We need more

[OneHungLow]

[OneHungLow]

Documentaries by Errol Morris.

Wormwood - the unravelling, or more likely, murder of Frank Olson.

Superb miniseries!



MK Ultra

[OneHungLow]

Less of programmes like MK Ultra...

[PHXPhlyer]

Who knew?

Antony Blinken plays guitar, sings the blues to launch global music initiative

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/anton ... initiative#


U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken put his guitar skills on show Wednesday night when he performed a legendary blues song to launch a global music initiative.

"If this doesn’t clear the house, I don’t know what will," Blinken joked as he played guitar and sang Muddy Waters’ "Hoochie Coochie Man" at an event announcing the Global Music Diplomacy Initiative.

Blinken, who has served as Secretary of State since President Biden took office in 2021, is a self-described "very amateur guitarist" with three recorded songs on Spotify under the name Ablinken: "Lip Service," "Patience" and "Without Ya."


The Global Music Diplomacy Initiative launch includes three key announcements: a partnership between the State Department and the Recording Academy for the American Music Mentorship Program to bring artists to the U.S. for career development opportunities (the first kicks off in Fall 2024); music-focused efforts to promote an English-language learning curriculum abroad, and the Fulbright-Kennedy Center Visiting Scholar Award in Arts and Science.

The State Department has long instituted music-based diplomacy initiatives, from President Roosevelt founding the Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA) in 1940 to Bruce Springsteen performing for 300,000 fans in East Berlin in 1988, the year before the wall fell, to the 2010s "Next Level," an effort to build a global community through hip-hop.

"I’ve always had a deep love for music in part because it has the potential to connect cultures and tell the American story around the world," Blinken told the AP.

"By launching this effort, we hope to expose a new generation of global audiences to what previous generations have found so compelling: our people and culture. We have no more powerful tools in our diplomatic toolkit, and I look forward to seeing – and listening to – the results of this initiative."

At the event, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason, Jr. awarded legendary music producer Quincy Jones the first-ever Peace through Music Award, a collaboration between the State Department and the Recording Academy that recognizes and honors an American music industry professional, artist, or group that has played an invaluable role in cross-cultural exchanges and whose music work advances peace and mutual understanding globally.

The Global Music Diplomacy Initiative was developed following the 2022 Promoting Peace, Education, and Cultural Exchange (PEACE) through Music Diplomacy Act.

PP

[Karearea]

One of Göring's uniforms at the Imperial War Museum:

Felton Meets Göring - A Reichsmarschall's Uniform [10:33]

[OneHungLow]

South African spies..



Hippo ranching!

A complex villain, who hated the British...

[Karearea]

South African spies..
...
Hippo ranching!

A complex villain, who hated the British...

Very interesting documentary, OHL.

"He managed to charm a prison guard's daughter..."

- a complex villain indeed, a master of flim-flam throughout his career, and a man with a mission.

As I watched, I knew the latter part of the story seemed familiar to me: a couple of years ago I had seen on YT the 1945 film, The House on 92nd Street:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House ... background

(thankful I keep brief notes on the older films I watch.)

[bob2s]

OHL, a bit of aviation history for you.

[Karearea]

I noticed that the Bar-Tailed Godwit was listed among the birds that fly at altitude (20,000' in this case)

Bar-tailed godwits nesting in Alaska (L. l. baueri) travel all the way to Australia and New Zealand. They undertake the longest non-stop migrations of any bird...

Wikipedia: Bar-tailed Godwit, Distribution and Migration

Their arrival in NZ is celebrated:

Thousands of migrating birds have been welcomed back to New Zealand to the sound of cathedral bells, after making one of the longest avian migration flights in the world.

Eastern bar-tail godwits, or kuaka in Māori, landed on Motueka sandspit at the top of the South Island on Tuesday, where they rested following the 10,000km (6,200 miles) non-stop flight from the Arctic, RNZ reported.

Guardian: Cathedral bells ring out as NZ welcomes Godwits


A stylised Godwit was the emblem of the former National Airways Corporation (NAC) the national domestic airline prior to amalgamation with the international airline, Air NZ.

[OneHungLow]

OHL, a bit of aviation history for you.

bob2s,

[OneHungLow]

Horrifying rabbits...

One of my favourite films is the science fiction come psychological thriller (some might also say horror film) is Donnie Darko.



One of the characters in the film is an enigmatic, but horrifying looking rabbit that I thought had all other horrifying rabbits beaten hands down until I happened upon this 1971 children's film on TV yesterday. I found myself inextricably drawn into Mr Horatiio Knibbles and thinking about how wrong this film is on so many levels, and then realising that an innocent child wouldn't see it that way and that my reaction showed how jaundiced, jaded, cynical and corrupted adulthood had me and my thinking.

