#THOUGHTS

This is one of Pandora's most recent campaigns and I think it's absolutely beautiful (despite its uncanny resemblance to Dove's campaigns).

I replayed this video several times just to analyse the facial expression of each mom. If you haven't watched it yet, do look out for how shifty and anxious the moms get when their kids are interacting with the other candidates and how a simple gesture reflects so much of their worry that their kids may fail to recognise them. Sometimes, we give kids too little credit. We underestimate much of their ability. In general, we often undermine the human intelligence.

Then again, with that being said, I'd like to just leave the link to an article I have read today here: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/singaporescene/what-amos-yee-is-going-through-is-far-bigger-than-101656795.html

When I defended Amos back then, I knew it was the right thing to do. I do not agree entirely with the delivery of his message but haven't we all heard of the old saying, "to err is human"? Some people took an extremely unforgiving stance towards Amos Yee and were extremely displeased with my take on the entire situation. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon and be blinded by the anger, try to see it from a different perspective: how Amos had courageously put his identity/life on the line in order to say something had he truly believed in. Many may not understand that since this generation has bred too many keyboard warriors. We are beholden to our words and as such are afraid to verbalise our opinions. 

Let me quote Kirsten, the writer of the article: "From Amos’ case – judging by the vindictiveness of some adults in wanting to see a kid go down – it appears that despite 50 years of education, progress and development, we’re still in the latter category. Decades of nation-building have not taught us to engage and to talk, only to appeal to authority to fix things that are hard for us to take. Years of education and exposure to the wider world have not taught us to respond with grace to things that we strongly disagree with; we still insist that everyone conform to a narrow band of opinion and feeling, that there are “right” ways to think, “right” ways to speak, “right” ways to act.

If this is true, then we have far bigger problems than Amos Yee."

I don't know if you've yet had the chance to catch the news about the boy who attacked the foreign workers just for the sake of testing out his fighting skills, but here's the link for it: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/courts-crime/story/ten-days-detention-teen-who-beat-foreign-workers-20150420#xtor=CS1-10  FYI, he hurt someone, yet he's receiving a much lighter punishment and being treated more humanely than Amos. 

That's the thing about justice: is it subjective and should it be?

Another two cases have happened recently in Indonesia, both of which serve to highlight this issue. Firstly, an Australian has received the death penalty in Indonesia for drug trafficking. Meanwhile, an American has received an 18-year sentence for murder. Think about the dichotomous ruling for yourself and, for just a moment, set aside the opinions fed to you by the media. As a media student, I see how things can been politicized to suit certain agendas and as such, my takeaway from this is that people should be vigilant in filtering the news they receive. Then again, online journalism is part of media too. You have a choice, whether or not to incorporate what I've said into your world-view. It is through this choice that you develop your own opinion towards the entire situation as well. If you don't like what I've to say, I hope we can civil enough to just agree to disagree and respect each other's decision.

Anyway, I am straying too far off the commercial, and I shan't end my post soon.
Reality today is as harsh as ever, and videos like this makes me feel a lot better.