… Msnbc’s David Shuster and a panel debate whether prostitution should be made legal in the United States.
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For Iraqi Voters, a Dizzying Democracy
Published: March 8, 2010
Baghdad
DURING the Iraqi parliamentary elections on Sunday, this city’s main thoroughfares presented an almost overwhelming visual mosaic of politics. From the Karada neighborhood in the south to the Adhamiya district in the north, from poor Sadr City to rich Mansour, posters for the capital province’s 1,300 candidates hung from almost every tree and lamppost. Billboards crowded medians and roundabouts, promising Change, Justice, Unity, Jobs, Security and more.
Iraq’s underlying political currents are even more cacophonous: among the candidates are soccer stars, TV news anchors, judges and prostitutes. Still, it is the images of Iraq’s big political players that dominate the city’s landscape, especially Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and his two predecessors in that post, Ayad Allawi and Ibrahim al-Jaffari.
If Macon City Councilman Erick Erickson finally has his way — two years, several raids and dozens of arrests after he first raised the issue — the city would no longer offer business licenses to suspect massage parlors. While Bibb County works to implement strict licensing requirements that mirror laws in many other Georgia cities, Erickson said he’s been forced to introduce a “stop-gap” measure because objections from the city attorney’s office have stopped his previous efforts.
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Councilman Rick Hutto said he’s still confused why it’s taken this long for the city to regulate the massage parlors.
“If City Council can concern itself with dogs and cats, certainly we can concern ourself with women who have been trafficked,” he said, referencing concerns that the massage parlors are also involved with sex trafficking.