Department's 77th Street Division station late Friday night after officers made a public plea for help in finding the women and released their pictures. Brown was being held without bail on charges of torture.

The other woman, Krystal Matthews, 21, was arrested Saturday by detectives when she showed up for her appointment at the county Department of Children and Family Services. She was being held on $100,000 bail on charges of willful harm or injury to a child.

Police said both women have a history of violence.

The boy, who was in guarded condition at a local hospital, was rescued Monday by a stranger who found him abandoned and called authorities.

On that same day, the two women had an appointment with the Department of Children and Family Services and had brought the healthy child of a mutual friend and tried to pass him off as Brown's son.

Police said the women routinely beat the boy, forced him to put his hands on a hot stove, burned his body and genitals with cigarettes and often would not let him eat or drink.

At a news conference Friday, LAPD Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell said that because of the burns from the stove, the boy no longer can open his hands.

Lt. Vincent Neglia of the LAPD's Abused Child Unit said in a statement Saturday that the abuse was "akin to a level of torture we hope our military personnel would never encounter."

Residents in the South Los Angeles neighborhood where the boy lived said Saturday that they were shocked to hear of the child's treatment and disgusted by the abuse allegations against the mother and girlfriend.

"I never knew a parent could do something like this. It was just a shock," said Mary Williams, 68, who lives in an apartment complex adjacent to where neighbors said Brown and Matthews live in the 11000 block of Figueroa Street.

Williams' 9-year-old grandson saw the boy often, and occasionally the two played together.

"How could you just do this and run off and leave him?" she said. "I hurt for that baby."

Another neighbor said, "If I [had known] anything, they would've been caught a long time ago."

The predominantly African American and Latino neighborhood is northwest of the intersection of the 110 and 105 freeways. The street scape is dominated by modest apartment complexes and single-story homes, auto body and machine shops, liquor stores and small motels. Across the street from the women's home is Holy Rock Baptist Church and an Ultra Oil gas station.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate in the neighborhood, in the 90061 ZIP Code, is nearly triple the national average, and about 10% of the population are homeowners.

GIVEN A CHANCE, THESE FOSTER CHILDREN BEAT ALL ODDS

Sisters were abused in Taiwan, then shuttled among caretakers in the U.S. before finding a foster mother who helped change their lives.
By Carla Rivera, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 14, 2008
Maggie and Rachel Lin have faced unimaginable adversity: As youngsters, the girls lost their father, who was murdered by a street gang in their native Taiwan; they suffered abuse at the hands of family members, made a harrowing journey to the U.S. and spent most of their childhood in a succession of foster homes, some where they suffered new cruelties.

Against those odds, Maggie headed off last year to Dartmouth College, and after graduating Friday from Pacific Hills School, Rachel will attend Vassar. Both have received nearly full scholarships from the schools.

Their success has been hard won. It is rare for a foster child to attend a private prep school like Pacific Hills in West Hollywood. In California, about 54% of foster children graduate from high school and only about 10% enroll in college. Fewer still are admitted to elite universities.

Yet somehow the stars aligned for Maggie, 19, and Rachel, 18, two strong-minded and resilient girls who found a foster mother who believed in them and a school that allowed them to blossom.

Growing up, neither one could have imagined this outcome.

When the girls moved in almost five years ago, Rachel was blunt: Thanks for giving me a place to stay, but I'm a renter and will always be just a tenant here, recalls the girls' foster mother, Kate Moulene.

"I didn't even bother to try to establish a relationship; I didn't even try," Rachel said.

"She was like a feral cat," Moulene said. "She trusted no one."

Moulene put locks on the windows of her Hollywood Hills home to keep the sisters from sneaking out at night. Rachel was in the habit of visiting her boyfriend in Walnut, where she had been living.

Maggie was scared but hopeful.

"Even though I deal with all of these trust issues, part of my way of coping with things is to believe that it's going to be different," she said. "I go into another home thinking, this is going to be all right."

Moulene, a former journalist and founder of a marketing firm, was a single mother of sons Cameron, 14, and Pierre, 12, and adopted daughter Anna Mei, 7, who was born in China and orphaned. The family had watched the movie "Cheaper by the Dozen" when the boys experienced an epiphany: Wouldn't it be fun to have more kids?

Moulene went to a website featuring foster children and within minutes saw a picture of Maggie and Rachel.

The two were used to getting calls, sometimes in the middle of the night, from social workers telling them to pack up to move. They were in the process of meeting another family when they were told of Moulene's interest.

After they met, Cameron confided to his mom that the only thing he wanted that Christmas was for Maggie and Rachel to move in.

The sisters paid a final visit to Moulene's home and the children huddled.

"They all talked about it and came down and said they decided to do it," Moulene said.

"She bought us online for free," jokes Rachel.

A self-described pessimist who doesn't easily make friends, Rachel is all in-your-face honesty and biting wit, which she uses like a wary fighter to keep an opponent off guard. She accuses Maggie of hiding behind a mask of pleasantry.

"Sometimes you need to put on different personas," counters Maggie. "It was required when we were moving around to different foster homes to keep sane."

