CNN: Alabama Governor calls for travel boycott of Aruba

[TahitiNut]

In the continued obsession over the tragedy of Natalie "Girls Gone Wild" Holloway's disappearance, CNN announced this little news snippet. It seems Alabama's Governor regards travel bans as an appropriate response to the island of Aruba for investing (I'm guessing) merely 1% of their law enforcement budget in investigating the disappearance of one Alabama teen-ager.

Well, what does he have to say about a travel ban to Alabama? After all, where are ...

LACRISA DARLENE EAGLE
-Endangered Runaway
DOB: Apr 1, 1992 Age: 13
Missing: Sep 5, 2005 Race: White
GADSDEN, AL, US

JASMINE VALENCIA
-Endangered Missing
DOB: Dec 7, 1999 Age: 5
Missing: Aug 27, 2005 Race: Biracial
MOBILE, AL, US

JAYDA VALENCIA
-Endangered Missing
DOB: Jan 3, 2002 Age: 3
Missing: Aug 27, 2005 Race: Biracial
MOBILE, AL, US

JASMINE SHARDAE HUDSON
-Endangered Runaway
DOB: May 15, 1990 Age: 15
Missing: Jun 20, 2005 Race: Black
MONTGOMERY, AL, US

NAKETA DARRELL HAMPTON
-Endangered Missing
DOB: Dec 21, 1994 Age: 10
Missing: Aug 29, 2005 Race: Black
ATMORE, AL, US

NIKITA SHAREE EAGLE
-Endangered Runaway
DOB: Aug 24, 1990 Age: 15
Missing: Sep 5, 2005 Race: White
GADSDEN, AL, US


All of these children went missing in Alabama in the time since Ms. Holloway went missing in Aruba. Perhpas the Governor should stick his snout in his own business?

http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PubCaseS...

[jsamuel]

1. Shivo 2

[bunkerbuster1]

38. Shiv-o? As in, sticking a shiv in between the ribs of decency?

that could work.

[KitchenWitch]

2. Hear hear

[ck4829]

3. Maybe they are on to something

Not all of the girls mentioned are white and blond. Check it out.

http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PubCaseS...

[Charlie Brown]

4. Riley panders for votes

'cause we all know Aruban law enforcement is supposed to drop all their other cases and sweep the island clean when a white, southern girl goes missing.

[ClintonTyree]

41. Just like his buddy, O'Reilly....

didn't O'Lielly want a boycott on travel to Canada because they wouldn't back bush on the Iraq war? I seem to vividly remember that, these great Conservative minds must think alike.

[goclark]

5. I am weary of the focus on 1 blond in Aruba

when we have 1000's that have died by natural disasters.

Get a life and leave Aruba out of it Alabama Man.

[Jack from Charlotte]

34. This boycott is a good thing......

because the moron-American types who do boycott won't be in Aruba when the rest of us go. Fewer morons at the place you vacation is a good thing.

I went to Paris in May of last year and said the same. In addition to Paris being just wonderful.... there weren't any moron American types (republicans) which made my stay that much better.

[Maddy McCall]

67. oooo.... I like the way you think!

[Punkingal]

6. Bravo!

I'm sorry that girl disappeared, but I sure am sick of hearing about it. Does she come from a rich family?

BTW,

[afdip]

7. yes, but were any of them blonde . . .

[sui generis]

8. travel bans? unilateral economic sanctions?

my my my what an authoritarian place we live in.

And I'm sure we should keep the travel ban in place until the citizens, tired and unwashed and hungry from our economic sanctions, rise up and overthrow the government of Aruba!!!! Followed shortly thereafter by the cannonization of Miss Holloway.

Yeeeeee haw!

[NNN0LHI]

9. I got a hundred bucks says we get "news" that she is being held...

...in a "rape room" in Venezuela. And when we go there to save her we will need to take all of their oil.

Don

[malta blue]

21. That's it!

Chavez arranged for her kidnapping and so therefore we shall invade Venezuela.

