Funny Video Forex Gadget Hi-tech

When you’re making an animated film, one of the big differences is that you can add scenes, change dialogue and re-write as you’re going along because you only shoot a little bit of the movie each day. Mr. and Mrs. Fox “on set” shooting a scene in the supermarket. So, with Fantastic Mr. Fox , about half-way through the shoot, I had this idea for a scene between the two characters played by Jason Schwartzman and my brother, Eric Anderson. I thought one place to start was with something I grew up with: bunk beds. My initial sketches for how the scene in Ash’s (Jason Schwartzman’s character) bedroom would be shot and acted In this case, Jason Schwartzman’s character does not allow the bunk beds to serve their usual purpose of sleeping two. So, his foreign cousin is forced to sleep underneath the train set. This train set is particularly miniature, because the puppets themselves are only probably about 7 inches high and the train set is very easily the smallest I have ever seen. Throughout the film we all traveled back and forth between France and England a lot. So, we thought it might be fitting that the electric train would actually be something in the vein of a Eurostar. It’s actually labeled ‘High Speed French Train’. One unusual fact is that the model train is actually the same train that we use for most of the full scale shots of the train. I don’t know, but this is probably an unusual alternative in the movies. The bunk beds themselves are based on the Gypsy Caravan after which Dahl named his house, and it’s still there in Great Missenden. Artist Turlo Griffin’s concept artwork for Ash’s bedroom, showing the use of the Gypsy Caravan motif And also on the set, we have the white cape comics which are drawn by our story board artist Christian De Vita, and which are Ash’s (Jason Schwartzman’s character) sole reading material and the inspiration for his wardrobe. Jason and Eric give two of my favorite performances in the film, and this scene more or less encapsulates their entire relationship. I hope you’ll enjoy watching it as much as I did making it.

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Wes Anderson: Behind The Filming Of One Of My Favorite Fantastic Mr. Fox Performances

” We have captured it! First circulating beam of 2009!” And with that tweet, researchers at CERN announced that they did in fact activate the Large Hadron Collider , after quite a long delay and despite warnings of a looming, nefarious Higgs boson . Whether or not we will have had total destruction as an unfortunate result of the device remains to be seen, but should the future find a way to either cease to exist or travel to the past in some time-bending paradox, we only hope linguists and physicists can work together and figure out the proper verb conjugations for this brave new world. Filed under: Science Large Hadron Collider is online, Higgs boson be damned originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink ? MetaFilter ?|? CERN , Twitter ?|? Email this ?|? Comments

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Large Hadron Collider is online, Higgs boson be damned

It’s almost impossible to translate Lil Wayne’s lyrics into the written word. With nearly every syllable on every one of his nearly 1000 songs of this past decade, Weezy is surly and snarly, croaking and crawling, urgent and erstwhile. But there are no accent marks for ” Someone should’ve warned you/R-E-L-A-X like fuckin’ California/Or get cornered, or get tortured, or get slaughtered/In that order .” The words out of Wayne’s mouth somehow sound like an artist beyond his time, even if the words on a page are about as non-sensical as they come. In the thrillingly intimate documentary, “Tha Carter” (DVD in stores today), director Adam Bhala Lough however finds a way to make Lil Wayne’s lyrics translate into actual words. By subtitling entire mixtape verses–DJ drops sometimes included–the New Orleans lyricist is put on a pedestal that was once reserved only for Bob Dylan and John Lennon. And why not? Lil Wayne was one of the three most important rappers of the ’00s, a decade where hip-hop inherited and then maintained its place atop the music world. It’s a lofty declaration, but the Quincy “QD3″ Jones III-produced film has the artistic and integrity-filled chops to make the premise a compelling one. Whether Wayne’s lyricism is spelled out over grainy black and white photographs from live performances or in a quiet hotel room like the video below, “The Carter” keeps the focus on the music and away from the scandals and constantly retold…kind of. The “kind of” comes about because of the honest way in which Wayne’s surreally serious addictions–drugs, recording and himself–are shown in the film, and in turn will be the easiest to sensationalize. (No doubt, the very reason why Lil Wayne pulled his support from the project at the last minute.) Lough’s camera is given an unparalleled pass into Wayne’s guarded world, one that the many journalists shown interviewing him can only hope to glimpse in 15 minutes slots. But Lough, and certainly with the aid of DVD-Mixtape luminary QD3’s co-sign, gets weeks with Wayne in at least a dozen locations. The camera gets a guided tour through backstage worlds, tour bus sleeping quarters, endless press junkets, and sleepy-eyed viewings of “Sports Center.” Even more impressive, is the tour through Wayne’s omnipresent Louis Vuitton bag, whose contents include a six inch stack of cash, a container of liquid codeine cleverly camouflaged in a grape Vitamin Water bottle, and a coffee-table book praising the form of the naked female body. It’s the most physical example of the trust Lil Wayne bestowed upon the process, but perhaps not the most telling. That example isn’t even allowing his daughter to be interviewed–and her rap about “stuntin like her daddy” may be one of the film’s most precious moments–but it’s the access to the New Orleans rapper’s recording process. While it’s not discussed at any length in “The Carter,” it’s hard not to think about Wayne’s impending prison sentence when watching the film. The only time that Lil Wayne doesn’t seem to be recording in his travel studio–which literally goes everywhere he goes–is when he’s in a proper studio. He sets it up in hotel rooms and on the tour bus and puts in hours and hours every single night. It’s what the man does. And while he has an affinity for the liquid codeine charmingly known as “syrup,” it’s easy to imagine that he’ll be okay without it when he serves his time. And a little infliction of the real world might help tame his ghastly addiction to self…but this man is going to go insane without a studio. His passion for the process borders on a physical addiction and he says in the film that he has to record so often just to release the pressure in his head from all the rhymes building up throughout the day. While the quotables and memorable scenes in “The Carter” are endless–from grouchily ending an interview after only 90 seconds to Cortez Bryant’s tears recounting the story that got the embittered manager kicked off the tour bus–it’s Lil Wayne’s commitment to his art that truly resonates. And that “The Carter” found a way to translate that beyond the headphones makes it one of the top-five greatest hip-hop documentaries of all-time.

