ScienceDaily (2008-04-11) — It is common for professional archaeologists and paleoanthropologists working in Africa to populate western museums with foreign artifacts by excavating and permanently removing them from history rich communities in Africa. The first museum of its kind has now been established in Mozambique and it will officially open in August. The Museu Local aims to be an interactive cultural heritage center… (read more).
News on new TB Programme from Dr. Mike Meegan
Together with the ministry of health ICROSS has launched a new initiative focusing on Tuberculosis. TB is the second leading single cause of death in Africa. TB is on the rise and is closely linked to HIV AIDS. With the support of the Global fund, ICROSS is working closely with local partners as part of a nationwide strategy fighting the spread of TB. This five year project will allow us to reach new areas of Bondo in Western Kenya, and extend services and support to more patients and vulnerable communities.
This Project is coordinated by Dany Ngwiri, who has worked with ICROSS for over a decade. Danny set up the first home based care programme in Nakuru. ICROSS health teams together with Ministry of health and other health professionals start scaling up the TB programmes this month. As part of the TB strategy long term public health surveillance , TB patient follow up and TB screening will be developed together with new research and monitoring and career support programmes. This is our third Global fund grant over the past five years.
Talking to programme planners at ICROSS the Programme coordinator Danny Ngwiri said “This programme will allow us to reach more communities in remote areas, there are huge challenges and great difficulties for these patients, this programme builds on the last decade of ICROSS’ experience and allows us to extend our vital work”.
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Dr Michael Meegan
D.Med. HC NUI FRAMI
Founder, International Director ICROSS
Man warns City Council of possible zombie attack
Taken from The Salt Lake Tribune website:
It started as insightful and articulate, especially compared to most public-comment hokum.
Georgia transplant Wesley Wyndham-Price calmly stood before the City Council, cautioning members about downtown’s derelict emergency-preparedness plan. City elders are “insouciantly” unaware of risks to City Creek Center, he warned.
Wyndham-Price even paused to joke that Georgia’s saltwater taffy is better than Utah’s. “I hope that is not an ad hominem,” he shrugged.
Then he got specific and all reason helicoptered into the ether.
City Creek needs an emergency-preparedness plan, he demanded, against zombies.
“Zombies are fierce,” he said as a crammed council chamber laughed nervously. “They are going to catch us in there.”
Wyndham-Price admitted he never has seen a zombie attack but is sure one is coming. And shoppers could be sitting ducks in a sky bridge.
No word on whether monster man is related to campy horror-flick comedian Vincent Price. Actually, it appears the April 1 speech was a well-delivered April Fools’ joke. After all, Wesley Wyndham-Price is a fictional character created for the TV series’ “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel.”
After the performance, the Avenues resident briefly plopped in the front row next to City Creek-LDS Church straight-man Dale Bills, then bolted.
Playing along, Councilman Luke Garrott declared that he would forward the zombie recommendation to the appropriate emergency committee posthaste.
But given the surge of Mormon minions anticipated at City Creek and the church’s downtown BYU campus, Wyndham-Price clearly was off target.
He probably meant zoobies, not zombies.
Update on ‘Quantum of Solace’ Filming
Taken from USA TODAY:
USA Today’s ‘Quantum’ Set Visit
By Anthony Breznican, USA TODAYANTOFAGASTA, Chile — It looks like the surface of Mars. The rust-colored rolling hills of the Atacama desert appear alien, devoid of life — just sand and dirt and rock baked into vast, barren slopes that stretch endlessly into the bruised horizon.
Against this unforgiving backdrop, Daniel Craig is exploring the merciless side of James Bond. Quantum of Solace is the 22nd film in the 007 franchise, Craig’s second after 2006’s blockbuster Casino Royale, and the first true sequel to a Bond film, picking up the story just minutes after the previous film ends.
The movie, opening Nov. 7, is about halfway through filming. They’ve been to Panama and Baja California, Mexico, with plans to shift next to Italy and Austria before returning to London’s famed Pinewood Studios for more stage shooting.
The action sequence shot in the Chilean desert last week is a turning point for the embittered superspy, his chance to discover whether his thirst for vengeance will turn him into the same kind of cold-blooded killer as the people he is fighting.
