Monday, October 24, 2005
Costa del Gol
Hi guys, you may be pleased to know (well, maybe not) that our hero Pablo Counago scored for the first time this season, two goals in Malaga's 5 - 0 thrashing of Real Betis. He got in the starting line-up for the first time as well.
G-O-L-A,Gola
News from the Alty website that Ray Davies , on his recent visit to the Bridgewater Hall, professed his allegiance to the Robins. Whether this is due to the royalties generated by Frank Sidebottom's "Timperley Sunset" is not mentioned.
Reasons to see "The Corpse Bride"
Which I had no intention of doing until I discovered that
1.The models used in the film were designed and made by an animation company here in Altrincham.
2.My nephew Oliver is listed in the credits for work he did while briefly working at Warners 18 months ago.
Wallace & Gromit pah! Bring on the Oscars.
1.The models used in the film were designed and made by an animation company here in Altrincham.
2.My nephew Oliver is listed in the credits for work he did while briefly working at Warners 18 months ago.
Wallace & Gromit pah! Bring on the Oscars.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
London Anarchist Bookfair
From Workers Solidarity Movement:
The anarchist bookfair takes place in London. The Workers Solidarity
Movement (Ireland) will be there with a stall and a meeting a 2pm. The
latest edition of Red and Black Revolution (no 10) will be available.
London Anarchist Bookfair
Saturday 22nd of October
The Resource Centre
356 Holloway Road
London N7
The anarchist bookfair takes place in London. The Workers Solidarity
Movement (Ireland) will be there with a stall and a meeting a 2pm. The
latest edition of Red and Black Revolution (no 10) will be available.
London Anarchist Bookfair
Saturday 22nd of October
The Resource Centre
356 Holloway Road
London N7
Gig of the Week (Next Week)
‘Walking My Troubles Away’
(Mike Chavez-Dawson, Robin Nature-Bold &
Len Horsey, Norman Clayture)
Present
‘Auto Test Pilot 11’
(A Club Night as an Artwork)
Sunday 30th October 2005
8pm – 1am
(£1.80p in, plus a bottle of wine for a fiver, bar open until 12.30am)
Starring:
Duke Garwood
(Feedback psychedelic blues guitar maverick, Loog Records
debut album 'Holy Week' out now 11.30pm)
Alexander Tucker
(Sampled folk-psychedelic vocals & guitar troubador, All Tomorrows Parties
debut album 'Old Fog' out nov 11pm)
Edward Barton
(80p artist & poet resident contributor 10.30pm)
John Palmer
(Spell blinding melodic acousticism, 10pm)
Little Brother Graham
(Finger-pickin piedmont rag-time blues, 9.40pm)
The Hi-hats
(It's time the partridge Family were knocked off their perch, 9.20pm)
The Lecturer
(Michael Wilson, 'Poet of Truths' to make you self-conscious, 9pm)
Dom Garwood & Mr Thompson
(Playing records in between acts and beyond)
and compering
Mr Chavez-Dawson
(Artist... Modern day Don Quixote and Faustian figure to his alter egos...)
And other odd stuff...
(First act on at 9.00)
At:
Tiger Lounge
5 Cooper Street
(Runs parallel to Mosely Street, off Fountain Street)
Manchester
£1.80p (80p to Members) Entry Fee
(Yes, there will be door staff)
For further info email: robertcattelan@yahoo.co.uk
(Mike Chavez-Dawson, Robin Nature-Bold &
Len Horsey, Norman Clayture)
Present
‘Auto Test Pilot 11’
(A Club Night as an Artwork)
Sunday 30th October 2005
8pm – 1am
(£1.80p in, plus a bottle of wine for a fiver, bar open until 12.30am)
Starring:
Duke Garwood
(Feedback psychedelic blues guitar maverick, Loog Records
debut album 'Holy Week' out now 11.30pm)
Alexander Tucker
(Sampled folk-psychedelic vocals & guitar troubador, All Tomorrows Parties
debut album 'Old Fog' out nov 11pm)
Edward Barton
(80p artist & poet resident contributor 10.30pm)
John Palmer
(Spell blinding melodic acousticism, 10pm)
Little Brother Graham
(Finger-pickin piedmont rag-time blues, 9.40pm)
The Hi-hats
(It's time the partridge Family were knocked off their perch, 9.20pm)
The Lecturer
(Michael Wilson, 'Poet of Truths' to make you self-conscious, 9pm)
Dom Garwood & Mr Thompson
(Playing records in between acts and beyond)
and compering
Mr Chavez-Dawson
(Artist... Modern day Don Quixote and Faustian figure to his alter egos...)
And other odd stuff...
(First act on at 9.00)
At:
Tiger Lounge
5 Cooper Street
(Runs parallel to Mosely Street, off Fountain Street)
Manchester
£1.80p (80p to Members) Entry Fee
(Yes, there will be door staff)
For further info email: robertcattelan@yahoo.co.uk
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Got Better, Surely?
Writer Chris Cleave has a new book out, Incendiary. It is an epistolary novel narrated by a working-class woman whose family has been killed by suicide bombers, along with 1,000 others, at a match between Arsenal and Chelsea.
Here are the opening lines:
"Dear Osama they want you dead or alive so the terror will stop. Well I wouldn't know about that I mean rock 'n' roll didn't stop when Elvis died on the khazi it just got worse. Next thing you know there was Sonny & Cher and Dexys Midnight Runners. I'll come to them later. My point is it's easier to start these things than to finish them. I suppose you thought of that did you?
There's a reward of 25 million dollars on your head but don't lose sleep on my account Osama. I have no information leading to your arrest or capture. I have no information full effing stop. I'm what you'd call an infidel and my husband called working-class. There is a difference you know. But just supposing I did clap eyes on you. Supposing I saw you driving a Nissan Primera down towards Shoreditch and grassed you to the old bill. Well. I wouldn't know how to spend 25 million dollars. It's not as if I've got anyone to spend it on since you blew up my husband and my boy.
That's my whole point you see. I don't want 25 million dollars Osama I just want you to give it a rest. AM I ALONE? I want to be the last mother in the world who ever has to write you a letter like this. Who ever has to write to you Osama about her dead boy."
The New Republic gave the book a mixed review, describing it as a cross between Monty Python and Irvine Welsh. One scene sees the narrator puking from her hospital bed on Prince William's shoes, which I suppose reminded me of Mr. Creosote. Otherwise it's difficult to know if the description is a criticism or high praise.
Incendiary was published in the UK on July 7th.
Here are the opening lines:
"Dear Osama they want you dead or alive so the terror will stop. Well I wouldn't know about that I mean rock 'n' roll didn't stop when Elvis died on the khazi it just got worse. Next thing you know there was Sonny & Cher and Dexys Midnight Runners. I'll come to them later. My point is it's easier to start these things than to finish them. I suppose you thought of that did you?
There's a reward of 25 million dollars on your head but don't lose sleep on my account Osama. I have no information leading to your arrest or capture. I have no information full effing stop. I'm what you'd call an infidel and my husband called working-class. There is a difference you know. But just supposing I did clap eyes on you. Supposing I saw you driving a Nissan Primera down towards Shoreditch and grassed you to the old bill. Well. I wouldn't know how to spend 25 million dollars. It's not as if I've got anyone to spend it on since you blew up my husband and my boy.
That's my whole point you see. I don't want 25 million dollars Osama I just want you to give it a rest. AM I ALONE? I want to be the last mother in the world who ever has to write you a letter like this. Who ever has to write to you Osama about her dead boy."
The New Republic gave the book a mixed review, describing it as a cross between Monty Python and Irvine Welsh. One scene sees the narrator puking from her hospital bed on Prince William's shoes, which I suppose reminded me of Mr. Creosote. Otherwise it's difficult to know if the description is a criticism or high praise.
Incendiary was published in the UK on July 7th.
Very Reassuring
One of the companies looking for security contracts in New Orleans is an Israeli firm called Instinctive Shooting International.
Sounds like one of the government departments you'd find on Community Fair.
Sounds like one of the government departments you'd find on Community Fair.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Soccer Is Heretical
From yesterday's New York Times, an op-ed by Geoff Porter on frivolous fatwas:
"Fatwas, the legal opinions proclaimed by Islamic scholars, have proliferated in the Muslim world since the 1980's, driven by rising literacy rates and the Internet. The growth in fatwas - some of them contradictory - has led to a debate over who can legitimately issue them and has alarmed governments in the Middle East, since the decrees sometimes challenge state-sanctioned interpretations of Islam.
Yet criticizing fatwas about divisive issues like the propriety of killing civilians and Shiites can be dangerous for officials. So the Saudi government is trying a different tactic, zeroing in on what it considers frivolous fatwas in order to rally support for tougher measures on who can and who cannot issue opinions. Recently, Al Watan, a semiofficial Saudi daily newspaper, reported that a young athlete had joined the jihad in Iraq under the influence of a fatwa forbidding playing soccer by regular rules. The newspaper also republished the fatwa, said to have originally appeared on an Islamic Web site. Portions of the fatwa, which I translated from the Arabic, follow.
IN the name of God the merciful and benevolent:
1. Play soccer without four lines because this is a fabrication of the heretics' international rules that stipulate using them and delineating them before playing.
2. International terminology that heretics and polytheists use, like "foul," "penalty," "corner," "goal," "out" and others, should be abandoned and not said. Whoever says them should be punished, reprimanded and ejected from the game. He should be publicly told, "You have imitated the heretics and polytheists and this is forbidden."
3. Do not call "foul" and stop the game if someone falls and sprains a hand or foot or the ball touches his hand, and do not give a yellow or red card to whoever was responsible for the injury or tackle. Instead, it should be adjudicated according to Sharia rulings concerning broken bones and injuries. The injured player should exercise his Sharia rights according to the Koran and you must bear witness with him that so-and-so hurt him on purpose.
4. Do not follow the heretics, the Jews, the Christians and especially evil America regarding the number of players. Do not play with 11 people. Instead, add to this number or decrease it.
5. Play in your regular clothes or your pajamas or something like that, but not colored shorts and numbered T-shirts, because shorts and T-shirts are not Muslim clothing. Rather they are heretical and Western clothing, so beware of imitating their fashion.
6. If you have fulfilled these conditions and intend to play soccer, play to strengthen the body in order to better struggle in the way of God on high and to prepare the body for when it is called to jihad. Soccer is not for passing time or the thrill of so-called victory.
7. Do not set the time of play at 45 minutes, which is the official time of the Jews, Christians and all the heretical and atheist countries. This is the time used by teams that have strayed from the righteous path. You are obliged to distinguish yourself from the heretics and the corrupted and must not resemble them in anything.
6. Do not play in two halves. Rather play in one half or three halves in order to completely differentiate yourselves from the heretics, the polytheists, the corrupted and the disobedient.
9. If neither of you beats the other, or "wins" as it is called, and neither puts the leather between the posts, do not add extra time or penalties until someone wins. No, instead leave the field, because winning with overtime and penalty kicks is the pinnacle of imitating heretics and international rules.
10. If you play soccer, do not appoint someone to follow you called a "referee," since there is no need for him after doing away with international rules like "foul," "penalty," "corner" and others. His presence would be in imitation of the heretics, Jews and Christians and would follow international rules.
11. Young crowds should not gather to watch when you play because if you are there for the sake of sports and strengthening your bodies as you claimed, why would people watch you? You should make them join your physical fitness and jihad preparation, or you should say: "Go proselytize and seek out morally reprehensible acts in the markets and the press and leave us to our physical fitness."
12. If you finish playing soccer, do not talk about your game and say, "We were better than the opponent," or "So-and-so plays well" and so on. Instead be concerned with your bodies and their strength and muscles, and say, "We played only to drill in running, attacking and retreating, and to prepare for jihad in the name of God on high."
13. You should spit in the face of whoever puts the ball between the posts or uprights and then runs in order to get his friends to follow him and hug him like players in America or France do, and you should punish and reprimand him, for what is the relationship between celebrating, hugging and kissing and the sports that you are practicing?