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Brandon Perkins: New Lil Wayne Documentary: One of Hip-Hop’s Best

As President Obama travels to China this week, he unquestionably has a full plate of priorities to discuss with the Chinese government. The economy, trade wars, nuclear proliferation, and security cooperation will all receive significant amounts of attention, as well they should. Some commentators are describing the President’s trip to China as a test of his foreign policy prowess; it will also serve as a test of his dedication to resolving one of the thorniest problems currently plaguing the international community: Sudan. On March 19th, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN Ambassador Susan Rice and Special Envoy for Sudan Scott Gration unveiled the administration’s long-awaited Sudan policy review. In it, the administration asserted that “sustained political will to address Sudan’s tough challenges in the international community is sometimes lacking. American leadership is essential to a more effective multilateral approach.” President Obama can make good on that promise of American leadership in Beijing. China has a key role to play in bringing peace to Darfur and full implementation of the North-South Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). No nation holds more leverage over Sudan than does China. Sudan exports 70 percent of its oil (its main source of hard currency) to China, has an extensive military relationship with the Chinese government, and counts on China to veto tough multilateral sanctions at the United Nations on Sudan’s behalf. Yet China has mostly played the role of Khartoum’s “heat shield,” protecting it from international pressures. If President Obama is serious about his administration’s dedication to building a multilateral coalition to address the crises in Darfur, he could do no better than by starting in Beijing and convincing his hosts that they need to play a more constructive role in building a stable, peaceful Sudan, instead of continuing to blindly stand by a regime headed by an indicted war criminal. But why should China listen? It has always craved greater international respect and an enhanced role for its leadership. Sudan provides an opportunity for China to act as a responsible world power. But President Obama has a strong argument to make to President Hu Jintao that even China’s narrower self-interests should motivate it to work in concert with the U.S. in Sudan. The reason is clear: China has come to count on access to Sudan’s oil, much of which is in South Sudan, and has invested billions. If the North-South conflict is reignited, as is all too plausible, China could lose access to those oil fields. Even if conflict does not reignite between the North and South, the South will hold a referendum on its independence in January 2011, at which point the world may be dealing with the new republic of South Sudan. It behooves China to have a seat at the table during the run-up to this process so that its oil concessions can be adequately protected during any process of state separation. In short, President Obama has set viable terms for engaging the Khartoum regime, and he should encourage his Chinese counterpart, President Hu Jintao, to join the effort. When the Chinese recognize that peace in Sudan serves their interests, there are ways in which China can begin to demonstrate to the Sudanese and the world that it is serious. For example, the president should encourage China to condition any debt write-off owed to it by the Government of Sudan or its proxies on concrete and lasting progress on the ground in Darfur and throughout Sudan. The Government of Sudan has accrued $36 billion in debt, owed mostly to multilateral, Western, Chinese, and Arab creditors. Securing debt-relief has become a major priority for the Sudanese government. Darfur activists inside and outside Sudan support debt cancellation as a long-term incentive for Khartoum’s implementation of the CPA, respect for democracy and human rights, and an end to violence in Darfur. But to cancel this odious debt pre-emptively, before the regime has changed its behavior, would not only relinquish an important source of leverage over Khartoum, it would throw good money after bad. China should also refrain from granting any new loans to the Government of Sudan until it meets such conditions as fully cooperating with the peacekeeping force in Darfur (UNAMID), faithfully implementing the CPA, and cooperating with the International Criminal Court. There is no substitute for President Obama’s leadership if the situation in Sudan is to be successfully resolved. But, as the president’s own policy outlines, it will take an international coalition to prod the Government of Sudan into taking the steps toward peace that the international community has called for, time and time again. If President Obama is serious about creating that coalition, he must start in Beijing, and he must start now. China’s economic leverage in Sudan, used in the right way, is a necessary ingredient to creating a safe and secure Sudan. The afflicted people of Darfur and other disaffected Sudanese will be watching closely to see if President Obama backs his policy pronouncement with action and passes his test in Beijing. Jerry Fowler is the president of the Save Darfur Coalition, an alliance of more than 180 faith-based, advocacy and human rights organizations committed to raising public awareness about the genocide in Darfur. Cross posted on Save Darfur’s blog . More on Barack Obama

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Jerry Fowler: China: Obama’s Test

At times, here, one breathes in the aroma of a funeral. On the television news the images of funeral ceremonies have become common, almost monthly: a bugle note calling for silence, twenty-one gun salutes, soldiers marching, tears and words of farewell. They initiate new mausoleums and restore existing ones. Added to this is the fevered mania to commemorate anniversaries of some event, to sing the praises of what previously occurred on these days marked by obligatory celebration. The senile worry about preserving memories has displaced the restless creativity of youth. The Cuban population has aged, in part due to the low birthrate, the steady emigration of the youngest, and rising life expectancy. But the graying is accentuated among those at the country’s helm. Perhaps because of this, analysts are increasingly inclined to use the word gerontocracy to define our form of government. The definition may seem inaccurate if one looks at the average age of the deputies to the National Assembly, but it is just the opposite if one considers that it has been more than a dozen years since there has been rejuvenation within the Communist Party Central Committee. There are a good number of ministers still under sixty, but the largest share of power is concentrated in the hands of septuagenarians and octogenarians. Instead of accelerating forward progress, these veterans delight in looking back at the stretch traveled and demand appreciation for the achievement. As they prepare for what will undoubtedly be the most spectacular funeral in the history of Cuba, or what some call “the biological solution”, the mournful saga that floods the television programming seems like a dress rehearsal. The noise of the ceremonial cannons doesn’t allow them to hear the new generation knocking at the door, coming like a whirlwind to dismantle everything. Sweeping away–in passing–the odor of dried-up flowers we sense all around us. Yoani’s blog, Generation Y , can be read here in English translation. More on Cuba

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Yoani Sanchez: The Younger Generation is Coming Like a Whirlwind to Dismantle Everything

A charity warns that the biggest health threat to children in the 21st century is global warming. Band Aid’s Midge Ure travelled back to Ethiopia and speaks to Krishnan Guru-Murthy.

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Global warming ‘threat to children’ (Channel 4)

