Golden Gate Park

One of my favorite spots in San Francisco is Golden Gate Park, a mere eight minutes walk from where I used to live. Some guidebooks cite this rectangular piece of land as one of the top must-sees in the city, and rightfully so. Unfortunately, its location away from the main tourist areas makes it less frequented by tourists.

While most locals wouldn’t be caught dead near many of the city’s top attractions – for example, walking around Fisherman’s Wharf, visiting Lombard’s “Crooked Street” or riding one of those touristy cable cars are no-nos for San Franciscans; Golden Gate Park today is a living, functioning landmark which is visited by tourists and locals alike. As a 1000 acre park that is 3 miles long, Golden Gate is larger than New York’s Central Park and dare I say, more varied. Aside from the usual trees and park benches that are mainstays of city parks anywhere in the world, Golden Gate houses a music concourse, museums, windmill, botanical greenhouse, beach chalet plus a roaming ground for bison.

Walking from one end of the park to another is possible, although tiring. Allow at least 4 hours of walking in order to see all the main sights. From the western end, people usually start at the windmill. A curious sight in San Francisco, it was actually built in 1903 as a functional supplier of water.

windmill at the park

the bisons have been here since 1891

From the windmills moving eastward, the next stop is usually the bison paddock, which contain these grazing animals usually associated to the United States. A number of artificial lakes are also located in this section of the park, including Stow Lake and the man-made island in the middle.

the japanese tea garden

Towards the eastern side of the park is the public Japanese Tea Garden, reputedly the oldest Japanese garden in the United States. The five-acre enclosure is a chargeable area, at $5 a pop.

conservatory of flowers

flower beds

The main highlight of the park is probably the grand, white-colored conservatory. It is the oldest building within the compound. During summer, the main lawn facing the greenhouse is filled with elaborately-designed flowerbeds.

de young museum inside the park

I was fortunate to be in San Francisco when the De Young Museum was opened right after the new building was built. They offered free admission as well as souvenirs to the visitors during the first week. There is a viewing deck at the topmost floor that has good views of the park’s long expanse.

street performers during museum launch

SF Botanical Gardens

Other activities: biking, rollerblading, rent a boat, play frisbee, enjoy a free concert

How to get there: Take Bus 5 from downtown San Francisco and get off at Fulton Street. The bus goes through the whole length of the park.

[Via http://wanderme.wordpress.com]

Past Halloween

HALLOWEEN

is big here with many houses being decorated with huge spiders and webs, grave stones & skeletons. The best one that we didn’t take the picture of was a gravestone to ‘Lehman brothers’ and another one to ‘Bankers’.

The was a party on our street with residents cooking and drinking until darkness. Children kept coming with ‘trick or treat’ until 11 pm! Face drawing artists worked on everyone, including me.

[Via http://lubadovgan.wordpress.com]

Afghanistan: next test, last lesson

Paul Rogers,  OpenDemocracy, 26 November 2009
The war in Afghanistan may now be beyond the point where any military-centred United States strategy can work.

Barack Obama is after a lengthy period of consultation moving towards the announcement of a revised strategy towards the war in Afghanistan, now scheduled to take place in a live broadcast from the West Point military academy on 1 December 2009. It is highly likely that the United States president will order a substantially increased deployment of troop numbers to Afghanistan, probably over 30,000 if not as high as the upwards of 40,000 requested by the senior US general in the country, Stanley A McChrystal (see “Obama May Add 30,000 Troops in Afghanistan”, New York Times, 24 November 2009).

Continues >>

[Via http://sudhan.wordpress.com]

A PROPOSTA – 2009 (The Proposal)

Você Casa Comigo e Eu Te Promovo!

