Tuesday 30 September 2003

ON THIS DAY 1938
The British Prime Minister was hailed as bringing "peace to Europe" after signing a non-aggression pact with Hitler's Germany.

homeland security past
On Feb. 27, 1933, a fire destroyed part of the Reichstag building. Hitler immediately accused the Communists of having set the fire. President von Hindenburg proclaimed a state of emergency and issued decrees suspending freedom of speech and assembly. The elections gave a bare majority of seats to Hitler's National Socialists and their allies, the German Nationalists. Severe measures were taken against the Communist party, and its deputies were barred from the Reichstag.

"In Germany, they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the homosexuals, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a homosexual. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me - but by that time there was no one left to speak up."

it was in 1935, 3 years previous to the british pm signing a pact, that Hitler issued Nuremberg laws against Jews. On account of these laws German Jews lost their independence from night to morning. Jews were no longer allowed to vote or hold public offices since they were no longer considered citizens of the Reich. The Nuremberg Laws also made it more difficult for the Jews to go out into public places such as the theater or shops. Jews were not even allowed to seek medical attention anymore. Soon thereafter all Jews were recognized by the big red "J", which was short for "Jude," that was stamped on their passports. "Jews Forbidden" signs also went up all over Germany, which made it very difficult for theJews to get service or lodge in hotels. The Nuremberg Laws were only the beginning to the Nazi policy of Anti-Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws paved the way to the Holocaust, which showed people how far Germans would go to "cleanse" their nation.

and lets not forget the american and bush-family history:
Prescott Bush, along with partner E. Ronald Harriman, supplied financial aid and raw materials to Hitler's Third Reich.

flash: Bush is not a Nazi so stop saying that
In 1942, Bush/Harriman companies were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act: the Union Banking Corporation, the Holland-American Trading Corporation, the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation and Silesian-American Corporation.
Web Conspiranoids.pdf

The US government had known that many American companies were aiding Hitler, like Standard Oil, General Motors and Chase Bank, all of which was sanctioned after Pearl Harbor. But as The New York Times reporter Charles Higham later discovered, and published in his 1983 groundbreaking book, 'Trading With The Enemy; The Nazi American Money Plot 1933-1949', "the government smothered everything during and even after the war."

the 14 defining characteristics of fascism
Super Slurper
It may look like a nondescript powder, but a mere teaspoon of the stuff can absorb a gallon of water, sucking up over 2,000 times its weight in water instantaneously.
the multiverse
what is meant by the words "exist" and "real".
"Mathematicians have proved that a universal computing machine can create an artificial world that is itself capable of simulating its own world, and so on ad infinitum. In other words, simulations nest inside simulations inside simulations ... Because fake worlds can outnumber real ones without restriction, the "real" multiverse would inevitably spawn a vastly greater number of virtual multiverses."
What is today's most overhyped emerging technology?
Poll open from Monday, September 29, 2003 to Monday, October 06, 2003 @ betterhumans
Peter Pan, extended adolescence and the infantilisation of contemporary society
by Frank Furedi (author of "Culture of Fear: Risk-Taking And The Morality Of Low Expectations" and "Therapeutic Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Anxious Age")

"Hesitations about embracing adulthood reflect a diminished aspiration for independence, commitment and experimentation."

"The celebration of immaturity is continually affirmed by the media."

"the all-pervasive nostalgia for childhood among young adults is symptomatic of a profound insecurity towards the future."

"Society has come to accept the idea that people do not become adults until they are in their late thirties."

"it is important not to confuse adultescents with those referred to as 'middle youth'. Middle youths are a generation ahead of adultescents. They are 35- to 45-year-olds who regard themselves as being at the cutting edge of youth culture; they are going through a phase known as 'middlescence' - a state of mind that fiercely resists the usual trappings of encroaching middle age."

plus Speaking with Aubrey de Grey: An Immortality Institute Online Chat
on Sunday, October 12, 2003
Video Surfaces in Which Gen. Clark Highly Praises Bush Administration
Democratic presidential hopeful General Wesley Clark offered lavish praise for the Bush Administration and its key players in a speech to Republicans -- just two years ago, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal!

During extended remarks delivered at the Pulaski County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner in Little Rock, Arkansas on May 11, 2001, General Clark declared: "And I'm very glad we've got the great team in office, men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice... people I know very well - our president George W. Bush. We need them there."
President of Venezuela Rages at U.S. for plotting to Kill Him
"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused the United States on Wednesday of harboring "terrorists" plotting to kill him and told the U.S. and Spanish governments to stop meddling in his country's affairs.

The left-wing populist president has clashed with Washington over many issues, including the U.S. occupation of Iraq (news - web sites), but this was his most virulent attack so far against the country that is the leading buyer of Venezuela's oil."
The Lo Fi Mixtape Network
download or stream mixes uploaded by others
(via my analog life)
counting sheep

bulletproof briefcase
a briefcase that in moments of crisis you can use as a bulletproof vest.
(via b3ta)
There are three ways to look at how society is informed
"The first is that people are gullible and will read, listen to, or watch just about anything. The second is that most people require an informed intermediary to tell them what is good, important or meaningful. The third is that people are pretty smart; given the means, they can sort things out for themselves; find their own version of the truth."
(via my analog life)

'Do not forget ideas are also weapons'.
by SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS

memes.org
"We are entirely susceptible to the influence of others. We are community-dwellers and as such, we have a natural tendency to be part of a hive."
Greek creation myths

In the beginning, Chaos, an amorphous, gaping void encompassing the entire universe, and surrounded by an unending stream of water ruled by the god Oceanus, was the domain of a goddess named Eurynome, which means "far-ruling" or "wide-wandering".

She was the Goddess of All Things, and desired to make order out of the Chaos. By coupling with a huge and powerful snake, Ophion, or as some legends say, coupling with the North Wind, she gave birth to Eros, god of Love, also known as Protagonus, the "firstborn".

Eurynome separated the sky from the sea by dancing on the waves of Oceanus. In this manner, she created great lands upon which she might wander, a veritable universe, populating it with exotic creatures such as nymphs, Furies, and Charites as well as with countless beasts and monsters.
THE BUSH REGIME CARD DECK
a flush of crazies
(via linkmachinego)

9-11
prominent people outside of the US that are saying publicly that 9/11 looks like the work of intelligence agencies.

Bush Admin Increasingly Using "Patriot Act" in Cases Not Related to Terrorism

flash: vote revolution
(take back the media via the hive)

video: bush election fraud

video: bush morning of 9/11
��"MAGNETO WAS RIGHT"
the new brotherhood of mutants
(via plastic bag)

plus interview: grant morrison
(via linkmachinego)

Sunday 28 September 2003

the invisible library
The Invisible Library is a collection of books that only appear in other books. Within the library's catalog you will find imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound.
via unusual literature

and the imaginary book review
"In the spirit of Borges' remark, contestants wewre asked to write a book review of an imaginary book. (Between 500-1000 words.) The book may be from any time period, it may be fiction or non-fiction, and it's author may be either an invention or an actual writer."
DEMOCRACY: The American vote-count
"The American vote-count is controlled by three major corporate players - Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia - with a fourth, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), coming on strong. These companies - all of them hardwired into the Bushist Party power grid - have been given billions of dollars by the Bush Regime to complete a sweeping computerization of voting machines nationwide by the 2004 election. These glitch-riddled systems - many using "touch-screen" technology that leaves no paper trail at all - are almost laughably open to manipulation, according to corporate whistleblowers and computer scientists at Stanford, John Hopkins and other universities.

