Human Trafficking: Modern-Day Slavery in America

Human Trafficking is the trade in humans, most commonly for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others, or for the extraction of organs or tissues, including surrogacy and ova removal, or for providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage. Human trafficking can occur within a country or trans-nationally. Human trafficking is a crime against the person because of the violation of the victim's rights of movement through coercion and because of their commercial exploitation. Human trafficking is the trade in people and does not necessarily involve the movement of the person from one place to another. Human trafficking represents an estimated $31.6 billion of international trade per year in 2010. Human trafficking is thought to be one of the fastest-growing activities of transnational criminal organizations. Human trafficking is condemned as a violation of human rights by international conventions. In addition, human trafficking is subject to a directive in the European Union. People have a better grasp on human trafficking and the signs, which vary depending on the type of crime. Sex trafficking involving minors is the easiest to spot,  but catching up to adults in a similar situation can be difficult.The National Human Trafficking Resource Center reported more than 82 percent of trafficking victims are female, and about 61 percent are adults.Traffickers often change locations, traveling in and out of jurisdictions daily, blending into the community and using standard transportation that wouldn’t raise eyebrows. In July 2012, laws went into effect that made human smuggling a felony and allowed convicted traffickers to be labeled as sex offenders and sexual predators.

Elements of human trafficking:

The Act (What is done)

Recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons

The Means (How it is done)

Threat or use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or vulnerability, or giving payments or benefits to a person in control of the victim

The Purpose (Why it is done)

For the purpose of exploitation, which includes exploiting the prostitution of others, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery or similar practices and the removal of organs.

Trafficking For Sexual Slavery:

Traffickers will use drugs to keep their victims from leaving, getting them addicted so they keep performing commercial sex acts that profit the trafficker. Force, fraud and coercion are used to keep adults against their will, often with threats to have foreign victims deported or to go after their families if they seek

help from police. Often foreign victims are recruited in their home countries, and traffickers know where to find a victim’s family or the victim if they try to escape.Some trafficked victims are smuggled into the country illegally, and traffickers can threaten to have them deported if they report abuses. In other cases traffickers will hold a legal victim’s identification papers, putting them under the trafficker’s control.

Trafficking For Forced Labor:

Domestic servitude abuse is the most difficult to find Victims used as housekeepers have little contact with the outside world. If brought into the country illegally they essentially don’t exist, and if they are legal no one knows where they are.The movement of people for the purpose of forced labor and services usually involves an agent or recruiter, a transporter, and a final employer, who will derive a profit from the exploitation of the trafficked person. In some cases, the same person carries out all these trafficking activities. With increased possibilities for traveling and telecommunications, and with a growing demand for cheap labor in the developed world on the one hand, and increasingly restrictive visa regulations on the other, possible channels for legal labor migration have diminished. Private recruitment agencies, intermediaries, and employers may take advantage of this situation and lure potential migrants into exploitative employment. Not only is the journey hazardous for the victims, but upon reaching their destination they are subject to low-paying menial work which is often degrading and work that they have to undertake in conditions close to slavery and bondage.

Trafficking for Organ Trade:

Trafficking in organs is a crime that occurs in three broad categories. Firstly, there are cases where traffickers force or deceive the victims into giving up an

organ. Secondly, there are cases where victims formally or informally agree to sell an organ and are cheated because they are not paid for the organ or are paid less than the promised price. Thirdly, vulnerable persons are treated for an ailment, which may or may not exist and thereupon organs are removed without the victim's knowledge. The vulnerable categories of persons include migrants, especially migrant workers, homeless persons, illiterate persons. It is known that trafficking for organ trade could occur with persons of any age. Organs which are commonly traded are kidneys, liver and the like; any organ which can be removed and used could be the subject of such illegal trade.Trafficking in organ trade is an organized crime, involving a host of offenders. The recruiter who identifies the vulnerable person, the transporter, the staff of the hospital or clinic and other medical centers, the medical professionals, the middlemen and contractors, the buyers, the banks where organs are stored are all involved in the racket. It is a fact that the entire racket is rarely exposed.Trafficking in human beings for the purpose of organ removal is, like all other forms of trafficking, a violation of the fundamental human rights and dignity of individuals, while also clearly representing a grave form of transnational organized crime. Persons trafficked for organ removal also face particular challenges, both during and after the organ removal and hence we have devoted a special chapter to these issues. Victims are reported to receive small amounts of money, and in some cases, no payment at all. They are often unaware of the long-term and debilitating medical consequences of organ removal and lack of post-operative care as well as the psychological impact of the operation. Victims report strong feelings of shame and social stigmatization within their communities, which may contribute to a lack of access to medical and psychological care.While it is commonly believed that trafficking only takes places for commercial sexual exploitation or for forced labor, trafficking, in fact, takes many forms such as trafficking for forced marriage and trafficking for organ trade among others.