SATELLITE TELLS IT ALL

US scientists say satellite images confirm reports that the Ethiopian military have burnt towns and villages in Ethiopia's Somali region.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science says the images back up a Human Rights Watch's report

The US-based group says the troops are systematically ill-treating civilians in their counter-insurgency campaign.

Ethnic Somali rebels have been fighting for more autonomy for two decades in the region, also known as the Ogaden.

HRW also accused the United States and the European Union of ignoring widespread abuses there.

The Ethiopia government has described the report as "unfounded and baseless".

'Confused'

HRW cites evidence of extrajudicial detentions and killings, beatings and rapes in military custody, forced displacement of the rural population and the collective punishment of communities suspected of helping or sympathising with the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebels.

Human Rights Watch is engaged in misinforming the public based on the information of the ONLF

Government adviser Bereket Simon

"We found that over the last year the Ethiopian army has been killing, raping, torturing and systematically displacing civilians in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia," HRW's Georgette Gagnon told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

She said there was no doubt about the identity of those carrying out the abuses.

"All the victims and eyewitnesses that we interviewed clearly identified the Ethiopian army and soldiers as those who had raped them, for example, who had summarily killed people by strangling, and who had forcibly displaced them and burned their villages."

According to the AAAS, eight "before" and "after" satellite images identified by HRW as possible locations of abuses bore signs of attacks described.

These were primarily in villages and small towns in the Wardheer, Dhagabur, and Qorrahey Zones, the AAAS said.

Propaganda

One recurrent scenario was of the army's response to ONLF activity in a neighbourhood; they would call the inhabitants together and demand that they hand over the culprits, HRW says.

Failure to do so resulted in village elders and others being arrested, beaten, sometimes killed.

Young people, both boys and girls, were arbitrarily arrested and accused of being ONLF sympathisers; they were routinely beaten in custody and women often raped, HRW says.

The apparently arbitrary nature of many of the arrests was explained to HRW by a former judge in the region who said the army could not tell the difference between rebels and civilians, he said they were confused as to who was who.

The report concludes that the army is engaged in a deliberate policy of terrorising the local population; that the abuses are far too systematic and widespread to be considered simply the acts of rogue commanders.

But Bereket Simon, special adviser to Ethiopia's prime minister, said that HRW had based its findings on ONLF propaganda.

"Human Rights Watch is engaged in misinforming the public based on the information of the ONLF, whose forces have been destroyed by the actions of the Ethiopian government," he told AFP news agency.

COUPLE ARRESTED FOR CIRCUMCISING THIER DAUGHTERS

Danish police have arrested a couple of Sudanese origin suspected of taking their two young daughters to Sudan to be circumcised.

Female circumcision usually involves the partial removal of the woman's genitals.

It is outlawed in Denmark but remains a widespread practice in Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia.

Police said the girls, now aged nine and 11, were circumcised in 2003 during a trip to the east African nation.

The 49-year-old husband and his 40-year-old wife were arrested after Danish social services alerted police to the fact that medical examinations showed the two girls had been circumcised.

The couple, who deny all wrong-doing, were also accused of having planned to take their third daughter, aged five, to Sudan to be circumcised.

A Danish judge remanded them in custody for eight days, pending further investigation.

If found guilty, they could face up to six years in prison.

Female circumcision can cause death through haemorrhaging and later complications during childbirth. It also carries risks of infection, urinary tract problems and mental trauma.

Some 100 to 140 million girls and women around the world have undergone genital mutilation, including 6.5 million in Western countries, according to a study by the French National Institute for Demographic Research published last year.

IRAN EXECUTES JUVENILE OFFENDER

Reports from Iran say a boy aged 17 has been hanged, in violation of UN charters signed by Tehran and official pledges not to execute minors.
Mohammad Hassanzadeh is the second juvenile offender to be hanged in Iran this year. There were seven in 2007.
He was convicted of killing a 10-year-old boy two years ago.
Rights groups say Iran used to get round commitments not to execute minors by keeping them on death row until they turn 18, but now do not appear to wait.
Human rights activists say two other juvenile offenders due to be executed on Wednesday were given a one month reprieve.
Eight men were taken for execution at Evin prison near Tehran, however, bringing the total number of executions so far this year to 128 according to Amnesty International.
Failed reconciliation
Hassanzadeh was hanged in Sanandaj prison on Tuesday, Kargozaran newspaper reported on Thursday.
The paper said Iran's judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi had advised the local court to "settle the issue through reconciliation".
"None of our efforts to reach an agreement with the victim's family was successful and therefore the sentence was carried out," an unnamed judicial official was quoted as saying.
Under Islamic law, a victim's relatives can spare a murderer from execution by accepting blood money.
Convicted juveniles Mohammad Fadaie and Behnoud Shojaie were given another month to find an agreement with their victim's family.
Outlawed
A statement from the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran called executions of juveniles barbaric and tragic - saying Iran now accounts for two thirds of the under age executions in the world.
Iran is a signatory to international agreements such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which outlaw juvenile executions.
One human rights group says it knows of at least 106 offenders on death row in Iran who were juveniles when they committed their crimes.
One of those, Saeed Jazee, is due to be hanged later this month, reports say.
Murder, rape, armed robbery, kidnapping and drug trafficking are all punishable by death in Iran.

A LITTLE BIT OF JOY

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