Britain’s delinquents for reality tv
OMG, these reality shows are totally killing me! Enough with the spoiled brats screaming “I hate you dad!”.
It’s about time we had a real show- if we are going to have to watch these sort of things - with real torturous teenagers, and make sure it is only for a good cause: to harass, shame and blame Britain’s ‘young and uncontrollable’.
Filed Under Media & Society, Modern Life, Politics
Muslim Black Metal fans
A book worth a read, Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam explains that Black Metal - theoretically known as having satanic lyrics, being anti-religious and anti-Christian - is popular amongst young people in the Middle East.
Interestingly, conservative Muslims also believe that any music beside spiritual chanting is un-Islamic.
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Filed Under Art, Diversity, History & traditions, Media & Society, Modern Life, Politics
Westoxication
I agree, we have been intoxicated by western culture.
But the Islamic Republic of Iran is taking it too seriously. On Monday the Prosecutor General, Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi, said that toys such as Barbie and other Western toys have negative social consequences. Read more
Filed Under History & traditions, Modern Life, Politics
007 miffs Bolivians
Illustration by Valerie Gudenus
If you are Russian or Arab you are probably used to see your compatriots pictured in American films as bad guys. Now, it’s Bolivians turn. The next 007 film, Quantum of Solace, (directed by Marc Forster and scheduled to be released in October) shows Daniel Craig fighting against 3 really bad narcotrafficants from the South American country. That alone would be a reason for complaints, but there is one more thing in this film that is piecing Bolivians off. Read more
Filed Under Art, Media & Society, Modern Life, Politics
Cellphones make Cubans line up
Illustration by Lars Wannop
It’s a question we all have been asking ourselves: what exactly will happen to Cuba in the next years? Because although Fidel has stepped out, his brother, now in charge, still carries the load of being a Castro. So it’s most likely that the real changes will only start once the mythic figure is no longer around. Which way Cuba will go nobody knows, but the recent changes made by Raul are proving that Cuban people long for access to stuff that have been forbidden since the Revolution, 49 years ago. Read more
Filed Under Modern Life, Politics
The same world. New visions
Not that long ago, whenever we looked into a map, we could be sure to know exactly where a border started and finished. But the old days of borders that change when the color in the map changes are over. Issues like immigration and, therefore, control, border policy and administration agencies, are modifying the way we can - and should - look into a map. And that’s what the guys from the Dutch collective AnArchitektur have been doing. Their “Drawing Escape Tunnels Through Borders: Cartographic Research Experiments by European Social Movements” (shown above) is just one of their many attempts to look into cartography as a tool “for detecting invisible or unconscious spatial structures, for relating social and political forces to geography and the existing built environment”, as they have said earlier about their work. Read more
Filed Under Art, Diversity, Media & Society, Politics
Satyagraha!
Illustration by Lars Wannop
What does the word “slavery” suggest to you?
Chains? Whips? People starving? “Come on we’re in the 21st century” -you could say- “people’s got their own rights!”
And yet… let me tell you a story about last Monday.
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Filed Under Human Rights, Modern Life, Politics, World Health