“He has his heart broken,” says Craig, who turned 40 during the shoot. “The love of his life is killed, and he finds out she’s not who she said she was. … He’s out for revenge. But he’s also out to find — and this is what the title is about — a ‘quantum of solace.’ Something has been taken away from him, and he’s out to get that back.”
Craig is running at full speed along the rooftop of a long, narrow building, wedged like a man-made plateau into the rocky red valley. He’s firing a prop pistol into the mirrored skylights below.
The building is supposed to be an “eco-hotel,” a buried tropical oasis amid this wasteland designed to lure the rich and powerful with the latest environmental technology. The hotel is a front for the villain, Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric, the French star of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), a tycoon using a “Save the Earth” facade to hide his plan to seize control of part of South America’s water supply.
“The villain has taken over this place. Greene is pretending to be ‘green,’ but he’s obviously not,” says producer Michael G. Wilson.
In real life, this partially subterranean structure is home to scores of visiting astronomers at the Paranal Observatory, site of four of the world’s largest and most advanced telescopes. The silver domes stand sentinel on a nearby hillside awaiting sundown and the universe’s nightly display of galactic fireworks.
These are the only structures for 75 miles and are situated in the thin air of the 8,700-foot elevation, where it’s easy to run out of breath doing take after take of sprinting and gunplay.
Craig’s sprinting gunshot scene is literally breathless — his chest heaves hard after multiple takes, but he laughs matter-of-factly later when asked about the high-altitude challenges. “It’s (expletive) hard!”
The thin atmosphere has been hardest on the new Bond girl, Olga Kurylenko, 28, who plays a mysterious Bolivian-Russian rogue agent whose quest for revenge puts her in league with Bond. But even she prefers it to the marshy conditions of their last location.
“It’s much easier to work here than in Panama, weather-wise,” she says. “It’s hot in both countries, but in Panama it’s humid, and we were working on the boat and I was sweating. Here it’s dry, it’s different, it’s much easier, but I’m out of breath a little bit.”
Director adds humanity
Director Marc Forster says setting the climax in the wasteland of Chile’s Atacama Desert fuses the plot with the internal life of Bond.
“I chose the desert because it’s isolated, you feel lonely, and that’s what Bond is struggling with himself,” Forster says. “In the desert, it’s unforgivable. You’re out there, and you might die.”
He’s an unusual choice to direct a big-budget Bond action film; his previous films, such as Finding Neverland, Monster’s Ball and The Kite Runner, all were intimate dramas.
“I was very surprised,” Forster acknowledges. He was persuaded to join because the producers saw value in adding depth to the crowd-pleasing flick.
“Heart might be the wrong word, but it’s human,” he says.
In the finished sequence of the Chilean rooftop fight, Bond will shatter the skylights and plunge down atop the fleeing Greene. Forster says the underlying tension of the scene is Bond wrestling with his eye-for-an-eye temptations.
“I said, ‘Look, you’re not shooting Greene, you’re only shooting the glass because you want him alive. You want to crash through and find him,’ ” Forster says. In that moment, facing the impending explosion, Bond must decide whether slaying his nemesis is worth the cost of other innocent lives.
“When they have this moment between them, Bond has a decision to make,” Forster says. “Bond lost someone he loved. But what does it mean to kill someone, when you just lost someone?”
Risks and changes
The last time the James Bond producers gambled on major alterations to the long-running formula, there was a huge outcry — and a huge payoff when Casino Royale finally came out.
During filming, many die-hard fans of previous Bond star Pierce Brosnan jeered the choice of the blond, blue-eyed, rough-edged Craig for the traditionally suave and sophisticated British agent.
But then Casino Royale became the highest-grossing Bond film in history, earning $595 million worldwide (about $150 million more than 2002’s Die Another Day), and many fans and critics praised Craig as the best Bond actor since Sean Connery originated the role.
More changes to the traditional formula are in store for Quantum of Solace, among them the notion of a true sequel. Bond has always been ageless, and the previous 21 movies stand largely independently of each other, but Quantum of Solace picks up where Casino Royale ended, with Bond working his way up the chain of command of the terrorists who blackmailed his lover, Vesper Lynd.
