bm268 Teenagers and HIV-AIDS in Thailand

An interview recorded in Bangkok with an HIV-AIDS organization that works with children and teenagers.

The Quintessential China-US Debate

I’ll start the week by pointing you to a very excellent edition of On the Media, one of my absolute required-listening podcasts each week – Journalism with Chinese Characteristics. And the subtext of the post reads as follows:

There is real investigative reporting in China, it?s just not done under a free press flag. Instead, practitioners mind an unstated set of rules, keeping themselves safe by employing tactics like using excessive jargon and exploiting government rivalries…

The program itself doesn’t present particularly new facts or opinions about China.? If anything, in the last few years, there is no shortage of Chinese voices in international media talking about how China isn’t what you might remember from the movies or old stereotypes. That the country is modernizing fast and people have alot of new freedoms that are comparable to whatever you have in the west.? That said, OTM provides a nice group of voices who communicate their experiences and opinions in a manner worthy of listening to.

What gets me about the interviewees in this podcast is that they come back to the classic China-US comparison talking point: The freedom criticism.? So they point out how strange it is that there are “free Tibet” protests on the streets of the US, and yet the US occupies Iraq and has guantanamo bay.? To which there are no protests on the streets of China saying “Free Iraq.”? The arguement brushes over the well known hypocracy and goes right for some kind of lack of reciprocity.

My response would simply be as follows, once and for all let it be said, that it is our right and responsibility as human beings on this earth, to protest and engage in some form of acknowledgement whenever and wherever human lives are being destroyed and opressed.? Moreover, that you might be American and on the streets protesting what takes place in Tibet, does not mean you automatically believe your own government is doing just fine and you support the occupation of Iraq.? Hell, you probably attend those demonstrations as well.? But protesting human rights violations in another country does not require that you live in a country where human rights are perfectly respected and it shouldn’t result in silencing dissent anywhere in the world.

Just because you have the capacity to repeat all the terrible mistakes and crimes of the western world, dear China, does not mean you should.

30 Days Animal Rights

Lots of you will remember the documentary film “Supersize Me” directed by Morgan Spurlock.? After seeing that film all those years ago, I became an admirer of Spurlock’s work and a frequent reader of his defunct blog. Some years after Supersize Me, he started production on the show “30 Days” which aired on the FX cable network in the US. Though I wasn’t around to watch it on TV at that time, I remember reading Morgan’s recounting of how production was going and of course, through the magic of the internet, I was able to get my hands on the entire first season.

The show itself is about spending 30 days in someone else’s shoes.? Someone else- usually meaning someone who lives differently or opposite what one person might see as normal or correct.? Or just different somehow.? The higher message in this show seems to have always been to make you see things differently, and understand some of the often misunderstood lifestyles and life circumstances.

Now in its third season, the most recent episode dealt with an avid hunter and meat eater, living 30 days with a Vegan family working as an animal rights activist.

Initially it may seem like this isn’t going to be worth anything or even interesting.? The gentleman is very polite and very candid about his opinions about animals and activists, and seems like the month will be nothing but disagreements and unspoken hatred.? As an audience member it probably all seems a bit forced, cause of course – it is for television.

But the animal rights episode has some very interesting moments, no matter how made for TV it may have been.? Example, riding along with an animal rescuer, who patrols factory farms for sick and abused animals, taking them to a rescue farm where animals are rehabilitated and allowed to live without abuse.? The video footage captured just from outside the fences of factory farms in California was nothing short of shocking, even if you think you have seen animals in some gross situations.? It was also interesting to hear the debates between the family and the gentleman, about diet, about the place of animals on earth and in our lives.? It wasn’t that he was proven wrong or that he was totally converted, what got me was how this man was able to have discussions and both make points and aknowledge points he had not fully considered previously.

I highly recommend 30 days. Not every episode or situation is golden, but when it is good.. it is great.? The kind of programming we should show our high school and grammer school students, to stimulate a more developed understanding and questioning of what is presented to us as reality.

