The Daily Drift

When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure. ~ Peter Marshall

Some of our readers today have been in:

Kiev, Ukraine

Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Islamabad, Pakistan

Minsk, Belarus

Gdynia, Poland

St. Petersburg, Russia

George Town, Malaysia

Doha, Qatar

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Kingston, Jamaica

Hanoi, Vietnam

Cairo, Egypt

Bangkok, Thailand

Kota, Kinabalu, Malaysia

Krakow, Poland

Zagreb, Croatia

Makati, Philippines

Manama, Bahrain

Warsaw, Poland

Tirana, Albania

Ankara, Turkey

Sampaloc, Philippines

Tunis, Tunisia

Gdynia, Poland

Rabat, Morocco

Paris, France

Tallinn, Estonia

Carthage, Tunisia

Bydgoszcz, Poland

Don't forget to visit our sister blog!

Today in History

4004 BC		According to 17th century divine James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, and Dr. John Lightfoot of Cambridge, the world was created on this day, a Sunday, at 9 a.m.
1641		Rebellion in Ireland. Catholics, under Phelim O'Neil, rise against the Protestants and massacred men, women and children to the number of 40,000 (some say 100,000).
1694		American colonial forces led by Sir William Phips, fail in their attempt to seize Quebec.
1707		The first Parliament of Great Britain meets.
1783		Virginia emancipates slaves who fought for independence during the Revolutionary War.
1861		President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus in Washington, D.C. for all military-related cases.
1918		President Wilson feels satisfied that the Germans are accepting his armistice terms and agrees to transmit their request for an armistice to the Allies. The Germans have agreed to suspend submarine warfare, cease inhumane practices such as the use of poison gas, and withdraw troops back into Germany.
1929		The first transcontinental air service begins from New York to Los Angeles.
1942		The Western Task Force, destined for North Africa, departs from Hampton Roads, Virginia.
1952		The Nobel Prize for Medicine is awarded to Ukranian-born microbiologist Selmart A. Waksman for his discovery of an effective treatment of tuberculosis.
1954		In Paris, an agreement is signed providing for West German sovereignty and permitting West Germany to rearm and enter NATO and the Western European Union.
1973		A U.N. sanctioned cease-fire officially ends the Yom Kippur war between Israel and Syria.
1983		A truck filled with explosives, driven by a Moslem terrorist, crashes into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The bomb kills 237 Marines and injures 80. Almost simultaneously, a similar incident occurs at French military headquarters, where 58 die and 15 are injured.

Non Sequitur

Dying man casts final vote

A photo of World War II veteran Frank Tanabe casting what will likely be his final ballot in a presidential election has gone viral --and captured the hearts of thousands.

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The truth hurts

Romney’s best debate moment was when he lied

The Apology Tour

A repugican cabal official tells us today what we already knew: repugicans are at their best when they lie. The truth, on the other hand, has a liberal bias.
From Greg Sargent at the Washington Post:

Romney’s new ad features footage of him at yesterday’s debate attacking Obama for his … fictional apology tour.

In reprising these lines — that Obama apologized for America and has yet to visit Israel — the Romney camp is again attacking an Obama that mainly exists in the minds of the Obama-hating repugican base, and probably doesn’t really exist in the minds of undecided voters, who have watched this president for four years and don’t share the base’s suspicions about his commitment to America.
At least one rnc official is calling this Romney’s “best moment of the debate.” It’s a curious choice: With two weeks to go until the election, Romney’s best moment wasn’t an affirmative one where he laid out his own agenda vis a vis America’s role in the world; it’s one where he attacked Obama for an apology tour that never happened. The fact that a criticism of Obama that has been has been completely debunked is seen by the Romney camp as his shining triumph of last evening is fitting. It will be interesting to see if this is how the Romney campaign intends to close out the race. If so, it contrasts sharply with the Obama pivot to an affirmative case for a second term agenda that is now underway.

