ideas : People : stories.
the Human Being stuff
How much money does an airline make on a typical flight in the various classes of service? On some flights, revenue from first & business class seats can be up to 5 times that of economy seats. This video explores the economics of airline classes and looks at how we got to the present moment, where the people and companies buying business class and first class tickets are subsidizing those of us who fly economy (via).
For more on . . .
-N- Stuff : History
"What is important to my work is the individual picture. I photograph stories on assignment, and of course they have to be put together coherently. But what matters most is that each picture stands on its own, with its own place and feeling." - Steve McCurry
Steve McCurry has taken some of the worlds most iconic images, and he's been doing so for the past thirty years.
This picture of Sharbat Gula, an Afghan refugee, has been described as one of the most recognizable photographs of the world.
But there are many more of equal beauty and splendour.
Here are a few from his Portraits gallery:
"Most of my photos are grounded in people, I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face."
His other galleries include "On Reading":
"The photograph is an undeniably powerful medium. Free from the constraints of language, and harnessing the unique qualities of a single moment frozen in time."
His work on Kuwait is astonishing.
"A picture can express a universal humanism, or simply reveal a delicate and poignant truth by exposing a slice of life that might otherwise pass unnoticed."
After several years of freelance work, McCurry made his first trip of what would become many trips to India. Traveling with little more than a bag of clothes and another of film, he made his way across the subcontinent, exploring the country with his camera (via).
"There are certain, inescapable images, forever part of our collective consciousness, that influence who we are, whether we are cognizant of it or not."
Truly, the ocean produces some of the most beautiful and spectacular life this planet has to offer. I cannot watch this video enough.
Humankind has been looking for the giant squid (Architeuthis) since we first started taking pictures underwater. But the elusive deep-sea predator could never be caught on film. Oceanographer and inventor Edith Widder shares the key insight -- and the teamwork -- that helped to capture the squid on camera for the first time..
Growing up in the Chicago-land area and watching Jordan play while in middle school, these 90's Bulls will always be the best in all of basketball.
I remember "Hodgy open for threeee!!!" and Jordan winning rings and Paxon's "Going for the win!" I remember 72-10 because I was thirteen.
Now, as a coach and father, I want my players, my kids, to be like Hodges, not Mike.
Well played Craig Hodges, well played.
For more on . . .
The Recording Academy has debuted "Evolution Of Recorded Music," a new three-part video series exploring generations of music formats. The virtual tour takes viewers on a guided journey of how the process of playing back recorded music has evolved, from Edison's phonograph, Berliner's gramophone and vinyl records to reel-to-reel tape, cassettes, the 8-track, compact discs, and MP3 files (via).
"I want to take you back to the United States of America just after they'd achieved independence." This, from writer Mark Forsyth, when he shared his findings on the origin and radical change of the post powerful title in the world: President.
{Early American leaders} had to face the question of what to call George Washington, their leader. They didn't know. What do you call the leader of a Republican country? Some people wanted him to be called Chief Magistrate Washington, and other people, His Highness George Washington, and other people, Protector of the Liberties of the People of the United States of America Washington. Not that catchy. And everybody got insanely bored, actually, 'cause this debate went on for three weeks . . . And the reason for the delay and the boredom was that the House of Representatives were against the Senate. The House of Representatives didn't want Washington to get drunk on power. They didn't want to call him King in case that gave him ideas, or his successor ideas. So, they wanted to give him the humblest, meagerest(ph), most pathetic title that they could think of. And that title was president. President. They didn't invent the title. I mean, it existed before, but it just meant somebody who presides over a meeting. It was like the foreman of the jury. And it didn't have much more grandeur than the term foreman or overseer. There were occasional presidents of little colonial councils and bits of government, but it was really a nothing title. And that's why the Senate objected to it. They said, that's ridiculous, you can't call him president. This guy has to go and sign treaties and meet foreign dignitaries. And who's going to take him seriously if he's got a silly little title like President of the United States of America? (via)
The House of Representatives wanted their president to be humble and meager, they wanted his title to be a constant reminder that his (or future her) position didn't demand power, but the responsibility to serve.
The fact that the word President now carries with it so much power and respect points to the integrity of these men who allowed the course of their actions to be guided by something greater than themselves: the people. In doing so, they brought power to the position, not the other way around.
The House of Representatives didn't want Washington to get drunk on power and the Senate thought it ridiculous to call the leader of the free world President. Because who would take him seriously?
Over time, everyone.
Around the world, there are now a hundred and forty-seven nations whose leaders carry the title of president.
(Click to enlarge)
Trey Gowdy seems to have a similar viewpoint. Now, if you are a staunch, please look past the smug look and hear his words - they're brilliant. And if you're a critical thinker, please look beyond the source of this interview - Fox News - and listen to Gowdy's thoughts on public service - they're brilliant! (ps. You can stop watching at 4:37 . . . I'm not responsible for anything after that)
By Randyn Charles Bartholomew on June 25, 2014
There aren't many things that Congress can agree on, but in early 2009 it passed a bipartisan resolution designating March 14th of each year as "Pi Day." Pi, the mathematical constant that students first encounter with the geometry of circles, equals about 3.14, hence its celebration on March 14. The math holiday had been a staple of geeks and teachers for years—festivities include eating pie the pastry while talking about pi the number—but dissent began to appear from an unexpected quarter: a vocal and growing minority of mathematicians who rally around the radical proposition that pi is wrong.
They don't mean anything has been miscalculated. Pi (π) still equals the same infinite string of never-repeating digits. Rather, according to The Tau Manifesto, "pi is a confusing and unnatural choice for the circle constant." Far more relevant, according to the algebraic apostates, is 2π, aka tau.
Manifesto author Michael Hartl received his PhD in theoretical physics from the California Institute of Technology and is only one in a string of established players beginning to question the orthodoxy. Last year the University of Oxford hosted a daylong conference titled "Tau versus Pi: Fixing a 250-Year-Old Mistake." In 2012 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology modified its practice of letting applicants know admissions decisions on Pi Day by further specifying that it will happen at tau time—that is, at 6:28 P.M. The Internet glommed onto the topic as well, with its traditional fervor for whimsical causes. YouTube videos on the subject abound with millions of views and feisty comment sections—hardly a common occurrence in mathematical debates.
