Showing posts with label Odd.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Odd.. Show all posts
9:18 AM
Here is why i think women are better than men :
1. Women smell better
Have a woman exercise all day long , in the head . Have a man do the same thing. After a while you will always find that the woman smells better
2. Women are pretty
They are beautiful , men always like to look at women , they are like jewels or kittens . You can never get bored
3. Women can control men
This is old news , since the dawn of time men have been controlled by women . Even the most powerful man on the planet has a woman that will tell him what to do
4. Men feel good around women
I have noticed that men like having women around . Even on a guys night out , it is good to have a woman in the background . Men like to be watched by women , they need a woman to see what they do .
5. Women are clean
They bathe/shower more often , they will spend hours taking care of their bodies
6. Women are softer
It feels nice when you hold a woman in your arms
The skin is soft and warm , who doesn’t like that ?
7. Women can make babies
Yup , we men would be extinct if there where no babies , having women around will keep us alive . Men will never be able to have children (maybe with some tech ? )
8. Women have boobies
Another thing that a man can’t have . In fact Boobies control the universe and the minds of men.
9. Women have more holes than men
Yes it is true , they do have more holes , a tested and proven fact , unless we shoot a man , he will always have fewer holes :)
10. Women do not need men
If they discover a way to procreate without the help of man , we are fracked .. This is why we are still around ..
ok , that is about it .. i am sure there are way more reasons , these are the ones invoked by me today
6:51 AM
Being an aggressive macho male doesn’t mean that you will always get the girl, for according to a new study, the fainthearted do also have a good chance of winning the heart of the fair damsel.
Researchers have for long been puzzled by the knowledge that if aggression makes men more likely to father kids, then all males should be selected to be very aggressive. However, this is not the case.
In a study on fruit flies, the boffins carrying out the study noted that the females of the species sometimes choose males who do not fight, and sometimes choose males for no obvious reason.
This, they say, may help explain the large variation in aggressiveness in most species, including humans.
One reason for this variation, they added, could be that no fighting strategy works all the time.
“We showed in fruit flies that even the most genetically aggressive flies can have an Achilles heel, and lose against males who are (for the most part) wimps,” study leader Brad Foley, from the University of Southern California.
“There’s no single way to win a fight, or win mates. Females didn’t necessarily prefer aggressive males -- some males mated less when they lost fights, but some males mated more if they didn’t fight. Moreover, different females preferred different males.
“Unexpected interactions between individuals can define winners and losers (so-called ‘chemistry’). In order to understand why flies, and humans, and other animals, are so genetically different from each other, we need to stop imagining there's a ‘best’ kind of strategy,” he added.
12:13 AM
1. Lately she sits at the computer naked.
2. After signing off, she always has a cigarette.
3. The giant rubber inflatable disk drive.
4. In the morning, the computer screen is all fogged up.
5. She’s gotten amazingly good at typing one handed.
6. She makes sarcastic remarks about your “software”.
7. Lipstick on the mouse.
8. During sex she screams “A-colon backslash enter insert!”
9. The jam in the laser printer is a pair of panties.
10.The fax file is filled with pictures of some guy’s behind
1:06 AM
LUCKNOW: In a horrifying incident reported in the state capital, a one-and-a half-year-old girl was raped by her servant.
The incident was reported in Gomtinagar police circle on Thursday. According to the police the incident came to light when the victim's mother Anita Sharma, a resident of Vivek Khand in Gomtinagar area, lodged an FIR against her servant Narendra Mishra alleging that he raped her daughter.
The complainant owns a general store in the same area, where Mishra, a resident of Vishal Khand, worked as a servant.
Talking to TOI, circle officer of Gomtinagar police circle, Shubhas Chandra Dubey said "Narendra who is a neighbour of the victim was also working as a servant in the shop which was owned by the victim's family."
The police while talking to the media persons also said that on Thursday when the victim's parents were busy Mishra took advantage of the situation and on finding the girl alone Mishra took her with him in the park nearby and raped her.
Dubey also said that the incident would not have come to light had the victim's parents not noticed the girl crying in pain after the incident. Dubey while committing the crime pressed the mouth of the girl so that her cries could not be heard.
It was around 8:30 in the evening on Thursday when Anita could actually figure out what had happened. After the incident, Anita rushed to the police station and lodged the report against Mishra.
