GlobalTrek .:. 1983 to Present

Friday, May 18, 2007

A Global Underground Guide

It's not often that one company becomes an icon of an entire global movement, but it does happen. Global Underground has been a pinnacle of global dance music for over 10 years and continues to produce some of the best mixes in the world. With 30 (soon to be 31 with Adam Freeland's mix from Mexico City launching June 12th) mixes from world-class DJs as well as a few other series that expand on new territory, Global Underground is always in constant rotation in my iPod.

Here's a few thoughts for anyone interested in quality dance/house/trance.

Groundbreaking:

  • GU001: Tony De Vit - Tel Aviv. The first GU, you feel the underground with this.
  • GU023: James Lavelle - Barcelona. A completely new sound with plenty of gems.
  • GU030: Nick Warren - Paris. His 7th installation, arguably his craftiest.
Classic:
  • GU007: Paul Oakenfold - New York. Got me into the series, still a big fav.
  • GU011: Nick Warren - Budapest. Made famous a lot of tunes, this one rocks.
  • GU013: Sasha - Ibiza. The gold standard of the series. Worth 20x its price.
House Variants - From Bangin to Beauty:
  • GU005: Tony De Vit - Tokyo. Bangin, dancin hard house
  • GU009: Sasha - San Francisco. Creates an envy of both the DJ and the crowd.
  • GU012: Dave Seaman - Buenos Aires. High class, progressive fuel for long flights.
  • GU015: Darren Emerson - Uruguay. Hit play, dance for 2+ hours.
  • GU027: Danny Howells - Miami. Disc 1 is THE sexy mood setter. Great with wine.
  • GU028: Nick Warren - Shanghai. Covers a lot of ground and gets into your soul.
Soundtrack to being As Cool as Possible:
  • GU018: Nick Warren - Amsterdam. Dark, funky, get-into-trouble stuff.
  • GU020: Darren Emerson - Singapore. Even darker. Best with scotch or highways.
  • GU025: Deep Dish - Toronto. Few will recognize what you're playing, but they'll all be on board.
Global Underground has also launched a few new veins over the years. The NuBreed, Prototype, and the Afterhours series have a few absolute crackers. Try on NuBreed 004 - Sander Kleinenberg for size (SK's Scorchio Remix is ooowee-good). Also, for the drive home or the very late snugglefest, be sure to have some Afterhours handy; Afterhours 3 brings me back to center.

More info, tracklists and general GU stuff at their site --> Here. (Launches in new window/tab)

CU vs. Arkansas - One Day Left


Update: Looks like some hog fans ramped it up. Arkansas beats CU 52% to 48% and wins the region. I'm done following this story.

Once again, it's college mascot rival time and good ole' Ralphie is in the regional finals! There's only one day to vote, so get at it!! Ralphie's already taken down the CSU Ram (yeeeeaaahhh buddy!), the Maryland Terrapin (I had to Wiki it to find out what it is - apparently a turtle), and the Richmond Spider (pretty easy win, I would think).

Vote here (Loads in new window/tab), and don't forget to read the short article to make sure you adequately know both of the candidates.

As of time of post, and with my money on Ralphie, the score stands at 51% for Ralphie & 49% for that Hogzilla-lookin' thing; (66,599 votes).

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

More Bad News for Zimbabweans

Summary :: Zimbabwe is experiencing the worst economic crisis in the world, but at least they've been named head of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development.

With just two weeks left in the planting season, the Agriculture Ministry of Zimbabwe's government has admitted that less than 1/10th of the wheat crop targeted for the year has been planted. The ministry has warned that shortages of bread and flour would worsen as a result. Apparently, corn is far more important a food source for Zimbabweans than wheat and as such, mass starvation appears unlikely - for now.

The government is claiming that acute shortages of cash, fertilizer, tractors and gasoline are to blame for the planting shortfall. 240 of the less than 1,000 tractors used in the country are broken down and farmers have received less than half the gasoline required for the working equipment.

For many who've been paying attention, this is not unforeseen. Official figures show that inflation is at a staggering 2,200%. This figure does not include data from the thriving black market where rare commodities such as sugar fetch up to 10 times the government-fixed price. Some estimates put the figure upwards of 5,000%.

The central bank estimates that 3.4M (of 12.3M, according to the CIA World Factbook) Zimbabweans have fled the economic crisis; most who find work end up in menial jobs as housecleaners or day laborers despite higher abilities. Earlier this month, the Zimbabwe Health Services Board declared that 42% and 35% of locally trained doctors and nurses, respectively, had left the country seeking higher pay and better working conditions.

What makes this all the more tragic is the lack of effective condemnation of the government's economic management. Just last week and by a vote of 26-21, Zimbabwe was made head of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development. The U.S. and various European nations as well as numerous NGOs have condemned the result.

Considering that Zimbabwe is very much in the throes of the worst economic crisis in the world, one can only stand in awe of what this means. I couldn't have imagined anything occurring that I would find more inappropriate than the nomination of John Bolton for the U.S.'s ambassadorship to the U.N., and yet it has happened.

