tagged w/ Global issues
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There's an ad this morning showing Secretary Clinton waving regarding the US/Global Gun Treaty. It's false and misleading and created by the NRA. If you are in favor of gun control world wide, and especially in the U.S. Don't sign the survey. This was posted by U.S. Republican Senator Paul Rand. Check Out all the things Paul Rand DOES not want to happen. This guy is deep into the NRA's pocket. If you want to let him know where you stand, send him an email telling him he should use his survey for toilet paper:
Dear fellow American,
Hours after re-election, Barack Obama made a move for gun control...
The very next day, his administration gleefully voted at the UN for a renewed effort to pass the "Small Arms Treaty."
Disguised as an “International Arms Control Treaty” to fight against “terrorism,” “insurgency” and “international crime syndicates,” the UN’s Small Arms Treaty is in fact a massive, GLOBAL gun control scheme.
What’s worse, the UN set March 18th-28th to meet to pass the final version of the treaty that will be sent to the Senate for ratification.
You and I will only have a few short months to prepare for this battle...
If passed by the UN and ratified by the U.S. Senate, the UN “Small Arms Treaty” would almost certainly FORCE the United States to:
*** Enact tougher licensing requirements, making law-abiding Americans cut through even more bureaucratic red tape just to own a firearm legally;
*** CONFISCATE and DESTROY ALL “unauthorized” civilian firearms (all firearms owned by the government are excluded, of course);
*** BAN the trade, sale and private ownership of ALL semi-automatic weapons;
*** Create an INTERNATIONAL gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun CONFISCATION.
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this is NOT a fight we can afford to lose.
I’m helping lead the fight to defeat this radical treaty in the United States Senate and I want your help.
Please join me by taking a public stand AGAINST this outright assault on our national sovereignty by signing the Official Firearms Sovereignty Survey below!
For Freedom,
Rand Paul
U.S. Senator (R-KY)
Official Firearms Sovereignty Survey
1. Do you believe the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Second Amendment are the Supreme Law of the Land?
Yes No Unsure
2. Do you believe that any attempt by the United Nations to Subvert or Supersede your Constitutional Rights must be opposed?
Yes No Unsure
3. Do you oppose the International licensing requirements, International gun registry database and International ban on all private sales that will be included in the UN's Small Arms Treaty?
Yes No Unsure
4. Will you vote Against any Senator who votes for ratification of the UN's Small Arms Treaty?
Yes No Unsure
First Name: Required Invalid Character
Last Name: Required Invalid Character
Email Address: Required Improper Email
Confirm Email: Required The Email Addresses Do Not Match
Zip: Required Please use a 5 digit zip
The National Association for Gun Rights is dedicated to protecting your Second Amendment rights. We will never stop fighting the constant onslaught of anti-gun legislation from Sarah Brady's cronies in Congress, but overcoming such a well-financed enemy is a difficult battle.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The National Association for Gun Rights, Inc. is a non-profit, tax-exempt advocacy organization under section 501(c)4 of the IRC. Contributions or gifts to NAGR are not tax deductible for IRS purposes. Not paid for at taxpayer expense.
Copyright © 2013 National Association for Gun Rights
http://www.nagr.org/UN_lp_survey2.aspx?pid=key33&gclid=COnL7cTanLQCFQf0nAodER0APAThere's an ad this morning showing Secretary Clinton waving regarding the... more
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Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest has increased almost sixfold, new data suggests.
Satellite images show deforestation increased from 103 sq km in March and April 2010 to 593 sq km (229 sq miles) in the same period of 2011, Brazil's space research institute says.
Much of the destruction has been in Mato Grosso state, the centre of soya farming in Brazil.
The news comes shortly before a vote on new forest protection rules.
Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said the figures were "alarming" and announced the setting up of a "crisis cabinet" in response to the news.
"Our objective is to reduce deforestation by July," the minister told a news conference.
Analysts say the new figures have taken the government by surprise.
Last December, a government report said deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon had fallen to its lowest rate for 22 years.
However, the latest data shows a 27% jump in deforestation from August 2010 to April 2011.
The biggest rise was in Mato Grosso, which produces more than a quarter of Brazil's soybean harvest.
Some environmentalists argue that rising demand for soy and cattle is prompting farmers to clear more of their land.
But others see a direct link between the jump in deforestation and months of debate over easing an existing law on forest protection.
