Kultūra

Alone in the City

2012-02-08T21:32:00.000-08:00

Do we really live in a Globval village? Photographer Viviana Peretti documents alienation of humans living in cities...pretty cool.

Marshall McLuhan’s “global village” doesn’t exist. “Because in essence,” says Kapuscinski, “village means physical proximity, emotional warmth and intimacy; co-presence and coexistence; compassion and communion.” We do not live in a global village, but rather global cities where busy, frantic people walk around, indifferent to others, with no desire for closeness. New York is the perfect example of modern alienation, loneliness, and mass culture, where the wealth of electronic devices at our disposal leads to ever-reducing human contact.

See full slideshow here... (Full screen option is in the bottom right corner)
http://www.guernicamag.com/art/3471/peretti_2_1_12/

Top Secret Prison used by US/UK Special Forces Found in Iraqi Desert

2012-02-07T19:28:00.000-08:00

Stellar reporting by The Guardian's Ian Cobain...

Death in RAF helicopter and secret prison camp in Iraq desert raises questions about legality of British and US operations

Excerpt:

It appears from the information disclosed that some prisoner operations were being conducted, deliberately or otherwise, outside of the chain of command."
The holding facility appears effectively to have been a secret prison – a so-called black site. It is entirely possible, according to international law experts, that taking prisoners to H1 could amount to "unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement", and that the prisoners were subjected to "enforced disappearances", both of which are war crimes under the Rome statute of the international criminal court.
One former RAF Regiment trooper who was based at H1 for several months has described being involved in a number of similar missions in which prisoners were collected from coalition special forces. This always happened "under total darkness", he says. On arrival at H1, the prisoners were handed on to people whom he describes as "other authorities".

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/07/iraq-death-secret-detention-camp

The Mixtape of Revolution

2012-02-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

How Rap has become the music of revolution....very interesting...

DEF JAM will probably never sign them, but Cheikh Oumar Cyrille Touré, from a small town about 100 miles southeast of Dakar, Senegal, and Hamada Ben Amor, a 22-year-old man from a port city 170 miles southeast of Tunis, may be two of the most influential rappers in the history of hip-hop.

Mr. Touré, a k a Thiat (“Junior”), and Mr. Ben Amor, a k a El Général, both wrote protest songs that led to their arrests and generated powerful political movements. “We are drowning in hunger and unemployment,”
“ Rappers are closer to the streets and can bring into their music the general feeling of frustration among people.”

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/opinion/the-mixtape-of-the-revolution.html

South Korea's Pop Wave

2012-02-05T10:48:00.000-08:00

South Korean pop music known as 'K-Pop', is flourishing around the world, finding new fans across Asia, Europe and the US. With attractive artists, catchy tunes and polished dance moves, K-Pop is the number one draw-card for tourists to South Korea and generates tens of millions of export dollars.

But punishing schedules and contracts, plus links to prostitution and corruption have revealed a dark side to the industry. Meanwhile critics claim K-Pop is too manufactured to create mega-international stars or to sustain its future.

101 East explores South Korea's K-Pop phenomenon and asks if it is a music revolution that is set to last.

Watch full 20 minute documentary here...
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2012/01/201212673348120626.html

Sugar should be controlled like alcohol: Report

2012-02-01T12:51:00.000-08:00

Sugar is so toxic it should be controlled like alcohol, according to new report that goes so far as to suggest setting an age limit of 17 years to buy soda pop. It points to sugar as a culprit behind many of the world's major killers — heart disease, cancer and diabetes — that are now a greater health burden than infectious diseases....

READ MORE HERE....
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Sugar+should+controlled+like+alcohol+report/6085350/story.html

Across the World, Leaders Brace for Discontent and Upheaval

2012-01-27T07:32:00.000-08:00

DAVOS, Switzerland — Protesters in Moscow and Cairo fill public squares to demand representative government. Yet on the streets of Madrid and New York — or of Athens, which gave us the very word for democracy — discontent is almost as rampant.

The only consistent messages seem to be that leaders around the world are failing to deliver on their citizens’ expectations and that Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools allow crowds to coalesce at will to let them know it. This is not a comforting picture for the 40 heads of state or leaders of governments who are attending the World Economic Forum here, including such disparate leaders as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany’s multiparty democracy or Meles Zenawi, the prime minister of the authoritarian state of Ethiopia.

“I think that what we have learned in the last few years since the financial crisis and since the Arab Spring is that brittle states with limited political and economic capital are particularly susceptible to the combination of severe economic downturn and the communications revolution,” said Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm in New York.

Confessions of a Recovering Weapons Addict

2012-01-25T21:22:00.000-08:00

F16 Falcon

The US auto industry may have taken a dive, but for the weapons manufacturers...business is still booming... and guess who their best customer is....themselves...interesting article...

Perhaps you’ve heard of "Making Thunderbirds" a hard-bitten rock & roll song by Bob Seger that I listened to 30 years ago while in college. It’s about auto workers back in 1955 who were “young and proud” to be making Ford Thunderbirds. But in the early 1980s, Seger sings, “the plants have changed and you’re lucky if you work.” Seger caught the reality of an American manufacturing infrastructure that was seriously eroding as skilled and good-paying union jobs were cut or sent overseas, rarely to be seen again in these parts.
If the U.S. auto industry has recently shown sparks of new life (though we’re not making T-Birds or Mercuries or Oldsmobiles or Pontiacs or Saturns anymore), there is one form of manufacturing in which America is still dominant. When it comes to weaponry, to paraphrase Seger, we’re still young and proud and makin’ Predators and Reapers (as in unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones) and Eagles and Fighting Falcons (as in F-15 and F-16 combat jets), and outfitting them with the deadliest of weapons. In this market niche, we’re still the envy of the world.

Read more here...
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175493/tomgram%3A_william_astore%2C_confessions_of_a_recovering_weapons_addict/#more

Best of Kultura 2011 -- Photography

2012-01-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

Here is a selection of some of the most intriguing photography that have appeared on Kultura in 2011...Enjoy.

1. The Work of an Undiscovered Street Photographer Rocks the Art World

Chicago nanny Vivian Maier died in 2009, leaving behind 100,000 negatives that no one but she had ever seen. Her work was discovered by chance, and now the photographs she took on her days off are being hailed as 'ranking up there' with the best in 20th-century street photography. See more here.

2. America's First People

Photo of Ah Chee Lo, a Young Indian Child. It was taken in 1905

by Edward S. Curtis.

See more beautiful portraits here.

**3. Sicarios: Latin American Assassins**

A hooded sicario threatens Javier for a few seconds in zone 14 of Guatemala City.

See more here.

4. Strange Rain

A photographer uses an unusual technique to enhance the affect of rain in his photographs. See more here.

5. Living Photographs

Some Incredible time lapse photography.

See more here.

6. Art Meets Music

Awesome art photography with cool selections of music. See more here.

7. Tweeter Street

Portraits of ordinary people and what they tweeted. See more here.

8. Dance

Art Photographs by Seiji Shibuya

See more here.

Ten Prominent Websites Protest SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-18T15:54:00.000-08:00

I really hope they quash this bill...they are definitely laying the groundwork for Internet censorship....

Thousands of websites went black or obscured their homepages on Wednesday to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), two controversial bills designed to crack down on web piracy. Critics of the bills — which are backed by Hollywood, the recording industry, and major media companies, including Time Warner, the parent of TIME — say they are too broad and could lead to Internet censorship. Last month, Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he was “shocked that our lawmakers would contemplate such measures that would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world.

Read More...
http://business.time.com/2012/01/18/ten-prominent-websites-protesting-sopa-and-pipa/#ixzz1jrE7bYBU

Seeds of Dystopia

2012-01-11T21:46:00.000-08:00

Global Risks Report 2012 Finds Income Inequality To Be A Threat To Economies Worldwide

Growing income disparity threatens political backlash
* WEF sees risk of globalisation unravelling
* Report says fiscal crises at centre of economic woes

LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - A backlash against rising inequality -- evident from the Occupy movement to the Arab Spring -- risks derailing the advance of globalisation and represents a key threat to economies worldwide, according to the World Economic Forum.
Severe income disparity and precarious government finances rank as the biggest economic threats facing the world, according to the group's 2012 Global Risks report released on Wednesday...

Rising youth unemployment, a crisis of retirement among pensioners dependent on debt-burdened states and a widening wealth gap have sown the "seeds of dystopia", according to the report, based on a survey of 469 experts and industry leaders.
For the first time in generations, people no longer believe their children will grow up to have a better standard of living.

"It needs immediate political attention, otherwise the political rhetoric that responds to this social unease will involve nationalism, protectionism and rolling back the globalisation process," said WEF managing director Lee Howell.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/11/global-risks-report-2012_n_1198537.html?ir=Canada%20Business&ref=canada-business

And here is an example of that income inequality...

300 Chinese Foxconn Workers 'Threaten Mass Suicide' At XBox Plant.

According to the reports the employees had asked bosses for a raise but in response were told to either quit with compensation or keep their jobs at their usual salary.
Most workers apparently decided to leave, but the company did not hand over the money as promised.
According to the China Jasmine Revolution website, the workers were only dissuaded a day later when the mayor of Wuhan talked them out of committing suicide.
Foxconn factories in China have been the scene of several suicides by workers in the past, including 14 in 2010 alone at its Shenzhen plant, after complaints of low pay and poor conditions.

Read More here...
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/01/10/300-chinese-foxconn-workers-threaten-mass-suicide_n_1196345.html

Lastly, this is an excellent documentary about the influence of Wal Mart and how it destroyed America's economy...very well done PBS.

Is Wal Mart Good For America?

Watch full documentary here...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/view/

The US schools with their own police

2012-01-10T19:19:00.000-08:00

More and more US schools have police patrolling the corridors. Pupils are being arrested for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor. Why is the state criminalising normal childhood behaviour?

EXCERPT:

Many of those who appear in front of Meurer have learning problems. Children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to the consequences of police in schools. Simpkins describes the case of a boy with attention deficit disorder who as a 12-year-old tipped a desk over in class in a rage. He was charged with threatening behaviour and sent to a juvenile prison where he was required to earn his release by meeting certain educational and behavioural standards.

"But he can't," she said. "Because of that he is turning 18 within the juvenile justice system for something that happened when he was 12. It's a real trap. A lot of these kids do have disabilities and that's how they end up there and can't get out. Instead of dealing with it within school system like we used to, we have these school police, they come in and it escalates from there.

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/09/texas-police-schools

The Young Turks point at government profiteers as the main drive behind the fiasco...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-39GhipPDE&feature=g-all-u&context=G2dd8f35FAAAAAAAAAAA

Best of Kultura 2011-The Articles

2012-01-08T16:07:00.000-08:00

2011 Articles of Note

1. The Little Trick

By Anton Chekov

A beautiful short story by the celebrated Russian writer.
http://ajarnmike.blogspot.com/2011/03/little-trick.html

2. A Grief Like No Other

By Eric Schlosser

Excerpt:

Patty also found consolation at her son's grave. During the first year after the murder she stopped by the cemetery two or three times a day. Usually she'd visit the grave for fifteen minutes or so. At other times, including his birthday, she would sit there all day. His birthday was in February, when the weather was harsh and cold. One thing she could not bear was the thought of snow covering Tim's body. Whenever it snowed, she had to visit the cemetery and clear off his grave. One day after a snowstorm she arrived and found that someone who knew how she felt had already removed the snow from Tim's grave."
http://ajarnmike.blogspot.com/2011/07/grief-like-no-other.html

3. Why We Travel

by Paul Theroux

“Don’t go there,” the know-it-all, stay-at-home finger wagger says of many a distant place. I have heard it my whole traveling life, and in almost every case it was bad advice. In my experience these maligned countries are often the most fulfilling. I am not saying they are fun. For undiluted jollification you bake in the sun at Waikiki with a mai tai in your fist, or eat lotuses on the Côte d’Azur. As for the recognition of hard travel as rewarding, the feeling is mainly retrospective, since it is only in looking back that we see how we have been enriched. At the time, of course, the experience of being a bystander to sudden political or social change can be alarming.
http://ajarnmike.blogspot.com/2011/04/argument-for-travel-during-turbulent.html

4. Living in the Moment Really Does Make You Happier

By Ian Sample

They found that people were happiest when having sex, exercising or in conversation, and least happy when working, resting or using a home computer. And although subjects' minds were wandering nearly half of the time, this consistently made them less happy.
The team conclude that reminiscing, thinking ahead or daydreaming tends to make people more miserable, even when they are thinking about something pleasant.
http://ajarnmike.blogspot.com/2011/08/living-in-moment-really-does-make.html

5. ...the last sentence

The last words of some pretty cool people.
http://ajarnmike.blogspot.com/2011/08/famous-last-words.html

6. Dummy Land

Writer Avi Steinberg visits a ventriloquist convention...great article.

http://ajarnmike.blogspot.com/2011/07/dummy-land.html

7. The Oatmeal

Hilarious comics with a little social commentary added... By Mathew Inmann
http://ajarnmike.blogspot.com/2011/07/oatmeal.html

Dance

2012-01-06T20:56:00.000-08:00

Art Photographs by Seiji Shibuya

Watch full slide show here...

http://www.lensculture.com/shibuya.html

Enjoy!

The "Stans"

2012-01-05T23:51:00.000-08:00

Beautiful photographs of the "Stan" countries of Central Asia...