Trafficking Of Children:

Children are trafficked for forced labor, domestic work, as child soldiers, as camel jockeys, for begging, work on construction sites and plantations but most children are trafficked for sexual exploitation. And girls trafficked for forced labor and domestic work often end up sexually exploited by their employers. The vulnerability of these children is even greater when they arrive in another country. Often they do not have contact with their families and are at the mercy of their employersChild trafficking can occur when children are abducted from the streets, sold into sexual slavery and forced marriage by relatives, or in any place where traffickers, pimps, and recruiters prey upon a child's vulnerabilities. Poverty is the pre-condition that makes it easier for traffickers to operate.The greatest factor in promoting child sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation is the demand for younger and younger victims worldwide. This demand comes from the mostly male buyers who become the customers in the growing global sex industry.Children are often trafficked, employed and exploited because, compared to adults, they are more vulnerable, cheaper to hire and are less likely to demand higher wages or better working conditions. Some employers falsely argue that children are particularly suited to certain types of work because of their small size and "nimble fingers.

Ways To Prevent Human Trafficking:

Parents should monitor what their children are doing on social media because that is one-way traffickers pick up victims.Trafficking in Persons as the

recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs

Is human trafficking considered modern-day slavery?, and why hasn't the government created programs to stop human trafficking in the United States?.

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What Happens to children Of Deportees

Deportation: Is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today the expulsion of foreign nationals is usually called deportation, whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation. Deportation is an ancient practice.

Between July 1, 2010, and Sept. 31, 2012, nearly 23 percent of all deportations—or, 204,810 deportations—were issued in the United States for parents with citizen children, according to federal data unearthed through a Freedom of Information Act request. The federal government conducted more than 200,000 deportations of parents who said their children are U.S. citizens in a time span of just over two years.However total number of deportations of parents may be higher because some mothers and fathers fear telling authorities that they have kids. An additional group of parents whose kids are not U.S. citizens are not reflected in the numbers.The Obama administration is guilty of failing to honor its pledge to make parents of children born in the United States less likely to be deported.It's almost impossible to know the full scope of the problem. Child welfare departments and the federal government aren't required to track cases of families separated by deportation. .The siblings represent America's young legal residents who are at risk for long-term emotional trauma because of a system that doesn't deal with the situation. About 5,100 U.S. children in 22 states have lost parents to deportation, according to the. Some 15,000 more face similar threat in the next five years.the numbers raise questions about the impact of the government’s immigration policies on families and about what happens to the children whose mothers and fathers are deported from the United States The Questions still remains about what happens to the children of deportees.We don’t know how many children stay here and how many go with their parents.

ICE Administration

The new figures show that rates of parental deportation have remained largely level since Congress ordered ICE to begin collecting the data, quashing hopes from some advocates that the agency’s 2011 proprietorial discretion guidelines would lead to a decline in these removals.The new guidelines, released on June 17, 2011, in a memo from ICE  instructed ICE agents to focus deportation efforts on people with serious criminal convictions, those picked up crossing the border into the U.S., and those who had previously been deported from the country.The memo also ordered agents making deportation decisions to weigh the person’s ties and contributions to the community, including family relationships, and whether the person has a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse, child, or parent.”

A rare case was Felipe Montes, to whom the agency granted a “humanitarian parole” to reenter the country in August so that he could attend court hearings on his parental rights.But immigration attorneys say the Montes case is a rare exception and that few, if any other deported parents have the opportunity to come back. Meanwhile, attorneys say that immigrants held in immigration detention centers continue to struggle to maintain contact with their children.The data does show a slight decline in the number of parental deportations in the most recently reported three month period. From July until September of this year, ICE deported 20,878 parents, about 10 percent less than average. The overall deportation numbers for August to September of this year have yet to be released however, so it’s impossible to know whether this also marks a decline in the larger rate of deportation.One reason for the small decline could be that in recent months, ICE appears to have had less luck getting judges to order the deportation of parents. Before January of this year, ICE was able to obtain deportation orders from immigration judges in 50 to 58 percent of cases. Since April, courts have handed down deportation orders in fewer than 43 percent of cases.Concern over what happens to the children of deportees is now squarely at the center of recent advocacy and congressional promises about an immigration reform bill likely to be introduced next year.  For parents who are ordered removed, it is their decision whether or not to relocate their children with them.But immigration lawyers say that is not so easy.A recurring complaint is that clients "disappear," often sent to detention centers far away and denied access to family court hearings, phones and attorneys. Many do not fully understand that custody of their children might be slipping away. Alexis Molina was just 10 years old when his mother was abruptly cut out of his life and his carefree childhood unraveled overnight.She went for her papers," he says. "And she never came back.Alexis' father, Rony Molina, a landscaper, was born in Guatemala but has lived here for 12 years and is an American citizen. Alexis, now 11, and his 8-year-old brother, Steve, are Americans, too. So is their 19-year-old stepsister, Evelin. But their mother, Sandra, who lived here illegally, was deported to Guatemala a year and a half agoIt's a question thousands of other families are wrestling with as a record number of deportations means record numbers of American children being left without a parent — despite President Barack Obama's promise that his administration would focus on removing only criminals.

