Archive | April, 2009

Bach Ukulele and more

This is amazing. The musician passed away recently.

More on him at bookofjoe.

And from that inspiration see the amazing Jake Shimabukuro

And click for a couple more videos of him Continue Reading →

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It must have been harder without a screen

Stay tuned for the reason for this statement by Sumati.

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Water

From Seed Magazine, In a small village in the center of Gujarat, India, a society grows from clean water and satellite maps. They have used technology to save and take good advantage of the monsoon rains.

For more on water and nature, click here and then go to the third slide. Turn on your speakers and enjoy the nice natural sounds!

Wait there’s more. Scientists have developed a technique for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using heat, natural light, and a novel organic-metallic complex. Clean and renewable energy.

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Untouchables

part1_pict4a

This is a very interesting link to the untouchables. Again from The Travel Photographer.

The untouchables are from the Dalit caste and are born into opression in spite of this being a modern world and laws prohibiting it such as the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989

The International Dalit Solidarity Network’s website is here. And here is a Dalit FAQ which states that there are about 250,000,000, three-quarters of them in India.

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Displaced Colombians

Colombia is close to my heart having lived there in the past. Unfortunately the ongoing conflicts within Colombia have displaced around 3 million people internally second only to Sudan.

displaced-colombians

Here’s an audio slideshow “Colombia’s Displaced Indians” with photographs by Moises Saman, and narrated by Simon Romero (also the author of the accompanying article) concerning the misery affecting the indigenous population of western Colombia caught in the crossfire from a new breed of criminal armies is pressing deeper into the jungle, fighting with guerrillas who have been long in the Chocó region for control of the cocaine trade.

The objective of these groups is dominance over coca-growing areas and routes to ship cocaine abroad, predominantly to the United States.


Link via The Travel Photographer

In case this is too much, here are some pictures of cute animals.

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Travel Blog with interesting photos of Kuwait

Kuwait Housing Development
Louis CK travelled with the USO to entertain the troops in Kuwait and Iraq recently. Here’s his story. He’s a comedian but also a photographer and took interesting photos from the helicopter rides. Note his comedy and the blog link has a bit of swearing and is sometimes crude.

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Our Garden in Kuwait

We have one strawberry plant in a pot by the front door. You can click on any of the following images to open it up larger.

Strawberry Plant

Immature Strawberry

Strawberry

And some other flowers growing into the palm leaves.

Red flowery thing and palm leaf

Red flower

This is growing in a bush at the neighbours driveway.

Yellow flowery thing

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Hummer Recovery Unit

I saw this in the International Clinic parking lot.

Hummer Recovery Unit

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Starbucks Retrenches

Starbucks is continuing to close stores. Will they recover. I think so, only because they already own the best locations. Location is everything. I saw last week even in Kuwait that Starbucks is closing some stores in Kuwait. The one in Salmiya by the International Clinic is closed down.

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Amazing Bass

And if you think this is something try the following video. They call it a battle, but it isn’t really it is humble competition.

I heard the interview with Victor Wooten on CBC Tapestry, The Spirit of Music, where he talks about spirituality and music and plays a little also. It’s a must listen. The link to the MP3 file on the CBC Tapestry Podcasts page is here.

If you can’t get enough of his bass guitar playing.

And if he needs a drummer.

From Book of Joe. Here’s an article on Bernard Purdie on NY Times.

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