14. You should use two posts instead of three pieces of wood or steel that you erect in order to put the ball between them, meaning that you should remove the crossbar in order not to imitate the heretics and in order to be entirely distinct from the soccer system's despotic international rules.
15. Do not do what is called "substitution," that is, taking the place of someone who has fallen, because this is a practice of the heretics in America and elsewhere.
These are some conditions and precepts so that morally aware youth do not inadvertently imitate heretics and polytheists when playing soccer ... Hell awaits those who die playing soccer according to rules established by heretical countries, at the head of which is America."
"Fatwas, the legal opinions proclaimed by Islamic scholars, have proliferated in the Muslim world since the 1980's, driven by rising literacy rates and the Internet. The growth in fatwas - some of them contradictory - has led to a debate over who can legitimately issue them and has alarmed governments in the Middle East, since the decrees sometimes challenge state-sanctioned interpretations of Islam.
Yet criticizing fatwas about divisive issues like the propriety of killing civilians and Shiites can be dangerous for officials. So the Saudi government is trying a different tactic, zeroing in on what it considers frivolous fatwas in order to rally support for tougher measures on who can and who cannot issue opinions. Recently, Al Watan, a semiofficial Saudi daily newspaper, reported that a young athlete had joined the jihad in Iraq under the influence of a fatwa forbidding playing soccer by regular rules. The newspaper also republished the fatwa, said to have originally appeared on an Islamic Web site. Portions of the fatwa, which I translated from the Arabic, follow.
IN the name of God the merciful and benevolent:
1. Play soccer without four lines because this is a fabrication of the heretics' international rules that stipulate using them and delineating them before playing.
2. International terminology that heretics and polytheists use, like "foul," "penalty," "corner," "goal," "out" and others, should be abandoned and not said. Whoever says them should be punished, reprimanded and ejected from the game. He should be publicly told, "You have imitated the heretics and polytheists and this is forbidden."
3. Do not call "foul" and stop the game if someone falls and sprains a hand or foot or the ball touches his hand, and do not give a yellow or red card to whoever was responsible for the injury or tackle. Instead, it should be adjudicated according to Sharia rulings concerning broken bones and injuries. The injured player should exercise his Sharia rights according to the Koran and you must bear witness with him that so-and-so hurt him on purpose.
4. Do not follow the heretics, the Jews, the Christians and especially evil America regarding the number of players. Do not play with 11 people. Instead, add to this number or decrease it.
5. Play in your regular clothes or your pajamas or something like that, but not colored shorts and numbered T-shirts, because shorts and T-shirts are not Muslim clothing. Rather they are heretical and Western clothing, so beware of imitating their fashion.
6. If you have fulfilled these conditions and intend to play soccer, play to strengthen the body in order to better struggle in the way of God on high and to prepare the body for when it is called to jihad. Soccer is not for passing time or the thrill of so-called victory.
7. Do not set the time of play at 45 minutes, which is the official time of the Jews, Christians and all the heretical and atheist countries. This is the time used by teams that have strayed from the righteous path. You are obliged to distinguish yourself from the heretics and the corrupted and must not resemble them in anything.
6. Do not play in two halves. Rather play in one half or three halves in order to completely differentiate yourselves from the heretics, the polytheists, the corrupted and the disobedient.
9. If neither of you beats the other, or "wins" as it is called, and neither puts the leather between the posts, do not add extra time or penalties until someone wins. No, instead leave the field, because winning with overtime and penalty kicks is the pinnacle of imitating heretics and international rules.
10. If you play soccer, do not appoint someone to follow you called a "referee," since there is no need for him after doing away with international rules like "foul," "penalty," "corner" and others. His presence would be in imitation of the heretics, Jews and Christians and would follow international rules.
11. Young crowds should not gather to watch when you play because if you are there for the sake of sports and strengthening your bodies as you claimed, why would people watch you? You should make them join your physical fitness and jihad preparation, or you should say: "Go proselytize and seek out morally reprehensible acts in the markets and the press and leave us to our physical fitness."
12. If you finish playing soccer, do not talk about your game and say, "We were better than the opponent," or "So-and-so plays well" and so on. Instead be concerned with your bodies and their strength and muscles, and say, "We played only to drill in running, attacking and retreating, and to prepare for jihad in the name of God on high."
13. You should spit in the face of whoever puts the ball between the posts or uprights and then runs in order to get his friends to follow him and hug him like players in America or France do, and you should punish and reprimand him, for what is the relationship between celebrating, hugging and kissing and the sports that you are practicing?
14. You should use two posts instead of three pieces of wood or steel that you erect in order to put the ball between them, meaning that you should remove the crossbar in order not to imitate the heretics and in order to be entirely distinct from the soccer system's despotic international rules.
15. Do not do what is called "substitution," that is, taking the place of someone who has fallen, because this is a practice of the heretics in America and elsewhere.
These are some conditions and precepts so that morally aware youth do not inadvertently imitate heretics and polytheists when playing soccer ... Hell awaits those who die playing soccer according to rules established by heretical countries, at the head of which is America."
Monday, October 17, 2005
Winner Candy
You can already take a look at the long list of awards for the Sitges Film Festival. The film awarded for best picture and best script in the Fantastic section is Hard Candy, a triumph to which surely my Catalan subtitles contributed (ahem). Surprisingly the film has a very low rating at the IMDB site.
Anyway, right now they are showing A History of Violence, the last film by David Cronenberg. In my opinion, one of his most enjoyable and interesting works.
Anyway, right now they are showing A History of Violence, the last film by David Cronenberg. In my opinion, one of his most enjoyable and interesting works.
No Doubt the Sex Was Getting Stale By Then
Actors Chad Murray and Sophia Bush have split up after being married for five months. Five MONTHS!
During a tearful seaside wedding ceremony in April, Bush and Murray exchanged handwritten vows to one another. However, a longtime friend of Bush said, "Sophia went into the marriage believing in the sanctity of marriage, and Chad simply did not share that vision."
So, his vision was what, exactly? Buy one, get one free?
During a tearful seaside wedding ceremony in April, Bush and Murray exchanged handwritten vows to one another. However, a longtime friend of Bush said, "Sophia went into the marriage believing in the sanctity of marriage, and Chad simply did not share that vision."
So, his vision was what, exactly? Buy one, get one free?
Two to Look Out For - And Avoid
Reviews from Entertainment Weekly:
Cry_Wolf: contains no actual wolves, but it does have some howlers. ''His buddy list reads like the sex offenders registry,'' snipes one prep schooler of another. Ha, ha, kids these...wait, what? Director Jeff Wadlow's thriller is 10 parts sass to 1 part sense, with twists more self-consciously contorted than a yuppie yoga retreat. The characters — bored rich snots at a suspiciously understaffed private academy, passing time by using the sinister Internet to invent a serial killer (who might already exist) — are nothing but walking attitudes. But even with the wires showing and the Screams of yesteryear ringing in our ears, Cry_Wolf is underscored with idiot adolescent excitement (and gets extra absurdist points for casting Jon Bon Jovi as an educator).
Venom: is a mud-simple horror trudge set in a swamp colony of Abercrombie models. All line up obligingly to get mulched by a zombie redneck (an unwitting repository for evil, thanks to voodoo-tinged snakebites) who is, by far, the most sympathetic presence on screen. You only wish he had more interesting people to kill. That's the trouble with these little Horror Belt towns — no new blood.
Jose, tell us you had nothing to do with dubbing these!
Cry_Wolf: contains no actual wolves, but it does have some howlers. ''His buddy list reads like the sex offenders registry,'' snipes one prep schooler of another. Ha, ha, kids these...wait, what? Director Jeff Wadlow's thriller is 10 parts sass to 1 part sense, with twists more self-consciously contorted than a yuppie yoga retreat. The characters — bored rich snots at a suspiciously understaffed private academy, passing time by using the sinister Internet to invent a serial killer (who might already exist) — are nothing but walking attitudes. But even with the wires showing and the Screams of yesteryear ringing in our ears, Cry_Wolf is underscored with idiot adolescent excitement (and gets extra absurdist points for casting Jon Bon Jovi as an educator).
Venom: is a mud-simple horror trudge set in a swamp colony of Abercrombie models. All line up obligingly to get mulched by a zombie redneck (an unwitting repository for evil, thanks to voodoo-tinged snakebites) who is, by far, the most sympathetic presence on screen. You only wish he had more interesting people to kill. That's the trouble with these little Horror Belt towns — no new blood.
Jose, tell us you had nothing to do with dubbing these!
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Pure Serranos
Apparently, Lightning Seeds leader Ian Broudie watches Spanish TV series. Either that or he has some friends in Spain who told him about a TV series called Los Serrano. I have never seen a single episode from Los Serrano myself, but they say its opening song, the theme music, is very similar to “Pure”, one of the first Lightning Seeds hits.
That’s why Ian Broudie decided to sue Basque singer and composer Mikel Erentxun, author of the Serranos song. You can read the news in Spanish at loveof74. Some comments are also particularly interesting, including some comparisons between Broudie and mythical cyclist Marino Lejarreta.
That’s why Ian Broudie decided to sue Basque singer and composer Mikel Erentxun, author of the Serranos song. You can read the news in Spanish at loveof74. Some comments are also particularly interesting, including some comparisons between Broudie and mythical cyclist Marino Lejarreta.
Friday, October 14, 2005
My Sweetheart Has to Wales A-Flown
Actually she's gone by ferry, but it doesn't scan so well.
She's part of a union delegation sent to attend this conference in Llandudno for a few days, leaving me with the peace and quiet to work on my novel about an 80-year-old contract killer named Elsie, although I'll probably spend the weekend watching Villa v. Blues, drinking Johnnie Walker Black Label, smoking a Romeo y Julieta Churchill or two, and surfing the Web for porn.
She's part of a union delegation sent to attend this conference in Llandudno for a few days, leaving me with the peace and quiet to work on my novel about an 80-year-old contract killer named Elsie, although I'll probably spend the weekend watching Villa v. Blues, drinking Johnnie Walker Black Label, smoking a Romeo y Julieta Churchill or two, and surfing the Web for porn.
Lazy Blogger
I'm just finishing off The Rebel Sell: Why The Culture Can't Be Jammed, by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter. It's disappointing, but at times witty. I shan't be investing any effort into reviewing it, however, because it doesn't deserve it and because pretty much everything I'd want to say about it has already been said in this review.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
They Never Stood A Chance
The Ireland team, I mean, after receiving Uri Geller's blessing.
I have wondered from time to time, sceptic that I am, what would happen if scientific studies revealed that intercessory prayer was actually effective, but that the results were 100% contrary to the wishes of the person praying. It would put sceptics in a bit of a bind, admittedly, but would the faithful reach the logical conclusion that they'd been praying to Satan all that time?
Hence my query: Do you think it possible, judging by his recent performance, that Uri Geller is the Antichrist?
Personally, I don't. As Colm Murphy said on The Panel last week about Pope John Paul II, who died of a urinary tract infection, "The man had fewer magical powers than cranberry juice." But someone needs to explain what happened last night.
Never mind. At least with England qualifying, the Irish will still have someone to support throughout Germany 2006: Whoever the English are playing.
And in the short term, they can console themselves with the news that TV3's Friday movie this week is the stunning masterpiece Glitter.
I can't wait.
I have wondered from time to time, sceptic that I am, what would happen if scientific studies revealed that intercessory prayer was actually effective, but that the results were 100% contrary to the wishes of the person praying. It would put sceptics in a bit of a bind, admittedly, but would the faithful reach the logical conclusion that they'd been praying to Satan all that time?
Hence my query: Do you think it possible, judging by his recent performance, that Uri Geller is the Antichrist?
Personally, I don't. As Colm Murphy said on The Panel last week about Pope John Paul II, who died of a urinary tract infection, "The man had fewer magical powers than cranberry juice." But someone needs to explain what happened last night.
Never mind. At least with England qualifying, the Irish will still have someone to support throughout Germany 2006: Whoever the English are playing.
And in the short term, they can console themselves with the news that TV3's Friday movie this week is the stunning masterpiece Glitter.
I can't wait.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
It's Always Monday Somewhere
The Kiss of Death . . .
