pvjaffe

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The movie is being produced by the Laughing Willow Co. Inc. under the fiscal sponsorship of the Hartley Film Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is “to produce, cultivate, support and distribute  the very best documentary films and videos …about world religions, spirituality, ethics and well-being.” Laughing Willow is an all purpose media production company, working in film, video, music and mixed media.

For the Next 7 Generations:  the Grandmothers Speak is the property of the Center for Sacred Studies and the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmother.  The Center for Sacred Studies is dedicated to sustaining indigenous ways of life through cross cultural spiritual practices, ministry and education, and a commitment to peace and unity for all peoples.

http://www.channelg.tv/pages/about_this_organization/311.php

13 grandmothers from around all the world — the Arctic Circle, North, South, and Central America, Africa, and Asia, arrived at Tibet House's Menla Mountain retreat in Phoenicia, New York for the first Global Grandmothers' Council.

http://www.sacredstudies.org/gwg.html

Many Indonesians who mix religious beliefs with mysticism say an albino water buffalo, like this one in Solo, has special powers.

As Suharto Clings to Life, Mystics See Spirits’ Power
By SETH MYDANS

SOLO, Indonesia — As former President Suharto hovers on the edge of death, some people here say it is not doctors and machines that have kept him alive, but an unseen cosmos of mystical forces.

Mr. Suharto, 86, a committed mystic himself, has rallied more than once over the past two weeks after reaching what seemed to be the end as his lungs, heart and kidneys failed him. His doctors have said they were amazed and baffled by his recoveries.

The diagnosis among believers here in Solo, the heart of Javanese culture, is that powerful occult forces in his body will not let him go, that certain rituals that would cleanse his spirit have not yet been performed or that nature has not yet signaled that it is ready to receive him.

“The power of spirits inside his body is keeping him alive,” said Darsono, 34, a spiritualist here who is said to be able to perform magic, expressing one common view. “Suharto’s life is supported by a mystical power,” added Mr. Darsono, who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name.

( Read more... )

Suharto, Former Indonesian Dictator, Dies at 86

Suharto of Indonesia, whose 32-year dictatorship was one of the most brutal and corrupt of the 20th century, died Sunday in Jakarta. He was 86.

Mr. Suharto had been hospitalized on Jan. 4 with heart, lung and kidney problems, according to medical officials of Pertamina Hospital in Jakarta. His condition worsened dramatically over the weekend and he lost consciousness and stopped breathing on his own, they said.

A statement issued by the chief presidential doctor, Marjo Subiandono, said he was declared dead at 1:10 p.m. The cause of death was given as multi-organ failure.

Mr. Suharto was driven from office in 1998 by widespread rioting, economic paralysis and political chaos. His rule was not without accomplishment; he led Indonesia to stability and nurtured economic growth. But these successes were ultimately overshadowed by his pervasive and large-scale corruption; repressive, militarized rule; and a convulsion of mass bloodletting when he seized power in the late 1960s that took at least 500,000 lives.

As the leader of one of the world’s most populous countries, Mr. Suharto and his family became notorious for controlling state enterprises and taking kickbacks for government contracts, for siphoning money from state charities and for committing gross violations of human rights.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Christian Brando, the troubled eldest son of Marlon Brando, died Saturday morning at a hospital in Los Angeles, a lawyer representing his father’s estate said Saturday. He was 49.

The cause was pneumonia, said the lawyer, David Seeley.

Mr. Seeley said Mr. Brando was taken to the hospital, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, on Jan. 11.

“This is a sad and difficult time for the family,” Mr. Seeley said.

Christian Brando was born May 11, 1958. His father, who died in 2004, was a reigning figure in Hollywood, and Christian Brando had small roles in a handful of movies. But he was better known for his brushes with the law.

He spent five years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in 1990 for killing his half-sister’s boyfriend, Dag Drollet, at the Brando family’s estate.

The Capa Cache
By RANDY KENNEDY

TO the small group of photography experts aware of its existence, it was known simply as “the Mexican suitcase.” And in the pantheon of lost modern cultural treasures, it was surrounded by the same mythical aura as Hemingway’s early manuscripts, which vanished from a train station in 1922.

The suitcase — actually three flimsy cardboard valises — contained thousands of negatives of pictures that Robert Capa, one of the pioneers of modern war photography, took during the Spanish Civil War before he fled Europe for America in 1939, leaving behind the contents of his Paris darkroom.

Capa assumed that the work had been lost during the Nazi invasion, and he died in 1954 on assignment in Vietnam still thinking so. But in 1995 word began to spread that the negatives had somehow survived, after taking a journey worthy of a John le Carré novel: Paris to Marseille and then, in the hands of a Mexican general and diplomat who had served under Pancho Villa, to Mexico City.