getting naked for putin

why do i feel like they're just going 'woooooo!' ?

Vladimir Putin visited Kiev yesterday and was met by topless activists from the group FEMEN. According to leader Anna Gustol, "We are protesting against the interference of the Russian leaders in the internal affairs of our country. After their visits, in Ukraine we see restrictions on media freedom and on the right to demonstrate, as is the case in Russia," she said. (Here's the full story.) I think this is a really important message - I don't know what it's like to have Putin trying to play evil puppet master with my country, but it can't be fun. My response: You go girl! But, um, why are you naked?

they don't know it's alllll part of his evil plan

I seeee said the blind man. Their protest is so outrageous that it's garnered huge international attention. (Another benefit: He can't have these girls whacked in the middle of night, as I hear ole Putin is wont to do.) It's getting people thinking about Russia's continued relationship with post-Soviet eastern Europe, which isn't a very healthy one. FEMEN's signs included WE WON'T SLEEP WITH KREMLIN DWARFS and WE WON'T BEND OVER THAT EASY: Fabulous.

I think this whole Putin protest thing is great. It also raises some interesting questions about FEMEN. Their main year-round purpose is to raise awareness and combat the sexual tourism trade in Ukraine (including protesting at the Turkish embassy, because Turks are apparently the largest group of pervy tourists). FEMEN's highly sexualized protests are pretty regular occurrences. I'm not sure what to make of it. They're objectifying themselves to advance a feminist agenda. It's either very counterproductive and misguided...or genius. Do what you do, ladies! I'm rooting for y'all.

another femen event (many happy faces in this crowd)

no more pants! no more pants!

sorry, boys. if you want hot feminists you gotta go to ukraine

the wonderful world of albert kahn

I'm in a history nerd tizzy over the photo collection of Albert Kahn, a Frenchman who amassed examples of the earliest type of color photography (autochromes) from all over the world in the early 1900s: Morocco, Germany, Cambodia, Iraq, Brazil, China, Benin, Syria, and more. The pictures are fascinating - sometimes beautiful, sometimes disturbing (like one from Mongolia; there's a woman with her head sticking out of a big wooden box, sentenced to death by starvation). I've included a few examples, but you've got to check out the whole thing (from Musée Albert-Kahn). BBC Books has recently published the collection in ridiculously-expensive-hardback form, and it's definitely going on my wish list!

a french cutie hanging out next to some rifles, circa WWI

chinese dude not looking stereotypical at all

my dutch kin (where i get my good looks)

hotties

swiss guard - as always, snazzy dressers

zombie bears

you know that feeling when you eat too many dead Russians and you just wanna take a nap?

Russian bears are eating dead people. Seriously, they are breaking into coffins and eating their contents. The dry summer diminished their normal food supply, so they've made the switch from berries and mushrooms to decomposing flesh and the occasional Komi villager. (When the going gets tough, the tough get going.) I am sympathetic to their plight, and therefore would like it to be known that, when I die, I wish to be dumped in the Taiga woodlands as bear food. I know they'll put me to good use.

farewell, herbie

they want to know why it had to be herbie

R.I.P. Herbie the black rhino. If you've been to the San Antonio Zoo anytime in the past 11 years, you probably know him. I don't know why God couldn't have taken one of the less-cool creatures (the giant hissing cockroaches come to mind), but life isn't fair is it? Herbie died at 18, although black rhinos are supposed to live past 40 in captivity. His death was sudden and seemingly inexplicable - I smell foul play.

All joking aside, this sucks for number of reasons, but the main one is that the black rhinoceros is a critically endangered species. Over the years their numbers have declined about 96%, mostly due to poachers and the demand for rhino horn from the Far East (particularly Vietnam). They think it's some kind of miracle aphrodisiac, when really it's just the rhino equivalent of human fingernails...no medicinal benefits at all. Way to go, Asia. There are only about 4,000 black rhinos left. (The white rhinoceros numbers aren't as bad, but they are also endangered.) And the situation is getting worse, not better.

