Flag on my Backpack

As Japan struggles to overcome a disastrous string of events — including a possible nuclear catastrophe — millions of us have sought to help, often by donating money to urgent relief efforts. 

But if you donate via text message, your donations may take up to 90 days to reach aid organizations that need the money as soon as possible. 

Even though they’re getting large amounts of free media attention for their text-to-donate programs, companies like AT&T and Verizon have chosen not to release the donation money right away. Many customers assume that they’re sending funds straight to disaster zones in the crucial days after the earthquake, but donations are transferred after the end of your next billing cycle, a process that can take up to three months. 

Masaya Uchino, a law student in San Francisco with family in Japan, started a petition on Change.org to demand that AT&T, Verizon, and other major phone service providers stop delaying much needed donations from reaching organizations doing relief work in Japan. Please add your name to the petition now: 

http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-delay-on-donations-to-japan-2?alert_id=QXeUWkuBQr_rZIREoXxkp&me=aa

After the earthquake in Haiti, Change.org members and others asked phone companies to provide donations immediately — and the phone companies came through. But so far they’ve refused to take the same step, and it’s up to us to join Masaya in speaking out. 

Thanks for taking action,

- Weldon and the Change.org team

P.S. If you want to donate immediately to relief efforts, join the Change.org staff in contributing to one or more of these great organizations: 

Oxfam America: http://chn.ge/hd3n4C
International Medical Corps: http://chn.ge/hhkQhT
Habitat for Humanity: http://chn.ge/e8OX7r
UN Foundation: http://chn.ge/hVZ5uu
American Red Cross: http://chn.ge/eWtkti
UNICEF: http://chn.ge/hDASyY

stereotypicalcanadianmoose:

Eugene Levy

Catherine O’Hara

Rachel McAdams

Cory Montieth

Ryan Reynolds

Mike Myers

Avril Lavgine

Pamela Anderson

Jim Carrey

Tom Green

Drake

Seth Rogen

James Cameron

Kiefer Sutherland

Sandra Oh

Justin Bieber

Celine Dion

Big news! After a massive outcry from more than 40,000 Change.org members — which led to news coverage in the Huffington Post, Village Voice, and even London’s Daily Mail — New York Times public editor Arthur S. Brisbane has issued a strong rebuke of the victim-blaming in a recent article by reporter James McKinley about the gang-rape of an 11-year-old girl and her community’s response.  

Brisbane wrote said that the outrage was “understandable” and that the piece conveyed “an impression of concern for the perpetrators and an impression of a provocative victim” that “led many readers to interpret the subtext of the story to be: she had it coming.”

The apology isn’t perfect — it decries the lack of “balance,” as if the paper should be providing equal voice to the concerns of the victims and her alleged attackers. And unfortunately, while the story ran in section “A” of the Times, Brisbane’s commentary showed up only online, not in his weekly column.

But because the Times is so high-profile, this condemnation still sends an important message to reporters all around the U.S. that readers will hold them accountable for insinuating that victims are somehow responsible for playing a role in their own sexual assaults. And you made this happen.

There’s a massacre that happened in Libya recently. They tricked, then shot protesters, children and raped women. Continue praying for them..

A 6.3 earthquake hit Christchurch, New Zealand. Lives have been lost and the damage is extensive..

More than 50 killings in Ciudad Juarez - Mexico, over 3 days..

Today, An 8.8 earthquake and tsunami hit Japan. More than 20 people are reported dead in just few hours and still is expected to rise.

—IN TIMES LIKE THIS WE GOTTA STICK TOGETHER AND PRAY..

For more, or if you’d like to do the test, click here.

Last November, an 11-year-old girl was gang raped in an abandoned trailer home on the outskirts of Cleveland, Texas.

A total of eighteen boys and men have been arrested in conjunction with this brutal rape, ranging in age from middle schoolers to a 27-year-old.

Obviously, any attack this vicious is shocking. It leaves us with questions. How could this happen? What made these boys and men think their behavior was acceptable?

But those weren’t the questions asked by James McKinley of the New York Times when he wrote about this attack on March 8th. Instead, he asked some offensive and irrelevant questions.

