Category: Things of Interest

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Its a dress, not a yes!!

Please take a moment and read the SlutwalkJHB press release.

Slutwalk Johannesburg

It’s a dress, not a Yes!

P.O. BOX 44170 LINDEN 2104  http://www.slutwalkjhb.co.za    slutwalkjhb@gmail.com

SLUTWALK JHB

Slutwalk expresses the notion that no victim of sexual assault is the cause of that assault. No one ever asked to be raped.

Slutwalks originated in Canada in January 2011 when a representative of the Toronto police told a group of students, “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized”. A furore ensued, followed quickly by a protest march, the message of which reverberated so that there have now been Slutwalks in over 100 cities around the world. This August 25th 2012, Slutwalk is coming to the streets of Johannesburg for the second time.

We, the organisers of Slutwalk Johannesburg see Slutwalk as an international Movement which can help us raise awareness around a number of sexual assault issues; victim-blaming, corrective rape, gender violence and questioning the acceptance of a “rape culture” which has become the norm in our country. This is in line with the focus of the original Toronto Slutwalk.

In our country it is obvious  that sexual violence is a very pressing issue and in spite of Slutwalk this year being during Woman’s Month, it is not only a woman’s issue, it is an issue that all of society needs to address.

The participants at Slutwalk are ordinary people, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters – people who believe in the vision of an equal society.  Some dress provocatively to emphasize the absurdity of much of society’s view on the issue, others dress in normal work or casual clothes in solidarity.

To quote Heather Jarvis, founder of Slutwalk: “From the very beginning in 2011 people were always encouraged to challenge slut-shaming language like “slut”, “whore”, “ho”, “skank”, “tramp”, etc. and never told they had to identify (with) one or another in order to participate. We’ve always maintained people should be safe to be who they are, how they are.”

If you’re human and believe that nobody, despite their age, sex, gender, sexual orientation or sexual history deserves to be raped, then come support Slutwalk and spread the message.

CONSENT IS NOT NEGOTIABLE

JOIN SLUTWALK JHB AND LET’S UNITE AGAINST VICTIM BLAMING AND SHAMING AND AGAINST ACCEPTABILITY OF ANY FORM OF RAPE

BLAME THE PERPETRATOR, NOT THE VICTIM!

DETAILS OF THE DAY:

ORGANISERS:

Slutwalk JHB is being organised by founder Sandi Schultz, Gina Jacobson, Nadia Assimacopoulos and Walter Pike

TIME & LOCATION:

The march is happening 25 th AUGUST 2012 starting and ending at Zoo Lake Sport’s Club, Cnr Westwold Way and Lower Park Drive, Parkwood. People are asked to arrive at 10h30, speeches start at 11h00 and the march will start at 11h30.

PARKING:

Parking has been organized on the cricket field on Westwold Way and will be R10 per vehicle. The organizers kindly ask that participants carpool where possible and that no one park on the streets, in keeping with the resident’s association’s request.

For more info on Slutwalk Johannesburg, we have the following in place:

We would like to express our gratitude to the following:

Afrihost – for sponsoring our website

Etana – for covering our Liability Insurance for the event

Lola Montez – for assistance with T-shirt costs

Foot Fashion SA – for donations

Please make any donations to:

FNB Savings Account

Slutwalkjhb

Acc : 62325235902

Branch Norwood Mall

250655

 

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17 seconds

A woman is raped every 17 seconds in South Africa.

A woman, not a slut.

That woman could be a granny, a mom, a teacher, a dancer, a lawyer, a cashier, a nun, a doctor, a farm worker, a singer, a student, a social worker, a teenager, a bookkeeper, a married woman, a virgin, a lesbian, a straight woman, a woman who wears a burka, a woman who wears jeans, a woman who wears a short skirt, a woman who wears takkies, a woman who wears heals, a woman who wears make up,  a woman who wears no make up, a woman!

That woman was not raped because she wore sexy or revealing clothing.  She was raped because a man raped her.

We should be teaching our boys and men not to rape!  Not telling woman not to dress a certain way or talk a certain way or behave a certain way.  Men should NOT rape!

This year on 9th of August we will be holding the second annual Johannesburg SlutWalk.

Please join us!

When: 9 August 2012

Where:  The march starts at Zoo Lake Sports Club

Time:  We will gather at 10:30am, you can drop of rape survivor bags, listen to a few speeches and  get into the mood before we head off for the march

Dress code:  Whatever you want to wear! Bra and panties, a burka, dress as a clown, your pj’s, a ballgown, a business suit.  Its totally up to you!

Who:  You, your mom, your grandpa, your kids,  your colleagues, your neighbour, your bus driver, your accountant, your dog (as long as they are on a leash and you clean up after them)

You can join our Facebook group here.

