Liszette+Q2

October 15: Chinese fishermen find dead babies dumped in river I haven't started another book yet, so until then I'm going to start reading articles. In the last quarter I mentioned how in China little girls are abandoned and left for dead. I read a few more articles about this, but I only chose one to post. Apparently, there's a river in China that is //the// spot to dump unwanted babies. It's pretty sad how people can be so cold-blooded and have no heart. In a different article I read about a woman that often digs through dumpsters for things she needs and more than once she's discovered a baby in there. Sometimes she'll find them dead and notice that other homeless people have taken their clothes, but if they're alive she'll sometimes take them home and care for them. It's sad that a complete stranger, that is already so poor that she needs to take dig through the trash, would be willing to take care of these babies, but theirmother would just throw them away.

October 22 [|Dropping Out] (for students) at Crimethinc.com This "zine" is about a teenage girl that used to go to public school but she realized she hated it, so she went to a small private school (much like Chinquapin) but even that she couldn't stand. So, she decides to run away. Now she is living on the streets. She never has more than maybe 20 dollars with her, she sleeps outside, she hitchhikes, camps out, steals food, and only lives for herself. and she's more free and happy than any of us. I wish I could go and experience all the stuff she's done. I wish I could feel as free as she is. The zine has really opened my eyes. I'm not going to condone dropping out of school to go out and do whatever you want, but try to do something adventurous.

October 29 David Wong is my favorite writer. Although at times he is immature and vulgar (he tends to make poop jokes etc), this man has changed my life. He's the editor in chief of a comedy website, so it's rational that I shouldn't completely trust everything on here, but it does say a lot of things that really make me think. [|Five Things You Think Will Make You Happy (But Won't)] By David Wong November 19 [|What is the Monkeysphere?] By David Wong.

November 26: I read //The Complete Persepolis// by Marjane Satrapi over Thanksgiving break and began reading //John Dies at the End// by David Wong, but this entry will only focus on //Persepolis.// It's a comic book (technically a "graphic novel") but also an autobiography. The original //Persepolis// are four separate books that focus on different parts of the author's life, but this book consists of all four books totaling 352 pages. The author recounts her experiences as an Iranian during the Islamic Revolution. Once I started reading it couldn't stop; I finished the book at about 2 am. It wasn't just a normal comic book one reads for fun; it actually teaches you something. I think I enjoyed this book so much because it was a lot like //bone,// it helped me relate better to other cultures. I really liked that this was a comic book because you can physically see what the author wants you to see and how she remembers the things that happened to her, and I can see the emotions on each character's face. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that also likes books that help you peer into the lives of other societies.

December 03: I'm reading //John Dies at the End// by David Wong. I've been reading David Wong's articles on Cracked.com for the longest time. I've posted a few that have pretty much changed my life. Ever since I found out he wrote a book, I've wanted to read it. This weekend I decided to finally buy it, it's about 470 pages and I'm on page 287. I try to find the time to read it, but it's been pretty difficult. //JDatE// is a horror novel, but the author manages to make you laugh a lot. I love his style of writing. He'll write about a topic and make you think in a new way and realize things you may never have thought about, but he presents it in a way that is really entertaining. I've already had a lot of moments where after I'm reading the book I'll think about it and the more I think about it the farther it takes me; I just get really deep in my thoughts. What I love the most about this author is that most of the things I read, stay with me. I'll relate my life to it and it's just really changed my way of thinking about things. Edit: I finished the book and I loved it (although the title was very misleading).

December 10: I'm now reading //Cat's Cradle// by Kurt Vonnegut because Lizett & Otilio read it and they say it's really good. I've only read about a dozen pages, but so far I like it. This quarter, for some reason, I've rekindled with my love for reading. For Christmas I asked for books, and I already have a bunch of books in my backpack that I want to read during the break. At the beginning of the year I really wanted to read //For Whom the Bell Tolls// by Ernest Hemingway, but it looked pretty intimidating. So, I've decided to read //A Farewell to Arms// by Ernest Hemingway once I've finished reading //Cat's Cradle.// I would like to hopefully challenge myself more, though, by finally reading //For Whom the Bell Tolls,// or both //The Fountainhead// and //Atlas Shrugged// by Ayn Rand, but for now I'm going to pace myself. It took me a while to get into this reading project, but it was worthwhile and overall a good experience.

Webcam Abuse By: Liszette Garcia No one would suspect a small, simple thing like a webcam could be a source for people's misery, but it has the ability to sensationalize cyber-bullying, endorse suicide, and promote child pornography.

Justin Berry, Tyler Clementi, Kevin Whitrick, Brandon Vedas, and Abraham Biggs represent just a fraction of the people whose lives have been ruined because of the abuse of webcams.

When thirteen-year-old [|__Justin Berry__]first got a webcam, he expected to meet other teenagers that he could befriend; instead, a series of men tried contacting him and, eventually, were able to lure him into “undressing, showering, masturbating and even having sex” on camera in exchange for money and gifts.

They were able to manipulate him and, over the course of five years, Justin was involved in various business operations that focused on sexually exploiting him along with other minors; in the process, Justin was repeatedly molested by his business partners and other older men he would arrange to meet.

Justin’s life descended into chaos; he was addicted to cocaine and habitually smoked marijuana; at times he contemplated suicide. This life of turmoil all arose from one simple thing: his webcam.

College Freshman [|__Tyler Clementi__]was also a victim of this new technology, but whereas Justin Berry was able to turn his life around (with the help from the FBI and a lot of hard work), Tyler’s life took an unfortunate turn.

Dharun Ravi, Tyler’s roommate, and Molly Wei, their hall-mate, used their webcam to secretly video, and stream onto the Internet, Tyler having intimate relations with another man.

Ravi invited his other friends to spy on his eighteen-year-old roommate's sex life and when Tyler found out, he decided to notify his dorm advisor. Even though the dorm advisor took this matter very seriously, Tyler had endured enough intrusion and harassment from his roommate.

The next day Tyler jumped off the George Washington Bridge to his death. Perhaps Ravi and Wei didn’t anticipate that their actions would end fatally, but the result was a young man committing suicide.

Three more lives that ended tragically were those of nineteen-year-old [|__Abraham Biggs__], twenty-one year old [|__Brandon Vedas__]<span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">, and forty-two year old [|__Kevin Whitrick__]<span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">. The three of them showed signs of depression.

<span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">Biggs, Vedas, and Whitrick each logged onto a chatroom and spoke to the others of their suicidal thoughts. In all of these cases the people in the chatroom encouraged them to commit suicide.

<span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">This on-line audience egged victims on and some saw as Whitrick hung himself while others witnessed the drug overdoses of Biggs and Vedas—saying remarks like “go ahead and do it, ft” and “F---ing do it, get on with it, get it round your neck. For f---’s sake, he can’t even do this properly.”

<span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">Had these men never turned on their webcam, they wouldn’t have been driven to the point of self-destruction, and for all one knows they would be living normal, healthy lives right now.