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

What cannot be said about Fela Anikulapo (he who carries death in his pouch) Kuti?

Innovator of the ever-so-groovy afro-beat; human rights activist; anti-colonialist; “Africanist” visionary; lower class hero; notorious sexist and polygamist; government wanted rebel.

Much of this is portrayed in “The Black President”, an hour-long documentary about Fela, his entourage — The Africa 80 and the sights sounds and horrors of 1980s Nigeria.

Though his attitude towards women left much to be desired, his musical legacy and relentless fight against oppression has captivated and inspired the hearts (and dance-floors) of Nigerians and others to this day.

Warning: Afro-beat may cause hypnotic swaying of the hips, and jubilant wiggling of the upper torso.

The last words of this clip are: “…no Capitalism, no Marxism-Leninism; Africanism!”

Dabke (also pronounced “Debka”), is a traditional folk dance from the different countries which make up the Levant. It also refers to the genre of loud, fast-paced and usually exuberant Arab music which accompanies the dance. Palestinians took a particular liking to this dance and began to embrace it as an expression of their national heritage, especially after having to endure the occupation and constant waves of cultural oppression.

Its a community based dance, usually occurring during weddings and other formal events, but many times a dabke line might form spontaneously during parties and other social gatherings. It’s fun because everyone joins in as every Palestinian or Arab culture lover knows the moves—-which are quite easy once you pick them up.

Dancers form a line or a semi-circle, usually holding hands or grasping shoulders. Its a dance of steps and stomps, either slow and subtle, or fast exaggerated cathartic leaps. There is a leader in the front of the line who conducts the dancing and sometimes twirls a stick or a string. This “raas” (literally ‘head’) usually gets first dibs on improvising and showing off.

Interestingly enough, this dance originates from the way they used to make houses in the levant as the wood, straw and dirt made roofs needed to be manually compacted after every rainfall. This required many strong young men to compact the dirt with their feet in a synchronized way so that the roof will come out even. The workers started stomping in rhythm to make their grievous work a little more enjoyable and eventually musicians joined in on the fun. In fact, the word “dabke” even means “stomping of the feet” — much like you’ll see here:

In 2007, 2,743 Palestinian citizens, Israelis and other dance lovers amassed in the mixed city of Acre, Israel and danced their hearts out for 7 minutes to set the world record for the longest dabke line ever:

Check out the Al Zaytouna and El Funoun dance groups for more.

Americans are easy targets for the cynical – thousands of miles away across open ocean from the rest of the world, other countries exist more as sources of interesting cuisine than as cultures in their own right.

In reality you could make this kind of ignorance in most countries in the world – the information age never promised to deliver relevant information, after all – but let’s face it, naive Americans make better TV.

It’s in this spirit that CNNN, an Australian satirical program, take to the streets to ask everything from where should America invade next? to some general questions about the world ‘America runs’.

The Free Market has pretty much become the new world religion; we serve it, governments allocate much of our resources to its benefit and we may be on the verge of a modern day apocalypse because of the carbon we burn on its altar.

Two creative political pranksters from the US think that this system can and should be challenged….or at least mocked. Jealous of their not being at the 1999 protests against the WTO in Seattle, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bannano (or so they claim), a.k.a. The Yes Men decided to act in a slightly more creative, and frankly, hilarious way against those they detest.

Inspired by culture jamming tactics, the Yes Men practice what they call “Identity correction” and in their words, Impersonate big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them. Targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else. They infiltrate high profile corporate meetings and pose as representatives of whatever evil corporation they choose to take on, be it Exxon-Mobile, The Dow Chemical Company or even the WTO itself.

Here are some of their hoaxes:

A representative from the WTO speaks about the financial and humanitarian benefits of a certain extinct work model:

An Exxon-Mobile expert announces the exciting development of Vivoleum: the fuel of the fuel-less future:

Halliburton proudly presents the state of the art solution for those corporate CEOS who wish to survive global warming catastrophes (and use it beat out the competition):

A joint effort between McDonalds and the WTO to recycle and feed the third world’s starving:

On the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, BBC interviewed Jude Finisterra, a man claiming to be a representative of the Dow Chemical Company, those who bought out the company responsible for the disaster.

As a result, Dow lost around 2 billion dollars in stock, and many a Bhopalian was devastated to find that it was a hoax after years of hope, but somewhat pleased that their egregious neglect received extraordinary coverage.