Romney Stands by a Lie That’s Already Been Debunked

People like to say that all politicians lie, but maybe the truth is closer to what the fictional TV character House alleges: “everyone lies.”  The thing that’s so amazing about repugicans, and Mitt Romney exemplifies the problem, is that they continue to lie even when publicly called out on their lie, repeatedly.  And the media tends to still let them get away with it.
Sure, the fact checkers have yet again retooled the same old pieces confirming that President Obama never did an “apology tour” at any time during his presidency, or before.
You’ve got CNN’s fact checker:

Back in December, Michael Cohen, a columnist for Foreign Policy’s Election 2012 Channel, called the “apology tour” claim “a lie that has been reiterated so often that it has become conventional wisdom on the right. ”
“The apology canard has been dis-proven practically as often as it has been made.”
Romney’s claim is false.

The Washington Post’s fact checker:

The claim that Obama repeatedly has apologized for the United States is not borne out by the facts….
Note to repugican speechwriters and campaign ad makers: The apology tour never happened.
Four Pinocchios

Politifact:

It’s ridiculous to call Obama’s foreign visits and remarks “an apology tour.” We rate this statement Pants on Fire!

So it’s conclusive that not only did Mitt Romney lie last night, but it’s a lie he’s been called out on repeatedly, yet still keeps telling, and today, after the lie has been repudiated again, Romney launches an ad based on it.

The Media’s Own Apology Tour

So how does the media treat Romney’s bizarre penchant for making a lie his central argument following the debate? Just look at Michael Finnegan writing in the LA Times. The LA Times does an entire story on the Romney accusation, and the first four grafs simply reiterate Romney’s false charge. Then, finally, in paragraph five – if the reader got that far – the LAT deigns to include an Obama quote saying it’s not true. Nowhere in the entire piece does the LAT notify their readers that the claim is actually false, and has been debunked by every fact checker, repeatedly, yet for some reason Mitt Romney keeps reiterating the lie.
Nowhere.
The LA Times is playing Romney’s stenographer. They’re happy to repeat a lie, and then bury the denial, because in their minds, so long as they include a quote from the other side, it’s journalism!
What else should the LA Times have done?
1) Put the denial in the first graf.
2) Mention the fact, immediately, that every fact checker on the planet has found Romney’s statement to be an utter lie.
3) Note in the piece the question as to why Romney would insist on making a serial lie his central argument leaving the third and final debate.
Here, let me show you.
Original LA Times lede:

Mitt Romney touched off one of the most contentious exchanges of the final presidential debate between him and President Obama by accusing the incumbent of projecting weakness in the world and traveling across the Middle East on an “apology tour.”

What the Times should have written:

Mitt Romney touched off one of the most contentious exchanges of the final presidential debate between him and President Obama by falsely accusing the incumbent of projecting weakness in the world and traveling across the Middle East on an “apology tour,” even though the allegation has been soundly refuted.
“The fact that Mitt Romney has decided to make a lie the center piece of his argument for the presidency, speaks volumes to what he has to offer, or not, as president,” said presidential historian Blah Blah blah.

By printing the lie, and giving it four paragraphs, and then only printing the President’s refutation, and doing so in the fifth paragraph, not earlier, the Times effectively makes this a he-said-she-said, legitimizing the lie in the public’s mind.

Print No Lies

At some point, reporters need to get beyond Journalism 101 (he-said-she-said) and move on to Journalism 102 (don’t report a lie).   The LA Times aided and abetted Romney’s lie last night.
But what about the other reporters, the ones who dutifully mention the “fact checks”?  They’re helping Romney too, and here’s why.  The press shouldn’t simply be reporting that Mitt Romney’s statement last night about the apology tour was untrue,  They should be asking the Romney campaign, incessantly, why they’re making a known lie the centerpiece of the candidate’s argument.
What does it say about Mitt Romney, about how he views himself and his qualifications to be president, about how he views the American voters, if he has decided that a lie, rather than the truth, is the more effective way for him to move into the Oval Office?  A real journalist would ask that question by this point.  It’s that failure to ask, the penchant to simply “report” the back and forth, even when reporters know that the strategy behind the lie is to simply get the back and forth in print so the public thinks some of the accusation must be true, that was behind the Swift-boating of John Kerry, death panels, and every other repugican lie.
The lies worked because the media let them work.
At some point, reporters needs to start asking the Republicans why they think the truth has a liberal bias, and why they think their candidate’s best argument for becoming president is a lie.  At some point, reporters need to stay true to their own version of the Hippocratic Oath:

Print No Lies.

