THOUGHTBOX

Jenna Talackova I haven’t approached homosexuality or transgender issues in my posts because it’s something I’m still in the process of fully understanding myself. Especially when it comes to transgender people, which is a difficult subject to wrap around: what’s the essential difference between a man and a transgender man? It’s much more of an identity issue than a sexual orientation/preference thing, and it makes it more difficult to fully understand.  Jenna Talackova Now don’t get me wrong, I do believe every person on this planet is equal and I’m completely against discrimination, but the interesting twist is this: there are people out there who are born with both kinds of reproductive organs, and they have elective surgery (and my understanding is that doctors recommend the removal of one of the organs, as it’s much healthier for the individual to develop with only one set) to remove one of those gender organs and they eventually grow up as the remaining gender. But th...

Found this jewel of an animation on the Internet. It's a piece on Kony 2012 and it freaking rocks.

Adam Branch, senior research fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research, Uganda, and assistant professor of political science at San Diego State University, USA, has written an interesting piece  (link)  on the entire Kony 2012 movement. He is the author of Displacing Human Rights: War and Intervention in Northern Uganda.   Joseph Kony The truth about Kony 2012, and the hard facts regarding the LRA and Invisible' Children's viral video, is that it completely ignores the more fundamental and relevant issues facing Uganda and its people. The campaign focuses so heavily on US political activism and the LRA, but it fails to address the fact that Ugandans face different and more immediate problems. Downtown Kampala The thing is, willingly or unwillingly, IC's Kony video promotes militarisation, ignorance and a skewed understanding of Africans in Uganda. The best we can do as a world wide audience is, first and foremost, STAY INFORMED. If you're interested ...

Maybe it's just me, but I think whale watching and these kinds of close, physical encounters are some of the most profoundly beautiful and moving experiences in life. I hope someday to be this close to these magnificent creatures.. .   And to anyone planning of making fun or having some sort of problem with the excited lady in the video, remember this. She's genuinely excited and moved. I envy her for enjoying those moments so fully and with such raw emotion.

I’ve always thought that humanity as a species has reached its apex in the food chain of the planet due to evolution. Objectie natural selection and the challenges our species faced along the eons has shaped its body and pshychology. Evolution gave us our brains, and it was our most succesful tool. We have our civilization now, as our darwinian reward. Yet in may ways, we’ve broken free from the chains of natural selection and are now a sufficiently powerful element on our plan to dictate our own evolution. Now – why the introduction? Well, it’s people like Susanne Eman  that make me realize just how badly evolution (more importantly, natural selection) can be mocked and toppled by our civilization. You see, morbid obesity isn’t a survival trait. Yet we have Susanne here, an 32 yeard old American woman that weighs in at 340 kilos and is proud of it. „ . Deep down I had always known I wanted to be fat, but I thought I was alone in this feeling. ” Says Susanne on her offici...

This guy really likes to go viral. Only this time, in an ironic twist of fate, Jason Russell, co-founder of the Kony 2012 campaign, has reached public attention after he was arrested by San Diego police on Pacific Beach for being drunk in public and allegedly masturbating. The 33 year old filmmaker was also allegedly vandalizing cars, and police concluded he was “on something” at the time of his detainment. This happened around 11:30 PM, and police arrived on the scene after residents complained about the naked Russell who was running through traffic, screaming and thrashing about. His strange behavior was unusual enough to prompt the police to bypass arresting and instead take the man in for medical and psychological care, and he was taken to a medical center. "He was no problem for the police department however, during the evaluation we learned that we probably needed to take care of him," said an SDPD spokesperson. "We determined that medical treatment was a bett...

I’d made my opinion clear in my earlier  (link)  Kony 2012 post. IC is exploiting the plight of the people of Uganda for money, and the good they’re pretending to do for these people is actually harmful. But let’s see what Ugandans themselves feel about this video and its message. Victor Ochen, victim of Kony’s LRA and founder of the African Youth Initiative Network nonprofit org, travelled to Lira in Uganda and set up a makeshift theater, screening IC’s Kony video. More than 35,000 people saw the video. Some came on bikes from neighboring villages. Two million northern Uganda residents listened in on the video as it was broadcasted by radio stations. But they all had one thing in common: their dislike of the video. This is what Al Jazeera reporter Malcolm Webb’s account of the happening: People I spoke to anticipated seeing a video that showed the world the terrible atrocities that they had suffered during the conflict, and the ongoing struggles they still face trying to ...

There haven’t been any Kony 2012 posts on my blog so far, despite the craze. Why? Joseph Kony Well, I watched the Invisible Children video the day it came out, just like everyone else. I was tempted to share, just like everyone else. But there was just something about the whole message, the whole video that left me feeling uncomfortable. Like there was something missing, like I wasn’t seeing the complete picture at all. The reason I haven’t posted anything about Kony 2012 is that I’ve been doing a lot of research, reading and looking into the issue. Turns out I was right, and the Invisible Children video smelled fishy for a great number of reasons. The Problem With Awareness Let’s start with my first issue. People love being aware . The reason the IC Kony 2012 campaign was so succesful is because the online community draws a great deal of satisfaction from sharing awareness. It makes us feel like we’re contributing, or at the very least, letting our friends and followers know...

I feel like I know what IC is all about, and why their accuracy is disputable. Beyond the hard facts and the opinions and intentions of the people of Uganda, the main beneficiaries of this campaign, there are certain tell-tale signs in their documentary that made me avoid the share button.  When I was in high-school, our American exchange teacher took us to see an American-made documentary about the Rroma people. The message was admirable, but the movie was horrible. I understood the message of compassion and tolerance it attempted to convey, but speaking to an audience who had grown up with these people, it was clear how one-sided and irrelevant their attempt at awareness was. First of all, the documentary featured the Rroma living in the Transilvanian region of Romania, a much more sedentary and well-adjusted population than the one in Bucharest, which the movie aimed to make viewers more tolerant towards. The entire film was so lacking in context because it was made by pr...