JERUSALEM — The Palestinians on Sunday accused U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton of undermining progress toward Mideast peace talks after she praised Israel for offering to curb some Jewish settlement construction. After meeting Israeli and Palestinian leaders during a visit Saturday, Clinton called for an unconditional resumption of peace talks and welcomed Israel’s offer for a slowdown in settlement activity. But Palestinians rejected the idea of resuming talks, reiterating their demand that Israel must first freeze all construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem – lands they claim for a future state. “I believe that the U.S. condones continued settlement expansion,” Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib said in a rare public chiding of Washington. “Calling for a resumption of negotiations despite continued settlement construction doesn’t help because we have tried this way many times,” Khatib added. “Negotiations are about ending the occupation and settlement expansion is about entrenching the occupation.” Palestinians expressed deep disappointment and frustration at Clinton’s words, which signaled a departure from past U.S. calls for a complete freeze on settlement activity. “If America cannot get Israel to implement a settlement freeze, what chance do Palestinians have of reaching agreement with Israel on permanent status issues?” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said. Similar sentiments were voiced by Jordan and Egypt, the only two Arab countries to have peace agreements with Israel. The two countries said most of the blame lay with Israel, but signaled their unhappiness with the American shift. Jordan’s King Abdullah II traveled to Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. After the meeting, a royal palace statement released in Jordan said both leaders “insisted on the need for an immediate halt of all Israeli unilateral actions, which undermine the chances of achieving peace, especially the settlement construction.” Clinton is set to meet with Arab foreign ministers in Morocco in the coming days. After taking office at the start of this year, President Barack Obama buoyed Palestinian hopes with his outreach to the Muslim world and an initially tough stance urging a full freeze to all settlement construction. But after making little headway with the Israelis in recent months, Clinton urged the Palestinian leader in a face-to-face meeting on Saturday to renew talks, which broke down late last year, without conditions. Then, at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Saturday, she praised Netanyahu’s offer to curb some settlement construction. “What the prime minister has offered in specifics on restraints on a policy of settlements … is unprecedented,” Clinton added. “I want to see both sides as soon as possible begin negotiations.” Netanyahu has said he will not create any new settlements in the West Bank and indicated he would temporarily suspend any plans for future construction. But he has insisted Israel would not limit building in east Jerusalem, which it annexed after capturing it. And he has refused to call off the construction of 3,000 apartments in the West Bank that already have been approved. The Palestinians say the settlements are undermining their dream of independence by gobbling up large chunks of territory they claim as part of a future state. Some 500,000 Israeli settlers now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in 1967. Israel promised to halt all settlement activity in a 2003 peace plan, but construction has never stopped. Palestinian President Abbas has been badly weakened by the perception among his public that he has repeatedly buckled under U.S. pressure. With Palestinian elections scheduled for January, Abbas is wary of again caving in to Washington. Abbas’ rival, the Hamas militant group, urged the president to resist American calls to restart peace talks. “The Arab and Muslim people know well that the U.S. position is biased,” aid Mohammad Nazzal, a top member of the group’s exiled leadership in Syria. Senior Palestinian officials are waiting to see what comes out of Clinton’s talks with Arab foreign ministers in Morocco this week. While disappointed with the U.S. stance, Abbas wants to avoid a confrontation with Washington. Encouraged by the U.S. backing, Netanyahu on Sunday urged the Palestinians to “come to their senses” and restart peace talks. “The peace process is in the Israeli interest and also in the Palestinian interest. It is important and we are committed to it and we hope that as we are prepared to begin talks without delay, we shall find the Palestinians sharing the same attitude,” he told his Cabinet.

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Palestinians Accuse Clinton Of Hurting Peace Talks

