MU Alumnus Jim Foley Held Captive in Libya - Sign Petition for His Release

[Lethdorr]

Today's Marquette Tribune reports on a small, yet much-needed bit piece of good news:

Detained Alumnus Gets Call Home
Link: http://marquettetribune.org/2011/04/26/news/libya-tdz1-tw2-dac3-captive-journalist-foley-granted-minor-luxuries/

While there's still a ways to go, that "one phone call" you're given after being arrested - the chance to simply hear a loved one's voice again - can make all the difference in the world.

[drewm88]

Jim Foley to be released!

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/122005809.html

[96warrior]

AWESOME. Thanks for posting the update.

[reinko]

According to @BreakingNews it just happened in the last hour or so.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya

[Mike_Marquette]

Thank you to everyone who signed the petition, spread the word, or even just said a prayer for our fellow Marquette alumnus, Jim Foley. The amount of support was wonderful. I'd also like to share that the Jesuits, through their outpost in Malta (one of the few countries with an embassy in Libya) were working to help facilitate Foley's release. No action was too small, and the sum total of all those efforts did have an effect. Thank you again, on behalf of Jim's Marquette friends, for everyone who did anything no matter how small of an action.

By the way, earlier in this thread the question was asked "what good would a petition do." I wanted to share this article, and in particular, this segment on the effectiveness of grassroots efforts:

"Social media and petitions do work. At Care2 we've see them work every day to create real change in the world. You linked to the four journalists detained in Libya that might be released this week. Care2 worked with the friends and families of those journalists to create a petition, spread the word and continue to keep pressure on the U.S. State Department and other more friendly governments in an effort to get James Foley, Clare Gillis and the two others released. Without this grassroots momentum and sites like FreeFoley.org being used to organize vigils and keep the issue relevant to U.S. and international media, the phone calls home, visits from third-party and their release would not be happening. Almost 35,000 have signed the petition on Care2 to bring the journalists home. (http://www.bit.ly/freefoley)."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/dorothy-parvaz-care2-syria-facebook-twitter-hashtag-2011-5#ixzz1Mr6etkIn


http://www.businessinsider.com/dorothy-parvaz-care2-syria-facebook-twitter-hashtag-2011-5

[Mike_Marquette]

Final post on this subject. For those of you who following Jim Foley's story, here is a video of Jim describing the situation in his own words. Thanks again to all who did anything to support Jim.

http://www.globalpost.com/video/5647280/james-foley-recalls-his-captivity-under-gaddafi

[Skatastrophy]

By the way, earlier in this thread the question was asked "what good would a petition do." I wanted to share this article, and in particular, this segment on the effectiveness of grassroots efforts:

So you take a back-patting press release's word that internet petitions work from an internet-petition company?

Yeah, I'm sure that Libya was saying, "Man, if this petition hits 35k people we'll *have* to release him!"  What a joke!

[GBMU]

So you take a back-patting press release's word that internet petitions work from an internet-petition company?

Yeah, I'm sure that Libya was saying, "Man, if this petition hits 35k people we'll *have* to release him!"  What a joke!

we get it.  You didn't care.  A MU bball fan was in a put in a position that your daily hum-drum life could never even come close to and some people that cared about him asked for support.   If that really works you up that this quasi non-bball post was put up, how about you just stop clicking on the thread?  You just sound like such a jaded, bitter person.   Even after such a terrible story had a happy resolution, you still have to get a few more jabs in.   

Hope you find happiness somewhere, obviously it's not on a MU basketball website....

 

[Skatastrophy]

we get it.  You didn't care.  A MU bball fan was in a put in a position that your daily hum-drum life could never even come close to and some people that cared about him asked for support.   If that really works you up that this quasi non-bball post was put up, how about you just stop clicking on the thread?  You just sound like such a jaded, bitter person.   Even after such a terrible story had a happy resolution, you still have to get a few more jabs in.   

Hope you find happiness somewhere, obviously it's not on a MU basketball website....

