So What Do We Want?

This video will explain what we're asking Dr. Coburn to do:

Coburn Say Yes from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

Hey Dr. Coburn... You're not looking so good in the media

Just saying... It's usually not too nice to prevent support going to people who are dying. The Oklahomans who voted for you seem to agree on that one. Even the conservatives are FOX News are confused about why he's not helping the kiddos in Uganda.

New York City

In less than a month, I will be here:







With these people:







And that's only half the fun... more details to follow soon.

News in Oklahoma

Hi Coburn, have you seen this?

E-mail to Dr. Coburn, Oklahoma State Senator

Hello Dr. Coburn,

Although I'm not from Oklahoma, I wish that I was so I would know that you would listen to me. As a Californian, I have been reaching out to my own senators for quite a while to co-sponsor S. 1067. I have traveled to Uganda two times in the past few years and I know that the passing of this bill would ensure safety and relief for my friends that I met in the region.

Primarily, I want this bill passed because I love the people who are suffering under the violence of the LRA and want their lives improved. However, NOW some of my other friends are camped outside your OKC office in the 30 degree winter waiting for you to lift your hold on this bill and out of my love for those friends I am asking you to reconsider as well. They are also suffering on behalf of Ugandans in need and I would like their suffering to end as well.

I respect your wishes to not increase government spending, but I know that when the emergency merits it, there are times that we need to act even if there is a cost associated with it. On 9/11, no one was saying "we shouldn't help the people in the Twin Towers because this might get expensive." They were doing what they needed to do to help reduce the suffering in the emergency.

Since Resolve Uganda and Feingold have figured out a way to allocate this money to help those suffering in this emergency by taking money from the EXISTING State Department budget, your release of this hold would not increase ANY government spending. You can stay true to your fiscal conservative values while actually helping these children.

I wish that I was from Oklahoma so that my voice would matter to you, but my friends in Uganda wish that they were Americans so that their cries would matter as to the global community as my cries matter as a Californian. I hope you'll hear my voice in conjunction with the Oklahomans outside your doorstep, Americans nationwide voicing support for this cause, and the people of East Africa who are suffering the most.

~Talitha

PPG Building

Without knowing what I was doing, I had posted an image of the PPG building on my header of this blog. I just made this my image because the black and white architecture of this building was nothing short of breath-taking to me. But, now that I know what this building is, I simply must go there. Anyone want to go to Pittsburgh? Maybe this summer?

Clipart

According to this incredible piece of art, the moral of the story here is to do your homework in the middle of a race and your pencil will manage to beat the stupid, slow tortoise.

Red Light

This red light
The corner of my little phone
And its flashes mean that someone
Wants to hear from me

Check for the red light
Peer into my purse
Check again, just to be sure

I used to know that he was missing me
Private chats all day long
Forgetting my phone on purpose
Just to return to his red light

Return from a meeting
His message was there to greet me
Climb out of the shower
His red light to see how my day was going?
Exit the gym
Sweaty
Tired
He was dwelling on how nice I looked
Red light reminding me that he cared

My little phone
Up to my ear for hours late one night
And there we agreed
That we needed more from each other than just
A red light
Weaping
And tears
And too far away to make anything right

These days there is still a red light
An overdrawn account notice from the bank
Or a jumbled message from my father
Wat do U want 2 do 4 dinner 2nite?????
A carpool cancellation
They’re too busy to make it to dinner

Never a blush
Cheeks rushing with blood and warmth
Just a red light
And now the roll of my eyes

Relevant and I and Our Mutual Friends

Fancy seeing my friend and former co-worker Whitney Brammer on the front page of Relevant Magazine's website for an article about Ash Wednesday. Personally, I've been passing on meat this season.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/deeper-walk/features/20533-the-many-lessons-of-ash-wednesday


Before Whitney, I saw my co-worker Jason Russell as the featured podcast interview on this website.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/media/relevant-podcast/podcast-archives/20500-021210--invisible-children-co-founder-jason-russell


And a few weeks prior to that I saw my classmate and favorite Starbucks customer from Chicago, Josh Bales, as their featured musician.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/media/relevant-podcast/music-download/19743-josh-bales



Or there was the time that my other co-worker, JoLeah Stiles was their summer intern and author of articles.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/current-events/op-ed-blog/3940



Ok Relevant, let's just accept that we were made for each other. I'm expecting you to call soon to ask for my interview but I won't be offended if you would just rather photograph me as your model.

Fail Blog

This one made me smile. (from failblog.org)

Voting... um again

I still have this lingering cough from all the overtime I poured out to get Invisible Children votes during the Chase facebook competition, but meh, ftk (for the kids)

My dear friends over at LiNK (Liberty in North Korea) are currently vying for your votes to win $250,000 from Pepsi and the good news is that you can vote for them every day from now until the end of the month. Last week they were in 17th place. Now, they're in 6th. If they can finish in the top two, they'll win.

