Tag Archives: mission

Dot Earth Blog: Michael Bloomberg, Now a U.N. Climate Envoy, Presses the Case for Urban Action

by Myrna Posted on September 19, 2014

Michael Bloomberg, a mayor turned U.N. climate envoy, explains what cities can do to blunt climate change and its impacts. View original article –  Dot Earth Blog: Michael Bloomberg, Now a U.N. Climate Envoy, Presses the Case for Urban Action ; ; ;

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Dot Earth Blog: Michael Bloomberg, Now a U.N. Climate Envoy, Presses the Case for Urban Action

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Wildlife Agency Seeks Educational Use For Crushed Ivory

by Myrna Posted on September 15, 2014

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking ideas on how to use the crushed remains of illegal ivory it has confiscated and destroyed. The agency wants to use the rubble in a way that increases awareness about the consequences of the illegal trade in ivory. Link:   Wildlife Agency Seeks Educational Use For Crushed Ivory ; ; ;

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Wildlife Agency Seeks Educational Use For Crushed Ivory

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Should Fin Whales Be a Source of Wonder or Meat?

by Myrna Posted on September 13, 2014

A fresh look at Iceland’s fin whale hunts and meat exports to Japan. See more here:  Should Fin Whales Be a Source of Wonder or Meat? ; ; ;

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Should Fin Whales Be a Source of Wonder or Meat?

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Observatory: A Mission for Remote-Controlled Bugs

by Myrna Posted on September 1, 2014

Researchers are working with living moths and cockroaches on a project that could make them useful in searches through rubble. Original article – Observatory: A Mission for Remote-Controlled Bugs

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Observatory: A Mission for Remote-Controlled Bugs

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5 Fresh Videos From Female Singers You Don’t Want to Miss

by FilomenHedrick Posted on September 1, 2014

Mother Jones

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Lara Janssen/Wikimedia Commons; Courtesy Diana Gameros; FKA Twigs/YouTube; Wikimedia Commons; Eric Ibarra

Summer’s pulling to a close, but perk up. Here are videos of five refreshing female vocalists whose smart and uncompromising performances have dazzled me recently:

1. Frazey Ford

Fans of the quirky alt-folk band the Be Good Tanyas—of which Frazey Ford is a founding member—won’t be disappointed with this sneak-peek single off Ford’s upcoming solo album, Indian Ocean, out in mid-October. With subtle vibrato and pulsing emotion, Ford’s velvety vocals take center stage in “September Fields.” While Ford’s a country-folk singer at heart, the electric organ in the track transforms her normally aching lullaby into something funkier and full of sunshine. As I listened, I kept picturing late summer drives through peaceful farm towns, passing barns with their paint peeling, peach stands framed by dry corn stalks, little girls in their Sunday best giggling on the steps of a small church. “Are you holding, holding on so tight?” Ford croons. Yes—to the edge of my seat in anticipation for her album to land.

2. Diana Gameros

One evening in July, Mexican singer Diana Gameros boarded the historic Balclutha, a tall ship parked in the San Francisco Bay. Under violet lights in the main cabin, alongside a handful of other masterful Latin American musicians, she delivered “Canciones Del Mar (Songs of the Sea).” The group performed ocean homages plucked from all over the continent, from fishing ditties to a silly tune about an octopus to a tribute to the Argentine poet Alfonsina Storni, who is said to have ended her own life by wading into the sea.

Gameros also performed her original, “Soy Tu Mar,” and released this humble video a month later. The waves washing through the ballad offer the singer an ethereal alternative rhythm, and pair well with her bright nylon-stringed Takamine guitar with a sound reminiscent of a mariachi. Gameros grew up bouncing between her hometown of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and Holland, Michigan, where she learned English and studied music. She now resides in the Bay Area and plays regularly at a tamale parlor in San Francisco’s Mission District. Her delicate first album, Eterno Retorno, showcases Gameros’ bilingual songwriting and jazzy voice. Like “Soy Tu Mar,” it’s at once full of yearning and serenity. Don’t miss the improvised bonus song in the tunnel at the end of the video.

