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A Personal Journey- Photography expression by Jennifer George
Exposing Scars
Domestic Violence- Trapped in a bubble of indecision, fear and love.
Last April I found myself inside Orange Coast College Gallery admiring a photography exposition “A Personal Journey-Exposing scars” by Jennifer George a student at Orange Coast College. Admiring is not the right word to say it, because it is hard to watch the horror that every photography denounces; Every photography carries a story of domestic violence whether is physical, verbal or emotional; the scars are deep and painful.
Being there, I meet a lady in her 70s that said, she felt related to the exposition as she was a victim of domestic violence as well.
You can not help but to feel sad and even have teary eyes when you read every story attached to the image of violence.
Some of the women portrayed in the exposition were killed by their husbands or boyfriends, others have escaped the ordeal.
“In the exhibit student photographer Jennifer George strongly exposes the world to domestic violence, giving abused women a voice with her unique style of photography and bold statements through her own experiences.“said Brando Lien, staff writer for CoastReport.com
Click on a photo to enlarge and start slide show
A Sacred Moment – A Call to Truth: The Words of a Lakota Elder | LIBERATION FROM THE LIE
I ask you to read this post in a spirit of reverence for those who came before.
When I was a teen, I read a book about the Plains Indian wars. I already knew that the Native people of North and South America were the victims of European conquest and genocide, but until I read this book, I had little idea how savage the destruction of Native cultures truly was.
After my sophomore year at college, I received an invitation to visit the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Busby, Montana.
Me with Randy Kills On Sight (N. Cheyenne) – The summer when this talk happened
As someone raised in a large Eastern city, the barren, high prairie of Eastern Montana was at once a place that was entirely foreign, but also oddly familiar to me. It felt both powerful and sacred. I was struck by the incredible silence of the infinitely spacious sky of Eastern Montana. However, beneath that sky was the glaring rural poverty and sadness of the Cheyenne communities. This once proud and independent buffalo hunting society of the high plains was now living in decrepit houses in a barren world. Reduced to eating processed meat sticks and endless quantities of Kool Aid. The reservation suffered from an unemployment rate approaching 90%, an average life expectancy of 39, and it was a place where suicide was the second leading cause of death. It was not unusual for old people to sit outside on freezing winter nights so that they might die of exposure by morning. My summer on the reservation changed me forever. My brief time in Montana suggested to me that Cheyennes dealt with emotional crisis differently than what I observed growing up in our primarily Jewish suburb outside of Philadelphia, but I could not put my finger on what it was.
As that summer was drawing to a close, I had a remarkable conversation with an old Lakota man at the Crow powwow. It was dusk, on a hill above the Little Big Horn River, right where Arapaho, Lakota, and Cheyenne warriors wiped out Custer and his men 94 years ago (at that time). He spoke to me in questions, which I later learned is a fairly common way of teaching in the “Indian” way. He had previously told me many “tall” tales and then would ask me if I believed them. I would politely reply that I didn’t and he would chuckle good-naturedly. On this day, he was more solemn and he said that he was going to tell me a different sort of story. He wondered if I would believe this tale.
He asked, “Do you know why we Indians view white people with pity and contempt?” His question confused me. I didn’t know what he was referring to, nor what he was trying to tell me. So I answered, “Is it our obsession with money, material things?”
He smiled and then asked me to look around and tell him what I saw. I told him that I saw hills, grasses, sky, and the river below us. He nodded in agreement. Then he said, “Where are the wolves Eric?”
“They are gone.” I answered. “Where are the bears? Where are the buffalo?” and he asked about many animals that are now gone. “Were they all here, before your people came to this land?” I hesitantly nodded yes.
“Did not the white people kill the wolves, the bears, the buffalo and all the other animals that once lived here? Is this a story you can believe Eric?” I said, “Yes, I can believe that story.”
Then he asked me to look down at the river and he asked me, “Eric, would you drink from that river?” I answered no. He then asked, where are the many fish that use to fill that river? Isn’t it true that the white man killed them all? Do you believe that to be so?” “Yes”, I said, “I believe that to be so.”
A deepening sadness now filled the air. I started to tremble with the power of that sadness.