Kyrgyzstan, by Christian Als

SEE MORE PHOTOGRAPHS HERE...

http://christianals.com/site/?p=2

ALSO CHECK OUT THE BEST PHOTOJOURNALISM OF 2011...

http://blogs.sacbee.com/photos/2011/12/looking-back-at-images-from-20.html

Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class

2012-01-02T10:40:00.000-08:00

A very interesting look into how TV portrays the working class...

Based on the book by Pepi Leistyna, Class Dismissed navigates the steady stream of narrow working class representations from American television's beginnings to today's sitcoms, reality shows, police dramas, and daytime talk shows.

Featuring interviews with media analysts and cultural historians, this documentary examines the patterns inherent in TV's disturbing depictions of working class people as either clowns or social deviants -- stereotypical portrayals that reinforce the myth of meritocracy.

Class Dismissed breaks important new ground in exploring the ways in which race, gender, and sexuality intersect with class, offering a more complex reading of television's often one-dimensional representations. The video also links television portrayals to negative cultural attitudes and public policies that directly affect the lives of working class people.

Featuring interviews with Stanley Aronowitz, (City University of New York); Nickel and Dimed author, Barbara Ehrenreich; Herman Gray (University of California-Santa Cruz); Robin Kelley (Columbia University); Pepi Leistyna (University of Massachusetts-Boston) and Michael Zweig (State University of New York-Stony Brook). Also with Arlene Davila, Susan Douglas, Bambi Haggins, Lisa Henderson, and Andrea Press.

WATCH FULL DOCUMENTARY HERE...
http://www.filmsforaction.org/Watch/Class_Dismissed_How_TV_Frames_the_Working_Class_2005/

ALSO WORTH CHECKING OUT IS...

They are the merchants of cool: creators and sellers of popular culture who have made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic in America. But are they simply reflecting teen desires or have they begun to manufacture those desires in a bid to secure this lucrative market? And have they gone too far in their attempts to reach the hearts--and wallets--of America's youth?
FRONTLINE correspondent Douglas Rushkoff examines the tactics, techniques, and cultural ramifications of these marketing moguls in "The Merchants of Cool."

WATCH FULL DOCUMENTARY HERE...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/view/

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

2011-12-29T21:24:00.000-08:00

This is our world...

Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

More than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening.

According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world.

Approximately half the world’s population now live in cities and towns. In 2005, one out of three urban dwellers (approximately 1 billion people) was living in slum conditions.

Vietnam in HD

2011-12-26T20:28:00.000-08:00

Photo by Phillip Jones Griffiths/ Magnum

Awesome documentary on the Vietnam War, great new footage and well told...enjoy.

It's not the war you know. It's the war they fought.
Two years after the release of its landmark Emmy-winning series WWII in HD, HISTORY shifts its focus to a new generation and one of the most controversial chapters in American history, the Vietnam War. Vietnam in HD will immerse viewers in the sights, the sounds and the stories of the Vietnam War as it has never before been seen. Thousands of hours of uncensored footage--much of it shot by soldiers in action--will detail every critical chapter of the conflict. The war will unfold onscreen through the gripping firsthand accounts of 13 brave men and women who were forever changed by their experience in Vietnam.

WATCH FULL DOCUMENTARY HERE...
http://documentaryheaven.com/vietnam-in-hd/

The documentary's official website is also worth checking out...
http://www.history.com/shows/vietnam-in-hd

Tweeter Street

2011-12-24T10:08:00.000-08:00

Portraits of people who tweet, what they tweet, and where they tweet from....but really, it's an exploration of individuality and reminds us that the world is full of characters...really cool.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE PHOTOS)

SEE MORE HERE....
http://michaelhughesphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery/Tweeter-Street/G0000vUNNdNSD3lg/

A History of Violence

2011-12-22T20:55:00.000-08:00

What may be the most important thing that has ever happened in human history is that violence has gone down, by dramatic degrees, and in many dimensions all over the world and in many spheres of behavior: genocide, war, human sacrifice, torture, slavery, and the treatment of racial minorities, women, children, and animals.

Harvard Psychologist Steven Pinker (You may know him from his TED talks) lectures on an interesting phenomenon obviously missed by all the police reality shows and sensationalized news stations...

READ MORE OR WATCH THE ENTIRE LECTURE HERE....

http://edge.org/conversation/mc2011-history-violence-pinker

Craziest Facebook Stories of 2011

2011-12-22T12:32:00.000-08:00

Usually I don't post stories like these ones; however, I couldn't resist this one...pretty crazy...

In November, a burglar signed into Facebook from a computer inside a home he broke into before sprinting from the scene. Unfortunately, he forgot to logout before he left.

In February, a mom was arrested for posting pictures of her baby and a bong on Facebook.

In February, an Egyptian man named his daughter Facebook.

In May, a study came out that said young people would rather lose their sense of smell instead of their social networks.
A McCann survey of 6,000 people aged 16 to 30 found that 53 percent of respondents would rather forfeit the ability to smell than lose access to social networking websites.

In April, after the Royal Wedding, the Pippa Middleton's Ass Appreciation Society was started. It now has over 240,000 fans.

According to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, Facebook use is now cited in one in five of every U.S. divorce cases.

Kim Jong-il, North Korean leader, dies

2011-12-18T23:13:00.000-08:00

Kim Jong-il is understood to have suffered a heart attack on Saturday due to physical and mental over-work

Kim Jong-il, the "dear leader" still venerated by many in North Korea but reviled abroad, has died aged 69, state media announced on Monday morning.
The North Korean leader suffered a heart attack on Saturday due to physical and mental over-work, the official KCNA news agency reported. He was on his train, travelling to offer "field guidance" to workers, when he died.
KCNA urged the nation, people and military to rally behind his young son and heir apparent, telling them they must "faithfully revere" Kim Jong-un's leadership.
Kim had recovered from a reported stroke in 2008, and Monday's announcement was unexpected. But he had already begun grooming Kim Jong-un to take control of the "hermit state", appointing him a general last year and giving him several high profile roles.

Experts say there is increasing cynicism in North Korea about the regime, which exerts rigid political control but has proved incapable of meeting basic economic needs. But people in the streets of Pyongyang burst into tears as they learnt of Kim's death, Associated Press reported.
"It is the biggest loss for the party ... and it is our people and nation's biggest sadness," a tearful anchorwoman clad in black Korean traditional dress told viewers as she announced Kim's death.

READ MORE...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/19/kim-jong-il-north-korean-leader-dies

See PHOTOS and READ MORE HERE...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/world/asia/kim-jong-il-is-dead.html?_r=1&h

HERE IS A VIDEO OF THE FORMAL ANNOUNCEMENT ON NORTH KOREAN TV...

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/the-death-of-kim-jong-il-as-broadcast-to-his-people/250171/

In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

2011-12-16T07:34:00.000-08:00

See more photos here.

RIP, definitely admired his unpopular views...

Christopher Hitchens, a slashing polemicist in the tradition of Thomas Paine and George Orwell who trained his sights on targets as various as Henry Kissinger, the British monarchy and Mother Teresa, wrote a best-seller attacking religious belief, and dismayed his former comrades on the left by enthusiastically supporting the American-led war in Iraq, died Thursday at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He was 62.

“In whatever kind of a ‘race’ life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist,” Mr. Hitchens wrote in Vanity Fair, for which he was a contributing editor.
He took pains to emphasize that he had not revised his position on atheism, articulated in his best-selling 2007 book, “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” although he did express amused appreciation at the hope, among some concerned Christians, that he might undergo a late-life conversion.
He also professed to have no regrets for a lifetime of heavy smoking and drinking. “Writing is what’s important to me, and anything that helps me do that — or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation — is worth it to me,”

A young Christopher Hitchens circa 1968, picketing at a non-union factory in his native England.

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/arts/christopher-hitchens-is-dead-at-62-obituary.html?pagewanted=all

ALSO WORTH CHECKING OUT...

Christopher Hitchens on The Daily Show: Sparring with Jon Stewart Over the Years...

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/11/Christopher-Hitchens-on-iThe-Daily-Showi-Sparring-with-Jon-Stewart-Over-the-Years

Time's Person of the Year-The Protester

2011-12-14T20:51:00.000-08:00

Hopefully they will be the Person of the Year next year as well.

Excerpt:

"Massive and effective street protest" was a global oxymoron until — suddenly, shockingly — starting exactly a year ago, it became the defining trope of our times. And the protester once again became a maker of history.
Prelude to the Revolutions
It began in Tunisia, where the dictator's power grabbing and high living crossed a line of shamelessness, and a commonplace bit of government callousness against an ordinary citizen — a 26-year-old street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi — became the final straw. Bouazizi lived in the charmless Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, 125 miles south of Tunis. On a Friday morning almost exactly a year ago, he set out for work, selling produce from a cart. Police had hassled Bouazizi routinely for years, his family says, fining him, making him jump through bureaucratic hoops. On Dec. 17, 2010, a cop started giving him grief yet again. She confiscated his scale and allegedly slapped him. He walked straight to the provincial-capital building to complain and got no response. At the gate, he drenched himself in paint thinner and lit a match. (See pictures of Sidi Bouzid.)
"My son set himself on fire for dignity," Mannoubia Bouazizi told me when I visited her.
"In Tunisia," added her 16-year-old daughter Basma, "dignity is more important than bread."

Read more here...
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102132,00.html

Fighting 1% Wars

2011-12-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

U.S Marine Cpl. Lance Morrow patrols in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

America’s wars are remote. They’re remote from us geographically, remote from us emotionally (unless you’re serving in the military or have a close relative or friend who serves), and remote from our major media outlets, which have given us no compelling narrative about them, except that they’re being fought by “America’s heroes” against foreign terrorists and evil-doers. They’re even being fought, in significant part, by remote control -- by robotic drones “piloted” by ground-based operators from a secret network of bases located hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from the danger of the battlefield.
Their remoteness, which breeds detachment if not complacency at home, is no accident. Indeed, it’s a product of the fact that Afghanistan and Iraq were wars of choice, not wars of necessity. It’s a product of the fact that we’ve chosen to create a “warrior” or “war fighter” caste in this country, which we send with few concerns and fewer qualms to prosecute Washington’s foreign wars of choice.

The results have been predictable, as in predictably bad. The troops suffer. Iraqi and Afghan innocents suffer even more. And yet we don’t suffer, at least not in ways that are easily noticeable, because of that very remoteness.

READ MORE HERE:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175477/tomgram%3A_william_astore%2C_the_remoteness_of_1%25_wars/

Sea of Change

2011-12-07T12:36:00.000-08:00

'Sea Change' is a study of the tides round the coast of Britain. The views in each diptych are taken from identical positions at low tide and high tide, usually 6 or 18 hours apart.

I am interested in showing how landscape changes over time through natural processes and cycles. The camera that observes low and high tide side by side enables us to observe simultaneously two moments in time, two states of nature.

See more of Michael Marten's remarkable work here...
http://www.lensculture.com/marten.html

DEA Launders Profits of Mexican Drug Cartels

2011-12-04T19:53:00.000-08:00

U.S. Agents Launder Mexican Profits of Drug Cartels

Undercover American narcotics agents have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds as part of Washington’s expanding role in Mexico's fight against drug cartels according to current and former federal law enforcement officials. They said agents had deposited the drug proceeds in accounts designated by traffickers, or in shell accounts set up by agents. The officials said that while the D.E.A. conducted such operations in other countries, it began doing so in Mexico only in the past few years.

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/world/americas/us-drug-agents-launder-profits-of-mexican-cartels.html?src=me&ref=general

ALSO HERE IS 10 MINUTE DOCUMENTARY ENTITLED "FUELING THE MEXICO'S DRUG TRADE."

D.E.A. Squads Extend Reach of Drug War

The D.E.A. now has five commando-style squads it has been quietly deploying for the past several years to Western Hemisphere nations — including Haiti, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Belize — that are battling drug cartels, according to documents and interviews with law enforcement officials.
The program — called FAST, for Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team — was created during the George W. Bush administration to investigate Taliban-linked drug traffickers in Afghanistan. Beginning in 2008 and continuing under President Obama, it has expanded far beyond the war zone.
“You have got to have special skills and equipment to be able to operate effectively and safely in environments like this,” said Michael A. Braun, a former head of operations for the drug agency who helped design the program. “The D.E.A. is working shoulder-to-shoulder in harm’s way with host-nation counterparts.”

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/world/americas/united-states-drug-enforcement-agency-squads-extend-reach-of-drug-war.html?ref=americas

AND DON'T MISS THESE KULTURA BLOG POSTS...

U.S. SUPPLIES GUNS TO MEXICAN CARTELS FOR OVER A DECADE

IS THE CIA SUPPORTING THE SINALOA CARTEL Part 1

Sesame Street in Afghanistan

2011-11-29T19:34:00.000-08:00

There's a headline I thought I'd never read...

Singing, dancing and barking are out, but Sesame Street is teaching Afghan children to count, read and write...

Excerpt:

"In a country with an extremely young population and an education system that is not up to standard, then reaching millions of kids through television seems to us the way to go," said Saad Mohseni, chief executive of Moby Media.

Also present in the Afghan version is the social activism that once caused consternation in parts of 1970s America with its portrayal of a racially harmonious inner-city neighbourhood. For a film about a girl's first day at school, the Afghan production team deliberately chose a character from the Hazara community, a much put-upon minority in a country where there are growing fears of ethnic fragmentation.

Sherrie Westin, vice-president of Sesame Workshop, said the programme's daily mini-documentaries about the daily lives Afghan children "celebrate diversity and introduce children from Afghanistan's various provinces to each other".

