Recently in Enlightenment Category

At the time much of the footage for the Oscar-nominated documentary Burma VJ was being shot, its director, Anders Østergaard, wasn't even in the same hemisphere. Wanting to open a window on the closed country of Burma (a.k.a. Myanmar), the Danish-based filmmaker struck up a groundbreaking remote collaboration with a network of underground citizen reporters, who risked torture, imprisonment and death as they shot then smuggled footage beyond the military dictatorship's closely guarded borders.

The documentary was originally intended to be a half hour short, profiling a 27-year old video journalist (or VJ) known as Joshua who worked behind Burma's barbed-wire veil of silence and against the strict media embargo enforced by its military government (which came to power after a coup in 1962). Using a pseudonym to protect his identity, Joshua coordinated illicit on-the-ground coverage for the Democratic Voice of Burma, a non-profit news organization based in Norway. However, when Burma's ruling junta abruptly ceased subsidies on fuel, which caused the price to skyrocket, destabilizing an economy that was already among the world's poorest, Joshua and Østergaard's project took on a far greater significance.

Thousands of the country's Buddhist monks took to the streets in the latter part of 2007, leading what developed into widespread protests against the intransigent regime. Armed with their wits and hand held video cameras, Joshua and his crew of VJs documented the saffron uprising and the Burmese government's brutal retaliation to it from the front lines. It was the first time in a generation that the people had dared challenge their leaders, but this was very different to the last uprising in 1988. Footage captured by Joshua and his team was beamed around the world. Vivid images of soldiers viciously beating monks in the street in broad daylight were broadcast via all the major new networks, putting Burma - albeit briefly - at the top of the United Nation's political agenda. With no room for deniability, Burma's military leaders were shamed into making concessions. And then the world's attention moved on.

Fast-forward to 2010, with promises broken and hard fought concessions reneged on, it might be easy for Joshua and his fellow Burmese citizens to feel despondent. However, with Burma VJ, a documentary that combines original footage with dramatic recreations, Joshua and Østergaard hope to raise awareness for the ongoing plight of the Burmese people. At the start of this month their cause was given a massive boost with an Academy Award nomination for their film in the category for Best Documentary feature.

I caught up with Østergaard, a Danish filmmaker who was previously best known for Tintin and Me (a 2003 documentary about comics writer and artist Hergé). Over coffee we talked about Burma VJ's dramatic journey from the impoverished streets of Burma to Hollywood's glittering Kodak Theater, and what the film's Oscar nomination means for a new generation of citizen journalists and for those fighting oppression around the globe.

Read my exclusive interview with Anders Østergaard at SuicideGirls.com.

Addiction first took hold of Richard Farrell after a torn knee put an end to hopes of a professional athletics career. That same injury started his relationship with pain medication. One thing led to another, as these things do, and by the time he reached thirty Farrell had succumbed to almost every aspect of the heroin lifestyle.

His journey to redemption is chronicled in his new memoir, What's Left of Us. Farrell was one of the lucky ones; after twenty failed attempts, he slayed his dragon at a run-down, state-funded detox clinic in Massachusetts, and went on to fulfill his potential as an author, journalist, teacher, filmmaker and screenwriter.

Many addicts will not be so fortunate. Clinics such as these are the easy victims of budget cuts. As bankrupt states struggle to pick up the incarceration tab for the collateral damage of the War on Drugs, and our federal government goes deeper into debt to pay for its War on (drug-funded) Terror, Farrell's life experience leads him to pose an important question: Have we forgotten the simple laws of supply and demand? By funding these two never-ending wars are we ineffectually treating the symptoms instead of battling the cause? Wouldn't our money be better spent reducing the demand for drugs?

The state-funded treatment of drug addiction has never been a vote-winning cause (just look at the tap dancing Obama was forced to do recently on the prickly issue of needle exchange programs). Here, in this special guest column, Farrell makes the case for a more enlightened drug (and healthcare) policy and talks of the horrors that will likely transpire if we continue on our current course, which is tantamount to treating cancer with a gold-plated plaster -- ridiculous, ineffectual, expensive and ultimately fatal.

Click HERE to read Farrell's essay, The Two Hour Orgasm, at SuicideGirls.com.

To mark the day I suggest that you do something either irrational or transcendental -- or even better something that is both -- since these are characteristics of the mathematical constant we call Pi (π) that expresses the relationship between a circle's diameter and its circumference. Those that are rather particular about their favorite ratio observe Pi Minute at 1:59 p.m. or even Pi Second at 1:59:26 p.m. ( 3.1415926).

Go run around in circles (dogs do it all the time and have a blast) and have an irrational and transcendental day!

