NPR Music pointed me to an interesting article by Marc Lynch. A professor at George Washington University and the director of the Institute of Middle East Studies, Lynch is a rap fan and is interested in parallels between rap, political science and international relations.
Some of the greatest minds in national security have turned their attention to a classic problem: When there is one dominant power, the rest of the world tries to challenge it. That’s what happened to Britain in the 19th century and to the United States today. The same thing is happening in the world of rap.
Read the NPR Music article here and scope out Lynch’s full article here.
Naomi Klein wrote an interesting piece for AlterNet recently in the lead up to the Obama Administration’s first 100 days:
…a growing number of Obama enthusiasts are starting to entertain the possibility that their man is not, in fact, going to save the world if we all just hope really hard. This is a good thing. If the superfan culture that brought Obama to power is going to transform itself into an independent political movement, one fierce enough to produce programs capable of meeting the current crises, we are all going to have to stop hoping and start demanding.”
It’s a different spin from the glowing reports you normally read. You can read the full article here.
Each year the World Future Society releases their annual “top forecasts for the future” list. It’s not as funny as a top ten list by David Letterman – but it’s thought provoking nonetheless.
Top 10 Forecasts for the future:
10. Access to electricity will reach 83% of the world by 2030
09. The middle east will become more secular
08. Urbanization will reach 60% by 2030
07. The race for genetic enhancement will parallel the space race
06. Professional knowledge will become obsolete almost as quickly as it’s acquired
05. The world’s legal systems will be networked
04. College majors and future careers will be more specialized
03. The cars’ days as king of the road may soon be over
02. Bioviolence will become a greater threat as technologies become more accessible
01. By 2030 everything you say and do might be recorded.
Australian waxing and hair-removal company, Veet, ran this great tongue-in-cheek press ad to tie in with Obama’s inauguration. After all, no one like’s bush.
“In the current Administration’s waning days, Americans have struggled to find a single word that would encapsulate history’s judgment on the two-term presidency of George W. Bush…But in what the White House says will be his final press conference on Monday, President Bush himself provided the word everyone has been looking for: disappointment.”
Woah! Four international students from Vancouver Film School’s Digital Design department (Aaron Chiesa, Hendy Sukarya, Lisa Temes and Toru Kageyama) created this infographic entitled “Iran: A nation of bloggers” for their final term 3 project. From a script written by Kate Tremills, the short film highlights the cultural importance/relevance of blogging as an agent of change in Iran. The animation is uber-clean and sits perfectly with the matter-of-fact voiceover.
In the wake of 9/11, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Thomas Friedman wrote, “People…got a glimpse of what the world could be like without America, and many did not like it. America is not something external to them; people carry around pieces of it in ways often not articulated”.
On 5 November 2008 Senator Barack Obama articulated those pieces for us with trademark eloquence in his election day acceptance speech:
To all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.
That’s the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we’ve already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
For a generation that first learned of the significance of the presidency through a media obsession with semen stains and an Oval Office blow job, Obama’s words meant something. They meant that we are not the global orphans of a bankrupt culture defeated by vapidity and resigned to the hypocrisy of those that have come before us.
America elected a president and the world embraced a new global leader. Hope and change never sounded so good.
