Here at Fight Back Productions, we love to hear awesome stories about people doing things to better the world, whether in the field of violence prevention or elsewhere.  This week, I’ve been super excited to hear about some really cool people doing some really cool things.  Check out these links and look for ways that you can help make a difference in your community!

A retired EMT and police officer in south Florida makes self-defense education accessible to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered community.  Attacks on minority groups such as the LGBT community are on the rise, so kudos to Mr. Cacioppo for his good work!

Two friends of Girls Fight Back are in the running for Pepsi Refresh Awards.  Basically, Pepsi gives a ton of money out to people doing good things so that they can do more good things.  But to win the money, they have to get votes…lots and lots of votes!

One of these projects belongs to longtime friends Shawn Decker and Gwenn Barringer.  Shawn is HIV+, Gwenn is HIV- and they are married.  They travel the country teaching teenagers and young adults how to stay safe and know their status when it comes to HIV.  If they win, they’ll receive $50,000 to travel the country and do their thing.  Honestly, if anyone hasn’t seen them speak, they are a hoot and a half!  Plus they are just cool people with a lot of great information to share.  So click here and get signed up to vote for them!

Driver’s Ed for Love is a new friend to Girls Fight Back and is all about offering relationship education to young adults.  I had the pleasure of seeing their program at this year’s SEPC and was really excited about the concept of this program.  The idea is that if we educate young people about how to select mates, we will decrease divorce and other heartaches and increase happiness in our love relationships.  They are in the running for $150,000 to get their program off the ground by training program facilitators, conducting research and offering free programming at colleges around the country.  Click here and get signed up to vote of Driver’s Ed for Love.

Now the cool thing about the Pepsi Refresh project is that you can vote twice a day, once online and once via text message, so vote for both of these awesome project everyday during the month of September.

The last cool person doing a cool thing that I want to mention is…well…ME!  Ok, maybe I’m not really that cool (I’m actually kind of a dork), but my daughter and I are doing something that I’m pretty proud of and that you can help us out with.  We are walking in this year’s AIDSWalk DC and trying to raise $1000.  The infection rate in our nation’s capital is 1 in 20!  That’s comparable to some parts of Africa! A thousand dollars is a high goal, but we are getting so close!  We only need $305 to break it and taste some sweet, sweet victory.  You can make a donation of any size here.  Thanks to our amazing GFB family and their generous donation to support us, as well as, our new friends at Driver’s Ed for Love who also made a donation.  I’m so inspired by the friends and family who have stepped forward to help us raise this money.  It is incredible!  So thanks in advance for any monetary love you show.

Know someone doing something cool to make our world a better place?  Let us know here in the comments or on the wall of our Facebook page!  We’d love to give them a shoutout!

We have a stake in one another. What binds us together is greater than what drives us apart. If enough people believe in the truth of that proposition, and act on it, we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done.

–Barack Obama, December 1, 2006 (World AIDS Day)

One thing the GFB Speaker Team does a lot of is travel. Sometimes we live in hotel rooms while we are plane-hopping from campus to campus. One thing you want to do when you travel is make sure you safeguard your hotel room number. This might sound like an oh-so-obvious safety tip but you would be amazed how many times the well-meaning front desk agent at a hotel has announced my room number in a crowded lobby. My recommendation is if the front desk agent starts to tell you your room number in front of other guests, just nicely ask if they would just write the room number down on that fancy key card holder they give you.

Another thing you want to do is make sure, if you are traveling with someone else, that they do not announce your room number to a lobby full of people. This happened to me very recently and, while I don’t want to name any names, mom I’m looking at you. The bottom line is strangers should not know where you sleep, even it is on a very temporary basis and you think everyone around you looks normal. Stay safe in your travels!

The incoming class of freshman at Reinhardt College should not be messed with! 

 Our Fall 2010 Tour has officially begun and they helped me kick it off right with a Students Fight Back program this past weekend.  They were enthusiastic, fun, and just a little bit scary.  Mad props go to Jeremy, who not only planned the whole thing, but also served as one of the creepiest SBGs I’ve ever worked with.  I think at one point I compared him to a Harry Potter character; maybe it was the badass beard he was sporting.

Keep checking the blog over the coming months.  We’ve got a super busy semester planned and we’ll keep you entertained with our tales from the road both here  and on our Facebook page!  Be sure to become a fan of ours on FB!

The video for “Love the Way You Lie,” by Eminem, featuring Rihanna will debut today, August 5th at 9:00pm on MTV right before Jersey Shore. (Stop pretending you don’t already watch that show. We all know the truth.) Love the Way You Lie is about the cycle of domestic violence and the extremes of abusive relationships. Rihanna, who was the victim of a violent attack by her then-boyfriend, Chris Brown said:

 ”It just was authentic. It was real. It was believable for us to do a record like that, but it was also something that needed to be done, and the way he did it was so clever. He pretty much just broke down the cycle of domestic violence, and it’s something that a lot people don’t have a lot of insight on, so this song is a really, really powerful song, and it touches a lot of people.”

The video features Megan Fox and Lost’s Dominic Monaghan. Fox’s appearance in the video obviously touched her because she donated her entire paycheck for the appearance to Sojourn House, a women’s shelter dedicated to helping battered women rebuild their lives. I, personally, find Fox’s donation really touching and appreciate any effort to bring attention to the problem that is domestic violence and combat the problem.

Beware you aspiring home invaders, women are willing and able to fight back.  And you never know what they will have lying around their house to club you over the head with!

