Film critic Roger Ebert has a fantastic collection of the Best Movie Posters Of The Decade. I can't go past this one from 2002 :





The Rest Are Here

In Louisiana, a mother and son went to jail for growing this :



More at The Boston Daily Enterprise.

That's all. That pathetic little plant.

How could the arresting police officers feel anything but humiliation that they are ordered to arrest people for such a 'crime'? Perhaps they enjoy their work. Perhaps they sleep more soundly knowing the world has one less little cannabis plant in it.

Keeping America safe. From a non-toxic plant grows naturally in at least a dozen American states.

The people of the 22nd century are going to look back and shake their heads in disbelief that such pettiness existed in our days; that adherence to outdated, ridiculous laws ruined the lives of otherwise non-criminal people.

What a fucking joke.

What a con.

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Where Social Skills Are Valued More Highly Than Propensity For Violence



American biologist George B Schaller :

"Baboons live in a peaceful society in which not aggression but friendship achieves the desired result.

"Baboons are individuals; each has its own temperament and idiosyncrasies, each has its own desires and goals ... scientific papers cannot express the fundamental charm, the fleeting social entanglements, the perishable moments of a baboon's life.

"A contemplation of baboons can help humankind correct a skewed vision of itself."

From white horses to elephants in 2010

New Year’s eve is a time for reflection on the past year or years, and a time to make plans for the future.
Somehow I have been thinking a lot of white horses in the past few days, even when I was riding an elephant in the Thai jungle earlier today.

(Photo from right to left, Naila, Ablai, I and Mahdi taken today)

I see white horses on the sea from my window here at Patong beach, tossing their heads in a sprightly manner. During the past five years I have seen a lot of footage of the Tsunami striking the shores of India, Maldives, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand and those initial waves became mammoth white horses as they broke. In all the afore mentioned countries except the Maldives, elephants gave warning that the mammoth white horse Tsunamis were approaching. In the Adaman and Nicobar Islands, people followed the elephants into the hills and their lives were saved. A similar story came from Sri Lanka.

Where on earth did this expression ‘white horses’ come from ?
According to the Poseidon myths he had a palace under the sea with an enormous stable filled with white horses who pulled his chariot over the ocean. "White horses" is an old expression referring to the whiite part of a breaking wave.

A view from Park Pass Glacier. Poseidon Peak 7,340 feet on the left, and the two other unnamed peaks,6,897 feet in the centre and 6,720 feet at the far right, that we climbed in February 1967.

Oddly enough, the first mountain I climbed in New Zealnd was Poseidon Peak, 7340 feet. We climbed it at the end of an arduous two week trip in one of New Zealand’s remotest regions, the Olivine Ice Plateau. We were stuck for eight days in Forgotten River during incessant rain, and when it cleared we climbed over Fiery Col, Cow Saddle and up to Park Pass. From there, I saw the mighty white horse, Poseidon Peak standing supreme from the Park Pass Glacier. What a peak to choose for my first climb.
I was with John Armstrong and Robyn Norton, who later married.
Poseidon, like Hinduism’s Vishnu, was also a destroyer. He destroyed buildings, heavily flooded some lands from his powerful seas, and brought a bad drought to others. These Poseidon myths are really history transformed into mythology. Actual events were about one religious group trying to get a hand over another. Has anything changes today ?

So for 2010, I wish the world to move away from Poseidon type conflicts, where the person with the biggest chariots and the strongest white horses wins over the other, and we take the gentleness of the elephant, his measured pace, large ears for listening and steady footsteps. Elephants can also detect disasters before humans can feel them. Let’s learn from the elephant in 2010. Elephants are symbols of good fortune, something the world is lacking today.

I wish you all a very happy New Year.

Mt. Chaos left, and Poseidon Peak right from the Dart River.(Permission sought from naturespic. Hopefully they will agree.

Iran, December 27, 2009 :

Indoctrination of children that I completely agree with :




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Kill The Bloggers

Another mainstream media story, this time from the New York Times, pushing the new reality where news consumers will supposedly have to soon start paying digital cash to read stories, columns and watch news video online. I've been reading about this for getting onto two years, and and it seems no closer to reality. Not much new in this story, but this final quote says it all about the biggest problem Old Media dinosaurs like Rupert Murdoch face :

“One of the problems is newspapers fired so many journalists and turned them loose to start so many blogs. They should have executed them. They wouldn’t have had competition. But they foolishly let them out alive.”

