Care2Action Petition on Laura Ling and Euna Lee – Received Email

Here is a lovely email that I received today after having signed the Care2Action petition over Laura Ling and Euna Lee’s detainment.

Always stand up for what you believe in and fight for your freedom of speech.

And in this specific case, it would probably be good to also have google maps open on your iphone next time you travel to South Korea.

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Hi Cristina,

For Laura Ling and Euna Lee, these past days since their return to America have been filled with great experiences and love from their family, friends and supporters. Laura has written a brief message that she would like to share with all of those who signed the Care2 petitions. Thank you again for helping to build the grassroots movement calling for the release of Laura and Euna!

Dear Friends,

While in detention in North Korea, isolated and scared, one of the things that gave me strength and sustained my faith was hearing about the groundswell of support for Euna and me. You were a part of this incredible movement and for that I will be forever thankful.

Through the letters that I was able to receive, I learned about the many beautiful vigils, the LauraandEuna.com website, the Care2 petition, the Facebook group, and all the other grassroots efforts to bring us home. I am deeply humbled.

In times of extreme darkness and depression, I thought of all of the people, united together, sending us messages of love and hope. I envisioned the light of the candles at the vigils and it brightened my soul.

I would not be here today, home and free, re-united with my family (my sister is actually asleep on the couch right by my side), if not for the support from so many extraordinary people. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Words cannot adequately express my profound gratitude.

While my experience was the most challenging time of my life, I do believe that something beautiful came out of it, and that is the way in which so many people united around a cause for hope and peace.

I’d like to share with you an entry from my journal that I kept during my time in captivity:

Thursday, June 11, 2009 Day 87, 3:00 PM
“I’ve been so overwhelmed and touched by the outpouring of support from so many people. Loved ones, friends, people I haven’t been in contact with in ages, and even total strangers. It makes you have faith in humanity. I hope that I would be as good of a friend or human to someone else in a similar situation.”

Euna and I are two of the lucky ones whose story of captivity resulted in a happy ending. But there are so many journalists imprisoned around the world whose fate is still undecided. It is my sincere hope that the energy ignited around bringing us home will be harnessed into raising awareness around these fellow journalists and their struggle for freedom.

With all my love and gratitude,

Laura

Thank you,

Rebecca Young,
Care2 and ThePetitionSite Team

Response to @KuraFire’s Qwitter Post: Don’t You Love Me Anymore?

Here is @KuraFire’s post . I can’t seem to comment on his page for some reason.

Qwitter sounds “interesting” and like you mentioned, the seemingly negative comments makes it depressing for users to use their product. A real life example of Qwitter is if every breakfast, you always skipped to the obituaries. Some people get their jollies off of it (like mafia hit men) but for the rest of the world, you want to start your day off cheery, not with an email saying that your idol on twitter stopped following you because you told him that you “wanted him to slather mayo all over your body” on twitter (It feels sexy).

If you look at its homepage, the crying person is quite saddening and their example essentially tells me I am lame and therefore, you stopped following me.

SocialToo did a great job: telling you when someone is following you and when they aren’t. It balances things out and doesn’t feel like the site nor twitter people are gunning for you.

I think Qwitter should change their focus. They could change it so that when someone stops following you, you can poke them/send them an apology tweet or it gives you a list of people that you *can* dm. This idea is, of course, under construction.

Yoga Class: First Comic Strip

Sorry. I’ll attempt fix the next one so it’s more readable.

Twitter Login Page: Spicing Things Up

Twitter is doing an awesome job. We love you, especially for being able to keep the site up during the DDoS attack .

Just a little while ago, Twitter changed its login page . There are a couple of changes that I wish upon it. I liked when their background was a lighter and brighter blue. Brighter colors convey a sense of cheeriness and make the user feel warm inside. When I bypass the initial login page, twitter goes back to its original background, a world that feels so much more familiar and safe. Another feature that I had noticed was that the login form has been converted into a dropdown. This creates an extra step for current users and it was better when the login form was in the visible layout.

On the plus side, I greatly appreciate the ‘popular topics’ and I hope to see that same system set up on my homepage as well.

Overall: Twitter is trying to take their site to the next ui and functionality level and I cheer them on. Watching Twitter grow is like watching a kid learning how to run with jet packs strapped to his back. Go little one. Fly.