NUS: Students turning to prostitution to fund studies

By Kieran Turner and Owen Phillips
 BBC Radio 5 live Breakfast

Greater numbers of students in England are turning to prostitution to fund their education, the National Union of Students (NUS) claims.

The NUS also says students are turning to gambling and taking part in medical experiments to fund their studies.

It says increased living costs and fees, and cuts to the education maintenance allowance, play a part.

But the government says it offers students a “generous package” of financial support.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 live’s Breakfast programme, Estelle Hart, the NUS’s national women’s officer, said government cuts had put more pressure on students.

“Students are taking more dangerous measures,” said Ms Hart.

“In an economic climate where there are very few jobs, where student support has been massively cut, people are taking more work in the informal economy, such as sex work.

“It’s all dangerous unregulated work, simply so people can stay in education.”

Helpline calls
The English Collective of Prostitutes, which runs a helpline from its base in London, said the number of calls it receives from students had at least doubled in the past year.

Sarah Walker from the organisation has seen a steady increase in calls from students over the past 10 years, but said her group had received an unprecedented number of calls since the government’s announcement that universities in England could charge tuition fees of up to £9,000 a year from 2012.

“They [ministers] know that the cuts they’re making are driving women into things like sex work. It’s a survival strategy so we would hold the government responsible for that.”

Escort work
It is not just university students who are turning to the adult industry to pay for their education.

Eighteen-year-old Clare – not her real name – turned to escorting during her A-levels when she found out her education maintenance allowance (EMA) was in danger of being cut.

Continue reading the main story
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Start Quote

I couldn’t see any other option”

Clare
Student
“I couldn’t go to college without EMA. My travel costs are £70 a month, without it I don’t know what I’d have done. I didn’t know who I could go to in college, and I didn’t want to rely on my family.”

“I began looking for jobs, but the hours were unsociable. A lot of my friends have gone on to shop work, and have ended up leaving college. I didn’t want that to be me.”

“I had a friend who’d been trying to get me to join his escort agency since I was 16. He was telling me stories about how much I could earn, how the hours would fit around me, that I could control who I saw, when I saw them and how often.

“It just sounded more desirable. I couldn’t see any other option.”

Clare, who has now left the adult industry to continue her studies, warns against working in the sex industry.

“I did this so I could go to college, go to university, for it to have a positive effect on the rest of my life.

“But I’m a different person to how I was when I started out. I’ve lost a lot of my confidence and I’ve lost trust in a lot of people.

“There are people you can talk to about it, and bursaries you can get. Find out all you can before taking such a large step, because I didn’t.”

Financial support
A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “We are targeting £180m a year financial support at the most vulnerable 16- to 19-year-olds to help them continue their studies – with transitional funding for the students who were getting the top rate of EMA and part way through their studies.

“It is down to schools and colleges themselves to award bursaries to young people who need the most help. If students are really struggling financially, they need to speak directly to their tutors.”

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills says the new reforms in higher education funding will make the system fairer, and students will receive more financial support and have lower monthly repayments.

The NUS also told BBC 5 live Breakfast it estimated about 20% of women working in lap dancing clubs were students.

Research from the University of Kingston published last year found that the number of university students who knew someone who had worked in the sex industry to fund their studies had gone up from 3% to 25% in 10 years.

Dr Ron Roberts, senior lecturer in psychology, led the survey of several hundred university students, which also found that 16% would consider working in the sex industry.

He described the results as “worrying”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16157522

21 Books The Ruling Elite Doesn’t Want You to Read

The sole purpose of COINTELPRO was to destroy individuals and groups perceived as threats to the status quo in the United States.  COINTELPRO was “officially” ended in 1971—although it never really ended.  After the 911 attacks, the government went at it again, but this time with a scared and more dumbed-down complicit public.  Exactly forty-six days after the towers came crumbing down Bush signed the USA Patriot Act.  This virtually eliminated restrictions on law enforcement agencies’ ability to search telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records.  What we used to consider illegal eavesdropping is now reclassified as something else — an emergency.  According to an official DOJ report, the use of “emergency”, warrantless requests to ISPs for customer communications content has skyrocketed over 400% in a single year.  No outrage, no accountability.  The majority of people are now more concerned about how to feed their families; civil liberties will just have to take a back seat until things improve.

