Its the sound of the World Cup horn, or the "Vuvuzela" horn, like the kind the one fan from a CFL game brings to compensate for the lack of 35,000 other fans... This vuvuzela horn has been the only sound heard at World Cup 2010, as tens of thousands of South African fans take them to games, and blowthem as loudly and for as long as they can. So there is my point, its annoying as hell, but now its a danger? Read on.

What was just an annoying din, has now escalated into a health threat with authorities and specialists claiming that prolonged exposure to the noise emitted from the World Cup horn could result in hearing loss and in some cases deafness. Woooow.

To illustrate their point about the World Cup horn, they tested its output and found that the vuvuzela emits a noise at 127 decibels. At thatmeasurement, the vuvuzela is shockingly louder than a drum (122 decibels), and the ref’s whistle (121.8 decibels). A 10 decibel increase in sound means that a 127 decibel noise is twice as loud as a 117 decibel sound. Local fans have been blowing these tuneless horns mercilessly since the tournament began and it has caused no end of irritation to viewers and fans, well at least the ones I've spoken to at pubs and with friends.

There have been petitions to FIFA from authorities but the president of the organisation, Sepp Blatter, refused to ban the World Cup horn on account of its traditional ties to South Africa. However, players similarly are not amused and have complained that the racket completely puts them off their game. One solution would be for World Cup broadcasters to simply transmit the audio from their commentators only and omit crowd noise all together, but that could take away from the subtleties of what we hear between the minuscule spurts of silence between horn blasts, right? Well, maybe I shouldn't complain, I live in a world that allows me to enjoy the fruits of a peaceful, global party and the game football, that's pretty exciting. I just wish I didn't have to feel like an entomologist collecting worker-drone data at a hive every time I tuned in to the Netherlands tuning they're opponent.

But the tables turn, and the political battles that took place in the elections of 2006 bring about land reform and power is returned back to the people. But it is the corruption of this power that ironically renews itself in the hands of the Nicaraguan natives.

LAND trailer for feature documentary from Julian T. Pinder on Vimeo.

Power corrupts, and the 28 year old director captures the essence of this fact with some ballsy documentation and filming with almost no budget, yet with great ambition. This film has garnished rave reviews, including a rare 4/4 stars in the Globe and Mail. It screens this week on Wednesday the 9th at 9:00 p.m. and Thursday the 10th at 7:00 p.m., at The Royal Theater on College Street in Toronto. I highly recommend this film to anyone who supports Canadian film and for those of us who can appreciate relevant, provocative and informing media from an entrepreneur like Julian. With a potent mix of the eye opening truths that can be compared to those of Noam Chomsky,  and the raw vision of a budding new director, I too give this Canadian Doc a 4/4 stars. Big ups, yo.

Produced By DJ T Lo.

The vanguard of women in this first photo wear their skin as if it is a costume to which they are more or less indifferent, having removed themselves from their personalities, they become "specimens." Fine ones at that. Newton's portrait skills from 1930's Germany showcase well, and even Andy Warhol, the veritable king of pop art, new age,  1960's portraits, was a subject of Newton. These photos above and below, represent "Big Nudes," an erotic urban style that pinnacled in the 1980's.

What we demand most of all is oil. Earth Day came to be, in part due to the blowout of an oil platform off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif. In 1973, OPEC and allied oil producers in the Middle East showed how quickly they could derail international economies by withholding supplies. The Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 demonstrated the damage crude oil can do to the environment. And now we have the Deepwater Horizon disaster on the Gulf of Mexico, spilling 5,000 barrels of oil into the sea each day, maybe more.

Will this latest disaster spur further efforts to wean the world off petroleum and toward the development of new sources of energy? History suggests not.

"We are absolutely addicted and we have no methadone. All we have is the hard stuff," Larry McKinney, director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, told the Associated Press. "The reality is we're on it, this incident has happened and what we have to do is figure out how we can move forward."

In my opinion, we're a long way from curing this addiction, but we have taken the first step of admitting it. This is more than an oil spill, it has to be. We need a catalyst that will bring about a significant change in the way we view how we live on Earth, and like the polluted waters of the Gulf Coast, the political systems and policies that surround the consumption and harvest of oil, must be cleansed.

This is what I'd look like.

Everything from scratching an itch on a dogs ear, the camaraderie of childhood rivalries, the intangible feeling someone felt from a kiss, the admiration from a kind gesture, the relief from a helping hand, the pride felt in the accomplishment they created to the images, smells, touches and sounds of a brother or sister, son or daughter, nephew or niece, friend or foe, acquaintance or colleague, all coalesce in a living bubble of memories and experiences that is carried in the minds and hearts and stories of the literal thousands of people and living beings that came into contact with a human being. It is of course something that cannot last, but this is important to note, for like the whole, the sum of its parts are fleeting and each and every thought and memory should be cherished, held true and given meaning. Such is life, and in this day and age, it is important to understand the value of such a thing.