"You have 300-400 lawmakers here in Brasilia sending the message that profiting from deforestation will be amnestied, that crime pays," Marcio Astrini from Greenpeace told Reuters.
"The only relevant factor is the Forest Code. It is a gigantic rise."
The Chamber of Deputies has delayed voting on the Forest Code amid at times acrimonious argument but could consider the issue again next week.
The Forest Code, enacted in 1934 and subsequently amended in 1965, sets out how much of his land a farmer can deforest.
Regulations currently require that 80% of a landholding in the Amazon remain forest, 20% in other areas.
Proponents of change say the law impedes economic development and contend that Brazil must open more land for agriculture.
However, opponents fear that in their current form some of the proposed changes might give farmers a form of amnesty for deforested land.
The changes were put forward by Aldo Rebelo, leader of Brazil's Communist Party (PCdoB) and backed by a group in Congress known as the "ruralists" who want Brazil to develop its agribusiness sector.Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest has increased almost sixfold, new... more
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql0mo-5jPbc&feature=player_embedded
A quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide in the last 16 years—an average of one suicide every 30 minutes. The crisis has ballooned with economic liberalization that has removed agricultural subsidies and opened Indian agriculture to the global market. Small farmers are often trapped in a cycle of insurmountable debt, leading many to take their lives out of sheer desperation. We speak with Smita Narula of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University Law School, co-author of a new report on farmer suicides in India.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn to the issue of farmer suicides in India, where a quarter of a million farmers have committed suicide in the last 16 years. On average, that figure suggests one farmer commits suicide every 30 minutes.
Today, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU Law School will release a report called "Every Thirty Minutes: Farmer Suicides, Human Rights and the Agrarian Crisis in India."
The agricultural sector in India has become more vulnerable to global markets as a result of economic liberalization. Reforms in the country have included the removal of agricultural subsidies and the opening of Indian agriculture to the global market. These reforms have led to increased costs, while reducing yields and profits for many farmers.
As a result, small farmers are often trapped in a cycle of insurmountable debt, leading many to take their lives out of sheer desperation. The rate of suicide is highest among cotton farmers. Like other cash crops in India, the cotton industry is increasingly dominated by foreign multinational corporations that tend to promote genetically modified cottonseed and often control the cost, quality and availability of agricultural inputs.
To discuss this issue, we're joined by Smita Narula, faculty director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
SMITA NARULA: Good morning.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this report that you are just releasing today.
SMITA NARULA: Our major finding for this report is that all the issues that you just described are major human rights issues. And what we're faced with in India is a human rights crisis of epic proportions. The crisis affects the human rights of Indian farmers and their family members in extremely profound ways. We found that their rights to life, to water, food and adequate standard of living, and their right to an effective remedy, is extremely affected by this crisis. Additionally, the government has hard human rights legal obligations to respond to the crisis, but we've found that it has failed, by and large, to take any effective measures to address the suicides that are taking place.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this number is unbelievable. Thirty—every 30 minutes, an Indian farmer commits suicide?
SMITA NARULA: And that's been going on for years and years. And what these intense numbers don't reveal are two things. One is that the numbers themselves are failing to capture the enormity of the problem. In what we call a failure of information on the part of the Indian government, entire categories of farmers are completely left out of the purview of farm suicide statistics, because they don't formally own title to land. This includes women farmers, Dalit, or so-called lower caste farmers, as well as Adivasi, or tribal community farmers. In addition, the government's programs and the relief programs that they've offered fail to capture not only this broad category, but also fail to provide timely debt relief and compensation or address broader structural issues that are leading to these suicides in the country.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the issue of globalization and how it's affecting these farmers.
SMITA NARULA: Sure. So, basically, ultimately, the proximate cause for a number of these suicides is farmer indebtedness. What lies behind that indebtedness is two decades of market liberalization in India, which have resulted in two simultaneous processes. First, the government has withdrawn significantly from the agricultural sector. It has reduced subsidies. It has decreased access to rural credit. Irrigation is insufficient and doesn't reach most farmers who need it. And at the same time, it has encouraged a switch over to cash crop cultivation, of which cotton is one example.