Some good news is, although poaching is on the rise, so are efforts to stop it. In South Africa game reserve wardens have begun embedding GPS systems directly into the horns of the rhinos under their watch. This measure will monitor their movements, alert them to suspicious activity, and (hopefully) deter poaching. And, FYI, former supermodel Elle McPherson has endorsed eating rhino horns for wrinkles or some crap. So be sure to send a little haterade her way if you are so inclined.

but daddy, i want a tasmanian tiger now!

tasmanian tigers are long gone

A frightening new study has been published by Science journal. It would appear that, despite strong efforts on a lot of fronts, 1 in 5 animal species are threatened with extinction. Amphibians are the worst off because no one seems to care much about them. They're not as much fun to get outraged over as rhinos and panda bears, but who doesn't love frogs?

In an NPR story this morning, Duke ecology professor Stuart Pimm said, "Species extinction is rather like death and taxes. They are an inevitable part of life, but you just don't want them to happen at too great a rate." He goes on to reveal that animals are dying off at approximately 1000 times the historical rate. In other words, some extinction is normal and natural - This ain't.

You don't have to quit driving your car or never turn your a/c on to think that cutting down rainforests in order to build palm oil plantations, for example, is not such a good deal. Can't everyone agree that we want to have cool creatures running around the planet? Diplomats, conservation biologists, and Han Solo are meeting in Japan to discuss whether everyone's pulling their weight in slowing down the rate of extinction and trying to figure out what else can be done. Hope it works out for them...and us.

Costa Rica's golden toad =  no mas

baiji - Chinese river dolphin, declared extinct in 2006

haterade: taylor swift

My most recent wave of vitriol toward Taylor Swift has arisen because of her latest c.d. release, her appearance on the cover of People, and the news that she is dating Jake Gyllenhaal. (I'm not particularly fond of Jake, but he did date my girl Reese Witherspoon for a long time. You've made a big downgrade, pervo.) And now that Taylor Swift is dating someone who has a somewhat serious film career, I will be forced to see and hear her even more often than usual, which is just very unfortunate. I really wish that someone would smack her. Me preferably, but I would settle for someone else doing it and me being able to watch.

omg so hardcore

First of all, I don't think she's very creative or talented. There are a lot of very skilled and inspired female singer/songwriters out there who do the same thing Swiftie does except, um, much much better. So why exactly Taylor is so special, I do not know. I mean, yes her music is catchy...I suppose. But so is the Free Credit Report.com jingle. Actually much catchier.

And I'm sorry, but I can't really take anyone who writes heartbreak songs after the demise of like a 5-week romance with one of the Jonas brothers seriously. Get a grip, girl. Keep that crap to your diary, don't make the rest of us listen to it over...and over...and over. Taylor Swift is one of the main reasons that I no longer change my tuner from NPR and AM Radio. (I'm not joking. There are several factors in my abandonment of music radio, but she is definitely one of them.) If I stray beyond there, I might hear one of her songs for the 1458th time and my ear drums will start to bleed. I just. Can't. Take. It. Anymore.

And, by the way, am I the only person who is driven crazy by these asinine lyrics: You were Romeo, I was a scarlet letter/ And Daddy said stay away from Juliet. These words have haunted me ever since that song came out and I've been repeatedly subjected to it. I would love to ask Taylor what exactly she's talking about. Does she know what either a scarlet letter or The Scarlet Letter is? Does she understand that it is completely unrelated and makes no sense in her song, not even in an abstract metaphorical sense? This may be nitpicky and petty, but I don't care. It bugs me. Taylor should lay off writing her obnoxious music and pick up a book or something.


