At first, I thought a house had fallen off a cliff-side when I saw this image. There were no crash pieces, no dents and the house seemed in good shape. I have to admit the picture also made me disoriented. I probably would feel dizzy standing next to the actual building. I had even thought it was a Photoshop ‘nonsense’ when I saw the picture. That first impression led me to research. It took me a little while before I discovered that the house was real. It is a retreat cabin. And of course it made the “Cool Stuff” category in my blog. I think it is an amazing piece of architecture. I love the sustainability aspect of the cabin and how clever the designers were in blending this work-of-art into its surroundings in a subtle and playful way. View links to take you inside the ‘ice-cube’.
Block of Tumbling Ice Inspiration
Czech architects Atelier 8000 designed this monolithic cube retreat for the mountains of northern Slovakia. Inspired by glaciers, the architects envisioned a block of ice tumbling down a mountainside and crashing into the snowy landscape. The building was designed for the Kežmarská Chata (Kežmarská Hut) international competition, and it contains a restaurant, a sleeping area and ski storage for visitors.
Read more: This Crazy Solar-Powered Cabin Looks Like a Giant Ice Cube Atelier 8000 Kežmarská Hut – Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building
ABC reported that the Pacific Climate Warriors have arrived in Australia today to mount a protest against the Australian coal industry and call for action on climate change. The group made up of young Pacific Islanders represent 13 countries. They brought five specially made traditional canoes, which will lead a fleet of boats to blockade the coal port of Newcastle. In the group is the daughter of Marshall Islands president Christopher Loeak.
“The coal port is the largest in the world and there are plans for it to expand and we want to bring the message that the expansion is definitely going to have an effect on the islands, not just in the Marshalls but all over the Pacific,” said Milan Loeak.
“We just want to share our stories and make sure that people are aware that the decisions that are being made over here are directly affecting our islands back home.”
The Warriors are in Australia as part of 350.org’s protest of the port, which will culminate in a flotilla of the Warriors and Australian volunteers blocking coal exports for a day on Friday.
Fiji Climate Warrior George Nacewa said he had already seen villagers displaced by rising sea levels. He said the expansion of the port would have wide-ranging effects.
“These expansions will affect us and I live in a generation that has inherited a perfect environment but I am not too sure if I can pass this on to my kids and future generations to come,” he said.
Getting their send-off in Vanuatu, Iasoa Chief Kawea Sausiara told the Warriors the canoes carry a vital message.
“If climate change is not stopped we will lose our cultural activities. This is the message that we must remember. If not, Vanuatu will be nothing more than a wasteland,” he said.
Locals found a rare beaked whale beached on Newcastle this morning. “For a very, very long time not much has been known about them and so every time we even find one that is dead on the beach, it is a treasure trove for the scientists”, said ORCCA vice-president Shona Lorigan.
Marine experts are examining the rare beaked whale. The three to four-metre-long animal was found dead on Redhead Beach, south of Newcastle, this morning.
Marine experts have been called in to examine the whale and take specimens.
Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (ORCCA) president Ronny Ling said the find was extremely rare.
“It’s a deep sea animal called a beaked whale,” he said.
“We’re yet to identify the exact species but what we can tell you about these animals is they are rare animals.
“You normally only find them when they wash up or when they strand and they are very, very seldom seen at sea, so it has great scientific value there. It is rare everywhere and not just Australia”.
After so much publicity about the Abbott government’s foreign policy and the plight of the “Boat People”, a recent apparel stocked on the shelves of Woolworths, a popular grocery chain shocked Australian public. Seen on the media and across social network today, Woolworth stores were told to remove the singlets (pictured below) which had the order: “If you don’t love us – leave”.
Ooops! came the response. That was not the shirt we ordered and not what we represented (even if it was already selling and ON the shelves). I bet the poor replenishing staff (mostly young people who work part-time and do casual work between school) got into trouble. Well someone had to be blamed.
The series also star’s Jada Pinkett Smith (pictured), mafia mobstress Fish Mooney.
Gotham: Warner ‘sorry’ for ‘blacking up’ white stunt woman to pass for black actress.
