Something I appreciate about the format of photography is it draws you into a focused story, closing out the world outside the frame and painting an intimate portrait to engage with free from distraction. Walking around focusing in on particular elements of the culture forced me to stop and smell the roses, as they say, and helped me to appreciate the unique beauty God brought about there when on another day I might have driven right through without giving it a second thought.

The End (Jake’s Story) from Nuru International on Vimeo.

Really digging on the clever use and implementation of illustration, motion graphics and video to tell the story in a simple, effective way that is both hard-hitting, yet inspiring without having a bludgeoning, “bleeding-heart” overtone. Ideologically, I appreciate that he exposes this greater theme that fuels much of the conflict that shows up in our news headlines.

Invisible Children - The Rescue from Dave Christensen on Vimeo.

This is an abridged excerpt from a longer talk entitled, “Media: A Catalyst for Change, Part IV of ‘Islam in Europe’”. The panelists talk briefly about the impact media has on public opinion, particularly in the ways it can humanize or demonize particular socio/economic/ethnic groups, specifically in this case Muslims. I appreciate that at the end of the video one of the panelists makes the observation that at the end of the day media reflects what people want to see and hear, rather than portraying the truth necessarily.

Last Saturday I attended an event for the group Invisible Children, called The Rescue (hit the link for a short film about the children). The movement formed to spark awareness of the Ugandan civil war and human rights tragedies associated with it, specifically the abduction of children into slave labor as soldiers in armed conflict. The children are forced to kill, mutilate and otherwise terrorize both each other, family members and civilian villages.

The Rescue was an event here in Tempe, AZ - and in several other cities around the world - where youth gathered and marched to recreate a “night commute,” where thousands of Ugandan children move into urban centers to congregate for protection against rebel forces that would otherwise abduct them at night. The college students set up camp on the lawn at ASU to spend the night, waiting to be “rescued” by local media and cultural leaders (in our case, Steve-O of Jackass fame). The hope was/is to lobby for pressure by the international community to force the leader of the rebels into giving up the deadly conflict.

I don’t care to get into any social/political discourse on the conflict, but I highly recommend the film for anyone willing to gain some perspective on their life and reexamine their own purposes. A short video will be coming in the following weeks for Part 2.

Some people outside were picketing in the parking lot. I wanted to see what their deal was. It wasn’t what I thought. One large sign had a huge cross painted on it with “PALESTINE” in bold, all-caps print across it. I thought this was profound. Did Jesus die for an independent sovereign government? Or rather for Palestinians? I loved it. I appreciate that those folks realized God is more vested in people than in a particular piece of inanimate land.

This is Josh Rushing, the former US Marine and present Al Jazeera correspondent, interviewing Arab celebrities in Hollywood talking about their experiences in the film industry. I suppose it’s sort of an awareness piece with the intention of presenting an alternate perspective on the double-standard that exists in film and the greater culture. And it is that, a double-standard: portraying all people of a particular ethnicity as “the bad guy” - that’s not new.

I appreciate the comments from the actors particularly. They seemed very even handed. I also appreciate that Rushing highlighted films that also portray Arabs positively. I’d forgotten about that little movie with Orlando Bloom, “Kingdom of Heaven.” It’s actually quite amazing the non-villanous way the producers portrayed Salahaddin, probably a first for western media in the thousand year history since the crusades. I welcome opinions of this video in the comments.