What year does Ad Astra take place? While the beginning of the movie merely states it’s “the near future” there are some clues which date it precisely.
The first clue is the date displayed on McBride’s screen: it is Thursday the 3rd.
After his briefing and being told he will be sent to the Moon and then onto Mars, we get a scene where McBride is boarding the rocket to the Moon and we see the Virgin Atlantic departure screen. The date is now 29 May. This clues us into the fact that calendar displayed before was May.
But in between these scenes we see McBride walking down a hallway lined with the CVs of famous astronauts.
The camera zooms in and shows us the CV of McBride’s father, and here, we get a birth date.
If we zoom in, we see a birthday of September 15 (Tommy Lee Jones’ actual birthday) and a year that looks like 2032. (However, the descender on the 5 makes me also question whether the second descender is also a 5, but it looks this typeface uses descenders for the 5s and the 3s).
Ad Astra was filmed in between Aug and October 2017, during the time when Tommy Lee Jones turned 71.
2032+71 = 2103
If we check May 2103 we see that it begins on Tuesday, just like the calendar we saw at the beginning.
Whales are intelligent mammals that spend their entire lives floating in the ocean. Yet they need to breath so they are continually in contact with the boundary between the water and the air.
Occasionally they breech and launch themselves out of the water before falling back down into it.
Whales have minds, and they communicate to one another. Their natural sonar allows them to not only communicate over vast distances, but allow them to “see”. The nature of sound means that they can likely perceive through things – so that if we found ourselves swimming with a whale, we would be as transparent to them as a jelly-fish is to us.
So whales know about humans and glimpse sunlight, they breath air, and they jump into it while feeding. While a beached whale has an experience of gravity, it can never know what it is like to jump on land as we do. Further, we could never explain to it that it’s not only possible to jump so high that you can see the entire world as a ball, but that you can jump all the way to the Moon. These are realties that we understand as beings occupying this slice of reality, at this point in Time (a century after the development of flight, and over fifty years since the Moon landings). Our human minds are flexible enough to comprehend the dimensions that exist between the depths of the ocean and the heights of outer space.
In the sense that we are ground-based, we are back-and-forth two-dimensional creatures. It is only in the past century that we have been able to be three-dimensional and fly like birds and navigate the oceans with submarines like whales.
Whales swim, we walk, and birds fly. We are in between both.
Just as whales glimpse something of air, sunlight, and the shoreline, we glimpse something beyond our experience. Through both mysticism and hallucinogens throughout the ages, we glimpse a dimension that we do not fully understand, nor are we constitutionally capable. Just as a whale isn’t constitutionally capable of understand the Moon landing.
Just as whales spends their lives at the sky and ocean boundary, we too spend our lives at the boundary between earth and sky; while the whale glimpses land, we glimpse Divinity.
Traditionally we have used the language of light to understand this: our minds are illuminated by the sunlight of God. Our illuminated minds understand the range of dimensions between the depths of the oceans out to Outer Space toward the Big Bang and the greater structure of the Universe. We’ve built his understanding from speech and math.
While we cannot walk in the Divine any more than a whale could walk in our cities, we are both animals breeching into a metaphorical Heaven.
I ran into a problem using Lightbox plugins on my blogs. I’m currently running modified versions of the Constellation Theme, which is full of HTML 5 goodness and styled to re-flow according to screensize (ie is mobile adaptable).
No matter what Lightbox plugin I’d been using since upgrading WordPress to the latest version (3.3), the overlay was showing a margin and an offset as exemplified below:
This is because of the way the overlay is codded to effect the < body > tag. Constellation styles the < HTML > tag in ways usually reserved for < body > so by making a change to the Lightbox Javascript file, one can correct this behavior.
Using Google’s new Ngram viewer to plot the popularity of the Renaissance artists: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello.
Overview 1450-2008
Overview of the 20th Century 1990-2008
What surprised me is the immense popularity of Raphael for most of the past five hundred years, which only really declined a century ago between 1900 and 1920. Michelangelo get a spike in popularity in the late 1950s for some reason, whereas Leonardo is enjoys a steady-state of interest.
Having been interested in Leonardo for twenty years, I would have thought there would have been more spikiness to his line: the discovery of his lost Madrid Codices seems to have caused a spike in popularity and publishing in the 1970s, mirrored by the past decade’s spike due to Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.
Of course, if I turn off the smoothing, the graph immediately gets a lot spikier. Here is the overview for the past five hundred years:
‘Leonardo da Vinci’ plotted over 1500-2008
Leonardo clearly enjoyed the majority of his fame in the 18th Century
And here is the 20th Century:
‘Leonardo da Vinci’ 1900-2008
Which shows that despite my intuition, Da Vinci’s popularity declined between 1960 and 1980, and there was no real spike in the past ten years.
