Child Labor Awareness

I'm hungry

Several nights each week I can be found working in my garage making nice boards into unusable scraps. Occasionally, with a lot of help from glue and nails something takes shape. Along the way I snort and eat copious amounts of saw dust and get many cuts and scrapes. This isn't the case with Marthaller, his stuff is great.

He starts with something ugly - a wood burl. If I were cutting down a tree burl would be the first piece into the fire pit. His burls are exceptionally ugly. If you're reading Duey - you heard me - you have ugly burls. They are covered with moss and bark and overall look as though they could use a bath.

After Marthaller hacks the 60-pound chunk of ugly down to a manageable size he chucks it into his 800-pound lathe and starts it slowly.

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I'm hungry

Several nights each week I can be found working in my garage making nice boards into unusable scraps. Occasionally, with a lot of help from glue and nails something takes shape. Along the way I snort and eat copious amounts of saw dust and get many cuts and scrapes. This isn't the case with Marthaller, his stuff is great.

He starts with something ugly - a wood burl. If I were cutting down a tree burl would be the first piece into the fire pit. His burls are exceptionally ugly. If you're reading Duey - you heard me - you have ugly burls. They are covered with moss and bark and overall look as though they could use a bath.

After Marthaller hacks the 60-pound chunk of ugly down to a manageable size he chucks it into his 800-pound lathe and starts it slowly.

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Ricky Martin: Our duty to fight child trafficking

Convinced that every child deserves a childhood, I established the Ricky Martin Foundation to fight for their well-being in three critical areas: social justice, education and health. But when I visited India in 2002 and witnessed the horrors of human trafficking, as we rescued three trembling girls living on the street in plastic bags, I knew the foundation had to shed a light on a taboo subject: human trafficking. Preventing these girls from falling prey to human trafficking was a personal awakening. Two years after my visit to India, we launched People for Children, the foundation's principal project, to provide education and support for international efforts seeking the elimination of human trafficking -- with special emphasis on children. This unscrupulous market generates up to $32 billion annually, an amount rivaling that of the trafficking of arms and drugs.

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Resort firms cited in student-worker probe

Many of them wound up cheated out of wages and overtime pay, working jobs that violated child labor laws or docked pay to cover room and board. A state investigation last year found that nearly 200 foreign workers were cheated by several companies in an upstate resort town. The state ordered the businesses to repay the employees, plus interest, and pay fines. Some of the companies are appealing the ruling, and about 180 students who worked for the companies between 2002 and 2006 are still owed $103,000, according to state Department of Labor records. "Forcing these international students to work overtime without pay is criminal," said Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee, a human rights organization. "These students go back as ambassadors to their countries.

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Ricky Martin: Our duty to fight child trafficking

Convinced that every child deserves a childhood, I established the Ricky Martin Foundation to fight for their well-being in three critical areas: social justice, education and health. But when I visited India in 2002 and witnessed the horrors of human trafficking, as we rescued three trembling girls living on the street in plastic bags, I knew the foundation had to shed a light on a taboo subject: human trafficking. Preventing these girls from falling prey to human trafficking was a personal awakening. Two years after my visit to India, we launched People for Children, the foundation's principal project, to provide education and support for international efforts seeking the elimination of human trafficking -- with special emphasis on children. This unscrupulous market generates up to $32 billion annually, an amount rivaling that of the trafficking of arms and drugs.

Read more

US to give $5.5M to address child labor problem in RP

The United States will provide $5.5 million or P220 million to combat the worst forms of child labor in the Philippines. In a statement, the US Embassy in Manila said the amount would go to World Vision, Christian Children�s Fund and the Education Research and Development Assistance Foundation to address the education needs of children engaged in or at risk of being victims of abusive child labor practices in the Philippines. �The initiative seeks to remove 18,000 children and prevent another 12,000 children from hazardous work in sugarcane plantations, child domestic work, commercial sexual exploitation, mining and quarrying, garbage scavenging and pyrotechnics,� the embassy said. Child labor refers to the illegal employment of children below 18 years old in hazardous occupations.

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Barack Obama and Me

A picture tells a thousand words. Do you want a drink?? Comment by Jasmine — February 27, 2008 @ 03:31PM Yeah, excellent article. Of course, it's no surprise that - shock, horror - Obama acted like a politician on the make in the state legislature but it's nice to have the details spelled out. Besides is this a generational thing for Democrats? Are they going to elect yet another centrist candidate (like Clinton or Carter) and believe they've found the next liberal messiah? Comment by Kevin M. — February 27, 2008 @ 03:32PM This article would be a lot better if it was less about you, and more about Obama, whatever his faults may be. As it is, the important, interesting things are buried. And you don't have much credibility left by the time you get to them, after potshots like "a reporter friend overheard him call me an asshole".

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Barack Obama and Me

A picture tells a thousand words. Do you want a drink?? Comment by Jasmine — February 27, 2008 @ 03:31PM Yeah, excellent article. Of course, it's no surprise that - shock, horror - Obama acted like a politician on the make in the state legislature but it's nice to have the details spelled out. Besides is this a generational thing for Democrats? Are they going to elect yet another centrist candidate (like Clinton or Carter) and believe they've found the next liberal messiah? Comment by Kevin M. — February 27, 2008 @ 03:32PM This article would be a lot better if it was less about you, and more about Obama, whatever his faults may be. As it is, the important, interesting things are buried. And you don't have much credibility left by the time you get to them, after potshots like "a reporter friend overheard him call me an asshole".

Read more

Barack Obama and Me

A picture tells a thousand words. Do you want a drink?? Comment by Jasmine — February 27, 2008 @ 03:31PM Yeah, excellent article. Of course, it's no surprise that - shock, horror - Obama acted like a politician on the make in the state legislature but it's nice to have the details spelled out. Besides is this a generational thing for Democrats? Are they going to elect yet another centrist candidate (like Clinton or Carter) and believe they've found the next liberal messiah? Comment by Kevin M. — February 27, 2008 @ 03:32PM This article would be a lot better if it was less about you, and more about Obama, whatever his faults may be. As it is, the important, interesting things are buried. And you don't have much credibility left by the time you get to them, after potshots like "a reporter friend overheard him call me an asshole".

Read more

US to give $5.5M to address child labor problem in RP

The United States will provide $5.5 million or P220 million to combat the worst forms of child labor in the Philippines. In a statement, the US Embassy in Manila said the amount would go to World Vision, Christian Children�s Fund and the Education Research and Development Assistance Foundation to address the education needs of children engaged in or at risk of being victims of abusive child labor practices in the Philippines. �The initiative seeks to remove 18,000 children and prevent another 12,000 children from hazardous work in sugarcane plantations, child domestic work, commercial sexual exploitation, mining and quarrying, garbage scavenging and pyrotechnics,� the embassy said. Child labor refers to the illegal employment of children below 18 years old in hazardous occupations.

Read more