I can't remember if I blogged about it here or not, but I sponsor a woman in Afghanistan through a charity called Women for Women International. It's kind of like those programs where you send money to poor children, except my money goes to her human rights education, job and skills training, a monthly allowance that she can either spend on necessities or save up, and I also have the option of writing a letter to her once a month that will be translated and read to her.
I don't know anything about her besides the fact her name is Nabiba and she guesses she is in her mid-20s. The information form I was sent explained that she didn't know her exact birth date or year, which is actually not uncommon for women like her.
As for family and children, living conditions, daily life ... I don't know anything, because the form hadn't been filled out. The introduction letter explained that many women don't feel comfortable sharing that information. The program doesn't send pictures, so I don't even know what she looks like.
Anyway, I keep sending letters and donations, keeping hope that she is getting them and that her life is improving somehow. I still haven't gotten a letter, most likely because her life is difficult, or maybe because she doesn't want to talk about things with me. I don't really know.
I've just been in the dark about it since I began my sponsorship with her in July, until I got an e-mail last week from the charity telling me that the school Nabiba is at will be on a PBS special. I don't have television, so I had to wait for the show to be available online.
Well, I just finished watching it, and I feel so emotional right now. I finally got to see the living conditions and hear the stories of these women, I got to see their faces, one of which is hers. The small school they go to ... man, it's just heart breaking. At the same time, though, I feel happy that I can somehow contribute to make a difference in one woman's life.
Here's the link, if you're interested in watching it:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/jan-june09/afghanwomen_03-20.html
Just click the "stream video" link at the top.
For anyone who can afford an extra $27/month, I highly recommend you give sponsorship a try.
WomenForWomen.org
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Living with cats
We all know by now that I have cats. Well, technically kittens, which means they’re both wild little jerks, however cute they may be.
I adopted them both at the Kearney Humane Society after volunteering there for awhile. One of them is a sweet, mostly calm little ball of fuzz, while the other one is psychotic. The crazy one, his name is Butters.
Butters quickly discovered the easiest, fastest way to jump on the kitchen counter/table, completely ignoring being told “no,” being picked up and put down, and even being sprayed in the face with water. I’m not kidding you, I think he actually liked it.
Anyway, I was in a huge rush last week to get one of my art projects mounted. I had five minutes to slather the thing with rubber cement and put it together before the critique. Before getting the glue out, I blocked every path Butters had to getting on the table, but I still tried to keep an eye on him. Sure enough, he just sat at my feet and stared up at me.
Then I noticed a mistake I had made in my painting, and as I took just one second to get a closer look, BAM! Butters had actually jumped from the floor onto the counter, only to have his eye fly right into the rubber cement brush I was holding.
Needless to say, he was in a lot of pain, meowing loudly and running under furniture to hide from me. I eventually grabbed hold of him and tried my best to rinse his eye with water. You can surely imagine how successful that was. I had to wrap him up in a blanket so he couldn't claw my own eyes out.
I took him to the vet the next day to have it checked out, and they gave him eye drops and cut the dried glue out of the fur around his eye, giving him a nice bald spot and upper whiskers on only one side of his face. They said that he could have lost his vision in that eye, but luckily, he hadn't actually gotten too much glue in his eye.
He’s fine now, so it’s ok to laugh.
I adopted them both at the Kearney Humane Society after volunteering there for awhile. One of them is a sweet, mostly calm little ball of fuzz, while the other one is psychotic. The crazy one, his name is Butters.
Butters quickly discovered the easiest, fastest way to jump on the kitchen counter/table, completely ignoring being told “no,” being picked up and put down, and even being sprayed in the face with water. I’m not kidding you, I think he actually liked it.
Anyway, I was in a huge rush last week to get one of my art projects mounted. I had five minutes to slather the thing with rubber cement and put it together before the critique. Before getting the glue out, I blocked every path Butters had to getting on the table, but I still tried to keep an eye on him. Sure enough, he just sat at my feet and stared up at me.
Then I noticed a mistake I had made in my painting, and as I took just one second to get a closer look, BAM! Butters had actually jumped from the floor onto the counter, only to have his eye fly right into the rubber cement brush I was holding.
Needless to say, he was in a lot of pain, meowing loudly and running under furniture to hide from me. I eventually grabbed hold of him and tried my best to rinse his eye with water. You can surely imagine how successful that was. I had to wrap him up in a blanket so he couldn't claw my own eyes out.
