:New York Escorts Today!

In a New York Times column that begins with the horrifying story of “Baby Face,” a 13-year-old runaway forced into prostitution by a pimp who advertised her on Backpage.com, Nicholas Kristof assails Village Voice Media, which owns the classified ad site, for profiting from such crimes. He quotes Brooklyn prosecutor Lauren Hersh, who says “Backpage is a great vehicle for pimps trying to sell girls,” and sums up the situation this way: “When Baby Face ran away from her pimp and desperately knocked on that apartment door in Brooklyn, she was also in effect pounding on the door of the executive suites of Backpage and Village Voice Media. Those executives should listen to her pleas.”
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As Daniel Fisher points out at Forbes, the reality of sex marketing is more complicated than Kristof admits. While Craigslist no longer has an “adult services” section, for example, thinly veiled sex-for-money ads have migrated to the “personals” section, where they are harder to monitor. “Want to find more professionals quick?” Fisher writes. “S …

See the full article from “Reason Online (blog)”

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How Pimps Use the Web to Sell Girls
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On Backpage, the pimps claim adult ages for the girls they market, but Hersh scoffs. “I see 19,” she said, “and I immediately think 13.”
“I’m not seeing a lot of cases where there’s not coercion,” she added. “The average age where a girl is forced into prostitution is 12 to 14. And most of these 16- or 17 year-olds are being run by pretty vicious pimps.”
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When Baby Face ran away from her pimp and desperately knocked on that apartment door in Brooklyn, she was also in effect pounding on the door of the executive suites of Backpage and Village Voice Media. Those executives should listen to her pleas.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 26, 2012, on page A31 of the New York edition with the headline: How Pimps Use the Web To Sell Girls.

See the full article from “New York Times”

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… They tell me to get my old ass off the mic, but every time my old ass gets on stage I put on a hell of a show!” So promises Too $hort, the godfather of Bay Area hip-hop who’ll be hitting Brooklyn this Thursday and Friday for shows at the Knitting Factory. The back-to-back gigs mark $hort Dog’s solo Big Apple stage debut; with a discography that harks back to 1985’s Don’t Stop Rappin’ and a spell before that crafting custom songs for local customers, the East Oakland-raised, pimp-styled icon has a rap stash that runs deeper than most. But as a West Coast pioneer, Too $hort hasn’t always been so readily accepted in hip-hop’s heartland. In the run-up to his inaugural NYC shows, we got $hort to look back on his early days dealing with East Coast elitism, bantering with cynical Manhattan bellhops, and being told by Biggie that he was kinda like a big deal in Brooklyn.

See the full article from “Village Voice (blog)”

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New York’s MTA could jack up the fine for farebeating from $100 to $500 under legislation the state Senate passed Monday. (New York Daily News)
Breaking down the DC Metro’s proposed fare hikes. (Washington Post)
Real-time bus information will come to the Bronx later this year. (DNA Info)
Mexico City’s franeleros — the ubiquitous men and women who control parking spaces — are being forced out by parking meters. (Los Angeles Times)
Plans to extend NJ Transit light rail service into eastern Bergen County will face public comment today. (The Record)
Microsoft just received a patent for a new trip-planning app that has an “avoid ghetto” feature. (Transit Wire)
The long reach of American TV show “Pimp My Ride” extends into Morocco, where car-tuning has become a mass movement. (Marketplace)

See the full article from “Transportation Nation”

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DSK, as the French call him, later allegedly retrieved the phone, using it to contact his friend and arrange meetings with girls for the three months leading up to his arrest in May on suspicion of trying to rape maid Nafissatou Diallo.
When charges were dropped, he returned to France only to face separate allegations that he tried to rape a young writer eight years ago.
These too were dropped and Mr Strauss-Kahn has been tentatively seeking to return to public life, making recent appearances at an economic forum in China and in Sarcelles, the Paris suburb where he was mayor.
But his bounce back efforts have been hampered by a string of testimonies from escort girls alleging they had sex with him. Some claim he was “brutal” but none have pressed for charges

See the full article from “Irish Independent”

