Esquire Theme by Matthew Buchanan
Social icons by Tim van Damme

30

Jul

Photo: CoHo and Wellman lawn at UC Davis
I actually really miss Davis even though I have been enjoying my time in Geneva. One more year to go and I am already sad to leave this place. The most important thing I’ve learned from my years at Davis: it doesn’t matter where you go, it’s what you do that counts. Cliché, but true. Always make the best of what you have.

Photo: CoHo and Wellman lawn at UC Davis

I actually really miss Davis even though I have been enjoying my time in Geneva. One more year to go and I am already sad to leave this place. The most important thing I’ve learned from my years at Davis: it doesn’t matter where you go, it’s what you do that counts. Cliché, but true. Always make the best of what you have.

(via mdocampo)
27 years in prison and he came out forgiving the people who put him there. Truly inspiring Mr. Mandela. He brings me so much hope. 

(via mdocampo)

27 years in prison and he came out forgiving the people who put him there. Truly inspiring Mr. Mandela. He brings me so much hope. 

Could China's one-child policy change?

From CNN, by Fareed Zakaria:

China is going to get old before it gets rich. Right now, only 8.9% of Chinese are over the age of 65. Compare that to the American ratio of about 13%. But come 2050, China’s percentage of elderly people will overtake that of America’s, rising to 26%, which is more than Japan’s right now.

[…] The implications are immense. China’s workforce will shrink - it will no longer be the world’s factory. All those older people will need to be supported - by their families or by the state. And China will likely need to import workers instead of exporting them - and China is not exactly an immigrant-friendly society. Societies with fewer young people become less dynamic, less risk-taking and less adventurous.

There’s one more thing. China’s one-child policy has been especially brutal on women. By one account, there are 123 male children for every 100 females under the age of 4. Imagine what happens when they grow up. Too many men, not enough potential spouses. And remember, countries with male youth bulges have historically seen civil wars and revolutions - from Algeria in the 1970s to the Arab Spring now.”

To read full article, click here

cing-cangkeling11:

Running (by timekin)

Camera hide-and-seek. Ulu Jernih, Jambi Province, Sumatra, Indonesia.

cing-cangkeling11:

Running (by timekin)

Camera hide-and-seek. Ulu Jernih, Jambi Province, Sumatra, Indonesia.

Raggamuffin - Selah Sue

Ever since I saw her live last Friday at Parc La Grange, I’ve fallen in love with her voice. 

aisforadrienne:



Flowers , 2003 - Takashi Murakami



About the Work
Murakami’s candy-colored smiling flowers are a signature motif in his work, recurring throughout his oeuvre in various forms and guises. Flowers were likewise significant for his artistic development: as Murakami explains, he studied them in preparation for the entrance exams for Tokyo’s University of Fine Arts and again for the school’s Nihon-ga section, and then spent nine years working in a preparatory school where he taught students to draw flowers. “I didn’t like flowers,” Murakami said, “but as I continued teaching in the school, my feelings changed: their smell, their shape—it all made me feel almost physically sick, and at the same time, I found them very ‘cute.’ Each one seems to have its own feelings, its own personality.”

aisforadrienne:

Flowers , 2003 - Takashi Murakami

About the Work

Murakami’s candy-colored smiling flowers are a signature motif in his work, recurring throughout his oeuvre in various forms and guises. Flowers were likewise significant for his artistic development: as Murakami explains, he studied them in preparation for the entrance exams for Tokyo’s University of Fine Arts and again for the school’s Nihon-ga section, and then spent nine years working in a preparatory school where he taught students to draw flowers. “I didn’t like flowers,” Murakami said, “but as I continued teaching in the school, my feelings changed: their smell, their shape—it all made me feel almost physically sick, and at the same time, I found them very ‘cute.’ Each one seems to have its own feelings, its own personality.”

Robert Fisk: Syrian war of lies and hypocrisy

Well said Mr Fisk. Excerpts taken from The Independent:

Has there ever been a Middle Eastern war of such hypocrisy? A war of such cowardice and such mean morality, of such false rhetoric and such public humiliation? I’m not talking about the physical victims of the Syrian tragedy. I’m referring to the utter lies and mendacity of our masters and our own public opinion – eastern as well as western – in response to the slaughter, a vicious pantomime more worthy of Swiftian satire than Tolstoy or Shakespeare.

