Jewish Music Festival, July 11, 10 | World Music News Wire

Posted on June 29, 2010 by Rio

Maggie just sent me information about the coming Jewish Music Festival. There is an excerpt below that might make you feel like reading the whole article.

“The Festival’s mission has always been to present music that both celebrates Jewish experience in innovative ways and engages the broader community,” Shapiro reflects. “The outdoor events really explore what it means to be Jewish in the multicultural world and embrace what the Bay Area is about, as a hub of multicultural life.” This hub is home to a rich mix of local artists who will be performing in the park and are shifting the boundaries of what it means to participate in Jewish culture.


Artists like Middle Eastern percussion master Dror Sinai or artists like singer Kat Parra, who was mentored by Patti Cathcart of Tuck and Patti but who dove into the salsa scene, opening for major acts like singer Celia Cruz. At the same time, Parra began uncovering her family’s Sephardic roots, which she discovered worked beautifully with the Afro-Latin rhythms she had come to love. “It feels to me like a natural next step as the Sephardic music can be so vibrant and infectious in its melodies,” Parra explains. “The melodies actually easily fit within an Afro-diasporic rhythmic context, as does the timelessness of the lyrics.”

More info at: World Music News Wire

Video: http://youtu.be/rV9CjzrOuPo

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The Roots Factory | School of Guerrilla Arts | Barrio Logan, San Diego CA

Posted on June 24, 2010 by Rio

School of Guerrilla Arts

The Roots Factory

“Started earlier this year, the Roots Factory has grown exponentially in the short five months it’s been active. It hosts daytime, family-friendly events that teach attendees everything from screen-printing to DJing—all for free as part of its School of Guerilla Arts (donations are highly encouraged). There’s also spoken word, music events and more.

“We open the shop to the community and give kids and our friends a little hands-on in what it is that we do,” says Ana Brown, another founder and local artist. “It’s also a place for everybody to get together, and it’s all-ages. There’s kids, grandparents, moms—a little bit of everything.””

This was an from: Guerilla artists in the midst in San Diego City Beat.


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Drug War | US and Mexico | Oil Spill |

Posted on June 19, 2010 by Rio

Mexican Marines

The drug war in Mexico is escalating. President Calderon is not giving up, and Hilary Clinton our secretary of state is promising to help. But are they barking at the wrong tree. President Calderon has a point when he calls the US a drug addict; we comprise 5% of the world’s population and consume 33% of the drugs produced. We may well be the primary cause of the problem.

Lets examine the facts: The recent economic collapse (just like the great depression) was caused by greed and lack of ethics in Wall Street and the Big Banks; BP is still trying to fix the oil leak they caused in the Gulf of Mexico due apparently to irresponsible and reckless behavior, and which is causing untold ecological damage and heavy financial losses in many areas of Florida and Louisiana. And now our drug addictions are fueling a war that is killing thousands. It seems like our religions are owned by our  collective ego; we really don’t trust any God; we only trust money and power, and want them at any cost. Lets face it, spiritually speaking we are a third world country. Porfirio Diaz an infamous Mexican President once said: “Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States.” He may have been right.

As a temporary solution (improving our morals and our inner balance will take a while) we could legalize drugs as a way to destroy the mystique surrounding their purchase, and as a way to be able to offer help to whoever buys them. Is this too farfetched? We would be also collecting taxes, which would help our economy. And there would be no reason for drug wars. Implausible? Please advise me.

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A Buddhist Bible | Dwight Goddard

Posted on June 14, 2010 by Rio

I was browsing at Barnes and Noble in Hazard Center Mall in San Diego, and I found this verse in “A Buddhist Bible” edited by Dwight Goddard:

Everything changes, everything passes,

Things appearing, things disappearing.

But when all is over — everything having appeared

and having disappeared,

Being and extinction both transcended.–

Still the basic emptiness and silence abides,

And that is blissful peace.

Just sharing.


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The Dark Side of Social Media | Computoredge | Michael Dillon

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Rio

Beware of Social Media

I found an informative article by Michael Dillon, on computoredge magazine, about how to protect yourself in social networks like Facebook and Tweeter. Here is an excerpt and a link:

“Israel Hyman was very excited about his upcoming vacation from his home in Arizona to Kansas City. So excited, in fact, that he broadcast details of his trip to his 2,000 Twitter followers, including when he and his wife were leaving their house, where they were on the road, and when they arrived in K.C.

Someone, one of Mr. Hyman’s followers on Twitter, took a great interest in Mr. Hyman’s trip; when he returned home he found someone had broken into his house and stolen thousands of dollars in video equipment used for his business. Hyman is convinced the thieves monitored his feed to see when he would be gone, and then robbed his house. Similar incidents of thieves using Twitter to plan and execute robberies have also been reported in Florida and California.”

To know more: online.mvc

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Nomadic Remix | Song, Dance and Water | Tuaregs

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Rio

Nomadic Remix

Frrom World Music News Wire:

“This sound, the hidden hum of the desert, was instantly picked up on by dubstepper Solar Lion. He added a sitar and brought the desert buzz front and center on his remix of the film’s “End Titles.” “You listen to this track and all of a sudden, you can hear it,” Von Koerber smiles; “the tone of the desert.”

Tuaregs

“Instead of simply writing a check to charity, von Koerber is using her close ties to Tuareg community leaders to improve wells and purchase covers and new pumping systems as part of the Nomadic Villagers Clean Water Awareness Fund. This collaborative charitable initiative between KiahKeya Productions, the Indigenous Cultural Educational Center, and local Tuareg leaders featured in the film will make simple yet vital changes to improve daily life, yet not alter it radically from its traditional nomad roots.

Along with helping the bold and hardy people who captured her imagination years ago as she backpacked through her native Africa, von Koerber, herself a global trans-cultural nomad, feels the Tuareg have something valuable to give the world. “The Tuareg are nomads, and freedom is their music,” muses von Koerber. “The album awakens you to the nomad in every one of us. It brings you to that joy you feel in the desert, by getting you out on the dance floor. That joy is like water: we all need it.””

For the entire article visit: Permalink


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The Matrix | The Eye of the Dragon | The Challenge

Posted on June 2, 2010 by Rio

At last, I saw The Matrix. I liked the analogies (the Wachowskis must have read Carlos Castaneda) and implications. For although The Matrix is not produced by artificial intelligence (machines), it actually exists. It is here, limiting human beings, holding us in bondage, and rendering our intelligence useless − it creates a petty and cruel species that preys on its own kind.

What actually pulls the wool over our eyes, however, and forces us to take reality for what is not (and act like nitwits) is our own reflection − that is the part the movie misses. But, of course, being science fiction it is entitled to. I wonder, however, if it will help us realize that we are boundless beings trapped in a crippling system. And we can actually fly!

The Matrix is indeed everywhere, we are trapped in a bubble of perception, but so is the way out, the eye of the dragon, the knowledge to destroy our chains. We have a challenge in our hands, a challenge worthy of us.

There comes a moment in our lives when we are struck by a gut feeling that something is wrong, something is out of kilter. From that moment on it is our responsibility to accept the challenge and take action, do our search. Not doing so will extract from us an extremely high toll.

Be advised.

**********************

Morpheus: … you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

Buddha: Regard this fleeting world, as a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,  a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream. − The Diamond Sutra

Morpheus: I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.

For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel, looking, looking breathlessly. –Don Juan

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