[NNN0LHI]

23. MSM has already been suggesting it

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8143921 /

<snip>There's one thing I want to make clear here to parents and to people that are traveling. Venezuela, on a good day from Curacao or Aruba, is in sight. We have been told by locals and been told by investigators, there are boats incoming. They come and go freely.

We also know there's a tremendous amount of drug trade. That's not a secret from Venezuela through those islands, up through the United States, or wherever they're going with the drugs.

So we're putting our families and our children in danger, and because of the situation with the United States being in a position where they say they have no jurisdiction, it hurt us terribly, and it hurt Amy. And we've not gotten the help that we need.

Abrams: Well, I'm hoping that -- you know, it's hard to say this, but that this other story, which is a horrible, horrible tragedy that, you know, hopefully that both can somehow end in a positive way and that one may be able to help the other.




And the wing nuts have been pushing the idea hard:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ned=tus&q=Natalie+Ho...

[malta blue]

26. I know that when I visited Aruba for spring break

when I was in college, that was my family's main concern.

What a steaming pile!

[Debau2005]

10. Send him an email

My family lives in Alabama, I was born and raised there. I am emailing him to let him know that perhaps we should have a boycott of Bama until they find their own missing children.

http://www.governor.state.al.us/contact.htm


This is the email I just sent:
According to CNN you are calling for a boycott of Aruba until Natalie Holloway is found. So following your line of thinking we should boycott Alabama?

Here is the link to the missing in Alabama.
http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PubCaseS...

What has been done to find them? It appears there is a bigger issue in Alabama then in Aruba. I was travelling to visit family in Alabama for the holidays, I am thinking I should change my travel plans and spend my dollars in another state. Maybe a state that takes care of it's own issues before condemning someone else for theirs.

From the number of missing, Alabama is more dangerous then Aruba.

I was born and raised in Alabama, I attended college in Alabama, and once again I am ashamed by a politician from Alabama.

[sharp_stick]

11. I want to go to Aruba now

That place must be damn close to paradise with it's total lack of fundie RW nutjobs.

[ck4829]

12. What Chu' Talkin 'Bout Willis?

Fakes News is basically based down there. Remember?

[TahitiNut]

15. Ahhh, yes. I can see advertisements for Aruba tourism now.

"An island paradise free of "Dixie (P)Harts"

[MidwestTransplant]

13. Hope they do...that means the rooms will be cheaper when I go!

[LiberalFighter]

14. I guess Aruba permitting FBI to assist them doesn't count for anything

[Horse with no Name]

16. Pot meet kettle eh?

lol...classic.
Of course with these RW whacko nutjobs, it only counts if the girls are wealthy and white.
However...I guess they miss being off the front pages, gotta stir some shit.
My suggestion is that you send this to Keith Olbermann or Jon Stewart.
They would have a field day with this moran.

[TahitiNut]

22. Good idea. I emailed it to KO.

I doubt it's Daily Show material. Political exploitation of a personal family tragedy and missing children has a low humor quotient.

[Flirtus]

37. we laugh at the daily show to keep from weeping

most of what he has to say is poignantly funny, not just funny

[Shakespeare]

17. How freaking arrogant.

Just incredibly, totally arrogant.

[YouthInAsia]

18. Maybe we should boycott America. We have THOUSANDS

of missing people. And not to mention the MURDERS

[timber84]

19. Just emailed him.

[dbackjon]

20. How 'bout a ban on spoiled rich children

Traveling overseas with only a few chaperones?

Did it EVER occur to Riley and the others that sending your high-school aged teenager on a trip to a party spot is NOT GOOD PARENTING?

[BJW]

32. Well Said!!

It' not their fault that their daughter was a crime victim, but at the same time (probably because I'm not from that economic and social class) I also can't equate "good parenting" with letting a high school kid travel to a foreign "party country" unchaperoned.

[TahitiNut]

46. Exactly. The political and COMMERCIAL exploitation of ...

... a personal family tragedy, selectively targeting a (stereotypically) 'attractive' blond teen-aged female smacks of pandering and prurience. While there is absolutely no apologetic that would diminish the fault of anyone who may (we don't KNOW!) have harmed Ms. Holloway, it should go without saying that her companions and family share some culpability in their failure to maintain diligent concern for and awareness of her well-being and personal safety.

