by Brooke Crothers
Intel will try to mainstream thin laptops that take design cues from tablets, company executives said, as the chipmaker launches the new blueprint at the Computex trade show on Tuesday. The "Ultrabook" will combine the performance of a laptop with "tablet-like features" in a "thin, light and elegant design," Intel Executive Vice President Sean Maloney said in a statement. Maloney, the newly named chairman of Intel China, is scheduled to speak at Computex on Tuesday. Attributes of the Ultrabook design--which Intel is advocating as guidelines for PC makers--are enticing. The thickness cutoff for an ultrabook will be 20 millimeters or about 0.8 inches. With 20mm as the upper limit, designs that exceed these guidelines are emerging already at Computex. The Asus UX21 Ultrabook (below) debuted at Computex, is 17mm at its thickest point...[continued]
Archive for May 2011
by LINDSEY BAHR
Chicago got a slap in the face earlier this year. The team behind Christopher Nolan's Batman movies announced that the third installment was set to film in Pittsburgh—not Chicago, where the first two films were shot. Whether the reasons for the switch were monetary or aesthetic may never be clear, but from Nolan's inventive use of the LaSalle Street corridor to show a semi truck flip, to his reimagining of Lower Wacker as the seedy and literal underbelly of Gotham, Chicago was as much of a character in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight as Michael Caine's Alfred...[continued]
Very few folks have the power to green-light a picture in Hollywood. None of them are black. But these power players are finding a way to make films on their own terms.
by By: Nsenga K. Burton, Ph.D.
Blacks and film have been in the news quite a bit as of late. You've got the feud between Tyler Perry and Spike Lee, and the romantic comedy Jumping the Broom not only beating out mainstream romantic comedies but also coming in third behind monster hits Thor and Fast Five during opening weekend. One might wonder how a rom-com could become controversial, but Jumping the Broom did just that when CBS's The Early Show left the "movie that could" out of its summer preview of movies about weddings. Thor courted its share of controversy, with the filmmakers and Idris Elba -- who was cast as Heimdall, a Norse god -- being pummeled by right-wing zealots for "cross-casting." And the complexity of being black and Muslim was examined, finally, in Sultan Sharrief's Bilal's Stand and Qasim Basir's Mooz-lum...[continued]
They've survived blazing buildings, boardroom walk-outs and brutal cuts. But black theatre company Talawa are still celebrating
by Nosheen Iqbal
Ask Yvonne Brewster how much the theatre industry has changed in 60 years, and the founder of Britain's most high-profile black theatre company says: "Darling, when I started out, people would rub my skin to see if the colour came off." Rose Bruford, the influential drama tutor, told Brewster (her first black female student) that she should "never expect to work". She did, of course, and in 1972 put on a London production of CLR James's The Black Jacobins, a play about Haiti in the 18th century, only to find her sold-out venue burnt down. "The Jamaican government were funding this grand production that picked up terrific steam with audiences across London. After a few weeks, there were queues of people around the block in Cricklewood. The next night, the venue was mysteriously set on fire."...[continued]
By Kevin Drum
Like me, you've probably been hearing for years that small businesses are the engine of job creation in the United States. But that's an outdated view. The number of new startup businesses has declined sharply since the beginning of the recession, while the number of jobs created by startup businesses has been declining for over a decade. As this chart from the BLS shows, the number of jobs created by new businesses peaked in 2000, began declining at the start of the Bush administration, and has been plummeting ever since...[continued]
By WILL BUNCH
FOR 46-YEAR-OLD Frank Wallace, the lowest moments while being unemployed for most of the past three years may not even be when he ran out of jobless benefits this past January, falling behind on his rent and applying for food stamps. No, the worst thing may be the human cattle shows billed as "job fairs." "You have these organizations advertising dozens of employers with hundreds of positions," said Wallace, of South Philadelphia, once a purchasing manager for a Center City law firm. "But when you get to the hotel or convention center, the room is only half-filled and there are empty...[continued]
A highly addictive hallucinogenic has exploded on to South America's drug scene, with devastating consequences
by Tom Phillips in Rio Branco