Later Mishra was arrested. According to the police Mishra admitted to his crime and was sent to jail under Section 376. However, the medical report of the victim was awaited.
11:49 PM
12:28 AM
London, March 4: Some Asian women in Britain are going to great lengths to fake their virginity, driven to desperation by concepts of 'honour' in a community where myths about their first sexual experience is still widely held, an Asian radio station reported.
If found to have sex before marriage, the lives of some young Asian women can be at risk and they can be driven away from their homes, experts and community workers told the BBC Asian Network documentary 'Like a Virgin', broadcast Monday.
As a result, desperate young women are using fake blood and even going in for reconstructive surgery to fake their virginity, the investigative radio documentary reported.
In an echo of social attitudes held in many parts of the Indian subcontinent, the programme found that most of the 17 to 21 year old men interviewed in the region of West Midlands - home to a large number of Asians - preferred women to be virgins at marriage.
Concepts of 'izzat' - or honour - are strongly held among some conservative Asian communities in Britain and have been linked not only to the practice of forced marriage but also, in some cases, the murder of young women.
An adviser formerly with the national sexual health charity Brook said she personally received requests for information on faking virginity on a daily basis from young Asian women - and that she provided the information because she feared for the safety of these women.
She said: 'They would sometimes come in to the centre because they were concerned about the fact that maybe they had had unprotected sex with a boyfriend and they were concerned about whether other men would know they had had sex before and were not a virgin.
'The discussions would then go around some of the myths around virginity... that girls bleed on the first time of having sexual intercourse. So we were able to say, 'lots of girls don't'.
'The problem is that lots of men and lots of people within the (Asian) community believe that that is true, and therefore they (young women) are very concerned that they will get married and they won't bleed and their husband will believe they weren't a virgin at marriage and all the problems that that would cause them in life.'
She said women were using red dye and mock blood that can be bought from novelty shops that they inserted into their vaginas or spread on the bed sheet after having sex. One Pakistani woman said she knew someone who had used a bottle of red ink - and got away with it. 'Her mother-in-law was very happy,' said the woman.
Underlining the seriousness of the issue, the adviser said she agreed to provide information on how to fake virginity because 'for some young women the risks to them and their personal safety were so great that if they were not able to fake it then the consequences could have been dire.''
A community worker who works with young Asians in west London said some girls have had to flee their homes and go into shelter 'because their life is on the line. Somebody may have found out'.
Linda Cardozo, a gynaecologist at Kings College Hospital in London, said some desperate Asian women were seeking reconstructive hymen-repair surgery, but that it was 'quite difficult to achieve' the repair because there may not always be enough tissues to bring together.
In any case, there was no guarantee that the woman would bleed.
'The main aim of hymen repair is to bleed on wedding night, but of course there are many women who don't bleed on their wedding night, whether they are virgins or not.
'This is because the hymen may be very stretchy, they may have used tampons for menstruation, they may have had lot of exercise and subtle tissues and therefore there are many women who have their first intercourse without bleeding at all.
'So there's no guarantee these women will achieve the aim they set out to achieve,' the doctor added.
Although some 24 such repairs had been performed in the state health sector, the vast majority of such surgeries are thought to take place in the private sector, which each surgery costs between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds. ($3,000-4,000)
11:42 PM
A Quebec man may face criminal charges after a woman died while they were having sadomasochistic sex.
The 39-year-old woman died Saturday night in a home in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville on Montreal's South Shore, police said.
She went into cardiac arrest while engaging in "out of the ordinary" sexual practices using "very particular" accessories, said Longueuil police agent Martin Simard.
When police arrived at the residence on Sommet-Trinité Street, the man was trying to resuscitate the woman, but she died, Simard said.
Police say they found torture devices in the homes, but would not give specifics.
The man was arrested and questioned but released without charge, police said.
Investigators are waiting for the autopsy report to determine if he'll be charged with criminal negligence causing death.
10:49 AM
"The trouble with lies is it’s hard to forget where the real man hides."
–Gene Eugene, lead singer of Adam Again
I always admire people who are not afraid to come out in the light and live their life fearlessly. The Naked Cowboy in Times Square playing his guitar and giving a smile in the busiest city in the world.
