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THE WIFE OF THE MAN behind the hugely successful viral video ‘Stop Kony’ campaign has denied that his sudden admission to hospital on Thursday was connected to drug or alcohol use.
Jason Russell, 33, was taken to hospital on Thursday for medical evaluation after police detained him briefly for being drunk, vandalising cars and masturbating in public. He was reportedly only wearing underwear when police arrived on the scene.
He was not arrested and no charges are expected to be filed.
Late yesterday, his wife Danica Russell said that he “did some irrational things brought on by extreme exhaustion and dehydration”.
“We thought a few thousand people would see the film, but in less than a week, millions of people around the world saw it. While that attention was great for raising awareness about Joseph Kony, it also brought a lot of attention to Jason and, because of how personal the film is, many of the attacks against it were also very personal, and Jason took them very hard,” she said in a statement.
Danica Russell said the the current focus is on her husband’s health and “protecting our family”.
“The message of the film remains the same: stop at nothing,” she added.
The CEO of the Invisible Children group co-founded by Russell said earlier yesterday that the campaigner is receiving medical treatment and is focusing “on getting better”. Ben Keesey said that Russell was suffering from a combination of “exhaustion, dehydration and malnutrition” and said that the past two weeks of campaigning “have taken a severe emotional toll on all of us”.
He added that the “toll manifested itself in an unfortunate incident” on Thursday.
The Kony 2012 video calling for people to make alleged Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony ‘famous’ in order to help bring him before the International Criminal Court has been watched over 80 million times on YouTube since it was uploaded earlier this month. The ICC issued a warrant for his arrest in 2005 for crimes against humanity.
Critics of the campaign have questioned the organisation’s motive and its distribution of funds, and accuse it of oversimplifying Ugandan history.
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I prefer mars to snickers. The past history of either is not really that important
A combination of factors Val. 4 billion years ago Mars was a much warmer place than today, as the planet had not cooled sufficiently since its formation. The interior of the planet at that time was similar to Earth’s today, i.e. a thin crust floating on a molten interior giving rise to volcanoes such as at Olympus Mons. The interior, as on Earth, is made primarily of iron, and in such instances where the core is molten, this iron creates a magnetic field (such as can be seen on Earth). The magnetic field protects the planet from solar radiation. This radiation breaks H2O molecules down into their respective parts – Oxygen and Hydrogen. With the cooling of the planet’s interior the magnetic field breaks down allowing the solar radiation in which then breaks down the H2O. The hydrogen is too light to remain on Mars’ surface (bear in mind Mars has only1/3 the gravity of Earth) and floats to the top of the atmosphere where, now that the magnetic field is gone, solar winds are allowed to tear the hydrogen away from the planet and carry it into space and ionising other particles which are also stripped away. As the atmosphere thins the planet cools even further. Any water that remains becomes locked in the rocks, any oxygen which remains ends up bound in CO2. The process is a relatively fast one. See this article from NASA on the process.
great comment
Global warming ;)
Deadly bit of news. Little bit disappointed by the artists image though. Surely Mars then wouldn’t have looked the same as now i.e. red and dusty, if it had an ocean would it? Surely it would have looked a little bit closer to our own planet. Raises serious questions about what happened there for an entire ocean to dry up also.
That would really depend on whether or not the ocean was there long enough for life to evolve. Our planet only looks like it does because of the plant life, if you look at the deserts you get an idea of how it would’ve looked if life didn’t happen. The only difference I’d put into the artists impression is a bit of cloud cover, maybe.
The view of the sky from the surface of Mars is blue, like Earth. NASA admitted that they touch those shots “for effect”.
the sky is only blue at sunrise and sunset
How I wish the human race could solve our problems here and explore inner and outer space together. The trillions spent on war could feed and clothe us all and used to expand our understanding of our home. The universe.
It will never happen, but still.
Who cares we should be looking after our own planet
Alan, we may need a new planet. Mars may become important in the same way as the USA was. Who says we must only live on one planet?
The fact that there was once water on Mars is old news. The mainstream news is only catching on now?
Read the first 2 lines of the article please.
It says that in the article, this is not news of water on the planet, it is news of the remnants of a particular ocean.
have your say