. . . to Ireland's hopes of qualifying for the World Cup. Uri Geller has been down to Lansdowne Road to bless the stadium and focus his immense psychic powers on Ireland's behalf. Just like he did for Reading and Exeter (although, in his defence, Uri says he'd stopped helping Reading before they were relegated).
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Rania al-Baz Escapes
From last week's Guardian, good news about Saudi TV presenter Rania al-Baz, who was viciously assaulted by her husband.
Spotted via The Religious Policeman.
Spotted via The Religious Policeman.
A Gated Community on Wheels
That's the very apt description of the SUV given by Potter and Heath in this book, which I've just begun. According to the Guardian, it's now possible for SUV owners to purchase spray-on mud just to give their car an air of authenticity and to disguise the fact that they've never driven it further than Sainsbury's carpark.
In Paris, a group of eco-warriors operating under the name Les Dégonflés have been touring the capital letting down the tires on SUVs using bicycle pumps, a form of protest apparently legal in France.
It occurred to me that perhaps some form of synergy is in order here. If SUV owners want to look like credible off-roaders, perhaps the protestors could help by spraying mud INSIDE the SUVs, through open windows, say. After all, if you've ever been inside an off-road vehicle, it's always caked in mud. Why not take the driver's desire at face value? That way, everybody wins.
In Paris, a group of eco-warriors operating under the name Les Dégonflés have been touring the capital letting down the tires on SUVs using bicycle pumps, a form of protest apparently legal in France.
It occurred to me that perhaps some form of synergy is in order here. If SUV owners want to look like credible off-roaders, perhaps the protestors could help by spraying mud INSIDE the SUVs, through open windows, say. After all, if you've ever been inside an off-road vehicle, it's always caked in mud. Why not take the driver's desire at face value? That way, everybody wins.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Prickly Paradigm Press . . .
. . . is a publishing house financed by University of Chicago anthropologist Marshall Sahlins and specializing in polemical pamphlets, some of which you can download in their entirety as pdf files via their catalog.
Titles include Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, by David Graeber; New Consensus for Old: Cultural Studies from Left to Right, by Thomas Frank, editor of The Baffler; and Against Bosses, Against Oligarchies: A Conversation with Richard Rorty, by Derek Nystrom and Kent Puckett.
Titles include Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, by David Graeber; New Consensus for Old: Cultural Studies from Left to Right, by Thomas Frank, editor of The Baffler; and Against Bosses, Against Oligarchies: A Conversation with Richard Rorty, by Derek Nystrom and Kent Puckett.
Priests hold Car Park to ransom in Wicklow
From the Wicklow People:
New Priest could bring end to car park delays
Delays over Wicklow town's multi-storey car park could soon come to an end with the introduction of a new Parish Priest, Fr. Tim Hannon.
The council require a small bit of land belonging to the parish for the exit of the planned car park.
Long standing Parish Priest Frank McDonnell is being replaced by the former Rathdrum parish priest, and Fr. Hannon has indicated to the council that he is very eager to get the matter dealt with.
At this month's town council meeting on Monday, Cllr. Bob Kearns angrily slammed the lack of progress being made, and laid the blame solely at the feet of the Church.
'It is a disgrace to hold this car park to ransom,' fumed Cllr. Long (sic). 'Parking is the biggest issue there is in this town.'
Town clerk, Frank O'Toole, expected things to speed up with once the new Parish Priest is in place. Discussions with Fr. McDonnell had been ongoing also.
New Priest could bring end to car park delays
Delays over Wicklow town's multi-storey car park could soon come to an end with the introduction of a new Parish Priest, Fr. Tim Hannon.
The council require a small bit of land belonging to the parish for the exit of the planned car park.
Long standing Parish Priest Frank McDonnell is being replaced by the former Rathdrum parish priest, and Fr. Hannon has indicated to the council that he is very eager to get the matter dealt with.
At this month's town council meeting on Monday, Cllr. Bob Kearns angrily slammed the lack of progress being made, and laid the blame solely at the feet of the Church.
'It is a disgrace to hold this car park to ransom,' fumed Cllr. Long (sic). 'Parking is the biggest issue there is in this town.'
Town clerk, Frank O'Toole, expected things to speed up with once the new Parish Priest is in place. Discussions with Fr. McDonnell had been ongoing also.
Westmeath Gets a Library!!
This is GENUINELY a letter from this week's Westmeath Examiner:
Dear Sir,
“This pitiless century, the twentieth”.... Albert Camus....
And the twenty first.
Pity in as short a supply as oil.
Not in short supply are images of torment, aggression, wretchedness, self destruction, immolation, extinction and abhorrence and if you add one to the other as in the lack of compassion and the violent imagery the conclusion might be reached that a diminution of feeling has resulted from a process of blooding to deploy a word from the psych ops department of the military programming sphere.
The trend and the vogue is for pitilessness and this extends to the self or what is left of it.
Teenager observed in a Mullingar supermarket wears a T shirt advertising in this era of self advertisement his assessment or opinion of himself. I Hate Myself and Want to Kill Myself. Could this young man have been reading Friedrich Nietzsche the underwriter as it were to the Nazi a regime and ideology?
“Simplify your life: die.’'..advised Nietzsche. Something of an extremist simplification...
A young man a boy essentially, aged no more than fifteen or sixteen, is overwhelmed by self loathing and this leads him to contemplate suicide. Influenced undoubtedly by a supposed ‘rebel' and equally supposedly ‘iconoclastic’ pop idol and millionaire whose nihilistic and death oriented outpourings in a rational era would be confined to his own rendering to himself alone in a padded cell.
Even as I observed the teenage boy with his T shirt defining his self hatred and death wish my ears became attuned to the wondrously life enforcing and positive music of Mikis Theodorakis and the theme from Zorba the Greek the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis made into a film starring Anthony Quinn as Zorba the elderly Greek so much in love with life in all its forms though never at any time unaware of its tragic dimension. Zorba the man of action.
The writer Saint Expurey towards the end of his life claimed that ‘Inertia is a raw form of despair'.
A message for the teenager and so many others like him? One might hope so... Action of a positive kind as preferable to inertia and despair.
At the same time messages of a positive kind are not the rule. No. Precisely the opposite.
Paul Virilio in his book Art and Fear suggests that people of good will should urgently and collectively speak out against a so called culture which sends out negative messages primarily and predominantly of a misanthropic misogynistic and all too frequently racist and life denying kind.
Paul Virililio the Director of the Ecole Speciale d'Architecture in Paris and the author of more than fifteen books argues for the space and the time for expressions and messages of a sympathetic and compassionate disposition rather than the current predominance of what he defines as a pitiless form of representation in the media and at artistic levels..
One example to suffice as representative of in this instance sensationalism unleavened by concern for ecological damage and the destruction to animal and human life with only Spectacle considered
The Perfect Storm.... Perfection defined in respect of a catastrophe..... Catastrophe as Spectacle. End of story. The message is and it is not a subliminal one as it might have been even a decade ago......Enjoy the Spectacle and then....move forward....... Not good enough.... George Bernanos the author of one of the great all but unknown novels of our time The Diary of a Country Priest wrote these words in 1939.... The world is sick, a lot sicker than people realise. That's what we must first acknowledge so that.. We can take pity on it .. We should not condemn the world so much as feel sorry for it.. The world needs pity. Only pity has a chance of cobbling its pride....... Well.. sixty six years on the world is sicker still by far... Pity has certainly bitten the dust but we must hope that it will be revived again ...
As for Pride, as Paul Virilio writes in his book Art and Fear, Pride has gotten completely out of hand.
Pride is Narcissism is it not and anyone who has been around the block a few times would agree I believe that Narcissism and the cult of self has been promoted hugely these recent years under the ludicrous guise that indulging self is representative of “freedom” when it is representative of nothing more nor less than servitude to self and an abandonment of the concept of mutual responsibility and concern for others.
Hubris, staying with the Greek analogies, comes under dictionary definition in these words.....
Insolent pride... Arrogance.
The cliché may be a cliché but it does tend to bring with it the weight of experience and I feel sure that most people are well aware of what it has to say about Pride. If you know what I mean.
Yours truly,
John Kelly,
Mullingar,
Co Westmeath.
Dear Sir,
“This pitiless century, the twentieth”.... Albert Camus....
And the twenty first.
Pity in as short a supply as oil.
Not in short supply are images of torment, aggression, wretchedness, self destruction, immolation, extinction and abhorrence and if you add one to the other as in the lack of compassion and the violent imagery the conclusion might be reached that a diminution of feeling has resulted from a process of blooding to deploy a word from the psych ops department of the military programming sphere.
The trend and the vogue is for pitilessness and this extends to the self or what is left of it.
Teenager observed in a Mullingar supermarket wears a T shirt advertising in this era of self advertisement his assessment or opinion of himself. I Hate Myself and Want to Kill Myself. Could this young man have been reading Friedrich Nietzsche the underwriter as it were to the Nazi a regime and ideology?
“Simplify your life: die.’'..advised Nietzsche. Something of an extremist simplification...
A young man a boy essentially, aged no more than fifteen or sixteen, is overwhelmed by self loathing and this leads him to contemplate suicide. Influenced undoubtedly by a supposed ‘rebel' and equally supposedly ‘iconoclastic’ pop idol and millionaire whose nihilistic and death oriented outpourings in a rational era would be confined to his own rendering to himself alone in a padded cell.
Even as I observed the teenage boy with his T shirt defining his self hatred and death wish my ears became attuned to the wondrously life enforcing and positive music of Mikis Theodorakis and the theme from Zorba the Greek the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis made into a film starring Anthony Quinn as Zorba the elderly Greek so much in love with life in all its forms though never at any time unaware of its tragic dimension. Zorba the man of action.
The writer Saint Expurey towards the end of his life claimed that ‘Inertia is a raw form of despair'.
A message for the teenager and so many others like him? One might hope so... Action of a positive kind as preferable to inertia and despair.
At the same time messages of a positive kind are not the rule. No. Precisely the opposite.
Paul Virilio in his book Art and Fear suggests that people of good will should urgently and collectively speak out against a so called culture which sends out negative messages primarily and predominantly of a misanthropic misogynistic and all too frequently racist and life denying kind.
Paul Virililio the Director of the Ecole Speciale d'Architecture in Paris and the author of more than fifteen books argues for the space and the time for expressions and messages of a sympathetic and compassionate disposition rather than the current predominance of what he defines as a pitiless form of representation in the media and at artistic levels..
One example to suffice as representative of in this instance sensationalism unleavened by concern for ecological damage and the destruction to animal and human life with only Spectacle considered
The Perfect Storm.... Perfection defined in respect of a catastrophe..... Catastrophe as Spectacle. End of story. The message is and it is not a subliminal one as it might have been even a decade ago......Enjoy the Spectacle and then....move forward....... Not good enough.... George Bernanos the author of one of the great all but unknown novels of our time The Diary of a Country Priest wrote these words in 1939.... The world is sick, a lot sicker than people realise. That's what we must first acknowledge so that.. We can take pity on it .. We should not condemn the world so much as feel sorry for it.. The world needs pity. Only pity has a chance of cobbling its pride....... Well.. sixty six years on the world is sicker still by far... Pity has certainly bitten the dust but we must hope that it will be revived again ...
As for Pride, as Paul Virilio writes in his book Art and Fear, Pride has gotten completely out of hand.
Pride is Narcissism is it not and anyone who has been around the block a few times would agree I believe that Narcissism and the cult of self has been promoted hugely these recent years under the ludicrous guise that indulging self is representative of “freedom” when it is representative of nothing more nor less than servitude to self and an abandonment of the concept of mutual responsibility and concern for others.
Hubris, staying with the Greek analogies, comes under dictionary definition in these words.....
Insolent pride... Arrogance.
The cliché may be a cliché but it does tend to bring with it the weight of experience and I feel sure that most people are well aware of what it has to say about Pride. If you know what I mean.
Yours truly,
John Kelly,
Mullingar,
Co Westmeath.
Plastic Punk
Friday, October 07, 2005
Mad? I Was Livid!