The snakes come at night, darting out of the shadows and into Marcelo's subconscious. "You start thinking, 'There are people coming! The police are coming! A snake is coming! Everything is coming!' You panic. But there is no snake. No police. There's nobody there. There's nothing. You're just tripping out." Marcelo is an illiterate 24-year-old drug addict whose home is a sliver of cardboard on the streets of Rio Branco, a riverside city in the Brazilian Amazon. His drug of choice is oxi, a highly addictive and hallucinogenic blend of cocaine paste, gasoline, kerosene and quicklime (calcium oxide) that is wreaking havoc across the Amazon region...[continued]
From Nicolas Garcia
Misrata, Libya (CNN) -- Jose Emmanuel Piaggesi was a teacher in Argentina, but now the piercing staccato of gunfire punctuates his conversations. The 23-year-old has traded books for bullets, saying Che Guevara inspires him as he fights alongside Libyan rebels in Misrata. He is ready to give his life in the battle to end Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's nearly 42-year rule...[continued]
Charity says era of permanent food crisis will hit poorest people hardest and spark social unrest
by Felicity Lawrence
The average price of staple foods will more than double in the next 20 years, leading to an unprecedented reversal in human development, Oxfam has warned. The world's poorest people, who spend up to 80% of their income of food, will be hit hardest according to the charity. It said the world is entering an era of permanent food crisis, which is likely to be accompanied by political unrest and will require radical reform of the international food system...[continued]
by Jessica Kwong
Laura Salcedo waited at the checkout line of her local grocery store in the Mission District to purchase milk, chicken, soap, some cleaning agents and a pack of corn tortillas. She speaks very little English, but knew the cashier could assist her in her native language. "Son treinta con cincuenta y cinco centavos," the cashier said, as Salcedo pulled out cash to pay the exact $30.55...[continued]
n24our- Cat and Dolphin playing together. Theater of the Sea, a marine animal park in Islamorada, Florida in 1997. The dolphins are Shiloh and Thunder and the cat is Arthur.
HBCU athletic teams are disproportionately sanctioned for poor academic performance. What gives?
By: Deron Snyder
Fifty or so years ago, before they became commonplace at major colleges such as Louisiana State, the University of North Carolina and the University of Florida, the nation's top African-American student-athletes played at HBCUs such as Grambling, North Carolina Central and Florida A&M. Professional scouts knew where to find them, too, traveling to black schools to watch future all-time greats on the basketball court, football field and baseball diamond. But HBCUs no longer serve as black athletes' primary pipeline to the pros. That function is left to big-time programs in the major conferences regularly featured on TV. Fine. Part of progress includes the right to attend any school, and if prime-time athletes largely abandoned HBCUs, so be it. However, it's not fine if HBCUs fail to adequately educate the athletes they receive...[continued]
Cold blue (azadehbanai) | Above the tracks (azadehbanai) | New York City from the Empire State Building (cabbit) | Big Sky (Danny Singer) | title unknown (foreveralone!) | PHONE CALL (jean-fabien) | IMG_1261x (sigmondzoltan) | Double Trouble (Amy Cringeneck) | Clouds over the Space Needle (lopolis) | Down the Street (Dawid Werminski) | new york, new york (krebesco) | Delta ( Jomo) | title unknown (Yoshikawa Hiroyuki) | De Bamako à Dakar (LaChainedelEspoir)
Another good thing about the summer season is that it doesn't look the good series start until July and June is full of OVA/OAD releases so it'll be easy to pick things off early and play catch up with the Spring season until July. As usual there is more of the same old same old this summer as well so it's not looking like I'll end up picking up a lot of stuff unless it looks like it's fun when I see reviews on 4chan and other places. With that this is what I'll be picking up.
ANIME SERIES --
Appleseed XIII: Well it looks like a CGI overload series and I don't know if this is a series, a movie a large OVA series or what exactly I'm still willing to give this one a shot at making me want to care about Appleseed again. The people look like shit CGI but the rest looks good maybe the story will make it more watchable.
Blade: Iron Man was OK Wolverine fizzled out and X-men is just sitting there so really why am I punishing myself thinking of watching this one? Well because I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment and because god damn it I don't have G4 TV anymore.
--no preview yet--
Blood -C: More from The Blood series of School Girl Vampire killing Monsters done up by CLAMP (hellow long legs anime) and Production I.G. It's worth a shot dang it.
Manyuu Hikenchou: This will by the summer seasons fanservice guilty pleasure as it revolves and large breasted ninja ladies. Enough said I think.
No. 6: It looked promising but it's heavy on the BL so I don't know how much I'll like this one as I'm not a fan of the BL scene.