The crux of the argument is that pi is a ratio comparing a circle’s circumference with its diameter, which is not a quantity mathematicians generally care about. In fact, almost every mathematical equation about circles is written in terms of r for radius. Tau is precisely the number that connects a circumference to that quantity.
But usage of pi extends far beyond the geometry of circles. Critical mathematical applications such as Fourier transforms, Riemann zeta functions, Gaussian distributions, roots of unity, integrating over polar coordinates and pretty much anything involving trigonometry employs pi. And throughout these diverse mathematical areas the constant π is preceded by the number 2 more often than not. Tauists (yes, they call themselves tauists) have compiled exhaustively long lists of equations—both common and esoteric, in both mathematics and physics—with 2π holding a central place. If 2π is the perennial theme, the almost magically recurring number across myriad branches of mathematics, shouldn’t that be the fundamental constant we name and celebrate?
If that’s all there was, the tau movement would likely be a curiosity and nothing more. But reasons for switching to tau are deeply rooted in pedagogy as well. University of Utah mathematics professor Robert Palais, who is considered the founding father of the movement, started the "pi is wrong" ruckus with an article of the same name in 2001[pdf]. The article, which should be required reading for all advanced high school students, creates a tantalizing picture of how much easier certain fundamental concepts of trigonometry could be in an alternate universe where we use tau. For example, with pi-based thinking, if you want to designate a point one third of the way around the circle, you say it has gone two thirds pi radians. Three quarters around the same circle has gone one and a half pi radians. Everything is distorted by a confusing factor of two. By contrast, a third of a circle is a third of tau. Three quarters of a circle is three quarters tau. As a result of pi, Palais says, "the opportunity to impress students with a beautiful and natural simplification is turned into an absurd exercise in memorization and dogma."
At its heart, pi refers to a semicircle, whereas tau refers to the circle in its entirety. Mathematician and poet Mike Keith once wrote a 10,000 word poem dedicated to the first 10,000 digits of pi. He is now a proponent of tau. According to a PBS article from last year, he said that thinking in terms of pi is like reaching your destination and saying you're twice halfway there.
For mathematicians, pi obscures some of the underlying symmetries of mathematics and muddies up what should be elegant with extraneous factors of two. There’s an admittedly grandiose idea that mathematics is the language with which we express and see certain underpinning truths to the universe. To clutter that language with superfluous twos would be as bad as littering a Shakespearean monologue with “likes” and “umms” and “whatevers.” As the Bard nearly wrote, “Knowledge is two of the half-wings wherewith we fly to heaven.”
We Americans have almost a proud tradition of using poorly chosen units because of inertia: Fahrenheit instead of Celsius, miles instead of kilometers. Even the great Benjamin Franklin inadvertently established the convention of calling positive charge negative and vice-versa as a result of his experiments with electricity.
Indeed, the whole problem began as a historical accident, tauists say. In early civilizations a diameter was an easier quantity to measure than a radius. So when the Babylonians or Egyptians wanted rules of thumb for their architecture, a ratio of circumference to diameter is what they turned to. (The two civilizations estimated it to be 3.125 and 3.16, respectively.) Even the Bible specifies the ratio of a circle’s diameter to its circumference: “And [Hiram] made a molten sea, 10 cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and…a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about” (1 Kings 7:23).
The Greeks used formal geometric proofs to estimate the circumference-to-diameter ratio. Archimedes (he of the lever and shouts of "Eureka!") found strict lower and upper bounds of 3.1408 and 3.1429. Yet his choice of comparing the circumference with diameter was arbitrary; he could just as easily have used radius instead. (Interestingly, Archimedes did not use the Greek letter π. That didn't come until Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler popularized the convention in 1736, and even he seemed to be ambivalent about whether to define π as 3.14 or as the 6.28 we now write as τ.)
Although switching to tau when all the textbooks and academic papers use pi may sound daunting, it doesn’t need to be. There could be a transitional period of using both mathematical constants while we phase out the old and humor the intransigents who can’t or won’t change.
Asked in an e-mail about the reaction his original piece has received, Palais is humbled. "I never would have imagined the scale of the discussion," he says. And given that it's already far exceeded his expectations, he expresses optimism that it could continue even further.
Tau Day is approaching. It occurs, of course, on 6/28. As the Internet braces itself for the annual controversy, some lament the loss of a pun that embracing tau would entail. “But pie is yummy" remains one of the more compelling arguments for clinging to the traditional ways of 3.14. But tauists have a response for this as well: on Tau Day you get to eat twice as much pie!
On New Year's Eve in 2000, Popovic and his friends organized a celebration in Republic Square. They lined up the hottest Serbian rock bands and spread the word that midnight would feature a live concert by the Red Hot Chili Peppers - an international sensation and a huge hit in Serbia. Thousands of people packed the square in Belgrade, dancing to the local bands and buzzing with anticipation about the main event. One minute before midnight, the square went dark and people began counting down. But when the clock struck twelve, no famous rock band appeared.
The only audible sound was depressing music. As the audience listened in shock, a psychologist named Boris Tadic delivered a clear message from behind the stage. "We have nothing to celebrate," he said, asking them to go home and think about what action they would take. "This year has been a year of war and oppression. But it doesn't have to be that way. Let's make the coming year count. Because 2000 is the year."
. . . When Harvard professor John Kotter studied more than one hundred companies trying to institute major change, he found that the first error they made was failing to establish a sense of urgency . . . "Without a sense of urgency, people . . . won't make needed sacrifices. Instead they cling to status quo and resist." . . . when {Otpor!} announced, "This is the year!" it was clear to the Serbians that there was a pressing need to act immediately.
. . . To counter apathy, most change agents focus on presenting an inspiring vision of the future. This is an important message to convey, but it's no the type of communication that should come first. If you want people to take risks, you need first to show what's wrong with the present. To drive people out of their comfort zones, you have to cultivate dissatisfaction, frustration, and anger at the current state of affairs, making it a guaranteed loss. "The greatest communicators of all time," says communication expert Nancy Duarte, start by establishing "what is" here's the status quo." Then, they "compare that to what could be," making "that gap as big as possible.
