Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Bicycle Thieves (Italian: Ladri di biciclette), also known as The Bicycle Thief, is director Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 story of a poor father searching post-World War II Rome for his stolen bicycle, without which he will lose the job which was to be the salvation of his young family.
Anansi, the trickster from the folktales of the Ashanti of West Africa, takes the shape of a spider who goes to the sky god to buy his stories to share with the world. Anansi’s stories would become popular through the African diaspora all over the Caribbean and southern US. Here is an animated retelling called “Anansi and the Stories of the Sky God.”
The BaVenda (also known as Venda), a Bantu tribe living in Southern Africa, tell a traditional myth about how the meerkat gave all the animals their special colors.
Chief Oren Lyons, distinguished member of the United Nations Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human Survival, lectures on what happened to the millions of indigenous people who lived in North and South America when they were “discovered” and the past and present challenges for the Peacemakers, recently featured on KPFK’s “American Indian Airwaves.” Listen to the first part of the speech below. We also included a short talk from the Sacred Land Film Project.
Tall buildings tend to use massive amounts of energy with big carbon footprints. One new Viennese project featured in Passive House Plus shows that high rise doesn’t have to mean high environmental impact.
Baja California, despite proximity to the US and recent rampant growth, remains a wild and untamed coastal desert. Behind the charming pueblitos and peaceful resorts lies a varied history where conquest and development have moved both slow and fast. Following a recent trip to the Gulf of California town of Loreto, this first in a series of articles attempts to define what makes the place special, as well as what the future holds for this (mostly) hidden resort region.
President Obama unveiled his Climate Action Plan that proposes to cut carbon pollution from coal burning power plants, coupled with supporting energy efficiency and clean, renewable sources of energy, but cannot seem to kick the addiction to some fossil fuels, especially fracked natural gas. He also promises to ramp up climate change adaptation and to lead international efforts to address global warming.