Photo of the Week

Opponents of Evo Morales riot in the streets during disagreements

between Morales and Bolivia’s energy-rich provinces over tax revenues.

Reality in Iraq

Here are some incredible pictures taken in Iraq by various photographers over the past couple months collected by the Boston Globe. These are real pictures that tell real stories involving real circumstances and real people. Check them out here.

Changing the World and Taking Names – John Dau

John Dau has an amazing story to tell. Most of you out there have no idea who he is, what he has gone through or the things he has done.

John Dau: Changing the World and Taking Names

Born in Sudan and at the young age of 12, he was separated from his family and forced to flee from the the Muslin-controlled government involved in the Second Sudanese Civil War who were fighting against the non-Muslims of the south. Dau was forced to travel on foot thousands of miles along with 27,000 others (most of them children). Dau himself led thousands of these “Lost Boys” across the arid African desert to relative safety in Ethiopia. More than half of these 27,000 “Lost Boys” would perish on the journey.

There were times where John and these Lost Boys would have to drink mud water for sustenance. They were constantly chased through the dangerous wilderness, often having to navigate through lands entrenched with lions or hyenas. Once, when being chased by gun-welding government forces, the Lost Boys had to swim through alligator-infested waters. John remembers about 3,000 people, many of them children, dying during that one event.

John lived in Ethiopia for four years until violence broke out once again in the region. Faced with disease, starvation, violence and seemingly insurmountable odds, he fled once again to Kenya where he eventually had the opportunity to attend school. In 2001, he would be among the 3,800 refugees that resettled in the United States.

Once in America, he worked 60 hours a week as a security guard to receive a post-secondary education at Onondaga Community College. John is currently pursuing a political science degree from Syracuse University. He has founded three non-profit organizations: the Sudanese Lost Boys Foundation of Central New York, Duk Lost Boys Clinic and the John Dau Sudan Foundation. Through the John Dau Sudan Foundation, he has been working towards bringing medical clinics that do not exist for most of the populations of Duk, Twic East and Bor South Counties in the State of Jonglei in Southern Sudan.

You may not have heard of him before, but people like John change the world. The things he has endured we here in North America may never experience, but that does not give us license to idly sit by.

The civil war in Sudan is a forgotten war, even though two million people lost their lives and many more are still affected by it. Now there is yet another war, in Darfur, and the typical American isn’t even aware of it. The U.S. being a big melting pot, Americans can walk the streets without noticing all the different nationalities. That is a good thing. On the other hand, it means Americans stop asking questions about their neighbors and stop learning about their problems – John Dau

Read this interview with John here. Just take a moment to at least learn about someone who is larger than life and who has led a life that most others do not lead. People like John should be on the front page of the news or on magazines, but instead we have Britney Spears and her inability to take care of her children, Lindsay Lohan’s first foray into lesbian relationships or Matthew Mcconaughey’s new baby. Wake up people, everyone has parental problems, babies are born every second and lesbians aren’t shocking.

People like John doesn’t want to be a celebrity and nor does he request it. His focus is to show the importance of surviving against all odds and fighting for the human rights for all people (especially among the Sudanese people). He is the real hero, the real celebrity deserving of our attention. That will never happen, but in the meantime, we have the ability and the freedom to learn about the world around us and the real things that actually matter.

Changing the world can be done by everyone, the first step is to learn about the world around you. Changing the world doesn’t require a certain age, sex, education, circumstance, environment or race. Changing the world starts with you choosing to change the world.

Picture of the Week

The Purple Clouds Were Made for Dancing

This picture was taken in St. Paul, Minnesota were the Republican National Convention is currently underway. There have been approximately 10,000 protesters during the convention thus far, with about 250 being arrested for various crimes like trespassing, vandlization and assualt.

Odd that a ‘peaceful’ protest against the war turned into a series of mob-like events. For example, a flaming dumpster was sent careening towards a police car that had people in it. People that do things like that really take away from the real heart of the matter.

Making history and taking names

History is constantly being made, but we live in a time when things are happening right in front of our eyes through this year’s rollercoaster presidential election.

First, we had two democratic presidential nominees, a black man and a woman, run against each other. This had never happened before. Now we have a potential to have the United States of America’s first black president. Who knew this man from a tiny collection of islands and the last State of the Union could become president?

Barack Obama: From Hawaii to the history books.

