Yes, it’s true. Your wait is over. The guest blogger is I, Susan Smith, former legislative reporter and current adviser to The Collegian at South Dakota State University. I worked as the publications manager for the South Dakota Newspaper Association for nine years, covering the Legislature, designing various publications and running the state’s newspaper contest. Now I spend my days helping The Collegian students put together their newspaper, providing them with a place (my office) to eat their lunch and generally giving them reason to question my sanity. But I digress. I am happy to be able to help Denise out with her blogging and hope to continue as time and blog topics allow. In the interest of full disclosure I will admit an unobjective and biased admiration for the yarn and the people working at The Collegian. I also enjoy a low-fat cheese stick at the end of a long publication day. And now, the real reason for my post.

I had hoped to write about these items before they were yesterday’s news but I had to work, watch American Idol, check in with bloglines, bake some bad muffins and good cookies, and get to know my Kindle. You get the picture. I’m busy. The following is about the closest thing I’m going to get to imparting my opinion on the topics I choose to blog about and it’s not even going to get very commenty - well, let’s wait and see, I suppose.

In yesterday’s Argus Leader I read two stories - one about a South Dakota woman who has committed her life to saving women from sex slavery in Thailand and another about a 75-year-old woman in Egypt who was sentenced to lashing and a prison sentence because her dead husband’s nephew and his friend brought her a loaf of bread. They received the same sentence. It is illegal in that country for a woman to associate with a man not considered her close relative.

Here are more fun details about the sex slavery. Women stand on the bar in various entertainment establishments, they are given a number and men can then buy them for the night. The woman in the article goes to these places and tries to introduce herself to as many women as possible and then tell them about the various options they have for getting away from that life - like making jewelry sponsored by the woman’s organization.

You can take what you will from the two stories I just related. It is mind-boggling to me that things like this happen in an age when we can clone sheep and upload all of our information to the Internet for whoever cares to absorb. I am Susan Smith, I don’t like the sex slavery or lashing old women who need bread. Tell your friends.

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