Sacred Seven: I need some mecha action and this might fit the bill, trailer looked somewhat promising so I'm going to give it a shot for now.
And with that I'm done with the anime series that I'm thinking about watching. I might add some I might drop some but for now that's what I find interesting. Now on the other hand the OVA specials and one offs well looks like I'll finally be finishing off some stuff there as well.
OVA/OAD Specials --
Air Gear -- Break on the Sky: Third OVA of awesomeness
Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail: Will finally finish with the fifth OVA.
--no preview yet--
Fairy Tale OVA 2: A high school themed OVA that looks like it'll be funny.
--no preview yet--
Kiss X Sis: Can't help myself but will the ban have any effect on it?
--no preview yet--
Kore wa Zombie desu ka?: Really enjoying the series so it's only natural to pick up the OAD.
--no preview yet--
by Narasu Rebbapragada
An e-book that costs the same as a printed book doesn’t feel right. No trees died to make it. No heavy machinery ran to print it. No planes flew to ship it. You might need to buy one of those new $139 Barnes & Noble Nooks, announced this week, to be able to read it. So why should you have to spend as much as you would for a heavy hardcover book to own it? Blame the latest phase of the digital content revolution, now more than ten years strong. As first happened with music, then movies, then print news, the book publishing industry is experiencing a shake-up of rules and roles. In particular, the changing relationship between the book publisher (the company that creates books) and the book retailer (the company that sells books) is causing a chain reaction of confusion, mistrust, and price hikes.The good news is that this phenomenon is inspiring enterprising startups to rethink aging models of book pricing. The bad news is that it’s pissing people off...[continued]
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- Online hackers have pirated the PBS website and posted a false story claiming the rapper Tupac Shakur -- who has been dead for almost 15 years -- is alive and living in New Zealand. The group -- called The Lulz Boat -- also posted what it said were passwords of journalists, login information for the PBS series "Frontline" and sensitive information about PBS stations. The Lulz Boat claims it was "less than impressed" after watching the network's program "WikiSecrets" and "decided to sail our Lulz Boat over the PBS servers for further... perusing."...[continued]
The Arab uprising has given many people across the Middle East previously unknown access to freedom of expression. Young people in the region have been given a voice. But can they make money from it? Katy Watson reports on the Middle East rappers trying to make money from their music...[continued]
BY DANIEL CHANG
Miami’s budding world of poetry and spoken-word performance lost a defining voice early Sunday after gunmen shot and killed local poet Will “Da Real One’’ Bell outside the North Miami cafe where he had plied his trade for years and given a venue to countless other wordsmiths.
Bell, 47, whose performances have been featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, had just closed his business, the Literary Cafe and Poetry Lounge on 933 NE 125th Street, at about 12:40 a.m. and was walking to his car nearby when another car occupied by at least two men pulled up beside him, said Lt. Neal Cuevas of the North Miami Police Department...[continued]
More than just sex shops and gangsters...
Quartier Pigalle @ Wikipedia
Crime is down, but these cities are still dangerous
Detroit tops list of the 10 places where violence combines with poverty
By Douglas A. McIntyre, Michael B. Sauter, Charles B. Stockdale
Last week, the FBI trumpeted the news that violent crime dropped 5.5 percent in 2010 while reported property crimes fell 2.8 percent during the depths of the worst economic slowdown since the Great Depression. The news, though, is far from positive.
Though most regions of the U.S. saw declines, the Northeast saw an increase in murders (8.3 percent), forcible rapes (1.4 percent) and aggravated assaults (0.7 percent). Why that region was affected by crime more than others isn’t clear. Perhaps it was because of the grinding poverty found in some of the area’s cities and their high cost of living...[continued]
by Richard Gaywood
Last week saw a major new product announcement from Google: the new "Google Wallet" will allow people with compatible mobile phones to use them to pay for goods and services in shops with a simple wave of their hand. This follows a number of in/out/in/out/shake it all about rumors that this "NFC" stuff might be included in the next iPhone. So what is NFC and why should you care? Sit back, grab a cup of coffee, and I'll explain...[continued]
by Charlie White
Valuations of social media companies are starting to remind us of 1999. But are they overvalued? Now that Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion, LinkedIn’s IPO valued the company at $8.9 billion after its first day of trading, and Facebook’s estimated value is pushing $100 billion, you might be starting to wonder if buying into user numbers rather than revenue is a good idea. Social media site G+, a community of professionals, entrepreneurs and academics, put together this detailed infographic that lays it all out in front of you. Take a look at these valuations and let us know in the comments if you think this is getting out of hand...[continued]
So I've had two computers that I got from work that were just going to be thrown out so I picked them up and brought them home. Roommate laughed and said those are just going to sit around for a while now aren't they. Well I proved him wrong as I dismantled the older one for spare parts (for sale by the way) and I checked the other computers power supply which I believed to be the reason it wasn't working and sure enough that's the only problem the computer had. So a new power supply, a reformat and clean install of Windows XP later I have a new computer.
