Going to India

I’ve, quite suddenly, the opportunity to travel across India in February-March with Dr. Katherine Welch to document an informal survey trip to meet with NGOs who might partner with her organisation, Global Health Promise. GHP is dedicated to protecting mothers and their children from the impact of trafficking, prostitution, and sexual exploitation. Katherine will determine what GHP can offer concerning health issues faced by trafficked people, prostitutes and, particularly, the children of women who are in these situations.
Following that I’ll go to Mysore for a couple weeks to document the work of Sarah Jane Whitehouse, a Glasgow based artist I know from my past life in Scotland. Sarah will do art therapy with girls who were trafficked and now trying to re-enter society. Her therapy will focus on issues of identity, self-worth and trust.

This is sort of a proof-of-concept trip for me; I’m working on several connected projects right now that seem like they will probably coalesce into one at some point (with people I’ve had contact with concerning trafficking over the past few years and with BuildaBridge, the non-profit I’m associated with in Philadelphia). We attempt to place art therapists, via a program we have going at BuildaBridge, with partner organisations that work with children in some of the world’s toughest situations. As follow-up to that, we want to do ‘personal history’ projects and bring their stories out for awareness, support, and hopefully as a way to help people feel validated as human beings. On this trip I’ll take along a small kit of digital cameras and an audio recorder to produce several pieces such as these: MediaStorm (in the incoming weeks I’ll post more specifics on the type of work I’m aiming to do here. It’s a fine balance of sensitivity to keep when working with people who have already been exploited).

I’ve the promise of some preliminary funding for travel expenses; however, we would like to raise some further funding to cover equipment and supplies. BuildaBridge will act as my fiduciary agent for this trip so any donations you might like to make are tax-deductible. I’m hoping to put together some solid media from this trip to show what it is we are hoping to do and then I’ll seek further grant funding (we have already submitted one related grant and have further proposals in the works). Please contact me at euassociate@buildabridge.org if you would either like to make a donation or are interested in the project as a whole (I’ll also publish more detailed proposals in the incoming month concerning the project as it relates to BuildaBridge and, separately, the potential for telling the life stories of trafficked people worldwide. I’m working on a curriculum for training our artists to gather these stories in the field and, of course, empowering people to relate their own).

This has been my back-burner project for several years now; it seems it may come to the forefront soon. Again, this initial trip is an informal survey where I’ll be thinking through how to do the larger project. Much more to come…

Update: There is now a secure donation page for this; click here and then select “storytelling project” from the drop-down menu (be sure to do this as we have several programs on here and the donation needs to be designated towards a particular one).

Also, here is a description on the BuildaBridge site of what we hope to develop this into.

Success in failed underpants

The last week’s news sounds like the plot of Mel Brook’s The Producers; in the musical/movie the main characters discover that, by producing a musical that will certainly become a flop, they will paradoxically bring in more money. I wonder if there is a terrorist group channelling the ideas of Mel Brooks (and not sure if that would be hilarious or horrifying).

Had the gentleman of the exploding shorts succeeded in his attempt, we would probably never have known what brought the plane down nor possibly where the man was from, etc. (though these groups are usually quick to shout out what they’ve ‘accomplished’). However, what if the set goal was to fail outright? What if they never intended to destroy the plane?

If a plane is brought down it represents a certain financial loss and obviously a loss of life; though these groups seem intent to bring about the most loss of life possible, I would imagine their goals are more nuanced than that. We are essentially talking about a conflict of worldview; it’s more practical to disrupt the norms of living than to kill large numbers of people (the former requires only a bit of leverage in the right place; the latter usually involves a great deal of effort and risk of exposure).

A few years ago, a man attempted to hide a bomb in his shoe and now, all around the world, travellers must remove footwear for inspection. This man succeeded far more in failure; the disruption he’s caused is global rather than just one flight. Now because of the Underbomber, we are now told to arrive four hours early for flights rather than the accustomed two. How much economic and social disruption do these extra two hours represent? How much stress for people who are already stressed (and how much more surly will the already overworked TSA screeners become)?