A few weeks back a number of my friends sent me the same article from the New York Times Magazine section, The Holy Grail of the Unconscious , by Sara Corbett. It was about Carl Jung’s long-suppressed “Red Book,” finally to be published. The article explains how Jung’s family kept the nearly 100-year-old book under wraps because it was written while Jung was having what could best be described as a nervous breakdown, something the family worried would tarnish or perhaps even ruin his reputation. My friends sent the article to me because they know of my fascination with dreams. The article is delicious reading if you are interested in the strange world of past and present psychiatry with its bewildering politics and personalities, but what caught my eye most was a dream that the journalist (more or less off-handedly) reported to have had while covering this story. This dream was about an elephant — a dead elephant with its head cut off. The head was on a grill at a suburban-style barbecue, and I was holding the spatula. Everybody milled around with cocktails; the head sizzled over the flames. I was angry at my daughter’s kindergarten teacher because she was supposed to be grilling the elephant head at the barbecue, but she hadn’t bothered to show up. And so the job fell to me. Then I woke up. What struck me first was the response from the Jungian analysts surrounding her as she wrote this piece: At the hotel breakfast buffet, I bumped into Stephen Martin and a Californian analyst named Nancy Furlotti, who is the vice president on the board of the Philemon Foundation and was at that moment having tea and muesli. “How are you?” Martin said. “Did you dream?” Furlotti asked “What do elephants mean to you?” Martin asked after I relayed my dream. “I like elephants,” I said. “I admire elephants.” “There’s Ganesha,” Furlotti said, more to Martin than to me. “Ganesha is an Indian god of wisdom.” “Elephants are maternal,” Martin offered, “very caring.” They spent a few minutes puzzling over the archetypal role of the kindergarten teacher. “How do you feel about her?” “Would you say she is more like a mother figure or more like a witch?” Giving a dream to a Jungian analyst is a little bit like feeding a complex quadratic equation to someone who really enjoys math. It takes time. The process itself is to be savored. The solution is not always immediately evident. In the following months, I told my dream to several more analysts, and each one circled around similar symbolic concepts about femininity and wisdom. One day I was in the office of Murray Stein, an American analyst who lives in Switzerland and serves as the president of the International School of Analytical Psychology, talking about the Red Book. Stein was telling me about how some Jungian analysts he knew were worried about the publication — worried specifically that it was a private document and would be apprehended as the work of a crazy person, which then reminded me of my crazy dream. I related it to him, saying that the very thought of eating an elephant’s head struck me as grotesque and embarrassing and possibly a sign there was something deeply wrong with my psyche. Stein assured me that eating is a symbol for integration. “Don’t worry,” he said soothingly. “It’s horrifying on a naturalistic level, but symbolically it is good.” So for a few months after the dream she had worried that this it was a “crazy dream, (that) there was something deeply wrong with her psyche.” But Dr. Stein seemed to put that to rest with his conclusion that it was “symbolically good,” buttoning up the whole episode as something soothing. Which is nice. Except…these were, yes, pretty “horrifying” images, as Dr. Stein admits. Imagine them as a movie: a dead elephant with its head sizzling on a suburban BBQ while everyone else wanders around the backyard obliviously sipping cocktails. Move over David Lynch. Not to mention… that the very thought of eating an elephant’s head struck me as grotesque and embarrassing and possibly a sign there was something deeply wrong with my psyche… Okay. Let’s not overdo this. It’s only a dream. Most of the world has long since understood there is little value in putting stock in dreams. Even our journalist who goes to dream experts gets little more than a potpourri of archetypical references, a metaphorical pat on the head and an explanation that eating in one’s dream is about integration and therefore “good.” On the other hand, this woman had been at least somewhat haunted for a few months about this, even feared that the dream might indicate some craziness, perhaps not so unlike some of Stein’s associate fearing the Red Book might prove the same of Jung. Now, I’ve made a couple of movies and – taken as a movie – I think this dream is pretty cool. First there’s the anger, always good in a movie. And it never hurts if the anger is directed at a female authority (a witch or a mother figure?, asks the Jungians), but far more interesting (and dynamic) is the filmmaker’s invention of a dead elephant head on a suburban-style BBQ. At this point the Jungians go no further than to point out some rather obscure and soothing references, but what if the filmmaker (so to speak) were simply drawing on the far more obvious theme of “there’s an elephant in the room.” (Let’s not forget our “extras” with their cocktails milling around the backyard seemingly oblivious to the mess on the grill.) Frankly, I’m not sure our “filmmaker” could have gotten much more obvious with her theme, except if she had put her dead elephant in some room with a bunch of people milling around ignoring the mess, except then the dream would’ve had to have shown the massive elephant head cooked on a suburban stove or inside an oven, both too small. Take two. Make it a backyard with a nice, big suburban-style BBQ. Too Hollywood? Okay. Let’s try something more scientific and turn the whole thing into an equation. Make the kindergarten teacher X and the elephant Y. Start simply. Substitute kindergarten teacher for the obvious authority figure that teaches and takes care of children and brings out plenty of emotion: Mom. Substitute elephant with “a problem in the room that no one wants to face.” The equation then reads: the problem in the room that no one wants to face has had its head cut off and the daughter is being forced to cook it and eat it. She’s angry with her mother for not showing up to do this for her. Interesting. For the fun of it let’s add Dr. Stein’s soothing interpretation that this is about integration. The equation would then read: I am angry that (by myself) I am being forced to integrate the problem in the room that no one else wants to face. We might footnote that Dr. Stein believes this is a good thing. Of course to confirm any of this we would need to approach the journalist. Were there any aspects of her life that her mother might want ignored or forgotten (let’s not forget “memory” as an elephant association, as in: “she had the memory of an elephant”), but, of course in this dream the head of that memory has been cut off, is being cooked, etcetera. But let’s skip an intimate discussion with our journalist and simply recall what happened the morning after her dream as she encountered the Jungians with their tea and muesli: clever talk (”more to Martin than to me,” she notes) of wisdom, feminine symbols, the Indian God, Ganesha – but who among them actually took in the cinema of a sizzling decapitated elephant’s head on a BBQ? Who allowed themselves to feel the betrayal that had unfolded and the ensuing anger? Who actually experienced the elephant in the room, aside from our dreamer? Which perhaps brings us to another elephant. For if all these Jungians were so wrapped up in their world of archetypes and symbols, if to them someone telling them a dream is a “bit like feeding a complex quadratic equation to someone who really enjoys math” and not one of them even explored the almost too-obvious reference of an elephant in the room, then what does it say about the entire Jungian enterprise? Of course, I may be wrong. On the other hand, like a classic movie or a correct equation, is it possible that this little dream reflects on more than just our journalist’s possible issues with her mother? For instance could it possibly be shedding some light on what our journalist was writing about, i.e.: the Red Book and the surrounding fears that the book’s publication might prove its writer (Jung) to be (at least a little bit) nuts? That would be quite an elephant in the room, or rather a dead elephant that needs to be cooked and eaten with no help from an authority figure that teaches and takes care of children. And if Jung were (more or less) nuts, it might explain why these doctors who have taken him so seriously all these years wouldn’t be all that capable of teaching and taking care of the less mature (i.e. psychological doctoring), leaving our journalist to deal by herself with the anxiety about her psyche that (perhaps) had been forced to cook and digest the decapitated memories that no one in her life wanted to face. Too many leaps? Okay. But (once again for the fun of it) let’s just go one last round. Jung wrote his book (and had a major break from reality, everyone agrees with this) after working with Freud. He felt Freud was wrong (nowadays who doesn’t – Oedipus Complex, etc?), so it might be said that another elephant in the room is that Freud was wrong, maybe a little nuts too and maybe not all that capable of teaching and taking care of the anxieties of his less mature student, Jung. Not much of an “elephant,” though. Every well-bonused-out executive in his high-powered pharmaceutical company would agree. After all, their answer to any anxiety big (or small) is one or more of their products. But aren’t there some potential problems here? For instance: however nuts Freud was, however uncaring and incapable “a kindergarten teacher who didn’t show up,” he did come up with one great discovery that is now (pretty much) universally accepted – that an unconscious exists – that this unconscious is hidden from us like the lower part of an iceberg in the sea, that it is extremely powerful. Jung postulated that it was the repository of all one’s memory. He even discussed something called the collective unconscious. Interesting. So the unconscious could certainly be termed big (at least in comparison with the conscious). It has to do with memory. It’s hidden. Sound anything like an elephant in the room? Except the elephant’s head has been cut off. One final leap: Is it possible that this seemingly insignificant dream has even shed light on what has gone wrong with psychology? Okay, a big leap. I agree. But forget about these images as a dream. Take them as poetry or as, yes, a David Lynch short film, something that has been (more or less) consciously crafted to shed light. Now let’s revisit Freud and Jung before the break, before the Red Book. Freud taught Jung about the existence of the unconscious. He showed him the “elephant in the room,” so to speak, made him experience it. But is it not possible that Freud then cut off the head of Jung’s unconscious” by applying the (now laughable) concepts of the Oedipal complex, etc? Wasn’t Jung then left to fend for himself, attempting to “integrate” this decapitated head (now handed to him) with the spatula of his own invention, i.e.: symbols and archetypes, which when applied to our journalist’s dream left her to fend for herself as well? In other words, is it not possible to consider that not only has this journalist’s mother kept her from seeing those things which no one wanted to face (its decapitation, then integration making the journalist fear that there was something wrong with her psyche), but so too Freud, Jung and that parade of analysts in Zurich and environs – all of them leaving our dreamer to fend for herself, – to cook, then do her best to integrate the mess that comes when we cut off the head of our unconscious? But we are now getting as nearly abstract as Freud and company. Let’s roll back the “film” for a second viewing. This dream was about an elephant — a dead elephant with its head cut off. The head was on a grill at a suburban-style barbecue, and I was holding the spatula. Everybody milled around with cocktails; the head sizzled over the flames. I was angry at my daughter’s kindergarten teacher because she was supposed to be grilling the elephant head at the barbecue, but she hadn’t bothered to show up. And so the job fell to me. Then I woke up. I am more than willing to accept the fact that my logic has been more than a little forced here, that I too have made a mess out of the thing and that others, more capable, will uncover deeper truths in this dream. What I find harder to relinquish is that this dream has as brilliant, insightful and perfect an inner structure as a Mozart minuet, a Van Gogh painting, or the concept of E=mc2. A quadratic equation? Sure. But not something simply to be enjoyed and “savored, the solution…not always immediately evident” – it is a powerful (and quite obvious) tool of insight that must be faced like the nightmares and misery that so many of us wrestle with, something with the potential of, say, the discovery of nuclear power (as long as its head isn’t cut off and we are forced to cook it and eat it alone). And if I am only just one-tenth right, then one might at least want to try to consider the possibility that dreams are indeed the real “elephant in the room,” still generally ignored or (almost worst) noted, played with, then beheaded – some version of Freud and Jung’s counterparts who traveled to Africa in that century to bag an exotic animal or two to bring back and hang its head on a library wall, as proof of manhood. Finally, for what it’s worth, I would agree with Dr. Stein, in that this is “a good dream,” only not in the sense Stein meant because this dream might well be delivering the difficult medicine of what’s wrong with his field today, a field so woefully confused that it has become somewhat aware of the elephant but – a bit like those blind men feeling the various parts but not seeing the whole picture – they have chopped off its head, allowing the Pharmaceutical Industry free reign to sweep into our backyards where we have had to fend for ourselves as these profit makers bring us the easy, sleepy (though expensive and with side effects) answer of “cocktails”. And yet, aside from getting through the day, what has a cocktail ever done to solve a single problem? And God knows there are plenty of problems that need solving: the economy, our own misery and fears, global warming and so on. And if, in fact, this little elephant dream has shed some light on the field of psychiatry, Jung and his Red Book (in short the subject that our journalist was writing about – not to mention her own life), could not other dreams shed light on other problems? Even this little dream — doesn’t its structure also bring into focus (to some degree) some of the larger issues of our time? For instance where we now stand as a people, facing what has happened to our country? Once massive, powerful, and filled with deep memory and hope, with an almost incomprehensible reserve of resources and manufacturing capability – haven’t we also had the head of our elephant chopped off and handed to us? Aren’t we now being forced to cook and eat its dead head? And where are those that did the chopping – the supposed teachers and leaders who have had enough expertise to scoop up the government bailouts, tax breaks and bonus? Haven’t they abandoned us exactly as our dreamer’s kindergarten teacher, leaving us to try to figure out how to digest the mess with little more than a spatula? But this is only a question and that was only a little dream.