When children follow their parents to their home country they often struggle with stigma and deep poverty. Many of their parents fled poverty, fled government oppression and when they return, they return to these origins. That puts kids at risk. It’s clear, however, that a disturbing number of children are being separated from their families because of deportation for significant stretches of time, and sometimes permanently. And the question for parental deportation is the same as for other groups the federal government have said are criminals. what’s considered significant criminal background?. Figures reveals that nearly 40 percent of deportees with convictions were charged with the lowest level crimes, including driving offenses.The psychological effects on these children left behind include depression, possible conduct disorders, and having a constant sense of a diminishing and ambiguous future. An stimated 340,000 babies born in the United States in 2008 were the children of unauthorized immigrants, and that number is projected to grow. On average, 17 children are placed in state care each day as a result of the detention and removal of immigrant parents. Federal law requires states to pursue termination of parental rights if the parent has been absent for 15 out of 22 consecutive months, and some states allow proceedings to begin even sooner.Some kids are fortunate enough to have other family to stay with. Others get lost in the child welfare system. In some cases, younger children are transferred to state custody and put up for adoption, never to see their parents again. Research estimates that there were at least 5,100 children in foster care who faced significant barriers to reunifying with their detained and deported parents. and projected that if deportation and child welfare policies remained unchanged, another 15,000 kids could face a similar fate over the next three years between 2012 and 2014.At least 5,100 U.S. citizen children in 22 states live in foster care. And an unknown number of those children are being put up for adoption against the wishes of their parents, who, once deported, are often helpless to fight when a U.S. judge decides that their children are better off here.

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Reasons For legalizing Marijuana

Marijuana:

Marijuana also known as Cannabis sativa is an annual herbaceous plant. It is a species of the Cannabaceae family. People have cultivated Marijuana throughout  history as a source for industrial fibre, seed oil, food, recreation, religious and spiritual moods, and medicine. Each part of the plant is harvested

differently, depending on what it will be used for. Its seeds are chiefly used to make hemp seed oil which can be used for cooking, lamps, lacquers, or paints, they can also be used as bird feed, because they provide a moderate source of nutrients for most birds. The flowers contain psychoactive chemical compounds, known as cannabinoids that are consumed for recreational, medicinal, and spiritual purposes. When so used, preparations of flowers  and leaves and preparations derived from resinous extract (hashish) are consumed by smoking, vaporizing and oral ingestion. Historically, tinctures, teas, and ointments have also been common preparations. In traditional medicine of India in particular  Marijuana has been used as hallucinogenic, hypnotic, sedative, analgesic, and anti-inflammatory agent.I can think of several reasons why marijuana should be a legal substance. marijuana is a plant that is actually grown. Its natural and it is not processed from anything such as the harsh drugs that are prescribed but are dangerous for human consumption.

Negative Effects Of Smoking Marijuana:

There are negative effects of smoking too much pot or using it for non-medicinal purposes. When overused or abused, pot can cause dependency and mess with your memory and emotions.There are at least two active chemicals in marijuana that researchers think have medicinal application. Those are cannabidiol (CBD) which seems to impact the brain without a high and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) which has pain relieving properties.Also keep in mind that these same health benefits can be gained by taking THC pills, Dronabinol, which in some ways is more effective than smoked marijuana.

It can be used to treat Glaucoma:

Marijuana use can be used to treat and prevent the eye disease glaucoma, which increases pressure in the eyeball, damaging the optic nerve and causing loss of vision. Marijuana decreases the pressure inside the eye, according to Studies in the early 1970's showed that marijuana, when smoked, lowered intraocular pressure (IOP) in people with normal pressure and those with glaucoma.These effects of the drug may slow the progression of the disease, preventing blindness.

It may help reverse the carcinogenic effects of tobacco and improve lung health:

Marijuana does not impair lung function and can even increase lung capacity.

