Post by Kayci on May 4, 2006 16:50:20 GMT -5
I jacked this directly from my blog because I'm posting it everywhere because I have nothing better to do and I think it's important. You don't have to read it obviously but we do seem to have a shortage of recently-updated threads so I don't feel too bad cluttering "Bob" with this one.
Warning: The following is very preachy and corny and long and overly-wordy and often naive and childish and so understated. Sorry. I have a problem with using too many long sentences so that whatever I write feels chunky and hard to digest, anyhow, on with it..
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3166797753930210643
This video is about 55 minutes long, so only sit down and watch it if you are really ready to commit and watch it. You don't even really come to the point of it until over ten minutes in, but in my view the first 10 or 15 minutes is necessary. Anyhow, this is a topic I think is very important, probably more important than anything else going on right now. If you don't already know what's going on in Sudan and Uganda, you really should.
When we learn about the holocaust in history it seems so distant. Hey, it was 60 years ago, right? How does this affect me? And it's easy to distance yourself. That's over, and besides, it was in Europe, and I'm just one person, what difference could I even have made? You still have to wonder how people in this country could not have been outraged, despite the strong anti-Semitism that was present everywhere (not just in Germany). They're people too, even if they have different beliefs or cultures, and as human beings, shouldn't we sympathize and care? How could it not be crystal-clear to Americans that this was going on and needed to be stopped? It's easy to wonder that, sixty years later.
But now, here we are, and so many people can't even locate Uganda or Sudan on a map, let alone tell me just what is going on over there. I know I couldn't locate either of those countries on a map. We're just as ignorant, if not more so, than we were sixty years ago. Someone said, "Well, it's not like protesting at the Capitol will do a damned thing," about the recent walk to rally support and emulate the night journey that many children make every 24 hours in order to preserve their lives. But that's just it. It will do a damned thing. It wasn't a violent protest, it was peaceful, and it garnered attention and helped to shift that attention toward this modern-day crisis. That's what's important; people need to be made aware.
I hate sounding preachy, and I really think that's the tone this whole blurb has taken, but I just want you guys (whoever you guys are that happen to click on this thing... 11 views in a week, obviously someone's read it) to know how I feel about it. I'm not sure what can be done about it, all I know is that every time I see pictures of those scrawny pot-bellied kids my heart nearly breaks (okay, so now it's preachy AND corny, sorry guys). But really, I want so much to just adopt a child and bring it back here, or a hundred of them, and feed them and feed them and love them and love them and feed them some more and tell them how much I love them until they're about ready to kill me because I'm so smothering and crazy.
I can't believe how ungrateful I am sometimes for my existance. It's just a sheer accident of birth that I am here and one of those poor people aren't in my place. They certainly act more deserving than I do most times. They have so much drive to live and just survive, and here I am whining because I'm nudged and pestered to fulfill my full potential and make something of myself. They'd do anything to be in my position, even risk being slaughtered as they run from that God-forsaken rebel army, just to be free and have an opportunity to live.
Tomorrow I'm going to get up and go to college, an opportunity most of them will never have. I don't know the time zone difference between here and there, but I know that it'll definitely be on my mind. What's happening right now? How many people are being slaughtered as I sit here bored out of my head in this class? How many people are slowly starving to death, how many lives are expiring? How many are beginning? How many are just being ruined? How many people are doomed? Who's going to care about them? Who's going to act on it? I don't know. I don't know what I can do or you can do. Except that although I'm just one person, with you, I am suddenly two. With us, and 8 of our friends, we're 10. One can easily become one million, if you desire to make it so.
If you read all that, those 6 or 7 awful wordy clunky junky paragraphs, thanks. The fact that you're still reading astonishes me and makes me glad.
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3166797753930210643
This video is about 55 minutes long, so only sit down and watch it if you are really ready to commit and watch it. You don't even really come to the point of it until over ten minutes in, but in my view the first 10 or 15 minutes is necessary. Anyhow, this is a topic I think is very important, probably more important than anything else going on right now. If you don't already know what's going on in Sudan and Uganda, you really should.
When we learn about the holocaust in history it seems so distant. Hey, it was 60 years ago, right? How does this affect me? And it's easy to distance yourself. That's over, and besides, it was in Europe, and I'm just one person, what difference could I even have made? You still have to wonder how people in this country could not have been outraged, despite the strong anti-Semitism that was present everywhere (not just in Germany). They're people too, even if they have different beliefs or cultures, and as human beings, shouldn't we sympathize and care? How could it not be crystal-clear to Americans that this was going on and needed to be stopped? It's easy to wonder that, sixty years later.
But now, here we are, and so many people can't even locate Uganda or Sudan on a map, let alone tell me just what is going on over there. I know I couldn't locate either of those countries on a map. We're just as ignorant, if not more so, than we were sixty years ago. Someone said, "Well, it's not like protesting at the Capitol will do a damned thing," about the recent walk to rally support and emulate the night journey that many children make every 24 hours in order to preserve their lives. But that's just it. It will do a damned thing. It wasn't a violent protest, it was peaceful, and it garnered attention and helped to shift that attention toward this modern-day crisis. That's what's important; people need to be made aware.
I hate sounding preachy, and I really think that's the tone this whole blurb has taken, but I just want you guys (whoever you guys are that happen to click on this thing... 11 views in a week, obviously someone's read it) to know how I feel about it. I'm not sure what can be done about it, all I know is that every time I see pictures of those scrawny pot-bellied kids my heart nearly breaks (okay, so now it's preachy AND corny, sorry guys). But really, I want so much to just adopt a child and bring it back here, or a hundred of them, and feed them and feed them and love them and love them and feed them some more and tell them how much I love them until they're about ready to kill me because I'm so smothering and crazy.
I can't believe how ungrateful I am sometimes for my existance. It's just a sheer accident of birth that I am here and one of those poor people aren't in my place. They certainly act more deserving than I do most times. They have so much drive to live and just survive, and here I am whining because I'm nudged and pestered to fulfill my full potential and make something of myself. They'd do anything to be in my position, even risk being slaughtered as they run from that God-forsaken rebel army, just to be free and have an opportunity to live.
Tomorrow I'm going to get up and go to college, an opportunity most of them will never have. I don't know the time zone difference between here and there, but I know that it'll definitely be on my mind. What's happening right now? How many people are being slaughtered as I sit here bored out of my head in this class? How many people are slowly starving to death, how many lives are expiring? How many are beginning? How many are just being ruined? How many people are doomed? Who's going to care about them? Who's going to act on it? I don't know. I don't know what I can do or you can do. Except that although I'm just one person, with you, I am suddenly two. With us, and 8 of our friends, we're 10. One can easily become one million, if you desire to make it so.
If you read all that, those 6 or 7 awful wordy clunky junky paragraphs, thanks. The fact that you're still reading astonishes me and makes me glad.
