"...here i am a shade on the street, asking people for money to eat..."

Stereophonics - Lying in the Sun [acoustic]

Here's to social justice.

revisiting the slums

A friend told me I should prepare my heart for watching Slumdog Millionaire. I didn't think too much of it then. He was definitely right. I was heartbroken all over again for those kids. Everyday for a month, I walked those streets and there wasn't a time when I didn't come face to face with them. Singing, begging, just like that, carrying their babies and sporting their helplessness to appeal to the pathos of any unsuspecting stranger. I don't say that because I condemn their begging. They're real people. And they're the helpless victims of those who would take advantage of them.

I hope people who watch the movie can come face to face with their reality. It's not just Hollywood's world of make believe fictional characters. They are in real danger, some worse than others. And yet it blows my mind how we on this side of the world, on this side of the tracks can just watch the movie and then go home admiring the movie for its artistic genius and go on with life in our comfortable houses and our comfortable beds when they're still out on the streets a half a world away. We do it. I do it. How is that possible? And yet I feel helpless to do anything. If one day I could go back, all the things that I could do for them still wouldn't be enough.

But then it was never about doing a million things for them that may or may not make their lives any easier. It was about loving them. But how?...

a recant

So about the polaroid film rant. Ix-nay on that. Operation: "Life in polaroid film"is coming one day when the "Impossible Project" succeeds. Click on link.

I hope it comes soon because I don't much like the idea of just ebay-ing the film and possibly getting un-usable expired film after all that. Excited? I think so. Maybe not you, but I'm just crazy like that.

winnie the pooh

A horse got his head stuck in a tree a few months ago. She looks like Winnie the Pooh.

I almost feel guilty that I find the results ridiculously comical and adorably cute at the same time, because Gracie [the horse] was probably in pain for all that. Poor thing. And then I love how the news article about it ends with "It remains unclear why Gracie put her head into the gap."

Here's Gracie to the left.