Lost Art's 2005 Year in Pictures

self explanatory:

http://www.lost.art.br/yip2005_sound.htm

Warning: Nudity.

Add to the list of places I'd love to visit: Brazil and Laos. One could make an argument for Cambodia.

I'm not sure if I've ever linked before, but the rest of the site is okay. I'm not really a fan of the interface, but eh, what can ya do?

The Graffiti Project on Kelburn Castle

I adore well done graf. If it wasn't such an expensive medium (now I need a friggin castle too?! damn), I'd give it a shot myself. I'll have to stick to gel pens, thanks.

The idea is simple and original: take the vibrant and often transient art form of Brazilian graffiti out of its predominantly urban context and apply it to the ancient and permanent walls of an historic rural castle in Scotland.

http://www.thegraffitiproject.net

Highly highly recommended! I guess they wanted to be done by May 31st, 2007, but due Scotland's trademark rain, they're still going.

Check out the site, especially the videos and photographs. In one of the videos you can see them drawing a hijabi girl. I dunno why.

There's also a few previous works by the artists that are worth checking out. Farah approved :thumbup:

RETHINK SPACE: Evergreen at The Brick Works

http://evergreen.ca/rethinkspace/

Very cool project. Basically, they're renovating a deteriorating brick factory near the heart of Toronto to make it a eco-friendly, nature refuge for the community in the midst of its urban surroundings. Click above to find more about the project. Or just read below.

The Project
Evergreen is transforming Toronto’s historic Don Valley Brick Works factory from an underused, deteriorating collection of buildings into a thriving environmentally-based community centre that engages visitors in diverse experiences connected to nature.

Vision
Imagine a place where…

• trees and plants are grown to support the greening of schools, parks, waterfronts and residential landscapes across Toronto
• you and your family can enjoy nature walks, see a great blue heron, deer, and a hawk soaring above
• kids can explore Toronto’s ravine system and develop a genuine respect and understanding of nature
• you can be inspired to start your own natural garden at home
• you can buy locally grown fruits and vegetables directly from the farmers who grew them.

Now, imagine that place is right in the heart of your city
EVERGREEN Brick Works will be a dynamic place that adapts and grows to meet new urban challenges. It will be a centre for innovation and fresh thinking that will inspire future generations to RETHINK their place in the world.

If nothing else, the rundown factory makes for some amazing photographic opportunities (courtesy of Daily Dose of Imagery):

• half room (19-May-07) /11
• stairs and brick (16-May-07) /24
• light in brickworks (09-May-07) /23
• the barrel (02-May-07) /19
• can in ice (18-Apr-07) /45
• bricks (16-Apr-07) /36
• questionmarks (17-Mar-06) /37
• chalk art on brick (28-Feb-06) /14
• brickworks lit panel (13-Feb-06) /26
• guiding godray (08-Feb-06) /47
• sacred machine (14-Dec-05) /43
• burnt room (28-Oct-05) /45
• the machine (13-Oct-05) /24
• brickworks lamps (10-Oct-05) /28
• brickworks high angle (04-Oct-05) /84

Can't wait to see the finished project.

"What Are the Rights of Other Muslims? Non-Muslims?" - Sunnipath

this is what i want.

What Are the Rights of Other Muslims? Non-Muslims?
Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani, SunniPath Academy Teacher

The hadiths on brotherhood are so many. What are the rights of other Muslims on me? Do non-Muslims get rights, too?

There is a useful discussion of these rights in Heavenly Ornaments, by Imam AshrafAli al-Tahanawi:

The Rights of Muslims

1. Overlook the faults of a Muslim .
2 . When he cries, have mercy on him .
3 . Conceal his shortcomings .
4 . Accept his excuses .
5 . Remove his difficulties .
6 . Always be good to him .
7 . Gaining his love is an accomplishment .
8 . Fulfil his promises .
9 . When he falls ill, visit him .
10 . When he passes away, make du‘â for him .
11 . Accept his invitation .
12 . Accept his gifts .
13 . When he shows kindness to you, show kindness to him in return .
14 . Be grateful for his favours upon you .
15 . Help and assist him at the time of need .
16 . Safeguard his family and children .
17 . Assist him in his work .
18 . Listen to his advice .
19 . Accept his intercession .
20 . Do not make him feel despondent over his ambitions .
21 . When he sneezes and says "Alhamdulillâh", say "Yarhamukallah" in reply .
22 . If you find a lost item of his, return it to him .
23 . Reply to his greeting .
24 . When you converse with him, speak with humility and in a good manner .
25 . Be kind and friendly to him .
26 . When he takes an oath with regard to you, confident that you will fulfil it, then you must fulfil it . (For example, Zayd takes an oath that ‘Amr never goes to the bazaar and he is confident that ‘Amr will fulfil this oath of his, then ‘Amr must ensure that he does not act contrary to it . )
27 . If anyone oppresses him, go to his assistance . If he oppresses someone, prevent him .
28 . Be friendly to him and do not antagonize him .
29 . Do not disgrace him .
30 . Whatever you like for yourself, like for him as well .
31 . When you meet him, make salâm to him . If a man shakes the hand of a man, and a woman shakes the hand of a woman, it will be even better .
32 . If a quarrel takes place between the two of you, do not cut-off speaking to him for more than three days .
33 . Do not have evil thoughts of him .
34 . Do not be jealous of him nor should you hate him .
35 . Direct him towards good deeds and stop him from evil deeds .
36 . Have mercy on the young and respect the elderly .
37 . If there is a conflict between two Muslims, try and reconcile them .
38 . Do not speak ill of him .
39 . Do not cause him any loss; neither in his wealth nor in his honour.
40 . If he is sitting, do not make him get up and take his place .

Rights of the Neighbour

1. Deal with him in a nice and friendly manner .

2. Protect the honour of his wife and children .

3. Occasionally you should send gifts to his house . Especially if he is poor.In such a case you should definitely send some food to him .

4. Do not cause him any harm . Do not quarrel with him over trivial matters .

Rights of the Travelling Companion

1. Just as a person has a neighbour at home, he also has a neighbour when travelling. That is, a travelling companion with whom you embark on a journey or coincidentally joins you during the course of the journey . The rights of such a person are similar to those of a neighbour.

2. His rights can be summed up as follows: give preference to his comfort over your own comfort . Some people display a lot of selfishness with regard to other travellers when travelling by train or other modes of public transportation . This is a very evil habit .

Rights of the Weak and Old

Those people who are in need, such as orphans, widows, the weak, the poor, the sick, the cripple, travellers, beggars, etc. have additional rights . They are:

1. You should help them financially .
2 . You should undertake their tasks with your own hands and legs .
3 . You should console and comfort them .
4 . You should not refuse to fulfil their needs and wants .

Rights of Human beings

1. Do not cause financial or physical harm to innocent people .
2 . Do not argue with anyone without any valid Shar'î reason .

3. If you find someone in problem, in poverty, or sick, help him, feed him, treat his sickness .
4 . When meting out punishment, do not transgress the limits in the different methods of punishment that have been laid down in the Sharî‘ah.

Rights of Animals

1. Do not encage an animal which you will not be taking any benefit from . Removing nestlings from their nests, causing harm to their parents, etc . is a sign of extreme mercilessness .

2. An animal that is suitable for consumption should not be killed merely for amusement .

3. You should make proper arrangements with regard to food, drink, providing rest, and taking care for the animal that you utilise for your work . Do not impose any work on it that is beyond its capacity, nor should you beat it more than necessary .

4. The animal that is to be slaughtered or killed on account of it being harmful should be slaughtered or killed quickly . Do not cause it any agitation . Do not take its life after having starved it .

Additional points

If there is any shortcoming in fulfilling the rights of a person, fulfil that which can be fulfilled or else, ask for forgiveness. For example, you are still owing someone some money or you cheated someone, etc . (In such a case you should try and pay the debt, but if you cannot do so, then seek forgiveness from the person) . As for the right which can only be forgiven, seek forgiveness for it, e . g . you spoke ill of a person or beat him (In such a case, it is obvious that you cannot pay him anything . Instead, you will have to seek his forgiveness) .