The inequality and oppression in America now resembles that of a third world oligarchy.  The only purpose of an oligarchy is to perpetuate oligarchic rule.  Hence, “change” is not a choice, lest the rulers might be held to account for their crimes.  Upward mobility is no longer attainable; the days of “hard work and dedication bringing success” are over. It would be a slap in the face to say that to the more than “317,000 waiters and waitresses (over 8,000 of which have a doctoral or professional degree), along with over 80,000 bartenders, and over 18,000 parking lot attendants” Americans who graduated from college. The cancer of nepotism and cronyism are the order of the day. It is mathematically impossible to hold a job while paying for exorbitant college tuition, unless of course you come from the fast-shrinking upper-middle class.

The majority of voters voted for Obama in 2008 because they wanted change.  The word “change” did resonate in the hearts of Americans, but, unfortunately, the people were once again bamboozled.  Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.  Voting appears to be the least viable solution; the more productive path is to organize locally. The following list of books contains sources not often cited by mainstream media . . . and there is a reason for that.  These books promote critical thinking, revisit the coverups of history, and promote individual empowerment.  They should be read widely in order to raise awareness of the situation facing America today, so that we can take back what has been taken from us.

The descriptions of each book are generally sourced from their product sales points, and have been edited for brevity.  In some cases where official product descriptions were not available, a summary of important points is offered.  Each title is an embedded link where the book can be purchased.

These are the books that have been most instrumental in my research.  I would love to learn what books you have found to be most helpful.  Please share your thoughts and suggestions with others in the comments section below.

21. Propaganda, Edward Bernays
Media control and propaganda is how the rest of what is contained in the books that follows is ever made possible.  Without belief in the orchestrated events of history, the tactics employed by the ruling elite could never work.  This is an essential place to start to learn how human perception is altered so that a false reality can be created and accepted. Or, as Bernays himself said, “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

20. Big Brother: The Orwellian Nightmare Come True, Mark Dice
High-tech spy gadgets, mind-reading machines, emerging artificial intelligence systems, and government projects seem as if they came right out of George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Mark Dice illustrates how what was once considered fiction has now become reality. Dice shows you the scary documentation that Big Brother is watching you, and is more powerful than you could imagine. Learn about mind reading machines, cybernetic organisms, neural interfaces, and more.

19.  What I Saw That Day Israel’s June 8 1967 Holocaust of US Servicemen Aboard the USS LIBERTY and its Aftermath, Phillip Tourney
Personal eyewitness testimony of Phil Tourney, US Navy Petty Officer concerning Israel’s 2 hour attack upon his ship USS LIBERTY on June 8, 1967 and the following cover-up by the US government.

18.  The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope, Sheriff Richard Mack
Sheriff Mack’s latest book covers decades of research to prove once and for all that the sheriffs in this country are indeed the ultimate law authority in their respective jurisdictions. The sheriff absolutely has the power and responsiblity to defend his citizens against all enemies, including those from our own Federal Government.

17.  Corporatism: The Secret Government of the New World Order, Jeffrey Grupp
Corporations control all basic resources of the world, all the governments and institutions, and prevent us from solving humanity’s problems. Their New World Order plan is the global ‘prison planet’ that Hitler was aiming for.

16.  Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
An extraordinary and gripping tale of intrigue and dark machinations. Perkins writes about the Enron-style of cooking the books to convince foreign governments to accept billions of dollars of loans from the World Bank and other institutions to build dams, airports, electric grids, and other infrastructure he knew they couldn’t afford. The loans were given on condition that construction and engineering contracts went to U.S. companies.