Famous Failures

2011-11-24T07:08:00.000-08:00

Excerpt:
Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else or producing something else. You have not failed; you have produced some other result. The two most important questions to ask are: "What have I learned?" and "What have I done?"
Failure is only a word that human beings use to judge a given situation. Instead of fearing failure, we should learn that failures, mistakes and errors are the way we learn and the way we grow. Many of the world's greatest successes have learned how to fail their way to success. Some of the more famous are:

Michael Jordan: Most people wouldn't believe that a man often lauded as the best basketball player of all time was actually cut from his high school basketball team. Luckily, Jordan didn't let this setback stop him from playing the game and he has stated, "I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

Stephen King: The first book by this author, the iconic thriller Carrie, received 30 rejections, finally causing King to give up and throw it in the trash. His wife fished it out and encouraged him to resubmit it, and the rest is history, with King now having hundreds of books published and the distinction of being one of the best-selling authors of all time.

The Man Who Was "Cured" of HIV

2011-11-20T18:20:00.000-08:00

Sonia Arrison explains how in the future we could live to be 150 years old and about the man who was "cured" of HIV...fascinating stuff!

Excerpt:

"...the average person may soon celebrate over 150 birthdays. Many Big Thinkers wondered whether lifespan extension is even meaningful unless it is also accompanied by an increase in the quality of life experienced by super-centenarians. Arrison couldn't agree more.
What would be the point of living longer, if the Golden Years were filled with nothing but physical suffering? “We are at the cusp of a revolution in medicine and biotechnology that will radically increase not just our life spans but also, and more importantly, our health spans," she says.

More anecdotal, and more striking, is the case of Timothy Brown, known as "The Berlin Patient." Brown first tested positive for HIV in 1995. For a decade afterwards, he lived a healthy life in Berlin, controlling the virus with anti-retroviral therapy. But in 2006, he began feel extreme exhaustion when riding his bike to work. His doctor diagnosed him with leukemia, completely unrelated to HIV - the only possible lifesaving treatment for which was a stem cell transplant from a bone marrow donor. A specialist at Charité Medical University managed to find a donor who was a match, and who also happened to have a gene which made him resistant to the HIV virus.
The transplant was gruelling - scientists are wary of using the word "cure" - but Brown now tests negative on even the most sensitive HIV tests. He is the only person in the world to have ever been rid of HIV. "That’s one example of how scientists might be able to recode our systems to fight off diseases," says Arrison."

READ MORE AND SEE VIDEO HERE...
http://bigthink.com/ideas/41153

You can also read more about Timothy Brown in this New York Magazine article...
http://nymag.com/health/features/aids-cure-2011-6/

Fighting Back, One Brothel at a Time

2011-11-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

A fascinating look inside the war on human trafficking...

Excerpt:

This town of Anlong Veng is in northern Cambodia near the Thai border, with a large military presence; it feels like something out of the Wild West. Somaly, whose efforts are financed mostly through American supporters of her Somaly Mam Foundation, had sneaked into this brothel and surreptitiously photographed very young girls. With the photographs, she convinced Cambodia’s anti-trafficking police to mount the raid.
It didn’t help my nerves that Somaly, whom I’ve known for years, is fearless. Brothel-owners have fought back ferociously against Somaly: They’ve sent death threats, held a gun to her head and shot up her car.

“We all know that our lives are in danger,” she says, a little too cavalierly. “I’ve never been so happy in my life. They can kill me now.”

When Somaly refused to back off, she said the traffickers kidnapped her 14-year-old daughter and gang-raped the girl with a video camera rolling. The daughter was recovered in a brothel, and Somaly blames herself. It’s a credit to the courage of mother and daughter that they remain steadfast, upbeat and close, and determined to make a difference. These days, Somaly is very careful with that daughter and her other children.

The three unmarked police cars ahead of us pulled up in front of the brothel...

Read full article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/kristof-fighting-back-one-brothel-raid-at-a-time.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

National Geographic Photo Contest 2011

2011-11-12T08:27:00.000-08:00

Here are a selection of submissions from the National Geographic photo contest...captions are written by the photographers and to enlarge the photo just click on it...

The Hundstei (dog stone) is a very special place for me. I know this might sound silly, but since my dog and I grew up just around the corner and the naming of the mountain, I chose this very calm lake as a final resting place for Spock (my dog) so he would have the biggest gravestone of all dogs out there. That morning we had a farewell ceremony for Spock. I took this picture and we summited the Hundstei in his honor (which was a very emotional challenge). This picture of his resting place is now hanging in our kitchen to remember him. (© Nino Benninger)

Cage divers confront a great white shark. (© David Litchfield)

An adult male gelada rests in the early morning light after ascending the steep sleeping cliffs of the Simien Mountains, Ethiopia. (© Clay Wilton)

Pinki Kundu,a 13 yrs old girl is suffering from a chronic disease & is being treated in Mother Teresa TB Hospital in Kolkata. She is under CAT 1 drug therapy & is doing well.The day I photographed her she was very hopeful mood that she would be returning back to her parents soon. (© Saibal Gupta)

This is a streetcar in New Orleans traveling back towards The Quarter on St. Charles Ave. I held the camera against the window sill, making sure to divide the image equally between the inside and the outside. (© Don Chamblee)

SEE MORE AMAZING PHOTOS HERE....

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/11/national-geographic-photo-contest-2011/100187/

How and Why to Write

2011-11-07T16:36:00.000-08:00

Margaret Atwood, Cambridge 1963.

Advice about writing that is actually helpful from some of this century's greatest authors...

Excerpt:

James Baldwin
I don't know if I feel close to them, now. After a time you find, however, that your characters are lost to you, making it quite impossible for you to judge them. When you've finished a novel it means, "The train stops here, you have to get off here." You never get the book you wanted, you settle for the book you get. I've always felt that when a book ended there was something I didn't see, and usually when I remark the discovery it's too late to do anything about it.
It happens when you are right here at the table. The publication date is something else again. It's out of your hands, then. What happens here is that you realize that if you try to redo something, you may wreck everything else. But, if a book has brought you from one place to another, so that you see something you didn't see before, you've arrived at another point. This then is one's consolation, and you know that you must now proceed elsewhere.

Read more here:
http://thisrecording.com/today/2011/11/4/in-which-we-get-down-to-the-actual-writing.html

Steal This Book

2011-11-07T07:26:00.000-08:00

"Steal This Book" is a legendary survival guide for those living on the fringes of society. From creating fake ID's to "first aid for streetfighters" this book covers many topics.

Read more of this book here...
http://www.tenant.net/Community/steal/steal.html#2.12.11

Also here's a PDF version of another controversial book entitled The Anarchist's Cookbook, both are very interesting reads, enjoy!

Study: Alcohol Is “More Than Twice As Harmful As Marijuana”

2011-11-02T11:07:00.000-07:00

Alcohol consumption causes far greater harms to the individual user and to society than does the use of cannabis, according to a new review published online in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, the journal of the British Association of Psychopharmacology.

Investigators at the Imperial College of London assessed “the relative physical, psychological, and social harms of cannabis and alcohol.” Authors reported that cannabis inhalation, particularly long-term, contributes to some potential adverse health effects, including harms to the lungs, circulatory system, as well as the exacerbation of certain mental health risks. By contrast, authors described alcohol as “ a toxic substance” that is responsible for nearly five percent “of the total global disease burden.”

Researchers determined, “A direct comparison of alcohol and cannabis showed that alcohol was considered to be more than twice as harmful as cannabis to [individual] users, and five times more harmful as cannabis to others (society). … As there are few areas of harm that each drug can produce where cannabis scores more [dangerous to health] than alcohol, we suggest that even if there were no legal impediment to cannabis use, it would be unlikely to be more harmful than alcohol.”

They concluded, “The findings underline the need for a coherent, evidence-based drugs policy that enables individuals to make informed decisions about the consequences of their drug use.”

The researchers’ findings should hardly come as a revelation. Last week, a just-published study that was completely ignored by the mainstream media reported that alcohol consumption increased lung cancer risk by 30 percent.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. After all, a February 2011 World Health Organization report concluded that alcohol consumption causes a staggering four percent of all deaths worldwide, more than AIDS, tuberculosis or violence. A just-published analysis in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine finds that in the United States alone, an estimated 79,000 lives are lost annually due to excessive drinking. The study further estimates that the overall economic cost of excessive drinking by Americans is $223.5 billion annually.

Naturally, any health costs related to cannabis use pale in comparison. A 2009 review published in the British Columbia Mental Health and Addictions Journal estimated that health-related costs per user are eight times higher for drinkers of alcoholic beverages than they are for those who use cannabis, and are more than 40 times higher for tobacco smokers. “In terms of [health-related] costs per user: tobacco-related health costs are over $800 per user, alcohol-related health costs are much lower at $165 per user, and cannabis-related health costs are the lowest at $20 per user,” investigators concluded.

In an op/ed I wrote last year entitled “Pot Versus Alcohol: Experts Say Booze Is the Bigger Danger,” I cited the findings of numerous independent commissions, all of which pronounced that the risks of marijuana were nominal compared to those associated with booze. You can read these findings here and much of this evidence is discussed in even greater detail in my book, Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?

Nevertheless, despite its enormous societal toll, alcohol remains celebrated in this country — American Craft Beer Week is now endorsed by the U.S. Congress — while cannabis remains arbitrarily criminalized and demonized. It’s a situation illogical enough to drive most anyone to drink.

Original article here.

Also check out this article...
Alcohol more harmful than heroin, cocaine, study finds

Alcohol is the "most harmful" of a list of 20 drugs -- more dangerous even than crack cocaine and heroin -- according to a new study released Monday.

The study, published in the medical journal The Lancet, rated the drugs using a 100-point scale that weighed the physical, psychological and social problems they caused and determined that alcohol was the most harmful overall.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/20101101/Alcohol-Heroin-Study-011110/

Semper Fi: Always Faithful

2011-10-31T07:23:00.000-07:00

Here's a documentary that is definitely worth looking out for...Thanks for the link Kara!

Semper Fi: Always Faithful” tells the story of Marine Corps Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger, a devoted Marine for nearly twenty five years who lived and breathed the U.S. military. But when his nine-year-old daughter died of a rare form of leukemia, his world fell apart. Years later, he made the shocking discovery of an alleged Marine Corps cover-up that the drinking water at the Corps Base was highly contaminated by toxic chemicals for thirty years.

According to the film, it is estimated that almost one million Marines and their families were exposed to these high levels of carcinogens, a fact which was never exposed to the public. The film also alleges that to this day, only a fraction of former residents who lived there during 1957 to 1987 – many of who have lost children or are now sick themselves – even know that they were exposed.

“A big shocker is the fact that the Department of Defense is our nation’s largest polluter. The other thing that is shocking is the influence of special interest groups and polluters on the regulation of harmful chemicals.

Watch trailer here...

Find out more here...
http://semperfialwaysfaithful.com/

Art meets Music

2011-10-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

"Everyday I Show" is a website dedicated to mixing exceptional photography with exceptional songs. From what I gather it's maintained by some guy in Russia who obviously has an affinity for art and music.

First grab some headphones and copy and paste the youtube music into another window and let it play in the background. Next click on the slideshow link. Sit back and enjoy a moment of art and music...

Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwbJ1Od_E7E

Slideshow: Photos by Annie Leibovitz

Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GxqrYLf5CU

Slideshow: Photos by Peter Baker

Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlSbSKNk9f0

Slideshow: Photos by Rene Groebli

Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JErVP6xLZwg

Slideshow: A woman we love, French singer and actress Jane Birkin.

Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4dlqVlj6UA

Slideshow: Photos by Ken Schles

Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acv_a6O8doo

Slideshow: Photos by Dane Shitagi

There are more than 400 more entries here: http://everyday-i-show.livejournal.com/

"Anonymous" Vows to Take Down Facebook and Fox News on Nov 5th

2011-10-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

Here are three stories that exemplify the new digital world that now envelops us...Times have sure changed.

Anonymous says it will take down Facebook on Nov. 5

Hacktivist group Anonymous said that it will target Facebook for a takedown on Nov. 5, aka Guy Fawkes Day.
Those claiming to be members of the group uploaded a video to YouTube in mid-July announcing the operation, which was spotted by Rosie Gray of The Village Voice on Tuesday.
Why is the group targeting Facebook? The video message is most critical of Facebook’s privacy policies, saying the site does not provide its users with enough choice or transparency.

Read more here...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/faster-forward/post/anonymous-says-it-will-take-down-facebook-on-nov-5/2011/08/09/gIQAfWMX6I_blog.html

Anonymous Vows to Destroy Fox News Website on Nov. 5th

The group said it is targeting the network for what it called biased news coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests occurring in cities across the country.
The network's "continued right-wing, conservative propaganda against the occupations" is the group's catalyst for its intention of "destroying the Fox News Web site," a digitally generated voice on the video explains. "Since they will not stop belittling the occupiers, we will simply shut them down."

Read more here:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-20125628-83/anonymous-threatens-fox-news-web-site-over-occupy-coverage/

Also, this is a very interesting story as well...

Hacker leaks 90,000 passwords as a warning to 'naive' Swedes

Sweden has suffered its worst-ever data leak after an anonymous hacker hijacked the Twitter account of a prominent MP and released details of more than 90,000 private email accounts.

The anonymous hacker said he had masterminded the biggest internet breach in Sweden's history to remind people to change their passwords more often.
He said: "I dumped this information to let people know that they handle their information wrongly. Expressen journalist Micke Ölander said on Thursday the affair wasn't an example of political skulduggery but was merely a wake-up call not to use the same password for all accounts.

