Must See Foreign FilmZ

Here's a list of the Decade's 25 Most-Essential Foreign Films...

http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2009/06/the-25-must-see-foreign-films-since-2000.html


Also here are some more films I've seen recently that are definitely worth a look...
Click on the poster to read a review....Cheers!

king Justice

The best 9 minute documentary I've ever seen.

Check it out:
http://vimeo.com/7283087

Condition Critical: Voices from the War in Eastern Congo

There are more than 981 million people living on the continent of Africa, yet they only represent 3% of all Internet users worldwide. So I think it's important to share their stories.
Watch these three amazing audio slideshows (use the full screen option)...

Mishoka's Story
http://vimeo.com/7868563

Drawing the War
http://vimeo.com/7887317

Bahati's Story
http://vimeo.com/7869398

Check out more here at:
http://www.condition-critical.org/

If That Diamond Ring Don't Shine

My girlfriend insists on a pricey engagement ring, but I'm not made of money.

Dear Prudence,
I am very much in love with my girlfriend of four years and want to spend my life with her. There is one thing preventing me from popping the question: the diamond ring. My girlfriend is not overly superficial but has made it clear that she needs a "moderately good-sized ring." I am young, in graduate school, and have no money. I would have to take out a loan to...

Continue reading this and two other interesting letters at:
http://www.slate.com/id/2247473/

Are U.S. Pot Laws The Root Cause Of Mexican Drug Violence?

It was less than one year ago when acting U.S. DEA administrator Michelle Leonhart publicly declared that the escalating violence on the U.S./Mexico border should be viewed as a sign of the “success” of America’s drug war strategies.

“Our view is that the violence we have been seeing is a signpost of the success our very courageous Mexican counterparts are having,” said Michele Leonhart, who was recently nominated by President Obama to be the agency’s full time director. “The cartels are acting out like caged animals, because they are caged animals.”

Well, if the DEA’s chief talking head thought that some 6,300 drug cartel-related murders in 2008 was an indication of progress, one can only imagine that...

Check out the rest of this Excellent article which also includes a very good video as well...
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/17/are-u-s-pot-laws-the-root-cause-of-mexican-drug-violence/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternet

Saint Patrick Dies

On this day in 461 A.D., Saint Patrick, Christian missionary, bishop and apostle of Ireland, dies at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland.


Much of what is known about Patrick's legendary life comes from the Confessio, a book he wrote during his last years. Born in Great Britain, probably in Scotland, to a well-to-do Christian family of Roman citizenship, Patrick was captured and enslaved at age 16 by Irish marauders. For the next six years, he worked as a herder in Ireland, turning to a deepening religious faith for comfort. Following the counsel of a voice he heard in a dream one night, he escaped and found passage on a ship to Britain, where he was eventually reunited with his family.

According to the Confessio, in Britain Patrick had another dream, in which an individual named Victoricus gave him a letter, entitled "The Voice of the Irish." As he read it, Patrick seemed to hear the voices of Irishmen pleading him to return to their country and walk among them once more. After studying for the priesthood, Patrick was ordained a bishop. He arrived in Ireland in 433 and began preaching the Gospel, converting many thousands of Irish and building churches around the country. After 40 years of living in poverty, teaching, traveling and working tirelessly, Patrick died on March 17, 461 in Saul, where he had built his first church.

Since that time, countless legends have grown up around Patrick. Made the patron saint of Ireland, he is said to have baptized hundreds of people on a single day, and to have used a three-leaf clover--the famous shamrock--to describe the Holy Trinity. In art, he is often portrayed trampling on snakes, in accordance with the belief that he drove those reptiles out of Ireland. For thousands of years, the Irish have observed the day of Saint Patrick's death as a religious holiday, attending church in the morning and celebrating with food and drink in the afternoon. The first St. Patrick's Day parade, though, took place not in Ireland, but the United States, when Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City in 1762. As the years went on, the parades became a show of unity and strength for persecuted Irish-American immigrants, and then a popular celebration of Irish-American heritage. The party went global in 1995, when the Irish government began a large-scale campaign to market St. Patrick's Day as a way of driving tourism and showcasing Ireland's many charms to the rest of the world. Today, March 17 is a day of international celebration, as millions of people around the globe put on their best green clothing to drink beer, watch parades and toast the luck of the Irish.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Original story from:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/3/17

The Inherent Injustice of Our Foreign Policy

What can one bird in Arkansas teach us about how we treat the rest of the world. Sometimes truth comes with an ivory bill.