How did the 11-year-old rape victim dress? According to Mr. McKinley, “Residents in the neighborhood … said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s.”

Did the victim have any seedy friends? Mr. McKinley reminds us, “She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.”

This is a poor excuse for reporting, and the New York Times should apologize for printing this dangerous “blame the victim” rhetoric.

It’s hard to imagine living in a world where eighteen boys and men could gang rape an 11-year-old girl, then pass around videos they shot of the attack. Maybe it’s easier for some to assume this little girl somehow brought this savagery on herself. But she didn’t.

And the New York Times has no business perpetuating the myth that she did. Add your name to the petition demanding a public apology: 

http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-the-new-york-times-to-apologize-for-blaming-a-child-for-her-gang-rape?alert_id=EQXghPHLfm_mIPPgkuYFv&me=aa

Thanks for taking action,

- Shelby and the Change.org team

P.S. I’m Shelby, writing to you from the virtual front lines of the fight for gender equality. I just started as the Director of Organizing for Women’s Rights to help Change.org members win important campaigns like this one. I look forward to working together with you to change the world for women and therefore for all people. If you’d like to reach me, send me an email at: Shelby.Knox@change.org

Before misinformation goes rampant about historical events.

In a sort of response to the poster (the physical object) that depicted Marie Currie and stated that she created the nuclear bomb.  First, no, she didn’t.

Here’s what Marie Currie did, which I also believe can be found at wikipedia (god, why the person who wrote the drivel without checking resources, must be a future employee of Fox News) and even at the tumblr Awesome Shit Women Did.

Marie Currie was famous for her work in radioactivity.  She was a brilliant chemist and physicist, who went on to become the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the only woman to win in two separate fields of study.  Her work with radioactivity, a term that she coined, would pave the way to help in the treatment of cancers.  Thus, her work helped develop the know how and technology that we currently use to treat cancer patients.

This is not the same as splitting the atom, which ushered in the age of the nuclear bomb.

Again, according to wikipedia, the theory of nuclear fission was first theorized in the early 20th Century, and is based on work by several individuals.  Out of all the individuals named, only two are women.  Marie Currie, who as stated previously, worked on the theory of radioactivity, and Lise Meitner, who along with Otto Hahn and Fritz Straussmann, began experiments on the theory of nuclear fission.

However, the first recorded theory of nuclear fission was documented by New Zealander Ernest Rutherford.  That was back in 1911.  Meitner, Hahn and Straussman made their first experiments in the 1930’s.  While Meitner worked closely with Hahn on the theories, it was Hahn who won the Nobel Prize in 1944, an award that many feel should have been shared with Meitner.

All of this means nothing, however, without the theory of two people.  Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and Leo Szilard’s Theory of Nuclear Chain Reaction.  Szilard developed his theory in 1933, and when the United States began the mysterious Manhattan Project, Szilard was brought into the fold along with Robert Oppenheimer.  History gives much of the credit for the discoveries of the Manhattan Project to Oppenheimer, however, but much of the research was based on Einstein and Szilard’s theories, combined with the previous work done by every single person who wrote about fission and radioactivity.

So, yes, a woman did help discover nuclear fission, but it wasn’t Marie Currie.  Currie’s efforts went more toward health care than what could be done about splitting the atom.  I also don’t believe that any of the researchers, scientists and so on had any idea that what they were studying could be used to destroy so much.

Before you write something that could get torn apart, do some research.  I will admit myself that all of this information is not completely expanded, but it puts things into perspective regarding the simple stuff.  Marie Currie did not split the atom, ergo, she did not invent the nuclear bomb.

But here’s post number 1000!

I must say, I don’t post or reblog nearly as high a frequency as some people that I follow.  They show a dedication and a passion to various things.  A lot of those same people have taught me a thing or two along the way, and I feel better for it.

I’ve still got a lot to learn, however.  But I’m enjoying the ride, and I’m enjoying the opportunity to share an exchange with interesting people along the way.

So, I’ll keep writing, I’ll keep posting, and I’ll keep going.

And yes, I know, I missed out on two episodes of Canyons of Steel, but work’s been killer the past two weeks.  Trust me, I will get to it.

Here’s looking forward to another 1000 posts.