It isn’t hard to see who looks happier.

If you’ve got Internet access please sign the Avaaz petition to protest human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa’s detention.

This inspired us:

Nhai iwe ‘Munhu’? Please can someone answer me. You tell me that there are now City of Harare, ministry of local government or ZRP guys who use the Willowvale Road  and they don’t have eyes to see that along that road, opposite ZESA, the drainage system is pathetic. You don’t need foreign currency but only a shovel.  You tell me to vote. For what? For someone to sit in the office and drive a Benz. Come on guys.

A Kubatana subscriber confronts the constitutional referendum with confidence:

The day began with gathering about ten people in my hood. I stay in Maridale, Norton. I asked who had seen or read the draft. A friend said he was given a Ndebele version at work. He is a serving military man. And he cant even say ‘ca’. I asked how each one was going to vote. ‘Yes’ because that’s what the government is saying, came the reply. Yes, we all want a new constitution, but how can I vote blindly with the crowd I asked? So in the end we decided to protest. We voted ‘no’. In defeat we were proud.

Exactly how I feel.

The slogan on my t-shirt when I’m out running or walking would read “If you can’t say just Hello and treat me like a normal human being, not some female body to pepper stupid arse unwelcome comments with, you can just Fuck Off” … Tatyana Fazlalizadeh in this New York Times article might have a better approach.

Shorty. Sweetie. Sweetheart. Baby. Boo. If you’re a woman, you’ve probably heard it.

If you were to respond, what would you say?

Last fall, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh began replying — through her art — to the dozens of men who approached her in public each week. As night fell, she slipped out of her Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment armed with a bottle of wheat paste, a couple of posters and a paintbrush, and began to pepper Brooklyn with messages:

“My name is not Baby.” “Women are not seeking your validation.” “Stop telling women to smile.”

Since September, Ms. Fazlalizadeh has plastered walls in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick, Clinton Hill and Williamsburg. As winter came and night temperatures dropped, though, she retired her paintbrush. “The wheat paste starts to freeze before it actually dries,” she said. “So the paper wasn’t holding.”

But as slightly warmer weather has returned, so have the messages. She recently tossed up two posters on the corner of Tompkins Avenue and Halsey Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant. And Ms. Fazlalizadeh, 27, an Oklahoma-born oil painter, illustrator and after-school art teacher, was headed back out Friday night. “I’d like them to be out in Manhattan somewhere,” she said.

The project grew out of a desire to explain that for many women, “hey sweetums” or “let’s see that smile” isn’t a compliment. “These things make you feel like your body isn’t yours,” she said.

Of course, her target audience may still need convincing. On Friday afternoon, Andrés Carlos, 50, stood by the freshly pasted posters on Tompkins Avenue. “A woman likes nothing more than being told she is beautiful,” he said. “For me, this is ridiculous.”

A friend of his, Richard Johnson, 29, passed by. Mr. Johnson is married, and no longer calls at women on the street. But he did his share of aggressive flirtation. Did women respond negatively? “Sometimes,” he said. Did he stop? “No,” he said. “I’m persistent.”