Excerpt:

In a perfect world, all nations would have laws and clean environments and access to cheap energy. But we live in an unfair world. Let’s just remember, when we label all the poorer nations as selfish, uncaring, moneygrubbers; no one did it better than us."

Read full article here:


http://www.pigbird.com/ivorybill.html

Mexico gunmen kill American consulate staff

The attack on the U.S. couple began with a car chase and ended in front of the main border crossing into El Paso, an area heavily patrolled by soldiers, local newspaper El Diario reported. The couple’s baby girl survived the attack.

The Mexican spouse was murdered in an upscale neighborhood of the city when gunmen boxed in his car with other vehicles and shot him, according to a local newspaper photographer who soon arrived at the scene.

The dead man’s wife, who was following in a second car, was unhurt, but their two children were wounded.

Calderon was already scheduled to visit Ciudad Juarez Tuesday, his third trip there in a month, as he scrambles to find a way to deal with a surge in killings that 8,000 troops and federal police on the ground have failed to curb.

The drug war has killed more than 4,600 people in the manufacturing city in two years, and constant scenes of bullet-ridden vehicles and bodies lying in pools of blood have prompted many middle-class residents to flee.

Across Mexico, drug violence is at its worst level ever, and many U.S. students have heeded warnings not to cross the border this year for their annual “spring break” vacation.

A burst of drug gang clashes killed at least 27 people, including four who were beheaded, this weekend around the Pacific resort of Acapulco.

At least 13 were killed on Saturday and at least 14 on Sunday, police said. They included nine men killed in a shootout and a young woman shot as she drove by in a taxi.

Obama voiced his support for Calderon’s drug war during a visit to Mexico last year, but the rising violence along the border with Mexico has become a big concern for Washington.

Nearly 19,000 people have been killed since President Felipe Calderon came to power in Mexico in late 2006 and launched a military assault on the country’s powerful drug cartels, sparking a surge in violence that has alarmed Washington, foreign investors and tourists.

http://news.globaltv.com/world/Mexico+gunmen+kill+American+consulate+staff/2682366/story.html

US High-Speed Rail: China To Bid On Projects

BEIJING — China plans to bid for contracts to build U.S. high-speed train lines and is stepping up exports of rail technology to Europe and Latin America, a government official said Saturday.

China has built 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers) of high-speed rail for its own train system and President Barack Obama issued ....
Link to story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/13/us-highspeed-rail-china-t_n_497854.html

Cartoons by the Miami Herald's Jim Morin

Click on photos to enlarge:

Man Flies Plane Into IRS Building in Texas

"If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, 'Why did this have to happen?' The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time." The Web message was dated Thursday and signed "Joe Stack (1956-2010)."

Hours after posting it, Stack set fire to his home, drove to a municipal airport, got into his single-engine Piper Cherokee and deliberately crashed it into a multistory office building, authorities said.

Read full story here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35460268/ns/us_news-life/

'Empathic Civilization': When Money No Longer Buys Happiness

Competition is lonely. It is good to have it between organisations. Within organisations, though, it may or may not increase productivity, but it does not increase happiness. To extol it is to make a fundamental misjudgment about human nature.

For we are born with a strongly social side to our nature (a homo empathicus), as well as a profoundly selfish side. By the age of two many children will...

Read more:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-layard/empathic-civilization-whe_b_481530.html

'Empathic Civilization': Is It Time To Replace The American Dream?

Although American history is peppered with lamentations about the souring of the dream, the criticism never extends to the assumptions that underlie the dream, but only to political, economic and social forces that thwart its realization. To suggest that the dream itself is misguided, outdated, and even damaging to the American psyche, would be considered almost treasonous. Yet, I would like to suggest just that...
read more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-rifkin/empathic-civilization-is_b_469546.html