+
Sign up for
The Upworthiest
Our top stories of the day delivered straight to your inbox.
upworthy
More

Native women are going missing at epic rates. A 19-year-old wants you to know why.

Some college students spend their spring break partying in the Caribbean. This student walked 80 miles in four days to help Native American women.

Marita GrowingThunder, a freshman at University of Montana, walked 20 miles per day across the Flathead Indian Reservation from March 25 to 28. The goal of her “Save Our Sisters” walk? To raise awareness about violence against native women.

[rebelmouse-image 19534246 dam="1" original_size="960x688" caption="Marita GrowingThunder (third from left) and supporters of her 80-mile walk through the Flathead Indian Reservation. Photo via Save Our Sisters MMIW/Facebook." expand=1]Marita GrowingThunder (third from left) and supporters of her 80-mile walk through the Flathead Indian Reservation. Photo via Save Our Sisters MMIW/Facebook.

The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement, or #MMIW, spans across the U.S. and Canada, where indigenous women face disproportionate levels of violence. According to the CDC, in the U.S., indigenous women and black women are nearly tied for the demographic with the highest murder rate. Homicide is the third leading cause of death for indigenous women ages 10 to 24.

In Canada in 2015, a quarter of all women murdered were indigenous — a sharp increase from 9% in 1980, which was still disproportionately high.

One last photo from the display yesterday #MMIW #saveoursistersmmiw

A post shared by Marita GrowingThunder Fogarty (@maritagrowingthunder) on

GrowingThunder, who is a member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine Sioux tribe, had two aunts who were murdered. “I haven’t met a family who this hasn’t impacted,” she told Montana Public Radio.

What GrowingThunder is saying echoes what I've heard from my Native American friends and acquaintances. But many Americans remain unaware that this crisis even exists. We tend to place our country’s terrible treatment of Native Americans in the distant past, despite ongoing injustices and struggles caused by colonization.

Marita GrowingThunder is only 19, but she has been using her body, her voice, and her creativity to support the MMIW movement since long before spring break.

In fall 2016, GrowingThunder undertook a project to create and wear a different dress each day of her senior year of high school to honor native women who have been lost or killed.

Just a handful of the 180 dresses Marita GrowingThunder made and wore during her senior year. One dress per day — each honoring a missing or murdered indigenous woman. Photos via Save Our Sisters MMIW/Facebook.

People across the Native American community donated supplies for her sewing project in the name of specific women and families affected by the crisis. GrowingThunder dedicated each dress, about 180 in all, to a different specific missing or murdered indigenous woman.

GrowingThunder is a soft-spoken but self-assured young woman who believes young people can make a difference. "The youth have a lot of power," she says. "Not just politically, but just for humanity in general. I didn't realize I had this much power... I think people underestimate their own power."

You can hear her speak about her activism in this video:

GrowingThunder completed the 80-mile walk in 2017 as well, and both times she received a mixed response from American locals. She has been spit on, yelled at, and flipped off by people driving by. But others have offered water and kind words of encouragement.

The purpose of the walks is to honor and remember the countless women affected by this violence. But GrowingThunder also wants to draw attention to the fact that there is no database to track how many indigenous women are missing or who have been killed. Because there's no central data, statistics are sketchy and no one actually knows the exact extent of the issue. The Government Accountability Office has stated that investigations are needed to better report on trafficking within Native American populations.

Information is key. So is awareness, followed by action.

[rebelmouse-image 19534248 dam="1" original_size="641x428" caption="Photo via Save Our Sisters MMIW/Facebook." expand=1]Photo via Save Our Sisters MMIW/Facebook.

Feel inspired to help? Here’s how all of us can support the MMIW movement.

This issue is multifaceted, but there are a lot of real ways to help.

Encourage your legislators to support Savannah’s Act. This bill bolsters the data tracking of missing and murdered Native Americans, standardizes law enforcement and justice protocols, and requires the Department of Justice to provide training and technical assistance to tribes and law enforcement to implement new protocols.

Support the Red Ribbon Alert project. Since there’s no database tracking missing and murdered indigenous women, this project offers an alert system for when a Native American woman goes missing. Like their Facebook page and share missing women alerts from your area.