Researchers looking for risk factors of heart disease tested the lung function of several young adults over the course of 20 years, Tobacco smokers lost lung function over time, but pot users actually showed an increase in lung capacity.

It's possible that the increased lung capacity maybe  due to taking a deep breaths while inhaling the drug and not from a therapeutic chemical in the drug.

Marijuana can help people trying to cut back on drinking.

Marijuana is safer than alcohol, not to say it's completely risk free, but it's much less addictive and doesn't cause nearly as much physical damage.Disorders like alcoholism involve disruptions in the endocannabinoid system.Because of that, some people think cannabis might help patients struggling with those disorders.

Research in Harm Reduction Journal shows that some people use marijuana as a less harmful substitute for alcohol, prescription drugs, and other illegal drugs. Some of the most common reasons for patients to make that substitution are the less adverse side effects from marijuana and the fact that it is less likely to cause withdrawal problems.Some people do become psychologically dependent on marijuana, and this doesn't mean that it's a cure for substance abuse problems. But, from a harm-reduction standpoint, it can help.

Weed reduces some of the awful pain and nausea from chemo, and stimulates appetite:

One of the most well-known medical uses of marijuana is for people going through chemotherapy.Cancer patients being treated with chemo suffer from painful nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite. This can cause additional health complications. Marijuana can help reduce these side effects, alleviating pain, decreasing nausea, and stimulating the appetite. There are also multiple FDA-approved cannabinoid drugs that use THC the main active chemical in marijuana, for the same purposes.

It can help eliminate nightmares:

This involves  effects that can be both positive and negative. Marijuana disturbs sleep cycles by interrupting the later stages of REM sleep. In the long run, this could be a problem for frequent users. However, for people suffering from serious nightmares, especially those associated with PTSD, this can be helpful. Nightmares and other dreams occur during those same stages of sleep. By interrupting REM sleep, many of those dreams may not occur. Research into using a synthetic cannabinoid, like THC, but not the same, showed a significant decrease in the number of nightmares in patients with PTSD.If frequent use can be bad for sleep, marijuana may be a better sleep aid than some other substances that people use. Some of those, including medication and alcohol, may potentially have even worse effects on sleep.

It might protect the brain from concussions and trauma:

There is some evidence that marijuana can help heal the brain after a concussion or other traumatic injury. A recent study showed that in mice, marijuana lessened the bruising of the brain and helped with healing mechanisms after a traumatic injury. Already, many doctors and researchers believe that marijuana has incredibly powerful neuro-protective properties, an understanding based on both laboratory and clinical data,

Marijuana protects the brain after a stroke:

Research shows that marijuana may help protect the brain from damage caused by stroke, by reducing the size of the area affected by the stroke — at least in rats, mice, and monkeys. This isn't the only research that has shown neuroprotective effects from cannabis. Some research shows that the plant may help protect the brain after other traumatic events, like concussions. 

Marijuana helps veterans suffering from PTSD:

Marijuana is approved to treat PTSD in some states already. In New Mexico, PTSD is the number one reason for people to get a license for medical marijuana, but this is the first time the U.S. government has approved a proposal that incorporates smoked or vaporized marijuana, which is currently classified by the government as a drug with no accepted medical applications.

Naturally occurring cannabinoids, similar to THC, help regulate the system that causes fear and anxiety in the body and brain.

Pot soothes tremors for people with Parkinson's disease:

Recent research from Israel shows that smoking marijuana significantly reduces pain and tremors and improves sleep for Parkinson's disease patients. Particularly impressive was the improved fine motor skills among patients.

Medical marijuana is legal in Israel for multiple conditions, and a lot of research into the medical uses of cannabis is done there, supported by the Israeli government.

Marijuana might be able to eliminate Crohn's Diseases:

Crohn's Disease is an inflammatory bowel disorder that causes pain, vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss, and more. But a recent study in Israel showed that smoking a joint significantly reduced Crohn's Disease symptoms in 10 out of 11 patients, and caused a complete remission of the disease in five of those patients. The cannabinoids from marijuana seem to help the gut regulate bacteria and intestinal function.

It improves the symptoms of Lupus, an autoimmune disorder:

Medical marijuana is being used to treat the autoimmune disease Systemic Lupus Ertyhematosus, which is when the body starts attacking itself for some unknown reason. Some chemicals in marijuana seem to have a calming effect on the immune system, which may be how it helps deal with symptoms of Lupus. The rest of the positive impact of the marijuana is probably from the effects on pain and nausea.