News from the Irish Independent that cows are becoming increasingly violent towards humans.
A LEADING west of Ireland vet has warned that cattle have become increasingly violent towards people, with one farmer killed recently in Mayo by a cow.
George O'Malley, whose practice is in Castlebar, Co Mayo, said the problem was particularly prevalent in Limousin cross-breeds that were introduced through artificial insemination some years ago.
Mr O'Malley said the difficulty was compounded by the fact that more and more farmers were only working on the land on a part-time basis.
"In cases of suckling herds, cattle don't have the same level of human contact as they used to, so when they are brought into crushes for testing, they can be extremely wild.
"I have noticed that many Limousin cross-cows are particularly difficult. I was attacked on three different occasions over the last year by this breed. I know of many farmers who had similar experiences. "In my view, it's a very serious health and safety issue that needs to be urgently addressed before fatalities occur."
A farmer in the north Mayo area died earlier this year after being attacked by a cow. An inquest into his death is due to be held in the near future.
"There are some seriously wild animals in cattle herds throughout the country," Mr O'Malley said.
"Some of the old crushes being used on farms should be upgraded so that farmers would not be put at risk from these cows. It is something that my profession is very concerned about at the present time."
Michael Biggins, Mayo IFA chairman, agreed that a problem existed and urged people to be cautious near cattle. "There are now more suckling herds and cattle are not being bucket-fed like they used to. As a result, cattle tend to be more nervous."
A LEADING west of Ireland vet has warned that cattle have become increasingly violent towards people, with one farmer killed recently in Mayo by a cow.
George O'Malley, whose practice is in Castlebar, Co Mayo, said the problem was particularly prevalent in Limousin cross-breeds that were introduced through artificial insemination some years ago.
Mr O'Malley said the difficulty was compounded by the fact that more and more farmers were only working on the land on a part-time basis.
"In cases of suckling herds, cattle don't have the same level of human contact as they used to, so when they are brought into crushes for testing, they can be extremely wild.
"I have noticed that many Limousin cross-cows are particularly difficult. I was attacked on three different occasions over the last year by this breed. I know of many farmers who had similar experiences. "In my view, it's a very serious health and safety issue that needs to be urgently addressed before fatalities occur."
A farmer in the north Mayo area died earlier this year after being attacked by a cow. An inquest into his death is due to be held in the near future.
"There are some seriously wild animals in cattle herds throughout the country," Mr O'Malley said.
"Some of the old crushes being used on farms should be upgraded so that farmers would not be put at risk from these cows. It is something that my profession is very concerned about at the present time."
Michael Biggins, Mayo IFA chairman, agreed that a problem existed and urged people to be cautious near cattle. "There are now more suckling herds and cattle are not being bucket-fed like they used to. As a result, cattle tend to be more nervous."
Thursday, October 06, 2005
One to Watch
Newly linked, left, is Community Fair, which has already had the good grace and taste to link to Counago & Spaves, in addition to MI5, McManus, and the Cat's Protection League (Marxist-Leninist).
Sex and the Single Lobster
You only have yourselves to blame if this reminds you of someone you know.
From the very excellent Pharyngula.
From the very excellent Pharyngula.
Another Armed Raid in Bettystown
Last month raiders stole 70 grand from the post office in Bettystown before being apprehended (though the money hasn't been recovered). Last night, Harry's Supermarket in Mornington was held up at gunpoint. I walked in myself to get some money from the ATM and had just missed the robbers by 5 minutes. All the staff were gibbering wrecks, except for one, Harry's son, John, who'd thought it was good idea to jump into the supermarket van and give chase.
Clearly the perpetrators were amateurs, because they only emptied the tills and didn't even think about breaking into the ATM. Good thing too: I needed cash to top up my mobile.
Clearly the perpetrators were amateurs, because they only emptied the tills and didn't even think about breaking into the ATM. Good thing too: I needed cash to top up my mobile.
At Home with the Intelligentsia: No. 25. Hans-Georg Gadamer
(Full image shows Gadamer making obscene "wanker"-type gestures behind Jürgen Habermas's back during a radio debate on ontological pre-understanding and the inescapability of prejudice.)
Spoilsports!
That's the Italian Committee for the Investigation of the Paranormal, who are going around Italy debunking various Catholic superstitions. According to today's Guardian, they've been compared to magicians who reveal how their tricks are done. Not the most appropriate analogy, given that they aren't the ones purporting to be the magicians. Better would have been to compare them with Houdini. That's an Italian name, isn't it?
What's For (Mana)tee?
In keeping with the World Animal Week theme, an article from the Orlando Weekly on an illegal diner in Florida's hinterlands that gives roadkill a bad name.
Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others*
This week is World Animal Week, sponsored on Ireland's TV3 by Pedigree and Whiskas.
So, presumably, if you're a chicken, rabbit, or horse, your contribution to World Animal Week will be qualitatively different to that of cats and dogs.
(*Yes, yet another excuse to quote George Orwell.)
So, presumably, if you're a chicken, rabbit, or horse, your contribution to World Animal Week will be qualitatively different to that of cats and dogs.
(*Yes, yet another excuse to quote George Orwell.)
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Prepare for a Productivity Crisis
The scripts to every episode of every Monty Python series colour-coded according to speaker.
The Sublime and the Ridiculous
Today's New York Times:
The Sublime: Curse of the Were-Rabbit
The Ridiculous: What to do with Lenin
Whatever they do with the body, don't let Putin have a say or it'll end up in prison.
Maybe they could put it in the movies. The folks at Aardman Features are superb at stop-motion animation. They could work Lenin into the next Wallace and Gromit movie, perhaps.
Just a thought.
The Sublime: Curse of the Were-Rabbit
The Ridiculous: What to do with Lenin
Whatever they do with the body, don't let Putin have a say or it'll end up in prison.
Maybe they could put it in the movies. The folks at Aardman Features are superb at stop-motion animation. They could work Lenin into the next Wallace and Gromit movie, perhaps.
Just a thought.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Criminalizing the Public Sphere
George Monbiot in today's Guardian.
Not only is the personal political, the political is personal. Control does not recognize boundaries. We are increasingly on the receiving end of a war not on terror but on nonconformity. Whether you're a (New Age) traveller, a hoodie wearer rendering all those expensive cctv systems worthless, a raver with a preference for unauthorised or unsupervised parties, or just a horrid spotty morose teenager hanging around by the shops without buying anything, your abnormal behaviour and deviant lifestyle are regarded not as a personal choice but as resistance. Why don't you get a job and learn to enjoy consuming stuff?
Not only is the personal political, the political is personal. Control does not recognize boundaries. We are increasingly on the receiving end of a war not on terror but on nonconformity. Whether you're a (New Age) traveller, a hoodie wearer rendering all those expensive cctv systems worthless, a raver with a preference for unauthorised or unsupervised parties, or just a horrid spotty morose teenager hanging around by the shops without buying anything, your abnormal behaviour and deviant lifestyle are regarded not as a personal choice but as resistance. Why don't you get a job and learn to enjoy consuming stuff?
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Not a Ronnie Barker reference, but an atrocious pun to draw attention to a wonderful post at Twenty Major about Dublin's West Link Toll Bridge that neatly follows up the post here below.
Irish Corruption
Just encountered this blog for the first time and I love it.
When I initially moved to Ireland, I was horrified not just by the extent of corruption here but also by the brazenness of it; little effort was made to hide the links in the (usually short) chain, no attempt was made to even disguise or sugar-coat nepotism and partiality, and it was even a matter of pride to demonstrate "cuteness." What most astonished me, however, was the apparent willingness of most Irish people to tolerate all of this, as if it was simply the way of the world. It seems to me that only now, after many, many years of never seeing the promised gains of the Celtic Tiger materialize, that people are recognizing that they've been had. What was the Partnership for Prosperity and Fairness but a massive con to keep PAYE workers placid and contented at the prospect of proportionate pay increases while the Boom was sucked dry by the usual suspects?
Well, I like this blogger's rage. And while corruption may end up just being a wedge issue for the Shinners, it will do us all good to rage and raise our voices till something happens.
When I initially moved to Ireland, I was horrified not just by the extent of corruption here but also by the brazenness of it; little effort was made to hide the links in the (usually short) chain, no attempt was made to even disguise or sugar-coat nepotism and partiality, and it was even a matter of pride to demonstrate "cuteness." What most astonished me, however, was the apparent willingness of most Irish people to tolerate all of this, as if it was simply the way of the world. It seems to me that only now, after many, many years of never seeing the promised gains of the Celtic Tiger materialize, that people are recognizing that they've been had. What was the Partnership for Prosperity and Fairness but a massive con to keep PAYE workers placid and contented at the prospect of proportionate pay increases while the Boom was sucked dry by the usual suspects?
Well, I like this blogger's rage. And while corruption may end up just being a wedge issue for the Shinners, it will do us all good to rage and raise our voices till something happens.
New Links
Two additions to the list: Nadir, the Web site of the Free Association/Leeds May Day Group has some interesting pamphlets and articles, listed below left as Free Association.
The Autonomy & Solidarity Web site is "an on-line network for anti-capitalists who believe that revolutionary transformation will come from workers and oppressed people self-organizing from below and not from the top down organizing of any state, party or union bureaucracy."
The contents of Issue #1 of Upping the Anti, the journal associated with the site, are as follows:
Introduction
Editorial: Upping the Anti
Interviews
Grace Lee Boggs: Revolution as a New Beginning
Ward Churchill: Indigenism, Anarchism, and the State
Articles
Gary Kinsman: Learning from Autonomist Marxism
Chris Hurl: Anti-Globalization and "Diversity of Tactics"
Selma James: Race, Sex and Class
Activist Roundtables
Junie Desil, Kirat Kaur, and Gary Kinsman: Anti-Oppression in Anti-Capitalist Movements
Robbie Mahood, Jeff Shantz and Indu Viashistink: The Question of Revolutionary Organization
Reviews
Erin Gray on "Undoing Gender" by Judith Butler
D. Oswald Mitchell on "Multitude" by Hardt and Negri
The Autonomy & Solidarity Web site is "an on-line network for anti-capitalists who believe that revolutionary transformation will come from workers and oppressed people self-organizing from below and not from the top down organizing of any state, party or union bureaucracy."
The contents of Issue #1 of Upping the Anti, the journal associated with the site, are as follows:
Introduction
Editorial: Upping the Anti
Interviews
Grace Lee Boggs: Revolution as a New Beginning
Ward Churchill: Indigenism, Anarchism, and the State
Articles
Gary Kinsman: Learning from Autonomist Marxism
Chris Hurl: Anti-Globalization and "Diversity of Tactics"
Selma James: Race, Sex and Class
Activist Roundtables
Junie Desil, Kirat Kaur, and Gary Kinsman: Anti-Oppression in Anti-Capitalist Movements
Robbie Mahood, Jeff Shantz and Indu Viashistink: The Question of Revolutionary Organization
Reviews
Erin Gray on "Undoing Gender" by Judith Butler
D. Oswald Mitchell on "Multitude" by Hardt and Negri
Monday, October 03, 2005
On the Slippery Slope
Interesting post at Normblog on the supervision of interrogation by medical professionals.
Whenever an argument about involuntary euthanasia or the notion of a life not worth living is brought up, you can guarantee that those opposed to such ideas will raise the prospect of embarking down a slippery slope of rationalization whereby, once an absolute right to life is discarded, we could find ourselves justifying any number of lives as worth terminating. What is often ignored is that that slippery slope works both ways. If you insist on an absolute right to life and the view that there is no such thing as a life that is not worth living, consider, as a thought experiment, a doctor who is required to revive a tortured interrogatee every time he comes close to death, knowing that the only outcome of this active of revival will be further torture until the prisoner dies. In effect, the doctor is reviving the prisoner in order that he be tortured further. Is there not a case, here, that might justify at the very least the withholding of treatment, if not the deliberate euthanasing of the prisoner? (I take this to mean regardless of the doctor's obligations as a human being to protest torture in the first place).
