The Age of Innocence

Last week, I was trying to finish a photojournalism assignment to create a one-photo documentary essay. I chose the social issue of the declining age of innocence in today's youth: they are being exposed to sex, drugs, and violence at ages that used to be absolutely unacceptable for exposure to these things.

Here's the picture I ended up getting:

Today, I was surfing the web and found some absolutely appalling things. Specifically, articles on the incredibly revealing and simply inappropriate things parents are allowing their children to wear these days. Frankly, I'm not a parent--I'm a child myself in many ways--but it doesn't stop these things from disgusting me. Whatever happened to parental responsibility?

One example is this prom dress. It's rather revealing, so I won't post up the actual picture but you get the point. It's shocking, isn't it? That dress was shot with the model wearing it backwards. (Perhaps for shock purposes?) Here's the actual dress--and it's not much better.

The dress is designed to fit girls as young as 14 or 15. Even the design company's CEO admitted that he wouldn't dream of letting his own daughter wear it but, "from a businessman's perspective", he's still willing to market it. It's currently one of the top 20 prom dress designs in America.

I thought that would be the extent of these kinds of things. Apparently, it's not.

Abercrombie and Fitch recently released child thongs. Yes, you heard right. Child thongs. Thongs with phrases like "eye candy" and "wink wink" printed on them! And they fit children within the age range of 8 to 10 perfectly.

According to the company's spokeperson, Hampton Carney, "It's cute and sweet and fun." Ridiculous.

Want more soul-rotting filth? Why not look up "Little Miss Hooters" and "pimp and ho child costumes"?

Little Miss Hooters:

The contest is for girls 5 and under, and will require they be dressed in little orange spandex shorts, and a tied up Hooters t-shirt.

Pimp and Ho Costumes:

Charity Social gets underway!

Oh my gosh, what a hectic week.

Patricia's Leprosy Mission Charity Social planning is going full-blast! We've managed to secure a  banquet hall (The Royal Canadian Legion Hall) for the event (to be held on May 22nd!) and I've been ordered to roll out the tickets and flyers. :)

Luckily, I've already had the tickets designed a couple weeks ago, but my weekend was dedicated to the flyers! In the spirit of spring, I've come up with two designs: one blue/green portrait-oriented flyer and a red landscape flyer. Blue/Green for Spring and Red for the colour of our campaign! I'm actually quite proud with what came out--I even have a slogan for them! "Celebrate spring by spreading the cure!" I'm sure Hulme would be proud of the alliteration there.

Here are some shots of the flyers as of now:

Flyer One -  Blue/Green for Spring! The carnation (originally red) was chosen as the logo of this campaign because it symbolizes Charity.

Flyer Two - Red to match the ticket. Fonts, etc. were all chosen to match the ticket.

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty productive weekend. :)

Oh, and speaking of Hulme--our last English class before the break was a hoot! In the spirit of April Fool's Day, we staged a legendary, and very Gifted, surprise for the teachers that came by. With Patricia and Christina at the door to convince Mr. Hulme to stay outside the classroom as long as possible, the rest of the class worked to upturn ALL the desks!

Our Classroom - We turned the tables on Mr. Hulme with the chair backs resting on the floor and the desk balanced precariously sideways. Then, we had everyone sit in them that way! (Disregard Saravanan. He was being a sourpuss. Also take note of Cate taking pictures and UkeBilly/Basshew providing entertainment.)

Mr. Hulme sent Mr. Fenty to check on us (and what a surprise he got!), and when he came back to class, he was so amused that he left again to bring back the drama teachers to see! Ms. Barnes commented that our class was much more interesting than her English class.

Christina, Chris, and Patricia - Bugs on a wall...

The next twenty minutes was spent delaying our Media Issues presentations by taking very trippy pictures of everyone sideways. We looked like butterflies pinned to a wall!

Colin - Hard at work...or is he?

It was one of those days when "Gifted" was more blessing than curse.