Monday, 31 October 2011
Saturday, 29 October 2011
Who is this beautiful young poet?
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SORROWWhy does the thin grey strand
Floating up from the forgotten
Cigarette between my fingers,
Why does it trouble me? Ah, you will understand;
When I carried my mother downstairs,
A few times only, at the beginning
Of her soft-foot malady, I should find, for a reprimand
To my gaiety, a few long grey hairs
On the breast of my coat; and one by one
I let them float up the dark chimney. -0-D H Lawrence - Photo source WikiPedia
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Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Baha'i educators sentenced - by Iran's government
Baha'i educators sentenced
18 October 2011NEW YORK — Seven Baha'i educators in Iran have each received four- or five-year prison sentences, according to reports received by the Baha'i International Community.
Verdicts against the seven were reportedly handed down by a judge at Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran.
The educators have been detained for almost five months in connection with their involvement in an informal community initiative – known as the Baha'i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) – in which Baha'i professors, debarred by the Iranian government from practicing their professions, offer their services to teach young community members who are banned from university.
Two of the individuals, Vahid Mahmoudi and Kamran Mortezaie, were each sentenced to five years imprisonment.
Four year jail terms were given to BIHE lecturers Ramin Zibaie, Mahmoud Badavam and Farhad Sedghi, consultant Riaz Sobhani, and helper Nooshin Khadem.
Read profiles of the BIHE prisoners
"It is not even clear at this stage what the exact charges were against these innocent souls, whose only desire was to serve young people who have been unjustly barred from higher education on purely religious grounds," said Bani Dugal, Principal Representative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations.
"What kind of society makes educating the young a punishable crime?" she said.
Two other Baha'is associated with BIHE – husband and wife Kamran Rahimian and Faran Hesami, both psychology instructors – are also still being held without charge.
Global protest
The most recent attacks carried out against BIHE continue to provoke condemnation from governments, organizations, academics and young people throughout the world.
More than 70 academics in Australia, including University of Ballarat vice-chancellor, David Battersby, have signed an open letter protesting Iran's educational discrimination against Baha'is and calling for the immediate release of the imprisoned educators.
On 10 October, 43 prominent philosophers and theologians in 16 countries signed a letter of protest. “To acquire knowledge and learning is the sacred and legal right of all; indeed, the state is obliged to provide it. In Iran, the government has done the opposite...” wrote the academics.
Two Nobel Peace Prize laureates – Desmond Tutu, the Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, and Jose Ramos-Horta, President of East Timor – in another open letter, sharply criticized the Iranian government, comparing its actions to "the Dark Ages of Europe" or the "Spanish Inquisition."
On 5 October, resuming a Canadian Senate debate about the Baha’is in Iran, Senator Hugh Segal described the suffering heaped on Baha’is as “systematic and brutal, especially when the Baha’i are known as a peaceful faith that embraces the sanctity of all religions.”
“The official Iranian oppression of Baha’i … is a clarion call to humanity and to free peoples and democracies everywhere to look directly at the harsh colors of the Iranian reality and not look away until the challenge is faced head on,” said Senator Segal.
Around 112 Baha’is are currently behind bars in Iran because of their religion. This includes the seven Baha’i leaders, serving 20-year jail terms on trumped-up charges. The cases of some 300 other Baha’is are still active with the Iranian authorities.
Click on link to read more
Scottish amateur wins Landscape Photographer of the Year
An amateur photographer from Scotland has scooped this year’s Landscape Photographer of the Year award, it has been revealed.
The annual competition, launched by master landscape photographer Charlie Waite, has been won by Scottish photographer Robert Fulton for his image ‘Winter Field in Snow’ (see above).
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
How I Was Arrested at Occupy Wall Street | Occupy Cyberspace – American Autumn
How I Was Arrested at Occupy Wall Street
Naomi Wolfe
Last night I was arrested in my home town, outside an event to which I had been invited, for standing lawfully on the sidewalk in an evening gown. Let me explain; my partner and I were attending an event for the Huffington Post, for which I often write: Game Changers 2011, in a venue space on Hudson Street. As we entered the space, we saw that about 200 Occupy Wall Street protesters were peacefully assembled and were chanting. They wanted to address Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was going to be arriving at the event.
They were using a technique that has become known as “the human mic” – by which the crowd laboriously repeats every word the speaker says – since they had been told that using real megaphones was illegal. In my book Give Me Liberty, a blueprint for how to open up a closing civil society, I have a chapter on permits – which is a crucial subject to understand for anyone involved in protest in the US.
Click on link to read the article.
Thank God this kind of policing couldn't happen in the UK!
10 Things You Must Let Go Of Today - Inspired Every Moment by Katherine
Some times you have to let go of things to allow new, more useful things, into your life. Letting go can be difficult, but it can also be very positive and rewarding. Here are a few things you MUST let go of if you truly hope to live a happy and positive life…
Let Go Of…
- Guilt: Does guilt ever change the situation? Can it reverse time and change the past? The answer is NO! Guilt has no use what-so-ever. Let it go and get on with living. Take whatever it is that is making you feel guilty and use it as a lesson learned.
