Podcasting since 2004; Conversations, conflicts, adventures and monologues from around the world.
Over the weekend a modest but passionate group of European Videobloggers got together for the 5th time in 5 years. While the world of video online didn’t quite turn out how we had hoped or perhaps how we had thought, we still gather to discuss issues as well as reminisce about the past and what may come.
Instead of trying to further explain it, I’ll end on a lighter note, with a video of me being remixed by my good friend and videoblog veteran Raymond who was in town from Norway.
He does what? – People often ask whenever I mention Lewis Gordon Pugh. He swims the arctic, I tell them again. Why? – is always the next question.
When you sit across from Lewis Gordon Pugh for just a few minutes, you understand why immediately. You also understand you’re in the presence of someone who puts his entire life on the line for a global problem he is passionate about tackling.
Lewis’s concern about climate change and the urgent need to do something about it take him beyond the freezing waters of the arctic, as he explains in this interview, he is also concerned for the rapidly melting ice in the Himalayas, water that 1/5 of the world’s population lives on. Thus setting the stage for his next swim, a lake formed from a melting glacier on Mount Everest.
If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Lewis’ work, visit his website. I highly recommend seeing the video of his arctic swim.
A recent podcast on this site was dedicated to telling the story of the Azeri videobloggers/youth activists who were attacked, arrested and held on a hooliganism charge. At that time their sentence had still not been decided. In this past week the verdict was handed down, Emin 2.5 years, Adnan 2 years in prison.
In an analysis of this verdict and its impact on freedom of expression and the press, especially for bloggers and different types of citizen journalists, Ali asks the questions:
How do Azerbaijani youth activists and citizen journalists feel? Are they scared? Will this verdict cause them to be less outspoken and critical in the future?
According to Ali, when their sentence was handed down, Emin declared to the court that it was an honor for him to be imprisoned for his ideals.
The purpose of their international summit is to do something to help the 1 billion people worldwide who will face famine this year. In order to address this global problem, this week the UN asked the international community at the UN Food Summit for 44 billion dollars to invest in agriculture in developing nations. The summit said no to this request.
Meanwhile the total amount spent by the US alone on the occupation of Afghanistan will total 223 billion dollars this year. According to Jo Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes’ research, both wars combined have cost 3 trillion dollars.
Military experts and political leaders continue to argue about how best to resolve the conflict in Afghanistan, how best to spend the hundreds of billions of dollars for fighting their war. Yet we know what it takes to stop hunger, we know how to feed people, and we don’t do it.
You’ve heard the story before, especially over the past decade: a European university announces sweeping reforms because of the legendary Bologna Process and EU requirements. This discussion often comes with the introductions of new fee’s for students, tighter controls on how long a student can study, and the move into a bachelor-masters structure. While all these changes come into effect, students as well as faculty are told that it has to be this way, with limited if any, consultation.
Recently it was the University of Fine Arts in Vienna that tried to make this move. But unlike many Universities where students might have disagreed, protested, and eventually gave up the fight – students in Austria have taken matters into their own hands; They have occupied their school. Highy organized, their occupation is now more than 24 days old and has spread beyond the borders of Autria into Germany and other neighboring countries.
My friend and uni student Marty joins me on this podcast from Vienna, to explain how this all started, how the occupation works, what the demands are, and what we can expect in the coming days and weeks.
Check out the website where you can find links to every aspect of the student protests and occupations.
There are so many beautiful and inspiring photographs of when the Berlin wall came down, everyone who remembers it talks about what a great moment in history it was.
After hearing such testimony I feel a great sense of shame and disappointment that 20 years later, we still have walls dividing cities, nations, and people. And while you’d think these walls would be on the verge of being torn down like the Berlin wall was not long ago, instead they get longer and they build more of them.
Which begs the question, have we learned anything since the fall of the wall?