While not really a health benefit, marijuana spurs creativity in the brain:

Contrary to stoner stereotypes, marijuana usage has actually been shown to have some positive mental effects, particularly in terms of increasing creativity. Even though people's short-term memories tend to function worse when high, people get better at tests requiring them to come up with new ideas.

One study tested participants on their ability to come up with different words related to a concept, and found that using cannabis allowed people to come up with a greater range of related concepts, seeming "to make the brain better at detecting those remote associations that lead to radically new ideas," according to Wired. Other researchers have found that some participants improve their "verbal fluency," their ability to come up with different words, while using marijuana. Part of this increased creative ability may come from the release of dopamine in the brain, lessening inhibitions and allowing people to feel more relaxed, giving the brain the ability to perceive things differently.

A chemical found in marijuana stops cancer from spreading.

CBD may help prevent cancer from spreading, researchers at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco reported in 2007.
Cannabidiol stops cancer by turning off a gene called Id-1, the study, published in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, found. Cancer cells make more copies of this gene than non-cancerous cells, and it helps them spread through the body.
The researchers studied breast cancer cells in the lab that had high expression levels of Id-1 and treated them with cannabidiol. After treatment the cells had decreased Id-1 expression and were less aggressive spreaders.
In "WEED," Gupta also mentioned a few studies in the U.S., Spain, and Israel that suggest the compounds in cannabis could even kill cancer cells.

It also decreases the symptoms of a severe seizure disorder known as Dravet's Syndrome

Charlotte Figi has Dravet's Syndrome, and her parents are giving her marijuana to treat her seizures.

During the research for his documentary "Weed," Gupta interviewed the Figi family, who treats their 5-year-old daughter using a medical marijuana strain high in cannabidiol and low in THC.
Their daughter, Charlotte, has Dravet Syndrome, which causes seizures and severe developmental delays.
According to the film, the drug has decreased her seizures from 300 a week to just one every seven days. Forty other children in the state are using the same strain of marijuana to treat their seizures — and it seems to be working.
The doctors who recommended this treatment say that the cannabidiol in the plant interacts with the brain cells to quiet the excessive activity in the brain that causes these seizures.
As Gutpa notes, a Florida hospital that specializes in the disorder, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Drug Enforcement agency don't endorse marijuana as a treatment for Dravet or other seizure disorders.

It may decrease anxiety.

Medical marijuana users claim the drug helps relieve pain and suppress nausea — the two main reasons it's often used to relieve the side effects of chemotherapy.
In 2010, researchers at Harvard Medical School suggested that that some of the drug's benefits may actually be from reduced anxiety, which would improve the smoker's mood and act as a sedative in low doses.
Beware, though, higher doses may increase anxiety and make you paranoid. 

THC slows the progression of Alzheimer's disease:

Marijuana may be able to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease. Study found that THC, the active chemical in marijuana, slows the formation of amyloid plaques by blocking the enzyme in the brain that makes them. These plaques are what kill brain cells and cause Alzheimer's.

It keeps you skinny and helps your metabolism.

A study published in the American Journal Of Medicine on April 15 of last year suggested that pot smokers are skinnier than the average person and have healthier metabolism and reaction to sugars, even though they do end up eating more calories because of the munchies.

The study analyzed data from more than 4,500 adult Americans — 579 of whom were current marijuana smokers, meaning they had smoked in the last month. About 2,000 had used marijuana in the past, while another 2,000 had never used the drug.
They studied their body's response to eating sugars: their levels of the hormone insulin and their blood sugar levels while they hadn't eaten in nine hours, and after eating sugar.
Not only are pot users skinnier, but their body has a healthier response to sugar

It relieves arthritis discomfort:

Marijuana alleviates pain, reduces inflammation, and promotes sleep, which may help relieve pain and discomfort for people with rheumatoid arthritis.



Researchers from rheumatology units at several hospitals gave their patients Sativex, a cannabinoid-based pain-relieving medicine. After a two-week period, people on Sativex had a significant reduction in pain and improved sleep quality compared to placebo users.Marijuana treats inflammatory bowel diseases.

Patients with inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis could benefit from marijuana use, studies suggest.University of Nottingham researchers found in 2010 that chemicals in marijuana, including THC and cannabidiol, interact with cells in the body that play an important role in gut function and immune responses. The study was published in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.THC-like compounds made by the body increase the permeability of the intestines, allowing bacteria in. The plant-derived cannabinoids in marijuana block these body-cannabinoids, preventing this permeability and making the intestinal cells bond together tighter.

