World’s oldest marijuana stash totally busted
December 4, 2008
Nearly two pounds of still-green plant material found in a 2,700-year-old grave in the Gobi Desert has just been identified as the world’s oldest marijuana stash, according to a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany.
A barrage of tests proves the marijuana possessed potent psychoactive properties and casts doubt on the theory that the ancients only grew the plant for hemp in order to make clothing, rope and other objects.
They apparently were getting high too. full article
Boris Mikhailov – Ukrainian photographer
November 15, 2008
Born in the former Soviet Union he lived and worked for several decades in his hometown Kharkov, Ukraine. He received an education as an engineer and started to teach himself the practice of photography. Today he is one of the most successful and well-known photographers, who already was actively working in soviet times. His work very much is influenced in the means of Concept-Art and Social-Documentary-Photography. At the end of the 1960s he had his first exhibition. After the KGB found nude-pictures of his wife he was set off his job as an engineer and started to full-time work with photography. He shot a series of everyday-life scenes-documentation. His most famous work during this period (1968-1975) was the “Red Serie”. In these photographs he mainly used the colour red, to picture people, groups and city-life. Red is the color standing for October Revolution, political Party and the social system of soviet society. It is often said, that within those works critical elements toward the existing political circumstances can be found.
Case History – A set of 400 photographs (1999)
examines the consequences of the break down of the Soviet Union for the people living there. Therefore he systematically took pictures of homeless people, who soon started trusting him. More than 500 photographs show the situation of people, who after the break down of the Soviet Union were not able to catch hold in a secured social system. In a very direct way Mikhailov points out his critique against the “mask of beauty” of the uprising post-soviet capitalistic way of life. It’s one of the best works found within social documentary photography.
Obama Victory Rally (11/4/08) – Grant Park, Chicago
November 11, 2008
Can you see me in the back? What a night!! Perfect temperature and awesome vibe…positivity abounded
The Wounds
November 11, 2008
The Wounds (1998)
KICK ASS movie, not only does it give a great look into the life/society of Bosnia especially during the upheaval of the early-mid 90’s, but it does so in a dark/funny way. Serbian life is presented to you through the lens of people who lived through it, who see it through their eyes…a commentary, an insight, a damnation, a mocking, a sort of documentary…..it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen for some time.
Director: Srdjan Dragojevic
Language: Serbo-Croatian (English subtitles) – 1999
Life & Debt
June 12, 2008
An important film that gives a real look into how globalization and the unyielding power of international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank adversely affect Jamaica’s economy and shows the devastating impact that the “white collars” have on its people, farms and ability to live freely.
The Color of Paradise – Iran (1999)
June 7, 2008
Selected as Iran’s submission in the Best Foreign Film category for the 2000 Oscars, The Color of Paradise (Rang-e khoda) is about Mohammed, a blind boy who sees with clarity and his sighted father who is blind to the beauty in his own family. It is a film made from a deeply spiritual point of view, but it never proselytizes, it never preaches. It tells with sophisticated simplicity a not so simple story of faith and unconditional love and the sadness that comes to one who falls short in both.
Storyline
My thoughts: I totally connected with Mohammed and his independent connection to the world around him, his fascination with sounds, smells and the touch of everything, yet there exists his fragile dependence on others. I was blown away by his presence on the screen, just being himself in front of a camera…just a powerful film.
Immortal Poetess – Ono no Komachi
June 5, 2008
This picture was drawn by Kikuchi Yosai（菊池容斎） who was a painter in Japan.
Ono no Komachi (小野 小町 or おののこまち) (c. 825 — c. 900) was a famous Japanese waka poet, one of the Rokkasen — the Six best Waka poets of the early Heian period. She was noted as a rare beauty; Komachi is a symbol of a beautiful woman in Japan. She is also numbered as one of the Thirty-six Poetry Immortals.
On such a night as this
When no moon lights your way to me,
I wake, my passion blazing,
My breast a fire raging, exploding flame
While within me my heart chars
OBAMA WINS NOMINATION!!!
June 4, 2008
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Before a crowd of cheering thousands, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois laid claim to the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday night, taking a historic step toward his once-improbable goal of becoming the nation’s first black president. Hillary Rodham Clinton maneuvered for the vice presidential spot on his fall ticket without conceding her own defeat.
“America, this is our moment,” the 46-year-old senator and one-time community organizer said in his first appearance as the Democratic nominee-in-waiting. “This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past.”
Rest of Article – The Huffington Post
Why ‘Soft Power’ Matters in Fighting Terrorism
June 3, 2008
A short article I saved from a few years back that gives a nice basic overview of Soft Power
A Dollop of Deeper American Values
By Joseph S. Nye Jr.
Washington Post, Tuesday, March 30, 2004; Page A19
Last year’s Iraq war was a dazzling display of America’s hard military power. It removed a tyrant, but did little to reduce our vulnerability to terrorism. At the same time, it was costly in terms of our “soft power” to attract others.
Long before the recent bombings in Madrid, polls showed a dramatic decline in the popularity of the United States, even in countries such as Britain, Italy and Spain, whose governments had supported us. And America’s standing plummeted in Islamic countries from Morocco to Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, the world’s largest Islamic nation, three-quarters of the public said they had a favorable opinion of the United States in 2000, but within three years that had shrunk to 15 percent. Yet we will need the help of such countries in the long term to track the flow of terrorists, tainted money and dangerous weapons.
After the war in Iraq, I spoke about soft power to a conference co-sponsored by the Army. One of the speakers was Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. When someone in the audience asked Rumsfeld for his opinion on soft power, he replied, “I don’t know what it means.” That is part of our problem. Some of our leaders don’t understand the importance of soft power in our post-Sept. 11 world.
Soft power is the ability to get what we want by attracting others rather than by threatening or paying them. It is based on our culture, our political ideals and our policies. Historically, Americans have been good at wielding soft power. Think of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms in Europe at the end of World War II; of young people behind the Iron Curtain listening to American music and news on Radio Free Europe; of Chinese students symbolizing their protests in Tiananmen Square with a replica of the Statue of Liberty. Seduction is always more effective than coercion, and many of our values, such as democracy, human rights and individual opportunity, are deeply seductive. But attraction can turn to repulsion when we are arrogant and destroy the real message of our deeper values.
