Louann Bowers released from prison

I’m a bit behind in the times — this news is from July 1 — but I thought I’d share it anyway: Louann Emma Bowers has been released from prison after serving four concurrent terms for child endangerment.

(“Concurrent” sentences is where you serve all the sentences at the same time. Like, if you get six years for theft and twenty years for murder, concurrently, you only serve twenty years. “Consecutive” sentences are where you serve one sentence at a time; for the previous example you could get serve 26 years in prison.)

Louann is supposed to be on probation for 23 months. While she was in custody she had a sixth child, got her GED and took parenting classes. I hope she continues to improve herself now that she’s out, and maybe get custody of her kids back. It sounds like she needs a lot of serious counseling.

Many people still missing in the aftermath of civil war in Nepal

Nepal, a tiny county between India and China (home to one half of Mount Everest), had a civil war the last decade. Probably not many Americans know about it; probably a significant minority have never even HEARD of Nepal. But it, like its neighbor country Bhutan, has fascinated me for a long time now and I’d love to visit (not to climb Everest, though).

Anyway, I found some articles addressing the missing person problem in Nepal. Loads of people disappeared during the civil war and many still have not been found. All the headlines say “hundreds” are missing but that doesn’t explain the opening paragraph of one article:

Almost five years after the end of the decade-long insurgency in Nepal in which almost 14,000 people were killed, the status of more than 13,000 other people who went missing during that period is still unknown.

Um, 13,000 is not “hundreds.” Someone needs to check their math. Or maybe they meant to say 1300, in which case they need to check their typing.

Articles:
Nepal: Families losing hope of meeting missing kin (Hindustan Times)
Hundreds still missing in Nepal after the end of its civil war in 2006 (World Tribune)
Five years after war, hundreds still missing in Nepal (Daiji World)

I know of a nonprofit organization, Next Generation Nepal, which works to reunite victims of human trafficking with their families. I read the founder’s memoir, Little Princes, and it was excellent. He was inspired to start the organization after he spent some time volunteering at a Nepalese orphanage and discovered that few, if any, of the children were actually orphans. They were in fact victims of trafficking and had families who were alive and trying to find them.