“We set something up in motion in the last one that we need to keep in touch with in this one,” Craig says.
Producer Wilson, who is the stepson of the late founding 007 producer, Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli, and has worked on every Bond film since 1979’s Moonraker, says filmmakers might go back to stand-alone plots the next time, but for now they wanted to continue with an evolving Bond.
“He has the realization that there’s no place for him in the outside world,” Wilson says. “And also he’s tempted by revenge and tempted by becoming a cynic, by losing his humanity. He has to fight all of these things.”
Another curious twist is the hint that there may be less romance this time for the notorious ladies’ man. “We felt Bond could not immediately fall into another relationship. And we needed someone who had her own agenda and probably could not form a relationship either because of her situation,” Wilson says.
Kurylenko says her vengeful rogue agent, Camille, is so focused on “what she’s doing, she doesn’t care about meeting a boyfriend or something.”
Bond does bed another MI6 agent, played by British actress Gemma Arterton, 22, a relative newcomer. “He has one relationship in this movie, a kind of fling. It’s mutually beneficial,” Craig says. “I think both parties enjoy it.”
Then there’s the title, a moniker some fans ridicule.
Quantum of Solace comes from a short story by 007 author Ian Fleming, and it’s not a spy story but a tale told to Bond about another couple’s tragic romance. The short story has nothing else to do with the movie.
Wilson explains: “The title we thought was appropriate for a couple of reasons. The villainous organization is called Quantum, and what Bond is looking for in his life is a measure of comfort, and that’s what a ‘quantum of solace’ is. He’s just trying to find a little bit of comfort because his life is in turmoil.”
The Chilean uproar
The filmmakers are hoping for a measure of comfort from the Chilean people, who at first welcomed the production as a source of national pride — and then became annoyed when word spread that Chile’s desert will be identified in the film as neighboring Bolivia.
Sierra Gorda’s mayor, Carlos Lopez, dramatically interrupted filming Tuesday by driving his vehicle onto the set and was briefly detained by police. He previously organized small protests over the Bolivia issue, though Wilson has tried to explain to locals that it’s quite common to film in one place but call it another.
Bond producers preferred the look of Chile’s Paranal location, but chose to set the tale in Bolivia partly because Bolivia has a history of water problems, including takeover of public water systems by private for-profit corporations. “It seemed like the best way to tell the story without making a false country,” Wilson says.
The location question is especially sensitive because the Antofagasta region, with its rich copper mining industry, was seized by Chile in a war in 1879 — cutting off Bolivia’s access to the sea in a move that still generates resentment between the nations. James Bond symbolically returning the disputed land naturally irritates the locals.
Yet many Chileans (and travel guides) agree that the grimy industrial city of Antofagasta is a bad representation of Chile, which has many more beautiful regions. That means the hard feelings, in a sense, are over which country gets credit for an eyesore.
Chile’s government is staying out of the fray. Andrea Lagos, media representative for the nation’s embassy in Washington, says national leaders are declining to comment.
Broken Bond
When Quantum of Solace makes its debut, the squabbles during filming will no doubt largely be forgotten, and 007 fans will now be wondering: How will the film further change the iconic superspy?
The Bond of the past was calculating and in control, rarely caught off guard and more bemused than tortured by the havoc he confronts. Quantum of Solace transforms him into damaged goods. Craig says he prefers to explore the weak spots of a previously invulnerable hero.
“It’s a simplistic story that has been around for a long, long time: There’s one lone hero going after the bad guys. It has been around forever. But you have to apply morals to it, and within that you show somebody’s flaws. That’s what makes them interesting, the mistakes they make along the way and how they adjust.
“The fact is he’s hurt. He’s damaged and he wants revenge. And that’s another facet of somebody, and it’s not a good emotion to have. You’ve got to see how he deals with it. Last time around, it was just duty and duty alone. This time around, there’s a sense of revenge. That’s how he’s going to screw up. Because he will — but then he gets up and gets it right.”
