Three Videos to Warm the Soul X

When We Were Knights
https://vimeo.com/167054481

HuF NYC
https://vimeo.com/176817356

Stylo G x Jacob Plant “Bike Engine”

https://vimeo.com/183252171

Mexican Masters

Master artisans in the Mexican state of Michoacan produce exquisite works of Art....

Pottery

https://vimeo.com/249752354

Copper

https://vimeo.com/249749574

Stonemasonary

https://vimeo.com/249743267

Why We Can't Save Her

Powerful video from the International Committee for the Red Cross...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm0TYebjyHQ

Disney Animator Illustrates Life With Two Children After His Wife Passed Away

http://www.24hviralphotos.com/disney-animator-illustrates-life-with-two-children-after-his-wife-passed-away-and-it-will-break-your-heart-21-pics/

L.A. Dreamers

Five Japanese girls meet in Los Angeles. They are far from home but they have same goal, chase the dream of becoming hip hop dancers.

Shot on Arri Alexa Mini and Zeiss Standard 2.1
Directed By
Dani Fortuny

Watch Video here....
https://vimeo.com/153879475

I LOVE NY

The short time I spent living in Spanish Harlem will not be forgotten....I Love NY.  A visual and heart-warming dedication to NY and the man behind the famous logo...
https://vimeo.com/270244268

From Memory to Myth: The Adventures of Patrick Leigh Fermor

The daring exploits and beguiling charm of the 20th century’s greatest travel writer...

https://www.weeklystandard.com/dominic-green/from-memory-to-myth-the-adventures-of-patrick-leigh-fermor

Camp 14: Total Control Zone

One of the best documentaries I've ever seen...absolutely stunning.
Watch Full Documentary here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihUOHARC_Og

The Antidote to Apathy

Great talk...share it!

Local politics — schools, zoning, council elections — hit us where we live. So why don't more of us actually get involved? Is it apathy? Dave Meslin says no. He identifies 7 barriers that keep us from taking part in our communities, even when we truly care.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_meslin_the_antidote_to_apathy

25 Best Travel Movies of All Time

Some excellent films if you love to travel....
http://expertvagabond.com/best-travel-movies/

Days of Night/Nights of Day

Elena Chernyshova truly captures a remote Russian mining city...Norilsk.  I love when art meets documentary photography...enjoy. (full screen recommended)

SEE PHOTOS HERE...
https://www.lensculture.com/articles/elena-chernyshova-days-of-night-nights-of-day

War, street and Travel Pics 2014

In Syria, Three Years of War
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/03/in-syria-three-years-of-war/100701/

2014 Sony World Photography Awards

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/03/winners-of-the-2014-sony-world-photography-awards-part-i/100700/

And a really good documentary on street photography...(easy to download it)...here's the trailer... 

Everybody Street

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwjal7Dk2As

A Mexican militia, battling Michoacan drug cartel, has American roots

Interesting take on the spiraling violence in Michoacan...

Many were U.S. immigrants who came back, some voluntarily but most often not, to the desiccated job market in the state of Michoacan and found life under the Knights Templar drug cartel that controls the area almost unlivable. They took up arms because they were financially abused by the extortion rackets run by the Templars. Because they had family killed or wounded by their enemies. Because carrying a silver-plated handgun and collecting defeated narcos’ designer cellphones as war booty is more invigorating than packing cucumbers. Because they get to feel, for once, the sensation of being in charge.
 
“Everybody’s with us, all the people,” said Edgar Orozco, a 27-year-old American citizen who left his job at a Sacramento body shop nine months ago to join the fight after the Knights Templar killed his uncle and cousin. “We’re not going to disarm. Never.”

Read More here...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/a-mexican-militia-battling-michoacan-drug-cartel-has-american-roots/2014/01/18/30f96894-7f92-11e3-97d3-b9925ce2c57b_story.html

Also...

Vigilantes hold Mexico town, tenuously, after driving out cartel

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-mexico-michoacan-violence-20140119,0,154127.story#axzz2qs0NL2d1

The Beer Fridge

I know exactly how this guy feels...I watched the last Canadian Olympic Gold Medal game on my laptop in Mexico....All I remember is seeing Crosby going for the net and all of the sudden the Internet stopped...One minute later it came back on and the whole stadium was cheering...talk about a bitter-sweet  moment...nonetheless, I was ecstatic!

The Beer Fridge Project Indonesia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iXYTwuuLxs

Interview with Morgan...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8d_0ZmzAu4

The Beer Fridge-Scan Your Passport
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gper3YkzMg

Iowa Radio Station Grants Mom's Christmas Wishes Two Years after Death

The wife and mother of four wanted three requests fulfilled when her husband found a life partner.

Tragic yet amazing...
 
 Listen to radio broadcast here...

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/12/23/radio-station-grants-mothers-christmas-wishes-two-years-after-death/

Nelson Mandela Dies

Excerpt:

"Conducting his own defence in the Rivonia Trial in 1964, he said: "I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.

"It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

He escaped the death penalty but was sentenced to life in prison, a huge blow to the ANC that had to regroup to continue the struggle. But unrest grew in townships and international pressure on the apartheid regime slowly tightened."

READ MORE HERE...
www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/05/nelson-mandela-dies-aged-95-south-africa

The Rare Phenomenon of Revolution

I don't completely agree and I don't completely disagree with this article.  Friends of mine from Thailand and the Ukraine are currently experiencing these protests...and so they know better than I do.  Nonetheless, the article is quite compelling.