That means that finally MoNAC has it's own computer as I'm giving the group my old one that way no one has to bring their own laptop and the group now doesn't have to rely on a couple people to bring equipement to the meetups (when ever we start those up again). And with the clean install of windows I can finally blog realiably from my desktop computer and I don't have to rely on the laptop to do posts. So maybe I'll get around to doing more blogs again. It just took me all weekend to get the new computer to work right though.
But that wasn't the only thing I did the week or weekend. Well actually during the week it was mostly just work and getting things ready to tear into on the computer. The guys from MoNAC picked up the tots for the Anime Oasis meetup that I didn't go to because I was busy with the computers and a bit drunk as I was nursing some Stella Artois while I worked and read the newest Article on RAUH-Welt Begriff which you can check out on the car blog.
Also since the roommate took the RX8 I got to use the garage to check out the underside of my car, the brakes and suspension on the car and I was surprised what I saw. I have a very slight leak from the oil and power steering but nothing like the old Lumina. It's the power steering as well that I believe is making the noise when I have the tires turned to lock but I did notice a crack in the passenger side CV boot so it also might be that as well. Thankfully I still have some pad left on the brake pads though so don't need to replace those just yet. I'll really need to replace the tires first and get an alignment as I have some neg camber going on in the back good enough to round off one of the tires.
Not to bad though I thought there was going to be more. I also found out that if the fuel pump ever goes out it'll be much easier to fix as it's outside of the gas tank but the fuel filter looks like a serious pain in the ass. So now I'm just chilling and writing my weekly review and completing the setup of the new computer. Found some good videos this week as well.
Awesome Anime Trailer
It's Gumball 3000 time again
It's hard not to find this lady's videos very interesting
- Karl Marx @ Wikipedia
- Karl Marx, part 1: Religion, the wrong answer to the right question
- Karl Marx, part 2: How Marxism came to dominate socialist thinking
- Karl Marx, part 3: Men make their own history
- Karl Marx, part 4: 'Workers of the world, unite!'
- Karl Marx, part 5: The problem of power
- Karl Marx, part 6: The economics of power
- Karl Marx, part 7: The psychology of alienation
- Karl Marx, part 8: Modernity and the privatisation of hope
Soviet state-run cinema was fast, furious and fun before the dead hand of Stalin called time on experimentation and entertainment
by Owen Hatherley
A fast and furious chase, full of physical gags and gangsters, with jokes at the expense of American imperialism. A hallucinatory horror, where ordinary objects take on a life of their own, scripted by a literary theorist. A bed-hopping love triangle, simmering in a cramped flat. A big-budget science fiction spectacular, full of futuristic sets and bizarre, revealing costumes. A workers' strike, depicted via special effects and pratfalls. A film about film-making itself, with no plot, no words, no narrative, which is somehow the most thrilling film you'll ever see. A film about collective farming with full-frontal nudity and inscrutable, poetic metaphors. A film about mutinous sailors that manages to accidentally invent the action film as we know it...[continued]
Higher Education Statistics Agency reveals number of black professors in UK universities has barely changed in eight years
by Jessica Shepherd
Leading black academics are calling for an urgent culture change at UK universities as figures show there are just 50 black British professors out of more than 14,000, and the number has barely changed in eight years, according to data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency. Only the University of Birmingham has more than two black British professors, and six out of 133 have more than two black professors from the UK or abroad. The statistics, from 2009/10, define black as Black Caribbean or Black African...[continued]
Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan will be sworn on Sunday. Mr Jonathan has made solving Nigeria's electricity crisis his biggest priority. In a country blighted by power cuts many Nigerians have had to get used to a life where the lights don't work. Jonah Fisher reports from Lagos...[continued]
by Erica Swallow
Your resume is boring. How do you expect to stand out in a crowd of job seekers when your black-and-white, list-formatted resume and formulaic cover letter blend with all the rest? Luckily the Internet is here to save you. With the coming of social media resumes, video resumes and visual resumes, the world of job seeking just got a lot more interesting. If you’re looking for ways to make your resume stand out — whether that’s on your personal website, video hubs, document-sharing websites or LinkedIn — here are some ideas to get you started, along with examples for each format. If you’ve posted your resume online in a creative way, share a link and your story with us in the comments below...[continued]
by Brooke Crothers
Using the 11.6-inch MacBook Air and the iPad 2 on a daily basis is an ongoing study in high-mobility computing and the pros and cons of both devices.
