02.09.10 - another early morning and some side notes

saw this in a gift store, shot with my iphone

After talking to some people back here, I'm not convinced that I really had malaria... I've heard that there is an incubation period and the doctor there diagnosed me with malaria only after being in Africa for a few days. I do know however I felt like I was the sickest I've ever been, I think it was just the food.

fried tilapia - taken with iphone

While I was in Kenya my facebook got hacked. Someone logged in as me and used chat to tell people I had been mugged in London and needed money transfered immediately. The sad thing is that it seemed a bit more believable because I had just been through the London Heathrow Airport to get to Nairobi. I've heard from a few people that were contacted by this hacker and luckily they realized it wasn't me and didn't wire him the $1,500 he was asking for.

So facebook deactivated my account and I'm now in the process of starting a new one. I've got about a tenth of my friends back. It stinks to be starting over from scratch but whatever. If you've got facebook and we're not friends I THINK this link should take you to my profile.

You can read more about this scam here. I'm still trying to figure out how I got hacked or phished or whatever it's called. I haven't figured it out. I am however glad that my password for the e-mail account I use with facebook is different than my password for facebook otherwise the cyber criminal could have taken over my e-mail account as well.

In other news... Robert Park has been released... you can read that article here.

Anyway... no one ever told me if you like the changes that I made to the blog layout... Are you enjoying the twitter feed on the blog? Is it okay to only see the most recent post and have to navigate from there? Leave me comments and let me know what you think.

Sorry if you were waiting for a more detailed Africa post... patience :)

JIM baker

12.29.09 - Robert Park... wow he did it.

taken at a Korean-American young adult missions conference 2007

If you don't know what I'm talking about... the article is here.

But basically Robert Park a 28 year old Korean America went into North Korea and was detained. "He did this to bring awareness to the situation in North Korea, alert the churches around the world to the atrocities and human rights violations — not pay lip service, and (to) do something about it," Benson said in Tucson. "Drastic situations call for drastic measures."

Well... you've got my attention. But... what do we do now?

I always knew koreans were crazy. Go to any 4am morning prayer meeting and you'll see. Crazy in a good way. Most of the time. :) I have some Korean-American friends that have done missions work in North Korea. They don't really talk about it much, like its no big deal.

I was thinking just the other day... where are the revolutionary leaders? Where are the people like Dr. Martin Luther King who had a dream and changed history? I don't feel like we've seen a leader like that since, maybe we have and I'm just ignorant to it.

Leave your thoughts in the comment section.

JIM baker

A quote from Hotel Rwanda.

I am glad that you have shot this footage and that the world will see it. It is the only way we have a chance that people might intervene.

Yeah and if no one intervenes, is it still a good thing to show?

How can they not intervene when they witness such atrocities?

I think if people see this footage they'll say, "oh my God that's horrible," and then go on eating their dinners.