I had always regarded this as a circumstance at the far end of the slippery slope, a reductio ad absurdum unlikely to arise even in our cynical and dirty world, but it looks like it may be a dilemma some doctors will have to face. That said, as implied by the above, any doctor facing that dilemma is already an accomplice to torture, and torture is always and everywhere wrong.
Whenever an argument about involuntary euthanasia or the notion of a life not worth living is brought up, you can guarantee that those opposed to such ideas will raise the prospect of embarking down a slippery slope of rationalization whereby, once an absolute right to life is discarded, we could find ourselves justifying any number of lives as worth terminating. What is often ignored is that that slippery slope works both ways. If you insist on an absolute right to life and the view that there is no such thing as a life that is not worth living, consider, as a thought experiment, a doctor who is required to revive a tortured interrogatee every time he comes close to death, knowing that the only outcome of this active of revival will be further torture until the prisoner dies. In effect, the doctor is reviving the prisoner in order that he be tortured further. Is there not a case, here, that might justify at the very least the withholding of treatment, if not the deliberate euthanasing of the prisoner? (I take this to mean regardless of the doctor's obligations as a human being to protest torture in the first place).
I had always regarded this as a circumstance at the far end of the slippery slope, a reductio ad absurdum unlikely to arise even in our cynical and dirty world, but it looks like it may be a dilemma some doctors will have to face. That said, as implied by the above, any doctor facing that dilemma is already an accomplice to torture, and torture is always and everywhere wrong.
Castoriadis Update
From
Agora International
27, rue Froidevaux
75014 Paris FRANCE
Tel: 33 (0) 1.45.38.53.96
Fax: 33 (0) 1.45.38.53.96
Cornelius Castoriadis/Agora International Website: http://www.agorainternational.org
_______________________________________________________________
NEW "NEWS" ANNOUNCEMENT:
Séminaire: "Appartenance, autonomie et haine de l'autre. Un regard sur l'itinéraire de Cornelius Castoriadis à l'encontre de l'altérité." Responsable: Rafael Miranda, psychosociologue. Les séances auront lieu les mardis: 7, 14 et 21 mars, 2006 de 17 à 20 hrs. dans la salle de conférences de l'Association Appartenances http://www.appartenances.ch Rue des Terreaux 10 Case postale 52 1000 Lausanne 9, Suisse; Tél. 021 / 341.12.50; Fax 021 / 341.12.52. CCP 10-20727-1. E-mail: association@appartenances.ch (Délai d'inscription 1er février 2006).
_______________________________________________________________
SEPTEMBER 2005 BIBLIOGRAPHY/WEBOGRAPHY UPDATES
MISES À JOUR BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES/WEBOGRAPHIQUES SEPTEMBRE 2005
N.B.: # = Information not yet found/information to be verified.
N.B.: # Informations à compléter/vérifier.
_______________________________________________________________
ENGLISH-LANGUAGE WEBOGRAPHY OF WRITINGS BY/ABOUT CASTORIADIS:
http://counago-and-spaves.blogspot.com/2005/05/parerga-and-paralipomena_19.html
John Green. Thursday, May 19, 2005. "Parerga and Paralipomena." Review of Maurice Brinton: For Workers
Power.
http://www.metamute.com/look/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=1&NrIssue=28&NrSection=10&NrArticle=1404
"In response to a question from Mute about this section on self-institutions and an invitation to write a collective
statement defining the U[niversity of] O[penness], a debate was triggered on the UO mailing list. Excerpts
follow here"
_______________________________________________________________
FRENCH BIBLIOGRAPHY, ABOUT CASTORIADIS (Écrits sur Cornelius Castoriadis en français):
FR2005h# "Penser aujourd'hui avec Castoriadis" Sciences de l'homme & sociétés, 80 (septembre 2005).
FR2005h1# Armand Touati. "Autonomie(s)" (Editorial; Présentation de la section "Debat" de la revue). Ibid.::5.
FR2005h2# Anon. "Crise du sens, imaginaire, autonomie. Penser aujourd'hui avec Castoriadis". Ibid.: 19.
FR2005h3# Florence Giust-Despraires. "Crise dans l'autoreprésentation de la société". Ibid.: 20-23.
FR2005h4# Olivier Fressard. "L'imaginaire social ou la puissance d'inventer des peuples". Ibid.: 24-27.
FR2005h5# Nicolas Stoffel. "L'anthropologie philosophique de Castoriadis, une explication de sa singularité".
Ibid.:28-31.
FR2005h6# Raphael Doridant. "Démocratie et projet d'autonomie". Ibid.: 32-36.
FR2005h7# Despina Tsakiris. "Psyché et imaginaire". Ibid.: 37-40.
FR2005h8# Chantal Bégaud. "La jouissance de la pensée". Ibid.: 41-42.
FR2005h9# Dolaur-Liberté Crozon-Cazin. "Sur la science, une interrogation philosophique moderne ". Ibid.: 43-46.
_______________________________________________________________
FRENCH WEBOGRAPHY, CASTORIADIS (Webographie française):
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/.pierre.dumesnil/CCCIP.htm
Imaginaire, technique et société dans la pensée de Castoriadis". Intervention de Pierre Dumesnil au Collège
International de Philosophie. Séance du 24 mai 2005 (séminaire "L'éthique et la société à l'épreuve des
technologies", Pierre-Antoine Chardel).
http://www.exiliados.org/paginas/Aportaciones/Testimonios.htm#RafaelMiranda
Rafael Miranda: sobre las "escuelas del exilio" y en particular las que se inspiraron del pedagogo y resistente
francés Celestin Freinet, presentado el 17 de abril 2005 en Annecy, Francia, con motivo de la conmemoración de
la II Republica española y de los españoles resistentes muertos en el Plateau de Glières (en français).
_______________________________________________________________
GREEK BIBLIOGRAPHY:
ABOUT:
EL1972a
EL1977 iota, kappa, lamda, mu
EL1979
EL1985 gamma
EL2004b gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta
EL2005 alpha, beta, gamma, delta
_______________________________________________________________
SPANISH BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Textos en español sobre Cornelius Castoriadis ( artÃculos en diarios, revistas y libros)
(Spanish-Language Writings About Cornelius Castoriadis)
ES2004j# "El final de la historia social". Por Patrick Joyce. En Historia Social, nº 50 (III). Fundación Instituto de Historia Social. UNED-Valencia. 2004 (Ref. Castoriadis, p. 44).
_______________________________________________________________
SPANISH WEBOGRAPHY:
Textos de/sobre Castoriadis no publicados (por orden alfabético del sitio web)
(Unpublished texts By/About Castoriadis [listed in alphabetical order by website])
http://www.lahaine.org/b2lhart_imp.php?p=5237&more=1&c=1
Imaginario capitalista y formación de docentes. Por J. ServÃn Jiménez.
http://www.ucm.es/info/nomadas/9/ecarretero.htm
"La relevancia sociológica de lo imaginario en la cultura actual" Por Angel Enrique Carretero. En Nomadas,
Revista CrÃtica de Ciencias Sociales y JurÃdicas, número 9. Enero-Junio 2004.
http://www.ucm.es/info/nomadas/9/rvidal.htm
"El "otro" como enemigo. Identidad y reacción en la nueva cultura global del miedo". Por Rafael Vidal Jiménez. En
Nomadas, Revista CrÃtica de Ciencias Sociales y JurÃdicas, número 9. Enero-Junio 2004.
http://www.unl.edu.ar/conciencia/anio1n2/pagina13.htm
Sobre la igualdad. Por Graciela B. de Busaniche.
Agora International
27, rue Froidevaux
75014 Paris FRANCE
Tel: 33 (0) 1.45.38.53.96
Fax: 33 (0) 1.45.38.53.96
Cornelius Castoriadis/Agora International Website: http://www.agorainternational.org
_______________________________________________________________
NEW "NEWS" ANNOUNCEMENT:
Séminaire: "Appartenance, autonomie et haine de l'autre. Un regard sur l'itinéraire de Cornelius Castoriadis à l'encontre de l'altérité." Responsable: Rafael Miranda, psychosociologue. Les séances auront lieu les mardis: 7, 14 et 21 mars, 2006 de 17 à 20 hrs. dans la salle de conférences de l'Association Appartenances http://www.appartenances.ch Rue des Terreaux 10 Case postale 52 1000 Lausanne 9, Suisse; Tél. 021 / 341.12.50; Fax 021 / 341.12.52. CCP 10-20727-1. E-mail: association@appartenances.ch (Délai d'inscription 1er février 2006).
_______________________________________________________________
SEPTEMBER 2005 BIBLIOGRAPHY/WEBOGRAPHY UPDATES
MISES À JOUR BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES/WEBOGRAPHIQUES SEPTEMBRE 2005
N.B.: # = Information not yet found/information to be verified.
N.B.: # Informations à compléter/vérifier.
_______________________________________________________________
ENGLISH-LANGUAGE WEBOGRAPHY OF WRITINGS BY/ABOUT CASTORIADIS:
http://counago-and-spaves.blogspot.com/2005/05/parerga-and-paralipomena_19.html
John Green. Thursday, May 19, 2005. "Parerga and Paralipomena." Review of Maurice Brinton: For Workers
Power.
http://www.metamute.com/look/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=1&NrIssue=28&NrSection=10&NrArticle=1404
"In response to a question from Mute about this section on self-institutions and an invitation to write a collective
statement defining the U[niversity of] O[penness], a debate was triggered on the UO mailing list. Excerpts
follow here"
_______________________________________________________________
FRENCH BIBLIOGRAPHY, ABOUT CASTORIADIS (Écrits sur Cornelius Castoriadis en français):
FR2005h# "Penser aujourd'hui avec Castoriadis" Sciences de l'homme & sociétés, 80 (septembre 2005).
FR2005h1# Armand Touati. "Autonomie(s)" (Editorial; Présentation de la section "Debat" de la revue). Ibid.::5.
FR2005h2# Anon. "Crise du sens, imaginaire, autonomie. Penser aujourd'hui avec Castoriadis". Ibid.: 19.
FR2005h3# Florence Giust-Despraires. "Crise dans l'autoreprésentation de la société". Ibid.: 20-23.
FR2005h4# Olivier Fressard. "L'imaginaire social ou la puissance d'inventer des peuples". Ibid.: 24-27.
FR2005h5# Nicolas Stoffel. "L'anthropologie philosophique de Castoriadis, une explication de sa singularité".
Ibid.:28-31.
FR2005h6# Raphael Doridant. "Démocratie et projet d'autonomie". Ibid.: 32-36.
FR2005h7# Despina Tsakiris. "Psyché et imaginaire". Ibid.: 37-40.
FR2005h8# Chantal Bégaud. "La jouissance de la pensée". Ibid.: 41-42.
FR2005h9# Dolaur-Liberté Crozon-Cazin. "Sur la science, une interrogation philosophique moderne ". Ibid.: 43-46.
_______________________________________________________________
FRENCH WEBOGRAPHY, CASTORIADIS (Webographie française):
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/.pierre.dumesnil/CCCIP.htm
Imaginaire, technique et société dans la pensée de Castoriadis". Intervention de Pierre Dumesnil au Collège
International de Philosophie. Séance du 24 mai 2005 (séminaire "L'éthique et la société à l'épreuve des
technologies", Pierre-Antoine Chardel).
http://www.exiliados.org/paginas/Aportaciones/Testimonios.htm#RafaelMiranda
Rafael Miranda: sobre las "escuelas del exilio" y en particular las que se inspiraron del pedagogo y resistente
francés Celestin Freinet, presentado el 17 de abril 2005 en Annecy, Francia, con motivo de la conmemoración de
la II Republica española y de los españoles resistentes muertos en el Plateau de Glières (en français).
_______________________________________________________________
GREEK BIBLIOGRAPHY:
ABOUT:
EL1972a
EL1977 iota, kappa, lamda, mu
EL1979
EL1985 gamma
EL2004b gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta
EL2005 alpha, beta, gamma, delta
_______________________________________________________________
SPANISH BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Textos en español sobre Cornelius Castoriadis ( artÃculos en diarios, revistas y libros)
(Spanish-Language Writings About Cornelius Castoriadis)
ES2004j# "El final de la historia social". Por Patrick Joyce. En Historia Social, nº 50 (III). Fundación Instituto de Historia Social. UNED-Valencia. 2004 (Ref. Castoriadis, p. 44).
