China, beyond cliché, is a big country

Just woke up, and found an amazing/hilarious/informative video on China in the Internet Archive (where, btw, anyone can upload their videos or audio FOR FREE!).

It's was created by someone named Kee Yung and is on his website at: http://www.paris-hongkong.com
"China – Ancient and Refined: In this series of lectures at the Chinese University of Darkness (Beijing), Professor Kee, dean of the Department of Refinement and Ancestrality, demonstrates to an energised audience that, in the globalisation era, China, beyond cliché, is a big country. "

Here are the direct video links: Quicktime/MP4, Windows Media

Remembering Marla

Marla Ruzicka, a model for us all, died from a suicide bomb attack, in Baghdad on April 16, 2005. Faiz Ali Salim, CIVIC's Iraq Country Director, was also killed.



I will let others who knew her better say more. From Kevin Danaher and Medea Benjamin:
"One of the things we can do to honor Marla Ruzicka is to carry on her heartfelt work to build a world without hunger, war and needless suffering. And every time we start to get depressed about the state of the world, we should take inspiration from Marla's boundless energy and throw ourselves back into the work of global justice with the same kind of passion that was Marla's most endearing quality."

CLICK HERE to see a journalist's video remembrance of Marla in Iraq just before the war. Turn up the sound to hear the poignant soundtrack by Emmylou Harris.

Donate to continue her work: http://www.marlafund.org

http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/marla.html
http://www.civicworldwide.org/
http://alternet.org/waroniraq/21799/

Tibetan Disco Party!

Well, with all the ART4TIBET hoopla out at JUICE, you think we in New York would stay quiet...but we didn't! We had our own fundraiser party, in honor of the departure of dual former grassroots coordinators Thupten and Alma. They are moving to San Francisco soon, and their friends and family gathered in Manhattan to say farewell and tashi delek!

ART4TIBET is comin' together

Tibet Justice Center's Chris McKenna came over to say hi and have a beer and stayed on to help hang the whole damn show last night! Chris was the right height to help make it all happen... thanks dude. The silent auction will go like this: there's a little card next to each piece, with the value, minimum bid (mostly $35, $50, like that!) and then a "buy now" price. The work looks great on the wall, and the furious debates have begun about which pieces are gonna inspire the masses the most. No losers here though, it all looks TIGHT. Here's a little preview... see you this evening at JUICE, 16th St. & Albion (entrance on Albion), San Francisco. The show opens at 6pm.

Han & David Audioblog from da Brothel, SF

Dueling laptops - geekin' out with David Taylor helpin' figure out new and better tech tools with which we will drive the Chinese government mad (bwaaa haa ha ha ha!)...

ART4TIBET

Good to be on my favorite block in San Francisco at the JUICE Studio/Gallery (above Kilowatt on 16th St., in the Mission, if ya know). SFT's good friends Juice, and specifically Brett "Freya's Hero" Critchlow, have organized ART4TIBET, a benefit artshow for SFT. They've solicited incredible artwork from about 40 artists, and there will be a show/silent auction/party on Saturday night. It's shapin' up to be sweet, and we're just gettin' it all together.

Local artist Diego Mannini custom-created this amazing painting for the show called "Mindfulness of the Dharma" complete with Tibetan script.
Next thing I gotta do is mount the piece I'm putting in the show. It's a collection of photos of discarded shoes I discovered on the shores of Yamdrok Tso, a beautiful (and sacred) lake near Lhasa, Tibet.

Then I'm gonna go see Kayana and hopefully grab another good friend of SFT's David "Makes Our Website Run" Taylor for a Poppy Jasper at Zeitgeist later. Oh, and SF [hearts] SFT. -Han

"Cry of the Snow Lion" now on DVD!

This amazing, award-winning documentary on the Tibetan struggle is now available on DVD. While it had a great run in theaters, it is still hard for films such as this to get wider showings. Now you can buy it, and show it to all your friends when they ask "Why do you support Tibet?", or "Isn't Tibet just part of China?".

Here's the trailer for you to watch, and then go and buy the DVD!.

Miss Tibet Pageant gets BoingBoing'd!

The popular blog Boing Boing has a story today about the Miss Tibet Pageant, with some funny commentary on whether or not Tibetan culture is conservative. Of course, we all know Tibetans love to party!

Two *Must Read* News Articles!

Two very exciting and interesting news stories, one featuring Lhadon, and the other an amazing quote from within China: "The Chinese Miracle Will End Soon"!

From the Financial Times:
The battle has intensified at the Rubin. Protesters have created a parody website purporting to be the Rubin site and attacking the interpretation of the collection as Chinese propaganda. Although the site acknowledges that the Rubin's interpretations of sacred objects are an improvement on earlier showings, Lhadon Tethong, executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, sees collusion between the four museums and China's government. "They know they are participating in a propaganda exercise. They are allowing themselves to become a platform, part of the Chinese strategy."

full article here: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/0e9e1b2c-a4a5-11d9-9778-00000e2511c8.html

From DER SPIEGEL:
The world has been dazzled in recent years by the
economic strides being made by China. But it has come
at a huge cost to the country's environment. Pollution
is a serious and costly problem. Pan Yue of the
ministry of the environment says these problems will
soon overwhelm the country and will create millions of
"environmental refugees."

full article here: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,345694,00.html