Friday, November 4, 2011

Thursday, November 3, 2011

mystery of the stones


Easter Island (Rapa Nui: Rapa Nui, Spanish: Isla de Pascua) is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people. Easter Island is claimed to be the most remote inhabited island in the world.



It is a World Heritage Site (as determined by UNESCO) with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park. In recent times the island has served as a warning of the cultural and environmental dangers of overexploitation. Ethnographers and archaeologists also blame diseases carried by European colonizers and slave raiding of the 1860s for devastating the local peoples. (read more)


Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

nonviolent direct action


Nonviolent direct action seeks to

create such a crisis and foster such a

tension that a community which has

constantly refused to negotiate is

forced to confront the issue. It seeks

to so dramatize the issue that it can

no longer be ignored.

...Martin Luther King Jr...
4/16/63



Thursday, October 27, 2011

lunar earthrise 1966: lo1_h102_123


The world's first view of Earth taken by a spacecraft from the vicinity of the Moon. The photo was transmitted to Earth by the United States Lunar Orbiter I and received at the NASA tracking station at Robledo De Chavela near Madrid, Spain. This crescent of the Earth was photographed August 23, 1966 at 16:35 GMT when the spacecraft was on its 16th orbit and just about to pass behind the Moon. Reference Numbers: Center: HQ / Center Number: 67-H-218 / GRIN DataBase Number: GPN-2000-001588 / lo1-h102-123

(enlarge this image to clearly see the structures found on the moon)

Moon Rising

Lunar Orbiter 1

The Living Moon

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

monuments


(see more)

Michael Moore & Cornel West on OWS, Iraq & the Progressive Discontent Obama Faces in '12 Vote

Michael Moore & Cornel West on OWS, Iraq & the Progressive Discontent Obama Faces in '12 Vote



As Occupy protests against inequality and corporate greed continue across the United States and around the world, we’re joined by Michael Moore, Academy Award-winning filmmaker and activist, and Princeton University Professor Cornel West. "We expect [President Obama] to do the work of the people," Moore says. "The people are not going to go away. So he can either go down as a historic president, who become the FDR of this century, or he can be remembered as the man who was in the pocket of Goldman Sachs." West added, "What we’re trying to do is connect what’s going on on Wall Street with what’s going on in Harlem... If in fact we continue to have this kind of magnificent movement here and around the world, we want to be able to connect the corporate greed not just on Wall Street, but in the military-industrial complex, the prison-industrial complex, and the corporate-media multiplex." [includes rush transcript]


Democracy Now! - Occupy Wall Street

Democracy Now!: Inspired by the massive public protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and Madrid’s Puerta del Sol Square, hundreds have camped out in Zuccotti Park near Wall Street since Sept. 17, 2011, as part of a campaign dubbed "Occupy Wall Street." Developing a common slogan "We are the 99 percent," solidarity encampments and demonstrations have been organized across the United States and the world to call for financial, political and social change. A global day of action on Oct. 15 drew protests in 1,500 cities world-wide, including more than 100 in the United States. #OWS #OccupyWallStreet




Occupy Wall Street September 17,2011 (Testify- Rage Against The Machine )
Uploaded by TheAnonPress on Sep 15, 2011
Message From Anonymous.

Monday, October 24, 2011

death without due process


The United States has reportedly initiated a targeted killing program under which the CIA and the military have the authority to hunt and kill individuals, including U.S. citizens, far away from the battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan and even the Pakistani border regions, and potentially anywhere in the world. The program operates without any checks and balances; all of the essential details about the program remain secret. We do not know what criteria are used to put people on the "kill lists" maintained by the CIA and military, how much evidence is required to add a person to the lists, or whether there are any geographical limits on where individuals can be targeted. The President has, in effect, claimed the unchecked authority to put the names of citizens and others on "kill lists" on the basis of a secret determination, based on secret evidence, that a person meets a secret definition of the enemy.