Who's behind these private companies? It's hard to tell: the corporate lines - even the bloodlines - of these "competitors" are so intricately mixed. For example, at Diebold - whose corporate chief, Wally O'Dell, a top Bush fundraiser, has publicly committed himself to "delivering" his home state's votes to Bush next year - the election division is run by Bob Urosevich. Bob's brother, Todd, is a top executive at "rival" ES&S. The brothers were originally staked in the vote-count business by Howard Ahmanson, a member of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing "steering group" stacked with Bushist faithful.

Ahmanson is also one of the bagmen behind the extremist "Christian Reconstructionist" movement, which openly advocates a theocratic takeover of American democracy, placing the entire society under the "dominion" of "Christ the King." This "dominion" includes the death penalty for homosexuals, exclusion of citizenship for non-Christians, stoning of sinners and - we kid you not - slavery, "one of the most beneficent of Biblical laws."

Ahmanson also has major holdings in ES&S, whose former CEO is Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. When Hagel ran for office, his own company counted the votes; needless to say, his initial victory was reported as "an amazing upset." Hagel still has a million-dollar stake in the parent company of ES&S. In Florida, Jeb Bush's first choice for a running mate in his 1998 gubernatorial race was ES&S lobbyist Sandra Mortham, who made a mint installing the machines that counted Jeb's votes.

Sequoia also has a colorful history, most recently in Louisiana, where it was the center of a massive corruption case that sent top state officials to jail for bribery, most of it funneled through Mob-connected front firms. Sequoia executives were also indicted, but escaped trial after giving immunized testimony against state officials. The UK-owned company's corporate parent is private equity firm Madison Dearborn - a partner of the Carlyle Group, where George Bush I makes millions trolling the world for war pork, privatizations and sweetheart deals with government insiders.

Meanwhile, the shadowy defense contractor SAIC has jumped into the vote-counting game, both directly and through spin-offs by its top brass, including Admiral Bill Owens - former military aide to Dick Cheney and Carlyle honcho Frank Carlucci - and ex-CIA chief Robert Gates. SAIC's history of fraud charges and security lapses in its electronic systems hasn't prevented it from becoming one of the largest contractors for the Pentagon and the CIA - and will doubtless pose little obstacle to its entrance into election engineering.

The mad rush to install unverifiable computer voting is driven by the Help America Vote Act, signed by Bush last year. The chief lobbying group pushing for HAVA was a consortium of arms dealers - those disinterested corporate citizens - including Northop-Grumman and Lockheed-Martin. The bill also mandates that all states adopt the computerized "ineligible voter purge" system which Jeb used to eliminate 91,000 ***eligible*** black voters from the Florida rolls in 2000. The Republican-run private company that accomplished this electoral miracle, ChoicePoint, is bagging the lion's share of the new Bush-ordered purge contracts.

The unelected Bush Regime now controls the government, the military, the judiciary - and the machinery of democracy itself.

plus THEY RULE
They Rule is a website that allows you to create maps of the interlocking directories of the top 100 companies in the US in 2001. The data is static, so it is fast becoming out of date, as companies merge and disappear and directors shift boards.

A second version of They Rule is planned, and has been started. No completion date is set, though it will hopefully appear sometime mid 2003.

unanswered questions about Enron
"Enron is a scandal so enormous that it's hard to wrap your mind around it."

the Office of Special Plans (OSP)

(via ethel the blog)
Douglas Rushkoff on drug and rave culture
"The problem with consciousness expansion, for government, is not the fact that kids or the poor die from crack use. It's the fact that people who alter their consciousness become aware of the stultifying reality tunnels (mind sets, ways of understanding the world, fixed perspectives) that dictate so much of human activity. People taking drugs other than caffiene, alcohol, and glucose (our mandated workaday chemicals) are walking around with different brain chemistry, and respond differently to the challenges of life. Marijuana users may be less likely, say, to support a war - and coffee drinkers might be more likely to make it through a morning shift."
(via my analog life)
the so called war on terrorism
a review of john pilger's docu "breaking the silence".
(via guardian weblog)

plus “The Crazies"
Bush Sr.’s CIA Briefer Discusses that during the Reagan-Bush years and even before, that the Wolfowitzes, Rumsfelds and Cheneys etc were referred to as ‘the crazies’

Afghanistan

Project Bojinka
Bojinka was the plot by radical Islamists—led by WTC-bomber Ramzi Yousef—to 1) blow up a dozen US passenger jets in mid-flight, 2) assassinate President Clinton and the Pope, and 3) ram hijacked passenger planes into US landmarks, including the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, the White House, CIA Headquarters, and the Sears Tower. The plot was discovered in 1995 when authorities in the Philippines raided Yousef's apartment.

archives: operation northwoods
OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM
uk nerve gas military guinea pigs

in 1953 19-year-old National Service recruit Alfred Thornhill arrived for a month-long posting at Porton Down, the Government's top-secret chemical weapons laboratory in Wiltshire. He was proud to be doing his bit for his country.

after 50 years he has now broken his silence to tell of the day he arrived at Porton Down's gas chamber and saw the convulsing body of 20-year-old Ronald Maddison thrashing around on the floor, spewing substances from his mouth.

Maddison, an RAF engineer from County Durham, had been used as a human guinea pig by MoD scientists experimenting on the lethal nerve gas sarin. From 1945 more than 3,000 men were sent into the gas chamber; various amounts of liquid nerve gas were dripped by pipette onto their arms. Maddison had volunteered for the trials, believing he was going to Porton Down to take part in some 'mild' experiments to find a cure for the common cold. Instead, by dropping sarin onto Maddison's skin, they used him to help determine the dosage of the lethal nerve agents.

Ronald Maddison died 45 minutes after 200mg of the deadly nerve agent sarin was dripped onto a patch of uniform on his arm.

why did Alfred Thornhill remain quiet for 50 years? 'I was called into an office and read the riot act by a medical officer. He made me sign something and told me if I ever spoke a word about what I saw at Porton Down I would be sent to prison. I was frightened and didn't want to go to jail, so I didn't tell any of the other lads what I had seen.'

and Kenyan children among British Army rape victims
The solicitor representing 650 Kenyan tribeswomen who allege they have been raped by British soldiers called for a public inquiry yesterday. He also claimed that children were among the victims.

Martyn Day said: "We have examples of children as young or seven or eight who have been raped and boys who have been sodomised - right up to women in their 50s. I am convinced they are genuine. It is quite horrendous." He claimed there has been a "culture" of raping tribe women among British soldiers training in rural Kenya over the past 30 years.

Wednesday 24 September 2003

Most Britons 'oppose GM crops'
i have a real problem with this news report. primarily because i know that most people tend to be utterly phobic about anything unknown and new. especially many educated and vocal middle class types who revel in a fetishistic appreciation of all things classical and retro. all things old and safe and known and much written about. you can be an authority on the past, or a collector. its an almost knee jerk response to revere yesterday's repectable, familiar things whilst fearing or disdaining all things new.

cousin to this, and always inevitably retched up in the gm debate, is that tedious concept of "naturalness". which i especially distrust as its similarly used in arguments against queers. "its not natural". fuck natural. fuck all that romantic shit. move on, its the 21st sodding century.

there are problems with gm. primarily its corporate and its being pushed by america. both corporations and america are usually only interested in profit and power, rarely have peoples best interests in mind, and almost always add up to bad news, especially for the third world.

but is it possible to have a gm debate without the knee jerk nostalgia, future-phobia, or any redundant 18th century concepts regarding nature? the original frankenstein monster wasn't iredeemably bad, it was people's unthinking and hysterical reactions to it that made it a monster.
desperately sad american parents seek to ban books
The board of directors for the South Texas Independent School District is expected to decide tonight whether to ban two books — Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land — from the high school’s 10th grade English Advanced Placement curriculum.