When I've traveled (on business and personal trips), I've been far more continuously aware of the safety and well-being of those with whom I traveled than the "chaperones" (and companions) of Ms. Holloway seem to have been! And my travels have been with grown ADULTS! There's no way her unexplained absence should've gone unnoticed until the return flight the next day!! No. Fucking. Way.

One thing deserves emphasis: We don't know whether she met with foul play, had an accident, or (far less likely) ran away!! Let's say she had an accident -- and absolutely nobody deliberately harmed her. At this point, this is still a possible scenario. Who's to blame? Well, I sure wouldn't blame the victim of an accident. Yet the "blame" under such a scenario, with what we do know, doesn't go away under any other scenario -- it merely gets dwarfed by whatever additional culpability is demonstrated.

[WI_DEM]

24. The ban idea is stupid, but what is this "girls going wild" comment?

are you suggesting it was her fault whatever happened to her? the media attention, which has been excessive, really isn't her fault either.

[TahitiNut]

28. The point is, we don't know.

125 graduating high school students, 7 chaperones. She was first noticed missing the following morning, possibly only due to not showing up for the return flight.

Why would anyone equate the 'girls gone wild' sobriquet as ascribing "fault"?? As far as I know, there's nothing illegal about 'girls gone wild.'

My "girls gone wild" sobriquet alludes to the prurient interest that, in some significant part, drives the media coverage. It'd be naive in the extreme to not recognize the media pandering to this same 'market.' (I think it's pretty remarkable that anyone would see such nomenclature as blame-mongering.)

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RazzleDazzle]

56. We do know

So if you're not blaming the victim, and had no intention of doing so, why even bother mentioning "Girls Gone Wild"? What relevance does it have to the discussion other than to bring up an image of badly behaving, probably promiscuous young women? Why not just go straight to your complaints about the media directly, rather than so indirectly, by way of an unnecessary image of promiscuous young women, that you need to clarify after the fact? I don't quite get it.

These words of yours also contradict your disclaimer IMO, especially given the formatting emphasis you added:

125 graduating high school students, 7 chaperones. She was first noticed missing the following morning, possibly only due to not showing up for the return flight.

BTW, if your facts are correct here, 7 chaperones is not nearly enough for that many students. 7 chaperones is about 1 chaperone for 18 students. The ratio probably ought to be one in 4 - 8 maximum. No way to properly protect naive and inexperienced youngsters -- even when they're not actively "asking for it" -- with that few chaperones.

But we know from additional facts which have been uncovered that her behavior that night...

but wait. What I was about to say isn't even relevant. It matters NOT what she was doing or how she was behaving that night or at any other time in her whole entire life. None of the alleged facts you posted matter, about the number of kinds and chaperones and her not showing up, whatever. No matter what her behavior and whether you personally approve of that behavior or not, NO ONE "ASKS FOR IT." EVER. No one deserves or asks to be physically harmed or violated because of her behavior.

Any suggestion to the contrary is society's way of controlling women and making them subservient and 2nd class citizens: prescribe their behavior quite narrowly and seize on any transgressions as justification, excuse and defense of violence agasint them including rape, domestic violence and even murder. (And the converse: making fun of and ostracizing them as "prudes" or "frigid" and such if they follow those societal prohibitions too strictly, all which puts women in the classic unwinnable double bind: damned if you do, damned if you don't, and at risk at all times of getting it wrong.)

Note: The only victims treated this way are women. Only women are "asking for it" if they were molested, raped, beaten, murdered by current or former mates or sexual predators. No other victims are treated that way. No one driving a nice car in a bad neighborhood is blamed of "asking for it" if there's a carjacking. No mugging victim is accused of "asking for it" or "deserving it" if they were wearing nice clothes or jewelry or are out at night in NYC when they got mugged. Some people might be scolded for having been in "the wrong neighborhood," but none of these victims are blamed for having caused, asked for, or participated in their own victimization.



