Digital Ink Los Angeles

Games of the XXIII Olympiad
July 28 — August 12, 1984

The 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Ca., included rowing at Lake Casitas, archery at UCLA, and volleyball at Long Beach State.

According to the official site, www.olympic.org:

“With the Olympics being held in the United States only four years after the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Games, it was not surprising that the Soviet Union organised a revenge boycott in 1984. This time only 14 nations stayed away – but those nations accounted for 58% of the gold medals at the 1976 Olympics.”

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is now known as the home of the USC Trojans football team. In 1984, it was the stage for grand achievements in Track & Field by Britain’s Davey Thompson in the decathlon and USA’s Joan Benoit in the women’s marathon.

Maybe it was the flash of Hollywood lights that inspired “King” Carl Lewis of Houston, Tex., USA, to cast his bronze and stamp his name in the Olympic history books.

As a member of the local Santa Monica Track Club, he matched the achievement of fellow countryman Jesse Owens, by winning four gold medals in the same events as Owens (Berlin 1936): 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay, and the long jump. Carl Lewis dominated the sport as much as Michael Phelps dominates most swimming events.

This photo shows Carl Lewis running the approach track at the Memorial Coliseum on his way to a then world-record, 30-foot long-jump attempt. Twelve years later, Carl Lewis would return to the gold-medal stand as a long shot Gold-Medal winner at the Atlanta 1996 – Games of the XXVI Olympiad.

The 2009 World Drug Report says that Afghanistan, which produces more than 90% of the world’s poppy for heroin production, had a decrease in opiate production of 19% in 2008.

The U.S. Marines have attempted to commandeer the Helmand province in order to stifle the increasing insurgency and violence in this area, funded completely by the sale of this beautiful poppy.

Estimates as high as 35,000, including British Special Forces, are rumored to be accurate in terms of the number of high-impact, heavily armed troops that are currently roaming these Taliban strongholds. Not to mention the DEA, who are supervising the efforts in the poppy trenches.

The upcoming August 20th elections — with newcomer Dr. Abdullah Abdullah leading a charge against incumbent Karzai and James Carville-backed challenger Ashraf Ghani — will be a tipping point in this region.

Digital Ink Los Angeles picks Abdullah-Abdullah, who was a commander of forces led by Afghan warlord and national hero, Martyr Ahmad “The Lion” Shah Massoud, against the Soviet occupation in the 80s.

Massoud (seen at left) is legendary for his heroics leading fierce, horse-mounted warriors against the Taliban, but was assassinated only days before the events of 9/11 by Al-Qaeda henchmen led by Osama bin Laden.

“Know your enemy” is an oft-used warning to troops in combat situations. In Iraq, U.S. Armed Forces occupied oil reserves and refineries. In Afghanistan, Marines are in poppy fields.

Abdullah-Abdullah might be a political solution to a difficult U.S. drug problem.

The biggest explosion in the history of man was the massive 50Mt (50,000 ton) thermo-nuclear detonation of the “Tsar Bomba” by the former Soviet Union on October 30, 1961. That’ll leave a mark.

We love bombs and their sonic equivalents: pop, bam, bang, boom… Who hasn’t lit off a firework in glee, or watched a roll of firecrackers pop their way across a driveway, lighting the area in a cacophony of flares? Love the smell of napalm in the morning. Black powder is fun, until somebody blows a finger off.

Fireworks are fun, and they make great sounds. Alfred P. Nobel invented and patented dynamite in 1867, and he established the Nobel Peace Prize when he realized what he’d created. Big booms, lots of blood.

Black Cat has been the largest manufacturers of fireworks in the U.S. for more than 50 years. They make some nice products, though they have not entered the U.S. Department of Defense‘s lucrative business of arms manufacturing, Black Cat continues to be a leader in blowing things up.

And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
gave proof through the night that our flag was still there…

The first known use of the word freedom in a political context dates back to the 24th century BC, in a text describing the restoration of social and economic liberty in Lagash, a Sumerian city-state.

Urukagina, the king of Lagash, established the first known legal code to protect citizens from the rich and powerful. Known as a great reformer, Urukagina established laws that forbade compelling the sale of property and required the charges against the accused to be stated before any man accused of a crime could be punished. This is the first known example of any form of due process in the history of humanity.

Sumer is also known as the “Cradle of Civilization,” or Mesopotamia. The Tigris and Euphrates are the fertile, nutrient-rich rivers that flow southward into modern-day Persian Gulf, which geographically separates Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, and the Saudi Arabian Peninsula.

The Iraqi government has been awarded autonomy and sovereignty of its laws and lands by the U.S. government, effective as of July 1, 2009. The tank-mounted machine-gun in this picture would have been an alarming image until “Operation Iraqi Freedom” liberated the country from its previous government.

The notion we have to celebrate July 4th, because of our adoption of the Declaration of Independence on this date in 1776, is ironic because it takes several long years before the loose confederation of colonies becomes a real nation.

Indeed, the Unites States’ Constitution Day is observed on September 17, the day the U.S. Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution in 1787. That’s eleven years of struggle and perseverance. Baghdad (New Sumeria) has their work cut out for them.

Happy JULY 4th Holidays! Live freely.

Shepard Fairey Enters Burmese Politics

Shepard Fairey has been quite busy over the last two years — between helping get Obama elected and fighting vandalism charges in the Boston courts — but not too busy to embrace the cause of one Aung San Suu Kyi.

Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the preeminent human right activists in the world today. Her father, Aung San, founded the modern Burmese army and negotiated Burma’s independence from the United Kingdom in 1947; he was assassinated by his rivals in the same year. She has opposed the military junta quasi-government of Myanmar (Burma) since they nullified her election as the democratically chosen Prime Minister in 1989.

An Oxford-educated aristocrat, Aung San Suu Kyi helped found the National League for Democracy on September 27, 1988, and was put under house arrest on July 20, 1989. She was initially offered her freedom if she agreed to leave the country, but she refused. Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for almost twenty years. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, and remains a figure of social upheaval and human rights in the country of her birth.

Hats off to Shepard Fairey for his recognition of Aung San Suu Kyi’s plight, and the profound relevance of her struggle to the current events in Iran.

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On the eve of the 65th Anniversary of the Allied Forces D-Day Invasion of Normandy and coinciding with the 20th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square Student Protests, the 44th President of the United States of America stood in front of a packed house at Cairo University and spoke of a world of harmony with Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Secular peoples:

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“I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition… Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings☮”

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Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., is presenting the first segment of an engaging schedule of diplomacy and forthrightness. Read the NY Times Speech Transcript here ☮

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What will happen next? The desperate souls who’ve convinced themselves that it’s an “Us and Them” world will begin to scheme, but at least they know where the New America is coming from and where we’re headed☮

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