Friday 28 May 2010

EQUIVEILLANCE

"The teaching of certain thoughts and ideas has often been regarded as a crime. And, since Roman times, certain kinds of what we might like to call Free Speech have been regarded as crime."

"But not only is speaking often prohibited, sometimes so is taking notes, or remembering what is spoken."

"At the WTO meetings in Washington for instance, police orders heard over the police radio requested the seizing or destruction of reporters' written notes, and many instances of attempted willful destruction of photographic and video evidence have been perpetrated by both the police, the military, and by others."

Sousveillance can be understood by the following simple experiment:

1- enter the regime;
2- ask them why they have surveillance cameras there;
3- accept a typical response such as "Why are you so paranoid? Only criminals and terrorists are afraid of cameras.";
4- photograph the respondent;
5- observe reaction.

Friday 21 May 2010

Many Palestinian "Ghandis" are in their graves

...Palestinian nonviolence relies on global non-silence. The world cannot expect Palestinians to abandon violence while remaining silent on Israel's repression of nonviolent activists...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/21/palestinian-nonviolence-israeli-repression

Palestinian Gandhis are likely to be found in prisons after being repressed by Israeli soldiers or police or in the hospital after being brutally beaten or worse.

plus...

Michael Mansfield's letter to Nick Clegg on Palestine

"As deputy PM, Nick Clegg, it is your duty to live up to your own words on the daily atrocities happening in the occupied territories."

FREE RANGE CHILDREN

Take your kids to the park, and leave them there

A New York writer has caused a storm by encouraging parents to leave their kids in parks tomorrow.


Lenore Skenazy, who was branded ‘America’s Worst Mom’ after she wrote in the New York Post about letting her nine-year-old son ride the NY subway alone, has declared this Saturday to be the first-ever ‘Take Our Children To The Park And Leave Them There’ day. She has been caught up in a maelstrom of media attention since she announced the ‘holiday’ on her Free Range Kids website last week. Here, she explains why she’s doing it.

Monday 17 May 2010

As an old junk pusher told me, "Watch whose money you pick up."

Free art from oil

Tate Modern was forced to close down parts of its No Soul For Sale tenth anniversary exhibition on Saturday (15 May) whilst it struggled to remove dozens of dead fish and oil-soaked birds hanging from huge black balloons let loose in the Turbine Hall.

communique

"EVERY DAY TATE SCRUBS CLEAN BP'S PUBLIC IMAGE WITH THE DETERGENT OF COOL PROGRESSIVE CULTURE."

http://twitter.com/liberatetate

Scientists have raised urgent new concerns over the latest efforts to mitigate the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the oil rig explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon. Latest efforts to limit the environmental damage involve an untried deep-water technique, using a toxic dispersant that they believe may damage ocean life.

Scientists said they had found vast underwater plumes of oil, one 10 miles (16km) long and a mile wide. Researchers from the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology said they had detected the slicks lurking just beneath the surface of the sea and at depths of 4,000ft (1,200m). Chemical dispersants BP has been dumping underwater may be preventing the oil from rising to the top of the ocean, the scientists said. The find suggests the scale of the potential environmental disaster is much worse than previously feared since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blew up on 20 April, killing 11 workers.

To celebrate Tate Modern's 10th birthday, our readers put their questions to its director, Nicholas Serota

"In a time of climate change, will you stop sponsorship by oil companies so we can visit Tate and enjoy great art without being complicit in climate chaos?"

Nicholas Serota replies... "The first thing to say is we have support from BP, which as a company is looking at renewable energy as well as using up fossil fuels and using oil. We have long had support from them and are not intending to abandon it."

Sunday 2 May 2010

The Hidden

http://newslite.tv/2010/04/07/family-accidentally-discover-c.html

A family have uncovered a church which has been hidden under their Victorian home in Shropshire for 100 years, under a metre-long rectangle metal grid in their hallway.

The hole under the grid was just big enough for son Gareth, 20, to squeeze down and see what was under their living room. And then he followed a staircase in the chapel and came out of a cupboard in the dining room.

Glass Microbiology

http://www.lukejerram.com/projects/glass_microbiology

transparent glass sculptures created to contemplate the global impact of each disease and to consider how the artificial colouring of scientific imagery affects our understanding of phenomena.

Retro Graphic Novel Cover Concepts

http://fonografiks.deviantart.com/gallery/#Paperbacks

LAND

http://landlesspeasants.org/

Land is power. We do not own the land.
The land of the nation is not held for our benefit nor on our behalf.

10 thinking traps

http://litemind.com/thinking-traps/

"Our minds set up many traps for us. Unless we’re aware of them, these traps can seriously hinder our ability to think rationally, leading us to bad reasoning and making stupid decisions. Features of our minds that are meant to help us may, eventually, get us into trouble."

Saturday 1 May 2010

MAY DAY

MAY DAY

A Fox photographed in my neighbourhood, east London, on May Day.