Thursday, October 10, 2019
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Marcuse on (the impossibility) of solitude
Solitude, the very condition which sustained the individual against and beyond his society, has become technically impossible.
-
Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man
Monday, October 7, 2019
Erasmus on civility
As Erasmus argued in his enormously popular sixteenth-century handbook De Civilitate Morum Puerilium (On good manners for children), civility is an essential form of “outward honesty” that makes inner virtues publicly visible.
Saturday, October 5, 2019
Autumn Extinction Rebellion | Chuffed | Non-profit charity and social enterprise fundraising
Autumn Extinction Rebellion | Chuffed | Non-profit charity and social enterprise fundraising: Autumn is coming: we have a mega Rebellion to fund.On the 7th of October, we take to the streets together again in a unified call for immediate action on the climate and ecological emergency.
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
The Sound - "Total Recall"
Just remember that The Sound revival started here. "Total Recall" https://youtu.be/L3jmdIQfpZ8 via @YouTube #nothingsacredtohipsters #yrwelcome #thesound #80s
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Refugees in America | International Rescue Committee (IRC)
Refugees in America | International Rescue Committee (IRC): The United States has a long tradition of offering refuge to those fleeing persecution and war. However, the current administration, citing unfounded security concerns, put a travel ban in place, slashed refugee arrivals to their lowest levels ever, and separated families while criminalizing desperate people seeking asylum.
janresseger | "That all citizens will be given an equal start through a sound education is one of the most basic, promised rights of our democracy. Our chronic refusal as a nation to guarantee that right for all children…. is rooted in a kind of moral blindness, or at least a failure of moral imagination…. It is a failure which threatens our future as a nation of citizens called to a common purpose… tied to one another by a common bond." —Senator Paul Wellstone — March 31, 2000
janresseger | "That all citizens will be given an equal start through a sound education is one of the most basic, promised rights of our democracy. Our chronic refusal as a nation to guarantee that right for all children…. is rooted in a kind of moral blindness, or at least a failure of moral imagination…. It is a failure which threatens our future as a nation of citizens called to a common purpose… tied to one another by a common bond." —Senator Paul Wellstone — March 31, 2000: "That all citizens will be given an equal start through a sound education is one of the most basic, promised rights of our democracy. Our chronic refusal as a nation to guarantee that right f…
Monday, September 30, 2019
Formula for Fascist Tyranny, from Badiou's hypertranslation of Plato's Republic
“D(r5)=D(r4)×5=24×5=120
The pleasure associated with fascist life is thus 120 times less than the pleasure that will one day be associated with communist life.”
Alain Badiou, Plato's Republic, p. 311
The pleasure associated with fascist life is thus 120 times less than the pleasure that will one day be associated with communist life.”
Alain Badiou, Plato's Republic, p. 311
Four Day Week | The Give It Ups
Four Day Week | The Give It Ups: from the album The Give It Ups - Complete Recordings 2008-2012
Friday, September 27, 2019
Plato on Youth
The young people in Plato's dialogues tend to be uninspiring Yes-men, yet... he is careful to show that Socrates is persecuted precisely for sufficiently arguing for young people to take up the Idea of communism.
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Monday, September 23, 2019
Friday, September 20, 2019
Friday, September 13, 2019
If you support Warren, Sanders, Labor, etc. please come to Labor Notes Conference 2020
#LN2020 labornotes.org/conference
Montesquieu on work....
“They
who love to inform themselves, are never idle. Though I have no
business of consequence to take care of, I am nevertheless
continually employed. I spend my life in examining things: I write
down in the evening whatever I have remarked, what I have seen, and
what I have heard in the day: every thing engages my attention, and
every thing excites my wonder: I am like an infant, whose organs, as
yet tender, are strongly affected by the slightest
objects.”
― Montesquieu, Persian Letters
― Montesquieu, Persian Letters
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Saturday, September 7, 2019
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Paul Celan, THREADSUNS , from BREATHTURN
THREADSUNS
above the grayblack wastes.
A tree-
high thought
grasps the light-tone: there are
still songs to sing beyond
mankind.
trans. Joris
Friday, August 30, 2019
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Friday, August 23, 2019
Thursday, August 22, 2019
T Bone Walker - The Hustle Is On
One of the truly GREAT 78 Rpms, ever! The other side, 'Baby Broke My Heart,' has this beat tho'.