We are all familiar with how the death penalty works. A crime (usually murder) is committed. It's investigated by law enforcement. A suspect is arrested, charged with the crime, and goes to trial. The government shows the judge or jury the evidence against the accused. The accused can defend against the accusations. The jury delivers a verdict. If it's a guilty verdict, the defendant might be sentenced to death.

The process, from arrest to sentencing, is the Fifth Amendment in action, the part that states: "no person…shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

The Constitution protects all Americans' right to life, whether they're living at home or abroad. If the government thinks you should be dead, it should at least tell you why. The fact that the standard that puts Americans on the "kill list" is a secret is itself unconstitutional. As our complaint states, "U.S. citizens have a right to know what conduct may subject them to execution at the hands of their own government. Due process requires, at a minimum, that citizens be put on notice of what may cause them to be put to death by the state."

(ACLU: Targeted Killings) (ACLU: blog)

Saturday, October 22, 2011

lost horizon


Lost Horizon is a 1933 novel by English writer James Hilton. It is best remembered as the origin of Shangri-La, a fictional utopian lamasery high in the mountains of Tibet.

Hugh Conway, a veteran member of the British diplomatic service, finds inner peace, love, and a sense of purpose in Shangri-La, whose inhabitants enjoy unheard-of longevity. Among the book's themes is an allusion to the possibility of another cataclysmic world war brewing. It is said to have been inspired at least in part by accounts of travels in Tibetan borderlands, published in National Geographic by the explorer and botanist Joseph Rock.

The book explicitly notes having made war on the ground man would now fill the skies with death, and all precious things were in danger of being lost, like the lost histories of Rome ("Lost books of Livy"). It was hoped that overlooked by the violent, Shangri-la would preserve them and reveal them later to a receptive world exhausted by war. That was the real purpose of the lamasery; study, inner peace, and long life were a side benefit to living there.

Conway is a veteran of the trench warfare of WWI, with the emotional state frequently cited after that war—a sense of emotional exhaustion or accelerated emotional aging. This harmonizes with the existing residents of the lamasery and he is strongly attracted to life at Shangri-La. (read more) (world peace)

Friday, October 21, 2011

Thursday, October 20, 2011

skull rock


Mary Blair's concept drawing
of Skull Rock from Peter Pan.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

currency


I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

...Thomas Jefferson...
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)

Where Tears Come From



Where Tears Come From - from Bill Plympton's "I Married A Strange Person!"


In 1998, Bill returned to animation with I MARRIED A STRANGE PERSON. It's a heartwarming story of a newlywed couple on their wedding night. Grant, the husband, starts experiencing strange, supernatural powers and Kerry, his wife, can't cope. Whenever Grant thinks of something, it becomes reality, yet he doesn't know where these magical powers come from. Once again Bill Plympton single-handedly drew and financed an animated feature extravaganza - only this time for adults and the politically incorrect. It was released by Lions Gate Films to good box office numbers and still plays today on cable TV.
I MARRIED A STRANGE PERSON (from Bill Plympton Studio)

It's "Akira" with humor, "Road Runner" with humans, an animated "Pulp Fiction". It's a Heartwarming story of a newlywed couple on their wedding night. Grant, the husband, starts experiencing strange, supernatural powers and Kerry, the wife, can't cope. Whenever Grant thinks of something, it becomes reality, yet he doesn't know where these magical powers come from.

He becomes a hit on the talk-show circuit and Larson Giles, a Ted-Turner-type media mogul, who owns Smile Corp., sends his paramilitary unit, headed by the violent and not-so-bright Colonel Ferguson, to capture Grant so he can control the world-wide media. What follows is one of the most violent and bizarre battles of movie history. The film has scenes of ultra-violence that should offend everyone, and what has been called " the most bizarre and hilarious sex scene ever put to film"

"I Married a Strange Person" was featured in Dramatic Competition at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Prize for Feature Films at the 1998 Annecy Animation Festival. Lions Gate Films released the movie around the U.S. in 1998 and it is now available through Universal Video. The soundtrack and storyboard can be ordered on-line.

top right corner


video clip

banksters: "we're sorry"

L.K.Hanson

Sunday, October 16, 2011