And while we might still cherish some romantic images of the mafia thanks to movies like Goodfellas and The Godfather, these are the kinds of guys who, while smuggling heroin across the Black Sea, take some prostitutes with them to sell into slavery – if the coastguard comes they throw the women overboard so that the police are forced to give up pursuit to rescue them.

It’s nothing personal, just business.

Take it away, Misha.

It can’t be denied that Gregory David Roberts has had a colourful life. Having escaped from jail in Australia he spent years living in Bombay as a smuggler and experienced some pretty harrowing times in an Indian jail. He fictionalised his life story to write the thriller, Shantaram), and now you can’t walk into a traveler ghetto in India without seeing someone feverishly reading a copy and dreaming of the wild life of a drug smuggler.

Having put all that safely behind him, Roberts has reincarnated himself as a feel good motivational speaker, using his vivid travel anecdotes as a foil to his message of love and good will to all humanity. He comes across as a bit born-again at times but the stories are well worth a listen.

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Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Were you ever told as a child eat up, there are people starving in Africa?

Or were the only Africans you saw the natives on Tarzan reruns who looked suspiciously Latin American as they jumped up and down and shook their spears?

Chimamanda Adichie explains in this moving and eloquent speech why our mental image of a people is often determined by a single story, a single depiction of a nation, inducing a single emotion to be felt in their regard. The complexity of a foreign society gets reduced to a single stereotype and the humanity is lost. Mexicans are illegal immigrants. Africans fight senseless wars. American youths are serial killers – if you just read American Psycho.

But of course no one would make the latter mistake as there is a wealth of American stories broadcast every day. The media is saturated with stories of Americans in movies, songs and books. Can you name a single novel set in Ethiopia? A film about the Burmese? A song about life in Ecuador?

Banksy interprets modern African reality

Chimamanda Adichie argues that we need ‘a balance of stories’ where we can see the diversity of other cultures and peoples instead of the cartoon version we hold in our heads. Stereotypes may sometimes be true but they are incomplete. Yes, many Africans struggle to survive but they also flourish. There are Mexicans who abuse the American social system and there are tens of millions more who have no intention of ever leaving home.

Stories can impoverish our mental maps of the world but they also have the power to enrich it.

We’re short of quality content this weekend so we thought we’d just have a gratuitous laugh at a quirk of Japanese culture, a cartoon teaching kids how to poop.

Altogether now, one-two-Pantsu!

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Gambling is an addiction common to almost every country but the Japanese have taken the pastime to a whole other, terrifying level which reflects the void at the heart of the urban psyche. With bells ringing, lights flashing and silent congregations of gamblers watching gravity empty their pockets through clouds of cigarette smoke, pachinko is like a kind of sci-fi purgatory.

After work, the Japanese sit themselves down in crowded pachinko parlours, more alone than ever as they feed handfuls of metal balls into their machine and watch as they either lose or win more balls. The latter can be exchanged for prizes like cigarettes or electronic items which can be redeemed for cash down the street, gambling being theoretically illegal in Japan.

Naturally, the pachinko parlours are run by the Yakuza and so the police leave them well alone. Cameras aren’t usually allowed inside by Wim Wenders’ film Tokyo-Ga from the 80’s catches the essence of the tragic hypnosis that is pachinko, the film shot in the same repetitive rhythm which keeps players feeding more and more balls in.

Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues is quite astonishing.

The musical animation combines classic Indian art, 1920’s jazz songs, classic myth, modern irreverence and a personal unhappy love affair to give a new spin on one of the oldest stories in the world, the Indian epic, the Ramayana.

Paley’s retelling of the Ramayana was ironic enough to invoke the ire of the neo-fascist Hindus in India which is recommendation enough and brings a breath of fresh air to a stuffy classic. Rama as the perfect man and Sita as the perfect woman have long been sacrosanct concepts in India but in modern times the ancient story perpetuates the idea of the wife as the perfect doormat. Nina Paley brings this out with brilliant dialogue between the confused narrators and her understated wit in the animation accompanying the old jazz classics.

Sita Sings the Blues is a Funded By You production which means if you like Nina Paley’s film you can donate

Thank you, Nina.

Sita Sings the Blues Part 2

Sita Sings the Blues Part 3

Sita Sings the Blues Part 4

Sita Sings the Blues Part 5

Sita Sings the Blues Part 6

Sita Sings the Blues Part 7

Sita Sings the Blues Part 8

Sita Sings the Blues Part 9

Sita Sings the Blues Part 10

Any traveler in India will have seen Israelis fresh out of the army embarrassing themselves with their ignorant behaviour in shops, temples and guest houses. So it’s nice to see an Israeli production that recognizes that and makes fun of it.

The talking in Hebrew is mostly about the Israelis’ frustration with the Indians and squabbling between themselves about whether they should haggle for the room or not. Israelis give each other as hard a time as anyone else, after all.

Hannes Coetzee is a rising Youtube star (though it’s odds on he has no idea how to use a keyboard) but has spent most of his life tapping aloes in the South African bush, spending many a lonely night practising his original teaspoon guitar technique and now in his 60’s he’s reaching a broader audience.

Check out Hannes Coetzee on Myspace and enjoy something really beautiful.

How cool is this?

Energies were high.