An exotic dancer at a Gentleman’s club showing off her skill, talent and her body knowing full well their relatives or friends could walk into the door at any time. They are honest and open about who they are and despite their inner fears they face it and deal with whatever the outcome.
Unfortunately, people of the Christian faith have a harder time dealing with being an honest people. Oh don’t get me wrong, their faith is strong and many don’t have a trouble getting dressed to head into church to worship God. But if there is any subject that causes even the truest of believer to cower into the corner its sex.
Sex keeps even the truest believer to find a good excuse to be somewhere else other than in the place where you are. Why? In many pulpits around the world it is taught that sex is wonderful when it is placed in the marital bed.
Sex outside of that (or any variance of “God’s design”) is an abomination in the eyes of God, so they say. Yet many a believer—myself included—find us in situations where we say one thing and do another.
This is the hypocrite’s tale. It is a tale of longing, wanting badly to be honest about what we are attracted to. Our love of everything sexual, and a desire to have a relationship where there are no secrets between our partners and ourselves is a dream that seems so far away.
Some in the church say that’s an oxymoron! I say this is not only attainable but something I think God supports in our lives. But if we are to get to that place of honesty there is one thing you and I need to say from the get go:
I LOVE SEX!
Say that three times to yourself or stand in the mirror and say it out loud. There, don’t you feel better now? I hope so. If we are to start on the road to honesty we need to say this to ourselves and admit we enjoy this great gift God created in us. So you like sex eh? Good. Now lets get down to the next phase of an honest life.
Here is a revelation that is going to shock the socks off of you. Baring any sexual abuse to children, animals, an adulterous affair, or other adults who are forced upon sexually you can enjoy pretty much anything else provided it doesn’t offend your conscious or the conscious of anyone else. God has given you the freedom to enjoy the wide range of sexuality. From masturbation to even (dare I say it) inviting others into your bedroom you don’t have to act in the shadows again.
I thought so too because for many years I lived in the shadows sexually gorging on anything erotic to whet my appetite while in public I denounced these very acts as wicked and wrong. The best way to describe it is like you gorge on mounds and mounds of sexual material and experiences as if you never had sex before.
Then you get so stuffed (sexually speaking) you go to church or to your own home and regurgitate all those experiences with promises of “I’ll be a better Christian Lord if you’ll help me never to do this again”. You’re then caught in a vicious cycle of craving for sex, getting filled behind the backs of everyone, regret, repenting and re-repenting to never do it again.
Sit back and look at what’s going on here. You are letting this cycle take control of you and one day it will destroy all the things that is good within your life.
Relationships with spouses, boyfriends and girlfriends are ruined because you can’t bring yourself to the truth you like sex. Take it from me you don’t have to beat yourself up for having a sexual thought.
Break the cycle. Learn to accept yourself not just as a spiritual being but also as a sexual one too with needs for intimacy and love. Accept yourself not as evil for touching yourself, for seeing bodies entwined in passion, or enjoying entwining yourself but as a normal person of God. Paul said it best in Romans: “Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil.” (Rom 14: 15).
Today is the day to stop living in the shadows and start living an honest life. It is sad the rest of the church is more worried about sex toys or whether a child sees a nipple and not enough time encouraging fellow sisters and brothers to enjoy their God given right to sex.
Determine today that this will be the time in your life you don’t have to be crushed by guilt and manufactured fear (fed by tradition and misinformation) and find out how much of sexuality you really can enjoy.
9:41 AM
Two Iranian sisters convicted of adultery face being stoned to death after the supreme court upheld the death sentences against them, the Etemad newspaper Monday quoted their lawyer as saying.
The two were found guilty of adultery -- a capital crime in Islamic Iran -- after the husband of one sister presented video evidence showing them in the company of other men while he was away.
"Branch 23 of the supreme court has confirmed the stoning sentence," said their lawyer, Jabbar Solati.
The penal court of Tehran province had already sentenced the sisters identified only as Zohreh, 27, and Azar (no age given) to stoning, the daily said.
Solati explained that the two sisters had initially been tried for "illegal relations" and received 99 lashes. However in a second trial they were convicted of "adultery."
The pair admitted they were in the video presented by the husband but argued that there was no adultery as none of the footage showed them engaged in a sexual act with other men.
"There is no legal evidence whereby the judge could have the knowledge for issuing a stoning sentence," Solati said, adding that he had appealed to the state prosecutor.