3. Sevyn Streeter

Ignore the nails and revel in this diva’s silky and powerful voice. It baffles me that the guys lifting weights in the righthand corner of this scren were able to hold it together while Streeter just kills it.

With roots in church gospel music, Streeter started winning talent competitions at a young age, but her cousin had to convince her to upload her music to MySpace. It soon caught the eye of Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez’s producer Rich Harrison, who asked Streeter to join RichGirl, a new pop group he was forming. The band never really took off, but Streeter continued to write songs, and six of the tracks she helped pen made it onto Chris Brown’s Grammy-winning album F.A.M.E.

Now, with an EP to her name, Streeter is working on a debut album. The singles out so far are gussied up with plenty of electronic beats and echo-y harmonies. But after seeing this video, I hope she releases more stripped-down acoustic tracks that allow her pure voice full reign.

4. FKA Twigs

Move over Gaga: FKA Twigs has arrived. This satisfyingly weird artist struts her sultry vocals and mesmerizing poise in the video version of “Two Weeks.” This year saw the London-based Twigs, a former backup dancer, move into the spotlight with her album LP1. Hipster music blog Pitchfork raves about its “eerie, post-humanist, Uncanny Valley-girl aesthetic.” Indeed, Twigs plays a doll in many of the surreal videos off this album—in “Water Me,” her head bobs from side to side and her eyes are unnaturally large.

In the video above, she’s an unapproachable empress. But amid all this cold posturing, her voice is piercingly intimate. And her command of her space and skilled restraint suggest that this 26-year-old half-Jamaican artist is only getting started.

5. Irene Diaz

Okay, this video’s not brand new. But Irene Diaz is probably new to most of you. I just stumbled on her recently (h/t NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts), and I’m hooked on this playful song with its driving piano and flirtatious glances.

Based in Los Angeles, the soulful Diaz is just breaking into the national scene, playing at 2014’s SXSW and opening for Lila Downs’ on her current tour. Diaz seems like she’d be a ton of fun live—but here’s hoping she pauses from touring long enough to complete her first full-length album soon. As one blogger pointed out, Diaz sounds a bit like Fiona Apple, but her songs aren’t quite so morose. They’re muscular and catchy, with a hint of vintage spunk.

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5 Fresh Videos From Female Singers You Don’t Want to Miss

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Hillary’s Brain: A New Classic of American Sleazance Fiction from Karl Rove

by ShaniFitzgibbon Posted on May 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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Steve Benen thinks that Karl Rove’s drive-by shot at Hillary Clinton has failed:

If Karl Rove hoped to generate some chatter with his cheap shot at Hillary Clinton last week, he succeeded — the political world has now been chewing on the “brain damage” story for nearly a week. But by all appearances, Rove has started a conversation that’s focused more on his propensity for sleazy tactics than the former Secretary of State’s health.

….Nearly all the major Sunday shows discussed Rove’s latest salvo, but the focus was on Rove, not Clinton and her 2012 illness. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) blasted Rove for “struggling to be relevant.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) dismissed Rove’s rhetoric as “stupid” and “pathetic.” Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) called Rove’s offensive “outrageous.”

Karl Rove wanted to manufacture a story about Hillary Clinton. He instead created a story about Karl Rove.

I disagree. The press has been talking about Rove’s sleazy tactics for more than a decade. Rove is used to that and obviously doesn’t care. There’s just nothing new on that front, and even if this did somehow damage Rove, it wouldn’t have any effect on the Republicans actually running against Hillary in 2016.

But there’s not much question that Rove has generated a lot of buzz about Hillary’s health. By itself, this isn’t a big deal, but as part of the nonstop mudslinging that Hillary will have to endure for the next couple of years, it’s perfect. Every one of these incidents will be designed to sow a small seed of doubt, and eventually one or two of these seeds might catch on and blossom into an acorn. And from tiny acorns, mighty oaks sometime grow. Mission accomplished!

