Kumbh Mela: The Largest Gathering On Earth

 

Tens of millions of Hindu pilgrims are now descending on Allahabad, India, joining an estimated 8 million already there for the Maha Kumbh Mela. Held every 12 years at one of four places in India, the Kumbh Mela lasts nearly two months and is considered to be an especially auspicious time to bathe in the holy river for purification from sin. In 2001, the last time the festival took place, more than 40 million people gathered in an area smaller than 20 sq km (7.7 sq mi). This year, the predicted number of visitors tops 100 million. Collected here are images from the preparation and first days of the Maha Kumbh Mela, with possibly more to come in the next few weeks.

Kumbh Mela: The Largest Gathering On Earth | Wodu Media

 http://wodumedia.com/kumbh-mela-the-largest-gathering-on-earth/

Gluttony: A seagull tries to swallow a starfish.

 
California, US: A seagull tries to swallow a starfish.



 Gluttony

 

 

 

 

 Source:
California, US: A seagull tries to swallow a starfish. | Wodu Media

http://wodumedia.com/today-in-pictures-jan-30-2013/california-us-a-seagull-tries-to-swallow-a-starfish/

TMartial Arts in the top 20 grossing foreign films - in pictures | Film | guardian.co.uk

The top 20 grossing foreign films - in pictures | Film | guardian.co.uk

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2000
Taiwan
Lifetime gross $128,078,872


 

Fearless, 2006
China
Lifetime gross $24,633,730

Kung Fu Hustle, 2004
China
Lifetime gross $17,108,591

Iron Monkey, 1993
Hong Kong
Lifetime gross $14,694,904

The Protector, 2005
Thailand
Lifetime gross $12,044,087






Source:
The top 20 grossing foreign films - in pictures | Film | guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/gallery/2013/jan/12/world-cinema-pictures#/?picture=402252773&index=19

Patience

It is hard! But what can not be removed, becomes lighter through patience.
-- Horace, Carmina, I. 24. 19.





Every misfortune is to be subdued by patience.
-- Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), V. 710.

Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience. 

-- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Hamlet, Act III, sc. 4

 

 

Patience is the companion of wisdom. 

-- Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)

 

 

 

 

Afra Raymond: Three myths about corruption

Afra Raymond: Three myths about corruption - YouTube

Afra Raymond: Three myths about corruption by TEDtalksDirector

Trinidad and Tobago amassed great wealth in the 1970s thanks to oil. But in 1982, a shocking fact was revealed -- that 2 out of every 3 dollars earmarked for development had been wasted or stolen. This has haunted Afra Raymond for 30 years. Shining a flashlight on a continued history of government corruption, Raymond gives us a reframing of financial crime. (Filmed at TEDxPortofSpain.)

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.

Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at http://www.ted.com/translate

Follow TED news on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tednews
Like TED on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TED




Source:
Afra Raymond: Three myths about corruption - YouTubeAfra Raymond: Three myths about corruption - YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq3TQoMjXTw&feature=em-uploademail

Cyber Attack is a reality and China is the main source

 China’s Cyber games


Washington has not had much success persuading Beijing to rein in its hackers even though American officials and security experts have long known that China is the main source of cyber attacks on the United States. 

On Tuesday, a new report from Mandiant, an American computer security firm, publicly documented an explicit link between Chinese hackers and the People’s Liberation Army. 

The report cites a growing body of digital forensic evidence that most of the attacks on American corporations, organizations and government agencies originate in and around a 12-story office tower on the outskirts of Shanghai that is the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398.

Mandiant tracked individual members of the most sophisticated of the Chinese hacking groups, known as “Comment Crew” or “Shanghai Group,” to the headquarters of the military unit, which is central to China’s computer espionage operations. 

It followed “Comment Crew” for six years, monitoring 141 attacks by looking at Web domains, malware, Internet protocol addresses and embedded codes.

Chinese officials denounced the report, but their reaction was hardly a denial. 



In a second development that could further raise the stakes for Beijing, Washington decided to share with American Internet providers and antivirus vendors information about the unique signatures of the largest of the Chinese groups, including those originating from the area where Unit 61398 is based. 

The government warnings will not link the hackers and their computers to the Chinese Army as such, but the effects will be felt when the hackers and computers are denied access to American networks, as many of the Internet providers and antivirus vendors are expected to do. 
 

Americans are increasingly concerned about cyber attacks intended:

1)to steal corporate secrets and



2) to “sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, our air traffic control systems,”
as President Obama said in his recent State of the Union address.

 
As a defensive measure, Mr. Obama last week signed an executive order promoting increased information-sharing about cyber threats between the government and private companies that oversee the country’s critical infrastructure, including its electrical power grid, gas lines and waterworks. 



 



 


Read More:
China’s Cybergames - NYTimes.com
 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/opinion/chinas-cybergames.html?nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20130220&_r=0

Hemingway family mental illness explored in new film - CNN.com

Hemingway family mental illness explored in new film - CNN.com




http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/21/health/hemingway-film/index.html?eref=igoogledmn_topstories















Hemingway family mental illness explored in new film


By Elizabeth Landau, CNN


updated 4:48 PM EST, Mon January 21, 2013





Mariel Hemingway says her famous family has the "curse" of mental illness.




STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Mariel Hemingway explores her family's troubled history in "Running from Crazy" 
• The documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 
• Hemingway is the granddaughter of author Ernest Hemingway 
• In the last four years she feels she's overcome depression 

(CNN) -- Every family, even famous ones, have secrets. The Hemingways are no different.

