De Juguetes (A Mexican Toy Story)

Last night at the San Diego Asian Film Festival, I did not expect to encounter a lovely short movie about Mexico City. If you know me, you know I has a weak spot for all things Hispanic, so this one really won my heart from the first scene.

A MEXICAN TOY STORY from Alba Mora on Vimeo.

Directed by Alba Mora Roca

Hannah and Mumford and Sons

Conversation is as follows:

“we are just vehicles… thanks be to God”

Yesterday afternoon, my friend/co-worker/room mate decided to send a facebook message to Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons. She didn’t expect a response.

Hannah Jones September 19 at 4:27pm
Ben,

I expect you get 4 billion emails from fans, so here’s another to add to the collection.

On July 11 2010, my friend, Nate Henn, was killed by a terrorist bomb attack in Kampala, Uganda. He was the only American casualty. I’d just spent the last 5 months of my life touring around the USA with him, spreading the story of Africa’s longest running conflict. We both were full time volunteers with Invisible Children http://www.invisiblechildren.com/ and he was in Uganda with our friend, Innocent.

I just wanted you to know that your music has been incredibly healing, and his tribute video uses ‘Timshel’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-c4G2bIcxU

I wish you could have some understanding of how much your music has healed our hearts after this loss. Mumford and Sons have helped us through this heartache, and for that I will be ever grateful. In fact, a bunch of us are coming up to see you all play in LA next month. I saw you play at the Eden Project and it was wonderful. I can’t wait to see you again.

This is just an email to encourage, so I hope if you read it, it did just that. You’re doing incredible things through your music.

Thank you over and over. Please take 5 minutes to watch the video if you want… it’s very, very well made. And it’s incredible.

Thank you again.










Benjamin Lovett September 19 at 4:48pm
Dear Hannah,

I will be praying for Nate tonight, and for you.

I cannot imagine what you have gone through and watching this video as I sit in my kitchen in the still of night has blindsided me. I wish I’d met this man. The initiative looks incredible and I hope it continues in Nate’s spirit.

As for our music, we our just vehicles, as Nate was with his work, and thanking us I feel is misplaced.

Thanks be to God.

And Peace be with you.

Love,

Ben

PF Changs Marathon

Ok. I'm going to do this. Ack! Come cheer me on. I'll need it.

Rock and Roll Marathon 26.2 Miles, January 16, Phoenix/Tempe/Scottsdale

Iceland

The volcano! Beautiful.

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

Webeditor

Hey, never tried making a website before, but when I visited my dad's currently outdated website yesterday I decided that he needed an immeadiate intervention. So, in a couple hours I cranked out this. Not bad for my first time.

New site (under construction)
http://johnbakercounselor.wordpress.com

This is his current one. Hope you can see the improvements (at least now he has a correct address listed)
http://johnbakercounselor.com/

Moving

This has been a nightmare. Finding roommates to share my apartment with has turned into a never-ending search. Honestly, I've started having a lot of hurt feelings over it. So, how about it if I move to this 1920's apartment complex downtown? Walk to Balboa Park, work, class, my friends' places. I think it's a cute little building. Thoughts?

View Larger Map

Anniversary

A year ago today I was a part of The Rescue in Phoenix, Albuquerque, Wichita, and Chicago. It was one of the most amazing/challenging times of my life. Here's to the memories of that event and what it has accomplished since that time.

Lauren Winner

Is a Christian and probably my favorite author of my college years. Her humor, honestly, and commitment to being genuine make me want to go out to coffee with her anytime. Check it.

"I feel annoyed that in His wisdom, [God] chose to reel me in with middle-brow Christian fiction. It could be worse, I suppose. I could have come to faith while reading Left Behind."-Lauren Winner

Healthcare

"Obama is not a brown-skinned anti-war socialist who gives away free healthcare. You’re thinking of Jesus." -John Fugelsang

No Arms, No Legs, No Worries

Really like this guy... even at his cheesiest.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.