Don’t Waste Your Time With Explanations: People Only Hear What They Want To Hear.

This is how all rape trials should go. Especially those of people who work in the sex industry because, unfortunately, some people take their profession as consent.  

Maria Fabrizio On Being Subtle

(Illustration for “How A Woman’s Plan To Kill Herself Helped Her Family Grieve”) 

Maria Fabrizio is an artist working out of Columbia, South Carolina. During the week she illustrates news headlines for her blog, Wordless News.

From mental health issues to how listening to music can speed up healing, Maria has transformed difficult-to-visualize health issues into provocative illustrations that balance sensitivity. As a visual producer for Shots, I often call Maria when we have a tough story that could benefit from a smart and emotional concept.

So I called her up to chat about it. Our discussion has been edited for clarity and length. 

Health issues can be particularly difficult to illustrate. How do you tease out ideas from challenging topics like mental health, aging, fertility—many of which are more internal?

A lot of times like that you can’t use photography because you don’t want to show an actual person. You want to make the concept broad enough so that people can reflect on it or put themselves in that position.

I like to start off with a metaphor. There was a piece earlier in the year on suicide and dementia, and deciding when the right time to go was. I thought of winter. And the feeling that winter is a time when things are dying. There’s also this bird flying away and this woman is letting it go. She’s making that decision. The timing was right. It’s hard to find the right level of sensitivity and abstractness so people can project onto topics that are difficult. 

(Top: Illustration for “If You Have Dementia, Can Hasten Death As You Wish?” Bottom: Illustration for “Women Want To Stay In The Game, But Life Intervenes”)

One of our favorite illustrations is the fireflies… what was the story behind that?

It was in the summer. I remember feeling like, “I don’t know how I’m going to do this.” At the same time I got the assignment I had been reading this blog by Eric Meyer– he is a coder and internet guru. His daughter was dying of brain cancer. She was young, five years old, and I was reading this blog and reading the piece you sent and I was so depressed. I went out on my back porch. The fireflies were coming out super early. The piece you sent me was all about this woman being surrounded by her family before she decided to end her life.

That was the only sketch I sent for that one. And I just said, “I hope this works.”

You’ve talked before about the importance of subtlety. It made me think of this one you made for a story on drinking and where the line exists between having had just enough and too many. The woman’s body posture hints at what she’s thinking. I’m remembering that you reworked her posture to get it right.

Being subtle or being quiet, especially for something like decision-making, is crucial in getting that tension right. In this one, I drew her like 15 times. She’s looking down, her left foot is way off the glass but she also looks really relaxed. I wasn’t drinking when I made this, but I did try and get in the mindset—ok, what does it feel like when you’ve had a couple drinks and you’re relaxed and you’re like should I have another one? And I felt like the martini glass was the right level of fragile for the concept. It’s all very subtle.

Illustration for “Rethinking Alcohol: Can Heavy Drinkers Learn To Cut Back?”

All illustrations by Maria Fabrizio for NPR

#KnowYourHistory: #Stonewall

There’s now a smart menstrual device called my.Flow

Meet my.Flow. It’s not a tampon covered with sensors, but rather a special tampon string connected to a wearable sensor. It will monitor your tampon and send you alerts via an app on your phone. Is this really the best solution to the menstruation problem they’re trying to solve?

Follow @the-future-now​

Quick Facts: The Palestinian Nakba.

How the #CripTheVote Movement Is Bringing Disability Rights to This Election

Source: The National Network to End Domestic Violence  

The star of “Grey’s Anatomy”, Jesse Williams, was presented a Humanitarian award at the BET Awards on Sunday, June 26. It’s a well-deserved win since Jesse has been fighting for equal rights for Black people and supporting the Black Lives Matter for a really long time.

If you happened to miss it, watch the full speech here.

#BlackLivesMatter   

#BETAwards

Muslims, dalits and tribals make up 53% of all prisoners in India - The Times of India

Muslims, dalits and adivasis — three of the most vulnerable sections of Indian society — make up more than half of India’s prison population, according to an official report.

“Poverty is more prevalent among these three communities and that becomes an obstacle in dealing with the legal system,” said Colin Gonsalves, human rights activist and lawyer.

“Our system has an ingrained communal and casteist bias. Also, the proportion of these communities in the police officers and even judiciary is less. These are key factors behind this shocking imbalance,” he added.