Putting It Out There

Drop the F Bomb. No, really. Drop it.

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 8 Comments

How some people view my personal interest in maintaining written communication free from profanity:

How I view myself around this issue:

Here are some words used to describe an off-hand comment I made on Facebook about not wanting to share someone else’s blog post because it was laced with profanity: Dismissive. Elitist. Narrow-minded.

Keep in mind, I never said they should not have written it. I never said other people shouldn’t be perfectly free to share it. I simply was expressing a personal opinion that if your writing is full of F-bombs and other heavy-handed swear words, it’s highly unlikely that I will be passing it along to my network. I find it unprofessional and unnecessary, and usually lose some respect for the writer when I realize they don’t have enough respect for their readers to leave the potty mouth in, well, the potty.

Certain words and images are time-tested ways to get people to pay attention to you online. It’s the same principle we used to recognize in person-to-person communication, like using profanity to force people to react to you one way or the other, or wearing inappropriate clothing so you can at least say someone looked at you. In the end it’s a little sad.

(At least it is to me! Just me! I am speaking for myself. Please do not send me notes about how swearing and flashy dressing is not really a cry for attention. I don’t believe you, and you should be OK with that. Just do what is right for you.)

I never said I don’t use profanity. Anyone who knows me outside of cyberspace is probably well aware that I enjoy swearing with friends as much as the next sailor; but there is an eroding civility in our society in which I refuse to take part. Am I perfect? Of course not. I write about that all the time. If my personal standards really upset some people (which apparently they did) it may be that those folks need to check themselves. Why the itchy trigger finger over someone speaking up for her own preference? Some guy actually took the time to write to me and tell me that though he agreed with me, I should “lighten up, luv.”

Yeah. Tell the chick with the cig. Out.

Image credits: The New Yorker and Copyblogger

Turning Point Images: The Girl in the Bathtub

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 12 Comments

Via EPA.gov

Since the invention of the camera, human beings have known turning point images.

These images capture moments denied to the outside world, but intimately connected to the realities of specific scenes of human suffering. Most often those scenes take place where no one wants to go. Photographers who document these places take great personal risk to bring remote, hidden pockets of pain into the daylight where we all can see.

And once you’ve seen, you can’t go back.

Consider the Vietnam conflict’s “Napalm Girl.” The iconic image turned 40 years old this week, and you can see the picture and read an interview with the woman who was that child in the photograph here.

(Nick) Ut’s editors made an exception to a policy preventing frontal nudity in photos and went ahead and published it. Known simply as “napalm girl”, the photo transcended the divisive debate about the rights and wrongs of the Vietnam War and crystallized the barbarity of war.

Also in the news this week, a photograph of a five-year-old Kentucky girl made national headlines when it almost appeared in a U.S. Congressional hearing about mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining practices. The photograph shows the child sitting naked in bath water that appears to be contaminated with toxins and heavy metals from mining runoff. (Click here to view the photograph on Katie Falkenberg’s website: The Human Toll: Mountaintop Removal Mining.)

Note: The photographer removed the photo of the girl in the bathtub due to the controversy, but other powerful photos remain on this link.)

There is a lot going on in this news story, and it continues to evolve. There are accusations of child pornography, sham hearings, sleazy politics, and emotional manipulation. I’m not sure where it will end, but I feel confident we have reached our turning point image.

The girl is not running and screaming, like Kim Phuc in the napalm attack on her village. She sits still as a stone, her arms wrapped under her legs. Her head is down. She is a portrait of submission and vulnerability, and any adult looking at her knows she has no real knowledge of the insidious presence in her bath. She probably knows water is supposed to be clear, but she has no choice but to trust those who care for her and accept her surroundings.

We Appalachian people like to think ourselves hard to tame. The Hatfield McCoy feud movie was on The History Channel last week, and there was plenty of armchair whoopin’ and hollerin’ about how fierce our people can be. Big men, big guns, lots of chest puffing and tough talk. I wonder this week, as a little child shows who we really are in 2012, if we will own the truth.

We are vulnerable. We are alone. We have trusted and we have hoped for the best. In many ways, I think we have remained deliberately ignorant about what is all around us.

Will we ever get up and run? And if we do, is it too late?

You can read the testimony by Boone County WV resident Maria Gunnoe on June 1, 2012, at the hearing titled “Obama Administrations Actions Against the Spruce Coal Mines: Canceled Permits, Lawsuits and Lost jobs” (sic) by clicking here.