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Hillary’s Brain: A New Classic of American Sleazance Fiction from Karl Rove

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Yes, the "Innocence of Muslims" Video Really Did Play a Role in the Benghazi Attacks

by SusannaVolz Posted on May 2, 2014

Mother Jones

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The Republican obsession with Benghazi is about to get yet another airing, and as much as I’m loath to waste time on this, I’d like to make a point that even a lot of liberals still seem to be confused about. It’s about the video.

First, a quick recap: A few days after the attacks, the intelligence community believed that the initial street protests in Benghazi had been prompted by anger over the Arabic-language version of the “Innocence of Muslims” video, which had been posted on YouTube a few days earlier. The White House repeated this publicly, and conservatives immediately cried foul. Benghazi was a plain and simple terror attack, they said, and the video had nothing to do with it. The White House was pretending otherwise in order to divert attention from its failure to anticipate and stop the attacks, which might have reflected badly on its overall anti-terrorism efforts in the runup to the 2012 election.

Today, even supporters of the administration acknowledge that the video played no role. Their defense is that at the time the CIA thought the video had inspired protests earlier in the day, and the White House was simply passing along its best knowledge. That turned out to be wrong, but it was the best assessment at the time.

But here’s the thing: it wasn’t wrong. The CIA was mistaken about the existence of protests earlier in the day, but not about the role of the video. David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times has written about this extensively, starting just a few weeks after the attacks, and last December he put together a definitive account of what happened in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. Here’s a piece:

The leader of Benghazi’s most overtly anti-Western militia, Ansar al-Shariah, boasted a few months before the attack that his fighters could “flatten” the American Mission. Surveillance of the American compound appears to have been underway at least 12 hours before the assault started.

The violence, though, also had spontaneous elements. Anger at the video motivated the initial attack. Dozens of people joined in, some of them provoked by the video and others responding to fast-spreading false rumors that guards inside the American compound had shot Libyan protesters. Looters and arsonists, without any sign of a plan, were the ones who ravaged the compound after the initial attack, according to more than a dozen Libyan witnesses as well as many American officials who have viewed the footage from security cameras.

….There is no doubt that anger over the video motivated many attackers. A Libyan journalist working for The New York Times was blocked from entering by the sentries outside, and he learned of the film from the fighters who stopped him. Other Libyan witnesses, too, said they received lectures from the attackers about the evil of the film and the virtue of defending the prophet.

Click here for a fuller account of the video. As Kirkpatrick says, there were a lot of moving parts behind the Benghazi attacks. The entire city was a tinderbox, and plenty of Libyan militants knew the CIA was active there. But the simple fact is that the video played a role. We can argue over how big that role was, and about whether the White House was properly cautious in its public statements. But the best evidence we have from witnesses on the ground is clear: the “Innocence of Muslims” video inspired the initial attacks, which then escalated as armed extremists took over.

That’s it. Blaming the video wasn’t a mistake. It was a real thing.

UPDATE: David Corn has a complete timeline here on how Benghazi fever took hold of the GOP yet again this week.

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Yes, the "Innocence of Muslims" Video Really Did Play a Role in the Benghazi Attacks

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for April 17, 2014

by N0bodyh56 Posted on April 17, 2014

Mother Jones

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Marines put out a controlled fire on a mobile aircraft fire training device at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma April 7 during a visit from Girl Scouts. The firefighting display showed how the Marines respond to an emergency situation. The mission of Girl Scouts of America is to build the courage, confidence and character of girls, who can then make the world a better place, according to their website. The Marines are aircraft rescue and firefighting specialists with ARFF, Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, MCAS Futenma, Marine Corps Installations Pacific. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. David N. Hersey/Released)

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for April 17, 2014

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I Can See Clearly Now – Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

by Myrna Posted on February 25, 2014

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

I Can See Clearly Now

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Genre: Self-Improvement

Price: $12.99

Publish Date: February 25, 2014

Publisher: Hay House

Seller: Hay House, Inc.