Em Cartaz

Gênero: Comédia Romântica
Censura: 12 anos 
Duração: 100 min
Direção: Anne Fletcher
Com: Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson, Betty White, Denis O’Hare, Malin Akerman, Oscar Nuñez, Aasif Mandvi.
Local de Filmagem: 225 Franklin Street, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Bearskin Neck, Rockport, Massachusetts, USA – (internet cafe); Beverly Municipal Airport – 46 L.P. Henderson Road, Beverly, Massachusetts, USA; Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA; Manchester, Massachusetts, USA; Myopia Hunt Club – 435 Bay Road, South Hamilton, Massachusetts, USA – (woods); Newport, Rhode Island, USA; Rockport, Massachusetts, USA e Walt Disney Studios, Burbank, California, USA – (studio).
Produção: Alex Kurtzman, Mary McLaglen, Roberto Orci
Roteiro: Pete Chiarelli
Fotografia: Oliver Stapleton
Trilha Sonora: Aaron Zigman

SINOPSE
Sandra Bullock [Speed (1994), The Lake House (2006) e Bridesmaids (2010)]interpreta Margaret Tate, uma executiva bem sucedida do ramo de publicações. Fechada, intragável, competente, odiada e imigrante canadense, Margaret tem um assistente chamado Andrew Paxton, interpretado por Ryan Reynolds [Definitely, Maybe (2008), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) e Deadpool (2011)] que faz de tudo para agradá-la profissionalmente.

Quando chega a notícia de que ela está prestes a ser deportada para seu país, Margaret (Bullock) apressa-se em conseguir um casamento de conveniência com seu jovem assistente Andrew Paxton (Reynolds) para impedir que seu cargo na editora seja preenchido por outro.

No elenco ainda contamos com a atriz, que particularmente adoro, Mary Steenburgen [In the Electric Mist (2009), Four Christmases (2008) e Clifford (1994)], ela interpreta a mãe de Andrew (Reynolds).

CRÍTICA

Da mesma diretora de 27 Dresses – Vestida Para Casar (2008) e Step Up – Ela, Dança Eu danço (2006), Anne Fletcher, aos 43 anos, chega ao seu terceiro longa metragem, dirigindo Sandra Bullock e Ryan Reynolds em seus melhores estilos protagonizando a comédia romântica  The Proposal – A Proposta, filme cuja temática é bem previsível, mas acaba por surpreender, arrancando boas risadas através de um roteiro bem escrito, excelentes atuações e direção impecável.

Sandra Bullock aos 44 anos, está novamente atuando em comédias românticas. Mesmo sendo considerada uma atriz mediana, é indiscutível que nesse gênero ela é imbatível. Outro ponto forte da atriz é a química que a mesma desenvolve com seus pares.

Nesse longa, Ryan Reynolds e Sandra Bullock são a perfeita harmonia, é uma delícia assistir aos dois entre tapas e beijos nos conduzirem de Nova Iorque ao Alaska. Ainda assim, são inesquecíveis os pares de Bullock, que foram elogiados tanto quanto seu par com Reynolds, são eles e com eles:

Hugh Grant – em "Amor à Segunda Vista" – Two Weeks Notice (2002);
Keanu Reeves - em "A Casa do Lago" – The Lake House (2006);
Benjamin Bratt – em "Miss Simpatia" – Miss Congeniality (2000);
Ben Affleck – em "Forças do Destino" – Forces of Nature (1999).

O longa é bem humorado, no tom certo, sem exageros, cativante e me arrisco a dizer, uma comédia elegante, daquelas que agradam os maridos, namorados e homens em geral!

Destaque para a cena em que Margaret (Bullock) está no palco com Ramone, interpretado por Oscar Nuñez [Reno 911!: Miami (2007), Beethoven's Big Break (2008) e "The Office" como Oscar Martinez (80 episodes, 2005-2009)], um sujeito que mora na cidade da família de Andrew (Reynolds) e que faz de tudo um pouco, garçom atendente de loja e striper para festas de despedida de solteiras. Sim, é hilário ver Margaret (Bullock) fazendo caras e bocas com nojo e aflição do “corpanzil” de Ramone, que diga-se de passagem, é lastimável! Daí a graça toda da cena, é preciso ver para chorar de rir com a cena, é fantástica! Sandra com algumas caretas e aquele famoso “olhar 43” nos passa exatamente toda sua aflição com Ramone, imperdível.