"The two sisters have been tried twice for one crime," Solati protested.
Under Iran's Islamic law adultery is theoretically punishable by stoning, although in late 2002 judiciary head Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi issued a writ suspending such executions.
However in July 2007, Jafar Kiani was stoned to death for adultery in a village in the northwestern province of Qazvin in a rare execution by stoning that provoked a wave of international outrage.
Capital offences in Iran include murder, rape, armed robbery, serious drug trafficking and adultery. Iran currently makes more use of the death penalty -- almost always by hanging -- than any other country apart from China.
Zohreh's husband -- who accused his wife and her sister in January 2007 of having extra-marital affairs -- had planted a camera in his house in a bid to catch them in the act.
"She did not treat me well and her actions made me feel she did not want to live with me any more," said the husband, who was not named.
"To make sure I planted a camera in the house... When I watched the tape two days after, I found out that she and her sister brought over men after I left and had relationships with them," he said.
Zohreh said she had an edgy relationship with her husband because of the strict limits he imposed on her life.
"I was a teacher and loved my job but my husband did not let me work... he was always suspicious of me and thought our differences were because I had an affair," she was quoted as saying by the daily.
"I do not approve the confessions that I made in the investigation phase and I deny what I said," she said.
Etemad reported that the husband of the other sister, Azar, had not filed any complaint against her.
6:17 AM
Copenhagen - Many Danish nursing homes do not shy away from helping residents contact prostitutes, the Politiken newspaper reported Friday. The newspaper quoted a recent survey conducted by the Danish Nurses Organization that suggested the practice was not uncommon.
"In general our approach is to help the elderly with that kind of need," said a nurse at a nursing home in Charlottenlund, near Copenhagen, according to the report.
Decisions about whether or not staff were allowed to assist elderly residents get in touch with sex-workers rested with local municipal authorities, the report said.
An exception was Copenhagen where such assistance is not allowed since 2006 when the city council adopted a programme to combat prostitution.
Sexologist Judith Rosenkrantz, who has earlier been head of a nursing home and now advises health workers, said that the needs of elderly residents have to be taken into account.
The most common category were men, often suffering from dementia.
"If the elderly person is not able to channel his sexuality, he can become aggressive and start attacking staff," Rosenkrantz said.
Rosenkrantz said that the main need was often physical contact, a cuddle or help to masturbate rather than actual sexual intercourse.
2:19 AM
Yelena laughs. "What else can I do now but laugh," she asks. She has a nice smile and a hearty laugh, a youthful body and a pink, smooth face that belie her 41 years. They also belie the accident. The fire did not touch her face.
The horror is concealed beneath her clothes. The fire slowly licked every inch of her body. Limb after limb, without letup. But seven years later Yelena tells her story calmly, without tears, without trembling. At the most difficult moments she laughs. "That's how I survive," she says. Only during a late-night conversation does she add: "When you leave, I'll be left with my thoughts. I won't be able to fall asleep."
Yelena (not her real name) and her attorney, Ahuva Zalcberg, are behind one of the most unusual lawsuits ever submitted to the Be'er Sheva District Court. The incident that prompted it occurred seven years ago. In 2000, Yelena was working as a prostitute in a discreet apartment in Be'er Sheva. One night in December of that year, at 3 A.M., as part of a battle with the owner over control of the business, unknown men broke in, beat and stabbed the guard to death and set the apartment on fire. They locked in Yelena and her Russian-national coworker, Tania, who is also a plaintiff in the case.
Yelena and Tania's survival was close to a miracle. Their bodies in flames, they broke through the window bars on the second-floor apartment and jumped. Both were hospitalized in serious condition in the intensive care unit of the city's Soroka Medical Center.
Yelena was on a respirator for three weeks and underwent several skin grafts. One of her feet became gangrenous and had to be amputated. She had third-degree burns over 60 percent of her body. After a long period at Soroka she was moved to Beilinson Hospital at Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva. In March 2001 she was admitted to Loewenstein Hospital Rehabilitation Center, Ra'anana, where she remained for six months.
Tania had third-degree burns on her arms and legs. After several operations her condition deteriorated and she returned to intensive care. Eventually, scorched and scarred, both women came through.