It lessens side effects from treating hepatitis C and increases treatment effectiveness: 

California dispensaries have been the subject of federal raidsTreatment for hepatitis C infection is harsh — negative side effects include fatigue, nausea, muscle aches, loss of appetite, and depression — and lasts for months. Many people aren't able to finish their treatment course because of the side effects.But, pot to the rescue: A 2006 study in the European Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology found that 86% of patients using marijuana successfully completed their Hep C therapy, while only 29% of non-smokers completed their treatment, possibly because the marijuana helps lessens the treatments side effects.Marijuana also seems to improve the treatment's effectiveness: 54% of hep C patients smoking marijuana got their viral levels low and kept them low, in comparison to only 8% of nonsmokers.

Other types of muscle spasms could be helped:

Other types of muscle spasms respond to marijuana as well. Research found that there were people who were using medical marijuana to treat diaphragm spasms that were un-treatable by doctors whom had prescribed very strong, medications. This condition is called myoclonus diaphragmatic flutter (also known as Leeuwenhoek's Disease) and causes non stop spasming in the abdominal muscles which are not only painful, but interfere with breathing and speaking.Smoking marijuana is able to calm the attacks almost immediately, as it calms the muscles of the diaphragm.

While recreational marijuana is controversial, many people agree and believe that the drug should be legal for medical uses.While the benefits of smoking pot may be overstated by advocates of marijuana legalization, the new legalization will help researchers study the drugs' medicinal uses, and better understand how it impacts the body. Currently only 6% of studies on marijuana analyze its medicinal properties.



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Is Cursive A Thing Of The Past ?

Cursive:

Cursive, also known as longhand, script, joined-up writing, joint writing, running writing, or handwriting is any style of penmanship in which the symbols of the language are written in a conjoined and/or flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster. However, not all cursive joins all letters. Formal cursive is generally joined, but casual cursive is a combination of joins and pen lifts.While the terms cursive or script are popular in the United States for describing this style of writing the Latin script, this term is rarely used elsewhere. Joined-up writing is more popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland and India The term handwriting is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, the term running-writing is also popularly applied. In reference, cursive is often said to have been "written", as opposed to having been "printed" in traditional block format. Cursive is distinct from block letters, in which the letters of a word are unconnected and in Roman/Gothic letter-form rather than joined-up script. This style may also be called print script, print writing, block writing and sometimes simply print. The curlicue letters of cursive handwriting, once considered a part of American elementary education, have been slowly disappearing from classrooms for years. with most states adopting new standards that don’t require such instruction, cursive could soon be eliminated from most public schools. it is impossible to read cursive if you can't write it. There are so many children today who can't even read cursive writing, let alone write it. They'll never be able to read anything that was written in the 19th century. They won't be able to read the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or anything written during the Civil War. They're missing an entire portion of our country's history. A major part of many exhibitions, original written documents are written in cursive, not to mention online genealogical research, and even reading your own family's own old mail, all of which requires the reader to be able to decipher handwriting from times past. Reading cursive means you need to be able to write it. Handwriting is something most college students avoid whenever possible, and now the public school system is making it even easier.Many states are no longer requiring schools to teach cursive writing. This decision has been met with some controversy on the Internet. The older generation seems more hostile to the idea, while the younger generation is applauding.

Keyboard skills and typing are now being emphasized in the public school system which is a thing of the 21 century.

Look around you during class, How many of your classmates are writing in cursive or typing on a laptop? Besides the older people,Years from now cursive writing will be as foreign to our grandchildren as shorthand is to us.  almost no one uses cursive. Cursive writing is no longer required due to shorthand not being used anymore and this wonderful invention called a computer. Sure, it is important to have legible handwriting, but  would anyone classify cursive as “legible.”

Is cursive writing that important? 
The only argument I can formulate is the act of a signature. A signature does not have to be in cursive. As long as you print your name, or simply put an “X” down, it is legal. This makes you wonder why you had to learn cursive in the first place.

For many students, cursive is becoming foreign . students take notes on laptops and tablet computers than with pens and notepads. Responding to handwritten letters from grandparents in cursive is no longer necessary as they, too, learn how to use email, Facebook and Skype.
And educators, seeking to prepare students for a successful future in which computer and typing skills have unsurpassed penmanship, are finding cursive’s relevance waning, especially with leaner school budgets and curricula packed with standardized testing prep. So they’re opting not to teach it anymore.It’s seeing the writing on the wall Cursive is increasingly becoming obsolete.”
cursive “a dying art.”

