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Joe Clifford in the Providence Journal--Telling Statistics
You'll rarely see anything like this in the ProJo. Thanks and congratulations to Joe Clifford for his diligent research and persistent efforts over many months. (Prediction: Before the end of the week letters will appear in the ProJo denouncing this.) Providence Journal, 2008 Feb. 25: Joseph Clifford: What about Israeli outrages?The Feb. 5 editorial "Give Gaza back to Egypt" is an example of media misinformation and manipulation that has caused many thinking people to look for alternative information sources. Israel was characterized as being under attack by Palestinians with no attention to the facts on the ground. Readers should consider the following facts, which are invisible in mainstream U.S. media.While current figures are difficult to attain, B'Tselem reports about 4,300 Palestinian deaths vs. about 1,000 Israeli in 2000-2007. During the past two months over 160 Palestinians died while not one Israeli was killed. While one Israeli is being held prisoner, Israel maintains almost 11,000 Palestinian prisoners, and has illegally demolished 18,000 homes. Israel illegally holds and continually confiscates Palestinian land, which explains why it has been condemned by the U.N Security Council and the General Assembly more than any nation in history. While the U.S. and Israel insist Hamas is a "terrorist" organization, much of the world does not agree and views Hamas as a legitimate resistance organization. That aside, at the insistence of both U.S. and Israel an election was held in Palestine, which Hamas won. Immediately, the U.S. and Israel embarked on a policy of starving Palestinians for voting the "wrong way" — so much for "democracy." ( Read more... ) |
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Jonathan Power: "Why NATO Should Get Out of Afghanistan
TO: Distinguished Recipients FM: John Whitbeck Transmitted below is some sensible advice regarding Afghanistan from Jonathan Power. It is no accident that Afghanistan is one of only a handful of today's non-European countries (roughly a dozen) that were NEVER conquered and colonized by any of the European empires. It was not because the empires didn't try. ( Read more... ) |
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Bad Chemistry
by Nancy Franklin  LLUSTRATION: Edwin FotheringhamDesert Sturm: Bryan Cranston as the troubled hero of “Breaking Bad.” Breaking Bad,” a new drama on AMC, was created by Vince Gilligan, who was a writer and producer of “The X-Files” for most of its life, and the two series are like night and day. The work of Mulder and Scully, the two F.B.I. agents who investigated the paranormal in “The X-Files,” seemed always to take place in the cool eeriness of nighttime, and was about darkness—the unseen and the unexplainable—and the possibility that “the truth is out there.” “Breaking Bad” isn’t about possibility—in this series, the truth is right here, and it’s ugly, and it’s made uglier by the harsh daytime light of Albuquerque, where the show takes place. Though we are often in a suburban setting, in ordinary middle-class houses, some of the action does occur in the desert, and over all there is a bleached-out look, a glare, to the show; you feel you should be watching it through Ray-Bans, to keep out the desert dust and the unforgiving light. Really, it is we who should not forgive the light, for the way it makes the world look. ( Read more... ) |
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Photograph by Harry Benson.
Photograph by Harry Benson.  Amy’S Circus |
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Winehouse’s voice can sound like aural blackface, but her range and variety resist definition. Photograph by Harry Benson.