Click on link to read Katherine's 'Ten Things to let Go Of Today' article
Check out 'PHOTOGRAPHERS SPEAK' DEAN BRIERLY's interviews
Leiter might be regarded as the master of the “indecisive” moment – those in-between moments when nothing of much importance seems to be happening but which resonate with a profound if understated sense of interior drama. Leiter is one of photography’s underrated masters, and a living testament to the maxim that the greatest artists are often the most humble and self-deprecating. His black-and-white work was featured in the book “The New York School” and his color images in “Early Color.” The native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, still makes his home in New York City, where he has lived since 1946.
Saul Leiter
Click on link to read the DEAN BRIERLY interviews
At What Age Do Photographers Do Their Most Influential Work?
Jacques Henri LartigueJust about anybody who’s been in my company for the last couple of years has heard me yammer on about photography and aging. The best creative years for a photographer, I’d proclaim, are 20 to 40, but the peak is 25 to 35. Of course I’d mention the exceptions, but taken as a whole, photographic greatness seems to me to be a young person’s game.
God I hope he's wrong!
Click on link to read Alec's article
There's no one quite like Nan Goldin | Art and design | guardian.co.uk
Nan Goldin's photographic work The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a slideshow taking in pictures from 1983 to the present day. It's different every time the photographer exhibits it, and on Saturday night it was given what is surely one of its most dramatic settings to date, the Tate's massive Turbine Hall. The pictures of junkies, drag queens, and the sleazy New York demi-monde of the past were projected onto a massive screen in the centre of the hall, and given a musical accompaniment.
Click on link to read article
Masahisa Fukase's Ravens: the best photobook of the past 25 years? |Sean O'Hagan | guardian.co.uk
Bleakly atmospheric ... Koen-dori, Shibuya (1982) by Masahisha Fukase. Photograph courtesy of the artistThe British Journal of Photography recently asked a panel of experts, including photographer Chis Killip and the writer Gerry Badger, to select their best photobook of the past 25 years. Surpisingly, perhaps, Nan Goldin's Ballad of Sexual Dependency, from 1986, came a close second to a much less well-known book, Masahisa Fukase's Karasu (Ravens), which was published the same year.
While Goldin's book is now widely regarded as a pioneering classic of the raw, confessional style of photographic memoir, Fukase's work is described by the BJP as "an obscure masterpiece".
Click on link to read article
Saturday, 22 October 2011
The secret of the world's oldest marathon runner | UK news | The Guardian
Fauja Singh says he lives 'a very simple life'. Photograph: Chris Young/AP'Anything worth doing is going to be difficult," says Fauja Singh, the 100-year-old runner who this week became the world's oldest person to complete a full-length marathon, crossing the line at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront event in eight hours, 25 minutes and 16 seconds. (And he didn't finish last: five came in after him.)
At five foot eight and weighing a little more than eight stone, Singh is a spindly figure under his heavy turban and wispy beard. "Girl, you tell me: has anything you wanted ever been easy?" he says.
What a great story - click on link to read the article
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Pushing photography to the limits MARIAH ROBERTSON at the BALTIC
MARIAH ROBERTSON
25 June 2011 - 30 October 2011
Highly aware of our technology-saturated world, New York-based Mariah Robertson bridges photography, painting, film and sculpture with images that, at first, hark back to the slower, semi-pre-digital arena of her youth. Working in a darkroom using analogue techniques now in their demise, Robertson manipulates photographic materials to reveal their strengths and fallibilities. Her hands-on approach sees chemical mishaps 'paint' the photographic surface, and an array of objects exposed directly on the paper or obstructing the enlarger.
Her elaborate compositions, lush with colour, are presented as objects within heavy frames, or as structures that cascade from the ceiling and around the gallery as over-sized film-strips.
This is Robertson's first solo exhibition in the UK and will include recent and new work.
Enjoyed the idea of stretching photographic method to this extreme more than the actual artifacts. Well worth seeing though.
Friday, 7 October 2011
Steve Jobs' 10 Secrets to Building a Huge Empire
 Steve Paul Jobs was born on February 24th, 1955. He is known to be the Chairman, co-founder as well as the CEO of the Apple Inc. He was also the former CEO of well known Pixar Animation Studios. He was also represented among the Board of Directors of the Walt Disney Company. Not bad! He completed his studies in California and later he did his frequent after-school lectures in Palo Alto at the Hewlett Packard Company. In a few months time, he was hired in the same place and from there his career started to accelerate. The great personality exhibited by Steve Jobs was told and appreciated far and wide. He was referred to as one of Silicon Valley’s leading egomaniac by Fortune Magazine. It was in the year 1976 when he founded the company he named Apple Inc. Presently, Jobs is referred to as the single largest shareholder in the Walt Disney Company and also one among its Board of Directors. His presence and appreciation in both the computer as well as entertainment field is remarkable.NB To read this '10 Secrets' article by Manish go HERE |