15.  JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy (Second Edition), L. Fletcher Prouty
Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, the former CIA operative known as ‘X,’ offers a history-shaking perspective on the assassination of president John F. Kennedy. His theories were the basis for Oliver Stone’s controversial movie JFK. Prouty believed that Kennedy’s death was a coup d’etat, and he backs this belief up with his knowledge of the security arrangements at Dallas and other tidbits that only a CIA insider would know.

14.  Where Did the Towers Go? Evidence of Directed Free-energy Technology on 9/11, Judy Wood and Eric Larsen
This book is a forensic analysis of what effectively is a crime scene. Ground Zero and the surrounding areas were photographed countless thousands of times, yet no one really assessed all of the phenomena found in these photographs. What is presented in this book is not a theory and it is not speculation. It is evidence. It is the body of empirical evidence that must be explained in order to determine what happened at Ground Zero.

13.  Tragedy and Hope, Carroll Quigley
1,359 pages of details about how the New World Order really works.  A confession from one of the architects of the power elite and the structures they use to divide and conquer the planet.

12.  None Dare Call it Conspiracy, Gary Allen
This is the counterpart to Quigley’s tome.  At just 197 pages, Gary Allen distills the machinations of the political, banking, and elite think tanks into the most concise book ever written about how it is possible for a small group of puppet masters to direct world events and control entire populations.

11.  American Assassination:  The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone, James H. Fetzer
Senator Paul Wellstone was, “the first 1960s radical elected to the U.S. Senate.” In Senate Race 2002, the White House made defeating Wellstone priority #1. Karl Rove hand-picked arch Republican Norm Coleman to run against him. Despite massive funding, Coleman was trailing the popular Wellstone two weeks before election day. Then, tragedy struck.  Ph.D. Professors James Fetzer and Don “Four Arrows” Jacobs present the harrowing truth. The weather didn’t bring down Senator Wellstone’s plane.

10.  New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency, John Seymour
Packed with comprehensive information on all the practicals, from ploughing fields to milking cows, as well as new information on how to create an urban organic garden and harness natural energy. This full-colour edition of the illustrated classic is an engrossing read and a wonderful handbook for realists and dreamers alike.

9.  Human Race Get Off Your Knees, David Icke
The manipulation of the human race and the nature of reality are continually taken to the highest levels by David Icke.  Very few researchers are willing to walk the paths David has.  In this book, he brings back even more new startling information about the destiny of mankind.

8.  The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions, David Ray Griffin
Everyone who cares about the fate of American democracy will want to know something about what the pages of the report actually say. The Commission’s account, by popular reckoning, has made an impression with its heft, its footnotes, its portrayal of the confusion of that sobering day, its detail, its narrative finesse. Yet under the magnifying glass of David Ray Griffin, eminent theologian and author of The New Pearl Harbor, the report appears much shabbier. In fact, there are holes in the places where detail ought to be thickest. Griffin’s critique of the Kean-Zelikow report makes clear that our nation’s highest leaders have told tales that wear extremely thin when held up to the light of other eyewitness reports, research, and the dictates of common sense.

7.  63 Documents the Government Doesn’t Want You to Read, Jesse Ventura
The official spin on numerous government programs is flat-out bullsh*t, according to Jesse Ventura. Ventura proves it beyond any doubt with this incredible collection of actual government documents, including previously classified papers that were brought into the public domain by WikiLeaks. He scours through this treasure trove of documents to bring to light how we’ve been duped into wars we shouldn’t be fighting, lied to about intelligence, fed hogwash about terrorism, and tricked into losing more and more of our civil liberties. In addition to providing original government data, Ventura explains what it really means.

6.  Stranger Than Fiction, Albert D. Pastore
The true story behind 9-11, delivered by a meticulous researcher. . . “Every news story about 9-11 that is contained in this book is true and easily verifiable,” states author, Dr. Albert D. Pastore [a penname]. “My investigation represents 12 months of careful study, painstaking research, detailed analysis, source verification and logical deduction.

