Aug 23, 2006

Film & Fiction Scholarships

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Applications for 2007-08 will be available in late Summer 2006.

IHS Film & Fiction Scholarships up to $10,000 in tuition and stipend will be awarded by the Institute for Humane Studies to support students who:

Will be pursuing a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) degree in filmmaking, fiction writing, or playwriting full-time in the 2006-07 academic school year.
Have a demonstrated interest in classical liberal ideas and their application in contemporary society.


Applications for 2007-08 will be available in late Summer 2006.

IHS Film & Fiction Scholarships up to $10,000 in tuition and stipend will be awarded by the Institute for Humane Studies to support students who:

Will be pursuing a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) degree in filmmaking, fiction writing, or playwriting full-time in the 2006-07 academic school year.
Have a demonstrated interest in classical liberal ideas and their application in contemporary society.

Beasiswa Indonesia Scholarship International diploma sekolah S1 S2 S3 dalam negeri dan luar negeri.

Demonstrate the desire, motivation, and creative ability to succeed in their chosen profession. In recognition of the important role that films and novels play in the world of ideas, IHS provides support to promising young filmmakers and writers who share an appreciation for the potential and promise of a free society.

If you’re interested in our Film & Fiction Scholarships check out our free Liberty, Art, & Culture seminar.
Reference

More Indonesian Scholarships, http://informasi-beasiswa.blogspot.com/

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Aug 21, 2006

Iran's president launches weblog

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Mr Ahmadinejad said he would try to make his blog entries shorterIranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has joined a burgeoning international community - by starting his own weblog.

The launch of www.ahmadinejad.ir was reported on state TV, which urged users to send in messages to the president.

Mr Ahmadinejad's first posting, entitled autobiography, tells of his childhood, Iran's Islamic revolution, and the country's war with Iraq. The blog includes a poll asking if users think the US and Israel are trying to trigger a new world war.

There is a postform for users to send in questions for the president, and a picture gallery containing a series of images of the blogger himself.


Mr Ahmadinejad said he would try to make his blog entries shorterIranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has joined a burgeoning international community - by starting his own weblog.

The launch of www.ahmadinejad.ir was reported on state TV, which urged users to send in messages to the president.

Mr Ahmadinejad's first posting, entitled autobiography, tells of his childhood, Iran's Islamic revolution, and the country's war with Iraq. The blog includes a poll asking if users think the US and Israel are trying to trigger a new world war.

There is a postform for users to send in questions for the president, and a picture gallery containing a series of images of the blogger himself.

The move by Mr Ahmadinejad comes amid continuing internet censorship by the Iranian government. In a country where the media is strictly controlled, the internet has become the main forum for dissident voices. But in its bid to crack down on anti-government bloggers, the government uses one of the most sophisticated internet censorship systems in the world.

Such restrictions will not pose a problem for the president. However, at the end of his first posting - which runs to more than 2,000 words in English - he promises to try to keep things "shorter and simpler" in future.

"With hope in God, I intend to wholeheartedly complete my talk in future with allotted 15 minutes," he writes.


Nose bleed

Mr Ahmadinejad's first entry on his blog, which is available in Persian, Arabic, English and French and includes an RSS feed to get future new entries to readers, is dated Friday.
He begins by telling users of his humble origins. "During the era that nobility was a prestige and living in a city was perfection, I was born in a poor family in a remote village of Garmsar - approximately 90 kilometres west of Tehran," he writes.

The internet is extremely popular in Iran, but bloggers face strict censorship
His father was a "hard-bitten toiler blacksmith" and a "pious man", who had decided to move the family to Tehran when Mr Ahmadinejad was just a year old.

Describing himself as a "distinguished student", the president tells how he excelled at school, coming 132nd out of more than 400,000 students to take a university entrance test - despite suffering from a nose bleed at the time.

He talks about his admiration and affection for the leader of the Islamic revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and discusses Iran's war with Iraq, calling former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein an "aggressor" who was "intoxicated with power".