The books, part of the class’ summer reading list, may lead to “inappropriate sexual arousal of young teens,” parent Julie Wilde wrote in her complaint to the district.
“We feel this is inappropriate for the ages of the students at (the) Science Academy or at any South Texas ISD High School,” she continued in her letter, specifically citing Brave New World. “This is pornographic literature and we do not feel it has a place in any school funded by taxpayer dollars.”

the tragic little lives some people lead.

meanwhile this week is BANNED BOOK WEEK
"Celebrate Your Freedom to Read September 20–27," says the AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
(via greenfairy)
DAVID BLAINE
theres often a point in conversation where someone asks me what i think of david blaine. mostly i neither think about nor know much about him at all, but when i'm cornered on the subject i find i have a number of thoughts. my most immediate association with him is a positive one. that fantastic moment of pure tv heaven when he was weird and unco-operative on a cozy sofa daytime chat show with ultra naff interviewer eammon holmes. for that alone david blaine ranks highly in my mind.

secondly if he is really pushing himself to endurance extremes, rather than clever trickery, then i'm fully supportive. i think everyone of us should at certain points in our lives choose to strip ourselves of our comforts, distractions and conveniences.

if its only an illusionary stunt then i'm not interested. in the same way that clever circus acts have never appealed, not even as a child. as for the public's taunting and baiting of him while suspended in his box (if of course he's really in the box at all), their banging drums and wafting the scent of bacon sandwiches at him etc, it has occurred to me that it may well have initially been instigated by blaine himself or by channel 4. how else would he remain on the front pages and in our conversations? without any attempted sabotaging of his stunt the event itself would most likely only measure in column inches when it began and when it ends. (then again maybe the taunting and baiting is simple revenge masterminded by eammon holmes.)

finally, i love disrespect for celebrities. there simply isn't enough of it. but its a shame that public disruption and disrespect is merely focused on something so trivial. a little more disruptive dissent during wall-to-wall mono-media events, like the queen mum lying in state, or the jubilee, or when we had to endure endless televised accounts featuring the infernal star spangled banner in the weeks following sept 11th, that would have been more worthwhile.

the assasinate blaine game
SKIN AND INK
the current Big Issue page 5 reports a controversy within the Police about just what tattoos can be allowed to be visible on the bodies of their recruits. (An ex-policeman has lost his appeal against the ruling that he cannot rejoin the force after his Union Jack Bulldog tattoo was judged racist).

Some tattoos are considered by some forces to reveal that the copper-to-be is and will be racist (or sexist, or homophobic, etc. etc.) and therefore he/she shouldn't be employed. What would your personal-prejudice-as-a-tattoo look like? (Answers @). Name your prejudice!
(thanks to bernard for this post)
Baghdad bans Arab TV
Iraq's governing US-appointed council banned the Arab world's two leading television channels yesterday from government offices and news conferences.

Bush isolated as speech to UN falls flat
The American president was not just under fire for his decision to wage war without international consent but also for his refusal to move more quickly towards handing control of the country back to the Iraqi people.

Kofi Annan
The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan said pre-emptive strikes could lead to a lawless world where nations attack one another "with or without justification". he told a New York conference on terrorism that nations were deluded if they believed military action alone could end terrorism. "Terrorist groups may actually be sustained when ... governments cross the line and commit outrages themselves, whether it is ... indiscriminate bombardment of cities, the torture of prisoners, targeted assassinations, or accepting the death of innocent civilians as collateral damage."

the BioWatch Initiative
One of the most unforgivable things Bush has done since 9/11 is to use the threat of bioterrorism as a slick way to suck billions of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of a few corporations, while appearing to take steps to protect the public.

report from al-Jisr: scene of the killing of three farmers at hands of US troops
the troops of the 82nd Airborne - known proudly as the "All American" - opened up a devastating barrage of gunfire lasting for at least an hour. When the shooting stopped, three farmers were dead and three others were injured, including Hudood's two sons, Tassin, 12, and Hussein, 10. The US military has chosen not to count the civilian casualties of the war in Iraq. But while more than 300 US soldiers have now been killed since the invasion to topple Saddam in March, thousands more Iraqis have died.

'Baghdad Snapshot Action' (flash)
DREAM
humanoid extra-terrestrials whose culture was not only deeply influenced by our old tv transmissions, currently from 1963, but was also entirely reliant upon power generated from a visiting and inhabited miniature universe. the exploitative implications of which were unknown to, or ignored by, their 1963 mentalities.
SEXPHOBIA

an article in tuesday's london evening standard newspaper, on a rise in sexually transmitted diseases, betrays a curious use of language in relation to consensual sexual choices.

it mentions young people "indulging" in sexual experimentation. the most "disturbing" phenomena being sex-texters who use their phones to arrange casual encounters. and the fact that some people may even have sex with more than one person on the same day is seen as being a "cavalier attitude".

the article implies that casual sex itself is to blame, and obviously disaproves, rather than addressing the fact that its a lack of sexual education regarding protection during casual sex thats the real and only problem.
Palestinians say U.S. blocks its chief UN delegate
The Palestinian Authority accused the United States on Monday of failing to provide a visa in time for the head of its U.N. delegation to attend the General Assembly's high-level opening session.

The Palestinian Authority said Farouq al-Kaddoumi, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization's political office, had been unable to come to New York for the start of the two-week session beginning on Tuesday because the visa had not yet been issued.

It called the incident "unfriendly to the Palestinian side" and a "serious violation" of Washington's obligations as host country to the United Nations.

Israel employing Palestinian workers to build apartheid fence

Israel Tortures Palestinian Teen With Cancer
Mohammad Al-Sinawi, 15, from the Al-Eizaria neighborhood in the Occupied East Jerusalem, who is suffering from a cancer in his lymph nodes, has been arrested by the Israeli occupation forces since September 4. During his 19-day imprisonment, Al-Sinawi has been subjected to torture by exposure to high-voltage power and severe beating by the Israeli soldiers despite the fact that Israeli interrogators have already received medical reports indicating his case.

The Israeli government continues to hold nearly 6,200 Palestinian prisoners in its different jails and detention camps, 1,000 of whom are administrative detainees, jailed without a charge or trial, which is prohibited under international law and the Geneva Convention.
(via news insider)
Charity Ryerson
Five days before Charity Ryerson surrendered herself to the minimum security Federal Prison Camp at Pekin, Ill., she spoke nonchalantly about the six months she would serve for cutting a padlock during a protest at the School of the Americas. "Personally, I'm going to put this on my resume," she said. "I'm not going to decide that I want to join corporate America and have this thing erased. It's part of my lifelong commitment to activism. ..."
multibabel
What happens when an English phrase is translated (by computer) back and forth between 5 different languages?
(via my analog life)
ANIMATIONS
flashback

prison bitch song
Invaders always say that they come as liberators
"a propaganda poster from World War II, depicts a strapping young SS officer holding a smiling local kid in his arms. "Trust the German soldier," the caption exhorts citizens of occupied France. But when liberation came in 1945, Frenchmen who had obeyed that poster were shot as collaborators. The men and women who resisted--the "terrorists" who shot German soldiers, cut phone lines and bombed trains--received medals and pensions. Invaders always say that they come as liberators, but it's almost never true. Whether you live in Paris or Baghdad or New York, you're expected to know that, and to act accordingly."
(via warblogger watch)
Baghdad Burning
"girl blog from iraq"
ANNOTATED BUSH SPEAK
“Friends, Americans, Countrymen, lend me your ears… lend me your sons and daughters, lend me your tax dollars… so we can wage war in the name of American national security (people worldwide are willing to die for it)… so I can cover up my incompetence in failing to protect you… so I can add to the Bush and Cheney family coffers at your expense and the expense of the Iraqi people. I don’t know what I’m doing, but if you spend enough money, you’ll want to believe that I do."
conservatives against bush.com
(via warblogger watch)
IDENTITY: appearance and language

several years back i volunteered with a mentoring scheme for local teenagers who were from poor families, excluded from schools and who were often in trouble with the law. early on i remember a group of teenagers who couldn't understand why i wore second-hand shop clothing, which was shabby, reeked of poverty and had no identifiable brand names. in their eyes this made me a kind of non-person. (many people in the commercial gay scene share a similar opinion.)