Last week I was riding the train into downtown Portland on my way to work and realized something very strange.  People share a lot of personal information on public transportation.  Granted, most people are not going up to perfect strangers on the train and offering up the information.  What happens is that people are calling places like their banks and phone companies but before their bank or phone company will give up any information, you have to provide them with some personal details to verify your identity. 

In the course of a 30 minute ride I learned full names, addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, and even one social security number.  Luckily for my fellow train-goers, I personally have no plans to use said information.  However, I can’t speak for everyone else on the train and you can bet that if I heard it, other people heard it also.

Getting down to the point, we need to be careful what we say and when we say it.  Just because it is public transportation does not mean it’s the place to air your not-so-public information.  

WARNING: The recordings linked to this blog are unedited and very graphic

Ya know what’s not awesome? Watching one of your favorite actors crash and burn and turn into someone you weren’t expecting.  I once witnessed a very well known public figure kick his dog on my old street in L.A. Witnessing one now treating the mother of his child like a dog is obviously worse. In situations like this, I choose to look at every angle. In part to learn and probably in part to make myself feel better.

I want to be clear that I do believe that Oksana Grigorieva is the victim in this situation and no one should ever EVER be spoken to the way I’ve heard this woman spoken to. I wish that were clear to everyone, but I also know that there are hundreds of thousands of women who may have heard those recordings and have very likely heard worse in their own living room.

I suppose in a way I hope making these recordings public lets these women know they’re not alone- that it can happen to anyone from Milwaukee to Malibu. I also hope that it opened the eyes of people everywhere to how terrifying domestic violence can be. These conversations were via phone. I can’t imagine the fear of having that person beside me- ready and able to strike at any moment. The extreme anger in Gibson’s voice is so apparent it doesn’t seem at all possible that he would have been able to restrain himself.

Now, there are going to be a lot of people who think of Braveheart and all of the other wonderful films this man made and decide for themselves there must have been some provocation or that this simply can’t be true. I mean, it’s Mel Gibson for cryin’ out loud- he would never do this!! We “know” him. He’s not like that! And so goes the story of every neighbor or co-worker who turns a blind eye or is shocked to find the truth behind closed doors.

I don’t want to focus too much on my thoughts on Mel Gibson because I don’t want to appear as though I’m justifying his behavior. It’s horrifying and inexcusable. I do however believe that Mr. Gibson has sadly reached a point of mental illness- likely not a surprise to those close to him.  I don’t think it’s easy being a public figure. I don’t think everyone having access to your entire life at any given moment, particularly in this time of massive social media is healthy for anyone.  I think it’s the perfect storm to cause someone to, well…crack.

It’s all a very sad story and for better AND worse one that the public has front row seats to.

I have done all of the above this past few weeks! It’s been non stop planning and partying around here. Having 98% of our guests coming from out of town, we made our wedding a 3 day event- at the end of which everyone knew everyone. I realized that the main reason people cry at weddings is because they’re so overwhelmed with all the love in the air- and not just the bride and groom. It’s so amazing to bring your circle of friends and family together and it makes me happy to see old friends from high school sending messages to new friends I met in LA or here in Seattle that they now count as their own.

My fabulous new husband and I took a road trip from Seattle to Sacramento for the wedding of a good friend the week after our celebration. There’s something really soothing about a road trip with junk food , satellite radio and someone you love. My husband was a Marine who now has a pretty ..umm…interesting job in the security world. I could tell you more but I would have to kill you

We talked a lot about how lucky we are, something perhaps with our careers and experiences we’re both more aware of than most. We talked about a lot more ( approx 1400 miles worth of conversation) and ended up having a really great time down the coast. It made me think that perhaps every once in a while it’s a good idea to take a long drive with the people in your life and focus on your own luck…and love.

The fabulous ladies of GFB ..we couldn’t resist.

I’ve recently had the pleasure of speaking for a couple of local senior groups and this story just goes to show that you shouldn’t mess with “little old ladies.” 

I have Google alerts set up on topics ranging from self-defense to the hottest spring sandal trends. I was going through them to see if I could find any gems and I came by a somewhat unsettling post on Yahoo Answers. If you’re not familiar with that sight, here is the rundown. Basically, if you have a question, you can post it on Yahoo Answers and the wonderful users of the World Wide Web can submit answers to your question. I came across this question: What is the best self-defense that’s not purely on defensive maneuvers?” The person who posted the question also posted more details and said,

“I guess I’m kinda looking for something that teaches yousomething like setting your opponent up, grabbing his arm, and forcing it out of socket . . . kinda gruesome but after all the bull **** I take from kids around school, there’s a lot I’m willing to do to inflict some pain on certain people.”

This post made me think it is a good time to revisit two topics: what self-defense is really about and respecting each other as people. Self-defense is about protecting your physical safety when you think it’s threatened. It’s not about teaching someone a lesson and it’s definitely not about revenge. Whether you agree with it or not, there are certain truths in society. One of them is that a person can stand at an acceptably distance, say really mean things to you, and you are not actually allowed to beat them up. That is what we call assault. If you think your physical safety is threatened, that is a completely story and it is why self-defense exists.

This person’s post also made me think about how we treat each other. I am a firm believer that people are basically good but there are a few bad apples thrown in the mix. However, sometimes even the best of people can cave into something like peer pressure and maybe treat someone else poorly or bully them. The person who asked this question has been bullied, probably pretty severely to make him seek out that kind of information. It is so important that we respect each other’s humanity and their dignity and hopefully that will reduce the number of people who feel like fighting is the only option.