IF GARDENS ARE THE ANWSER, WHAT IS THE QUESTION?
Rebecca Solnit, Townsend Center for the Humanities
2015, 53 min 48 sec
All posts by zap-editor
g. Ronald Reagan Speech before the UN
U.S. PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN SPEECH BEFORE THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
New York, USA
1987, 21 sec
Reagan is the only US President in history to openly speak about extraterrestrials and UFOs in public as many times as he did while in office. One of these occasions was to the United Nations General Assembly.
In his speech on September 21, 1987 , US President Reagan said:
” In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond.
I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside of this world.
And yet I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? “
h. Terence McKenna, The Big Bang Doesn’t Make Sense
THE BIG BANG DOESN’T MAKE SENSE
Terence McKenna, From ‘The Importance of Human Beings’.
6 min 26 sec (selected excerpt)
McKenna refutes the scientific theory of the Big Bang.
h. Erna Buffie, what plants talk about
WHAT PLANTS TALK ABOUT
PBS Erna Buffie, USA
2013, 1 min 10 sec
When we think about plants, we don’t often associate a term like “behaviour” with them, but experimental plant ecologist JC Cahill wants to change that. The University of Alberta professor maintains that plants do behave and lead anything but solitary and sedentary lives.
h. Richard Stallman, Free vs. Open Source…
FREE VS. OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE
Richard Stallman, Tech Perspectives
2009, 2 min 41 sec
Richard Stallman talks about free v open source software. Stallman quit his job at MIT in ’84 to start developing a free operating system, ‘GNU’. ‘Free’ refers to freedom, not price. Free programmes can (later) be worked on by a group of people including non of the original developers. In ’91 his team almost finished GNU, the goal was to create an operating system similar to UNIX but entirely free. By exchanging a variety of worked out systems for free, he, along with many other people, for instance the developer of LINUX, completed all the different components needed to create GNU.
h. Kester Brewin, pirates and the commons
MUTINY! WHAT OUR LOVE OF PIRATES TELLS US ABOUT RENEWING THE COMMONS
Kester Brewin,, TEDxExeter, USA
1975, 2 min 13 sec
Kester Brewin teaches mathematics in South East London and is also a freelance writer, poet and consultant for BBC education. He writes regularly on education and technology for the national educational press, and has published a number of highly acclaimed books on the philosophy of religion. His latest book Mutiny! Why We Love Pirates and How They Can Save Us is a groundbreaking re-examination of the culture of piracy, which seeks to understand our continued fascination with these characters whose skull and crossed bones motif appears on everything from baby-bottles to skateboards, yet are still pursued and condemned worldwide for theft and exploitation. Drawing on pirates from history, film and literature, Kester’s work explores how our relationship to ‘the commons’ is central to an improved environmental, political and cultural consciousness, and also tries to work out why his son has been invited to countless pirate parties, but none (yet) with an aggravated robbery theme. His poetry has appeared in magazines around the world and he is currently preparing his debut novel for publication.
h. Larry Lessig, Laws that choke creativity
LAWS THAT CHOKE CREATIVITY
Larry Lessig, TED, Great Brittain
2007, 2 min 46 sec
Larry Lessig, the Nets most celebrated lawyer, cites John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights and the “ASCAP cartel” in his argument for reviving our creative culture.
g. Monty Python, The Crimson Permanent Assurance
THE CRIMSON PERMANENT ASSURANCE
Monty Python, Terry Gilliam, UK
1983, 16 min 27 sec
The Crimson Permanent Assurance is a 1983 swashbuckling comedy short film that plays as the beginning of the feature-length motion picture Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.[2]
Having originally conceived the story as a six-minute animated sequence in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life,[3] intended for placement at the end of Part V,[4] Terry Gilliam convinced the other members of Monty Python to allow him to produce and direct it as a live action piece instead. According to Gilliam, the film’s rhythm, length, and style of cinematography made it a poor fit as a scene in the larger movie, so it was presented as a supplementary short ahead of the film.
It was a common practice in British cinemas to show an unrelated short feature before the main movie, a holdover from the older practice of showing a full-length “B” movie ahead of the main feature. By the mid-1970s the short features were of poorer quality (often Public Information Films), or simply banal travelogues. As a kind of protest, the Pythons had already produced one spoof travelogue narrated by John Cleese, Away from It All, which was shown before Life of Brianin Britain.
h. Jean-Luc Godard, Notre Music
NOTRE MUSIC
Jean-Luc Godard, 2009, VENEZUELA
6 min 15 sec
Tribute to the Palestinian poet Mahomoud Darwish (Palestinian 1941 – USA 2008) made by Canaan, a relief association for the Palestinian people, in Caracas, Tribute to the Palestinian poet Mahomoud Darwish (Palestinian 1941 – USA 2008) made by Canaan, relief association for the Palestinian people, in Caracas, Venezuela.
f. Mitchell Joachim, Sustainable architecture
SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE
Mitchell Joachim, Terreform; New York, USA
2008, 4 min 54 sec
Mitchell Joachim of Terreform, a non-profit sustainable architectural design organization, elaborates on how to combine architecture, sustainability, and treehouses. Terreform’s work encompasses all three of these topics. By using different kinds of biological matter like trees, and training them over a certain structure, the Terreform team have created fascinating living tree houses, that not only do not pollute – they even suck carbon.