Many bad things have happened to me over the last few years which devastated my life. In 2000, my landlord with two of his friends attacked me in the flat and although I escped to the street, they changed the locks on the door and I was locked out on a Friday night. In the time I ws locked out, they systematically went through my personal belongings and stole everything of value that I had: wine, eyeglases, legal documents, computer, etc-- and I can't begin to tell you how hard it is to find a lawyer on Saturday morning in Prague in order to get a court order to break a door down or the expense in moving on demand. After taht I was attacked twice more in two months. The first time was on teh eve of my birthday, February 10th 2006 as I was coming home and in that attack, I lost my new passport, and all the income of the month and much more. I went three months without identification. In the following March I was attacked the third time, but run down by a car--
and that was just the beginning of serious hardship for me because I really lost much more than money-- If you've ever been systematically tracked and stalked, then you kow the amount of terror I lived in for a long time. And my poor beautiful cat was the next victim because he was shot at night-- in the dark and came home at 4am in agony. I took hiim to the vet who discovered he had a bullet lodged in his fur over his heart... and sorry that made things much worse for me and I retreated into silence from the world.
And things went from bad to wrose because I fractured my shoulders and couldn't afford medical care and so I just lived in agony for months on end. It was over 9months before I could raise my right arm to my mouth and a little longer before I could put my hand into a coat poclet an now my right arm is significantly shorter than my left as a result of the injury. This makes typing very difficult an sometimes agonizingly painful.
I came to Gather with writing travel articles and testing them to create a newsletter for a Kodak franchise. The man walked out on me with nonpayment after months of work. Settig up a major community newsletter with estaurant reviews, short trips, travel articles and business profiles and photo contests is much work. He said taht my imges weren't worth payment and wanted All Rights to my writing and photography without paring for them. Before you set up a newsletter, you need a backlog of issues so once it is started it continues on schedule... I popped up many articles here on Gather that were the models for this newsletter, but each one of them cost me many hours in time and travel. inreturn he walked out with nonpayemnt.
2007-02-10 valentine 9626
In addition to all that writing and pictues and business interviews, i would also have all the internet work with uploading the articles, images, and pictures for photo contests--about 30pp of work every two weeks. It's very easy, anyone can tell you that if you're a native speaker it doesn't take any brains to do that kind of work.
He walked out in September and it mde me very angry because I worked hard at the things I did. It made me so angry that I started submitting my pictures to photo contests where the average photogra[pher has a Kinon D80 or Canon Rebel XT, the Corvettes and Lamborghinis of photography and I came along with my cranky Lada and competed with them. It was also my first camera--
I took a picture of the day and then another and another. I have some 50 picture of the day awards now and a couple picture of the months that came from competions with peopole who are very serious photographers and equipped with serious cameras and appendages.
I want to be able to take care of myself. I would like to ahve health insurance againg and take car of myself and go to a doctor when I am in pain. I'd like to have basic things and stabilize my life and this is what a camera means to me. With a camera I cuold sell my images off to stockphoto or set up my own shopfront with Shutterfly or wherever and repay my debts.
I didn't create the poverty I live in-- I only survived the horrific catastrophes and hardships that overcame me and escaped from my attackers. have you ever been shoved between the platform and the train. It might look scary on a James Bond movie when a person gets wedged between the doors and the train and platform, but I can tell you that it was months before I could sleep and even hnow, I sleep with a light on at times.
3007-02-19 valentine 9484
What happens in a James Bond movie or thriller isn't the same when it happens to you. I wasn't really so bouncy when the car threw me across the street. I didn't rebound so well with broken ribs on both sides of my body-- but since I was desperately poor, the desperate poor work under any conditions and so I dragged myself into teaching English the next day for 12 straight hours of merciless agony.
I can't do this any more-- my body can't handle it and I ahve CFS. It got so I was writing gibberish on the blackboard and the students enjoyed ridiculing me. It's pretty traumatic when you can't remember your parents' name or where they were born and the US Embassy will not offer any asistance ...
So the last 6years have been only been a struggle of constant pain-- and search for survival.
And now I can't even pay the rent.
There's a portfolio of images over at Picasa--
but I put together 20 frames after many, many hours of sweaty work for Valentines Day.
Picasa Valentine's Folder
the images are now loaded in my Picasa account. The full-zed frames aer available.
I hope to buy a camera to sell my imagess where they belong into the Stock Photo / Commercial photography market.
Just a few weeks ago it was finally possible to have Paypal in Czech Republic. You can help via PayPal at my email after years of working on the internet with nonpayment. Oftentimes the bank fees for small chequess from writing markets and internet work cost more than the cheque itself. Internet can be very expensive in Europe and until very lately difficult to access in Czech Republic without paying a fortune in internet cafes or fees for international dial-up.
I have CFS and in that time I lived with both shoulders fractued without any kind of medical care. let's say it was agony.
At Picasa you wll also find the complete listing of all the picture awards I've taken since October 2006 and the folder of Butterflies. I think there are only 160 bugs and butterflies in it--or something like that.
It's not the Big Folder of Butterflies, but there's enough there to look at. A ne folder of Still Life is being added.
The link is in the top of each image for the picasa valentine folder
Picasa Valentine's Folder
thanks for reading and listening...
pogomcl @ gmail.com
it's now the 5th time I've watched this article vanish after cutting paragraphs and fter 4hours of trying to access Gather Inc Saturday morning 24 February 2007. you have to be crazy to wanht to write anything serious on this site because the servers jsut don't load the pages and articles like this get flagged. Better if you loaded nothing but bad images and recycled plagiarized writing.
