Entries Tagged 'Politics' ↓

Disneyland Baghdad: The Other Happiest Place on Earth…

Believe it or not, Mickey’s Disney-friends are off to join the cause in Iraq. An American development firm based in Los Angeles is spearheading the multi-million dollar “Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience,” a 50-acre amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theater and a museum. The park is being designed by Disney’s “Imagineering” pioneers, Ride and Show Engineering (RSE).

Baghdad Park - design by John March

Llewellyn Werner, chairman of C3, the Los Angeles-based holding company for private equity firms that’s funding the Pentagon-backed project, admits he’s facing certain unusual obstacles - namely, insurgent attacks and looting.

The story hit the news this past April, but a new Facebook group created by Rudy Duboille out of France “Non à Disneyland en Irak - Go Home !” is bound to stir some notice on the social media network.
Nonetheless, it’s doubtful American policy-makers will take much notice, considering the 200,000 American government-sponsored skateboards already shipped to Iraq for assembly to promote the new skateboard park opening in advance of the complete “Baghdad Experience.”
Continue reading →

Gandhi Rolling Stone - The Movie

This is my friend Dermot Butterly, the Irish Gandhi aka ‘Gandhi Rolling Stone’, as he prepares to walk across the country from Santa Monica, CA to Washington DC. Departing May 17th from Paramahansa Yogananda’s Lake Shrine Self-Realization Fellowship, Pacific Palisades, CA, where Mahatma Gandhi’s Ashes are enshrined. Meet @ Noon! I will be shooting as we walk to Santa Monica for the first leg of the voyage…

www.gandhipeacewalk.org

Happiness, War and the Movies…

*Turn up the volume!

A word on the context…it’s spring of 2003, year two of the Tribeca Film Festival, just blocks away from ground zero and my studio at the time. The bombs have just recently begun raining on Baghdad in the ill-fated Iraq oil war…

Continue reading →