A good friend of mine, Heather, is in Athens right now working with an organization that helps women get out of prostitution. We can have discussions about feminism, sexuality, and libertarianism if you’d like, but the fact is that prostitution is mostly an ugly business. We were just having a conversation the other day about how many of the women in Athens are trafficked into the business (they estimate about 70% of women in brothels, probably more who are on the street) and then I ran across this article in the New York Times by Nickolas Kristof. Forgive me for spoiling the punch line, but…
“Glance at Pross from her left, and she looks like a normal, fun-loving girl, with a pretty face and a joyous smile. Then move around, and you see where her brothel owner gouged out her right eye.”
Injustices like human trafficking are difficult to read about. For me, several thoughts scramble around in my brain. How could humans treat each other like this? Why isn’t more being done to stop this? What can I do? Attrocities like this happen all over the globe, there’s too much to be done. There are other problems to focus on. There are problems that hit closer to home. I’ll just depress myself by focusing on tragedy, why not focus on making life happy for me and my friends? Someone has to live a happy life or else what are we fighting for?
It doesn’t take long anymore to talk myself into a state of inaction. I only say so because my guess is that many of us do the same thing.Even if you decide to act, there’s a whole new set of decisions to make. Where can you be the most effective? Is it better to help monetarily or by volunteering? Which issues are more important?
I haven’t come up with good answers to these questions myself. For now, I think I can offer two suggestions.
- Take time to read and think about the injustice you see around you in the world. Learn about what works on a personal and global level rather than just depending on the ideals you’ve picked up over the years. Knowing helps.
- Pick some organization that you can trust and send them $5-10 a month (several watchdog groups rate charities for their effectiveness and honesty). It’s not much commitment, but you’re helping and reminding yourself that there are people out there who are in trouble.
Found via reddit
You see our insignia everywhere you go. It is on your clothes, on your television screen, on the walls of every street, in the pages of every magazine. It is branded upon your mind. You see it a thousand times more frequently than you see your nation’s flag; you see it at least as often as you see you mother’s face.
We don’t invest in communication to inform you about our products; we aim to promote ourselves. That’s why we give you slogans and symbols instead of facts. We are not sharing information so much as we are spreading mystification. We are the deities of the new age; you accept us as all-powerful and all-knowing because you see our power and our presence everywhere. Your friends work for us, your smaller companies are owned by us, your politicians answer to us, everything is sponsored by or dictated by us. We seem to control everything, to stand over humanity like eternal gods.
When you purchase our products, it’s not tennis shoes or jeans or soft drinks you are really after; it’s the aura of power. To children in the ghetto of the United States, Nike represents the wealth and status they long for. To shoppers in Italy (who have a heritage of much healthier and tastier food), McDonald’s symbolizes the modern age they so desperately want to participate in. We rule over you because we have persuaded you that we are Divine.
But all gods have a secret vulnerability: we cease to exist when people no longer believe in us. We seem to be invulnerable, but we could be dispelled as absolutely as the gods of ancient Greece if you recognized us for the phantoms that we are. We work around the clock, filling the world with our temples and our images, because we know that one day humanity is bound to wake up from this long nightmare.*
*I did not write this.
I just love it when people take a reasonable position in arguments. I’m sure I’ve done my fair share of exaggerating a polarizing, but most of the time I find myself in the middle of an argument, horribly frustrated by the methods and insults from both sides. As soon as they figure out inter-dimensional travel, I’m going to peak into this alternate universe and see how they do things.
Ack! I’ve been rejected for a role in the new Johnny Depp movie before I was even able to try out. I don’t understand how Hollywood can continue to harbor such a backward and discriminatory industry. It’s a little known issue, but in the entertainment industry there is a glass ceiling – a low-hanging glass ceiling that forces tall people to stand all hunched-over and awkward-like.
Thanks, Johnny Depp, for making me an outcast in my own town. Before you know it,pubs and movie theaters will be hanging those big yellow “low clearence” bars across their doors – preventing people like me from enterin. I don’t like where this is going. Not one bit.
It’s time that those of us on the fringes of height rally together – tall and short alike. And remember the words of one of the pioneers in the size-equity movement: “Size matters not!”
