from "What children’s drawings would look like if it were painted realistically"
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Friday, December 2, 2011
"Are you not afraid that the poor man put into the dock for snatching a piece of bread from a baker's stall will not, one day, become so enraged that stone by stone he will demolish the Stock Exchange, a wild den where the treasure of the state and the fortune of families are stolen with impunity?"
- La Ruche populaire, November 1842,
quoted in Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison, by Michel Foucault.
- La Ruche populaire, November 1842,
quoted in Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison, by Michel Foucault.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
I kind of wonder whether or not anyone would contribute to an Internet database of dreams? User-contributed, this database would be searchable for recurrent themes, etc. And by dreams, I do not mean hopes for the future, wishes for such and such, I mean actual sleeping dreams. You would come on the site, input your dream, and it would somehow be searchable. Would there be any interest in such a project?
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Self-immolations on the rise in Tibet (Aljazeera)
A Tibetan monk set himself on fire last week while shouting slogans calling for the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet during a religious ritual watched by hundreds, the advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) reported last week.
[...]
The most recent immolation has become the tenth this year. Nine others have set themselves on fire since March in Sichuan's Aba prefecture [...].
At least five have died of their wounds, including Tenzin Wangmo, a 20-year-old nun, who set herself alight last month while reportedly calling out for the end of Chinese rule and the return of the exiled Dalai Lama to Tibet.
China, which has asserted its jurisdiction over Tibet since occupying the Himalayan region in the 1950s, claims that the immolations are "terrorism in disguise" propagated by the Dalai Lama and outside Tibetan independence groups.
[...]
A Tibetan monk set himself on fire last week while shouting slogans calling for the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet during a religious ritual watched by hundreds, the advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) reported last week.
[...]
The most recent immolation has become the tenth this year. Nine others have set themselves on fire since March in Sichuan's Aba prefecture [...].
At least five have died of their wounds, including Tenzin Wangmo, a 20-year-old nun, who set herself alight last month while reportedly calling out for the end of Chinese rule and the return of the exiled Dalai Lama to Tibet.
China, which has asserted its jurisdiction over Tibet since occupying the Himalayan region in the 1950s, claims that the immolations are "terrorism in disguise" propagated by the Dalai Lama and outside Tibetan independence groups.
[...]
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Excerpts from Slavoj Zizek's speech, October 9, at Occupy Wall Street, Liberty Plaza, New York City:
In April 2011, the Chinese government prohibited on TV and films and in novels all stories that contain alternate reality or time travel. This is a good sign for China. It means that people still dream about alternatives, so you have to prohibit this dream. Here we don’t think of prohibition. Because the ruling system has even suppressed our capacity to dream. Look at the movies that we see all the time. It’s easy to imagine the end of the world. An asteroid destroying all life and so on. But you cannot imagine the end of capitalism. So what are we doing here? Let me tell you a wonderful old joke from communist times.
A guy was sent from East Germany to work in Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors. So he told his friends: Let’s establish a code. If the letter you get from me is written in blue ink ,it is true what I said. If it is written in red ink, it is false. After a month his friends get a first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: everything is wonderful here. Stores are full of good food. Movie theaters show good films from the West. Apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot buy is red ink.
This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want. But what we are missing is red ink. The language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom war and terrorism and so on falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here: You are giving all of us red ink.
[...]
So all we need is patience. The only thing I’m afraid of is that we will someday just go home and then we will meet once a year, drinking beer, and nostalgically remembering what a nice time we had here. Promise ourselves that this will not be the case.
We know that people often desire something but do not really want it. Don’t be afraid to really want what you desire. Thank you very much!
from Today Liberty Plaza had a visit from Slavoj Zizek (occupywallst.org)
In April 2011, the Chinese government prohibited on TV and films and in novels all stories that contain alternate reality or time travel. This is a good sign for China. It means that people still dream about alternatives, so you have to prohibit this dream. Here we don’t think of prohibition. Because the ruling system has even suppressed our capacity to dream. Look at the movies that we see all the time. It’s easy to imagine the end of the world. An asteroid destroying all life and so on. But you cannot imagine the end of capitalism. So what are we doing here? Let me tell you a wonderful old joke from communist times.
A guy was sent from East Germany to work in Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors. So he told his friends: Let’s establish a code. If the letter you get from me is written in blue ink ,it is true what I said. If it is written in red ink, it is false. After a month his friends get a first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: everything is wonderful here. Stores are full of good food. Movie theaters show good films from the West. Apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot buy is red ink.
This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want. But what we are missing is red ink. The language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom war and terrorism and so on falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here: You are giving all of us red ink.
[...]
So all we need is patience. The only thing I’m afraid of is that we will someday just go home and then we will meet once a year, drinking beer, and nostalgically remembering what a nice time we had here. Promise ourselves that this will not be the case.
We know that people often desire something but do not really want it. Don’t be afraid to really want what you desire. Thank you very much!
from Today Liberty Plaza had a visit from Slavoj Zizek (occupywallst.org)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)