I stopped using Firefox last year, when I began using Chrome (through the development version Chromium) in September 2009. As it underwent rapid development versions on the Mac, I updated frequently and I began to taking periodic version snapshots until January of this year, shortly before Chrome went official for Mac.
When I first read this I thought it was a nice way of pointing out the dangers of an aristocracy – the exact thing the 18th Century Enlightenment thinkers made their reputation attacking. At that time, the awfulness of society was seen in part to be the result of the establishment being ill-educated and having been merely born into their positions of power.
I read this as saying:
The best argument exemplifying of an elitist-aristocracy is ‘you shouldn’t have to know something in order to be in charge of it’
or perhaps
By their example, “in favour of this” they show the limitations of thinking that people shouldn’t need to know something in order to run it.
But then again, is it a defence of elitism? His Goldsbie actually saying:
“The best argument for an elitist society is the example of those people who think they can run things without knowing anything about it. We should have an educated elite who know what they are doing.”
It’s hard to imagine, given these parameters, a country from which Sierra would accept an award. And, with this in mind, even harder not to conclude that Spain virtually volunteered itself to go like a lamb to the slaughter. Conflating notions of artistic gesture and political protest, Sierra’s work has pretty much been sending Spain this same rejection letter since, like, 1999, in so many words. The artist has paid Chechen refugees minimum wage to remain hidden inside cardboard boxes in a gallery for long stretches (2000), Iraqi immigrants to stand docile while he sprays them with insulation foam (2004), prostitutes [whom he paid in heroin] for the privilege of publicly tattooing their backs (2000), and African immigrants to dye their hair blonde (2001). Sierra uses money to buy people and subject them to degradation and abuse at so low a price that the audience is forced to wonder if endemic government failure hasn’t flat-out subsidized the transaction, let alone created the conditions for its occurrence. Taking a page from the terrorist strategy book, Sierra makes a gratuitous show of ethical violence in order to mirror and expose its proliferation in what we might call “society.” And the show goes on because of, as Sierra says in his letter, “the freedom… art has given me… which I am not willing to resign.”
The new cookies are fine, even though not as good as old standby. So is the bread. You’ll only have one more lot to send this year, that is if you want to.
Last week was much cooler again and there hasn’t been any more swimming since I wrote you. We are also mowing lawn here, though I don’t have to mow as much as I would if I were home.
I’m sorry to hear the old car is acting up, though apparently this wasn’t anything serious. When my license renewal blank comes I wish you would send it here (or if it doesn’t come, send the old stub and I’ll get a blank.) I can fill it out an have the license sent home again.
This week we took all day trip in Farm Management. We went through Geneva and saw the Agricultural Experiment Station, then north to Lake Ontario, stopping to see three farms on the way. It was the first time I had seen the lake and it is quite like the bay at home. Of course, you can’t see the other side, and it is not as blue as the bay.
Two of the farms are in the fruit belt along the lake, and are little more than big orchards. The cherries were in blossom and the apples were just ready to come out. The trees there don’t seem to be much hurt by the winter cold.
This weekend several hundred high school boys who expect to come to Cornell soon were up to visit the place. It is a new thing this year, called Cornell Day, and seemed to go off pretty well. Two boys stayed here in the house and seemed to enjoy themselves.
Did you see any of the dust cloud the papers were talking about over New York? It must have missed us. It is pretty dry even here, though.
Friday night George and I walked down to see George Arliss in “The House of Rothschild.” It was one the best I have seen him in.
Saturday night there was an electrical exhibition in the Electrical Engineering College. They had artificial lightning, power line connections and generators, teletype, telegraph, telephone, radio, and a lot of other exhibits, all very interesting. They advertised it by a loudspeaker hung out the window. You could hear it easily a quarter of a mile away, but it was very distinct also. There was also a track meet Saturday, in which we beat Penn. very easily, so that it wasn’t very interesting.
It’s warmer now – maybe there will be swimming this afternoon.
I’m not sure if this is a problem of social myopia (birds of a feather flocking together) but it seems I both keep hearing & reading that people want to vote for Joe Pantalone but feel that’s it’s a wasted vote. (I myself expressed as much in my last blog posting a week ago). Thus, everyone who’d like to vote for him is now of the mind to vote strategically. I write this because I’m now under the impression that maybe there’s a silent majority of people out there who favor him but who are being frightened into voting for his rivals.