Too many bloggers and citizen journos willing to work for free.

For paid news content to work, and to generate the kinds of profits that media empires were once built on, the majors will have to eliminate the competition, including thousands of non-professional bloggers and ex-journos, who still want to keep writing, regardless of how justly or unjustly they are compensated for their work and effort.

Of course, Rupert Murdoch could stop paying himself and his family tens of millions of dollars a year, and eliminate one of the biggest costs of mega-corporate media : paying the massive executive salaries of those who don't do any journalism any at all.

"They leave a data footprint. They tell me what they are interested in. They tell me what kinds of things they are searching on. They tell me what kinds of articles they are reading. They tell me whether a user is interested in preparing for the tax season for next year. They tell me whether the user is going to be interested in a particular geography from a travel perspective...All this wonderful data footprint, which has such high value."

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From the National Geographic documentary, Extraordinary Animals In The Womb.

More Here

Tsunami remembrance in Thailand and other Tsunami affected countries.

Candle- lit ballons soaring over tree tops, a moving tsunami poem from a young high school student, haunting music from a high school orchestra, songs in French and Thai and a remembrance tribute and prayer from a Christian pastor, were moving moments at Patong Beach, Thailand, on 26 December. Throughout the ceremony, the sea, only 30 metres away, was lapping the shore and reminded us of hidden dangers

Earlier in the day at Patong, (photo above) a Thai beach resort village bustling with tourists, local artists performed traditional Thai songs in a pavilion where tourists gathered to look at photographs of the tsunami's damage.

Having spent most of the last five years of my life, working for the Red Cross on Tsunami relief and recovery operations, I found it a very soothing and healing event, to participate with mainly gentle Thai people and a scattering of foreigners. Ablai, my ten year old son was with me and he got emotionally caught up in the moment, and simply loved helping light the candles in paper ballos, and send them flying heavenward.



Closure takes time, and I watched a mixture of pain and relief on the face of a young Scandanavian woman, who placed a bunch of white roses near a lit candle on the beach. She somhow looked at peace.



Thumbs up to the Tsunami recovery operation.



Ceremonies took place in Indonesia on Saturday to mark the fifth anniversary of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami that struck after a huge earthquake off Sumatra island in 2004.

The tsunami killed 226,000 people in 13 countries, with 166,000 killed or missing in the Indonesian province of Aceh.

Thousands of saffron-robed Thai monks chanted and prayed for victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami on Saturday as Asia marked the fifth anniversary of one of history's worst natural disasters.

The gathering of monks in Ban Nam Khem, a small fishing village on Thailand's Andaman Sea coast that lost nearly half its 5,000 people, was one of hundreds of solemn events across Asia in memory of the towering waves that crashed ashore with little warning on Dec. 26, 2004, killing 226,000 people in 13 countries.

"All souls from all nationalities, wherever you are now, please receive the prayers the monks are saying for you," said Kularb Pliamyai, who lost 10 family members in Ban Nam Khem.



Disposing bodies in the first days.



In Indonesia's Banda Aceh, survivors gathered in neighbourhood mosques or homes on the eve of the anniversary to remember those killed by a wall of water as high as 30 metres triggered by an undersea earthquake off the island of Sumatra.

Indonesia was the worst hit with the number of dead and missing over 166,000. Massive reconstruction aid in Banda Aceh has rebuilt a new city on top of the ruins, and many survivors are only now putting memories of the waves behind them.

"The psychology of the Acehnese people is starting to recover after five years," said Eva Susanti, who lost 125 members of her extended family in the Banda Aceh area.

Some locals such as Taufik Rahmat say they have moved on, helped along by new homes in the Banda Aceh region following one of the largest foreign fund-raising exercises. But still pockets of people in his village remain homeless.

"Not all elements have been fulfilled, I think about 80 percent to 90 percent of the people still don't have proper housing," he said.

Unloading planes





FRIGHTENED OF THE SEA

Thailand's Ban Nam Khem village is a shadow of its former self. Its once-thriving centre of dense waterfront stores, restaurants and wooden homes is gone, replaced with souvenir shops, a wave-shaped monument and a small building filled with photographs of the tsunami recovery effort.

Many former residents are now too frightened of the sea to rebuild close to the water.

