{Originally published on Natty’s Spanking Blog.}

My senior year of college I was invited to be part of a national student delegation to the country of Kuwait. A week or so before I received that invitation, I found out I had been accepted to graduate school at Georgetown University with a full tuition scholarship. As our delegation was meeting in Washington DC for a week of briefings before heading to Kuwait, I went a few days earlier to visit the place I assumed I would be spending the next several years of my life.

The waiting room for my graduate program was lined with cherrywood paneling and upholstered in arabesque print. I remember worrying that my wet, squishy tennis shoes would somehow dirty the place after walking in from the April rain. I stayed the night with a recent alum from my hole-in-the-wall state university, but the next day headed to a posh DC hotel where we student delegates were to stay during the Washington leg of our journey.

It was the first time I’d ever hailed a cab. And I was surprised when a guy in a uniform picked up my suitcase as I checked in. I’d never been to a hotel with a bell hop before. The nicest place I’d ever stayed before that was at a Red Lion with a bunch of girls from my church youth group when we attended a winter youth festival. The bell hop led me to the room, opened the door, set my luggage on a rack, opened the curtains, and then stood at the door awkwardly for a few seconds. Was I supposed to tip him? Or was that just something they did on television but not in real life? The bell hop had mercy on me and left quickly. I felt terribly out of place in this new, fancy world I’d found myself in. And I tell you the truth, dear reader, I broke out into tears as I sat on the immaculate bed.

That is how I feel when I read most erotica.

{Originally posted at Flowerdust.net}

Her name is Anne.

She has fallen victim to some bad curry.

Or maybe it was the pizza.

Either way.

She wears no makeup today.

She doesn’t fix her hair.

Her eyes are red because she’s been crying.

And her bed has been one of her two closest friends.

(I’ll let you guess what her other friend has been).

{Originally published on Pensieve}

She will haunt me, this I know.

“I am happy,” she says, and she means it. Even if she did not speak those words, her countenance belies this simple truth: She is happy.

Kiran invited us to her home today, a 4′ x 6′ shoebox in the heart of Kolkata’s slums, blocks away from the glow and lure of proverbial red lights and painted women. Girls, actually, some even younger than Kiran. Simple math tells me 175 of her houses could fit into mine.

She is the only Compassion International sponsored child we visited this week who didn’t have a parent home with her.

A little over a month ago, one of our most beloved editors suffered the greatest loss any parent can imagine: Her daughter, Maddie, passed away. The hearts of the blogosphere went out to Maddie Spohr’s family in a way that our bodies could not, separated by miles but not compassion.

In just a matter of weeks, tens of thousands of dollars were donated in Maddie’s name to the Spohr family’s charity of choice, the March of Dimes. Bits of support were drummed up here and there to help support the family directly, as well, through not only financial support for funeral costs, but deliveries of food (including gift certificates for delivery from those too far away to deliver it themselves) to warm the family’s bellies and help take their minds off responsibilities for just a moment longer.

All accomplished through the compassion and, more importantly, passion of bloggers. And this wasn’t the first time bloggers have rallied together, nor will it be the last time.

As Blog Nosh Magazine transitions back into our regular publishing schedule after a month of our front page dedicated to Maddie, we would like to take one more opportunity to highlight the efforts and successes of blogger outreach. Benefiting charities, movements, families, and causes across the board, the power of bloggers is immeasurable. As a magazine championing bloggers’ skills and value, we ask that you take a moment to consider some of the more tangible good that bloggers are capable of setting into motion.

This week is dedicated to those bloggers using their thoughtful influence and their passion to make a difference. One of our own, Robin from Pensieve and Channel Editor of Religion and Philosophy, has been knocking us out with stories of her recent trip to Kolkata, India (pictured right), as a member of a team of bloggers for Compassion International. As you will see, not all compassion is lived out from behind the comfort of our computers.

{Originally Published on MomDot}

While we are all so invested deeply in reviews and giveaways chit chat, I wanted to take some time to discuss something that MomDot did that spawned into a $10,000 charitable donation project that is still going strong all due to reviews and giveaways. With products floating around the net daily and bloggers being offered the majority of them, we realized we had a perfect opportunity to do some good with the pitches.

We opened up what was to become Bloggers Give, an organization that asks review and giveaway bloggers whom work with companies to have them send an extra product directly to us, where we donate them all to a predesignated charity.

In the beginning, we asked our site for charity suggestions and I made phone calls to some of them and ended up speaking with Stormi from The Center for Courageous Kids. The Center for Courageous Kids is a camp for children and their families facing difficult medical situations, to come for a week and have their minds off of that and into some fun. The camp has a full medical facility, access to a hospital, horseback riding, and more. Even better, the camp had a need for products, any kinds. We knew we could pass them all the donated products and what they couldn’t use in the camp in day to day operations, they could distribute to the families that attended their camp as assistance.