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Stephen Gyllenhaal: An Elephant in the Room?

NEW YORK — If he chose to listen, Najibullah Zazi could hear the calls for violence all around him. The Afghan immigrant accused of plotting a terror attack on New York City spent his earliest years in his wartorn homeland, a center of strife and fighting against a Soviet invasion and, after the occupiers left, clashing warlords. When Zazi was a teenager, his family shared a Queens apartment building and worshipped with an imam linked to a former Afghan warlord later identified by the U.S. as a global terrorist. And as a young man, Zazi traveled to a region of Pakistan known for training terrorists and visited camps where al-Qaida teaches how to kill with horrific bombs made from household ingredients like hair dye and flour. Along the way, Zazi was transformed from a snappily dressed young man with a taste for computer games and basketball to a bearded devotee of Islamic traditionalism – while also selling coffee from a cart at the epicenter of American capitalism, Wall Street. Zazi’s friends and relatives say he never chose to listen to others urging violence, instead working long days and spending his little free time with his family. “He was a very normal, very life-loving guy,” said Naiz Khan, who befriended Zazi nearly 10 years ago when the two teenagers attended the same mosque and high school in Queens. Federal prosecutors offer a different view. They say the 24-year-old Denver airport shuttle driver eagerly heeded the call to kill, maim and terrorize Americans. Zazi is being held without bail after pleading not guilty to conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction. Prosecutors claim Zazi, who returned to New York to stay with his friend Kahn days before the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, had been planning his own terror, possibly a deadly subway bombing. “The whole family right now is stunned,” said Habib Rasooli, an uncle to Zazi’s father and one of the few relatives willing to talk about the case. “I could never believe in 1,000 years that something would happen to the family.” The family, from a large tribal clan with hundreds of relatives living in the U.S., left Afghanistan to live across the border in Pakistan when Zazi was 7. At 14, he, two brothers, a sister and his mother moved to Queens, where his father drove a cab. Another brother and sister were born after the family moved to the U.S. A tall, skinny boy who could eat anything and never worry about his weight, Zazi struggled as a student at Flushing High School before dropping out. With friends who called him Najib for short, he practiced his English and adapted to life as a jeans-wearing American teen, playing basketball, pool and computer games. “He wore very nice, expensive shirts and boots,” Khan said. “He liked American life. He liked all the brand names. He never complained.” Zazi was also surrounded by his Afghan culture, living with others from his country. His family’s apartment was in the same small building as that of Saifur Rahman Halimi, an imam who was a chief representative for top Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Halimi attended the same mosque as the Zazi family. Hekmatyar, one of three main U.S. enemies in Afghanistan, was a major figure in that country’s civil war and was briefly installed as prime minister. The U.S. declared Hekmatyar a global terrorist in 2003, and forces loyal to Hekmatyar openly fight American and international forces in Afghanistan. In Queens, Halimi became a trusted voice for Hekmatyar’s cause and a vocal supporter of the global jihad. A video from one of Halimi’s speeches in 1992 captures his zeal for a “pure Islamic system” in Afghanistan and denunciations of Western intervention. “In the very near future, we will liberate all human beings from these devils,” he said then. “They know the power of Islam. Halimi and the Zazi family joined others who split from their Queens mosque during a leadership dispute. They also gathered at times with a close-knit group that prayed, ate and socialized together, said Mohammad Sherzad, the imam on the other side of the schism. Halimi, 61, now imam of a Philadelphia mosque, told The Associated Press he was stunned by Zazi’s arrest. “He was not such a person,” he said. “He was busy with his work.” Halimi said he hasn’t spoken to the Zazi family in six years. Zazi worked a coffee cart on Wall Street, getting his license in 2004. Mohammed Yousufzai, who operated his own cart, said he marveled at how, after five months working in the area, Zazi was running his own. “He was a nice guy when he first came in,” Yousufzai said. Zazi began making trips back to Pakistan, his first in 2006 for an arranged marriage. His wife stayed there, and cares for their two children. Zazi began to change in appearance, Yousufzai said. He gave up his clean-shaven look for a bushy black beard. After a second trip to Pakistan, Yousufzai said, Zazi grew his beard longer and gave up American fashion for tunics and more modest traditional clothing. He began playing holy music in the garage he shared with other food cart vendors, and grew irritated when Yousufzai rolled in playing modern dance music, calling it “dishonest to your religion.” “People tried to avoid him,” he said. “They figured out he was kind of cuckoo.” Zazi’s finances changed, too, finally plunging him into bankruptcy with $51,500 in debt. From April to June in 2008, Zazi opened six credit cards. He opened several other credit accounts in about the same period, including with Best Buy and Sony electronics, according to bankruptcy records. This was all done before he left Queens in August 2008 for Pakistan, where prosecutors say he visited al-Qaida camps for explosives training. Zazi told reporters before his arrest that he was not aligned with terrorists and never planned an attack. He said he went to Pakistan to see his wife and children. Zazi returned from his latest trip on Jan. 15 and quickly picked up his life in Queens to move to Aurora, Colo., a suburb of nearly 300,000 people on the eastern edge of Denver. Like his taxi-driving father in New York, Zazi turned to driving an airport shuttle. He passed a criminal background check and signed up with ABC Airport Shuttle. Dispatcher Tony Gonzales described Zazi as a “hardworking guy.” “No trouble, no problem whatsoever,” Gonzales said. “Very quiet guy. He’s always on time. When we give him a pickup, he always does it.” Zazi’s aunt and uncle offered him a place to stay in Aurora. Rabia Zazi, his aunt, said her nephew had little time for anything other than work, not even an interest in finishing his high school education. “He skipped school and he’s helping his father,” she said, sitting on the front porch of a building with several children and wearing a traditional veil and dress. Rabia Zazi described her nephew as a serious man, an avid soccer fan. Seven or eight members of Zazi’s extended family moved to Aurora over the past several years, including his aunt and uncle. Abdulrahman Jalili, president of the family’s Queens mosque, said Zazi’s father told him a month before Ramadan that he was moving to Colorado, but didn’t say why. The father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, faces a charge of lying to federal agents, accused of withholding information when he was questioned after a series of raids in Queens last month. The emerging federal case against Zazi and others surprised Jalili, who said the FBI interviewed him recently about Zazi. “I never saw any wrong acts,” Jalili said. “He wasn’t acting strangely or anything. I never suspected him of doing anything like that.” But there are unknowns, Jalili admitted, things he wouldn’t see in those like Zazi who worshipped alongside him or others he wouldn’t know who may have influenced Zazi. “The government knows better than us,” Jalili said. “The FBI knows better than us. They did the investigation. They know something about him. That’s why they arrested him.” ___ Associated Press writers Brett J. Blackledge in Washington, Patrick Walters in Philadelphia, and Dan Elliott and P. Solomon Banda in Denver contributed to this report. More on Afghanistan