5.  9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, First Edition, Webster Griffin Tarpley
The thesis of Webster Tarpley’s book has been enthusiastically received with its working model of the 9/11 plot – a rogue network of moles, patsies, and a commando cell in the privatised intelligence services, backed by corrupt political and corporate media elites. Buttressed by historical examples like the Baader-Meinhof Gang and the Gunpowder Plot, this model makes it clear how such a monstrous false-flag or self-terror exploit is possible even under a largely benign government.

4.  Snitch Culture: How Citizens are Turned into the Eyes and Ears of the State, Jim Redden
In this alarming exposé, investigative journalist Jim Redden examines how snooping has become so much a part of American culture that it is practically a family value, encouraged on billboards, television, and even in classrooms. From employees hired to spy on their coworkers to doctors forced to disclose medical information, the U.S. has developed a chilling network for monitoring its citizens. Worst of all, the information gathered – and widely disseminated – is often unreliable, solicited from paid and anonymous informants.  This book was written in 2000 and is even more disturbing to witness in hindsight all that has come to pass both domestically and abroad as the War on Terror has been given carte blanche to use any means necessary to expand the power of the State.  A citizen spy network is the hallmark of tyranny and Redden’s book concisely presents its evolution even within democratic countries.

3.  The Creature from Jekyll Island : A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, G. Edward Griffin
This is the classic exposé of the Fed that has become one of the best-selling books in its category of all time. Where does money come from? Where does it go? Who makes it? The money magician’s secrets are unveiled. Here is a close look at their mirrors and smoke machines, the pulleys, cogs, and wheels that create the grand illusion called money. A boring subject? Just wait. You’ll be hooked in five minutes. It reads like a detective story – which it really is, but it’s all true. This book is about the most blatant scam of history. It’s all here: the cause of wars, boom-bust cycles, inflation, depression, prosperity. Your world view will definitely change. Putting it quite simply, this may be the most important book on world affairs you will ever read.

2.  War at Home: Covert action against U.S. activists and what we can do about it, Brian Glick
This book was written in 1989 is provides thorough coverage and analysis of the FBI’s COINTELPRO program which targeted political activists.  Beyond the program itself is the cultural analysis which is more important than ever, as COINTELPRO 2.0 has been launched in the wake of the War on Terror.  The methods used abroad in counterintelligence have come home to roost.  The plan for what activists can do to protect themselves is more valuable than ever.

1.  Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations
Iraq Veterans Against the War
“The only way this war is going to end is if the American people truly understand what we have done in their name.”—Kelly Dougherty, executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War.  In spring 2008, inspired by the Vietnam-era Winter Soldier hearings, Iraq Veterans Against the War gathered veterans to expose war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here are the powerful words, images, and documents of this historic gathering, which show the reality of life in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq Veterans Against the War argues that well-publicized incidents of American brutality like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha are not the isolated incidents perpetrated by “a few bad apples,” as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the group says, of “an increasingly bloody occupation.”  If we are ever to restore sanity to our foreign policy, we must have all of the facts.  Empire America is bankrupting its citizens and leaving a legacy of shame.  This is the single most important book in stripping away the naive and innocent version of war that the mainstream media fosters at the behest of the American government.

Rick Gedeon, Activist Post, Monday, August 15, 2011
http://drleonardcoldwell.com/2011/08/15/21-books-the-ruling-elite-doesnt-want-you-to-read/

Operation Dark Heart – Book Burning by Obama Administration

Operation Dark Heart (Anthony Shaffer) – Book Burning by Obama Administration

Book Burning is no longer the sole shame of Nazi Germany. On September 25, 2010, the Obama administration (through the Pentagon) burned all 9,500 first run copies of Anthony Shaffer’s memoir “Operation Dark Heart”.