It was just after exhausting my strength slamming 4/4 samba on the snare for 2 hours straight during a “mass” demo commemorating 42 years of Israeli occupation that I was convinced by my bandmates to go on a bus down south. We joined the mysterious Americans in pink shirts and a pack of silly clowns, all of whom had been marching with us at the demo and embarked together on a humanitarian mission at the border with Gaza, the biggest open prison in the world.

Who were these pink people, singing songs and being overtly happy and celebratory? At first glance it almost seemed like they were happy-go-lucky tourists making a symbolic charitable gesture while passing through the middle east on the way back to middle America. And who was this tall grey-and-blue haired clown, who was always quite a character, in character and out?

As it turns out, my cynicism failed me; it seems that there actually are people who have hearts of gold, willing to enter a besieged war zone in order to bring smiles to people’s faces and slight, albeit meaningful, sighs of relief that the world cares.

Code-pink is a Feminist Peace organization who’s goal is, funnily enough, to stop wars, and they have visited war torn places around the globe. In Israel, They joined the Israel-based group “Coalition of Women for a Just Peace” and made it a mission to get those who could into Gaza, build playgrounds, and bring toys, chocolate and medicine for the children. Most of these kinds of goods have been forbidden by the Israeli government to enter Gaza under their current blockade.

Patch Adams, a medical clown famously portrayed by Robin Williams in a Hollywood movie of the same name, came with his unique philosophy, charm and spirit and supernatural ability to be ridiculous. His highly radical politics juxtaposed with his surprisingly high spirited approach with hostile figures such as the Israeli army. He was joined by the Smile Liberation Front, an Israeli group of activist clowns who along with Patch’s antics, brought smiles to our face more often then not.

Myself, along with the members of the radical samba band “Kasamba”, came with the Israel delegation of code pink and boarded a bus with them from Tel Aviv to Adamame, an organic permaculture farm near the border who most graciously hosted us.

Amid the mud houses and over cups of organic lemon verbena tea, we discovered how incredible these people are, who were willing to travel great lengths and endure much criticism from home in order to bring joy to all ranks of Gaza’s residents. This attitude was firmly consolidated along with their highly critical analysis of Israel’s blockade and willingness to bear the consequences of their actions on their bodies and on their criminal records.

Very soon we realized that we would benefit the most from this excursion by listening to the stories of these courageous women and men. So we listen we did.

Two delegations had set out, one arriving in Egypt, the other in Israel. On their way, they stopped at Obama’s famous Cairo speech and protested his support of the current siege on Gaza.They both had one objective: to bring toys, food medicines and playground equipment to the children of Gaza. The Egypt mission succeeded. They met with fellow Gazan women, built playgrounds and even met a delegation of the reigning Hamas government. They told of the will of the people of Gaza for a Palestinian state, the mistrust of Israel and the high amount of respect and hospitality they received from everyone they came across. They witnessed first hand the high amount of devastation the Israeli army left in its wake of the latest and deadliest bombardment. Looking through the eyes of their primary focus, the children, they recalled how the only place where children can play is the concrete rubble of destroyed homes.

After a night of celebrating my liberation from the smog and rush of the city with the friendly vibes of the free spirited individuals I had met the night before, I awoke early in the morning and witnessed how the natural beauty surrounding me reflected the beauty of the space we were creating. Ironically, the most captivating features of this organic wonderland of flora were the cacti and the thorny artichoke shrub, each equipped with thorny spikes for protection against potential oppressors, yet blessed with overwhelmingly beautiful flowers in full bloom, complex and intricate in themselves, symbolizing the spirit of the group.

Patch Adams led a valiant and hilarious mission to get the Israeli policemen to crack a smile and let the goods in. He succeeded in getting them to laugh, and for an instant, it seemed that a genuine human connection was made, liberating the human souls from their oppressive uniforms. But alas, the slides, see-saws and chocolates were denied access into Gaza; they must have been deemed to dangerous. A kite flying “too close” to the fence stirred the aggression embedded ever so deep inside the Isreali law enforcers, and their uniforms resumed dictating their actions. The human aspect was fading and tensions were getting high. All of us on the Code Pink mission were forced to board the bus and leave the area.

Although the friendly and clownish approach seemed to have failed, the amount of heart, guts and smiles these people brought to a situation haunted by so much violence and oppression was inspiring and empowering, to say the least.

For more information, check out Code Pink’s website

The fast food industry in the US tells you pretty much all you need to know about the story of modern America. Reading the likes of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation you learn about the lobbying in Washington by the big corporations, the saturation of advertising targeted at infants (future fast food customers), the chemical processing of the food until it’s barely recognizable as such and the exploitation of an underpaid transient work force that keeps costs to a minimum.

Morgan Spurlock’s documentary, Super Size Me, complements the journalistic picture gonzo style by embarking on a diet where he ate nothing but McDonald’s meals for a month and almost destroyed his health in the process. With a quirky sense of humour and a disarming interview technique, Spurlock brings out the goofiness in American culinary culture – or what passes for it.

Super Size Me Part 2

Super Size Me Part 3

Super Size Me Part 4

Super Size Me Part 5

Super Size Me Part 6

Super Size Me Part 7

Super Size Me Part 8

Super Size Me Part 9

Super Size Me Part 10