. . . Once commitment is fortified, instead of glancing in the rearview mirror, it's better to look forward by highlighting the work left to be done. When we're determined to reach an objective, it's the gab between where we are and where we aspire to be that lights a fire under us. In Serbia, as the Otpor! movement drew a loyal following that was no longer frozen in fear, it was time to show them how much distance they had yet to travel.
That's why Popovic and his friends halted the concert and sent the citizens of Belgrade home on New Year's Eve. In the span of less than two years, Otpor! had accumulated more than 70,000 members in 130 different branches. But to actually overthrow Milosevic, they would need millions of votes. A few years earlier, Milosevic had agreed to a relatively democratic election - and won. His minions controlled the ballot boxes. Even if Serbians could vote him out of office, would he concede? Popovic and his allies understood that they needed intense emotions to propel action across the country. It was time to destabilize the status quo and turn on the go system by reminding them that there was nothing to celebrate because the present was intolerable. "Instead of courage," Tom Peters recommends fostering, "a level of fury with the status quo that one cannot not act."
. . . {However,} venting doesn't extinguish the flame of anger; it feeds it. When we vent our anger, we put a lead foot on the gas pedal of the go system . . . venting doesn't work even if you think it does - even if it makes you feel good. The better you feel after venting, the more aggressive you get: not only toward your critic, but also toward innocent bystanders.
. . . {because} one of the fundamental problems with venting is that it focuses attention on the perpetrator of injustice. The more you think about the person who wronged you, the more violently you want to lash out in retaliation. "Anger is a powerful mobilizing tool," Srdja Popovic explains, "but if you make people angry, they might start breaking things." On New Year's Eve at midnight in 2000, when Otpor! shut down the concert, turned off the lights, and played sad music, only one sight was visible: a gigantic screen, on which a slide show of pictures was being played, none of which featured the despised Milosevic.
The images instead were of Serbian soldiers and police officers who had been killed under Milosevic's rule.
To channel anger productively, instead of venting about the harm that a perpetrator has done, we need to reflect on the victims who have suffered from it. . . activat{ing} what psychologists call empathetic anger - the desire to right wrongs done unto another. It turns on the go system, but it makes us thoughtful about how to best respect the victim's dignity. Research demonstrates that when we're angry at others, we aim for retaliation or revenge. But when we're angry for others, we seek out justice and a better system. We don't want to punish; we want to help.
When Otpor! displayed the images of dead soldiers, Serbians were pumped with empathetic adrenaline and broke out into a chant: "Let's make this coming year count." They weren't going to get excited about actually taking down the dictator, but they could feel enough righteous indignation that hey were determined to do so. In Popovic's words, "There was an energy in the air that no rock band could ever re-create. Everybody felt that they had something important to do.
That autumn, Otpor! mobilized one of the largest voter turnouts in Serbia's history, defeating Milosevic and shepherding in a new era of democracy. Boris Tadic, the psychologist who had sent everyone home because there was nothing to celebrate, was elected president of Serbia for years later.
Quotes from Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World (pages 231-242)
For more on . . .
History : Humanity : On Living
Sometimes, I wish I were other people.
After watching these, I wish I were David Zinn.
He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
Not only does Al Pacino knock the shit out of this scene, in all its rawness, it is a transferable truth that crosses all lines of every kind.
Ironically, Mel Gibson reenacted this scene in "Man Without a Face." The tone is radically different, but the message stays the same.
Today, on National Woman's Day, I've been wrestling with a few things.
1). I find it more than a bit ironic that in my home country which celebrates and emphasizes equality and freedom, I never knew there was a national holiday that celebrated women. I had to move to a communist country to find that out.
2). Is taking one day out of the year really honoring to women? Or is it actually highlighting the fact that honoring woman isn't part of our daily lives? Shouldn't we be doing this every day? Not just today?
This was my initial thought and even had a few conversations that validated this idea, but then I thought of Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. I thought Memorial Day and Veterans Day and how we celebrate these days to remind us of who we are, where we come from, and to remember the sacrifices others have made to bring us where we are today; they remind us of what's important.
A day celebrating and reminding us of just how important woman suddenly didn't seem so bad, but rather justified.
3). And so, like many others, I wanted to post something, to show my gratitude.
At first I thought of possibly something by Maya Angelou, maybe Phenomenal Woman, but that seemed a bit too cliche. So I considered something more enlightening, like the fact that out of the 100 most influential people in the history of the world, only three women made the list. Or the fact that there are only six matriarchal societies in this whole entire world. But for some reason or another, none of these seemed right. Appropriate. Or fully honoring.
Then a notification slid across my computer screen which reminded me that today is Madge Miller's birthday.
Only it isn't, because she died in November.
Memories of my sweet grandma flooded my day, and then suddenly, honoring woman wasn't so difficult.
My grandmother stood just over five feet tall and, for most of my life, had bleach white hair. She wore pearl earrings, smiled like a child, and planted some of the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen. She was an artist, and once, while out with all of us grandkids, she bought Terminator sunglasses, because she was awesome.
So was my grandpa. Stanley (who died almost 10 years ago) toward over my Grandmother. His voice and confidence would force knees to knock and his squinty one-eyed cackle would put all to ease. He ran his own company, "Miller Engineering", was a wood-working magician, and one helluva fishermen. Some of my favored childhood memories are on the boat with gramps.
But this is woman's day. Men shouldn't be involved, right?
Maybe. Except for this. Sometimes the greatest way to understand something, to appreciate and gain further understanding of something, it's best to compare it to somethings that it isn't.
And my grandmother, in many ways, was not like my grandfather.
As a young boy, my grandfather was intimidating. Whenever I was in danger or whenever I was in desperate need, my grandfather was there, ready to defend and protect his grandson, but he was the Aslan type - good, but not safe.
