Spoiler Alert for the Hunger Games

          May the odds be ever in your favor. For months that's all our generation has been talking about and reading; the Hunger Games. The first book out of the trilogy is bound to be a major hit in theaters. It officially hits theaters today, March 23rd. There was a midnight showing that I and a few others attended.
        When I first heard that Lionsgate film production was producing and directing the movie, I was a little worried. They are most famous for the SAW movies, but that's about it. The other movies they produce aren't very good as the other production companies.
     I originally was planning on seeing it today, Friday the opening day, but then my best friend told me we were going at midnight and I was stoked. We arrived an hour early, bought drinks and popcorn, and headed to the theater to watch the film. As the lights dimmed and the theater grew silent, I knew this was the moment all of America has been waiting for, the 74th annual Hunger Games.
       The beginning of the movie was a little different then the book and not as I would have liked it to be, but every production company changes some stuff around. I would have liked to see Katniss receive her symbolic MockingJay pin from her friend the governors' daughter instead of the old lady. That was the only major scene they really cut out and as the movie progressed it got better.
        The costumes and make up done by the designers and artists was phenomenal. I could definitely see   the movie being nominated for an Academy Award or some award for their designs. The props and settings was outstanding as well. A lot of how I pictured it was like it was in the movie.  The casting was also really good. The choice of actors for the characters was right on for the movie.

     Overall, the movie was a lot better than I thought it was going to be and I was glad. I love the books and am a huge fan of the Hunger Games. I'm really excited to see how they next two movies are going to come out to be.

Run for your lives 5k

       Be on the look out for zombies coming to a town near you. A 5k race that is an obstacle course and where you run from zombies. If you're a huge zombie fan or just love to run this is the race for you.
         You can register at runforyourlives.com and can either register as a runner or a zombie. Registering as a Zombie is much cheaper than the actual runner by the way. If you're a runner you are given a belt just like in flag football and the zombies have to snatch all the flags off of your belt. If they snatch all of your flags then you become infected and when you finish the race you become a zombie. There are also obstacles you have to make your way through, although they aren't mandatory if you don't go through one then you aren't able to win in your age group.

        The race sounds like it would be a lot of fun and worthwhile. There is a 5k race in Orlando November 17, 2012. Make sure to register early before June 6, if you want to be a runner so you only pay $67 after that date the price increases by 10 dollars. So if you're a zombie fan or just looking for something fun to do over the weekend, try out this race.

Invisible Children: The full story

Freshman year I wrote a research paper on this topic for my Ap Human Geography class and thought I could share it to inform everyone how terrible this Kony guy truly is.
               

