A Clinical Answer
It don't take a whole day to recognize sunshine.
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Had a delicious lunch with @brianhchen and @missmultee yesterday and walked away with this! Custom carabiner keychain (a part of their acessories line) availabe April 15th. Really excited for them— check out multeeproject.com (Taken with instagram)
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Division-whether it is physical or psychological- is an extremely difficult emotion that spawns hatred, grief, denial, depression, and forgiveness. We learn about difficult circumstances not through grand theorizing or simplistic generalizations, but by absorbing the view, concerns and joys or people whose lives are intimately connected with them.City and Soul in Divided Cities- Scott Bollens.
(via kristinetreestar) -
Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier ‘til this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been. V.Virginia Woolf
(her suicide note) -
alan! you need to do your research lol. invisible children does WAY more then just fund militia. check out their website and read up about what their mission is. all of their information and projects are public through government websites too. they set up schools, rehabilitation centers, radio networks to warn ugandan citizens and so much more. and just to let you know "the daily what" is written by a 2nd year political student. you really think his blog is trust worthy?
Asked by ahopeforserendipity
First of all, I am not at all knowledgeable on the subject of conflicts in Uganda. My militia comment to you was misguided & an attempt to keep it short (140 char limit is quite restricting.) My point was to reiterate the numerous doubts on Invisible Children’s practices that people have pointed out. I am certain that the organization does more than support the local government (and they claim that no direct funding goes to armies) but it’s problematic that there is allegiance to direct intervention, not relief. Also, Invisible Children has gone back and forth between a pacifist and militant platform. I’m sure by now you’ve read plenty of criticisms written by more reputable sources than the Daily What (anywhere from WSJ to the Huffington Post—all citing views of experts on the subject & the organization) so I will stop there. The core of my thoughts would be lost.
My primary issue has always been with the lack of research people do before mindlessly spreading ideas. An action rooted with the intent for positive change does not always result in positive change. When it comes to people’s lives, I firmly believe that “something is better than nothing” is not true. The fact that we are privileged make our decisions that much more critical. (Peter Parker quote here)
It’s dangerous to say the least and absolutely irresponsible to support an organization solely based on a 30-minute video that explicitly manipulate feelings. I am all for supporting the cause, but is supporting Invisible Children the best course of action? This is not hating an organization as I have no right to do so, but rather my trying to make informed decisions and asking for others to do the same.
This sentiment goes for efforts of other organizations (e.g. Greenpeace) as well. In essence, there’s a difference between Kony vs. KONY 2012. There are questions to be asked & research to be done (on my end for sure.) It’s important to note that this goes for both ends of the debate. It’s equally important to find possible alternative organizations to support based on each individual’s beliefs—or else we’re just sitting on our asses blogging (instead of sitting on our asses giving money away, as sad as that is. At least it’s more than a RT though, no?) Again, I wanted to iterate the importance of the individual. I challenge people to dig deeper if and when possible.
The awareness is awesome. It is the exact opposite (on the awesome scale) of the atrocities. People need help, and it is imperative that we offer a lending hand. But as the stories develop, it’s more important to stay informed. I truly believe that it’s the responsible thing to do. I am ashamed to say that I can’t offer any alternatives at this moment for this particular cause, but will stay in-tuned. In the meantime, there are other organization, and more importantly, people, who need our help. The American Social Health Association / CARE / Doctors without Borders.
Fuck this was long, so in a true internet fashion.
TL;DR: Awareness on the subject? Fuck yeah. Supporting a cause? Fuck yeah. Do more research? All for it. Individual thought? All day. Need to act responsibly, hope it doesn’t take forever, but need to because people can be blown up otherwise.
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Video reblogged from The Daily What
Inspirational Motivational of the Day: 18-year-old Jeremy Minnier is just your average high school senior except for the part where he’s the mayor of an entire town.
Minnier, the newly elected mayor of Aredale, Iowa, recently defeated 76-year-old incumbent Virgil Homer by a vote of 24 to 8.
If the vote tally seems rather small, that’s because Aredale only has 74 residents. But, as diminutive as the population figure might be, it still has some pretty big problems, and it’s now up to Minnier to fix them.
“One of the main things right now is our septic systems in our homes as they’re not up to state codes,” said Minnier, who plans to spruce up Main Street with some new signs and do a little landscaping in front of City Hall.
“Being the mayor doesn’t mean that you just sit back and tell other people what to do,” he says. “You gotta be there helping. I’m gonna be sweeping the streets out there with a broom and shovel just like they are.”
Aredale residents say they’re hopeful about the future with Mayor Minnier at the helm. “Some fresh blood may see things differently,” says town councilor Deb DeBerg.
Even his high school principal is behind Minnier all the way. “I’m hoping he inspires a lot of our kids to step up when they see something that they think they might be able to do,” said Principal Steve Madson.
Minnier himself isn’t too worried about balancing his dual identities: “It’s not a job when you wake up every morning and just love what you do.”
[msnbc / thanks aw!]
First order of business: ICETOWN.
(Woop, there it is.)
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Link reblogged from drop your guard
For those asking what you can do to help, please link to visiblechildren.tumblr.com wherever you see KONY 2012 posts. And tweet a link to this page to famous people on Twitter who are talking about KONY 2012!
I do not doubt for a second that those involved in KONY 2012 have great intentions, nor do I doubt for a second that Joseph Kony is a very evil man. But despite this, I’m strongly opposed to the KONY 2012 campaign.