"It's a story about the possible naivety of Swedish internet users who log into their bank account and the New York Times web pages using the same password," he said.
Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/27/sweden-hacking-twitter-hijack

Banking Corporations Kill Wikileaks

2011-10-24T10:47:00.000-07:00

WikiLeaks stops publishing to make ends meet
Excerpt:
WikiLeaks announced Monday it is suspending its publication of classified files as it struggles to bring its finances under control.

"The (financial) blockade is outside of any accountable, public process. It is without democratic oversight or transparency," according to a WikiLeaks statement.

"The U.S. government itself found that there were no lawful grounds to add WikiLeaks to a U.S. financial blockade. But the blockade of WikiLeaks by politicized U.S. finance companies continues regardless."

Bank of America, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Western Union put a financial blockage on WikiLeaks after it published hundreds of thousands of controversial diplomatic cables and U.S. government files.
Assange has said that the financial blockage has cost the website tens of millions of dollars in lost donations, BBC reports.
"A handful of U.S. finance companies cannot be allowed to decide how the whole world votes with its pocket," he said.

Read more here...

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/united-kingdom/111024/wikileaks-stops-publishing-financial-blockade

Occupy Wall Street Protest Signs

2011-10-20T21:48:00.000-07:00

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Living Photographs

2011-10-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

Terje Sørgjerd is a Norwegian landscape photographer who has created some of the most breathtaking timelapse photography that I've ever seen, check out three of his videos here...

(full screen recommended)

The Aurora
http://vimeo.com/21294655

The Mountain
http://vimeo.com/22439234

Arctic Light
http://vimeo.com/24456787

Is Cheating the Secret to a Happy Marriage?

2011-10-12T20:41:00.000-07:00

Excerpt:

Research shows that 65 percent of women—and a whopping 80 percent of men—say they’d cheat if they knew they could avoid being caught. With stats like these, its no surprise that cultural critics have declared marriage dead.

But Krasnow quickly learned that there are plenty of men and women in long-term marriages that are working just fine—albeit through creative methods. And, hell, with men and women living longer than ever—don’t we need all the advice we can get? “Marriage is hard,” Krasnow says. “My goal, truly, is to liberate readers to understand that there’s no gold standard for it. Every woman should feel free to create her own marriage.”

“To expect one person, man or woman, to make you happy for the rest of your life is a ticket to divorce,” says Krasnow, a professor at American University. “The happiest women I interviewed have a sense of purpose and passion outside of marriage.” For some, that means career or other interests. But for at least a handful of those willing to admit it, it means that and more.

Read More here...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/11/the-secret-lives-of-wives-is-cheating-the-secret-to-a-happy-marriage.html

Michael Moore: Occupy Wall Street will spread across the whole country

2011-10-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

Pretty good interview with Michael Moore on the true nature of the beast within capitalism....enjoy

Watch video here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MuGc4nCE6g

U.S. Supplies Guns to Mexican Cartels for Over a Decade

2011-10-06T07:07:00.000-07:00

Unmarked graves in Juarez, Mexico; 40,000 people have died since 2006.

Both the Bush and the Obama administration have let thousands of guns "walk" into the hands of Mexican Cartels...The question is...why?

Excerpt:

"Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and other Republicans have been hammering the Obama Justice Department over the practice known as "letting guns walk." The congressional target has been Operation Fast and Furious, which was designed to track small-time gun buyers at several Phoenix-area gun shops up the chain to make cases against major weapons traffickers. In the process, federal agents lost track of many of the more than 2,000 guns linked to the operation.
When Bush, a Republican, was president, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Tucson, Ariz., used a similar enforcement tactic in a program it called Operation Wide Receiver. The fact that there were two such ATF investigations years apart in separate administrations raises the possibility that agents in still other cases may have allowed guns to "walk."

Read more here...
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/ap-sources-bush-era-1194310.html

70 Percent of Guns in Mexican Drug War originate in the US

About 70 percent of the guns seized in Mexico and submitted to a U.S. gun-tracing program came from the United States, according to a report released by three U.S. senators Monday.
Of the 29,284 firearms recovered by authorities in Mexico in 2009 and 2010, 20,504 came from the United States, according to figures provided to the senators by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Most of those weapons — 15,131 — were U.S. made, while another 5,373 were of foreign manufacture but had moved through the United States into Mexico.
The ATF said the remainder of the weapons total — 8,780 arms — were of "undetermined origin due to insufficient information provided."

Read more here...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43389915/ns/world_news-americas/t/report-most-guns-seized-mexico-us/

Hong Kong Noir

2011-10-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

Awesome photos of an awesome place...definitely need to go there again...

See more photos here...

http://www.spreephoto.de/travel/hong-kong.html

BBC Speechless As Trader Tells Truth: "The Collapse Is Coming...And Goldman Rules The World"

2011-09-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

In a scary and painfully frank interview a freaked out BBC interviewer is visibly shaken when market trader Alessio Rastani predicts that the "Market is Toast." Apparently there is nothing Euro governments can do.

Watch full 3 minute video here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC19fEqR5bA&feature=player_embedded

The World's Rudest Hand Gestures

2011-09-23T09:53:00.000-07:00

See some of the world's rudest hand gestures....Some are very surprising...
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/09/the-worlds-rudest-hand-gestures/245238/#slide1

How to Raise a Global Kid

2011-09-21T06:08:00.000-07:00

Excerpt:

“I’m doing what parents have done for many years,” Jim Rogers says. “I’m trying to prepare my children for the future, for the 21st century. I’m trying to prepare them as best I can for the world as I see it.” Rogers believes the future is Asia—he was recently on cable television flogging Chinese commodities. “The money is in the East, and the debtors are in the West. I’d rather be with the creditors than the debtors,” he adds.

It has become a convention of public discourse to regard rapid globalization—of economies and business; of politics and conflict; of fashion, technology, and music—as the great future threat to American prosperity. The burden of meeting that challenge rests explicitly on our kids. If they don’t learn—now—to achieve a comfort level with foreign people, foreign languages, and foreign lands, this argument goes, America’s competitive position in the world will continue to erode, and their future livelihood and that of subsequent generations will be in jeopardy. Rogers is hardly the only person who sees things this way. “In this global economy, the line between domestic and international issues is increasingly blurred, with the world’s economies, societies, and people interconnected as never before,” said U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan in remarks in the spring of 2010 at the Asia Society in New York. “I am worried that in this interconnected world, our country risks being disconnected from the contributions of other countries and cultures.”

Read more here...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/07/17/american-kids-immersed-in-chinese-asian-education.html

Confessions of a Serial Killer: Jeffrey Dahmer

2011-09-17T08:48:00.000-07:00

Very chilling interview, but fascinating at the same time...

Watch Full Documentary here...

http://documentaryheaven.com/confessions-of-a-serial-killer-jeffrey-dahmer/

A Victim Almost Escapes

Konerak was only fourteen and he was running for his life. This was his only chance to escape from the horrible-smelling apartment where the creepy blond guy had slipped him some kind of powerful drug. It seemed that luck was with him that he started to come around just as the blond man had left the apartment.
It took all the strength he had to get up and get to the door. He was so disoriented and panicked that it made no difference that he was naked. This was his only chance to survive. He was working strictly on instinct. Just get out of there and run away.

It was just before 2 A.M. and Sandra Smith called 911 to report the boy running around "butt naked." She didn't know who he was, but she knew he was injured and terrified.
The paramedics got there first and put a blanket around the naked, dazed boy. Two police officers arrived soon after and tried to understand what was going on with this young man of Asian descent.
Sandra Smith, 18, and her cousin Nicole Childress, also 18, were standing near the boy when the Milwaukee city police arrived. The tall blond man was also standing near the boy. The conversation became heated between the girls, the blond man and the police.

The tall blond man told the police the Konerak was his 19-year-old lover who had been drinking too much. Konerak, who was drugged and incoherent, wasn't able to contradict the smooth-talking blond man. Dahmer gave the police a picture ID.

The two young women tried to intervene. They had seen the terrified boy trying to resist the blond man before the police arrived. They were angry and upset. The police were ignoring them and listening to the white man instead.

Just to be on the safe side, the two officers went with the boy and the tall blond man to his apartment. The apartment smelled bad, but it was very neat. Konerak's clothing was folded and placed on the sofa. There were a couple of photographs of Konerak in black bikini briefs.

Konerak sat quietly on the sofa unable to talk intelligently. It's not even clear that he understood the calm explanation the blond man was giving the police. The blond man was apologizing that his lover had caused a disturbance and promised it wouldn't happen again.
The police believed the blond man. They had no reason not to — he was well-spoken, intelligent and very calm. The Asian was apparently drunk and incoherent. The officers, not wanting to get in the middle of a domestic argument between homosexual lovers, left the apartment with Konerak still sitting quietly on the sofa.

Read more here...
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/dahmer/index.html

What We Should Have Been Taught in our Senior Year of High School

2011-09-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

Absolutely hilarious and definitely true!

Read cartoon here...
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/senior_year

The Price of 9/11

2011-09-07T19:28:00.000-07:00

As the mainstream media keeps drumming the "official" 9/11 story into the minds of viewers, it's good to see that some news outlets like Truthout are talking about the true cost of 9/11...

New York – The September 11, 2001, terror attacks by Al Qaeda were meant to harm the United States, and they did, but in ways that Osama bin Laden probably never imagined. President George W. Bush’s response to the attacks compromised America’s basic principles, undermined its economy, and weakened its security.

The attack on Afghanistan that followed the 9/11 attacks was understandable, but the subsequent invasion of Iraq was entirely unconnected to Al Qaeda – as much as Bush tried to establish a link. That war of choice quickly became very expensive – orders of magnitude beyond the $60 billion claimed at the beginning – as colossal incompetence met dishonest misrepresentation.

Indeed, when Linda Bilmes and I calculated America’s war costs three years ago, the conservative tally was $3-5 trillion. Since then, the costs have mounted further. With almost 50% of returning troops eligible to receive some level of disability payment, and more than 600,000 treated so far in veterans’ medical facilities, we now estimate that future disability payments and health-care costs will total $600-900 billion. But the social costs, reflected in veteran suicides (which have topped 18 per day in recent years) and family breakups, are incalculable.

Strange Rain

2011-09-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

Photographer Julien Coquentin uses an odd technique of letting small drops of rain fall onto the lens of his camera. By doing so, he greatly enhances impression of rain in his photographs. Very nice work...

Intro:

Once again, the sky saturates us with its deluge, accompanied by the loud burst of thunder we’ve grown accustomed to. How long has it been raining on this city? Mute and indifferent to what has become familiar, we are only sure that the storms have transformed us and our city.
It is a strange sensation – living in a gorge, an atmosphere that is chronic with humidity as we find ourselves with the sons of the months, embracing the brute infernal noise.

Our consciousness compelled us to lie down come nightfall. Wrapped in cloth, we become saturated by the grounds unceasing stream of humidity, surrounded by walls of scaling paint—an atrocity; this climate. We all seek release from this fate, as assimilation into the grey void –paled our smiles—--now a blur… evanescent.

Self-preservation…means accepting ones fate. We knew that. Kinship of shared experiences found us drawn to each other…creating units of our making.
Yet...forced into communities driven by the dying light equated –not genuine fraternity—but mocked relationships with all the defects of hypocrisy.

This morning –the church found the entire city in attendance for the sermon.
So as to conceal the sound of the thunder—an investment had been made to install a large sound system—affording all to hear.

Suddenly, the sound of the rain ceased—leaving the acoustics of the auditorium amplifying the voice of the priest, which filled the church. Bewildered chatter halted to a whisper.

A ray of sun light had caused the audience to divert their attention—and one by one they streamed out of this forced shelter.
bedazzled by the magnificence of this light, our astonishment intensified…

It was this day I knew what silence meant. To be present and yet so far removed.

SEE FULL GALLERY OF IMAGES HERE:
http://deepsleep.org.uk//view_story.php?photonow=1&article_id=77

Sicarios: Latin American Assassins

2011-09-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

A hooded sicario threatens Javier for a few seconds in zone 14 of Guatemala City.

Some of the best documentary photography I've seen in awhile, and after living in Chihuahua, North Mexico, I can definitely appreciate how difficult and dangerous it would have been to get these photographs. His other essays are also truly exceptional...graphic, yet honest-the way documentary photography is supposed to be.

One of the most popular and respected professions in Latin America is that of the sicarios: the hit man or assassin. Prices are variable for killing someone and can range from as little as $20 up to tens of thousands. In Guatemala, Salvador and Mexico many young people, including minors, are seduced by the lure of easy money and the respect and fear that comes with the job.

See photo essay here:
http://fotoevidence.com/BookAward-Detail/187

See more of "Sicarios" and Javier Arcenillas' other amazing photo essays here...
http://www.javierarcenillas.com/essays/essays.html

and here...
http://www.javierarcenillas.com/essays/traficofganja.html

Somalia's Famine Death Toll Projected To Reach 750,000

2011-09-05T11:36:00.000-07:00

(CNN) -- A record 4 million people in Somalia need humanitarian aid and 750,000 people are in danger of "imminent starvation," the United Nations said on Monday.
Famine in the African nation has spread to the Bay region, which is now the sixth area in Somalia suffering from an acute shortage of food, according to the the U.N.'s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network.
Officials are calling for a surge in response efforts as the crisis is predicted to get worse.
"With the current food security outcomes famine conditions are expected to spread to agro pastoral populations in Gedo, Hiran, Middle Shabelle and Juba regions and riverine populations of Juba and Gedo in the coming 4 months," Grainne Moloney, FSNAU's chief technical advisor, said in a statement announcing the latest survey results.