                The definition of ethnic cleansing is a process in which a more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful one in order to create an ethnically homogenous region (Rubenstein pg.250). In the country of Uganda there is a war going on between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda. The war started in 1986 and has been going on ever since.
              The Lord’s Resistance Army leader can be traced back to Alice Lakwena. Alice had believed that God spoke to her and told her to over throw the Ugandan government for being unjust to Acholi. The Acholi were an ethnic group from the areas Gulu, Kitgum, and Pader in Northern Uganda. Her group first called themselves the Holy Spirit Movement. The momentum increased as resentment towards the government increased. Lakwena soon got exiled and than there was no leader after that. Joseph Kony, who claimed to be her cousin, took over and changed it to the Lord’s Resistance Army.
            Joseph Kony did not receive support from the Acholi people so he started to abduct children and indoctrinate them into their ranks. He considers himself a very good Christian and has his group based on the Ten Commandments. So far, the LRA has abducted about 20,000 children to use either as fighters or as sex slaves. In part of their initiation they have to kill their parents so they won’t have homes to come back too. Once the children are part of the LRA they are used as pack mules; to carry supplies until they get to weak to walk and when that happens, they kill them or leave them to die. The boys are used as targets or decoys, they send them to the front lines unarmed whenever the Ugandan Army comes after them. The girls that either Kony or his commanders find attractive become their “wives”. Kony supposedly has 60. The prisoners that give him a bad time usually get their noses, lips, and/or ears cut off and then they have to eat their own flesh.
               In 1996 the Ugandan government forcibly evicted thousands from their homes and relocated them into overcrowded camps in hopes of protection. Ten years later, about a million individuals are still living in the camps and struggle to survive among the effects of object poverty, rampart disease, and near certain starvation.
                  In 2001, the US Patriot Act had officially affirmed the LRA to be a terrorist organization. This ended up being a mammoth step in drawing attention to the conflict and the atrocities committed by the LRA. They thought the war was going to end in 2003, because the LRA declared a cease fire and said they wanted to talk to Yoweri Musevini. During that time, the districts of Gulu, Kitgum, and Pader were still being terrorized by the LRA. The main victims were the Acholi people. On July 25,2003, forty eight people were hacked to death near the town of Kitgum in the far north. Newspaper reports read that elderly people were killed with Machetes and spears, and babies were flung against trees.
             Feb. 2003 Sudan agreed to let troops from neighboring Uganda enter its territory to attack the LRA rebels who had been trying for years to overthrow the Ugandan government. The Ugandan army called on the LRA to surrender or be defeated. That agreement gave them what they had been waiting for; a chance to eliminate the LRA. The optimism that the war would end started to grow. June 2003, Kony told his fighters to destroy the Catholic missions, kill priests and missionaries, and beat the nuns.
                    In 2004, the Congress passed the Northern Uganda Crisis Response Act. It was the first piece of American legislation to address the disaster. The Ugandan minister, Amama Mbabazi stated the government of Uganda killed 928 LRA rebels between Jan. 1, 2003 and Jan. 16, 2004. 791 rebels were either captured by the army or surrendered during “Operation Iron Fist”. The army rescued 7,299 abducted people by the LRA. Eighty eight army soldiers died in combat, one hundred forty one were injured, and four went missing. Then in 2005, International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Joseph Kony and his four top commanders. There was soon a strong desire to secure peace around Uganda.
               July 2007, the US State department appointed Tim Shortley to Senior Advisor for conflict resolution with his burning focus on Northern Uganda. He solidified the United States commitment to end this conflict peacefully. The same year the United Kingdom bolstered their commitment to peace by allocating 70 million pounds in aid. Germany committed to a twenty five percent increase in aid to Uganda by October 2010. Canada later became more than an international supporter of the peace process in February 2008 by joining peace talks as an official observer.
             The Cessation of Hostilities Agreement had expired and Joseph Kony has failed to sign the Final Peace agreement for the 4^th time. This proves that his promises are to be futile and ultimately disabling the peace talks. His uncertainty has been lingering.
                 Since September 2008 hostility in the Orientale province in DR Congo and Western Equatoria in South Sudan has reached an intense ground . The LRA attacks have become more frequent and hostile, which provokes military action against them. Governments of Uganda, DR Congo, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic launched an attack on LRA strongholds within DR Congo. Called it “Operation Lightning Thunder”, turned out to be unsuccessful.
                    On Dec.24^th, 2008 the LRA launched a retaliatory attack against the people of DR Congo. The attack murdered over 600 people and abducted more than 160 children to fight in their group. More than 104,000 Congolese have been displaced since Christmas in attempts to escape from the LRA forces. The LRA motives have just been becoming more ambiguous and the crimes become more horrific.
Just recently, Joseph Kony’s mother who was on her death bed asked him to make peace. His response is yet to be determined. She had believed that her son was possessed with evil spirits. These occurring are still going on in Uganda today right now and there are many people trying to end this war.

A Cause worth crying for: Invisible Children.

             Out of all the organizations and fundraisers there are  in the world; this has to be the one that I'm full of compassion and passionate about. The Invisible Children organization. I found out about this organization in 8th grade after I watched the movie Blood Diamond. It was an eye opener to see how other people are actually living their lives. In America, we have it so much better than a lot of people.
          Those Africans in Blood Diamond were treated terrible and didn't have half the luxuries we have here in America. We complain about going to school, work, traffic, not having the right sauce for our meal, when the only thing those Africans want is to make it to the next day. Some of them just want to die because they feel their life is to rough. 
            There's a man by the name of Joseph Kony who makes Hitler look like he was letting the people off easy. Kony abducts African children in the country of Uganda. He takes them to be his slaves or if you're a girl a sex slave. These children as part of their initian process, have to shoot their parents. If we ever had something like that happen in America, that man would be arrested in a heartbeat. Since he's in Africa and in Uganda no one else in the world seems to care about these poor children. These children suffer on a daily basis being this man's slave.
               The children Kony has captured are used as pack mules to carry supplies until they get to weak to walk and when that happens, they kill them or leave them to die. The boys are used as targets or decoys. They send them to the front lines unarmed whenever the Ugandan Army comes after them. The girls that either Kony or his commanders find attractive become their “wives”. Kony supposedly has 60. The prisoners that give him a bad time usually get their noses, lips, and/or ears cut off and then they have to eat their own flesh.
         This war has been going on since 1986 and hasn't stopped. It will keep progessing and Kony will keep succeeding if no one puts a stop to his revolting actions. He's on the run, but that doesn't mean we can't catch him. We caught Osoma and Sudam; so we are able to catch Kony. It's just if people actually care enough to spend their time, money, and effort into preventing innocent children from dying.