An Array of Utopian Flowers
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Big Noise from Big Band Drummer Gene Krupa
Posted on April 10, 2018 | No Comments -
Loose Nuts: Edison Reveals Huge Gap in Safety at San Onofre
Posted on April 9, 2018 | No Comments -
The US Shame of My Lai in Vietnam
Posted on March 17, 2018 | No Comments -
The Lucrative and Violent Curse of Coltan Mining in Congo
Posted on March 3, 2018 | No Comments -
Iannis Xenakis and the Notion of a Cosmic Utopia
Posted on February 21, 2018 | No Comments
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Upcoming Events
Humanity Archive
The US Shame of My Lai in Vietnam
Posted on March 17, 2018 | No CommentsOn the 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre in the Vietnam War, we honor the efforts of Army helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson to stop the madness and endure the quest for truth, and share the Vietnamese-made documentary, 'The Sound of the Violin in My Lai'.
The Lucrative and Violent Curse of Coltan Mining in Congo
Posted on March 3, 2018 | No CommentsOne of Africa's most rare-minerals-rich countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo, has endured Belgian colonization, slavery, and continuing atrocities, where militant groups control the extraction of "conflict resources." The tech industry turns these extracted raw materials into components of mobile phones and computers. Yet the cost is deadly.
Jean Jacques Dessalines and the Women Warriors who Liberated Haiti
Posted on January 24, 2018 | No CommentsToday's attempts to malign Haiti stand as only the latest in a long line of hegemony and oppression against this Caribbean island nation. January 1, 1804 is Haitian Independence Day, and Haitian attorney Ezili Dantò honors and remembers Janjak Desalin (Jean Jacques Dessalines), Haiti's Liberator and founding father, as well as the indigenous army, and women who influenced him. Janjak's ideals and legacy lives on - Nou la!
“Little Canada” Honduras Neocolonists Denounce Garifuna Defenders
Posted on October 4, 2017 | 3 CommentsCanadians facilitate illegal land sales of ancestral land in Caribbean Honduras, and members of the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH) denounced for defamation by tourism investors Patrick Daniel Forseth (Carivida Villas) and Randy Jorgensen (Life Vision Developments) -- see any issues of neocolonialism here?
Inequality and Injustice – The Garifuna Struggle in Honduras
Posted on January 9, 2017 | 1 CommentInternational tourism and state-sponsored repression threaten the Garifuna culture and people in Caribbean Honduras. Did you consider how 5-star hotels and cruise ship terminals came to take over Indigenous land? They stole it...
On Haiti and Hurricane Matthew – Intervention and Self-Determination
Posted on October 9, 2016 | No CommentsHaiti now faces an unmitigated human disaster from the destruction of Hurricane Matthew. With extreme reports of death tolls, Dady Cherry examines the misinformation common in mainstream media reports of the destruction that reinforce the gringo-savior mentality, backed by western governments and their compromised and ineffectual non-governmental organizations like the Red Cross. The failures from the 2010 earthquake loom large.
Garífuna People Face Tourism Repression in Honduras
Posted on September 19, 2016 | 1 CommentThe coup-backed neo-liberal government of Honduras, pushing tourism and expatriate resort developments, continues to repress and evict Garífuna communities along the Caribbean Coast. The Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) reports, with multiple personal statement videos.
Rama People Fear End of Culture from Nicaraguan Interoceanic Canal
Posted on April 16, 2016 | No CommentsThe indigenous Rama people of Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast speak out in a new documentary against an inter-oceanic canal which threatens their ancestral land, language, and traditional culture.
Berta Cáceres: Rebel Guardian of the Rivers, ¡Presente!
Posted on March 12, 2016 | 1 CommentBerta Cáceres was assassinated by Honduran government-backed death squads on March 3. She fought for indigenous peoples’ power and for control over their own territories. She was not destined to die of old age. She spoke too much truth to power.
Lost White City “Discovered” in Honduran Jungle?
Posted on March 11, 2015 | 5 CommentsIn search for legendary “City of the Monkey God,” explorers ignore indigenous residents and archaeologists who have worked in the region for years, and shamefully claim to find the "untouched ruins" of a "vanished" culture found in the remote Moskitia region eastern Honduras.
Mexico’s Ayotzinapa 43: Revolutionary Movement Grows Amid US Silence
Posted on November 24, 2014 | No CommentsThe disappearance of 43 rural students in a city surrounded by mass graves, in a region controlled by an unholy alliance of drug traffickers and corrupt public officials and police, in a country ruled by neoliberal multinational interests backed by an iron hand has awakened Mexican despair and rage.
Rio’s Favela Pacification: Militarized Gentrification With Benefits?