My grandmother was the grandmother type - good and fully safe. She took me blue berry picking, taught me how to make my bed properly, and made me feel comfortable and calm all day long. She's who I sat next to on the couch, who I took walks with along the beach of Lake Michigan, and who crawled under the table with my cousins and I for lunch.
While my grandfather was strong and stoic, my grandmother was strong and sweet. While my grandfather drew hard lines, by grandmother drew circles. She contradicted my grandfather, and she complimented him. And he knew it. In all my years, I have never seen a man honor his wife like my grandfather honored his. She was his equal, his counterpart, and his completion.
When I think of my grandparents, I think of wisdom. My grandfather the distant and intimidating type; my grandmother was the cuddle up on the couch with a blanket and hot chocolate type. The kind you cling to all day, the kind you never want to leave your side. The kind Proverbs talks about.
My grandparents have reminded me how to honor and remember woman. To acknowledge their differences, their strengths, and their full and beautiful contribution.
I know woman are beautifully and wonderfully made. That they are strong and smart and undefinable; that they have contributed greatly to our world and that they are fully under appreciative and under acknowledged. And I know without them, this world would be dull and incomplete, because I knew my grandmother.
And today, on National Woman's Day, it is her birthday.
Happy Birthday Grandma.
Iranian coal miners shower after a long day of work at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran on May 6, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
Ebrahim Noroozi was born in 1980 in Tehran, Iran. He began working as a professional photographer in 2004, with Fars News Agency.
His photographs have appeared nationally and internationally in such publications as the New York Times, Time and the Washington Post, and have been distributed by Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press, Reuters, United Press International and the European Press Photo Agency.
Noroozi has worked in India, Afghanistan and Iran, and served as head of the photo department for the Iran Daily, as well as for the Alvefagh newspaper, Iran Sport, the Iran Photo Agency, the Jamejam newspaper and Jamejam online.
He has won seven awards in Iranian photo contests, and a gold medal from the Asahinewspaper. Noroozi has sat on the juries of several Iranian photo contests (via).
A coal miner lights a cigarette after a long of work at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province northern Iran on May 8, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
An Iranian coal miner takes a break at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran on May 8, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
Iranian coal miners eat lunch at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran on Aug. 19, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
Iranian coal miners pose for a photograph before taking a shower after a long day of work at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran, May 7, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
Iranian coal miners make their way back home after a long day of work at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province, May 8, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
An Iranian coal miner moves wagons to be loaded with coal at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran on May 8, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
Iranian coal miners work in a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran on Aug. 19, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
An Iranian coal miner with his face smeared black from coal poses for a photograph at a mine near the city of Zirab 132 miles northeast of the capital Tehran, on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran on May 7, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
Iranian Shiites cover themselves with mud during Ashoura, marking the death anniversary of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, at the city of Bijar, west of the capital Tehran, Iran, Nov. 14, 2013. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
The wreckage of a boat is stuck in the solidified salts and sands at Lake Oroumieh, northwestern Iran, Feb. 16, 2014. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
Iranian women pray during the Eid al-Fitr prayer in Tehran, Iran, July 18, 2015. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)
We love a good TED Talk. What better way to celebrate this awesome media than witha roundup of talks by nine kickass authors? Whether you are looking for a talk on fear and imagination, or poetry and animation—we have something for you. Just follow the links below.
We can’t stop talking about how thrilled we are to have the incredible Roxane Gay as the judge for our sixth anthology. She has established herself as a fiction writer, essayist, and astute cultural critic. Her TED Talk covers the difficulties of reaching a perfect feminist ideal, and why it’s important to keep trying anyway. Watch the talk here!
Lidia Yuknavitch is an Oregon writer who has written both a memoir and several novels. Her TED Talk shares her own journey through life, and her realizations of self-acceptance along the way.
John Green is the bestselling author of multiple novels, including Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, and The Fault in Our Stars. His TED Talk is focused on different styles of learning, and how he fell in love with online video. Go on, check it out.
Elizabeth Gilbert is an American author who is best known for her 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love. Her TED Talk deconstructs the idea of “being” a genius, and then continues with the supposition that all people “have” a genius. Watch it now.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian novelist, and she was awarded the MacArthur Genius Grant in 2008. Her TED Talk is on the importance of multiple viewpoints, whether they are about a country, a people, or a person. Check it out here.
Elif Shafak is a Turkish author, writing in both Turkish and English, and she is the most widely read female author in Turkey. Her TED Talk explains the power of fiction, and the empathy it engenders, in overcoming identity politics.
Karen Thompson Walker is an American novelist, best known for her novel The Age of Miracles. Her TED Talk describes how fear shapes imagination by making us imagine possible futures, and her talk is centered around the story of the whaleship Essex. Take a gander.
Billy Collins is an American poet, and he was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. His TED Talk combines the written word and visual art, as he shares the story of how his poems became animated films in a collaboration with Sundance Channel.
Jarred McGinnis is an American author currently based in London, who has mainly focused on writing short fiction. His TED Talk shares his passion for stories, and demonstrates the wonders of fiction as a magical force in his life. Check it.
For more on . . .
Human's have been telling stories ever since we could talk . . . probably even before then, because the power (and perhaps purpose) of Story is to "connect with people on an emotional level" (via).
Which is why people tell stories of their experiences, and "write what they know," to connect with other people - to share in the Great Story.
But what if what you know is suburban Minnesota? What if all you've ever seen is Montana farmlands? How do you write about that? Because most people don't want to read those stories, we want car chases, space adventures, and monsters in the closets. But we also want to connect with the characters. We want to feel the sadness, the loneliness or the joy of the character, because when we do, we're suddenly connected. No matter where or when we're from.
Disney has known this trick for decades. From Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Zootopia, Disney has been connecting audiences, from all around, from differing age groups, sexes, and social classes to a curious fox, adventurous clown fish, and a self-entitled young lion.
And they've done it, predominantly, by connecting us all through a pain and sorrow that can only come with deep loss. Below is the list of movies used in the short film above. As you watch it, take note of how many of the major characters experience the loss of one or both of their parents.
In all of life and throughout all the world, everyone has experienced loss. And Disney has picked up on it, preyed upon it, and used it to connect us all.
