Podcasting since 2004; Conversations, conflicts, adventures and monologues from around the world.
Please let me know if you subscribers don’t like finding my vlogs in the same feed as podcasts etc. I realize my vlogs aren’t really educational or relating to important issues, but hey, I have fun making them. This one features entirely too many visuals of my face doing pointless things in the garden.
Music:
My intro is Mingus playing Haitian Fight Song
The main song for this vlog is Joanna Newsome singing Cassiopeia
During a recent press conference when asked why he wanted to go to war so badly, GW Bush told Helen Thomas that no president wants war. Yet this president, like many before him, encourages the development of new nuclear weapons and conventional weapons that can cause more destruction. Today the military announced new tests in Nevada, of a conventional bomb more powerful than any before it. What message do such developments send to the world, regarding the longterm goals of the nation? How does it effect the growing conflict between the US and Iran?
Lots of audio from Operation Ivy, the US military experiments developing the H-Bomb.
Guardian Article on the Nevada Tests
Normon Solomon, in 2001
The Downwinders
Senator Harry Reid’s Campaign Contributions
Music –
We Are Scientists – Bomb within a Bomb
Operation Ivy – Bombshell
Streetlight Manifesto – Here’s to Life
Steve Earl – Rich Man’s War
The Stars – Soft Revolution
etc etc
For we of the four day work week, the weekend has arrived. Which is good cause its 2am and I’m exhausted from my various jobs as well as podcasting til 3am last night. However, tomorrow will be time to take on the garden, as recently nature freed up some space and now I have room to plant and sun.
But before I go off to dreamland I wanted to talk about my new hero of videoblogging. Obviously I have lots of vlog idols, they’re all in my blogroll, as you can see with your own pretty eyes. However, I was watching some French vlog last week and the dude mentioned vinvin’s Bonjour America. I thought, that sounds fun, let’s go see…
What I discovered is my new favorite vlog. It is hilarious and fun, two things I usually don’t get enough of amidst my concern for the state of the world. VinVin explains all things French to the world, especially to Americans. But it’s the style he does it with, it has me spitting up my cereal every morning as I go through the new vlogs. Specifically I refer you to his episode where he makes a Big Poll of French People regarding the US, and then his epic French Cheese Project where he puts Blair Witch to shame.
VinVin, I salute you! Readers and new video blog watchers — Subscribe to Bonjour America!
It was more than a decade ago, March 24th 1989, when Exxon’s oil spilled into the Prince William Sound. Everyone remembers the images of the dead sealions and otters being picked out of the toxic sludge and thrown into the fire. But who remembers the fallout, as the community imploded and their industry choked to death along with the ecosystem. And what of the verdicts in the trials that followed, against Exxon who has since added a dash Mobile and boasts record setting profits year after year. Join me and exceprts from the well produced Sierra Club TV video blog, to examine and relive the Exxon-Valdez.
Music–
Ill list it when I wake.
It sounds like a dessert. But really you should never bite into it, because it probably tastes like fat, sweaty, old men. No offense to the sweaty fat guys out there, it’s not all your fault. But if there’s one thing I like about the Israeli parliament, is that you only need 2% of the vote for your party to get some seats.
I was just thinking about this as they count up the votes and smile for the cameras; say you’re a bunch of old retired people? You can just get together, go door to door, or maybe just stroll the halls of the retirement home, and after lots of work, maybe you’ll get your 2%! Voila, suddenly the old retired party has some seats for the big show; and you’ll be banging your fist against the table and running over other parliamentarians toes with your wheelchair in no time! Oh wait – that already happenned… they’re called the Gimla’ey Yisrael LaKneset. Hows that for representation? – fun!*
So the old people got a few seats and as I scan down the list past the big mainstream parties, I see they’ve got a communist arab party with some seats, a religious arab party with some seats, a social democractic party, a party united around the Torah, and then a bunch of religious parties with very long and scarey names. Scarey to me, they could actually mean “Milk and Cookies for Everyone in Israel party”… something about Hebrew that makes even milk and cookies look aggressive to me.
Anyway they’re counting the little sheets of paper and the numbers are rolling in. And you don’t need me to tell you who won and who is an unpopular, never going to be prime minister again, zero-personality, war mongering, far-right jerk. You’ve got the media and plenty of blogolas to tell you that stuff. I’m just hoping the Amsterdam cable system can hook me up with live coverage of the Knesset from now on – it’ll be more interesting than Idols.
* This is not sarcasm, I actually think this is much cooler than a certain OTHER type of government system.
Sometime during one’s primary and secondary education, for those of us lucky enough to have gotten both, we probably learn some things about poetry. It may not be much or it may not always stick with us, but hopefully there was a teacher who was passionate enough about poetry to awaken the appetite of the student to better understand and enjoy poetry.
Unfortunately for me it didn’t take very well. Ask me to name my favorite poet, and I’ll probably pretend I know alot by naming those all familiar names, Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, etc. I can’t recite more than a single line from either of those two great poets, which I consider to be a pity. The only poetry that stuck with me a bit better was Portuguese poetry, which I learned about doing several years of summer courses at the University of Lisbon. But even then I never felt I fully understood it. In hopes that I might one day better grasp them, I keep a Mia Couto and a Luis de Camões book on my shelf.
Beyond that, when it comes to poets from around the world, my own education never seemed to mention much beyond North America and Europe. One might use the excuse that the world is too big, but I still hope that as the world becomes smaller and closer, poets such as Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin, Ethiopia’s beloved playwrite and poet laureate, will be read in many classrooms worldwide. I heard of his death last week and then took time to search for bloggers writing about his life’s work and it’s importance within Ethiopia and around the world.
I won’t even try to pretend I know enough about him to pass onto to all of you. Instead I refer you to Weblog Ethiopia, Things We Should Have Written Down, and for those who still like mainstream media: The New York Times. After reading them, I’ve made a mental note to read any translations I can find of his work, to one day teach my children.
AudioCommunique #117 (mp3)