Tuesday 21 July 2009
Natalia Estemirova: UPDATE
I just received this email from Rosa @ Newsy.com
Hi Mona,
I read your memorial post about human rights activist Natalya Estemirova where you report about her kidnapping and brutal murder. I think you will find the following video relevant to your post.
http://www.newsy.com/videos/fighting_for_human_rights_with_life
It describes Estemirova’s life’s work and uses news coverage from different media outlets to make the case that the human rights worker was murdered by the state.
I think it is relevant to your post and I hope you will consider embedding the video in Exile on Moan Street. This story has been buried in the press and blogs like yours honor her memory by publicizing her cause.
Newsy.com videos analyze and synthesize news coverage of important global issues from multiple sources. Its unique method of presenting how different media outlets around the world are covering a story provides context to help viewers understand complex global issues.
Thanx Rosa for sending me the link and if some more people get to know of Natalia's story then I am glad to have been of help.
Here is the video:
Hi Mona,
I read your memorial post about human rights activist Natalya Estemirova where you report about her kidnapping and brutal murder. I think you will find the following video relevant to your post.
http://www.newsy.com/videos/
It describes Estemirova’s life’s work and uses news coverage from different media outlets to make the case that the human rights worker was murdered by the state.
I think it is relevant to your post and I hope you will consider embedding the video in Exile on Moan Street. This story has been buried in the press and blogs like yours honor her memory by publicizing her cause.
Newsy.com videos analyze and synthesize news coverage of important global issues from multiple sources. Its unique method of presenting how different media outlets around the world are covering a story provides context to help viewers understand complex global issues.
Thanx Rosa for sending me the link and if some more people get to know of Natalia's story then I am glad to have been of help.
Here is the video:
Is this the man who killed Neda?
Arash Hejazi (the Doctor and eyewitness of Neda dying, the guy who was trying to help her in video) a few days after had an interview with BBC. People in the street went to the guy who shot Neda and took his ID cards, he said. He added “it is possible to recognize the killer if someone publishes that ID cards.”A few weeks later, the above pictures have surfaced on the net tho'nobody could confirm if those belonged to the killer.
Now Dr. Arash Hejazi says at his blog that we have the right man and that this IS is the killer.
Watch the video here.
Green Brief 32
Green Brief 32
Doug Wimbish - Doug Jam (1990)
Doug Wimbish, solo bass in Southern Studios 1990.
From the forthcoming On-U Sound documentary.
Brendan - this is what I was talking about!
From the forthcoming On-U Sound documentary.
Brendan - this is what I was talking about!
The Last of Heath
"When Heath Ledger died a year and a half ago from an accidental mix of prescription drugs, he was deep into filming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus with his friend and mentor, director Terry Gilliam. From Gilliam, the crew, and other insiders, the author gets an exclusive account of Ledger’s final months—a pressure cooker of arduous filmmaking, personal turmoil, and chronic insomnia—and of how the 28-year-old star’s last movie was rescued by a trio of friends: Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell."Monday 20 July 2009
Lee Scratch Perry with Dubblestandart and Ari Up | NYC @ BRKLYN YARD 18 Jul 2009
One day before his huge Summerstage appearance at New York City's Central Park, Lee Scratch Perry played a secret show in Brooklyn at the BRKLYN YARD. Billed as Dubblestandart plus very special guest the Austria/Jamaica connection was joined by Ari Up of The Slits for the final encore, Equal Rights & Justice.
For a longer edit in higher resolution please go here.
For a longer edit in higher resolution please go here.
Sleater - Kinney
'Jumpers' Live on Letterman.
'You're No Rock'n'Roll Fun'
One of the best live bands I have ever seen...sadly missed.
'You're No Rock'n'Roll Fun'
One of the best live bands I have ever seen...sadly missed.
Too true
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE
1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we
rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter real ice cream and drank Coca Cola with sugar in it, but
we weren't overweight because
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on (if there were streetlights)
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down
the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays,
made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!
Team sports were compulsory and not everyone made the first team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned
HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!