**IF YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR FREEDOM, PLEASE PUT THIS VIDEO ON YOUR FACEBOOK WALL, EMAIL IT TO YOUR FRIENDS, DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO GET THIS STORY OUT. THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS TRYING TO SQUASH THE STORY AND THE AUTHOR IS LIMITED IN HOW MUCH HE CAN SAY BECAUSE HE IS STILL A MEMBER OF THE US MILITARY RESERVES.**

Based on his experience as a Lt. Col. in the US Armed Forces, Operation Dark Heart was deemed a threat to national security after it had already passed two separate Army reviews and had already been published.

Burning books that have already been published seems like an obvious affront to free speech and seems particularly dangerous coming from the Obama administration, which has sought access to nearly every piece of American personal lives through its massive expansion of government.

This is not a right or left issue. It is not a democrat or republican issue. It is an issue of free speech and the government burning published books. It happens to have been done by a Democratic administration. If it had been done by a Republican administration, I would have made the same video criticizing that person.

If you think this story is fake, please Google “Operation Dark Heart”. I wish it was fake.

The NY Times also did a great article describing the absurdity of censoring this book. The article is entitled “Secrets in Plain Sight in Censored Book’s Reprint” and is available on the NY Times website.

Please also see the videos I’ve favorited on my channel for news coverage of this event.

My video is commentary and analysis. I’m not a news organization and I have an obvious point of view about whether governments should be in the business of burning published books.

Note: For all you mental midgets who think the video says that Obama the man actually sat somewhere and burned the Operation Dark Heart books himself and therefore this video is fake, please watch the video again. Obviously Obama the man was not physically burning books in a warehouse somewhere. I can’t believe that some people are so nuts that I actually need to point that out, but after receiving several comments indicating such, I felt it easier to make that clear.

The Operation Dark Heart books were burned by the DIA, which is part of the Executive Branch and serves at the pleasure of the Defense Secretary and the Commander in Chief. The Commander in Chief is Barack Obama and the DIA Directors/Secretary of Defense/Commander in Chief are part of the Obama administration.

And Barack Obama the man is aware of the symbolism involved in government book burning. If you think he, himself, was not aware of the book burning or at least tacitly approve it, then you need to start researching what is happening in this country. It’s no joke.

The Educational System Was Designed to Keep Us Uneducated and Docile

newsfromthewest.blogspot.com

Educational System Designed to Keep Us Uneducated and Docile

It’s no secret that the US educational system doesn’t do a very good job. Like clockwork, studies show that America’s schoolkids lag behind their peers in pretty much every industrialized nation. We hear shocking statistics about the percentage of high-school seniors who can’t find the US on an unmarked map of the world or who don’t know who Abraham Lincoln was.

Fingers are pointed at various aspects of the schooling system—overcrowded classrooms, lack of funding, teachers who can’t pass competency exams in their fields, etc. But these are just secondary problems. Even if they were cleared up, schools would still suck. Why? Because they were designed to.

How can I make such a bold statement? How do I know why America’s public school system was designed the way it was (age-segregated, six to eight 50-minute classes in a row announced by Pavlovian bells, emphasis on rote memorization, lorded over by unquestionable authority figures, etc.)? Because the men who designed, funded, and implemented America’s formal educational system in the late 1800s and early 1900s wrote about what they were doing.

Almost all of these books, articles, and reports are out of print and hard to obtain. Luckily for us, John Taylor Gatto tracked them down. Gatto was voted the New York City Teacher of the Year three times and the New York State Teacher of the Year in 1991. But he became disillusioned with schools—the way they enforce conformity, the way they kill the natural creativity, inquisitiveness, and love of learning that every little child has at the beginning. So he began to dig into terra incognita, the roots of America’s educational system.

In 1888, the Senate Committee on Education was getting jittery about the localized, non-standardized, non-mandatory form of education that was actually teaching children to read at advanced levels, to comprehend history, and, egads, to think for themselves. The committee’s report stated, “We believe that education is one of the principal causes of discontent of late years manifesting itself among the laboring classes.”