Of the 4 million people in need of emergency aid, 3 million are in the south. That figure is up from 2.4 million eight months ago.
Tens of thousands of people have already died, more than half of whom are children, according to the FSNAU, which is managed by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The famine is being stoked by Somalia's worst drought in 60 years. Somalia has not had a stable government since 1991, and fighting between the rebels and government troops has escalated the humanitarian crisis in the famine-ravaged country.

"Though these figures paint a bleak picture as the worst agricultural crisis for Somalia in recent times ... there is a window of opportunity for the humanitarian community to stop and reverse this dramatic trend by supporting farmers and herders in addition to other emergency interventions," said Luca Alinovi, FAO's officer in charge for Somalia.

(Click on map to enlarge)

Previous Major African Hunger Crises

Niger: 2010 - Food shortages affect more than 7 million people after crops fail; 2005 - thousands die following drought and locust invasion
Ethiopia, 2000: Three consecutive years of drought leave millions at risk, with famine declared in Gode, the Somali region
Somalia, 1991-1992: Drought and war contribute to famine across the country; the US Refugee Policy Group estimates at least 200,000 famine-related deaths in 1992
Ethiopia, 1984-1985: Up to one million people die in famine caused by conflict, drought and economic mismanagement
Biafra, 1967-1970: One million die in civil war and famine during conflict over Nigeria's breakaway Biafran republic

Source: BBC

How you can help:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/10/how-to-help-somalia_n_894117.html

Other donation sites:
http://www.redcross.org/en/givehere/

Terrorism Has No Religion

2011-08-31T07:56:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago one of my readers passed on this video to me and it got me thinking about the stereotyping of Muslims...being Native American myself I know all too well the game of stereotyping...Anyway here is her letter and my research follows...

Hello Ajarn Mike,
In memory of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, I would like to offer you and your readers of Kultūra a message of peace in a short video and a pledge of tolerance.
http://myfellowamerican.us

Here are some interesting statistics from the European Policing Organization...Europol

They say...

"Terrorism continues to have an impact on the lives of EU citizens -
in 2010, seven people died in the EU as a result of terrorist
attacks. Islamist terrorists carried out three attacks on EU territory.
Separatist groups, on the other hand, were responsible
for 160 attacks, while left-wing and anarchist groups
were responsible for 45 attacks."

On p.7, the 2009 Europol report concludes:

Islamist terrorism is still perceived as being the biggest threat worldwide, despite the fact that the EU only faced one Islamist terrorist attack in 2008. This bomb attack took place in the UK…Separatist terrorism remains the terrorism area which affects the EU most. This includes Basque separatist terrorism in Spain and France, and Corsican terrorism in France

More reports from previous years also tell the same story...
https://www.europol.europa.eu/latest_publications/2

The influential think tank the Rand Corporation has also commented on the imaginary threat of Muslim terrorism...

"The scale of the September 11, 2001, attacks tended to obliterate America’s memory of pre-9/11 terrorism, yet measured by the number of terrorist attacks, the volume of domestic terrorist activity was much greater in the 1970s. That tumultuous decade saw 60 to 70 terrorist incidents, mostly bombings, on U.S. soil every year—a level of terrorist activity 15 to 20 times that seen in the years since 9/11, even when foiled plots are counted as incidents. And in the nine-year period from 1970 to 1978, 72 people died in terrorist incidents, more than five times the number killed by jihadist terrorists in the United States in the almost nine years since 9/11."

The contrast between the level of terrorist violence in the United States today and that in the 1970s is indicated in RAND’s chronology of terrorism, which records 83 terrorist attacks in the United States between 9/11 and the end of 2009, only three of which were clearly connected with the jihadist cause. (The RAND database includes Abdulmutallab’s failed Christmas Day attempt to detonate a bomb on an airplane.) The other jihadist plots were interrupted by authorities. In addition to the jihadist attacks, this total includes the anthrax letters sent in late 2001, which killed five people, as well as numerous low-level attacks by environmental extremists (38) and animal-rights fanatics (12), which account for most of the violence. In all, 24 people were killed between 9/11 and the end of 2009, including the 13 who died at Fort Hood.

And...

The number of [Jihadist] recruits is still tiny. There are more than 3 million Muslims in the United States, and few more than 100 have joined jihad—about one out of every 30,000—suggesting an American Muslim population that remains hostile to jihadist ideology and its exhortations to violence. A mistrust of American Muslims by other Americans seems misplaced…

In a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2006, 68 percent of American Muslims expressed an unfavorable opinion of al Qaeda. That does not mean that the remaining 32 percent held a favorable view, as 27 percent declined to offer any opinion. Only 5 percent expressed a positive view of al Qaeda, and this was at the height of the war in Iraq, which clearly provoked negative attitudes toward U.S. foreign policy. Seventy-four percent of younger Muslims, those under the age of 30, expressed unfavorable views of al Qaeda, although at the same time, 7 percent expressed favorable views of the organization (Pew Research Center, 2007).

These figures indicate that individuals turning toward violence would find little support in the Muslim community. They are not Mao’s guerrillas swimming in a friendly sea. Even assuming wider antipathy among U.S. Muslims toward certain U.S. policies in the Middle East or in the war on terrorism, the jihadists’ propaganda machine is returning a very low yield of recruits.

You can read the full PDF report here...
http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2010/RAND_OP292.pdf

Another blogger also wrote this inspiring piece on the issue...

Excerpt:

The day after 9/11, my nephew told me how he and his friends beat up a Muslim kid at his school. He didn’t understand why I was so angry at him. “He’s just a Muslim and they hit the twin towers,” was his response. Already, in his mind, it was acceptable to beat up someone because of a general affiliation with a particular group of people. Since that time, at least in America, society has accepted as normal the stereotyping of an entire race or religion based on the actions of a single individual.

We have so bought into this myth that, almost immediately, Muslim groups around the country have condemned Major Hasan’s actions and done everything short of apologizing for being Muslim. Why is this even necessary? Where were the Christian apologists when Tim McVeigh blew up the Murrah building in Oklahoma City? Why is it not necessary for Christians to apologize when abortion clinics get blown up and abortion doctors are murdered? When has any religion stood up to say that they abhor someone’s actions when they beat up and/or kill a homosexual?

Today, there was another shooting, this time in Orlando, Florida. I have yet to hear from any Hispanic groups apologizing for or condemning Mr. Rodriguez’ behavior. You won’t. We simply say that person was a nut, crazy, or a troubled person. In such cases, we are able to separate the troubled person from the group. Not so, it seems, with any Muslim.

No group of people should ever have to apologize for the actions of a single person. That person alone is responsible for their actions. By allowing an entire group to be collectively guilty, you are, in fact, saying that no one in that group is capable of acting respectfully towards other human beings.
As an American, I’ve grown up hearing that we’re supposed to hate all commies and the Russians. Then it was Hispanics. Then, just Mexicans because someone decided that all other people of Hispanic origin were suddenly okay. We were supposed to hate the French and eat Freedom Fries, but that was just stupid. French fries are good. So is French wine. And, so are the French. Now, we’ve moved on to hating Muslims. All this hate is a result of the actions of a few. It does not, and never has, reflected the entire group.
On the way home from work, I was listening to...

Read more here:
http://dailycensored.com/2009/11/06/the-tragedy-of-stereotypes-in-america/

Finally, a study conducted by Duke University and the University of North Carolina concluded...

"Muslim-American communities have been active in preventing radicalization," said Charles Kurzman, professor of sociology at UNC, in the statement. "This is one reason that Muslim-American terrorism has resulted in fewer than three dozen of the 136,000 murders committed in the United States since 9/11."

However, "since 9/11 there has been increased tension among Muslim-Americans about their acceptance in mainstream American society," the study said. Muslim-Americans report feeling a stronger anti-Muslim bias from the media as well as from day-to-day interactions.

"While Muslim-Americans understand and support the need for enhanced security and counterterrorism initiatives, they believe that some of these efforts are discriminatory, and they are angered that innocent Muslim-Americans bear the brunt of the impact of these policies."

Read more here...
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/01/06/muslim.radicalization.study/

Mary Ellen Mark

2011-08-27T10:35:00.000-07:00

Mary Ellen Mark is one the greatest documentary photographers of all time. I've always enjoyed her work and it's worth sharing with others...Enjoy

(Click to Enlarge Photos)

"Breann Benedict, goverment flood housing, Grand Forks, North Dakota, 1997"

Homeless Damm Family, for Life, Los Angeles area, 1987.

Midwood High School Senior Prom, Manhattan, New York, USA, 2004

Dennis Hopper on the set of Apocalypse Now,Pagsanjan, Philippines, 1976

Gypsy Camp, Barcelona, Spain, 1987

Tiny in her Halloween costume, Seattle, Washington, 1983

Girl Sifting through Ashes at the Burning Ghats, Benares, India, 1989

Acrobats Rehearsing Head-to-Head, Great Golden Circus, Ahmedabad, India, 1990

Ram Prakash Singh with His Elephant Shyama Great Golden Circus, Ahmedabad, India, 1990

Boy with His Pet Cockatoo Great Golden Circus, Ahmedabad, India, 1990

Mother Teresa Feeding a Man at the Home for the Dying, Calcutta, India, 1980

Ivette and Michael Cruz, Coney Island, Brooklyn 2008

"Amanda and her cousin Amy, Valdese, North Carolina,1990"

Rat and Mike with a gun, Seattle, Washington, 1983

Oaxaca, Mexico

Twin Brothers Tulsi and Basant, Famous Circus, Calcutta, India, 1989

MORE MARY ELLEN MARK PHOTOGRAPHY...

http://everyday-i-show.livejournal.com/117175.html

Many more photos here...(click lower left corner to advance)

http://www.maryellenmark.com/books/titles/exposure/102C-011-19A_expose_520.html

Bombay Brothel...
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0602/mark01.html

Workshop with Mary in Oaxaca, Mexico in Feb/2012...
(I hope to be there)...

http://www.maryellenmark.com/workshops/oaxaca/oaxaca_workshop_info.html

Is the CIA Supporting the Sinaloa Cartel? Part 2

2011-08-24T10:59:00.000-07:00

Why the U.S. doesn't want to stop the Drug War...

Representations of the war on drugs are also complicated by the participation of capitalists, for whom the drug trade has been immensely profitable. The aerospace industry (which supplies drug enforcement planes, helicopters, and other technology), chemical companies (which produce the poisons that are dropped on drug fields), and the prison industry directly benefit from the drug war and hence actively lobby for its continued expansion. Capitalists profit from the drug war in other ways as well. It is estimated that illegal drug traffic generates about $400 billion a year, accounting for roughly 2 percent of the global economy.

Transnational corporations headquartered in the United States profit from this economy by serving as formal and informal laundries for drug money. Simply put, as Miguel Ruiz-Cabanas suggests, the process of generating surplus value from the drug trade could be described in this way: poor peasants cultivate drugs in return for very little; highly organized traffickers process and distribute the drugs for sale; the traffickers then in turn launder their profits through U.S. banks and through "legitimate" investments in the U.S. economy more generally.

Every year, the black market in pesos alone funnels roughly $5 billion in drug money through U.S. companies. Whereas merely being suspected participation, however indirectly, in drug traffic has been enough to justify the seizure of assets from individuals, corporations successfully (if implausibly) plead ignorance concerning their participation in drug money laundering.

And rather than prosecuting corporations that profit from laundering drug money , state drug enforcement efforts instead focus on controlling the poor. By policing the poor but leaving untouched corporate drug profiteering, the state has tended not to prohibit drug traffic but rather to manage drug flows in ways that support capitalist interests. By dramatically increasing transborder trade, NAFTA has further encouraged the shift of banks to international trade for laundering drug money. Because of the massive volume and velocity of capital flows, J. Patrick LaRue argues, it has become nearly impossible to stop "the transfer of billions of 'narco-dollars' back and forth across the U.S. and Mexican border."

He concludes that Mexican drug traffickers are riding the wave of state-sponsored globalization and liberalization, "taking advantage of open borders, privatization, free trade zones, weak states, offshore banking centers, electronic financial transfers, smart cards and cyber banking to launder millions of dollars in drug profits each day. In these and other ways, the U.S. war on drugs "regularly serves the interests of private wealth."

Read more here:
Drug Wars by Curtis Marez

Why Mexico doesn't want to stop the Drug War...

One facet of this buffer is corruption, which is endemic in Mexico, reaching all the way from the lowest municipal police officer to the presidential palace. Over the years several senior Mexican anti-drug officials, including the nation’s drug czar, have been arrested and charged with corruption.

However, the money generated by the Mexican cartels has far greater effects than just promoting corruption. The billions of dollars that come into the Mexican economy via the drug trade are important to the Mexican banking sector and to the industries in which the funds are laundered, such as construction. Because of this, there are many powerful Mexican businessmen who profit either directly or indirectly from the narcotics trade, and it would not be in their best interest for the billions of drug dollars to stop flowing into Mexico. Such people can place heavy pressure on the political system by either supporting or withholding support from particular candidates or parties.

Because of this, sources in Mexico have been telling STRATFOR that they believe that Mexican politicians like President Felipe Calderon are far more interested in stopping drug violence than they are in stopping the flow of narcotics. This is a pragmatic approach. Clearly, as long as there is demand for drugs in the United States there will be people who will find ways to meet that demand. It is impossible to totally stop the flow of narcotics into the U.S. market.

Do U.S., Mexican officials favor one cartel over another?