If you use bittorent at all, here’s a link to the Torrent for the latest episode of 30 days.

bm267 Empowering Cambodian Children with Friends International

Friends International is a very unique organization doing some very revolutionary work in an often overlooked part of the world with the most overlooked people on this planet- street children. While in Phnom Penh I stumbled upon one of their restaurants by luck and asked about doing an interview.  One day later, I was sitting down with Sébastien Marot, the international coordinator of friends international.  Following the interview, he introduced me to actress, activist and concerned citizen Leslie Hope who also sat down for a drink with me to talk about the film she had just completed about Friends entitled – What I See When I Close My Eyes.  After this surprise interview, I joined them both at the film screening and had one of the more unforgettable nights of my visit to Cambodia.

Music in this episode:

  • The Breeders – Wicked Little Town
  • Utah Phillips – Kid’s Liberation
  • Phil Ochs. – Outside of a Small Circle of Friends

Evidence to Convict A Murderer

Many visitors to this site and readers of this blog are no doubt listeners or watchers of democracy now, perhaps the most important 60 min of audio one can consult in the average day.  Well last friday’s show is one I had to listen to a second time.

People often fall back on slogans like, “the past is the past” and “its time to move on” whenever you bring up an uncomfortable or unresolved conflict.  I hear it very often in both the mainstream media and mainstream political conversations when it comes to impeaching the president.  Beyond impeachment, even the demand to arrest the current president of the United States and his inner circle on the charge of mass murder and fraud seems to have become some crazy idea, too far fetched to be worthy of discussion.

Why exactly doesn’t anyone want to talk about it? That part isn’t so clear.  People are still dying everyday while carrying out his orders.  An entire nation is still living under occupation while their national funds are being held hostage by that same administration.  The US itself is, even as I write this, being drained of all its resources, wealth, and young minds, again for the whims of that same president. But perhaps like Eddie Izzard used to say, when one murders tens of thousands it is as if people don’t know what to do with you or how to respond.

Last friday’s democracy now featured the man who led the case against Charles Manson, the infamous American serial killer.  He’s now laid out the case against George W. Bush, for the crime of murder; mass murder. To learn the details of the case itself is important and worth your time, so give it a listen.

What I found particularly eye opening was the document called “the manning memo”.  This memo, written by a Tony Blair advisor, provided details of the conversations that included Bush, Blair, and Condi Rice among others.  In those details it is revealed by Manning, that Bush was worried that the case for war in Iraq was too weak, and he discussed a plan to fly a US air force plane low over Iraq, painted with UN colors and insignias.  In doing so it would provoke Iraq to fire, and the plane’s destruction would outrage the international community and further garuntee the desire to go to invade the country.

The evidence of the murders and fraud was already significant, but looking at the manning memo and seeing the premeditated, fraudulent, and blantent thirst for blood, this cabal needs to be arrested and kept from comitting anymore murders or other haneous acts.  The world cannot wait for the next election, just as you don’t wait 6 months before picking up a serial killer til he is finished with his current job. This is not a time for moving on, or keeping the past in the past… this is the present and there is a series of criminal acts that got us here, and something must be done about it.

bm266 Finding Cambodia’s Lost Culture

Bophana is an organization based in Phnom Penh, dedicated to finding and archiving video, audio, and text documentation of Cambodian culture.  Throughout the decades of war and the destructive Khmer Rouge regime, much of the nation’s audio-visual archives were lost. But Bophana has taken on the task of gathering this material, from private individuals in the country, or institutions and film companies abroad.  I was given an informative tour and a demonstration of how the archive works, later we recorded this podcast interview.

We Discuss:

  • What is Bophana
  • Who is behind this organization
  • Why should Cambodia need such a place
  • Types of activities and areas of interest
  • Funding sources, funding problems
  • Difficulties with finding skilled workers for this type of work

Music:

  • Apostle of Hustle – Folkloric Field
  • Kanye West – Heard’em Say