Autism is a complex neurological disorder that lasts throughout a person’s lifetime. Anyone dealing with a family member who has autism or working with an autistic child will probably find autism traits to be confusing and very tiring. There are very few breaks in a mother’s daily life when she deals with a child with autism. She feels lucky on the days when there are no melt downs over things that she cannot control, like something not working. Then there are the bad days when something has happened, maybe TV was too loud…It doesn’t matter what, anything can trigger the autistic child to have a meltdown. Every day there is a meltdown including hitting, running, climbing the walls or spinning in circles. Such behaviors can last anywhere from 10 min to 3 hours. The frustrating part for mothers who have autistic children is the feeling of guilt that she cannot reduce her baby’s suffering. There is also hopelessness that this will continue for ever. Read more..

Daidō Moriyama: Tokyo Photographs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Posted on August 20, 2009
Filed Under Uncategorized, Arts, Entertainment, Cool Things, Hobbies, Style | Comments Off

I have never been to Japan, but after seeing the exhibition of Daido Moriyama’s black and white Tokyo photographs I feel like I’ve been there. Daido Moriyama is a very talented artist who revealed the beauty of urban Tokyo’s spirit trough his black and white photos. His choice to skip colors and only capture the essence of architectural and geometrical details through his choice of black and white colors is very successful. While looking at his photographs one can spiritually connect to a city that is so distant. Tokyo becomes close and familiar. Daido Moriyama’s photographs capture special moments in time and places caught in a moment. He takes a simple picture of the rose to a different level. This is what I found written about this artist and his creations in the Philadelphia Museum of Arts website: “Moriyama approaches the world with an equalizing eye, capturing disparate peripheral details that in themselves account for little, but together add up to a powerful diagnosis of modern experience. In 1980s Japan such details encompassed the disorienting and sometimes brutal juxtaposition of traditional culture and modernization, most visible in the glut of consumer goods and images. But in Moriyama’s photographs these subjects appear alongside the banal elements of any streetscape: a derelict patch of pavement and wall, a car with an aggressive key scratch running its full length, even a single rose blossom.” Read more..

On-line Friendships and a Split Reality

Posted on March 16, 2009
Filed Under Social Issues, Relationships, Online Business & Web | Comments Off

Technological progress has changed humanity’s status and provided it with a wide realm of choices. Due to the computerization, people became mobile and able to work and communicate with others throughout the world while sitting in their cozy chairs at home. Technology empowered human being to become a decision maker: “as long as it is good for me and I want this, I can have it!”  In other words, social, economical, and ethical borders became insignificant.  This technological spirit of unlimited freedom transcended human relationships as well. The open communication between people and their social interaction are being gradually replaced by the “chatting” in the cyberspace with the individuals one will never meet in real life.  Although communication through Internet has some advantages, it turns socializing into impersonal babble, eliminates one’s sense of responsibility for his/her ideas and actions, and allows people to reveal their evil side which is otherwise hidden from society.  In addition to that, it divides up people’s lives into “real life” and “cyber life” robbing human being of a chance to live a life worth living: that given by the Lord.
At first I would like to consider some positive effects that this technological progress has on the relationships among people.  One positive side of these cyber relationships is that people, who have communication problems and have great difficulties of revealing themselves to others and thus are lonely, may compensate their lack of socializing and lack of intimacy with on-line conversations. I think that this is a very beneficial type of therapy: it works according to the social learning theory devised by Albert Bandura (1977) – people learn from watching, listening, and talking with others. So while considering this issue I am an existentialist saying that if an intimate conversation on chat benefits the person and it doesn’t do harm for other people, it even must be encouraged as it might help some people to let out their innermost secret feelings and prevent them, from a suicide and depression.  All people are totally free to be themselves and to create their own values and life while deciding which is good for them.
In the Internet one can also meet very interesting people and even find a soul mate or love. Although there are lots of criticisms of this issue I still think that through chatting and email people, who are honest with each other, get to know each other so well, that they become friends for a lifetime or even get married. Here the naturalist side of me also votes for this freedom for the people as long as it is not harmful for others. The issue here is honesty because not many people are actually honest on-line. They get tired from their real life and wait for a moment when they can enter a cyberspace where there are no commitments, responsibilities, or consequences.  That’s a way for people to escape from the demanding reality and to feel total human freedom, and I think that’s wonderful. Societies are caught in their own webs of moral, ethical, and other social standards, which make it difficult for a human being to be who he/she actually would like to be.  Internet gives the opportunity to break out of these societal restrictions and to set one’s own values (existentialism).
Unfortunately negative aspects of the Internet communication are somewhat stronger than the positive ones.  At first, Internet communication is totally impersonal communication. People meet, chat, and never hear about each other again, while in reality they are usually avoiding personal connection because their needs are met on line where no one sees you and no one can judge.
Lack of human responsibility is another serious issue. Even though I agree that there is a necessity for human beings to escape from societal restrictions some time in their lives, these restrictions are actually very valid moral rules that exist in this world since God created it.  I think God set some moral standards at a very beginning of human lives through their feeling of consciousness while doing something bad.  Talking to other person face to face is another test of morally acceptable behavior, which is also based on these eternal moral rules necessary for human survival. Internet shuts up that voice of consciousness for most of the chatters because they don’t have to be accountable for their behavior. Actually, it is even not “they” who do this, but people who are different personalities on-line, and different ones in real life!  I, as a Christian, see here a great danger of moral laws losing their significance for people and a perfect possibility for evil to flourish. In one of Newsweek’s articles about technology a terrifying story of the abusive actions of the cyber talker gives us a warning signal: “the illusion of anonymity on the Internet has spawned a new generation of criminals who do things behind the cover of computer screen they might otherwise never even consider.
While analyzing this issue I basically used all three tests – logic, experience, and practice – to reveal the negative and positive aspects of the Internet communication. Even though following logics and psychological theories Internet communication might have some positive consequences, in practice it is a very small percentage and it probably works for only a very small group of people who have strong moral convictions.  The Christian approach to this issue is very practical: internet harms people’s understanding of morality, ethics, essence of personal communication, and the sense of human responsibility before others.  In that Newsweek’s article, the abuser persecuted a woman who did not even use Internet for chatting because the abuser got her personal information from somewhere. I think that such cases prove how practical are Christian assumptions that free internet communication is a source of nourishment for the evil side of human beings which would be hidden in society and never revealed. The abuser from the article was just an extremely hurt person after his second divorce and had no prior criminal record.
Even though technological progress brings a lot of beneficial things for humanity, it also does a presently invisible, but significant influence that should be openly discussed and evaluated.

10 tips for DropShippers

Posted on November 1, 2008
Filed Under Online Business & Web, Consumer Reviews | Comments Off

Merchant-Safe Trust seal saves the day

Posted on October 31, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized, Online Business & Web | Leave a Comment

Betsy Toll is a mom of five. She often loves to shop for bargain clothes and things for her kids online. She thought she is pretty good in knowing where to shop safely.She always used to pay through paypal keeping her credit cards safely tucked in her wallet. Alas, this didn’t help her from being scammed in a big way. The shoes that she ordered were never delivered and she had to cancel her credit card that she used that once! It was already $1000 lighter. The merchant who scammed her vanished, his website never resurfaced again. Read more..