on my list of mini ambitions in life, i have always wanted to make my own clothes. i generally find the affordable off-the-peg selection on offer, too gender restrictive, anachronistic, unimaginative and spoiled by prominent logos or labels. my gran had the right idea when she was alive. if she saw a label on the outside she cut it off.

so last friday i began a basic sewing class. at the end of the year we will have made a shirt, which seems fairly complex. on friday i filled a bobbin, threaded a machine, sewed some straight lines, and most challenging of all, i attempted to stop at a set point at the end of each line. it was just aswell i was only driving a sewing machine and not a car, otherwise i'd have caused many deaths.

also on my list of desired achievements is to speak at least one other language fluently. tuesday night was my first spanish class. a thing that has always put me off most language courses is the tendency to be taught conversational components that i personally find irrelevant. "how old are you?" "what is your employment?" "how many brothers and sisters do you have?" etc. and thats my homework for next week, to present my identity profile.

languages also often contain anachronistic gender issues, and irrelevant concepts of polite versus familiar address. in spanish there is also the issue of having two forms of the verb "i am". i have difficulty enough with the implications of the verb "to be" in english. its unhelpful tendency to set our identities in stone and hypnotically entrap us within a narrow and non-fluid illusion of selfhood. but in spanish there are traditional rules for the use of "soy", a more permanent "i am", and then there is "estoy", a transient temporary state of being which i'd consider to be more realistic and would wish to use for every situation. i assume there must be spanish thinkers who defiantly identify themselves conversationaly only through "estoy", (if they conform to using the verbs "ser" and "estar" at all of course.)

Saturday 20 September 2003

VALUES AND PRIORITIES

we all know about hurricane isabel hitting the east coast of america, because it was the TOP uk tv news story. even the preparation and lead up to its arrival was the top tv news story.

so why weren't other natural disasters this month given equal prominence? why am i hardly aware of them?................

Monday, 1 September, 2003
Up to 120,000 people in northern Shaanxi province have been relocated after 10,000 homes were destroyed by floods and landslides, reports say.

Thursday, 4 September, 2003
At least 32 people have been killed and about 1,000 injured in southern China by Typhoon Dujuan, according to state media.

mon 15 sept 2003
Typhoon Maemi hit the area around Busan, South Korea's second city, on Friday night, sept 12, causing carnage with winds of 135 miles an hour, and forcing 25,000 to flee their homes. the death toll from the country's worst typhoon in a century was expected to soar above 100. on monday 15th power was only slowly returning to the 250,000 homes that suffered electricity cuts. Farmers are counting the cost after 8,500 hectares (21,240 acres) of paddy fields and orchards - full of crops that were just days away from harvest - were flooded as rivers burst their banks amid up to 45cm (18in) of rain.
Five of the nation's 18 nuclear power plants were shut down after their powerlines were damaged. Two oil-refineries and 32 large factories in Ulsan and Onsan have also been closed.

18 September, 2003,
Officials in Bangladesh say flooding has killed at least six people and left thousands stranded over the past five days.


20 Sep 2003
Bangladeshi rescue workers struggled to get food and medicine to thousands of people stranded on islands in a flood-swollen river on Saturday as more than half a million people were affected by the latest flooding. The death toll rose to 14, officials said.

WHY IS THE STORY OF AMERICAN SUFFERING CONSIDERED TO BE SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT?
video: VIETNAM
In April, l971, thousands of G.I.'s-Marines and regular army, veterans and active duty personnel came to Washington, DC., to denounce their participation in Vietnam.
(free speech tv)
video: 11 prominent micro-biologists dead
IRAQ: video Interview with Curt Goering, of Amnesty International (swf) aug 2003
(radio free america.tv)

IRAQ: modern napalm (swf)
(radio free america.tv)

VIDEO: Helen Caldicott- America's use of depleted uranium weapons
(free speech tv)
bioconservatives versus transhumans
body modifiers are preparing people for a world of highly individualized humans, helping people get over "the mundane definition of human".

And the Disabled Shall Inherit the Earth
Uninhibited about technological modification, they're poised to be the first posthumans.
World's First Nut-fuelled Power Plant Opens

Gympie, Australia is home to the world's first macadamia nut-fueled power plant.
a joint venture between the Queensland Government-owned Ergon Energy and the Gympie-based Suncoast Gold Macadamias company, the third largest producer of macadamia nuts in the world.

"Each hour this facility will convert 1,680 kilograms of waste shell into 1.5 megawatts of electricity," Queensland Energy Minister Paul Lucas says.


TRANSUBSTANTIATION
rent my chest
prosthetic skin
nose hair
czech human bone chapel
artificial muscles
feet
Optical Camouflage
Phantom Limbs
Neuroprosthesis
crochet skulls
naked font
The Cannibal Within
hitler's penis
muscles
artificial limbs
space toilet video
loincloths
CYBORGS-R-US

usb toothbrush


usb coffee cup
(via Geisha asobi blog)
carousel designed by children
The animals on the carousel were all sculpted from drawings created by kids
HELL: includes real audio screams of the damned

medicate your emotions

STEPS IN OVERCOMING MASTURBATION
A mormon Guide to Self-Control:

1. Never touch the intimate parts of your body except during normal toilet processes.
2. Avoid being alone as much as possible. Find good company and stay in this good company.
3. If you are associated with other persons having this same problem, YOU MUST BREAK OFF THEIR FRIENDSHIP.
4. When you bathe, do not admire yourself in a mirror.
5. When in bed, if that is where you have your problem for the most part, dress yourself for the night so securely that you cannot easily touch your vital parts,

homemade-sex-toys
Sousveillance, not just surveillance
new strong bad email (flash)
homestarrunner.com

broken memories

LFO freak movie

wordpirates.com
"Marketers, politicians and other short-sighted, self-interested, sticky-fingered people have been stealing our words. Not only do they take them for commercial purposes, but they misuse them entirely. They're Word Pirates and we're going to take back what's rightfully ours.

For instance, "intellectual property" refers to ideas. Ideas aren't property. Not only one person can "own" them. It's a bad metaphor leading to worse laws.

(via my analog life)
Warren Ellis 2003
"The book binding is weighted with meteor fragments. The design is such that the sound of the book being opened on to a table has infrasonic content, too low for human hearing. The book briefly vibrates at eighteen hertz, which is the resonant frequency of the human eyeball."

He lurched forward, fixing me with a fanatic gaze. "Do you understand, son? Do you see? It's a book that forces you to read it. It prepares your eye for input."

(via linkmachinego)
Stefanie Nagorka, Do-It-Yourself Sculptor
Building supply stores have launched an untold number of do-it-yourself projects. Stefanie Nagorka's mission is more ambitious than most -- and definitely more artistic.