If, due to some reason, you cannot fulfil their rights nor can you seek their forgiveness, then you should continue making du‘â for these people. It is possible that on the day of judgement Allah Ta'âlâ will try and influence them to forgive you . However, later if you are in a position to fulfil their rights or seek their forgiveness, then do not hesitate in doing so .

As for the rights that are due to you and there is a hope of their being fulfilled, then be lenient when asking for them. As for those where there is no hope of their being fulfilled or, they are such that they cannot be fulfilled, such as ghîbah, then although there is the hope of your receiving rewards in return for them on the day of judgement, however, more reward has been mentioned with regard to forgiving them in this world . It will be much better if you forgive them completely or absolve them completely . This is especially when the person earnestly seeks forgiveness from you .

Caron Butler Surprises Surprise Party

this made me smile all huge :)

A Caron Butler Surprise

Anthony Fadel had met Caron Butler once before. The Centreville High sophomore had a friend whose cousin lives two doors down from the Butlers, and they stopped by once and rang the doorbell. Caron's wife came to the door.

"We didn't know what to say," Anthony told me. "We were just like, 'Is Caron there?' She was like, 'One second'."

Then Caron came out to chat. So understandably, Anthony has been partial to Butler, and he told his mom how cool it would be to have Caron over one day to hang out and play some basketball. So when his mom was planning Anthony's surprise 16th birthday party, she had her 13-year-old daughter Kristen drop off an invitation at the Butler home.

"I wasn't going to go myself; the little girl can always get away with it," Anthony's mom, Marie, told me with a laugh.

The invite said the Fadels would hold the surprise party any day in the month of May, if Caron were willing to come, even if just for five minutes. They never heard back from him. A week later they went back with another invite, and he came to the door and said maybe. They never heard back from him.

So the party planning went on. On the day of the surprise, May 12, Anthony's dad took him out to the driving range. About a dozen friends came over and waited in the basement.

"And then I see a black Range Rover coming up my driveway," Marie told me. "I looked out and I said 'Oh my God, Caron Butler is here."

She went into the basement and told Anthony's friends who had arrived. They thought it was some sort of code word or nickname for Anthony.

"I said 'No no, Caron Butler, from the Wizards, the real one'," Marie told me.

So Caron came inside, and asked what she needed him to do.

"I said 'It's a surprise party, everyone's in the basement'," Marie recalled, and so Caron Butler went down into the basement to watch the NBA playoffs with a bunch of high school sophomores who were waiting to surprise their buddy. About 10 minutes later, Anthony arrived home, with his dad.

"We just went downstairs, opened the door to the basement, and Caron Butler's just over there chilling with my friends," Anthony told me. "I couldn't say anything. I was just shocked."

So the birthday party carried on. They all sat in the basement and watched the second half of Cavs-Nets, Game 3. The Fadels offered Caron food; Anthony told me he only accepted a Pepsi. He posed for pictures, and gave Anthony a signed pair of sneakers and a signed poster that he had brought. Then, as he was leaving, he took out his cell phone, made a call and handed the phone to Anthony.

"I just kind of grabbed it and it was Gilbert Arenas on the phone," Anthony told me. "I was just, like, shocked. So I talked to Gilbert for a little bit. He said happy birthday to me. I asked him about his leg."

Then Caron left, in the Range Rover. Then the 15 boys played five-on-five basketball, according to plans.

"We were like, 'We just hung out with an NBA all-star player'," said Youssif Aziz, who was at the party. "It just made the night right there."

"It was awesome," Anthony summarized.

WRC found out about the party through Lindsay Czarniak's hairdresser's son; they ran a piece a few weeks ago, which I never saw at the time, but which you can watch here. I found out about the event via a friend of Anthony's, who reads my blog and e-mailed me the info. To their eternal credit, the Wizards made a concerted decision not to seek out birthday party coverage, figuring that would have made the gesture seem less genuine somehow.