The truth be told

Romney/Ryan voters try to destroy “photo op” soup kitchen – Democrats stop them

Reminiscent of the time repugicans tried to destroy a pizza joint where President Obama got a bear hug from its owner, repugicans have spent the last week harassing, and trying to destroy, a soup kitchen where Paul Ryan held a now-infamous photo opp.Huff Post’s Jason Cherkis reports:

Brian J. Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, confirmed that donors have begun an exodus in protest over Ryan’s embarrassment. The monetary losses have been big. “It appears to be a substantial amount,” Antal said. “You can rest assured there has been a substantial backlash.”

Ryan supporters have now targeted Antal and his soup kitchen, Antal said, including making hundreds of angry phone calls. Some members of Antal’s volunteer staff have had to endure the barrage as well, he said. “The sad part is a lot of [the callers] want to hide behind anonymity,” he said, adding that if someone leaves their name and number he has tried to return their call. In addition to phone calls, people have posted a few choice words on the charity’s Facebook wall, including statements like “I hope you lose your tax [sic] emempt status,” Anyone who is thinking about donations to you should think twice” and “Shame on you Brian Antal!”

Thankfully, per Huff Post Hill, Democrats have risen to the challenge and saved the soup kitchen that Romney/Ryan supporters tried to put out of business.

 ”The soup kitchen facing a donor backlash in the wake of Paul Ryan’s embarrassing photo op has been rescued by the internet. The day after HuffPost broke the kitchen’s sad news, Corey Snow of Olympia Washington, organized an online fundraising drive on the charity’s behalf. In about 30 hours, Snow had raised $10,000. By Monday morning, donations had reached more than $12,600. Snow said that he was upset that the most needy would become pawns in presidential politics.‘People are hungry regardless of whether you vote Democrat or repugican,’ he said. ‘I thought it was not cool that they were pulling donations.’ Snow, who has talked with the charity’s director, plans on keeping the campaign going long past the election. He plans on turning in his donations to the soup kitchen by mid December. ‘The election will still be over but people will still be hungry,’ he said. The campaign site link is http://www.indiegogo.com/svdp-soupkitchen. There is also a direct donation site set up by the Mahoning County Society of Saint Vincent de Paul at http://mahoningsvdp.org, and of course the national site at http://svdpusa.org.

It’s really kind of astounding, and speaks volumes to what the repugican cabal has become,
that Romney/Ryan supporters would try to destroy a soup kitchen that feeds the poor and the homeless.

The repugicans and the Facts

I caught this exchange in the comments on a repugican cultist website:

1st Commenter, October 22, 2012 - 9:48 pm:

"Presenting failure as success is an amazing talent.

"Our economy is rebounding, employment is up, oil is gushing, our enemies are in retreat and it will only take four more years in the White House for Obama to clear up Bush’s mess. Obama loves Israel, supports our military, is revered by our allies and feared by our enemies.

"I can’t imagine how anyone can even think of not giving this great President four more years."

2nd Commenter, October 23, 2012 - 2:32 am:

"It might be because everything you just said is untrue. The economy is stagnant, jobs are down, as is oil production on public land. Our enemies clearly don’t fear him, because they blatantly attacked us. Most of the people from other countries whom I’ve spoken to do not like Obama. They call him “weak” at best, and “insane” at worst.

"I don’t see how anyone who is thinking clearly and analyzing the actual record could possibly want to give this man another four years to do more damage.

"The only reason I see anyone voting for Obama is either confirmation bias (due to voting him in and not wanting to be wrong), or utter ignorance of the facts."

Sigh. A tale of two voters - one informed by the facts, the other apparently getting his "facts" from Faux News.

Voter fraud is a fraud

The New Yorker's "Voter-Fraud Myth" by Jane Mayer is a good, fair, investigative piece tracking the rise of the repugican orthodoxy that says that voter fraud is rampant, and that it favors Democrats. Mayer makes a reasoned, factual case to show that there is no substantial voter fraud problem (much-vaunted incidents like the scores of dead voters in Georgia were later revealed to not have a single verifiable instance of a dead person voting). Mayer also shows how anti-fraud measures disproportionately target young people, poor people, and visible minorities. This is a great piece to refer to when discussing the subject with friends who've been convinced that voter ID laws amount to anything other than partisan voter suppression.