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Village Voice Media’s Classified Ad Network Could Be In Big Trouble After Being Linked To The Death Of Four Women In Detroit
Village Voice Media, which operates 13 alternative papers across the United States — including the flagship Village Voice in New York City — has an unusual source of revenue.
The company owns a classified network called Backpage.com. Classifieds, ranging from ads for appliances to escort services, generate 30-35 percent of VVM’s business, CEO Jim Larkin told the New York Times’ David Carr.
What makes Backpage.com unusual is its adult services, including escort and body-rub advertising, which represented $2.1 million in revenue in November alone, according to AimGroup.com. For a struggling newspaper business that gives away many of its products for free, that’s significant.
But the service is also onto its second controversy of late 2011. First, there was criticism over concerns of underage prostitution being facilitated by the site, which ended up with VVM snared in a weird quarrel with Ashton Kutcher. (VVM said only 14% of the site’s advertising is adult-related.)

See the full article from “Business Insider”

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With a string of violent incidents happening in the neighborhood, we wanted to remind our readers that with Brooklyn Bike Patrol’s escort service there’s no reason to walk home alone at night.
BBP is staffed by volunteers who have all gone through background checks at the 72nd precinct (photos of the volunteers can be found here). In addition, they wear bright yellow BBP t-shirts and badges on their arm.
For an escorted walk home at night, simply call 718-744-7592 or email brooklynbikepatrol@gmail.com. Their hours of operation are 8 p.m. to midnight, Sunday through Thursday, and 8 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.
On Saturday night, a man was beaten by a group of seven while walking home from the subway on Park Place between Vanderbilt and Washington avenues. The victim’s wallet and cell phone were stolen and he was taken by EMS to Methodist Hospital, where he was treated for a broken jaw, a black eye and several lost teeth.

See the full article from “Patch.com”

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Shannan Gilbert was bright and ambitious — independent and willful enough to refuse, as a teenager, to take medication she’d been prescribed for bipolar disorder, yet smart and driven enough to finish high school a year early. She worked at a hotel, an Applebee’s, and a senior center before moving to New Jersey from upstate New York. She wanted to be a singer, and when the auditions didn’t lead to anything, she signed on with an escort agency. By 2010, she was close to completing a series of online college classes that might help her stop escorting one day, and she’d found her first apartment of her own in Jersey City. Her family worried, but Shannan wouldn’t talk with her mother about how she earned the money, except to reassure her that she always did what she could to be safe.

See the full article from “New York Magazine”

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Barnes, 63, was scheduled to appear this morning in Trenton before a state board that could give him credit for portions of his public employment that were not tainted by his criminal conduct, said Bill Quinn, a spokesman for the state Treasury Department.
Had Barnes not been convicted, he would be eligible for a monthly pension of $1,595, state figures show.
His lawyer, Joseph DiPisa, could not be reached for comment.
Business Administrator Charles Thomas said the city only responded to document requests from the board and did not state a position on how much pension Barnes should receive.
While in his fifth year as mayor in 2002, Barnes was charged in a 40-count federal indictment that accused him of accepting $200,000 worth of lavish gifts from private contractors who did business with the city. The gifts included expensive clothes, a swimming pool and overseas trips. While in Brazil, the indictment charged, the mayor was provided with four female escorts.

See the full article from “NorthJersey.com”

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It’s an experience that’s being replicated by women around the country: despite plentiful online information about actual places to get an abortion, Siri doesn’t seem to provide it. It’s a similar experience for women seeking emergency contraception: in New York City, Siri doesn’t know what Plan B is and, asked for emergency contraception, offers up a Google results page of definitions.
But Siri certainly seems to know a whole lot about plenty of other things iPhone customers might want. Below are 10 things Siri can help you find.
Hospitals to go to if you’ve had an erection lasting for more than 5 hours.
Where to dump a body: in Brooklyn, it recommends a smelting plant in New Jersey.
The meaning of life: Siri will alternately quote from Douglas Adams (42) or Monty Python’s “The Meaning Of Life.”
What to do if a hamster is caught in your rectum: in D.C., she’ll direct you to Charming Cherries Escort Service.
Asked how to obtain a free blow job in D.C., she’ll direct you to the same escort service. (We doubt that they are free.)

See the full article from “AlterNet”

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