if i die today

Obscene.

By John Blake
CNN

Eve Ensler can't find the right words to describe what she's seen and heard.

"Obscene. Horrible. Out of control...." The activist tosses out a cluster of angry words, trying to describe what is, in some ways, indescribable.

She talks about a woman being gang-raped by 15 soldiers. Some violated with sticks and knives. Cannibalism. She has returned from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where thousands of women and girls have been systematically raped during a 10-year war that some say has cost more lives than any other war since World War II.

"It's 'femicide,' " Ensler says, using another word to describe the treatment of Congolese women. "It's the systematic destruction of women. It's an economic war fought on the bodies of women. It's the destruction of the Congolese people and life itself."

Ensler and others are trying to stop the gruesome attacks against women by launching a series of campaigns that pivot on what Ensler says is a debatable premise -- people will care what happens to dark-skinned Africans.

The centerpiece of Ensler's campaign is "The City of Joy," an all-female village in Congo where rape victims can recover from their physical and psychological wounds. Other groups such as UNICEF have mounted similar efforts to empower Congolese women and encourage the world to act.

The world's reaction has been muted so far and Ensler, best-known as the playwright of "The Vagina Monologues," says she knows why.

"A lot of it is flat-out racism," she says. "When we see conflicts that involve white people, the world responds faster. Bosnia is a perfect example."
Other Congo activists say the world hasn't acted because they don't know. People will respond once they hear the terrible stories, says Candice Knezevic, the "RAISE Hope for Congo" campaign manager for the Enough project, a group founded to end genocide and crimes against humanity.

"They are astonished and they care when you tell them," Knezevic says. "I haven't met a single person who doesn't care about what's happening in the Congo. The problem is so few know about it."

Congo has long, bloody history

There seems to be so much to know. The history of Congo is as tangled and bloody as the complex war that engulfs it today.

Belguim ruled Congo from 1885 until it gained its independence in 1960. According to the CIA World Factbook, Congo has long been "marred by political and social instability."

The Factbook's dry description does not do justice to Congo's gory history. Adam Hochschild, author of the prize-winning book, "King Leopold's Ghost," wrote that Belgian King Leopold murdered up to 8 million Congolese while robbing the country of ore and rubber at the beginning of the 20th century.

The struggle for control of Congo's rich natural resources -- the CIA Factbook says it is "endowed with vast potential wealth" in diamonds, gold and cobalt -- has fueled much of the violence today, activists say.

Since 1998, various armed factions -- tribal, rebel and militia -- have fought for control of the country and its resources. UNICEF says the war has cost more lives than any other war since World War II.

Rape has become a primary weapon in that war, says Geoffrey Keele, a UNICEF spokesman. Keele says rape is designed to destroy the Congolese community. Husbands, families and villages often shun rape victims. A weak and divided community is easier to conquer.

"Rape is designed not just to injure and dehumanize the women but impact their families and communities," Keele says.

Keele says UNICEF has established at least 90 forums throughout eastern Congo this year to educate women about their rights and encourage rape victims to talk about their abuse.

Congolese women have traditionally held such low status that many expect violence from their husbands and men, Keele says.

"A lot of the women we talked to had said that this is just their lot in life and it is something to be endured," he says.

Turning 'pain into power'

The City of Joy is designed to change that attitude. It is the product of a partnership with UNICEF and V-Day, a global movement Ensler launched to end violence against women and girls. The city, which Ensler hopes to open in September 2009, will offer counseling, education and entrepreneurial training to rape victims.

Ensler says she's met plenty of Congolese women who are primed to "turn their pain into power." Some are already risking their lives to report their rape and stand up to men, she says.

"These are the strongest and most incredible women on the planet," Ensler says.

They are women like Lumo Furaha who recently told V-Day why she decided to talk publicly about the time scores of armed men raped her repeatedly.

"They wanted to destroy me; destroy my body and kill my spirit," she recalled. "I am speaking out because I don't want any child of the next generation to have to live through what I have lived through."