Then he asked me to look at the all but empty sky. He said that before the white man there were many more birds. He asked if I knew why there were so many fewer birds now than then. I said that I didn’t know. He explained to me that birds feed on the grasses, but that the white man did away with the wild grasses and covered the land with grasses that need poisonous chemicals to live. The plows and chemicals of the white man destroyed the original vegetation, which killed off many of the birds.
“Poison and death everywhere.” He said softly.
He paused and then he looked at me sadly. “The white man kills anything that is wild. Do you believe that Eric?” He paused again and peered pensively into the darkening sky. He had become very serious, as if he was unsure how to present his next question.
He then sadly asked, “Where are the wild people that filled this land before the white man came?” I then eagerly pointed out all the Indians who were attending the powwow. “They are here,” I said trying to sound hopeful. But he responded with a quiet, “No, these are not the wild Indians, they are the reservation Indians, they are the conquered Indians.” He then asked again, “Eric, where are the wild Indians?”
I said very softly, “They are gone with all the rest.” I had to hold back tears.
“What has the white man killed?” he asked. I reluctantly uttered the long list we had now amassed … the animals, the grasses, the birds, the wild people, and even the earth itself. For each increasingly heavy category of life now destroyed, he would tirelessly repeat the question, “Do you believe this to be true Eric?” And for each point, I had to say “Yes, this is true.”
“Now I will ask you again, why do the Indians have pity on the white man?”
Confidently I replied, because of the killing. The white man is a heartless killer, I answered quite sure that I was definitely on the right track.
He said that was part of it, but not the whole story.
“What is it the white people kill?” he asked. I answered “Anything that stands in their way”.
He said, “Can you be a little clearer?”
http://liberationfromthelie.com/2011/07/28/a-sacred-moment-a-call-to-truth-the-words-of-a-lakota-elder/
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I became flustered and wasn’t sure what he was trying to get me to say. I was confused and didn’t know where he was taking this conversation.
He then answered his own question, “The white man kills anything that is wild. More than anything else, the white man fears anything that is wild.”
He paused, “The white man depends on control. Anything that he cannot control, he must kill or control in some extreme way. But that is not the answer to my first question.”
He then asked, “Do you know the answer now?”
I was frustrated with myself, because I just couldn’t figure out what he was getting at.
There was a long pause.
He then said the answer. “If it were only the killing, if that was the only issue, we would not pity the white man. We would think that he is crazy, but we would not pity him.”
“We pity the white man because this killing gives him pleasure. He loves to kill. The killing gives him a sense of accomplishment.”
“He looked out onto this land and saw it as useless the way the Great Spirit made it. He has to fashion it in a way that serves his interests. That meant that his pleasure became killing as the work of God. We Indians lived in peace with God. Your people have no peace with God.”
The old man let his head drop in silent contemplation. I began to weep and I truly wanted to die at that moment.
There was a long silence. I was so sad. He put his arm on my shoulder and said, “It’s okay Eric, this too will pass. Life is a much longer journey than we can possibly imagine and I have faith in you. You’ll be different.”
He smiled and we walked down to the river together. We walked down to the banks of the Little Big Horn River, the river the Lakota call the Greasy Grass as the sun fell beneath the horizon.
I never saw him again.
If you found inspiration in this post which is true in every word, you might want to read this post. It will raise your heart in the blaze of the beauty of this day.
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Egypt’s Facebook front: Power to the People
Posted on October 23 by Marivel Guzman
from Original Post on Haaretz by Zvi Bar’el
Blog it–Share it — Tweet it– Youtube it– Digg it Mubarak human rights abuses must to stop, the assault in free speech of every individual is sacred and should be respected, Mubarak! is over, your reign of oppression is over..POWER TO THE PEOPLE.
Could Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who this month began his 30th year in office, have imagined he would have to conduct his political battles via computer? Via the “curse of the Internet”? Against bloggers and Facebook? Could he have conceived that one day he would have to relinquish his monopoly over public discourse to young people aged 18 to 25, who send messages to millions of potential voters in Egypt with the tap of a finger?
The Kafia (Enough ) movement, which was formally established in 2004, became active online during the 2005 election campaign. In its wake a dozen movements have arisen demanding regime change. Around the time when the Kafia website was established, the Muslim Brotherhood was also working on its own site. Each of these movements was immediately joined by long lists of bloggers, who helped foment demonstrations, strikes and an entire, new national discourse in which the regime has hardly any presence.
ccording to statistics published at internetworldstats.com, which tracks the distribution of Internet usage around the world, in 2000 there were only 450,000 internet users in Egypt. Now there are 18 million – approximately 22 percent of the population. This is also about the same proportion of the population that is between the ages of 18 and 27 – the segment likely to determine the outcome of the next election.
Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a Nobel Prize laureate, is now devoting most of his energies to this public. Although he has not yet declared himself a presidential candidate for next fall’s election, his slogan is “Change will come via the young.” His supporters have launched a Facebook group listing his demands for changing the constitution, and have more than 129,000 followers.
Supporters of the president’s son Gamal Mubarak, considered the front-runner at present, set up their own Facebook group attacking ElBaradei, and published photos of his daughter Laila wearing a bathing suit.
The presidential election campaign, which has started early, is closely linked to the parliamentary elections scheduled for next month, under the assumption that the latter will be an early test of the presidential race. However, it appears the regime has not yet appreciated the essence of the demographic change: It believes the main threat is not young people, but rather the Muslim Brotherhood, which until recently was torn over whether to participate in the elections or to boycott them along with other opposition movements.
As the group wavered, debates flared online between bloggers and on Facebook. “For whom should I vote when it is the government that determines who gets elected?” wrote one reader in response to the coverage in the Al-Masri Al-Youm newspaper. “Don’t make a laughingstock of yourselves – after all, you know that whether or not we vote, it’s the government that decides,” wrote another reader.
In the end the Brotherhood decided to run, and put together a list of about 160 candidates. Though it is an illegal movement and is prohibited from forming a political party, its candidates’ identities are known and they will run as independents. In the previous elections they got 88 representatives (out of 454 ) into Parliament, and are now expecting to win nearly double that number of seats and become a powerful faction.
However, the number of candidates the Brotherhood hopes to get into parliament indicates it is not aspiring to “conquer the legislature” per se. It wants to demonstrate power but not be a threat. Otherwise, it would have put together a list of at least 300 candidates.
The regime is not impressed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s “modest” approach, and considers it to be the main political threat. The regime is working against the movement both on the “traditional” level – nearly 200 activists have been arrested – and on the “electronic” level. First, the regime shut down four satellite stations that broadcast religious programming and informed them they would no longer be able to use Nilesat satellite services unless they upheld the terms of their licenses. These terms prohibit broadcasting content harmful to Christians and Shiites, limit religious content to 50 percent of all broadcasts, ban the broadcast of items “liable to disturb order and arouse civil war,” and mandate allocating specific amounts of airtime to films and music.
Now, media and official bodies are also required to apply for a permit to disseminate messages via SMS. Movements that do not enjoy official status, like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Kafia movement, the National Association for Change headed by ElBaradei and the Nasserist Al-Karama party, cannot receive permits.
However, these restrictions – which have made Egypt a focus of international criticism – cannot prevent activity on Facebook or stop bloggers from disseminating messages via their own personal sites.
When both the demography of Egypt is working against the regime and the “arsenal” is changing, perhaps Mubarak himself – like his colleague President Shimon Peres – will also have to open a Facebook group.
Zvi Bar’el is the Middle Eastern affairs analyst for Haaretz Newspaper. He is a columnist and a member of the editorial board. Previously he has been the managing editor of the newspaper, the correspondent in Washington and has also covered the Occupied Territories.
Bar’el has been with Haaretz since 1982, and has written extensively on the Arab and Islamic world. In 2009, he was awarded the Sokolov prize for lifetime achievement in print journalism.
Bar’el has a Ph.D in the History of the Middle East. He teaches at Sapir Academic College and is a research fellow at the Truman Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as at the Center for Iranian Studies.
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Power to the people.
By Marivel Guzman
Blog it–Tweeter–Digg it– Stumpt it–Youtube it—Myspace it—Share it–
Human rights abuses must stop in Egypt and every where in the world
Free Speech is a right every citizen of the world must enjoy
No President, Prime Minister, King, or anyone can suppress our rights, support Egyptian in their struggle
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
The era of instant communications is here, regardless of the propaganda still expensive and paid by the high hierarchy, we the people have in our hands powerful tools than can change the balance to our favor.
We are not talking of war or violence, not at all, the dissemination of the truth is sufficient to educate people and make them part of the social change that is inevitable.