It doesn’t help that the Globe and Mail “guardedly” endorses Smitherman while only mentioning Pantalone once in it’s 800word endorsement. The context is notable:
Mr. Fords […] is an instinctual person, lacking in analysis, and his plans have gaps and inconsistencies. His propensity to impetuous words and deeds could be embarrassing and possibly harmful to Toronto. Nonetheless, the surge in support for a man with these characteristics, in a sophisticated, cosmopolitan city, amounts to an extraordinary indictment of the status quo. It is a phenomenon that all Toronto’s politicians must take seriously; Mr. Smitherman has already repositioned himself, shifting on the ideological spectrum from where he probably would like to be. Where Mr. Ford is unrealistic, Mr. Smitherman is vague. The risk in supporting Mr. Ford is what he might do as mayor, the risk in supporting Mr. Smitherman is what he might not do. The latter of the two has failed to articulate a vision or a strategy of his own, and he could easily end up as a second David Miller – what Joe Pantalone, the third candidate, openly promises to be.
I resent the idea that I need to fear either rival, and that I should vote for Smitherman for any reason not of my choosing. I resent the media casting this (and thus skewing the pole results) as a two-person race. I resent the blackmail that a vote for Pantalone is an indirect vote for someone who is “potentially embarrassing and harmful”.
I’m going to vote for Pantalone. If Ford wins, at least we’ll have a shake-up of the status quo. If Smitherman wins, well, at least he’s not Ford. If Pantalone wins, well, at least we might finally get bike lanes and continued marginal improvements in TTC outpaced by increased fares.
For those not in Toronto: In the latest Toronto mayoralty-election news, Rocco Rossi dropped out last night, October 13th, leaving it (as the papers would have it) a contest between Rob Ford and George Smitherman. Rob Ford is considered to be an oaf, and George Smitherman was once deputy-premier of the province. Neglected from this assessment is the presence of Joe Pantalone, who quipped in a recent debate, to Smitherman, “the mayoralty is not a consolation prize for failing to become premier”
Officially, there are 40 people running for Mayor with two officially withdrawn. With the exception of the above named, the remaining 35 are considered unserious novelty candidates. Joe Pantalone has been deputy mayor under departing David Miller, and is running on his legacy.
My Facebook feed is representatives of his fan base: numerous calls stating Toronto needs pants and the like. Pants pants pants. Along with William Gibson’s latest novel, ‘tis the season for pants.
Pantalone has become the traditional NDP third party candidate who won’t and can’t win. He’s polling (Oct 13 Globe & Mail) at 11%, which is traditional NDP territory. He’ll drain votes away from the anti-Ford Smitherman and Ford will be Mayor.
However, according to the same poll, Smitherman is up 1% against Ford at 31% to 30%. Pantalone supporters – this is a given – would never vote for Ford, thus if their vote went to Smitherman, he’d win by a hefty margin: 42% against 30%.
Needless to say, our democracy is a sham, sense these numbers don’t even cross over 50%.
It’s interesting how this vote is being framed by the media as a contest between Smitherman and Ford, continually neglecting Pantalone. By keeping that narrative alive, the illusion of a contest between S&F can be maintained. The media is itself a type of conservative, conserving the narratives it has on hand; their familiarity with Smitherman as an Ontario cabinet minister means he is given favorable attention despite his admitted past-addiction to “party drugs” (coke?) and his inept handling of the eHealth portfolio, in which $1,000,000,000 dollars went missing.
I’ve only voted Conservative once in my life, during my first Federal election in 1993. At that time, I was naive enough to vote C merely because I liked the fact that we had a female Prime Minister in Kim Campbell. She famously lost to Jean Chretien, and Chretien went on to govern for ten years. In those interim elections, I began to vote for the NDP, a trend which continued right up to the last election.
Given that I have never voted for the party or candidate who ends up winning, I’m considering using this juju against Rob Ford by voting for him. My vote for Ford would thus be an anti-Ford vote.
If I voted my conscience and for the candidate who mostly represents my views, I’d join my Facebook peers and vote for Joe Pantalone, thus guaranteeing he won’t win.
I don’t usually do the tourist pose, but in this case I indulged. Partially because before seeing this at the Met at the end of June, I’d been watching David Starkey’s Henry: Mind of a Tyrant on TVO (which is available on iTunes). Seeing the armour made the history and the man (especially his kingly size) tangible.>
Alberta’s culture minister says:
“I sit here as a government representative for film and television in the province of Alberta and I look at what we produce and if we’re honest with ourselves, why do I produce so much shit? Why do I fund so much crap?,”
and this is a response:
“I was at a loss when I heard the statement – a complete loss and quite surprised and quite taken aback for every producer and content maker in Canada, let alone Alberta,” said CBC Television General Manager Kirstine Stewart, who was in the audience. “Nobody can ever question the quality of what we do here in Canada, creatively or otherwise.”