"We were, sort of, the other American family that had this horrible curse," says Mariel Hemingway. She compared her family to the Kennedys -- but the Hemingway curse, she said, is mental illness.

Hemingway, granddaughter of acclaimed author Ernest Hemingway, explores the troubled history of her family in "Running from Crazy," a documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday. Barbara Kopple is the director; Oprah Winfrey is the executive producer.

"Knowing that there's so much suicide and so much mental illness in my family, I've always kind of been 'running from crazy,' worried that one day I'd wake up and be in the same position," Mariel Hemingway, 51, said at a support group for families of suicide, as shown in the film.



Ernest Hemingway took his own life in 1961. His granddaughter Mariel never knew him.


Hemingway told CNN last week she wanted this documentary to be an unveiling of her family history, and to give people permission to express their own "stuff," to realize they're "not alone in the world of dysfunction."

The documentary guides the viewer through the turmoil of her parents' marriage and the troubled relationships between her and her siblings. It includes archival footage from when her sister Margaux Hemingway, who took her own life in 1996, had been making a personal family documentary.

"Suicide has no rhyme or reason," Hemingway said. "Some people think about it for years and plan it. Some people, it's 20 dark minutes of their life that they decide to take their life that comes out of the blue. It's very random, it's very frightening."

Whether Hemingway is jumping on a trampoline or submerging herself in a cold stream, with her pointed nose and bouncy blonde hair, her message in the film is one of achieving mental well-being and overcoming one's own problems. These scenes contrast with newspaper clippings, still photos and melancholy video clips from her family's past.

Seven members of Hemingway's family have died by taking their own lives, including Ernest and Mariel Hemingway's older sister Margaux, she said. Mariel Hemingway had denied her sister's death was a suicide until an event hosted by the American Association for the Prevention of Suicide in 2003.

Ernest Hemingway, who won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, struggled with depression and killed himself in 1961, just months before Mariel Hemingway was born. But suicide wasn't something that was talked about when she was growing up.

"Nobody spoke about anything," she said. "It was a different generation." Even her sister's suicide was not talked about, she said.

The film's biggest revelation, which was the most difficult part of her family history for Hemingway to reveal, is that she believes her father, Jack Hemingway, sexually abused her sisters Margaux and Joan, nicknamed "Muffet." Hemingway drops this information bomb only briefly in the film -- the first time she has revealed this publicly. Jack Hemingway died in 2000.

Hemingway told CNN she does not remember her father abusing her, but notes that she did sleep in the same room as her mother, who had cancer, possibly as protection from her father. She is not sure if her mother knew what was going on. It's possible that her father didn't even remember doing it, she says, because he was drunk. Alcohol abuse also runs in the family, she said.

Mariel Hemingway began her screen acting career as the younger sister of a character played by Margaux in the 1976 film "Lipstick." Critics praised Mariel and dissed Margaux, which strained their relationship.

But Mariel Hemingway said she had been in touch with her sister the week before she died. "She was seemingly OK," she said. "But you never really know with suicide what's going on in a person's mind."

Prior to the film, Hemingway only saw her sister Joan Hemingway about once a year. Muffet Hemingway lives in Sun Valley, Idaho; Mariel Hemingway lives in Los Angeles.

Muffet had experimented with LSD when she was young, and received a diagnosis of manic depression. Mariel Hemingway has discussed her sister's struggles in numerous interviews over the years.

"She represented being, you know, 'crazy,' " Mariel Hemingway said last week. "I always feared that I would wake up that way, or that maybe I was that way and I didn't even know it."

But since doing the film, they have seen each other a bit more often, including at Christmas. Making the movie has made Mariel Hemingway get over her fear of seeing her sister, whom she describes as "such a loving, kind person."

"My dream is to be able to have enough money to take care of her myself, and really take over her care," she said.

Attempts by CNN to contact Joan Hemingway were unsuccessful. An April article in the Twin Falls, Idaho, Times-News said her artwork was being featured in a business in Ketchum, the town adjacent to Sun Valley. Business owner Nicola Potts told the newspaper that Joan Hemingway, 61, leads a "very happy, very private life."

Mariel, too, said she has had depression and suicidal thoughts, and recalls suffering insecurity and being fearful and depressed growing up. When she overcame that, "I was like, 'I've spent all my life being that way,' " she said.

To move past these feelings, Hemingway says she has "done everything" -- psychotherapy, gurus, holistic doctors -- and each of the methods she has tried have given her something of value. On her blog, for instance, she recommends that everyone take a few minutes of silence in the morning and before sleeping to be still and silent, which helps her to be more calm and focused.

Practices such as these, in addition to exercise, spending time in nature, and eating right, have all helped her achieve peace, she said. It's only within the last four years that she feels she has completely overcome depression.

"It's amazing to me that I'm not sad anymore, and that I don't worry and that I don't fear," she said.

These days, Hemingway and her boyfriend Bobby Williams have a lifestyle company called TheWillingWay ("He has the 'will,' I have the 'way,' " Hemingway said). Health and wellness are her passion.

She also advocates for suicide and mental illness awareness. She is open and communicative with her two daughters about their own mental health, too.

"I think people need to talk about it a lot," she said of mental illness, "Making it OK that it's in your family." She added, "It doesn't shame anyone, and it doesn't make anybody's family an ugly, bad family."