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It's a curse, the opposite of the man who always attracts women who start out wonderful and turn out to be psychotic.Homo Aves said:I have a friend like that too, oddly.
It's a curse, the opposite of the man who always attracts women who start out wonderful and turn out to be psychotic.Homo Aves said:I have a friend like that too, oddly.
Bogeyman in other cultures
* Brazil - In Brazil, a similar creature with the same function (scare misbehaved children) exists as the "Sack man" (portuguese: "homem do saco"). It is portrayed as an adult male, usually in the form of a bum, or a hobo, wich carries a sack in his back (much like Santa Claus would), and collects children who are mean or misbehave to sell them. Parents may tell their kids that they will call the "Sack man" to collect them if they do not behave.
extrcted from HERE
Urban legend reveals modern fears
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/nort ... 278797.stm
Some urban legends play on the fears of parents
From Belfast to Boston the story goes round that a child has gone missing in a shop and is found in the toilets with foreigners trying to alter their appearance.
It is every parent's nightmare and has one other underlying theme - it's not true, it is what is termed an urban legend.
There have been a spate of such claims being made to newsrooms across Northern Ireland in recent weeks with one common variant, that immigrants are the ones trying to abduct the child.
Police in Ballymena, County Antrim, had to speak out last week to dismiss one such story after reports of an attempted abduction in the town and there have been similar stores in the Greater Belfast Area.
Snopes.com, a website dedicated to urban legends and similar folklore, lists the rumour as being related to the growth of cities and an increased fears of the anonymity of day-to-day life.
Society
It lists such stories under the heading of Parental Nightmares, and with little wonder.
Combined with fears of "stranger danger" such a story can be round the school gates or office quickly with a remarkable amount of embellishment.
Likewise with the rise of the internet and text messaging such a warning can be around a community before it can be debunked.
The relayer of the story may have heard it from a friend whose wife/husband heard it from an employee at the store or a witness.
The story doing the rounds in Northern Ireland can be read as a warning to parents not to take your eyes off your children for a minute or they may be snatched.
While such advice is sensible, there have been no kidnappings from supermarkets in Northern Ireland and the police press office have been debunking such stories for the last two years.
Spaces
Dr Mikel J. Koven from the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research said how such stories begin can rarely be traced, but they say something about society.
"We don't know where they start - it's impossible to trace them back to the very first time they're used and I don't know if that is an important activity, about where they come from, but what is important is what they say about society.
"This one is clearly a story of fear perhaps about an increase in Gypsies or the Traveller population that's more noticeable, but it is certainly fear of the other and toilets are liminal spaces - they are in-between spaces not quite the shop or the supermarket, a place where you get family food, it is just off to one side - the margins of society.
"Likewise having the assailants as Travellers, who are also off to one side of society."
Other urban legends which may strike fear into the heart of parents include a police officer cyberstalking a young girl to show her how vulnerable she is and how a babysitter high on drugs believes a baby is a turkey and cooks it in the oven. Likewise these are all untrue.
escargot1 said:You didn't get the number?
ramonmercado said:Urban legend reveals modern fears
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/nort ... 278797.stm
Some urban legends play on the fears of parents
From Belfast to Boston the story goes round that a child has gone missing in a shop and is found in the toilets with foreigners trying to alter their appearance.
It is every parent's nightmare and has one other underlying theme - it's not true, it is what is termed an urban legend.
There have been a spate of such claims being made to newsrooms across Northern Ireland in recent weeks with one common variant, that immigrants are the ones trying to abduct the child.
Police in Ballymena, County Antrim, had to speak out last week to dismiss one such story after reports of an attempted abduction in the town and there have been similar stores in the Greater Belfast Area.
Guatemala pushes for DNA tests of kids adopted in U.S.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre5b7 ... -adoption/
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By Sarah GraingerPosted 2009/12/08 at 12:57 pm EST
GUATEMALA CITY, Dec. 8, 2009 (Reuters) — For three years Olga Lopez desperately searched for her baby daughter who was snatched from her home in Guatemala, until her face appeared in government paperwork for an international adoption.