Ok, I got it off my chest. I know I'm being mean. But it's not exactly like she's minding her own business. Mind you, I make an actual effort to avoid her but cannot. So she started it.

this my neighbor, nursultan tuleiakbay

Khoja Ahmed Yasavi Mausoleum, built by Tamerlane in 1390



Navruz (an ancient holiday marking the spring equinox) celebrated in Almaty







When researching places that the Peace Corps could send me, I read something to the effect of: "You are just as likely to be sent to an urban center in Kazakhstan as a rural area of East Africa!" Well, I kinda freaked. My mind jumped to exactly the same place as I'm sure yours is now: BORAT, that incredibly over-the-top movie that I suppose most PC-minded people find very repulsive. I love it. There are only a handful of movies that have ever made me laugh harder than this one. And, of course, it made Kazakhstan look absolutely wretched. So, my first thought: "But I don't WANNA go to to Kazakhstan!"

My initial impression of Kazakhstan, of course, is a perfect example of I shouldn't get my information from movies. I've done a little background check on the land of Borat. It's the country that gave us the domesticated horse, the location of several UNESCO world heritage sites, and is helping lead the way in the nuclear nonproliferation movement. It is actually a very beautiful, diverse, and culturally rich country. I wanted to share with you some of the things I've found.

development project in Aktau, a city on the Mangyshlak Peninsula

Kazakhstan Mountains

Kazakh falconers

Altai Mountains: thought to be the site of the mystical Buddhist kingdom of Shambhala

Arasan Banya (bath house)

All of this, of course, got me thinking: How many other places do I just write off because one goofy movie/book/comedian makes it look silly? None, now.

If you're interested in learning more about Kazakhstan, here's one of the best articles I found on it.

cool not-so-conventional art

"The Creatrix"

I've just discovered Mark Ryden's Wondertoonel collection, which has an awesome creepy Tim Burton thing going on. His work is too unsettling to hang all over the walls (for me at least), but it's definitely very interesting. He describes his artwork as "the visual debris from contemporary pop culture," which I think is a pretty good way to put it. He currently has work on display in Los Angeles, but I'm hoping he makes his way to Texas soon. His website, http://www.markryden.com, is definitely worth a visit.





British artist Jason de Caires Taylor and MUSA (Museo Subacuatico de Arte) are doing their best to save the coral reefs near Cancun. Taylor created these statues (made from a unique cement that encourage coral growth) based on casts from local Mexican people. As you can see, the ocean is pretty barren in this spot - Here's hoping it works!

I've also just become familiar with Brooklyn graffiti artist Dain, who after a couple of New York shows displayed his work at a museum in Paris over the summer. The snobby French didn't run him out of town, yay! He's apparently quite an enigmatic man. He's elderly (that surprised me) and therefore really inspired by old Hollywood glam he remembers from the 50's and 60's.

And, for good measure, a little bit from E.H. Shephard, Pooh's illustrator. Aw.

a few things to be angrier about than the ground zero mosque

First let me go on the record by saying that I am personally opposed to the building of the mosque/Islamic center/whatever anywhere near Ground Zero. It's polarizing, hurtful, and just generally in very bad taste. However, Imam Rauf is an American citizen and perfectly within his rights to build a religious establishment on privately owned property. I hope that he folds under pressure from the private sector, but there's absolutely no way that any freedom-loving person could hope that the city, state, or federal government would infringe upon Imam Rauf's rights. The whole situation has become pretty poisonous. But whatever happens, it's okay. Muslim-Americans will get over it if it's not built, and those opposed to the mosque will get over it if it is built. Americans have thick skin, and there are worse things. Here are a few.

Femicide in Juarez. Mexican President Calderon's war against drug cartels and the resulting violence have been getting a lot of media attention this year, and rightfully so. But people seem to have forgotten that a war on women has been endemic to one area of Mexico for nearly 20 years. Over 1,000 women have been murdered by rapists, robbers, domestic abusers, and narco death squad executioners in Juarez. There are hundreds more who are missing. Mass graves including both women and men have been unearthed in and around Juarez. And it's not slowing down. If you're heartless and don't really care, you should probably know that Juarez is directly across the border from the United States. A lot of this violence is motivated by the drug trade, so if you live in Texas and do a lot of cocaine, you should probably have a real moment of introspection. The fact that this type of carnage is happening in our own back yard is horrifying. Just this week yet another dead woman was found. Decapitated.