"I still feel bad about what happened. People from all over the world were killed here. It's their misfortune," Kularb said.

In Thailand, 5,398 people were killed, including several thousand foreign tourists, when the waves swamped six coastal provinces, turning some of the world's most beautiful beaches into mass graves. Many are still missing.

Almost all of those killed were vacationing on or around the southern island of Phuket, a region that had contributed as much as 40 percent of Thailand's annual tourism income.



> New Red Cross village in Mate Ie, Aceh. Photo: Bob McKerrow



"The economy has not recovered," said Rotjana Phraesrithong, who is in charge of the Baan Tharn Namchai Orphanage, opened in 2006 for 35 children who lost parents in the tsunami.

Dozens of small hotels and resorts are up for sale in Thailand's Phang Nga province north of Phuket whose forested coastline includes Ban Nam Khem and the serene 19-km (12-mile) Khao Lak beach, two of Thailand's worst tsunami-hit areas.

"More than 100 of these small hotels and retail tour operators are looking to sell their operations because they can't obtain loans from banks to keep going," said Krit Srifa, president of the Phang Nga Tourism Association.

"Many small operators are still in debt after renovations since the tsunami and many just haven't recovered financially."



Materials for building houses had to be taken by landing crafts to remote Indonesian Islands.



On Khao Lak beach, where the tsunami killed more than 3,000 people, there's little physical evidence of it aside from occasional "Tsunami Hazard Zone" signs and colour-coded evacuation maps.

A symbol of the catastrophe, the Sofitel Magic Lagoon where more than 300 guests and staff died, re-opened last month as the 298-room JW Marriott Khao Lak Resort & Spa.

In Patong, tourism is down but few blame the tsunami.

"The only time people seem to talk about the tsunami is in December during the anniversary," said Pattahanant Ketkaew, a 27-year-old manager at Phuket2Go tours near Patong beach. "Tourism is off but that's because of the global economy."

And to serve as a reminder, a strong earthquake struck off Indonesia's Tanimbar Islands in the east of the country on Saturday, but there was no tsunami alert issued and no reports of immediate damage, the country's meteorology agency said.

The US Geological Survey pegged the quake at magnitude 6.0 and its epicentre was 270 km north northwest of Saumlaki in the Tanimbar islands at a depth of 56 km

USGS had initially put the magnitude at 6.2.



After the Tsunami ceremony last night, I popped into a bar for a nightcap. A waitress brought me a drink. Her name was Thu. there were few customers around so I asked her where she was when the Tsunami struck. Her face darkened and she seemed to shrink back as memories flooded back. " I was right here. Waves went out and many people ran to collect fish. I stayed here. A few minutes later a huge wave smased into bar and threw me into the corner. I nearly drowned. someone saved me, I broke my arm. One foreign tourist died just there. We took her body away. many people die right here," she said sadly.



Five years doesn't heal the wounds fully.

From Life Magazine archive. In 1937, American Nazis hailed, praised George Washington as the "First Fascist":

Dylan Moran :

I didn't have a whole lot of religious belief to begin with: we were the only family on the street who didn't go to church. But it was a big part of Irish society. When I was born, something like 96% of Ireland went to mass every week. It's not like that now, partially because the church has collapsed. I do think it's perfectly natural and human to want to invest belief in something. It's just a facet of who we are. What do I believe in? I believe in the obvious things. The people I'm close to and my work – it's not complicated.

Read The Rest Here

The Christmas Incident

By Darryl Mason

All I got for you is this series of twoots collected from Twitter last night, about a shocking gun-related early Christmas morning incident.

Heard something on the roof. Sounds like hooves or something. I'm loading the shotgun. I'm going to have a look. Shoot first, questions later.

Oh God, I think I just did something terrible. In the dark, the bell the old fat white-bearded bloke was holding looked just like a pistol.

The old bloke fell off the roof when I shot him. He's flopping around on the lawn. He's wearing red, so I can't tell if he's bleeding.

There's a whole load of frigging reindeer on my roof. I'm reloading. One of them looks pissed. His nose is glowing bright red. Taking aim.

Took out two of the reindeer on my roof with one shell. Good eating. After butchering I can fit maybe five carcasses in the deep freeze.

If I'd known they were flying reindeer I wouldn't have shot 'em so fast. They'd be damn handy, better than a jetpack. Killed 4, rest flew away.