As the U.S. and Mexican governments increasingly target the brutal criminal gang known as Los Zetas, questions are being asked about why law enforcement officials don't seem to be paying equal attention to an older and larger cartel that's the largest provider of illegal drugs smuggled into the United States. Public security analysts say a view has spread among some Mexicans that President Felipe Calderon is soft on the Sinaloa Cartel. And now a court filing by an accused kingpin in U.S. federal court has suggested that the Obama administration, too, is negotiating with the Sinaloa Cartel even as it ratchets up pressure on the rival Zetas.

Experts in Mexico City and Washington say the issue is as much about public opinion in the run-up to Mexico's 2012 presidential elections as it is about efforts to reduce the violence that's killed some 40,000 people in Mexico since 2006.

Is the CIA Supporting the Sinaloa Cartel? Part 1

2011-08-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

The CIA’s motive is clear enough: The U.S. government is afraid the Los Zetas drug cartel will mount a successful coup d’etat against the government of Felipe Calderon.
Founded by ex-Mexican special forces, the Zetas already control huge swaths of Mexican territory. They have the organization, arms and money needed to take over the entire country.
Former CIA pilot Robert Plumlee and former CIA operative and DEA Director Phil Jordan recently said the brutally efficient Mexican drug cartel has stockpiled thousands of weapons to disrupt and influence Mexico’s national elections in 2012. There’s a very real chance the Zetas cartel could subvert the political process completely, as it has throughout the regions it controls.

READ MORE HERE...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/11/was-cia-behind-operation-fast-and-furious/

Documents: Feds allegedly allowed Sinaloa cartel to move cocaine into U.S. for information

U.S. federal agents allegedly allowed the Sinaloa drug cartel to traffic several tons of cocaine into the United States in exchange for information about rival cartels, according to court documents filed in a U.S. federal court.
The allegations are part of the defense of Vicente Zambada-Niebla, who was extradited to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges in Chicago. He is also a top lieutenant of drug kingpin Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman and the son of Ismael "Mayo" Zambada-Garcia, believed to be the brains behind the Sinaloa cartel.
The case could prove to be a bombshell on par with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' "Operation Fast and Furious," except that instead of U.S. guns being allowed to walk across the border, the Sinaloa cartel was allowed to bring drugs into the United States. Zambada-Niebla claims he was permitted to smuggle drugs from 2004 until his arrest in 2009

READ MORE HERE....

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_18608410

Mexico drug plane used for US 'rendition' flights: report

MEXICO CITY (AFP) — A private jet that crash-landed almost one year ago in eastern Mexico carrying 3.3 tons of cocaine had previously been used for CIA "rendition" flights, a newspaper report said here Thursday, citing documents from the United States and the European Parliament.
The plane was carrying Colombian drugs for the fugitive leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, when it crash-landed in the Yucatan peninsula on September 24, El Universal reported.

Read more here...
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j6QonBKKMo2gw1e3ql-xUcQEZbVg

A History of CIA involvement in Latin America and Why it Doesn't Stop the Flow of Drugs

Why the NEW Police Reforms in Mexico Won't Succeed...

Certainly, the Mexican government has aggressively pursued police reform for many years now, with very little success. Indeed, it was the lack of a trustworthy law enforcement apparatus that led the Calderon government to turn to the military to counter the power of the Mexican cartels. This lack of reliable law enforcement has also led Calderon to aggressively pursue police reform. This reform effort has included unifying the federal police agencies and consolidating municipal police departments (which have arguably been the most corrupt institutions in Mexico) into unified state police commands, under which officers are subjected to better screening, oversight and accountability. Already, however, there have been numerous instances of these “new and improved” federal- and state-level police officers being arrested for corruption.
This illustrates the fact that Mexico’s ills go far deeper than just corrupt institutions. Because of this, revamping the institutions will not result in any meaningful change, and the revamped institutions will soon be corrupted like the ones they replaced. This fact should have been readily apparent; the institutional approach has been tried in the region before and has failed.

Perhaps the best example of this failure was the “untouchable and incorruptible” Department of Anti-Narcotics Operations, known by its Spanish acronym DOAN, which was created in Guatemala in the mid-1990s. The DOAN was almost purely a creation of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. The concept behind the creation of the DOAN was that corruption existed within the Guatemalan police institutions because the police were undertrained, underpaid and underequipped. It was believed that if police recruits were carefully screened, properly trained, well paid and adequately equipped, they would not be susceptible to the corruption that plagued the other police institutions in the country. So the U.S. government hand-picked the recruits, thoroughly trained them, paid them generously and provided them with brand-new uniforms and equipment. However, the result was not what the U.S. government expected. By 2002, the “untouchable” DOAN had to be disbanded because it had essentially become a drug trafficking organization itself and was involved in torturing and killing competitors and stealing their shipments of narcotics.

The example of the Guatemalan DOAN (and of more recent Mexican police reform efforts) demonstrates that even a competent, well-paid and well-equipped police institution cannot stand alone within a culture that is not prepared to support it and keep it clean. In other words, over time, an institution will take on the characteristics of, and essentially reflect, the environment surrounding it. Therefore, significant reform in Mexico requires a holistic approach that reaches far beyond the institutions to address the profound economic, sociological and cultural problems that are affecting the country today. Indeed, given how deeply rooted and pervasive these problems are and the geopolitical hand the country was dealt, Mexico has done quite well. But holistic change will not be easy to accomplish. It will require a great deal of time, treasure, leadership and effort. In view of this reality, we can see why it would be more politically expedient simply to blame the Americans.

Another example is Colombia....

Contemporary Colombia is an apt. example. Far from stopping the flow of cocaine, U.S. drug-war assistance has supported right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia that openly participated in drug traffic. The leader of the largest U.S.-backed paramilitary group, Carlos Castano, told a Colombian television reporter that 70 percent of the group's budget came from drug traffic.

Captured Zeta Leader believes the Gulf Cartel is working with the Mexican Government.

Translated from Spanish.
Interrogator: And where do you get your weapons?
Rejón Aguilar: From the United States. All weapons come from the U.S.
Interrogator: How are they brought here?
Rejón Aguilar: Crossing the river. We used to bring them through the bridge, but it’s become harder to do that.
Interrogator: Who purchases the weapons?
Rejón Aguilar: They are bought in the U.S. The buyers (on the U.S. side of the border) have said in the past that sometimes they would acquire them from the U.S. Government itself.
Interrogator: And nowadays, who distribute them to you?
Rejón Aguilar: It’s more difficult for us to acquire weapons nowadays, but we find ways. But it’s easier for the Gulf Cartel to bring them across the border. (The Gulf Cartel is currently aligned with the Sinaloa Cartel in fighting The Zetas.)
Interrogator: Why?
Rejón Aguilar: We don’t know why, but they bring them (accross the bridge) in the trunk of their cars without being checked (by Mexican Customs). One can only think that they must have reached a deal with the (Mexican) government.

See Full interview here...
http://deadlinelive.info/2011/07/06/deadline-live-exclusive-%E2%80%93-captured-zeta-leader-we%E2%80%99ve-purchased-weapons-from-the-%E2%80%9Cu-s-government-itself%E2%80%9D/

LINK TO PART 2...
http://ajarnmike.blogspot.com/2011/08/is-cia-supporting-sinaloa-cartel-part-2.html

Tensions Rise as Latinos Feel Under Siege in America's Deep South

2011-08-21T19:39:00.000-07:00

As illegal workers flee the threat of police checks, southerners are uniting to fight the laws dividing communities and killing economies which rely on immigrants to thrive.

Excerpt:

"The people that we normally hire are just not here," he said. That is bad news for somewhere like Uvalda, which is reliant on agriculture.
Morris knows that if the Hispanics who have left do not come back, there will be trouble. "The crop could rot in the ground," he said. That concerns Bridges, the mayor. "If we can't harvest, it will decimate this community," he said.
The problem is not unique to Uvalda. The Georgia Agribusiness Council estimates the labour shortage has left so many crops unpicked and rotting that it has cost $1bn. The industry currently has 30% fewer workers than it needs and, contrary to accusations that illegals take American jobs, no one is stepping in.

Read More Here...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/21/racist-immigration-law-in-deep-south

Shadowed by the Sun

2011-08-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

Jehad Nga is certainly an exceptional photographer check out his galleries of Alaska, the Congo and Baghdad here...
The slideshow button on the bottom left-hand is highly recommended.
http://www.jehadnga.com/#/galleries/shadowed-by-the-sun/_MG_7879

Here is his gallery of Barrow, Alaska...

http://www.jehadnga.com/#/galleries/the-season-nothing-happens/BARROW_11

There's also a good gallery of shots from Somalia as well...

http://www.emptykingdom.com/main/featured/jehad-nga-mogadishu/

The Sunny Side of Smut

2011-08-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

It used to be tough to get porn. Renting an X-rated movie required sneaking into a roped-off room in the back of a video store, and eyeing a centerfold meant facing down a store clerk to buy a pornographic magazine. Now pornography is just one Google search away, and much of it is free. Age restrictions have become meaningless, too, with the advent of social media—one teenager in five has sent or posted naked pictures of themselves online, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
With access to pornography easier than ever before, politicians and scientists alike have renewed their interest in deciphering its psychological effects. Certainly pornography addiction or overconsumption seems to cause relationship problems [see “Sex in Bits and Bytes,” by Hal Arkowitz and Scott O. Lilienfeld; Scientific American Mind, July/August 2010]. But what about the more casual exposure typical of most porn users?

Read More Here...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sunny-side-of-smut

...the last sentence

2011-08-15T22:43:00.000-07:00

The last words they spoke...

"I'll finally get to see Marilyn." 

Joe DiMaggio talking about his former wife Marilyn Monroe

1914-1999

"Remember, the death penalty is murder."

Robert Drew 

Executed in Texas on August 2nd, 1994

      (Click on the picture and you'll find a very interesting detail) 

"Please don't leave me.  Please don't leave me."

Chris Farley 1964-1997

Said to a prostitute as she left his hotel room following a weekend-long  drug and sex binge. When she turned around, Chris Farley had collapsed. 

 Eugene O'Neill 1888-1953 Writer

As O'Neill was dying at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston, he whispered the  words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room, and God damn it,  died in a hotel room."

 Before dying of a stroke, Thomas Hobbes whispered...

"I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark."

"You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everyone dances with the Grim Reaper." 

Robert Alton Harris was a career criminal and murderer who was executed in San Quentin's Gas Chamber in 1992.

"Gentlemen, I bid you farewell..."  

Said English violinist Wallace Hartley to his bandmates. Seconds later the Titanic sank.  1878-1912

Note: One survivor who clambered aboard distinctly heard Hartley say these words before he and the band were swept off the deck by the sea.

"No you certainly can't."

This was said in reply to Nellie Connelly, wife of Governor John  Connelly, commenting "You certainly can't say that the people of Dallas  haven't given you a nice welcome, Mr. President."  Moments later he was assassinated.

John F. Kennedy 1917-1963 

A note by found by Mark Twain's death bed read...

"Death, the only immortal, who treats us alike, whose peace and refuge are for all. The soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and unloved."

CIA, DEA, and Ex-Special Forces Begin Operating in Mexico

2011-08-14T10:56:00.000-07:00

“This is the game-changer in degrading transnational organized crime,” he said, adding: “It can’t be a two-, three-, four-, five- or six-year policy. For this policy investment to work, it has to be sustained long-term.”

Several Mexican and American security analysts compared the challenges of helping Mexico rebuild its security forces and civil institutions — crippled by more than seven decades under authoritarian rule — to similar tests in Afghanistan. They see the United States fighting alongside a partner it needs but does not completely trust.

Also there are other challenges regarding the readiness of the Mexican police:

Some of the officers had not been issued weapons, and those who had guns had not been properly trained to use them. They were required to pay for their helmets and bulletproof vests out of their own pockets. And during an intense gun battle against one of Mexico’s most vicious cartels, they had to communicate with one another on their cellphones because they had not been issued police radios. “It’s sort of shocking,” said Eric Olson of the Woodrow Wilson Center. “Mexico is just now learning how to fight crime in the midst of a major crime wave. It’s like trying to saddle your horse while running the Kentucky Derby.”

Read more here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/world/07drugs.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

An Explosive New 9/11 Charge

2011-08-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

In a new documentary, former national-security aide Richard Clarke suggests the CIA tried to recruit 9/11 hijackers—then covered it up.

Excerpt:

The 9/11 Commission investigated widespread rumors in the intelligence community that the CIA tried to recruit the two terrorists—Clarke was not the first to suggest it—but the investigation revealed no evidence to support the rumors. The commission said in its final report that "it appears that no one informed higher levels of management in either the FBI or CIA" about the two terrorists.

But in his interview, Clarke said his seemingly unlikely, even wild scenario—a bungled CIA terrorist-recruitment effort and a subsequent cover-up—was “the only conceivable reason that I’ve been able to come up with” to explain why he and others at the White House were told nothing about the two terrorists until the day of the attacks.

“I’ve thought a lot about this,” Clarke says in the interview, which was conducted in October 2009. He said it was fair to conclude “there was a high-level decision in the CIA ordering people not to share information.” Asked who would have made the order, Clarke replies, “I would think it would have been made by the director,” referring to Tenet.

These new revelations may strengthen the argument that Operation "Able Danger" identified 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta one year before the attacks....There is a link to a great PBS report on Able Danger here...

