My name's Hank Green.

I am twenty-eight years old; I live in the United States and I'm lighting a Candle of Hope for Rwanda. Fifteen years ago, generations of ethnic hatred culminated in a hundred days of killing, in which over a million people died. Two days ago, I was on the phone with a woman who is from Rwanda...

And whose entire family died during those one hundred days. She had recently been able to go to Canada, um, to start school, and was aware every day what was going on in her country. But when she watched the news, most of what she saw was one asshole, in one white suburban, running away from the police.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of assholes were killing hundreds of thousands of people and no one even talked about it, let alone did anything about it. I think that we can all be ashamed of this. I think that humanity requires us to be ashamed of this.

One of the things that Sufee told me that I found really fascinating, actually, was that as horrible as it was that these people knew that their friends were dying and that they might very well be killed soon as well, what was worse for them was the complete feeling of abandonment. As if no one in the world cared what was happening to them, which, frankly, was the case. Now, fifteen years later, as the anniversary of the Rwandan genocide approaches, a huge number of people are getting together and showing the support for the people of Rwanda who are still struggling what the genocide has meant for them.

And so what John and I, along with the Harry Potter Alliance, and Candles for Rwanda are asking you to do is simply show that you care. We, as members of the international community, care about them as our neighbors, as our friends. That we see them as one of us and that we have hope for their future the same way that we have hope for ours.

So please make a video that's less than thirty seconds long of you lighting a candle, saying who you are, and holding it for ten seconds. And then follow the instructions in the side bar for how to send that video in. Other things in the Nerdfighter News Network include: Hank Green's search for an Irish fiddle player.

Are there any fiddle player Nerdfighters with good microphones? Because if there are... I think I need you.

Because I don't have any friends that play Irish fiddle and I am writing an Irish song that requires Irish fiddle. So if you would like to be on one of my songs and you have a good microphone and you are able to play Irish fiddle, please email me at sparksflyup@gmail.com Second, Nerdfighter extraordinaire Travis Ritchie is vying to become a member of the Big Gay Sketch Show. And to do this, he needs your votes!

And all you need to do is go click. No sign up is required, just a clicky. So we need all of you to do that because we need a Nerdfighter on the Big Gay Sketch Show.

There's a link in the sidebar to do that as well. All you have to do is go to it and click on the vote button. Preferably once per day for the next seven days.

John, I've heard that your screenplay is finished and that it's going over well with your Hollywood overlords, so I'm excited about that, and I'm especially excited to see some footage of the Netherlands. But before that, you will be seeing me again tomorrow.