The old bloke I blew off my roof just croaked "R...uuudolph!" and that rednose deer crawled over to him. I thought it was dead. Tough deer.

If I am right, I can do em both with one cartridge. Seems to be a lot of crying, shrieking, screaming kids here now. Sirens coming closer.

Yeah, bit of a bad scene. Kids and parents are hysterical. They all seem to know who this white bearded dying bloke is. I can't finish him now. Dammit.

I've had to barricade myself inside my house. Screaming kids are trying to smash the windows. I left the deer carcasses on the lawn. Dammit.

Jeez, they got a cop on a speaker. They're saying this is a siege, and "You Shot Santo Claws, You Fuck!". I was defending my property.

That Santo Claws bloke wasn't as bad off as I thought. He just tried to kick in the front door. Cops told him to stop. He didn't. He got tasered

Police negotiator says he understands my plight, says I was in my right to blow that old fuck off my roof, but he still has to arrest me.

I said yes to a lawyer who offered representation after winching down from a TV news helicopter. Seven figure TV, book & movie deal on the cards. Coming out now.

Lawyer said I might have to do two months, then I'd be out and set. That Santo Claws fucker who landed reindeer on my roof is okay.

Apparently, I am "The Stupid Fuck Who Ruined Christmas!" according to the newspaper front pages around the world today.

I don't remember ever hearing about this Santo Claws bloke, and his very hard to believe story of delivering presents to kids, worldwide.

Lawyer says his name is actually 'Santa Claus' and is beloved by children across the world. Says I have to start saying "Merry Christmas." It's part of the plea deal. So ditto that. I still don't get it.

Mel Gibson's playing me in the movie. It's called I Shot Santa. Jack Thompson is playing the old fat bloke in red I blew off my roof. They got cool robot deer.

This Santa Claus fucker is suing the studio making our movie. He says the title, I Shot Santa, violates his trademark. I don't get paid until 1st day of production.

I may have to shoot him again.

Merry Christmas.





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Reflections on five years of the Tsunami operation.

A woman who survived the Tsunami in Aceh In Indonesia, in her new Red Cross transitional shelter. Taken in February 2007






We walked along Patong Beach last night. A tourist ship was anchored in the bay. A slice of moon nudged stars that were dancing heal and toe. Naila, Ablai, Mahdi and I walked into the surf and felt the waves around our feet. During the last five years I feel a wrench in my gut when I step into the surf. I have personally witnessed so much death and destruction from the sea, since that fateful day on 26 December 2004 when the Indian Ocean tsunami killed over 200,000 people, with over 100,000 still missing, that my relationship with the sea has changed. I am more cautious.

Half an hour before we walked in the surf last night, we had dinner in a Russian restaurant with an exotic menu. One of the waiters talked about the Tsunami. He was sleeping when it hit the coastline. Many of his friends were killed here in Phuket and down the coast in Krabi. Across the street the Information Kiosk has a DVD and screen you can watch the Tsunami video on. On the streets there are Tsunami evacuation signs directing people to higher ground. (see photo below) The tsunami has taken lives and changed lives.

My work initially on the Tsunami relief operation, for the first year, was mainly in India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives and was rewarding as we provided life saving relief including medical aid, water, sanitation and shelter. Then it was into recovery planning for building whole communities which included houses, schools, clinics, water supplies, toilets, waste disposal, livelihoods and institutions such as nursing colleges and mental institutions.

In August 2006, I moved to Indonesia to head the Red Cross recovery operation and now, after five years we have almost completed our work. This is my third short visit to Thailand since the Tsunami struck, but the other visits have been more for regional planning meetings.

Stefan Kuhne-Hellmessen and Leslie Schaffer. Stefan's story is below and Leslie ran the Tsunami desk for Sri Lanka and the Maldives from Geneva. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Today in Patong I met Stefan Kuhne-Hellmessen who runs our Tsunami recovery operation in Thailand. When the Tsunami struck, I asked Stefan to go to Sri Lanka and support the relief operation there. Later he moved here and has been heading the Red Cross relief operation together with the Thai Red Cross for more than three years. On Saturday 26 December, Stefan and I will participate in some Tsunami commemoration ceremonies marking five years. He is going to take me to show me many of the Thai Red Cross success stories as well as providing me an opportunity to talk to survivors.

