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Strange Brews: The Genes…

RIO DE JANEIRO (RNS) As Brazil counts down to the opening of the World Cup on June 12, churches in cities hosting the international soccer tournament are not content to sit on the sidelines and cheer.

They’ve launched a nationwide campaign to raise awareness of the hundreds of vulnerable children at risk of sexual exploitation during the monthlong competition.

With an estimated 600,000 soccer fans expected to arrive in Brazil within a matter of days, the South American nation is under pressure to combat its international reputation as a destination for child sex tourism.

Church leaders fear the heavy flow of tourists during the games could fuel an explosion of sexual trafficking of children and teens at fan fest locations around the World Cup arenas.

Thousands of youngsters will be on school holidays during the event, and the risks of exposure to criminal gangs and predatory individuals is significantly higher.

According to UNICEF, an estimated 250,000 children are sexually abused every year in Brazil and the numbers spike around major sporting events. Research from Childhood Brazil, a human rights organization designed to protect children, shows sex crimes against children increased by 66 percent during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and by 28 percent during the 2006 games in Germany.

A network of Brazilian churches and nonprofit groups has joined forces to form Bola na Rede or “Back of the Net” in English, a nationwide campaign alerting tourists to the dangers facing the country’s children.

“Over the last three years, we’ve been preparing churches in the 12 cities, encouraging them to mobilize their congregations so they actively do something in the days leading up to and during the World Cup,” said Ronald Neptune, the national coordinator of Bola na Rede and a missionary with the United World Mission in Sao Paulo, referring to the 12 host cities.

“As Christians, we can’t just clap our hands and praise the Lord, we have to work to make a difference to the lives of the young people at risk,” he said. “We can be the eyes and ears on the streets and the motivating force that gets people out leafleting and speaking to tourists about how they can be vigilant to help protect our children.”

On May 18, over 97,000 Christians took to the streets in Brazil’s host cities in a nationwide day of marches.

Outside the World Cup stadium in Itaquerao, Sao Paulo, where the opening match between Brazil and Croatia kicks off on June 12, churchgoers gathered to protest peacefully with banners and posters. They then knelt in prayer for victims of sex abuse on the grass outside the stadium.

This coming week, evangelical churches will hold a series of daily prayer sessions on child sex abuse.

The Brazilian government is getting into the game, too. Last month, legislation was introduced increasing prison sentences and making those arrested for child sexual exploitation ineligible for bail. The government has also launched a series of advertising campaigns in English warning tourists that offenders will not escape prosecution.

“We need to keep our children off the streets,” Neptune said. “We’re supporting about 20 churches in each of the host cities who are planning to stay open with school vacation projects. They will provide Bible-related activities, games, sports and stories to occupy the children.”

In Porto Alegre, in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, Joane Morais knows what it’s like to be destitute. The 37-year-old mother of eight was sexually abused as a child and thrown out of her home when she fought off her attacker with a knife.

But last December Morais’ life changed drastically when women from a local Baptist church knocked on her door saying they were part of Bola na Rede and were working to protect vulnerable children and their families.

“Their involvement in my life made me realize the risks my children and others face,” she said. “Now I’ve started going out to talk to other vulnerable mothers to teach them about God’s love and the importance of protecting their children from the various forms of violence in our community, especially sexual exploitation.”

According to REST (Real Escape from the Sex Trade), a direct service faith-based charity in Seattle, raising awareness around major sporting events like the Super Bowl and the World Cup is essential, but providing a long-term service is crucial to making a profound difference.

“The World Cup in Brazil will provide an international stage to highlight the issue,” said Bridget Battistoni, REST’s chief operating officer. “But we know from experience that when the coverage ends and the cameras disappear there are still hundreds of people desperately needing help. We want the church and the people engaged in the anti-trafficking movement to be in it for the long haul, not just for the big moments.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Neptune, who says Brazilian churches are only now awakening to the extent of the problem after decades of silence.

“The World Cup must be the start to what we do,” he said. “We need a cultural shift in our churches so our children are protected for the long term.”

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey man convicted of killing one student and wounding four others at an off-campus party near Seton Hall University was sentenced Friday to life in prison plus 20 years.

Nicholas Welch, 29, of East Orange, sat silently, his hands in cuffs, as his sentence was read. Earlier, he apologized to the family of Jessica Moore, a 19-year-old sophomore honors student from Disputanta, Virginia, who was killed when a gunman opened fire into a house party in 2010. Four others were shot and injured. Welch told Moore’s family he prayed for their loss, but maintained his innocence.