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Najibullah Zazi: Terror Suspect Worshipped With Radical Imam

It is highly likely that our grandmothers – yours and mine – shared one crucial, deeply-held belief. Even though it’s equally likely they were quite different as individuals, they agreed on something that the best educated and most sophisticated medical researchers are only now beginning to prove: that happiness has a direct impact on physical health and health outcomes. With this belief, and certainly without knowing it, they put themselves squarely in the medical vanguard. One of my Grandmothers, Alice Rosenfield Lapidus, was a charming, wickedly funny woman who never learned to read or write. The other, Emma Gloria Poder, was a fun-loving, Bohemian beach bum who created some of the weirdest health food concoctions I’ve encountered (or eaten) in my life. The consistent message I received from them throughout my childhood and well into my 30’s was, “My darling, be happy. Make fun. Look at how beautiful life is. You’ll be well.” Their attitudes have informed everything I’ve done since. Regardless of your Grandmother’s country of origin, ethnicity, religion, or emotional style, she probably believed the same. In fact, it’s what most members of the human species have believed through the millennia. My partner, Greg Hicks, and I have tested this often. As we’ve traveled around the world, we’ve asked audiences the following questions: “Do you think that negative emotions – chronic stress, depression, and anxiety – have a negative impact on health?” and “Do you think that positive emotions – feelings of wellbeing, calm, and contentment – are good for your health?” It doesn’t matter what continent we’re on – and we’ve worked on all seven of them – the answers are exactly the same. They all agree with our grandmothers. From urban sophisticates to people living in tribal villages, human beings all over the world believe that happiness is good for our health. They also believe emphatically that chronic stress, depression, and anxiety hurt us. On the happiness side of the continuum, scientific research is just beginning to catch up. By the time Greg and I finished researching our latest book, Happiness & Health, there were over 700,000 medically related studies on the harmful effects of stress and depression, but only a tiny 4,000 studies on the impact of positive emotion. Given simple economics, it figures. There is no money to be made from happiness – patients don’t need to spend cash on medication or have medical interventions to cure happiness. So, how do we get to happy? Greg and I spent years researching happy and healthy people all over the world and found that nine behavioral and attitudinal “choices” were universal themes. All of them show up as important elements in happiness, health, and healing. And, as a group of nine, they are all cognitive: we can consciously learn them and choose to live them. As I look back at my Grandmothers, they led extraordinarily healthy lives that far exceeded their predicted life expectancies. I would have loved to interview them for our books. Here are just four of the nine “choices” that place Emma and Alice in the ranks of the happiest human beings worldwide, and I certainly hope your Grandmother was here too: 1. Grandma Alice was entirely accountable. She simply wouldn’t go to blame. Her life – and her mistakes – were her own; her actions belonged to her, and she never framed herself up as a victim of circumstance, even when it was inarguable that she truly was a victim – of The Great Depression, the Holocaust, sexism, and anti-Semitism. When bad things happened to her that she could control, they were to be dealt with expeditiously, and then “we move on.” When she couldn’t control the world, she spoke her mind and did what she could to help out, but never allowed herself to suffer. She simply didn’t see the upside of being miserable. 2. Grandma Emma “centralized” – she lived her passions. She packed up her things in 1946, left an abusive relationship, rode the train from New York City to Venice, California, and spent the rest of her life on the beach by day, and ballroom dancing by night. 3. Both Grandmas exuded a spirit of generosity – not that they had a lot to give materially, but that they were available at all times for talk, cooking, singing, and the kind of fun that multi-generational families used to have all the time. And, they were unsparing in their help of neighbors and friends. Their attitude that “what anyone truly needs should be provided,” has profoundly shaped all of our family’s lives. My parents, my sister and I, and our children have all been the beneficiaries of Emma and Alice’s true gift: the incredible impulse to give amply and honestly from the heart. 4. The Grandmas were experts in flexibility. Grandma Alice was always ready for something new to happen – a change in plans, a new movie, the next Rockettes production at Radio City, the latest Chinese restaurant to open in New York City. 3,000 miles to the West, Grandma Emma never had a plan. Her days on the beach opened in front of her and she lived in a constant state of delight at what would arrive. (She also took physical flexibility seriously. In fact, she had her first mini-stroke at 88 doing a yoga headstand.) Because the Grandmas never entrenched in what was “supposed to happen,” they lived in a world of surprise and delight rather than disappointment and rigidity. The Grandmas didn’t do all this by accident. It made them feel good to behave this way – happy, if you will – and they were right to advocate their lifestyles to their families. Medical and social research has now shown that these four happiness choices – accountability, flexibility, giving, and “centrality” (living passions) – are highly correlated to happiness and good health. When we add the other choices that showed up in our research of extremely happy people to the mix – deep intentionality, truth-telling, “recasting” trauma into meaning and opportunity, and appreciation, we’ve got a power-packed bundle of happiness and health-making behaviors. And, when you go farther and add all nine choices to a rich gumbo of exercise, diet, good genetics, healthy environment, and lack of threatening viral exposures, you get an amazing group of health factors. Plus you get the possibility of extraordinarily happy and healthy lives. With a glance backward, I have a feeling that Grandmas Alice and Emma embraced all of the choices. Even in advanced old age, they would have been poster girls for happiness and health. They left quite a legacy. I can still hear them laugh. More on Wellness

