71-Year-Old Madoff to Spend the Next 150 Years in Prison

Madoff, who swindled people out of hundreds of billions of dollars, has received his sentence: 150 years in prison.  So that means he won’t get out until he’s 221 years old.  Good thing they covered all their bases in case he’s a medical mystery and lives that long.

Seriously though, I think this is one of the best examples for why our justice system is flawed.  Madoff did terrible things.  He ruined so many people’s lives, he destroyed families, he stole from basically everyone he dealt with.  So in this country, that means you go to prison for the rest of your life.  That means you sit in a cell and think about what you did for years and years.  You can never make up for what you did, because you’re behind bars.

I agree that prison is a necessary thing.  I wouldn’t want to see murderers or rapists back out on the street.  Prison is a safe way to deal with violent criminals.  But for someone like Madoff, why waste his life away in prison?  I think people like that should have to work off their crime, pay their debt back to society in a positive way.

Send Madoff to a homeless shelter and let him see the effects of poverty on people.  Have him talk to victims of fraud and theft and perhaps start to understand the pain he inflicted on others.  Make him volunteer for the rest of his life and try to help others instead of just having a wasted life that went all wrong.

Is it really fair to anyone to just put these people behind bars forever?  You ruined everything, the end.  There are so many people in our world struggling and hopeless.  There is an endless need for volunteers and assistance for these people.  Why not take people who have helped to put society there and start to reverse it?

Obviously these white collar criminals are intelligent.  Madoff didn’t make billions by being an idiot.  Yes, he used his intelligence for bad instead of good, but why waste that intelligence further by putting him in a cell?  It’s an asset that can be used to make things better.  If we start to change the way these people use their minds, and prove that it can reverse some of the bad in the world, maybe more people will see that and follow their examples.

Everyone loves the story of Scrooge changing his ways after seeing how he made people suffer.  People love to see bad turned to good.  So why not sentence people to be good?  If there’s an option to change things, why do we not take it?  Is vengeance so important to people that they aren’t willing to let positive change happen?  Would people really rather see someone suffer than let them make things right?  I think that’s the case, but I hope I’m wrong.

FINALLY Some Happy Slumdog News

After so many terrible things have been happening to the children of Slumdog Millionaire, the trust set up by filmmakers has finally stepped in to help.  Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Rubina Ali both lost their homes last month and their families have been struggling ever since.

On Monday, the trust purchased a 250 square foot, one-bedroom apartment for Ismail’s family, and they are currently searching for a home for Ali.

The apartment is near the slums in Mumbai where Ismail’s family had lived for years.  The government had offered them housing before, but they declined because it was too far away from their “home” and school.  The apartment cost about $50,000 USD and will be given to the family under Azharuddin’s name.  He will inherit it when he turns 18 and finishes school.

I’m so glad to see that the film’s trust has finally stepped in to help, but I can’t help but wonder why this is all they are doing for them.  A one-bedroom, 250 square-foot apartment for an entire family?  Sure, it’s probably bigger than the tiny home they shared in the slums, but this kid helped the film win multiple Oscars and make tons of money.  All they can give them is a $50,000 home with one room to share?

From Crayons to Comfort

When Carrie and Neil Wesseler became foster parents, they not only took care of their own foster child, but decided to start helping children all over the area.  At the training session for foster parents, the instructor told them to imagine a child watching TV when someone comes in and hands them a garbage bag, telling them to throw all their stuff in and get ready to go to foster care.

A foster child is already scared and alone, and throwing their stuff into a garbage bag was too much for Carrie.  The instructor told her they had no choice, that garbage bags were all they had to use.  Most of the children didn’t have many possessions anyway.

Carrie decided to do something about the bags, and started asking for donations for duffle bags.  She donated them so that at least some children would have something better to use.  Once she began the donations, she decided to set up a booth at a festival to try to get more.  To draw people to the booth, Carrie melted down crayons and poured them into molds, making fun shaped crayons which she sold for 25 cents.

The response was overwhelming, and the crayons sold out quickly.  Carrie made more.  And more.  Now she raises enough money from her crayons that she can get duffle bags in bulk for the foster children.  She started out donating to one county in Indiana where she lives.  Now she is supplying bags to counties all over Indiana.

