Spreading Insecurity One Photo at a Time

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The above photos are before and after photos for an Ann Taylor advertisement - before and after Photoshop, that is.  Not only has the model's waist been whittled down quite a bit (her hips and thighs only slightly), the natural wrinkles in the clothing have been dramatically reduced.  The message?  Not only should young women (and older women) feel insecure about their bodies, they should feel bad because even their clothes are flawed.  However, this is probably good for the economy.  After all, photos like the one on the right compel women to:  1) buy diet aids; 2) join gyms and purchase exercise equipment; 3) seek out plastic surgeons; 4) embark on endless shopping quests to get that perfect outfit; and, when all else fails 5) consult a therapist.

Farm Friday

It's difficult to do Farm Friday when you're not on the farm.  This week I've been in Florida taking care of business.  Since my husband's retirement from his practice last year, our condo has been vacant.  Last month I hired a realtor to find someone to lease it until the real estate market recovers and we can sell it for a reasonable price.  Well, he didn't waste any time and has gotten a tenant for us.  So this week I've been packing up our remaining personal items, taking many of them to a local thrift store, and divesting ourselves of the furniture.  Although the condo is small and I didn't think we had a lot of personal items in it, hauling boxing down the stairs and out to the car has made me aware of how much stuff we actually had here.  Makes me eager to get back home to do more decluttering and simplifying.

While I have been gone, Bill has been busy on the farm, harvesting over 700 pounds of potatoes.  In addition,he's in the process of harvesting the onions (pictured above).  He hasn't finished so we don't have a final figure for those yet.  He also reports that we have a super abundance of squash, zucchini, green beans, and bell peppers.  Some of our bell peppers must be affected by some type of blight as they have bad spots on them which makes them unsuitable for use in our CSA.  Bill has chopped about 5 pounds of them to keep in the freezer for adding to fried potatoes and to omelets.  If anyone has a good recipe that calls for lots of green bell peppers, I've love to hear about it.

Killing Joy

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What if your neighbor wanted to make some extra money and he found three ways to do it:

He discovered his climate was perfect for growing cacao, the source for chocolate.  So he bulldozed all of the trees in the community park, planted the cacao in the freshly plowed earth, and sprayed herbicides and pesticides (that were illegal in this country) to ensure that his crop would be successful.  He kidnapped some neighborhood children to work in the park, forcing them to harvest the cacao without compensation and housing them in his lawnmower shed, without plumbing or electricity, healthcare or education.

He also found that he could make a tasty drink by incorporating a bit of poison into it, which gave the drink an attractive color.  It wasn't enough poison to kill anyone, but they would likely contract cancer after years of consumption.  But, even though the poison was a known carcinogen, it was legal to use.

Another way he found to make money was dog fighting.  He found a loophole in the local laws and so converted his backyard into a dog fighting ring.  Then he rounded up a number of dogs and used cruel methods to train them.  He also added cock fights to the mix.  After all, if animals aren't pets then they really don't have any feelings and this would be another way to increase revenue.  Then night after night, he hosted vicious fights to the death.

What would you do?  Would you be horrified?  Would you report him to the authorities?  Would you have him arrested?  Would you petition lawmakers to change laws to ensure that his operations be shut down?

But what if similar things were occurring behind closed doors, under corporate supervision, here in the U.S. or across the sea in foreign countries?  Would you have the same reaction?  

Week after week, Bill and I try to share the horrors of things that we as Americans condone:  slavery in the chocolate, coffee, tea, and other industries; carcinogens in our food, water, clothing, and personal care items; and unspeakable torture and cruelty towards animals in the meat and personal care industries.  But we are ignored.  We are killjoys.  Why do we want to spoil everyone's good time.  People insist that they like the taste of their chocolate/coffee/tea; they have their favorite personal care products and clothing manufacturers; and it would be impossible to live without meat?  They insist they can't do anything about it anyway.  Why do we want to rob them of their joy?  So they stick their heads in the sand or in front of the television and ignore the rest of the world.

So I guess from what I've seen, it's okay to most Americans for bad things to happen to other people.  As long as they aren't our neighbors or pets and as long as we continue to have our luxuries without any extra effort or expense on our part, we'll keep on supporting cruel systems and pretend it's not really happening.  We want our joy.

Wellness Wednesday

The Environmental Working Group just released their 2012 "Dirty Dozen" list.  Use this list as a guide for buying produce.  The "dirty" ones are the highest in pesticide residue, while the "clean" ones are the lowest:

War: What is it good for?