Quite simply, putting anyone from the Zimbabwean government at the head of the Commission on Sustainable Development is much like making George W. Bush chair of literature and culture at Harvard.

Monday, May 14, 2007

What happened on XX/XX/XXXX?

I've always been interested in history and the peculiar conicidences it seems to reveal. I recall pundits claiming that April 20th was an "evil" day for the pain it has spawned.

I personally feel some of this as on my birthday, August 6th, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. I think of that and have observed a moment of silence every year since I was 9. I was up a tad late last night, watching Cry Freedom and looking for more info on Steve Biko and found an interesting resource offered by the New York Times.

It lists major historical events on any given day. I found it interesting that I share my birthday with some influential characters including:

  • Andy Warhol
  • M.Night Shyamalan
  • Lucille Ball
  • Sir Alexander Fleming
  • Dutch Schultz
  • David Robinson
I'd never known that before. Perhaps you'd like to see what happened on your birthday, or see if you can find that "good" day.

New York Times' On This Day Archive

Friday, May 11, 2007

A Big Step Against HIV/AIDS

Summary: The Clinton Foundation strikes a major victory and I lay out some figures to show how we can and should stem the tide of global HIV/AIDS. We need your support.

On Tuesday, Bill Clinton announced that his foundation had negotiated significantly lowered prices for first-line drugs to less than $1 per day.

The big boost here comes in the reduction for the once-a-day pill which is the staple of first-line drugs. The pill includes tenofovir (Viread, NtRTI), lamivudine (Epivir, NARTI) and efavirenz (Sustiva, NNRTI). The new price of $339 per patient per year is expected be 45 percent lower than the current rate available to low-income countries and 67 percent less than the price available to many middle-income countries.

As of December 2006, nearly 40 million people were estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS; nearly 25 million of which reside in sub-Saharan Africa. 2.9 million people died in 2006 due to HIV/AIDS; 2.1 million of which resided in sub-Saharan Africa.

The lowered prices are the fruit of negotiated agreements with generic drug makers Cipla Ltd. and Matrix Laboratories Ltd (Interesting chemical models here) both of India. Both collaborated with the foundation to lower production costs, in part by securing lower prices for raw materials.

Prices for second-line drugs were also significantly lowered during negotiations. These drugs are essential for patients who develop resistance to first-line drugs and were previously out of financial reach even for funded projects.

Clinton said Tuesday,

"I believe in intellectual property and ensuring that manufacturers earn the profit margins they need to keep the discovery and supply of AIDS drugs sustainable. But that shouldn't prevent us from getting essential life-saving medicines to those who need them in low and middle-income countries alike"
Reading that makes me think of what Nobel Prize winning economist Muhammad Yunus wrote in his book "Banker to the Poor - Micro-lending and the Battle Against World Poverty". Yunus summarizes his view of poverty and how we ought to proceed:
"Poverty does not belong in civilized human society. Its proper place is in a museum. That's where it will be. When schoolchildren go with their teachers and tour the poverty museum, they will be horrified to see the misery and indignity of human beings. They will blame their forefathers for tolerating this inhumane condition and for allowing it to continue in such a large segment of the population until the early part of the twenty-first century.
I have always believed that the elimination of poverty from the world is a matter of will. Even today we don't pay serious attention to the issue of poverty, because the powerful remain relatively untouched by it. Most people distance themselves from the issue by saying that if the poor worked harder, they wouldn't be poor.
When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding a solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is no solution to poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor. Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about the lives of the poor. Charity appeases our consciences.
The real issue is creating a level playing field for everybody - rich and poor countries, powerful and small enterprises - giving every human being a fair chance. As globalization continues to encroach on our socioeconomic realities, the creation of this level playing field can become seriously endangered unless we initiate a global debate and generally agree on the features of a "right" architecture of globalization, rather than drift into something terribly wrong in the absence of a framework for action. This framework will no doubt have many features, but we can keep in mind the following: The rule of "strongest takes it all" must be replaced by a rule that ensures everybody a place and a piece of the action. "Free trade" must mean freedom for the weakest. The poor must be made active players, rather than passive victims, in the process of globalization."
Poverty and HIV/AIDS are closely linked, but to avoid writing a thesis, I'll allow you to investigate as you wish. Instead, let's return to the fight against HIV/AIDS.

While we return, it is important to understand that treatment is only one facet of the fight. UNAIDS (widely recognized as the most accurate source of data and estimates) in their 2006 report stated that for low- and middle-income countries, the entire funding requirements for treatment in 2006 was $3B, and an estimated $12.3B for 2006-2008. Furthermore, to financially cover prevention, care and treatment, support for orphans and vulnerable children, program costs, and human resources in low- and middle-income nations (essentially all aspects of the fight) for 2006-2008 is estimated to carry a $55.1B price tag. (Chapter 10 - From here)

For a sense of how much this is, NASA has a budget of over $16B for 2007 alone. Those nearly wholly incompetent TSA agents at airports and their department have over $6B. Estimates of the cost of the Iraq war easily exceed $400B.