One of their most recent and logistically impressive culture jams was the printing of an entire fake New York Times edition, with around 1, 000,000 copies distributed during the hype after Obama was elected.

The Yes Men released two documentaries of their work: The Yes Men in 2003 and The Yes Men Fix the World which debuted in 2009. Here is a trailer of the latter, which includes a little bit about the ideas and the motives of the Yes Men:

The homeless of Japan have long astonished Western travelers by their elegant housing solutions and often extensive consumer devices arrayed around their makeshift shelters. As this news report shows, however, there is another kind of vagrant in Tokyo: the cyber-homeless.

By paying a fee for an internet booth and unlimited hot drinks. these cyber-homeless can sleep in the leather chair and watch cartoon porn all night.

It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it…

Photo from Shinyai

Not much really comes out of Africa.

Salad for European supermarkets in winter (sorry about those dwindling local water reserves), models for Hunger Porn ads for the Western charities and every now and then an ethnic musician gets famous for playing with someone like Ry Cooder. For the rest, restrictive trade policies keep Africa firmly out of the way and civil war and disease keeps them from complaining about it.

Which is why Nollywood is such a pleasant surprise.

Nigeria’s film industry is now worth an estimated $250 million a year and the advent of cheap digital video cameras mean that film-making is suddenly within the reach of even the artists in a poor country. Nollywood is a grassroots, organic hub for movies made in Africa, seen in Africa and financed in Africa.

Movies can be shot for under $10,000 and can be made in a week. Sure, acting, directing and scenography is often pretty unsophisticated, sometimes plain embarrassing for a Western viewer but the rapidly growing African audience couldn’t care less. Just as in Bollywood where thousands of terrible movies were made before the industry began to mature, Nigerian film-making is in its youth.

That there would be a demand for African movies is hardly a surprise. As Kurt Vonnegut put it in one of his books, watching Hollywood movies you’d think that most people on earth were American. 97% aren’t and they’re hungry for movies they can relate to.

Nollywood also serves social roles. It provides a vehicle for social education on issues like racism, women’s rights, HIV and corruption, issues which the authorities often pretend don’t exist. Nigerians see themselves on the screen, their problems, their hopes and dreams and the films help draw them together as a people.

Nollywood also gives a much-needed shoot in the arm to an incredibly corrupt country but not following the cinematic business model of the West. Revenue from movies made in Nigeria supports actors, cameramen, directors, production assistants and all the rest but their movies never make it to the big screen. Instead they’re released on VCD discs and sold directly in the street. Hawkers weave their way between traffic lanes touting snacks, cigarettes and movies to be watched at home.

Nollywood movies are unlikely to win a Western audience any time in the near future but they don’t have to. Nollywood is a home-grown industry meeting home-grown needs and for anyone hoping to understand what’s important to Africans today, they could do worse than by checking out a few Nigerian films.

A Tedtalk on Nollywood – a bit dry to begin with but with a great 6 minute mini-doc within it.

Here’s the sped up version as the original owner freaked out about the popularity.

Just watch this brilliant video from a westerner’s digital camera as she places it on a plate at a rotating sushi restaurant. The candid reactions of the Japanese as they notice the camera slowly passing by are splendid; they are lighthearted, yet subdued. No one over reacts.

There’s suspense too, as the camera has made the entire loop of the restaurant and enters the kitchen. What will the staff there do with it?

Bollywood turns out hundreds of movies per year and whilst many are a slapdash mix of shootouts in the street between gangsters, dance routines in Kashmir and love scenes involving shaking bushes, Bollywood is gradually making its presence felt in the West, too.

Can one person really change the world?

Sure, by changing the world of everyone around them, a little at a time. I knew, for instance, one sadhu who lived in the desert of Gujurat – everyday when he went to the toilet he dug a hole in the ground and planted a tree at the same time. In 40 years he had created a forest…

And now one Australian man started the Free Hugs Campaign. Feeling a bit depressed and lonely, Juan Mann went out into the street in Sydney with a placard and started offering free hugs to everyone he met. The idea was picked up by the cult band The Sick Puppies (a winner of the coolest name for a band of the 21st century) and since then people all around the world have started going out there to offer their embrace to all-comers.

So the next time you’ve seen all the sights and your train doesn’t leave until the next day, grab a sign, open up your arms and go hug the world.