Today, in an unusual step, they are demanding monetary compensation from everyone responsible for operating the apartment where they provided sex services. They are suing the Be'er Sheva municipality, which according to the lawsuit was guilty of negligence and of violating its legal duty by not doing enough to close the business within its jurisdiction, about which it was cognizant. They are suing the Israel Police on the grounds that it knew about the business and about the violent incidents occurring there and did not do enough to close it or at least ensure the safety of its workers. They are suing the operator of the massage parlor, Meir Danino, who according to the suit neglected to ensure the safety of the employees and to observe fire safety regulations, including the provision of emergency entrances and exits.
Yelena and Tania are claiming compensation for lost future income. They say that had it not been for the accident they would have continued working in prostitution and earned tidy sums. In addition, Yelena seeks compensation for her exceptional expenses in the wake of her serious injuries. "It is unconscionable that there be a business, much less an illegal one, which everyone allows to exist without ensuring basic safety conditions for the clients and the workers," says Zalcberg. "Either close the business, or demand the same safety conditions as in every business. You can't have it both ways."
Better to die
In Yelena's house the lights are dimmed and the atmosphere is peaceful. Her young son is sleeping, her older daughter is off in her room with the phone. They live in a cozy, orderly apartment in a good area in the center of the country. Yelena, serious and carefully groomed, earns a living from casual babysitting jobs. She is afraid the rent will increase next year and they will have to leave. That is her greatest fear, to be left without a home for her children. It was this fear that drove her into the sex industry 10 years ago, when she was a new divorcee with a young daughter. Most of the people in her life today do not know about her shady past. When people ask about her scars she says she was injured in a terror attack.
Be'er Sheva was not the first city where she worked as a prostitute. "I went to work in Be'er Sheva because a prostitute has to go all over [the country] to survive," Yelena says. "If you stay in the same place the men get tired of you. That's how I came to Be'er Sheva, too. You know, every place has its own character and its own men. I worked in Jerusalem, Haifa, the center of the country, everywhere the work is different. It's easiest to work in Be'er Sheva, in the periphery," she smiles, whispering, "The men aren't sophisticated, it doesn't take much to satisfy them. The Israeli men in the center of the country can drive you crazy with their fantasies. In Be'er Sheva it's enough for them to see me naked and they come. A minute or two, all I do is touch their hand and good-bye."
She was unaware of the struggles for control among the city's pimps. All she wanted was to work and to leave with her money. "In prostitution it's not the police that are scary, it's the conflicts among the pimps. And I was the victim of such a disagreement." What exactly was it over? She doesn't know and doesn't want to know. "What else could they argue about? Money."
A few days before the fire several unknown men came and roughed up Yelena and the security guard at the massage parlor. She realized that serious trouble was brewing. "Scary men came in. One came over, pulled my lips up and down and looked at my teeth. Like buying a horse. I don't know what kind of nerves a person needs to allow someone to do that to him and not to move, to remain silent. Not to say a thing. At that moment I erased myself. I knew that man could kill. When they left I asked Yasha, the guard: 'Who is that? What is that?' He explained that they were the muscle for one of the big massage parlor operators in the city. We prostitutes don't get involved in the politics among the pimps. I worked, paid the cashier what I needed to and went home. But when that happened I knew I had to get out."
She did not get out. On December 21, 2000 Yelena reported for her shift as usual. "That night, from 2 A.M. to 3 A.M. I was in one room and Tania in the other, and Yasha was at the entrance. Yasha was a good guy. A father of three, he had a regular job in the morning and at night he was a guard at the massage parlor. He was always worried about his livelihood. I barely knew Tania. There was no connection, each did her own work. It was a slow night and we wanted to close up already. And then the owner called and told me to stay for another hour because he was sending a friend of his. I said alright. The client arrived. I was already naked. While I was with the client we suddenly heard a loud noise. Our door was kicked open. Men wearing black masks, with clubs in their hands, came in. At first I felt my blood flood with adrenalin, that I had no air. They laid the client on the bed and began hitting him on the legs with the clubs. And I was there. Standing in front of them and watching, naked. I thought: 'What should I do, what should I do?' And then one said to the other: 'Why are you standing there, bring the bottle.'