Whether or not you believe in a divine entity, this time of year serves to remind us all that the mighty dollar should not be our de facto deity, and that department stores, however glorious, should not be our surrogate churches. Reverend Billy, performance artist and leader of The Church of Stop Shopping, is a man on a mission to save the souls of those who spend their lives in the service of credit. On an individual, national or international level, the darkness of debt results in hell on earth, damning those who succumb to its power to a future eternally in the red. We therefore asked the good Rev. to shine a light on the shopocalypse. In this special SuicideGirls sermon he shows us the path to redemption -- through congregation (outside of the now literally as well as metaphorically empty malls) and communion with our own vital human spirit -- and offers some surprising commandments for our personal and global, financial and spiritual, wellbeing in 2009.

Click HERE to read Rev. BIlly's very special Stop Shopping message.

Further reading: What Would Jesus Buy?

Please take a moment to read the story of just one couple, Julie Rose and Lynda Brocchini, who will be affected by Prop 8. So sad that yesterday's overwhelming vote for progress didn't extent to the rights of our GLBT friends.


Click HERE to read, and please Digg and Stumble to help put a face to the victims of Prop 8.

Do you think your vote's going to count this year? Think again. Unless you take action now, your vote may already be lost. Award-winning investigative journalist Greg Palast, who uncovered exactly how the election was "won" in 2000, teamed up with activist, attorney, broadcaster and writer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to find out if democracy was in a better state eight years on. In their report, which was published this month in Rolling Stone, they concluded that the 2008 Election had already been stolen. They are now challenging you to steal it back.

"If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat John McCain at the polls -- they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering," Palast and Kennedy summarized. But all is not lost -- yet. To this end, the dynamic duo prepared an adult comic, Steal Back Your Vote, which outlines the six ways these thieves (who would call themselves "patriots") are trying to deprive you of your vote, and empowers you with seven ways you can snatch it back.

We checked in with Palast, a self-styled Sam Spade-like detective turned writer (he started out as a corporate investigator), to get the skinny on this 2008 election crime wave (and, no, the criminals aren't members of ACORN).

Click HERE for my full Suicide Girls interview with the intrepid Mr. Palast, P.I..

As the sun rises on one horizon, it sets on another. As one door wafts open, another unexpectedly slams shut. The day I got my new job as Managing Editor at Suicide Girls my grandma died.

I'm not sharing this with you to bum you out. Nor am I looking for sympathy. I'd merely like to take a moment to pay tribute to the life of a remarkable women.

My grandma was born in 1910. She was a slight but sprightly woman, who was staggeringly stubborn when she needed to be. She was globetrotting well into her eighties, and, almost to the very end, would merrily kick my parents out of the house when they came to visit if they fussed too much or got in the way of her routine. Like the Energizer bunny she kept on going, and going. She lived to the grand old age of 98 years and 6 months.

As a young girl her wish was to do something useful with her life; She desperately wanted to become a nurse. But she grew up in an age where women had their place, and her parents felt such work wasn't ladylike. They expected her to get married and have kids -- nothing more.

My grandma rebelled. She ran away from home when she was just sixteen. The year was 1926. She ran off to an area of North London called Kilburn, which was once a genteel spa town but is now better known for its plethora of curry houses. Her goal was to "go into service."

As luck would have it a general strike began shortly after she fled home. Instead of working in service as a maid she found herself doing a "proper" job. She worked as a bus conductor, a position that was out of the reach of women before the strike.

Later my grandma found love and gladly accepted her predestined role as a wife and mother, but she never forgot her dreams of becoming a nurse. She spoke about them often when I'd visit her on Sundays while I was a student in London. She satisfied her need by tirelessly working for the Red Cross, volunteering at hospitals, and by reading endless nurse and doctor penny romance mysteries that were dropped off by the bag load by the local council mobile library service.

My grandma never gave up on her dreams, but grew up in a time when expectations and opportunities were limited for women. Indeed, in England women only got the vote on equal terms with men in 1928, when my grandma was just 18. Fortunately, times have changed, and women no longer have to compromise or settle for merely reading novels about their dreams.

And so I begin a new life at Suicide Girls. May it be worthy of my rebellious and daring grandma.

Nicole
XOX

"I wish to be cremated but make sure I'm dead."
Mrs Louie Mosley, 1910-2008

A great workout for students of the Law of Attraction!

I'm posting this video in memory of Harvey the cat, who really did love doing yoga with me. He was also partial to massage too! R.I.P.

These two brothers raised a lion from a baby at home in London. When it got too big they released it to an animal preserve in Africa. A year later they returned to try and find it to see how it was doing. They were told by authorities and the wildlife people the lion would not remember them. Happily for the brothers, the experts were wrong.

Be warned, this short video has no sound, but it's well worth watching.







If player fails to load click HERE to view.