Saturday, March 07, 2009
Friday, March 06, 2009
Jesse Logans Mother (Video)|Jesse Logan|Jesse Logan
Jesse Logan's Mother: 'Sexting' Led to Suicide (Video)
Jesse Logan's mother Cynthia on Friday's 'Today' show
Jesse Logan’s grieving mother spoke about the dangers of "SEXTING " with Matt Lauer on the "Today" show Friday.
Cynthia Logan’s appearance comes eight months after her 18-year-old daughter committed suicide after enduring harassment over a nude photograph shared among hundreds of classmates.
Cynthia believes "sexting," the act of sending racy photographs via text messaging, helped push her once "vivacious" and "fun" daughter to kill herself. One year ago, using her cell phone, young Logan sent a photograph of her nude self to her then-boyfriend.
When they broke up, that racy photograph was forwarded to more than 100 teenagers, the "Today" show reports. Then came the constant ridicule, name-calling and harassment from classmates at her high school. At first, Logan hid from the humiliation by skipping classes, until, one day, she decided to do an interview on a local NBC affiliate in Cincinnati to draw attention to the problems of high-school bullying and the dangers of "sexting."
The "Today" show also mentions how "sexting" has become a trend among teens and young adults. According to a poll conducted last fall by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy , 39 percent of teens are sending or posting "sexually suggestive messages," and 48 percent reported receiving such messages. The Friday broadcast also featured Parry Aftab, an Internet security expert and cyberspace watchdog for teenagers, who said that texting inappropriate photographs could be considered illegal and pornographic.
Watch Jesse Logan’s mother on the "Today" show:
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A Motivational Poem
A Motivational Poem
The Optimist Creed
By Christian D. Larsen
The Optimist Creed
By Christian D. Larsen
Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
Talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.
Make all your friends feel there is something in them.
Look at the sunny side of everything.
Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
Give everyone a smile.
Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others.
Be too big for worry and too noble for anger.
Inspirational Words of Wisdom
Inspirational Words of Wisdom Better Days Are Coming | ||||||
| Better Days Are Coming by Wish Belkin, copyright 2001 If you fear losing somebody you love There is a voice inside of our heads The cyclical nature of the human condition Listen to this then, if you should find | ||||||
Believe In Yourself
A Motivational Poem
Believe In Yourself
By Author Unknown
There may be days when you get up in the morning
and things aren't the way you had hoped they would be,
that's when you have to tell yourself
that things will get better.
There are times when people disappoint you and let you down,
but those are the times when you must remind yourself
to trust your own judgments and opinions, to keep your
life focused on believing in yourself
and all that you are capable of.
There will be challenges to face and
changes to make in your life,
and it is up to you to accept them.
Constantly keep yourself headed in the right direction for you.
It may not be easy at times,
but in those times of struggle
you will find a stronger sense of who you are,
so when the days come that are filled with
frustration and unexpected responsibilities,
remember to believe in yourself and all you want your life to be,
because the challenges and changes will only help you to
find the goals that you know are meant to come true for you.
Keep believing in yourself.
Believe In Yourself
By Author Unknown
There may be days when you get up in the morning
and things aren't the way you had hoped they would be,
that's when you have to tell yourself
that things will get better.
There are times when people disappoint you and let you down,
but those are the times when you must remind yourself
to trust your own judgments and opinions, to keep your
life focused on believing in yourself
and all that you are capable of.
There will be challenges to face and
changes to make in your life,
and it is up to you to accept them.
Constantly keep yourself headed in the right direction for you.
It may not be easy at times,
but in those times of struggle
you will find a stronger sense of who you are,
so when the days come that are filled with
frustration and unexpected responsibilities,
remember to believe in yourself and all you want your life to be,
because the challenges and changes will only help you to
find the goals that you know are meant to come true for you.
Keep believing in yourself.
Jesse Logan
Her teen committed suicide over ‘sexting’
Cynthia Logan’s daughter was taunted about photo she sent to boyfriend
The image was blurred and the voice distorted, but the words spoken by a young Ohio woman are haunting. She had sent nude pictures of herself to a boyfriend. When they broke up, he sent them to other high school girls. The girls were harassing her, calling her a slut and a whore. She was miserable and depressed, afraid even to go to school.
And now Jesse Logan was going on a Cincinnati television station to tell her story. Her purpose was simple: “I just want to make sure no one else will have to go through this again.”
