Close your Eyes and Imagine

Close your eyes and imagine Afghanistan.  If you’re exposed to as much media as most, images of war and fighting probably pop to mind. But a white horse?

More and more projects like this NPR one keep showing up on my radar.   Benjamin Rasmussen, a photographer, sets out to capture photos of the side of Afghanistan we don’t think about, the beauty.  Every time I see one of these projects, it resets my internal faith in humanity a little bit.  So enjoy.

Actually the post was inspired by a similar post on http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/ where Occidental College PhD and Oklahoma native Lisa Wade literally wades into our relationship with cultural norms.  Some time ago, she posited a similar exercise.  Imagine Muslim women.  Her guess was that the black burka pops right into mind (Google muslim women and you’ll see)  and she talked about the feelings that evokes after seeing it time after time after time.  But how about these women?

 

An astronaut?  a family fighting?  Women in college?  All Muslim women. 

Well, breaking stereotypes is a fun exercise.  Now back to my nerdy IT group.

Irish Movie recommendations from a French Canadian

Changing it up a bit.  Here’s two Irish movies I recommend. 

The first stars Brendan Gleeson, who I argue is a brilliant actor (any comments?).  It’s dark and not at all action-packed but the performances and the story are great.  A kid grows up in a Boston Irish family, plays ball, works at a Italian restaurant, basic stuff here.  Plus you have to respect movies where the lead watches Red Sox games.

The second has better action and takes place in Ireland.  The story of a kid who straddles the Protestant-Catholic line during the war.  Side character Ben Kingsley is very cool in a role where you completely forget he was Ghandi.  If you enjoyed The Commitments but need something more meaty like Three Kings, you’ll like this film.