By the turn of the century, America’s new educrats were pushing a new form of schooling with a new mission (and it wasn’t to teach). The famous philosopher and educator John Dewey wrote in 1897:

Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth.

In his 1905 dissertation for Columbia Teachers College, Elwood Cubberly—the future Dean of Education at Stanford—wrote that schools should be factories “in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products…manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry.”

The next year, the Rockefeller Education Board—which funded the creation of numerous public schools—issued a statement which read in part:

In our dreams…people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple…we will organize children…and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.

At the same time, William Torrey Harris, US Commissioner of …..read more here >>

Teaching Your Child Phonemic Awareness

In recent years, the field of reading education has changed dramatically and many reading instructors have divided it between phonic instruction and whole language. Various reading programs that fall into one of the two camps have spent millions advertising the relative merits of both.

The simple truth of the matter is that the best reading instruction takes place using a combination of both strategies. And increasingly reading research has demonstrated that phonemic awareness, not simply phonics, is critically important to ensuring reading success–especially for students with learning disabilities.

However what makes this so confusing for many parents and caregivers is that the term “phonemic awareness” is tossed around so often and in so many different ways. Phonemic awareness concerns the structure of words rather than their meaning. To understand the construction of our written code, words, readers need to be able to reflect upon the spelling-to-sound correspondences. To understand that the written word, beginning readers must first have some understanding that words are composed of sounds (phonemic awareness) rather than their conceiving of each word as a single indivisible sound stream.

The development of this awareness cannot be accomplished in one simple step but rather over time. It is also important to note that these skills are actually pre-reading skills. Children do not necessarily recognize any of these elements on the page but rather by ear.

The stages of phonological development toward the end goal of deep phonemic awareness can include:

~ Recognition that sentences are made up of words.
~ Recognition that words can rhyme & the ability to make rhymes
~ Recognition that words can be broken down into syllables & the ability to do so
~ Recognition that words can be broken down into onsets and rimes & the ability to do so
~ Recognition that words can begin with the same sound & the ability to make these matches
~ Recognition that words can end with the same sound & the ability to make these matches
~ Recognition that words can have the same medial sound(s) & the ability to make these matches
~ Recognition that words can be broken down into individual phonemes & the ability to do so
~ Recognition that sounds can be deleted from words to make new words & the ability to do so
~ Ability to blend sounds to make words
~ Ability to segment words into constituent sounds

Phonemic awareness is more complex however than simple auditory discrimination, which is the ability to understand that cat and mat are different words. To be able to describe how they are similar and how they are different demonstrates a level of phonemic awareness. Young children are not normally asked to consider words at a level other than their meaning, although experience with rhymes may be the first indication for children that they can play with the structure of words.

Learning to recognize and play with rhyme is often the beginning of phonemic awareness development for many children. To be aware that words can have a similar end-sound implies a critical step in learning to read. Sensitivity to rhyme makes both a direct and indirect contribution to reading.

Directly, it helps children appreciate that words that share common sounds usually also share common letter sequences. Later exposure to common letter sequences then makes a significant contribution to reading strategy development.

Indirectly, the recognition of rhyme promotes the refining of word analysis from larger intra-word segments (such as rhyme) to analysis at the level of the phoneme (the critical requirement for reading).

Studies show a very strong relationship between rhyming ability at age three and performance at reading and spelling three years later. A number of studies have reinforced the value of such early exposure to rhyming games.

Rhyming and phoneme awareness are related. Studies have shown that children who are capable of good discrimination of musical pitch also score high on tests of phonemic awareness. Since pitch change is an important source of information in the speech signal, it may be that sensitivity to small frequency changes, such as that involved in phoneme recognition is an important aspect of successful initial reading. Such results raise the interesting possibility that musical training may represent one of those pre-reading, home-based experiences that contribute to the marked individual differences in phonemic awareness with which children start school. (more…)