For many years, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer ’s fans have wondered when he would write a memoir. Well, after four decades as a teacher of self-empowerment and the best-selling author of more than 40 books, Wayne has finally done just that! However, he has written it in a way that only he can—with a remarkable take-home message for his longtime followers and new readers alike—and the result is an exciting new twist on the old format. Rather than a plain old memoir, Wayne has gathered together quantum-moment recollections. In this revealing and engaging book, Wayne shares dozens of events from his life, from the time he was a little boy in Detroit up to present day. In unflinching detail, he relates his vivid impressions of encountering many forks in the road, taking readers with him into these formative experiences. Yet then he views the events from his current perspective, noting what lessons he ultimately learned, as well as how he has made the resulting wisdom available to millions via his lifelong dedication to service. As a reader, you will feel as if you are right there with Wayne, perusing his personal photo album and hearing about his family, his time in the service, how he writes his best-selling books, and so much more. In the process, you’ll be inspired to look back at your own life to see how everything you have experienced has led you to where you are right now. Wayne has discovered that there are no accidents. Although we may not be aware of who or what is “moving the checkers,” life has a purpose, and each step of our journey has something to teach us. As he says, “I wasn’t aware of all of the future implications that these early experiences were to offer me. Now, from a position of being able to see much more clearly, I know that every single encounter, every challenge, and every situation are all spectacular threads in the tapestry that represents and defines my life, and I am deeply grateful for all of it.” I Can See Clearly Now is an intimate look at an amazing teacher, but it also holds the key for seekers on a personal path of enlightenment. Wayne offers up his own life as an example of how we can all recognize the hand of the Divine steering our individual courses, helping us accomplish the mission we came here to fulfill.

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I Can See Clearly Now – Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

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If You Don’t Like This Movie, You Hate America

by RoseanneQVJ Posted on January 28, 2014

Mother Jones

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Perhaps you don’t know this, what with having a life and all, but the right has been throwing mini-conniptions for the past week or two over the liberal media’s response to the movie Lone Survivor. This example is typical. Jonah Goldberg has a suitably toned down version for a mainstream op-ed page here:

Hollywood has never been opposed to propaganda. When Hollywood’s self-declared auteurs and artistes denounce propaganda as the enemy of art, almost invariably what they really mean is “propaganda we don’t like.”

Consider the film “Lone Survivor,” which tells the true story of heroic Navy SEALs in Afghanistan. The film has been denounced by some critics; a “jingoistic, pornographic work of war propaganda,” in the words of one reviewer. Richard Corliss of Time chimed in: “That these events actually happened doesn’t necessarily make it plausible or powerful in a movie, or keep it from seeming like convenient propaganda.” Similar complaints (from non-conservatives, at least) about antiwar films made during the George W. Bush years are much harder to find.

This got me curious. I haven’t seen the movie myself, so I hopped over to Wikipedia to see what it had to say:

Lone Survivor opened in limited release in the United States on December 25, 2013, before opening across North America on January 10, 2014, to critical acclaim and strong financial success. Critical reaction to the film was mostly positive, with commentators praising Berg’s direction, as well as the acting, story, visuals, and battle sequences.

….Lone Survivor has received “largely positive reviews” from film critics, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Los Angeles Times reported the critics’ consensus was that “the film succeeds in bringing the mission to life, although it avoids probing the deeper issues at hand.” Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes sampled 154 reviews, and as of January 2014, the film holds a 73% rating, with an average score of 6.6/10….Another review aggregator, Metacritic, assigned the film a weighted average score of 60 (out of 100), based on 41 reviews from mainstream critics, considered to be “mixed or average reviews”.

How about that? Wikipedia also informs me that five studios originally put in bids for the film rights. What’s more, Lone Survivor has been nominated for two Academy Awards and has already won several other awards.

Nonetheless, it was reviewed negatively by some critics, including a couple of lefties who don’t care much for war films. And that’s all it takes these days to get the grievance machine rolling. It’s yet more proof that liberals hate America.

UPDATE: Apparently this all dates back to a Jake Tapper interview with the real-life SEAL the movie is based on, which got twisted into a belief that Tapper said the other members of the SEAL team “died for nothing.” Asawin Suebsaeng has the deets here.

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If You Don’t Like This Movie, You Hate America

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