This commentator sums many of my own immediate responses to Mr Horatio Nibbles.

A little girl, Mary, is disappointed when she doesn't receive a pet rabbit for her birthday, but then she gets one after all, in the form of an imaginary friend. Mary's parents can't see him, even though she insists that he is real.

[OneHungLow]

OHL, a bit of aviation history for you.

Thanks for posting that excellent documentary. I have downloaded it and added it to my list of favourite aviation documentaries. Kudos to the presenter for giving a call out to Marcel Lobelle who was so involved in the design of many Fairey aircraft including the iconic Fairey Swordfish.

[OneHungLow]

Cajuns...

[OneHungLow]

More pipes better played than I could play my own (my school's actually) in Johannesburg, by a Scotsman who sought the source of the failed grace notes, with tears in his eyes, and climbed the 6 foot wall outside my house to tutor me in the way of bagpipe righteousness (not what you might think)...

(Video well worth watching)... Click watch on YouTube

[PHXPhlyer]

Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac icon, now has her own mini-me Barbie

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/02/entertai ... index.html


The likeness of Stevie Nicks, former member of rock band Fleetwood Mac, has been immortalized in a new Barbie doll – and the singer-songwriter is made up.

The 75-year-old presented her Barbie doll to fans at her Madison Square Garden show in New York City on Sunday, calling it “Stevie Barbie,” a video posted on Instagram on Monday by entertainment company Live Nation showed.

Toy company Mattel, which owns the Barbie brand, made the doll available for preorder for $55 on Monday, but it has already sold out.

The doll, which forms part of Mattel’s Barbie Music Series, has smoky eyes and bangs and holds Nicks’ signature ribboned tambourine. She wears Nicks’ signature platform boots and golden moon necklace, and is clad in a flowing black dress inspired by the one the artist wore on the cover of her band’s legendary 1977 album “Rumours.”

The 75-year-old presented her "Stevie Barbie" doll to fans at her show at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday.

“We wanted to wish Stevie Nicks a happy 75th birthday in the best way possible. So we created a Barbie doll to capture her iconic style,” Mattel said in a statement on Monday. Nicks’ birthday was in May.

“Stevie Nicks actually loaned us her signature black dress and boots for us to use as reference for the doll,” designer Bill Greening added.

The official Barbie Instagram account shared images of the new doll in a post on Monday, with the caption: “Soulful stage presence. Spellbinding style. With a career that’s touched generations of music lovers, @StevieNicks is the latest legend to be celebrated as part of the Barbie Music Series, bringing her inspiring story and chart-topping career to artists and audiences of all ages. #Barbie #YouCanBeAnything.”

Nicks' Barbie doll carries some of the artist's signature items, including her tambourine, platform boots and golden moon necklace.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, Nicks said her Stevie Barbie, which she called “so pretty and so soulful and so real,” has been with her for several months and added that the doll “means the world” to her.

“When Mattel came to me asking if I would like to have a Barbie made in the ‘Rumours’ cover style I was very overwhelmed,” she wrote. “Of course I questioned ‘would she look like me? Would she have my spirit? Would she have my heart…’”

“When I look at her, I see my 27 year old self~ All the memories of walking out on a big stage in that black outfit and those gorgeous boots come rushing back~ and then I see myself now in her face. What we have been through since 1975~ the battles we have fought, the lessons we have learned~ together. I am her and she is me. She absolutely has my heart,” she added.

PP

[Karearea]

Cajuns...

YT: Against the Tide - The Cajun Story - Documentary

Read elsewhere, but it was ever thus: "How the peasants must have cursed both armies! "

- that was one of the most interesting, and moving, documentaries I've seen - thank you, OHL.

[OneHungLow]

More horse power...

Don't stop watching until you have clocked the Rolls Royce Handlye Special...



https://www.graemehunt.com/inventory/67 ... ye-special

[OneHungLow]

More trips to little towns in the Cape Eastern Karoo.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article ... windpumps/

Also home to Olive Schreiner for a time. Also home to the Craddock four.

[Karearea]

From the learn-a-thing-a-day department:

until yesterday I had never heard of the expression "Thank your mother for the rabbit" used as a drinking-toast.

Seems it's a Thing: https://wordhistories.net/2020/09/03/th ... er-rabbit/

[Karearea]

On the likelihood and potential consequences of a major earthquake on NZ's Alpine Fault
(I watched at 1.5x)

Civil Defence Quake Ready LearnCanterbury (University of Canterbury) [40:04]