"I realized they wanted to burn the place down," Yelena continued. "He told me 'Go there,' to the other room. And when I started going he poured kerosene on the floor and on me, too. At that moment I thought that it was better to die on the spot than to be so scared. I went into the bathroom, I wanted to open the window and jump out. Tania, who had also come in, said: 'Don't do it now. They'll kill us.' The window was hard to open, they would have heard and killed us. Meanwhile we saw them pouring kerosene all over the apartment. I turned on the water in the bathtub, maybe it would help. And then they left and threw matches inside. Boom. The flames rose all at once."
The arsonists left and locked the apartment, dooming those inside to death. "You know, from the shock of the fear you don't feel a thing. I didn't feel the fire burning me. I didn't feel pain. The entire apartment was in flames. I saw Yasha there, lying on the floor, and told him: 'Get up, Yasha, get up or you'll burn.' At that point I didn't know that he was badly hurt. As soon as they came in they had stabbed him in the stomach. When Tania managed to open the window I couldn't see anymore. I closed my eyes and suddenly opened them. I think I woke up because I felt I had no air. And then I jumped from the second floor. The thought in my mind was that I had a child waiting for me.
"I started rolling in the sand, I tried to cool my skin a little. I saw Tania sitting in front of me not understanding what was happening. Her dress was torn, everything was black. I was completely naked. Tania said to me: 'Let's go.' We were in a backyard but we were afraid that the arsonists were still there. In the end we went out into the street. A taxi driver stopped, I never learned his name. But I thank him. He brought us to the hospital." When she saw the doctors she managed to utter one sentence: "Put me to sleep. I can't stand it anymore."
Is that hell?
"I think that there, in hell, it's easier. I was clinically dead, I closed my eyes, I know what it's like when you get there. There's nothing there that's like what I went through in that apartment. Now I'm not afraid of death."
Security
Yelena immigrated to Israel in 1991 from St. Petersburg, Russia with her husband and their daughter. They divorced soon afterward and Yelena found herself alone in a foreign country, without a support network, without language skills and without any source of income. In Russia she had studied track and field, there was no work in Israel in that. "I didn't see any work I could do apart from prostitution," she says.
In 1997 she began working at a massage parlor in the center of the country. Yelena does not condemn prostitution: just the opposite. Were it not for the arson and her injuries she probably would have continued to spend her nights in a moldy apartment with strange men. She sees nothing wrong with it. Yelena says that the professional life of a prostitute lasts for about 15 years, and she barely managed to work for three. It was thanks to prostitution that she managed to settle down and be a good mother, she says. Her daily schedule was like that of a perfect mother. In the morning she would bring her daughter to kindergarten or school, then sleep until noon, cook lunch, pick up her daughter and spend the rest of the day with her. It was only after her daughter fell asleep that Yelena would go out for another night in the massage parlor.
"When I'm in the massage parlor I'm not myself," she says. "I'm someone else entirely. It's theater. 'The prostitute' is a disguise I wear. I don't know if you can understand, but the garbage in that place is the men. They beg for my services. I'm the strong one. You know, in those places you could explode from laughter."
What's funny?
"We would laugh at the men, at ourselves, at everything. We laughed at one another because we're all in the gutter there, as low as possible, and only in such a situation can you say everything and laugh about everything, because otherwise what's left?"
From the sidelines it's hard to understand your acceptance of prostitution. Didn't you want to get out of it?
"I didn't see anyplace to go to. How could I get out? My Hebrew wasn't good, worse than now. When I came to Israel they sent me to work in a packing house. I didn't want to. In prostitution I made money. I traveled abroad a lot with my daughter, I had a housekeeper. I lived very well. My status as a prostitute was entirely different. I wasn't a tourist, like the ones they smuggle here via Egypt, take away their papers, smuggle them from place to place and don't give them money. In my case it was a choice, I saw prostitution as work. I didn't go there to pass the time. I would see the tourist prostitutes at the massage parlors depressed, sitting, drinking, talking and not wanting to work. I came to work, not to talk. I needed the money, after a few hours I would return home to my daughter."
Didn't it tear you apart, to go from the everyday world to an underworld of massage parlors? Didn't you want to work in a decent profession?
"I knew what I was doing. I understood that it was hard-earned money, but every day you make a sum of money and for me that was security. I was here by myself, I had to pay rent. My greatest fear was to find myself on the street with my daughter."
Does your daughter know?