Her sculptures usually have a short lifespan, since Nagorka generally goes to work in the aisles without prior permission from store officials. Part of her artistic vision, she says, is to challenge the homogenized look and feel giant chains have brought to the American landscape. Since store staff sometimes ask Nagorka to take her sculpture apart when she's finished, they live on in photographs -- if she's even allowed to take those. Some stores also frown on her picture taking, which company policy forbids.
(via my analog life)

and barcode art.com
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety," said Benjamin Franklin.
(via plastic bag)
Reference Library of Digitized Insect Sounds
(via news of the dead)

World's Oldest Genitals Found in Scotland belonging to 400 million-year-old harvestmen insects, commonly known as a daddy-long-legs, -- in ancient rocks in Scotland.

plus beetles

and mite image gallery
STEVE GOUGH

Stephen Gough, 44, was due to appear in the courtroom of Dingwall Sheriff Court, in Ross-shire, but declined to get dressed or wear a blanket supplied by police.

Mr Gough has been attempting to walk naked from Land's End to John O'Groats to promote the fact that clothing need only ever be optional.

The court hearing was moved to his cell where the sheriff, his clerk and the fiscal stood in the corridor while Mr Gough stood naked for the pre-trial hearing.

Mr Gough, of Eastleigh, Hants, was again remanded to Inverness Prison segregation for trial on 3 October at Dingwall Sheriff Court.

When Sheriff Kenneth Stewart asked Steve Gough what he had to say about bail he replied: "I don't know. I would just like to see the sunshine."

plus: photo from selfridges naked protest in support of steve gough.

Wednesday 17 September 2003

Nicaragua
"An observer may conclude that the US is still punishing Nicaragua for having attempted to obtain its independence and exercise its right to self-determination. One wonders how much longer this torture must continue."

"This month the Nicaraguan Institute of Statistics and Census announced that 30% of people in the Matagalpa suffer malnutrition. 5000 rural workers and their families are marching from Matagalpa to the capital Managua to demand assistance agreed between the government and the rural workers - promises the government has not kept. CENIDH, the national human rights organization has confirmed that nine people have died of hunger on the march so far, including several children."

Today, most people in Nicaragua are even worse off than they were twenty years ago.....The sign at the end of the neo-liberal route for Nicaragua reads loud and clear: “Dead end. Made in the USA.”
(via ethel the blog
bush bollocks
A lovely piece of analysis from a very senior Pentagon officer now retired is making the rounds, and it puts paid to George Bush Junior. It dissects his recent speech, an incoherent, inaccurate, duplicitous, arrogant piece of trash that no intelligent staff should ever have approved. We are glad to see that across America some people are waking up in time to think for themselves and make a difference in 2004.
(via ethel the blog)
advanced computer displays -- eliminating the screen altogether.
Heliodisplay: The machine modifies the air above a video projector, creating a working, 27-inch screen that can display any kind of video. The image is two-dimensional, can be seen from several angles, and can be manipulated by hand.

FogScreen: generates an image onto a cloud of water vapor diffused into the air.
(via my analog life)

plus holographic controls that float in thin air.
HoloTouch™ interactive technology creates holographic images of controls that float in thin air. Simply "touch" the image projected in front of you to dial a cellphone, control medical equipment, change the channel, and more.

projection Keyboards

Internet Toilet Roll Browser
Fancy catching up with your emails? The Internet Loo Roll Browser is designed to make best use of the time you spend on the toilet. The product allows you to search the Internet whilst sitting on the toilet and print out any pages you are interested in on your toilet roll.

and 1984 Apple Newsweek Advertising Insert
(via Geisha asobi blog)
International Talk Like a Pirate day
Friday (September 19) is International Talk Like a Pirate day.
British HQ for Talk Like a Pirate day
(via guardian weblog)
things pushed through toast

erik's chopsticks gallery

scout walker kama sutra

american social hygene posters
national social hygene day

hitler in home and gardens 1938

How to Build an H-Bomb
US vetoes UN call to protect Arafat
Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian UN observer, said the US had lost its credibility to play an honest broker in the peace process.
What Happened To the issue of Tibet?
AFGHANISTAN: the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has confirmed that human rights violations are on the rise throughout the country. extra-judicial killings, arbitrary detention and the presence of unofficial prisons run by warlords were the major concerns of AIHRC. "There is no rule of law, the police that are responsible for the rule of law, they themselves are violators and are acting against the law," the spokesperson claimed.

IRAQ: US officials said they were holding 10,000 prisoners in Iraq, double the number previously reported.

Mysterious pneumonia-like illnesses and breathing problems appear to be striking U.S. troops in greater numbers than the military has identified in an investigation -- including more deaths, according to soldiers and their families.

New figures reveal the true number of GIs wounded in Iraq. more than 6,000 American servicemen have been evacuated for medical reasons since the beginning of the war, including more than 1,500 American soldiers who have been wounded, many seriously. Andrew Robertshaw, an expert at the National Army Museum in London, said wars also claimed casualties after they were over. 'Soldiers were dying from injuries sustained during World War I well into the 1920s,' he said.

plus: Why Washington fears the International Criminal Court

and Top 25 Censored Stories of 2003. Researchers at Sonoma State meticulously combed through news reports from 2002 and the first quarter of 2003 to find stories that didn't get the media attention they deserved. In many cases, these stories got little or no play – or else were presented piecemeal, without any attempt to put the information in context. "The stories this year reflect a clear danger to democracy and governmental transparency in the U.S. – and the corporate media's failure to alert the public to these important issues,"
(via news insider)

Sunday 14 September 2003

last Monday Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said opposition to the U.S. President was encouraging Washington's enemies and hindering his 'war against terrorism'.
(via green fairy)

i'd assummed bush's death camp in guantanamo bay was managing to achieve that single-handedly.

meanwhile, surprise surprise, Fears are growing that the United States could effectively walk away from crucial trade talks in the Mexican resort of Cancun aimed at solving the deepening economic and social crisis afflicting billions of the world's poorest people.

whilst international power brokers are also increasingly pre-occupied with a deepening alliance between Brazil, India and China, representing half the world's population. Senior government officials in Mexico say this will alter the geo-political balance, and it is understood to have made Washington deeply uneasy about a new rival to challenge its economic supremacy.

A statement by ActionAid, War on Want and the World Development Movement said: 'The Brazilians have brought a sense of social justice to this conference which is a great antidote to the faux development agenda of the European Commission and the bullying behaviour by the US.'

Friday 12 September 2003



XII The Hanged Man

The picture of The Hanged Man usually shows someone hanging by one foot from a tree branch, upside down. He is usually very peaceful and sometimes there is money or his wordly possessions falling out of his pockets.

Circumstances are literally turned on their head. surrender to experience. give up control.

The Hanged Man often refers to taking time out for devotion to a worthwhile cause or spiritual searching, perhaps using "unconventional means" of searching.

It involves changing directions or perspectives. There is an element of waiting involved and sometimes sacrifice. It can indicate a Rite of Passage, an initiation or a transition. The card has sometimes been called the card of the Dying God. The Hanged Man means listening to your inner self, sometimes even when it seems to go against logic. It means looking at things in new and different ways. It also indicates unconventional behavior. It is a time of being alone often and reflects the need to withdraw from time to time in order to recharge or regroup your inner energies.

The Hanged Man represents the way you are perceived when you dance to the rhythm of a different drummer and when viewed the other way up he does appear to be dancing a little jig. The process of finding that drummer entails going within, recognizing the distortion existing in your life, then searching more deeply for the truth you want to live; and the certainty that living that truth is the only way you can live at this point in your life. The Hanged Man brings the message: know yourself and your way, discover your purpose and turn your life around for it, regardless of the opinions of others.

its the unavoidable torments of overturning an old order and of a voluntary sacrifice for the sake of spiritual rebirth. Such a transformation cannot be carried out rationally; he is "dependent" on his left leg, representing the unconscious, and makes no use of his right, representing conscious action.

it involves temporary suspension of progress. letting go. accepting what is. ending the struggle. being vulnerable and open.