"Sense and Sensibility...and Sea Monsters"
Following on from 'Pride & Prejudice and Zombies' comes the new classic. Available September 15th.
Details here.
For A - who just doesn't get it..."Why?"
Details here.
For A - who just doesn't get it..."Why?"Thirty-six army officers arrested in Iran over protest plan
Hashemi Rafsanjani at Friday prayers under the pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini, left, and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Photograph: Meisam Hosseini/APThe Iranian army has arrested 36 officers who planned to attend last week's Friday prayer sermon by former president Hashemi Rafsanjani in their military uniforms as an act of political defiance, according to Farsi-language websites.
The officers intended the gesture to show solidarity with the demonstrations against last month's presidential election result, which was won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but which has been clouded by allegations of mass fraud.
Rafsanjani used the sermon at Tehran university to challenge the authority of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by questioning the result in the presence of the defeated reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and tens of thousands of his supporters.
Security forces used teargas and arrested dozens of those in attendance in a sign of the authorities' nervousness over the event.
The officers were rounded up on Friday morning by army intelligence agents who had caught wind of the plan. They are said to have been arrested at their homes and taken to an unknown location.
Peiknet, a Farsi website, said the officers had agreed the action at a weekly prayer meeting the night before at the Shah Abdolazim religious shrine in Shahr-e Rey, on Tehran's southern outskirts. "They decided to attend the Friday prayer in their military clothes as a sign of protest against the cruel massacre of people by the basij and revolutionary guards and to show their objection against this process and support for the people," the site said. It named 24 of the officers, who included two majors, four captains, eight lieutenants, six sergeants and four warrant officers.
The arrests expose the authorities' sensitivity to signs of mutiny among the various branches of the security forces.
Reports last month suggested that a senior revolutionary guard commander, General Ali Fazli, had been arrested for refusing to obey orders to suppress protests against election result. The reports were later denied but some sources say Fazli remains under pressure to toe the line.
While the army is considered to be secondary in importance to the revolutionary guards in the regime's military hierarchy, it is still under the command of Khamenei, who yesterday appointed a cleric, Hojatoleslam Mohammad Ali Al-e Hashem, as the new head of its political ideology section.
Khamenei has declared the election result fair and overseen a fierce crackdown that has led to at least 2,000 arrests and a death toll the government puts at 20 but which some human rights groups say could be in the hundreds.
@ 'The Guardian'
The officers intended the gesture to show solidarity with the demonstrations against last month's presidential election result, which was won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but which has been clouded by allegations of mass fraud.
Rafsanjani used the sermon at Tehran university to challenge the authority of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by questioning the result in the presence of the defeated reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and tens of thousands of his supporters.
Security forces used teargas and arrested dozens of those in attendance in a sign of the authorities' nervousness over the event.
The officers were rounded up on Friday morning by army intelligence agents who had caught wind of the plan. They are said to have been arrested at their homes and taken to an unknown location.
Peiknet, a Farsi website, said the officers had agreed the action at a weekly prayer meeting the night before at the Shah Abdolazim religious shrine in Shahr-e Rey, on Tehran's southern outskirts. "They decided to attend the Friday prayer in their military clothes as a sign of protest against the cruel massacre of people by the basij and revolutionary guards and to show their objection against this process and support for the people," the site said. It named 24 of the officers, who included two majors, four captains, eight lieutenants, six sergeants and four warrant officers.
The arrests expose the authorities' sensitivity to signs of mutiny among the various branches of the security forces.
Reports last month suggested that a senior revolutionary guard commander, General Ali Fazli, had been arrested for refusing to obey orders to suppress protests against election result. The reports were later denied but some sources say Fazli remains under pressure to toe the line.
While the army is considered to be secondary in importance to the revolutionary guards in the regime's military hierarchy, it is still under the command of Khamenei, who yesterday appointed a cleric, Hojatoleslam Mohammad Ali Al-e Hashem, as the new head of its political ideology section.
