Fraudulent donations at GoFundMe could hurt animal shelter's reputation

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Sheba showing signs of not giving up per Felines & Canines staff.

Felines & Canines

NBC Chicago reported Tuesday that Felines & Canines, a no-kill, nonprofit shelter in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood, had become victims of credit card fraud.

Felines & Canines

The shelter uses crowdfunding on a regular basis to help keep the shelter running and to help take care of the canine and feline residents.The Felines & Canines website states that operation costs run more than $1,000 daily to feed, shelter, and take care of those animal residents, of which there are approximately 150 at any given time.

In the case of Sheba, a pup whose owners had surrendered her to the shelter because they were unable to take her along when they had moved, medical costs had begun to skyrocket (and are still skyrocketing) because of her state. According to the Team Sheba GoFundMe campaign, Sheba had become depressed after her previous owners had departed and then very ill to the point that she could not eat or stand. She “couldn’t stop shaking or vomiting,” wrote Kelly Thompson of Felines & Canines on the GoFundMe page. After some medical tests, Sheba was diagnosed with parvo and continues to be hospitalized. An update on the campaign page from July 5 related

We are running labs, doing chest x-rays, keeping her on an IV catheter, starting treatment on her bi-lateral ear infections, and will do a transfusion if she is not able to make progress over the next few days of intense treatment.

As of early Wednesday afternoon, the GoFundMe campaign had raised more than $17,000 and within three days, generosity had poured in from nearly five hundred donors. While this is good news for the shelter, fraudulent donations from thieves testing out stolen credit cards, such as the ones received by the shelter’s campaign, really hurt the shelter’s reputation. Felines & Canines staff related that when donors see such things happen, they may think that the shelter has already met the goal at hand and choose at that time not to donate or they may think that the shelter is “messing up” in some way, reported the Chicago Tribune.

Unfortunately, GoFundMe is no stranger to such fraudulent charges. It turns out that often, credit card thieves will test their stolen cards on such sites to see if the cards are active. GoFundMe related in a statement that

As the world's most popular fundraising website, we do attract fraudulent donors looking to test the validity of stolen cards, just as Ebay and Amazon have to deal with fraudulent purchase attempts. However, our payment processors provide a number of safeguards which allow them to cancel those donations very quickly. In the case of the Team Sheba campaign, our payment processors caught the fraudulent donations early and were able to remove them all from the campaign. Our team is continuing to monitor the situation closely to make sure this issue does not continue.

Yesterday, another update on the site stated that Sheba was not doing very well. More treatments and continued hospitalization were necessary. Kelly Thompson related that “[Sheba’s] medical bills will be much more extensive than we originally anticipated, but she is not telling us she’s ready to give up, so neither are we.”

The GoFundMe campaign for Sheba is still live as are other pages on the the site to assist in the care of other residents of the shelter.

Body painting becomes more than a cult art favorite with 'Skin Wars' debut

'Skin Wars' debuts August 6 and features many talented body painters from across the nation.

Skin Wars

Since prehistory, body painting has been with us but lately, this cult favorite in the art world seems to have become more popular than it ever has. There are body painting academies and contests held worldwide. Peruse through Craigslist and you will see job and gig offerings for body painters. Artists are being showcased because of their beautiful work and are often being invited to parties and conventions to work as contractors.

Just Sunday of this week saw the end of the 17th World Bodypainting Festival which was held in Seeboden, Austria from June 29-July 6. The festival featured hundreds of body painters who competed for awards and recognition. To top things off, a new reality TV elimination game show called 'Skin Wars' will debut its inaugural season on the Game Show Network August 6, reported TV by the Numbers on Tuesday.

'Skin Wars' will feature ten artists in the running to test their skills against each other in order to win prizes, which include $100,000. The contestants hail from many US cities, including Seattle, Orlando, Las Vegas and Denver. The show will run for eight episodes in its first season and is the first “body painting competition show” in existence.

The show will be hosted by super-model/actress Rebecca Romijn (X-Men) and features the entertainer RuPaul as one of the judges. Two other judges are high profile body painters in their own right. Craig Tracy of Painted Alive Body painting is well known for his optical illusions and has been featured with many other artists in that category, including sculpture makers and animators. Robin Slonina, who works as a professional artist and body painter and who owns Skin City Body Painting in Las Vegas, has had her work featured on MTV, Fox, Lifetime, Spike, Showtime, Univision and much more.

The winner of the show will not only win $100,000 but will also win a full year supply of materials for their art and be the featured guest at the International Make-up Artist Trade Show (IMATS) in New York City.

*originally published on the now defunct Examiner.com

Enter the robot writers: AI will replace human journalists this month

Software turns hard data into understandable, clear, and concise articles

Automated Insights homepage

Geeksided.com reported on Monday that robots will begin writing news stories for the Associated Press (AP), the most prevalent of the US News Services, starting in July. This sounds like something right out of science fiction but the news is indeed a reality according to multiple reports.

