In Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil (Knopf, $27) author and journalist Peter Maass embarks on an eight-year investigation into the economics and politics of oil production, surveying the true costs of oil beyond carbon emissions and high prices at the pump. Maass, a contributing writer for New York Times Magazine, travels to countries where oil has been discovered to get a first-hand understanding of the consequences—war, poverty, corruption and dictatorship. It’s an essential, fascinating read that, through anecdotal evidence of the destruction caused, infuriates the reader. But there’s still hope. We already have the technologies and policies to cure the addiction, Maass writes, it’s now up to us to take those solutions and act on them.

Q. How did your curiosity about the reasons for global conflict and poverty develop into an obsession with oil and subsequent journey into the “violent twilight of oil”?

A. Much of my writing life involved wars that I covered from the Balkans to Africa and the Middle East, and oil was often mentioned. ‘It’s all about oil,’ I was told. Or, ‘It’s not about oil at all.’ Oil is central to our world but what role does it play in violent conflicts and the divide between rich and poor? I wanted to answer those questions. My initial work began before 9/11 and when I searched Amazon.com for books on oil, the proffered list included more tomes on salad dressing and aromatherapy than on the liquid that was the oxygen of the global economy. Some excellent books had been published, of course, but mainly for academic or expert readers. I had found my subject–a book that would explain in compelling ways what we do for oil and what oil does to us. I wasn’t aware that the subject would consume eight years of my life and take me from Texas to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria and beyond. But I’m glad it did. Read the rest of this entry >>

The Cove, Taiji, Japan.

Ric O’Barry, former Flipper-trainer-turned-activist and subject of the documentary The Cove, departed this morning for his second visit to Japan in as many weeks. It’s a frequent trip for him during the dolphin killing season that runs from September to March in Taiji, Wakayama prefecture. The focus of this trip, he said yesterday on the phone from Miami, is to keep Taiji in the news and to spread the message that the pilot whales, which are being killed despite a temporary ban on dolphin killing, are more toxic than bottlenose dolphins.

“That’s what this trip is all about because the dolphin hunters are playing games with us saying they’re not killing dolphins anymore—they’re killing the pilot whale,” he said. “Well, the pilot whale is in fact a large dolphin. Ironically, it has the highest levels of mercury. [...] They’re targeting the pilot whales and it’s sold in the whale section right next to whale meat from different parts of Japan. All of it is contaminated, of course. The only whales that are not contaminated are the 1,000 they bring in every year from the Antarctic.”

Although there is a temporary ban on the killing of dolphins in Taiji, O’Barry said that it’s a public relations stunt and that 50 pilot whales were killed last week alone. Read the rest of this entry >>

Save the Waves just released a new PSA directed by Brian Knappenberger at Luminant Media (who also directed our TakePart Congo conflict mineral mining video) for its World Surfing Reserves program which, according to the Web site, “aims to proactively designate and help preserve outstanding waves, surf zones and their surrounding environments around the world. [...] by recognizing the positive environmental, social, cultural and economic benefits of waves.”

The preservation of our coastlines is something we should all get behind. Take a minute to watch! And subscribe to the Save the Waves YouTube channel here for a ton of great content all about big blue.

Saturday night was not a typical evening at the UN General Assembly Hall in New York. There was praying, dancing in the aisles, and rock star performances. The night was a much-needed outpour of support, a rally for the Pakistani refugees in the North West region of the country.

When I first heard of the concert a week and a half ago, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. But the emails started to roll in, and I began corresponding with Salman Ahmad, a UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador, member of the music group Junoon and organizer of Saturday’s event. Before long we had guest blog posts from Anand Patwardhan, Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, Sussan Deyhim, Jeff Skoll, Bobby Sager, Chris Wangro, Nusrat Durrani, and Deepak Chopra on why they were getting involved with the IDPs in Pakistan. What I loved about each post is that every author had their own unique reasons for joining the effort. Read the rest of this entry >>

(Cover image: Rolling Stone)

The cover of Rolling Stone No. 1085 (Aug. 20, 2009) depicts a somber looking President Barack Obama, his face the center of the presidential seal that reads “Will he take bold action or compromise too easily?” The cover image, created by artist Shepard Fairey, was a departure from Fairey’s previous work featuring Obama; his ubiquitous Hope graphic became one of the most well-known yet unofficial images of the historic 2008 campaign.

“I think for a lot of people optimism is what will make them act,” he said in a conversation at the Brave New Films studio in late August. “I’m trying to maintain this balance of not letting Obama get away with not fulfilling his promises, but also not just rushing to condemn him and having any unity fall into chaos.”

Fairey characterizes his work as reactionary, and defends the Hope image as the right move at the time. “Having McCain as president would have been horrible,” he said.

In the interview, conducted by Christopher Sprinkle, a producer at Brave New Films, Fairey discussed his progression from struggling to survive by screenprinting pizza restaurant T-shirts and Karate uniforms to being a much sought after gallery artist designing bikes for Lance Armstrong and creating commercial advertising campaigns for Dewar’s, Motorola and Saks Fifth Avenue.

“The term ‘Shepard Fairey style’ has now entered the lexicon much in the same way that a slow pan on a photograph in a documentary film is now referred to as ‘Ken Burns move,’ ” said Sprinkle, who interviewed Fairey as part of the Brave New Films conversations series.

On Humble Beginnings and Selling Out

Fairey described his first widely disseminated image, Andre the Giant has a Posse, as an “Orwellian icon” spontaneously created by making a stencil of a newspaper photo of the professional wrestler Andre the Giant. It became known as the Obey Giant sticker campaign. (You can read about it in his 1990 manifesto on the Obey Web site.) Read the rest of this entry >>

I just saw this on BoomTown and it stirred up a bad memory from my days working at a building on Microsoft’s Redmond Campus as a receptionist. Steve Ballmer is quite possibly the single most intimidating person I’ve ever encountered in my life (and trust me, I’ve encountered a few).

So there I was, sitting at the reception desk, all alone, as I had been for at least 10 minutes. I decided to sneak a cookie (we weren’t allowed to eat at the desk) and of course just as I cram the damn thing in my mouth in walks Ballmer, solo, which was weird because normally we had ample warning when the big wigs were coming through. I tried to chew and swallow as fast as possible but he approached the desk so quickly, all six feet five inches of him, and asked me where this one exec’s office was and I tried to find it in the database but I couldn’t because I was nervous and then I finally found it and tried to tell him but all that came out was spit and cookie crumbs…at least that’s how I remember it. Regardless of how it really went down, it definitely was intense. So please, in solidarity with Microsoft receptionists everywhere, watch this clip: Read the rest of this entry >>