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
American Waste.....
North
America hoards and wastes the world's food supply, creating an
unnecessary surplus every day. 40% of food that is raised and grown
in America is not eaten. Globally, one third of food produced is not
consumed. In individual households, Americans waste 20% of their
food. That's the equivalent of dumping every fourth bag of groceries
we buy! Billions of bananas are wasted each year in the name
of supermarket's cosmetic standards. Millions of peaches are
discarded – around 60% – because the capitalist market rejects
it. Much of the food we keep in our fridges, tomatoes, eggs, etc., ought never to be cooled or cleaned.
Monday, August 19, 2019
Friday, August 16, 2019
Found Poem (after Zaqtan)
after Ghassan Zaqtan's
Biography in Charcoal
Blind
Follow That Smell
Karameh 1968
Damascus 1986
Tunis 1992
Birzeit 1998
A Scream over the Woods
Vehicles in the Dark
Biography in Charcoal
Blind
Follow That Smell
Karameh 1968
Damascus 1986
Tunis 1992
Birzeit 1998
A Scream over the Woods
Vehicles in the Dark
Friday, August 9, 2019
Child Of Mine (Live)
Such a great song, tho' I might prefer the 'Fit For a King' version from the same year.
Thursday, August 8, 2019
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Monday, August 5, 2019
Policing the Crisis on Race and Capital....
“Capital
reproduces the class as a whole, structured by race. It dominates
the divided class, in part, through those internal divisions which
have 'racism' as one of their effects. It contains and disables the
representative class organizations by confining them, in part, to
strategies and struggles which are race-specific, which do not
surmount its limits, its barriers. Through race, it continues to
defeat the attempts to construct, at the political level,
organizations which do in fact adequately represent the class as a
whole—that is, which represent it against capitalism,
against racism.”
Stuart
Hall, Chas Critcher, Tony Jefferson, John Clarke, and Brian Roberts,
Policing
the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), p. 387.
Linton Kwesi Johnson - Wat About Di Working Class ?
Still so relevant, especially:
“Nah badda blame it ’pon the black working class, Mr. Racist
Blame it ’pon the ruling class
Blame it ’pon your capitalist boss
We pay the costs, we suffer the loss”
Barbara Fields on Af-Am insurgents
As Barbara Fields points out, African-American insurgents did not use a notion of race as an explanation for their oppression or their struggles for liberation:
It was not Afro-Americans … who needed a racial explanation; it was not they who invented themselves as a race. Euro-Americans resolved the contradiction between slavery and liberty by defining Afro-Americans as a race; Afro-Americans resolved the contradiction more straightforwardly by calling for the abolition of slavery. From the era of the American, French and Haitian revolutions on, they claimed liberty as theirs by natural right.
Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields, Racecraft (New York: Verso, 2014), p.141.
Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields, Racecraft (New York: Verso, 2014), p.141.
Douglas on the novelty of 'white'
Douglass
clearly emphasized the novelty of the very description of people as
white: “The word white
is a modern term in the legislation of this country. It was never
used in the better days of the Republic, but has sprung up within the
period of our national degeneracy.” Frederick Douglass, 'The
Kansas-Nebraska Bill' [1854], in The
Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass,
vol. 2, ed. Philip S. Foner (New York: International Publishers,
1950), p. 317.
Saturday, August 3, 2019
Friday, August 2, 2019
Kentucky Wants to Break Up with Mitch McConnell | Full Frontal on TBS
Thank you! So true. I organize and campaign in northern KY and this is the reality on the ground. (Remember in the recent past when Appalachia was on-board with Bernie, ahead of the Dems' well-planned Clinton sabotage?) It's like Chomsky told us all those years ago: the American public (the demos) is far less Right-wing/ Fascist than the ruling class, yet....
