Mull of Kintyre seen from Tor Head, Antrim Coast

FLASH !!   Editorial: Obama & US elections, Dubin, 6 Nov 2008

With other sane citizens of the world I celebrate the election of Barak Obama as a fruition of a movement that not only embodied a will towards change away from an ethos of suicidal, self-defeating mega-death culture; more importantly, it brought together people of diverse backgrounds, breaking down barriers of suspicion, fear and ignorance. (No sanction of his party is here implied.)

Now that it is fashionable to be American I rush into print to claim my portion of fleeting fame. For a brief moment a few people will be disposed to hear me assert that, having lived my adult life in Europe out of contact with my native land, ignoring American affairs and the English language press, even so, even in the darkest depths of the Reagan era and throughout the terrifying Bush regime, I have always been proud to be an American, had no need to be introduced with the qualification, "He's American, but he's OK", and never doubted that in the cycle of history something very much like this would come to pass just about now.

My fifteen years' experience as an industrial worker in several industries informed a perception of parts of the American people that differs from what is now perceived abroad in a sort of post-industrial era. America never had a monopoly on xenophobia, racism, isolationism, indifference, obscurantism or ignorance, nor was it the only world power to use colonial and imperial strategies to further the agenda of those with their grimy hands on the levers of power. The American revolution inspired the forces that toppled the Bastille and triggered the French Revolution. International Women's Day, born in the USA, is celebrated through the world. But why go on, now that the resources of the Web allow anyone who hasn't the price of an Encyclopaedia Britannica to find out what has been going on in different parts of the world during the past three centuries?

   -------------------   personal pages  ---------------------  

   west coast 08 Irish cycle tour

A Trip to the Country of Apartheid.

Congratulations are due Isidre Pallàs of Verges (Girona province) for his account of a trip to Palestine (a serices of 26 articles) that has been recently awarded a prize by the Asociación Europea de Cooperación con Palestina, ASECOP for the best feature article "contributing to the search for peaceful solutions based on the respect for human rights and the resolutions of the United Nations". The prize includes a monetary award, a trip to Palestine and publication in Spanish of the 26 articles in the series.

 Click the link above to see my English translation of the first few daily episodes in Isidre's Chronicle.

Click here to read the original Catalan version, UN VIATGE AL PAíS DE L'APARTHEID, published in El Dimoni de Santa Eugėniq de Ter, a local on-line newspaper published in a workers' barrio of Girona.

   A 9-meter high wall surrounds the village of Qualquillia 

 ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

 MASHALÁ

Barcelona vocalist Ellen Gould Ventura fronts one of the hottest Sephardic music orchestras around. 

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu6ZnIOILbA

 A ten-minute documentary of the Barcelona-based Group Mashalá! Sefardi-Mizrahi and World Groove Music. (Mashalá! = Congratulations! in Ladino, Turkish and Arabic or "what God wills"). Like the branches of an ancient tree, the roots of Judeo-Arabic music are inexorably linked in the repetoire of Mashalá. 

 Music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2D11S2oNyo&feature=related

PAINTED NATION AND MASHALÁ TV DOCUMENTARY

Cyrus Sundar Sing, producer and director of Painted Nation has kindly credited us -- me and my wife Ann King --  for minor production assistance on his most recent documentary about Mashalá .

Here is a description of PAINTED NATION taken from Vision TV:

To Western eyes, outdoor advertising posters and signs are just so much visual pollution, cluttering up the streetscape and countryside. But in India, where the spiritual pervades everything, this brand of street art holds a deeper and more complex meaning.

For decades, garishly hand-painted billboards have been a ubiquitous feature of India's urban landscape, advertising everything from hair products to Bollywood hits. Drawing deeply upon religious and mythological sources, they have long embodied a part of the national soul. But today this art form is disappearing – collateral damage in the country's battle for the spoils of globalization.

In Painted Nation , Gemini Award-winning Toronto filmmaker Cyrus Sundar Singh takes an affectionate look at India's vanishing street art, its gifted creators, and its once-powerful place in the national culture. VisionTV presents the film's national television premiere on Wednesday, March 8 at 10 p.m. ET. The hour-long broadcast repeats on Thursday, March 9 at 11 p.m. ET.

As a youngster in Chennai, India, Singh was mesmerized by “the hand-painted landscape” all around him: trucks adorned with colourful gods and goddesses to protect their drivers from mishap; billboards and hoardings whose bold images promoted movies, toothpaste and political parties. Each was a one-of-a-kind work of art.

In Painted Nation , Singh meets some of the great masters of the form, like Balkrishna Vaidya, who has been creating Bollywood movie billboards for more than 50 years, or Aykan, the prolific genius behind the ad campaigns of the filmmaker's youth.

 http://www.visiontv.ca/Media/Releases/painted_nation.html

 See also: Interview with Cyrus at

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j0kQBY119k

 _______________________________________________________________ 

 Become a freelance writer!