Von Spakovsky offered me the names of two experts who, he said, would confirm that voter-impersonation fraud posed a significant peril: Robert Pastor, the director of the Center for Democracy and Election Management, at American University, and Larry Sabato, a political-science professor at the University of Virginia. Pastor, von Spakovsky noted, had spoken to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights about being a victim of election fraud: voting in Georgia, he discovered that someone else had already voted under his name.
When I reached Pastor, he clarified what had happened to him. “I think they just mistakenly checked my name when my son voted—it was just a mistake.” He added, “I don’t think that voter-impersonation fraud is a serious problem.” Pastor believes that, compared with other democracies, America is “somewhere near the bottom in election administration,” and thinks that voter I.D.s make sense—but only if they are free and easily available to all, which, he points out, is not what repugican legislatures have proposed. Sabato, who supports the use of voter I.D.s under the same basic conditions, says of the voter-impersonation question, “One fraudulent vote is one too many, but my sense is that it’s relatively rare today.”
Hasen says that, while researching “The Voting Wars,” he “tried to find a single case” since 1980 when “an election outcome could plausibly have turned on voter-impersonation fraud.” He couldn’t find one. News21, an investigative-journalism group, has reported that voter impersonation at the polls is a “virtually non-existent” problem. After conducting an exhaustive analysis of election-crime prosecutions since 2000, it identified only seven convictions for impersonation fraud. None of those cases involved conspiracy.

The Voter-Fraud Myth

Kansas case puts face on 'total identity theft'

When Candida L. Gutierrez's identity was stolen, the thief didn't limit herself to opening fraudulent credit and bank accounts. She assumed Gutierrez's persona completely, using it to get a job, a driver's license, a mortgage and even medical care for the birth of two children.

All the while, the crook claimed the real Gutierrez was the one who had stolen her identity. The women's unusual tug-of-war puts a face on "total identity theft," a brazen form of the crime in which con artists go beyond financial fraud to assume many other aspects of another person's life.

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Pussy Riot activists sent to secret harsh labor camps

Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova have been sent to regions known for hosting Russia's harshest hard-labor camps, places that once served as Soviet gulags. The 24 and 22 year old mothers -- who performed a song protesting the Russian Orthodox Church's connection to the Putin regime in a cathedral -- have been sentenced to two years of hard labor. Though the regions to which they've been dispatched is known, no one -- not even their families -- has been allowed to know exactly which prison-camps they are incarcerated in. The Guardian's Miriam Elder reports from Moscow:

"These are the harshest camps of all the possible choices," the band said via its Twitter account on Monday.
...Confusion reigned on Monday as relatives and lawyers tried to assess exactly where the women were sent. Both Perm and Mordovia host several prison camps, some of which comprised the Soviet-era gulag system. Prison authorities declined to comment on the women's whereabouts.
Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova had petitioned to serve their sentences in Moscow, arguing that they wanted to be close to their children. Alyokhina has a five-year-old son named Filipp, while Tolokonnikova has a four-year-old daughter named Gera.

Pussy Riot band members sent to remote prison camps

Daily Comic Relief

Can your body sense future events without any external clue?

Wouldn’t it be amazing if our bodies prepared us for future events that could be very important to us, even ...

Continue Reading

Breakthrough In World's Oldest Undeciphered Writing

The world's oldest undeciphered writing system, which has so far defied attempts to uncover its 5,000-year-old secrets, could be about to be decoded by Oxford University academics. In a room high up in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, above the Egyptian mummies and fragments of early civilisations, a big black dome is clicking away and flashing out light.

This device, part sci-fi, part-DIY, is providing the most detailed and high quality images ever taken of these elusive symbols cut into clay tablets. This is Indiana Jones with software. It's being used to help decode a writing system called proto-Elamite, used between around 3200BC and 2900BC in a region now in the south west of modern Iran.

The 10 Best Films of the 1890s

They're heavy on effects, light on dialogue, and all available thanks to YouTube. But seriously, here's how this list came about: last week, the A.V. Club posted a four-part post listing the best films of the 1990s (links available) that, of course, brought a firestorm of opinions.

As a lark, we started talking about a companion list covering the best films of the 1890s. But the more we talked about it, the more it seemed like a good idea to turn back the clock to the very beginnings of film. We selected 10 films we found artistically compelling and historically significant. And because they’re all in the public domain, available on YouTube, and short, you can easily watch them in their entirety as you read along.

Not only that, but none of these films will cause a fight over which was the most important to readers' childhoods. Don't miss my favorite of the bunch, The X-Ray Fiend (1897). More

Unusual Ukrainian Model

Models with an unusual appearance become more and more popular nowadays. Thus, girls often look like boys and boys resemble girls and such models are rather well-paid. But Masha Telnaya is not one of them. She is special because of her eyes. She is called a beautiful freak in the west, but her countrymen often joke about the consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe. But the face of the Ukrainian girl is driving Paris crazy. More

Random Photo

Arizona ballot measure contests ownership of the Grand Canyon

By Tim Gaynor

When voters in Arizona go to the polls next month, they will be asked to decide a landownership tug of war: Should the Grand Canyon belong to all Americans, or just the residents of Arizona?

A controversial ballot measure backed by repugicans in the state legislature is seeking sovereign control over millions of acres of federal land in the state, including the Grand Canyon.

Proposition 120 would amend the state's constitution to declare Arizona's sovereignty and jurisdiction over the "air, water, public lands, minerals, wildlife and other natural resources

within the state's boundaries."

The measure is the latest salvo in the so-called "sagebrush revolt" by Republicans in the West aiming to take back control of major swaths of land owned by various federal agencies, much of it by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management.

State Senator Sylvia Allen, one of the repugican backers of the measure, argues that federal retention of the land hurts the economy of the Western states and leaves them struggling to fund public education, nurture their economies, and manage their forests and natural resources.

"We do not have the ability in rural Arizona to provide jobs for our citizens due to the fact that the federal government controls all the land," Allen told Reuters. "It leaves us at a great disadvantage. We're not able to bring in industry and provide for the jobs that we need," she added.

The exact area of public land targeted by the measure - which excludes American Indian reservations and federal installations such as arsenals - was not immediately clear on the Arizona Secretary of State's website.

The Sierra Club pegged the area at between 39,000 and 46,700 square miles (101,000 and 121,000 square km) - or 34 percent to 41 percent of the entire state.

BATTLE OVER LAND

The ballot measure is just the latest move in a decades-old federal-state skirmish over control of a wide range of natural resources in Western states, often pitting mining, drilling and logging companies against those seeking to protect the environment.

The efforts have had mixed success. In May, Arizona's repugican Governor Jan Brewer vetoed a state bill calling on Washington to relinquish the title to 48,000 square miles (124,000 square km), arguing that it created uncertainty for existing leaseholders on federal lands in difficult economic times.

But similar legislation was signed into law by Governor Gary Herbert in neighboring Utah in March, despite warnings from state attorneys that it was likely unconstitutional and would trigger a costly and ultimately futile legal battle.

Opponents of the latest drive to assert Arizona's ownership say that, if successful, the initiative could undermine protections provided by federal environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, and Clean Water Act, and would saddle Arizona with lands for which it would be unable to care.

"They can't even fund and ensure that their (state) parks are protected, so how they would take on an additional 25 to 30 million acres of land is a big question mark," Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, told Reuters.

No polls have given a sense of whether Prop 120 will prosper during the November 6 election. But Bahr cautioned that, should it pass, it would inevitably trigger fresh litigation for Arizona, which recently fought a legal battle over its tough 2010 crackdown on illegal immigrants all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"This one is just blatantly unconstitutional," Bahr said of Prop 120. "Does Arizona really need another lawsuit?"

Underground Magic

Ruskealsky gap is a place in Karelia. It's a huge hole about ten meters (33 ft) deep with water on its bottom. As locals say it formed in the 1960s after strong explosions in the neighboring quarry. The roof of the old waterlogged tunnels broke and fell into the water. A huge hole 20 x 30 m (65x100 ft) appeared on the surface.

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Indonesia's Tri-Colored Lakes

Kelimutu

They are located on the same volcanic peak yet each of the three crater lakes atop Kelimutu in Indonesia is a markedly different color. It is the only place on earth where this amazing color variation takes place.

The three lakes all have different names and local people have for centuries believed that the lakes are the spiritual resting place of their ancestors. It is said the lakes change color according to the mood of the spirit - and if that is the case then the souls' moods are constantly restless.

Awesome Pictures

Lady Gaga is namesake for new fern species

By April Bethea

Lady Gaga's outfit at the 2010 Grammys reminded researchers at Duke of the gametophyte, bisexual reproductive stage of the ferns.

Fans of Lady Gaga are affectionately known around the world as “Little Monsters.”
Now, the name has been bestowed on a newly-discovered species of Fern.
Gaga monstraparva, or “monster-little” is one of 19 fern species being named after the pop music star, researchers at Duke University announced on Tuesday. The plants are found in Central and South America, Mexico, Arizona and Texas, according to a news release.
“We wanted to name this genus for Lady Gaga because of her fervent defense of equality and individual expression,” Kathleen Pryer, a Duke University biology professor and director of the Duke Herbarium, said in the release. “And as we started to consider it, the ferns themselves gave us more reasons why it was a good choice.”
Among the reasons cited by researchers: Part of the DNA sequence for the genus spells GAGA and a heart-shaped portion of Gaga’s Armani Prive’ costume at the 2010 Grammy Awards reminded Pryor of the bisexual reproductive stage of the ferns.
Learn more about the study at: http://today.duke.edu/2012/10/gagafern

Say Hello to Bacteria on Your Smartphone!

Think of this the next time you fiddle with your smartphone: it's a nest of germs! Caroline Porter of the Wall Street Journal explains why cell phones are not only great for sharing photos - they're also great for sharing bacteria:

Even though computers, keys, pens and landline phones can harbor germs, many people's cellphones have become extra appendages—never far from the pillow, health club treadmill or restaurant table.
"We're feeding the little creatures," says Michael Schmidt, a professor and vice chairman of microbiology and immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina. "We've all seen that greasy smear [on the touch screen]. Where there is grease, there are bugs."
A lab tested eight randomly selected phones from a Chicago office for this article. The phones showed no signs of E. coli or staphylococci bacteria. But all phones showed abnormally high numbers of coliforms, a bacteria indicating fecal contamination. Of the eight phones tested by HML Labs of Muncie, Ind., there were between about 2,700 and 4,200 units of coliform bacteria. In drinking water, the limit is less than 1 unit per 100 ml of water.

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The Best Wildlife Photography of 2012

There were more than 48,000 entries in the Veolia Environmental Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition, but only 100 winners. Luciano Candisani won the category of Behaviour: Cold-Blooded Animals with his snap of a friendly fellow that he met while snorkeling. You can view all of the winners at the link.
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Small Worlds Never Before Seen

From bat embryos to blood-brain barriers, photographers capture images they claim are the first of their kind. Read more

Small World Under the Sea

For 37 years the Nikon Small World photography competition showcases the beauty and extreme details captured using light microscopes. Read more

Unproven Chinese Medicine Killing Manta Rays

The Australian government has taken steps to protect the giant manta ray, which has been widely hunted for its use in alternative medicines. Read more

Raised by Monkeys

A British housewife named Marina Chapman claims, after being kidnapped and subsequently abandoned at the age of five in the Columbian jungle, that she was raised by a colony of capuchin monkeys. She alleges that she spent five years with the monkeys learning to catch birds and rabbits with her bare hands.
Eventually she was discovered by hunters, captured, and sold to a brothel in Cucuta, Columbia. She escaped the brothel and after a few years of living on the streets, got work as a maid. From there she met a family that brought her to Bradford, England where she met a Mr. John Chapman at church service. They married in 1977.

"I got bedtime stories about the jungle, as did my sister. We didn't think it odd - it was just Mum telling her life. So in a way it was nothing special having a mother like that."
~Vanessa James, one of Chapman’s two daughters

Chapman says she is now coming forth with the story to raise awareness of human trafficking in South America. Vanessa is helping her write a book detailing her life, set to be published in April.

Animal Pictures