Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Blog (10/20/11)
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TITLE: Changing the World in Your Pajamas | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
10/25/11 -
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“Who do you think is going to read that noise?”
“It doesn’t matter. I just need to say it.”
“Who do you think you are? You’re no Arianna Huffington sitting there in your baby dolls. You’re as arrogant as the gingerbread man on the nose of a fox.”
“It’s just important to me, that’s all.”
“Banging on that laptop is not going to change the world, girl. It’s a mess. Do you think that Boing Boing is going to pick up what you’re saying? People don’t care about some Dalit pastor in India who is back in prison for the tenth time.”
“His words made a difference for me. I’m hoping that mine can make a difference for him.”
“Geek speak won’t get you anywhere. Why don’t you call up Michael Arrington at Techcrunch and see if you can get in line behind Barack Obama and John McCain. If you don’t have a name then what you say doesn’t matter.”
“I just want people to realize that someone has a heart for the invisible people of our world.”
“But look at this stuff. It’s like you’re performing an emotional autopsy on yourself every morning.”
“I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“How many people read what you’re saying?”
“So far, around eleven thousand.”
“How did you get that many people to find a pajama hacker like you? And don’t tell me you just prayed about it.”
“Actually, I just clicked onto LiveJournal, chose a layout, set down some options with buttons, images, tagboards, maps, and comment boxes. I told pastor Kumar’s story and put on some pictures from my trip to India.”
“So, what keeps people coming back?”
“I’m researching everyday about the Dalits and I post the links and information and pictures fresh. People want to know this stuff so they can pray, or write their politician or even help with donations.”
“What are you writing now? That piece you did about the way those Dalit kids have to clean the public toilets was gruesome. I didn’t realize that there are almost 18 million Christian Dalits with practically no rights in India. You make it sound like it’s apartheid all over again.”
“So you’ve been reading what I write?”
“Only to make sure you’re not embarrassing me. You won’t believe how many emails I get from my friends talking about what you’re doing.”
“How much do you know about the Dalits?"
“I saw a couple of days ago how you said that if we took the entire population of the United States and took away everyone’s rights then we’d have an idea of how many people are being persecuted without a hope for help. I just can’t understand how that can happen.”
“Dalits are forced to live in segregated colonies. They can’t use the same wells or temples or tea stalls as caste Hindus. When there was an earthquake in Gujarat the blood supplies had to be marked according to the caste of the donors. A Dalit woman was stripped and beaten to death because she walked in front of two upper-caste men with an empty bucket. A Dalit teenager was beaten to death because he picked flowers from a Hindu’s garden.”
“You’re pretty passionate.”
“Our leaders are so focused on our economy that they really aren’t paying attention to the invisible people in our world. I’m hoping my words make the invisible a little more visible.”
“You’re okay for a little sister.”
“You’re not going to believe what the government is doing now to squirm out of bringing justice for their own people. They’re so afraid of political fallout that the president and prime minister and half the senior ministers are speaking out of both sides of their mouth. The church officials are going to withdraw their support. You wait and see.”
“So, what can I do to help the cause?”
“You can start by getting me a latte. Then you can get into your pajamas and grab a computer.”
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I know you packed a lot of info in 750 words but I wish you had been able to develop your characters a bit more. You showed quite a bit with there dialog but it was hard for me to picture them. I think it's ingenious that they were kids in their pjs but it would be easy to miss that. The little sister helped with that but if you had described her actions it would have been more beneficial.
The start and ending were both really good. I was eager to keep reading. The ending made me smile. I also thought your message was concise and timely.
Loved this:
“I just want people to realize that someone has a heart for the invisible people of our world.”
Spoken like a true passionate blogger.
I liked that the little brother softened around the edges over time and how the MC remained unwavering in her convicions.