Carrie also has started making up school bags for foster children, since she found out many of them start out with nothing.  She fills backpacks with school supplies and gives them out to the needy kids.

Not only has Carrie brought happiness to foster children around Indiana, but she has brought joy to the kids who get to use her fun crayons.  She is using a cute and creative idea to benefit others, and that is something that we need more of every day.  It’s simple things like this that change people’s lives.  No one ever thinks about those garbage bags, but these children will be affected by what she did for them forever.  When they look back on the day they were taken to their foster home, maybe they felt a little more at home right from the start because of Carrie’s work.

Carrie calls her work “Project T3,” which stands for “Totes for Tots and Teens.”  For more information on the project, go to the website at projectT3.org.  There you can also find out about the donations she needs for her duffle bags and bookbags and other ways you can help out with the project.

Harvey Milk Day Gets Approved in California

I previously wrote about Sean Penn’s campaign efforts to get Harvey Milk’s birthday recognized as “a day of significance” in California (read that article here).  Well, his efforts proved successful, and on Thursday the California Senate passed legislation declaring May 22nd (Milk’s birthday) “Harvey Milk Day.”  The day will be a remembrance for the work Milk put into the gay rights movement and his achievements as the first openly gay person elected to office in the 70s.  He was assassinated in 1978.

Senator Mark Leno of San Fransisco authored the bill and said, “Harvey Milk gave his life for what he believed in, and with that courage and sacrifice he gave hope to an entire generation of gay and lesbian people whose basic humanity and freedom had been denied and dishonored.”

Click Read More to see Sean Penn’s speech promoting Harvey Milk Day.
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Slumdog Millionare Children Still Suffering in Slums of Mumbai

No matter how many promises were made to protect the child stars of Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire, none of them seem to be coming true.  While the children are still living in the slums of Mumbai, even their homes are not safe.  This morning, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail (who played Youngest Salim in the film) was awakened by a policeman telling him to get out of his shanty because it was going to be bulldozed.  Azhar’s family was forced to stand by and watch as their home was demolished along with about 30 others in their slum, Garib Nagar, which means “City of the Poor.”

Azhar cried when he was interviewed by the press, saying he wished that the movie could have helped his family more.  He searched through the rubble for his pet kittens and chicken which he hadn’t even been given time to save before the home was bulldozed.

The families of Garib Nagar had received no prior warning that their homes would be destroyed.  None of them had time to save any of their belongings.  The government carries out these demolitions regularly to prevent crowding.  Only the illegal shanties are destroyed, which make up a large amount of the slums in the area.  Government officials say that all families whose homes were destroyed will be provided with temporary housing, but local families say this housing is worse than their slums.

Azhar’s family had lived in Garib Nagar for over 15 years, and now they are homeless along with many others.  Despite Slumdog Millionaire making over $300 million, this child star is not seeing the benefits of a blockbuster film.

Rubina Ali, who also starred in the film and lives in a nearby slum, recently had her home flooded with sewage and was made homeless until they could get it cleaned up.  There were also rumors circulating that her father tried to sell her for $400,000 because she was “an Oscar child,” although the family has denied it.

If celebrities live like this in Mumbai, imagine what other families are going through.  One good thing these horrible stories can do is to make more people aware of the conditions in the slums of India.  These injustices are small compared to many of the things people suffer through in these areas.

It’s terrible that no one is doing anything to help the children who helped make an Oscar-winning multi-million dollar film.  Once again, the producers keep pointing out that they left a trust fund for the children, but this won’t help them until they turn 18.  Until then, they are left to suffer, lose their homes, and feel anger toward the film that was supposed to change their lives.  The families have written to director Danny Boyle asking for help, but he hasn’t yet responded.

If you would like to write to Boyle and question these injustices, you can contact him through his agency, although he seems to be doing a pretty good job of ignoring and stepping around any questions thus far.  Here is the address:

Danny Boyle c/o International Creative Management
8942 Wilshire Boulevard
Beverly Hills, California 90211-1934

Click here to watch the AP video interviewing Azhar’s family after the destruction of their home: AP Video