(Youtube Direktliberia, via MeFi)
Der Vice Guide to Liberia geistert schon seit ein paar Wochen durch meinen Feedreader, ich wollte aber warten, bis die Videos komplett online sind. Das ist jetzt soweit. Bei VBS gibt’s jetzt alle acht Clips und ich muss warnen: Das ist ziemlich heavy Stuff, was da gezeigt wird. Einen Vorgeschmack gibt’s in obigem Trailer, für Zartbesaitete ist das sicherlich nichts.
In The Vice Guide To Liberia, VBS travels to the capital city Monrovia to meet three men who participated in the 14 years of civil war that ravaged the West African country.
Former warlords General Rambo, General Bin Laden and General Butt Naked give us guided tours of some of the most dangerous, impoverished areas including jails, brothels, and heroin dens. Despite the UNs intervention in the country, the majority of Liberias young people live in desperate poverty. Surrounded by filth, drug addiction, and teenage prostitution, the ex child soldiers who were forced into war struggle to fend for themselves by any means necessary. As the former President Charles Taylor fights accusations of mass war crimes in The Hague, the people strive for positive change against all odds. Americas one and only foray into African colonialism is keeping a very uneasy peace indeed.
“I’m happy to see the CD format disappear. But what about laser discs?” Yorke facetiously asked The Believer in this revealing talk. Before that joke, though, he was more specific on his opinions of physical formats that hold digital media: “I mean, I always hated CDs. Me and Stanley [Donwood] always hated CDs. Just a fucking nightmare,” he ranted, adding later, “there’s a process of natural selection going on right now. The music business was waiting to die in its current form about twenty years ago. But then, hallelujah, the CD turned up and kept it going for a bit. But basically, it was dead.”
On January 7th, 1942, one month after Pearl Harbor, T.W. Smith, Jr., the owner of the Sun Rubber Company, and his designer, Dietrich Rempel, with Walt Disney’s approval introduced a protective mask for children. This design of the Mickey Mouse Gas Mask for children was presented to Major General William N. Porter, Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service. After approval of the CWS, Sun Rubber Products Company produced sample masks for review. Other comic book character designs were to follow, depending on the success of the Mickey Mouse mask.
Ich habe am Wochenende das Comic zu einem meiner Lieblingsfilme von 2008 zu Ende gelesen: Waltz with Bashir. Comic wie Film folgen den Erlebnissen von Regisseur Ari Folman, der 1982 als israelischer Soldat im Libanon stationiert war. Aus einem Gespräch mit einem Freund, in dem dieser ihm seine Träume von 26 reissenden Hunden, die ihn jagen, schildert, resultieren bei Folman Backflashs an die damaligen Ereignisse, die er bis dahin verdrängt hatte und er macht sich auf die Suche nach ehemaligen Kriegsteilnehmern. Stück für Stück puzzelt er sich seine Erinnerung zurück und die münden in den Erinnerungen an das 
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Wafaa Bilal’s childhood in Iraq was defined by the horrific rule of Saddam Hussein, two wars, a bloody uprising, and time spent interned in chaotic refugee camps in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Bilal eventually made it to the U.S. to become a professor and a successful artist, but when his brother was killed at a U.S. checkpoint in 2005, he decided to use his art to confront those in the comfort zone with the realities of life in a conflict zone. 
Gerade ist in den Kinos weltweit die Comic Verfilmung Iron Man angelaufen, in der Multimilliardär Tony Stark (gespielt von Robert Downey Jr) eine eiserne High-Tech-Rüstung entwickelt, die ihn mit übermenschlichen Kräften und Fähigkeiten ausstattet. Diese Marvel-Vision versucht die Salt Lake City (US-Bundesstaat Utah) ansässige Firma Raytheon mit ihrem Exoskeleton Wirklichkeit werden zu lassen: Wie im Film soll der futuristische Anzug mittels Sensoren und Motoren die Kraft, Ausdauer und Gewandtheit seines Trägers erhöhen.