THE FALLING MAN

On September 12, 2001, The New York Times published a photograph by Richard Drew of an unidentified man jumping from the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Two years later, Tom Junod wrote about his search to learn the identity of the man

"Some people who look at the picture see stoicism, willpower, a portrait of resignation;

others see something else ... something discordant and therefore terrible: Freedom.


There is something almost rebellious in the man's posture, as though once faced with the inevitability of death, he decided to get on with it; as though he were a missile, a spear, bent on attaining his own end.

He is, fifteen seconds past 9:41 a.m. EST, the moment the picture is taken, in the clutches of pure physics, accelerating at a rate of thirty-two feet per second squared.

He will soon be traveling at upwards of 150 miles per hour, and he is upside down. In the picture, he is frozen; in his life outside the frame, he drops and keeps dropping until he disappears."
(via linkmachinego)


evolution
human body
video: cryosections head to toe
photo Cryosections
virtual egyptian mummy
2 wooden 17th century anatomical figures

Artificial limbs for a thalidomide child, 1961-1965
exoskeleton: hal-3
video: exoskeleton- 'springwalker'
the human genome project
human cloning foundation

head
video: head transplants (rm)
titanium cranioplasty
Eyelashes
eyes
eyes
mouth
throat

shoulder
arm
hand
thumb

Transgenic pig's heart, 2000
guts

nematode sperm

genitals
balls
arse
arse
arse
shit
shit

video: headless clones for organs (rm)
brains 4 zombies
The Mighty Meat shake Mobile
drinking blood
Aborted Babies Sold As Health Food
Zhu Yu 'Eating People' #2
Zhu Yu 'Eating People' #3
Butchering the Human Carcass for Human Consumption
man beef: human meat recipes

the sandwich project
(The sandwich project's aim is to collect the world's favourite fillings between two pieces of bread - open top sandwiches are fine as well.)

play dead
play dead 2
play dead 3
dead
Mark McGowan

since 1st September Mark McGowan has been slowly nudging a monkey-nut with his nose, on his hands and knees, from Goldsmiths College in New Cross, south-east London, towards downing street. Each day he has covered about three-quarters of a mile over eight hours.

Thursday 11 September 2003

without sanctuary

photographs and postcards taken as souvenirs at lynchings throughout America.

FARM PROTESTOR KILLS HIMSELF AT WORLD TRADE TALKS

on the opening day of the talks in cancun, Lee Kyung-hae, a 56-year-old rice farmer and president of the Korean Advanced Farmers Federation , climbed onto a high security fence at the height of the protests against the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and waved a banner that read "WTO Kills Farmers".

He then stabbed himself in the chest and later died of his injuries in hospital. One of his friends said it was an "act of sacrifice" to show his disgust at the WTO and its policies.

"Mr Lee committed suicide after seeing how the WTO was killing peasants around the world," according to a statement by about 50 South Korean farmers.

in February this year he had set up a one-man protest, living in a tent outside the WTO offices in Geneva with banners reading "WTO Kills". in an article he wrote last month for the Korean AgroFood magazine, Lee Kyoung-Hae wrote: "I am 56, a farmer from South Korea who has strived to solve our problems ... but who has mostly failed like many other farm leaders elsewhere.....Soon after the Uruguay round of the Gatt (now the WTO) was signed in 1992 [opening Korean markets to rich countries and allowing the dumping of rice and other foods] we farmers realised that our destinies were out of our hands. We could do nothing but watch our lovely rural communities being destroyed."

today in cancun a collection of groups described by Anuradha Mittal of the International Forum on Globalization as representing "civil society" staged a guerrilla press conference about his suicide.
(indymedia)
9/11

"for many Europeans the bitter experiences of two world wars are hard-wired into their souls. They know all about the costs of war. The single, horrific experience of mass killings by foreign intruders doesn't give Americans the automatic right to lecture the rest of the world."
letter in today's guardian, from an american in the u.k.

"September 11 is also the birthday of Vinoba Bhave, Gandhi's spiritual successor, who founded the Bhoodan (Land Gift) movement in 1951. Vinoba walked through India, asking landowners to give one-sixth of their land to the landless to prevent violence and create a more egalitarian society."
letter in today's guardian, from van Nutbrown, Action Village India

The other 9/11 Chile voices: 30 years ago today General Pinochet toppled Chile's elected government. Read accounts of the terror that followed.

plus "top CIA officials proposed a terrorist campaign to stun the Chilean people into accepting a military regime." thousands of declasified US documents explicating the US role in the coup have been synthesised in a book, 'The Pinochet File', by Peter Kornbluh
chile: guardian weblog special
(see also 'american foreign policy and the legacy of kissinger')
AL-QAIDA HAS EMERGED STRONGER SINCE 9-11, says British academic paul rogers

latest poll: BUSH'S PERFORMANCE RATING AT IT'S LOWEST POINT

"THE PAST IS PRESENT: Watergate, Vietnam & Iraq" By Bernard Weiner
(via news insider)

Facial Update Modifications: bin laden

where's saddam?

The Bush vs. Gore Dish Towel
"To mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision to select the President, we've created this special tea towel. Absorbent, easy to use, these 100 % cotton tea towels come directly to us from China. We silk screened each one with the five Supreme Court Justices who selected George W. Bush as President. Justice Stevens' dissenting opinion is printed beneath them."

pictures bush would prefer we don't see

video: bush election fraud
video: bush morning of 9/11
flash: tribute to american troops
flash: Bush is not a Nazi so stop saying that
flash: take back the media

Wednesday 10 September 2003

israel palestine
the meat gallery
images mostly created with the help of thinly sliced beef

human bone jewelry
your father waz here motha'fuckers
photos of an abandoned jailhouse
(via Geisha asobi blog)
9/11 and THE ARMS TRADE

One week after 9/11, Richard Aboulafia, senior military analyst with the aerospace and defence consultancy Teal Group, said the attacks were "all good things for the defence industry".

He was right. In order to bring them onside with the war on terror, Oman, the Philippines, Indonesia, Israel, Egypt, South Korea, Chile and the United Arab Emirates all enjoyed confirmed or approved arms deals specifically because they joined the coalition to support the war in Afghanistan. Even when Tony Blair flew to India for talks with the Indian prime minister following the September 11 attacks, he couldn't help but try to finalise the sale of 60 BAE Systems Hawk fighters, worth £1bn.

SELLING MORE DEATH IN LONDON

Gideon Burrows writes: "Like most people, I remember exactly where I was when I first heard that terrorists had flown aeroplanes into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. I was outside a huge arms exhibition in London's Docklands, where 14 Middle Eastern nations were shopping for weapons. While events across the world were cancelled out of respect for the thousands of dead, arms buyers continued doing weapons deals in London for a further three days."

"Two years on and it's business as usual for Defence Systems and Equipment International (DSEi) at the ExCeL exhibition centre, close to Canary Wharf. More than 1,000 arms companies have booked stands, a flotilla of warships will be on display on the docks, and thousands of delegates from all over the world are expected to attend. On the evening of the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks, delegates will schmooze government ministers at a black-tie gala dinner at the Royal Lancaster, one of London's most exclusive hotels."

At a glance: the International Arms Trade

£1m police operation guards London arms fair
The UK is the world's second largest arms exporter. Scotland Yard has put together a £1m policing operation to ensure security at the show. The officer in charge, deputy assistant commissioner Andy Trotter, said last week that he was concerned that protests by about 60 anti-arms and anti-globalisation groups could turn into a riot.

