The World is a Strange, Ugly, Horrible, Beautiful, Scary Place

I'm not sure what I can do now. There are so many things happening around me right now, so many horrible things going down and so many misconceptions right next to me that I'm lost. I have an opportunity to share the things I've learned with people who need to know them, but I'm suddenly afraid.

The conversations I have online and with my friends come from a place of mutual understanding. We take it as a given that all people are born with rights, with dignity and the possibility to succeed, but they are born into circumstances that might stop them before they start. The circumstances might stop them before they are even born. I know that I'm where I am because of the privilege of my skin and my place of birth, not just because I'm smart and work hard. I was allowed to be smart, and people noticed my work, and now they reward it. There are many more people like me that aren't where I am now.

I see the future and it looks like the past, but which past? I'm afraid of re-living dark days, afraid of shanty towns in my own country, people suffering needlessly. I'm within the top 10% of earners in this country, but I can barely imagine living on less at this point. How do the rest of us do it?

All my hopes are pinned on 2014 right now - Republicans are so far past the light that they think they can read in the dark. I've got money to shield me now, but it is little solace. I can't pretend the world is alright just because I am. I was raised a hell of a lot better than that.

Brave New World

Huxley vs. Orwell

Heat the $#^ing Pool!

I don't quite know why, I will attempt to explain, but if it doesn't make sense at the end of this post, just realize that I don't really know why I love America's Next Top Model. I can't keep my eyes away, I see it on MTV, VH1, or whatever channel it was on before those two, and I have to watch. But at the same time, I hate it, it pisses me off, and I don't understand what their problem is.

It isn't about watching "skinny bitches" in awkward situations, because I tend to sympathize with all of the contestants. What I get infuriated about is the seemingly arbitrary judging and the dangerous working conditions. At least two contestants have been hospitalized for dehydration, and one was essentially kicked off the show for being too ill to work. She was compared to the other contestant that either wasn't as sick or wasn't facing as daunting a task as this one was. The working conditions are such that if the contestants really had a choice, they would turn down the job offer.

The best example of this in my mind is the pool photo shoot in Barcelona. The contestant Caridee, who is obviously much thinner than the other contestants, experiences hypothermia. The other contestants assume that she is "overreacting", because the water was cold. Caridee was told "you have a problem with cold" and to make sure she "doesn't waste the client's money" by letting them know this up front. Obviously, "the client" is too poor to provide a safe working condition. Frankly, I think ANTM does many shoots outside of the United States in order to skirt labor laws, and it pisses me off. Models are already held to extreme physical standards, to expect them to work while sick, in water so cold it causes hypothermia, is abuse. If that is how the modeling industry "is", then the industry has a serious problem.