· February, 2010

Stories about Ideas from February, 2010

Kuwait: One Year, 188 Questions

  16 February 2010

Yasmine Gamal, Egyptian blogger living in Kuwait, shares her 188 questions of the day (Q.O.D) she posted on her Facebook and Twitter accounts over the past year. She initially started this idea as a way to avoid the dullness of the status update or negativity and to start a conversation...

Video: Mobile Libraries of the World

  12 February 2010

The mobile library has become a staple in many library systems, bringing books to those who cannot access the libraries themselves. However, in many places due to bad road conditions or lack of funding, the traditional system of rigging a bus or truck as a library is not possible. Thus, library trains, donkey libraries and motorcycle libraries have come to stay as viable options to bring books to the communities.

Trinidad & Tobago: “Dat is Carnival”

  12 February 2010

MEP Caribbean Publishers explores the question of what constitutes Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, while My Chutney Garden adds: “That the ‘mas’ has become sanitised is beyond dispute.”

Japan: Momus, on This Ageing Country

  12 February 2010

In “Growing old in, and with, Japan” on the Click Opera blog, Nick Currie (aka Momus) lists several points of what could be “a silver lining to Japan's likely silver age” but concludes that realistically, “Japan will get cheaper, smaller, poorer, purer, wiser, more itself.”

Trinidad & Tobago, Haiti: Preparing for an Earthquake

  11 February 2010

“We have all looked on in horror at the scenes of destruction and human suffering experienced by our Caribbean neighbours in Haiti as a result of the strong earthquake on 12th January”: Afra Raymond considers the implications of a major earthquake on Trinidad & Tobago.

Guyana: Rodney Film

  10 February 2010

Signifyin’ Guyana is inspired by “Guyanese filmmaker Clairmont Chung's W.A.R. Stories, a documentary on the life, activism, and death of Dr. Walter Rodney.”

Japan: Learning the art of diplomacy from a mobster

  10 February 2010

Blogger at U-SUKE's tumblr says [ja] he learnt the art of diplomacy from a former mobster. This the yakuza's advice: “During negotiations, you know, the one who looses his temper looses the game. First of all you listen carefully to what the other party has to say. Then, when he...

Trinidad & Tobago: Working for the Tourist Dollar?

  9 February 2010

The Liming House is incensed by a campaign from Virgin Atlantic designed to “help the Caribbean”: “Both Virgin and the Travel Foundation appear to think that the only opportunities for ‘disadvantaged youth’ in the Caribbean are in ‘craft making, beekeeping and fishing.’ Gosh, development has just passed those backward-but-smiling natives...

Trinidad & Tobago: Water Noir

  8 February 2010

“I find it baffling that, decades later, we have not figured out this whole water issue as yet. Water is, after all, essential for life. And while not strictly speaking relevant, it is certainly ironic that we also live on an island”: Tattoo suggests that “they should make a film...

Jamaica, Barbados, Haiti: Defending Haitians

  8 February 2010

In response to a statement that the arrival of Haitian refugees in Jamaica could be seen as a threat to public health, Long Bench republishes a Letter to the Editor that he wrote: “Haitian refugees are not criminals, and should not be treated by citizens or represented in the media...

Jamaica, U.S.A.: Wisdom of Children

  5 February 2010

“I learned that children are naturally giving and spontaneous and if we are not willing to accept some of the ‘wild energy’ of our children and if we continue to treat our schools as warehouses, then we should be prepared to accept the death of their imagination”: Jamaican litblogger Geoffrey...

Suriname: Tattoo You

  4 February 2010

At Paramaribo SPAN, Christopher Cozier considers the work of a tattoo artist “using skin as another canvas”, which “coincides with the painted decorations on Paramaribo minibuses, reaching out to a larger contemporary public and extending the dialogue about visual production.”