By Anna

She sees the young boy everyday around this time. He squats on his hams a few feet in front of her work place, which doubles as the house for her family of eight, and defecates.

The slums have some sectioned off areas for pooping, but it’s not required. She refuses her body’s function until the cover of night, as many women do. She exists in Nairobi, Kenya. In Tijuana, Mexico. In Mumbai, India.

The struggle to sanitize water isn’t a technological or scientific one, but comes with political unrest and resource availability. Ecotact began to solve the problem of open defecation. It provides a city with pay-per-use public toilets, according to Good. The facilities cost three cents to use and provide 11 people with jobs at each location.

Even if open defecation decreases, water must still be sanitized. The Manna Energy Foundation and Engineers without Borders partnered to create “a rainwater-collection-and-filtration system that pumps the water through a solar-powered UV light to kill bacteria,” according to Good. The system is energized from biodigested kitchen and toilet waste. Manna uses carbon credit sales to pay for the 20 million dollar investment.

Finally, once water is far-and-away from defecation and cleaned with UV light, it still has miles to travel since few people live near their sanitized water source. What better way to transport water than with a Hippo Roller? The wheel shaped bucket can be ROLLED!  (hipporoller.org) Though the concept derives from our Neanderthal ancestors’ invention of the wheel, it took long enough to apply to developing countries’ needs.

The technology and resources are available. Even when governmental greed precedes elected office, humanity coexists on what remains of our eroding earth and must constantly protect one another in order to sustain, which requires, from those who are capable, a willing imagination to progress and money to sustain the progression.

We don’t need government permission to roll a hippo.

Compiled by Ryan

The links:

-Fantastic Mr. Fox opens in NY and LA today, and Variety Fair has a Wes Anderson interview, while HitFix has some exclusive video of Anderson acting out the characters by himself.

-Aziz Ansari talks to Entertainment Weekly about his upcoming standup special.

-LA Times ponders the success of Funny or Die.

-Lifter Puller, the former band of Craig Finn and Tad Kubler of The Hold Steady, will finally get a proper digital reissue, along with a new book.

-Google will provide free WiFi at select airports this holiday season.

-There will be a cat…

By Ryan

The following is an excerpt from the author’s introduction to Donald Miller’s latest memoir, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years:

If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers.  You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen.  The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back.  Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.

Now, before I go any further, I should note that Miller uses this example as a way to highlight the sort of meaningless drivel we base our lives around, and his book is basically about trying to find a better story for our lives.  It’s all a bit clichéd and simplistic, but I’m basically on board with Miller’s message.  His Volvo example, though?  Terrible.

Miller may be one of this country’s best-selling authors, but he’d make a poor screenwriter, precisely because of the line of thinking shown above.  Miller assumes that a movie about a Volvo would be boring and shallow and, thus, so to would a life centered on that same story.  What he fails to realize—or chooses not to realize in the interest of an introduction that will appeal to uncontemplative readers in the nation’s bookstores—is that stories about Volvos are never just stories about Volvos.  Anyone who would spend years working towards buying a certain type of car has layers of depth and character that would make for a fascinating film and probably even a great documentary.  In fact, in the hands of someone like Alexander Payne, it could be one of the most meaningful, emotive films you’d ever see.

Miller’s thinking, of course, reflects that of most major movie executives, and might help to explain the deteriorating state of mainstream movies in the U.S.  Still, though, it’s troubling to think that unreflective twenty-somethings are going to read Miller’s book and think, Wow, I really have to make my life about something big, without realizing that something big underlies everything we’re already pursing, Volvos and all.  We don’t need more people trying to save the world through politics, charity, and religion; we need better engagement with those things by the Volvo crowd.  Changing your dreams isn’t helpful; identifying what your dreams already are, and then finding a way to make those dreams big could be.  I actually think Miller would agree with these sentiments, it’s just a pity that he chose to introduce his new book with an example that undermines them.

By Anna

The only wars over a water source I knew about growing up was who got to use the hose in a water fight in the front yard. Water was fun when we were young. My sister and brother and I used to build dams on the street when my dad would wash down the driveway. The water would run through the cracks and collect on the side of the street where there was no sidewalk. Then the water would run down the street from our house and we’d do our best to stop it.

Water for kids in Jordan is a little different. Their local swimming hole, the Jordan River, also happens to be shared by Israel, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. Ok, so they probably don’t swim in the Jordan River, but Syria’s built dams and Israel has aquifers that divert the water for use in homes, according to Good.

We take our water for granted like we take our country for granted. We assume it will always be because it always has been, but everything has an end. My parents moved and I grew up. We don’t build dams at the end of the driveway anymore, but we could influence real dams being built and help Jordanians, Israelis, Palestinians, Syrians or Lebanese keep peaceful sanctions on their river so that kids might have a place to go or at least water to drink.

Iraq, Turkey and Syria also share rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. With fertility comes violence in the Crescent and the fight for water gives these conflict ridden countries another chance for peace.

Water purification isn’t the only worry, but water rights embitter countries. Turkey plans to build 22 dams on the upper Tigris, but with a little dam comes a lot of flood. Unleashing water on its southern neighbor at any given opportunity gives Turkey the upper hand.

So what are the implications for us, America? Or just for you?

Compiled by Ryan

The links:

-If you’re looking for a way to waste a solid half hour, check out Paste’s top fifty albums and films of the decade.

-Wes Anderson told Access Hollywood that he wants to shoot a film in space.

-George Clooney may play the lead in The Descendants, the next project from director Alexander Payne.

-AV Club talks to Chris Pratt, who plays Andy on Parks and Recreation.

-Tina Fey recounts her ten favorite 30 Rock moments at The Daily Beast.

-This NYT piece highlights the talented Kumail Nanjiani among others in the New York alt-comedy scene.

-A friend pointed out to me that Fearless Freaks, the Flaming Lips documentary, is on Hulu now; if you’re a fan of the band at all, it’s definitely worth a watch.

The YouTube highlights:

It’s a simple enough concept, but Christopher Walken reading Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” on Jonathan Ross still made me laugh:

Aziz Ansari highlighted this gem on Twitter this week:

New music spotlight:

Julian Casablancas – Phrazes for the Young

Stokes leadman Casablancas has gotten quite a bit of buzz for his debut solo album; you can read an interview on Pitchfork, check out this Village Voice article, read about his cover of the SNL song “I Wish It Was Christmas Today” at NME, then listen to it at Stereogum, and, finally, you can check out his MySpace to preview the entire album along with bonus tracks.  But if you don’t do any of that, at least listen to the Strokes-y first track:

Julian Casablancas – “Out of the Blue” from Phrazes for the Young, out now on Cut Records