MICHAEL STIPE & MATTHEW SWEET tainted obligation 1983
Always thought this is a great sign of what 'coulda been'. Lovely country jam that ends up sounding more like divine early R.E.M. than most of Matthew's output.
from CATVILLE
the mailman loves me
he loves me not
brothers and sisters have separate houses
with Greek letters above the flag
a couple of hours from here, right now,
Blackjewel miners are blocking coal deliveries
in order to protest stolen and low wages
a young man climbs the stairs with his arms then
runs down, and climbs the stairs with his arms
For All We Know by James Griffin
Timeless classic from one of the geniuses behind Bread..... (promise it'll be the last post on the theme!) For All We Know by James Griffin https://youtu.be/X_lNBrLfjuE via @YouTube
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Brian Wilson - Run James Run (Audio)
FOUR dislikes on this Youtube audio?! WTF! This is simply sublime and a slice of genius happily at work in the beautiful world. Brian Wilson - Run James Run (Audio) https://youtu.be/qnHABhlw5-s via @YouTube
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Monday, July 29, 2019
Sunday, July 28, 2019
Friday, July 26, 2019
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Barry Mann with Carole King / You're the only one
The stabbing bird organ backing vocals here are so great, in combination with the slightly 'off' lead.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Monday, July 22, 2019
Sunday, July 21, 2019
Fundraiser by DSA Metro Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky : Convention Delegates Fund
Fundraiser by DSA Metro Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky : Convention Delegates Fund
Please please please help send 6 delegates to the @DemSocialists National Convention next month. Help us fundraise to cover the costs, anything helps! @DSACincy ✊ https://www.gofundme.com/f/convention-delegates-fund
Please please please help send 6 delegates to the @DemSocialists National Convention next month. Help us fundraise to cover the costs, anything helps! @DSACincy ✊ https://www.gofundme.com/f/convention-delegates-fund
Friday, July 19, 2019
another lil' taste from my Godard project....
*
Solitude
is
Number One
Baby,
it's cold...
A
problem twofold
Sometimes
guys
are hard work
&
like all
that
turns work into shit
*
from my recent poetry/prose thing on Godard....
ジャン=リュック・ゴダールの数2 Numéro deux - Jean-Luc Godard (1975) - “Au départ” on Vimeo
Numero Deux begins with the French pronouns lineated, in equal lengths, like
a concrete poem : My/ Your/ His [Film], with the word 'Image
Sound' left flashing next to 'His,' then scaled back to just 'Image'
juxtaposed with the image of a young woman. From here, and
throughout, Godard produces a virtuosic performance of video
techniques, especially the scenes of May Day in Paris, with its
multiplayers of juxtaposed citations from different worlds (on just
two video screens) – many clearly interruptive, such as the kung-fu
over the explanation of the socio-economic crisis at the time – ,
made one world, made critical by the metamorphosis of
(key)words on video, e.g. the letter so for the French word for
'work' neatly turned into 'shit'. In some ways it's a continuation
of the frenetic pace established in La Chinoise, where the
viewer simply cannot keep up and 'take things in' in a single
viewing, betraying a fidelity to modernist narrative techniques
(think Joyce), resisting consumption while keeping to a Brechtian
principle of showing how this effect is performed. Whether it was
his intention or not (probably not), the effect can best be described
as 'sublime'.
Numero Deux begins with the French pronouns lineated, in equal lengths, like
a concrete poem : My/ Your/ His [Film], with the word 'Image
Sound' left flashing next to 'His,' then scaled back to just 'Image'
juxtaposed with the image of a young woman. From here, and
throughout, Godard produces a virtuosic performance of video
techniques, especially the scenes of May Day in Paris, with its
multiplayers of juxtaposed citations from different worlds (on just
two video screens) – many clearly interruptive, such as the kung-fu
over the explanation of the socio-economic crisis at the time – ,
made one world, made critical by the metamorphosis of
(key)words on video, e.g. the letter so for the French word for
'work' neatly turned into 'shit'. In some ways it's a continuation
of the frenetic pace established in La Chinoise, where the
viewer simply cannot keep up and 'take things in' in a single
viewing, betraying a fidelity to modernist narrative techniques
(think Joyce), resisting consumption while keeping to a Brechtian
principle of showing how this effect is performed. Whether it was
his intention or not (probably not), the effect can best be described
as 'sublime'.
Catherin A. MacKinnon on crimes of peace....
“Wartime
is exceptional in that atrocities by soldiers against civilians are
always essentially state acts. But men do in war what they do in
peace. When it comes to women, at least to civilian casualties, the
complacency that surrounds peacetime extends to war, however the laws
read. And the more a conflict can be framed as within a state,
as a civil war, as social, as domestic, the less human rights are
recognized as being violated. In other words, the closer a fight
comes to home, the more 'feminized' the victims become no matter
their gender, and the less likely international human rights will be
found to be violated, no matter what was done.” Catharine A.