Cursive writing is a traditional skill that has been replaced with technology, Educators are having to make choices about what they teach with a limited amount of time and little or no flexibility. Much of their instructional time is consumed with teaching to a standardized test.”Since 2010, 45 states — including Maryland — and the District have adopted the Common Core standards, which do not require cursive instruction but leave it up to the individual states and districts to decide whether they want to teach it. A report the same year by the Miami-Dade public school system found that cursive instruction has been slowly declining nationwide since the 1970s.
“The standards define the learning targets that need to be met to ensure students graduate from high school prepared for success in college and careers. The decision to include cursive when teaching writing is left to states, districts, schools and teachers.”
A few D.C. traditional public and charter schools offer cursive; most others don’t. In Montgomery County, cursive is part of the curriculum, it is up to educators to make the time to teach it.
The Virginia Department of Education mandates that third-graders should be able to read and write legibly in cursive. Although cursive is technically part of the curriculum in Fairfax County, the reality is that it’s not widely taught.
Proponents of cursive say that many of the country’s historical documents were written in the fancy script, including the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They believe that future historians who lack the ability to read cursive might not be able to study original historical documents.

The truth is that cursive writing is pretty much gone, except in the adult world for people in their 60's and 70's. Today’s teachers value typing more than handwriting, and that by the 12th grade, about half of all papers are composed with computer word processing.
When you think about the world in the 1950s, everything was by hand. Paper and pencil, it’s now a hybrid world.” the argument for keeping cursive around centers more on tradition than practicality.
 It’s like a work of art, “It’s pretty, but is that a reason for keeping something, given that we do less and less of those kinds of cards anymore?. cursive writing is an integral part of working with students who have dyslexia. Because all letters in cursive start on a base line, and because the pen moves fluidly from left to right, cursive is easier to learn for dyslexic students who have trouble forming words correctly.
needing to read cursive is greatly diminishing in our society, but it’s still very applicable as an instructional tool.”Several states have tried to resurrect cursive. California, Georgia and Massachusetts all have laws mandating cursive instruction, and last month, legislators in Idaho passed a bill instructing the state Board of Education to include cursive in the curriculum.
Some experts contend that nice handwriting can lead to better grades in school. recently conducted a study that found that children with neater handwriting developed better reading and math skills than their chicken-scratch peers.
According to a 2006 College Board report, SAT essays written in cursive received a slightly higher score than those with block print. But only 15 percent of the essays were written in cursive. At Broad Acres Elementary in Silver Spring, students receive minimal cursive instruction, The children spend more time learning to read it than write it.At St. Francis International School, which is across the street from Broad Acres, cursive receives more prominence. cursive and neat handwriting have played a crucial role in the preservation of history For centuries, monks in monasteries cared for fragile books and labored making copies of the manuscripts by hand.“The question is why teach two forms of writing when one will do the trick?”“Something’s gotta give. Cursive handwriting is under pressure.” 

 

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Was Mother Teresa Really A Saint ?

Mother Theresa:

The Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, M.C.(Missionaries Of Charity), commonly known as Mother Teresa born 26 August 1910 and died 5 September 1997, was a Roman Catholic Religious Sister  and missionary of Albanian origin, who lived for most of her life in India.Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation, which in 2012 consisted of over 4,500 sisters and is active in 133 countries. They run hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis; soup kitchens; dispensaries and mobile clinics; children's and family counseling programs; orphanages; and schools. Members of their order must adhere to the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, and the fourth vow, which is to give "wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor". She was the recipient of numerous honors including the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2003, she was beatified as "Blessed Teresa of Calcutta".

Born Agnes Gonxha in Albania, she founded the Missionaries of Charity and spent much of her life in Calcutta, caring for the sick and poor. In all the universe of religious experience, few figures are so beloved as the Catholic nun known to the world as Mother Teresa. The official biography holds that she selflessly devoted her life to ministering to the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta, suffering through poverty and deprivation nearly as great as that of her patients without complaint, and asking no reward except the knowledge of doing God’s will. She was a beloved figure to millions and a trusted counselor to powerful leaders and celebrities worldwide and was showered with rewards and honors during her life, and attracted huge crowds as she lay in state after her death. And that is the official story. But atheists and freethinkers, more than any other group, should recognize how pious words are so often used to conceal ugly acts of inhumanity, and to gloss over the disreputable elements of stories presented as inspirational and noble. The truth is that Mother Teresa was a friend to vicious dictators, criminals and con men She was a controversial figure both during her life and after her death. Mother Teresa was widely admired by many for her charitable works, but also widely criticized, particularly for her campaigns against contraception and for substandard conditions in the hospices for which she was responsible. the Roman Catholic Church deserved great credit for, and owed its longevity to, its ability to handle and contain fanaticism. What is so striking about the "beatification" of the woman who styled herself "Mother" Teresa is the abject surrender, on the part of the church, to the forces of showbiz, superstition, and populism. It used to be that a person could not even be nominated for "beatification," which is the first step to "sainthood," until five years after his or her death. This was to guard against local or popular enthusiasm in the promotion of dubious characters. The pope was able to nominated Mother Teresa a year after her death in 1997. Following her death, the Vatican decided to waive the usual five-year waiting period to open the beatification process. The Vatican engaged in a ploy as it threw aside concerns about her suspicious financial dealings and contacts to forgo the five-year waiting period to beatify her.
As for the "miracle" that had to be attested to beatify her, A Bengali woman named Monica Besra once claimed that a beam of light emerged from a picture of Mother Teresa, which she happened to have in her home, and relieved her of a cancerous tumor. Her physician, Dr. Ranjan Mustafi, says that she didn't have a cancerous tumor in the first place and that the tubercular cyst she did have was cured by a course of prescription medicine.  the Vatican, before deciding on Teresa's beatification, did not take into account her rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding  abortion, contraception, and divorce.