Simultaneously, the market has been opened up to global competitors, which makes Indian farmers extremely vulnerable. And at the same time, foreign multinationals now dominate industries, such as the cotton industry, including dominating the key inputs that are needed for cotton. In the case of cotton, in particular, the genetically modified Bt cottonseed has been promoted so effectively in India that it now dominates the entire sector, and between its cost, quality and availability, has an enormous impact on farmer costs and profits and yields to the point that it's landing them in enormous debt. And many of them, ironically, are actually consuming the very pesticide that they went into debt to purchase, to kill themselves when they can't escape that cycle of debt.
AMY GOODMAN: They're consuming the pesticide.
SMITA NARULA: That's correct.
snip
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about genetically modified seeds and U.S. multinational corporations.
SMITA NARULA: So, genetically modified seeds. Bt cottonseed is the cottonseed input that dominates the cotton industry now. And what the genetic modification promises to do is to produce a toxin within the seed that kills a very common pest that affects the cotton crop in India. The Bt cottonseed, which is — has been marketed by Monsanto, among other multinationals, requires two resources that are already scarce for most Indian smallholder farmers. That's money and water. Bt cottonseeds cost anywhere from two times to 10 times as much as regular cottonseed, and they also require a great deal more water in order to yield successful crops. The farmers often go to private moneylenders, who charge exorbitant interest rates, to purchase the seeds, on the promises and based on aggressive marketing that they will bring greater financial security. But then, because 65 percent of cotton farms in India are rain-fed and don't have access to irrigation, the crops inevitably fail. And also, increasing drought has made that the case for many farmers. So they've gone into insurmountable debt to purchase the inputs. They don't have the yields. They repeat this cycle for a couple of seasons. And by the end of it, they're simply trapped in a cycle that they can't get out of, and they consume the very pesticide that they purchased, in order to kill themselves. And—http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql0mo-5jPbc&feature=player_embedded
A quarter... more
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Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a beautiful, undeniably scary time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998, beginning with the Manhattan Project's "Trinity" test near Los Alamos and concluding with Pakistan's nuclear tests in May of 1998. This leaves out North Korea's two alleged nuclear tests in this past decade (the legitimacy of both of which is not 100% clear).
Each nation gets a blip and a flashing dot on the map whenever they detonate a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen. Hashimoto, who began the project in 2003, says that he created it with the goal of showing"the fear and folly of nuclear weapons." It starts really slow — if you want to see real action, skip ahead to 1962 or so — but the buildup becomes overwhelming.Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a beautiful, undeniably scary time-lapse... more
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Check out this video of a TED talk with Jane McGonigal, a video game designer, who believes we can solve world problems by playing games online (and discusses what an “epic win” is).
Be sure to check out Urgent Evoke, a social network game to help empower young people all over the world to come up with creative solutions to our most urgent social problems. Let’s come together to play games to save the world!
(Read more and see the video on the original post.)Check out this video of a TED talk with Jane McGonigal, a video game designer, who... more
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Chase Community Giving is using the power of social networking sites like Facebook for the greater good by launching a charitable contest in which the public can vote on worthy organizations to receive grants of up to $5 million.
100 organizations and causes supporting a variety of domestic and global issues have been selected for a chance to win in the final round.
Voting for the final winners will take place on January 15, 2010.
This is an opportunity to use sites like Facebook and Twitter for the greater good.
Check it out here.
http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/
If you're having trouble deciding on which cause to vote for, consider Half the Sky Foundation that provides loving care to thousands of Chinese orphans.
Learn more here. http://www.halfthesky.org/
Then vote here. http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/670139?src=wallpost&ref=mfChase Community Giving is using the power of social networking sites like Facebook for... more
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PRESCOTT, Ariz. – The deaths of two people during a sweat lodge ceremony led by self-help expert James Arthur Ray are being investigated as homicides, authorities said Thursday.
Yavapai County Sheriff Steve Waugh said the deaths last week of Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown N.Y. and James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee were not accidental.
"A combination of circumstances led to the deaths," Waugh said. "Whether or not we can prove a criminal case, that has yet to be determined."
