Jason Larkin is a photographer that keeps on “producing” great work. He is internationally recognised for his long-term social documentary projects, environmental portraiture and landscape reportage. For me, it’s mostly his work in and around Egypt that keeps me excited. He did a wonderful series Past Perfect, photographing the museums of Egypt. By deciding how the past is presented and memorialised, museums not only preserve the past, they also play an important role in the construction of our ideologies, identities and the understanding and interpretation of ourselve.  That is why Past Perfect was Larkin’s way of revealing one more layer of Egypt’s identity. In Suez: A Life Line, Larkin captures the importance of the Suez canal,  a 192 km passage dividing Africa from the Middle East and a crucial source of income and foreign exchange for Egypt. Larkin’s Egyptian project I wish to focus on today is Cairo Divided.

Artist…

Ellen Lubic, director of Joining Forces for Education and a professor of public policy in Los Angeles, here describes the numerous failings of Superintendent John Deasy and calls for an independent audit and grand jury investigation. The article has gone viral, receiving nearly 700,000 hits since it was published by CityWatch.

She writes:

“Finally the lack of transparency of the mismanaged leadership of LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy is seeing the light of day. The excellent investigative journalism by the LA Times education reporter, Howard Blume, and KPCC’s detailed and informed reporter, Annie Gilbertson, has opened up the stench of the secret deals and waste of taxpayer funds that Deasy manipulated throughout his tenure, and is now exposed for all to see.

“Many in the public were shocked that his contract was renewed last October after the $1 Billion iPad scandal was published not only in LA, but all over the…

Inspired by the great classic by Kahlil Gibran, TheProphet is an animated feature film, with chapters from animation directors from around the world.

Gibran’s book is a collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual, and for almost a century since its first publication (1923) –  inspirational. Gibran’s musings are divided into twenty-eight chapters covering such sprawling topics as love, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, buying and selling, crime and punishment, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, good and evil, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.

Naturally, the animated version of such a classic comes as a big and exciting project. Director Roger Allers (The Lion King) assembled an array of internationally acclaimed animators to realize episodes from The Prophet, which are woven into the tale of a mischievous young girl (voiced by Beasts of the Southern Wild’s Quvenzhané Wallis) who…

Celia Farber on The Truth Barrier has just published details of text messages from US Centers for Disease Control senior scientist Dr William Thompson for Dr Andrew Wakefield and to his wife in which Dr Thompson confirms Andrew Wakefield was right about MMR vaccine causing autistic conditions: BREAKING NEWS: CDC WHISTLEBLOWER TEXT MESSAGES TO ANDY WAKEFIELD: STUDY WOULD HAVE “SUPPORTED HIS SCIENTIFIC OPINION”September 2, 2014 By Celia Farber

In a message to Dr Andrew Wakefield’s wife Dr Thompson wrote:

I do believe your husbands career was unjustly damaged and this study would have supported his scientific opinion. Hopefully I can help repair it.”

To see the original messages in photographs from the phones of Dr Wakefield and his wife go to: BREAKING NEWS: CDC WHISTLEBLOWER TEXT MESSAGES TO ANDY WAKEFIELD: STUDY WOULD HAVE “SUPPORTED HIS SCIENTIFIC OPINION”September 2, 2014 By Celia Farber

No Toys Under the Couch

By Cheryl A. Bates

I sat on the floor for a moment to scratch behind the dog’s ear

and happened to notice there were no toys under the couch anymore.

No singing coming from the bathtub after dinner or

water on the floor to soak my socks.

No lingering smells of baby lotion and bubble bath

no more stories about dinosaurs, ballerinas, or

living room camp outs before bedtime.

No hair clips and tiny toys left forgotten on the floor

to pierce the arches of my feet at midnight after work

when headed across the room to bed, in the dark.

I lay on the floor now but something is wrong,

no sudden full body attacks from a two and a half foot munchkin.

No giggles of delight from when I toss her into the air

No more, do it again Mommie. Do it again!

How can rural communities  advance the common goal of economic stability, healthy living and environmental stewardship?

Food, clothing and shelter are the necessities of human survival. These industries and the transportation of these goods also have the largest impact on the environment. These same industries also drive a good portion of the local economy as well as corporate economic growth.

Most countries use capitalism as a way of organizing the economy. The things that are used to grow, make and transport products are owned by individual people or a company rather than the government. The mid-18th century gave rise to industrial capitalism, made possible by the accumulation of vast amounts of capital under the mercantile phase of capitalism and its investment in machinery. Over the past two decades, Wall Street investors, boards of directors, financial analysts, even auditors and career politicians have all  collaborated in creating a new type of…