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
- Pinocho (1940)
- Fantasia (1940)
- Saludos Amigos (1942)
- The Three Caballeros (1944)
- The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
- Cinderella (1950)
- Alice in Wonderland (1951)
- Peter Pan (1953)
- Lady and the Tramp (1955)
- Sleeping Beauty (1959)
- One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
- The Sword in the Stone (1963)
- The Jungle Book (1967)
- The Aristocats (1970)
- Robin Hood (1973)
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)
- The Fox and the Hound (1981)
- The Black Cauldron (1985)
- The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
- Oliver and Company (1988)
- The Little Mermaid (1989)
- The Rescuers Down Under (1990)
- Beauty and Beast (1991)
- Aladdin (1992)
- The Lion King (1994)
- Pocahontas (1995)
- The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1996)
- Hercules (1997)
- Mulan (1998)
- Tarzan (1999)
- Dinosaur (2000)
- The Emperor´s New Groove (2001)
- Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
- Lilo & Stich (2002)
- Treasure Planet (2002)
- Brother Bear (2003)
- Chicken Little (2005)
- Meet the Robinsons (2007)
- Bolt (2008)
- The Princess and the Frog (2009)
- Tangled (2010)
- Wreck-It-Ralph (2012)
- Frozen (2013)
- Big Hero 6 (2014)
- Zootopia (2016)
Music: Really Slow Motion - Suns And Stars
Editor: Bora Barroso // Twitter: @BoraBarroso
For more on . . .
S.E. Hinton in 1967. (S.E. Hinton)
Repost from Timeline
Fifty years ago this spring, the best selling young adult novel of all time was published to adulation and outrage. This was 1967, so youth culture was not exactly new, but something about the plain, emotional voice of The Outsiders did away with the grownups’ interference and spoke directly to teen readers in a new way. The aura surrounding the classic tale of warring adolescent cliques from opposite sides of the tracks is enhanced by the fact that the author was herself a teenager.
We are not, by the way, talking about some urbane 19-year-old groomed for the elite cultural circles of Manhattan. S. E. Hinton was an Oklahoma high school student when she completed the manuscript she was then calling A Different Sunset. Her contract from Viking Press actually arrived the day she graduated from Tulsa’s Will Rogers High School. Because she wasn’t yet 21, her mother had to sign too.
The Outsiders—which still sells half a million copies every year—forever changed the way books are written for young readers.
The stories available to teenagers at that time, “bore no resemblance to what I saw going on,” Hinton told Interview magazine in 1999. She originally began working on her debut, “because I wanted to read a book that dealt realistically with teen life as I saw it.” This impulse has had a lasting influence on literature. Novels of the type Hinton derided, in a 1967 piece for The New York Times Book Review, as, “Mary Jane’s big date with the football hero,” are still churned out, but more often Y.A. deals with adolescents leaving behind their parents’ realm (for better or worse; by choice or otherwise) and facing the challenges of being an individual in society for the first time. Today Hinton’s debut still reads like a master class.
The Outsiders depicts a group of lost boys — the orphaned Curtis brothers and their gang of “greasers” — visited by the wise-beyond-her years ingenue Cherry Valance (played by a young Diane Lane in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film adaptation). Curiously, for such a female-centric segment of publishing, The Outsiders, like Harry Potter, that other game-changer of children’s literature, focuses on a male protagonist, while its female author initially obscured her gender. In the case of Hinton, this decision was encouraged by Velma Varner, her editor at Viking, who believed that using her given name (S.E. stands for Susan Eloise), would “throw some of the boy readers off.”
So was Hinton a 1960s Wendy, looking after some Peter Pan in a leather jacket? She has acknowledged that she borrowed from life: her first person narrator, Ponyboy, and his friends “were inspired by a true-life gang, the members of which were very dear to me.” Yet their world of drive-ins and drug stores, freight trains and churches, is strangely scrubbed of geographical specificity. This must be Hinton’s Tulsa, though she never says so explicitly. The climactic rumble with the Socs could take place on any vacant lot in any city. Yet the relationships between the members of their gang — the misinterpreted protectiveness of Darry to Pony, the fatal devotion of Dallas to Johnny, the simpatico of Soda and Steve — are intricate enough to justify a map.
Asked if she identified as a greaser in high school, Hinton responded, “I was born without the need-to-belong gene, the gene that says you have to be in a little group to feel secure.” Which is maybe just another way of saying that she was a natural born writer — human enough to feel for others, yet sufficiently comfortable with solitude to get the pages down. Her characters, by contrast, embody and implicitly understand the contradictory wages of group identity, its sorrowful stain and addictive comforts. Ponyboy bemoans the indignities of being a greaser — “I don’t want to be a hood, but even if I don’t steal things and mug people and get boozed up, I’m marked lousy” — but he also takes enormous pride in the style and ethos of greaserdom. On the run, and forced to cut and dye his hair, he is pained by the loss: “Our hair labeled us greasers… it was our trademark. The one thing we were proud of.” Though he is slight and out of shape, and seems destined for a beating, he engages in that climactic rumble without self-pity, without questioning whether or not he should take part. He is not a fighter; yet rumbling is who his brothers are, and, thus, who he is.
The struggle between individuality and the need to be accepted by the pack has since become a standard theme of the genre, as has the depiction of taboo subjects through the unfazed yet still unjaded eyes of youth. Hinton takes for granted that teens engage in vices — brawling, smoking, drinking, sex and teen pregnancy — which, from an adult point of view, would be treated either as scandal or fetish. The level of violence is pretty low by current standards, however, and we don’t get a graphic description of even a single, solitary kiss. (The pregnancy is never acknowledged as such, only alluded to as a reason Sodapop, the middle Curtis brother, may have to marry his girlfriend. Like many an unwed teenage mother of that era, Sandy, the character to whom those decisions most pertain, is kept off screen.)