Over 2000 people died in this small bay, Patong. The Thai Red Cross have invited me to a ceremony where a floating candle for each person killed will be lit and placed in the sea.I cannot think of a better way to remember those who died and to celebrate those who survived.
I will also think of those people I worked with over the past five years and who ‘built back better.’ Many of them are pictured below.

Mr. Tsunami, Dr. Kuntoro Mangkasubroto who led the most professional Government Ministry for Tsunami Recovery in Indonesia, with Bob McKerrow on Simeulue Island. Photo: Aroha McKerrow

Building back better. A Red Cross permanent house in Aceh with the wooden Red Cross transitional shelter behind. The wooden shelter provided accommodation for the first three years until permanent houses were completed. Photo: Bob McKerrow
Jerry Talbot (left) and Dr. Kintoro. Jerry was the special representative to the SG of the International Red Cross and provided inspirational leadership to all of us in the field. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Two girls who survived the Tsunami in Mate Ie village in Aceh. Photo: Bob McKerrow

A group of senior officials who played key roles role in the five years of the Tsunami operation. From left to right:
Yasuo Tanaka, Japanese Red Cross who played a major part in assessment in Aceh in the early days of the relief operation.
Satya Tripathi the UN Recovery Coordinator in Aceh who did an outstanding job.
Tadateru Konoe President of the Japanese Red Cross and IFRC. For five years he led Japanese RC efforts and played a key role in the Federation.

Kuntoro Mangkasubroto, head of BRR.
Pak Heru BRR head of International relations
Bob McKerrow, the writer






Marcel Fortier (desk officer for Indonesia) and Valpuri our monitoring and evaluation specialists. Photo: Bob McKerrow




Per Jennes and Isobel Grainger. Per ran the operation in the Maldives and Isobel was our legal delegate. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Women in Teunon, Aceh, benefit from a Red Cross livelihood programme.
Indonesian red Cross volunteers removing the dead.
The early days of the relief operation in Aceh.
Pak Iyang (l) SG of Indonesian RC, Borge Bente, SG of Norwegian Red Cross and writer. Pak Iyand worked tirelessly for five years full time om the Tsunami operation.
Pak Mar'ie, Chairman PMI (left) who gave outstanding leadership throughout the Tsunami operation, talking to Ken Baker. Ken led the Canadian RC housing programme. Photo: Bob McKerrow
Younis Karim (l) and Flory who ran the Red Cross operation on the island of Nias. Photo: Bob McKerrow
Eddy Purwanto,(l) Chied of Operations, BRR, Indonesia, talking to Ann, from the IFRC office in New York. Eddy visited New York with Pak Kuntoro to meet Bill Clinton and Ban ki Moon. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Al Qaeda Agents Of The CIA

A solid piece of War On Terror hard news by Kurt Nimmo. He lists known or suspected Al Qaeda terrorists who've worked for, or been trained by, the CIA :

- Vinnell bombing leader Khaled Jehani (worked for the CIA in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan)

- USS Cole bomber Jamal al-Badawi (worked for the CIA in Bosnia)

- the mental case Zacarias Moussaoui (fought for the CIA in Chechnya)

- the notorious media darling Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (worked for the CIA in Bosnia) who in addition to supposedly materminding dozens of terror attacks is also accused of working with Ramzi Yousef on the Operation Bojinka terror plot (Yousef was recruited by the CIA and associated with the intelligence asset the Muslim Brotherhood).

- former head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (an asset of the US-British intelligence penetrated Muslim Brotherhood) Ayman al-Zawahiri, sidekick of the late Osama bin Laden, a former CIA operative in Bosnia who received gobs of money from the CIA (he also had a free pass to come and go from the United States while on official CIA business)

- Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, the “spiritual leader of the CIA-backed mujaheddin” (according to the Boston Globe) who was considered by the CIA and Special Forces officers to be “valuable asset” (until he was set-up and convicted for the World Trade Center bombings in 1993) and also flew around on the CIA’s dime

- the key player and former Grand Poobah of the CIA mujahideen operation in Afghanistan, Abdullah Azzam, the founder of Maktab al-Khidamat (the organization received hundreds of millions in U.S. dollars via the CIA) who was blown to bits prior to Osama’s ascension to the al-Qaeda throne. Azzam was also a frequent flier to the United States, land of the Great Satan.

