The Top 40

Much the same could apply to the United Kingdom some say. I would only quibble on scope and scale.

But how does the West start again? History tells us that Civilizations evolve slowly but collapse rapidly, unless great leaders emerge. I see none presently.

Sometimes economic and environmental factors contribute to an increase in criminal behavior.

Are we talking about the people who no longer can get accountability through the laws that have been passed to protect corporations and the wealthy few? Are we talking about people trying to get accountability themselves by using whatever measures are available to them?

I can think of many scenarios which make the article, basically one sided.

A criminal is a criminal under the law, but to what degree did society have on him/her getting there?

Cilla, in this situation one needs to flip a coin. I did! The damn thing landed on it's edge.

To be fair, they're housing the criminals of Mexico too. They could afford to do it too, if they didn't pay prison guards double the going rate.

Part 2 -August 26th 2009.Orange county California4 pmCarl Probyn found that the years might go by, he might be in difnreft places, but the suspicion never ended.By now he had also come to terms with the fact that they would never find Jaycee alive. He still held out hope they would find her remains and, yes, bring her killers to justice. But most hope he had she was still alive had faded long ago.The phone rang and he found that his daughter Shayna was on the other line. Mom has something to tell you. I hope you're sitting down .Then she put terry on the phone. Are you sure your sitting down? She repeated. Yes. He responded. What was this about? he wondered.Then the words he thought he might never hear resounded in his ear. They found Jaycee.' As shocking as this was he'd always held out hope they'd find her remains. She's alive. What? did he really just hear that? Then he knew it was true. They spent the next several minutes crying over the phone. Carl was in shock and didnt yet have the details. Terry added some information. She was with some people and they are in custody. He didnt know much more then that that day. All he knew was that Jaycee was home and he'd been vindicated.Finally. -Riverside Californiaabout an hour later.Tina Dugard hung up the phone in absoulte shock.Her niece Shayna had just called and informed her that Jaycee had been found. Alive.Its strange as how time pssses perspective changes.When Jaycee was first kidnapped, Tina had believed that Jaycee would be found within a few days.Then withink a week.or a month.oh she'll be home by thanksgiving.oh she'll surely be home by christmas.That first christmas after the kidnapping Tina had bought Jaycee a barbie doll she was sure she would open.That barbie doll still sat in her house unopened 18 years later.By now Tina believed Jaycee must be dead. This news that from her sister and her niece that Jaycee had been found alive was almost unbelieveable.What if this was a joke, a sick cruel prank?Jaycee and Shayna were flying up north the next morning to meet this woman. Tina would go with them, uncertian if this was real.She spent the night tossing and turning in bed, not getting much sleep, and she would nearly end up missing that flight .. -Terry Probyn had believed very much what her sister had originally.This was some kind of elaborate, sick prank.Then the man identifying himself as an Fbi agent put the woman claiming to be her daughter on the phone.Terry put her thru a series of test questions. Questions only Jaycee could possibly know the anser too.The woman got all the right answers.This was not the cruelest joke after all.This was the greatest phone call of her life instead. August 27th, 2009Somewhere in the Bay Area, californiaThe Fbi met Terry, Tina and Shayna at the airport and drove them to a secret location where Jaycee was.Terry was first to meet with Jaycee. She had another revelation for her mother. Hi mom, i have babies She told her.Next it was Tina Dugard's turn. ALl the doubts of whether this was real or not dissapeared in the nano second that Jaycee flashed her smile and yelled Auntie Tina! Tina ran forward and embraced and held Jaycee, and cried and didnt want to let go.The long nightmare for the family was over.Finally.Then it was Shayna's turn. Im so happy to finally meet you! She told her sister. Finally after nearly 20 years of looking at old photos and home movies, Shayna's sissy' (as she called her when a toddler) was here in the flesh. Strangely the connection was immediate, as if they'd been together all along. -For 18 year Terry Probyn had lived with the regret that she hadnt kissed jaycee goodbye before she left for work the morning Jaycee was kidnapped.This was no longer a problem.Over the next few days Terry got to do that and much more. She even french braided her daughters hair for the first time since she was 11. She of course knew that Jaycee was no longer a child. But catching up for lost time didnt seem so bad an idea.NOt after all the hell the entire family had been thru.Of course many questions remained. Who had taken her? who were jaycee's babies'. But the most important thing to Jaycee and her family was they were back toggether.And no one would ever, ever seperate them again.

Thanks for expressing your dfrefient viewpoints on whether I contradicted myself, by providing links to photos inside living quarters of Jaycee Dugard and her daughters. I don't know that directing readers to the photos is the same as hounding or securing an interview with her. Are these photos, of what's on top of the dresser or on the book shelves any more invasive than any of the backyard photos that we've been seeing. Are these photos an invasion of privacy? Well, they are a crime scene, and privacy kind of goes out the window then. Then again, any of the horrors that Jaycee endured, as they are uncovered during interviews, will become a matter of public record if Garrido is prosecuted for them. On the other hand, it WAS a crime scene and the photographer trespassed on that scene. The authorities are not going to prosecute him though.To be honest, I don't think I contradicted myself. As for grabbing at yet another angle just to have something NEW on my site about the Dugard case, you might have a point. I DO think it's interesting how this has become an international story, and how the Brits are especially going after it. In any event, the Contra Costa Times, that bastion of more respectable journalism than my blog has also published its own version of this post, with a much more detailed list of items visible in these Nick Stern photos.