While Qatar and Saudi Arabia arm and fund the rebels of Syria to overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite/Shia-Baathist dictatorship, Washington mutters not a word of criticism against them. President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, say they want a democracy in Syria. But Qatar is an autocracy and Saudi Arabia is among the most pernicious of caliphate-kingly-dictatorships in the Arab world. Rulers of both states inherit power from their families – just as Bashar has done – and Saudi Arabia is an ally of the Salafist-Wahabi rebels in Syria, just as it was the most fervent supporter of the medieval Taliban during Afghanistan’s dark ages.

[…] Then there’s that neighbouring country which owes us so much gratitude: Iraq. Last week, it suffered in one day 29 bombing attacks in 19 cities, killing 111 civilian and wounding another 235. The same day, Syria’s bloodbath consumed about the same number of innocents. But Iraq was “down the page” from Syria, buried “below the fold”, as we journalists say; because, of course, we gave freedom to Iraq, Jeffersonian democracy, etc, etc, didn’t we? So this slaughter to the east of Syria didn’t have quite the same impact, did it? Nothing we did in 2003 led to Iraq’s suffering today. Right?

[…] And all the while, we forget the “big” truth. That this is an attempt to crush the Syrian dictatorship not because of our love for Syrians or our hatred of our former friend Bashar al-Assad, or because of our outrage at Russia, whose place in the pantheon of hypocrites is clear when we watch its reaction to all the little Stalingrads across Syria. No, this is all about Iran and our desire to crush the Islamic Republic and its infernal nuclear plans – if they exist – and has nothing to do with human rights or the right to life or the death of Syrian babies. Quelle horreur!

Read the whole article here

Me:
Hey, what's that animal that looks kind of like a llama? Apacha? Alpaci? Appachian?
T:
Hmm...no, it's just a llama.
Me:
No dude, a llama is the Emperor's New Groove. There is another animal in South America that looks like a llama! Apacha?
T:
Hmm..Alpacino?
Me:
Alpacino...? Wait, Al Pacino? LOL
One of the many stupid conversations I have with friends but they make me laugh in the middle of the day. And the animal is Alpaca.
was-fuers-auge:

Stockholm Panorama - 3 on Flickr.

Beautiful. 

was-fuers-auge:

Stockholm Panorama - 3 on Flickr.

Beautiful. 

This post is dedicated to Ali Ferzat.

When you browse through the news these days, there is no doubt that Syria and Israel are mentioned somewhere. The conflict in Syria which has now escalated into a civil war as ruled by the Red Cross has captured not only a man’s obsession with power but also the strength of the people to defend their rights. One of these brave people include Ali Ferzat, a 60-years old Syrian cartoonist. I want to honor him in this post personally because like him, I am also an artist and believe in the power of art as a vehicle of change.

Ferzat used what he knows best to advance social change: his hand, a pencil or pen and paper. Imagine all the people who saw his cartoon - hundreds and thousands of people who understood the message, who laughed, who began to think differently about the regime. Consequently, Ferzat was attacked (and keep in mind, he was 60 years old!) because he instilled fear in those with powers. Imagine that, being scared of cartoons! Since his recovery, Ferzat has not stopped drawing and gained an international spotlight. 

“Syria’s Parliament” by Ali Ferzat

Here is a piece from Times Magazine, honoring him as one of the 100 most influential people in 2012:

“There’s something about cartoons. They really get under the skin. Tyrants often don’t get the jokes, but their people do. So when the iron fist comes down, it often comes down on cartoonists.

Ali Ferzat, 60, spent years drawing insightful cartoons, mostly staying between the prescribed lines of Syria’s state-sanctioned media. But confronted with the regime’s increasing brutality, he embraced the democracy movement and turned his lampoons on President Bashar Assad directly. Masked men from the regime soon came for Ferzat. They beat him brutally, making a point of breaking both his hands to stop his cartoons.

Ferzat wasn’t intimidated. His hands have healed and are back to cartooning — drawing sharp, vivid pictures and wry observations on his people’s plight. In the end, the joke is on the regime. It thought it could silence Ferzat and break his will by breaking his hands. Instead it created a powerful symbol who draws cartoons the whole world is now reading. Talk about a great punch line.”