Posted on July 3, 2014 | No CommentsThe Brazilian government’s militarized efforts to clean up Rio de Janeiro’s notoriously dangerous favelas is giving hope to some people living there, while others question the violent tactics and the whether it will make a difference. We provide counterpoint to Joshua Hammer's recent investigation.
Dominican Republic: Modern Day Sugarcane Slavery
Posted on January 26, 2014 | 5 CommentsOn the Caribbean island of the Dominican Republic, tourists flock to pristine beaches, with little knowledge that a few miles away thousands of dispossessed Haitians are under armed guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane, most of which ends up in US kitchens. Watch the documentary film, "The Price of Sugar."
Philippines: Hope and Healing After Super Typhoon Haiyan
Posted on January 8, 2014 | 1 CommentDr. Herbert Eidt used basic training learned as an Army doctor to help people survive in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan and to deliver hope to communities in the Philippines.
Dakota 38 Documentary: Healing Journey of the Dakota People
Posted on December 28, 2013 | No CommentsWatch the documentary Dakota 38, that follows native riders on a 330 mile healing journey across South Dakota to Minnesota, in honor of those lost 151 years ago at the end of the Dakota War of 1862, in the largest mass execution ever seen in the United States.
Welcome to Loliondo: Maasai Struggle Against Game Hunters for Land Rights
Posted on November 27, 2013 | No CommentsThe Loliondo Game Controlled Area (LGCA), one of Tanzania’s most well-known Maasai community concessions and wildlife destinations, is in the spotlight as local stakeholders and outside financial interests clash over its natural resources. Watch "Welcome to Loliondo," a documentary on how the Maasai confront the threat of safari tourism taking away their land.
Western Shoshone: Our Land, Our Life
Posted on November 15, 2013 | 1 CommentIn traditional indigenous societies, land means life. Following is a documentary on the struggle of two Western Shoshone elders against mining threats to their ancestral lands from the United States in Crescent City, Nevada.
Argentina: The Second Conquest of Patagonia’s Indigenous
Posted on September 29, 2013 | No CommentsDocumentary film on indigenous communities in Chubut province in Patagonia, Argentina, their struggle over land rights and the threats from mining its mineral wealth, cutting its trees and development by other multinational interests.
African Garden Cities: Urbanization Without Planning for People
Posted on May 7, 2013 | 1 CommentMaster planned, self contained New Cities have appeared all over Africa. Emulating models from the global north, private-sector boosters advance them without considering factors such as environment, economy, context and even poverty. Nairobi-based urban practitioner Jane Lumumba argues they might only make social and economic problems worse.
Uganda: Coffee Farmers Sing Delicious Peace
Posted on April 12, 2013 | No CommentsA community of coffee farmers in Uganda has formed the Peace Kawomera Fair Trade Cooperative, focused on people of different faiths putting aside their differences to overcome generations of conflict and poverty. Now a Smithsonian Folkways recording has been released to celebrate their achievements.
Overcoming Cultural Colonialism: Journey to Understand “Ikland”
Posted on January 12, 2013 | 1 CommentIkland recounts a quest to re-connect with the Ik people. For producer Cevin Soling, they represented the last outpost of imagination in a world devoid of myth. Soling and his crew risked their lives by traveling through war-ravaged northern Uganda to reach them. Their experience was alien and surreal in ways only Jonathan Swift might have imagined...
Papua New Guinea: Rainforest World of Sustainable River Guardians
Posted on January 9, 2013 | 4 CommentsThe Sacred Land Film Project captured a revival of a canoe ceremony with feasting, dancing and carving, honoring their sacred Ramu River. The region is part of the third largest intact rainforest ecosystem left on earth, where sustainable agriculture and forestry practices have allowed societies to thrive for thousands of years, now threatened by multinational logging interests and corrupt governmental entities.
Bolivia: Global Warming Endangers Kallawaya Healers
Posted on December 13, 2012 | 3 CommentsThe Kallawaya cosmovision is based upon thousands of years of experiential knowledge about their environment and shared among many other communities across the High Andes. At the center of the cosmovision is the notion that humanity must live in harmony with the environment. Illness is the result of a spiritual dissonance caused by some sort disconnect between a person and his or her environment. One of the main tenets of the Kallawaya cosmovision is an ethic of reciprocity that is applied equally to people, communities, and the environment.
Space Exploration: Ray Bradbury and the Mission to the Red Planet
Posted on August 30, 2012 | No Comments“The Martians were there—in the canal—reflected in the water.... The Martians stared back up at them for a long, long silent time from the rippling water....” --Ray Bradbury, "The Martian Chronicles"
Chinese Mega-Cities Contrasted with Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities”
Posted on August 13, 2012 | 2 CommentsRapid industrialization in China has caused a massive migration to crowded, faceless and polluted urban mega-cities of 10 million residents or more. They should consider Italo Calvino's utopian "Invisible Cities" to rethink the role of imagination in urban planning.