Khamenei has declared the election result fair and overseen a fierce crackdown that has led to at least 2,000 arrests and a death toll the government puts at 20 but which some human rights groups say could be in the hundreds.
@ 'The Guardian'
Oh dear! Part 4 (but it really should be so much more...)
Pat Buchanan's infamous appearance on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show discussing the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor.
"Buchanan is right. This white man is full of resentment."
(@ 'Daily Kos' via 'The New Disease')
(@ 'Daily Kos' via 'The New Disease')
Jeez, I am getting old. Was it really 40 years ago today?
Lots of audio and video files relating to the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, can be found
here.
I was a wee 9 year old kid down from Glasgow staying with some friends of my Mum's in Crystal Palace, London and I am sure that the film that they showed on TV before the landing was 'Tora! Tora! Tora!'
here.
I was a wee 9 year old kid down from Glasgow staying with some friends of my Mum's in Crystal Palace, London and I am sure that the film that they showed on TV before the landing was 'Tora! Tora! Tora!'
Sunday 19 July 2009
Black Vinyl: Putting Healthcare on the Map
... [Poets] appeal to the reader to catch the writer's spirit, to think with him, if one can or will, an expression no longer of fact but of his sense of it, his peculiar intuition of a world - prospective or discerned below the faulty conditions of the present... - Walter Pater
We excel in creating arbitrary lines on maps; delineating countless villages, towns, cities, counties, states, and nations from one another. These arbitrary lines exert influences on our lives subtle or great. For many they are the difference between life and death.
An unseen ruler
Defines with geometry
An unrulable
Expanse of geography
An aerial photographer
Over-exposed
To the cartologist's 2D
Images knows
The areas where the water flowed
So petrified the landscape grows
Children die everyday in America, the richest nation on earth, for lack of healthcare. Some of these kids live just a few dozens of miles from Canada - a place with national healthcare. The difference is even greater comparing Mexico to the United States. San Diego is just twenty miles from Tijuana, but the arbitrary line that divides the lives of their respective citizens is of unimaginable consequence. Even within nations arbitrary lines determine our lives - from the schools we attend to the doctors we see to the politicians that represent us.
Straining eyes try to understand
The works
Incessantly in hand
The carving and the paring of the land
The quarter-square the graph divides
Beneath the rule a country hides
Wire, a British art-punk band from the 1970's, wrote a song that doesn't directly address this issue, but that I've always associated with it, Map Ref. 41°N 93°W, from their album 154 released in 1979.
Chorus, interrupting my train of thought
Lines
Of longitude and latitude
Define, refine
My altitude
Perhaps the reason is because poetry is not dead, but is visible most prominently today in song lyrics. And, as postulated by Walter Pater, the poet creates a sense of an idea and doesn't have to spell it out exactly. Ambiguity, metaphor, interpretation: I choose to interpret this as a song about arbitrary lines on the map.
The curtain's undrawn
Harness fitted, no escape
Common and peaceful, duck, flat, lowland
Landscape, canal, canard, water-coloured
Crystal palaces
For floral kings
A well-known waving
Span of wings
Witness, the sinking of the sun
A deep breath of submission has begun
Of course I’ll never understand why the song’s title has map coordinates that point suspiciously close to Des Moines, Iowa.
Interrupting my train of thought
Lines
Of longitude and latitude
Define, refine
My altitude
Songwriting credits go to Colin Newman, Bruce Gilbert, and Graham Lewis of Wire. As always, lyrics are as I hear them after repeated listenings.
Kidz party mix # 1 - The Muppet Mashups
The other day the Spacebubs accompanied me on an outing around his local op-shops...and well instead of looking around the CD's and books like I usually do, we just ended up dancing in front of the radio instead.Of course the music (commercial radio station whatever) was crap so...
Here is the answer:
DJBC's 'Muppet Mashup'
The editorial team here at 'Exile' are off to a party...
'J. SPACEBUB'S 2ND ANNUAL BIFFDAY BASH!'