_______________________________________________________________
SPANISH WEBOGRAPHY:
Textos de/sobre Castoriadis no publicados (por orden alfabético del sitio web)
(Unpublished texts By/About Castoriadis [listed in alphabetical order by website])
http://www.lahaine.org/b2lhart_imp.php?p=5237&more=1&c=1
Imaginario capitalista y formación de docentes. Por J. ServÃn Jiménez.
http://www.ucm.es/info/nomadas/9/ecarretero.htm
"La relevancia sociológica de lo imaginario en la cultura actual" Por Angel Enrique Carretero. En Nomadas,
Revista CrÃtica de Ciencias Sociales y JurÃdicas, número 9. Enero-Junio 2004.
http://www.ucm.es/info/nomadas/9/rvidal.htm
"El "otro" como enemigo. Identidad y reacción en la nueva cultura global del miedo". Por Rafael Vidal Jiménez. En
Nomadas, Revista CrÃtica de Ciencias Sociales y JurÃdicas, número 9. Enero-Junio 2004.
http://www.unl.edu.ar/conciencia/anio1n2/pagina13.htm
Sobre la igualdad. Por Graciela B. de Busaniche.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Just to catch up
Bilbao: shut on Mondays, no nightlife , boring football ground , great galleries.
Since I got back : Laura Cantrell , Pere Ubu , The Aristocrats , Anna Kashfi , Auto Test Pilot 10.
And Alty: 1 for, 17 against.
Since I got back : Laura Cantrell , Pere Ubu , The Aristocrats , Anna Kashfi , Auto Test Pilot 10.
And Alty: 1 for, 17 against.
Friday, September 16, 2005
"Gob On You"
was the title of a punk parody by the incredibly shite team at Not the Nine O'Clock News. That parody is but a dog turd on the heel of my shoe when compared to the songs here. Regardless of their clear fraudulence, I winced a couple of times at their acuity: Anyone who went to a Chumbawamba gig in the late 90s will recognize the obnoxious self-righteousness - not from the band, I hasten to add, but some of the audience.
Very funny stuff.
hat tip: Nina.
Very funny stuff.
hat tip: Nina.
Why Irony Doesn't Work in America
My apologies to our U.S. readers. I realize the problems you have to face when even trying to be ironic is subverted by reality.
Prepared for What, Exactly?
The phrase that comes to mind includes the words "Horse," "Bolted," and "Stable Door."
Who said Americans don't do irony?
Who said Americans don't do irony?
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Funny Joke in Reader's Digest Shock
From the September issue, by William Tolar:
Why We Trail So Many Countries in Math
"I was sitting in a cafeteria recently, next to a woman who was engrossed in her newspaper. One of the headlines blared: “12 Brazilian Soldiers Killed.” She shook her head at the sad news. Then, turning to me, asked, “How many is a Brazilian?”"
Why We Trail So Many Countries in Math
"I was sitting in a cafeteria recently, next to a woman who was engrossed in her newspaper. One of the headlines blared: “12 Brazilian Soldiers Killed.” She shook her head at the sad news. Then, turning to me, asked, “How many is a Brazilian?”"
Love Thy Neighbor . . . In the Open Air
Both the Christian Century magazine and Bethel Presbyterian Church carry sermons entitled "Dogging Jesus," indicating that we remain two nations separated by a common tongue.
For our American readers, dogging is the much-frowned-upon activity of sex with strangers in public places, such as supermarket car parks, telephone kiosks, and the cosmetics counter at Boots.
For our American readers, dogging is the much-frowned-upon activity of sex with strangers in public places, such as supermarket car parks, telephone kiosks, and the cosmetics counter at Boots.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Monday, September 12, 2005
But Did He Go Down Readily?
Unfortunate metaphor of the weekend from RTE commentator:
"And Scholes picks himself up off the deck rather gingerly."
"And Scholes picks himself up off the deck rather gingerly."
Friday, September 09, 2005
Possible Update Required
Southern Living magazine has a special section on great-value breaks in New Orleans.
At the Ritz-Carlton, we are told:
"Even taking a summertime morning jog can be a cool experience. Doorman James Fiest will hand you a bottle of water and a towel--just one of many services offered at the hotel."
Might come in handy.
At the Ritz-Carlton, we are told:
"Even taking a summertime morning jog can be a cool experience. Doorman James Fiest will hand you a bottle of water and a towel--just one of many services offered at the hotel."
Might come in handy.
Can't Imagine Why
Despite George Foreman's best efforts to populate the world with namesakes, the name George is becoming increasingly unpopular as a choice for boys, reports the Wilson Quarterly. According to the Social Security Administration, in 2004, George was the 148th most popular name, one place behind Omar.
The report doesn't say where Osama is, but then, does anybody know?
The report doesn't say where Osama is, but then, does anybody know?
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Fantastic Sitges
If you happen to be in Barcelona in a month’s time, you might want to get to the nearby Sitges, visit the town and watch a film premiere from the Festival Internacional de Cinema de Catalunya, better known as Sitges 05.
The event usually attracts many fans from the times when it was a festival specialized in horror and fantasy films. Actually, it still features an official Fantasy section and many horror and sci-fi films (especially Asian), but you can find any kind of genre now.
While we wait for a complete list of films, they already announced that Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, among others, will be shown at the festival.
The event usually attracts many fans from the times when it was a festival specialized in horror and fantasy films. Actually, it still features an official Fantasy section and many horror and sci-fi films (especially Asian), but you can find any kind of genre now.
While we wait for a complete list of films, they already announced that Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, among others, will be shown at the festival.
A Place to Hack
The jet set's social networking web site, aSmallWorld, described in last month's Wired as
“an online hangout where princesses and barons mingle with socialites like Frederic Fekkai and Conrad de Kwiatkowski, where names such as Cartier and Versace waft around like expensive scents, where business luminaries like Charles Muirhead and Lili Zanuck prowl about.”
Oh, for the days of Class War and "Behold Your Future Executioners."
“an online hangout where princesses and barons mingle with socialites like Frederic Fekkai and Conrad de Kwiatkowski, where names such as Cartier and Versace waft around like expensive scents, where business luminaries like Charles Muirhead and Lili Zanuck prowl about.”
Oh, for the days of Class War and "Behold Your Future Executioners."
Many Worlds Theory
The catalog of New York artist Ingo Günther's "Worldprocessor" series of works.
Plenty of pause for thought.
Plenty of pause for thought.
On the Ground in New Orleans
Via my mate Bill:
"The following was sent by Tobias Wolff to his father, Robert Paul Wolff, professor in the Afro-American Studies Department at UMass Amherst, and contains an eyewitness account of two paramedic friends of Tobias who were trapped in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina."
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 11:07 PM
Subject: Saramago's Blindness Revisited -- an eyewitness account from New Orleans
Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences
Larry Bradshaw, Lorrie Beth Slonsky
"Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.
The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.
We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived home yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at a newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the Walgreen's in the French Quarter.
We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the National Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the "victims" of the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.
Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.
On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because none of us had seen them.
We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.
By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors, telling us that the "officials" told us to report to the
convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the City, we finally encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we would not be allowed into the Superdome as the City's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole.
The guards further told us that the City's only other shelter, the Convention Center, was also descending into chaos and squalor and that the police were not allowing anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was our alternative?" The guards told us that that was our problem, and no they did not have extra water to give to us. This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile "law enforcement".
We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and were told the same thing, that we were on our own, and no they did not have water to give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to decide a course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police command post. We would be plainly visible to the media and would constitute a highly visible embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we could not stay. Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short order, the police commander came across the street to address our group. He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up to take us out of the City.
The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation and wrong information and was he sure that there were buses waiting for us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to you that the buses are there."
We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many locals saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our enthusiasm.
As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.
We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.
Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the rain under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to build an encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be visible to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated freeway and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen buses.
All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot.
Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become.
Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so down the freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts.
Now secure with the two necessities, food and water; cooperation, community, and creativity flowered. We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even organized a food recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).
This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to look out for each other, working together and constructing a community.
If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness would not have set in.
Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90 people.
From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.
Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.
Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.
In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were
hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.
The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.
We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.
There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we were forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses did not have air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds if us were forced to share two filthy overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with any possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) we were subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches.
Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated at the airport because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet, no food had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly, disabled as they sat for hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we were not carrying any communicable diseases.
This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist. There was more suffering than need be. Lives were lost that did not need to be lost."
"The following was sent by Tobias Wolff to his father, Robert Paul Wolff, professor in the Afro-American Studies Department at UMass Amherst, and contains an eyewitness account of two paramedic friends of Tobias who were trapped in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina."
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 11:07 PM
Subject: Saramago's Blindness Revisited -- an eyewitness account from New Orleans
Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences
Larry Bradshaw, Lorrie Beth Slonsky
"Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.
The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.
We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived home yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at a newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the Walgreen's in the French Quarter.
We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the National Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the "victims" of the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.
Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.
On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because none of us had seen them.
We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.
By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors, telling us that the "officials" told us to report to the
convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the City, we finally encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we would not be allowed into the Superdome as the City's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole.
The guards further told us that the City's only other shelter, the Convention Center, was also descending into chaos and squalor and that the police were not allowing anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was our alternative?" The guards told us that that was our problem, and no they did not have extra water to give to us. This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile "law enforcement".
We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and were told the same thing, that we were on our own, and no they did not have water to give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to decide a course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police command post. We would be plainly visible to the media and would constitute a highly visible embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we could not stay. Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short order, the police commander came across the street to address our group. He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up to take us out of the City.
The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation and wrong information and was he sure that there were buses waiting for us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to you that the buses are there."
We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many locals saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our enthusiasm.
As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.
We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.
Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the rain under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to build an encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be visible to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated freeway and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen buses.
All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot.
Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become.
Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so down the freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts.
Now secure with the two necessities, food and water; cooperation, community, and creativity flowered. We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even organized a food recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).
This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to look out for each other, working together and constructing a community.
If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness would not have set in.
Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90 people.
From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.
Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.
Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.
In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were
hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.
The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.
We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.
There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we were forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses did not have air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds if us were forced to share two filthy overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with any possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) we were subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches.
Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated at the airport because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet, no food had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly, disabled as they sat for hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we were not carrying any communicable diseases.
This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist. There was more suffering than need be. Lives were lost that did not need to be lost."
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
At Home with the Intelligentsia. No. 24: Sigmund Freud
(Full image shows Freud "dropping the shoulder" to release malodorous wind that he would later blame on his dog.)
A New Alibi the Next Time I'm Found Asleep in a Ditch
I wasn't asleep, I was looking for the €70,000 stolen in an armed robbery from the Post Office in Bettystown yesterday.
The Gards managed to catch the boyos involved in Julianstown, a mile or two up the road, but they didn't have the cash on them. Must have chucked it into a hedgerow somewhere along the way.
And here's me sat like an eejit at home in front of the computer.
The Gards managed to catch the boyos involved in Julianstown, a mile or two up the road, but they didn't have the cash on them. Must have chucked it into a hedgerow somewhere along the way.
And here's me sat like an eejit at home in front of the computer.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Brinton Review
Via Anarkismo, an extended review of the collection of Maurice Brinton's collected writings, For Workers' Power.
Even Meaner Streets
From the New Ross Standard:
Playhut is burnt
Some children in the Morriseysland area will have to find another 'hut' to play in after theirs was burnt on Saturday last. It was set alight at mid-day on Saturday.
New Ross Fire Brigade attended the scene and quickly put out the small fire.
Playhut is burnt
Some children in the Morriseysland area will have to find another 'hut' to play in after theirs was burnt on Saturday last. It was set alight at mid-day on Saturday.
New Ross Fire Brigade attended the scene and quickly put out the small fire.