“I just want to let you all know,” he said, “your daughter’s blood is not on my hands.”

Prosecutors said Welch, who was convicted in March of murder and attempted murder, brawled with the hosts of the party after they wouldn’t let him inside and then went to a friend’s home nearby to get the gun he used in the shooting.

“This defendant opened fire on unarmed, defenseless college students. There is no place in society for this type of behavior,” said assistant prosecutor Jamel Semper. “We are satisfied that this sentence will keep this defendant off the streets for the rest of his life.”

Welch’s attorney said his client, who wasn’t a student but lived on the block where the party took place, had been wrongfully convicted in a case of mistaken identity. He had asked the minimum sentence of 30 years.

In emotional statements, members of the Moore family broke down in tears as they shared details of Jessica’s life and lashed out at Welch.

“It takes a cold-hearted monster to walk into a room of innocent people and shoot them,” said Cynthia Moore, Jessica’s aunt. “He’s asking for mercy. He didn’t give Jessica or anyone else mercy that night.” After leaving the courtroom, she applauded the sentence, calling it “well-deserved.”

In what he described as an unusual move, Judge Robert Gardner added his own admonition.

“Actions have consequences, son,” he told Welch.

But Welch’s sister, Latonya, and the mother of his two children, Ebony Copeland, painted him as a family man who had changed his life after years of run-ins with the law.

“I feel sorry for Jessica, but not only did Jessica lose a life. My children lost a father,” Copeland said.

Under the terms of Welch’s sentence, he will be eligible for parole in about 89 years.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As governors, businesses and environmentalists brace for new limits on power plant pollution, President Barack Obama is casting his unprecedented effort to curb greenhouse gases as essential to protect the health and wellbeing of children.

“I refuse to condemn our children to a planet that’s beyond fixing,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address released Saturday. His administration is bringing forward the first carbon pollution limits on existing U.S. power plants on Monday, the centerpiece of his campaign against climate change. Critics say the plan will drive up costs, kill jobs and damage a fragile economy. Traditionally, the president records his weekly address at the White House. But Obama put the usual playbook aside on Friday and traveled to Children’s National Medical Center, where medical equipment and white lab coats formed the backdrop for Obama to argue that by targeting carbon dioxide, his administration is shifting the U.S. away from dirty fuels that dump harmful pollutants into the air. He also met young asthma patients there, the White House said.

“In America, we don’t have to choose between the health of our economy and the health of our children,” he said.

White House officials have been fanning out across Washington and the country to build support and reassure those concerned about the coming rules. Among those worried: a number of Democrats from conservative areas who have openly criticized the rules as they prepare for difficult re-election fights this fall. Obama will echo his argument that the rules will benefit public health during a conference call Monday organized by the American Lung Association and other health groups.

The specifics of the plan have been closely guarded and environmental advocates and industry representatives alike are anxiously awaiting details such as the size of the reductions the government will mandate and what baseline those reductions will be measured against.

“We all want clean air and clean water,” Republican Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming said in the weekly GOP address. “We don’t want costly regulations that make little or no difference, that are making things less affordable. Republicans want electricity and gas when you need it, at a price you can afford.”

But Obama accused special interests and likeminded lawmakers of repeating false claims about harmful economic effects from the new rules, which the EPA is already preparing to defend in court once the inevitable legal challenges roll in. Every time the U.S. has sought to clean up its air and water, cynics have cried wolf, only to be proved wrong, Obama said.

“These excuses for inaction somehow suggest a lack of faith in American businesses and American ingenuity,” Obama said. “The truth is, when we ask our workers and businesses to innovate, they do. When we raise the bar, they meet it.”

Obama asserted that in their first year in effect, the rules will prevent up to 100,000 asthma attacks and 2,100 heart attacks. In fact, scientists have said there’s no direct connection between greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and asthma attacks or other respiratory illnesses. But coal-fired power plants that emit high levels of greenhouse gases also pump other pollutants into the air that do affect health.

By drawing a link between the carbon rules and asthma, the White House is offering a nuanced argument: Over time, these rules will shift the U.S. away from coal and toward cleaner energy, indirectly reducing levels of other harmful pollutants.

Deploying that argument could embolden Republicans in their assertions that Democrats are waging a “war on coal” — a claim that Obama and his allies deny.

Power plants form the largest single source of heat-trapping greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Administration officials say the rules will give states mandatory standards, then allow flexibility on how they are achieved.