First, some general comments about the Air's performance. As many reviews have already stated, the smallest MacBook Air proves that you can squeeze relatively fast hardware into an extremely small package. My 2.3-pound Air with an Intel 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo chip and 4GB of memory is plenty fast for me. (And I shouldn't neglect to mention the Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics silicon, which helps to keep things snappy)...[continued]
So lets see what I can dig up on this lovely lady that I just happened across on a random post on the Scanlover forum. Hell I looked all over and couldn't find even a wiki link for the girl. Thankfully her RQ-Star profile is still there so I have some stats on her.
She was a Race Queen for Faust Racing during 2008 and 2009 which I believe is a Team for Super Taikyu that ran a 2nd gen 996 GT3 Cup car. After her stint as a Race Queen she did a few gravure idol videos and photosets for different companies but soon after that she dropped off the gravure idol radar to pursue other adventures I'd think. She does update her blog regularly though if you want to see what she is up lately. OK after looking at her blog I think I found the answer to why she may have taken a break...she's a MILF...er I mean mommy.
Now lets check out her stats and get on with the pics and vids
Birthdate -- Nov 9, 1986
Birthplace -- Tokyo
Bloodtype -- O
Height -- 167cm (5' 6")
Measurements -- 88-56-84cm (35-22-33in)
Cup Size -- ?
Hobbies -- Baking, playing with her dog
Skills -- Swimming and house work
Now lets get to some picture links eh
Scanlover Forum has a few links about her SF1, SF2 and SF3
Random Japanese RQ blog with a few pictures
DVD release photoset from ACII.jp
Saori's Club
Saori also has a group of pictures on JJgirls you do have to watch out for what you're click on with that site though.
Met Week has her BWH sets for you to look at.
Out of all the places the only one with still working download links was X-idol which also has some video downloads as well.
Speaking of videos lets see what we can find on YouTube and other sites as well.
RussiaToday- More than 100 people were injured in Spain as riot police clashed with protesters on Friday, as authorities cleared away a makeshift camp set up as part of a Spain-wide demonstration against the country's economic problems. The trouble started when police tried to clear the protesters from a main square in Barcelona. Many of the protesters, who are angry about high unemployment, anti-austerity measures and politicians' handling of the economy, refused to move. Video from a local broadcaster showed officers beating the demonstrators and dragging them on the ground.
CNN/Money - Running a successful small business is hard. But these eight kid entrepreneurs are showing that it's just child's play.
Leanna Archer decided she wanted to become a hair care mogul at the ripe old age of 11. ''The idea came to me when I received tons of compliments about my hair and I knew it was thanks to my homemade products,'' said Archer. ''I had nothing to lose, because I figured that if it didn't work out I still had my whole life ahead of me.''...[continued]
by Mfonobong Nsehe
Kamal Budhabatti is a name you should probably register in your mind for posterity reasons. This is a man who is set to conquer the world. The unassuming Indian-Kenyan entrepreneur is working relentlessly towards putting African software on the global map, and he is succeeding. Kamal is the founder and CEO of Craft Silicon, a Kenyan software company with a local base and global aspirations that is steadily making inroads in the world of financial technology...[continued]
By Louise Redvers
In a rare climbdown, the Angolan government has withdrawn controversial legislation severely restricting how people use the internet. It was scrapped this week at the eleventh hour when the government removed it from parliament moments before it was due to be voted into law. Under the proposal, which had already passed a first round of voting, it would have been illegal to share information electronically that could "destroy, alter or subvert state institutions" or "damage national integrity or independence"...[continued]
by Steve Tack
The trend is clear: first Google announced it will factor website load time into its PageRank and AdWord rankings. Then the revamped Google Analytics added a SiteSpeed metric. Now Google has just introduced PageSpeed, an open-source project that analyzes web page content and suggests changes for faster performance. Why all this focus on speed?...[continued]
Your Call Is Not Important to Us
Free Web applications are great, but don't expect good customer service when they break.
