Our dear Lisa Catherine Brown shared this slideshow that has traveled the Internet for more than a year. Called Lightening in Jar or The Lightening Catchers, it apparently appropriated a photograph (last one) by Bryan Allen without his permission. Allen writes that he would gladly given it for use in such a wonderful slideshow.

And it is just that … a sobering reflection on our privileged lives as AOC readers. (Note, sources and year of data aren’t confirmed). The good news is that most of us understand our exceptional fortune and try to live our lives as Smart Sensuality people: intelligent, sexy and acting with heartfelt, global awareness and intention.

As a spiritual secularist and humanist, I am frankly tired of getting my head bashed in by the religious right and fundamentalism around the world. When you look at these facts, all the arguments about self-reliance and the enabling power of religious institutions to improve people’s lives seem like paper dragons.

Seriously-speaking, if this is what humans have accomplished in thousands of years on Mother Earth, we must reconsider our strategies.  It is time for female-centric values to gain prominence in the world. If nothing else, women deserve a chance to fail as miserably as men have, in creating a Panet Earth ecosystem with an ounce of equity and genuine life improvement built into it.

Reading these statistics, it does indeed seem that God is either totally detached from human existence (an idea that many believers embrace); God is on vacation or perhaps busy making new worlds in the universe, having learned from current mistakes.

I wonder how we could change people’s lives if each of us adopted one small initiative, just one ongoing action that we can embrace, BUT it must have quantifiable results. Right or wrong, my sense of charitiable giving is that most of it comes with religion’s strings attached: no birth control, anti-homosexual agendas, keeping men in charge of family and national budgets, and similar God-approved initiatives. 

Even the US military believes that if we don’t put women first, life will get so much worse for all of us in the 21st century. WORSE than these statistics — which is frankly incomprehensible to me.

Anne of Carversville is dedicated to telling women stories, from fashion to flogging. However bad these statistics are for humanity, they are even worse for women and children. Love to Lisa for sharing this incredible slideshow. Anne Read Lisa’s A Day of Peace | For 24 Hours, Give Peace a Chance, an article that has resided in our top 5 for months now, competing against all those sexy fashion editorials.