[rebelmouse-image 19534249 dam="1" original_size="700x350" caption="Images via Red Ribbon Alert Project/Facebook." expand=1]Images via Red Ribbon Alert Project/Facebook.

Get to know the tribes near you. Start by learning about them, and follow the social media accounts of local tribes to find out about what's happening in their communities. Attend public events and get to know people. (In the interest of cultural sensitivity, you may want to check out articles with advice from Native American people before you go.)

Learn about domestic violence and support organizations that support victims. As with other female demographics, murder stats of Native American women are strongly connected with domestic violence. The National Domestic Violence Hotline launched the StrongHearts Native Helpline specifically for indigenous populations, and they offer helpful information about supporting all domestic violence victims. You can donate to the hotline here.

Understand how the oil, gas, and other extraction industries affect human trafficking in Native American communities. Joye Braun, member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Indigenous Environmental Network, explains that the "man camps" set up to build pipelines, such as Keystone XL, threaten the communities, women, and children.

"Apart from the huge environmental crisis this pipeline would bring," Braun says, "it would threaten the very lives of our people with sex trafficking, drugs, violence, and death." We can learn more about these issues, offer our own voices in protest, and advocate for alternative energy sources.

Members of the Cowboy and Indian Alliance marched on horseback to protest the Keystone XL pipeline. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

It's no secret that Native Americans have suffered at the hands of white supremacy and colonization through all of our country's history. But by amplifying voices like Marita GrowingThunder's, we can take inspiration from her story and her walk. And we can honor her 80-mile sacrifice by doing our part.

Science

MIT’s trillion-frames-per-second camera can capture light as it travels

"There's nothing in the universe that looks fast to this camera."

Photo from YouTube video.

Photographing the path of light.

A new camera developed at MIT can photograph a trillion frames per second.

Compare that with a traditional movie camera which takes a mere 24. This new advancement in photographic technology has given scientists the ability to photograph the movement of the fastest thing in the Universe, light.

The actual event occurred in a nano second, but the camera has the ability to slow it down to twenty seconds.

time, science, frames per second, bounced light

The amazing camera.

Photo from YouTube video.

 For some perspective, according to New York Times writer, John Markoff, "If a bullet were tracked in the same fashion moving through the same fluid, the resulting movie would last three years."


In the video below, you'll see experimental footage of light photons traveling 600-million-miles-per-hour through water.

It's impossible to directly record light so the camera takes millions of scans to recreate each image. The process has been called femto-photography and according to Andrea Velten, a researcher involved with the project, "There's nothing in the universe that looks fast to this camera."

(H/T Curiosity)


This article originally appeared on 09.08.17

From Your Site Articles
science
Pop Culture

Woman who moved to Italy lists the most basic human needs Americans now have to pay for

Remember when these things used to be free? They still are in some places.

Representative image from Canva

If you're feeling like everything is just out of reach, you're not alone.

How many times have you, or someone in your circle, made this joke:

“I can’t seem to go outside without spending money!”

But, as with many jokes, there’s some dark truth layered in. Life just feels a little hard right now for many of us when it comes to finances. And one person has hit the nail on the head as to why. Spoiler alert: it probably has nothing to do with anyone being lazy.

Amber Cimiotti, a mom of two and expat living in Italy, begins her video by noting how America has removed naturally occurring activities like “exercise, talking to friends, connecting with people, spending time with our kids,” from everyday life. And so now, Americans only have access to these very necessary things if they are able to pay for them.

For example—let’s talk about exercise. Cimiotti notes how "there's not many places, neighborhoods, and cities where it's super easy to walk everywhere, where you can get a lot of natural exercise, whether it's walking to and from your house or to the grocery stores. This just doesn't exist for most people now, so you have to wake up earlier on your lunch break or after work; you have to go to the gym so you can get in your exercise." Which means someone has to have anywhere between $40 to upwards of $300+ a month to invest in their physical health in this way.