My apologies that the images have again disappeared, but I haven't any more patience for this site or reloading images into an article that loses it's title and content and images on a regualr basis.
okay the 6th effor--but the servers just leave you hanging in white space.
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Comments: 23
Mary, bless you woman....maybe one of these days you'll honor us with a photo of yourself. And perhaps during another one of my worldwide visits, I will have the opportunity to go to Prague and meet you in person.
Settummanque!
you have courage to come here and write such kind things about me in such a bad situation
it is deeply appreciated.
and I have nothing left-- I can't even pay for basic things to take care of myself and I think that I am finally tired of hearing moralizing and platitudes because hardship and poverty and degradation destroys a person and does not build or make a person stronger
and I know it was not meant as cruel, but I am beyond my limitations-- if anything it has destroyed all my past work, left me in utter poverty and drained me of physical and mental resources.
and physically I have reached the end opf my strength-- if I look up the page, I see someone who left nasty notes for me to"get a job", but it'[s very obvoius that the person hasn't a clue about the situation and nt an ounce of humanity
and another person dumps a tirade on me about own life and all the handouts received, but I've not received a handout in life and there are no food banks ior social welfare for me to claim
and none over there either because my social security was siphoned off when I was still very young--
and I am alone-- completely, totally alone. and really I would never write something like this except I can no longer bear the agony of what I have been through--
I couldn't imagine all that you have been through. I just want you to know that you are in my thoughts & prayers.
it's not necessary to comment on each and every one of my things. and there are no [points in it for me. I am in Prague.
and there is no obligation to to comment on everything or anything here. points ae worthless anyway--
and that is another reason why I will invest in a camera. writing with pictures is always better for submissions and when I entered Gather, I stopped writing elsewhere--it was that destructive to my psyche.
Gather is where plagiarism and stolen images are highly rewarded--
all that matters on this site is if you can plagiarize or load lots of garbage-- has nothing to do with quality, but with point-whoring. It wouldn't be so awful, but gather has no interest in stopping plagiarism and slams it into our faces that plagiarism = success by putting it onto the front page and accomodating to it as "news" or articles
this site is rife with it and the people who protest it are constantly harassed and flagged, but someone like myself, who does high quality work and protests plagiarism of text and images, will get flagged and harassed.
the scum floats to the top here...
and if you think about the poits system very much, you really wonder about the ethics of the company because the quality of content can be absolute dreck-- it doesn't matter and it will receive more points than something good-- but in return there is little or nothing for the person who does good work, but empty promises. Originally Gather promised and had on its front page that good work would be rewardedd and people who provided good content would be rewarded
and not so-- the more garbage you spew, the more points. and all it takes to stay at the top of highest rank is a lot of dissing to other people. jUst do the drive-by one to anyone who produces better work or deserves recognition
for all the beautiful work I did put here, there's little or no support and I've never made it into top 50 images and collect the ones and dissing regularly. But if you go and look at the top 50images, many of them are just plain -- well-- they aren't that great.
and that was Gather from the beginning. the garbage went to the top and the good got dumped to the bottom.
so if a site is like that, there is no reason to produce and it is incredibly destructive to the psyche
and when finally after 6years I write what has happened to me and I get some really unpleasant comments back and flagged and receive a 24hour warning -- then the site has serious ethical issues.
plagiarism succeeds and good people are harassed.
and Gather slaps it in my face in my mailbox how to "earn points." How? by being a plagiarist or writing mediocre crap.
it's Gather
so I bring nothing here of value anymore.
you son't have to comment on all my images or articles. I'm not such a vain person and this is pure, bad vanity publishing. Serious writing belongs in an envelop on the way out the door to thee post office, but I haven't the money to circulate manuscripts anymore or I'd be doing it. I stopped a year ago because I couldn't pay postage and I couldn't bring the payments back into the Czech Republic. It's that harsh for me and yes, I am a published writer in literary journals but I need food to eat and I think it wrong that a person work without payment. Writing is very hard work when done conscientiously and no literary journal will accept plagiarism and most will not even accept reprints of a person's own work.
and then you'll get thoughtless comments that bad technology should be accepted because after all Gather is new technology (it's not and I was an editor on Suite101.com for 2years) and that after all people are not professional here--- and you know the exact mentality of the site. If you have any integrity or respect yourself, this is not the place to be because you will just get trashed.
But, I do understand, somewhat, of where you are coming from on that aspect.
and I wasn't criticizing you by any means but obviously you know exactly what i was talking about-- and you weren't the only one who noticed the Noch biz-- and it wasnn't sponsored by Gather, but never got knocked either. there's just a wee bit of discrimination ongoing on this site...
and yup referring to a place which you think might be useful could arbitrarily be interpreted as plagiarism or soclicitation which is a violation of TOS, but that hundreds of others do it00well, that's a different story altogether.
you need to join the Gather NonNews Network and Bongo's Mirror and Good for the Knight, methinks... and then they'll be other people with similar appreciation of what you just wrote. and for sure look up Joanne Huspek listed as first comment on this page and her article on Gather TOS-- is a must read for intelligent people like you.
She's good person.
Incidentally I did get 24hour warning for this article so I do know the dirt that goes on ...
and well, gather is very arbitray about their TOS-- it just depends who you are--and they seem to be changing it frequently
the latest version is very interesting.