Iran's Nuclear Program. This is a very complicated ongoing political issue, but here's my take on it: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust-denying nut who hates the West and wants to destroy Israel. So nobody's buying his whole "we need a nuclear program for clean energy" thing - not Dubya then, and not Obama now. And, despite intense political pressure, Iran has not, and will not, stop enriching uranium. The United Nations has thrown a few sanctions their way which have done absolutely nothing. (Surprise!) Ahmadinejad is not going to blow us up next week or anything, but Israel is a different story. And, regardless of your personal political beliefs about Israel, there is no way that any sound-minded person would condone the eradication of a people. I'm not being melodramatic; he really does want to wipe them out. I know because he has repeatedly said it himself. Do you want this guy enriching uranium? Didn't think so.

Mass rapes in the Congo. The Democratic Republic of Congo is the rape capital of the world (over 15,000 last year), with as many as 303 reported over a span of only 4 days. Most victims are adolescent girls, but reported cases span from ages 3 to 75. And these are just the ones the authorities know about. In the Congo, rape is used as a weapon of war to "punish" villages and break the spirit of normal civilians. This violence is fueled by the struggle for control over conflict minerals that are used in a lot of our cell phones. Although the international community has been aware of this situation for years (even the clueless CBS News did a big story on this crisis in 2008), very little has changed. The United Nations had the gall earlier this week to release a report "shedding light" on the situation. This to me just affirms once again how impotent the U.N. is. All of this has been going on right under the noses of peacekeeping forces, and paperwork is the best they can do. I'm sure the women of the Congo are very grateful for their help. Maybe next year, after 15,000 more rapes, they'll get a new and improved report.

I basically picked these issues off the top of my head and kept it to 3 for the sake of brevity. The real list is a whollleee lot longer. To make a massive understatement, people are not being very kind to one another. Whether its the grieving widow of a fireman in New York, a motherless child in Juarez, Israelis fearing for their lives, or girls living in the Congo with the fear and shame of rape...People are having a hard time out there. So, although what Imam Rauf is doing kinda boils my blood, I do my best to look at the situation with a little perspective. I wanna save my righteous fury for things that REALLY count, and I'm just not sure that the Ground Zero mosque is one of them. As always, I could be wrong.


Here are a few resources if you want to know more about these issues:

• Fact Sheet: Femicide in Juarez - National Organization for Women 
• Amnesty International USA: Juarez and Chihuahua 
• Council on Foreign Relations: Iran's Nuclear Program 
• BBC Q&A: Iran and the Nuclear Issue 
• Enough Project: Conflict Minerals
• The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo - A Documentary 
• Amnesty International USA: DRC 

the women they're dating instead of you

I realize that I might have strange tastes in men because I think Brad Pitt is kinda gross and I want to beat up Chace Crawford. So not everyone will find this post as interesting as me, but what the hell. Here are the women that my favorite stars are dating instead of me. I'm working it out.

Danielle Spencer - She's Russell Crowe's wifey-poo. And she seems like a nice lady. She's an Australian singer-songwriter. I fully anticipated her music to be hilarious in a bad way, but she's actually got a kinda cool Tori Amos thing going on.

Kate Bosworth. Yep, the chick from Blue Crush and....um...nothing? I'm still trying to figure out why exactly she's famous. Whatever she has is working apparently because she's snagged Alexander Skarsgard, a tall Swedish glass of water aka Eric on True Blood.

Satsuki Mitchell. A Japanese-American producer who's smooshing James Bond (Daniel Craig, sigh). I dig her because she's a career woman and, considering there is very little information on the web about her, apparently pretty normal.

Anne-Marie Duff. This English actress is married to James McAvoy, that scrappy little Scotsman I've adored ever since Atonement. She's played Queen Elizabeth, is almost a decade older than her husband, is pasty, and works closely with a campaign against domestic abuse in the UK, so I pretty much adore her.

