I was pleasantly surprised. The author, Sameer Reddy, also bracing for “a chirpy stream of annoying advice” from magazines, introduces the idea that financial undoing might be an opportunity for people to show their authentic selves, rather than a mask.

Contemporary pop culture suggests that life is a series of set pieces, and that people should costume themselves for the parts they wish to play. The problem is that everyone wants the same roles: the prom queen, the cheerleader, the quarterback. They want to appear younger, sexier, richer. They want to look better than they feel. But life isn’t a virtual-reality exercise, and our troubled times are now demanding that people grow up and take responsibility for their credit-financed fantasies.

Reddy is wondering if truth will emerge; if the labels and logos will drop off our bodies and something real will be exposed. It’s a refreshing spin on what could have been an article about where to find cheap cardigans.

What do you think of Reddy’s point? Do you think society will always be unwilling to surrender facades and appearances, regardless of the times?

Image credit: el floz

Dinner With The President: A Nation’s Journey, directed by Sabiha Sumar, proceeds with questions in hand about democracy in the Islamic culture of Pakistan straight to the dinner table of President Pervez Musharraf.

Recycled Life chronicles the past 60 years in the lives of generations of families who have lived and worked, not in family-owned restaurants or Wal-Mart or at the local diner, but in the Guatemala City Garbage Dump, a humongous Central American landfill.

And did you know that at 18 years old girls in Israel are forced into military service? To See If I’m Smiling gives voice to these girl soldiers and immerses the audience into the emotions and experiences of their tours of duty.

The whole attraction and need for sidewalk-type festivals like these is that they get into the underbelly of a country or expose aches within cultures that so often get misinterpreted or ignored. For an audience, it fills a need to witness something true and organic and to learn something real.

Do you ever check out these kinds of film festivals? If you have, have they changed your ideas about humanity or the world?

Image credit: tabrandt

Being famous is a trade. It has a cost. There is sacrifice involved when you gain an ounce of fame and find your picture pasted next to Jessica Simpson’s in US Weekly.

“You don’t know who is here for the glamour, for the gossip factor. You really just want to know that somebody loves you for you. It’s a difficult thing when you really like an ATM machine with a wig on it.” – Mariah Carey

“It can make you feel very lonely. You’re constantly wondering if people are using you.” – Kirsten Dunst

“The biggest detriment of my life is tabloid fame. It removes me from people. When I first meet someone, it is so hard for me to overcome everything they’ve read about me. It’s not fair.” – Reese Witherspoon

“I never imagined that worrying about what other people think of me would be a big part of my day. But when you get that much negativity thrown at you, you go, “Whew! I’ve got to cope with that.” Nothing I heard in the press resembled the truth. What an insight for me.” – Meg Ryan

So apparently it’s not all glitz and glamour. It would be fantastic to fly on private jets and attend lavish premieres, but I’m not sure I could take the crazy social bubble and tight emotional strain

Do you ever wish you could be famous, despite all the pit-falls? Why would you want to be famous?

image credit: lobstar28

Access to Life is a partnership between The Global Fund and Magnum Photos. Eight photographers were commissioned to travel to nine countries, in turn profiling 30 people starting anti-retroviral treatment for AIDS. They then returned to them four months later to see how they were doing, in hopes that they were still alive.

With incredibly moving and detailed photography and video, all set to narration, song or just the sounds of life, these stories are told.

Stories like Olive Ukwizabigira, 20, who is HIV-positive living in Rwanda. Her mother was killed in the 1994 genocide, and at 14 Olive was raped and became pregnant. “I sometimes ask God why he really tried me this hard,” she asks in a gentle voice.

Stories like Nguyen Thi Luan in Vietnam, who after watching her husband Luoc’s coffin being covered with soil, fainted. Luoc had contracted HIV with a shared needle, the most common way Vietnamese people get HIV. A picture of Nguyen and their daughter at his grave appears…and all you hear is their sobbing, their consuming ache over their loss.

With calloused hands holding out family photos, these resilient individuals tell their stories with such powerful grit.

You can watch these videos and be moved, but if deeper questions are never asked, are we just merely witnessing tragedy? What kind of questions stir in your soul when you are exposed to the heartbreaking honesty of someone living with AIDS?