I took him to the vet the next day to have it checked out, and they gave him eye drops and cut the dried glue out of the fur around his eye, giving him a nice bald spot and upper whiskers on only one side of his face. They said that he could have lost his vision in that eye, but luckily, he hadn't actually gotten too much glue in his eye.
He’s fine now, so it’s ok to laugh.
Also, weirdly enough, I found this picture from LOLcats that looks almost exactly like my two little kittens! Crazy Butters is orange, as is the crazy cat in the photo. Haha!
Who got killed at Walmart last week? Oh yeah, no one!
If you’re a female with a cell phone and text messaging plan, chances are you got a text last week telling you not to go to Walmart because a gang initiation required three women to be killed there.When I got the text the first time, I immediately had questions, like, “How do you know this is going to happen? Who told you this? Why would a gang choose Kearney, NE?” It seemed weird and quite unbelievable, though I’m sure my friend probably sent it to me thinking, well, better safe than sorry!
But when I got it the fifth time, I wanted to know one thing and one thing only: Are you people serious?
Let’s break it down for a second and think about this logically.
First, how many rumors have you heard about gang initiations supposedly set to happen in your town, and it never plays out? I remember not long after I turned 16 there was an e-mail going around that said gang initiates would hide under a woman’s car while she filled up her gas tank and cut off her foot. They supposedly needed a certain number of feet or some crap like that. Of course, I was young and scared and totally believed it.
Every time after that, though, I became more and more skeptical of the validity of such messages. Years later, I would become a journalism student and learn to dissect these rumors for what they really are: urban legends.
So anyway, I looked up this gang initiation rumor on Snopes.com (your best friend in situations such as these), and it turns out that the text message is just a reincarnation of an e-mail that began circulating in mid-July 2005, warning people around Memphis that a gang was going to kill a mother and young child at Walmart for initiation.
Since then, similar versions have been popping up periodically in different locales until they eventually burned out.
Since texting has grown popular with wide spread use only in recent years, when this old rumor did finally find its way into a text message format, the impact was astounding. Police stations in 43 states (some reports say all 50 states) and the District of Columbia reported receiving warnings from people who had gotten the message, and none of the states experienced initiation of this sort at all.
And just for future reference (and to keep your paranoia at bay), Major Pat Lovett of the Metro Gang Unit in Memphis said that in her 25-year experience, gang initiations have never included murder.
Also, something to keep in mind the next time you receive a similar text and want to pass it along: Mike Smith, director of 911 in Covington-Newton county of Georgia, warns, “Passing along unverified information is reckless and irresponsible.” Or to put it more simply: don’t forward this crap. Kthnx.
To read the entire history of this rumor, go to www.snopes.com/crime/gangs/walmart.asp
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
One-hour spring break photo horrors
or: Spring break photos haunt the innocent
EDIT: This post was originally the first draft of my column, but it is now the final draft. If you want to read the first draft, you can find it on my zine, The F.Y.I.
Working in a one hour photo lab, I see a lot of things. Spring break pictures are the most developed item at this time of year, and after seeing some truly terrible things, I ask of you this: be careful!
Last year was probably the worst as far as disgusting pictures went. As always, I didn’t have enough money to go on a typical spring break trip, so I worked at the photo lab and developed spring break pictures instead.
The first pictures to come in were from some sort of massive house party in an obviously warm area, as there were palm trees in the yard. The pictures were taken from the ground, looking up at a huge second story balcony overlooking the big back yard full of extremely drunk college-aged kids.
The first picture is of some guys standing on the edge of that balcony, his arms in the air with a beer in his hand, and everyone is cheering. The second picture: a broken arm.
And it wasn’t just any broken arm picture. There was blood all over the guy’s face, and his mangled arm was flopping around by his side. He appeared to be limping through the group, but he still had his beer in his hand, and everyone was still cheering.
The rest of the roll had the typical party pictures of people drinking, laughing and dancing like nothing had happened.
Another guy brought in pictures from a similar setting, except these had guys “relieving” themselves off the balcony. There were multiple shots from on the balcony, above the balcony, and even worse, below the balcony.
Probably the one picture that will stick out the most in my head, though, is less disgusting and more disturbing.
It’s a photo of at least 20 guys on a beach surrounding one girl. Everyone in the picture is obviously sloshed, and the girl is topless with only her bikini bottom. She appears to be in the process of tripping or falling, and there are three guys pulling on one of her arms while three other guys pull her bikini bottoms in the other direction. The guys are smiling. She is not.
