Hi, my name is Michelle Davis.  I am 29 years old and a single mom of two young children. I couldn’t be more happy with my life right now. I have come a long way in finding my independence. I am excited about my future as I’m on a good path right now. But, it hasn’t always been this way.

 

 

I  experienced my first abusive relationship at the age of 13.  Looking back at my life, I can now see a void that took shape long before I was 13. In my home growing up, I was my Dad’s pride and joy. But my father battled alcohol and the attention I used to get from him, he began giving to a bottle. So, I started to feel worthless as I hit my teenage years.

 

 

At 13 I fell for an older guy who showered me with all the attention I could ever want. Everything I wasn’t getting at home from my father, he made up for it. He praised me all the time for every little thing. He showered me with gifts. He made me feel valuable again. He made me feel like I was really somebody. I couldn’t see it at the time, but looking back it was all an effort on his part to sleep with me. (more…)

by Connor Boyack

 

 

While modern civilization has made great strides in eradicating many of the scourges that have crippled and killed millions, it has overwhelmingly welcomed the latest cancer with wide open arms. Curiously, this disease is weaved into the popular culture in such a way that few see it for what it truly is. Instead, like cigarette smokers half a century ago, it is accepted by most as a healthy and/or innocent form of personal entertainment.

 

The plague that is pornography has devastated the lives and relationships of countless millions, infusing society with a strain of selfishness and baseness that, if unchecked, will contributed in large part to its ultimate doom. Consider a few of the alarming statistics: as of July 2003, there were 260 million pages of porn online, an increase of 1800% since 1998; more than 70% of men from 18 to 34 visit a pornographic site in a typical month; and over 45 million unique users visit adult websites each month in the United States alone. The data continues, each thread helping to weave part of the large and ugly picture that represents this blight on our society.

 

As the saying goes, sex sells. In 2006, the industry netted brought in over $97 billion—more than the revenues of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, and Netflix combined. Obviously, there is a market for this drug, and its demand is ever-increasing.

 

But at what cost? (more…)

 

By Michelle Rupe Eubanks from TimesDailey.com

 

Catherine Young is about as typical as you can get for a fifth-grader.

 

At 10, she’s a competitive swimmer, works hard to keep her grades up and has lots of friends to help her wile away her free time.

 

Despite being active, Catherine said she’d like to lose a little weight, maybe two or three pounds from her four-and-a-half-foot frame.

 

“My mom reminds me not to eat when I get bored,” she said. “I know kids my age don’t need to be overweight, but it’s hard sometimes.”

 

Catherine said she vividly remembers being made fun of as a kindergartner for being a little chubby and, when stepping on the Wii Fit, she hears a computerized voice tell her she’s obese.

 

“I don’t like that,” Catherine said.

 

With everything going on in the life of an adolescent girl, why worry about being thin at all?

 

Jess Weiner, author and self-esteem guru, said it’s no longer up to the girls to decide. As a result, their self-esteem has come under attack, leaving them with skewed body images and, potentially, a lifetime spent trying to achieve an unrealistic physical ideal. (more…)

 

PHOENIX —  A young Iraqi woman whose father allegedly hit her with his car because she had become too Westernized died from her injuries Monday after lying in a coma for nearly two weeks.

 

Noor Faleh Almaleki, 20, underwent spinal surgery and had been in a hospital since Oct. 20, when police say her father ran down her and her boyfriend’s mother with his Jeep as the women were walking across a parking lot in the west Phoenix suburb of Peoria.

 

The other woman, Amal Khalaf, is expected to survive.

 

Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 48, fled after the attack but was arrested Thursday when he arrived at Atlanta’s airport, where he was sent from the United Kingdom after authorities denied him entrance.

 

Peoria police interviewed him and brought him back to Arizona over the weekend, but have declined to release what Almaleki said to them.

 

At a court hearing over the weekend in Phoenix, county prosecutor Stephanie Low told a judge that Almaleki admitted to committing the crime. (more…)