At the time of her death, Teresa had 517 missions or "homes for the dying"  They welcomed the poor and sick in more than 100 countries. Two-thirds of the people coming to these missions hoped to a find a doctor to treat them, while the other third lay dying without receiving apt care. A significant lack of hygiene, even unfit conditions and a shortage of actual care, food and painkillers. They say that the problem was not a paucity of funds as the Order of the Missionaries of Charity successfully raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Teresa’s free clinics provided care that was at best rudimentary and haphazard and at worst unsanitary and dangerous, despite the enormous amounts of donations she received.
Teresa insisted that a ban on divorce and remarriage be a part of the Irelands state constitution, as Mother Teresa demanded in a referendum in Ireland in which her side narrowly lost in 1996. Later in that same year, she told Ladies Home Journal that she was pleased by the divorce of her friend Princess Diana, because the marriage had so obviously been an unhappy one. Mother Teresa was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. In her own words She said that “I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people. suffering was a gift from God. A study conducted by Canadian researchers has called Mother Teresa "anything but a saint", a creation of an orchestrated and effective media campaign who was generous with her prayers but miserly with her foundation's millions when it came to humanity's suffering. Mother Teresa saw beauty in the downtrodden's suffering and was far more willing to pray for them than provide practical medical care. Meanwhile, She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. As Christopher Hitchens documents in his book The Missionary Position, Teresa was acquainted with a startling number of unsavory characters. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Keating would later become infamous for his role in the Savings & Loan scandal, where he was convicted of fraud, racketeering and conspiracy for his involvement in a scam where customers were deceived into buying worthless junk bonds, resulting in many of them losing their life savings. Keating had donated $1.25 million to Mother Teresa in the 1980s, and as he was awaiting sentencing, she wrote a letter to the court on his behalf asking for clemency.When the International Health Organization honored Teresa in 1989, she spoke at length against abortion and contraception and called AIDS a “just retribution for improper sexual conduct”. Similarly, when Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, she proclaimed in her acceptance speech that abortion was the greatest threat to peace in the world. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go?. Did she in turn re-donate it back to the catholic church. The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been. She preferred California clinics when she got sick. Her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Many volunteers who went to Calcutta came back abruptly disillusioned by the stern ideology and poverty-loving practice of the "Missionaries of Charity".

Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of Mother Teresa Even more will be poor and sick if her examples are followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions. This returns us to the medieval corruption of the church, which sold indulgences to the rich while preaching hell-fire and continence to the poor.

she actually considered suffering to be beneficial. This is why she kept her clinics so rudimentary  not so that sick people could be cured, but so they could get closer to God through their suffering. Mother Teresa was thoroughly saturated with a primitive fundamentalist religious worldview that sees pain, hardship, and suffering as an ennobling experiences and a beautiful expression of affiliation with Jesus Christ and his ordeal on the cross. In her mind, they were not evils to be relieved, but blessings to be glorified. Teresa’s organization routinely received multi-million dollar donations which were squirreled away in bank accounts, while volunteers were told to beg donors for more money and plead extreme poverty and desperate need. The money she received could easily have built half a dozen fully equipped modern hospitals and clinics, but was never used for that purpose Ex-volunteers have testified that Teresa taught her followers to secretly baptize the dying – people who could not resist, or were not aware of what was happening to them – without their consent. Material aid was a means of reaching their souls, of showing the poor that God loved them Secrecy was important so that it would not come to be known that Mother Teresa’s sisters were baptizing Hindus and Moslems. But, of course, suffering like Christ was of no benefit if the sufferer did not actually accept Christ. To this end, Teresa’s clinics were run as conversion factories.

 

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