Today the more than 2,600 security guards and officers at the site, including 25 Ministry of Defence police officers inside the exhibition centre, well outnumbered the group of 50 protestors outside the hall.

video: "police prevent filming" 4.7m
(via indymedia)

protesters held under terror act
The civil rights group Liberty was today expected to launch a high court action to protect the right to protest outside Europe's biggest arms fair in London's Docklands.

As the first day of the event came to a close last night, the organisation condemned the use of anti-terrorism legislation against protesters outside the Excel exhibition centre in east London. the government had previously assured the House of Commons that these measures would only be used where there was "good reason to believe that there is genuinely a terrorist threat".

Police use of section 44 searches to deter protest at DSEI

"To use it as they are using it against protesters at an arms fair seems to us to be blatantly illegal. The only reason to use it is to break up the demonstration, to stop people, to take away their basic right to freedom of speech."

The Section 44 Monitoring form is downloadable as a word file. it was put together using experience activists and lawyers to provide good advice and a means to document the new policing tactic of using section 44. Please consider completing one of these Section 44 Monitoring Forms if you have been searched.

How to complain to the BBC about their DSEI coverage

guardian arms trade report

plus Blix says Iraq's original weapons declaration likely true
"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves."
... (Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862)

Tuesday 9 September 2003

starting tomorrow in Cancun, host Mexico is expected to play a leading role in pushing for new agricultural policy at the Fourth World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference.

"Mexican corn farmers aren't competing against U.S. farmers. They're competing against the richest treasury in the world."

For 10,000 years, the inhabitants of Mexico have based their diets and their lives around corn. Pre-Colombian Indians worshipped a god of corn; most Mexicans eat corn at every meal. Now Mexican corn and the 15 million Mexicans who depend on it economically are in crisis.

Since the North American Free Trade Agreement liberalized commerce between the United States and Mexico a decade ago, nearly a third of corn consumed in Mexico comes from the United States (and Greenpeace estimates that 25 percent of imported corn is transgenic). Meanwhile, the government in Mexico City estimates that 400,000 of this country's farmers leave their land every year, many of them young men seeking work in the United States.

"It's very sad that Mexican farmers can't make their own food in their own country," said Liza Covantes of Greenpeace Mexico. "Instead, they have to cross the border to make food in the U.S. that is then sold to Mexico."

Kick all agricultural subsidies (kickAAS)
food trade policy analyst Devinder Sharma
Centre for Alternative Agricultural Media
wto.org

archives:

hundreds of farmers from Veracruz state marched naked to Mexico City

naked farmers from veracruz

Wearing masks of former President Carlos Salinas, naked farmers from Veracruz protested outside of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), June 18, 2003, in Mexico City. The farmers were demanding agricultural reforms and asking the party to return their land that the PRI government seized between 1992-1998 in the state of Veracruz. (read a typically coy account in the guardian)

Also demanding agricultural reform were Greenpeace protesters who last month, for seven hours, prevented a freight train loaded with 132 tons of U.S.-grown corn from crossing the border.
future me
write yourself a letter to be delivered in the future
(via green fairy)
cancun naked protest
CANCUN, Mexico -- on monday Anti-globalization protesters, about two dozen men and women, stripped their clothes off and spelled out the words "No WTO" (first in Spanish and then in English) with their naked bodies. the first of several actions against the World Trade Organization meeting in this Caribbean resort.

"It was an opening statement to reassert the point, to make sure the WTO does not proceed unchecked," said Dave Meddell, an American environmental campaigner.
Topeka Capital-Journal
hindustan times
daily news

cancun 2001
Fenoderee

The Fenoderee is the name of a Manx brownie. Unlike most brownies, he is the size of a human, and possesses supernatural strength. The Fenoderee used to belong to the Ferrishyn, an elfish-tribe on the Isle of Man, but he was cast into the world of mortals for falling in love with a human girl. Although he is a singular creature, it seems he can be in more than one place at a time as many farmers have claimed to have seen him. Helpful like a brownie, he goes around naked and the offer of clothes will greatly offend him, he will desert a family if they give him a gift of clothing.
bio fuel cell

"Scientists at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst announced yesterday that they have built a novel device that uses bacteria to turn garbage into electricity. The new "microbial fuel cell," an early prototype, cannot generate enough power to run an appliance, but it can operate virtually indefinitely without interruption, and is far more efficient than anything like it ever built."
POLITICS AND THE AVANTGARDE
"our generation was formed through the absurdity of war" (andre malraux)

Dada is an art movement that started during World War I. It grew largely out of a disgust for the Great War and for the societies and values that allowed it to happen. As a result, much of Dada was dedicated to the undermining (if not outright destruction) of established artistic forms and was thus "anti-art".

"dadaism has more to do with the battle of the somme, with uprisings and putsches.... than with what we usually consider art." (ilya ehrenburg)

In the aftermath of a war that introduced the horrors of chemical and industrialized warfare for the first time, the world stood stunned by its own brutality, and Europe was reeling from a new urban reality made up of widows, the disabled, the starving and the unemployed masses.

Faced with this jarring and incomprehensible reality, poets, writers, painters and musicians responded with art forms never before imaginable.

in the turbulent period between the two World Wars, modernism exploded, and with it came entirely new and radical notions about what could be expressed in art, and how. Once relegated to the decorous, art suddenly became dangerous and public - and artists themselves were threatened by political ideology.

in the movie "Max", written and directed by Menno Meyjes, hitler proclaims "politics is the new avant garde"

9/11

1: "The composer Karlheinz Stockhausen was the first to call 9-11 an artwork ("the greatest work of art ever.") just days after the event, although in the ensuing public outrage he quickly attempted to retract his comments. Widespread recognition of 9-11 as a media art masterpiece is yet to come, and would run counter to the passivity engendered by the infotainment media."
(Theatrum Mundi: 911)

2: "What happened there is: now you must re-adjust your brain." said Stockhausen "The greatest work of art imaginable for the whole cosmos. Minds achieving in a single act what we in music can only dream of, people rehearsing like mad for ten years, preparing fanatically for a concert, and then dying. You have people who are that focused on a performance and then 5,000 people who are dispatched to the afterlife, in a single moment. I couldn't match it. Against that, we - as composers - are nothing."

3: "Does the WTC attack feel like a movie? ... Well of course it does! It has been specifically written as a movie script... Having studied for years how Americans react in movie theaters, the game planners have decided we are now ready for movie spectaculars in real life. You are witnessing a cathartic and intense psychological operation. It is designed to alter your perceptions and hence your politics. It's a classic PsyOp. It's a made-for-TV movie with all the cliché blockbuster elements. It has mayhem, evil warlords and subtle hints of a military coup. It has terrorists who wrestle for control of Flight 93 with Die Hard have-a-go Bruce Willis clones."
(psyop news)

4: In February 2002, while promoting 'More, Now, Again' via an interview with the Toronto Globe and Mail, Elizabeth Wurtzel (author of 'Prozac Nation') was asked about the events of 11 September 2001, in the context of her residence close to the World Trade Centre. Her reply ran: 'I had not the slightest emotional reaction. I thought, this is a really strange art project... it was a most amazing sight in terms of sheer elegance. It fell like water. It just slid, like a turtleneck going over someone's head.' She concluded: 'I just felt like everyone was overreacting. People were going on about it. That part really annoyed me.'

9/11

911: The Road To Tyranny by Alex Jones
The entire 2 hour video online.

THE TRUTH AND LIES OF 9-11 by Michael Ruppert
nepal

"A seven-month ceasefire in the People's War in Nepal has ended, and across the Himalayan countryside there is now intensifying fighting and tit-for-tat battles between the People's Liberation Army and government forces."