Mubarak,Natajahu, to Obama..I mean any “smart” leader have to take notice of the reach of the social networks.
We are not talking of something sporadic and out of place, we are talking of facebook as a social phenomenon that can not be stopped.
Facebook even if it was put in place by the spy agencies and with the idea to gather information or control us, has got out of their control. Now we control it, we move the information, we are making the News from our keyboards, we decide what to believe, because we all are thinkers, in one level or other, we all are in the process of evolving to the next level.
It is not by chance of accident that we are in this point of history, society is continuously changing, and we being in the informatics age should not be surprise that we are making history, we are writing the history of our time.
Facebook is one tool, but without YOU is of no use.
Fear and Love: War and Peace
Posted on May 31, 2010 by Marivel Guzman
Fear and Love Two Frequencies
We the people, the thinkers of this era, the intellectuals, the workers, the weak, the disenfranchised, the poor, the oppressed, we have to make the first move, the Elite, is so used to our silence that they do not care to fight for our rights.
We need to speak loud and clear, we have to take the fear out of our heart, and claim for justice, for peace.
We the collective conscientiousness has to step forward and speak for the ignorant.
So the Western Governments are not going to move a finger, but we are moving the rug under their feet.
Can you see the people is awakening, is clamoring for justice. They craving for peace, they are hungry and they are demanding equality.
Do you think that the Elite want a revolution?, off course NO, they will throw grumps to the crowd to calm them to buy time, to change the mood. A made up revolution somewhere far away from home, those are good ways to show us that we are doing…just….fine. Maybe a great event to disperse the stress, such a world soccer match…Very clever entertainment of the 20 century.
Beauty contests work just fine: for the glamor, the addicts to fashion, to magazine followers. Christmas time has worked perfectly, I love that red Santa Claus, I’ll make sure to have my son in his knees for a picture for my family room.
But not soon Christmas snows is melting in the drive way, when the rabbits are jumping in my grass, those eggs, darn it..where did they go?
We have more holidays to celebrate that heroes in our history books. They keep you busy, entertain and without money, luckily we have credit cards and personal bank loans.
All designed for you, and if that is not enough, we have games boys for the youth, soap operas for the housewife, soccer for the European Mind, and Latino brother. But wait, we have some time left.
Are you mad? Do you think your leaders care how you feel? I do not think so. They are too comfortable in their chairs, they are killing the poor, while the middle class stay silence, right?…..Well! no more seems to be the case because they have destroyed the middle class, the cushion is gone, now there is a even field of poverty all around the globe, and there is discontent, there is dissent every where..
And not that dissent is a crime, is only a state of conscientiousness, the thinker mind is taking over, the lethargic consumer that for years was a client of the TV adds, in this society sick of consumerism.
The logic is being use more and more, and People is finally thinking,…. but we will prefer that the heart will speak for the change that love will brings togetherness, instead of drums of war.
So, what are they going to do? They do not want to be lynched outside of their offices or homes, they do not want to be afraid of their maids.
No, they will act upon the situation, that it is too tense too ignore.
The masses are awakening, can you see the winds of revolution, but not the revolution that extremists ask for, that Christian crusaders miss so dearly in their churches engraved with gold, their Popeteer jumping in his popemovil spreading..God’s messages, what? …the good news…yes, the Vatican thinks that, maybe intelligent life in another places outside the Earth.
War and Peace
The war complex machine is at work, they are pushing the bottoms, they are creating world madness, but I am not talking of that kind of revolution, not an arm conflict, that certainly in this nuclear age, will wipe us all for sure, I am talking of the the revolution of ideas, the mentality is evolving.
We are evolving as a human race, our programs are being upgraded. Humanity 1.01 program is ready to be download it, get yours is Free and once in your brain is auto up grade able…
Count on that.
Fear and Love two frequencies hard to miss.
War and Peace two choices…which one you pick.
The Biggest Hoaxes Perpetrated to the people
Hoax # 1-Are We Running Out of Water?