Can you give them some love? http://www.refresheverything.com/link

IC has a lot of friends doing a million great things around the world, but you won't find a group that we love more than LiNK. Trust me. They'll do amazing things with the money for refugees from North Korea. So vote!

Georgia College Human Rights Symposium

This past week I enjoyed a stay at Georgia College and State University to speak on behalf of Invisible Children at their annual Global Rights Symposium. This year, the focus was human rights, so I was honored to lend my voice to the symposium.

First, we heard from Dr. Bertram Ramcharan who was the former Acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
He brought home a few ideas that really stuck with me about America's approach to justice post 9/11.
-The UN hoped to approach Osama Bin Laden's attack against America as a CRIMINAL act. Bush's decision to approach it as a WAR/TERRORIST act is the reason that the USA is still engaged in war with places like Iraq and Afganistan.
-The US Senate has later arrived at a consensus with the UN that America should have treated it as a criminal act, not a terrorist act.
-America's war on terror has had a ripple effect because other countries around the world have also begun to wage their own anti-terrorism wars but in ways that violate human rights much more than America has violated human rights post 9/11.

Then, I heard from Bill Nigut from the Anti-Defamation League.

Here's some points I picked up from him:
-Jews are fortunate in a way because they can "delay" racism against them. So many other children who physically stand out a minority face racism against them from the day they're born.
-Rabbi Hillel once asked 3 great questions about human rights:
1. If I'm not for myself, who will be?
2. If I'm only for myself, who am I?
3. If not now, when?

On Tuesday, I heard from Sister Helen Prejean, the author of Dead Man Walking and advocate against the death penalty in the USA.


Here's a few points she touched on:
-80% of the people currently on death row killed a white person.
-139 people have been taken off of death row for wrongful conviction. How many other innocent people were killed over the past 34 years?
-If I'm struggling with my feelings about the death penalty, I should ask myself, "would I be willing to be the person to kill the convict?"
-Do we ever think about the people who DO have to do this killing?
-They are normal people like myself who now have the profession of killing another human being.
-98.6% of people who are sentenced to death row are considered "poor" by our society's standards.

Finally, I was given the chance to screen The Rescue, Together We're Free, and deliver the closing keynote address on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Here's a few photos:

Presenting The Rescue to a classroom that had standing room only.


Merch table following the screenings.


My new friend Abby, a senior at Georgia College, was extremely helpful in getting the word out about Invisible Children and encouraging our work.

Overall, it was a pure joy and such an honor to have been brought on with such an impressive crowd. My thanks go out to the event organizers and all of the participants of the symposium. Keep up the hard work!

Dreams

"How tragic it is to have human beings live their wildest dreams in their sleep. Let's start living these in the daylight." -Noel Musicha

Men and their hearts

Many people think men are less romantic than women. Yet men fall in love faster (because they are so visual); men tend to be more dependent on their girlfriends or wives for intimacy; men are over two times more likely to kill themselves when a relationship ends; and men show just as much activity in brain regions associated with romantic passion. — Helen Fisher, Ph.D., anthropology professor at Rutgers University

I really really have to agree with Helen on this one.

Momma's Boy

My friend Mel Batie introduced me to this hilarious song in 2008. I was just remembering how hilarious it was tonight.

Milledgeville, GA

I am here. Right now.


And it's a little weird. But I have decided that I love it. Especially my new friend Abby.

Metric

Old song, but I love it more than I can put into words.

Flight to Hawaii

I was disgusted on my flight to Hawaii by the fact that my airplane tray was folded inside of my arm rest. It seemed like a pretty dirty place to store a table that people eat off of.

I said to Hailey "I need like a sanitary napkin to wipe that off with."

She informed me that a sanitary napkin is a pad for women on their period. I proceeded to go into the airplane bathroom and found a complementary new sanitary pad. The following photos will demonstrate how to clean a dirty plane table.

You see, here is my dirty table.


And here is the sanitary napkin I found

I will now show you the steps to cleaning this table. Step 1: open the box

Step 2, remove the backing from the napkin

Step 3, stick it to your hand.


Step 4, wipe your table clean


Be forewarned. If you opt to photo document this experience, the person behind you on the plane may offer to take a cute picture of you and your friend mistakenly not understanding the documentation process that is occuring on the plane. If they offer, you should graciously accept their offer and hide the sanitary napkin from their site while interacting with that person.

I hope you found this lesson informative and helpful. Remember, cleanliness is next to Godliness so don't hesitate to use sanitary napkins in other situations as well.