News of the Day: Spiritual movies (video)

Seven, Pat Macpherson, Irma Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly, News of the Day, Nov. 2012

Calming prints on the streets of Chiang Mai, Thailand's second city (WeGoTwo/flickr.com)

• Obama drops in on Cambodian dictator Hun Sen after visit with Burma's rulers
• 10,000 Days of Hun Sen: “I not only weaken the opposition, I’m going to make them dead...and if anyone is strong enough to try to hold a demonstration, I will beat all those dogs and put them in a cage.” 
• WalMart and others kill Bangladeshi workers

Happiness
Happiness in Teen Years linked to Higher Income later

Happy Samurai Girl (imdb.com)

(HuffPo) Gloomy teens, take heed -- your more happy-go-lucky classmates will likely earn more than you, according to new research. Researchers followed more than 10,000 U.S. adolescents over a decade and found that happiness during the teen years and young adulthood was linked with income at age 29.

Life Lessons I Learned from my Baby
Declines in Quality of Life of all EU states, alarming

Declines of over 20% in levels of optimism and happiness are reported in some countries across the EU and over a third of people indicate a... 

Happiness first for youths

The top motivating factors for Malaysians aged 18-35 are happiness, success, family, and ambition -- according to the latest Generation-Asia...

Led Zeppelin movie released: "Celebration Day"

Jimi Hendrix NEW album: "People, Hell, and Angels"

WATCH: Soundgarden plays live concert

Hundreds attend happiness panel

(Yale Daily News) Hundreds of students flooded into LC 101 last night to hear a panel of professors discuss happiness. The talk, hosted by Vita Bella ["Good Life"]... 

Study: Happiness in workplace is key to employee productivity

To complement this study, The Wall Street Journal examined the role that happiness has in workplace productivity, and how both employees... 

Workers now happiest they have been in ages, finds study

(Herald Sun, Nov. 25, 2012) Workers now happiest they have been in ages, finds study... Happiness among their workers also is up by 40 per cent as they too enjoy better... 

"Female PORN STARS are happier"

(MSN NZ News, Nov. 26, 2012) A study claiming porn actresses are happier in their sexuality and self-image than other women has been discredited by an Australian expert.

  
"Travelers and Magicians"

In Bhutan, the last Himalayan Buddhist kingdom, dreaming of coming to Buddhist America

  
A Bhutanese fable [available for DVD rental] about lives in transition will be shown Monday at Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor St., Hartford. "Travelers and Magicians" tells the story about Dondup, who wants to leave Bhutan for America, and a monk who tries to talk him out of it. To do this, the monk tells the story of another man restless and dissatisfied, whose story does not end well. It is the first movie shot entirely in Bhutan, and is in the Bhutanese language, Dzonghka, with subtitles. More

Bollywood's Sherlyn Chopra to star in Kama Sutra in 3D
Kashmir: Canada and India's new relationship
LA Yoga: Ayurveda and Health (Magazine)

Kindle eBook: India Was One

iJAN helps FREE Palestine: The WorldSocial Forum Free Palestine (WSF FP) is approaching. More than 10,000 Palestinian and solidarity activists from 36 countries will converge on Porto Alegre to learn from each other and together organize to build a strong movement to confront Israel and Zionism and the broader injustices they represent and support. The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and activists in the US, Canada, and around the world are building a joint struggleframework to the WSF FP.  More

Filling US prisons with "modern slaves" for profit
The North America Bigfoot Search (Paulides)
UFO sightings warm up on Australia's Gold Coast
Research in Open and Distance Learning  (Journal)
China dissident Ai Weiwei basks in his relative liberty
PHOTO GALLERY: Buddhist beauty in China (wow)
PHOTOS: TraceLUX's trip to Tibet
Bhutan gives cold shoulder to Nepal
Rooftop news: The Himalayan Times 
English eBooks (Tusita Hermitage)

"Life of Pi"

(LINK) Director Ang Lee ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") recruits an actual trained Bengal tiger to create a groundbreaking movie about a young man who survives a tragic disaster at sea. He is hurtled on an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While marooned on a lifeboat, he forms an amazing and unexpected connection with the ship's only other survivor, the tiger. WARNING: Many viewers say the movie tries to inspire wonder and awe and a belief in GOD.

 

"Cloud Atlas"

 (LINK) The most "Buddhist" movie of the year?

 

This Wachowski film features handsome Halle Berry and America's very own sweetheart Tom Hanks with Buddhist themes reminiscent of "Looper." Except this is without a time-travel conceit to make the karmic connection perfectly clear. "Cloud Atlas" is an exploration of how the actions (karma) of individual lives impact one another. This happens in the past, present, and future. One living being, in the course of becoming, is shaped from a killer into a hero. And a single act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.
  
Not since Hanks nearly ruined "Cast Away" have we been so torn between wanting to watch a film for thematic reasons and being kept away by its male lead. In that epic adventure, Hanks' character is adrift on a raft ("Life of Pi"-style) with no one to talk to but a soccer ball. He draws eyes on it, places a wig atop it, and constantly whines: "Wilson, will I ever get home? Wilson, does my wife still love me? Wilson, what are we going to do?!!" Later in a hallucination, the ball answers him: "My name is Voit, dumb@ss!" Wait, that pay-off only came much later in a "Family Guy" cutaway:

"Cloud Atlas" might be bearable with the help of co-stars Susan Sarandon, Zhou Xun, Hugo Weaving, Doona Rae, Jim Sturgess, James D'Arcy, Hugh Grant, Ben Whishaw, Jim Broadbent, Keith David, David Mitchell, David Gyasi... because if the worst thing one has to say about a prospective film is that Tom Hanks is in it, that is probably one great film.