"In November 2001, after the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., the Nepalese government, headed by the Nepali Congress, quickly labelled the Maoists as "terrorists", imposed a nationwide state of emergency and mobilized the royal army for the first time against the People's War. Over 5,000 people were killed in the following year alone, until the ceasefire was announced in late January 2003."
(via Revolutionary Worker Online)

archive:

july 30, 2003: NAKED PROTEST THREATENED IN NEPAL
Residents of a remote mountainous town in Nepal are threatening to protest naked if the government and Maoist rebels fail to restart peace talks
People from the town of Lamki warned they would rally with no clothes in the capital, the Kathmandu Post reported. Lamki is about 600 kilometres west of Kathmandu.
VOICES IN THE WILDERNESS

Things Iraqis can't do under the Occupation

U.S. TREASURY FINES VOICES IN THE WILDERNESS $20,000 FOR BRINGING MEDICINE AND BOOKS TO IRAQI HOSPITALS AND SCHOOLS
LINK SWARM

globalise resistance
reporters without borders
guerrilla news


LOOM
Gay Porn Blog
WARBLOGGER WATCH

DIE PUNY HUMANS
Gravity Lens
BRAINWAVES

neural signals
World Transhumanist association
extropy institute
the AT&T Natural Voices TEXT-TO-SPEECH Engine demo! "Here you have the opportunity to "test drive" what we believe is the most realistic, human-sounding synthetic speech system available today."
(via green fairy)

Monday 8 September 2003

TAKE ME BACK

The Internet Archive has developed a beta full text search of 11 billion webpages dating back to 1996.

(via linkmachinego)
"God, so atrocious in the Old Testament, so attractive in the New--the Jekyl and Hyde of sacred romance." - Mark Twain
Judging books by their covers, September 2003.

A monthly feature in which he reviews recent books, focusing on what really matters: the dust jackets!
Free PDF eBooks classics
Giant game pieces begin their march through Twin Cities

"On your average Wednesday, you don't see a big, yellow bowling pin going down the street," said the Minneapolis resident as he stood on the corner of W. 7th St. and Kellogg Blvd. in downtown St. Paul.

The Yellow bowling pin was one of three 26-foot tall game pieces in the Big Urban Game, designed to get Twin Citians to become more visually aware of their environment. The other game pieces are Red and Blue.

"The real idea behind the game is to get people thinking and seeing the natural environment," said Mary DeLaittre, general manager for the Twin Cities Design Celebration. "The idea is to look at the city as a really big obstacle course."

(via my analog life)




PUBLIC NUDITY AND CLOTHING.

lets begin today with the predictably negligable coverage of saturday's selfridges naked protest in support of steve gough.

currently top of the google search page is the bbc's report. apart from its total lack of any statement regarding the obvious absurdity of preventing people from being unclothed in public space, it manages to confuse the fact that previous charges acquired by steve on his epic journey have been dropped, without mentioning that he is currently in prison segregation awaiting a fresh trial. thus giving the impression he is free as a bird with no worries, rather than incarcerated in isolation without access to even a fucking phone. (though after some complaining the bbc have adjusted this report to at least state that steve is still currently "in custody".)

but then theres the obligatory, almost obsessive, need in the media to make the headline into a pun..... "naked protest over in a flash" (a headline shared by an even briefer report in the sunday mirror). flashing is an aggresive and sexual form of public nudity. a criminal act that predominantly targets and victimises women and children. it is exceptionally unhelpful and lazy, almost spiteful, of any journalist to layer this association into any reporting of naked protest. especially when there is zero inclusion of any balancing argument in the reportage to convey our actual intent, other than the vague and wooly "they believe its a human right".

thus in the absence of any mainstream statements explaining naked protest, i am compelled to repeat yet again, THERE IS NOTHING INHERENTLY BAD OR CRIMINAL IN THE APPEARANCE OF THE UNCLOTHED HUMAN BODY. i'm not some fucking hippy who wants to tell the world how 'beautiful' we all are, or how 'natural' and free it is to be naked. NAKED PROTEST IS AN EXTREMELY SIMPLE AND DIRECT POLITICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ACTION, HIGHLIGHTING THE ABSURDITY AND EXTENT OF OUR CORRUPTED SOCIAL PROGRAMMING AND THE UNIFORMED STATE THAT ENFORCES IT.

public nudity is a simple human statement that simultaneously invokes numerous important complexities.

as foucault pointed out: a culture's power structures depend largely on how we look and are looked at.

so lets end this post by looking at and thinking about a few issues relating to clothes.....
aside from the obvious insidious voluntary act of paying to turn ourselves into walking adverts, like so many corporately branded cattle, theres the issue of the exploitative labour involved in producing fashionable garments.

Sweatshop Britain "In the last 25 years the number of jobs in UK clothing and textiles has fallen from one million to around a quarter of a million. Over half the clothes sold in Britain are now imported. In 2000 British consumers spent an average of £400 on clothes, a total sum of £23 bn. The retail market is dominated by four big chains (1999 figures): Marks and Spencers (20% of the market); Arcadia (Dorothy Perkins, Top Shop, Miss Selfridge etc - 10%); Storehouse (Mothercare, BHS - 6.4%); Next (4.2%). UK garment workers' wages are less than the manufacturing average - 28% lower for men and 14% lower for women.

A BBC Watchdog programme (April 2000) found women in the Olympia factory, Leicester, working for £2.75 per hour (95 pence below the minimum). One worker told the BBC she had been locked into the factory until an order was completed, when she asked for the minimum wage she was sacked

No Sweat and the GMB union found workers in Whitechapel sweatshops in East London working illegally for as little as £3.70 per hour; fire exists were chained shut, working conditions were hot and often filled with dust. The sweatshops were making clothes for Oxford Street stores including Top Shop (2002/3)"
no sweat

"Women make up 90 percent of sweatshop laborers. The majority of these women are between the ages of 15 and 22. Companies that use sweatshop labor to increase their own profit margins are taking advantage of predominantly young women.

Injustices perpetrated by factories that employ the use of sweatshop labor are numerous. Women are paid as little as six cents an hour and work ten to twelve hour shifts. In many instances overtime is mandatory. In some cases, women are allowed only two drinks of water and one bathroom break per shift. Sexual harassment, corporal punishment, and verbal abuse are all means used by supervisors to instill fear and keep employees in line."
feminists against sweatshops

"Respect. Safe working conditions. Affordable health insurance. Fair treatment. Paychecks that meet basic needs.
Workers at H&M, the Swedish clothing store, are trying to join a union - UNITE - because they're "missing" all of the above. In response, H&M managers have used intimidating tactics to prevent them from exercising their basic rights. Now H&M workers are asking for your help in their struggle!"
behind the label

"Isolation means that sweatshop workers are often unaware of their rights, and have little or no contact with unions. The Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA) has been campaigning to raise awareness about sweatshop labour, and attempting to make contact with outworkers to inform them of their rights.

So why do sweatshops continue to exist? The simple fact is that for big corporations, profit comes first. Sometimes clothing, shoes or other products can be produced most cheaply in a sweatshop in a Third World country, where there are lower (or no) health and safety standards, low minimum wages and restrictions on the workers' rights to free speech and association. This has been the case for decades in Indonesia, where Nike and other Western capitalists operate.

Nike employs around 120,000 Indonesian workers, and pays them about $2.50 a day. Indonesian unions and labour groups have estimated that $4.25 is a basic liveable wage in Indonesia, but Nike and other corporations continue to find it very profitable to sell shoes for $100 or even $200 when they were produced for five dollars.

Corporations choose carefully which Third World country they will invade - whoops, invest in - next. Repressive governments can be more profitable than democratic ones, because repressive governments and their militaries keep unions and radical workers in line."
green left

cartoon

cancun 2001