My Brother's War, From Vienna to Beirut, and Tokyo Up/Down

Three remarkable examples of the power of photography. Sit back throw on some Miles Davis or your favorite lounge music and enjoy three amazing slide shows.

My Brother's War
American photographer Jessica Hines' brother Gary was drafted to fight the war in Vietnam in the 1970s. He later took is own life. Hines used photography as a way to retrace his "footsteps" using his own photographs and his letters from the war as guides. It's a remarkable and very touching story.
See slide show here: http://www.lensculture.com/hines.html

Beyond Borders: From Vienna to Beirut
Over the course of several months, photographer Frederic Lezmi traveled slowly from Vienna to Beirut in search of cultural and geographical "in-between" moments. His wonderfully rich, layered photographs capture the slow and sometimes uneasy transition of cultural symbols and values as one moves from Europe to the Orient.
See slide show here: http://www.lensculture.com/lezmi.html

Tokyo Up/Down
Lured by thousands of nightclubs, host/hostess bars, and love-hotels near Tokyo's Shinjuku's station, business people descend from their offices in high speed elevators, only to rise up again in other elevators in other buildings, seeking comfort, fantasy and escape. Photographer Xavier Comas provides an almost voyeuristic view of these moments of vertical transit.
See slide show here: http://www.lensculture.com/comas.html

No terror arrests in 100,000 police counter-terror searches, figures show

Here's something to think about next time your government asks you to give up your constitutional-entrenched freedoms...


More than 100,000 people were stopped and searched by police under counter-terrorism powers last year but none of them were arrested for terrorism-related offences, according to Home Office figures published today.

"This astonishing fact of no terrorism-related arrests, let alone prosecutions or convictions, in over 100,000 stop and searches, demonstrates what a massively counter-productive policy this is," said Davis.

"A policy which fuels resentment and antagonism amongst minority communities without achieving a single terrorist conviction serves only to help our enemies and increase the terrorism threat."

Read more here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/28/terrorism-police-stop-search-arrests

World Stats

Education

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), evaluates the quality, equity and efficiency of school systems in some 70 countries that, together, make up 90% of the world economy. By testing between 4 500 and 10 000 15-year-old students in each country, OECD PISA provides an internationally standardised assessment and has become a powerful tool for countries wanting to improve their education systems.
Get Stats here:

http://blog.oecdfactblog.org/?p=339

More Stats...

2010 World Corruption Index

http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2010/results

and a cool...

World Sunlight Map

http://www.die.net/earth/peters.html

UPDATE:

The OECD has another very cool interactive graph that allows you to choose what is most important for you in life and then tells you which country matches your criteria.  Pretty Amazing...
http://ajarnmike.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-is-best-country-for-you.html

Iraq War Logs

TORTURE, ABUSE, MURDER----Wikileaks releases 400,000 secret documents on the Iraq War.
Read more here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iraq-war-logs

The last police chief was beheaded. Now a 20-year-old student is stepping up

Violent Mexico town pins hopes on undergraduate given £400 a month to take on the deadliest drug cartel.

One reason Marisol Valles Garcia did not have much competition for the police chief job could be that her predecessor's head was left in front of the station a few days after he was kidnapped.
Another reason could be that a fifth of the population of Praxedis Guadalupe Guerrero, a dusty, sun-baked town on Mexico's border with Texas, has fled a wave of killings and burnings that have made this one of the most violent places on Earth.
It may also have been related to the fact that drug cartels tend to give police officers a choice of "plomo o plata", lead or silver, death or corruption – which is not much of a choice: if you take the plata, a rival cartel will likely fill you with plomo....
This girl is really brave, as I lived in this area of Mexico for a year, and it's nuts up there. In most towns the police left years ago...all I can say to this girl is good luck and I hope I'm not posting a follow-up story in a month...
Read More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/21/mexico-student-police-chief-drug-cartel


Photo gallery:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2010/oct/21/marisol-valles-mexico-police-chief?picture=367910453

Well that didn't take long...The girl has now fled to the United States and is seeking asylum after cartels threaten to kill her, read more here....

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Young+Mexican+female+police+chief+seeks+asylum/4380279/story.html 

City Councilman tells Gay Teens...It gets better.

A city councilman's speech against Gay bullying. Very powerful stuff...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax96cghOnY4

Life Hacks

Life Hacks – 35 tips that will make life easier...

Excerpt:

If you want ice cold beer in 3 minutes, simply place the cans in a pot and fill it with ice and 2 cups of salt and some water. Put the lid on and wait...in 3 minutes you will have ice cold beer.

More great tips here...

http://www.funlol.com/15821/Life_hacks.html

The Next 100 Years by George Friedman

"Conventional analysis suffers from a profound failure of imagination. It imagines passing clouds to be permanent and is blind to powerful, long term shifts taking place in full view of the world." - George Friedman

Fascinating insight into the future of America, Mexico, Japan, Turkey, China and Brazil. If you're interested in the shape of things to come...this is a must watch....
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIwZsbBXpNQ&feature=channel

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmzRSUSoShI&NR=1

Read more:

In his book, George Friedman turns his eye on the future -- offering a lucid, highly readable forecast of the changes we can expect around the world during the 21st century. He explains where and why future wars will erupt (and how they will be fought), which nations will gain and lose economic and political power, and how new technologies and cultural trends will alter the way we live in the new century.

The Next 100 Years draws on a fascinating exploration of history and geopolitical patterns dating back hundreds of years. Friedman shows that we are now, for the first time in half a millennium, at the dawn of a new era—with changes in store, including:

• The U.S.-Jihadist war will conclude—replaced by a second full-blown Cold War with Russia.
• China will undergo a major extended internal crisis, and Mexico will emerge as an important world power.
• A new global war will unfold toward the middle of the century between the United States and an unexpected coalition from Eastern Europe, Eurasia and the Far East, but armies will be much smaller and wars less deadly.
• Technology will focus on space—both for major military uses and for a dramatic new energy resource that will have radical environmental implications.
• The United States will experience a Golden Age in the second half of the century.

Read more...
http://www.newstatesman.com/north-america/2009/08/power-china-world-japan-poland