Kony 2012
KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.
So this morning I found the KONY2012 video put out by Invisible Children. I was impressed, they definitely know how to draw people to action. Then a friend of mine directed me to a blog, visiblechildren.tumblr.com. Something in this article rubbed me the wrong way and I couldn't tell at first if I was just still worked up from the video or if there were actually problems. So I took a break, went to work and then decided to dust off the old blog.
Here's what I've come up with: The video, does exactly what the organization says it will do. It is making people aware of of these "invisible children" getting people to pay attention to a major human rights problem that in general has been ignored. The problems I have with the blog post's response is they're asking the wrong questions.
Rather than asking "why is this organization so focused on military action" or "why are they backing these awful groups" we should be asking "why are they spending any money whatsoever on these direct actions?" While maybe they stretch the truth to get a reaction, I don't think that is inherently wrong. They get people to pay attention to these kids. There are groups in place to that are much better at the direct course of action and if you want to financially help donate to them.
I think the KONY 2012 campaign is a great idea. While the visible children blog might have convinced me to not financially support TRI or IC I'll still support their campaign.
I believe in the spread of information and that people sometimes need to get a little angry to make positive changes in the world.
Business Energy Tax Credit
Cleverpork Central is often a comedy site, but there are things that we believe strongly about and will bring to the forefront of conversation. Anything filed under "Serious" is not a joke, even if it seems counter to everything else on this site.
Recently, Chris Cunningham had to write a 1000 word essay on the business energy tax credit in Oregon. This essay was designed to be written like a blog post, so he felt it would be a good idea to just post it on his blog. What follows is the essay in it's entirety.
Giving incentives to companies who want to bring green energy solutions to Oregon is a great concept. However, there are quite a few problems with the Business Energy Tax Credit (BETC) that make it very inefficient. If the costs of the BETC are unable to be controlled, then the project should be removed.
The BETC is a tax credit that companies can apply for. There is a maximum of $10 million that can be given, but companies can split up their projects and ask for $10 million for each section. The rules designating what can count for the tax credit are very loose, allowing 98% of requests to be granted so far.
On the Music Industry, Piracy and Copyright
Cleverpork Central is often a comedy site, but there are things that we believe strongly about and will bring to the forefront of conversation. Anything filed under "Serious" is not a joke, even if it seems counter to everything else on this site.
Recently I was reading an argument on Facebook between two people about music piracy. Interestingly the person advocating piracy was a musician and the one against it was not. Now, I'm not saying all musicians are for piracy, but I have noticed a trend that many musicians enjoy that their music being listened to more than having their music sold. In fact, I had read that musicians made more money while Napster was active because piracy actually encouraged activities that make artists money, like concert attendance.