"She knows. There was a time when she kept telling me that a friend from school had told her that her mother was such and such, and I always told her it wasn't true. You know how it is when someone pressures you. In the end I told her: 'Yes, it's true.' I told her one thing, that I don't want her to be in this profession. I told her what had happened. I explained to her why sometimes I'm in a bad mood, why sometimes I cry and why sometimes I don't feel like getting out of bed."
Do you talk about your past, does she ask why?
"We've never sat and talked. I never asked whether or not she's been traumatized or not. She's learned to live with it. I explained to her that I started working in prostitution because I had no choice. I explained to her that I had tried everything. The city welfare department doesn't pay rent. We needed the money."
Raw flesh
The moment Yelena opened her eyes in the hospital she began to cry. "The doctors came and told me what the situation was. I was covered with burns. I was like a mummy, all wrapped in white: my legs, my arms, my back. In my legs I felt something hard, heavy. The doctors explained that they had to amputate my foot. I couldn't speak, I was attached to a respirator. I simply cried."
During those first days of hospitalization Yelena was told that Yasha had died of his injuries. She was happy to find out that Tania had survived and was with her in the hospital. The two, who until that night had barely known one another, became close friends, supporting each other through the prolonged hospitalization. Yelena's mother came from Russia to care for her granddaughter, who remained at home.
"It's a very slow rehabilitation. The worst part is the baths. The pain that can drive you crazy. Every 24 hours they have to change the bandages covering your body. They put you into a room with a special bed, with two nurses on each side. I still remember the cold in that room. And then, together, they begin pulling off the bandages and they very quickly wash your skin with soap. Under the bandages there is actually no skin, it's raw flesh. And then they put on clean bandages. There is no word to describe that pain. After such a treatment you remain empty, airless. Sometimes even the nurses couldn't do it because they couldn't stand to see my suffering. Today nothing hurts me, not after those treatments."
Yelena remained at Soroka for over three months, receiving numerous skin grafts. From there she was transferred to Beilinson and then to Loewenstein for rehabilitation.
"I was a temperamental patient. I screamed. It hurt, it drove me crazy, I was impatient. I was angry at myself, why had this happened to me. I didn't do anything bad to anyone, why did I deserve it. But in the morning, when I opened my eyes, I had to laugh with Tania. We laughed over nonsense. The nurses were amazed at how we laughed. We would ask the doctors when we would be sexy again, and they would laugh. With all the pain there was joy as well. We were glad we were still alive."
Were there moments when you were in despair?
"In Soroka there was a period when I didn't want to recover. And then my daughter came to the hospital. She cried, I cried, and at that moment I decided that I would recover. I agreed to begin going to physiotherapy, which is very difficult because the skin shrinks and you can't stretch your arms and legs. I'm here today thanks to her. She gave me the motivation. She needed me."
After about a year Yelena returned home. "When I left the hospital I didn't even take my medical records. I didn't want to know how hard it had been. It's hard to return to life afterward. You keep thinking about it. I had bad moods. I didn't always want to get up in the morning. Even today, every morning I get up and look at the stump and it puts me in a bad mood."
How did your daughter react to all the events?
"I missed a year with her, and that's hard. She was just beginning adolescence when it happened. When I returned from the hospital I found another child, grown up, she already had a ring in her navel. She went through something and I lost the mother- daughter relationship. She began to menstruate and I wasn't even there."
Like any mother
Yelena met Zalcberg, who specializes in damage suits and does a lot of work on behalf of foreign workers, while she was at Beilinson. The hospital social workers called the lawyer and asked if she would meet with a solitary woman who needed help. "I came Friday evening," Zalcberg says. "I can't forget that day. She was lying in the room alone, for fear of infections. I saw a figure entirely covered with white bandages, with her extremities raised. Like in the movies. I could barely understand her when she spoke. But this figure, from inside the wrappings, radiated great strength and power."
Zalcberg also met Tania, who was staying at a police shelter for foreign nationals who are victims of trafficking and women and are to testify against their employers. "Tania's case was more difficult because she had no health insurance. After Soroka she had nowhere to go. Her medical condition was serious. The only organization that aided her was Physicians for Human Rights. She needed daily medical care, she had lots of burns and bandages."
Zalcberg took the unprecedented step of demanding that the National Insurance Institute (NII) recognize Yelena and Tania as the victims of a work accident, guaranteeing paid medical care and a lifetime disability allowance. "The NII is the most conservative organization in the world, and nevertheless we succeeded," Zalcberg says. Using documents obtained from the police Zalcberg was able to prove that the accident happened on the job and because of the job. "This is the first time the NII is recognizing an incident like this as a work accident, and it saved their lives."