Anyhow, I talked to Caron today. He said the invite had been hanging on his refrigerator, and that he didn't have anything going on that particular Saturday, and that it just seemed like a good idea. He said everyone in the community has been "real courteous and very kind" to him, and that local fans have supported him since he's been here, and that he just thought he should reciprocate.

"I thought it was a good thing to do, to make someone's dream come true," he told me. "It was just as rewarding for me as it was for him."

I asked whether he wasn't worried that every teenager in the D.C. area would immediately send him a birthday party invitation.

"I'm actually moving, so they'll have to find me first," he told me. "As long as I'm not doing anything, I don't have any problem going to anyone's birthday party. I'm not anti-social. It's good being around your fans."

Pirate Convention on SNL

In honor of me just watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3...

"Muslim Americans: Middle-Class and Mostly Mainstream" -- Pew Survey

Article -- though I tried to find an article/summary that didn't focus primarily on politics/suicide bombings, I couldn't. The survey's really a fascinating read, especially if you ARE an American Muslim.

I really wanted a greater breakdown of the results (though I suppose that could come in after the 15 pages i read) based on:
-- gender
-- income
-- race

Full Survey here.

I've only read the first 15-ish pages, but major themes that stood out:

-- American Muslims in general are concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism, both in the US and the world. [side note: Count me in].
-- "With the exception of very recent immigrants, most report that a large proportion of their closest friends are non-Muslims." [side note: LCHS hollaaa] "On balance, they believe that Muslims coming to the U.S. should try and adopt American customs, rather than trying to remain distinct from the larger society. And by nearly two-to-one (63%-32%) Muslim Americans do not see a conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society."
-- younger Muslims are more likely to consider themselves very religious than old Muslims [side note: i can easily buy into this. Younger Muslims raised in a non-Muslim country are less likely to take their religion granted. When they're constantly fighting the status quo of the society they live in, they 1. feel the need to hold more strongly to their beliefs and 2. educate themselves on what they truly think is right. What I'd like to know, however, is how big of a role 9/11 played in how 'religious' one feels they have become].
-- the younger AND more religious muslims are both more likely to believe that 9/11 was not carried out by arabs. Younger Muslims are also more likely to believe suicide bombings targeting civilians can sometimes or rarely be justified [side note: where is this opinion brewing from??? what is the religious educational background of those who consider themselves religious?]
-- side note: I'd love to see the standards by which everyone defines varying levels of religiousness, how it differs between individuals and how they view themselves based on such differences.
-- the vast majority of young Muslims in the US seem to be first generation ("roughly two-thirds (65%) of adult Muslims living in the United States were born elsewhere, and 39% have come to the U.S. since 1990")
-- "Muslims in the US reject Islamic extremism by larger margins than do Muslim minorities in Western European countries" ; they also happen to generally have fewer instances of poverty.
-- while a greater percentage of muslims than christians feel that religion plays an important role in their life (72% vs 60%), fewer say they pray every day (61% vs 70%)
-- a smaller percentage of Muslims attend mosque once a week than Christians attend church (40% vs 45%, respectively [side note: why? is it because of the Muslims' deluded self image? Or because of a serious discontent with the masjid? Or because they don't feel the need to connect to the Muslim community throught the masjid? Or because the weekly mosque visit is typically on Fridays (a work day) as opposed to Sunday? Does this number change based upon gender?]

"You Are What You Grow" - NYT

New York Times journalist Michael Pollen examines the clandestine connection between federal farm subsidies and the nation's obesity epidemic.

Interesting read, particularly because I had no idea wtf they were talking about. I' be way more likely to have full faith in the article if he, you know, cited his sources (books, studies, research, etc). Further investigation will have to be done (links and recommendations on the subject are greatly appreciated). Regardless, it's a bit depressing how the lowest tier of society is kinda effed over in every aspect of their life.

Article in New York Times
and if you don't have a subscription to NYT (though you really should), that same article is found elsewhere.

Drewnowski gave himself a hypothetical dollar to spend, using it to purchase as many calories as he possibly could.
...
Drewnowski found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of cookies or potato chips but only 250 calories of carrots. Looking for something to wash down those chips, he discovered that his dollar bought 875 calories of soda but only 170 calories of orange juice.