By Farhad Manjoo
I've never been shy about declaring my feelings for Gmail. Two years ago I called it "the best email program ever." Last summer, when Google launched Priority Inbox, a feature that automatically identifies important messages, I poured on even more praise. But even those fulsome declarations of love don't quite describe the depth of my commitment to Google's email application. I check Gmail a million times a day. It's not just that I spend more time on Gmail than I do with any other program or website—I spend more time on Gmail than I do with television, books, magazines, and my wife and kid...[continued]
Is the Champions League final going to be the last hurrah for Barcelona, soccer's greatest team?
By Brian Phillips
For the past three years, soccer has been dominated, utterly and ruthlessly, by a reign of Spanish prettiness. Spain's national team won Euro 2008 with a rapturous mix of intricate passing and outrageous goal-scoring, then repeated the feat, albeit less dazzlingly, at the 2010 World Cup. Meanwhile, F.C. Barcelona took many of the same Spanish players—plus Lionel Messi, the Argentine superstar who's lived in Spain since boyhood—on a fey romp through worldwide club soccer. In the three years, the Barcelona players have won three Spanish league titles, three domestic cups, a Champions League title, a UEFA Super Cup, and a FIFA Club World Cup. They routinely embarrassed their archrivals at Real Madrid—6-2 in 2009, 5-0 earlier this season. And they did all this while perfecting a style, based on ceaseless motion and hypnotic ball movement, that seemed implausibly gorgeous for something so devastating. Infinitely patient until the moment when they weren't, Barcelona's stars murdered their opponents with the slow grace of leaves falling in a forest...[continued]
- Gil Scott-Heron @ Wikipedia
- US musician and poet Gil Scott-Heron dies at 62 [BBC]
- The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - Gil Scott-Heron
- Gil Scott Heron "Winter In America" (1974)
- B Movie - Gil Scott Heron
- Gil Scott-Heron - Whitey on the Moon
- Gil Scott Heron - Washington D.C
- Gil Scott-Heron - 'I'm New Here' (official video)
- Gil Scott-Heron was more than the 'Godfather of Rap' [theGrio]
Soft drug policies of Netherlands make it popular with tourists
AMSTERDAM — The Dutch government on Friday said it would start banning tourists from buying cannabis from "coffee shops" and impose restrictions on Dutch customers by the end of the year. The Netherlands is well known for having one of Europe's most liberal soft drug policies that has made its cannabis shops a popular tourist attraction, particularly in Amsterdam...[continued]
by SHAYA TAYEFE MOHAJER
LOS ANGELES — Porn performers in California would be required to use condoms in sex scenes if draft rules from state workplace safety officials advance out of the proposal phase. Cal/OSHA officials provided the Associated Press with a 17-page draft proposal that contained sometimes graphic details of the bodily fluids, waste matter and other materials that porn actors must protect themselves against to avoid infection...[continued]
graduationfail- UMUC's graduation speaker, Richard Jones, decided to improvise his way through his speech. He had some very good thoughts on thoughts. Transcript unavailable because all who volunteered to transcribe audio quit after three minutes of viewing.
Richard T. Jones @ Wikipedia
by RICHARD HARRIS
Countries tend to have personalities just like people do. Researchers have set out to define those differences, using a scale that measures how tight the social rules and standards are. They find that cultural rules — as simple as when and where it's appropriate to kiss — are often shaped by a nation's experience with war, disease and other challenges. The idea for this study really dates to the 1960s. Back then, an anthropologist decided to evaluate a few dozen obscure cultures and see if he could rank them on a scale from "tight" to "loose." He defined tight cultures as having a lot of rules, which people violate at their peril. Loose cultures are more relaxed in their expectations, and more forgiving of people who deviate...[continued]
Critics of foreign aid to Africa say that much of the assistance goes to waste. But author and economist Charles Kenny sees things differently. Kenny, who writes a weekly column for ForeignPolicy.com as "The Optimist," points to improvements in the quality of life for many Africans in recent decades and says the progress is at least partially attributable to development assistance. Kenny is a senior economist on leave from the World Bank and a fellow at the Center for Global Development and the New America Foundation. He spoke to AllAfrica about his recent book, "Getting Better: Why Global Development is Succeeding—and How We Can Improve the World Even More"...[continued]
Israel's navy is casting its net wider and deeper in an effort to stop Gaza militants from receiving weapons by sea, a difficult mission made harder, Israel says, by political turmoil in Egypt and the Egyptian decision to fully reopen its border crossing with Gaza.