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Rick Foster: Your Grandmother and Mine, Happiness, and Health

Death Toll Increases to Over 5,000 and Counting Thanks to Operation Gatekeeper San Diego, CA- With numbing regularity news bulletins flash regarding groups or individuals suffering severe injuries, snake bites or dying in the remote deserts or mountains or drowning in the river along the 800 mile “Wall” as they attempt to cross the border between Mexico and the USA. In the 24/7 news cycle, this blip quickly fades from our collective memory and we move onto something more interesting, after all, we can’t imagine ourselves in the same predicament. Left in the wake are those still living or their relatives, without organized systemic help to search and rescue or recover and claim bodies and try to make arrangements. This doesn’t need to be this way and prior to October 1994, it wasn’t. Fifteen years of failed immigration policy has not improved the numbers of undocumented aliens entering the country and has cost millions in dollars and human suffering. International Humanitarian Crisis: Migrant Deaths at the U.S.-Mexico Border A recent report issued jointly by ACLU and ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties and Mexico’s National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH). It outlines the disturbing findings in a straight forward manner, along with suggestions on how to reduce the death toll that is only increasing in scale. “The current policies in place on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border have created a humanitarian crisis that has led to the deaths of more than 5,000 people,” said Kevin Keenan, Executive Director of the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties. “Because of deadly practices and policies like Operation Gatekeeper, the death toll continues to rise unabated despite the decrease in unauthorized crossings due to economic factors.” Humanitarian Crisis Report By Maria Jimenez Some of the highlights within this report: The deaths of unauthorized migrants have been a predictable and inhumane outcome of border security policies on the U.S.-Mexico border over the last fifteen years. Beginning in 1994, the U.S. government implemented a border enforcement policy known as “Operation Gatekeeper” that used a “prevention and deterrence” strategy. The strategy concentrated border agents and resources along populated areas, intentionally forcing undocumented immigrants to extreme environments and natural barriers that the government anticipated would increase the likelihood of injury and death. The stated goal was to deter migrants from crossing. Over the last fifteen years, national security concerns have reinforced the deterrence strategy without any improvements in the results. The mutual interest of intercepting national security threats on a shared border reshaped the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States, redefining priorities given to immigration and border policies. The national security lens favored the militarization of the border at the cost of migrant lives. In the last five years, the border enforcement budget expanded from $6 billion to $10.1 billion, the number of agents jumped to 20,000; 630 miles of new fencing was completed around urban areas; 300 miles of vehicle barriers were erected; a “virtual fence” of technological infrastructure was installed…and more migrants are dying now than ever before. Recommendations to reduce migrant deaths are listed in the report: October 1, 2009 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the launch of Operation Gatekeeper and the ensuing border enforcement policies that have led to the deaths of more than 5,000 people. Prior to Operation Gatekeeper, migrant deaths were few and far between. In its conclusion, the report reflects on the findings and suggests courses of action that the U.S. and Mexican governments could take to protect and advance the human right to life of international migrants. Action on Day One: Recognize border crossing deaths as an international humanitarian crisis. Action within 100 days: Shift more U.S. Border Patrol resources to search and rescue. Direct government agencies to allow humanitarian organizations to do their work to save lives and recover remains. Establish a binational, one-stop resource for rescue and recovery calls. Convene all data collecting agencies to develop a uniform system. Commit to transparency. Elevate border deaths to a bilateral priority. Invite international involvement. Action within One Year: Adopt sensible, humane immigration and border policies. Support nongovernmental humanitarian efforts at the border to do what governments are unable or unwilling to do. These recommendations complement those made in 2002 by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to reduce deaths at the border. These included: 1. Demilitarize the border; 2. Establish a guest-worker program; 3. Increase the number of permanent resident visas available to Mexicans; 4. Legalize undocumented immigrants already in the United States; 5. Modify immigration laws that deport immigrants for minor criminal offenses; 6. Encourage cooperation with Mexico; 7. Protect the rights of asylum seekers; and 8. Recognize U.S. citizenship of the Tohono O’odham. Except for the growing cooperation between Mexico and the United States, the rest of the solutions have not been considered or adopted. Illegal Aliens Are Scapegoat for local Ills Migrant workers are the au-current whipping child of Conservatives, anti-immigration policy makers, any neo-group, Militia groups like the Minutemen or any other persons that feel the need to fly the colors of bias and bigotry. There are constant claims that undocumented workers are taking jobs from Americans, really? When was the last time you fought for a job of stooping in a field picking crops in 100 degree heat for 12-16 hours? Or standing for hours on a street corner with the hopes that you will get picked up, work a long day and hope that you don’t get stiffed so that you can repeat another day in order to send a few dollars to your family that is living in extreme poverty. With Operation Gatekeeper and it’s equivalents in other border regions, the only purpose is to push emigrating people further out from ports of entry and closer to the high risks of crossing in uncharted land against incredible odds. The mountain and arid desert regions each have their own micro-climates that bring extreme heat during the day and sub-freezing nights that exhausted travelers are unprepared for. These are not the drug dealers, cartels or even terrorists; they are way more sophisticated than those who desperate enough to use human coyotes to help transport them to what they believe will be a better life. Now, please don’t get me wrong, the drug cartel’s murder and mayhem with the negative side effects is huge, for both sides of the border it has affected the quality of life for millions and does need to be strongly addressed by both governments. Add to the mix of government agencies are the San Diego Minutemen http://www.sandiegominutemen.com/site/index.php and other groups, self appointed militia who claim to be American Patriots to help protect the border, confusing vigilantes for activistism, pushing the Birther argument tool of FreedomWorks that Obama was born in Kenya and is therefore ineligible be president, but didn’t have a problem with John McCain’s Panama birthplace. They will also let you know who to vote for, funding & spinning California measures they don’t like and best yet, listing who their enemies and friends that support their cause, and heads up, they cross the line from activist to cult when they start dissing their own and excommunicating those who they no longer support when their riled up members start acting out. This Land was Their Land, Now It’s Our Land From the Sierra Nevada’s to Catalina Island This Land was stolen for you and me… California History 101: Before the Gold Rush of the 1840’s, the area was an extension of Mexico, yes, the indigenous people occupying the land were Mexicans, Indian-Spanish and Native Americans with immigrants coming from the East. The formation of California into state was not without bloodshed is the equivalent of a land grab that divided East and West Germany with a wall, separating generations of families from each other. Back in California, pre-1994 before Operation Gatekeeper, there was the daily comings and goings of workers from both sides without the animosity and military intervention that has become the accepted norm in the region. Post NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement that went into effect in 1994, the same year Operation Gatekeeper went into effect opening the borders to trade but closing them to people, had hundreds of US companies setting up operations in Mexico to take advantage of the cheap labor force while promising it would save American jobs. Wall Street and major corporations had a huge stake in its success and lobbied vigorously for its passing but the paradox is the negative effect on the environment, food safety and US jobs they claimed would be created and the human costs associated with its implementation. Public Citizen, www.citizen.org/trade/nafta/ lists the broken promises of NAFTA and why we will continue to feel its effects for decades to come. I recently visited Tijuana as part of my listening and writing tour and although I have stopped there many times over the past 3 decades, this was the first time it appeared like a ghost town, gone were the hawkers, the crowds on the street, the donkey’s painted in Zebra stripes and more then 60% of the store fronts shuttered. Before boarding the Mexicoach in San Ysidro, the gateway community that hosts the port of entry, a converted bus with Wackenhut on it’s side pulled up and discharged two Border Patrol officers with a handcuffed man covered in dirt, in between as he was escorted into the building. Wackenhut is one of the large contractors supplying services to Homeland Security at the Border Region. Creepier still was the three Homeland Security agents boarding the bus on the US side by checking passports and asking questions, before the bus crossed into Mexico; I thought this was weird but frequent riders and the bus driver had never before experienced it, intimidating and eerie… Border region protection is a National and International public and private contractors’ effort costing taxpayers millions each year with questionable gains in reducing crime, illegal incursions and apprehensions while there are fewer migrants crossing due to the economic downturn yet they are dying at a higher rate than ever before. This can no longer be acceptable. More on Death & Dying