As a rule, processed foods are more "energy dense" than fresh foods: they contain less water and fiber but more added fat and sugar, which makes them both less filling and more fattening. These particular calories also happen to be the least healthful ones in the marketplace

Like most processed foods, the Twinkie is basically a clever arrangement of carbohydrates and fats teased out of corn, soybeans and wheat--three of the five commodity crops that the farm bill supports, to the tune of some $25 billion a year. (Rice and cotton are the others.) For the last several decades--indeed, for about as long as the American waistline has been ballooning--U.S. agricultural policy has been designed in such a way as to promote the overproduction of these five commodities, especially corn and soy.

That's because the current farm bill helps commodity farmers by cutting them a check based on how many bushels they can grow, rather than, say, by supporting prices and limiting production, as farm bills once did. The result? A food system awash in added sugars (derived from corn) and added fats (derived mainly from soy), as well as dirt-cheap meat and milk (derived from both). By comparison, the farm bill does almost nothing to support farmers growing fresh produce.

The farm bill helps determine what sort of food your children will have for lunch in school tomorrow. The school-lunch program began at a time when the public-health problem of America's children was undernourishment, so feeding surplus agricultural commodities to kids seemed like a win-win strategy. Today the problem is overnutrition, but a school lunch lady trying to prepare healthful fresh food is apt to get dinged by U.S.D.A. inspectors for failing to serve enough calories; if she dishes up a lunch that includes chicken nuggets and Tater Tots, however, the inspector smiles and the reimbursements flow.

By making it possible for American farmers to sell their crops abroad for considerably less than it costs to grow them, the farm bill helps determine the price of corn in Mexico and the price of cotton in Nigeria and therefore whether farmers in those places will survive or be forced off the land, to migrate to the cities--or to the United States. The flow of immigrants north from Mexico since Nafta is inextricably linked to the flow of American corn in the opposite direction, a flood of subsidized grain that the Mexican government estimates has thrown two million Mexican farmers and other agricultural workers off the land since the mid-90s.

The smorgasbord of incentives and disincentives built into the farm bill helps decide what happens on nearly half of the private land in America: whether it will be farmed or left wild, whether it will be managed to maximize productivity (and therefore doused with chemicals) or to promote environmental stewardship. The health of the American soil, the purity of its water, the biodiversity and the very look of its landscape owe in no small part to impenetrable titles, programs and formulae buried deep in the farm bill.

"The devil is in the details, no doubt. Simply eliminating support for farmers won’t solve these problems; overproduction has afflicted agriculture since long before modern subsidies. It will take some imaginative policy making to figure out how to encourage farmers to focus on taking care of the land rather than all-out production, on growing real food for eaters rather than industrial raw materials for food processors and on rebuilding local food economies, which the current farm bill hobbles. But the guiding principle behind an eater’s farm bill could not be more straightforward: it’s one that changes the rules of the game so as to promote the quality of our food (and farming) over and above its quantity."

The Tank Man - Frontline (PBS)

Absolutely amazing documentary. Don't multitask while watching -- the footage is incredible.

Watch the full program online here. (90 mins, realplayer)

On June 5, 1989, one day after the Chinese army's deadly crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, a single, unarmed young man stood his ground before a column of tanks on the Avenue of Eternal Peace. Captured on film and video by Western journalists, this extraordinary confrontation became an icon of the struggle for freedom around the world.

Seventeen years later, veteran filmmaker Antony Thomas goes to China in search of "The Tank Man." Who was he? What was his fate? And what does he mean for a China that today has become a global economic powerhouse?

Drawing on interviews with Chinese and Western eyewitnesses, Thomas recounts the amazing events of the spring of 1989, when a student protest that began in Tiananmen Square, the symbolic central space of the nation, spread throughout much of the rest of China.

The Cost of War

What does $456 billion buy?

While there is some disagreement on the idea of troop deadlines for US soldiers in Iraq, all sides seem to be on board with the amount included in the bill to fund the war.