As a world, we can easily fund this effort many times over, and yet we don't.

It's easy to turn a blind eye to this and go on watching "Lost". I can't. You shouldn't. I implore you to phone your friends and representatives, lift your voice and together, let's put an end to the greatest global health crisis the world has ever known. Never has it been clearer stated than by International AIDS Society President Dr Joep Lange:

"If we can get cold Coca Cola and beer to every remote corner of Africa, it should not be impossible to do the same with drugs."

Will Ferrell Meets His Landlord

This went around a while back, but you know you want to watch it again. If you haven't seen it, you're in for a treat.

The Landlord

Mock The Week - Headliners

A bit of British comedy for ya. 7 of Britain's best rip on Beckham, Scientology, America's Iraq Policy, and Frankie Boyle lets loose some previously classified info about tramps. Plenty more on YouTube if you need a break.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Carnaval

Summary: Carnaval is what Las Palmas does in February. For all of February.


You've undoubtedly heard of it. Most likely, you're thinking about Carnaval in Brazil; costumes, drum beats, all night parties. I haven't been fortunate enough to experience that one as my trip to Brazil was in November and too late for Carnaval. After participating in Carnaval Las Palmas style though, I've got enough to report on. And plenty I can't report on without making this waaay NC-17.

I arrived in Las Palmas on the 5th of February not knowing what to expect beyond a beach, a bed and a few beers. After about two hours, I was briefed by my roommate Steve and his ex Alicia about what I'd already missed and what was upcoming. You see, here in Las Palmas, the entire month of February is dedicated to Carnaval. Carnaval goes for 4 full weekends and without any apparent reason. I asked about every motive I could think of from religious to excess alcohol production, but all I could ascertain is that the people here think February is for SERIOUS partying.

This plays on many levels. There are at least 4 major pageant shows; Queen, Drag Queen, Elderly Queen, and Kiddly Queen. There is a huge parade where anyone and everyone is expected to join. There are concerts on the main stage each night as well as a DJ in a VIP area playing until well into the morning. There is an amusement park erected with a ferris wheel and a rollercoaster. There are people from 12 to 80 out at the same time all over a major park near our place. But these aren't just regular people.

No, these are hybridized fantasy characters who come up with lavish, bizarre, sexual, outrageous costumes. Some have been planned for months with many including wire frames and lots of neon colors and feathers. I saw women dressed as birds, men dressed as women, and a few men who actually became women. There was a 6'5", perfectly shaved chap dressed in a leather bustier, fishnets, and a gimp mask who was dolling out lashes with his 8 ft whip. This is no normal street party.

Add to that kind of madness alcohol and food and you've got something really special. But don't just have a few beer stands, oh no...if you're gonna do this, might as well do it right. There are over 30 bars on the grounds, each serving up anything you want to almost anyone. It literally felt like a Hunter S. Thompson escapade and plenty of people were giving booze to these goddamn animals.

From 10pm on, they crawl out from the concrete jungle; some in pairs, others in groups of 5 or more. They meander around, seeking a good spot to post up and let loose the fury of Carnaval. As the DJs rock on and the 'ron con colas' flow, people become groups and groups become masses and the masses form one swollen, swirling collective full of half naked people high on life, hash, alcohol and pheromones. 2AM comes and goes meaning absolutely nothing to this beast. 3AM arrives; everyone is your brother and digital cameras aiming to record the madness can grasp only fragments.

Mere mortals like myself in need of sustenance needed only to walk to the plethora of churro stands and mini restaurants serving up all sorts of guilty pleasures in order to juice up. Fries, bocadillos (sandwiches) with pork, chicken and sauteéd onions, churros filled with chocolate cream, hamburgers, candy, kebaps, jamon serrano - a smorgasbord of party fuel.

And fuel it was. I never left the grounds until 5AM. I was annihilated, but the collective had just begun to lose its first scales.

Any attempt to fully detail this event is doomed to fail and as such I shall finish here. For some pictures to enrich the story, head here where I've thrown together a gallery. (Loads in new window/tab)

Get some Z-Trip


If your ears and soul haven't had the pleasure yet, it's about time that you treat them to some Z-Trip. Luckily, the dude is really generous with his offerings.

Here's a link to his Motown Breakdown Part 1 (Just under 9 minutes).

Here's a link to his download page with much more including the legendary Uneasy Listening album. (Loads in new window/tab)

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Must see TV - "Buying the War"

If you are going to spend only 90 minutes watching something this week, make sure it's Bill Moyer's recent program "Buying the War" which details the media involvement in the rise to war in Iraq. The program is available in its entirety on PBS' website and split into 5 pieces - perfect for making tea or grabbing a notepad.

You may need that notepad to jot down all the unbelievable things we missed after 9/11. The majority of our media completely failed us and of those few reporters that didn't, most of their stories ended up buried on page 18. Furthermore, this story is far from over.

Forget NBC. This is the real Must See TV.

.:. View it here .:. (Loads in new window/tab)