Read The Full Story Here

A strange ad from a 1936 issue of Popular Mechanics encourages Americans to embrace an "attractive future" by home-breeding huge South American toads for the US canned frogs' legs market :

(click to enlarge)


The market for lickable hallucinogenic toads would have been much bigger.

Now BushCo. Are Gone, John Bolton Is Just Another War Mongering BobbleHead Bullshit Artist

Foreign Policy gives John Bolton, full-time War On Iran activist, a well-deserved slaparound in their Top 10 Worst Predictions For 2009 list :

"I think if they [Israel] are to do anything, the most likely period is after our elections and before the inauguration of the next president. I don't think they will do anything before our election because they don't want to affect it. And they'd have to make a judgment whether to go during the remainder of President Bush's term in office or wait for his successor."

—John Bolton, Fox News, June 22, 2008

"It will have to make a decision soon, and it will be no surprise if Israel strikes by year's end. Israel's choice could determine whether Iran obtains nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future."

—John Bolton, The Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2009

An Israeli airstrike on Iran always seems to be just around the corner for former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, no matter what the circumstances. Around the same time as the Fox News statement, he expanded on his opinion in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, saying that an Obama victory would "rule out" military action. Nevertheless, a year later he was still saying, "you would have to bet" that Israel would soon launch an attack, Obama or not.

To put Bolton's warning in perspective, he was advocating military action against Iran back in 2007, saying "our time is limited."

The photo Foreign Policy chose to go with this excellent Bolton The Bullshiter sledging shows what a clown they think he is :




The rest of the Foreign Policy list is an excellent look at just how wrong politicians, journalists, government agencies, financial experts and spin masters can be at predicting the future.

"We Shoot Anybody Who Tries To Help"

The video quality is rough as guts, but the material is absolutely killer :



Sam Kinison, 1986 :

You notice anybody who ever tries to help, we shoot 'em? You notice that? They get shot. We knock them off.

"Oh, he's trying to make the world a better place to live. Shoot him!"

Anybody, right? Abraham Lincoln....

Remember Saddat? Saddat was going to bring peace to the Middle East. Yeah, good luck pal. It's like, "Saddat, you're doing a wonderful job, we decided to have a parade for you. Where something bright and sit down front."

Anybody.

We shoot anybody who tries to help. Ghandi, The Kennedys....

Martin Luther King. "I have a dream..." thwwpppt! "Oh, I have a head wound!"

That's how it is. It's "Well, he's got a dream, we better nip it in the bud before it's a concept."

Imagine any stand-up comedian appearing on commercial TV today unleashing such radical, challenging, truthful material.

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All the details below are taken from official White House media-distributed photography.






DeNiro, Springsteen, Obama :



No-one can accuse Obama of blowing money on new phones for the White House. Look at this ancient beast of a thing sitting on his Oval Office desk.



Obama flag pin worn on lapels of White House doormen :




I can't find a clearer image of the pin online.

Obama's signature :




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The President of International Red Cross arrives in Indonesia

" How are you Bob ?" he warmly greeted me as he entered the airport terminal in Jakarta last night. With his sharp eyes he had spotted me first. Tadateru Konoe is an impressive man who engages warmly and sincerely with all he meets. His humanitarian track record is equally impressive.

I was delighted when he was recently elected President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the largest humanitarian organisation on the world.

I was also delighted to learn that for his first overseas trip as President of the International Red Cross, he picked Indonesia.

As we travelled by car the one hour from the airport to his hotel last night, we spoke about the various times we had worked together in the past: Bangladesh, Geneva and India. But the bulk of our time was spent on recalling Henrik Beer, Secretary General of the International Red Cross from 1960 to 1982. Mr.Konoe and I worked with Henrik in 1975 when we were based in Geneva, and remained our boss for some years later as we went our different ways in the Red Cross world.

"Henrik was an outstanding leader," said Konoe last night,"and he gave strong leadership for more than twenty years." We shared for many minutes our personal reminiscences of Henrik and acknowledged Henrik's contribution to the environment.

We then had a long discussion piecing together Henrik's contribution to the environment and climate change.

In 1972, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, and for the first time united the representatives of multiple governments to discuss the state of the global environment. This conference led directly to the creation of government environment agencies and the UN Environment Program.