Studios have since hired a black stunt woman for filming in New York.
Television bosses have admitted it was a “mistake” to “black up” a white stunt woman so she could pass for a black actress on hit American crime TV show Gotham.
Producers on the Warner Bros television show retracted plans to use a white stunt woman during filming in New York next week after industry website Deadline queried the practise.
On Monday dark make up was reportedly applied to the face of a white stunt woman for a hair and make-up test. Warner Bros. has since said it will hire a black stunt woman instead after being questioned by members of the press.
“A mistake was made this week in casting a stunt woman for a guest star in a particular scene on the show,” Warner Bros. said in a statement. “The situation has been rectified, and we regret the error.”
Batman spinoff GothamBatman spinoff Gotham“Blackface” or “painting down” stunt men and women so they can pass for black has been branded “unacceptable” and “improper” by the US Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA).
Industry experts claim that despite the theatrical genre of “blackface”, where a white actor where’s dark make-up, is becoming increasingly rare (it was hugely popular in the 1930s), the practise of using stunt men and women who are white to depict black actors has been going on for decades.
VIDEO: GOTHAM CAST APPREHENSIVE ABOUT FANS’ EXPECTATIONS
Gotham, which airs on Channel 5 in this country and America’s Fox Network, is a Batman spinoff series developed by Bruno Heller. The series stars Ben McKenzie as Gordon, a member of the Gotham City police force.
One of the things I love about being older and having “been there, done that” is that I am beginning to understand what life is all about. Everything is starting to make a lot more sense. I keep learning and one of those things I have come to realise was, how much time I have spent/lost in a nine to five job. The nine to five job routine has never appealed to me. Sometimes I wonder if I had gained enough money doing that extra time in comparison to the living that I have lost.
Sadly, we are conditioned to believe that our nine to five job IS what life is all about. We often get stuck in the routine…forever! Before we know it, we are too old to enjoy what we truly aspire to do. I wasn’t going to blog about “overtime” tonight – really.
It was London Live celebrating the National Poetry Day and while listening to some poetry I came across Mr Gee’s interpretation of the 9 to 5 job and the More Overtime. I could not have put my view about a day job any better. Mr Gee’s spoken word inspired this post. I would like to put it out there that if there is something good you really want to do in life – go and do it!
I love this story. Malala Yousafzai is a brave young woman who chose a path many teenagers would have never considered. Her journey started as an 11-year-old activist blogger, putting her life at risk to speak out against women being denied education.
Today (Friday) she wins and shares the Nobel Peace 2014 with 60-year-old Indian campaigner against child trafficking and child labour Kailash Satyarthi. To combine and make winners out of two amazing people from two conflicting cultures and religion is not something you hear often.
Pakistani teenage activist Malala Yousafzai leaves after speaking at a news conference at the Zaatri refugee camp, in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria, February 18, 2014. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed
By Balazs Koranyi, Alister Doyle and Gwladys Fouche
OSLO, Oct 10 (Reuters) – Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 for advocating girls’ right to education, and Indian campaigner against child trafficking and labour Kailash Satyarthi won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.
Yousafzai, aged 17, becomes the youngest Nobel Prize winner and 60-year-old Satyarthi the first Indian-born winner of the accolade.
They were picked for their struggle against the oppression of children and young people, and for the right of all children to education, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
The sharing of the award between an Indian and a Pakistani came after a week of hostilities along the border of the disputed, mainly Muslim region of Kashmir – the worst fighting between the nuclear-armed rivals in more than a decade.
“The Nobel Committee regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism,” said Thorbjoern Jagland, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Satyarthi said he now hoped to work with Malala for peace.
“I will invite her to join hands to establish peace for our subcontinent, which is a must for children, which is a must for every Indian, for every Pakistani, for every citizen of the world,” he told reporters at the New Delhi office of his organisation, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or Save the Childhood Movement.
Kristian Berg Harpviken, head of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, described the joint award “an innovative prize that brings attention to the problems of the young”.
