Provocations

An igloo in your back yard? The classic how-to video

In this hemisphere, winter is arriving - and here in BC, lots of snow with it. What better way to feel good than to build your own house from the white stuff? Here's a classic how-to video from the archives of Canada's National Film Board.

David Simon's 'The Wire' lays it bare

Still think there might be some value to "the war on drugs"? I challenge you to watch this video and still have some justification for that thought.

Think the war on drugs is BS but can't articulate very clearly why? Watch this video.

Wonder why inner-city stuff seems predictable and stuck? Wonder what's going on in the "world's most livable city" - Vancouver - where every few days a gang member is killed?  How will that end up?

Who really cares?

Sick of reading stats and hearing platitudes?

Watch this video. It's well-presented.

Then, you may well decide to watch the second half.

"When television history is written," one critic says, "Little else will rival 'The Wire.'"And when historians come to tell the story of America in our time, I'll wager they will not be able to ignore this remarkable and compelling portrayal of life in our cities.  - Bill Moyers.

OK. Enough said.

Bill Maher's 'Religulous': interview and review

One of my favourite provocation artists at work:

Review of Religulous by Josh Tyler

Fezeka's Voice: a choir goes to England

For some years I've been donating my time to work on a web site for the organization Education without Borders.  I'm doing it for a friend and, just as much, for the cause itself.  The project has taken its first form within a school near Cape Town in South Africa and that's where I was born and grew up.

Fezeka Senior Secondary School "is the only black high school offering classes in Xhosa, Sotho and Tswana. As a result, the school is bursting at its seams and turns away over 300 students each year. Currently the school has 1,750 students with up to 45 students per class."

Education without Borders has done much in the six years of its involvement with Fezeka. Recently, some pretty spectacular fruit of the efforts of the school staff, students and EwB have emerged - through the school choir and its teacher.  We'll be able to share some of their pride and enjoyment in a soon-to-be-released documentary movie, Fezeka's Voice. Meanwhile, here's a trailer:

The Fezeka School Choir are being filmed by Ciel Productions as part of a documentary recording their journey from the Gugulethu Township in South Africa to Salisbury International Arts Festival.

From Ciel Productions: We've now shot ¾ of the film, so we're relying on further donations to finish it and create the outreach campaign that helps the film become a sustainable tool for raising the Fezeka Scholarship Fund. Every DVD pre-order (£14.99 GBP)  or donation goes towards finishing the film which gives children the opportunity to go to university and pursue their talents and dreams. We hope to raise enough funds to complete the film by December 2008.
 

Marijuana movie: 'The Union' - the money and politics behind pot

Unless you have your head in the sand, you probably know that much of what we've been told about the dangers of marijuana are propaganda. Unfortunately this masks any real problems with partaking of this particular herb.  If you haven't given some thought as to who might have vested interests in keeping marijuana illegal, you might be surprised. Here's an interview, courtesy of CBC's The Hour,  with a couple of open-minded lads who were surprised at much of what they found out as they made a movie about marijuana in Canada: 'The Union - The Business Behind Getting High.'

Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine

This video, unlike many move "trailers', pretty clearly speaks for itself. Here's a brief introduction By Naomi Klein, author of the book and co-producer of the movie (with Alfonso  Cuarón).

When I finished The Shock Doctrine, I sent it to Alfonso Cuarón because I adore his films and felt that the future he created for Children of Men was very close to the present I was seeing in disaster zones. I was hoping he would send me a quote for the book jacket and instead he pulled together this amazing team of artists -- including Jonás Cuarón who directed and edited -- to make The Shock Doctrine short film. It was one of those blessed projects where everything felt fated.

The book:

Michael Moore on The Stanley Cup and Canadian health care

Quote for the week:

On Sunday, Canada celebrated the 45th anniversary of its free, universal health care system -- with its built-in bonus of living longer than we do. Why do they have this and not us? We've already taken their Stanley Cup from them for good. Let's demand we get to live as long as they do, too! What good is a dumb ol' Cup if we aren't around long enough to use it?  -  Michael Moore, creator of the newly-released movie, Sicko.

A Crude Awakening - the Inconvenient Truth of Peak OIl?

You probably don't need further convincing but this movie may just do for Peak Oil what Al Gore's did for Climate Change: reach the multitude of people who don't accept the reality and implications of dwindling oil reserves.

A CRUDE AWAKENING: THE OIL CRASH
A 90 MINUTE DOCUMENTARY ON THE PLANET'S DWINDLING OIL RESOURCES
www.oilcrashmovie.com
OilCrash, produced and directed by award-winning European journalists and filmmakers Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack, tells the story of how our civilization's addiction to oil puts it on a collision course with geology. Compelling, intelligent, and highly entertaining, the film visits with the world's top experts and comes to a startling, but logical conclusion - our industrial society, built on cheap and readily available oil, must be completely re-imagined and overhauled.

and, as you think about it:

 

Michael Moore interviewed by Bill Maher - about Sicko and other subjects

Well, either the tide has turned and there will be many more videos here from now on - or I just happen to have run across a few good ones.  There are certainly many more videos around and this next one will be doing the rounds. However, for those of you who don't move in those circles or happen to look here first, I present to you a good one:  Bill Maher interviews Michael Moore about his latest documentary, Sicko. This is Moore's first live interview in two and a half years.

and here's the trailer:

The movie is due out in a couple of weeks

What a Way to Go - the end of an imperial lifestyle

This apparently US-centric movie is global in its implications. However, like An Inconvenient Truth it seems to be aimed at the long-standing, but now shifting, reluctance in the US to face the end of their empire, tied as it is to a lifestyle addicted to consumption, fossil fuel, never-ending growth and an almost-messianic national self-image. 

The movie features people in the U.S., like Richard Heinberg and Daniel Quinn, who have for years sounded the alarm and suggested changes that would avert this looming catastrophe.

The movie web site for What a Way to Go - Life at the End of the Empire, describes it as "A middle class white guy comes to grips with Peak Oil, Climate Change, Mass Extinction, Population Overshoot and the demise of the American Lifestyle."  Daniel Quinn says "The two hours of this documentary are two hours that bring hope for the future of humanity by awakening and informing in the most profound yet lucid way imaginable." See what you think of the two trailers recently out: