Community Chat

[Deb1010again]

On 3/29/2014 terrier3 said:

There is an African man (in his 50s) who works at our local Wegmans. I have followed him over the last 3-4 years, as he has learned English, graduated from janitor to check out and now sometimes to product demos, his English is now that good.

He is missing one entire arm. He lost it running to escape from armed men on camels, who hacked it off with a machete. He was lucky to escape with his life...his wife and 3 of his 4 children died.

Wegmans has outfitted his checkout station with a carousel so he can load the plastic bags with one hand.

He is an inspiration to me. Every time I see him I am reminded of my great luck to have been born in the USA.

What an inspirational story. Thanks so much for sharing. I love how Wegman's has outfitted his station to accommodate his disability. I wish we had Wegman's here in Atlanta.

[SugarNSpice]

On 3/29/2014 SydneyH said:

On 3/29/2014 Deb1010again said:

Very good point, Sydney. It's another example of the comparative worth of certain individuals. The poor and most vulnerable populations are not reported on with the same tenacity.

It's soo blatant, especially with Hollywood. Take the move The Impossible which is about the 2004 tsunami. The original family the movie is based on are Hispanic, yet you have Naomi Watts running around Thailand. Very few Asian victims are portrayed as well........grrrr. Guess they think we don't take notice.

Many of us are trying to change that in "HOLLYWOOD."

It's not that easy. For starters... Johnny Depp as a Native American? The new pick for Tiger Lilly? Tamara Tunie in Red Road (She set African American women, Women and Native American Women back years accepting this role).

Yeah we notice and many of us are trying to change it!

[LyndaGee]

On 3/29/2014 SydneyH said:

On 3/29/2014 Deb1010again said:

Very good point, Sydney. It's another example of the comparative worth of certain individuals. The poor and most vulnerable populations are not reported on with the same tenacity.

It's soo blatant, especially with Hollywood. Take the move The Impossible which is about the 2004 tsunami. The original family the movie is based on are Hispanic, yet you have Naomi Watts running around Thailand. Very few Asian victims are portrayed as well........grrrr. Guess they think we don't take notice.

Movies like that are usually billed as "Based on a true story," so they're not trying to fool anybody. Even the Gabby Douglas story was billed that way.

[SydneyH]

On 3/29/2014 LyndaGee said:

Movies like that are usually billed as "Based on a true story," so they're not trying to fool anybody. Even the Gabby Douglas story was billed that way.

It is 'loosely' based on a true story, but there were many complaints about the casting. Maybe Penelope Cruz wasn't available.

[HiLo]

Jesus said that one soul is worth the whole world. It doesn't matter where they live or who they are.

[Burnsite]

The USA ranks 169 in infant mortality as of 2012. Check out the data. Maybe we should clean up our own act before criticising other countries?

[bathina]

On 3/29/2014 Burnsite said:

The USA ranks 169 in infant mortality as of 2012. Check out the data. Maybe we should clean up our own act before criticising other countries?

ITA. Our government cut funding for food for the poor, has tried to repeal a law to provide health care to the sick and poor (50 times?) and kicks high risk children out of Head Start. All the while providing billions in perks to big business. What's our excuse?

[foundinlv]

On 3/29/2014 Burnsite said:

The USA ranks 169 in infant mortality as of 2012. Check out the data. Maybe we should clean up our own act before criticising other countries?

The list you were looking at listed the worse countries first. So being ranked 169 out of 224 countries paints a very different picture. Your stats btw, came from the CIA.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html

In a current list published by the United Nations and found on wikipedia, the U.S. ranked 34 with the worse countries listed last.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate

[Burnsite]

We should make the country safe for newborns before we start carping about other countries.

We should also do something about the murder rate using guns, and about gun control.

[NoelSeven]

On 3/29/2014 Burnsite said:

We should make the country safe for newborns before we start carping about other countries.

We should also do something about the murder rate using guns, and about gun control.

It could be just me, but I don't see wanting to help children in Syria as carping about other countries.

I'm also of the opinion that we can do more than one thing at the same time.