“A BREATH OF FRESH AIR” AMID VIOLENCE
Yousafzai was attacked in 2012 on a school bus in the Swat Valley of northwest Pakistan by masked gunmen as a punishment for a blog that she wrote for the BBC’s Urdu service as an 11-year-old to campaign against the Taliban’s efforts to deny women an education.
Unable to return to Pakistan after her recovery, Yousafzai moved to England, setting up the Malala Fund and supporting local education advocacy groups with a focus on Pakistan, Nigeria, Jordan, Syria and Kenya.
Norway’s NRK TV said Yousafzai had been told she had won but decided not to make any immediate public comment – because she was at school.
“This is a breath of fresh air, a gift for Pakistan, at a time when we are embroiled in terrorism and violence and wars,” Ahmed Shah, Malala’s former teacher, told Reuters by telephone from the Swat Valley.
“Those who oppose her, extremist elements or whoever else, they have been rendered irrelevant. They are a weak minority.”
Yousafzai addressed the U.N. Youth Assembly last year at an event Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called “Malala Day”. This year she travelled to Nigeria to demand the release of 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist group Boko Haram.
“To the girls of Nigeria and across Africa, and all over the world, I want to say: don’t let anyone tell you that you are weaker than or less than anything,” she said in a speech.
“You are not less than a boy,” Yousafzai said. “You are not less than a child from a richer or more powerful country. You are the future of your country. You are going to build it strong. It is you who can lead the charge.”
FIGHTING CHILD SLAVERY
Satyarthi, who gave up a career as an electrical engineer in 1980 to campaign against child labour, has headed various forms of peaceful protests and demonstrations, focusing on the exploitation of children for financial gain.
“It is a disgrace for every human being if any child is working as a child slave in any part of the world,” Satyarthi said. “I feel very proud to be an Indian that in India I was able to keep this fight on for the last 30 years or so. This is a great recognition and honour for all my fellow Indians.”
In a recent editorial, Satyarthi said that data from non-government organisations indicated that child labourers could number 60 million in India – 6 percent of the total population.
“Children are employed not just because of parental poverty, illiteracy, ignorance, failure of development and education programmes, but quite essentially due to the fact that employers benefit immensely from child labour as children come across as the cheapest option, sometimes working even for free,” he wrote.
Children are employed illegally and companies use the financial gain to bribe officials, creating a vicious cycle, he argued.
Last month, based on a complaint filed by his organisation in a Delhi court, the Indian government was forced to put in place regulations to protect domestic workers who are often physically and sexually abused and exploited.
Satyarthi joins a handful of Nobel Peace Prize winners with ties to India – even though the most famous peace activist of them all and father of independent India, Mahatma Gandhi, never received the honour.
Mother Theresa, an Albanian-born nun, was recognised in 1979 for her work with the poor in the Indian port city of Calcutta. The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader who won the prize in 1989, resides in India.
Many commentators say that the omission of Gandhi from the list of laureates is the biggest error in the history of the Prize, first awarded in 1901.
“Maybe there is a little nod to Gandhi there,” Harpviken said of the award to India’s Satyarthi.
The United Nations’ Childrens’ Fund in South Asia said the joint award recognised “their struggle against the suppression of children and young people” in a region where nearly 17.5 million girls aged between 5 and 13 are out of school and over 12 percent of children between 5 and 14 are engaged in labour.
The prize, worth about $1.1 million, will be presented in Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the award in his 1895 will.
The previous youngest winner was Australian-born British scientist Lawrence Bragg, who was 25 when he shared the Physics Prize with his father in 1915. (Additional reporting by Terje Solsvik, by Krista Mahr, Douglas Busvine and Nita Bhalla in NEW DELHI and by Maria Golovnina and Mehreen Zahra-Malik in ISLAMABAD; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Michael Aslin took this photo from Kambalda in Western Australia.
Wasn’t it beautiful to see the moon change colour last night? After a build up of excitement and anticipation all day, the evening turned out to be a disaster viewing for me. We got a view of the crescent peeking out in between clouds, then more clouds. I kept walking outside the house in between chores thinking the clouds would blow past, but they never did. I did catch glimpses of a faded golden colour of the yoke during the eclipse and then – all gone!
How lucky and wonderful it was to go online and see some of the captured blood moon images from pictures taken across Australia and the world.