Stratfor Global Intelligence

Hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the streets of Kiev on Sunday in what appeared to be a rebirth of the Orange Revolution, which brought regime change to Ukraine nearly a decade ago. But by Monday the demonstrations shrank to less than 10,000 people. The protests continue to apply pressure on the Ukrainian government, and though they could escalate or compel Kiev to offer some political concessions, an all-out revolution does not appear to be in the offing.

That is not to question the dedication of those protesting in the cold Ukrainian winter. Rather, it is a testament to the fact that true revolutions -- overturning the existing political order and the lasting policy changes that follow -- are extremely difficult to carry out.

The revolutions across Central and Eastern Europe in 1989 serve as a benchmark of contemporary revolution. These revolutions overturned the communist governments from East Germany to Poland to Bulgaria in a span of six months. But they were a product of pent-up political repression that had been building for decades. When the moment finally came, the revolutions were supported by the majority of the population of each state and brought out nearly all segments of society onto the streets. And except in Romania, the people's desire to overturn the system was met without resistance or violence -- an admission by each regime of the system's fundamental obsolescence.

These were revolutions in their purest sense. Societies rejected rigid political systems imposed on them by an illegitimate, external power. It is not often that the global system undergoes such a dramatic change. When it does, the effects are profound. 1989, for example, marked a historic turning point: the beginning of the end of the Cold War era.

But since then, the term "revolution" has been applied liberally in describing large demonstrations of general discontent. Certainly, many citizens have tried to revolt against their rulers, but successful revolutions were few and far between, even when proponents and the media have labeled them as such.

Iran's Green Revolution in 2009 exemplifies the "revolution" misnomer. More than 100,000 people flooded the streets of Tehran to dispute the re-election victory of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But these protests were dominated by younger, urban and generally more affluent citizens; they did not really appeal to the broader segments of Iranian society. They lasted for a few months and elicited public outcry when security forces dealt harshly with the demonstrators, but eventually they tapered off, having never fundamentally threatened the existence of the Iranian political system. This was no 1989 revolution, nor was it the 1979 Iranian revolution against the Shah that united and galvanized the overwhelming majority of Iranian citizens.

There are several other instances in which demonstrations did not foment a revolution. During the so-called Arab Spring, tens to hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in several countries, but few of them led to actual regime change. With the exception of Libya and to a lesser extent Syria, the broader structure of the regimes that ruled the Arab world remain in place -- only certain leaders and personalities have been replaced. Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak may be gone, but Egypt continues to be ruled by the military. Syria is in the throes of a civil war, but Syrian President Bashar al Assad is still the strongest of many warlords in what is an extreme imbalance of the existing political order.

Other countries such as Thailand are currently seeing large protests that show no signs of abating and occasionally lead to disruptive violence. But in Thailand, protest culture, constitutional changes and military coups are particularly tumultuous manifestations of partisan politics. The society is mostly stable. The combination of regional, socio-economic and ideological divisions could lead to revolution eventually, but that is by no means a foregone conclusion, given the flexibility of the existing constitutional monarchy.

And even those countries that have had "successful" revolutions, such as Ukraine in 2004, have shown that the new regimes may be short lived. Five years after Yanukovich was ousted in the Orange Revolution, he was democratically elected into power in a rejection of the policies pursued by the previous government. Unlike the definitive shift away from the Soviet Union and communism of Central European countries in 1989, Ukraine has instead vacillated uncomfortably between the West and Russia, a strategic but vulnerable position that is extremely difficult to overcome through demonstrations by a polarized society.

As Ukraine and Thailand have shown, democracies are inherently unstable, presenting major opportunities for social unrest that on the surface looks chaotic. In reality, they are either tightly controlled within existing political factions or are absorbed by them. Revolutions are successful when fundamental shifts to the underlying political structure are already in place. In 1989, the Soviet Union stopped being able to control and support its peripheral states. It is in those circumstances that social movements are able to topple already wobbly governments.
Revolutions are not things of the past, and they will occur in the future. Countless demonstrations will be held around the world with varying levels of conviction, but revolutions are rare geopolitical phenomena.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE (requires an email but you get updates via email all the time and some free articles)....http://www.stratfor.com/sample/geopolitical-diary/rare-phenomenon-revolution

Best Cities and Countries for Travelers and Expats 2014

Cuzco, Peru.

Best Cities to Visit 2014
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travel-tips-and-articles/lonely-planets-best-in-travel-2014-top-10-cities

Best Countries to Visit 2014
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travel-tips-and-articles/lonely-planets-best-in-travel-2014-top-10-countries

Best Countries to Visit on a Budget 2014
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travel-tips-and-articles/lonely-planets-best-value-travel-destinations-for-2014

And this is really Cool...

Best Countries for Expats...According to HSBC...
http://www.expatexplorer.hsbc.com/#/countries

21 Roads of a Lifetime

Breathtaking photos of some amazing road trips...

 Ruta 40, Argentina

 The Atlantic Road, Norway

 Going-to-the-sun-Road, Glacier National Park, Montana

 White Rim Road, Canyonlands National Park, Utah

SEE MORE HERE...

http://twistedsifter.com/2013/03/roads-to-drive-before-you-die/

ALSO...

40 Maps That Will Help Make Sense of the World

This is What Winning Looks Like

With more than a 1000 people dead in Iraq in July, and a looming war in Syria it seems that "nation-building" is immensely more difficult than we were led to believe.  Anyway, this is a very interesting doc, please share, adios!

SEE FULL DOCUMENTARY HERE...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/this-is-what-winning-looks-like_n_3268079.html?utm_hp_ref=world&utm_hp_ref=world