The Be'er Sheva police arrested three men in connection to the incident, brothers Moti, Asher and Michel Abecassis, who are known to the police as being involved in the battle for control of the city's sex industry. They were held for a period of time but were never indicted. "There was no evidence," their attorney, Esther Bar-Zion, says. Tania was asked to testify but she was unable to recall the appearance of the attackers.
Zalcberg has been a witness to Yelena's difficulties. She was repeatedly evicted for failing to pay her rent when she was unable to find work. "I personally tried to find her a job," Zalcberg says. "It didn't work out. There's a language problem. She can't work as an office clerk, in sales or at any physical work, because of her disability. With all my connections I was unable to help. At one point I spoke to [Bar-Zion, whose client] was suspected in the arson, and asked whether there was any way to compensate these women, who are completely free of blame, without her clients confessing. The answer was that there's no possibility."
Zalcberg suggested to Yelena and to Tania, who returned to Russia after her recovery, that they sue the authorities and Danino, the owner of the massage parlor, for damages. The women were fearful and hesitant at first but eventually they came to realize that their lives had been destroyed and that someone had to pay. "Now I'm not longer afraid," Yelena says. "When I worked for Danino in the parlor, he always got his half, now I deserve to get something. After the incident I tried to contact him, he immediately hung up. He didn't take an interest in my fate, nor do I want to see him. I know he has a luxury car, a wife, a business, children. His children can study at the university. What about my children? I don't want money for new clothes, I want to guarantee my children's future. I want them to go and study. I keep telling my daughter: 'Knowledge is power.' I don't want my daughter to be like me."
About a year after returning home Yelena decided to have another baby (and did so with a friend). "After what had happened, I felt that I had to have something that would make me get up in the morning," she explains. "Something that would wake me up, literally and figuratively. I'm extremely lonely here. A few friends, but mainly alone. I became pregnant. The moment the child was born, my joie de vivre returned."
But a child is also a big financial responsibility.
"What's better, to die of loneliness? I'm a good mother."
They live very modestly, but the house is pleasant, the kitchen is well stocked and Yelena is always there, with her children. The pain does not disappear, there are mornings when she can't get out of bed, but with endless pride she tells about her daughter's grades and her son's after-school activities. "The only joy in my life is the children. I'm like any mother, I take my son to the park, to activities, to friends, I don't deny them anything."
What is your dream?
"An apartment of my own."
And on a more personal level?
"To dance in high heels."
10:42 AM
Two men wheeled a dead man through the streets in an office chair to a check-cashing store and tried to cash his Social Security check before being arrested on fraud charges, police said.
David J. Dalaia and James O'Hare pushed Virgilio Cintron's body from the Manhattan apartment that O'Hare and Cintron shared to Pay-O-Matic, about a block away, spokesman Paul Browne said witnesses told police.
"The witnesses saw the two pushing the chair with Cintron flopping from side to side and the two individuals propping him up and keeping him from flopping from side to side," Browne said.
The men left Cintron's body outside the store, went inside and tried to cash his $355 check, Browne said. The store's clerk, who knew Cintron, asked the men where he was, and O'Hare told the clerk they would go and get him, Browne said.
A police detective who was having lunch at a restaurant next to the check-cashing store noticed a crowd forming around Cintron's body, and "it's immediately apparent to him that Cintron is dead," Browne said.
The detective called uniformed New York Police Department officers at a nearby precinct. Emergency medical technicians arrived as O'Hare and Dalaia were preparing to wheel Cintron's body into the check-cashing store, Browne said. Police arrested Dalaia and O'Hare there, he said.
Cintron's body was taken to a hospital morgue. The medical examiner's office told police it appeared Cintron, 66, had died of natural causes within the previous 24 hours, Browne said.
"He was deceased in the apartment when he was removed by these two," Browne said.
Dalaia and O'Hare, both 65, were being held by police and faced check fraud charges, Browne said.
A call to a telephone number listed for Cintron at the apartment he shared with O'Hare went unanswered Tuesday evening. Police said they didn't have an address for Dalaia or attorney information for him or O'Hare.
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