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Mary Ann West: Death Toll Increases to Over 5,000 and Counting

When the children’s travelogue This Is Australia was first published in 1970, an illustration showing a desolate street and small stretch of stores was captioned, “Darwin is a frontier town.” After years of being out of print, Universe Publishing, a division of Rizzoli International Publications, is reissuing a new edition.

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Children’s Books Reissued: Classics Get An Update

Part 5: Brian Binnie Makes History One of the biggest concerns people have about space travel is whether or not it is safe. Yet, while I was launching into sub-orbit, the safety risk was the last thing on my mind. I was intimately involved in the rocket motor testing of the program and was comfortable with its capabilities and knew our air-launch approach gave us many more safety options than a ground launch of a conventional rocket. That final SpaceShipOne flight required high performance and fine precision to execute well. Because it demanded my full attention, I was just too busy to be concerned for my safety! I first learned about the X PRIZE while I was working for Rotary Rocket, testing a rocket that we designed and built, and were in the process of trying to fly. It was not until I joined Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites team, under contract for Paul Allen that I thought it was possible to win the prize. At that point, the X PRIZE was unfunded and had no deadline, and yet, despite this, the prize became our motivator; the carrot that pushed us forward. We had a very small team of 30, which enabled us to be agile and flexible. There were not a lot of approvals that had to happen, so we could sit around a coffee table with our notes and make quick decisions that would be rapidly put into motion. We were confident we had the right technology, but the time frame was a major concern. Rightly so, because the initial competition deadline came and went without us sending SpaceShipOne into space. We needed an extension if we were going to succeed, and fortunately, the Ansaris gave it to us when they extended the competition deadline by a year. We finally completed the test flights for SpaceShipOne with very little time before the second deadline expired. The rules of the competition stipulated that we had to send the vehicle 100 kilometers into space twice in a two week period. The first flight was manned by my teammate Mike Melville, and while the flight was successful, it had some technical issues that needed to be addressed. The deadline forced us to focus. If there had been no X PRIZE, the technical issues in the first flight could have gotten the better of us, but the clock was ticking, so to speak, and we had the prize in our sights. Safety issues with Mike’s first X PRIZE flight were mostly a public misunderstanding and did not preoccupy us at Scaled. We certainly wanted to avoid a repeat performance of his “roll record” so that the follow-on effort for Virgin Galactic would have a better chance of being realized. When the day of my flight finally came, I was working with very little sleep. Prior to the release point, I had an excruciating hour in which I had little to do but sit, think, and come face to face with the demons that lurked into my thoughts as I waited. Would things go according to plan? Had SpaceShipOne revealed to us all its secrets? The flight test was under such a microscope that I couldn’t even sneeze – without multiple cameras in the cockpit beaming the images back to the many people watching including the whole Scaled team, the X PRIZE Foundation, Paul Allen, Sir Richard Branson, NASA, and tons of media outlets. Considering that I hadn’t flown the vehicle in some 10 months, I felt I was under a huge amount of pressure. Then, after the hour long wait, things shifted into fast forward and everything happened incredibly quickly. After release, I was under the impressive acceleration of the hybrid rocket and thundering toward space. The shuddering and shaking vibrations combined with the demonic screeching of that motor were most memorable. But, by far, the best part was the contrast provided when I shut off the rocket; Blessed peace and quiet and the instant karma of weightlessness. And then, my God, that view! Separating the black void that is space from the peaceful panorama below is a thin blue electric ribbon of light that is the atmosphere. For 4 minutes I got to soak it all in. I tell you, one cannot be unmoved by the experience! From Mojave, I could see the San Francisco Bay to the North, Baja Mexico to the south, the Sierra-Nevada Mountains and the Pacific. I captured some of the sights with a camera but it’s definitively something you need to see for yourself. It was almost possible to forget that I was still driving this spaceship and would have the challenge of bringing it back down to earth. Thankfully, due to the brilliance of Burt’s “feather” reentry configuration, that entire phase of flight, normally fraught with danger, was a non-event. There were some moderate G’s to endure and lots of noise as the atmosphere welcomed my supersonic return to Earth, but the ride was otherwise syrupy smooth compared to the rumbling ride under the rocket. About 80 minutes after departure, I returned, landing in front of a most enthusiastic and supportive crowd to claim the $10 million X PRIZE with Scaled’s distinguished and elated team. I can describe this incredible experience without the slightest fear of ruining it for you. It is not like a movie – it absolutely cannot be spoiled. Reflecting back on it, I am like many Astronauts I know, struck by one compelling thought – I can’t wait to go back.

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Peter Diamandis: Launching Commercial Space Flight: Part Five — Brian Binnie Makes History

This is HuffPost World’s regular feature that highlights interesting musicians and musical trends around the world. Know of a great musician doing ground-breaking work outside the United States? Send us your ideas for bands to profile or up-and-coming musicians to follow.

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Modiba: Huun Huur Tu Enters The Electronic Age With Newest Album Eternal With Carmen Rizzo