Including the $124.2 billion bill, the total cost of the Iraq war may reach $456 billion in September, according to the National Priorities Project, an organization that tracks public spending.

The amount got us wondering: What would $456 billion buy?

-------

Notably:

According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.

At the upper range of those estimates, the $456 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for five and a half years.

Banksy (revisted)

Article

A follow-up to an earlier Banksy post.

Small Exhibit of Pictures

(Extended) Highlights:

Banksy has parlayed his knack for reducing ideas to simple visual elements into what a critic recently termed "red nose rebellion." He is both a lefty and a tweaker of lefty pieties. At a London antiwar demonstration in 2003, he distributed signs that read "I Don't Believe In Anything. I'm Just Here for the Violence." Later, he produced revisionist oil paintings (Mona Lisa with a yellow smiley face, a pastoral landscape surrounded by crime-scene tape) and, disguised in a trenchcoat and fake beard, installed them, respectively, in the Louvre and the Tate.

and i looove what he did on the security wall in the west bank. love. heart.

Whoever he is, Banksy revels in the incongruities of his persona. "The art world is the biggest joke going," he has said. "It's a rest home for the overprivileged, the pretentious, and the weak." Although he once declared that "every other type of art compared to graffiti is a step down,"...

Last month, a painting titled "Space Girl and Bird" sold at Bonham's for five hundred and seventy-five thousand, a Banksy record. Ralph Taylor, a specialist in the Sotheby's contemporary-art department, said of Banksy, "He is the quickest-growing artist anyone has ever seen of all time." Banksy responded to the Sotheby's sale by posting a painting on his Web site. It featured an auctioneer presiding over a crowd of rapt bidders, with the caption "I can't believe you morons actually buy this shit."

While setting up the show in Los Angeles, Banksy ordered a pizza, ate it, and tossed the box in a Dumpster. Within weeks, the pizza box was sold on eBay, for a hundred and two dollars. The seller suggested that a few anchovies that had been left inside might yield traces of Banksy's DNA.

Rodents are a favorite motif. "Like most people, I have a fantasy that all the little powerless losers will gang up together," Banksy wrote in "Existencilism." "That all the vermin will get some good equipment and then the underground will go overground and tear this city apart." His most famous street paintings are a series of black-and-white stencilled rats, the majority of them slightly larger than life-size. Each is different, but they all possess an impish poignancy that made them an immediate hit with London pedestrians. One, a "gangster rat," painted on a wall near the Smithfield market, wears a peace-sign medallion and carries a sign that says "Welcome to Hell." Another pleads, "Please love me." Cheyenne Westphal, the chairman for contemporary art in Europe at Sotheby's, told me, "My first experience with him was in October, 2004, when he left a piece outside a party we were throwing for Damien Hirst." It was a rat, holding up a placard that read, "You lie." Banksy, typically, was flipping off the art world and begging it to notice him at the same time.

Banksy was displaying an eight-thousand-pound elephant named Tai, whose hide he had painted red and embellished with gold fleurs-de-lis, to match the wallpaper of a parlor he had constructed. (The elephant in the room, a handout proclaimed, was global poverty.) The activists said that the paint was toxic. Ed Boks, Los Angeles's general manager of animal services, said he regretted that his office had issued a permit and, after visiting the show, wrote on his blog that looking into the elephant's eyes "nearly brought me to tears." He eventually ordered the animal hosed down. The L.A. Times, which had not planned to review the show, published two stories. Al Jazeera reported on the controversy. Other people were angry about a large portrait of Mother Teresa overlaid with the words "I learnt a valuable lesson from this woman. Moisturise everyday." By Sunday, thirty thousand people, waiting in lines five blocks long, had seen the exhibition.

"Only when the last tree has been cut down and the last river has dried up will man realize that reciting red Indian proverbs makes you sound like a fucking muppet"

The gallery's motto is "Art by People," but its affiliates exhibit a caginess toward anyone outside their circle of trusted accomplices, many of whom work in semi-symbiosis. Banksy, for instance, illustrated the cover for "Think Tank," a 2003 album by the band Blur, of which Damon Albarn is a member. (Banksy later declared that he'd never do commercial work again.) Albarn went on to found Gorillaz, a band whose public face is represented by four animated characters. Remi Kabaka, who provides the voice for the band's drummer, works at the gallery as a sort of majordomo. At a recent party at a bar nearby, his name was the password for entry.

