Exercising my portrait skills. Drawing my baby cousin =]

KITTENS! A parting gift.

Good start to some sketchbook. Healing time, commence.

Whatever controversy is going around about this cover is silly. Obviously, Time knew their crowd because they certainly understood what would shock people. But seriously, why would this shock anyone? Don’t people understand that breast feeding is what mothers should be doing for their children? I mean, the child on this cover is almost four, but I don’t think it matters, really. There’s a whole group of people who believe this or that about attachment parenting, but the point is that people are grossed out by boobage and children suckling, and that people need to realize that breasts were meant to be used as food for children and not used as a sex symbol. Why are we as a country so squeamish about sex and nakedness?

admiration

Check out my friend’s band, Accident Factory, along with Rozamov and Surfs up Spicoli at 58 Ridgemont Street, Allston tonight, 3/23/12. Get there around 8-8:30pm

Check out Accident Factory here— http://www.facebook.com/accidentfactory

    So, I did a little bit more research. There are a lot of critics saying that Invisible Children (Jason Russell being the cofounder) is not completely transparent about their expenses. Their site promotes these very elaborate films made for the causes they’ve been advocating, causing me personally to ask questions about their expenses. Currently, you are asked to donate money to the KONY 2012 campaign, and you are asked to buy promotional products. Their way of marketing this is a major example of propaganda in action. Despite not being able to personally pick apart their financial statements on their website, I feel there is something weird going on. I can’t say that I know everything about this issue, but I’m not the only one suspicious about this.

     A lot of the information stated in their documentary about Uganda is years old. Although it is presented and stated as an ongoing effort (about a 10 year effort), a lot of the information on the video can be misleading to the viewer, causing them to think that some of the incidences are current. Joseph Kony is suspected to have been out of Uganda for almost six years.

     I took a class about Africa last year; unfortunately, the child armies are not new. Children are preyed upon because are the easiest to brainwash. These children were brainwashed by forcing them into a cocaine addiction, (something that was not mentioned in the documentary). The children were taught no mercy, and they had jobs raiding towns and cutting off the hands and feet of townsfolk. Most of the time, each person’s limb was cut off based on their occupation. If the person used their hands for a living (like a carpenter), their hands would be taken away. So the information in the video is true, about what Joseph Kony had done to these children, but what is going on now? I was also taught that a lot of the money and food donated to causes like these were usually intercepted by the warlords. In reality, some of these campaigns were just fueling the civil war and violence happening to those we want to save. So does this campaign fall within that?

     What truly bothers me, despite my opinionated responses to the accuracy of information presented by the documentary,  is that Invisible Children have made the campaign a trend. My main concern is how well the propaganda worked on the world. It empowers the slacktivism attitude, and they expect you to follow along; the worst part is that people did. Most of us are being used even if we aren’t donating to the propaganda about Joseph Kony  just because we are posting about it. Even I now  (and then, when I saw the video) am promoting this without necessarily agreeing with it. It’s getting publicity from the critics AND the advocates.

     To wrap this up, I does the misinformation of the campaign weigh out the need to catch Joseph Kony? In my own opinion, I believe this issue should be taken more seriously than slapping posters around town and creating an internet trend. It may be a start, but with this “public awareness”, the video states, they expect to arrest Kony. Is it really best to support the public’s attitude of “the best I can do is donate and then let others figure out the rest”? I think people can be a little more creative about their support than just being sheep to Invisible Children.

    In progress shot of “The Living Fossil” from before. Fixed all the spelling errors (woops) and changed the illustration in the middle. Almost done, just need to clarify the illustration and the bigger type a bit and then pull out some of the smaller text. I think I’m liking it so far…

  On the other hand, this is another project I’ve been working on; it’s the transformation of Medusa (more in a metaphorical sense, considering she’s already got snakes on her head). The owl represents Athena, who is attacking her for sleeping with Poseidon near her temple. This is the digital sketch, will post the final product soon.

Lots of other project on their way. I’ve got to get organized and photograph everything =]

http://www.apath.org/im_right_youre_wrong.html

Sarcastic and well written! TAKE A LOOK NOW!

(doing research for one of my pieces)