With the puzzling exception of Kate Bosworth, I think that my fellas have pretty good tastes. Well done, boys!

samhain: for pagans who like to party

guy in bow tie: creepiest person in picture

I don't know about you, but my parents knew that letting me go around the neighborhood in a Tinkerbell costume on Oct. 31 collecting Almond Joys and M&Ms wouldn't lay open my soul for demonic possession. Believe it or not, this is a legitimate concern for some people. Some parents actually refuse to let their children trick-or-treat because they think the holiday is evil. Despite my disdain for the Halloween paranoia that reigns in some Christian churches and schools (which I rank on the weirdo-meter right up there with their crusade against Harry Potter, but that's for another day), I must admit that they are not just epic party-poopers: The holiday really IS a bizarre pagan tradition. And, yeah, it all got started because of the belief that evil spirits roam the earth on this one night. Ever heard of Samhain? Weeeelllll.

Samhain is the basis for Halloween. The ancient Celts, who lived about 2,000 years ago in Ireland, the U.K., and northern France (where they were, and still are, a lot less poncy and obnoxious than their countrymen - just so you know where I stand on the French), believed that on Samhain night the line between the world of the living and the dead became blurred. The dead spirits would show up to steal babies, kill animals, destroy crops, and wreak havoc for fun. The Celts got ready for this by throwing a big party for their gods: They'd put on their best animals heads and skins, light a bonfire, sacrifice some sheep (and maybe a virgin or two), dance a bit, and tell each others fortunes. They celebrated this festival in the beginning of November, when they knew that a hard cold winter (which always equaled starvation, sickness, and death back in the day) was right around the corner. So Samhain wasn't exactly a big happy brouhaha; It was all about the Celts anticipating evil spirits making their lives miserable and maybe not making it through the winter. Modern-day Christians can't logically begrudge them for trying to appease their deities this way instead of turning to Jesus or going to the "Fall Festival" at the local Baptist church, because, um...Christianity didn't exist yet.

this pumpkin is having the time of his life

When the Romans showed up and conquered the Celts they brought their own brand of paganism, including Feralla, a festival marking the passing of the dead in late October. But it was the Catholic church who, in the 800s, introduced All Saints, All Hallows, and All Souls Days. This string of fall festivals was dedicated to martyrs and saints (aka the dead) and was specifically meant to replace the older Celtic and Roman traditions (which, as it happens, were also all about...the dead). These festivals were collectively referred to as - ta da! - Hallowmas. And yes, beginning around 1000 AD, the celebrations included bonfires and costumes. Loreena McKennitt, a Canadian folk artist, wrote a really beautiful song about it.

So basically the Catholics just slapped a new name on Samhain and kept the tradition alive. They tend to be more down to party than their Protestant brethren, who are usually the ones getting all up-in-arms over Halloween. Most of our holidays actually have roots in pagan traditions, but Halloween is the one that gets picked on (understandably, I guess) because of its ancient association with death and the supernatural. And there are some odd people out there who really take its roots very seriously. I don't spend my Halloweens with pagans, but they don't freak me out nearly as badly as the gaggles of women who asphyxiate one another while Christmas shopping on Black Friday...speaking of evil traditions.

they've definitely been dipping into the trashcan punch

Most of our Halloween customs have very colorful stories behind them:

• Jack O' Lanterns: What happens when you go boozin' with the Devil
• Trick-or-treating: When beggars knocked on your door instead of hanging out at traffic lights
• Costumes: Because demons are big scaredy-cats

I think it's cool (and harmless) that this millennia-old festival has survived and evolved into what it is today. I think of Halloween in purely secular terms, but I guess it's what you make it. Want to wear some fox pelts and dance around a fire? Want to dress as a slutty cop and drink trashcan punch? Want to keep your kids inside because you're uncomfortable with the whole thing? Do what you do, y'all. I myself will be carousing in a sock monkey costume this Samhain. Cheers!