Humanity
Amelia Begins Again
Amelia. Yes, Amelia. That's my name. Though the sound of it gives me pause. Like it never really fit. The great Dale Carnegie said, "Names are the sweetest and most important sound in any language." My Hospitality Management professor once told us that hearing the sound of one's own name is the most precious sound to a person (which is why we require service agents to say a customer's name in their interactions). But I always had trouble with mine. Seriously. Always. I have vivid memories of lying to my classmates in kindergarten about my last name, for instance. It wasn't my father's, or my grandmother's (whom I lived with), or even my mother's at that point. It was my mother's maiden name. And I was the only one in my vicinity that carried that god-awful thing. Tunstall. Pronounced "tuhn-stuhl." Ugh. Worse, I'm not called by my first name. Hell, or even my middle name, really! Kaslynn Amelia Tunstall was called Milly. What in the 1984 hell was going on? Anyway, the fact was - and still is- my name was never a sweet or precious sound to me. Instead, a reminder that no one could quite figure out who I was supposed to be, which remains problematic some thirty+ years later.
By K.M. Lewis4 years ago in Confessions
Moment of Freedom
My moment of freedom only profoundly affected my life and happened on three different days…in three different years. The first moment of freedom- I was thirteen years old standing in a police station, the officer had just walked in and told me that my stepfather could never touch me again, he was just arrested on six counts of endangerment and molestation…I fell to my knees sobbing as the pressure on my chest both lifted and got heavier.
By Ashley 4 years ago in Confessions
FYI There's Still a Pandemic
2020-current The years we shall never forget, the years that we started homeschooling our kids, more working from home and spending more time with our families. When planning a vacation became impossible without jumping through loops to make sure you are cleared for air/boat travel.
By Karli Law4 years ago in Confessions
Passing pictures from captive Palestine
The lightning visit to occupied Palestine raises you many questions and pains, more than it provides you with answers. My arrival coincided with a severe cold wave that almost pierces the bones, the like of which the country had not seen in March for a hundred years. The homes here are not prepared for such cold, and the farmers these days are separated from the fire and the use of firewood, and what is added to it from the remnants of the olive yield after its pressing, and it is called locally “peat”, which was added to the wood and kept the fire for hours and spread warmth throughout the small houses. People have generally replaced it with electric or gas heaters, which are hardly enough for anyone who puts them directly in front of them. Try to scoop as much information as possible and meet as many stakeholders, activists and thinkers as possible, to understand the picture for what it is as possible.
By Zernouh.abdo4 years ago in Confessions
Europe and Ukrainian refugees
With the Russian war on Ukraine, Europe found itself facing an unprecedented challenge, not only in the strategic and military sense, but also in the humanitarian and societal sense, with this large and continuous influx of Ukrainian refugees towards its various countries.
By Zernouh.abdo4 years ago in Confessions
About Ali Farzat and Women's Bodies
One of the arguments put forward by the Syrian artist, Ali Farzat, in defense of the caricature in which the body of a member of the opposition coalition was used for the latter’s “criticism” and its performance, is that naked bodies are spread as models in most museums and galleries in the world. This argument, through which Farzat, who sparked a storm of controversy and criticism, wanted to transfer the controversy from masculine behavior in looking at women's bodies as a "disgrace" that can be used in political battles and harming opponents, to defending art and the freedom to paint the naked body. In this tactic, he benefited from a good number of conservatives who objected to the drawing, simply because it embodies the woman's body, and not because he views it from a derogatory angle, and uses it as a sign of poor political performance.
By Zernouh.abdo4 years ago in Confessions