Now, I don’t know exactly what was going on when this picture was taken, and I’m sure there could be some weird explanation for what I saw. But I have to admit, the first thing that came to my mind is the worst possible explanation you could think of. Unfortunately, it’s the most likely explanation.
I still remember the day I developed that picture, because right when it showed up on the screen, I immediately felt like I was going to puke. I had to hold my breath and inspect it more closely, trying to look for some sort of clue as to why that girl was being pulled around and stripped down by a huge group of guys.
When no clues presented themselves, I went from feeling horrified to feeling extremely angry. I wanted to simply not develop that picture and just cut the negative from the strip and throw it away. But I couldn’t. It’s not against the rules where I work to develop nudity, and we’re not allowed to “interpret” what we see. Unless it’s pornography or child abuse, it’s private and allowable.
The rest of the pictures from the roll were of people partying on the beach, and there were many where the camera was shoved inches from girls’ cleavage.
I hate to say it, but that guy’s name is burned into my mind, still to this day. Out of curiosity, I once looked him up on Myspace, and sure enough, he was there. I wanted to remember his face so I would be able to avoid him if I ever saw him in public, especially if I saw him at a party.
Girls, guys, please be careful on spring break. Have all the fun you want, but remember, there are people like me who are going to witness everything you wish you never did, thanks to people taking your pictures. Maybe when you’re sober, you’ll be just as horrified.
EDIT: This post was originally the first draft of my column, but it is now the final draft. If you want to read the first draft, you can find it on my zine, The F.Y.I.
Working in a one hour photo lab, I see a lot of things. Spring break pictures are the most developed item at this time of year, and after seeing some truly terrible things, I ask of you this: be careful!
Last year was probably the worst as far as disgusting pictures went. As always, I didn’t have enough money to go on a typical spring break trip, so I worked at the photo lab and developed spring break pictures instead.
The first pictures to come in were from some sort of massive house party in an obviously warm area, as there were palm trees in the yard. The pictures were taken from the ground, looking up at a huge second story balcony overlooking the big back yard full of extremely drunk college-aged kids.
The first picture is of some guys standing on the edge of that balcony, his arms in the air with a beer in his hand, and everyone is cheering. The second picture: a broken arm.
And it wasn’t just any broken arm picture. There was blood all over the guy’s face, and his mangled arm was flopping around by his side. He appeared to be limping through the group, but he still had his beer in his hand, and everyone was still cheering.
The rest of the roll had the typical party pictures of people drinking, laughing and dancing like nothing had happened.
Another guy brought in pictures from a similar setting, except these had guys “relieving” themselves off the balcony. There were multiple shots from on the balcony, above the balcony, and even worse, below the balcony.
Probably the one picture that will stick out the most in my head, though, is less disgusting and more disturbing.
It’s a photo of at least 20 guys on a beach surrounding one girl. Everyone in the picture is obviously sloshed, and the girl is topless with only her bikini bottom. She appears to be in the process of tripping or falling, and there are three guys pulling on one of her arms while three other guys pull her bikini bottoms in the other direction. The guys are smiling. She is not.
Now, I don’t know exactly what was going on when this picture was taken, and I’m sure there could be some weird explanation for what I saw. But I have to admit, the first thing that came to my mind is the worst possible explanation you could think of. Unfortunately, it’s the most likely explanation.
I still remember the day I developed that picture, because right when it showed up on the screen, I immediately felt like I was going to puke. I had to hold my breath and inspect it more closely, trying to look for some sort of clue as to why that girl was being pulled around and stripped down by a huge group of guys.
When no clues presented themselves, I went from feeling horrified to feeling extremely angry. I wanted to simply not develop that picture and just cut the negative from the strip and throw it away. But I couldn’t. It’s not against the rules where I work to develop nudity, and we’re not allowed to “interpret” what we see. Unless it’s pornography or child abuse, it’s private and allowable.
The rest of the pictures from the roll were of people partying on the beach, and there were many where the camera was shoved inches from girls’ cleavage.
I hate to say it, but that guy’s name is burned into my mind, still to this day. Out of curiosity, I once looked him up on Myspace, and sure enough, he was there. I wanted to remember his face so I would be able to avoid him if I ever saw him in public, especially if I saw him at a party.
Girls, guys, please be careful on spring break. Have all the fun you want, but remember, there are people like me who are going to witness everything you wish you never did, thanks to people taking your pictures. Maybe when you’re sober, you’ll be just as horrified.
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