I take issue with the way this was instinctively (that is, without forethought) phrased:
Nobody can ever question the quality of what we do here in Canada, creatively or otherwise.
I think there’s a genuine problem in Canada when culture is subject to such dictatorial sentiments. There is certainly a culture of complicity in place, where we are expected to fall in line or be subject to censorship. I think it’s fair to say that Freedom of Expression within this country has been perverted into a freedom of expression in support of the status quo, and within the ideological confines established by Management.
“I was at a loss …” yes of course you were, because someone says something controversial, and instead of laughing, or simply disagreeing, you have to dig in your heels and make Dear Leader statements.
What we do here in Canada is apparently fucking awesome, as the embedded movie trailers below show:
wow having have read so much, am just atricious about the new music industry. I mean people have different opinions and stuff, bt at the end o the day, whats written in the bible is coming to pass. i mean this is really nothin compared to the real deal. Devils on the loose,he knows his time isreally too short. I mean i was a big jay fan, not so much becoz he really said anythng positive in my life through his music, but because he sipmly was cool.he had swag for me then, and when you a big fan, u agree with almost everthiing he does or say to a verge of refusing to even see when things can become harmful. this stuff is so real. for a fact thres good(Jesus) and evil(lucifer). the big part is where do u belong in the picture when Jesus Christ returns? Or when u die? times runnin out man. thanking VC for the cautions(tyhough too,curious about ur religion and beliefs).People gotta wke up. some are too deep asleep. music is a very strong instrument through which human emotion bieng depicted in song and spirit (whether gud/evi) feed too ones soul is passed from,to. so we really really gutta watch what we listen too. music says alot. this guys are lureing everybody to satanic practices without concious alert, to possess peoples soul without u even knowing. However want to ask what VCs real motive behind the website,which am really greatful for, but why do you care? whats it to you if people are mislead?
22 January 2009 – "To the location of this new earthquake weapons test the United States is preparing for these reports further warn the entire Western coastal areas of the Americans are in danger and could ‘very well’ expect to see a catastrophic event within the fortnight."
Because 'a fortnight' isn't common parlance in North America (weez stoopid), I remind you that it means 'forteen nights' or, two weeks.
4 February 2009 – "Northern California Earthquake: Magnitude 6.0 Quake Rattles Coast
Residents of Northern California's Humboldt County were rocked by a magnitude-5.9 earthquake Thursday, but officials said there were no immediate reports of major injury or damage from the second large temblor to hit the area within a month.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake struck at 12:20 p.m. about 35 miles northwest of the community of Petrolia and nearly 50 miles west of Eureka. The shaking was felt within a 150-mile radius, as far north as southern Oregon and as far south as Sonoma County, according to the USGS Web site."
Vancouver, not known for a place of a lot of snow, was awarded the 2010 Olympics in 2003, probabby for places like Whistler, which are known to be ski resorts. Seven years and global-warming denial later, there’s concern there might not be enough snow. Meanwhile, protesting the Olympics is forbidden, and the Prime Minister shuts down Parliament using them as an excuse.
The Olympics seem to be a diaster in the making. What was supposed to be Canada’s pride will instead be its embrassement. Remember the last Canadian winter olympics, Calgary ’88? The Jamacian bob-sled team? Vancouver seems a little Jamacian bob-sled at this point. The whole thing will be one day summed up with, ‘what were they thinking?’
~
A massive Earthquake destroyed Haiti. That’s not hyperbole. A country has been blank-slated. One thinks of Kobe, and Iran, the Tsunami, other places which suffered devasting earthquakes in recent years. Yet those places had an infrastructure that could absorb the devastation. Haiti, it was well known, was already a sociological diaster before this. The tsunami this earthquake has unleashed is that of North American white guilt. Pat Robertson says something dumb (as usual) and people get all self-righteous about it, which is kind of beside the point considering 100,000 people have died. That number is too large to make sense of.
I’m not sure if Haiti has just become the defining event of the decade (ala a day in September 2001), or just another tradgedy that will be off the radar in six months. It is especially reminiscent of the Tsunami, coming three weeks after its fifth aniversary. For televsisual North America, it’s another go on the tradgedy-o-round, and people for whom budgets are already tight due to the economic situation (brought on by overpaid, ignorant fools) are now expected to donate out of survivor’s guilt.
