Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Take a Ride..

It is with no small irony, after watching a film like Taxi to the Dark Side, that this should be the first thing on a loop all over the news...

The Oscar winning film unfurls all the ugliness and savagery of the war prisons, set up by the US, piece by piece till you see the whole damnable picture. It really makes you wonder "how little outrage there is" at these crimes.

The film is full of footage, not only of the horrific torture in the prisons and of the US soldiers admitting to it, but of officials, in the smug safety of their untouchable positions, using slippery language to defend their indifference to the suffering they have unleashed upon so many people.

This week Cheney says " he was directly involved in approving severe interrogation methods" LA Times

Then there is: "So What?"

The latest Harper's has an article called The Torture Presidency

The legacy of the presidency is outlined in this video from Keith Olbermann

Of course we have to expect the nauseating string of comments like Arabs/Muslims see shoes as a supreme insult... As if a shoe thrown at you anywhere else in the world is like having roses sprinkled on your cheeks.

How is the shoe story spreading?
A Flickr group has already been set up for people who would like to photograph the shoes they would like to add to the mix... A facebook group is also sending shoes in protest and solidarity...There is a game out where you dodge the shoe...Here are measurements of how quickly the video spread...And the spoof videos that are already out there are collected here.

Wouldn't you wish that the places the shoe thrower might end up in would get as much coverage and outrage as they deserve.



I know that changing the world is not easy
but it remains necessary nonetheless.
Fadhil Al-Azzawi

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Can't get enough of this, so I thought I'd share...

Greenland, the big bear of the north, is rattling in its chains.. I must visit soon.

Yay! Patrick Fitzgerald is back :) .. (remember him)
Here is a current film that is related to the whole 2005 drama.
Here are the comedians on the 2008 scandal.

And talking of things you shouldn't pick...Picking your nose can lead to this...
And talking about all round bad ideas...yup, here you go.

Arundhati Roy writes in The Guardian about the Mumbai attacks..

Did you hear music under the big bright moon this weekend?

I leave you with Rumi..

Quietness is the surest sign
that you’ve died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.
–Rumi,

Don’t worry about saving these songs!

And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

Rumi


Saturday, December 6, 2008

I am winning the battle against cat scratch fever, or maybe that is the hopeful delirium that comes at the end...

The cat and I have worryingly similar notions of playfulness, but while I spend my time-between swatting and wrestling- biting my nails, she has a rigorous routine of honing her wolverine paws to the point where it's just dumb of me to go near her. But apparently I do dumb well. And do pain well too. Dumb pain.

How pretty is the weather these days? Very, I'd say.

We are so small, so small... But we dream big, poor creatures..
Here are some more crazy pictures of teeny tiny things from National Geographic.

Musicians out there try your hand at the YouTube Symphony Orchestra and music lovers, enjoy the Smithsonian Global Sound site.

Now onto matters more deathly serious:

Finally the DR Congo is on people's radars, too late for the millions that have been killed in the past decade... But not enough is being done, and activists are trying to draw attention to the 'rape as a weapon' horror going on there.

Want to help? Visit Women for Women International
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I leave you with Paz, Williams, Seferis and Lenny... Because I have been reading too much.

Two bodies face to face
are two stars falling
in an empty sky.
–Octavio Paz

this morning for someone I’m not even sure exists
I waste tears. I count down by fractions
through the ash. I howl. I use up everything.
–CK Williams

but your heart's anguish
didn't cry out, became
what gives the world
a star-filled sky
--George Seferis

O friend of my scribbled life
Your heart is like mine—
your loneliness
will bring you home.
–Leonard Cohen