Samantha Power to the NSC

Mark Leon Goldberg opines in his blog, UN Dispatch about Samantha Power's appointment to the National Security Council:

"I'm tempted to think that she will not be much of a quiet Mandarin. The heroes of her book are people who rail against the system--people like Raphael Lempkin who coined the word genocide, and Senator William Proxmire, who gave daily speeches on the senate floor on the need to ratify the Genocide Convention. She shows real admiration for these agents of change, and I suspect that she will be an important advocate for human rights in critical inter-agency debates. The thing is, in her book she describes how voices like that get effectively silenced by the bureaucracy and I imagine there will be situations in which her ideals bump against the realities of bureaucratic politics. How will she respond? We will have to wait and see."

Read his full post here.

Read More...

Chicago Tribune write-up

From Robert K. Elder's film column...

A lot of people make documentaries because they want to break into filmmaking. For friends Jason Mojica, Ryan Faith and Jim Milak, all 34, it was different.

"We decided to be filmmakers because we wanted to be humanitarians," says Chicago-native Milak. The friends' first documentary, "Christmas in Darfur," just hit the Internet and will become part of their awareness campaign.

"The film is about three Americans who have no idea what's going on in Darfur and decided to go and find out for themselves," said Milak. "We started a non-profit, bought some cameras and plane tickets and weaseled our way into the refugee camps in Chad on the Sudan border. We had no experience in either filmmaking or humanitarian work."

He continued: "The intention is not to come up with answers or advocate for a particular policy. Eventually the U.S. is going to decide to do something, or not, and the policy will depend in part on the level of awareness and investment of the people. Hopefully, we can play some small role in that."

For more information, visit christmasindarfur.org.

Read More...

Embed this Film

Poof! We're finally done with the film. Please watch and let us know what you think. Make sure to pass it on to everyone you know who has an interest in the crisis in Darfur... or those you think should have an interest.



Also, please feel free to embed this film on your own blog or web page!

Read More...