To see the video’s and learn more, go to: http://accesstolife.theglobalfund.org

See also GAiN Global Aid Network to learn about efforts to help people around the world.

Bernie Mac died at age 50 from complications to pneumonia last Saturday. He was admitted a week earlier to hospital and was expected to recover. Instead, friends, family and the co-stars that worked alongside him remember Mac, one of The Original Kings of Comedy.

“The world just got a little less funny. He will be dearly missed,” said George Clooney.

Another Ocean’s co-star Brad Pitt said, “I lament the loss of a ferociously funny and hard-core family man. My thoughts are with (his wife) Rhonda and their family. Bernie Mac, you are already missed.”

Chris Rock extolled Mac as “one of the best and funniest comedians to ever live, but that was the second-best thing he did. Bernie was one of the greatest friends a person could have.”

Were you a fan of Bernic Mac’s? What was it about him that stuck out – his career, his family man status, his comedy, his overall achievements in the entertainment industry?

Photo credit: puck90

“We’re here to say, you can be not just one-dimensional. You can have everything. You can be smart and athletic and fun and have it all,” said Reshma Taufiq on the Today Show. She’s a Nike employee working to bring India up to speed in the digital age.

Taufiq was accompanied by the founder of Nerd Girls, Karen Panetta, along with a master’s student in biological engineering student, an engineer for Boeing, and computer engineer working with microprocessors. All beautiful girls who look just as at home in stilettos as they do in labcoats.

When anyone sets out to smash stereotypes I always wonder if they are making actual progress or just reinforcing the old label. I admire their effort to put intelligence in the spotlight, but would they be getting the attention they want on their brains were they not beautiful? I know that’s what they’re trying to say, that beauty and brains can co-exist, but does it also prove that the two have to go together for brains to even be noticed?

In our culture, is not intelligence alone something to be noted? Women are still trying to prove that looks and smarts aren’t an anomaly.

These are just some thoughts; some healthy poking and prodding. What do you think of the Nerd Girls? More power to them or are they proving that beauty is the biggest bait to be noticed in other arenas? (See also the official Nerd Girls website)

Nobody has missed the ugly downfall of Spears, complete with a buzz-cut, an ugly divorce and several rehab stints. So with the media and tabloid world having furiously documented her floundering career and out-of-control shenanigans, this is finally an opportunity to tell her side of the story.

“I wanted to make this film because I started to feel like I wasn’t being seen in the light that I wanted to be seen in. This is an opportunity to set the record straight and talk about what I’ve been through and where I’m headed,” Spears told MTV.

With recent MTV Movie Award wins, a more svelte look and a new album coming out December 2nd, it looks like she might just get it all back on track.

What do you think, is Spears’ comeback for good? Will you watch the documentary?

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There are more slaves in our world today than at any other time in human history.

Over 1/3 of all prostitutes in South and East Asia are children.

More than 17,500 people are trafficked into the US each year.

Huge statistics like these exist on paper, but musician Justin Dillon is trying to give them a face for anybody willing to open their eyes. In his documentary released this month titled “Call + Response”, Dillon, along with a group of fellow musicians, actors and activists, set out to expose the world’s 27 million dirtiest secrets.

With interviews, undercover footage, and musical performances, the film spotlights human trafficking, child soldiers, and sex slavery around the world. But not only do they want to profile the lucrative business, but give viewers the opportunity to respond, to become participants in open source activism. Interactive field projects are being funded as people support the film and keys to awareness and education can be found through their website, music and the film itself.

Have you heard about “Call + Response”? How aware are you about this human rights issue?

For more information and to watch the preview, go to: www.callandresponse.com

Then there are celebrities who blog about it. In a blog posted last week on The Huffington Post, John Mayer writes,
“What Barack Obama says to me is these days are good for something. Just when I’d thought my only role as an adult was to help shoulder the nation through its darkest days (known to us as “the rest of them”), Obama gives me the feeling that I could be alive to witness one of the most brilliant upturns in a country’s history.”

His post is intelligent and says a whole lot more than a t-shirt. It lends credibility to the celebrity voice hawking politics. And maybe it would influence my vote (if I were an American). Maybe not. At least it adds something to the conversation.

What is your opinion on the mixing of celebrities and politics? Do celebrities influence who you vote for at all?

Image credit: p373

In the four short years since it’s inception Facebook has taken over like the plague; it’s everywhere.