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terrorism/july-dec05/abledanger-9-21.html

You can also read here how the Pentagon tried to block the publication of a book entitled "Operation Dark Heart" which discusses Able Danger..
http://ajarnmike.blogspot.com/2010/12/private-war-of-anthony-shaffer.html

Land of Shadows

2011-08-11T12:18:00.000-07:00

Land of Shadows

It's the magic hour in Yangon, when the last rays of sunlight, softer, cooler now, bathe the crumbling downtown in a golden glow, beckoning residents out into the streets. Giggling children race to buy fresh sugarcane juice. Women with cheeks daubed with a paste made of bark—the alluring Burmese sunblock—haggle with a fishmonger. In the street, bare-chested teenage boys in a circle play a rowdy game of chinlon, a sort of acrobatic Hacky Sack, while potbellied men in T-shirts and longyi, the traditional Burmese sarong, sit on the sidewalk chewing red wads of betel nut.
The carnival-like atmosphere doesn't last. Night falls fast in the tropics, and the power shortages that plague Myanmar give the sudden transition a spooky edge. A decaying colonial-era government building goes black. The alleyway next door emits the bluish glow of television sets powered by portable generators. Under the trees the vendors are invisible, but candles illuminate their wares: circles of silvery fish, clusters of purple banana flowers, stacks of betel leaves. And lined up in a blue wooden case, pirated DVDs of American movies and music.
"Welcome to the Hotel California," calls out a voice from...

Read More Here:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/08/burma/larmer-text

Here's another great article on Burma...well worth the read...

Burma's Convict Porters

Restaurant owner Win claims he was jailed on trumped up charges of heroin trafficking and sentenced to 10 years. He spent two years in one of Burma’s notorious labour camps.
‘We were chained at the ankles while we broke rocks for roads. We worked six days a week, even when we were sick. I saw prisoners badly injured, some with broken legs, who still didn’t get treatment,’ Win says.
One Burmese man, Bo Kyi, has made it his life’s work to make sure political prisoners aren’t forgotten. A founding member and now secretary of the Association Assisting Political Prisoners (AAPP), Bo Kyi was jailed three times for a total of seven years and three months.
‘In Burma, there are 109 labour camps, 42 jails, more than 400,000 prisoners, and only 33 doctors and about 60 medics to treat them when they get sick. All prisoners, irrespective of their crimes, should be treated as humans. Animals are treated better than prisoners in Burma.’
Outside a small, bare room in a safe house on the Thai-Burma border that Win now calls home, children kick a football against a wall and play war games with plastic guns. Motorbikes roar past and dogs bark after them.
Win studies his broken fingernails, calloused hands and scars before explaining how he was taken to the front line.
‘The army came for me at 4 am on January 1. Seventy-five of us were taken from our cells and put in two army trucks. We weren’t told anything, but we guessed we were going to the frontline. I planned to escape.’

Read More Here:
http://the-diplomat.com/asean-beat/2011/07/14/burmas-convict-porters/

Living in the Moment Really Does Make People Happier

2011-08-09T21:38:00.000-07:00

Psychologists at Harvard University collected information on the daily activities, thoughts and feelings of 2,250 volunteers to find out how often they were focused on what they were doing, and what made them most happy.
They found that people were happiest when having sex, exercising or in conversation, and least happy when working, resting or using a home computer. And although subjects' minds were wandering nearly half of the time, this consistently made them less happy.
The team conclude that reminiscing, thinking ahead or daydreaming tends to make people more miserable, even when they are thinking about something pleasant.

Read More Here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/nov/11/living-moment-happier

Scenes of Life

2011-08-09T17:19:00.000-07:00

In their series, Scenes of Life, Lucie and Simon present moments we're all familiar with: a breakfast, a nap on the sofa, a swim in a pool. All of the mundane clutter of everyday life is there in abundant and clear detail. What gives the viewer a real jolt of delight, however, is that all of this is seen from directly overhead, looking straight down -- a seemingly impossible perspective, especially for the photographs made inside the rooms of their home.

See Gallery of Images Here:

(Use slideshow option for better viewing)

http://www.lensculture.com/luciesimon.html

US Covert Operation Creates "Shadow" Internet Systems for Dissidents

2011-08-08T20:32:00.000-07:00

“We’re going to build a separate infrastructure where the technology is nearly impossible to shut down, to control, or to track...The implication is that this disempowers central authorities from infringing on people’s fundamental human right to communicate.”

The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.

The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype “Internet in a suitcase.”

And Don't forget that in June 2011 the United Nations considered "Internet Access" a Human Right...

http://ajarnmike.blogspot.com/2011/06/un-considers-internet-access-human.html

A Grief Like No Other

2011-07-28T14:22:00.000-07:00

"A murder is an unnatural death; no ordinary rules apply. The intense grief experienced by survivors can last five years, a decade, even a lifetime." In 1997, Eric Schlosser wrote about the trauma caused by the murder of loved ones.

Excerpt:

"For months after the murder Patty thought about suicide. Tim had meant everything to her. He was her joy.
Patty felt more comfortable at work than at home. She dreaded returning to her empty house, with its memories and pictures of Tim on the wall. Every night she would drive around for hours to avoid going home, and then finally get into bed and fall asleep crying.

Patty also found consolation at her son's grave. During the first year after the murder she stopped by the cemetery two or three times a day. Usually she'd visit the grave for fifteen minutes or so. At other times, including his birthday, she would sit there all day. His birthday was in February, when the weather was harsh and cold. One thing she could not bear was the thought of snow covering Tim's body. Whenever it snowed, she had to visit the cemetery and clear off his grave. One day after a snowstorm she arrived and found that someone who knew how she felt had already removed the snow from Tim's grave."

Read More here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97sep/grief.htm

Dummy Land

2011-07-26T17:55:00.000-07:00

I’m at the Vent Haven ConVENTion where, each July, hundreds of ventriloquists, or “vents,” as they call themselves, gather from all over the world. For four days, they attend lectures on the business, getting advice on AV equipment, scriptwriting, or creating an audience through social networking. They listen to a keynote address by Comedy Central’s ventriloquist-in-residence, Jeff Dunham, who exhorts his notoriously defensive colleagues to “quit complaining that people say we’re weird. We talk to dolls. We are weird, ok. Just own it.” They eat at a Denny’s off the highway and visit the creationist museum down the road. And they don’t go anywhere without the accompaniment of their alter egos.

At the convention, the puppets are a slim but boisterous majority. They crowd in around you. They critique you. They grope you. They chatter continuously. Being around them approximates what it would be like to read people’s minds. It is a most unpleasant experience—a great deal more unsettling, of course, isn’t what they say but that they say anything at all. All over the hotel, in conference rooms, in hallways, at the bar, ventriloquism is practiced in its purest form: not as a stage show, but as an ongoing, unscripted social interaction, a live conversation between humans and their golems. At a drunken party one night, in the hotel’s “hospitality suite,” I witness one dummy operating another dummy, as the human source of both voices sits silently nearby, pretending to compose a text message. The mini bar has lips, which cruelly insult anyone who walks by, the origin of its voice impossible to determine. Almost as soon as I join the party, I am molested by a busty lady puppet, a faded showgirl. She swoons onto my shoulder. “Godaaamn,” she slurs. “Where have you been?” Her vent is a burly, unsmiling dude with a shaved head, a muscle shirt, and camo shorts. He smells strongly of whiskey.

Read more here:
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/07/25/dummy-land/

Norwegian Terrorist's Manifesto and European Leaders Message same: Multiculturalism has Failed

2011-07-24T18:32:00.000-07:00

The Norway terrorist's video Manifesto...

http://www.twitvid.com/EXJWW

The full 1500 page Manifesto...
http://www.kevinislaughter.com/wp-content/uploads/2083+-+A+European+Declaration+of+Independence.pdf

European Backlash Over Multiculturalism

The concept of multiculturalism seems to be failing all around Europe.

The one who started the trend was German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “This approach has failed, utterly,” she said.

Then British Prime Minister David Cameron weighed in, saying, “We failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong.”
And now France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy has made an admission, as well. “My answer is, clearly, yes, it's a failure.”
The heads of state have only now realized what many observers and radicals have been saying for quite some time.

“Multiculturalism will only function if people coming to the country will have a job, have their own money and feel responsible for the community,” says immigration officer Arnold Mengelkoch from Copenhagen. “Otherwise, they are jobless people who lead a passive life with social welfare.”

Read more here...
http://rt.com/news/european-leaders-multiculturalism-f/

Council of Europe Warns on Multiculturalism...

“As we understand it now, multiculturalism allows parallel societies to develop within states,” said Thorbjørn Jagland, secretary-general of the council, in an interview with the Financial Times.

“This must be stopped. It is also clear that some parallel societies have developed radical ideas that are dangerous. Terrorism cannot be accepted.”

Mr Jagland came to the defence of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, David Cameron, UK prime minister, and Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, who have all warned recently that the tradition of encouraging diverse cultures to live side-by-side has damaged national identity and helped to promote the radicalisation of immigrant youth.

Mr Cameron went so far as to say that a new, more “muscular liberalism” was needed that barred government aid to groups that did not share Britain’s liberal values.
The comments by European leaders have been welcomed by groups on the far right, who see their hardline positions on immigration, race and security justified by the apparent shift in mainstream politics to the right. However, they have sparked an outcry from the left and from Muslim groups, who see themselves...

A History of Violence: Right Wing Extremism

2011-07-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

Even though we've all been conditioned by the mainstream media to think that all terrorists are Muslim, the latest terrorist attack in Norway is actually just another example in a long history of Right Wing Extremism.

Witnesses describe scene of terror at Norway camp...

The man in the police uniform shouted for the campers to come closer. When they did, he killed them.

The gunman who killed at least 80 people at an island youth camp northwest of Oslo used his disguise to lure in his victims, then shot them twice to make sure they were dead, survivors said in the village of Sundvollen, where they were taken after the massacre.

"I saw many dead people," said 15-year old Elise, whose father, Vidar Myhre, didn't want her to disclose her last name. She just feet away from the gunman when he opened fire in the camp on Utoya island.
Elise said she had just come out from an information meeting in a nearby building when she heard gunshots. She saw a police officer and thought she was safe, but then he started shooting.

"He first shot people on the island. Afterward he started shooting people in the water," she said.
Elise said she hid behind the same rock that the killer was standing on. "I could hear his breathing from the top of the rock," she said.
In panic, the girl phoned...

Read more here...
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110723/D9OL6O400.html

Understanding Terrorism...

For years, psychologists examined terrorists' individual characteristics, mining for clues that could explain their willingness to engage in violence. While researchers now agree that most terrorists are not "pathological" in any traditional sense, several important insights have been gleaned though interviews with some 60 former terrorists conducted by psychologist John Horgan, PhD, who directs the Pennsylvania State University's International Center for the Study of Terrorism.

Horgan found that people who are more open to terrorist recruitment and radicalization tend to:

Feel angry, alienated or disenfranchised.
Believe that their current political involvement does not give them the power to effect real change.
Identify with perceived victims of the social injustice they are fighting.
Feel the need to take action rather than just talking about the problem.
Believe that engaging in violence against the state is not immoral.
Have friends or family sympathetic to the cause.
Believe that joining a movement offers social and psychological rewards such as adventure, camaraderie and a heightened sense of identity.

Read more here...
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/11/terrorism.aspx

History

This year we saw the shooting of Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by Jared Lee Loughner...but that is just the tip of the iceberg...

Right-wing terrorism came to widespread attention after the August 1980 Bologna bombing, when a group of right-wing terrorists exploded a bomb at a railroad station in Bologna, Italy, killing 84 people and injuring more than 180. Two months later, a right-wing terrorist attack in Munich, Germany killed the attacker and 14 other people, injuring 215.
The April 19, 1995 attack on the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma, by the right-wing extremist Timothy McVeigh, which killed 168 people, would become the worst domestic terrorist attack in American history.^[9] It was reported he had ties to a Michigan militia group.^[10]

^{Many more examples of recent Right Wing Terrorism here...}

^{http://mediamatters.org/research/201010110016}

^UPDATE:

^{Here is the supposed video manifesto of Breivik...}
^{http://www.twitvid.com/EXJWW}

^{And here is the full 1500 page manifesto...}
^{http://www.kevinislaughter.com/wp-content/uploads/2083+-+A+European+Declaration+of+Independence.pdf}

Largest Marijuana Crop Ever Discovered in Mexico

2011-07-16T08:10:00.000-07:00

(click to enlarge photos)

Update apparently 12 Mexican policemen were killed near Los Mochis, Sinaloa. Possibly revenge.

THIS incredible oasis in the middle of a remote desert is the largest marijuana plantation ever found in Mexico. According to General Alfonso Duarte Mugica the plantation is 168 times larger than the soccer field in Mexico City's Azteca Stadium. Located just 6 hours south of the Tijuana\San Diego border, this 300 acre plantation was found by the Mexican military near the town of San Quintin.

Soldiers patrolling a desert area in Baja California stumbled across the massive plantation which was being tended by dozens of men, most of whom escaped with only six being caught later at a military checkpoint.

The men had pumped water through hoses from a well they had dug at the barren site to irrigate the plants, which had grown up to 8 feet tall.

"This marijuana field represents one of the largest found and due to be destroyed in Mexico. The largest found had measured 105 hectares in Rancho de Bufalo in Chihuahua and this one measures 120, so it's the largest found in the country," explained Commander of the Second Military Region of Northern Baja California, General Alfonso Duarte.

Mexico is the largest supplier of marijuana to the United States and recent discoveries highlight this lucrative trade.

