Vicky Diloné

Posted on June 3, 2021August 16, 2022 by Vicky

Freelancing adventures in Latin America

He’s been stalked by a paramilitary group while investigating environmental conflicts in Latin America. He was invited to dinner by the mother of an MS-13 gang member. He spent an afternoon with the ousted president of Honduras.

This is not the life of some movie character. These are just some of the adventures Jared Olson, a student at Flagler College, has been on.

Photo courtesy of Jared Olson

As a freelance journalist, Olson has been able to travel to many Latin American countries, reporting on social struggles, environmental conflicts, and violence. He said freelancing has given him the opportunity to skip working at a low-level desk job to choose the people and places he wants to cover.

“It’s sort of its own like self-made path,” Olson said. “That’s a total freedom that, for all the stresses of it, is pretty exhilarating and awesome.”

Posted on March 14, 2021October 4, 2022 by Vicky

St. Augustine Bike Week 2021

Posted on March 3, 2021April 2, 2023 by Vicky

Sister Agnes, Bride of Christ

On St. Valentine’s Day, a group of young women gathered at a busy café to listen to a Catholic nun talk about vocation, celibacy and her relationship with Jesus Christ.

Sister Agnes of the Community of the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal (CFR) had traveled back to her hometown of Jacksonville to meet with a discernment group and share how she had chosen her vocation of serving the poorest of the poor.

It’s hard to not notice Sister Agnes. She stood out from the other customers with her grey floor-length tunic and a black veil covering her hair. The religious habit is considered a wedding dress, an outward sign of her vows to obedience, chastity and poverty.

“I never thought of religious life as a young person,” Sister Agnes said. “I had a misunderstanding of a sister. I had a stereotype that you became a sister if you couldn’t get married, which is terrible.”

Sister Agnes now considers herself a Bride of Christ.

Posted on January 16, 2021April 2, 2023 by Vicky

March for Life changes due to COVID-19

The annual March for Life in St. Augustine will become a car caravan in compliance with COVID-19 restrictions.

The anti-abortion march planned for Saturday, Jan. 16, 2021, will take place with some modifications at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche. Masks and social distancing will be enforced according to the National Shrine and city requirements.

Posted on December 7, 2018October 12, 2021 by Vicky

No Choice

This essay was originally posted to the UI Women’s Center blog on December 3rd, 2018.

As many know, America has a dark side to its history. What is supposed to be the Land of the Free has at times been a country where freedom of choice is denied.

Imagine this, you’re in the hospital after spending hours in labor and are given strong drugs to reduce the pain. The nurse says you’ll need a C-section, but first you need to sign some papers. She won’t tell you what they’re for, only that if you don’t sign them, your baby will die. Even though you are in pain and can’t even read the English, you sign them and they put you under for the C-section.

Months later you’re with your baby boy and happy to start your new life. Then you get the call, you discover were sterilized. During the C-section the doctors also gave you a tubal ligation and whether you wanted or not, you cannot have more kids. This is the reality for many women, most who are in poverty or are immigrants, around the world, even in the United States. Read more

Posted on December 7, 2018October 12, 2021 by Vicky

Dr. Edith Stein: Philosopher and Holocaust Martyr

This essay was originally published on the UI Women’s Center blog. My comment on chromosomes was not allowed in the original publication.

Writing for this blog has opened me up to new thoughts and ideas. I am challenged to think critically about the issues surrounding women and humanity as a whole. I am a believer that in order to find solutions to problems, definitions are needed. What is woman? I told myself, “I know what it is to be a woman, at least I know that I am one.” Besides confirming my gender by my XX chromosomes, I wanted to know what it means to be a woman from a philosophical point of view.

I recently went to a lecture about the nature of woman and was introduced to the works of Dr. Edith Stein. She was an early 20^th century philosopher whose research focused on women, empathy, and “feminine” traits. As I researched her life and read her lectures, I found the explanation to what I hadn’t been able to put into words before.

The Jew, the Atheist, and the Believer

Stein as a young women

Stein was born in in 1891 in Breslua, Germany, which is now in modern-day Poland. She was the youngest of eleven children and her parents were devout Jews. She was very close to her mother and was considered her favourite. Life circumstances, including the death of her father, led her to become an atheist by her teens. “I consciously decided, of my own volition, to give up praying.”

