I just received an e-mail from a Mexican friend of mine – with a citizen’s view on what is happening in Mexico – and influencing the rest of the world. Interesting read.

(written in Spanish by Gabriel Gaboides, translated with Google Translate and polished by me)

Monday April 27 2009

INFLUENZA: The Lie of the Year

It’s really depressing to see how people have been left chocked by a few days of TV and radio, because of the “Swine Influenza.” Thursday night Mr Calderon gave a message to the nation saying that there had been an outbreak of swine influenza virus, which is a “new and incurable” disease that had already caused several deaths, and he immediately said: “do not leave the street, do not go to school, movies, to clubs, etc”. But never said: “Do not be afraid”. Sure, he’s all we seek.

I have been reading a little and certainly not listening to the whole ball of nonsense they say in television, for example, found that the virus is the same that appeared a few years ago and was known as the “Asian flu”, which is a smokescreen to mask the serious economic situation that lived in Asia at that time.

The situation in Mexico is similar, the same Thursday night the Senate was approving the bill to legalize drugs, which allows the carrying of small doses of marijuana, cocaine, opium, crystal and other drugs ; forgive my lack of attention, but I have not seen in the news that they have discussed this and the law will be placed on approval by the Chamber of Deputies tomorrow (Tuesday 28). Find the note in the newspaper Millennium …

Nothing really serious? Then another of the laws that were passed on Thursday 23 is the “Law of the Federal Police” with which he awarded, among other things, approving the following:

• The use of police officers out of uniform in cases that warranted some investigation.(Bravo! Undercover cops, “civilian” armed robbery and kidnapping with impunity and more)
• The intervention of phone calls.(Adios privacy)
• The federal police to intervene and even now may retain e-mails if required.
• They are given all the facility to apply for a private personal information from customers for the purpose of research.
• Shares of the Corporation conducted surveillance, identification, monitoring and tracking in public Internet sites, in order to prevent criminal behavior. (Or, more precisely to prevent coups, marches, civil movements, and so on. Let us not forget that the revolution of the century is just around the corner)

Moreover, on the April 18, the International Monetary Fund approved a credit of 47,000 million dollars requested by the government of Mexico to address the crisis, if 47,000 million, osea U $ $ 47000000000 or 658000000000 Mexican pesos, within a year, this means that if there was external debt, and now there are big debts … but the news only got to the news, not to mention the risk of a loan, the magnitude of which would severely affect the population.

(…)

All this may well have been the cause of some marches, road closures, civil demonstrations, riots and armed by the Narco, but all was appeased by the curiously timely Influenza, which was timely as the government agencies (trade unions ) does not work, people do not go to the streets and by implication not to comment anything. What I could do was stay at home with no other option but to turn on the TV and every 15 minutes to see any spot to prevent the flu, and every 2 or 3 hours any news all the time talking about the same thing. Is it an epidemic or a terrorist state?

Gabriel Gaboides

(Disclaimer: The owner of this blog does not agree or necessarily sympathize with the view of the writer. The text has been published here to spread the multiplicity of perspectives on the epidemic situation in Mexico)

The miniscule aesthetics of film production has enticed me lately. Ultimately, in masterful films one should be able to pause at any given time and thus discover a strong artistic composition withing the moving images.

Some directors put great effort into designing every single frame – and in a few cases the innovative cinematographic approaches even succeed in stealing attention from the actual storyline.

A few examples:

Peter Weir’s ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ (1975)
An all-girl school has ventured into the mountains for a picnic. As they rest on the rocks, the teacher enjoys a banana.


Wes Anderson’s ‘The Royal Tennenbaums’ (2001)
Brother and adopted sister discuss their problematic love relationship as an eagle lands.


David Fincher’s ‘Zodiac’ (2007)
Opening scene of the film – two teenagers about to make out meet a less fortunate destiny.

As Jack Cafferty put it, “this woman will be a 72-year- old heartbeat away from being president of the United States”:

Thanks to TPM for collecting the evidence.

All Americans should watch this piece and then wonder why the Republican Party still succeeds in upholding the even polls. It’s beyond me.

Whether or not this video in fact is part of the marketing campaign for this amazingly titled movie “The Women“, it succeeds firstly in criticising the viral medium and secondly in suggesting new settings for the future of virals: The personal, intimate and familiar.

In connection with the release of the iPhone, Erik Spillman from KTLA reported from a queue in Burbank:

Shortly after, he receives loads of hate mails, is widely covered by blogs and is seen more than 300.000 times on YouTube. Eric then posts up an apology to YouTube viewers to control the damage.

It seems Erik Spillman is living in an 80’s loop and hasn’t caught on to the current agenda set by high-achievers such Bill Gates and Steve Jobs – and repeated by visionaries such as Janus Friis and Mark Zuckerberg – all have managed to merge their unquestionable geeky persona with a superstar status.

Lunch Atop A Skyscraper (orginal here):

Raising the flag on Iwo Jima (original here):

More on Balakov’s flickr.

Here is what atheists are up against:

Found among Casper’s shared items.

Forget about your stressful life for a second and look closely at this:

Amazing. This recent photo was shot from a plane overflying the Amazon rain forest between Peru and Brazil in search of one of the world’s 100 remaining uncontacted tribes. Besides the fascinating aspect of having found new groups of mankind, this encounter raises ethical dilemmas:

“What is happening in this region is a monumental crime against the natural world, the tribes, the fauna and is further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the ‘civilised’ ones, treat the world“, says José Meirelles of FUNAI – the Brazilian government’s Indian affairs department.

For more photos and Reuter’s news article, go here.