AP will begin putting together financial news stories using automation technology this month with the help of software that was created by Automated Insights. The company calls it’s software Wordsmith, a “platform [that] writes insightful, personalized reports from your data” and which is like “an expert talking with each user in plain English.”

The Wordsmith software will help newsrooms create 4000+ articles to every 300 articles written and published nationally every quarter by humans, reported Poyntr.

Wordsmith works by taking in raw data and converting that data into articles that, according to the site, have the “tone, personality and variability of a human writer.” The software constructs (or “crafts”) results that are original, personalized pieces for news publication. Examples of the raw data conversion to text can be viewed on Automated Insights’ home page.

If you think this development is something new, you are wrong. It turns out that AP has been using automated technology to write news stories from sports data for years as well as other statistics based news such as in the occurrence of earthquakes.

Writing news stories via automation technology is not only being adopted by the US but is also being considered by newsrooms in other countries. The Australian reported on Monday that “computers could soon replace Australian journalists,” for example.

While some writers may be afraid that robots are on their way to taking over, AP reports that there are no plans for layoffs or job cuts at all. In fact, writers will be able to use their time and energy to write stories that are less plug and play than statistics based news.

This automation technology is not solely being used by newsrooms. The CIA has invested in this technology and has been using it for quite some time. The technology has also been used in marketing, advertising, and research.

*originally published on the now defunct Examiner.com

Yahoo Contributor Network shuts down in efforts to back out of a downward turn

In efforts to get themselves out of the red, the Yahoo Contributor Network will close down its services this month

Yahoo Contributor Network

In a surprising email that was sent out on July 2, the Yahoo Contributor Network informed it’s many thousands of contributing writers that after nine years of service, they would discontinue their crowd-sourced publishing platform. The Yahoo Contributor Network is a website that brought in writers, photographers, and videographers of multiple calibers to publish in many genres and get paid by pageviews on the site and at times via up-front payments. Contributors were able to publish their work inside of categories such as News, Sports and Finance and had a reader reach of more than 600 million unique visitors each month.

According to Geeksided.com on Monday, the company has been on a downward turn for many months, if not years, despite substantial success only a decade ago and despite multiple attempts at making enough changes in order to survive the need to nix these services.

It turns out that Yahoo, Inc. has also decided to discontinue many other products and services, including Shine, Xobni, Yahoo People Search, and Yahoo Toolbar. Yahoo, Inc. has dubbed these services “aging products” and is making moves to focus on more popular products that will bring in substantially more advertising revenue.

Discontinuing The Yahoo Contributor Network is one move the company is making to come out of the financial red it has gotten itself into as services such as The Yahoo Contributor Network had become less popular over time.

In the letter they sent out to contributors, The Yahoo Contributor Network Team explained that the company continually aims to become more focused and streamlined, which means making, at times, very difficult decisions.

For writers who still have content on the website, there is some important news to heed! Yahoo Voices will shut down on July 31. Content will be removed from the site on August 1, and all rights to those articles will be reverted back to contributors. Final performance payments will be made on August 15. The Yahoo Contributor Network has created aFAQ that contains more information for interested parties regarding these actions and the Freedom with Writing website has created an action plan for writers for Yahoo Contributors with some tips on what to do with the work they have submitted.

*originally published on the now defunct Examiner.com

Fear the burn; anxiety will help you in this case

As we prepare for the Fourth of July weekend, it's important to keep in mind UV protection when we are outdoors to avoid the possibility of skin cancer.

Getty-Images / Kadir-Barcin

A common modern adage urges, “Don’t feed the fears,” and for good reason. According to leading scientists anddoctors, constant and excessive worry hinders our health in significant ways. Anxiety aside, worrying can cause sleeplessness, loss of appetite, inability to focus or cope, and also can cause physical symptoms which could lead to serious ailments such as heart attacks and ulcers.

However, there may be some cases in which fear and worry are healthy. For example, in the case of whether or not one uses sunscreen, feeding the fears may very well be necessary and more effective in motivating someone into taking proper precautions against diseases such as skin cancer. According to a recent publication in The Journal of Behavioral Medicine by social/health psychologist, Dr. Marc Kiviniemi and his team of researchers at the University at Buffalo, it was found - in research conducted as a part of a nationwide study with the National Cancer Institute - that fear and worry about getting skin cancer was more influential on people’s actions than was data to that point.

Dr. Kiviniemi explains in an article published by The University at Buffalo on Wednesday that

Most health behavior studies don’t account for the more visceral, emotional reactions that lead people to do risky behaviours, like eat junk food or ignore the protective benefits of sunscreen.

He goes on to say that

This study is important because most of what we do in public health communications focuses on spreading knowledge and information. By notaddressing emotions, we’re potentially missing a rich influence on behavior when interventions don’t address feelings.

According to the study from the University at Buffalo, a great deal of people have never used sunscreen (32%) and a very small amount of people (14%) use sunscreen all the time. These statistics do not bode well in a world where skin cancer rates are quickly increasing. According to The Skin Cancer Foundation, more than 3.5 million cases of skin cancer are logged annually and this number surpasses that of any other cancers.

In many parts of the country over the upcoming Fourth of July weekend, the Ultraviolet Index is going to be quite high, states meteorologist, Steve Hamilton of The Storm Report Radio Network.

This high UV Index means that there will be a high risk of ultraviolet exposure if your skin is unprotected. If you will be outdoors, and you’re worried about skin cancer or sunburn, use sunscreen and protective clothing.

Sunburn is dangerous enough, Hamilton reminds but the ultraviolet radiation is the most dangerous part. Protect yourself.

*originally published on the now defunct Examiner.com

Defiance in the Boulder County Clerk's offices for same-sex marriages

Hillary Hall, defiant, continues to issue same-sex marriage licenses

Photo by Paul Aiken / The Boulder Daily Camera Photo: Paul Aiken, AP

As valiant as Boulder County Clerk, Hillary Hall’s actions have been, the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses in Boulder or anywhere in Colorado may be squelched. Hall’s efforts made breaking news on Tuesday when she stated that she would continue issuing licenses despite a fuzzy order from Attorney General John W. Suthers which suggested legal action should she continue.

Wednesday, same-sex marriage licenses were still being issued by the Boulder County Clerk’s office. News broke on Thursday that the Attorney General had indeed set out to sue in order to stop Hillary Hall’s efforts.

Hall had begun issuing same-sex marriage licenses last week after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the ban on same-sex marriages on the basis that the ban was unconstitutional. Since that ruling, more states have followed suit in acknowledging and moving towards making possible same-sex marriages within their jurisdictions.

Currently, Colorado is in a bit of a grey area in these matters as rulings become finalized. Though the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the ban on same sex marriages, the Colorado Constitution still bans same-sex marriages in the state. Suthers argues to this point concerning his forward motion on filing suit:

We are continuing to defend state law but we are being good lawyers and recognizing that the 10th Circuit case applies in Colorado and that this fight in not going to take place in the state court in Colorado or the federal district court. The defense of this case is going to take place in the appellate court.

On Wednesday, the Attorney General, along with Governor John Hickenlooper asked the federal court to make all actions in this matter pause, including a collective lawsuit that was filed on Tuesday which challenges the ban.

Hickenlooper speaks to the necessity of these requests

We understand there is frustration with the lengthy judicial process, but waiting until the legal process is finished will ensure that marriage licenses issued to same sex couples are not clouded by uncertainty. We hope the U.S. Supreme Court will take this matter up quickly. Equality for everyone can’t come soon enough.

This begs the question of whether Boulder County Clerk Hillary Hall jumped the gun. Regardless, she is unwavering in her actions, defiant. Though the Boulder County Clerk’s office will be closed for the Fourth of July holiday through Monday, the plan is to continue issuing same-sex marriage licenses until and if the office is stopped by court order. Hall was quoted about her stance on this matter in The Los Angeles Times as follows: “We believe the licenses are legal and just. History will be on our side."

*originally published on the now defunct Examiner.com

Poster child for the Third Reich was in reality Jewish

Bild Magazine

Hessy Taft had become a poster child for the Third Reich at six months old. Beautiful, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, she looked like the perfect embodiment of Hitler’s dream of an Aryan master race. After having won a beauty contest run by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi activist and propaganda minister in 1935, her image began appearing everywhere.

Thanks to her heritage, Taft was the most unlikely of poster children for this campaign. When her Jewish parents had found out - by way of the cleaning lady - that her picture was on the cover of Sonne ins Haus, one of the only magazines not banned during that time because it supported Adolf Hitler’s vision, they were horrified.

Upon hearing this news and seeing the evidence, Taft’s mother went straight to the photographer who had taken the picture to ask him what he knew of the event. The photographer, Hans Ballin, one of the very best at that time in Berlin, took the mother into confidence and replied, “I wanted to allow myself the pleasure of the joke.”

It’s true that the incident relays great irony and Hessy Taft, now 80 “can laugh about it now,” but at the time, the baby was in grave danger, as was the family. The circumstances surrounding them made it necessary for the Levinsons to keep the baby at home so she would not be recognized.

The picture from the magazine had become so popular that baby clothing sellers even started posting Hessy Taft’s image in their windows. Postcards and other mailings were made from the image, as well, and sold in stores. Recognition would have been detrimental. Taft told the press that “had the Nazis known who I really was, I would not be alive today.”

Taft’s oral histories have long been logged at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. However, Taft’s recent donation of a copy of the above mentioned magazine Sonne ins Haus to the museum created renewed interest in this shocking story.

*originally published on the now defunct Examiner.com