The interview was in May 2008. Two months later, Jessica Logan hanged herself in her bedroom. She was 18.
(March 6: 18-year-old Jesse Logan took her own life after a nude picture of her was passed around by e-mail. TODAY’s Matt Lauer talks to her mom, Cynthia Logan, and Internet safety expert Parry Aftab about the dangers of “sexting.”)
Conveying the message
“She was vivacious. She was fun. She was artistic. She was compassionate. She was a good kid,” the young woman’s mother, Cynthia Logan, told TODAY’s Matt Lauer Friday in New York. Still grieving over the loss of her daughter, she said she is taking her story public to warn kids about the dangers of sending sexually charged pictures and messages to boyfriends and girlfriends.
“It’s very, very difficult. She’s my only child,” Logan told Lauer. “I’m trying my best to get the message out there.”
It is a growing problem that has resulted in child pornography charges being filed against some teens across the nation. But for Cynthia Logan, “sexting” is about more than possibly criminal activity: It’s about life and death.
Last fall, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy surveyed teens and young adults about sexting — sending sexually charged material via cell phone text messages — or posting such materials online. The results revealed that 39 percent of teens are sending or posting sexually suggestive messages, and 48 percent reported receiving such messages.
‘She was being tortured’
Jesse Logan’s mother said she never knew the full extent of her daughter’s anguish until it was too late. Cynthia Logan only learned there was a problem at all when she started getting daily letters from her daughter’s school reporting that the young woman was skipping school.
“I only had snapshots, bits and pieces, until the very last semester of school,” Logan told Lauer.
 |
TODAY After her picture was disseminated electonically, formerly upbeat Jesse Logan began skipping classes. |
“She was being attacked and tortured,” Logan said.
“When she would come to school, she would always hear, ‘Oh, that’s the girl who sent the picture. She’s just a whore,’ ” Jesse’s friend, Lauren Taylor, told NBC News.
Logan said that officials at Sycamore High School were aware of the harassment but did not take sufficient action to stop it. She said that a school official offered only to go to one of the girls who had the pictures and tell her to delete them from her phone and never speak to Jesse again. That girl was 16.
Logan suggested talking to the parents of the girls who were bullying Jesse, but her daughter said that would only open her to even more ridicule.
“She said, ‘No, I need to do something else. I’m going to go on the news,’ and that’s what she did,” Logan said.
Finding Jesse
When Cynthia Logan decided to go public with her story, she told Lauer that a school official told a local television station that he had given Jesse the option of prosecuting her tormentors. “That was not so. It’s absolutely not true,” she told Lauer. “And if he did, why didn’t I get a notice in the mail that he gave her that option?”
 |
TODAY Cynthia Logan is still contending with her grief over her daughter Jesse’s suicide. |
Jesse had been talking about going to the University of Cincinnati to study graphic design. Her mother thought she was over the worst of the bullying. Then one of Jesse’s acquaintances committed suicide. Jesse went to the funeral. When she came home, she hanged herself.
“I just had a scan of the room, her closet doors were open,” Logan told NBC News. “And I walked over into her room and saw her hanging. The cell phone was in the middle of the floor.”
Quest for justice
Logan said she’s been through six lawyers in what has so far been an unsuccessful battle to hold school officials responsible for the bullying of her daughter.
She was joined on TODAY by Parry Aftab, an Internet security expert and activist in the battle to protect teens from the dangers that lurk in cyberspace. Aftab said that there are laws that apply.
“There absolutely is a law,” Aftab told Lauer. “It depends on the age of the child. If somebody’s under the age of 18, it’s child pornography, and even the girl that posted the pictures can be charged. They could be registered sex offenders at the end of all of this. Even at the age of 18, because it was sent to somebody under age, it’s disseminating pornography to a minor. There are criminal charges that could be made here.”
Aftab said that it is normal kids just like Jesse who fall victim to the perils of the Internet and the easy exchange of information on cell phones.
“We talked about her being a good kid, a normal kid. Those are most of the ones that are sending out those images,” she said. “Forty-four percent of the boys say that they’ve seen sexual images of girls in their school, and about 15 percent of them are disseminating those images when they break up with the girls.”
Aftab asked Logan to join her in her fight against the electronic exploitation of kids. “I’m going to get her involved in a huge campaign to allow kids to understand the consequences of this and allow schools to understand what they need to do to keep our kids alive,” she said.
Aftab turned to Logan to see if she would help.
“Absolutely,” she said.
VIA:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29546030/
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