Waugh said investigators are looking at the way the sweat lodge was built, the fact that people had fallen ill at previous sweat ceremonies led by Ray, and questionable medical care on site. Authorities have said a nurse hired by Ray was directing rescue efforts including CPR when emergency crews arrived.PRESCOTT, Ariz. – The deaths of two people during a sweat lodge ceremony led by... more
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Writer and Director: Fern Berresford
Mentor: Kinga Burza
Music: The Young Knives
This two-minute short, based around gender + power, tackles the treatment of women as property and the lack of self worth and identity women feel due to the gender inequalities prevalent in many societies.Writer and Director: Fern Berresford
Mentor: Kinga Burza
Music: The Young Knives... more
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The Blend the World community is a feet-on-the-street movement that is grounded in the belief that one (Optimistic! Inspiring! Fearless!) individual can, and does, make a world of difference. Join the campaign at: www.blendtheworld.comThe Blend the World community is a feet-on-the-street movement that is grounded in the... more
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I m a Google fan and I love to search everything I wish to find out on internet via Google but just a few days ago, I found a rather shocking fact i.e. every Google search emits 0.2g of Carbon Dioxide. There was study that took place in Harvard University by Mr. Alex Wissner-Gross and it concluded that the energy consumption levels at Google’s data centers were near to 0.7g CO2 emitted per Google search. Soon after the news came in open, Google’s officials corrected the figures to 0.2g emission per search by posting it on their official blog. The post also said that each server spends a few thousandths of a second processing queries, using uses 0.0003 kWh of energy - the amount that each person's body burns in ten seconds - in the process.
TO READ THE COMPLETE POST PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW
http://paragonist.blogspot.com/2009/09/internet-playing-evil-causing-global.htmlI m a Google fan and I love to search everything I wish to find out on internet via... more
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I remember there were times in the past when a clear distinction of periodic seasonal cycles per year used to exist. There were winters during a certain fixed period in a year, there were rains during another fixed period in a year and similarly, there were summers during another fixed period in a year.
During winters, I used to enjoy the early chilling mornings along with my quilt and as the day used to progress the la-affaire with the sun used to soar high. I would love to see the shining sky and I would most cherish the scene of sunlight spreading everywhere across the surroundings and neutralizing the chilling effects all around. The rains were like the blessings of freshness. The scenes around me in my community just before the down pore were unforgettable. I always felt that strong buzz in the surroundings just before the start of rains. I remember people used to celebrate rains, they used to dance in the rain, they used to watch the rains with their open windows and doors, they used to party with their amigos in the rain and the whole scene used to be like a special festival. Same joy and an afresh beginning was visible during the summers, everyone was so excited about the summers, the extended days and the summer’s daily twilight. We all used to enjoy every season with the utmost pleasure but things have changed a lot in last few years.
Suddenly, the ice started melting in the polar region, the sea levels started rising all across and the water temperatures in the sea and rivers started rising everywhere around the world.
CHECK THIS LINK TO READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE:
http://paragonist.blogspot.com/2009/09/if-you-give-up-they-give-up-stop-global.htmlI remember there were times in the past when a clear distinction of periodic seasonal... more
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Iran and Venezuela strengthen ties as Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez met with Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Yesterday, the two countries signed an agreement yesterday for Venezuela to export 20,000 barrels of gasoline to Iran each day.
Fernando Coronil, a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, joins Daljit Dhaliwal to discuss the export of oil to Iran that undermines any new sanctions against Iran, as well as this weekend’s protests in Venezuela and Hugo Chavez’s suspension of radio stations.Iran and Venezuela strengthen ties as Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez met with... more
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This attitude from the G8 has been disappointing but the G5 too have been equally stubborn. There is absolutely no way that India and China will accept a secondary role at the world stage. During the last G8 meeting there were reports emerging that the next heads of the World Bank and the IMF would be from China and India respectively. However the talk on this front has died down because the G8 don’t want it that way.
CLICK FOR FULL ARTICLE....This attitude from the G8 has been disappointing but the G5 too have been equally... more
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In 2007 David Juritz, Bach concert master left his home in west London to busk around the world. One year later he had raised £90,000 to set up the charity Musequality. Musequality has opened music schools in S.Africa, Uganda, Thailand and India.
In June 2009 Musequality set up their first world busk to raise funds for the schools. Around the world buskers played music. In London musicians from classical music to folk busked outside South Kensington tube station. Some buskers, as young as 7, spoke about their reasons for taking part.In 2007 David Juritz, Bach concert master left his home in west London to busk around... more
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corine
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“Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?,” asks the title of an article by Lester Brown in Scientific American (May 2009). Just a few years ago, such a question would have seemed almost laughable. Few will be surprised by it today.