Photo Credit:  Cathleen Falsani Possley

At Wild Goose Festival, there was a place for attendees to create wooden planks to display what they felt was wrong with the world.  In this photo, journalist, author, and blogger Cathleen Falsani Possley captures me preparing to nail my plank on the grievance wall.

Incarcerated Women in America and Social Justice

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At the Wild Goose Festival, I had the opportunity to attend a session about a prison writing program.  This program, called Project TURN, connects students from Duke Divinity School with female and male inmates in North Carolina.  In this program, inmates are guided through the writing of their spiritual story as part of a healing and growth process.  Two former inmates shared their stories with the audience.  The first speaker read what she had written of her life: a story of neglect, abuse, abandonment, alcoholism, and heavy drug use.  She had been raised by a step-mother who treated her harshly.  She left home at age 16.  Then her mother, who had sunk deeper and deeper into alcoholism, ended her life by her own hand.  Thus, she also began a downward spiral which included crack and heroin use and multiple pregnancies that resulted in the birth of 9 children, all of whom were taken from her, some immediately after birth.  I cannot do her story justice.  All I can say is that her story brought tears to my eyes and the audience to its feet when she finished reading.

Thanks to the people in Project TURN, this young woman has found redemption and hope.  I go into our local jail on a regular basis and I can say with certainty that, as sad as this woman's story is, it's not unique.  Once when a woman in our organization was talking to one of the inmates who was about to be released, my friend expressed happiness for her.  The woman sadly told her that "I'm just going back to what got me here in the first place."  

I write about incarcerated women and social justice because our system is failing.  The system is not concerned with rehabilitation and the good of both the those who are incarcerated and society in general.  It is about punishment - and money.  According to this 2005 MSNBC article, women make up about 7 percent of the prison population and account for 1 out of every 4 arrests.  The rise in arrests among women is not due to a rise in crime.  In fact, crime rates have actually been falling.  Part of the problem is the "war on drugs" which has encouraged tougher sentencing for drug convictions.  Despite declining crime rates, the US has a higher incarceration rate than any other nation.  According to the New York Times, "the United States leads the world in producing prisoners."  Making up just 5 percent of the world's population, we have 25 percent of its prisoners.  Further, we incarcerate individuals for far longer than other nations and for activities that rarely result in prison time elsewhere.

Prisons are increasingly owned and managed by private corporations.  The theory is that private corporations can be more efficient in running the prisons and save taxpayers money.
The reality is much different.  One article from 2008 reports:

It is, of course, in these private prisons' economic interests to see more people in prison serving longer sentences. And with current facilities bursting at the seams, times for this burgeoning industry are good. The country's largest private prison provider, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), spent more than $2.7 million from 2006 through September 2008 on lobbying for stricter laws. Last year alone, the company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, generated $133 million in net income.

With the increased privatization of prisons, the bottom line is money and money can be increased through two methods:  decreasing costs (and much could be written about how they do this) and/or increasing the number of prisoners.  Prisoner population can be increased through tougher sentencing laws.  However, even this change can only increase the population so much.  With approximately one-third of African American males having been incarcerated at one point in their lives and poor men making up the bulk of the prison population, it would seem that it is time to begin tapping into a new demographic:  women.  My belief is that women are not committing crimes at an increasing rate(especially in an era of decreasing crime overall), rather the net through which "guests" for these private institutions are caught has been widened to include women.

Women are typically arrested and convicted for so-called "victimless" crimes such as illicit drug use and prostitution.  These types of crimes often occur as a result of life circumstances.  According to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, 92% of juvenile female offenders have experienced some type of emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse.  In general, the common thread among female inmates is prior victimization.  Thus it seems the victims are being victimized for being just that, victims.  And it creates a vicious cycle from which it is nearly impossible to escape.

Once an individual is incarcerated for any felony, their lives tend to begin a downward spiral.  Unable to obtain legitimate employment, felons often return to their lives of crime, resorting to theft, prostitution, drug dealing, or any activity that ensures they have money to put a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs.  Otherwise, they become homeless, which is another social justice issue.  They also resort to or resume illegal drug use to escape the pain of their lives and their downward spiral.  Families are often destroyed and children repeat what they have seen.  This cycle of repeat offenders and multi-generational incarceration guarantees increased profits.

We need to question the goals of the criminal justice system.   Neither individuals nor society are served by this system.  Programs that seek to avoid incarceration and instead find ways to redirect these broken lives are what are required for social justice.

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"I do not understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us."

~Anne Lamott