KONY 2012 is the product of a group called Invisible Children, a controversial activist group and not-for-profit. They’ve released 11 films, most with an accompanying bracelet colour (KONY 2012 is fittingly red), all of which focus on Joseph Kony. When we buy merch from them, when we link to their video, when we put up posters linking to their website, we support the organization. I don’t think that’s a good thing, and I’m not alone.
Invisible Children has been condemned time and time again. As a registered not-for-profit, its finances are public. Last year, the organization spent $8,676,614. Only 32% went to direct services (page 6), with much of the rest going to staff salaries, travel and transport, and film production. This is far from ideal, and Charity Navigator rates their accountability 2/4 stars because they haven’t had their finances externally audited. But it goes way deeper than that.
The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. Thesebooks each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.
Still, the bulk of Invisible Children’s spending isn’t on supporting African militias, but on awareness and filmmaking. Which can be great, except that Foreign Affairs has claimed that Invisible Children (among others) “manipulates facts for strategic purposes, exaggerating the scale of LRA abductions and murders and emphasizing the LRA’s use of innocent children as soldiers, and portraying Kony — a brutal man, to be sure — as uniquely awful, a Kurtz-like embodiment of evil.” He’s certainly evil, but exaggeration and manipulation to capture the public eye is unproductive, unprofessional and dishonest.
As Chris Blattman, a political scientist at Yale, writes on the topic of IC’s programming, “There’s also something inherently misleading, naive, maybe even dangerous, about the idea of rescuing children or saving of Africa. […] It hints uncomfortably of the White Man’s Burden. Worse, sometimes it does more than hint. The savior attitude is pervasive in advocacy, and it inevitably shapes programming. Usually misconceived programming.”
Still, Kony’s a bad guy, and he’s been around a while. Which is why the US has been involved in stopping him for years. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has sent multiple missions to capture or kill Kony over the years. And they’ve failed time and time again, each provoking a ferocious response and increased retaliative slaughter. The issue with taking out a man who uses a child army is that his bodyguards are children. Any effort to capture or kill him will almost certainly result in many children’s deaths, an impact that needs to be minimized as much as possible. Each attempt brings more retaliation. And yet Invisible Children supports military intervention. Kony has been involved in peace talks in the past, which have fallen through. But Invisible Children is now focusing on military intervention.
Military intervention may or may not be the right idea, but people supporting KONY 2012 probably don’t realize they’re supporting the Ugandan military who are themselves raping and looting away. If people know this and still support Invisible Children because they feel it’s the best solution based on their knowledge and research, I have no issue with that. But I don’t think most people are in that position, and that’s a problem.
Is awareness good? Yes. But these problems are highly complex, not one-dimensional and, frankly, aren’t of the nature that can be solved by postering, film-making and changing your Facebook profile picture, as hard as that is to swallow. Giving your money and public support to Invisible Children so they can spend it on supporting ill-advised violent intervention and movie #12 isn’t helping. Do I have a better answer? No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean that you should support KONY 2012 just because it’s something. Something isn’t always better than nothing. Sometimes it’s worse.
If you want to write to your Member of Parliament or your Senator or the President or the Prime Minister, by all means, go ahead. If you want to post about Joseph Kony’s crimes on Facebook, go ahead. But let’s keep it about Joseph Kony, not KONY 2012.
~ Grant Oyston, visiblechildren@grantoyston.com
Grant Oyston is a sociology and political science student at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada. You can help spread the word about this by linking to his blog at visiblechildren.tumblr.com anywhere you see posts about KONY 2012.
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This is the problem with a viral campaign. The internet provides great case studies for herd behavior. To an extension, this is a consequence of the abundance of information. Facts and opinions, whether verified or not, are muddled together. Overwhelmed, we’re like mutated love-children of the goldfish with a short attention span and lemmings who line up to jump off the cliff.
The best stories are those that manipulate our feelings, but we can’t give into cheap ethos because that is the easy way out.
People can’t be bothered to dig deeper anymore. We look for simple solutions, forgetting that the problems are complex. I love the awareness, but you’ve gotta be the last one to drink the Kool-Aid. I’d love to find out more about the issue if someone would be kind enough to point the way.
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I realized the problem… You write short stories. I think you like living short stories.Happythankyoumoreplease (2010)
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If I had a cat…
(A male in your twenties living with a cat— not a good look, bruh.)
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One of my favorite videos of all time. The ESPN book tells some backstory about the network trying to get Jimmy to appear and I recommend you check that out as well, you have no idea how sick he was while he was doing this. All you can sense is how much passion Jimmy had for life and the people in it.
I’ve seen this video hundreds of times and it still hits me just as hard as the very first.
Jimmy V’s 1993 ESPY Speech (by thevfoundation)There is such power in his voice. You can tell that it is fueled by the enthusiasm for life that he speaks about. His presence (that he apparently lacked during his first speech as a basketball coach) is felt through every crescendo bolstered by the fight that he has in him. You can see how physically ill he is, but if you close your eyes— you wouldn’t hear anything but strength. He is desperately pleading for another day to spend with his family but he’s displaying such valiance.
Jim Valvano passed away eight weeks later.
“Take time every day to laugh, to think, to cry.”
Tomorrow is going to be one heck of a day.
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“I’m giving you a night call to tell you how I feel…”
An animated short tribute to Drive
(Via Tom Haugomat & Bruno Mangyoku on Vimeo)
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Photo reblogged from It's All Concepts
Wishing i was here instead of Langson.
I can’t be the only one puzzled about how the fuck he got there (and looks dry).
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For those who stare hard into the distance only to find out that they’re looking deeper inside themselves than they ever have before.