To get you in the mood, I leave you with this:
To get you in the mood, I leave you with this:
Saturday 18 July 2009
Banksy in Africa
“Although believed to have been painted at the start of the year, images of Banksy’s street pieces in Africa are only now beginning to circulate. These great pieces are thought to be in Mali.”Brilliant!!!
YES!
THEY HAVE DONE IT AGAIN!
THE BEST IDEA (ALMOST) EVER
(AT LEAST UNTIL THE NEXT ONE)
WHO? WHAT? WHERE?
THEY HAVE DONE IT AGAIN!
THE BEST IDEA (ALMOST) EVER
(AT LEAST UNTIL THE NEXT ONE)
WHO? WHAT? WHERE?
Shaolin Grand Master Tai Djin
Tai Djin was born in Fukien, China in 1849. His parents, not knowing what caused their baby’s hairiness, abandoned him in a forest. Tai was found by a monk who took him to the Shaolin Temple where he was cared for by the Shaolin Masters. Tai grew up to be highly educated, knowing he wouldn’t have much of a life outside the temple. He threw himself into learning martial arts -not just one discipline, but all of them! Tai achieved the title of Grand Master and is known from that point on as Su Kong Tai Djin. He was revered by his many students until (and even after) his death in 1928.(At 'Mental Floss' via 'Daily Dish')
Using Legos to repair building cracks
@ Urban PranksterLove it! But then one of the highlights of my life was going to 'Lego Land' in Denmark when I was a kid!
Iranian updates (keep refreshing page#49)
Cleric Says ‘Crisis’ Has Caused Loss of Public Trust@NYTimes
Tear gas being shot in front of Karroubi
Photo of the attack on Karroubi earlier today causing his turban to come off!Watchdog accuses Iran of arresting photographers
PARIS (Reuters) - Iran has arrested at least seven photographers since its disputed presidential election, with the most recent arrests occurring less than a week ago, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said on Friday.
Images of blood-smeared protesters have captured the drama of the unrest provoked by last month's election result and footage of the death of a young Iranian woman, Neda Agha-Soltan, has become an icon of opposition protests.
"The Tehran regime is scared of images. The authorities have launched a real hunt on visual reporters so that no professional photo or video of sensitive subjects will leave the country," the Paris-based organization said in a statement.
Iran crushed the protests and in early July said most of the people arrested during the events had since been released.
Reporters Without Borders, an organization campaigning for press freedom, said five photographers were arrested less than a week ago.
It said the photographer Mehdi Zabouli was arrested on June 20, and his Franco-Iranian colleague Said Movahedi, on July 9.
Photographers Tohid Bighi, Majid Saidi, Satyar Emami, Marjan Abdolahian and Koroush Javan were arrested on July 11, it said, and at least five others have been injured by police or militias.
Four days after the election, Iran banned foreign media journalists from filming or taking photos of the protests, or even leaving their offices to cover the events.
(Reporting by Sophie Hardach; Editing by Angus MacSwan)@Reuters
Iran Arrests Prominent Women's Rights Lawyer - Husband
TEHRAN (AFP)--A leading Iranian lawyer and women's rights campaigner, Shadi Sadr, was arrested on her way to Friday prayers in the capital that were attended by scores of vote protesters, her husband said.
"Shadi called me from an unknown location and said she was arrested by plain clothes officials who forcefully got her into a car," Hossein Nilchian told AFP.
He said Sadr was accompanied by her friends and she was the only one taken away.
Sadr, 34, is a well-known women's rights activist and has campaigned against one of Iran's internationally condemned practices of death by stoning for adulterers. She has defended several such convicts as a lawyer.
Thousands of supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi demonstrated in Tehran streets after the weekly Muslim prayers led by influential cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Iran has jailed dozens of journalists, political activists and reformist leader in the wake of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in a June 12 poll.
At least 20 people have died in clashes with security forces and hundreds of opposition protesters have also been detained.
Rafsanjani Friday called for the release of the detainees.
@Bourse
TEHRAN (AFP)--A leading Iranian lawyer and women's rights campaigner, Shadi Sadr, was arrested on her way to Friday prayers in the capital that were attended by scores of vote protesters, her husband said.
