Everything is Everything

When working with a beginner, it’s not better to go simple. It’s worse–far worse. I’m on lunch break from teaching a PVP class how to edit. Some of them have barely used computers before, and none have touched an editing program. Conventional wisdom would be to start them off slow and simple – first a…

How many emotions and experiences I’ve had, where I’ve said “I will never forget this!” In a moment of rapture it seems inconceivable that such a towering majesty of experience could one day be a shadow and seem to have left no imprint on my being. Since my first experience in the refugee camp my…

I really like Safaricom as a company. Just watch this beautiful ad. What pride in this exquisite country! The making-of video is here, and is a must watch. UPDATE: Wow, I realize now how much more powerful this video is. All the places this was filmed HAVE SAFARICOM RECEPTION. Brilliant. Also, I now have word…

This evening, I was unceremoniously kicked out of the DJ booth in our local bar Pumzika for playing electronic music. In Dadaab, some crimes are unforgivable. Pumzika is the bar at UNHCR (the UN High Commisioner on Refugees. They run the compound, so their bar is pretty sweet.) The first night we visited the bar…

Some things are just too funny for words: From Jalopnik: When transporting drugs in your vehicle, remember to always signal. Otherwise you might end up like 18-year-old Art Taylor who, upon being pulled over for not signaling, freaked out and swallowed a bag of cocaine. His mugshot says it all. According to Framingham, Mass. police,…

I tried. One month later, I’ll try again. On November 9, I first entered the residential blocks of Ifo, one of the three camps in Dadaab. On that day, in no small part, I lost my innocence. I learned nothing new and saw nothing I hadn’t seen on our living room TV. But I was…

Baffled and in search of an answer, I typed the above into Google. From May 2009: permanent provisions and security assurances from the US, the rewriting of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as it was done for India to allow them to have nukes. From last week: more food aid from South Korea that they are…

I was speaking with my friend Maha about her general dissatisfaction with the state of the news. We are headed toward war on the Korean peninsula, and the world is instead focused on the water cooler talk of some diplomats. Julian Assange is a terrorist of information, dropping bombs of unfiltered, questionably relevant data in…

When you look down at the clothes you are wearing, can you see the tiny young hands struggling to sew them and meet quota…some of whom are owned by a sweatshop and not being paid? And does it make you angry? If you don’t see it, look closer. I’d bet that the clothes you are…

I was so happy to find this in my email this morning. Woyee Film and Theater Industry, an organization in Southern Sudan, a group of Sudanese people working in film and drama to educate and promote awareness, credits FilmAid in part with its founding: Individuals within the group joined other community based clubs such as…