With 40 billion page views every single month, it’s undeniable that this social networking tool is insanely popular. And like anything that has its day in the sun, it’s both wildly loved and completely loathed. I wanted to figure out why. So after listening to some other people’s experiences, considering my own and exploring countless Facebook pages, I think I have some solid reasons for why this site is the social magnet it is.

REASON #1: Personal Celebrity

It gives us all our own little space of infamy, a tiny taste of celebrity. The mini-feed is like a personal US Weekly, documenting who’s going to what, who’s now friends with who, plus all the comings and goings, moods and attitudes, thoughts and quips of all of our ‘friends’. The mini-feed erases any need to ask questions because it’s stalking, gossiping and the answer to “how are you?” all rolled into one. You’re instantly updated.

REASON #2: Validation

This is one of those unacknowledged reasons nobodies ready to admit. It’s validating. Picture albums full of weddings, newborn babies, far-off travels and jaunts abroad, engagement parties, birthday bashes, reunions, bridal showers, road trips, graduations, honeymoons – it’s all there. Yes, we want our 300 closest friends to know we had fun camping or how hilarious we looked in our graduation cap. It’s the story of our lives.

But it is validating. It declares and confirms for everyone to see that our lives have our culture’s official markings, from the diamond ring to the white picket fence.

REASON #3: Represents our Best

We are addicted to putting our best face forward. No longer is that reserved for meeting the in-law’s, job interviews or first dates. With Facebook, everyone has a forum to post their most flattering profile picture, to document their growing intelligence with a log of their recent literature conquests, and to update everyone on their ever-evolving life on the status reel. It’s an easy way to shove all the great and impressive things to the forefront for all to see. Very rarely are relationship rejections, failed classes or lost jobs so eagerly broadcast.

REASON #4: Allows Social Laziness

It’s incredibly easy to jet someone a quick note about going for coffee, meeting up at a friends house or even just to say hello, but I wonder, if Facebook were revoked for a month, how many conversations wouldn’t happen? Would phone calls replace all those notes and comments? Often times, it seems to feed a social hole with very little interaction required. It can negate real conversation and true bonding, in turn lending to social laziness.

In the romantic relationship realm, it grants you the opportunity for cowardice. No bravery or mature relationship skills are actually required if communication is largely based on Facebook. This is so dangerous for a generation already growing up into staggering divorce rates. Who wants to have that hard break-up conversation or get up the courage to call when Facebook exists to do it for you? No wonder there are so many relationship debacle stories that play out over Facebook – it’s an easy out.

REASON #5: Sense of Community

There’s no denying that Facebook gives us a sense of community. With Facebook chat, event invites, groups (anything from memorial tributes to travel clubs) and communication with long-distance friends, we feel connected. But are we truly building healthy community when friends can be added and deleted friends out of our lives and there is a computer screen between us and everyone else?

Why do you love Facebook? Why do you loathe Facebook?

Maybe, like me, you’re on both sides of the fence. Or maybe you’ve never really thought about it. Which brings me to my big, fat point: The key to using Facebook, and social networking sites in general, in a healthy way is awareness. So many people follow trends and jump on bandwagons in a heartbeat, no questions asked.

Take five minutes and ask yourself:
How much time do I spend on Facebook? Are you comfortable with the amount or does the number look way too high?

What is it that I mostly do on Facebook? Message friends, make plans and log off? Or scroll down the news feed, flip through some pictures, check to see if your ex-boyfriend has written anyone and then wander around from page to page for awhile? Be honest.
Hint: What you do on Facebook is a giant clue as to why you love it.

What makes me feel good about being a part of Facebook? Is it that people see the best of you? That you feel validated? That you love being able to keep in touch with so many people? There’s no need to go back to the rotary phone, just acknowledge why you’re on it and what kind of fulfillment it gives you, good or bad.

In a certain light, Facebook is just another guilty pleasure. People moan and groan about how lame it can be; yet keep their profiles, still write on friend’s walls and check out acquaintances photo albums. It seems cool to boycott the big trends, but these same people check their walls before they go to sleep. Or most of them do anyways.

Regardless of what group you lean towards: the lovers or the loathers don’t be ashamed, just be aware.

Think you might be addicted to an online community? Find out if there’s more to life than MySpace.