Orlando Sentinel Review of Expelled
There is a new film making it’s way around the country. You may be familiar with the movie Expelled. You may have seen the previews with that super serious and always monotone Ben Stein. But chances are you have no idea what the film is about. Do a little bit of driving around the internet and its not hard to discover what an insulting, accusatory and proof-less piece of celluloid has been pushed into the headlights of society.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is described by the filmmakers “A heroic and, at times, shocking journey confronting the world’s top scientists, educators and philosophers, regarding the persecution of the many by an elite few. Ben Stein travels the world on his quest, and learns an awe-inspiring truth…that bewilders him, then angers him…and then spurs him to action; that educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired – for the “crime” of merely believing that there might be evidence of “design” in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance.”
My interest in this film hit an all time high this week when PZ Myers posted this article on his blog Pharyngula:
There is a rich, deep kind of irony that must be shared. I’m blogging this from the Apple store in the Mall of America, because I’m too amused to want to wait until I get back to my hotel room.
I went to attend a screening of the creationist propaganda movie, Expelled, a few minutes ago. Well, I tried … but I was Expelled! It was kind of weird — I was standing in line, hadn’t even gotten to the point where I had to sign in and show ID, and a policeman pulled me out of line and told me I could not go in. I asked why, of course, and he said that a producer of the film had specifically instructed him that I was not to be allowed to attend. The officer also told me that if I tried to go in, I would be arrested. I assured him that I wasn’t going to cause any trouble.
I went back to my family and talked with them for a while, and then the officer came back with a theater manager, and I was told that not only wasn’t I allowed in, but I had to leave the premises immediately. Like right that instant.
I complied.
I’m still laughing though. You don’t know how hilarious this is. Not only is it the extreme hypocrisy of being expelled from their Expelled movie, but there’s another layer of amusement. Deep, belly laugh funny. Yeah, I’d be rolling around on the floor right now, if I weren’t so dang dignified.
You see … well, have you ever heard of a sabot? It’s a kind of sleeve or lightweight carrier used to surround a piece of munition fired from a gun. It isn’t the actually load intended to strike the target, but may even be discarded as it leaves the barrel.
I’m a kind of sabot right now.
They singled me out and evicted me, but they didn’t notice my guest. They let him go in escorted by my wife and daughter. I guess they didn’t recognize him. My guest was …
Richard Dawkins.
He’s in the theater right now, watching their movie.
Tell me, are you laughing as hard as I am?
PZ’s expulsion was picked up by several newspapers and media outlets, including twincities.com.
Considering the fact that Professor Myers was not only tricked by the filmmakers into thinking he was being interviewed for a film that would take an even handed look at both evolution and creationism and then banned from a screening of the film he was in is a good base to start from when examining this film.
Now, while I have yet to see the film, I’ve read dozens of reviews and watched the eight minute long trailer that is floating around YouTube, put there of course to “spike the interest of a hip young college guy like myself”.
So far, its not looking good for Expelled.
The following article from the Orlando Sentinel website highlights some of the absurd claims made by the films and begs the question “where is YOUR proof?”:
Is Ben Stein the new face of Creationism?
How do you re-package that tried, untested and untestable faith-without-facts warhorse, “Creationism” after its nearly-annual beat-down by an increasingly exasperated scientific community?
After you’ve tried renaming it “Intelligent Design,” I mean.
With comedy. Mock your “Darwinist” foes the way comics, thinkers, scientists and educated people everywhere have been mocking creationism since Scopes took that monkey off our back.
Tuck into them the way Michael Moore would, with a documentary hosted by a funny Don Quixote willing to tilt at science the way MM has gone after the gun culture, corporate cold-heartedness, George W. Bush and Big Health Care.
Get droll funnyman and ex-Nixon speech writer Ben Stein to host it, to be the on-camera jester-interviewer.
And re-cast this argument about what people chose to believe vs. what others can prove as fact as a fight for “Freedom.”
That’s the mnemonic device Stein came back to, time and again, last night in an Orlando screening of his new documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. It’s a rabble-rouser of a doc that uses all manner of loaded images, loaded rhetoric, few if any facts and mockery of hand-picked “weirdo” scientists to attack those who, Stein claims, are stifling the Religious Right’s efforts to inject intelligent design into science courses, science curricula and the national debate.
