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Archive for December, 2010

Dear Colonel Santa

Pulling at plastic wrapping, contorting the fragile cardboard box within, peering intently at the numbered squares adorned with cartoon images of reindeer and a fat man in a dapper red number, with a look firmly plastered across their faces that said, “what the hell is this thing?” It was an advent calendar. Something that for my whole life I’d taken for granted. A fixture of my childhood for which the theme of the box chosen, based on either the cartoon character on front or as I got older the chocolate within, was taken with great care. The very thought that someone might have no clue as to what it was had never occurred to me in the slightest. I’d always considered certain things to be at the forefront of globalization, dispensed across the global by Coca-Cola and McDonald’s; I figured most of the commercial aspects of Christmas to be among them. Then again, I hadn’t a clue as to 99.9% of Japanese holidays when I arrived here so the double standard was perhaps unfair. But there is one extenuating circumstance. I didn’t just describe the look of kids but of senior citizens.  Which in a way, when I think about…

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Kathy’s Top 10 Stories of 2010 (Be Ready to Smile)

At KazzaDrask New Media, we cover a lot of content ground throughout the year – writing mostly about how social media (or online culture) affects many aspects of life. Sometimes we write about politics and civil rights, other times about new media trends, startups, travel and celebrity, and often about things that bring the US and Australia (US and Under) together – since we work with clients in both places. Sometimes, any number of these topics converge – and as we look back over the stats for 2010, we can see some of these were the stories that got the most “hits”. If you missed these stories during the year, here’s a chance to recap. The KazzaDrask Top 10 Stories of 2010 are: 1. That’s So Gay…Political Correctness 1, Kookaburra 0
2. Martha Stewart is Getting an iPad. Are You?
3. Fear, Loathing and Flying – Hat Tip to David Sedaris
4. Facebook Career Killers to Avoid
5. Has Social Media Made Homophobia Worse?
6. St. Mary’s Aussie Basketball Connection Deeper than its Roster
7. Startup Bus…

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Top 10 Europop Songs/Videos of 2010

It’s nearly impossible to narrow my favorite clips from this year to just 10, but I’ll try. The following list contains a few songs/videos that are not explicitly Europop in the traditional sense, but I had to include them because they were just too good to not post. Here is my subjective list of the best from the EU and beyond in 2010. #1 Robyn – “Dancing On My Own” No surprise here: Robyn dropped the best song and video of 2010 with her emotional and damn-near-perfect clip for “Dancing On My Own.” #2 Inna – “10 Minutes” Romania’s reigning queen of dance-infused pop released several stellar videos this year, but “10 Minutes” best captured what’s happening in Romania right now sonically and features some of the best dancing of any clip this year. # 3 – Maro Litra – “Elevator Love” Surprisingly, this was the most popular video I posted this year on the site, with over 20,000 plays. The Greek singer’s song is just so perfectly catchy it’s a shame American audiences have yet to get down with Litra. #4 Loona – “Vamos…

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TreeHugger’s “Person of the Year” is Sylvia Earle

TreeHugger.com is a green website dedicated to the promotion of sustainability and giving its visitors the latest in eco- news, solutions and product information. We here at The Greenery are big fans of their site and are really impressed with the work they do. So it’s exciting news to hear that after compiling a list of contenders for the site’s 2010 Person of the Year, TreeHugger has announced a winner. Everyone on the shortlist was deserving of recognition and it must’ve been difficult for voters to choose just one but the results are in and it appears that the honour goes to Sylvia Earle. The Person of the Year shortlist and voting system is an attempt to honour an individual based on their past contributions to environmentalism, as well as their significant and specific accomplishments during the award year. Sylvia Earle’s accomplishments range from setting diving records to ocean engineering innovations and from scientific discoveries to administrative leadership. She led the first female aquanaut team, set the human depth record of 1250 feet in a JIM suit and holds the female record of 3,280 feet for a solo dive in a…

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2010 Snapshot in Photos Across 4 Countries

Seasons Greetings and a hooray for an incredible year, one which will be over within hours. It’s time to reflect on everything we’ve learned and experienced over the past year as well as give gratitude to the amazing people we’ve encountered along our annual journey. It’s now time to move into a new decade, but before we do, below are a few highlights from 2010 as seen through my eyes across a few continents: photos from Ecuador, Galapagos Islands, Munich, Paris and Dublin.  Happy New Year! to you and yours. See you on the other side.

Aharon Horwitz on Social Entrepreneurship

Haegwan Kim: What’s your personal definition of success. Aharon Horwitz: A good question. My personal definition of success is, I think, helping other people achieve… helping other people and my community achieve its potential is success for me. I think that’s the kind of thing that motivates me most to wake up in the morning is to see people with important ideas for the world and see my community, which I care about deeply, actually live up to its potential and implement and do the things that it aspires to do. HK: Why do you help others? AH: I feel like that’s very much a decision you make at some point in your life, whether you’re going to be a person who’s driven by some sort of outside meaning and some sort of vision of a redeemed world, or a world that’s going to be better in the future, or whether you’re just kind of carving out your survival niche. And because of the way I grew up in my family and the values that I was taught, I think helping others, or rather, helping others be inspired and motivated to work for bigger picture ideas has always…

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Johnny Hallyday Explained (Not)

The official ‘raison d’etre’ for the Stade de France is that it was built, in the northwestern rundown suburbs of Paris (as opposed to the Southwest rundown suburbs, or the Northern rundown suburbs) for the purposes of holding the World Cup the year that France was hosting the event. The reality is, it was actually built with visions of hosting multiple nights of Johnny Hallyday and Celine Dion concerts. Now, most people worldwide know of Celine Dion, renowned chanteuse, hailing from Quebec, who learned English only after she became a star in the US, and, after marrying her producer, old enough to be her great-grandfather, with whom she has produced 2 babies, while maintaining her 47kg figure. But Johnny who?

Johnny Hallyday, who was born during the German occupation, was the son of a Belgian father and french mother, so, technically, he’s not FRENCH French, but don’t tell that to the millions of rabid fans who hang on his every note. To be fair, Hallyday is credited with giving Jimi Hendrix and the experience their first gig by hiring them as opening act at one of his concerts back…

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Facebook Block in Vietnam Now Official

Oh, don’t call the government. They’ll tell you they have DNS problems and have a team of Internet scientists in the back room trying to sort it out. And don’t call the local cop shop. They’re still reading the manual for that remote control that came with the Sony flat-screen they’re watching. “I hate Oprah. Where’s a Bruce Lee movie?” Oh the Great Firewall. Imported from China and reinstalled in the Cu Chi tunnels. “Facebook’s owned by Americans, right? Screw em”. With the big People’s Party meeting coming up in January the party has decided that about the last thing they need is the ‘people’ participating. So we’re on lockdown. “Stay in you cell, prisoner. Here’s some more gruel – You know John McCain?” Meanwhile, we all trundle along with whatever Internet workaround makes us happy (I like “Tor”). Dear. I’m not on the “A” list again. I hate the ‘party’ having a ‘party’ and not being invited!

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