Israeli Apartheid Week: Toronto

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is an annual international series of events held in cities and campuses across the globe. The aim of IAW is to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) and last year IAW took place in over 40 countries. Events include lectures, films, and actions that will draw attention to the many continuous injustices that  are crucial in the battle to end Israeli Apartheid.

From website:

"The aim of IAW is to contribute to this chorus of international opposition to Israeli apartheid and to bolster support for the BDS campaign in accordance with the demands outlined in the July 2005 Statement: full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, an end to the occupation and colonization of all Arab lands – including the Golan Heights, the Occupied West Bank with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip – and dismantling the Wall, and the protection of Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in U.N. resolution 194. In previous years IAW has played an important role in raising awareness and disseminating information about Zionism, the Palestinian liberation struggle and its similarities with the indigenous sovereignty struggle in North America and the South African anti-apartheid movement. Join us in making this a year of struggle against apartheid and for justice, equality, and peace."

Now here's a little schedule of all the events taking place in Toronto. For more information or to check out some of the events in other cities, CLICK HERE.


Interrogating Apartheid: Campus as a Site of Resistance
Monday March 7th , 7 PM
University of Toronto: Fitzgerald Building, Room 103
Speakers: Judy Rebick, Abbie Bakan, and SAIA (Students Against Israeli Apartheid)


Film Screening: Jaffa the Oranges Clockwork 
Tuesday March 8th
Ryerson University
Film by: Eyal Sivan


The Cultural and Academic Boycott
Wednesday March 9th, 7 PM
University of Toronto, Bahen Auditorium, Room 1160
Speaker: Judith Butler


York's Complicity in Apartheid: Art, Culture and Resistance
Thursday March 10th
 York University
Speakers: Paul Kellogg, John Greyson and SAIA


State of the Siege, State of the Struggle: The case for Boycott Divestment, Sanctions
Friday March 11th, 7 PM
University of Toronto, OISE Auditorium, G162 (First Floor)
Speakers: Riham Barghouti and Ali Abunimah

The CHRONICles: random mind wanderings/reflections on the day: De

What is strength, what is selfglorification?
What is bravery, what is bravado?

We spend our whole existence conjuring up images of heroes in our lives. We give them traits invisible to the world, we attribute major accomplishments to them, and we build them up to mammoth heights.

Then on unbeautiful days we are shown who they really are.

We begin to see blemishes in their once perfect glistens.
We see cracks in their superior shells.
We see rough edges in their once flawless finishes.

Our once bold, unbreakable faith that had upheld the foundation of these distant statues begins to shake, threatening to give way...

How can we repaint the images we once ogled at with admiration?
How are we to reimagine the perfectious figures we once held in such esteem?

To what degree are we, the witnesses, capable of sustaining heroism...

The Fallen Hero...

Models in hamster balls...

K I haven't seen this show since like the 3rd or 4th cycle, but boy was I glad to tune into the latest episode of the newest season this week to see this...



LOOOOL!
The 4th time around, and this is STILL hilarious! They look like hamsters in those little plastic roaming balls...haha..
Oh yeah, and the "I'm bout to leave this bitch with a bang" line is priceless...

I Need a Doctor

FINALLY! Some visuals for one of my favourite songs to emerge from 2011 so far: I NEED A DOCTOR.

Obviously I love Eminem (as any hiphop fan will most likely have to admit), but I think Skylar Grey's voice is dope on this beat and super believable.

Oh hey, did I mention DRE IS ALIVE??? LOL. Not only is he alive, he seem's to be alive an healthily sporting a more muscularly defined physique. 

Not really a fan of all that futuristic, test tube, robot shit (ugh, anyone remember the video for "In Da Club"?), but I am sooo amped to see various clips from all our favourite Eminem-Dre moments. Who else walked down memory lane when all those N.W.A clips played? sigh... just a friendly reminder of where this generation's hiphop helped derive from...

ENJOY!

Ramzo:I Need a Doctor "Remix"?

For some reason, I actually don't hate it.
I love Skylar Grey's vocals on the original track- they're just so desperate and believable, even a little soothing in their gentle scratchiness.
The verses are alrightm incomparable to Eminem obviously but not terrible for someone who doesn't claim to be a rapper.
Overall, I like the reworking of the beat, Ramzo's own spin on the hook, and the choice of track.

Late Winter Pick-Me Up, Dominican style

As you can imagine, sitting in front of your computer screen and books makes a shitty reading week. Especially when you wish you were miles away on a hot beach or something...