Here are some new facts about this particular case which some people in this thread don't seem to be aware of:

Even tho it's irrelevant except that she's being unfairly trashed on the subject, Natalee wasn't misbehaving that night. She thought the boys were fellow students and that they were taking her back to her hotel. She may have thought one of them was a taxi driver and had probably been drugged.

One of the boys has been taped confessing that all three of them raped her, and essentially bragging about it since she so clearly deserved it. This same boy also had some unkind comments about her mother as well, all of which made him sound even guiltier and more repugnant.

[allisonthegreat]

59. thank you

Sure people may be tired of hearing about it on the news...but there is no evidence that Natalee was behaving badly...
i feel sorry for parents not the Aruban authorties who obviously bungled the investigation from the start..jmo.

[Punkingal]

61. You are out of line....

and you don't know who you are talking to. TahitiNut does not have a sexist bone in his body. I know him well, in a way that most posters don't know other posters on this board, because we were mods together for a very long time.

You also missed the whole point of this thread....which is, she is not the only girl who has disappeared, but she is the only one we hear about on a daily basis. No one, certainly not TahitiNut is saying what happened to her isn't a tragedy. It just isn't the only tragedy!

[leftchick]

63. you sure are making a major leap in logic there

TN was in no way blaming the victim. Did you read the post entirely? Anyone who knows TN can tell you he does not have a sexist thought in his head. Quite the opposite in fact. But I do not feel the need to go into detail for you.

I believe the real issue is your seeming fixation on blond girl in Aruba and therefore you are overly sensitive to any criticism of the coverage she gets. It seems as though you have a lot of time invested in this story. I would suggest that the corporate media has succeeded in diverting your attention from real issues.

[Name removed]

68. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TahitiNut]

70. I don't know what your problem is, but I'm guessing it's hard to spell.

The detestable, sleazy attacks and innuendos you've made betray the character of raw sewage. Every single innuendo is apparently the product of of some psychosis - one that isn't served by any discussion forum.

I've long since addressed such delusional vitriol in my post #53 below. In the immortal words of Dick Cheney, ... !

[CatWoman]

64. one of the young men in Aruba said she was all about fucking

everyone in sight. She screwed him and his brother (I think). Perhaps the janitor as well. And now the Mom is all over teevee talking about what a "good" girl she was.

*cue Mrs. Krebobble* "HA"

Girl can't go any wilder than that.

Not that there's anything wrong with it........

It's not about "blaming the victim". It's about being a tad more responsible in dealing with strangers.

[TahitiNut]

66. "Not that there's anything wrong with it"

Indeed, even as a young adult of 18 she's free to celebrate life in whatever fashion she damned well pleases with other consenting adults. As far as I know, never having watched one, there's not a damned thing 'wrong' with the behavior of people depicted in the "Girls Gone Wild" videos. Show me a young adult that's too tightly-wrapped to party hardy and celebrate their hormones and I'll show you the stratum of our society from which serial murderers and abusers (of all kinds) arise. The media is engaging in exploitation, pure and simple, every bit the same as the purveyors of the GGW videos.

They're pandering to prurient interests ... not that I have anything against healthy prurient interests.

[QC]

58. Sounds like the old "she got herself raped" line of thinking. n/t

[Blue_In_AK]

25. Thank you for saying what needed to be said, Tahiti Nut...

I understand Natalee's parents' concern, but give it a rest, already. I am sick to death of this case.

[burythehatchet]

27. My next vaca is definitely to Aruba! Can't wait. n/t

[LibertyorDeath]

29. Alabama Governor mildly retarded...

[the other one]

30. Drunk girl eaten by shark nt

[Bake]

31. Really? You know that for a fact?

That comment, and the one about "girl gone wild," are an embarrassment to DU. Has the media overdone the story? Of course. Do the parents bear some blame in the matter? Of course. But it doesn't lessen the tragedy that a young girl (SO WHAT if she's white and pretty!) has been missing and is most likely dead or worse.

Blame the victim. These comments sound like they could have come from "compassionate conservatives."

Bake

[ComerPerro]

50. Maybe the poster talked to the shark who ate her

[TahitiNut]

53. Bullshit projection.

Let me try to spell it out more clearly.