It may be too late, however, for Furaha's wish to come true. Congo's next generation is already being twisted, Ensler says.

She says many boys have been forced to watch their mothers and sisters raped. She wonders what kind of men these boys will become if no one helps them sort through what they've seen.

"There is no place in the culture for a boy to say, 'I feel powerless and broken,' " she says. "He becomes violent."

Ensler says she saw a frightening example of that ripple effect during her last trip to Congo. She was in a hospital when nurses brought in a 3-year-old girl who had been raped -- by two 10-year-old boys.

Congo's future, she says, may look even more frightening than its past.

"What's going on in the Congo is so extreme and so out of control," she says, "that if we don't intervene on behalf of women there, it will spread and something much more horrible will happen.

"You cannot let something that inhuman go on."

Not waiting

I was thinking why don't i write things anymore. Why don't i keep track like i once did all the photographs and journaling and blogging. I haven't taken a real photo in like 2 years. I think well nothing is happening to journal or photo. But I once felt the need to photograph my shoes. Therefore that rational is b.s.
So anyway really it's just a return to being closed off to not sharing anything good or bad. To being sealed up clean and protected. Nothing visceral happening to push me off that cliff for i'm not a natural sharer type. No manic episodes. No depression. Nothing. Just sitting sealed up. Not even waiting. Everything is in order everything is clean so what am i waiting for nobodies here to make a mess.
Maybe that's why people have kids or pets or stay in relationships with people they despise.

Fat Girls

bleach me

At the Bottom of Everything

so um driving to work this song comes on and it broke me
can your soul cry?
seems like i felt every emotion at once
it' must be fucking incredible to create something that can touch a person like that
seriously

So there’s this woman, and she was, um, on an airplane, and she’s flying to meet her fiancé, sailing high above the, the largest ocean on planet earth, and she was seated next to this man who, you know, she had tried to start conversations, and, only – really the only thing she’d heard him say was just to order his, his Bloody Mary, and . . . and she’s sittin’ there, and she’s readin’ this really arduous magazine article about a third world country that she couldn’t even pronounce the, the name of, and she’s feeling very bored, and very . . . despondent. And then, uh . . . suddenly . . . there was this huge mechanical failure and one of the, the engines gave out, and they started just falling - thirty thousand feet - the, uh, pilot’s on the, on the microphone and he’s, he’s saying, um, ”I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh my God, I’m . . . I’m sorry,” and apologizing and, and she looks at the man, and she, and she says, she says, she says, “Where are we going?" And, uh, and he looks at her . . . and he says, “We’re going to a party . . . it, it’s a birthday party . . . it’s your birthday party, happy birthday, darling. We love you very, very, very, very, very, very, very much.” And then um, he starts hummin’ this little tune, and, and, uh, it kinda goes like this, it’s kinda - one, two, one, two, three, four

We must talk in every telephone, get eaten off the web
We must rip out all the epilogues from the books that we have read
Into the face of every criminal strapped firmly to a chair
We must stare, we must stare, we must stare

We must take all of the medicines too expensive now to sell
Set fire to the preacher who is promising us hell
Into the ear of every anarchist that sleeps but doesn't dream
We must sing, we must sing, we must sing

And it'll go like this, all right

While my mother waters plants, my father loads his gun
He says, "Death will give us back to God
Just like the setting sun
Is returned to the lonesome ocean"

And then they splashed into the deep blue sea
Oh, it was a wonderful splash!

We must blend into the choir, sing as static with the whole
We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul
Into this endless race for property and privilege to be won
We must run, we must run, we must run

We must hang up in the belfry where the bats and moonlight laugh
We must stare into a crystal ball and only see the past
Into the caverns of tomorrow with just our flashlights and our love
We must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge

And then we'll get down there
Way down to the very bottom of everything
And then we'll see it, oh, we'll see it! We'll see it! We’ll see it!

Oh, my morning's coming back
The whole world’s waking up
All the city buses swimming past
I'm happy just because
I found out I am really no one

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