"Shadi called me from an unknown location and said she was arrested by plain clothes officials who forcefully got her into a car," Hossein Nilchian told AFP.
He said Sadr was accompanied by her friends and she was the only one taken away.
Sadr, 34, is a well-known women's rights activist and has campaigned against one of Iran's internationally condemned practices of death by stoning for adulterers. She has defended several such convicts as a lawyer.
Thousands of supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi demonstrated in Tehran streets after the weekly Muslim prayers led by influential cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Iran has jailed dozens of journalists, political activists and reformist leader in the wake of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in a June 12 poll.
At least 20 people have died in clashes with security forces and hundreds of opposition protesters have also been detained.
Rafsanjani Friday called for the release of the detainees.
@Bourse
Love the official blue filter so you can't see the 'Sea of Green'!
Even the leaves on the trees are blue!
Iranian updates (keep refreshing page#48)
Incredible scenes this morning at Friday prayers in Tehran. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani used strong language in his sermon, saying debate over the election should be re-opened. Opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi was sitting in the front row, his first public appearance in weeks.
Eyewitnesses tells ABC News thousands of Moussavi supporters are rallying near Tehran University and that police are responding with violence. One eyewitness told me she and her mother were beaten, and not just by the paramilitary basiji but also by regular police who had been less aggressive in recent demonstrations.
This is significant. Iranians had been on pins and needles to see what Rafsanjani would say. Some right-wing newspapers indicated – and some opposition supporters worried – that Rafsanjani would capitulate but he didn’t. This is the clearest sign recently that the conflict is far from over inside the Iranian leadership. Other hard-liners, such as former candidate Mohsen Rezaei, have also refused to pronounce the dispute over. (Rezaei is known as an opportunist who likes to bend with the political winds so the fact that he’s hedging his bets is another sign the opposition isn’t a spent force.) And to see thousands of supporters in the streets – even bigger than the crowds on July 9 anniversary of the 1999 student uprising – shows the street protests are far from over either.
#iranelection via #nir "Forces unable to stop or control masses marching towards TV Station."
Friday 17 July 2009
On the streets of Tehran again... (Refresh)
Renewed Protests, Violence Reported In Tehran
A photo the Associated Press received from an individual in Tehran, showing a man said to have been injured during today's clashes. AP photo
By Mark Memmott
"Clashes erupted ... in central Tehran" today, Reuters reports.
The wire service says there was violence involving "police and followers of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi."
It quotes one witness as saying "police fired tear gas and beat supporters of Mousavi in Keshavarz Boulevard."
The Associated Press says that "pro-government Basiji militiamen in front of a line of riot police fired tear gas at hundreds of opposition protesters who changed 'death to the dictator' and called on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to resign."
This followed a sermon today by former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who called for the release of those who have been arrested during previous protests over the disputed June 12 presidential election, which Mousavi and his supporters believe was rigged in favor of Ahmadinejad.
At the Los Angeles Times' Babylon & Beyond blog, there's video that's said to show "crowds of angry opposition supporters" reacting to Rafsanjani's sermon.
The Guardian is reporting that:
Outside Tehran University police fired teargas at Mousavi supporters who were demanding the release of detainees in the biggest anti-government protest since the mass demonstrations that immediately followed the contested election. At least 15 people were arrested, witnesses said.
Tehran Bureau has a photo it says shows Mousavi at the Friday prayers service where Rafsanjani spoke.
As during previous days of demonstrations, Twitter is lighting up. Several folks have pointed to this YouTube channel, which is posting what it says are video clips from today's scenes in Tehran.
#IranElection: There are 100s of videos from today's protests. CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC - where are you? less than 20 seconds ago from web
نماز جمعه ،۲۶ تیر ، خیابان فلسطین
With reports of over a million people on the streets with again violent clashes, this time while the Friday prayers were apparently taking place.
Rafsanjani's Friday Prayer Sermon
Rafsanjani's Friday Prayer Sermon
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