RSVP to our event on FB.

Twitter here.

Our website.

Donate (we are a totally not for profit organisation (in the process of registering for a PBO number) and rely on donations and the kindness of others).

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I wore makeup and I liked it

So I mentioned here why I never wear makeup and then I mentioned here that I have worn makeup now and that my skin didnt freak out about it 🙂

Most of the makeup and creams I have used have come from samples that I got from GlossyBox and RubyBox , the exception being the mascara that I have had for ages and ages (because I never wear makeup I actually dont own any except the mascara).

So here goes…

Foundation – NYX

Sorry for the bad pic

The colour is a lot darker than it looks but its for night time it looked ok 🙂

 Eye Shadow – Eye Majic

This is the colour I used. Not my choice, will get more neutral colours next time 🙂

I never really buy eye shadow because I never use it and when I do buy it turns crumbly and yucky with age.  I got the Eye Majic in my GlossyBox months ago and I will most definitely be buying more!  Soooo easy to use.  The colour I got as a sample was not so great but they have a huge range 🙂

Eyeliner – Beauté

‘Scuse the bad photo!

 

I never really use eyeliner but thought what the hey, might as well 🙂

Mascara – Clinique

Love this mascara 🙂

Now for cleansing and moisturising…

Cleansing – Africology

Love the tingly feeling, I use this every night

Moisturising – Anesi

Let me just say that I dont care how expensive this might be, but when my little sample runs out I am buying this.  Smells divine and absorbs with no greasiness and best of all my skin has no adverse reaction to it!

So thats it, the products I have started using.

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Thrill me baby!

Body Thrills is running an awesome competition and they want me to tell you which of their weekly specials is my favourite…

So many yummy choices…

I love the refresh and repair pack they have going this week.

Can you say YUMMY?

Hair mask, bath crystals, chocolate pudding (!) bubble bath, cellulite scrub, body polish and a face mask.  All for the unbelievable price of R350 (usually R520!)

Who wouldn’t love that?

Oh and enter the competition!!!

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Fairtrade chocolate? Yes please!

I stopped in at Melrose Arch earlier with my mom and the kids and we came across a sight that made us pay attention…

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You see Cadbury had set up a stand in the square to promote it Fairtrade chocolate.

What is Fairtrade you may ask? Well from the Fairtrade Label South Africa website:

Fairtrade is an alternative approach to conventional trade and a global movement that stands for sustainability and development through trade.

Dating back to the 1960s, Fairtrade started with small initiatives by individuals or groups (usually faith-based organisations or social entrepreneurs) that wanted to make a difference in developing countries by buying their products in an ethical manner. This included paying fairer prices and establishing direct trading partnerships with producers, thereby sharing knowledge and information on production and market and quality requirements.

You can read a more in depth description here.

The stand at Melrose Arch involved moving from station to station learning about what Cadbury and Fairtrade are all about.  Justice, Cocoa and Joy each gave a brief and informative talk as we moved to each station and then Aaron got to make his very own Cadbury Faircrow 🙂

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Fairtrade Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bars are for sale in store as we speak and I for one am very excited to be able to buy them.

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I think the whole Fairtrade organisation is a wonderful example in empowerment and in alleviating poverty.

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Unfortunately Cadbury South Africa doesnt seem to have their own Facebook or Twitter profiles but you can follow Fairtrade Label SA on Facebook and Twitter if you like.

 

Note: Neither Cadbury nor Fairtrade Label SA asked me to write about this, I stumbled upon the entire thing by accident and it has struck a deep chord with me.

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Card Security Week 2012

FNB and VISA invited me to a presentation for Card Security Week and what an eye opener it was.

Dudes! These thieves are super super smart and super super quick and super super ruthless!

From tiny hand held card scanners/skimmers to hi-tech scanners and cameras fitted onto ATM machines (fitted in under 8 seconds!) to key stroke loggers to devious phishing emails, these guys know what they are doing!

According to a new consumer survey* by Visa, it has been revealed that there is a sound awareness of fraud amongst the banked population of South Africa. According to the research, ATM fraud, identity theft and point of sale fraud were identified as the most common types of fraud consumers were aware of.

Some rules for keeping your card (and your hard earned money) safe:

  • Treat your card like cash!
  • Dont let your card out of your sight. Get your retailer, waitron, petrol attendant to bring the card machine to you or go with them to the desk.
  • At an ATM, dont let anyone distract you or try to ‘help’ you in any way.
  • If you struggle to get your card into the ATM slot, dont use that machine.
  • If the ATM swallows your card, cancel it straight away.
  • Whatever you do, do NOT update your details via an email from your bank, NO bank will ever ask you to update details in an email!
  • When in doubt call your bank.  Rather safe than sorry!!

