AIDS: Liberia Vice

During the last days VBS.TV has made a series of videos available created by them while traveling in Liberia (so far mainly Monrovia and surroundings) and talking to local journalists, war lords, slum inhabitants and other “normal people“. A story about civil war, drugs, AIDS, child soldiers, rape, daily killing, corruption, cannibalism… - it shows how deep the rabbit hole goes in one of the poorest countries and failed states on this planet.

The series comprises 8 short videos with different stations of their “travel” through Liberia of which so far 4 are online on their site.
What they have so far not covered is how much foreign aid is sunk into this country and what actually happens with it…

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Christmas: Adeste fidelis - Venite Adoremus

Adeste Fideles laeti triumphantes,
Veníte, veníte in Bethlehem.
Natum vidéte, Regem Angelorum:
Veníte adoremus,
Veníte adoremus
Veníte adoremus Dóminum

While the “fidelis” this year like in the years before merely get some kind of fair ground in Bethlehem - if they are allowed to go there with specially arranged package travel or diplomatic passports - one thing is different from the days this song and its lyrics have been composed.

While the shepherds around Bethlehem still speak a language that today is called Arabic (or some local dialects) there would be no “…En grege relicto, Humiles ad cunas Vocati pastores approperant …” (translated in the English version as: See how the shepherds, Summoned to His cradle, Leaving their flocks, draw nigh with lowly fear) -
there are guys with machine guns and tanks hindering the shepherds to even get close to the cradle - so Christmas would not happen these days again.

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Music: Placebo - Running Up That Hill

One for the night - certainly fitting pretty well with some of our more recent posts.

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Music: Victor Jara Manifiesto

Not too long ago this voice was heard - but then silenced by murderers and thugs that have changed the face of this beautiful country for many years.

RIP - Victor - you will never be forgotten - but those who caused your death should be forgotten forever - their lives made never exist - but not their wrong doing and crimes.

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Climate Change: Hurricane ad from Ogilvy

No comment - see the GreenPeace “I am sorry” campaign.

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Music: DJ GO!DIVA EL EXILIO GUESTMIX FOR FNOOB.COM

One and a half hours of great Techno - available also for take away - as MP3 download from SoundCloud.com.

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Music: Let Love Rule - Lenny Kravitz

Now two more songs from our Bahamian Lenny Kravitz
We think these fit well with today’s “World AIDS day”.

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Quote of the day: The last Poem

This quote is from James Clavell’s well known novel Shogun:

The blue sky above the earth
White clouds rise towards heaven
Life is only a butterfly’s dream
Death the way to eternal life

Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell, 1924 - 1994, Shogun

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Quote of the day: Funeral Blues

One of W.H. Auden best known poems “Funeral Blues” in its second (shorter) and changed version. We are still searching for the original version with five stanzas which Auden wrote together with Christopher Isherwood in 1936.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Wystan Hugh Auden, 1907 - 1973, Funeral Blues

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Music: Requiem For A Dream

The song Lux Aeterna (Requiem For A Dream) by Clint Mansell.

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