Newspaper archives

Today, I investigated the newspaper archive at the library of congress. I read the Sacramento Daily Record Union paper from July 5, 1880. It was full of disasters from around the country, and with a list of people and immigrants coming into town on the train from Carlin, NV. The motto of the city of Carlin was "Where the train stops...and the gold rush begins". Carlin was famous for having a horrific train derailment in 1839. Six cars fell off of a bridge and into the Humboldt river. The incident was investigated by a railroad commissioned board, who determined the cause of the derailment was sabotage. Many people disagreed with this verdict, including the FBI. It turns out that the conductor of the train bragged that he could get the train to Sacramento on time despite leaving 26 minutes late. He said that he could get the train up to 90 miles per hour in NV. The paper also talked about a group of soldiers who were camped in Sacramento near the Hotel del Monte. The cannoneer decided to try to open the tin of powder by swinging his hatchet at it. This caused a massive explosion which killed many soldiers. There is  short article where a Mr. Don Platt says that Garfield cannot be elected president because the United States has never elevated a man of brains to the presidency.

Sacramento Daily Union

Human Trafficking summary

In my history class, we learned about human trafficking. This is the modern day equivalent of slavery. Different types include selling people in sex trafficking, organ removal, forced marriages, and the slaves held by ISIS and Boko Haram. The idea is that if you combine an act with means and a purpose, you get trafficking.This could be for example, recruitment with the means of abduction for the purpose of organ removal. Each person in our class researched one of these topics in order to present their findings to the class. I researched organ removal. I was surprised just how prevalent human trafficking is in our modern society.

Organ Removal

I learned that organ removal, while uncommon, does exist in our modern world. The victims of these practices are often "killed or left for dead" according to the people at Fight Slavery Now. Many body parts are traded on the black market, but kidneys are the most common. The WHO estimates that over 7000 kidneys are obtained illegally each year. The people taking the kidneys have monetary incentive to do so. The demand for kidney transplants is fast outpacing the supply, so these "brokers" are able to flip kidneys from poor, desperate people to people in wealthy, developed nations for a considerable profit. In 2011, The WHO estimated that the illegal organ trade "generated profits of up to $1.2 billion per year" (UNODC). The brokers will use deceit and coercion to convince the impoverished donors that they should give up their kidneys. The donors too often comply, although the sudden financial gain usually prove temporary. Other times, as discussed in the article Trafficking for Organ Trade the person willfully donates their organ and is not paid. Still other times, the person might have an operation for a different medical issue, and have an organ removed without their knowledge. The Fight Slavery Now article discussed a village in India for the refugees of the tsunami that had hit. The village became known as Kidneyvakkan or "kidneyville" because of the number of people trying to sell their kidneys.“The women are just lined up,” author Scott Carney says. “They have their exposed midriffs and there are all these kidney extraction scars because when the tsunami happened, all these organ brokers came in and realized there were a lot of people in very desperate situations and they could turn a lot of quick cash by just convincing people to sell their kidneys.” The sale of body parts, as regulated in the UNODC article, is illegal. Body matter is supposed to be donated to be transplanted. That being said, some doctors will implant organs of questionable origin so long as they are of suitable quality for use in patients. The article Trafficking for Organ Trade contends that everyone in the entire process-from the recruiters to traffickers to brokers to middlemen to medical professionals-is responsible for the continuation of the organ trade