Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Monday, May 17, 2010

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6490348n&tag=related;photovideo

Scott Pelley investigates the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion that killed 11, causing the ongoing oil leak in the waters off of Louisiana. One survivor talks about his harrowing escape and what happened after he got off the burning rig.

The story within the story.........

Sunday, May 16, 2010

EVERY WAR HAS TWO LOSERS tells the story of how one man, William Stafford (1914-1993), chose to answer the call to war. It is a story of confronting beliefs that swirl around war - Isn't war inevitable? Even necessary? What about the enemy? Stafford refused to fight in World War Two and served four years in camps for conscientious objectors. Later he was the winner of the National Book Award for poetry.


Director Haydn Reiss met Stafford in 1990 and later produced a one-hour documentary, William Stafford & Robert Bly: A Literary Friendship. That film chronicles the similarities and differences between these two close friends and great poets. Approaches to writing, teaching and the meaning of poetry are all explored in this lively and engaging film. (The film is included as a DVD extra on EVERY WAR HAS TWO LOSERS)

http://www.everywar.com/index.html

http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201005131030
 
http://theschoolofmyth.blogspot.com/

Every War Has Two Losers Trailer

Friday, May 14, 2010

Campaign to save the life of Kiana Firouz at risk of deportation from the U.K.


Kiana Firouz, 27 years old, actress and lesbian activist from Teheran, Iran, has long been engaged in the battle against the discrimination and persecution of homosexuals by the Ahmadinejad regime. After photograms of her video documentary on the condition of lesbians and gays fell into the hands of the Iranian intelligence, agents began to follow and intimidate her. Concerned about her safety, Kiana left Teheran and sought refuge in the U.K., where she could continue her work and studies.
see the this post at:
http://www.everyonegroup.com/EveryOne/MainPage/Entries/2010/5/6_Campaign_to_save_the_life_of_Kiana_Firouz_at_risk_of_deportation_from_the_U.K..html
She filed for asylum but her application was rejected by the Home Office even though the Ministry recognized her being persecuted for her sexual orientation and despite the fact that the Ministry is well aware that under Islamic law homosexuality is considered a heinous crime punishable by hanging and that gays and lesbians are enemies of Allah. In Iran, punishment for an adult consenting lesbian of healthy mind and is 100 whippings. If the act is repeated three times and punished each time, the death sentence is applied the fourth time (Art. 127, 129, 130).
Kiana filed for a court appeal following the Home Office’s decision to reject her application for asylum, but the judge overruled her appeal According to Kiana’s lawyer, the last remaining chance is to appeal the judge’s decision, but the risk of deportation is imminent.
Kiana recently took part in the film Cul de sac, which focuses on her life and civil rights battles in Iran. “It was important for me to take part in the film,” she stated in a recent interview. “As an Iranian lesbian I think the film is the best way to show how difficult life is for lesbians in my country. This film,” she continued, “contains sex scenes that would be sufficient evidence for receiving a death sentence if I were sent back to Iran. Now, my only hope is to mobilize the international LGBT community.”
Slated for release this month, Cul de sac attracted global media attention after its trailer was shown on YouTube in December 2009. Over 10,000 saw the video in the first four days it was put on line. And the media of the opposition in Iran, under constant watch by regime authorities, received news of its transmission.
Kiana has also launched a petition against the decision to have her deported to Iran.
The EveryOne Group, an international human rights organization, which was involved in the asylum cases of the lesbian Pegah Emambakhsh, who risked being deported from London to Teheran in 2007, and of the Iranian gay, Mehdi Kazemi, appeals to the British government and the democratic forces of the European Union, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, that Kiana Firouz be immediately guaranteed adequate humanitarian protection and that the order for her deportation be repealed, given that on return to Iran she will face a death sentence not only because a lesbian but because of her civil rights activism.
The EveryOne activists invite concerned readers to send protest e-mail messages to the British Home Office (public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk) requesting that Kiana receive refugee status as soon as possible, for she is a symbol of the international fight against homophobia and repression of gays and lesbians in Islamic countries.
http://www.petitiononline.com/kianaf/petition.html

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Rally for Public Land in Marquette

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk-HwEFpsX4

Michigan, lets not allow the abuse.