First and foremost, we don't know what happened to Ms. Holloway. There are no published 'facts' that eliminate the possibility that she had an accident. None. Thus, there's not the remotest of rationales to ascribe 'blame' to Ms. Holloway herself (under the very remote possibility she ran away, at least initially) or to some still hypothetical "evil-doer."

Unless she was driving, "drunk" is not the equivalent of blame. "Drunk" is not the same as either illegal or immoral and is not the basis for any fault-finding. Period.

Likewise, neither is any delusional interpretation of the "Girls Gone Wild" sobriquet a basis for ascribing blame to anyone other than those who exploit (commercially or politically) the prurient interests of others.

I personally don't give a raped rat's ass whether it turns out she was running nude through a boy's school, drunk as as skunk and naked as a jaybird. Immodesty is NOT immoral. Not in my book!! I have good friends who're naturists. I've spent LOTS of time traveling to places where the beaches are topless or (sometimes) nude. I happen to be a modest person but I DON'T equate my modesty to 'morality' nor do I fault anyone for being less modest than I!! Just because there are many (sick, imho) folks who seem to think others are somehow 'slutty' or immoral for being less modest than themselves does NOT mean everyone is deluded in that way.

I've never personally viewed any "Girls Gone WIld" video. All I know is what I've seen on the (ridiculous) advertisements on TV and I assume it's little more than "show me your tits" adolescent fare. To me, it's 100% pandering to prurient interests on the part of those who make and sell the videos. It's not illegal and not (imho) immoral ... merely exploitative and lacking in taste. In other words, it's EXACTLY the same as the media obsession in this "story"!

Imagine, for a moment, living in an oppressive Muslim society where burkas are the rule. Does that mean that any woman exposing her shoulders, arms, or legs is a "slut"??? Let's suppose their "Girls Gone Wild" videos are merely videos of any beach or swimming pool in the US. Can anyone, in the most fevered mental contortion, suggest that it'd be at all sane to blame the people depicted in such videos for any harms that may befall them? Nonsense! The only sane and reasonable social commentary of such an allusion is toward the exploitative commercial media.

This eagerness to ascribe to other DUers some base motivation (and then attack them for it!) is really getting appalling. When it comes to blame-mongering, such knee-jerk bullshit is unparalleled!



In my personal opinion, the 'fault' for the presumed harms that have assumedly befallen Ms. Holloway are, to some degree, shared by those who arranged such a trip and did not promulgate a "buddy system" and diligent monitoring of the safety and welfare of those with whom they were traveling. It's an appalling commentary on that "group travel" that her absence wasn't noted until the time she was to leave for a return flight! As I've posted elsewhere, I've exercised far greater awareness on business trips with adults, for God's sake!!

[IronLionZion]

33. 1 or 1000, It's still a tragedy

Have some respect.

[Fox Mulder]

52. Agreed. n/t

[TahitiNut]

54. "respect"? For the Governor of Alabama?

For the media? What part of "personal family tragedy" wasn't clear? If you're laboring under some other (mis)interpretation, please read my post #53.

[cynatnite]

35. Maybe now's the time to boycott ALL the other countries...

where Americans have disappeared.



This is so fucking stupid. It'll have about as much effect as O'Lielly's boycott of France.

[Shadoobie]

36. Rita Crosby had this last night

I made the mistake of leaving MSNBC on after watching KO last night. she had a short interview with Warren Beatty (most of which was repetitive questions on his interest in running for office and not the CA propositions, but that's another story.

Rita then spent about 20 minutes (maybe longer since I changed the channel by then) discussing the Holloway story. She did have a spokesperson from Aruba who basically slammed this whole idea (The Dutch have always been a strong US ally, the boycott has no basis on fact just inuendo, the government has an excellent separation of powers,etc). Rita also had on the owner (for got name) of a Casino there who gave a more balanced approach. He suggested just giving a threat until the Aruban authorities show whatever evidence they do have (something to that effect).

I was basically left wondering why this much effort was being done for one person. It reminded me of the Schiavo fiasco. I'm sure such a stance will improve our image to the rest of the world .