By ARON HELLER
HAIFA, Israel —
Israel's navy is casting its net wider and deeper in an effort to stop Gaza militants from receiving weapons by sea, a difficult mission made harder, Israel says, by political turmoil in Egypt and the Egyptian decision to fully reopen its border crossing with Gaza. In recent weeks, Palestinian militants in Hamas-ruled Gaza have aimed rockets at Israeli cities, far enough away that Israel is convinced the projectiles came from abroad, probably Iran...[continued]
by PETER KENYON
The unrest in neighboring Syria has the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on edge. Thousands of refugees have poured over the border, the demand for weapons is skyrocketing, and the pro-Syrian Alawite minority is warning of chaos if Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime falls. Though Hezbollah is the best known of the pro-Syrian actors in Lebanon, residents in Tripoli are more worried about the Alawites, members of the same minority that has ruled Syria for more than 40 years. Their numbers may be small, but they are well-armed and fiercely loyal to Damascus...[continued]
by Kristina Wischenkamper and reviewed by Derek Hanson
Started in Spain, the movement has reached Europe and for the moment nudges at France. From the Internet direct to the street; there is no middleman. Here’s how this movement was born and how it uses its tool: the Internet. No trade union, let alone a political party. The workings of traditional dispute are outmoded, and even deliberately excluded. Internet, through the exchange in real time via social networks and chats, has allowed the emergence of a spontaneous free and radical protest movement by a generation that’s had enough...[continued]
Here are revolutionaries who, in their death or retirement, have been used to represent the sorts of things they spent their lives opposing.
By Stokely Baksh and Jamilah King
It’s a sad, but predictable cycle: an outspoken person of color captures the world’s attention with a powerful call for justice—sometimes offering his or her life to the cause—and years later winds up on some well-meaning kid’s t-shirt. Or on the walls of your local Apple Store. And now, on the side of a Navy cargo ship. Over the past four decades, it seems that nothing sells better than revolution...[continued]
By Darrell Etherington
iPad users aren’t stingy with their devices, according to a new usability report by the Nielsen Norman Group focusing on Apple’s tablet. In fact, iPad owners who lived with one or more individuals reported that they shared their iPads freely, unlike the iPhone. The report also illuminated many things we like and don’t like about the apps we use on our iPads...[continued]
Area 51 was not the site of extraterrestrial landing, but rather a Russian hoax, says investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen.
By Associated Press
The world famous Roswell "incident" was no UFO but rather a Russian spacecraft with "grotesque, child-size aviators" developed in human experiments by Nazi doctor and war criminal Josef Mengele, according to a theory floated by investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen. Her book, "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base," is about the secretive Nevada base called Area 51. One chapter offers the new Roswell theory, citing an anonymous source who says Joseph Stalin recruited Mengele and sent the craft into U.S. air space in 1947 to spark public hysteria...[continued]
Area 51 @ Wikipedia
by CRAIG LEMOULT
In the 1800s, a man wearing a head-to-toe leather suit walked a 365-mile circuit between the Connecticut and Hudson rivers, sleeping in cave shelters and completing his journey in precisely 34 days. And he kept it up for years. No one knows who he was or why he did what he did, but the legend of the Old Leatherman still fascinates. This week, archaeologists and historians set out to solve the mystery by exhuming his body. But their efforts have only deepened the mystery...[continued]
Tens of thousands of Spanish protesters are demonstrating across the country calling for better economic opportunities, a more representative electoral system, and an end to political corruption. The pro-democracy protests started on May 15 in Madrid when people gathered in the central plaza to advocate for change, calling the budding movement “Toma la Plaza,” or “Take the Square.” In the past week, protests have spread to more than a dozen cities across Spain. The country has the highest unemployment rate in Europe—nearly half of its population under 30 years old is jobless. Protesters are sustaining their decentralized movement through donations of food, fuel and even computers. Daily assemblies democratically vote on all decisions, and local committees are assigned different tasks, from cleanup operations to legal affairs. We speak with independent journalist Maria Carrion and protest spokesperson Ivan Martinoz in Madrid.