O desfecho do longa deixa a desejar um pouco, mas só um pouquinho, é que, com tanto entusiasmo durante toda a história, os finalmentes ficaram entre as cenas que a diretora resolveu economizar… Sabem, no orçamento…

Sendo assim, apesar do famoso “happy end” que é o recurso mais tradicional do cinema não ter sido fabuloso, a fotografia e a trilha sonoro compensam esse deslize e nos faz sair das salas de cinema no maior alto astral.

Não deixem de assistir essa comédia romântica ao estilo elegante que nos mostra que o amor pode estar onde você menos imagina! Em cartaz em todo território nacional. Levem lencinhos, pois rola umas lágrimas. Boa semana a todos!

bom filme!
roberta vieira
http://www.movies.co.jp/ana-muko/

 

Assista ao trailer abaixo!

The Proposal – 2009

[Via http://criticadecinema.wordpress.com]

Our Naiman: Our corrupt occupation of Afghanistan

By Robert Naiman, ZNet, Nov 25, 2009
Source: t r u t h o u t

Robert Naiman’s ZSpace Page

Is it just me, or is the pontification of Western leaders about corruption in Afghanistan growing rather tiresome?

There is something very Captain Renault about it. We’re shocked, shocked that the Afghans have sullied our morally immaculate occupation of their country with their dirty corruption. How ungrateful can they be?

But perhaps we should consider the possibility that our occupation of the country is not so morally immaculate – indeed, that the most corrupt racket going in Afghanistan today is the American occupation.

US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon’s logistics contracts in Afghanistan consists of protection payments to insurgents, Aram Roston reports in The Nation. In southern Afghanistan – where General McChrystal wants to send more troops – security firms can’t physically protect convoys of American military supplies. There’s no practical way to move the supplies without paying the Taliban. So, like Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22, we’re supplying both sides of the war.

Meanwhile, two thirds of the nearly $30 billion in international aid to Afghanistan has been routed through foreign consultants, companies and organizations hired by the US government and its allies, Farah Stockman reports in the Boston Globe. Afghan officials complain that American civilian advisers are often overpaid, underqualified and unfamiliar with the culture of the country. A typical US adviser earns about $500 per day – several times what the average Afghan earns in a month, Stockman notes. That’s about $125,000 a year – not a bad chunk of change, even by US standards. It’s more than the household income of about 85 percent of American families. The total cost of such an adviser, including security and accommodations (note that most people – in Afghanistan, like the US – have to pay for their own accommodations out of their salaries or wages) is about $500,000 a year.

The Afghan government now has a program to hire its own advisers from friendly Muslim countries like Turkey and the UAE. The US supports this program with a $30 million contribution. But that contribution represents 1.1 percent of the $2.7 billion that the US plans to spend on economic assistance to Afghanistan next year. The vast majority of the funds will be used to hire US contractors. So for every dollar we spend on paying American contractors, we spend a penny on a much cheaper program that allows Afghanistan to hire people who know the culture, speak the language, have more expertise and can move around Afghanistan with less security because they aren’t Americans.

What do you call that? Afghans call it corruption. As Diogenes might say, the big thieves are giving lectures to the little thieves.

Now consider an Afghan policeman making $120 a month – half the cost of supporting a family, Western officials concede, who sees all this going on. Do you think that guy might take a bribe? Bertolt Brecht wrote, in Marc Blitzstein’s translation: “First feed the face, and then tell right from wrong: for even saintly folk may act like sinners, unless they’ve had their customary dinners.” But in practice, our aid bureaucracy in Afghanistan has not yet won this most trivial insight.

Yet the biggest corruption of all is the occupation itself, because it is all based on a big lie: the claim that our continued occupation of Afghanistan is justified by the threat of an al Qaeda “haven” in Afghanistan. This is a lie because: 1) as former counterterrorism official Paul Pillar has pointed out, “the case has not been made” that “such a haven would significantly increase the terrorist danger to the United States” and 2) Mullah Mohammed Omar’s “Quetta Shura” Taliban have been signaling for months that they are done with al Qaeda and there has been no US response. McChrystal wants to send reinforcements to Kandahar. That’s Mullah Omar’s home turf. If McChrystal is given troops to go to Kandahar, then it’s not about al Qaeda.

