Friday, June 25, 2010
Monday, December 14, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
World AIDS Day
Last night I went with some friends to a Concert for World AIDS Day. The Watoto Childrens Choir from Uganda were wonderful but hearing their stories was my favorite part for sure. Several Organizations were out there as sponsors. Its always great to be informed to what some great people are doing to battle these social issues around the world. Here are a few:Watoto
Project 7
Project Hope
Compassion AIDS Initiative
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Monday, November 17, 2008
"we need prayers for us to live as human beings"
Unintended Consequences: Genocide mothers: Children of Rape
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/photography/movingwalls/14
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
On Photography
"What good was served by seeing them? They were only photographs - of an event I had scarcely heard of and could do nothing to affect, of suffering i could hardly imagine and could do nothing to relieve. When I looked at those photographs, something broke. Some limit had been reached, and not only that of horror; I felt irrevocable grieved, wounded, but a part of my feelings started to tighten; something went dead; something is still crying.
To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them. Once one has seen such images, once has started down the road of seeing more -- and more. Images transfix. Images anesthetize. An event known through photographs certainly becomes more real than it would have been if one had never seen the photographs -- think of the Vietnam War. (For a counter-example, think of the Gulag Archipelago, of which we have no photographs.) But after repeated exposure to images it also becomes less real.
The same law holds for evil as for pornography. The shock of photographed atrocities wears off with repeated viewings, just as the surprise and bemusement felt like the first time one sees a pornographic movie wear off after one sees a few more. The sense of taboo which makes us indignant and sorrowful is not much sturdier than the sense of taboo that regulates the definition of what is obscene. And both have been sorely tried in recent years. The vast photographic catalogue of misery and injustice throughout the world has given everyone a certain familiarity with atrocity, making the horrible seem more ordinary -- making it appear familiar, remote ("Its only a photograph"), inevitable. At the time of the first photographs of the Nazi camps, there was nothing banal about these images. After thirty years, a saturation point must have been reached. In these last decades, "concerned" photography has done at least as much to deaden conscience as to arouse it."
-Susan Sontag
from "On Photography"
To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them. Once one has seen such images, once has started down the road of seeing more -- and more. Images transfix. Images anesthetize. An event known through photographs certainly becomes more real than it would have been if one had never seen the photographs -- think of the Vietnam War. (For a counter-example, think of the Gulag Archipelago, of which we have no photographs.) But after repeated exposure to images it also becomes less real.
The same law holds for evil as for pornography. The shock of photographed atrocities wears off with repeated viewings, just as the surprise and bemusement felt like the first time one sees a pornographic movie wear off after one sees a few more. The sense of taboo which makes us indignant and sorrowful is not much sturdier than the sense of taboo that regulates the definition of what is obscene. And both have been sorely tried in recent years. The vast photographic catalogue of misery and injustice throughout the world has given everyone a certain familiarity with atrocity, making the horrible seem more ordinary -- making it appear familiar, remote ("Its only a photograph"), inevitable. At the time of the first photographs of the Nazi camps, there was nothing banal about these images. After thirty years, a saturation point must have been reached. In these last decades, "concerned" photography has done at least as much to deaden conscience as to arouse it."
-Susan Sontag
from "On Photography"
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Not new, and Not Random
Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water. Close to half of all people in developing countries suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits.
Half the world - nearly three billion people - live on less than two dollars a day.(The poorest 40% of the worlds population accounts for 5% of global income. The richest 20% accounts for 75% of the worlds income.)
1.6 Billion people - a quarter of humanity - live without electricity
About 72 million children of elementary school age in the developing world were not in school in 2005; 57% of them were girls... these are regarded as optimistic numbers.
Nearly 1 billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
2.6 billion people lack basic sanitation. Close to half of all people in developing countries suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits. Sorry for some of the white bars at the bottom of the pictures. They are film and thats from the scanner.
Well, here we are...
I figure that if I have a blog to post random pictures up it will make me take more.
Thats pretty much it.
Thats pretty much it.
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