Sosua, D.R

To combat these winter/reading week blahs, I dug up some pictures from the not too distant past. So get comfy, grab a mango-coconut smoothie with fresh pineapple garnish, and enjoy some of my memories from Puerto Plata (Domincan Republic) this January...

Getting some tanning in...

The gorgeous Melissa...

Sosua's Boys in Blue

Lounging by one of the pools

This hammock completely had our name all over it.

Bob, beach, beverage = one love

Local landscape...

Motorcycle ride: what better way to take in the
local sights?

"Cheese!"

Chasing waves... Or are the chasing us?

Riding purty.

Riding durtay!

Pre-tsunami like mud

We luh the kids!

"Its all good in Sosua!"

local shopping, Sosua Beach

Shopping, shopping, shopping!

Nightly entertainment. If you look hard enough you
canspot my Dominican love... If only I could
rememberhis name... :$

THATS ALL FOLKS! UNTIL NEXT TIME!

"Against the Wall": William Parry & the Art of Resistance

"It’s a means of communicating about injustice. It’s one means of getting a message across. The more people who learn about Israel’s crimes, the more who challenge the West’s blind backing of Israel – the quicker Israel’s incredibly sophisticated military machine will be undermined. The spray can is part of the spectrum of other creative, non-violent ways being undertaken by civil society to raise awareness, challenge historical narratives and overcome injustice..."

- William Parry 

Is the spray can mightier than the sword?

British photojournalist William Parry thinks so. He's the author of Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine. Parry travelled extensively throughout the West Bank & Occupied Territories collecting photos of the artwork that covers the wall dividing the region from Israel.  Being careful to include a thought-provoking variety of images and graffiti, he contrasts each image with a vignette of a Palestinian community that lives with the daily reality of the ugly "security" wall and all that it represents.

The book features artwork from Banksy, Ron English, Blu and Palestinian artists and activists.

Here are some of the images from the wall, which has been recently called "the largest protest banner in the world":

Here's William Parry in a BBC interview from a few years back speaking on the book and some of the artwork on the wall (as pictured above)...




William Parry will be in Canada next month for a serious of lectures called Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine.
go to www.cjpme.org/ for more info.

Die Hard: Lego Style

If you're like me and have the fortune of having Reading Week (a.k.a those 5 days your university gives you in February to "catch up on workload" and "study") this week, then you might be sitting at home spending unhealthy amounts of time in front of your computer/TV screen. Actually, thats exactly what I've been doing for the most part.
Anyway, I've got the perfect way to spend 3 minutes or more of your time.

Check out this video,
"Die Hard: Lego Style"
by Arash Khoshnazar

Before you watch this, keep in mind that the entire video was shot using a technique called stop-motion (or stop-action). Basically, the little Lego dudes were manipulated into poses for individual photo frames, and then the frames were edited into a sequence to make it look like fluid movement...
That's right, every movement you see is a series of frames positioned that way.



Dope, huh?
 Well the short was submitted to Edward Jameson's "Done in 60 Seconds" Competition. The film is one of 20 that made it, with over hundreds of hopefuls submitting their work.

If you thought that was as cool as I did, PLEASE VOTE BY CLICKING HERE and checking "Die Hard". You can vote as much as you want, but it ends in 2 days!!

Marks on a S.E.L.F

"My body is a journal in a way. It's like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist"

- Johnny Depp

*My work of art in the making...

Trouble in paradise...

You ever look at a million shattered pieces of glass and think about how much that epitomizes your life?

How each jaggedly tempting shard represents a piece of your life, once harmoniously, seamlessly melded together to paint the perfect picture, yet fragile enough to threaten to fall apart at the slightest imbalance?

They say if you break a mirror, you will suffer the illfortune of 7 years. But what's to be said about the crushing of glass? Will you then be doomed to live 7-years-to-life of sharply disecting components?

Glass is ever so congruent to the lives we lead- millions of tiny imperfect particles, invisible to the naked eye. Visually they exist together to give the illusion of a perfectly smooth, excitingly shiny surface. Like glass, we come to life out of the most chaotic scenarios- created under a pressure and heat that later becomes unbearable. In fact, the slightest tension from any direction threatens to break us into a million tiny shards...

How many of us prevail through our day-to-day exsistence, emitting a perfectly smooth, deceivingly-seamless shiny glimmer? Beneath that false shine lay a million secrets, flaws, insecurities, regrets- imperfectionous shards threatening to crack and reveal themselves for what they are...

For love of the headband

Damn, I've worn a lot of headbands in my day. I guess I'm perpetually channelling my inner Pocahauntas...