[Via http://sudhan.wordpress.com]

Random Acts of Photography

The great thing about having a camera on you all the time these days is the ability to upload these to Facebook. My Palm Pre has this feature and I love it. It also gives me the ability of course to take snaps and upload them to my blog. Initially when I started this blog I was taking the pictures with a Canon EOS 5D2 which I have now sold and downgraded or swapped out for a Canon EOS T1i. The 5D2 was a fantastic camera but to be honest it was too bulky and heavy for me to take out and about on a daily basis.

The Trump Tower with it's head in the Clouds

The T1i I have yet to take an opinion on. I had it for a month and it started freezing on me at the most horrendous time i.e. at my sister in laws graduation. I was mortified. I was hoping to get some great shots of her for her album and the damn thing kept freezing while using the flash. The camera is due back from the, in warranty, repair shop tomorrow. I hope it arrives in time as I want to take it down to our friends for Thanksgiving.

Clearly the quality of the images I am taking for this blog has dropped. Here is one I took last December. I suppose ultimately I am just trying to show a sample of my day or a taste of it rather for me and for you. Who are you? Not sure really. I seem to get steady traffic to this blog, although I don’t advertise it but it’s nice you come along to view it anyway. I suppose it panders to the exhibitionist in me such as it is.

The Reflecting Pool

Once I get my Canon T1i back I want to throw myself back into my photography and get out there again taking pictures. It’s been a while and winter approaches. I hope it’s a snowy one.

[Via http://anthonyjstewart.wordpress.com]

Britain knew CIA tortured detainee

By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor, The Independent/UK, Nov 20, 2009

AFP/Getty

 

The judgement revealed Binyam Mohamad was treated the same way as an al-Qa’ida suspect tortured by the CIA

Britain knew that American agents were using barbaric torture techniques on terror suspects, including British resident Binyam Mohamed, it emerged yesterday. Secret reports sent between MI5 and the CIA in 2002 reveal that the American security services were using torture practices which included waterboarding, facial slaps and stress positions.

The extent of Britain’s knowledge was made clear in the latest High Court judgment in the case of Binyam Mohamed, who claims Britain actively colluded in his torture while he was being unlawfully held by the Americans in Morocco seven years ago. Mr Mohamed alleges that his torture included the cutting of his genitals with a razor blade.

Yesterday’s judgment says the treatment of Mr Mohamed was similar to that of Abu Zubaydah, allegedly a high-ranking al-Qa’ida terrorist who was subjected to the 10 torture practices used by the CIA at Guantanamo Bay.

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, had argued that revealing details of the 10 torture techniques would threaten Britain’s intelligence-sharing relationship with the US. But President Barack Obama ordered their publication earlier this year and the judges concluded they could refer to them. The first of the two reinstated paragraphs reads: “One of those memoranda dated August 1 2002, from Mr J S Bybee, Assistant Attorney-General, to Mr John Rizzo, acting General Counsel of the CIA, made clear that the techniques [the alleged torture of Binyam Mohamed] described were those employed against Mr Zubaydah, alleged to be a high-ranking member of al-Qa’ida.”

The rest of the paragraph, which remained redacted from public versions of the judgment, is a quotation from the memo made public by Mr Obama.

In their latest ruling in the former Guantanamo detainee’s case against the Foreign Office, the judges said: “Of itself, the treatment to which Mr Mohamed was subjected could never properly be described in a democracy as ‘a secret’ or an ‘intelligence secret’ or ‘a summary of classified intelligence’.”

The human rights group Reprieve accused Mr Miliband of using an “Alice in Wonderland” argument to suppress the details of the torture of Mr Mohamed. Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Edward Davey said: “David Miliband must end this shameful episode now.”

Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones had redacted passages from a previous judgment after hearing argument on behalf of Mr Miliband that disclosure could jeopardise the UK’s intelligence-sharing relationship with the US. They said the redacted material should be put back in because it was “essential” to their reasoning and no threat to national security. But the passages, apart from two paragraphs to which the Foreign Office no longer objects, will still not be made public yet because Mr Miliband is taking the issue to the Court of Appeal next month.

[Via http://sudhan.wordpress.com]