What’s really happening in this pic

I was scrolling through photos the other day, searching out details, and I came across the photo below. It seems like a nice photo of me and some Bangladeshi garment workers, doesn’t it? Well, you don’t know the whole story. I had forgotten all about it. Such memories are repressed.

See that dude to the right of me? I don’t want to go into details, but as this pic was taken, he was trying to molest me. If you look close, you can see my innocence drifting away. Following this photo, he received a quick elbow to the ribs and then he disappeared, back to whatever creepy lair he crawled out of.

New World Vision Report Interview

I recorded another interview for the World Vision Report about Where am I Wearing?. We recorded this one from Ball State’s David Letterman communication center. If you’ve listened to the previous interviews there’s not much new in this one, but it is much clearer. All of the other interviews were recorded continents away over the phone. This one was recorded over an ISDN line in the studio and it sounds like I’m in the same room with Peggy, the host, even though she was in Texas. It’s part of a one-hour special on fashion that will appear on many NPR stations across the country.

I’ve yet to hear myself on the radio, which would be a hoot. But last week a fella I met in China emailed me after hearing one of my previous interviews I recorded via phone in Cambodia, with Peggy was in Texas, with the producer in Seattle, and the editor in North Carolina. The World Vision Report works from a virtual office.

We live in a virtual world. This is a good thing for a writer living in Indiana.

A thousand words…Garment Factory Owner

The NLC would like to slap you in the face

This video produced by the National Labor Committee has some pretty powerful images, including young Bangladeshi women sleeping with their faces smooshed against the side of their sewing machines.

I’m all for people knowing where and who make their clothes, but I think this video has some faults. The narration is a bit extreme and completely dismisses the context in which the workers live.

The narrator says that the factories reach 100-degrees in the summertime and that the worker’s clothes are covered in sweat as if the workers have a place to escape the heat. They don’t. If they weren’t at the factory, they would be sitting in 100-degree heat in their home. Granted, workers coloring cloth, using irons, or presses work in areas painfully hot year-round.

Is a woman who is allowed eight seconds to sew on a button, and who does this time and time again, any different than any factory worker anywhere in the world that puts the same widget in the same place day-in and day-out? A factory is a factory. Doing a repetitive job efficiently is factory work. I know people in Ohio who have spent most of their lives doing the same thing.

The narrator also mentions that the workers don’t have pensions or health care plans. Few people do in Bangladesh. To say it as if the workers don’t get it like everybody else in the country is misleading.

The narrator makes broad generalizations as if all of the women workers’ families are falling apart and all the supervisors beat the workers.

Without a doubt the video is shocking – somewhat misleading but shocking. Maybe that’s what people need. Personally, I want the whole story and this video is not the whole story. But maybe I saw a video like this years ago and it planted the idea for this quest. This video could be the that kernel for someone else.

Maybe we need a little slap in the face before we actually think about something.

A thousand words

Look at me Ma, I’m on ABC news!

I was browsing around today and stumbled across my latest contribution to the CS Monitor on the ABC news website.

It’s a funny thing not knowing when and where something you write and sell is going to show up. The Monitor has 90-day rights to do whatever the heck they want to do with anything I contribute to them. I suppose if they wanted to turn the Fantasy Kingdom piece into a mini-series starring Ricky Schroeder they could.

It would be nice to be in the know about where and when my writing is going to show up, but I don’t have much of a problem not knowing. Really, I think it’s pretty cool that someone at ABC News liked my story, too. And it’s a nice bio booster to say that my work has appeared on ABC News.

For the record, I’m not going to hold my breath on the Rick Schroeder at Fantasy Kingdom mini-series.

Three reasons why I think cyclones suck

Masum and his family live in Jhalakati, which is specifically mentioned in this story about the devastating cyclone that hit Bangladesh.

I met Masum on a paddleboat from Dhaka to Khulna. He had been in Dhaka for an eye surgery. This is why he is wearing those glasses. He is not a Bangladeshi Elvis impersonator, just in case you were wondering.

Later, I tracked him down in Jhalakti. He let me stay in his hotel for free. I ate meals at his home and listened to his wife and daughter sing a duet.

I suppose my feeling helpless to do anything for them is a selfish way to feel. The only way I imagine I can help is to pull out a credit card and hope that what little I contribute can make a small difference to a big problem.

Here’s where I’m donating.

I hope Masum and his family are in their home tonight, high and dry, singing another duet.

In the Christian Science Monitor: My story on Fantasy Kingdom

My latest contribution to the CSM is in today’s paper.

Read: Was it a frivolous gift or a lifelong dream?

So, was it a frivolous gift or a lifelong dream? Let me know.

Where am I wearing? The ultimate slideshow

I raided my photo archive from the WAIW? trip and set it to Gary Jules’ Mad World and U2’s Yahweh. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get either one of them to play for me so I had to do it myself. Don’t worry, I don’t sing. This is more of a beginner guitar player’s shot at spoken word.

This will permanently live in the “About Where am I wearing?” section to the right.

The BBC, pirates, and climate change

The BBC is working on an extensive feature in Bangladesh. They will be traveling the country’s waterways to observe and debate climate change. Low-lying Bangladesh is seriously threatened by sea level rise.

Been there. Done that. Posted it on YouTube.

I took a similar trip aboard the “Ostrich,” a paddle boat when I was in Bangladesh. I’ve yet to write much about it, which is a reminder that I’ve got loads of material that deserves my attention. Anyhow, what most surprised me in the introduction of the feature was this passage:

The risk of attack from pirates is slight, but it is real.

I had no idea there were pirate attacks. I’m not questioning the BBC reports on this (although, I do question their account of a couple along the river kissing under a tree – that just doesn’t happen in Bangladesh), but I do have to question my own ignorance. There I was touching my inner Twain when I should have been touching my inner Peter Pan.

I’ll follow the series with interest. And though I don’t wish a pirate attack on anyone, it would add some flavor to story: global warming…blah…blah…sea level rise…blah…blah…erosion…blah…blah…PIRATES!!!!!