Next up—mental health resources, primarily in the form of real conversations in a supportive community. Cimiotti says “people are meant to share their struggles, their stories, everyday, constantly. And we’re not doing that. And what do you see happening? Nowadays, everybody needs a therapist. Yes, therapy is needed for some things but most people just need to be talking to people way more. And I don’t mean like trolling on the internet.”

Also—child care. "There used to be kids running around neighborhoods all the time. Parents didn't have to pay all this extra money to do activities so their kids can be involved in things; parents didn't have to drive all over the place... But now that doesn't exist. So we do need to pay for activities,” Cimiotti says.

Lastly—food. “Eating healthy food in America is a part-time job, if not a full-time job
it would all be so much easier if we just had healthy food in general.” I don’t think Cimiotti needs to convince anyone here that quality food (food in general, really) is definitely not accessible for many folks, and high prices are at least partially to blame.

“The point is when things don’t happen naturally in your day and you need to take extra energy to achieve basic things like healthy food, exercise, talking to friends, which helps regulate emotions and things like that
when you have to build those into therapy sessions, exercise sessions, hobbies, reading 17 books
of course you’ll be tired,” Cimiotti concludes with a big sigh.

@ciaoamberc #america #culture #family #friends #parenting #society ♬ original sound - Ciao AmberC

Down in the comments, people seemed to really resonate with what Cimiotti had to say.

One reader commented, “I’m totally convinced that a lot of therapy effects could be achieved by processing time with an array of friends in different stages of life. Which isn’t possible to mutually schedule like therapy.”


And while Cimiotti’s video might be sobering, she tells Buzzfeed that her hope is it can lead to more conversations that “help lead to a change.”

Judging by some of the viewer reactions, it seems she’s succeeded, at least in helping people not blame themselves for their challenges. One person shared, “It’s so validating to hear cause I feel like I never have enough time to just live well and not be completely exhausted and have space left to do fun stuff!”

From Your Site Articles
economy
Education

Expert says there's only one laundry cycle you ever need, no matter what's being washed

Straight from Patric Richardson, the "Laundry Guy" himself.

Representative image from Canva

Because who can keep up with which laundry settings is for which item, anyway?

Once upon a time, our only option for getting clothes clean was to get out a bucket of soapy water and start scrubbing. Nowadays, we use fancy machines that not only do the labor for us, but give us free reign to choose between endless water temperature, wash duration, and spin speed combinations.

Of course, here’s where the paradox of choice comes in. Suddenly you’re second guessing whether that lace item needs to use the “delicates” cycle, or the “hand wash” one, or what exactly merits a “permanent press” cycle. And now, you’re wishing for that bygone bucket just to take away the mental rigamarole.

Well, you’re in luck. Turns out there’s only one setting you actually need. At least according to one laundry expert.

While appearing on HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast, Patric Richardson, aka The Laundry Evangelist, said he swears by the “express” cycle, as “it’s long enough to get your clothes clean but it’s short enough not to cause any damage.”

Richardson’s reasoning is founded in research done while writing his book, “Laundry Love,” which showed that even the dirtiest items would be cleaned in the “express” cycle, aka the “quick wash” or “30 minute setting.”


Furthermore the laundry expert, who’s also the host of HGTV’s “Laundry Guy,” warned that longer wash settings only cause more wear and tear, plus use up more water and power, making express wash a much more sustainable choice.

Really, the multiple settings washing machines have more to do with people being creatures of habit, and less to do with efficiency, Richardson explained.

“All of those cycles [on the washing machine] exist because they used to exist,” he told co-hosts Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson. “We didn’t have the technology in the fabric, in the machine, in the detergent [that we do now], and we needed those cycles. In the ’70s, you needed the ‘bulky bedding’ cycle and the ‘sanitary’ cycle ... it was a legit thing. You don’t need them anymore, but too many people want to buy a machine and they’re like, ‘My mom’s machine has “whitest whites.”’ If I could build a washing machine, it would just have one button — you’d just push it, and it’d be warm water and ‘express’ cycle and that’s it.”
washing machine

When was the last time you washed you washing machine? "Never" is a valid answer.

Canva

According to Good Housekeeping, there are some things to keep in mind if you plan to go strictly express from now on.

