Teeny Manolo

Olive Riley, proud Australian and, at 108 reputedly the world’s oldest blogger, has died. Her last blog post described her impromptu concert for her new roommate and the nursing staff (she sang daily, and frequently posted her Greatest Hits to YouTube).

Here is Olive describing how to bathe a baby using a tin pan and a wood stove. “The trick is to keep the baby warm” eh? No, the trick is to keep the baby intact, I would think. When you think about the size of some of the pioneer families, it’s truly shocking to realize just how much hard work went into raising them.

Trust three bored Aussies in the middle of a war zone to come up with this: an outreach program in Afghanistan consisting of co-ed skateboarding lessons. That pic is of Haroon, teaching his two-year-old sister Baher to pop an ollie while a crowd of sk8er boiz wait their turn.

From the Guardian:

Afghanistan… has the world’s highest percentage of school-age children but some of the toughest conditions. Despite progress since 2001, illiteracy is rife, beggars swarm the streets of Kabul and there are 600,000 child drug addicts. Just 1% of students make it to university.

Skateistan, as the project is called, started 18 months ago with 10 secondhand skateboards that Percovich, 34, scrounged from friends in Melbourne. It is a departure from the macho image of sport in a country where the national pastime, Buzkashi, features two teams of horsemen fighting over a calf carcass. Dog fighting and cock fighting are also popular.

Skating is non-competitive, creative and urban. The organisers hope the sport will come to define fun in the post-9/11 era, just as the bestseller The Kite Runner symbolised childhood in 1970s Kabul…

Skateistan tried to be different. It started small, offering free skateboarding classes in public spaces, with virtually no budget.

The strategy took the Australians to some unusual venues, including the Russian pool, an empty pool overlooking the city frequented by hash smokers and used for Friday night dog fights. Under Taliban rule it was used for public executions.

Sounds like the skate park near my house, actually, but that is neither here nor there. After deciding that building a skate park would be a step up from trying to take back the dogfighting arenas from the hash smokers, and rejecting working with the nonprofits in Afghanistan on competence-based grounds, they’re looking to raise the money from scratch. And we all know how well-funded the ground level of skateboarding is, don’t we?

In tangentially-related news, does anyone know why skateboarding in North America is almost exclusively male? I see plenty of girls at the skate park, sure, but they’re sitting, they’re smoking, and their waiting for their boyfriends to go so they can applaud wildly. Was I the last girl on the continent to feel welcome on a longboard?

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Obey Uncle Karl! Obey or be assimilated!

It says:

It’s yellow, it’s ugly, it doesn’t go with anything, but it can save your life.

Yes, Karl Lagerfeld steps out for public safety. Unbelievable! I thought the Dark Prince of fashion was too busy cackling over the souls of the damned to give one about safety. But then, he actually does look pretty snazzy in it; must be the pussycat bow (note to self; try pussycat bow with flotation vest, MAKE it work!).

This is an amusing, yet paradoxically educational, video by Mose Giganticus and The Emotron, two guys who are driving a vegetable-oil-powered bus from New York to Alaska. Made for Mrs. Aderman’s 1st Period Environmental Science Class, school unknown (if you know, please share put out in the comments (there’s only so much sincerity and wholesomeness I can take, you know?)).

A human finger??? Those New York hippies are hardcore!

We’re a little bit late today. If I’d had the assistance of Eiko the assistance dog, however, I’m sure I would have been on time. From Eikootje’s Flickr stream. So THAT’s what Eurodisney looks like.

via WanderingCoyote

Okay, so it’s not Beethoven. You think Beethoven’s Fifth would calm a crying baby? Behold the power of the greatest pacifier known to humanity, the ever-reliable Rickroll. I wonder what would happen if they played Rick Astley in Helmand; the entire region would break into a soporific version of the Hustle, shake hands, and declare peace. You doubt? You watch!

via Defamer.

Working as I do for the Manolo I am perhaps hypersensitized to the semiotic power of the shoe (and I may or may not be PMSing additionally but that is neither here nor there and nothing a little Merlot won’t put right) and yet I defy anyone to view the Guardian’s slideshow of magical realist Isabel Allende’s mementos and remain stonefaced when they see these.

“My son is my soul. These were his first shoes. I have a splendid relationship with my daughter-in-law and we work together in the foundation. Today there are 27 million slaves in the world, mostly women and girls. I know for the rest of my life that this is going to be my mission and my struggle”

If that doesn’t get you, A) see your doctor and B) click on to see the next image… (more…)

This is perhaps the most superfantastic sports video of all time. I defy you to watch this and NOT get all misty-eyed. The Good Twin to Anonymous’ Evil Twin, Improv Everywhere has struck again (with the help of NBC Sports). This time they struck two Little League teams that will never be the same.

Behold the mighty Lugnuts versus the fearsome Mudcats.

ImprovEverywhere via Gawker

Okay, not preschool. This kid is six years old. And was, evidently, a robotic scorpion in a previous life.

Voice of GenX (sorry, Douglas Coupland) McSweeney’s genius and 826Valencia founder Dave Eggers talks (for nearly half an hour) about engaging with the public school system. Lengthy, but worthwhile.

Somehow, it just seemed topical. For some reason.