Millions of African- and Caribbean-born people are missing from the immigration-reform conversation. A few of them tell The Root that they will not be shut out.
By: Cynthia Gordy
On March 11, at a press conference on Capitol Hill, Tolu Olubunmi came out publicly as an undocumented immigrant for the first time. "It's been nerve-racking because it puts me at a risk," the 30-year-old told The Root about her speech supporting Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin's (D-Ill.) reintroduction of the DREAM Act. The bill, which passed in the House last year but failed to clear the Senate, would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented youths like her, brought to the United States as children. "But I think you have to focus on the individuals to get away from the politics of an issue that's so divisive. Once you know that there are real people attached to the statistics, then you have to start working on real solutions." Olubunmi, who was born in Nigeria, is also one of 3 million black immigrants in this country. Despite moving from Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America at a remarkable rate -- and despite an estimated 400,000 having undocumented status -- they are barely footnotes in an immigration-reform conversation that is usually framed as a Mexican-border issue. But in light of newer, smaller-but-growing communities, as well as recently granted protected status for Haitians in particular, black immigrants are becoming stronger voices, advocating for reform from their diverse perspectives...[continued]
The Associated Press
Egypt's decision to end its blockade of Gaza by opening the only crossing to the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory this weekend could ease the isolation of 1.4 million Palestinians there. It also puts the new Egyptian regime at odds with Israel, which insists on careful monitoring of people and goods entering Gaza for security reasons. The Rafah crossing will be open permanently starting Saturday, Egypt's official Middle East News Agency announced. That would provide Gaza Palestinians their first open border to the world in four years, since Egypt and Israel slammed their crossings shut after the Islamic militant Hamas overran the Gaza Strip in 2007...[continued]
by MARTIN KASTE
President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron repeated Wednesday their demand that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi leave power. That's no simple matter: Gadhafi and his family have run Libya for four decades, and their departure could create a dangerous power vacuum. If Gadhafi goes, there will be many challenges for the rebels to deal with. The rebels already have some on-the-job training running Libya — or at least running eastern Libya, which they now control. So far, they've been keeping people happy with money...[continued]
Nairobi — Most Somalis, especially in the capital, Mogadishu, have always lived amid war and joblessness. More than half the country's population was born after the 1991 ouster of Mohammed Siad Barre that sparked the country's slide into anarchy. "This is a group of people who have never known anything other than conflict and violence," Ahmed Dini, a civil-society activist involved with children and young people's welfare, told IRIN on 24 May...[continued]
Raindrops Over Rwanda @ Facebook
Join students and faculty for a screening and discussion of "Raindrops Over Rwanda" with Charles Annenberg Weingarten, founder of Explore.org, and Honoré Gatera, head tour guide at the Kigali Memorial Centre and a genocide survivor. In 1994, more than one million people were killed in the Rwandan genocide, a three-month event of unimaginable violence and despair. In this heart-rending documentary, the Explore team travels through present day Rwanda with Gatera, a remarkable young man who guides the viewer through historically significant sites and casts his unique firsthand perspective on the story of how the genocide unfolded. More importantly, he shares his vision for the future of Rwanda. Just fifteen years later, with emotional scars still raw for countless Rwandans, is forgiveness possible? The discussion will be introduced by University Professor and Annenberg Family Chair in Communication Leadership Geoffrey Cowan.
An entertaining and revelatory "secret history" of Feminist Art, !Women Art Revolution deftly illuminates this under-explored movement through conversations, observations, archival footage and works of visionary artists, historians, curators and critics. Starting from its roots in 1960s antiwar and civil rights protests, the film details major developments in women's art through the 1970s and explores how the tenacity and courage of these pioneering artists resulted in what is now widely regarded as the most significant art movement of the late 20th century. For more than forty years, filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson (Teknolust, Strange Culture) has collected a plethora of interviews with her contemporaries—and shaped them into an intimate portrayal of their fight to break down barriers facing women both in the art world and society at large. With a rousing score by Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein, !W.A.R. features Miranda July, The Guerilla Girls, Yvonne Rainer, Judy Chicago, Marina Abramovic, Yoko Ono, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, B. Ruby Rich, Ingrid Sischy, Carolee Schneemann, Miriam Schapiro, Marcia Tucker and countless other groundbreaking figures. !W.A.R. opens in theaters in early June 2011