For one thing, the outlet recommends only filling the machine halfway and using a half dose of liquid, not powder detergent, since express cycles use less water. Second, using the setting regularly can develop a “musty” smell, due to the constant low-temperature water causing a buildup of mold or bacteria. To prevent this, running an empty wash on a hot setting, sans the detergent, is recommended every few weeks, along with regularly scrubbing the detergent drawer and door seal.

Still, even with those additional caveats, it might be worth it just to knock out multiple washes in one day. Cause let’s be honest—a day of laundry and television binging sounds pretty great, doesn’t it?

To catch even more of Richardson’s tips, find the full podcast episode here.


This article originally appeared on 2.4.24

community
Policy

Tennessee senator goes viral holding her baby during debate over bill to arm teachers

London Lamar did not hold back.

Tennessee General Assembly

Tennessee state senator gives fiery speech on arming teachers

Every once in a while a state's bill will make a blip on national media that causes people to dig a little deeper into what's happening. One such bill made headlines last year for a brief time before a new bill from another state took it's place.

After a tragic school shooting in the state of Tennessee where six people were killed, including three young students, state politicians began talking about arming the teachers. The idea was if teachers were armed then they would be able to stop school shooters, but the bill was widely unpopular among teachers and many parents. That didn't stop the state legislature from drawing up the bill and putting it up for a vote April 2024.

Many parents showed up to Tennessee State Senate to protest the bill, but it was the fiery speech of State Senator London Lamar that has people talking.

The new mom held her infant son in her arms while she addressed her colleagues who saw fit to laugh after moms protesting the bill were asked to leave. Lamar did not hold back in not only expressing her disappointment in her colleagues behavior but their disregard for very real concerns that she also shares with the people asked to leave.

"We are literally talking about arming educators who took an oath to teach our kids writing and arithmetic and how they can one day contribute to Tennessee's great economy, and we're now turning them into law enforcement agents by arming them with guns. We think this piece of legislation is going to keep kids safe which is probably going to enable the next school shooter, and it's not going to be someone coming in from the outside. It's unfortunately going to be a teacher with this piece of legislation," Lamar declares.

You can watch her passionate speech below:

From Your Site Articles
tennessee arming teachers
Pop Culture

Pet parent recreates Taylor Swift's 'Fortnite' video starring their dog and it's epic

"THIS NEEDS MORE ATTENTION”

@iamcalledlucas/Instagram, used with permission

We need every Lucas version of Taylor's songs.

Sure, Taylor Swift did a great job at writing, performing in and directing her “Fortnite” music video (which has only dropped a couple days ago and already at over 30 million views)
but you know what could make it even better? Having a dog perform all the parts, that’s what!

And that’s exactly the treat we received, thanks to an adorable dachshund named Lucas.

The clip (aptly titled “Fortnight (Lucas’ version)”) recreates the music video’s black-and-white typewriter scene, where the camera alternates between a moody Swift and Post Malone clacking as they lament about how much love is “ruining” their lives. you know, basic tortured poets stuff.

Only this time, Lucas plays both the roles—costumes as all! Major kudos to Lucas’ parent, who clearly has an eye for detail and camera angles. Both the original video and Lucas’ video play simultaneously so you can really see how similar they are.

“I look like @taylorswift in this light, i’m lovin’ it đŸ€­đŸ€,” the clip caption says.

Watch below. Spoiler alert: get ready to see little doggy paws in lace gloves.

Down in the comments, people were enthralled.

One person wrote, "THIS NEEDS MORE ATTENTION”

"Magical!!!!!!!" another added.

Though clearly Lucas’s is a whole ‘nother level of Swiftie, is he not the only dog to be a fan. In an experiment produced by WoofWoof, dogs were “visibly more relaxed” by her music than other artists in the study. Her songs got more tail wagging and even more “howls of approval.” That’s right, her music transcends species.

Just like Taylor Swift, Lucas has many, many more music videos where they came from, including “The Archer,” “Hoax” and “You Belong with Me.” And just like Swift, he outdoes himself with every new project.

Check out even more of his content on Instagram and TikTok.

From Your Site Articles
humor
Trending Stories