MacKinnon, ''Crimes of War, Crimes of Peace,' Are Women Human?:
And Other International Dialogues, Belknap Press of Harvard UP,
2006, p. 148.
Mijente
Mijente
A recent report from Mijente analyzed thousands of ICE internal documents that detail their sickening plans for mass raids and violence.
A recent report from Mijente analyzed thousands of ICE internal documents that detail their sickening plans for mass raids and violence.
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Boris Cyrulnik on children and war
There
have always been child soldiers. Older boys who played the drums and
fifes in the armies of the French Republic often fell on the front
lines. The Marie-Louises of the Napoleonic armies and the older boys
in the retreat of the Wehrmacht were sacrificed to delay the advance
of the opposing army for a few hours. This is not counting the
14,000 little boys blown up during the Iran-Iraq War so that the
adult soldiers could then attack on a battlefields free of land
mines.
[.
. .]
Imminent
danger leads to problems of attention, which it focuses on the
aggressor, shutting out the rest of the world so that, paradoxically,
intellectual performance improves.
All
on-site observations made today of children at war, be it in Croatia,
Kosovo, Israel, Palestine, or Timor, confirm the surprise of
educators [including those in the U.S. military] who, since the
1950s, have noted “the excellent scholastic results” of children
traumatized by war.
- Boris
Cyrulnik, The
Whispering of Ghosts: Trauma and Resilience (2003),
trans. Susan Fairfield, NY: Other Press, 2005), p.
123, 125.
Monday, July 15, 2019
Military Spending | January 30, 2019 Act 2 | Full Frontal on TBS
Trump's
2019 $718 billion defense bill was more than his government spent on
justice, transportation, veterans, the state department, education,
health and human services, the interior, space, commerce, labor, the
treasury, homeland security, agriculture, energy, the environment,
and housing, combined.
2019 $718 billion defense bill was more than his government spent on
justice, transportation, veterans, the state department, education,
health and human services, the interior, space, commerce, labor, the
treasury, homeland security, agriculture, energy, the environment,
and housing, combined.
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Friday, July 12, 2019
Thursday, July 11, 2019
Food Waste
As
much as 40% of the food America produces is thrown away, uneaten.
That's over $165 billion worth of food every year. About twenty
pounds per person every month. That's enough to fill 730 football
stadiums!
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Monday, July 8, 2019
Monday, July 1, 2019
Byung-Chul Han on Violence
“Violence
does not stem from the negativity of clash or conflict alone; it also
derives from the positivity of consensus. Now, the totality of
capital, which seems to be absorbing everything, represents
consensual violence.” Byung-Chul Han. The Burnout
Society, trans Erik Butler, Stanford UP, 2015, p. 46.
..
“Psychic maladies such as burnout and depression, the exemplary
maladies of the twenty-first century, all display auto-aggressive
traits. Exogenous violence is replaced by self-generated violence,
which is more fatal than its counterpart inasmuch as the victim of
such violence considers itself free.” (ibid. 49)
Saturday, June 29, 2019
Monday, June 24, 2019
Thursday, June 20, 2019
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
Truffaut on Rossellini
No one has described Rossellini’s art better than his student, Truffaut: “He describes impossible things. [. . .] It's fantastic because, having to renounce things in order to film, it's this sum of renunciations that create a masterpiece.”
Berardi on Fascism
“Human
will is now a sort of ersatz, a sort of hysterical surrogation, or
simulation. Fascism is rising as a desperate and demented rebellion
against the impotence of the will, against the subjugation of human
events to the automaton.” Franco 'Bifo' Berardi, A New Fascism?
ed. Susanne Pfeffer, London:
Koenig Books, 2018, p. 11.
Monday, June 17, 2019
Saturday, June 15, 2019
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Friday, June 7, 2019
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Derrida (on Hegel) on fidelity
“The
vulgar translation of the Aufhebung: nothing coming from the
outside forbids you from cheating on your wife, but you no longer
want to since you love her. Then the permission for you to separate
from her, an authorization contrary to the duty of fidelity, remains
suspended (aufgehoben) as it were by the past, but you no
longer realize it since you no longer want to.” Derrida, Glas,
trans. John P. Leavey, Jr. and Richard Rand, U of Nebraska, 1986, p.