 

You should create an online petition for my happiness.

[mu_hilltopper]

To Skatastrophy's point, I neither signed the Foley petition nor would I sign the Skatastrophy Should be Happy petition, not because "I don't care" as GBMU puts it, but due to their phenomenal lack of potential effectiveness.

Thinking a petition won't change an outcome isn't "jaded" or "bitter."  Libya shoots people who disagree.

[Skatastrophy]

Yeah, sorry for being glib.

Donating money to lobbyists is the only way to affect real political change in the US.  I avoid online petitions because, for the most part, they are put together for the sake of gathering up personal information to sell to 3rd parties for marketing purposes.  Care2 says they don't do that though, which is great nice of them

[Henry Sugar]

The Free Jim Foley facebook page devolved into spam.  I had to unlike it, but felt guilty.

Glad that's off my chest.  Also that he's free.

[GBMU]

To Skatastrophy's point, I neither signed the Foley petition nor would I sign the Skatastrophy Should be Happy petition, not because "I don't care" as GBMU puts it, but due to their phenomenal lack of potential effectiveness.

Thinking a petition won't change an outcome isn't "jaded" or "bitter."  Libya shoots people who disagree.

I agree with you and skat's general overall view to online petitions (Is it sad that we are now discussing the functionality of petitions).  I don't sign 'em, I don't like 'em.   My point was you don't need to go out of your way to dump on a thread that some people, particularly the person who started it, found it important and you have to come back to just to bring people down.   Like I said, a terrible situation had a positive ending - leave it at that.  Whether or not it had anything to do with certain people's efforts doesn't matter.  You just had to throw your two cents in and try to discredit someone who was just trying to do something positive.   I thought there might be a better use of your time.  I guess you use your leisure time to turn positive things into negative.   now I wasn't an English major so there might be a better adjective, but I just went with bitter/jaded

[mu_hilltopper]

For the same reason you spent your time calling us out for being jaded, we spent time calling a petition website out for being proud of an action that it had not one iota of influence on the outcome.

Let's call it even.

[Skatastrophy]

Please sign my online petition to make me a moderator on MUScoop!

[Mike_Marquette]

The "Free Foley" public relations campaign was awarded the Silver Anvil Award of Excellence by the Public Relations Society of America this week. The public relations campaign was greatly helped by people throughout the Marquette community. Administrators, alumni and current students all were critical in the success of the public relations campaign. Special thanks goes to Marquette alum Peter Pedraza (a/ka/ "ppp_098" on the boards) for his PR expertise during a critical time.

A year later we are all still thankful for everyone's help and amazed at the power of passion, friendship and faith. I wanted to again thank everyone here who helped by signing the petition. Ring Out Ahoya.

-Mike Keating, BusAd '97

Read/Watch Jim Foley's story and Marquette's involvement: http://diederich.marquette.edu/Default.aspx?itemID=127

http://www.prsa.org/awards/silveranvil/silveranvilresults/archive/2012%20silver%20anvil%20results.pdf

[Bocephys]

Another successful scoop letter writing campaign!

[wyzgy]

not another midnight express??  our prayers are with ya jim!!

[mu_hilltopper]

Another successful scoop letter writing campaign!

Post of the month.

[BrandonA]

Bump - I know not basketball related, but still.  Sad news.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-james-foley-journalist-beheading-video-20140820-story.html#page=2

[Stretchdeltsig]

It's really terrible.  I read about on USA today.  It makes you sick and very mad.

[Galway Eagle]

Kinda confused what happened here? I mean all the posts till the bump were all positive "he's gonna be freed" stuff.

[🏀]

Kinda confused what happened here? I mean all the posts till the bump were all positive "he's gonna be freed" stuff.

That was the first time he was held captive.

[Bricky]

Kinda confused what happened here? I mean all the posts till the bump were all positive "he's gonna be freed" stuff.

He was released in 2011. Later, he was held in captivity a second time – the latest by ISIS.