Meaner Streets
From the Fingal Independent:
‘Blood will be spilled’ if cinema project fails
By Donncha Mac Raghnaill
BLOOD will be spilled on the streets of Balbriggan if the proposed cinema does not go ahead, a local councillor has stated, as a new push to get an operator is made.
Cllr Heidi Bedell (Green Party) was one of the councillors who met representatives working for McEneaney Construction, who have built the cinema structure as part of the town centre Gallen’s Mills development.
She said that an offer to give the Town Council a part of the space in lieu of the cinema was rejected by councillors present.
‘The people of Balbriggan would be very, very disappointed and that is putting it mildly, if it is not a cinema,’ Ms Bedell said.
‘There would be blood over the streets and rightly so,’ she said. ‘They must sell it to the highest bidder – if they make a loss then that’s tough, it’s business and they made a profit on the other parts, after all it was a total package.’
‘Blood will be spilled’ if cinema project fails
By Donncha Mac Raghnaill
BLOOD will be spilled on the streets of Balbriggan if the proposed cinema does not go ahead, a local councillor has stated, as a new push to get an operator is made.
Cllr Heidi Bedell (Green Party) was one of the councillors who met representatives working for McEneaney Construction, who have built the cinema structure as part of the town centre Gallen’s Mills development.
She said that an offer to give the Town Council a part of the space in lieu of the cinema was rejected by councillors present.
‘The people of Balbriggan would be very, very disappointed and that is putting it mildly, if it is not a cinema,’ Ms Bedell said.
‘There would be blood over the streets and rightly so,’ she said. ‘They must sell it to the highest bidder – if they make a loss then that’s tough, it’s business and they made a profit on the other parts, after all it was a total package.’
Mean Streets
From the Carlow People:
Figures show one violent death recorded in Carlow
An analysis of annual crime reports in Ireland has placed Carlow in the middle of a violent death league table.
Limerick is top of the table, which shows the rate of death by violence per head of population in the period 2001 to 2005. There has been one such death in Co. Carlow in that period, placing the county at number 21 nationally. Carlow is behind neighbouring County Wicklow which occupies tenth position, with six murders.
Kilkenny was placed in eleventh position with four murders.
'Overall, taking everything into consideration, there has been a reduction in crime in County Carlow,' said Superintendent Thady Muldoon of Carlow Garda Station.
He added that the crime rate for the county is 'down ten per cent.'
Figures show one violent death recorded in Carlow
An analysis of annual crime reports in Ireland has placed Carlow in the middle of a violent death league table.
Limerick is top of the table, which shows the rate of death by violence per head of population in the period 2001 to 2005. There has been one such death in Co. Carlow in that period, placing the county at number 21 nationally. Carlow is behind neighbouring County Wicklow which occupies tenth position, with six murders.
Kilkenny was placed in eleventh position with four murders.
'Overall, taking everything into consideration, there has been a reduction in crime in County Carlow,' said Superintendent Thady Muldoon of Carlow Garda Station.
He added that the crime rate for the county is 'down ten per cent.'
Thursday, September 01, 2005
A Life of Sn
Just wishing John & Maria a happy 10th (Tin) wedding anniversary. The beans are in the post.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Wake Up to Anarchy!
Twenty years ago, I’d been working in a diecasting factory in Ancoats for going on three years and had decided that my life was pretty much over. Fucked, I thought, despite the fact that I was still living at home and earning decent money for the first time in my life. Fortunately, I had a few acquaintances around me motivated by a similar need to resist despair and united by a dark, dry humour, so we decided to pool our resources and do something positive while we still had the time, energy, and opportunity. Calling ourselves Timperley Village Anarchist Militia, a tribute not to Buenaventura Durutti but the less well known Tufnell Park Anarchist Militia, whom I’d encountered at an anarchist picnic on Parliament Hill organized by good friends of mine, we put together the magazine you see above, now featured in the punk exhibition in Manchester mentioned below.
Digging out a copy of the magazine from my attic last night and perusing it over a can of cider (the only way!), I was struck by just how strident, intemperate and filled with rage it was, and we were, but also how very funny parts of it were (a piece on trainspotting that I’ll post sometime next week) and, more surprisingly, how astute we sometimes were. There’s nary a mention of Marx, Bakunin, Proudhon or (imagine!) Castoriadis. Yet, when I read the lead article for the first time in 15 years, I was astonished to find myself, all that time ago, arguing about the necessity for creating links between the countercultural anarchist movement (squatting, pro-Situ, anti-work) and the class-struggle anarchist organizations in order to support grassroots autonomous working-class struggles engaged in direct action. How prescient of me, (he said with ridiculous immodesty) given that exactly what I was arguing for came to fruition in a very small way 10 years later, when Reclaim the Streets and ravers joined with the Liverpool Dockers in common cause as a result of the Criminal Justice Act.
They say the brightest flame burns the shortest time. That’s a most apt analogy for Timperley Village Anarchist. Although we survived a letter from the solicitors of Greg Dyke’s TV-AM, which was just starting up (the coincidence of the initials was too good an opportunity to pass up, and hence our slogan, the title of this posting), we couldn’t survive the intervention of my old man, who found 500 copies of Issue No. 2 under my bed and burned the lot.
The magazine was resurrected by one of our number as TV-AM in the Class War stable of magazines, but I don’t think it lasted for more than a few issues. The rest of us moved on, conscious that maybe we could actually do something to make a difference to our own lives, maybe even to others, and there were many, many changes, challenges, disasters, and triumphs in the subsequent years.
But that’s another story.
Explorations in Resistance
From the aut-op-sy mailing list:
Strategies of Refusal: Explorations in Autonomist Marxism
Bluestockings . 172 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington, NYC http://www.bluestockings.com. $25 - $50 sliding scale
Sundays 12 - 2 PM from October 9nd - November 20th
Instructors: Jack Z. Bratich & Stevphen Shukaitis
Since the publication of Hardt and Negri's Empire new attention has been brought to a previously ignored current of revolutionary theory and practice, namely that of autonomist Marxism. The attention paid to readings of Negri have tended to neglect the vast wealth of engaged theoretical reflection contained within the history of autonomist thought and organizing from which Negri's work emerges. The course will begin to explore this future behind our backs focusing on key concepts and practices with autonomst Marxism such as class composition analysis, spatial articulations and enclosures, mobility and exodus, the refusal of work, affective labor, biopower, communication and information theory, and current developments in autonomist organizing such as those around
precarious labor. It will explore the writing of theorists as Mario Tronti, Paolo Virno, the Midnight Notes Collective, Harry Cleaver, Silvia Federici, Bifo, Leopoldina Fortunati, Ferrucio Gambino, Raniero Panzieri, Sandro Mezzadra, George Caffentzis, Maurizio Lazzarato, Mariarosa Dallacosta, Toni Negri, Félix Guattari, and Alisa Del Re. Having at least a working knowledge of Marxist concepts (and a willingness to critique them) would be very helpful. A majority of the reading will be made available electronically and/or in scanned form.
For more information/readings:
http://www.refusingstructures.net/strategies.htm or strategies@refusingstructures.net
Sponsored by Autonomedia http://www.autonomedia.org.
Strategies of Refusal: Explorations in Autonomist Marxism
Bluestockings . 172 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington, NYC http://www.bluestockings.com. $25 - $50 sliding scale
Sundays 12 - 2 PM from October 9nd - November 20th
Instructors: Jack Z. Bratich & Stevphen Shukaitis
Since the publication of Hardt and Negri's Empire new attention has been brought to a previously ignored current of revolutionary theory and practice, namely that of autonomist Marxism. The attention paid to readings of Negri have tended to neglect the vast wealth of engaged theoretical reflection contained within the history of autonomist thought and organizing from which Negri's work emerges. The course will begin to explore this future behind our backs focusing on key concepts and practices with autonomst Marxism such as class composition analysis, spatial articulations and enclosures, mobility and exodus, the refusal of work, affective labor, biopower, communication and information theory, and current developments in autonomist organizing such as those around
precarious labor. It will explore the writing of theorists as Mario Tronti, Paolo Virno, the Midnight Notes Collective, Harry Cleaver, Silvia Federici, Bifo, Leopoldina Fortunati, Ferrucio Gambino, Raniero Panzieri, Sandro Mezzadra, George Caffentzis, Maurizio Lazzarato, Mariarosa Dallacosta, Toni Negri, Félix Guattari, and Alisa Del Re. Having at least a working knowledge of Marxist concepts (and a willingness to critique them) would be very helpful. A majority of the reading will be made available electronically and/or in scanned form.
For more information/readings:
http://www.refusingstructures.net/strategies.htm or strategies@refusingstructures.net
Sponsored by Autonomedia http://www.autonomedia.org.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
So where's Gay Meadow?
According to this weeks Non-League Paper the most sought ground on the internet is the home of Shepshed Dynamo. 17th on the overall list behind the likes of Area 51 and The Whitehouse these plucky part-timers proved more popular than Old Trafford , Nou Camp and even Villa Park.Who says there's no future for grass roots football.
Shepshed,incidentally, play at Butt Hole Lane.
Shepshed,incidentally, play at Butt Hole Lane.
Fast Women, Fast Cars . . . It Can Only End in Tears
If this tragedy doesn't make you laugh, there's something wrong with you.
And before you accuse ME of being sick, allow me to point out that Car & Driver magazine saw fit to provide the time in which Mrs. Howard's car completed the quarter-mile (6.633 seconds).
And before you accuse ME of being sick, allow me to point out that Car & Driver magazine saw fit to provide the time in which Mrs. Howard's car completed the quarter-mile (6.633 seconds).
The Magic Christian
Did anybody see The Magic Christian last night on BBC 2? And if so, can you tell me what the fuck THAT was all about?!
I tuned in about half way through then sat transfixed as Yul Brynner lip-synched "I'm Mad about the Boy" while dressed as a transvestite diva, Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr tried to persuade the Oxford Boat crew (which included Graham Chapman) to throw the Boat Race, two Mister Universes performed ballroom dancing in their thongs, and Christopher Lee appeared as Dracula to cause chaos on a ship captained by Wilfred Hyde White but which turned out not to be a ship at all but a set in the centre of London. After all that, Sellers and Starr conclude the movie by filling a huge pool on the South Bank with pig shit, blood and fat and throw in pound notes while advertising "Free Money" to see if City gents are prepared to wade into the crap to get it.
A film to watch while stoned, I think.
Oh yes, and the Magic Christian of the title is the ship, not Jesus. A metaphor, I suppose.
I tuned in about half way through then sat transfixed as Yul Brynner lip-synched "I'm Mad about the Boy" while dressed as a transvestite diva, Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr tried to persuade the Oxford Boat crew (which included Graham Chapman) to throw the Boat Race, two Mister Universes performed ballroom dancing in their thongs, and Christopher Lee appeared as Dracula to cause chaos on a ship captained by Wilfred Hyde White but which turned out not to be a ship at all but a set in the centre of London. After all that, Sellers and Starr conclude the movie by filling a huge pool on the South Bank with pig shit, blood and fat and throw in pound notes while advertising "Free Money" to see if City gents are prepared to wade into the crap to get it.
A film to watch while stoned, I think.
Oh yes, and the Magic Christian of the title is the ship, not Jesus. A metaphor, I suppose.
But I'm Already Pickled
A keen-eyed comrade spotted the anarchist magazine we used to cowrite in the fanzine section of an exhibition currently on at Urbis in Manchester: "Punk: Sex, Seditionaries and the Sex Pistols." There's an accompanying catalogue called No Future costing £19, which seems a rather sad indictment of our efforts to subvert the Spectacle.
Rather more respectably (?) but still leaving me with the sensation of being encased in amber, our magazine made it to the archives of the Centre International de Recherches sur l'Anarchisme in Lausanne, Switzerland, though only God, if he existed, would know how.
More on those dark years tomorrow.
Rather more respectably (?) but still leaving me with the sensation of being encased in amber, our magazine made it to the archives of the Centre International de Recherches sur l'Anarchisme in Lausanne, Switzerland, though only God, if he existed, would know how.
More on those dark years tomorrow.
