The Water Cube

The National Aquatics Center in Beijing China is an architectural marvel. From the picture on page 166, the walls seem to be semi-transparent to some extent. How does one make a semi-transparent wall that can support anything? 

The building seems to be very large, and it is very cool to look at. Even though the architect did not use water, or anything looking like water, I still get a sense of water when I look at it. After doing some research on it, I discovered that the walls can actually change color. How cool is that?

So it turns out that I have seen this building before. In 2008, it was home to the Olympic swimming competitions. who would have known that most of the people in the class have already seen a building that is being featured in our book?

The building has gained popularity ever since it was built, and many movie productions have featured scenes filmed in the Water Cube, including the recently released Black Swan.

The building has one several awards. In a report from a jury who selected the building as its winner, they said: 

"The special award for the most accomplished work in the section Atmosphere is awarded to the Australian architecture firm PTW Architects, CSCEC + Design and Arup for the project National Swimming Centre, Beijing Olympic Green, China. The project demonstrates in a stunning way, how the deliberate morphing of molecular science, architecture and phenomenology can create an airy and misty atmosphere for a personal experience of water leisure"

The building still maintains its popularity as a tourist attraction when it underwent a two year revamp that turned a large section of the building into an indoor water park.

Terrorism

So I bet everyone reading this knows exactly who the guy is, and exactly what he is famous for. However, I doubt many know about his childhood, and the early stages of the man that would grow up to be known as the most powerful terrorist in the world.

Osama bin Laden, whose full name is Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, was born on March 10, 1957. He was born to his father’s tenth wife. His mother, Hamida al-Attas, divorced his father early on, and remarried one of Osama’s father’s friends. Osama then grew up in a household with four step siblings.
Osama bin Laden went to a secular school named Al-Thager Model School, and then went to college at Al-Thager Model School. Though neither school was radical-Islam based, bin Laden showed his interest in religion. He primarily studied the Quran and jihad. Many people feel that it was in college that bin Laden was first exposed to radical Islam.

When he was 17 Osama married his first of five wives. As it turns out, all of them have either divorced him or have gone missing in action. His father was killed in an airplane flown by an American, and his brother crashed an airplane into power lines while in Texas which led to his death.

Apparently, bin Laden did not grow up to hate Americans for who they are, but for what they did. He felt that America aided many anti-Muslim war efforts including America’s support of the Israeli forces in 1982. It is this that led to the 9-11 attacks, and it is this that led to the following statement:

"God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the towers, but after the situation became unbearable—and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon—I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed—when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women."
                                                                 
                                                                  – Osama bin Laden, 2004

Samba - Sweet Shoes, not a Sweet Painter

So I opened up the book to the reading assignment to find something to blog on, and the very opening picture catches my attention. There is a little child soldier with his hands up in surrender. But then I notice, he has a strange appendage growing out of his hip. At this point I pause, thinking what the heck is going on here?

I decided to read the caption at the bottom in order to be able to determine if the artist was in to some bizarre mutation type stuff or something. As it turns out, Cheri Samba was trying to show that it is an adult hiding behind the boy in a menacing way.

This bothers me. Not because of the meaning of the man, or the situation that the boy is in, but because there is absolutely no way that that hand can be attached to a full sized man. First off, the angle of the wrist suggests that the arm is angled around 20 degrees south of east. Estimating the mans arm to be around 2 feet, this would at best put the mans shoulder near the boys left thigh.

With the shoulder position considered, the man would have to be located right about where the AK-47 is located (by the way if there is such thing as a Gold Ak-47, I want one). With the body position considered, the man would either have to be sitting on the ground, born with no legs, or standing in a 3 foot deep hole in the ground. I am not an accredited Microsoft Paint artist, so bare with my attempt to show the man in actual size.

Perhaps I am looking in to this painting a little too much, but I feel that an artist should either paint the world as defying the laws of physics or sticking to them. Picasso defied the laws, and his paintings looked good. Samba here paints a realistic world, with gravity obeyed, size ration obeyed, color obeyed (neglecting the gold ak), and yet seems to forget how big the average adult human is.

Samba sucks as a painter, but I sure do like the shoes.

Swirly Thing vs. Palms

On page 158 I saw something that looked kinda cool. It was a giant swirl of dirt, placed in a large body of water, as seen to the side. But then I thought, well, that is sort of worthless. Its not big enough to do anything on, and it is not that creative of a shape. I guess I am biased, because I have seen better. But why is this hunk of junk in the book as opposed to what I have seen? Perhaps it is because this writer refuses to include anything of Arab origin.

I bet some of you have seen what I am about to show you, but I bet there are also a large number who have not. The people of the United States tend to ignore some really cool stuff just because it does not exist between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

The structures that greatly exceed the "swirly thing" that I speak of are commonly known as Palms. They are located in the city of Dubai which is in the United Arab Emirates. For those of you who didn't do so well in geography, thats to the right of Saudi Arabia on a map. Below is a picture of one of the Palms:

There is really no denying that that thing is absolutely awesome. They are completely man made, they have roads, buildings, and houses on them..... and did I mention that they can be seen from space?

I feel that anyone writing a Humanities book needs to take a field trip to Dubai. They have structures seen from space, and they even have the world's tallest building, they have islands that are in the shape of continents, forming a miniature world. If you think the "swirly" looks cool, try googling Dubai.