In 2008 people woke up to a tsunami of hunger sweeping the world. Although the prospect of rising hunger has loomed on the horizon for years, the present crisis seemed to come out of the blue without warning. Food riots spread through many countries in the global South as people tried to obtain a portion of what appeared to be a rapidly shrinking supply of food, and many governments were destabilized.
The causes for the extraordinary spike in food prices in 2008, doubling over 2007 prices, brought together long-term trends, at work for decades, with a number of more recent realities.1 The most important long-term trends leading to current situation include:
•increased diversion of corn grain and soybeans to produce meat as the world’s per capita meat consumption doubled in about forty years. As much as 95 percent of calories are lost in the conversion of grain and soybeans to meat.
•decreased food production associated with poor countries adopting the neoliberal paradigm of letting the “free market” govern food production and distribution;
•widespread “depeasantization,” partially caused by neoliberal “reforms” and International Monetary Fund (IMF) mandated “structural adjustments,” as conditions forced peasant farmers off the land and into urban slums, where one-sixth of humanity now lives; and
•increasing concentration of corporate ownership and control over all aspects of food production, from seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers, to the grain elevators, processing facilities, and grocery stores.
One of the more recent causes for the crisis is the diversion of large amounts of corn, soy, and palm oil into producing agrofuels, the term adopted by critics worldwide for industrial-scale biofuels based on agricultural crops as feedstocks. Agrofuel production looked very appealing as the United States and the European Union sought to break the influence of oil producing countries and promote “greener” fuels (which are actually not particularly “green”).
In 2008 some 30 percent of the entire corn crop in the United States was used to produce ethanol to blend with gasoline to fuel cars. Estimates of how much ethanol production contributed to the rise in food prices varied from less than 5 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to upwards of 80 percent, as estimated by the World Bank.
The year 2008 also brought major crop failures, from Bangladesh to the grain exporting regions of Australia, where wheat and rice crops were devastated by drought. Scientists agree that such widespread disruptions in food production will only increase with the increasing destabilization of the earth’s climate (see discussion below). In addition, speculation at the local level (usually called hoarding) and unprecedented financial speculation in world commodity markets — an increasingly popular way to gamble as global stock markets plummeted — forced prices to much higher levels than they would have reached otherwise. With global food stocks at very low levels after several years in which consumption exceeded supply, crop failures in a few countries, and the new large-scale diversions of food into fuel production — combined with the longer-term trends — a “perfect storm” was created in which many people suffered greatly, and continue to suffer.
Although food prices have come down from their extraordinary heights of the summer of 2008, they are still considerably higher than just a few years ago. And food supplies, although ample to feed everyone if distributed equally, are still in relatively short supply. Today, approximately a billion people — close to one-sixth of humanity — suffer from continual and severe hunger.
__________“Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?,” asks the title of an... more
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Specifically, does the competitive nature of international politics give some states an advantage because their political systems and social values make it relatively easy to attract and assimilate talented citizens from other countries, thereby enabling them to draw more-or-less selectively on the entire global talent pool? If so, then these states will be able to improve their relative position over time, and to the extent that globalization now facilitates people moving from place to place, that tendency should be increasing. By contrast, states that make assimilation difficult or that discriminate on other areas will tend to be less attractive destinations for highly educated and/or entrepreneurial individuals, and these states will for the most part have to work with the citizenry they've got or pay a very high premium to attract talent from abroad.Specifically, does the competitive nature of international politics give some states... more
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The father of an Iranian-American journalist jailed by Iran on charges of spying for the United States said on Monday he feared for her life almost a week after she went on hunger strike.
Reza Saberi said he and his wife Akiko visited their daughter Roxana in Tehran's Evin jail on Sunday, taking flowers for her 32nd birthday.
"She is very, very weak and frail ... she is in a bad condition. She can hardly stand up," he told Reuters. "I'm worried about her health. I'm worried about her life."
The 68-year-old said he had asked his daughter to stop her action, but she did not want to discuss it during the 20-minute visit. She started refusing food last Tuesday, he said.
The freelance reporter was sentenced to eight years in jail on April 18, in a verdict that could complicate Washington's efforts towards reconciliation with Iran after three decades of mutual mistrust.
A citizen of both the United States and Iran, Saberi was arrested in late January for working in the Islamic Republic after her press credentials had expired. She was later charged with espionage.
The United States says the charges against Saberi, who has worked for the BBC and the U.S. National Public Radio, are baseless and has demanded her immediate release.