Last October, Mexican authorities made their largest-ever seizure of marijuana packaged for sale, a record 148 tons (134 metric tons) found in a number of tractor trailers and houses in Tijuana. They appeared to make up a major distribution center traced directly to Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, Mexico's most-wanted fugitive, who has expanded the reach of his Sinaloa cartel along the U.S.-Mexico border since escaping from prison in 2001.
In November, U.S. and Mexican investigators found two long, sophisticated tunnels under the border between Baja California and California, along with more than 40 tons of marijuana in and around the tunnels.
The tunnels ran about 2,000 feet from Mexico to San Diego and were equipped with lighting, ventilation and a rail system for drugs to be carried on a small cart.
U.S. officials say they believe the tunnels also were the work of the Sinaloa cartel.

See Video of the Massive Plantation here...

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/07/14/mexico.marijuana/

The CIA's Secret Sites in Somalia

2011-07-13T20:34:00.000-07:00

Hassan told him that his captors took him to Wilson Airport: “‘They put a bag on my head, Guantánamo style. They tied my hands behind my back and put me on a plane. In the early hours we landed in Mogadishu. The way I realized I was in Mogadishu was because of the smell of the sea—the runway is just next to the seashore. They took me to this prison, where I have been up to now. I have been here for one year, seven months. I have been interrogated so many times. Interrogated by Somali men and white men. Every day. New faces show up. They have nothing on me. I have never seen a lawyer, never seen an outsider. Only other prisoners, interrogators, guards. Here there is no court or tribunal.’”
After meeting the man who had spoken with Hassan in the underground prison, Gutteridge began working with Hassan’s Kenyan lawyers to determine his whereabouts. She says he has never been charged or brought before a court. “Hassan’s abduction from Nairobi and rendition to a secret prison in Somalia bears all the hallmarks of a classic US rendition operation,” she says. The US official interviewed for this article denied the CIA had rendered Hassan but said, “The United States provided information which helped get Hassan—a dangerous terrorist—off the street.” Human Rights Watch and Reprieve have documented that Kenyan security and intelligence forces have facilitated scores of renditions for the US and other governments, including eighty-five people rendered to Somalia in 2007 alone. Gutteridge says the director of the Mogadishu prison told one of her sources that Hassan had been targeted in Nairobi because of intelligence suggesting he was the “right-hand man” of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan , at the time a leader of Al Qaeda in East Africa. Nabhan, a Kenyan citizen of Yemeni descent, was among the top suspects sought for questioning by US authorities over his alleged role in the coordinated 2002 attacks on a tourist hotel and an Israeli aircraft in Mombasa, Kenya, and possible links to the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
An intelligence report leaked by the Kenyan Anti-Terrorist Police Unit in October 2010 alleged that Hassan...

Read more here...
http://www.thenation.com/article/161936/cias-secret-sites-somalia?page=0,0

Also related...

Meeting Somalia's al-Shabab

Read more here...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8133127.stm

Somali militant group Al-Shabaab executes ‘CIA spy’

Read more here...

http://english.alshahid.net/archives/17843

Ocean Sky

2011-07-13T16:50:00.000-07:00

Shipwreck Coast, Australia

A star-gazer has come a little bit closer to the final frontier - after spending 18 months photographing the night sky.
With just an ordinary digital camera, Alex Cherney turned thousands of snaps into an incredible time-lapse video of the cosmos.
Using long exposures to allow more light in, this breath-taking video from the southern tip of Australia demonstrates how he captured the dramatic way the sky changes at night.

See time-lapse video here...

http://vimeo.com/24253126 Full Screen Recommended

Random Moments

2011-07-10T17:19:00.000-07:00

Random photos of Life...Truly Exceptional....click to enlarge each photo...Enjoy.

The Daredevil Pilots of Colombia

2011-07-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

A fascinating look into the lives of Colombian pilots who fly to remote areas of the jungle to bring people and supplies. It's really cool because it's like stepping into a time warp...Enjoy...

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/riskingitall/2011/05/201151112305049621.html

What is the best country for you?

2011-07-05T14:10:00.000-07:00

How do you define a better life? Use this interactive tool to see how your country performs on the topics you feel make for a better life...
Very cool...

http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

World's Best Hikes: 15 Classic Trails

2011-07-04T21:31:00.000-07:00

Tonquin Valley, Jasper National Park, Canada.

Over the past decade, author Peter Potterfield has hiked more than 10,000 miles over six continents to research this list. Here, he tells us his picks for the world's 15 best hikes, including Patagonia, Tasmania, Newfoundland, and Petra.

http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/trips/best-trails/world-hikes/

The Oatmeal

2011-07-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

Haven't laughed this much in awhile, simply hilarious...

Sure I'd Love to Help You Move Apartments
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/moving

The Four Seasons of Vancouver/Seattle Weather
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/seattle_weather

The Crap We Put Up With Getting On and Off an Airplane
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/airplane

7 Things You Really Don't Need to Take a Photo of...
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/photos

Why Working at Home is Both Awesome and Horrible
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/working_home

Why I'd Rather be Punched in the Testicles Than Call Customer Service
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/customer_service

Minor Differences Part 1, 2, and 3
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/minor_differences

Learning to Live Outside the World`s Biggest Prison

2011-06-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

A night scene of China's gleaming Dandong city (right) and North Korea's Sinuiju city (left). When the sun sets, North Korea plunges into darkness due to an eletricity shortage.

Excerpt:

"North Korea was in the grip of a famine which eventually killed 1 to 3 million people. People abandoned the state system and survived by any means possible.
"When my mother was still alive, she went up into the mountains and found a piece of land where we could grow food without being seen," Rhee said. "My mother and sister did the farming and I would walk three hours to the market and help sell what we had: corn, beans, grain, rabbits and chicken."
When Rhee was 15, her mother died, after a small cut on her foot became infected. "Really, she was killed by the lack of hospital services," she said.
Rhee and her sister, Sang-mi, then 18, were left to fend for themselves, with no family left and no social support. In 2007, the two sisters and two of Sang-mi's friends decided to escape themselves, wading across the Yalu river that divides the north-eastern corner of North Korea from Manchuria.
They did not have much of a plan. They went first to relatives of one of Sang-mi's friends, but they had no room and directed them to a Chinese man in Yanji city who they said would put them up.
The hospitality came at a price. The man's wooden house was divided into two. The man lived with his family on one side, and on the other North Korean girls sat at computers in front of webcams, performing for sex chatlines.
Read more here...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/30/north-korean-defector-worlds-biggest-prison?CMP=twt_gu

New Mexican President, Same Cartel War?

2011-06-23T19:51:00.000-07:00

Excerpt:
"As the Mexican election approaches, the idea of accommodating the cartels may continue to be presented as a logical alternative to the present policies, and it might be used to gain political capital, but anyone who carefully examines the situation on the ground will see that the concept is totally untenable. In fact, the conditions on the ground leave the Mexican president with very little choice. This means that in the same way President Obama was forced by ground realities to follow many of the Bush administration policies he criticized as a candidate, the next Mexican president will have little choice but to follow the policies of the Calderon administration in continuing the fight against the cartels.

Read more here...

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110614-new-mexican-president-same-cartel-war

Another World, Another Planet: Alaska's North

2011-06-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

Seeking a pristine land untouched by humanity, Sebastião Salgado photographed the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska.

See more of his work here...

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/06/12/magazine/alaska-sebastiao-salgado.html

Jon Stewart Slams Fox-Praises PBS

2011-06-21T20:53:00.000-07:00

Jon Stewart to Fox News Host Chris Wallace: 'You're Insane' (Video)

During a debate on "media bias" on "Fox News Sunday," Stewart adds that Fox News viewers are the most "consistently misinformed."

Watch video...

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/jon-stewart-fox-news-host-203178

Also the Washington Post adds..."Stewart is right about Fox News"...
Following Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo, Sammon suggested the network focus on the fact that the president hadn’t used the word “terrorism,” even though he had discussed the issue. Sammon urged Fox News employees to present climate change data as controversial. The network’s coverage of the issue is incredibly slanted: 81 percent of Fox News guests oppose the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of greenhouse gases....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/jon-stewart-is-right-about-fox-news/2011/03/04/AGg8AscH_blog.html

Finally, you have to see this EXCELLENT interview with PBS' Bill Moyers on the current and future state of journalism...

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-1-2011/bill-moyers-pt--1

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-1-2011/bill-moyers-pt--2

Mexico: Impunity and Profit

2011-06-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

The best documentary I've ever seen on the situation in Northern Mexico. Absolutely top notch...

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/faultlines/2011/06/201161493451742709.html

Also a photo gallery of the war...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/7506688/Mexico-drug-wars-graphic-pictures-illustrating-Mexican-gang-violence.html

Missing Iraq Cash as High as 18 Billion

2011-06-20T14:04:00.000-07:00

Who said war was not profitable?

Osama al-Nujaifi, the Iraqi parliament speaker, has told Al Jazeera that the amount of Iraqi money unaccounted for by the US is $18.7bn - three times more than the reported $6.6bn.

Just before departing for a visit to the US, al-Nujaifi said that he has received a report this week based on information from US and Iraqi auditors that the amount of money withdrawn from a fund from Iraqi oil proceeds, but unaccounted for, is much more than the $6.6bn reported missing last week.

"There is a lot of money missing during the first American administration of Iraqi money in the first year of occupation.
"Iraq's development fund has lost around $18bn of Iraqi money in these operations - their location is unknown. Also missing are the documents of expenditure.

"I think it will be discussed soon. There should be an answer to where has Iraqi money gone."

The Bush administration flew in a total of $20bn in cash into the country in 2004. This was money that had come from Iraqi oil sales, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food programme and seized Iraqi assets.

Read more here...

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/201161962910765678.html

ALSO WORTH CHECKING OUT...

Kultūra

Alone in the City

Top Secret Prison used by US/UK Special Forces Found in Iraqi Desert

The Mixtape of Revolution

South Korea's Pop Wave

Sugar should be controlled like alcohol: Report

Across the World, Leaders Brace for Discontent and Upheaval

Confessions of a Recovering Weapons Addict

Best of Kultura 2011 -- Photography

1. The Work of an Undiscovered Street Photographer Rocks the Art World

Chicago nanny Vivian Maier died in 2009, leaving behind 100,000 negatives that no one but she had ever seen. Her work was discovered by chance, and now the photographs she took on her days off are being hailed as 'ranking up there' with the best in 20th-century street photography. See more here.

2. America's First People

Photo of Ah Chee Lo, a Young Indian Child. It was taken in 1905

by Edward S. Curtis.

See more beautiful portraits here.

3. Sicarios: Latin American Assassins

Ten Prominent Websites Protest SOPA and PIPA

Seeds of Dystopia

Global Risks Report 2012 Finds Income Inequality To Be A Threat To Economies Worldwide

Growing income disparity threatens political backlash * WEF sees risk of globalisation unravelling * Report says fiscal crises at centre of economic woes

"It needs immediate political attention, otherwise the political rhetoric that responds to this social unease will involve nationalism, protectionism and rolling back the globalisation process," said WEF managing director Lee Howell.

Read more here...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/11/global-risks-report-2012_n_1198537.html?ir=Canada%20Business&ref=canada-business

300 Chinese Foxconn Workers 'Threaten Mass Suicide' At XBox Plant.

The US schools with their own police

Best of Kultura 2011-The Articles

Dance

The "Stans"

Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

Vietnam in HD

Tweeter Street

A History of Violence

Craziest Facebook Stories of 2011

Kim Jong-il, North Korean leader, dies

In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

Christopher Hitchens on The Daily Show: Sparring with Jon Stewart Over the Years...

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/11/Christopher-Hitchens-on-iThe-Daily-Showi-Sparring-with-Jon-Stewart-Over-the-Years

Time's Person of the Year-The Protester

Fighting 1% Wars

Sea of Change

DEA Launders Profits of Mexican Drug Cartels

U.S. Agents Launder Mexican Profits of Drug Cartels

D.E.A. Squads Extend Reach of Drug War

Sesame Street in Afghanistan

Famous Failures

The Man Who Was "Cured" of HIV

Fighting Back, One Brothel at a Time

National Geographic Photo Contest 2011

How and Why to Write

Steal This Book

Study: Alcohol Is “More Than Twice As Harmful As Marijuana”

Semper Fi: Always Faithful

Art meets Music

"Anonymous" Vows to Take Down Facebook and Fox News on Nov 5th

Anonymous says it will take down Facebook on Nov. 5

Hacker leaks 90,000 passwords as a warning to 'naive' Swedes

Banking Corporations Kill Wikileaks

Occupy Wall Street Protest Signs

Living Photographs

Is Cheating the Secret to a Happy Marriage?

Michael Moore: Occupy Wall Street will spread across the whole country

U.S. Supplies Guns to Mexican Cartels for Over a Decade

Hong Kong Noir

BBC Speechless As Trader Tells Truth: "The Collapse Is Coming...And Goldman Rules The World"

The World's Rudest Hand Gestures

How to Raise a Global Kid

Confessions of a Serial Killer: Jeffrey Dahmer

A Victim Almost Escapes

What We Should Have Been Taught in our Senior Year of High School

The Price of 9/11

Strange Rain

Sicarios: Latin American Assassins

Somalia's Famine Death Toll Projected To Reach 750,000

Previous Major African Hunger Crises

Terrorism Has No Religion

Mary Ellen Mark

Is the CIA Supporting the Sinaloa Cartel? Part 2

Do U.S., Mexican officials favor one cartel over another?

Is the CIA Supporting the Sinaloa Cartel? Part 1

**3. Sicarios: Latin American Assassins**

Growing income disparity threatens political backlash
* WEF sees risk of globalisation unravelling
* Report says fiscal crises at centre of economic woes