Stein was academically brilliant, studying German and history at University of Breslua, and later philosophy at Gottingen University. She was particularly interested in women’s issues and was a self-described radical suffragette. The subject of women in a professional setting and religious living became her focus later on in life. In 1915, she served as a nurse in WWI, where she was deeply disturbed by the sickness and death she witnessed. After a year, Stein returned to school and earned her doctorate summa cum laude with her thesis “The Problem of Empathy.” Read more

Posted on November 21, 2018October 12, 2021 by Vicky · 1 Comment

Porn: Addiction and the War on Women

When looking into the sex industry, abuses can be found. There is mention of sexual assault and rape in this post but nothing explicit. Several of the links do contain graphic content used to illustrate the realities of the industry. Proceed with caution.

This essay was originally posted at the UI Women’s Center blog on September 10th, 2018.

Every day, we are bombarded by sex. In advertisements for fast food or perfume, in TV show plots and music, sex follows us everywhere. At a time where it seems we are talking about sex more than ever, there is still a taboo that many are reluctant to bring up. Porn. Often confined to locker room talk with the guys, no one really talks about it in a critical sense. When was the last time you had nice dinner conversation about the good old topic of porn? How many would admit to family members or employers the amount of time watching people engage in sexual activity on screen? I think there needs to be a critical talk about pornography. I don’t mean from a religious moral standpoint nor do I want to talk about censorship. I want to talk about the science of the brain and the psychological and societal impact on men and women. Read more

Posted on November 20, 2018September 14, 2022 by Vicky · 5 Comments

The Birth Control Pill: An Unethical and Eugenic History

November 20th, 2018 Note: The following essay was originally posted on the University of Idaho Women’s Center blog on November 19th, 2018; it was read over and approved by its editor. It was taken down by the center director because it apparently violates freedom of choice. I fail to see how informing others on the true history of birth control is oppressing choice. I find it ironic that an organization that supposedly advocates for women is trying to censor a minority woman.

December 4, 2018 Note: The original blog post on the UI Women’s Center site has been reposted with this now deleted statement. “On November 20th, the Women’s Center removed an article from our blog. The topic of the blog article was changed at the last minute and the normal processes for posting the article were not all followed due to the Thanksgiving break. However, removing the article because of this was an error and we are putting the article back up on the blog. There are those who will disagree with the statements in this blog. Some disagreements have already been expressed directly to the Women’s Center. There is a constant struggle for recognition of our rights as humans; rights to express sexuality, rights to gender identity, rights for equal treatment without bias, and more. That said, in this struggle, we can never lose sight of the fundamental right of personal expression, including the right to express the contrary or controversial view. Discourse that advances our society requires not just expression, but also listening and a considered response. Ignoring the contrary view derails the discourse. And so, in this light, the Women’s Center is restating the article on our blog. As with all articles on our blog, the content contains the views of the author, not necessarily those of the Women’s Center. We invite you to listen with your eyes and respond as you wish with your hearts and minds.”

July 31st, 2022 Note: It’s been more than a couple of years since I first published this article. It was not my intention for this particular piece to cause so much controversy. People questioned my motives, saying that I should have known that this content wouldn’t have been approved for a university’s feminist blog. But I was very open about my values in the hiring process and was still selected to be a writer for the UI Women’s Center Blog. I was told that I would bring diversity to the website, especially as the only non-white and only conservative writer that semester.

I also considered the piece tame compared to what my fellow interns were writing at the time: a detailed masturbation guide, an informative piece on domestic abuse, and even another critique of birth control. I thought my earlier article on pornography addiction was pushing the line, but that one was approved with no problem. So I did not publish the birth control article for attention; an accusation many, even those I considered friends, would make.

I simply thought that this was history my fellow students should know about. My goal in speaking with media outlets after the post was originally deleted was to get it reposted and to secure the internship credit for my work that semester. After the director reposted it, I refused other print and TV interviews; I did not want to drag the matter out for longer than possible. I am grateful for my family and friends who supported me emotionally and spiritually, the UI Argonaut for giving me a chance to tell my side of the story, and to then-President Chuck Staben for giving me an apology on behalf of the University of Idaho for the violation of my free speech rights at a public school.

I’ve decided to keep the original notes posted on this article, as well as add this explanation, as a reminder of the battles I had to fight to speak my voice as a woman. In 2022, more than ever, when we recount history, that is a cited account of events, we are labeled as violators of the new “sacred law” of relativism. I concede that I do state my opinion in this blog post, but a quick look into the hyperlinks and other sources readily show that the history I present is accurate. I only invite the reader to look into this history and form their own opinions and values.

I’ve updated some of the lines and links in this piece but you can still read the original post on the UI Women’s Center website.

Thank you for taking the time to read these notes. Now onto the article.