Day 196

While I would love to go out into the fields of sunshine and plant trees, and give hugs... I’m at work, and I not quite free to do as I please... or am I?

I love being an American bred, Indian raised woman! This world is my oyster, and I find this to be true every day! Had I been raised in India, I'd be a found in some village tending to my flock of hens, raising children, and serving my family... Hah! NO. Not really, we're a much more forward-thinking people.

I got two emails this week from Amnesty international regarding the crisis in Turkey. So I thought I'd take a look....

" Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Turkey suffer discrimination in employment, housing and access to public services.

On June 25, 2010 thousands of people – among them lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) men and women, members of their families, activists and other supporters marched through the center of Istanbul in the greatest show of solidarity for the rights of LGBT people ever seen in Turkey to date.

Supporters marched in defiance of Turkey's laws which are interpreted or utilised in a discriminatory manner by judges and prosecutors, denying the equal rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. Currently, no provision exists within Turkey’s constitution or domestic law framework proscribing discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity."

I'm a foriegn woman in America, and yes, I can identify being discriminated against for it. So I lent my puny, but FREE voice to the LGBT community in Turkey, and signed a petition demanding equality!

I continued reading, and signed a second one to free Liu Xiaobo.

"Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo was charged with "inciting subversion of state power" and given an 11-year prison sentence on December 25, 2009 simply for co-authoring a proposal for political and legal reform in China. On October 7, the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court upheld Liu Xiaobo's prison sentence. Urge Chinese authorities to release Liu Xiaobo immediately and unconditionally."

I signed quite a few more, But I don’t want to ruin it for you… Check out amnestyinternational.org! It's just a few minutes of your time...

We become engulfed with the petty issues in our lives, and then we allow them to slowly consume us. Every day this year, I’m shown just how insignificant I am, and how even more irrelavant my “problems” are in the grand scheme of things. Taking a few hours every once on a while to remind myself that there’s more to my life than what I observe may be selfish, but I move forward with just a little more of a balanced perspective on life.
And in the mean time, I hope my voice, and perhaps a few of yours, makes enough noise to end some of the atrociousness we’re sheltered from!