Filmmaker Ordered to Hand Ecuador Footage to Chevron

A federal judge has ordered a documentary filmmaker to hand over hundreds of hours of footage to the oil giant Chevron. Joseph Berlinger’s film, “Crude”, chronicles the struggle of indigenous Ecuadorians against Chevron’s oil contamination of their land. Chevron has sought Berlinger’s outtakes to help defend itself against an Ecuadorian lawsuit seeking $27 billion dollars in environmental damages. Belinger says he’ll appeal the order, arguing that his footage should be shielded under the same protections granted to journalists. Berlinger’s attorney, Maura Wogan, says the ruling poses “great harm to documentary filmmakers and investigative reporters everywhere.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/7/headlines#14
 
http://www.crudethemovie.com/
“A fascinating and important story. CRUDE does an extraordinary job of merging journalism and art.”
Christiane Amanpour, CNN Chief International Correspondent
Three years in the making, this cinéma-vérité feature from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) is the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial environmental lawsuits on the planet. The inside story of the infamous “Amazon Chernobyl” case, Crude is a real-life high stakes legal drama, set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film subverts the conventions of advocacy filmmaking, exploring a complicated situation from all angles while bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus.
The landmark case takes place in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador, pitting 30,000 indigenous and colonial rainforest dwellers against the U.S. oil giant Chevron. The plaintiffs claim that Texaco – which merged with Chevron in 2001 – spent three decades systematically contaminating one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, poisoning the water, air and land. The plaintiffs allege that the pollution has created a “death zone” in an area the size of the Rhode Island, resulting in increased rates of cancer, leukemia, birth defects, and a multiplicity of other health ailments. They further allege that the oil operations in the region contributed to the destruction of indigenous peoples and irrevocably impacted their traditional way of life. Chevron vociferously fights the claims, charging that the case is a complete fabrication, perpetrated by “environmental con men” who are seeking to line their pockets with the company’s billions.
The case takes place not just in a courtroom, but in a series of field inspections at the alleged contamination sites, with the judge and attorneys for both sides trudging through the jungle to litigate. And the battleground has expanded far beyond the legal process. The cameras rolled as the conflict raged in and out of court, and the case drew attention from an array of celebrities, politicians and journalists, and landed on the cover of Vanity Fair. Some of the film’s subjects sparked further controversy as they won a CNN “Hero” award and the Goldman Award, the environmental equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
Shooting in dozens of locations on three continents and in multiple languages, Berlinger and his crew gained extraordinary access to players on all sides of the legal fight and beyond, capturing the drama as it unfolded while the case grew from a little-known legal story to an international cause célèbre. Crude is a ground-level view of one of the most extraordinary legal dramas of our time, one that has the potential of forever changing the way international business is conducted. While the environmental impact of the consumption of fossil fuels has been increasingly documented in recent years, Crude focuses on the human cost of our addiction to oil and the increasingly difficult task of holding a major corporation accountable for its past deeds.

 

Friday, May 7, 2010

Safe Travels, Mr. Harwell.....you were the human expression of all that is good and decent and loving in our species...You will be dearly missed.

WASHINGTON – Sen. Carl Levin delivered the following statement on theSenate floor on May 5, 2010
“For, lo, the winter is past,

The rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth;

The time of the singing of birds is come,

And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”

Mr. President, spring after spring, for four decades, a man named Ernie

Harwell would recite those words. He would recite them at the beginning of

the first baseball broadcast of spring training. And those are the words

that would tell the people of Michigan that the long, cold winter was over.

Ernie was the radio voice of the Detroit Tigers for 42 years, and in that

time, there may have been no Michiganian more universally beloved. Our

state mourns today at his passing, yesterday evening, after a battle with

cancer. He fought that battle with the grace, the good humor, and the

wisdom that Michigan had come to expect, and even depend on, from a man we

came to know and love.

This gentlemanly Georgian adopted our team, and our state, as his own. And

his career would have been worthy had he done nothing more than bring us

the sound of summer over the radio, recounting the Tigers' ups and downs

with professionalism and wit, as he did.

But without making a show of it, Ernie Harwell taught us. In his work and

his life, he taught us the value of kindness and respect. He taught us

that, in a city and a world too often divided, we could be united in joy at

a great Al Kaline catch, or a Lou Whitaker home run, or a Mark Fidrych

strikeout. He taught us not to let life pass us by “like the house by the

side of the road.”