Here is one of the songs we sang when the moon rose. It is in Ming Kawac. (Bukawac language, Lae, PNG).
Ayu kepi, kepu ga-meng ngawe nga – ayam
(The moon rose and shone, making everything beautiful)
Aom kusum gebe, undanguc ae
(You said, you would follow me)
And this is not ‘reverse psychology’ to make you “Follow” me on this blog, however, come to think of it, this could be a sign.
Coleus Canina (pictured above) is one of the most colourful tropical plants with almost every colour you can think of. It is my mother’s favourite plant. I grew up with in Lae, Papua New Guinea (PNG) seeing Coleus growing on the side of our house, along the main road at our village, in our food garden or in the cemetery. Everybody grew some kind of Coleus plant. They are gorgeous. We used Coleus to decorate ourselves when we danced. Sometimes, our people just stuck a small branch of the plant in their hair or hung in on their bags for decoration because it is pretty.
I knew the plant had a distinct smell, but I did not know, in Australia, Coleus was planted to repel animals such as cats and dogs from gardens. Perhaps it is a myth? This attractive perennial herb is actually an aromatic member of the Mint family. They’re native to southern Asia and eastern Africa, and they attract butterflies and bees.
In early 1990s, I was engaged by Peace Corp and the Conservation Melanesian to run some entrepreneur workshop and training for crafts people in the Crater Mountains in Eastern Highlands Province, PNG. I had volunteered to teach the artisans and spend some time learning about their art and the way of living. It was here that I discovered something new about the Coleus plant. Certain types of the plant had strong pigmentation. Women were using the leaves to rub into flax fibres as they twisted the fibres into ropes for making (bilum) bags as pictured below. As they twisted the ropes and rubbed with Coleus leaf, the rope would instantly turn from its natural colour into deep purple, blue and even black. I was amazed.
Dark blue, almost black dye from Coleus plant rubbed into the fibre on this bilum by the Herowana (Crater Mountains) women in PNG.
Years later, while living here in Brisbane (Australia) and experimenting with using natural dyes and pigments in my painting, I remembered the Coleus. I had already used coffee, tea, turmeric, beetroot, some grass seeds so it was a refreshing addition to my natural pigments. I had made a trip to the local Bunnings and started growing the Blackberry Waffle, pictured below which gives the strongest colour dye. I made good artistic use out of the plant all summer but unfortunately I lost the Coleus plants in winter. Spring is here so it is warming up and I will start again. That is why I am making this post. Below is an artwork, “Paradise Birds” I created from using a mixture of watercolour and natural pigments from my garden. The pink and purple background in the painting is the pigment/juice from the Coleus plant.
The Blackberry Waffle Coleus – the pigment king.My Art – I painted this mixed media called Paradise Birds with Coleus ‘Blackberry Waffles’ – it is the pink and purple background. I also used the blue seeds from grass and turmeric for the gold and yellow bird heads. This work is on paper.
One of the things I love about great designers and creative minds is how they use sea creatures in the theme of their work – the delicate angles, look, colour, feel etc. I found this table on iCreative website and I wanted to share. It is one of Marc Fish’s art work. How magnificent it is that he could combine all the different types of wood and bend and shape to keep true to the Nautilus shell physical features.
Low table Nautilus II is the second edition of the artistic table shaped nautilus shell drawn by designer Marc Fish. The result is a simple piece of furniture and a very stylish lounge. I would be too afraid to eat on it; may be I would just sit and look at its beauty.
Marc Fish is a famous English designer who studied in Brighton, London, UK. Originally, the design of the Nautilus table was an experience, then the Nautilus room first was designed and built in 2010-2011. The second edition was created using computer-assisted technology combined with innovative construction techniques. The surface of Nautilus II resembles a shell perfectly and the bottom view of the table reveals an interesting contrast color resulting from the combination of different types of wood. It is manufactured with over 4000 individual parts walnut veneer sycamore in several layers in order to obtain the desired shape. The transparent glass plate has the same lines as the Nautilus. The result is a perfect logarithmic spiral of the nautilus shell.
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