My Birthday Cake

Idea courtesy of my sister and cake courtesey of my brother's girlfriend.

MLK: Portrait of the Martyr as a Young Man

King at 27.. This man had a doctorate from Boston University and was getting arrested and risking his life in order to build a better America for all people at the age of 27. He was murdered at 39.

Female Circumcision in Indonesia

Go check out the article and the haunting photo essay at The New York Times Magazine. Oh, and this is done to 9-month-olds and 14-year-olds alike.

The procedure takes several minutes. There is little blood involved. Afterward, the girl’s genital area is swabbed with the antiseptic Betadine. She is then helped back into her underwear and returned to a waiting area, where she’s given a small, celebratory gift — some fruit or a donated piece of clothing — and offered a cup of milk for refreshment. She has now joined a quiet majority in Indonesia, where, according to a 2003 study by the Population Council, an international research group, 96 percent of families surveyed reported that their daughters had undergone some form of circumcision by the time they reached 14….

According to Lukman Hakim, [Assalaam Foundation's] chairman of social services, there are three “benefits” to circumcising girls.

“One, it will stabilize her libido,” he said through an interpreter. “Two, it will make a woman look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband. And three, it will balance her psychology.”

Just Married! UNICEF’s Photo of the Year

He’s forty, she’s eleven. And they are a couple – the Afghan man Mohammed F.* and the child Ghulam H.*. “We needed the money”, Ghulam’s parents said. Faiz claims he is going to send her to school. But the women of Damarda village in Afghanistan’s Ghor province know better: “Our men don’t want educated women.” They predict that Ghulam will be married within a few weeks after her engagement in 2006, so as to bear children for Faiz.

Click here read the rest of the accompanying blurb and to see the Photo of the Year runners up.

Evangelicals encourage abandonment, torture and murder of “child witches”

I’m speechless. This photo essay from The Guardian brought tears to my eyes.

“In Akwa Ibom, Nigeria, evangelical preachers encourage people to believe children are witches, and abuse, abandonment and even murder follows.”

Above: “Ekemini Abia is 13. Her father tied her to a tree by her ankles and left her there. She was found, half-starved, over a week later.”

Guess how I feel about religion and religious beliefs right about now.