The Outsiders is still challenged by conservative groups frequently enough to earn it a place on the American Library Association’s banned books list. The depictions of sexuality and violence are actually fairly tame, but what is threatening here is Ponyboy’s matter-of-factness. He acknowledges that his love of cigarettes may impair his track team activities, in the same manner an adult might allow that their evening indulgences interfere with their morning runs, but there is no hierarchical hand-wringing, nor prurient fascination, regarding the corruption of innocents. The book has a mature view of brawling and bloodshed as both too common to escape, yet fundamentally useless. These things are, Hinton seems to be saying. Kids experience them as much as adults do, and often more acutely. For adult readers, her treatment refuses to cloak such wrenching experiences in the language of the fantastical or faraway, the foreign or the long ago. For kids, she seems to say: Walk right in.
On the 40th anniversary of The Outsiders, the book critic Dale Peck pointed out in The New York Times that Hinton, like any writer learning on the job, absorbed her literary influences in a way that showed, “borrowing” from high and low, from Moby-Dick to The Sound of Music. He argues that this technique softens her debut’s subversive qualities but enhances its power as a work of art.
Hinton does rely on cliché quite a bit (a frightened character is “White as a ghost”; under attack, Ponyboy stands “like a bump on a log”), which may be literary inexperience, or maybe not. In any case it works, in Ponyboy’s voice, and the generic phrasing does nothing to detract from the sense of menace. He gives a rundown of his world’s vocabulary and rules of engagement early (“Greasers are almost like hoods; we steal things and drive old souped-up cars,”; “Tough and tuff are two different words. Tough is the same as rough; tuff means cool, sharp”) and moves on to the meat of the story: the bonds between vulnerable young people, and the chance for redemption in an unforgiving environment. With material that strong, linguistic bravura could only get in the way.
That blankness of tone is ultimately what makes The Outsiders a work of young adult fiction, and not simply a novel with a juvenile protagonist. I mean this as a high compliment, by the way — when I tried to read Catcher in the Rye as a teenager, I had the nauseating sense that I was being force-fed some other generation’s madness, some other generation’s solace and myth. What is so pleasurable about Hinton’s book is its openness to interpretation. Any reader can enjoy the superficial details that separate the warring tribes here — the long-haired hoods and the madras-wearing, clean cut rich kids — while still being able to project their own experiences along the have-and-have-not divide. There is just enough leather and fighting with broken bottles to give you a hit of postwar American cool, but not too much to interfere with a healthy sense of Je Suis Ponyboy.
Even when she stepped in it on Twitter, in October of last year — by arguing with a teenager’s interpretation of Dallas and Johnny’s relationship as homoerotic — Hinton ended up sounding like the tough and knowing den mother of outsiders everywhere. “Young gay kids can identify with the book without me saying the characters are gay,” Hinton tweeted. “I never set out to make anyone feel safe.”
Theodor Seuss Geisel's works include several of the most popular children's books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death (via). He's perhaps one of the most recognized authors of all time. Here are a few, possible, unknowns of Mr. Theodor Geisel:
In 1925, in the midst of the Prohibition Era, Seuss and his friends were caught drinking gin in his Dartmouth dormitory dorm, Nel said. As punishment, Seuss was stripped of his editorship at the college’s humor magazine, Jack-O-Lantern. However, he continued to publish work under a variety of pseudonyms, including “T. Seuss.” Several other varying monikers, such as “Dr. Theophrastus Seuss,” appeared over the years, which he eventually shortened to “Dr. Seuss” as his go-to professional pen name.
In 1961, with his book “Ten Apples Up on Top!,” Seuss began collaborating with illustrators for books he wrote. For these, he used the pseudonym “Theo. LeSieg,” which is “Geisel” spelled backward. He also published one book, 1975’s “Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!!”, under the pen name “Rosetta Stone.” And although there’s no known evidence to support the claim, Nel said that Seuss meant to save his real name for the Great American Novel that he would one day write.
Instead, Seuss debuted the Cat and the Grinch the same year in 1957, two of his most famous characters. The Cat and the Grinch were also facets of the man, Nel said. The rule-breaking, mischievous Cat spoke to the author’s sense of play, while the Grinch represented the cantankerous part of Seuss’ personality.
He had a vanity license plate that read, “GRINCH,” Nel said (via).
Beginning in 1941, Seuss produced political cartoons for the left-wing newspaper PM in New York. In those pages, he criticized the U.S. policy of isolationism, urging the country to enter World War II. He also lambasted anti-Semitism and racism, although his depictions of Japanese people with exaggerated racial features proved problematic (via).
By 1942, Seuss was keen on joining the navy, but was instead asked to make war propaganda films with Oscar-winning director Frank Capra. Joined by P.D. Eastman of “Go, Dog. Go!” fame, Mel Blanc and Chuck Jones among others, Seuss co-created Private Snafu (“Situation Normal, All Fouled Up”), a cartoon dolt in a military uniform meant to teach new recruits how to be a good soldier.
The black-and-white cartoon series was also off-color — and a hit with soldiers.
“It’s so cold, it would freeze the nuts off a jeep,” one cartoon begins.
Dr. Seuss’ editor Bennett Cerf bet him he couldn’t write a book using 50 or fewer words. The result is 1960’s “Green Eggs and Ham.” Although the Cat and the Grinch are among Seuss’ most iconic characters, the story of Sam-I-Am trying to convince an unknown character to eat green eggs and ham has sold more than eight million copies since publication, according to a 2011 Publishers Weekly list.
Can you craft a best-seller with these 50 words?
a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you
One of my favorite stories is Sneetches. Because it's timeless.
THE SNEETCHES
by Theodor Geisel (1961)
Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches Had bellies with stars.
The Plain-Belly Sneetches Had none upon thars.
Those stars weren't so big. They were really so small
You might think such a thing wouldn't matter at all.
But, because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches Would brag, "We're the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches." With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they'd snort “We'll have nothing to do with the Plain-Belly sort!"
And whenever they met some, when they were out walking, They'd hike right on past them without even talking.
When the Star-Belly children went out to play ball, Could a Plain-Belly get in the game...? Not at all. You could only play if your bellies had stars
And the Plain-Belly children had none upon thars.
When the Star-Belly Sneetches had frankfurter roasts Or picnics or parties or marshmallow toasts,
They never invited the Plain-Belly Sneetches.
