Speed of Life

Video: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform Drive All Night in Gothenburg, Sweden on July 28, 2012. Tonight, July 31, 2012, in Helsinki, Finland,  the indefatigable Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band just finished one of their  most powerful European music tours with the longest show of their career. The show in Helsinki began with an impromptu pre-show set of songs with just Bruce and an acoustic guitar. Video: Bruce Springsteen - No Surrender - acoustic solo - Helsinki July 31, 2012 Video: Bruce Springsteen, Helsinki 31.7.2012 - Back In Your Arms The show ended not long ago with a run time of just over four hours. Video: I Don't Want to Go Home - Bruce Springsteen in Helsinki July 31, 2012 This summer, Springsteen and the E Street Band were true American cultural ambassadors as they roamed across Europe armed with searing music and goodwill. The presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, could learn a ...

Edvard Munch The Scream 23.5" x 32" pastel on board 1895  This pastel, one of four versions of Edvard Munch's The Scream, sold tonight at Sotheby's for a new world record for any work of art at auction - $119.9 million. In blood red paint on the front of the original frame that holds this pastel version of The Scream , Munch wrote the words to his poem that inspired the image: I was walking along the road with two friends. The Sun was setting —  The Sky turned a bloody red And I felt a whiff of Melancholy — I stood  Still, deathly tired — over the blue-black Fjord and City hung Blood and Tongues of Fire  My Friends walked on — I remained behind — shivering with Anxiety. I felt the great Scream in Nature. Carol Vogel in the New York Times writes: "Munch made four versions of The Scream , three of which are now in Norwegian museums; the one that sold on Wednesday, a pastel on board from 1895, was the only one still in private hands. It was sol...

Liu Xiaobo's Portrait at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway Credit: Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images "Today, the values of democracy, open society, respect for human rights, and equality are becoming recognized all over the world as universal values. To my mind there is an intimate connection between democratic values, such as transparency, the rule of law and freedom of information, and the fundamental values of human goodness." - The Dalai Lama (from his Facebook page December 10, 2010) Liu Xiaobo, poet and literary critic, today received in absentia the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. Chinese authorities forbade Liu from traveling to the award ceremony and harshly criticized the selection of Liu Xiaobo. Liu is currently incarcerated as a political prisoner in China where he is serving an 11-year prison term for "inciting subversion of state power" because he was involved in the creation of a manifesto known as Charter 08 calling ...

Statsministeren jobber på flyplassen , originally uploaded by Statsministerens kontor . Stranded by the volcanic cloud over Northern Europe, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg conducts governmental business on his iPad. Is there an app for running a nation?