Out of Africa, the tool of the times.

A cynical take on the power of the net? 
You bet a bit of wit
 and
 a mash up with Mr Wilder
 as W. Wonka giving it that cynical tone, it wins.


Of course it wins only by being clever not by being engaging.


Who ever started this new campaign against this guy

Has at least brought Africa to the attention, however short, of a young world wide audience.


But this guy is small potatoes compared to the white sex slave traders in Eastern Europe or the child slaves taken through out Africa on a daily basis forced to work with no pay and the only way of saving the kid is to buy him or her back.
Stopping there, just getting them out of the clutches of a fisherman or a Nut Job like Kony is rarely enough. 


Particularly with child soldiers there is the profound psychological damage to be dealt with but as important is the need to take the vulnerable and give them some rudimentary skills that might keep them from having to accept the offer of a job that turns into a nightmare of servitude.


 Burmese kids, beats mowing the
neighbors lawn for chump change 
BTW 
the SE Asians
              in some spots
                 can be even worse 
than their African cousins.


In the end
Jason Russel has done another positive thing.


He has reinforced the idea that the internet has a lot of power, it has been a timely provocateur of the wrongs in our world just as it has been the platform to allow other wrongs to take place.
It is also a space where displaced groups can have a free flowing infofeed to the public as has been done in the Kony 2012 campaign. 
Various groups spoke up and pointed to some flaws in Mr Russel's strategy and well they should have.
Personally I gave support more to the idea of flushing these people out via the WWW but not to the details.
I have had the good fortune to have had dinner with a lady who works on the ground in Africa for a well known NGO. 
She just happens to be directly involved in the rehab of these children and she agreed that getting these people out of the poverty cycle is one of the keys to success. 


       Stop financing 
military dictators (is there any other kind) and empower the people with more knowledge
and fewer guns, would be another.


 STOP being a slave to dogma and hatred bred in your religious ideals. If it isn't some fucked up blood hungry jack ass like Pol Pot it is some freaked out Zealot barking about the hell that awaits us all who don't believe.


So I give my token 45 bucks a month to World Vision I get some info about the situation in Africa from various sources and I type a
                                                blog about it.                
After it's all said and done I would like to leave the logistics for Africa to people in Africa,
                             I'm not in Africa,
                                                I'm out of Africa 
                                                      and fully know it.
winter is still here

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge

So I have safely arived in Ft Mac with few mishaps except navigating Edmonton which didn't go well because of the amount of road construction enroute. Beside that and a crappy burger for lunch things went smooth on the drive and I pulled into the parking lot right on time. Still a few things are not in place the major one being my financing. It seems that I owe the Government a chunk of cash and they are going to extract it from my student loan. This fact I missed when debating the viability of this venture. I had concluded that I would have to get a P/T job but my loan was going to take care of my school expenses. I have a shortfall of exactly $2129.58! YIKES! To add to the mix we have my Daughter doing her vows on the 18th of this month, I wonder if it can be afforded. I planned on getting new tires after I was sure of my money situation and at this time it looks as though I won't be there or won't be here. If I can't pay all of my rent then I will have to pack it in
Read more

So what is your big idea?

Image
This was posted a while back and on my stats page it is always the most read.  This is becoming an exercise in learning what my stats counter is counting. Anyway I haven't read this post in some time and found it OK. Again an apology to those who have read it. I do want to see if the stat counter increases the page views of this post. Cheers Gord I feel very bad. I have not been posting and it weighs heavy in my heart. This is not because I am in the throes of LOVE or because I have a high profile job that takes up all of my time. No, this is the result of CABLE TV The hundreds of channels that I have at my disposal has become a millstone around my neck This brings me to a topic which I have tried to put down in print before but have found it too large a topic for this blogger. It is really two things which are related. One is the constant confusion in choice. By our western standards "choice" is at the top of our list of things that
Read more

On the road in India

Image
Oh I have been watching nothing on the news lately. Not watching cable means I tend to become news deficient meaning that I don't cruise The Huffington Post as much as I used to because even my time on the internet has been parred down. But Today I caught the evening news and saw a report on the reaction to Prime minister Harper and his entourage having armoured vehicles shipped to India to use while in that country. How were they shipped? By C17 Transport. The cost is said to be $37,000 an hour to run one of these babies. I think it's probably cheaper to ship the three vehicles by sea but would take a much longer time and the crew and maintenance etc for the C17 would still be a cost but at least the PM wouldn't be using the resources of the Canadian public coffers. It is appalling to watch opposition parties run to the scrum and try to devour a frivolous point all of them squawking like Fort Mac Ravens over a Big Mac package lying on the roadside. Sure there is
Read more