March 13, 2012, by Kay

Starbucks Samples, Banana French Toast and KONY

You know when you’re a kid and you try and avoid thinking about the start of term at the end of summer?…’cause you really don’t want to go back to school.

I’m trying really hard to avoid thinking the opposite- the END of term. As the year gets on you get a feel for this in everyone as the facebook statuses get increasingly panicky. But on a lighter note:

• I tried some banana french toast with honey this week. And it was delicious. The Jamie Oliver recipe puts blueberries and all sorts in the toast it’s fab give it a try. =^_^=

• Saw Wanderlust (with Jennifer Anniston and Paul Rudd) and it was A LOT funnier that I imagined. Really great comedy, give that a try too!
• Unicef Society raised £200 yesterday selling cookies, Mother’s Day cards and other random goodies! Feel good start to the week 🙂

I’ve recently done a few more UCAS Visit Days for the School of Economics (got one tomorrow too!) as well … one student declared he had made Nottingham his firm choice… the reason? Starbucks in Portland were handing out free samples of caramel frappacinos. This guy has his values sorted.  😛

During the week as well I learnt about the KONY 2012 campaign as I’m sure you probably know of too. The social networking universe was inundated with retweets and statuses commanding everyone to watch a short 30 minute video by the Invisible Children organisation to put the spotlight on one of the world’s most wanted criminals- Joseph Kony. Since this video was released it has been met with both acclaim as well as backlash.

The Telegraph website has released an interesting article today about the charity’s response to such criticism:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/uganda/9139970/Joseph-Kony-2012-Invisible-Children-release-new-film-responding-to-criticism.html

For those unaware, in a nut shell this organisation is leading a high profile campaign to make the criminal Joseph Kony famous. This man is the leader of a rebel group in Uganda who has abducted around 60,000 children according to one estimate and forced them into being child soldiers and sex slaves over a period of over 20 years. The campaign aims to pressure American politicians to send more troops to assist the Ugandan army to catch this man and bring him to justice.

The video is awesome, it’s very well put together and it is very inspiring. I have read a lot of the articles that also criticise the campaign however, and they state things like how questionable the accountability of the charity is of fund allocations…the use of military to help the Ugandan army, which has itself had a shady record.

Overall though I think what is fundamental about the whole thing is the greater good that more people do know about this man, about the things he’s done and whether you support the Invisible Children organisation or not I think everyone would agree that they are better off knowing about this thing. It’s just that question isn’t it of do the means justify the ends?

Love, Kay

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