He was showing the movie to what he and the producers hoped would be a friendly, receptive audience of conservative Christian ministers at a conference at the Northland mega-church next to the dog track up in Longwood. They’re marketing this movie, which they had said, earlier, they’d open in Feb. (now April) the same way other studios pitched The Passion of the Christ and The Chronicles of Narnia, said Paul Lauer of Motive Entertainment, who introduced Stein.
In other words, a stealth campaign, out of the public eye, preaching to the choir to get the word out about the movie without anyone who isn’t a true believer passing a discouraging judgment on it. Friendly words in the press only.
They postered the Orlando Sentinel with email invitations, then tried to withdraw the one they sent to me. No dice. They also passed out non-disclosure “statement of confidentiality” agreements for people to sign. I didn’t.
What are they hiding from you? Straight propaganda, to be sure. But again, if Michael Moore or Robert Greenwald can do it, why not Ben Stein?
It’s a movie that uses animation, archival documentary footage, interviews with outraged “people of science” who want ID on the table, and “atheists” (scientists) who see all this as a step backward, all freighted to back up the argument that it stifled “freedom” when you refuse to consider the work of a supernatural being in America’s science classes.
It just isn’t particularly funny. Or the least bit convincing.
I lost track of the number of times Stalin’s image hit the screen, and in the ways the movie equated science with Darwinism with atheism with Hitler or Stalin. Subtle, it’s not.
Stein (he co-wrote it) builds his movie on classic Big Tobacco Tactics. Create just a sliver of doubt about evolution by pitching this argument in terms of academic freedom. “Legitimate” learned scientists are being silenced by the Darwinian cabal of thought police. Says Stein.
He uses anecdotes from a few Fox-over-publicized cases of people who claim to have lost tenure/their jobs/their position in the scientific world for daring to suggest the hand of a supernatural being in the creation of life. He hasn’t a scintilla of proof of, well, anything. Then he has the audacity to whine, “Where’s the data” when questioning cellular biologists and other real scientists who build their lives around doubt, and finding testable, legitimate answers to those doubts. Where’s YOUR data, Ben?
He uses “straw man” tactics to attack, mainly The Origin of the Species, as Darwin wrote it in 1859. That’s like a music critic reviewing “the latest” by only referring to Edison’s wax cylinders. He sets up false theses that “the other side” must hold (classic Limbaugh, putting lies in the other fellow’s mouth, then calling him a liar) and knocks those straw men down. Citing scientific research as recent as 1953, he can’t understand why no peer-reviewed scientist thinks his “fairytale” version of the emergence of life is worth his or her time. No, not having a definitive answer about the moment life began…YET…is damning enough for Ben.
Most despicably, Stein, a Jew, invokes the Holocaust, making the Hitler-was-a-Darwinist argument, this AFTER he’s used the Holocaust denier’s favorite trick, probabilities, “math,” to show how remote the chances are that life was created by natural, not supernatural processes. There were plenty of reasons eugenics caught on as an idea among certain nationalist-conservative and even scientific circles in the early 20th century, and most of them have nothing to do with Darwin. It reminded me of the phony slump Michael Moore showed walking away from ambushing crusty old Charlton Heston in Bowling for Columbine.
Animation, similar to that used in Columbine, makes its mock points about how science comes to conclusions and how the culture is structured to accept them. Snippets of The Wizard of Oz, Inherit the Wind and other films (if this polished, credited, scored film is indeed “unfinished,” it may be from unresolved rights-clearance issues) to make his points funny. Not really. The Stalin and Soviet and Nazi clips are used in a not-quite-subliminal seduction way to demonize the people who might hold a contrary view.
But all the creative editing in the world only appears to let Stein hold his own with noted British scientist and atheist Richard Dawkins, whose words can be twisted to suggest that “aliens” seeded life on Earth, or at least that’s more likely than anything in the Bible being literally true about creation. That’s still a more rational explanation than any Stein, being a veteran Republican persuader/operator, offers. Does he really believe the blather he tosses out here? Introducing the movie at the church screening I attended, he had to trot out some nonsense about living in Malibu but not among “the stars. The REAL stars are fighting and dying for our freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Ok. Know your audience, if you’re a speech-writer (He used to work in the Nixon White House). Pander, baby, pander.