Henrik Beer participated in the conference, and was deeply moved by predictions of the earth slowly destroying itself. He left inspired and determined to get the Red Cross Red Crescent involved in environmental programmes in order to stop the environmental degradation that he believed was worsening the plight of vulnerable people.

In 1972-73 the phrase “Climate Change” had not been coined, but Henrik Beer’s vision changed the way some Red Cross Crescent societies thought and acted, as they started undertaking environmental programmes, a shift that set the foundation for an easy understanding of the later, and insidious onset of global warming.

Tadateru Konoe (right) Yasuo Tanaka (left) and Bob McKerrow (centre) shortly after Mr. Konoe's arrival in Jakarta

Mr. Konoe reminded me that Henrik encouraged Red Cross societies such as Ethiopia - suffering from drought in 73-74 - to plant trees and to get young people involved. Henrik had similar messages for flood-stricken Nepal and India. He was passionate about reforestation, he understood overgrazing and the need to protect mountain lands and water catchments.

As we drove deeper into the heart of Jakarta, I told Mr. Konoe that in 1975, when I went to Nepal as a disaster preparedness delegate, both Henrik Beer and he briefed me In Geneva and both reminded me of the need to plant trees and make the young aware of the need to care for the environment, especially the fragile Himalayan environment.

Both Henrik Beer and Tadateru Konoe (see photo of him above in 1968) had visited Nepal a number of times in the late 60s, early 70's and collectively gave a lot of guidance and material assistance. Konoe told me about an adventurous trip he had to Nepal in 1968, when he drove an ambulance donated by the Japanese Red Cross to Kathmandu, from India, across rough, and often unformed roads.

I recalled that n 1981, when I was working in India on a huge cyclone preparedness programme, Henrik Beer made his last field visit as secretary general. We were building 230 cyclone shelters and part of the programme was an integrated disaster preparedness programme where young volunteers planted trees to protect the coastline, the shelters, and drainage canals. Henrik was thrilled to see the Indian volunteers active with environmental programmes.

Mr. Konoe visited Southern India shortly after Henrik, and I had the pleasure of travelling with him and we recalled some of our impressions at that time. Today, planting trees for protection along cyclone prone coastlines is an archetypal way of addressing the increased threats posed by climate change.

As we neared the hotel we agreed that Henrik Beer was a great leader of the Red Cross and the humanitarian world at large, and kept abreast of world affairs and especially topics related to humanity and environment.

As we arrived, I told Mr. Konoe I had a fascinating paper on Red Cross and the environment, and this morning I unearthed it, and will share it with him when we meet at lunch today.

From the paper I noted the that words, spoken by Henrik Beer over three decades ago, could have been written yesterday as a rallying call for all civil society and government organisations to come together and safeguard our future:

“Can the agencies and the many INGOs each treat the world network of organizations as an administrative problem when it clearly represents an unstudied social problem? Is it not an unexplored global network of resources — of which the governmental and business worlds are an integral part – which has not yet been effectively related to the peace/population/food/development/education/environment crisis precisely because the functional relationship of all the parts to the social whole is repeatedly and systematically ignored in organizational decisions?

“It is no longer useful to concentrate on the problems of one "independent" organization or group of organizations (as though each operated as an autonomous frontier outpost surrounded by uncharted terrain). Nor is it useful to focus on a single geographical region or subject area -- it is now essential to look at the problems of the network of interdependent organizations and their inter- related concerns ," said Henrik.

Henrik Beer had a vision.

I know that Tadateru Konoe has a vision.

My mind goes back to a misty morning in Bhuj, Gujarat, India, when Konoe and I were having a bowl of soup together outside the Japanese Red Cross tent. That was late January 2001. He was so proud of the work the Japanese Red Cross medical team were doing for the many thousands injured by the earthquake, that killed over 25,000 people.
On that muddy school compound we had over 600 Red Cross staff and volunteers living in tents next to the 400 bed Finnish-Norwegian Red Cross field hospital.

Konoe spoke to me of this wonderful relief operation and how it must be replicated in the future. Rather than pump more money into the Japanese Red Cross, Konoe was the driving force behind the concept of and the Asia and Pacific disaster management unit, which is now well established in Kuala Lumpur, and provides a zone-wide disaster response, coordination and technical support to the whole of Asia and Pacific.
We have a man of vision with a history of implementation at the helm of Red Cross, and I know if Henrik Beer were alive today, he would be very proud that one of his protegees, is President of the organisation he gave so much to. Henrik Beer and Tadateru Konoe have much in common: men of high integrity, men of vision who have given their lives to the Red Cross.