They left them out cold, in the dark of the beaches. They kept them away. Never let them come near. And that's how they treated them year after year.
Then ONE day, it seems...while the Plain-Belly Sneetches Were moping and doping alone on the beaches,
Just sitting there wishing their bellies had stars...
A stranger zipped up in the strangest of cars!
"My friends," he announced in a voice clear and keen,
"My name is Sylvester McMonkey McBean.
And I've heard of your troubles. I've heard you're unhappy. But I can fix that. I'm the Fix-it-Up Chappie.
I've come here to help you. I have what you need. And my prices are low. And I work at great speed. And my work is one hundred per cent guaranteed!"
Then, quickly, Sylvester McMonkey McBean
Put together a very peculiar machine.
And he said, "You want stars like a Star-Belly Sneetch...? My friends, you can have them for three dollars each!”
“Just pay me your money and hop right aboard!"
So they clambered inside. Then the big machine roared
And it clonked. And it bonked. And it jerked. And it berked And it bopped them about. But the thing really worked! When the Plain-Belly Sneetches popped out, they had stars! They actually did. They had stars upon thars!
Then they yelled at the ones who had stars from the start, "We're exactly like you! You can't tell us apart.
We're all just the same, now, you snooty old smarties! And now we can go to your frankfurter parties."
"Good grief!" groaned the ones who had stars at the first. "We're still the best Sneetches and they are the worst. But, now, how in the world will we know," they all frowned, "If which kind is what, or the other way round?"
Then up came McBean with a very sly wink
And he said, "Things are not quite as bad as you think. So you don't know who's who. That’s perfectly true. But come with me, friends. Do you know what I'll do? I'll make you, again, the best Sneetches on beaches And all it will cost you is ten dollars eaches.”
Belly stars are no longer in style," said McBean.
"What you need is a trip through my Star-Off machine.
This wondrous contraption will take off your stars
So you won't look like Sneetches who have them on thars." And that handy machine
Working very precisely
Removed all the stars from their tummies quite nicely.
Then, with snoots in the air, they paraded about
And they opened their beaks and they let out a shout, "We know who is who! Now there isn't a doubt.
The best kind of Sneetches are Sneetches without!"
Then, of course, those with stars all got frightfully mad. To be wearing a star now was frightfully bad.
Then, of course, old Sylvester McMonkey McBean Invited them into his Star-Off Machine.
Then, of course from then on, as you probably guess, Things really got into a horrible mess.
All the rest of that day, on those wild screaming beaches, The Fix-it-Up Chappie kept fixing up Sneetches.
Off again! On again!
In again! Out again!
Through the machines they raced round and about again, Changing their stars every minute or two.
They kept paying money. They kept running through
Until neither the Plain nor the Star-Bellies knew
Whether this one was that one...or that one was this one Or which one was what one...or what one was who.
Then, when every last cent
Of their money was spent,
The Fix-it-Up Chappie packed up And he went.
And he laughed as he drove
In his car up the beach,
"They never will learn.
No. You can't teach a Sneetch!"
But McBean was quite wrong. I'm quite happy to say The Sneetches got really quite smart on that day, The day they decided that Sneetches are Sneetches And no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches. That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars
And whether they had one, or not, upon thars. The end.
The Butter Battle Books is another of my favorites, and equally timely.
Simon O. Sinek is a British/American author, motivational speaker and marketing consultant. He is the author of three books including the 2009 best seller Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. Wikipedia
His books include:
For more on . . .
For me, the Black Panther Party meant leather car coats, black turtlenecks and black berets. It meant violence and guns. It inspired fear. But like the many black men and women who joined the Black Panther Party with ideas of power and revenge, I was fully disillusioned. Because for many years my understanding of the Black Panther Party, their history and their purpose, was shaped by media and movies. And I believed that what I saw and knew was fully true.
But the Black Panther party was not, as J. Edger Hoover argued (and I loosely believed), “the single greatest threat to the United States.” They were not, as I have unfairly thought, a racist terrorist group that wanted to spread fear by violence in hopes of bringing down the system. Rather, they were smart and educated and extremely giving. And they were inclusive to all color. Something I never knew.
I recently listened to a podcast appropriately entitled, The Black Panther Party, hosted by Stuff You Should Know. The following is a brief summary of their 67 minute overview of the incredibly misunderstood Black Panther Party.
To grasp the why of the Black Panthers, historical context is important. They were created at the tail end of the Jim Crow Era, which, when simply put, means that life for a black American was very hostile. They were generally poor, were constantly harassed, and often beaten by police. The racial tension was intense, and it was everywhere.
And Black communities were tired of waiting for things to get better.
Photo by Stephen Shames
Robert Williams an American Civil Rights leader codified the idea of needing to defend self against an oppressive society. He might also be responsible for the (unfair) images we have today of the Black Panther Party - of black men with ammunition around their necks - because he was an early advocate for fighting back against the oppression and mistreatment of the white government. In 1962, he wrote Negroes with Guns (1962) which details “his experience with violent racism and his disagreement with the non-violent wing of the Civil Rights Movement and the text was widely influential; Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton cited it as a major inspiration (via).
However, The Black Panther Party, armed and ready for violence, was not aggressive or offensive and in search of a fight. Instead, they were passive. Violence would only be used as a last resort. Just like a black panther.
Bobby Seale co-founded the Black Panther Party (originally called The Black Panther Party of Self Defense) and chose the black panther because “the nature of a panther is, if you push it into a corner, that panther is going to try and move left or right, to get you to get out of the way. But if you keep pushing {the black panther} back into that corner, sooner or later, that panther is going to come out of that corner and try and wipe out who keeps oppressing it into that corner” (via).
The initial purpose of arms for the Black Panther Party was to defend themselves until a black man or woman could walk the streets without harassment, until equal opportunity.
But carrying guns and intimidating law enforcement was not all they did. In fact, especially in the early stages, the Black Panther Party spent most of their time and energy serving and educating.
Members of the Black Panther Party were avowed Marxists and wanted to get rid of Capitalists; they were socialists, and they were willing to join hands (often literally) with anyone who shared the same sentiments or struggles. No matter the race.