Graffiti aficionados like to say that the form is as ancient as cave drawing, and Banksy takes a similarly romantic view. "Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw wherever they liked," he once wrote. "Where the street was awash with a million colors and little phrases. . . . A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business." Detractors of graffiti, however, can trace its spread as assiduously as epidemiologists mapping an outbreak of diphtheria.

"Fings have gone a little bit nuts lately," Steve Lazarides said, with the burry inflection of his native city. "Suddenly, it's become all right amongst the proper art world to collect street art."

Twirling a pen, he reported that walk-in traffic at the gallery had increased fifteenfold. "We've had a lot of youth, and we're not talking about well-heeled youth," he said. "A lot of street kids, the kids who sort of hang around and hang out and what have you. They're all very polite."

I'd heard that Banksy had become "increasingly paranoid," and I wondered whether the accusations of hypocrisy had worn on him, and whether he was able to enjoy his success. "I have been called a sellout, but I give away thousands of paintings for free, how many more do you want?" he wrote. "I think it was easier when I was the underdog, and I had a lot of practise at it. The money that my work fetches these days makes me a bit uncomfortable, but that's an easy problem to solve—you just stop whingeing and give it all away. I don't think it's possible to make art about world poverty and then trouser all the cash, that's an irony too far, even for me." He went on, "I love the way capitalism finds a place—even for its enemies. It's definitely boom time in the discontent industry. I mean, how many cakes does Michael Moore get through?"

"Why do you do what you do?" I asked.

Banksy replied, "I originally set out to try and save the world, but now I'm not sure I like it enough."

Banksy has always had a fatalistic streak: in one of his books, a pair of lovebirds is juxtaposed with the dictum "As soon as you meet someone, you know the reason you will leave them." In another, a little girl releases a heart-shaped red balloon: "When the time comes to leave, just walk away quietly and don't make any fuss."

after the article, i felt a bit depressed that everyone knows about him. :-/ sad.

"Shut Up and Play" -- Etan Thomas

okay, i've always like etan thomas (mostly because of the hair), but now i have a quasi-legitimate reason for doing so. A highly political player, he writes a response to those who tell him to "shut up and play" :

I was watching this special about Muhammad Ali and they showed him shaking hands with George Bush, of all people, and I thought to myself, How ironic. When talking about Muhammad Ali, it is important to remember that all of these people in mainstream America, who now look at him with reverence and dignity, did not feel that way when he was in his prime. It is important to remember that he was one of the most vilified and reviled men of his time. When he made the decision not to enter his name in the draft, not to step forward and fight in a war that he did not agree in, he was looked upon with hate. All of the people who once cheered him and marveled at his ability and overall skills in the ring suddenly looked upon him with eyes of contempt. If was almost as if they were thinking, How dare he not jump at the opportunity to fight for his country?

The reality was that Ali was the epitome of standing up for what you believed in. For having the moral courage to ignore public opinion and stand on his convictions. You have to remember that this was a different time. A time where black people all over the country were being brutally lynched, burned alive, doused with water hoses and attacked with dogs, and this was by the police. This was a time of dire consequences for such actions, and it took a proud black man as Muhammad Ali, who waited until he won the belt, until he was the heavyweight champion of the world, to say to the entire country, Gotcha! This is who I am. And I'm not going to give you any choice but to accept me as a man. You can't put me in a box regardless of whether you want to or not.

I liked the quote... but read the article weeks ago so don't remember the rest. check it out.

Useful Paper-Writing Technique

Increase the length of your paper by increasing the font size of all the periods... brilliant!


Really Useful Paper Tip - Brought to you by Break.com Video Search

Me & the Mosque: Women in Islam (Video)

Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. In North America, most converts to Islam are women, many of whom are drawn to the ... all » religion through their experiences of social injustice and political involvement.