I remember stumbling across, at a bookstore, one of the more shrill and lunatic “Bill Clinton had people KILLED in Arkansas” books that came out during the 90s. I open it at the B. Dalton, and lo and behold, there’s Ben Stein writing the foreward. I had no idea…
Before that, he was just the guy giving away money on Comedy Central, the ever-droning teacher of TV shows and movies (”Bueller. Bueller.”).
The PBS NOVA series did a terrific piece on the court battle over intelligent design as fought in the courts in Pennsylvania, a lacerating film of finely honed facts and dagger-sharp arguments that should be shown in every school district with intel. design-dreamers running for the school board.
ID is “creation science” is “creationism” is “God dun it.” Teaching that as something provable beyond faith in a science curriculum is a big reason future Nobel winners will pour out of China and India, and not Kansas. Or Florida. That’s the reason a consensus of the world’s scientists fret so much over the time they have to waste on this non-debate. Stein found a Pole and the infamous Discovery Institute to back up his attacks, even though they offer no counter theories that they can back up.
Expelled makes good points about academic freedom and the ways unpopular ideas are shouted down in academia, the press and the culture. But not offering evidence to back your side, where the burden of proof lies, makes the movie every bit as meaningless and silly as that transcendental metaphysical hooey of a couple of years back, What the Bleep Do We Know?
In Stein’s case, you really do wonder what he knows, or what he’s willing to claim he believes just to make a buck off the Scopes deniers.
Oh, and keeping your movie from the public because you’re afraid of ridicule is just gutless. Put it out there, let people have time to chew on your arguments. Your fans will buy tickets. And plenty of folks will emerge to tear it apart. Even Michael Moore has the courage to do that.
Maybe Stein will repackage himself as the new face of creationism. The new face of cynicism is more like it. But as Nixon must’ve reminded him, there’s a sucker born every minute. And a lot of them vote.
Extremely well put.
I invite you to do a little digging on this film yourself. Read reviews, consult the literature (on the 15th of April, the National Center for Science Education’s official response will be posted - you can find it at ExpelledExposed.com), and by all means see the film if it’s playing near you! Confront the sad truth that is this film with your own eyes and wonder how anyone can believe a word of it.
Script Frenzy 2008
I’m hoping that with the numerous friends I have who are interested in writing, that someone will be participating in Script Frenzy 2008.
If you don’t know what it is, here is a short blurb:
Script Frenzy is an international writing event in which participants attempt the daring feat of writing 100 pages of scripted material in the month of April. As part of a donation-funded nonprofit, Script Frenzy charges no fee to participate; there are also no valuable prizes awarded or “best” scripts singled out. Every writer who completes the goal of 100 pages is victorious and awe-inspiring and will receive a handsome Script Frenzy Winner’s Certificate and web icon proclaiming this fact.
Even those who fall short of the word goal will be applauded for making a heroic attempt. Really, you have nothing to lose—except that nagging feeling that there’s a script inside you that may never get out.
The 5 Basic Rules of Script Frenzy
1) To be crowned an official Script Frenzy winner, you must write a script (or multiple scripts) of at least 100 total pages and verify this tally on ScriptFrenzy. org.
2) You may write individually or in teams of two. Writer teams will have a 100-page total goal for their co-written script or scripts.
3) Script writing may begin no earlier than 12:00:01 AM on April 1 and must cease no later than 11:59:59 PM on April 30, local time.
4) You may write screenplays, stage plays, TV shows, short films, comic book and graphic novel scripts, adaptations of novels, or any other type of script your heart desires.
5) You must, at some point, have ridiculous amounts of fun.
Last year I wrote a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. It was an amazing and inspiring accomplishment. Since I have a lot more experience writing scripts, this will hopefully be a lot easier, but still carry the same level of satisfaction upon completion.
If you’ve ever wanted to write a script, why not try it now? Take the time you waste in front of the TV or a computer and put it towards something productive. I can’t express what a rewarding experience it is to hold something heavy and papery in your hands that came straight from your imagination.
