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August 2006
How can we make our children safe from pedophiles?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Child sexual predators are everywhere. There is no escaping these soul robbers, not even in a small, wholesome city that is on the move like Duluth, Ga.
Earlier this month, we were appalled by the arrest of six men accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in the Duluth home of 48-year old Wilbur Caldwell.
Caldwell, who is already serving a 15-year-sentence in federal prison on manufacturing child pornography, is accused of sending e-mails and making phone calls inviting men to have sex with the minor girl whom he claimed was 18 years old.
Six men - all from the metro Atlanta area, including two who resided in Gwinnett County - allegedly raped and molested the girl.
According to a federal affidavit, the girl told authorities Caldwell videotaped her having sex with her 14-year-old boyfriend and adult men with a camera that was hidden in a bookshelf. The girl said she was often intoxicated when she performed sex acts.
The ages of the six accused men range from 22 to 52. Two of the men are reportedly students, the others are said to be a computer programmer, a furniture salesman, and a real estate appraiser. One did not list an occupation.
All of the men look like your average neighbor or co-worker and not like the monsters that they allegedly are.
Although most of those accused and convicted of child pornography, child sexual assault and child rape are men, women, too, can be child sexual predators.
On a recent Oprah show the topic was “Female Teachers’ Secret Sex at School.” Oprah interviewed several obviously educated, attractive, and emotionally disturbed adult women who crossed the line with their young male students, some as young as 12 and 13 years old.
It seems that each day we are seeing and hearing more about child sexual predators. Is it because there are more child sexual predators today or are we just more aware and less in denial about them?
What can we do to make our children safe from pedophiles?
Have you or anyone you know been a target of child sexual predators?
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Has surburbia added pounds to your waistline?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“You are an extremely lucky woman,” my doctor recently told me.
He explained that most people my weight have diabetes, high blood pressure, and arthritis. He said that I have a clean bill of health - at least for now - but without a lifestyle change those health issues may affect me in the future.
My doctor advised that in addition to reducing my calorie intake and drinking plenty of water I must also increase my activity level.
The truth is that for some time I have been a sedentary person. Like too many overweight Americans, my movement has been mostly functional. I have been guilty of moving just enough to saunter through life with an occasional walk in the park or other small bursts of increased physical activity.
Since inaugurating a regular exercise program I’ve reflected back on my life. I was not always an inactive person. Regular physical exercise was an ordinary part of my daily regime while growing up.
As a girl, I walked or rode my bicycle to school, to my friends’ houses and just about everywhere. During my 20s I walked to and from public transportation to get to college and to work.
After all, I lived in a city during those days and its many sidewalks and nearby public transportation invited a more active lifestyle.
When I moved to the suburbs my daily motion began a steady decline. Living in the suburbs requires me to drive everywhere, even for trips short enough for a brisk walk or bicycle ride, because of the lack of sidewalks and crosswalks that make it safe to bike or walk.
In my Duluth community near Gwinnett Place, you take your life in your hands to walk to the store or to catch the bus that connects with MARTA.
About a year and one half ago, I had a business meeting near Pleasant Hill and Club Drive not too far from my home in Duluth. I decided to walk and was challenged by intermittent sidewalks and aggressive and rude drivers.
Even though I used the crosswalk to make my way to the other side of the road, it was still tricky. The drivers were stunned to see me and very impatient while I crossed the road. I quickly learned that being a pedestrian in Gwinnett is difficult and potentially deadly.
I vowed to not try it again.
I am committed to finding the time to engage in a regular exercise program that will enable me to become healthier and increase my chances for an extended independent life. However, I long for the exercise that comes from being able to walk to the corner store or the bus stop.
Ultimately, I must accept responsibility for packing on the pounds but it is undeniable that my suburban lifestyle helped me gain weight.
Has suburban living caused you to gain weight?
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Are you broke but hiding it?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wherever you look, poverty and homelessness and near homelessness in Gwinnett County look surprisingly a lot like you.
Many Americans take counterfeit comfort in thinking of the poor as having almost exclusively black or brown faces. Or they think people are poor because they dropped out of high school, have chronic substance or alcohol abuse problems, are mentally or emotionally unstable or are simply irresponsible and idle people.
But the reality is the face of poverty in America – including Gwinnett – can be one of any color. Moreover, many struggling with destitution have college educations or military training, are not on drugs or booze, are as sane as the next man or woman and strive to be responsible and contributing members of society.
Many of the poor and near poor are indistinguishable from us. They are economically fragile people with middle class veneers. Often they’ve had a run of ‘bad luck’ that depleted their savings. Many have lost their homes due to foreclosure or are no longer credit worthy. And without any savings, a stable home, and good credit it is very difficult to rejoin the middle class.
Last spring while volunteering at senior facility I met a well-scrubbed and bright-faced nurse who was among the newly poor.
She was the substitute for the usual program nurse who was away for an extended time. She quickly fell into the programs routine and everyone instantly liked her. Participants, care givers, and staff felt both confident and at ease with her.
A few weeks into her position, she told us that she had a crisis. Her tenuous existence was threatened because she needed to pay for car repairs and rent at the extended-stay hotel in Gwinnett where she and her son lived.
She wanted to know if someone could put them up for a few days, until she received her next weekly paycheck.
She relied upon her car to get to nursing assignments and without it she would be unable to support herself and her son. Paying for the car repairs meant that she could not afford the entire weekly rent at the hotel.
