Support local (Khmer) hip hop

bboy invite

Stuart Isett has followed up his superlative photographic work on Khmer street gangs with shots of Cambodian b-boy collective Tiny Toones, and this time there’s some fundraising going on. The parallel with the plot to Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo is too uncanny for me to not make a mention of this event.

If you’re in the Seattle area:

Tiny Toones: B Boy Benefit for Cambodia
April 26th 2008, 6pm ’til late
At the Greenwood Collective
8537 Greenwood Ave. NW Seattle WA

Featuring the work of: World b-boy champions Massive Monkees, Seattle photographer Charles Peterson, immigration activist Many Uch & photographer Stuart Isett.

$5 donation at the door/Photographs for sale/All proceeds benefit The Tiny Toones.

More info and online donation at The Greenwood Collective; Stuart Isett’s shots of Khmer b-boying on Flickr

Seasons Greetings from Cambodia

This morning, a group of approximately 40-50 Kampuchea Krom (KK) monks gathered peacefully in front of the Vietnamese embassy in Phnom Penh to appeal for the release of Kampuchea Krom monks who are detained and convicted in Vietnam.

Intervention and local police immediately set up road blocks to prevent people from entering the area and shortly after talking to the group of KK monks, intervention police proceeded to disperse the group of KK monks by kicking some of the KK monks and using electrical and wooden batons on others. Police were heard shouting that these were “fake monks”. So far, we have treated 2 KK monks with serious injuries and 4 other KK monks with lesser injuries.

From Licadho. DAS and Erik from buddh•ism ad•junkt provide coverage. From a marginally food-related perspective (and possibly, as a way of gauging the explosiveness of even mentioning the words “Kampuchea Krom” on the web in any context), I’ve got a bit of coverage of Kampuchea Krom recipes back at Phnomenon.