To all those participating, best of luck!
Add me! http://www. scriptfrenzy. org/eng/user/230394
Children of Men: The Series
From SciFi Wire:
Bionic Woman executive producer David Eick told SCI FI Wire that he’s working on a pilot script for a proposed TV series based on Children of Men, P.D. James’ SF novel, which also inspired Alfonso Cuaron’s 2006 film of the same name.
“It’s really taking root more in the origins of the novels in that it will focus on the cultural movement in which young people become the society’s utter focus,” Eick said in an interview at SCI FI Channel’s upfront presentation to advertisers in New York on March 18. “Much like our culture, whenever Lindsay Lohan does something [and] it becomes the headline of every news show, it’s about how, when you don’t have a responsibility to the next generation and you’re free to do whatever you want, where do you draw the line?”
Eick added that Children of Men will question how society defines responsibility, freedom and a sense of values when it doesn’t necessarily believe humans will survive as a species. “So it’s a very compelling, I think, human question that science fiction has always explored extremely provocatively,” he said. “It’s not really a war show like the movie was. It’s more an exploration of that issue.”
Update on Kenya from Dr. Michael Meegan
Dr. Joe Barnes Project 2008
25 March 2008
Together with Professor Ronan Conroy, Dr. Joe Barnes has been advocating for support for those displaced and hurt in the clashes of Kenya’s post election violence. As ICROSS works closely with communities displaced in tribal violence we are extending support and help to the very young and the weak, those most hurt by the destruction.
This year’s Dr. Joe Barnes project is to support the displaced and effected by the violence. Together with the Dr. Tom Dooley fund, Dr. Joe Barnes and Dr. E. Barnes and have provided help to those most affected. All our projects remain fully operational and ICROSS Kenya continues to scale up its projects in the worst hit areas of Nakuru.
Together with Duncan O’Riordan and friends in London we are able to reach out to many who have been burnt out and left with nothing. Friends in Hillcrest, Karen Rotary, Consolata’s and Italy have come together to provide essential bedding, clothes, medicines and practical help.
This very important programme will last throughout 2008 and is integrated into our community health and public health programmes covering twelve areas across Nakuru.
Yet another reason to support Earth Hour
As if the idea behind Earth hour isn’t enough, here is yet one more reason to shut off the lights on March 29th.
Astronomers from The Australian National University are urging city dwellers to use Earth Hour to look to the stars, as the great ‘switch-off’ will help reduce the light pollution that otherwise obstructs views of space in urban areas.
This Saturday people in cities around Australia and the world will turn off their electric lights between 8pm and 9pm to raise awareness about the links between energy use and global warming. But the darker skies will also be a positive development for people interested in outer space.
“Light pollution is a real problem for optical astronomers, as it overpowers the light from distant stars and galaxies,” explains Professor Brian Schmidt from the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at ANU.
“In some cities the light pollution is so bad that people never see even the brightest stars. Even in a relatively small city like Canberra, the telescopes at our Mount Stromlo observatory are no longer used for serious astronomical research in part because of the sheer amount of light leaking from the nearby city.”
Professsor Schmidt said that avoiding the light pollution problem was one of the reasons that ANU had decided to build the new SkyMapper telescope at its Siding Spring campus in outback NSW, far enough away from urban areas so that the night sky is clear and vivid.
“When it comes online in a few months, SkyMapper will be among the first of a new breed of surveying telescopes that can scan the night skies more quickly and deeper than ever before,” says Professor Schmidt, one of the lead researchers on the SkyMapper project. “The remote location and lack of light pollution near Coonabarabran will help us collect very rich information.
“This new telescope will provide a deep digital map of the southern sky – the most detailed of its kind ever – which will allow astronomers to study everything from nearby objects such as asteroids in our solar system to the most distant objects in the universe. The data taken by the SkyMapper telescope will be shared with astronomers around the world via the Virtual Observatory initiative.”
But Professor Schmidt says that you don’t need an advanced telescope to enjoy the view of space during Earth Hour. “Even a pair of simple binoculars can be enough to start exploring, and it could foster a love of astronomy for life.”
Source: Australian National University