Lopez, along with two other mothers who also believe their children were stolen and put up for U.S. adoption, pushed Guatemala to ask the U.S. Department of Justice to track down the babies and give them DNA tests so they can be returned.
"I recognized my daughter from her photo in the adoption files but there's always the possibility that it's not her. I don't want to live in doubt. I want a DNA test," Lopez said.
So far there has been no response from U.S. authorities, Lopez says. U.S. officials would not confirm they had received a formal request from Guatemala.
Guatemala, a small Central American country of 13 million people, used to have the world's highest per capita adoption rate, with 5,000 children sent abroad each year. Private lawyers charged up to $50,000 to handle an adoption and sometimes forged papers or paid mothers to sell their children.
In December 2007, Guatemalan authorities introduced tough new rules to crack down on baby traffickers. A newly created adoption authority has not allowed a single international adoption since.
Some 3,000 cases that started under the previous adoption system are still in progress, with prosecutors promising to meticulously examine the files for fraud. So far, about half have been completed successfully, and the rest will likely be resolved by the end of January, said a spokesman for the new adoption authority.
But Loyda Rodriguez suspects the new system has cracks. Her 2-year-old daughter, Anyeli, was playing on the porch in the outskirts of Guatemala City when a woman grabbed her and sped off in a waiting taxi. Like other mothers whose babies were taken, she began scouring government adoption records to look for her daughter. She believes the baby was adopted by a couple in Missouri in December 2008.
Guatemala's Attorney General's office asked the United States in April of this year to test the three children, all adopted under the old system, after activist Norma Cruz went on a hunger strike to draw attention to the mothers' plight.
Cruz wants Guatemalan courts to nullify the adoptions.
STOLEN CHILD FOUND
The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala requires couples to have records of two matching DNA tests to issue a visa for an adopted child, but DNA results are sometimes faked by laboratories colluding with child traffickers, said Cruz's organization of mothers, called the Survivors Foundation.
The new government adoption agency prioritizes local adoptions over international ones. But Guatemala said last month it would start sending babies abroad again on a limited basis, since some children have not found local homes.
Cruz says that problems persist despite the new controls.
"The networks behind illegal adoptions haven't been disbanded and they're still operating because they've been making exorbitant amounts of money. This is a million dollar business," said Cruz.
Cruz began her campaign after Ana Escobar found her 8-month-old daughter, who had been kidnapped at gunpoint, in a government office in charge of handling adoptions about to be sent off to the United States.
Escobar recognized her daughter Esther by the crooked little fingers on both her hands and confirmed her identity with a DNA test in 2008 and got her baby back.
(Editing by Eric Beech)
escargot1 said:I think you dreamed it, if only because most parents wouldn't let a child of 3 or 4 play alone in the park.
Or a few to many pints.Today we call them Grey's. Today we call them invaders from outer space. When throughout ancient Europe they were called Fairies, or Fairy Folk. Numerous stories of Pixies, Elves and every other kind of Folklore'ish type of creature terrorized our ancestors. Stealing our babies. I think it, as Graham Hancock does, that the Folklore of yesterday, is the Alien Grey's of today.
A similar but different rumor runs though South America about white couples stealing babies. Evidently this has been responsible for a couple of deaths where crowds attacked tourists.
Yea, that's some interesting stuff. I first ran across the reference to scopolamine as a mind control substance. The knowledge seems to have morphed over to a kind of creeping awareness of it's power.
https://www.drugs.com/illicit/devils-breath.html
A similar but different rumor runs though South America about white couples stealing babies. Evidently this has been responsible for a couple of deaths where crowds attacked tourists.
Should add here that in America there's no such thing as gypsies any longer. You're never going to hear anyone talking about gypsies. When I was child of about 5 or 6 I saw a long line of cars and trailers being escorted by the cops out of the city. I remember this very clearly and I asked my pop what was going on, and he said: "Gypsies." I took it that gypsies weren't a good thing, whatever they were. It was a big show for a 5 year old back in the day.
We've had posts about that here. Can't find them just now.