Back to Innocence

 “Sex trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation.  It is accomplished through fraud, deception, threat of or use of force, abuse of a position of vulnerability, and other forms of coercion.”

Jubilee project has created a video to spread awareness of the gravity and impact of sex trafficking.  Worldwide, about 700,000 and four million women, children and men are trafficked each year, and many of these incidents occur in middle class families. 

“Sustained by an estimated $9.5 billion annual revenue, sex trafficking is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world and it is the world’s second largest criminal enterprise… Approximately 80% of human trafficking victims are women and girls and up to 50% are children under the age of 18. UNICEF reports that across the world, there are over one million children entering the sex trade every year and that approximately 30 million children have lost their childhood through sexual exploitation over the past 30 years. The average age of entry for children victimized by the sex trade industry is 11 years old.”

Jubilee project supplies all the facts and horror along with its video, “Back to Innocence”, on its website, http://jubileeproject.org/2012/06/27/the-story-behind-back-to-innocence-the-short-film-on-sex-trafficking/.  Read the stories, watch the video and even the emotion creating the video in the behind the scenes video found on the link below.  Help spread awareness about this imperative issue.

Broadcast Media

As soon as my dad comes home, the television is flashes on-assuming it originally wasn’t on to begin with.  

As soon as anyone goes into the car, the radio blares on.  I can lie in my bed at 11 o’clock at night trying to fall asleep after a lot day, and my neighbor across the street can blast music from the radio full volume with bass.  In case of an emergency- an earthquake, a fire, a blackout- we try to tune into the local radio station to find out what is happening.  In today’s society, broadcast media plays a major role in our everyday lives.  It alerts us, entertains us, and keeps us company. 

                My dad literally sleeps with the radio on (of course he snores, not that he can hear it), and my dad’s side of the family are used to sleeping with the television on.  In my house, my dad needs to have the TV or radio on. At all times. It doesn’t even matter if he’s in the house or not.  Now, I know my family is not the only one who depends on the television and radio.  Plenty of people’s lifeblood is broadcast media.  Why else do so many people spend so much time glued to the couch and their eyes stuck to the TV?

                That’s just one side of looking at broadcast media, but what about the impact that it has played in our society- our history?  Broadcast media has allowed an expansion of technologies to be thought up, invented, created, and essential to our everyday lives.   We can see the exact image and voice of a person broadcasting from millions of miles away! That itself was an uproar when the television became popular and available to the public.  We can communicate news and information from across the nation, and even the globe in real time.  Enterprises have been created off of broadcast media.  Broadcast media has created a bridge connecting to the whole world.

                Broadcast media has changed the world for the better.  We have become more aware of our surroundings, and events millions and billions of miles away in seconds.  We are more connected with as a world.  We are able to laugh at the same comedies and sitcoms, we can cry to the same dramas, we can be informed by the same information or news programs, and we can becomes unified as one- the earth.

Elizabeth Gilbert: A new way to think about creativity

For those who did not know, Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the Bestseller novel, Eat, Pray, Love, was one of the many great guest speakers on TED talks: she has subtle yet effective humor, brilliant timing, and conclusive content.  Her message remains clear as she extrapolates scenarios from typical quotidian experiences most people who wish to pursue a creative-based job know.  Her slightly satirical theory from retrospection of old Greek and roman culture mentions a ‘genius’ guarding us who bestows spurs of glory.  This divine spirit explains how to cope with the fact that we may not be creative geniuses or we may have sudden bursts of creativity that may never come again.  She mentions creativity running through the hills and it being luck to catch it in time to make it yours, and not somebody else’s.  Of course, all speeches-let alone good speeches- cause controversy. One of the many comments found in response to the video were:

“I completely disagree with this message. Creativity is not a gift. it's not sent to us by some divine entity. It's in each and everyone of us. We possess wonderful creativity and imagination. We just need to work harder on bringing out more of that creativity. And to do so, requires hours upon hours of daily practice for several years. Too many people want quick fixes, because most of our civilization has become lazy.”

The comment above was marked as spam.  Personally, I would have not marked this as spam for it is still related to the video and not a random comment saying something on the lines of “HUMANITY SUCKS”, “heyyyy!!! check out my channel @ *insert channel link here*” or “Dang.” This user was simply expressing his or her opinions.  Well of the many scathing retorts were:

“I respectfully suggest that you missed the point of this talk. Humans DO "possess wonderful creativity and imagination," as you said, and we DO need to work harder on bringing it out, and it DOES require practice. I would know this because I'm a pianist who has to practice three hours daily or more. Practice makes you much better at what you do. But inspiration does not always come from within ourselves, and to take all the credit for a "work of genius" is presumptuous of a human; destructive.”

Alright, it’s not that scathing, but it was still typed in an offensive rage against the first commenter.  Both comments reflect the contrasting aspects to Elizabeth Gilbert’s speech.  Is creativity an otherworldly evanescent spirit fluttering around and occasionally actually hitting us, or just self-determination?

Others Advice to be Successful

 “Failure is success if we learn from it,” mused Malcolm Forbes.  The American Civil War taught us that we must remain unified despite our differences.  The World Wars taught us that we need to justify when to help an ally based off what is right rather than simply because we are allies.  The Red Scare taught us that fear is a prominent emotion than blocks reasoning.  We can either learn the hard way, by ourselves, or through examples, through previous mistakes or others, but why not simply look at mistakes already made?  It is necessary to look into our history or through lessons in books or in other people for advice in order to be successful and knowledgeable. Ged, the protagonist in The Wizard of Earthsea, learned he must conquer his hubris as Annabel, the protagonist in Just Listen, learned she must conquer her fear of being open with her feelings.

As a young prodigy originating from a small town, Ged had an enormous hubris as he was passed from teacher to teacher due to his excessive power.  Unfortunately, his ego had lead him to lose control of a dangerous forbidden spell- a spell to bring the dead to life.  This mistake and overestimation of his control over his powers caused the death of a dead great professor Ged had considered as a father.  Realizing from his grave mistake which almost cost him his own life as well as his professors, Ged travelled around all of Gont to run away the dangerous shadow he had released in place of the dead.  His travels made him realized that he cannot keep narrowly escape the monster shadow anymore and decides to confront the deadly shadow.  From Ged, we learn that we must remain humble and open-minded and if we run into troubles: we must face them rather than run away. 

            Unlike Ged, Annabel was much more humble and docile- perhaps a bit too docile.  She was afraid to confront her feelings and to tell others about what she truly wants or thinks.  Despite getting raped by her boyfriend at the time, Will, betrayed by her ‘best friend’ Emily, and ostracized by the rest of her friends, she does not tell anyone that she had been raped or she is being ignored.  Along with dealing with a rough time at school, she does not know how to tell her mother she wishes to quit modeling, an apparently family activity and ‘joy.’  Rape, betrayal and isolation are much for anyone, let alone a teenager.  As she meets another boy who has been ostracized too, and people start to come out and sue Will for the charge of rape, Annabel gains the strength and courage to be open with her feelings and not afraid to voice her thoughts.  We learn from Annabel to not be afraid to be open with our emotions and opinions.

            So from both Ged and Annabel, we learn that we must remain open-minded and humble but yet be open with our emotions and opinions, but these are only a few lessons we can and should learn.  Ged and Annabel learned their lessons on their own where we have the chance and the benefit of learning their lessons through their experiences rather than making the same mistakes as them.  We learn through stories, history, and others what we should and should not do and we may build off of these experiences and events.