All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Ex Libris: New York Public Library review – the restless mind of the city

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A treasured US institution opens itself to the painstaking view of fly-on-the-wall master Frederick Wiseman, who finds enlightenment, humour, compassion and soul within its walls

Frederick Wiseman, who can reasonably be called one of the most groundbreaking film-makers still working, has spent his entire career taking deep dives on very specific topics. It’s maybe something of a punchline that now, at age 87, his latest subject is everything.

For over 50 years Wiseman’s all-seeing, fly-on-the-wall cinema has visited institutions (a psychiatric hospital, a park, a museum, a concert venue, a school), gobbled it all up and served it back in an edited form that, while avoiding a traditional three-act structure, links sequences that build to a rich, almost-transcendent understanding. Lord knows others ape the style, but few compare.

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F*ck You Billabong. Seriously, f*ck you. – Women 2.0

We get enough of this sh*t elsewhere, I assure you. We don’t need it from you too. So show me some badass (and beautiful, if you must) women out there shredding waves and having fun on the beach. Show me what is possible for me, as a woman, if I buy your products. Sell me that dream. Isn’t that what this whole business is about anyway?I’m your target market and you’re losing me. Do better.

Source: F*ck You Billabong. Seriously, f*ck you. – Women 2.0

Woman pulls gun during fight over school supplies at Walmart

Wait for it… when two people do the same and start shooting… it will happen and people will die. And wing-nuts will not care…

Just LOOK at this. Pulling a gun over school supplies? Watch the child’s face. It’s being reported the woman was a license concealed holder. So what? Who cares? Does it make it ok because she’s a license concealed holder? This woman is irresponsible and need to be banned from every Walmart. She’s a fool with a gun.

NOVI, MICH. – Video from a bystander shows a woman pull out a gun during a fight inside a Walmart store in Novi on Monday afternoon.

An argument broke out between two pairs of women over the last notebook on the shelf at the Novi Towne Center store, according to police.

The fight involved two Farmington Hills residents, ages 46 and 32, and a mother and daughter from South Lyon, ages 51 and 20.

WCRZ-FM reports that the two Farmington Hills women were shopping for school supplies, and when one of them reached for the last notebook on the shelf, a South Lyon woman also reached for it. Police told the Free Press that it was the 20-year-old who reached for it.

The two women pulled the 20-year-old’s hair, and the woman’s mother was pushed aside before pulling out a gun, according to Fox2Detroit.

Brazil’s leftist hero basks in adulation as he bids to revive political fortunes

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Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was convicted of corruption in July. Now he is on the road mobilising those he lifted out of poverty

Wearing their best red T-shirts, carrying flags and banners, and buzzing with excitement, thousands of people in this poor, dusty farming town had thronged the main square to see Lula and they screamed and stretched out their hands when he walked on stage.

The bearded, gravel-voiced leftist leader’s rule ended seven years ago, yet he remains the most popular Brazilian president in decades, if not in the country’s history.

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My colleague Maria was deported. I saw the void she – and others – leave behind | Nick Nelson | Opinion | The Guardian

Maria’s deportation is the worst possible outcome of an immigration policy that is not about the “rapists” and “criminals” with whom President Trump threatened us during his campaign, but about racist and inaccurate definitions of what it means to be American.Maria’s story makes it crystal clear that Trump’s immigration policy isn’t about keeping Americans safe; after all, it can’t even prioritize actual criminals over skilled healthcare workers who care for underserved patients. Rather, Trump’s policies pander to the worst impulses of a small segment of society who are afraid that a diverse America will leave no place for them.Maria was torn from our community and left a void which many will feel for a long time, in many cases for their entire lives. Nobody feels this more acutely than the three American daughters she left behind.Those of us who were her colleagues and her patients will miss her calm, compassionate competence. And I will miss the illusions I had about my community’s ability to protect our own when Trump’s minions come calling.

Source: My colleague Maria was deported. I saw the void she – and others – leave behind | Nick Nelson | Opinion | The Guardian

Pussy Riot’s Mariya Alyokhina: ‘Politics is not something that exists in one or another White House. It is our lives’ | World news | The Guardian

Alyokhina says she wants to tell the human story of Pussy Riot and correct some misconceptions: “In our case, the propaganda worked at full speed. They called us sacrilegious, whores and everything else.” But she also would like the book to be a call to action. “I want a 19-year-old girl from Argentina who doesn’t know anything about Putin, Russia, Pussy Riot or protest to be able to understand it,” she says. “Everyone has a choice, at every moment in their lives. This [book] is simply an example of how you make choices.”The Russian language version is being unofficially distributed in the same way that so-called “samizdat” literature – banned writing – circulated in the Soviet Union. But Alyokhina wants the English version to inspire an international audience. She makes regular visits to Europe and the US, and believes the election of Donald Trump as US president has made her experience more relevant than ever. “Political art is simply essential for life in the United States right now,” she says. “It’s not just about Trump. It’s about Nazi groups that are calling for people to be judged according to racial characteristics and so on. If you call someone dangerous then it means you are scared of them,” she argues. “You shouldn’t be scared, you need to act.”

Source: Pussy Riot’s Mariya Alyokhina: ‘Politics is not something that exists in one or another White House. It is our lives’ | World news | The Guardian

Yemen Red Crescent founder dies after being denied treatment | World news | The Guardian

Alkhamesi, who worked with international aid agencies in Yemen for decades, was a former head of the Yemeni doctors’ union.His son, Zubair, told the Guardian the family were initially unable to find stents – expandable tubes used in narrowed arteries – needed for his father’s heart surgery. He could not be transferred abroad for treatment because of restrictions on movement imposed by Saudi Arabia. He died in a hospital in Sana’a, and was buried on Friday.

Source: Yemen Red Crescent founder dies after being denied treatment | World news | The Guardian