In 1981, when he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Ernie told

the assembled fans what baseball meant to him. “In baseball democracy

shines its clearest,” he said. “The only race that matters is the race to

the bag. The creed is the rulebook. Color merely something to distinguish

one team's uniform from another.” That was a lesson he taught us so well.

Mr. President, I will miss Ernie Harwell. All of Michigan will miss the

sound of his voice telling us that the winter is past, that the Tigers had

won a big game, or that they'd get another chance to win one tomorrow. We

will miss his Georgia drawl, his humor, his humility, his quiet faith in

God and in the goodness of the people he encountered. But we will carry in

our hearts always our love for him, our appreciation for his work, and the

lessons he gave us and left us and that we will pass on to our children and

grandchildren.

Sincerely,

Carl Levin


Michael Meade, Mosaic “Great crises and impossible tasks often provoke hidden resources and reveal hints of the underlying unity of life.” Michael from the World Behind the World

Check this broadcast out...way cool.....

http://www.facebook.com/MichaelMeadeMosaic

Monday, May 3, 2010

For all my WW friends.....Found a great new online store......check it out.

http://www.creatingquietspaces.com/

It has beautiful reasonably priced gifts.....just in case you need something for mother days!
Standing Women Global Village call upon the women of the world, from the day-old babies to our most senior elders, to stand with us to save the world.
http://standingwomen.org/english_story.cfm

Sharon Mehdi wrote a wonderful short story for her five-year old granddaughter, The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering that has inspired us.  A quick summary of the story is:
A busboy who worked in a café whose window faced the public park noticed that two grandmotherly looking women had been standing in the park all day without moving at all and without talking.
They were dressed up in their Sunday best and were just staring at the town hall.  He asked the other patrons in the café what they thought the women were up to. They speculated on a variety of things. Then, a five-year old year who was in the café spoke up and said "One of them is my grandmother and I know what they are doing. They are standing there to save the world."  All of the men in the café hooted and howled and laughed.  On his way home the busboy decided to ask the women what they were doing and sure enough their answer was "We are saving the world.
Over dinner that evening the busboy told his parents and he and his father hooted and howled, but his mother was totally silent.  After dinner, the mother called her best friends to tell them.
The next morning the busboy looked out the café window and the two women were back, along with his mother, her friends, and the women who had been in the café the day before.  All were standing in silence staring at the town hall. Again, the men hooted and howled and said things like "You can't save the world by standing in the park.  That is what we have armies for," and "everyone knows you have to have banners and slogans to save the world--you can't do it by just standing in the park." 
The next day the women were joined by the women who were in the café the day before and a number of their friends.  This brought the local newspaper reporter to the scene.  He wrote a derisive article about the women.  The day after it appeared, hundreds of women showed up to stand in the park in silence. The mayor then told the police chief to make the women leave because they were making the town appear to be foolish.  When the police chief told them they would have to disperse because they didn't have a permit, one of them responded that "we are just individuals standing in our public park and we are not giving speeches or having a demonstration so why would we need a permit. The police chief thought about this and agreed with them and left the park.
At this point 2,223 women including the mayor's wife, the police chief's wife, and one five-year old girl were standing in the park to save the world. The news quickly spread and soon women were standing all over the country. The story ended with women standing in every country throughout the globe, standing to save the world. See www.grandmotherbook.com.
we are standing for the world's children and grandchildren, and for the seven generations beyond them. We dream of a world where all of our children have safe drinking water, clean air to breathe, and enough food to eat. A world where they have access to a basic education to develop their minds and healthcare to nurture their growing bodies. A world where they have a warm, safe and loving place to call home. A world where they don't live in fear of violence - in their home, in their neighbourhood, in their school or int heir world. This is the world of which we dream. This is the cause for which we stand.
Please stand with us for five minutes of silence at 1 p.m. your local time on May 10, 2009, in your local park, school yard, gathering place, or any place you deem appropriate, to signify your agreement with the statement below.  Please stand at a different hour with a different time zone if 1 p.m. is not your preferred time.We ask you to invite the men who you care about to join you.  We ask that you bring bells to ring at 1 p.m. to signify the beginning of the five minutes of silence and to ring again to signify the end of the period of silence.  During the silence, please think about what you individually and we collectively can do to attain this world.  If you need to sit rather than stand, please feel free to do so.  Afterwards, hopefully you and your loved ones can talk together about how we can bring about this world.
WILL YOU STAND WITH US? Yes