As of today, the Republican presidential nominee John McCain has chosen Alaska govorner Sarah Palin as his running mate. For the first time in American history, she could be the first woman will be the second-in-command to the most powerful person in the world. There has only been one other woman selected as a running mate. Her name was Geraldine Anne Ferraro, selected by Walter Mondale during the 1984 presidential election against Ronald Reagan

Sarah Palin: Former ‘Ms. Wasilla’ beauty contest winner now a potential vice president.

These are exciting times that we are living in. During my high school years, I grew up in Alaska and I even remember meeting Sarah Palin when I worked for the City of Wasilla back in 2002. Who knew that the mayor of a small town of 8,000 people would now be the potential vice-president of the most powerful country in the world?

We live in a small world and the world is going to get smaller. When the world gets smaller, the more you can make a difference. We’re all a part of history and you can make history happen.

Photo of the Week

Lunch Atop a Skyscraper

This is one of my favorite pictures. It was taken by Charles C. Ebbets in 1932 during the construction of the Rockefeller Center.  A true slice of Americana, this photo is considered one of the best taken during the 20th century.

Yet another “Thing of the Week” post by Jered

I know. I have ADD. Here is yet another post about another “something of the week.” Get used to it. It’s here to stay. I’m going to try with all my will and might (well, maybe 60 percent) to remember all of the “something of the week” posts and update them with semi-weekly regularity.

My new “thing of the week” if you will, is to start posting places in the world that I have always wanted to go to or I come across in my daily meanderings.

For this week, I have always wanted to go to Greece. I love places with history; a deep, rich history that spans centuries. I live in Vancouver. Let’s face it. Vancouver doesn’t have a history. I love Vancouver, but no offense, the history of Vancouver could lull a 7-year-old kid that drank 4 Red Bulls and took 3 caffine pills to sleep. It was founded by gold rushers in the 1860’s, which than developed into a lumber town and in turn became a port and….blah blah blah. I am boring myself already telling you that so I am going to stop.

However, Greece is the birth place of the Olympics, democracy, political science, drama and comedy and Western philosophy. Alexander the Great came from Greece. Homer’s epics were set in Greece. The events in the movie 300 (which is a completely accurate retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae) happened in Greece. Greek food came from Greece and boy, do I love Greek food.

Any ways, enough about that. The place I want to go to is a small shipping town called Ermoupoli. One day, I’ll go there. Here’s a brief history of this little city. It was founded in the 1820’s after the Greek Revolution and was the hub of Greece’s shipping industry until it’s decline in the 19th century. Now it is primarily a service and industry city with a population of 13,000.

 

Ermoupoli: I’ll see you one day.

The Best Trilogies Ever Made

 

10. The Matrix

9. The Bourne movies

8.  Austin Powers

7. Lord of the Rings

6. X-Men

5. Indiana Jones

4. The Godfather

3. Back to the Future

2. Lord of the Rings

1. Star Wars

(Honerable Mentions: Land Before Time (all 10 of them), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Terminator, Crocodile Dundee)

This is a definitive list and cannot be refutedby anyone on earth. Not only are you wrong if you think otherwise, you cannot argue with it’s supremacy. Through careful and deliberate measuring methods, I have whittled down the list into an extremely accurate and cohesive list that ranks the top ten trilogies of all-time.

Bigfoot Eludes Again

Bigfoot gets away…again…

After the dust settled surrounding the media hoopla on the Bigfoot carcass by John Dyer and Matthew Whitton while hiking a Georgia national park, all has been proven to be a hoax.

After I found out, my worldview came crashing down and I even posted a blog about it expressing my belief that this was a real thing. I severely apologize if you came to think it was real on my accord. I kid. The ‘carcass’ of Bigfoot in the photo is actually a Halloween costume frozen with some animal guts thrown in for a ‘realistic’ effect. You can read the ABC News article here. Once again, I’ll reiterate what I said in a previous post, a guy wearing matching camouflage shorts and t-shirt cannot be trusted.

These guys spend their days after working at the sawmill or coal mine, shooting shotguns, drinking Budweiser, watching football and king of the hill, all while sitting in front of their trailers in a sofa. I’d easily trust them. I hope they start a search for Loch Ness and UFO’s.

Picture of the Week

Heading to the circus in Iran.

This picture is from a Times Magazine article on Iran.