If she had not revealed her predicament we would have never suspected she was economically insecure. She is, after all, a registered nurse. She is self-assured, articulate, punctual and strives to please her employer.
This woman does not use dope and cannot be called slothful. She appears to be emotionally stable considering her unstable life. Her poverty is the result of a failed marriage in a city far away from family and friends who might be able to offer her emotional and economic support while she makes the transition from being part of a two-income household to a struggling single mom.
She looks like you and me.
She easily blends into any work or social setting without anyone knowing that she wrestles to have shelter, food, appropriate clothing, safe and reliable transportation, and, most of all, human dignity.
And before you judge this woman, keep in mind that most of us are only one failed marriage, one layoff, or one health crisis away from being just like her: A person who looks, sounds, and acts middle class but who is battling - and mostly losing - a war against chronic poverty.
Are you financially poor with a middle class veneer? Do you know someone who appears middle class, but is fighting poverty?
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Are you excited about Gwinnett as the “Asian Mecca”?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman in his brilliant and best selling book titled “The World is Flat” observes that the world of the 21st century is a global village.
Friedman outlines a world where borders are porous where otherwise distant cultures now have an awareness of each other and an interdependence that could not have been imagined even 20 years ago.
Here in Gwinnett County we see strong evidence of the accuracy of Friedman’s observations. Much of the vision, modernization, and growth planned for Duluth’s Gwinnett Place area can be linked to Asian investors - many who still maintain strong cultural and financial ties to their countries of origin, such as Korea and China.
These savvy Asian investors are simply just ‘following the gold’, according to a recent AJC article titled, “A touch of Asia thrives in Gwinnett.”
Gwinnett is now on the radar of many international investors. Gwinnett is attractive because it has good schools and libraries, a sound business and governmental infrastructure, and relatively inexpensive land that is ready for development.
The “Asian Tigers” as they are called in the AJC article, have a clear upscale vision for the Pleasant Hill Road/Duluth area. Their development plans are not just attractive to the Asian community but to anyone who is a stakeholder in Gwinnett and Duluth’s future.
With their imagination and dollars we can expect to see a version of Atlanta’s Midtown’s Atlantic Station (where there is a convergence of housing, shopping, office space, and recreational opportunities) tentatively called Global Station near the Gwinnett Place area.
Moreover, it is anticipated that the Asian population will increase exponentially in the county. Some are even saying that Gwinnett is the “Asian Mecca” – like Atlanta is called “The Black Mecca” when it comes to being an attractive place where Asian culture can be celebrated and economic opportunity is abundant.
“They want to be players in…turning the Gwinnett Place area into Buckhead,” said Jim Maran, president and CEO of the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce.
I think that changing Gwinnett Place into Buckhead is fantastic. It is rare to have a middle class community transformed into an upscale community.
Moreover, I welcome the increase in the number of quality shops and recreational opportunities.
And I especially look forward to my family’s property values rising in tandem with the proposed development.
I could never have imagined that the progress of my community would be inextricably linked to ideas and financing from Chinese and Korean businessmen. But a flat world with porous borders has tied our destinies together in lucrative and exciting ways.
A flat world works for me.
What do you think about the proposed development for the Gwinnett Place area?
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Has romance or marriage affected your friendships?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A couple of Saturdays ago, I noticed that business was very brisk at a popular Duluth Bridal Shop near Gwinnett Place Mall.
After the month of June, August is the most fashionable month for weddings. I suppose, based on how busy the shop appeared to be, that there will be weddings galore this month in Gwinnett.
Marriage is about two individuals choosing to become lifetime partners, often excluding or altering existing relationships.
When someone becomes seriously involved in a romantic relationship or gets married, many people who were once central to that person’s life are displaced. Relationships with your parents, siblings, and friends are reconfigured as your significant other takes precedence in your life. It can take an emotional toll on loved ones and friends while they sort out their new roles in the life of a newly attached loved one.
When you marry, your identity and priorities instantly change. Your former “immediate” family becomes your “extended’ family.” And you focus on embracing your new in-laws’ traditions and learning to love them.
Sometimes close friends have an extremely difficult time of accepting changes that occur when their friend become romantically involved or married to someone else. This is especially pronounced if the unattached friend is perhaps less outgoing and more dependent on the friend who now is in an even more important relationship.
The emotional and social impact of romance and marriage on friendships was recently explored in The Washington Post articled titled “The Great Divide.”
The article inspired me to take a look in my life’s rear view mirror, back to my twenties when many of my guy and girl friends got married.
Back in the 1980s when my best guy friend married a wonderful, newly minted attorney, I did not feel displaced at all. I felt really glad that this wonderful friend had found love and a life partner. As for me, I now had two wonderful friends instead of one.
But the reality is that not all of my friendships survived the test of deep relationships and marriage. My friendship with my best girlfriend slipped away once she got married. However, during that time she also moved to the West coast and began graduate school. So, I cannot say that her marriage is the singular culprit for the relationship changing.
However, I never had any hard feelings—because I was glad that my friend was living her life in a way that she chose to. We did not have any anger or hard feelings towards each other. Our lives just took a different course. And the memories of our friendship during our teenage years and early twenties are ones to be cherished.
But I realize that my experience with married friends is unique to me. Not everyone finds a new friend in the spouse of a best friend. And many people cannot easily accept what seemed like a “forever” friendship fading way.
How has romance or marriage affected your friendships?
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