 

 

*The study was conducted by Ask Afrika and involved 350 participants all of whom are banked

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I’m an #HPmum – Part 2

First off, my apologies for the delay!

Lets get to it shall we?

One of the things that made me bounce when HP asked if I wanted to review the machine was the ability to print from any computer via email.  Email?  Yup, email.  You can email a document from any machine anywhere in the world to the unique email address you crate for the printer!  It took all of 10 minutes to create the email address and once that was done I could print from anywhere and the pages were waiting for me when I got home.  For someone like me who forgets what I did 5 minutes ago this is a huge thing, I think about printing a document, I print it. Easy peasy.  I could also tell Paul to email a document directly to the printer instead of waiting for it to come through my email then printing, saves a lot of time 🙂

Oh, one of the nicest features is the Facebook application.  You get a unique code, you enter the code into Facebook and wham bam thank you ma’am, you can see all your albums directly on the printer and then choose which pictures you want to print (especially helpful if you have lost the original images on your computer, hypothetically speaking of course).

The machine also connects to a host of other web apps such as Crayola, DreamWorks, HP Quick Forms, Web Sudoku and so many more.

Aaron and I printed out colouring pages from Crayola.  We printed Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon masks, colouring pages, door hangers and character models from Dream Works as well as super cool paper airplanes that we cut out and folded together.

Here are some of the cool crafts we made!

Crafts print out in full colour with instructions!
Lots of cutting
3D!
There are about 5 different paper plane designs
I cannot tell you how many of these we have made in the last 2 months!!
Just for fun 🙂 Cute mini fortune cookies and take out box

My entire family has made such good use of this machine.  From keeping Aaron entertained to Paul sending me important documents to scanning my paperwork and printing photos to keep the grandmas happy.

I can highly recommend this as a great home printer!

The HP Photosmart 7510 e-All-in-One printer is available at all good computer and electronic stores at a recommended retail price of R1899.00

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I’m an #HPmum

At the beginning of December HP asked me to test out their new Photosmart 7510 e-All-in-One printer.

We don’t have a printer at home so I jumped at the chance to test this one out.

In short, I fell in love.

Lets get the technical stuff out of the way first shall we?

All in one:

Print. Scan. Copy. eFax. Web. – It does everything (well almost, a cup of coffee would be nice)

Dimensions:

45.5cm (w) x 45cm (d) x 22cm (h) – Compact and pretty, it fits perfectly on my home desk.

Print Speed:

From 13.5ppm up to 34ppm black and from 9ppm up to 33ppm colour – Super fast!

Connectivity:

Integrated WiFi and USB High Speed – Fantastic for my home where our router is in our bedroom not near my home desk.

Ink:

The Photosmart 7510 uses 5 individual cartridges – HP 178 Black, Photo, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow – They also come in XL

Now, on to the fun stuff, what I managed to do with this fantastic machine 🙂  After writing up this post, I realised I had a lot to say, so I will be breaking it up into a few parts… This is Part 1

First of all, setting up the machine took us no more than 10 minutes.  And part of that was me trying to remember what the hell my WiFi password was.

The 10.9cm touch screen was a breeze to use and once we had connected to the WiFi we started having fun.

The first thing I did was test out the photo printing.

Holy moly!  Who needs to go to a lab to print photos?  It was so easy and quick.  The photos are beautiful.  I used the HP Premium Plus and HP Advanced paper that came in my press kit.  You wouldn’t know they were printed on a home printer.

It certainly made printing photos of the kids for my mom and mom in law a breeze.  We also got to put up new photos on our photo wall within days of taking the pics, it usually takes us years (no jokes) because its a pain to go and have them printed.

The next thing I tried out was the scan function.

It took me a while to figure out how to scan using my Mac, and I realised in the end it was a connectivity issue (make sure WiFi is on!) but once I had it figured it was so simple.

You can scan single images from the glass or multiple page documents from the document feed on top of the machine.  The document feed takes up to 25 pages at a time and scans double sided too.  Scanning was very quick and the scanned image was clear and colour perfect.

The one feature I didnt try is the eFax function.  Mostly because I cannot think of a single person or instance where I would need to send a fax.  That being said, had I needed to send a fax I would need to set up my online fax service with HP’s 3rd party provider, eFax.  This can all be done from the printer itself.  The first 20 pages sent and the first 20 pages received are free!

Look out for Part 2 tomorrow where I talk about emailing documents to the printer from wherever I am (I know right, so much fun!) and I will also show you some of the amazing projects and crafts Aaron and I made using the HP Photosmart printer!