We all remember those spooky stories by the camp fire and when grandpa would tell us ghost stories right before we went to bed. But what happens when those ghost stories come to life?
In today’s video blog we take you to a business in North Central Oklahoma where the past life is still present. From creaky doors to items flying off shelves, the paranormal takes spooky to whole new level. Turning skeptics (me) into believers, and believers running for their lives.
Andy Barth
The first time I met the focus of today’s video blog, I didn’t know quite what to think. I was sitting in an out of state conference, when Temple Grandin sat down beside me. Decked out in a pair of wranglers and an embroidered pearl snap western shirt she did stand out a bit. Actually a lot.
Fast forward a few years, and I send a TV crew to Colorado to interview a leading animal behaviorist, and guess who is there in her pearl snaps. Dr. Grandin is widely credited as driving force in the humane treatment of animals in slaughter houses. (Interesting note: while many people in the meat industry refer to animal slaughter as “harvesting” Temple says such semantics are bunk. She says not only should the industry not try to “sanitize” what’s going on, but slaughter houses should have cameras set up to webcast the entire process.)
To fully understand Temple’s impact on the meat industry you need to understand her background. Grandin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and diagnosed with autism in 1950. Having been labeled with brain damage at age two, she was placed in a structured nursery school with what she considers to have been good teachers. Grandin’s mother spoke to a doctor who suggested speech therapy, and she hired a nanny who spent hours playing turn-based games with Grandin and her sister.
At age four, Grandin began talking, and making progress. She considers herself lucky to have had supportive mentors from primary school onwards. However, Grandin has said that middle and high school were the worst parts of her life. She was the “nerdy kid” whom everyone teased. At times, while walking down the street, people would taunt her by saying “tape recorder,” because she would repeat things over and over again. Grandin says that, “I could laugh about it now, but back then it really hurt.”
After graduating from Hampshire Country School, a boarding school for gifted children in Rindge, New Hampshire, in 1966, Grandin went on to earn her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Franklin Pierce College in 1970, her master’s degree in animal science from Arizona State University in 1975, and her doctoral degree in animal science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989.
Grandin is considered a philosophical leader of both the animal welfare and autism advocacy movements. Both movements commonly cite her work regarding animal welfare, neurology, and philosophy. She knows all too well the anxiety of feeling threatened by everything in her surroundings, and of being dismissed and feared, which motivates her in her quest to promote humane livestock handling processes.
Take a look at this week’s video blog. I am interested in what you think.
Rob McClendon
After spending some time in Sierra Leone Africa I will never look at diamonds in the same way. If you have seen the 2006 movie Blood Diamond you are familiar with the 11 year civil war that in great part was over the control of the small West African nation’s vast natural resources. In the movie, you see a fictionalized account of the very real practice of forcing locals into slave labor to mine diamonds that were then sold on the black market.
It has been referred to as the ‘resource curse;’ nations in the developing world that are exploited for their natural resources. It is certainly nothing new. The Spanish exploration of the new world was in search of wealth while European colonialism across the globe was based on the same model.
Today in Sierra Leone, the civil war is over, yet the conditions in diamond mining areas of Sierra Leone remain bleak. Some of that country’s poorest spend their days mired in the muck hoping to find stones they then, will only be paid the tiniest fraction of their worth.
In today’s video blog, I will show you how a group of Oklahomans are working to improve the lives of orphans from the Blood Diamond Civil War. Work, that if successful, will outshine the sparkle of any stone that has contributed to such suffering.
Rob McClendon
International development is a tricky endeavor. Stories abound of aid organizations sinking money into projects that are unsustainable once the aid dollars turn off. On my recent trip to Sierra Leone, Africa, I witnessed an entire economy structured around western aid. Not that that the aid is not needed. Still recovering from an 11 year civil war the country is a mess.
So when I traveled there with the Oklahoma City-based non-profit One:Seventeen I was not surprised by what I found. Well intentioned folks doing their best to help. Sure I felt at times we were being shaken down by the leaders of the very organization that we were there to help. Was it all their fault? No. What it was is just the outgrowth of a culture of westerners coming into the developing world throwing around money and giving them what we thought they needed.
So here is how I live with the waste. Much of the money raised in Oklahoma comes from Christian charity. Those who give, I believe, can take solace that while the work they are funding is not perfect it is good. The ol’ don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. I would rather see money wasted everyday feeding hungry children than just building another edifice to our own piety.
So the next time the offering plate comes my way, I know I want my offerings to go for bread and less for bunting. Take a look at what I found in this week’s video blog. I want to know what you think.
Rob McClendon
I have a cool job. It has allowed me to travel the world and witness first hand events that most people just read about. I really enjoy international air travel in part because they put domestic airlines to shame, but also because of the people I meet and the places I get to see once I get there. Unfortunately, this week’s blog is not one of those stories.
When an OSU professor asked me to travel with a group of students and a representative of an OKC nonprofit, I assumed it would be like most of the international shoots I do…Hot, sweaty work during the day, but a clean bed and a warm meal at night. Wrong Again!
My trip to Sierra Leone, Africa was one of the hardest I have ever taken. One hundred plus degrees during the day…ninety at night, sleeping on concrete, getting bit by mosquitoes throughout the night in the malaria belt, and eating rice. Lots and lots of rice.
Despite the inhospitable conditions I am proud to say the stories I did from there are important and life changing for all involved. This week and next I am going to show you some of the things I saw. I invite you to watch and learn just as I did.
Rob