U.S. President Barack Obama has expressed deep concern for Saberi's safety and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said releasing her would serve as a goodwill gesture.The father of an Iranian-American journalist jailed by Iran on charges of spying for... more
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Kepano
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Disney Nature’s Earth arrives, fittingly, right in time for Earth Day. Though this exploration of the animal kingdom feels like Disney’s way of challenging the celebrated, 12-hour documentary Planet Earth, it’s far shorter and more accessible and is more analogous to March of the Penguins or Winged Migration. It covers the areas on the globe that we tend to overlook—like the spaces between Africa and Antarctica—and offers close-up views of the creatures that inhabit these extraordinary landscapes. Those fearing another heavy-handed statement about global warming can relax: the few comments made about climate change are subtle but informative.
Sometimes when I’m at the zoo, watching the creatures frolic, a random idiot standing next to me will feel the need to provide the animals with dialogue. I’ll be watching a lion in his cage when I suddenly hear “I’m really hungry” or “I’m stinky, I need a bath!” from some lady close by, trying to keep her kids entertained. The narration in Earth is like that lady at the zoo. The producers couldn’t have picked a better narrator than James Earl Jones, who could easily have been credited here as The Voice of God. The problem is that Jones’s dialogue is really corny and far cheesier than anything he ever uttered as Darth Vader. Despite Jones’s booming baritone, the narration dumbs down the mysterious, sometimes unexplainable lives of wild animals. Thankfully, this is the sole flaw of this otherwise marvelous documentary.Disney Nature’s Earth arrives, fittingly, right in time for Earth Day. Though... more
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Kepano
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If you woke up tomorrow with superpowers, what would you do? Would you dedicate your life to the betterment of mankind? Would you plot domination to rule the world? Would you attempt to ignore your powers and live a normal life?
In comic books and movies, superpowers usually refer to an individual’s abilities; strength, flight, invincibility. However this is the real world- genetic mutations impair us, radiation makes us sick, and no alien beings have come to earth (yet.) We still have superpowers though- I’m talking about the “superpowers of the world”- the countries around the earth who’s influence, economy and authority shape global events everyday.
America has long been known as a superpower. Is it any wonder then that we are the producer of so many stories where super powered beings struggle with their might? Perhaps “With great power comes great responsibility” is not just the motto of our pop culture heroes but the concept of our foreign policy as well. We have the largest economy in the world, the largest military in the world and the largest notoriety in the world, thus, the question has been asked again and again: what level of involvement should America have in other countries? To what extent should we impose our will for what we believe to be right, good, and true?
When George W Bush had declared Iraq, Iran and North Korea an “Axis of Evil”, he stirred imagery that’s deeply ingrained in American society. Evil needs to be fought back by the forces of good- it’s why Captain America fought the Nazis, why Batman fights the Joker, why the X-Men fight Magneto, even if they are misunderstood, criticized and hated by others. The battle of good vs. evil is so prevalent in humanity’s history is has been called a “universal part of the human condition.”
We have entered a new era now, with an administration that is trying to set a different course for America. President Obama has abandoned the idea of the “Axis of Evil” and even the terminology “enemy combatant”- but this obviously does not mean the end of war nor the end of our self imposed responsibility to the rest of the world. The question isn’t “Will we continue to fight for what’s right and good”, it’s an exploration of what IS right and good to begin with.
As everyone with super powers has had to do, we have to reevaluate our methodology, principals and place on this planet. As everyone with super powers has been, we are challenged to find new resolve in an ever changing reality that questions, critiques and confronts us. We could use our power purely for self benefit, as Spiderman attempted to when he first realized his abilities. We could declare ourselves superior and kill those we deem a threat, as Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants do. We could shirk the responsibly, as Superman does when he retreats to the Fortress of Solitude. More probable though is that we will continue the battle of good vs. evil, whatever that should mean to us at this particular point in our history.
So I ask again to you, the reader: What would you do?
“Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real, they are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this America: They will be met.”
-Barack Obama
“Sometimes I feel like I'm out there fighting all alone. Sometimes I feel like giving up. But, then I remember that what I stand for is more important than anything else.”
-Superman
“Together, you and I will identify and confront America's problems. Together we will figure out what we are and what we can be. Together we will define the American dream and make it an American reality."
-Captain AmericaIf you woke up tomorrow with superpowers, what would you do? Would you dedicate your... more
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