Hideout Block Party
From Katie at the Hideout, Chicago:
"The Hideout Announces 9th Annual Block Party Line Up
The dB's Reunite After 22 Years!
Freakwater, Eleventh Dream Day, Kevin O'Donnell
Debut New Material!
WHO: FRIDAY: Devil in a Woodpile, The Autumn Defense, Freakwater, The Lamentations: Kelly Hogan, Nora O'Connor, Scott Ligon
Book Release for: Farm Aid, A Song For America, with Paul Natkin and Dave Hoekstra.
Celebration of No Depression magazine's 10th anniversary.
SATURDAY: NOMO with Fred Anderson and Nicole Mitchell, The Redwalls, The M's, The Ponys, The dB's, The Sam Roberts Band, Eleventh Dream Day, Kevin O'Donnell's Ensemble General.
WHAT: Annual outdoor festival that benefit's children's charities. Includes 12 bands, children's activities, food, beverages.
WHEN: September 16, 5-10 p.m.
September 17, 2-10 p.m.
WHERE: The Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia
________________________________________________
The Annual Hideout's Block Party has become the highly anticipated end of summer event. Up and coming bands and legendary performers, meet on the street and present break-out performances. Proceeds go to support P.L.A.Y., Tuesday's Child, and Literacy Works.
This year's festival will include; Eleventh Dream Day (Sat.4:00), Freakwater (Fri.8:45), and the premiere of Kevin O'Donnell's Ensemble General (Sat.3:00) all performing new material. A rare appearance of The Lamentations (Fri.7:30), and the Autumn Defense (Fri.7:00) with John Stirratt and Pat Sansone, both of Wilco, slipping in a special set. Bonus we believe Laurie Stirratt may perform too.
None of the bands performing are on tour. They are coming to Chicago for the express purpose to play at this event. The greatest anticipation is the reunion after 22 years of the influential New York pop-punk band, The dB's (Sat.6pm). Its four members, are all successful today in various bands.
Saturday will also include The Sam Roberts Band (Sat.5pm), the hugely successful Canadian band, in a rare stateside appearance.
Chicago's hottest new bands, The M's (Sat. 7:45), The Ponys (Sat. 7:00) and The Redwalls (Sat. 8:30) will return from their worldwide tours to rock the hometown crowd. NOMO (Sat. 9:15) here for Chicago's World Music Festival will play a once only show with Chicago's venerable Fred Anderson,a founding member of the AACM.
The Hideout is considered one of Chicago's best live music venues by Rolling Stone, Spin, Stuff, Fortune, The Tribune, The Sun-Times, The Reader, New City, Chicago Magazine, The Daily Herald, The Pioneer Press, WXRT, WLUW, WNUR, and others. The Hideout Block Party often makes the year end "Best of" lists. This year's line-up has already been called one of the best in years.
With the great critical and popular success of this years Intonation Festival, and Lollapalooza, come and see the festival that has helped to keep Chicago on the cutting edge musical map since 1996.
Please check www.hideoutchicago.com for more up to the minute details.
###
Performance Line Up for Friday September 16, 2005
9:30 pm: Devil in a Woodpile
http://bloodshotrecords.com/
8:45 pm: Freakwater
http://www.freakwater.net/
8:00 pm: The Lamentations:
Kelly Hogan/Nora O'Connor/Scott Ligon
http://bloodshotrecords.com/
7:00 pm: The Autumn Defense
http://www.theautumndefense.com/
$10 Donation: Proceeds to benefit Literacy Works
www.litworks.com
Performance Line Up for Saturday September 17, 2005
9:30 pm: Nomo: Featuring Fred Anderson and Nicole Mitchell
www.nomomusic.co
8:30 pm: The Redwalls
www.theredwalls.com
7:45 pm The M's
www.the-ms.com
7 pm: The Ponys
www.theponys.com
6 pm: The dB's
www.thedbsonline.net
5 pm: The Sam Roberts Band
www.samrobertsband.com
4 pm: Eleventh Dream Day
http://www.thrilljockey.com.
3 pm: Kevin O'Donnell's Ensemble General
Proceeds to benefit
P.L.A.Y. www.causesforchildren.org
Tuesday's Child www.tuesdayschildchicago.org"
"The Hideout Announces 9th Annual Block Party Line Up
The dB's Reunite After 22 Years!
Freakwater, Eleventh Dream Day, Kevin O'Donnell
Debut New Material!
WHO: FRIDAY: Devil in a Woodpile, The Autumn Defense, Freakwater, The Lamentations: Kelly Hogan, Nora O'Connor, Scott Ligon
Book Release for: Farm Aid, A Song For America, with Paul Natkin and Dave Hoekstra.
Celebration of No Depression magazine's 10th anniversary.
SATURDAY: NOMO with Fred Anderson and Nicole Mitchell, The Redwalls, The M's, The Ponys, The dB's, The Sam Roberts Band, Eleventh Dream Day, Kevin O'Donnell's Ensemble General.
WHAT: Annual outdoor festival that benefit's children's charities. Includes 12 bands, children's activities, food, beverages.
WHEN: September 16, 5-10 p.m.
September 17, 2-10 p.m.
WHERE: The Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia
________________________________________________
The Annual Hideout's Block Party has become the highly anticipated end of summer event. Up and coming bands and legendary performers, meet on the street and present break-out performances. Proceeds go to support P.L.A.Y., Tuesday's Child, and Literacy Works.
This year's festival will include; Eleventh Dream Day (Sat.4:00), Freakwater (Fri.8:45), and the premiere of Kevin O'Donnell's Ensemble General (Sat.3:00) all performing new material. A rare appearance of The Lamentations (Fri.7:30), and the Autumn Defense (Fri.7:00) with John Stirratt and Pat Sansone, both of Wilco, slipping in a special set. Bonus we believe Laurie Stirratt may perform too.
None of the bands performing are on tour. They are coming to Chicago for the express purpose to play at this event. The greatest anticipation is the reunion after 22 years of the influential New York pop-punk band, The dB's (Sat.6pm). Its four members, are all successful today in various bands.
Saturday will also include The Sam Roberts Band (Sat.5pm), the hugely successful Canadian band, in a rare stateside appearance.
Chicago's hottest new bands, The M's (Sat. 7:45), The Ponys (Sat. 7:00) and The Redwalls (Sat. 8:30) will return from their worldwide tours to rock the hometown crowd. NOMO (Sat. 9:15) here for Chicago's World Music Festival will play a once only show with Chicago's venerable Fred Anderson,a founding member of the AACM.
The Hideout is considered one of Chicago's best live music venues by Rolling Stone, Spin, Stuff, Fortune, The Tribune, The Sun-Times, The Reader, New City, Chicago Magazine, The Daily Herald, The Pioneer Press, WXRT, WLUW, WNUR, and others. The Hideout Block Party often makes the year end "Best of" lists. This year's line-up has already been called one of the best in years.
With the great critical and popular success of this years Intonation Festival, and Lollapalooza, come and see the festival that has helped to keep Chicago on the cutting edge musical map since 1996.
Please check www.hideoutchicago.com for more up to the minute details.
###
Performance Line Up for Friday September 16, 2005
9:30 pm: Devil in a Woodpile
http://bloodshotrecords.com/
8:45 pm: Freakwater
http://www.freakwater.net/
8:00 pm: The Lamentations:
Kelly Hogan/Nora O'Connor/Scott Ligon
http://bloodshotrecords.com/
7:00 pm: The Autumn Defense
http://www.theautumndefense.com/
$10 Donation: Proceeds to benefit Literacy Works
www.litworks.com
Performance Line Up for Saturday September 17, 2005
9:30 pm: Nomo: Featuring Fred Anderson and Nicole Mitchell
www.nomomusic.co
8:30 pm: The Redwalls
www.theredwalls.com
7:45 pm The M's
www.the-ms.com
7 pm: The Ponys
www.theponys.com
6 pm: The dB's
www.thedbsonline.net
5 pm: The Sam Roberts Band
www.samrobertsband.com
4 pm: Eleventh Dream Day
http://www.thrilljockey.com.
3 pm: Kevin O'Donnell's Ensemble General
Proceeds to benefit
P.L.A.Y. www.causesforchildren.org
Tuesday's Child www.tuesdayschildchicago.org"
Monday, August 29, 2005
Grim Reality #2
It's What Torpedoes Were Made For
The Avalon Excalibur 25 Elite, a luxury pontoon boat from Playbuoy intended to accommodate that boating crowd looking for a good time cruising and lounging.
(Swans optional)
(Swans optional)
Quiet Desperation
The readers' problem page in the July 2005 issue of Redbook features questions relating to workplace irritability, coping with a jobless husband who doesn't seem to want to find work, and a mother who's worried because her kids are so boring.
Sadly, none of the suggested solutions involve hard drugs, alcohol or adultery, but rather cleverly, the woman with a jobless husband is advised that, if things don't improve financially, she should get rid of cable, ditch the mobile phones, and sell the car. Very smart, if a little unsympathetic, but I would have thought the first thing she should get rid of is the sofa. Then the fridge. Then his slippers.
But what's the answer to boring kids? Hide their iPods?
Sadly, none of the suggested solutions involve hard drugs, alcohol or adultery, but rather cleverly, the woman with a jobless husband is advised that, if things don't improve financially, she should get rid of cable, ditch the mobile phones, and sell the car. Very smart, if a little unsympathetic, but I would have thought the first thing she should get rid of is the sofa. Then the fridge. Then his slippers.
But what's the answer to boring kids? Hide their iPods?
Maurice Brinton Notes
Via an Agora International Update, a review at Canada's Red & Black Notes of Maurice Brinton's For Workers Power and a brief obituary.
Friday, August 26, 2005
Recovery Position
Today's Independent carries an interview with Albert Kuvezin of Mongolian band Yat-Kha, who have an album of cover tracks just out, called Re-Covers.
If you've never heard Tuvan throat singing, you can listen to Yat-Kha's versions of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and Motorhead's "Orgasmatron" here.
Mekons-related trivia: Lu Edmonds of the Mekons used to manage and play with Yat-Kha.
If you've never heard Tuvan throat singing, you can listen to Yat-Kha's versions of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and Motorhead's "Orgasmatron" here.
Mekons-related trivia: Lu Edmonds of the Mekons used to manage and play with Yat-Kha.
Bilbao or Bust
I've just booked a trip to Bilbao for a few days and, apart from the Guggenheim and Guernica, I wondered if anyone could recommend anything or had any experience of the city or the area.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Tender Mercies
This Too Shall Pass
Today's Guardian carries a piece about ecologist Peter Turchin, author of War and Peace and War, who believes he has discovered the laws of history to explain the rise and fall of empires.
" . . . his experience in the mathematical modelling of animal populations such as lemmings, voles and forest insects has given him confidence that the complex processes of human interactions can be captured by such methods too. "History is not just a huge number of random factors interacting in very complex ways," he says. "There are some strong patterns that come out. And there are some reasonably simple explanations at work for these patterns."
Read the rest here.
" . . . his experience in the mathematical modelling of animal populations such as lemmings, voles and forest insects has given him confidence that the complex processes of human interactions can be captured by such methods too. "History is not just a huge number of random factors interacting in very complex ways," he says. "There are some strong patterns that come out. And there are some reasonably simple explanations at work for these patterns."
Read the rest here.
dig!
forgive me if this online journal has covered this territory before but last night i went to the cinema to see dig!, the film about the dandy warhols and the brianjonestown massacre.
even though i'm no fan of either band (i own one BJM album and nothing by the dandy's) it's difficult to think of a better, if you will, rockumentary. friendship mutating into unhinged bitter rivalry, drugs, onstage scraps, genius, madness, self-destructiveness. it's got the lot in spades.
nobody gets out of this film looking particularly good.
highly recommended.
even though i'm no fan of either band (i own one BJM album and nothing by the dandy's) it's difficult to think of a better, if you will, rockumentary. friendship mutating into unhinged bitter rivalry, drugs, onstage scraps, genius, madness, self-destructiveness. it's got the lot in spades.
nobody gets out of this film looking particularly good.
highly recommended.
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