I am looking forward to the three days he is spending in Jakarta, where he will meet the President of the country tomorrow, give an opening speech at the Indonesian Red Cross General Assembly (held every 5 years), visit the programmes of the PMI, and as he loves to do in each country, meet the volunteers who are the backbone of our Red Cross movement.

"You Imagine Missing It All And Suddenly It's So Much More Precious"

Carl Sagan in interview May 1996 :



Carl Sagan died on December 20, 1996

It's Beginning To Feel A Lot Like A "Fuck You" Christmas....

Update, Dec. 21 : Rage Against The Machine have the UK Number One Single for Christmas, and sent tens of thousands of pounds the way of a homeless charity. Frontman Zack De La Rocha declares victory for real music with something to say over corporate production line pop blech :

"...I just want to say we want to thank everyone for participating in this incredible, organic grass roots campaign.

"It's more about the spontaneous action taken by young people in the UK to topple this very sterile pop monopoly. When young people decide to take action they can make what's seemingly impossible, possible."

Previously....

An online fan campaign through FaceBook and Twitter sees Rage Against The Machine's Killing In The Name Of heading for the Number One spot on the UK charts for Christmas. The main competition is another godawful, cheesy Simon Cowell production line pukefest.

Rage Against The Machine are invited onto BBC Radio 5, they get a few minutes to shred Cowell and his nasty mega-million dollar business of the exploitation and humiliation of teenagers. Then RATM perform a live version of the song that fans are using to revolt against meaningless corporate radio crap :



"Get rid of it!" "We asked them not to do it, but they did it anyway."

What did they think Rage Against The Machine were going to do? Comply with their request?

The finale is "Fuck You, I Won't Do What You Tell Me".

The whole song is about NOT COMPLYING.

Morons.

Obama And The Bankers



By Darryl Mason

President Obama sat down with 12 cashed-up-from-the-taxpayers-pocket members of the American banking and financial industry. He told them, in short, to shape up, get their money back out there and spread around the wealth :

So my main message in today's meeting was very simple: that America's banks received extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers to rebuild their industry -- and now that they're back on their feet, we expect an extraordinary commitment from them to help rebuild our economy.

And I made very clear that I have no intention of letting their lobbyists thwart reforms necessary to protect the American people. If they wish to fight common-sense consumer protections, that's a fight I'm more than willing to have.

The way I see it, having recovered with the help of the American government and the American taxpayers, our banks now have a greater obligation to the goal of a wider recovery, a more stable system, and more broadly shared prosperity.

Obama needs to go into those meetings with a baseball bat by his side.

Let's take a closer look at those faces :









No, not a lot of laughs in that room.

I take that as a good sign.


.

When Special Effects Artists Were Stars

By Darryl Mason

Back in the days before CGI, movie monsters and creatures had to be sculpted, cast, assembled and built.

Two great videos from the early 1980s follow, on the artists who made the monsters and creatures. And to fans of magazinese like Fangoria, Starlog and Cinemafastique back then, these guys were indeed true artists. These creature and special make-up effects created achieved a level of fame and legend that no CGI artist today has attained.

Carlo Rambaldi, Dick Smith, Rick Baker, Rob Bottin. Special effects freaks like me used to go see movies solely because they made the monsters, and their names were nearly always featured in the opening titles, alongside the producer, director and writer(s).









CGI artists don't seem to generate anything like that kind of idolisation. Must have been an 80s thing.

Beware of Polar Bears, dangerous deserts, avalanches and wild rivers.

Do you ever get bored ? I often get stuck for hours in airports or wake up and can't get back to sleep. So instead of counting sheep, I've started marking all the cities I have been to in the world on a Facebook programme called TripAdvisor travel map. I have identified 665 to date and there are a few I have missed in Canada, India and the US of A. But sadly, some of the most memorable cities and towns I have been to are not there, such as my favourite, Sidhbari in India.

I have also listed my favourite settlements and cities that are available on this programme. If you want to learn more about my favourite places, just click on the name, or click on the map itself, to enlarge it. But if you do visit, beware of Polar Bears, dangerous deserts, avalanches and wild rivers.

Take care, and try to take the path less worn.

Bob

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