Ironically many mosques force women to pray behind barriers away from the men, and some mosques do not even permit women to enter the building. When it comes to user-friendliness for women, Canadian mosques run the entire gamut.

In Me and the Mosque, journalist and filmmaker Zarqa Nawaz visits mosques throughout Canada and talks to scholars, colleagues, friends and neighbours about equal access for women. Discussions about the historical role of women in the Islamic faith, the current state of mosques in Canada and personal stories of anger, fear, acceptance and defiance punctuate the film. And Nawaz herself speaks of the spiritual longing that comes from belonging to an institution that doesn't want you.

With original animation, archival footage and deeply personal interviews, Me and the Mosque is a smart, self-aware and whimsical story that documents the debates and presents the personalities on all sides of the issue.

NYT - Study of N.B.A. Sees Racial Bias in Calling Fouls

in case you haven't turned on espn in the last week:
Study of N.B.A. Sees Racial Bias in Calling Fouls

though i'd love to see the paper itself...
EDIT: nyc deel found it: Text of Study thank you! (i'm not highlighting that; will read later)

Highlights:

[The study] found a corresponding bias in which black officials called fouls more frequently against white players, though that tendency was not as strong. They went on to claim that the different rates at which fouls are called “is large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew assigned to the game.”

“I would be more surprised if it didn’t exist,” Mr. Ayres [author of "Pervasive Prejudice?"] said of an implicit association bias in the N.B.A. “There’s a growing consensus that a large proportion of racialized decisions is not driven by any conscious race discrimination, but that it is often just driven by unconscious, or subconscious, attitudes. When you force people to make snap decisions, they often can’t keep themselves from subconsciously treating blacks different than whites, men different from women.”

But they said they continued to find the same phenomenon: that players who were similar in all ways except skin color drew foul calls at a rate difference of up to 4 ½ percent depending on the racial composition of an N.B.A. game’s three-person referee crew.

With their database of almost 600,000 foul calls, Mr. Wolfers and Mr. Price used a common statistical technique called multivariable regression analysis, which can identify correlations between different variables. The economists accounted for a wide range of factors: that centers, who tend to draw more fouls, were disproportionately white; that veteran players and All-Stars tended to draw foul calls at different rates than rookies and non-stars; whether the players were at home or on the road, as officials can be influenced by crowd noise; particular coaches on the sidelines; the players’ assertiveness on the court, as defined by their established rates of assists, steals, turnovers and other statistics; and more subtle factors like how some substitute players enter games specifically to commit fouls.

Mr. Wolfers and Mr. Price also report a statistically significant correlation with decreases in points, rebounds and assists, and a rise in turnovers, when players performed before primarily opposite-race officials.

Mr. Wolfers and Mr. Price claim that these changes are enough to affect game outcomes. Their results suggested that for each additional black starter a team had, relative to its opponent, a team’s chance of winning would decline from a theoretical 50 percent to 49 percent and so on, a concept mirrored by the game evidence: the team with the greater share of playing time by black players during those 13 years won 48.6 percent of games — a difference of about two victories in an 82-game season.

The N.B.A.’s reciprocal study was conducted by the Segal Company, the actuarial consulting firm which designed the in-house data-collection system the league uses to identify patterns for referee-training purposes, to test for evidence of bias. The league’s study was less formal and detailed than an academic paper, included foul calls for only two and a half seasons (from November 2004 through January 2007), and did not consider differences among players by position, veteran status and the like. But it did have the clear advantage of specifying which of the three referees blew his whistle on each foul.

The N.B.A. study reported no significant differences in how often white and black referees collectively called fouls on white and black players. Mr. Stern said he was therefore convinced “that there’s no demonstration of any bias here — based upon more robust and more data that was available to us because we keep that data.”

Both [authors of the paper] cautioned that the racial discrimination they claim to have found should be interpreted in the context of bias found in other parts of American society.

“There’s bias on the basketball court,” Mr. Wolfers said, “but less than when you’re trying to hail a cab at midnight.”