Hood Nerds

Not since N*E*R*D have I been so jazzed about the homie/point dexter hybrid, something obviously close to my heart. This is a community group in America called Hood Nerds who encourage 'getting good grades and still living in the hood'.

I can't wait til something like this comes to NZ, although the property market always looking for 'the new Ponsonby' must also mean there is a 'new Rewa hard'. And having grown up there I know not to assume South Auckland would be the only thriving scene for Hood nerds. South-side thugs travel aaaaall the way to Mt Albert to commit crimes anyway, haven't you heard?

Turtle Pizza Cadillacs

Aleks Sakowski Presents
The Parallel Dance Ensemble
Coco Solid and Bobbi Soxx
In Turtle Pizza Cadillacs
www.cocosolid.co.nz - www.youtube.com/alkom

Be sure to watch this in 'High Quality"
Thanks to everyone who contributed to this,
your hard work and amazing talent is much appreciated.
The making of video coming soon.

Daniel Clowes

Daniel Clowes Part (BBC Documentary)
by lesebb1

One of my favourite comic book creators of all time

www.walkingisoverrated.com

This is from the website www.walkingisoverrated.com the dopest site about disability culture, stereotypes, problems, jokes and everyday Aotearoa life for the sites creator Red Nicholson. I met Red last year and he is a total babe and charmer.

The Coen Brothers vs. Reality

This is an advertisement directed by award-winning directors The Coen Brothers and their take on clean coal for thisisreality.org

12 year old girl delivers epic speech to UN

Turtle Pizza Cadillac

Stephen Fry protests NZ's copyright law

See Stephen Fry flex his twitter power, objecting to copyright law in NZ.

"It's not about Great Britain, its about Great Butter"

A post-punk head-fuck to confuse any Sex Pistols fan

Frantz Fanon

Frantz Fanon (July 20, 1925 – December 6, 1961) was a psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary, and author from Martinique. He was influential in the field of post-colonial studies and was perhaps the pre-eminent thinker of the 20th century on the issue of decolonization and the psychopathology of colonization. His works have inspired anti-colonial liberation movements for more than four decades among them the groundbreaking book 'Wretched of the Earth' which not only inspired philosphy, academia, politics and many colonised societies - but Fanon's work still inflitrates hip hop, art and activism today.



Go to Frantz Fanon's Wikipedia page for more info on his life and complete works, or watch this summarised youtube eulogy

Airplot thickens

In a canny move, Greenpeace UK – along with Oscar winning actress Emma Thompson, comedian Alistair McGowan and prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate Zac Goldsmith - has purchased a piece of land smack bang in the middle of the proposed third runway site at Heathrow Airport near London.

The UK government plans to go ahead with airport expansions across the country even though this would wipe out its chance of meeting its legally binding climate emission reduction targets. For some perspective on aviation’s contribution to the UK’s emissions, consider this: even if the whole rest of the UK economy shut down and reduced its emissions to zero, if every power station switched off and every car was taken off the road – aviation under the Government’s plan would alone still make the UK well in excess of its CO2 targets and a climate criminal.

Actress Emma Thomson, and British comedian Alistair MacGowan as well as the main UK opposition party (The Conservatives) environment advisor, Zac Goldsmith, have bought the land with Greenpeace. MPs from all parties, as well as a Royal Society scientist and other prominent figures, are also named on a legal deed of trust for the land and are supporting the campaign are asking thousands of people - worldwide - to ‘join the plot’ and sign up to join the legal deed of trust as well.

I have noticed that bureaucracy is a powerful tool for activism albeit too bourgeois and slow-burn for some. Much like the 'Last Auction Hero' post we had and much of the work I'm doing alongside Greenpeace, I am learning legislation is sometimes the only weapon that can swing an issue, hows that for an impotent truth.

Highly charged, intelligent and when one throws it back in the face of the red-tape inventers, pretty effective. When you hit at the heart of the corporate culture by speaking their bullshit language and then legally take it into activst realms I think it makes for one of my favourite sayings (coined by me and my sisters) "pimp the system while bad-mouthing it at all times". A pretty sweet revenge tactic on a system that doesnt work.

I wondered what Emma Thompson had been up to since her Shakespearian overload, period-piece, thee-ya-ter days lol

Fiji and understanding coup culture

Watch this interesting insight on Fijian politics and how the New Zealand media patronises this image and perpetuates stereotypes (John Key told the Fijian attorney general that he 'should be on trial' a fact which Fiji hates and NZ ignores). Mainstream journalistic irresponsibility and romanticising our own government agenda is rife, loaded deportations aplenty, not to mention it being left up to blogs to have the true political debate on the subject. Video is in 3 chapters and has a short Waitangi bonus story worth watching, more misdirected media from the crypts.

Bad Brains

Bad Brains_teaser

All About Eve

Bette Davis, the original

Last Auction Hero

Tim DeChristopher is an economics student at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He had just finished his last final exam before winter break. One of the exam questions was: If the oil and gas companies are the only ones who bid on public lands, are the true costs of oil and gas exploitation reflected in the prices paid?

DeChristopher was inspired. He finished the exam, threw on his red parka and went off to the controversial Bureau of Land Management land auction that the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance called “the Bush administration’s last great gift to the oil and gas industry.” Instead of joining the protest outside, he registered as a bidder, then bought 22,000 acres of public land. That is, he successfully bid on the public properties, located near the Arches and Canyonlands National Parks and Dinosaur National Monument, and other pristine areas. The price tag: more than $1.7 million.

“Once I started buying up every parcel, they understood pretty clearly what was going on … they stopped the auction, and some federal agents came in and took me out. I guess there was a lot of chaos, and they didn’t really know how to proceed at that point.”

Patrick Shea, a former BLM director, is representing DeChristopher. Shea told the Deseret News: “What Tim did was in the best tradition of civil disobedience, he did this without causing any physical or material harm. His purpose was to draw attention to the illegitimacy and immorality of the process.”

There is a long tradition of disrupting land development in Utah. In his memoir, “Desert Solitaire,” Edward Abbey, the writer and activist, wrote: “Wilderness. The word itself is music... we scarcely know what we mean by the term, though the sound of it draws all whose nerves and emotions have not yet been irreparably stunned, deadened, numbed by the caterwauling of commerce, the sweating scramble for profit and domination.”

End of the line trailer

I have my reservations about the potential tone of this flick, I personally don't think the sea belongs to us and don't blame people when they see this kinda media as high-brow, ironic, eco fear-mongering either. But I'm pretty into this issue of late as a learner and have to say discussing the epic abuse of any resource is always a good idea.

Sun Ra

Romanian quiz show host loses it on air

Presenter Adela Lupse from Oradea in western Romania started screaming at the camera, smashed the phone on the ground and then jumped up and down on it before grounding the phone under her foot.

At the same time she screamed repeatedly at the camera "I want the phone to ring now. Now. Call me now."

Angry TV bosses fired her after the outburst on TV station National TV.
But Lupse, who has been the show's presenter for three years, said: "Maybe I was a bit over the top but I wanted to get people to call - there is a lot of pressure to get people to call in with the correct answer. It was a bad day."

But Romanian TV watchdog the National Audiovisual Council of Romania failed to see the funny side and fined the station £1,089 (5,000 RON) for the outburst that showed "unjustified violence".

It also ruled that the show be given an X rating and only broadcast after 10pm.

www.freerice.com