warm nights.

I have a beautiful friend Kyla who recently moved into a little flat near the harbour. We had the loveliest night a few weeks ago eating vegie soup, with chunky bread and butter, watching movies and drinking sangria. We also spent a good portion of the night looking through one of the recently published M.I.L.K photography books, titled Love.

The photos are submitted from all over the world and each is accompanied by a little story, explaining something about the picture. Looking through all the photos, what was striking was not the difference across age and culture but rather the really strong similarities evident in each expression of love.

Some of the stories were surprising. A beautiful, joyous photo of a young, happy couple lovingly holding a tiny baby was later explained in the back of the book to be an image of a homeless father and mother in Eastern Europe, who had given birth to the baby in an underground tunnel. What made these stories somehow less sad though, was the obvious love and compassion that emanated from the people.

It made me think (once again) just how crazily important it is to remember that people are REAL. It's easy to fall into judgmental thinking, especially so when someone is different to you and seems somehow alien or disconnected from your own personal reality (be it by race, culture, sexuality, whatever). In Australia at the moment, this has particular significance, as we have just had an election (today!) in which both major parties have taken extremely unforgiving stances on the issue of asylum seekers (or "boat people" as they keep being derogatively referred to in campaigns).

What makes it even harder to make informed, moral choices when it comes to things like this is that often we don't even get access to the 'facts', so buried they are by spin and fear tactics. At risk of ranting even more on this topic, I'll leave you with a short video that I found to be really helpful and to the point on the matter. It's also a great example of how simple motion graphics and video format can really drive home a message.