The World Body Painting Festival
Body painting has such an artistic romantic and dreamy ring to it that when I was invited to sing at the world body painting festival, I couldn't say no. One of the world's most unusual festivals,...
Review: Stars Earn Stripes
NBC’s new reality show, Stars Earn Stripes, premiered this week to epic outcry and unimpressive ratings. The low ratings are hopefully a signal of things to come—if the network is wise, they’ll...
On the Year of the Semiautomatic Firearm: Guns in 2012 America
So, where will next week’s public shooting(s) happen, America? Or should I be asking about tomorrow? This afternoon perhaps? What precisely is going on these days? I spent several hours yesterday...
The Great Drought of 2012 and the Social Unrest to Come
Just one year ago, London was burning. The result of ballooning social inequality and deep austerity measures, the London riots of 2011 were something of a shock to the West’s self-image. Stability...
Racism in Olympic Coverage
Gabby Douglas’ hair, female Chinese athletes as stoic automatons, ‘plastic Britons,’ and advertisements featuring monkeys on gymnastic apparatus—if one thing has characterised media coverage...
Attacks in Sinai Lead to Complete Closure of Gaza
On Sunday, 35 militants attacked a border post with automatic gunfire and grenades in the Sinai Peninsula—killing 16 Egyptian soldiers, and injuring seven others. After attacking the soldiers, the...
Review: Arirang and Town of Runners
Faster, higher stronger! The Olympics continue to deliver the most extraordinary tales of endeavour, victory and defeat against the backdrop of a resurgent London. Athletes and pundits litter their...
Justice in Queensland: Protecting Whom, Exactly?
Sometimes, living in a relatively safe country like Australia, one becomes complacent in expecting one’s government to be out to, you know, do justly by its citizens. (If not its non-citizens; hi,...
NBC’s Olympic Coverage Failure
The Olympics are in full swing in London, and the world is tuning in to watch; and, of course, to indulge the fiction that the Olympics are some kind of great leveling field where nations come...
Taking on the media: Mexico’s unprecedented protests against Televisa
Something unprecedented has been happening in Mexico for the past eight weeks: thousands of students, workers and peasants are taking to the streets to protest the media legitimization of what is...