IS A PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY SINCE THE EARTH IS ¾ OF WATER, AND MY THEORY THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING…THE GLACIERS ARE SWEET WATER…SO.. THE GLACIERS MELTING COULD BE A DEFENSE MECHANISM OF EARTH TO BALANCE THE DEPLETION OF SWEET WATER. IT’S BEEN MONOPOLIZED FOR PROFIT, WE NEED TO MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD AND ASK FOR THE RELEASE OF THE WATER IN THE VARIOUS DAMS OF THE WORLD. AND RESTORE THE NATURAL RIVERS AND SWAMPS
Hoax # 2-We are running out of Oil? Really
SAYS WHO? HAVE YOU SEEN THE NUMBERS THEY ARE IN THE TRILLIONS, WE BEEN EXTRACTING TRILLIONS OF BARRELS OF OIL DAILY FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS, BEFORE THAT BILLIONS DAILY INDUSTRIALIZED FOR MORE THAN 100 YEARS, I WONDER IF WE RETURN THAT OIL TO THE EARTH, IT WILL FIT?…..I DOUBTED IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
Which Oil? That is the Question?
BIODIESEL: SEEDS, BIOALGAE -BIOMASS DIESEL: PALM TREES AND A GREAT VARIETY OF VEGETATION SO, ASKS AGAIN….WE BEEN EXTRACTING OIL FOR MORE THAN 5000 YEARS, ASK THE CHINESE
Hoax # 3- Humans Need Vaccines to Survive
SINCE WHEN…SINCE IT BECAME MANDATORY OR …ELSE
There are others hoaxes perpetrated on humanity but they are less socio-economically detrimental to the population. I do have data, is scientific data and most importantly is official, you just have to really look, and the information is there.
HOAX # 4 – WATER FLUORINATION, BUT FLUORIDE IS POISON..ATOMIC BOMB..WHAT..HOW?
How they got away for so long? Toothpaste with fluoride..Interesting.
HOAX # 5 – SOLAR FILTERS AND SUN GLASSES-SUN IS THE ENEMY # 1 OF YOUR SKIN AND SUN GLASSES ARE NECESSARY TO PROTECT YOUR EYES..SO IF I USE SUN SCREEN AND SUN GLASSES HOW THE MELATONIN IS GOING TO BE PRODUCE, HOW MY PINEAL GLAND SURVIVE? IT WON’T…. EVENTUALLY WILL CALCIFY.
The Association Of Sunlight And Mental And Sexual Health Has Long Traditions. The Summer Solstice Is Historically Linked With Fertility And Sexuality By Cultures Everywhere. Wow but is only about procreation I don’t think so, there other disorders that arise from lack of sun exposure like depression and latest results suggest the high incidence of Parkinson, Alheirmeser Disease , Melatonin slow the aging process, regulate sleep patterns , Melatonin has been shown to inhibit the growth and metastasis of some tumors in experimental animals, and may therefore play a role in cancer inhibition. Removal of the pineal gland and/or reduction in melatonin output have been implicated in the increased incidence of breast cancer in laboratory animals. Patients who have breast cancer have lower levels of melatonin in the blood. The hormone has also been shown to be protective against genetic damage, and it has a stimulatory effect on the immune system. So think again when you go to your local drug store to buy sunscreen or glasses.
NUMEROUS STUDIES INDICATE THAT FERTILITY AND SEX DRIVE INCREASE WHEN SUNLIGHT IS MORE INTENSE,
Hoax # 6-Flu Shot really which virus strain they used to create the vaccine—Do they??????Who????you Know who, create the vaccine and then create the flu, or they create the flu and then create the vaccine? Who was first? The Chicken or the EGG? Uhh am confused.
Hoax # 7- Treatment against cancer pseudonym with American Cancer Association. This theme is obscure so that’s your homework, research, CURES FOR CANCER not treatment C U R E, cancer is curable.
My Land
My Land
I love my Land with all my heart, I can not fight in her name
I can not go and kill people with the pretext that I am protecting her,
I can not put soldiers on the borders of the country that confine her,
I can not name her,
I can not buy her,
I can not give her to others,… but there is something I can do:
I can work with her with my bare hands I can plant a seed, and see her create a beautiful plant that will bear fruits,
I can protect her from harm,
I can nurture her and let her rest as it was prescribed by the creator….. that…. I CAN DO.
The Land belongs to all of us, do not allow to be destroyed or genetically manipulated, is not Natural…
Please Protect her is not My Land is OURS and …. is the only one we have
Peace
Love be with you and around you
Akashma
I need to be
I need to breath the freshness air
I need to swim in deeper waters
I need to free myself of ties
I need to be, I need to be
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