Wednesday, October 23, 2013

16-Year-Old Malala Yousafzai's message on the 'Daily Show': "That's what I want to tell you, now do what you want"

I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
Malala Yousafzai delivered a powerful message on the 'Daily Show', the Pakistani teen shot in the head by a Taliban soldier in 2012 when she was only 14. An advocate for education and women's rights, she has released a memoir co-written with veteran journalist Christina Lamb. A book the 'Washington Post' says should be read "not only for its vivid drama but for its urgent message about the untapped power of girls."

VIDEO: 'The Daily Show' Extended Interview - Malala Yousafzai
'The Daily Show' (September 2013)
MALALA YOUSAFZAI: I started thinking about that, and I used to think that the Talib would come, and he would just kill me. But then I said, 'If he comes, what would you do Malala?' then I would reply to myself, 'Malala, just take a shoe and hit him.' But then I said, 'If you hit a Talib with your shoe, then there would be no difference between you and the Talib. You must not treat others with cruelty and that much harshly, you must fight others but through peace and through dialogue and through education.' Then I said I will tell him how important education is and that 'I even want education for your children as well.' And I will tell him, 'That's what I want to tell you, now do what you want.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Apollo Robbins, master pickpocket featured in the New Yorker

I've often wondered why the things I'm most fascinated by are the things I should be most fearful of. I've always been drawn to charisma, psychology and manipulation. My most memorable encounter with it in real life was in Istanbul, Turkey when I was exposed to the "Clip Joint" scam. Now that I've been in South America a few months I've been alert to pickpockets. So far only the sauce scam has been attempted on me;

I'd seen Apollo Robbins on one of my favorite shows, 'Brain Games' with Jason Silva but had never heard his full story until I found this interesting New Yorker article in a Porto Alegre hostel.

VIDEO: Apollo Robbins, The Master Pickpocket: Tricks of the Trade
A PICKPOCKET’S TALE: The spectacular thefts of Apollo Robbins
by Adam Green for The New Yorker
Recently, psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and the military have studied his methods for what they reveal about the nature of human attention. Teller, a good friend of Robbins’s, believes that widespread recognition is only a matter of time. “The popularity of crime as a sort of romantic thing in America is profoundly significant, and Apollo is tapping into that,” he told me. “If you think about it, magic itself has many of the hallmarks of criminal activity: You lie, you cheat, you try not to get caught—but it’s on a stage, it has a proscenium around it. When Apollo walks onstage, there’s a sense that he might have one foot outside the proscenium. He takes a low crime and turns it into an art form.