I think we risk becoming completely subject to the failures of ideologues; but I suppose that is nothing new.

Mouth Water

This week, Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the Copenhagen Summit said (on the failure of heads of state to come to a worthwhile consensus), “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. We’ve brought 192 horses to water.”
I suppose it won’t matter soon; the water will rise to their mouths and there will be no more leading.

Keep one point

One of the tenants of Aikido is keep one point. Move, think and be from a central point in one’s person; this is a physical consideration and something that extends beyond. One quickly understands in practice that it’s difficult to throw someone by separately using hands, arms, torso and legs; but if the movement and intent comes combined from one point, the result is fluid. It’s the same with accepting a throw from a partner; if one tumbles through as an assembly of limbs and body, it’s like hitting the mat in pieces.
Of course, one can’t think too much about it or the body does not hear what the mind is saying. It’s difficult to think all the kinetic necessities together. It’s difficult to do something that is beyond doing; it’s a matter of being. There is a risk here of falling into a wash of abstract language that covers over any sensible meaning; I’ve read many descriptions of one point and it’s often difficult to tell if the writer is far beyond us in understanding—or completely full or fooey. But I don’t think it’s a paradox to say this idea is so removed from the physical that it’s the most concrete notion we can experience.

I think this may have saved my life.

In the accident there was one position I could be in to remain uninjured; everything else was a mangle of metal. That point is where I came to rest in the end; inches removed in any direction were steel bars, pipes and the underside of tractor-trailer that had, a split second before, shuttled past my body at high speed. There was no way for me to think myself to a place of safety—no time to consider where to be or what was happening. There was just one point.

It’s synchronicity; I believe there is something in or connected to me that found that place without my conscious participation. There were a series of moments, a succession of otherwise awful consequences that came to one point—life. We talk about how frail life is; yet, despite all the apparent dangers, we are obviously alive more than we experience death. Life and consciousness seem to be our normal state; we are connected moment by moment to that place of safety.

Derivative Originals

I can see who’s visited my site on the ‘management’ side of things and noticed last week that someone from a certain website had trolled through and commented. The site in question advertises a service in which one pays $12.99 and, in return, receives a one hundred percent original term paper on the subject specified. The comment they left (which I’ve since removed) said something like ‘thanks for pulling all this together.’ ‘This’ was the text of my academic papers from grad school I have placed online. Well, you are welcome, obvious shysters; I hope your dunderhead clients are satisfied with the work I’ve ‘pulled together’ for them.
Later I mentioned this to my uncle who is a professor at the local university; he said there is little chance of a plagiarised paper making it through; all papers are submitted electronically and automatically scanned through a system that is also trolling the internet for pre-existing material. This is standard practice for most universities now. Also, I’m rather imagining an American undergraduate student submitting the content of one of my papers as his or her own; the professor might find it remarkable that an erstwhile failing student suddenly writes like a graduate student in his mid-30’s and, as an added bonus, in British English and citation standards.

I would like to note a couple things for anyone who might be tempted by such a service. First, what do you think $12.99 is going to get you? Do you really assume you are paying a competent writer to compose an original term paper (which, if you didn’t know, takes longer than the duration of a feature film to complete!) for the price of a pizza with two toppings? Second, why are you in school? The degree that you hope to obtain (should you avoid all detection of plagiarism) won’t shelter you from your obvious incompetence out in ‘the real world.’ Take the money you are spending on school and go travel, learn about yourself and others instead of wasting it on imaginary un-earned grades. If you are faced with writing a paper and afraid of failure, write it and fail! At least it’s your own experience and you become richer from it (trust me; pertinent side story here).

That said, I do now have the maniacal idea that my theories may find wider acceptance as they permeate through the Academy. (Though I am rather miffed that I’m not getting some of that $12.99 for pizza and movie money.)