Soccer’s Lost Boys

in Current Affairs | June 18th, 2010


As the World Cup kicked off this week in South Africa, Cur­rent TV aired the lat­est episode of Van­guard called “Soccer’s Lost Boys.” It’s a sober­ing piece of inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism that digs into the dark side of the world’s most pop­u­lar game. Mov­ing from Ghana to Moroc­co to even­tu­al­ly Paris, Van­guard cor­re­spon­dent Mar­i­ana van Zeller details how preda­to­ry agents sell African teenagers on the hope of land­ing big con­tracts with elite Euro­pean teams. The next thing they know, the young play­ers find them­selves des­ti­tute and strand­ed in an unfa­mil­iar coun­try, some­times home­less and forced into pros­ti­tu­tion, and mean­while their fam­i­lies get fleeced of their life sav­ings. It’s a grim real­i­ty tak­ing place in the shad­ow of the sport’s show­case event. Run­time is 45 min­utes.

Thanks to Rob for send­ing this along. We have added Cur­rent to our list of Intel­li­gent Video Sites.

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What the Big Spill Means for Sea Life

in Current Affairs, Science | June 11th, 2010

The BP oil spill has tak­en us into some unchart­ed waters. We still don’t know how much oil is pour­ing into the ocean each day. (Here’s the lat­est esti­mate.) Nor do we know the exact toll this dis­as­ter will take on the ecosys­tem of the Gulf. We only know that things are mov­ing in a very dis­cour­ag­ing direc­tion. Above Dr. Lisa Sua­toni, a marine expert at the Nat­ur­al Resources Defense Coun­cil, answers some basic ques­tions: “Where is the oil?  What is it harm­ing?  What unique habi­tats and bio­log­i­cal diver­si­ty are at risk?” You can keep abreast of these issues at the NRD­C’s Dis­as­ter in the Gulf blog, and also help save Gulf Coast wildlife by mak­ing a dona­tion to the NRDC.

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For Neda: The New HBO Documentary Now Online

in Current Affairs, Film | June 6th, 2010

Almost a year ago, the Green Rev­o­lu­tion was ignit­ed in Iran when Ahmadine­jad and the rul­ing cler­ics stole an elec­tion from Mir-Hos­sein Mousavi and his mil­lions of sup­port­ers. A young gen­er­a­tion, intent upon putting Mousavi in office, took to the streets en masse. Protests broke out across the nation … until the holy men decid­ed they had had enough. Ulti­mate­ly, bul­lets put an end to the nascent demo­c­ra­t­ic move­ment (at least for now), and the bru­tal­i­ty of the regime was cap­tured in mov­ing images watched world­wide: they showed us a young woman, Neda, get­ting indis­crim­i­nate­ly gunned down by a sniper, her eyes star­ing at us as she lay dying in the streets. Above, we’re fea­tur­ing a new­ly released HBO doc­u­men­tary that intro­duces you to Neda Agha-Soltan and her life sto­ry. Writ­ten and direct­ed by the award win­ning film­mak­er Antony Thomas, the 70 minute film was cre­at­ed with a fair amount of risk, and it includes inter­views with Neda’s fam­i­ly in Iran. The Iran­ian regime, nat­u­ral­ly doing its best to stop cit­i­zens from see­ing the film, plans to release its own doc­u­men­tary, putting the offi­cial spin on the mur­der.

For Neda has been added to our grow­ing col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online. You can learn more about the film on the HBO web­site.

via 3quarksdaily. H/T to Mike.

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Birds in the Oil

in Current Affairs, Life | June 3rd, 2010

So far, the BP oil spill has remained fair­ly abstract. We’ve seen it depict­ed in graphs and satel­lite images. Now we get to see it right up close. These pho­tos show in bru­tal detail exact­ly what’s hap­pen­ing to the wildlife in the Gulf of Mex­i­co. Con­sid­er the pho­tos a very quick glimpse into the larg­er envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter caused by this spill. Spread these pic­tures far and wide. BP does­n’t deserve to keep this mess a dis­tant idea.

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Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: 35 Days From Space

in Current Affairs, Life | May 28th, 2010

From Our Uni­verse Visu­al­ized on YouTube:

The MODIS instru­ment, on board NASA’s Ter­ra and Aqua satel­lites, is cap­tur­ing images of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mex­i­co. The spill began on April 20, 2010 with the explo­sion of the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon oil rig. This short video reveals a space-based view of the burn­ing oil rig and, lat­er, the ensu­ing oil spill through May 24, 2010. The oil slick appears gray­ish-beige in the images and changes due to chang­ing weath­er, ocean cur­rents, and the use of oil dis­pers­ing chem­i­cals. Images in the video time series were select­ed that show the spill most clear­ly. The full image archive is avail­able on the MODIS Rapid Response Web site at https://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/

via Moth­er­Jones

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The Greek Crisis Explained

in Current Affairs | May 26th, 2010

On a lighter note, and while we’re on the sub­ject of eco­nom­ic cri­sis, we offer you an ani­mat­ed (and not so seri­ous) expla­na­tion of the finan­cial cri­sis in Greece. The saga con­tin­ues with Episode 2.

Thanks Eren, aka @Gulfi

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Economic Crisis and Globalization

in Current Affairs, Economics | May 25th, 2010

The news isn’t good. The Euro is los­ing val­ue dai­ly. Coun­tries are slip­ping into “sov­er­eign debt crises” – mean­ing they’re going broke. And the mar­kets are swoon­ing once again. We’re watch­ing the prover­bial oth­er shoe drop.

Through­out this cri­sis, many Amer­i­cans have direct­ed their anger at Wall Street (and deserved­ly so). But few have won­dered whether there’s any­thing basi­cal­ly wrong with Amer­i­can-style cap­i­tal­ism. And, if any­thing, the only orga­nized protest move­ment (The Tea Par­ty) has assert­ed that we need more cap­i­tal­ism in our lives, not less.

In some rare quar­ters of acad­eme, cap­i­tal­ism still does­n’t get off so easy. And that brings us to three new online cours­es taught by the econ­o­mist Richard D. Wolff at The New School in NYC. Above, we fea­ture the first lec­ture from Eco­nom­ic Cri­sis and Glob­al­iza­tion, a course that takes a less ortho­dox view of how we’re man­ag­ing the Great Reces­sion. (Find the oth­er sev­en lec­tures here.) His oth­er cours­es, both on Marx­i­an eco­nom­ics, appear in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es under Eco­nom­ics.

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Bill Gates Holds Office Hours; Talks about Giving Back

in Current Affairs, Technology | May 20th, 2010

The Bill Gates col­lege tour rolled through Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty in late April. And Gates brought with him a mes­sage for stu­dents: Phil­an­thropy counts. No mat­ter how young you are, you can start think­ing about giv­ing back.

His vis­it fea­tured a large pub­lic talk where he drove home this point. (Get the full talk in video or audio here.) Then, like any good teacher, he held office hours and answered stu­dent ques­tions posed through Face­book. Watch his respons­es above.

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