An Earth Day Perspective

Happy Earth Day!

Yes, like all other important causes or significant societal happenings, we Americans and the rest of the Western cultures like to amount such importance and significance into one measly day of remembrance.

As if wearing an earth tee and posting a facebook status update will somehow end our speedy pace to environmental obscurity. We shall proudly take arms on this day and talk about savvy subjects such as "green living", "eco-friendly", and "alternative energies".
But alas, tomorrow's dawn will soon be upon us and we will quickly forget about how vital conservation and sustainability is to our growing population. Maybe another documentary will arise speaking of the potential devastation if we do not change our wasteful ways; to which we will shudder in fear, rally our calls to action, and like always, forget what we were saying. We're stuck in our ways as a global society and true change is going to take oh so much more than even the most elaborate marketing campaign for a "green earth".
So what do we do? Pull out the pitchforks and demand accountability? Well that would work had we not all been apart of the problem. Each and everyone of us makes choices that are unhealthy for Miss Nature. Each of us are apart of a humanity that has for too long forgotten about the importance of our living surroundings. And now with rising endangered species lists, coastal lines, dramatic and terrorizing acts of nature, we are left to wonder "what? how? and why??"

I'm not sure what we can come up with or how we can organize our communities, countries, and global society to function in a less depreciating way, but we must begin the conscience effort to do so starting now, on this very day. Because if the liberal-nutwing scientists who warn of a devastatingly dire future with mankind's relationship to Ms. Nature are right, we'll eventually find ourselves in a real-world sequel to Day After Tomorrow, only this time less Jake Gyllenhaal and pity for the humans who got each other into this mess.



And now for a little more green-living enjoyment, Green Porno, a Sundance original short series starring Isabella Rossellini, shows the at times sexy side of nature, a la Michael Gondry-like puppetering and costumes.
Direct link here: Green Porno 4 - Whale






Now go plant a tree!
--Drew

Sleepless Entertainment

Quick post while I'm still up with some videos I've found on the net that can definitely give your dreams some inspiration.  Word.

What Else Is There? from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

Happy Up Here from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

Mykonos from Grandchildren on Vimeo.

Fino from blu on Vimeo.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

SCINTILLATION from Xavier Chassaing on Vimeo.

dream stimulation complete.

--Drew

Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex

Collection of songs that I'm totally feelin right now, do ya dig it man?

	Black Heart Procession - Tropics Of Love
	Found at skreemr.com

Black Heart Procession - Tropics of Love

	Belle & Sebastian - Piazza, New York Catcher
	Found at skreemr.com

Belle & Sebastian - Piazza, New York Catcher

	Jurassic 5 - Thin Line feat. Nelly Furtado
	Found at skreemr.com

Jurassic 5 - Thin Line

	The Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup
	Found at skreemr.com

The Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup

love,
Drew

Around the Net

Another quick assortment of online goodies for your pleasurable consumption. This post primarily focusing on some in depth editorial writings.

Interesting articles all over the net this Tuesday:
The Nation offers up: Springtime for Equality, a look into the Vermont legislative decision to overpower its governor's veto and legalize gay marriage. The Job Solution, an editorial piece on how an employment-focused bailout/stimulus is what's needed to get our economy rolling again. Global Crime Wave?, pondering about whether or not we're headed to a world with more criminal behavior thanks to this global recession.

The Atlantic has several good reads: The Hipster Depression, the side effects of a recession on indie rock bands. Produce Is Seasonal. Why Not Meat?, thoughts on the overproduction of meat. One World, Under God, a look at the globalization of religion.

Slate's got: The Youtube for Artistes, a feature on Vimeo with some nice video finds attached. The Careful Exaggerator, how Obama mediates his rhetoric. Also, an eye-opening photo reel from the grave situation still taking place in Rwanda.

And the NY Times has a decent mental health editorial piece entitled When All You Have Left Is Your Pride.

So there you have it, a full dosage of some meaty mind stimulation.
--Drew

The International PR Game

I really gotta hand it to Barack and the Obama administration, they have orchestrated an almost flawless international debut with the G-20 summit and NATO meeting, big speeches in Prague and the border town of Strasbourg, France, a visit to Turkey to promote our country's relationship with those aligned closely to Islamic culture, and a surprise visit to Iraq to hand out medals of honor to several troops, give a speech, and get an update and overview of the on-going situation there. He brings back with him from this trip a new sense of global connection as Americans see their president networking with other world leaders and producing real results, and it seems as though the world stage is welcoming for Obama and the international audience largely approves. This is all so vastly different than the 43rd president of our country and almost a little rough to get used to. Was it not too long ago that every time our country's leader stepped out of the White House there would be some verbatim gaffe to laugh about or shoe-throwing dramedy to gossip on? Reading reports on world leaders mocking and avoiding him as he tried to garner their respect in himself and the country he represented? Things have definitely changed in foreign diplomacy policy at the White House, and I am pretty content with what's there now. And on top of a slam dunk tour of Europe and the Middle East, our President even called it for N. Carolina in the NCAA bracket, so he's pretty much ballin' like a pro at this point.

Obama giving his weekly address aboard Air Force One while touring Europe, White House Photo 4/3/09.

David Sanger, a blogger over at NY Times, writes about an emerging Obama Grand Strategy that this recent international trip hints at. I have to agree, I do believe we are beginning to see the development of a worldwide PR campaign to mend and clean up some of the damage the United States has inflicted on its international image over the last few years. And while this might seem like a focus on image over intelligence, I think that it is because of this administration's intelligence that they understand how critical it is to present yourself and even an entity like the USA in the best way possible.