Huey Newton, the other co-founder of the Black Panther Party, found in the California Law Book that citizens were allowed to carry a gun in public as long they were not concealed. (Ronald Reagan would soon sign a gun control act that stopped the open carrying of guns . . . and then in the late 70’s, he would team up with NRA and fight for the right to bear arms, but only after the Black Panther Party had lost its prominence).
Huey Newton, Bobby Seal, and other members of the Black Panther Party then legally patrolled the city of Oakland, looking for black men and women who were pulled over, and they would stand at a reasonable distance and protect the black citizen. Because they wanted to make sure their brothers and sisters where not mistreated or abused, as they so often were. And it worked! The cops responded as the Black Panther Party wanted, with much more care in how they treated the black citizen, and the black citizen responded as the Black Panther Party wanted - without violence.
Photo by Stephen Shames
This show of strength, along with the leather car coats, black turtlenecks and black berets, create an image that attracted many new converts. But the men who quickly joined the party with ideas of guns and power and revenge in mind were fully disillusioned and quickly educated. Literally.
Kathleen Cleaver a then Black Panther Party leader and now professor at Emory University School of Law, told a story on CNN, of a young black man who joined the party to get a gun and join the patrol. When they gave him a stack of books he said, “I thought you were going to arm me."
"We just did," the Party responded.
For the Black Panther Party, violence was not the answer or solution. Education and serving the community was.
Photo by Stephen Shames (Like the men toting guns, these men and women are also members of the Black Panther Party. The contrast is striking. I love it).
Huey Newton recognized that they could make a greater difference in the community if the underprivileged boys and girls ate breakfast before their long day of schooling. So they did. Five days a week, the Black Panther Party served over 20,000 free breakfasts around the country. For free. They also offered free medical clinics where people could get vaccines, be tested for diseases, and treated for basic illnesses. And under the direction and inspiration of Elaine Brown, the Black Panther Party opened the Oakland Community School, which was free, and where students could learn poetry, foreign languages, current events, yoga, and black history. They also open and operated 65 survival programs and ran “The Black Panther” newspaper which was read by men and women of all color, not just black community and had a circulation of over 250,000. Emory Douglas designed and published much of his artwork in “The Black Panther” and became a potent symbol of the movement.
Photo by Stephen Shames
My understanding of the Black Panther Party was, and still is, largely incomplete, and it probably will forever be because people and cultures and humanity are not easily explained or defined.
And I love that and think it appropriate because the unknown leads to wonder and begs for curiosity. Look at the faces above, especially the woman at left-center holding the poster, and Humanity is there. Pain, sorrow, fear, and pride. A longing for a better life and a hope that it can come. But in these faces, there is also doubt. Doubt in the system and doubt in mankind.
They lived in a world that allowed the incomplete and simple to be the whole story, and in doing so, failed to understand and to humanize.
They believed in a single story. Much like today.
Photo by Stephen Shames
In every publication of "The Black Panther" ran the party's Ten-Point Program, which really, is not all that different than the letter sent across the sea by our nation's founding fathers.
It's only appropriate that it's posted here.
1.
We Want Freedom. We Want Power To Determine
The Destiny Of Our Black Community.
We believe that Black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny.
2.
We Want Full Employment For Our People.
We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the White American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.
3.
We Want An End To The Robbery
By The Capitalists Of Our Black Community.
We believe that this racist government has robbed us, and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.
4.
We Want Decent Housing Fit For The Shelter Of Human Beings.
We believe that if the White Landlords will not give decent housing to our Black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.
5.
We Want Education For Our People That Exposes
The True Nature Of This Decadent American Society.
We Want Education That Teaches Us Our True History
And Our Role In The Present-Day Society.
We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.
6.
We Want All Black Men To Be Exempt From Military Service.
We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the White racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary.
7.
We Want An Immediate End To
Police Brutality And Murder Of Black People.
We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self- defense.
8.
We Want Freedom For All Black Men
Held In Federal, State, County And City Prisons And Jails.
We believe that all Black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.
9.
We Want All Black People When Brought To Trial To Be Tried In
Court By A Jury Of Their Peer Group Or People From Their Black
Communities, As Defined By The Constitution Of The United States.
We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that Black people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community from which the Black defendant came. We have been, and are being, tried by all-White juries that have no understanding of the "average reasoning man" of the Black community.
10.
We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education,
Clothing, Justice And Peace.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
For more on . . .
The revolutionary art of Emory Douglas
The Black Panther's Vanguard of the Revolution film and page
Back in 2000, Amazon ran a poll asking their customers what they thought were the best books, music, and movies of the past 1000 years. The results were archived by the Internet Archive.
. . . The lists include works by Shakespeare, Stephen King, and Ayn Rand; music by the Beatles, Mozart, and Miles Davis; and films such as The Wizard of Oz, The Godfather, and Star Wars. (It bears noting that the Bible received the most votes among books, but we had to leave it off our list because it was not written within the past 1,000 years.) We've also compiled tallies for the top author, musical artist, and director, based on the total votes each received for their various works. Dig deep and enjoy!
The winners in each category (and links to their works) were:
Author of Millennium: J.R.R. Tolkien with runner up Ayn Rand
Artist of Millennium: the Beatles with runner up Pink Floyd
Director of the Millennium: Steven Spielberg with runner up George Lucas
You can listen to the top ten albums here.
In partnership with Khan Academy, Pixar is offering a number of free online lessons in making 3D animated movies and, perhaps most importantly (at least for me) . . . storytelling!!! The project is called Pixar in a Box. Here’s an introductory video:
There are lessons on rendering, shading, crowds, virtual cameras, and many other topics, but the most accessible for people of all ages/interests is probably the lessons on The Art of Storytelling, which were just posted earlier this week. Here’s the introductory video for that, featuring Pete Docter, director of Up and Inside Out (via).
The first round of classes include:
And I gotta say, I'm pretty friggen stoked. Thank you Jeff Birdsong for sharing this brilliant link!
For more on . . .
On Stories : On Writing : -N- Stuff