Greg

[ClintonTyree]

44. She's been back and forth to Aruba more than the ...........

American Ambassador in the past year. I think everyone in Aruba knows her on a first name basis by now.

As soon as KO is over the channel gets changes immediately. If I hear one word from that horse's mouth I start crawling up the wall. He voice is like fingernails across a chalkboard to me. How she ever got a job at CNN I'll never know, how she KEEPS it is stranger still.

[noonwitch]

39. Parents need to stop letting their high school kids go on these trips!

Even wealthy families can ensure that their 18 year old kids don't have enough spending money to go on these trips. There are just too many opportunities for bad things to happen to even the best of kids.

When I was in college, I never had enough money to even go on one of those Florida trips. My parents were not poor, but they made sure of that.

[TahitiNut]

47. In my college years, I went on "Spring Break" to Ft. Lauderdale once.

It was back in the stone age (1965) when Ft. Lauderdale was still developing the reputation it got ... and we spent a LOT of time partying, wandering, sunning, and hanging out. I drove there from Detroit (WSU), in my car, with my girlfriend (eventual wife) and two of her sorority sisters.

I can absolutely guarantee you one thing: We all kept track of each other and made damned sure the others knew where we were and whom we were with! We all checked in at least once with our families, too. And that was just Ft. Lauderdale and we were all college juniors and seniors!

We didn't have cell phones in those days. We didn't go around "attached at the hip" (far from it). But we sure as hell didn't let more than 4-6 hours go by without checking in with one another!

I can't imagine being involved in the kind of irresponsibility that would result in someone going missing some evening and not be noticed until it was time to leave for the return flight the next day!

It's not like the "buddy system" is a new invention, guys.

[Deep N RedLand]

42. The real reason for all this.

I admit I was at first surprised to see the Holloway story being dredged up again after flipping through the Corporate Cable channels the other day.

I figured after the hurricanes, Cindy-bashing and Clinton being blamed for 9/11 the RW news had moved past Aruba, hopefully sending "legal expert" and hack author Mark Furman back to his Aryan Nation clique.

But then we all can realize the real reason for continuing to knock around this expired pony.

With the Repubs in self-destruct mode with no defensible argument, once again the wing-nuts are only using tired "human interest" stories like Aruba, not so much for the story itself, but to avoid reporting anything else.

The repub governor is using the "Shiavo card" to make a name for himself and deflect attention away from his party's corruption, of which his own administration would likely fail the smell test.

[TahitiNut]

55. It's the cheapest kind of exploitation.

It's commercial exploitation by the media whores who're pandering to prurient interests (a movie of the imaginations of whom would likely be XX-rated), commercial exploitation by the mercenary 'search teams' who're less professional than the Keystone Kops, and political exploitation by a Governor who gets to posture and not perform, blame and not be diligent, and rant without responsibility.

[ClintonTyree]

43. I recall a church bombing in 1963......

in Birmingham that killed four young Black women. I recall a LOT of Black men and women who were beaten, killed and constantly harassed in Alabama.
I think I'm going to boycott Alabama, it doesn't sound like a very safe place to me, and I'm White!
How quickly bigots forget.

[Debau2005]

45. Here's the link:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/08/aruba.boycott.ap/index...

And my family wonders why I left Bama, never to return! Must be a slow news day in the state capital.

[Mr_Spock]

48. Republican mental illness 101

Study it - it's a fascinating study in fear and manipulation. Ass holes.

[ComerPerro]

49. Great post

[NYC Liberal]

51. Seems to me a "ban" is the best way to get people to want to go there!

"Banning" things only makes people want to do them more. Like books, for instance.

[NNN0LHI]

57. This is a damn good thread. Thanks for taking time to post it n/t

[TahitiNut]

62. Thank you, Don. There seems to be a bit of Rorschach in it for some.

It's interesting - in a clinical sorta way - to see the maggots that're projected out of some folks' psyches.

[CatWoman]

65. Don't sweat it, Snuggums -- I've got your back

[DemoMemo]

60. Such an excellent post!

[Tight_rope]

69. I'm sorry about Holloway disappearance...But fuck the boycott!

I got so many more important things I need to be boycotting against.