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Reach Josh Lederman at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

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Online:

White House address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: www.youtube.com/user/gopweeklyaddress

This is the third installment in HuffPost Gay Voices Associate Editor James Nichols‘ ongoing series that examines the state of New York nightlife in the modern day, as well as the development and production of nightlife over the past several decades. Each featured individual in this series currently serves as a prominent person in the New York nightlife community or has made important contributions in the past that have sustained long-lasting impacts.

HuffPost Gay Voices believes that it is important and valuable to elevate the work, both today and in the past, of those engaged in the New York nightlife community, especially in an age where queer history seems to be increasingly forgotten. Nightlife not only creates spaces for queers and other marginalized groups to be artistically and authentically celebrated, but the work of those involved in nightlife creates and shapes the future of our culture as a whole. Visit Gay Voices regularly to learn not only about individuals currently making an impact in nightlife, but those whose legacy has previously contributed to the ways we understand queerness, art, identity and human experience today.

The Huffington Post: What led you to become an integral part of the Club Kids and nightlife during the 1990s? How did you come to embody Waltpaper as a persona?
I came to New York as a teenage art student after spending high school in the hardcore music scene as a “political punk.” I was fascinated with tribal culture, and had intended to move to Africa but got side tracked on a clubbing trip to NYC.

I enrolled at School of Visual Arts and had very little awareness of NYC club culture, so my entry into it was purely intuitive. I sought creative energy and like-minded people, and that was where I found them.

After I met Linda Simpson and Page at The Pyramid Club they gave me my first club job doing decor for a club called The Building. This was the beginning of an endless cast of characters that would shape, mentor and inspire me in New York.

I needed a catchy name. Since I made drawings and was doing club decor, I took on the name Waltpaper. It seemed to roll off the tongue and also would’ve been a good street tag.

How did things change or develop, both within the Club Kids and the culture of nightlife, throughout your time as Waltpaper?
Not long after setting up a studio up in the attic of The Building I got hired to go-go dance.

Music at that time was exploding in every possible direction… house, techno, trance, drum and bass, trip hop, break beat. The range and texture of sounds you heard in one night of clubbing was broad and cinematic, and I quickly found my spot in the cages hanging above the Limelight and Palladium dance floors, and on go-go boxes in practically every other club.

Honestly, I didn’t think life could get any better.

One by one I met a group of people my own age, each with their own unique character and charisma. These were the Club Kids. Just as the music was expansive, so seemed to be people’s identity expressions. New York felt effortlessly fertile.

Night culture had hosted an endless stream of creative personalities from the Jazz Era, the Beats, Warhol’s Factory, through Punk and Disco. So, there were high standards to live up to and I felt a clear sense of duty when I found myself in the middle of the Club Kids.

Patti Smith once said in an interview that there are always these pockets of time where everything sparkles, and things are done because people believe in something.

Each of us had come under the mentorship of Michael Alig, who was directing a fantastic melange of parties, events, summits, appearances and a magazine for Peter Gatien’s conglomerate of “mega clubs,” with the help of key people like Ernie Glam and Julie Jewels.

There was a dynamic system that operated and maintained this network of clubs. It was like the old Hollywood Studios. I was really blown away when I saw the professionalism and organization behind what was happening. Once inside of this powerhouse, I was very much protected and nurtured. I felt discovered.

I was only 20 years old at the time, passionate and creative but incredibly naive. I had no clue as to how to navigate the sea of opportunities in New York.

How did your experiences in nightlife inform your artistic endeavors during the Club Kids heyday?
My artistic focus during the Club Kids was on painting and illustration. I created an ongoing series of characters that were inspired by my friends and experiences within the club scene. These were used for t-shirts, magazines, skateboards and album covers.

I drew from the aesthetics and styles that were in constant flux, our ongoing social narrative, exploration of drugs and home life at the Chelsea Hotel.

I did random modeling gigs, appearances in music videos, commercials and talk shows. Gallery shows were organized that featured the Club Kids as art objects. There were Style Summits and tours that took us to other cites. We organized a gorilla-style group called Blueprint, which consisted of about 75 artists.

We were busy bees, to say the least. A tremendous amount of work went into appearing so flippant.

What purpose do you think nightlife serves in allowing queer and marginalized people to express and be creative within safe, supportive spaces?
It’s invaluable to have space and community in which to develop artistically and socially. It allows for the seeding and harvesting of ideas and the networking that accumulates around creativity.

Now, much of our experience is virtual and mobile. Part of that sacrifice is that things like nightclubs are perhaps not so necessary. We can get the networking, inspiration, community and resources online, but what is missing is the physical and ritual experience — the communion.

