a curious Yankee in Europe's court

In a feature titled Vangelis: A message of hope, the Greek composer gives a rare interview to Al Jazeera. He discusses his ideas about beauty, music and culture. Click on screenshot below to listen (25 min approx).

#OccupyOakland General Strike Closes Port, 5th Biggest in US (Naked Capitalism) – great post!

Bill Black on the Real News Network on His Three Big, Simple Demands (Naked Capitalism) – another link from Yves Smith’s Naked Capitalism, one of the most informative websites about finance and current events.

Ma SuperMario non basta (epistemes.org) – commentary about new ECB chief Mario Draghi (in Italian only).

Laurie Penny: A woman’s opinion is the mini-skirt of the internet (The Independent)

Lindblad Expeditions: Day 12 (Carl Safina blog)

The best of our graphic short story prize (Guardian) – if you like cartoonists, this is a feast.

“United”  (Playing For Change/United Nations Population Fund) – click on screenshot below for music video.

Elizabeth Warren on Debt Crisis, Fair Taxation (YouTube) – precisely put! No wonder her fan base is growing.

Panic of the Plutocrats (New York Times) – Paul Krugman

The Story Of Occupy Wall Street Told Through Online Videos (Social Times)

Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story (TEDTalks) – video – from 2009 but golden.

Mike Biddle: We can recycle plastic (TEDTalks) – video – this may be some of the very best news for planet earth.

Did Van Gogh die in an unfortunate brush with fate? (The Independent)

Neo and Toxedo – Two Dogs in Paris (Dogwork.com) – fantastico!

Canzoni di 18mila giorni, il ritorno di Gianmaria Testa (la Repubblica) – music video – click on screenshot below

My Rome: ’90% of this incredible city is unknown’ (Guardian) — if you love Rome or photography, you’ll enjoy this!

Gioachino Rossini – William Tell (Emi Classics) – Royal Opera House Music Director Antonio Pappano talks about conducting the famous opera

Murdoch’s Watergate? (Newsweek) -I found it fascinating to read the legendary Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein assessing the ongoing Murdoch scandal

Re-kindling Berlin’s Love for Brussels (Social Europe Journal) — if you’re interested in learning more about what’s happening in Europe now, this analysis by one of Germany’s leading public intellectuals is helpful

Italy’s Debt, Outlook, European Debt Crisis (Bloomberg) — and this short video of the former chief economist for the Italian bank UniCredit talking about the true state of Italy’s finances will tell you more than much of  the highly hysterical analysis floating around these days

Cherish Pat Metheny (boomitude.com) – exquisitely performed (video above)

Alien encounters ‘within twenty years’ (Guardian)

China and Europe: Who benefits? (Aljazeera) – video of interview with three Europe-China experts. Good insight and overview.

Polish PM Donald Tusk: New EU visionary? (NoseMonkey)

It Takes a Village (Spiegel Online International)

Row over Plans to Turn Tuscan Village into Millionaires’ Paradise (Corriere della Sera) – Italian version below

E’ polemica sul borgo toscano che diventerà un’enclave per milionari (Corriere della Sera) – English version above

Emiliano Salinas: A civil response to violence (TEDtalks) – son of former Mexico president creates stir with talk about Mexico’s growing violence

Who Gives a F*ck About an Oxford Comma? Plenty of Us, Apparently. (FISHBOWLLA)

The revolution will be translated: Global Voices’ citizen-powered site experiments with English-second (Nieman Journalism Lab)

Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the hotel maid turns into a PR battle (Guardian) – don’t miss paragraph five – it’s key to the whole mess

Costs of War (Watson Institute – Brown University) – new report described as “first comprehensive accounting of the costs of the US wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan”

How to. . . listen to the dawn chorus (Guardian) — if you enjoy bird song

Quatuor Artemis _ Beethoven, Op.135 “Lento assai, cantante & tranquillo”.mov – (video above)

Greenpeace Takes a Stand Against Facebook’s Unclean Ways (AgencySpy) – with video

Schwarzenegger and DSK: When Powerful Men Cross Lines (ProPublica)

A Lesson for the Bigoted Right (London Review of Books) — commentary on Italy’s local elections last week

Bob and Roberta Smith: ‘It’s important to undermine and subvert things’ (Guardian)

A reporter’s view on the news industry’s broken commenting system (10,000 Words)

Hollywood shuns intelligent entertainment. The games industry doesn’t. Guess who’s winning? (Guardian)

La politica estera americana e la promozione della democrazia (Epistemes) – Italian only

India’s unwanted girls (BBC)

Teaching Happiness: The Prime Minister of Bhutan Takes on Education (The Solutions Journal)

The Netherlands To Enact Law That Ensures Net Neutrality (GigaOM)

The combination of a BEASTLY cold and the Easter holiday delayed two weeks of posting of links you may have missed. But I particularly liked these posts, articles, photos and videos below, so here they are to browse.

The Unilever Series: Ai Weiwei Sunflower Seeds (Tate Modern)

New Yorkers sit silently in chairs to protest China’s imprisonment of artist Ai Weiwei (New York Daily News)

Eric Whitacre: A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong (TedTALKS) – video

10 Questions for Robin Williams (TIME)

World’s 50 best restaurants 2011: Combal Zero (Guardian) – video

Oracle gives up on OpenOffice after community forks the project (ars technica)

Events in Japan Impact Nuclear Power Debate in Italy (Nielsen)

Korean Music Industry (Monocle) – video

Your Puppy Pictures (National Geographic)

New political parties/forces in Egypt (Arabist)

Signs of the Times: the Popular Literature of Tahrir (ArteEast) – saw link on the Arabist

Tim Hetherington’s Last Great Work (Gawker) – one of the most chilling videos I’ve ever seen

Bob Dylan recently performed his first concert in China. On the program was “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” Here’s a performance from 1964 (video a bit slow to load). Lyrics here.

In Praise of Distraction (The New Yorker)

Photoshop, journalism, and forensics: Why skepticism may be the best filter for photojournalism (Nieman Journalism Lab)

Signs of Spring (The Atlantic) – photo series

Shirky: “La Rete ci cambia in meglio” (La Stampa)

American radical (Aljazeera) – documentary film, part I

Blogging for HuffPo Is Like Writing Open-Source Software (GigaOM)

The Advanced User Polity or: Why the EU is like a primeval forest (Ideas on Europe)

Italy’s Growing Multi-Media Influence Impacts Purchase Decisions (Nielsen)

Saturday interview: Aung San Suu Kyi (The Guardian)

Exclusive: Booker T & The Roots Cover Lauryn Hill’s ‘Everything Is Everything’ (Rolling Stone) – video on YouTube, above

Europeans are liberal, anxious and don’t trust politicians, poll reveals (Guardian)

Sull’Unità d’Italia (Epistemes.org)

The Accidental Activist: Part II (Vanity Fair)

46664 clothing brand announced – a photo essay (46664.com) – Nelson Mandela’s foundation, named after his prison number

Cory Doctorow: How free translates to business survival (BBC)

James Hillman L’ America sul lettino (la Repubblica) – English version below

America and the Shift in Ages: An Interview with Jungian James Hillman (Huffington Post)

SXSW 2011: The internet is over (Guardian) -  a surprise, it’s not the expected Jeremiad

The Wu master (Guardian) — a top Internet guru warns that dark days are here

Difficult or Not, Follow Your Convictions (GigaOM)

Why Qaddafi Has Already Lost (New York Times)

Japanese Craftsmanship (Monocle.com) – video above (scroll down, click on Part III)

Tokyo with the dimmer switch on (Financial Times) — Monocle editor’s eyewitness view last Thursday