35.
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
Friday, May 31, 2019
Neil deGrasse Tyson on Richard Dawkins | StarTalk
Let's state the facts here. The entire controversy came out of the FACT that (we can watch it) the Jesuit representative came off like a very bad absurdist playwright. https://youtu.be/jH9XOGglGtw via @YouTube
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Sunday, May 26, 2019
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
VACCINE SCANDAL WITH DR. TONI BARK
Sci-Vac, the manufacturer, wants FDA approval, so it can be sold for use on
millions of American babies.
Monday, May 20, 2019
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Monday, May 6, 2019
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Saturday, May 4, 2019
Friday, May 3, 2019
Cyclone Fani batters India’s eastern coast; 1.1 million people evacuated - The Washington Post
Cyclone Fani batters India’s eastern coast; 1.1 million people evacuated - The Washington Post
Catastrophic for a neofascist dictatorship. Please donate immediately.
Catastrophic for a neofascist dictatorship. Please donate immediately.
Pola X (music episode)
Nothing
really compares to the moments when you had bought the new Scott
Walker album and put on headphones to give it a first listen. I
remember the Melody Maker saying something to the effect that
you would treat that memory like a birth, or a murder....
Thursday, May 2, 2019
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Book Review: Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation by Eva Illouz | LSE Review of Books
Book Review: Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation by Eva Illouz | LSE Review of Books
Came to this via Badiou's In Praise of Love, and it's totally awesome. Indeed, a must-read on the subject. While she - almost admittedly - underestimates the need for psychoanalytic accounts, the focus on a sociological perspective results in a brilliant discussion that keeps both feminists and marxists on their toes, asks us all to reflect on our relationships, and gifts us a literary gem every few pages.
Came to this via Badiou's In Praise of Love, and it's totally awesome. Indeed, a must-read on the subject. While she - almost admittedly - underestimates the need for psychoanalytic accounts, the focus on a sociological perspective results in a brilliant discussion that keeps both feminists and marxists on their toes, asks us all to reflect on our relationships, and gifts us a literary gem every few pages.
Friday, April 26, 2019
Edith Wharton on the naming of her cars after French writers
One summer, when we were all engaged on the first volumes of Mme Karénine ’s absorbing life of George Sand, we had a large showy car which always started off brilliantly and then broke down at the first hill, and this we christened ‘Alfred de Musset,’ while the small but indefatigable motor which subsequently replaced ‘Alfred’ was naturally named ‘George.’
Thursday, April 25, 2019
The REAL job of Congress...
Senators
spend an estimated 35% of their time fundraising, and as much as five
hours a day in order to make calls to the ruling class for money.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Julian Barnes on the French and English...
“In
public life, the French are just as hypocritical as we [Brits] are;
the difference would seem to be that their hypocrisy pays lip-service
to idealism, whereas ours pays lip-service to pragmatism.” Julian
Barnes, Something
to Declare, Vintage
International Edition, 2003, p. xvii.
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Nick Cave - Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow
Nick Cave - Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow Certainly my favourite line-up of the band, perhaps of almost any, almost ever.... If further proof is needed, hear the live versions of 'Mercy Seat' at this time – just sublime!
Not remotely the appropriate song choice, yet posting this in hope of the healing power of music while so/far too many dear friends are dealing with hospitalization right now. Love you all, please pull through.
Monday, April 15, 2019
TKO - (Herzog VS Stavarin) - Fight
(the only really boring part of the entire movie)
TKO - (Herzog VS Stavarin) - Fight
TKO - (Herzog VS Stavarin) - Fight
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Friday, April 5, 2019
Thursday, April 4, 2019
How the El Paso Immigration Court Fails to Uphold Due Process
How the El Paso Immigration Court Fails to Uphold Due Process: This complaint highlights systemic due process violations that are undermining justice for detained immigrants called before judges at the El Paso Service Processing Center (SPC) Immigration Court. The complaint draws from court observations of hundreds of immigration hearings, several sworn statements from legal practitioners appearing before the El Paso SPC Immigration Court, standing orders used by the Immigration Judges, and more.
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
David Bowie in 'Yellowbeard'
(If you don’t understand the importance of alcoholic inebriation to watching a Chapman/Cook script, you might be entirely missing the point....)
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