worship the glitch
This is Eric Mortensen's blog. He works @ Blip and lives in Brooklyn.
Italos: Foreign Sex Workers In Italy | Photographs by Paolo Patrizi
Most migrant women, including those who end up in the sex industry, have made a clear decision to leave home and take their chances overseas. They are headstrong and ambitious women who migrate in order to escape conflict, persecution, environmental degradation, natural disasters and other situations that affect their habitat and livelihood.
Ensuring a better future for one’s family in Nigeria is a principal motivation for emigration within and outside the trafficking networks. Working abroad is therefore often seen as the best strategy for escaping poverty. The success of many Italos, as these women are called, is evident in Edo. For many girls prostitution in Italy has become an entirely acceptable trade and the legend of their success makes the fight against sex traffickers all the more difficult.
One concern is that the anti-trafficking crusade is causing effects opposite to its objectives. What presents itself as a campaign to protect migrants from harm is actually making their efforts to flee home, to find work, to make the most of their lives in often difficult and unforgiving circumstances, much harder.
Hat tip to Audacia Ray.
by Kenaz.24
by Phil Sharp
Thomas Hornbein - climber - Everett, WA
Thomas Hornbein, along with Willi Unsoeld, made the first ascent of the West Ridge of Mt. Everest in 1963. He also designed the oxygen masks for that expedition, one of which he is wearing here.
They were along on the expedition that put the first American (Jim Whittaker, seen elsewhere on this blog) on the summit of Everest. While summiting Everest by any route is to be commended, Whittaker had taken the already established South Col route and had done it expedition-style… using Sherpas, fixed ropes, etc. Hornbein and his partner, on the other hand, had climbed the much more difficult and daunting West Ridge in a fast and lightweight style and unsupported by others. They summited at 6pm and not long after starting their descent down the South Col route, they ran out of oxygen and were exhausted. They bivouacked over night, very high up the mountain, getting frostbite in the process… Hornbein managed to keep all of his toes, Unsoeld did not fare as lucky.
I’ll leave you with words from Hornbein’s account of the bivouac:
“The night was overwhelmingly empty. The black silhouette of Lhotse Mountain was lurking there, half to be seen, half to assume, and below us. In general there was nothing - simply nothing. We hung in a timeless gap, pained by the intensive cold air with nothing to do but shiver and wait for the sun to arise.”
It gives me great pleasure to let y’all know that, in the humble opinion of this reblogger, one of the greatest living photographers is now on tumblr.
Jim Herrington, a friend and former Milwaukeean, always has amazing stories accompanying each incredible photograph he makes… his work is absolutely sublime, and if you dig photography and history you’d do well by hitting ye olde ‘follow’ button at the top his tumblr.
by Andrew Hertz (via robot-heart)
Wired’s staff-produced photos now carry a Creative Commons license.
In exchange, it is essential to abide by the terms of the CC BY-NC license:
- Photos must be properly attributed to the photographer and Wired.com, and we ask for a link back to the original story where the photo first appeared.
- We welcome editorial use by bloggers or any other publisher, but we are not authorizing commercial use, like using one of our photos in an advertisement.
- Remixes and mashups are allowed.
Photos by Jim Merithew and Jon Snider, Wired.com
by Erica Nix
Occupy La Défense - 04Nov11
by Evan Joseph
Pride, Reykjavik, Iceland, 2009
by Tait Simpson