s there anything surprising about Amy Winehouse’s being awarded five Grammys this month? A cynic might say that her ability to stay alive is startling, but Winehouse’s worrying series of relapses and collapses could simply be a trick of the light. Actors and singers were misbehaving vigorously before the advent of radio; Winehouse may seem like such a dedicated tearaway because the lens recording her movements is wider than anything a sixties celebrity would have encountered, doesn’t switch off, and continually feeds a twenty-four-hour newsstand. (Winehouse is one of the five or six celebrities—mostly women—whose every action has been “serialized,” to borrow the phrase Harvey Levin used to describe the coverage of Britney Spears on his Web site, TMZ.com.) Winehouse’s misadventures—walking in London barefoot in her bra at dawn, spitting on the set of a TV game show, drawing blood in a “spat” with her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, being filmed smoking what appeared to be crack, heckling Bono during an awards ceremony, stints in rehabilitation facilities—
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Mirella Ricciardi
http://www.mirellaricciardi.com/africa.h Mirella Ricciardi
Mirella Ricciardi: Diary of an African Photographer. "...Born in Kenya, then still a colony of British East Africa, to an Italian father and a French mother, Mirella Ricciardi grew up on the shores of Lake Naivasha in a household which was both sophisticated and wild. She was married at twenty-five to the Italian adventurer Lorenzo Ricciardi, who swept her off her feet and hired her as the photographer on the film he was making in East Africa. She bore him two children, both girls. Marina, their eldest daughter, died of cancer at the age of thirty-six. |
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Frank Paulin
Frank Paulin
Frank Paulin: Out of the Limelight at Bruce Silverstein Photography. "...the first retrospective exhibition of work by the New York based street photographer Frank Paulin. Featuring over one hundred prints produced during the last half of the 20th century, including over fifty vintage works from his 1957 exhibition at Helen Gee’s famed gallery and café Limelight, this exhibition unveils the work of an important American documentarian." |
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VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: We have to work the dark side, if you will. We’re going to spend time in
VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: We have to work the dark side, if you will. We’re going to spend time in the shadows. Taxi to the Dark Side”: Exposé on US Abuses in “War on Terror” Wins Oscar for Best Documentary Alex Gibney joins us to talk about his Academy Award win for his documentary Taxi to the Dark Side. The film investigates some of the most egregious abuses associated with the so-called “war on terror.” AMY GOODMAN: Did you catch the Oscars on Sunday night? In his opening bid, host Jon Stewart poked fun at Senator John McCain and his suggestion that US troops should stay in Iraq for the next century. JON STEWART: Not all films did as well as Juno, obviously. The films that were made about the Iraq war, let’s face it, did not do as well. But I am telling you, if we stay the course and keep these movies in the theaters, we can turn this around. I don’t care if it takes a hundred years, withdrawing the Iraq movies would only embolden the audience. We cannot let the audience win. ( Read more... ) |
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Noam Chomsky: Why is Iraq Missing From 2008 Presidential Race?
Noam Chomsky: Why is Iraq Missing From 2008 Presidential Race?In a major address, Noam Chomsky says there has been little change in the conventional debate over a U.S. invasion abroad: from Vietnam to Iraq, the two main political parties and political pundits differ only on the tactics of U.S. goals, which are assumed to be legitimate. On the other hand, public opposition to war has also remained consistent, Chomsky says, but whether Iraqi or American—ignored.Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will face off tonight in their final debate before the crucial primaries in Ohio and Texas next week. Over the past few days, the two Democratic candidates have traded barbs over trade, foreign and domestic policies as the rhetoric from both campaigns heats up. Since the presidential race began well over a year ago, Iraq has been one of many topics of debate. However, the war has not been the central issue of the campaign as it was in the midterm elections in 2006 and there are still more than 160,000 US troops deployed in Iraq. Why is this the case? That was the subject of a recent talk by Noam Chomsky. A professor of linguistics at MIT for over half a century, Chomsky is the author of dozens of books on US foreign policy. His most recent is called “Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy.” We spend the rest of the hour with Noam Chomsky. He recently spoke before a packed audience in Arlington, Massachussetts at an event sponsored by Bikes Not Bombs. Noam Chomsky, Professor of linguistics at MIT for over half a century, Chomsky is the author of dozens of books on US foreign policy. His most recent is called “Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy.” http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/26/no |
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A Twice-Told Tale of Addiction: By Father, by Son
Nic’s book, “Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines,” is a first-person account of his drug addiction, which began while he was still in high school (where he learned to shoot up from studying a diagram on the Internet) and lasted for more than a decade.  Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
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Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai of Kenya attends the opening of the Svalbard Global Seed Va
Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai of Kenya attends the opening of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault Tuesday Feb. 26, 2008. The "doomsday" seed vault built to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars and natural disasters opened Tuesday deep within an Arctic mountain in the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. (AP Photo/John McConnico)
By DOUG MELLGREN
LONGYEARBYEN, Norway -- A "doomsday" seed vault built to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars and natural disasters opened Tuesday deep within an Arctic mountain in the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. "The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is our insurance policy," Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told delegates at the opening ceremony. "It is the Noah's Ark for securing biological diversity for future generations." ( Read more... ) |
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Natalia was born in Nizhny Novgorod, one of Russia's largest city, 300 miles east of Moscow. She liv
Natalia was born in Nizhny Novgorod, one of Russia's largest city, 300 miles east of Moscow. She lived in one of Nizhny's poorest districts with her mother and two half sisters, one of whom is an invalid. As a child, she worked with her mother selling fruits on the street. To help her family out of poverty, as a teenager she began her own fruit stand with a friend. When she was 17, she saved enough to enroll in a modeling academy in Paris. Natalia Vodianova --> http://nakedheart.org/
Naked Heart Foundation, my project to build 500 playgrounds throughout Russia (nakedheart.org). |
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