The US is also heavily criticised by the president. At one point he describes it as "Great Satan USA" for what he says was its support for the "terrorist groups" which had tried to collapse Iran's Islamic government.

And the blog's current poll asks the question: "Do you think that the US and Israeli intention and goal by attacking Lebanon is pulling the trigger for another world war?"

'Publicity stunt'

It is not yet clear how well Mr Ahmadinejad's blog will be received. User figures already appear high - by 1100 BST on Monday, nearly 12,000 people had taken part in the online vote.
But Keivan Mehrgan, a Tehran-based blogger, told the Associated Press news agency he thought the president's efforts were merely a publicity stunt.

"Ahmadinejad used to have nothing to do with the internet and even talked against journalists and bloggers before he became president," he was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, in a move some suggest is part of the same search for a wider international audience, President Ahmadninejad also gave a rare interview to American television.
In extracts broadcast by the BBC on Monday, Mr Ahmadinejad condemned President Bush for wanting to solve the world's problems by force, and for "blindly supporting" Israel in its conflict with Hezbollah.

He also flatly denied Iran was seeking nuclear weapons. "We want to have access to nuclear technology. We want to produce fuel," he said.

"Do you not think that the most important issue of the world of tomorrow will be energy? We think that Mr Bush's team and the parties that support him want to monopolise energy resources in the world."

The BBC's Bridget Kendall, at the United Nations, says Mr Ahmadinejad's decision to reach out to speak America at this moment - in the wake of the Lebanon conflict - was no accident.
President Ahmadinejad wanted to play on all the doubts about American foreign policy, and counter the notion that Iran is run by mad mullahs trying to get nuclear weapons, our correspondent says.

Source: BBC,
Indonesian Version, click here

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In Search of America

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Why America becomes a superpower country? It can set out the image and view the world about it. All people in the world exactly know America. They have seen, heard, and read about United States for most of their lives.

“This land is your land” is hegemony of America. Our mind are influenced that all things that related with America need to know. All the images and views of America are heard, seen, read, or observe outside the United States. America seems to be everywhere but everywhere is not America. Nevertheless, American images and products are not always welcome. In both, East and West has tried to discourage or has simply forbidden the inflow of unwanted Americana.

It is very difficult for a foreigner to grasp the size of the U.S. and the great variety of life. Most Americans take the size and variety of their country for granted. For a long period of time it has been popular to describe the typical American character or even “the American way of life,” as if there were only one. To attempt this with the more homogeneous people and nations of America, the results have often been disastrous, if not just comical.

American society is the most open and, at the same time, most intensely and continually self-critical in the world. Any country that was founded on ideals, as the United States was, and that declares them openly and defines itself through them, will constantly have to measure the distance between where it is and where it should be. The distance between the reality of life and the hope for a better one is also the basis of the American Dream. It is has been hotly argued not only by Americans, but by the rest of the world as well. This debate about America is at the center of what it means to be an American and the strength of the argument reflect the view that America is different or should be. The literature of America has also demonstrated this tradition of self-criticism.

Many Americans feel that such continuing self-tradition, the terrible attention by the media, the publishing of the things best keep secret, the hunts for scandals, has gone too far. They point out that in few other western societies can political cartoonists so openly ridicule their leader.

America could be described as the polluted land, the despoiler of a great wilderness, the inventor of the throw-away culture. Or it could be described as the first country to set aside national parks, among the first to ban DDT, the culture that created the world “ recycling,” a nation where women would be jeered if they wore furs of a cheetah or leopard. America could be portrayed as a nation of intolerance and hate, or the last refuge for millions, where all religions under the sun are found.

America is neither a land where gold is found on the streets nor the land where all streets are filled with soup-lines and drunks, should go without saying. If someone today come to America already knowing what they will find, then they will find it, be it riches or grim poverty. Yet, if one is willing to give those first Americans a chance to introduce themselves, then we stand a better chance of discovering where America is, and who Americans are.

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