And the Domestic PR Game is still very much at play, I just came upon White House on Vimeo, which is my favorite video hosting service (for it's high quality compression and HD offerings, and also for being a magnet for more artistic/informative video uploads) online. Here you can watch up-to-date high-quality video of the on-goings of the Obama administration, which I think will become the new norm in documentation of historic governmental events. I am definitely content with being able to easily view what's going on overseas in a format like this!


--Drew

The Uprising

Anyone notice how violent the G20 and NATO meeting's protests became this past week? If you have no idea what I'm talking about check out these photojournalism resources to get a glimpse of some of the chaos happening outside these high-security world leader meetings.

NY Times

Boston Globe
Reuters

BBC News
Slate



I find myself in a mixed opinion over both the fierce protesting and the glamorous and high-profile meetings. At a time when our world economies are receding and millions of the underclass around the world are suffering under increased unemployment and foreclosing homes, we must see our leader's humbled by the average man, woman, and child's struggles, and see them taking the necessary steps to create jobs and ease the pain on the average family. And we must also see them realize that these recessionary problems our world is undergoing right now are not the only crises that need to be addressed; instability in Darfur and elsewhere still linger even after many years of the world finally taking notice. There is cause to be enraged and angry at our governments for not adequately responding to the many crises mankind faces on a daily basis. But on the flip side, does burning hotels and French/German border stations really help to get the working man's point across? I'm all for scaring the shit out of these leaders with the prospects of a revolution because I think they need to realize the only reason their dressing up, seeing operas, touring Europe, and occassionally talking global policy is because people across the world put our faith in them to lead. But the pacifist in me would rather us all work this out together and get life rolling again and allowing prosperity for all to shine. But I doubt either a revolution or equality for all is coming any time soon. Who knows though, there is talk that in the coming summer, Europeans will commence a "Summer of Rage" where these violent protests will only grow in size and number if their e conomic woes don't begin to slow down.

for the revolution,
Drew

From Many, There Is One

While browsing the net this early Saturday morning, I've decided to do a kind of mixed-bag post of everything I feel is suitable to be posted on Disteria, enjoy:

-- A news piece that seems to have gone under the radar in a week filled with G-20 drama from across the pond, the Bureau of Labor Statistics have released March's job loss rate, estimated at about 663,000. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average continues it's 4-week rally (the biggest since 1938) by climbing 39.51 points to settle at just over 8000 points. This rise is largely seen as a positive opinion on the G-20 talks in various world markets. But last month's jobloss rate brings USA's unemployment rate to 8.5%, the highest since 1983, and since the recession began in December of 2007, 5.1 million jobs have disappeared across the country.



-- The G-20 talks have officially wrapped up, with the group of world leader's creating their final communique entitled "The Global Plan for Recovery and Reform". Over at The Atlantic, Marc Ambinder notes that President Obama and Keynesian economic policies couldn't get everything that they were seeking from the summit and it seems as though Europe is still generally pessimistic about plans to spend our world out of this recession. While the world leader's smooched it up and had as many photo-ops as possible, thousands of protestor's lined the streets of London's financial sector to rally against corruption in so much spending and the leader's failed grasps of the dangers of global warming. These protests are brilliantly documented in pictures over at The Boston Globe, part of their "The Big Picture" series which I find is usually an awesome display of photojournalism.


-- The Boston Globe is under pressure itself from its parent company, The New York Times Company, which is threatening to close the newspaper down if $20 million in union concessions aren't made. I hope things can get sorted out, because even with their own personal follies, the news industry needs as many resources as possible to keep information flowing to the public, and I damn well like The Globe's photojournalism series!


-- And after all that weighty news I feel I must also share one of the best movie trailers I've seen in quite some time. Where The Wild Things Are, slated for an October 16th, 2009 release (a day after my 21st B-Day!), is the big screen adaptation of the children's picture book I'm sure we've all become fans of. The trailer seems to represent a story that is both emotionaly raw and visually stunning and it's all helmed by the visionary Spike Jonze (who I've posted about before).
The trailer features the song "Wake Up" by one of my favorite bands The Arcade Fire (featured below), and I think it goes extremely well with the imagery presented. All of this seems to be giving me the hint that this will soon become one of my most favorited movies, so I am definitely excited for its release!

	The Arcade Fire - Wake Up
	Found at skreemr.com

And that is all I have the time for :/
more to come soon!!

Peace,
Drew

Big Fat Story

Just a quick post with a little bit of free time I've been lucky enough to aquire. I was browsing my usual web news outlets today and I realized that while The Daily Beast is at times too focused on lengthy and wordy commentary by ego-empowered writers, they do have one feature that I feel can revolutionize news aggregation: their "Big Fat Story" section. In it they profile situations, people, and headlines that are of-the-moment, and do it in a picture diagram sort of way that makes it almost enjoyable to gather more info around the net about the given topic. I give kudos for adding to the many revolutionizing ways we are finding to get news to the people, and I hope that more of these innovations will find themselves around the internet's many news resources. My favorite Big Fat Story section they have running right now is "Obama vs. The World" a feature on the trials and tribulations of the new American president as he interacts for the first time with fellow world leaders at the G-20 summit in London this week.