For me, personally, this gap is now filled with gym and beach culture in New York, which seems to be thriving. Whatever I used to get at Limelight I now get it at Jacob Riis Beach, and what I don’t get there, I get online.

How do you think technology has augmented and shaped nightlife within the digital age? Do you think this is necessarily good or bad?
Every era and scene has built in obstacles, there to stimulate and challenge creatives. The potential is always present, as I mentioned earlier. I don’t feel that this challenge is taken up with much vibrance today in nightlife. Premature jadedness and territorial self-strategizing has diminished the drive that comes with community and shared creativity.

There is a general lack of elegance and invention, from my vantage point. Resources are not being pushed to their potential. People are so conscious of branding themselves that it paralyzes them from taking risks. Everyone wants to be sellable and palatable to the most mainstream trajectory, and the focus is too often on money and uniformity. Entitlement and laziness often prevail.

But, there are a handful of fantastic young individuals doing solid work, and it’s very exciting for me to see them developing. I follow them and enjoy watching them tackle the format in their own unique way. I love the work of Juliana Huxtable, La’Femme LaDosha, LE1F, designers BCalla and The House of Malakai, and DJ’s Amber Valentine and HD.

My focus has always been on the people who get in the trenches, which is never the populous.

How would you say nightlife today differs from your time as Waltpaper and a prominent figure in the scene??
The nightlife experience today is no longer linear. It is broken up into two parts. The participation, which largely consists of documenting the experience, followed by the process of offloading it into cyber space and having a secondary experience online.

The effects of the police state, two conservative mayors and the money agenda certainly have had their numbing effect. Perhaps with the new mayor, the city and nightlife will redefine itself.

I am not one to cry over spilled milk, and am more into imagining new ways to find creative balance. And with all due respect, nightclubs are for young people.

Do you feel like there is as much of an opportunity for a cultural institution such as the Club Kids to flourish today as there was in the 1990s?
I think there are always opportunities for new cultural institutions to be established and flourish. Our notions of time, space and tempo have changed and, as a result of that, creative aggression must move more quickly in order to be effective. The form must be mutable and flexible enough to stay interesting to an attention span that now requires constant change, and is somewhat gluttonous.

I enjoy nostalgia and history, but I am not a fan of retrogression. I believe in moving forward. I believe the best way to change something is to change the language around it. When we start using new language, the form is immediately and alchemically changed. The new institutions then coagulate around these changes.

During his feature earlier in this series, Michael Alig made this statement: “It seems like nightlife hasn’t really evolved in the past 15 years. I have a whole theory about that. My theory is that we are witnessing the end of our Western cultural dominance in the world and that we’ve gone as far as we can with our Western lifestyle as far as decadence, fashion, style, stuff like that. We’ve done every kind of fashion imaginable from miniskirts to maxi skirts, from peg leg pants to bell-bottoms, from black lipstick to glossy lipstick — everywhere in-between. The only things we can do right now are kind of different variations of the same model and we’ve even done that already. “ — How do you respond to this? Do you agree with him?
I’m more optimistic, perhaps. I do think we are amidst times that can be likened to the Industrial Revolution. It is an axial time period, without a doubt. Michael’s statement reflects his personal crisis that he reached within club work. It mirrors his own experience, and is certainly a valid dilemma.

All creative people must take time and space for inspiration to present itself and mature. One of the problems today, is that the tempo has sped so fast that it doesn’t allow for the necessary creative pause. There isn’t a whole lot of room for germination. Content is too often compromised, and culture does seem to be thinning as a result.

What projects are you currently working on?
The Nervous Peal Collection – Jewelry Project is currently featured at LALOON in Hudson, NY and will be launched in NYC at ODD May 20th.

I am releasing a new light based sculpture work in the exhibition “Trip the Lights Fantastic” curated by Natalie Kates Projects at High Line Gallery, opening May 29.

How prominent do you consider your time as Waltpaper to have been to the development of yourself as an artist today?
My time as a punk kid, and as one of the Club Kids, is elemental. It informs all of my work as an artist. The commitment to integrity and authenticity that stems from street and scene culture is reflected in the formal qualities of my artwork. It can be seen in the materials, and the objects feel occupied. There is a sense that life has been experienced within the work, fueled by personal narrative.

When I compare pictures of myself, as a Club Kid, to my current artwork and jewelry, there does seem to be a lot of continuity. The cycling, the concept of life as one master work, permeates.

Missed the first two installments in this series? Head here to read the interview with original Club Kid Michael Alig or here to read the profile on rising artist and nightlife personality Ryan Burke.