~
Jay Leno, an overpaid throwback to the 20th Century (television and a car collection?) is given back his late night television show because the only people watching tv are those who were already adult in the late 20th Century. Conan O’Brien, who makes the Internet Generation laugh, is shafted in the process. I just hope this means Conan goes to HBO or something and can start using swears in his humor.
~
Some girl from Los Angeles who’s name means Monday in German had plastic surgery, which is too bad because she was quite attractive. Now she’s just generic. Why do hot girls always seek to erase the very unique qualities that make them hot? That, of course, is a rhetorical question, because we all know the answer is they’re spoiled idiots.
Actually, to answer that rhetoric: I always feel like the answer is better schooling, actually. I imagine a soceity where education means enabling talent and predisposition, teaching the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of human history (that includes things like mathematics, meditation, exercise …). The goal of education should be to stretch the minds and imaginations of children as far as they can be stretched, to borrow the phrasing of someone I read once.
Instead we have a dehumanizing education system which enables and encourages mediocrity. So potentially beautiful people are ruined, their superficiality becoming something they cling to, and develop their identities around their physique instead of growing mentally (and changing thus). Through surgery they change their appearance, thereby supposedly changing their personality. Everyone an Easter Egg, an empty shell, and everyone changing the decoration, every few years.
Jan 13, 2009 — Remember Katrina and Rita? Those hurricanes that prompted a government response which made most of us ashamed to be American? I am certain that the global response to a devastation far worse, as a result of the Port Au Prince quake, will make Bush's Follies look like a well-oiled machine. Not only is the situation on the ground worse; the governments that might send massive aid are financial and economic basket cases. With the death toll already circling 200,000, and almost all critical infrastructure destroyed, the effort needed would have broken most governments before the collapse. It would take a Marshall Plan. So fuggedboudit. The UN can't help much either. No one can. There will be so many stories of courage, heroism, sacrifice and love to arise from this tragedy. At some point I can just see good souls all over the Gulf with private boats trying to do what they can. Take some fresh water and medical supplies in. Maybe pull a few out before anarchy and disease consume everything. It reminds me of a line Jeff Bridges once spoke: "You human beings are at your best when things are worst." — That is exactly what must change in us.
We will see lots of footage of aid flights and stories about how other nations are rushing to assist. But it will not be possible to hide the fact for long that Haiti is becoming — or has become — a mass grave. Haiti is a stark, cold, and unforgiving metaphor for what we all face… all to soon. We need to listen to and acknowledge the suffering of the Haitian people so that someone might acknowledge ours when the time comes. What happens in Haiti needs to be watched cosely and learned from by those with the stomach for it. The journalist in me wants to be there, right in it.
Our message is spreading quickly. Every day I receive maybe 10 to 15 friend requests on Facebook from all over the world from people who have just seen "Collapse". Almost all say something like, "I thought I was the only one who felt this way." — almost all are in their twenties. I spend as much time as I can with many to share a few words and bond across a cyberspace that now hums with a lonely echo. An awakening is taking place. Collapse has been invited to the Berlin International Film Festival and I've heard that it is going to be mentioned in one of the largest U.S. weekly news mags this week. Collapse has announced many new theatrical openings around the country and finally in some foreign cities. The awakening has started before the panic that will come… if not over Haiti then over what's coming this year. The faster we reach people, the less damage will be caused by the panic. It is my prayer that the panic can be averted, even if loss of life cannot. There is still time.
MCR
As Leonardo Maugeri, a senior executive at Italian oil major ENI (E), puts it: “There will be enough oil for at least 100 years.” Many analysts and industry executives have little doubt that there’s plenty of oil in the ground. “Only about 32% of the oil [in reserves] is produced,” says Val Brock, Shell’s head of business development for enhanced oil recovery. Shell estimates 300 billion barrels and maybe more might be squeezed out of existing fields, much of it once thought beyond retrieval. Peter Jackson, IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates’ London-based senior director for oil industry activity, has reviewed data from the world’s biggest fields. His conclusion: 60% of their reserves remain available. […] The price spike of 2008 may lead to similar results. Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, an environmental group, notes that the U.S. car fleet shrank by 4 million in 2009, thanks to scrapping and reduced sales. He expects that shrinkage to continue, reducing the U.S. fleet by 25 million cars by 2020. He also sees a cultural change occurring in which more people, especially the young, don’t see owning a car as a necessity. “We are now looking at something new, a shift in the way people think about automobiles,” he says. “That means less oil use.”
U.S. oil consumption dropped by 9% over the last two years. The recession certainly hurt demand, but many analysts think oil use in the West has peaked and will not rebound to previous levels. The Energy Dept. sees the consumption of oil-based fuel in the U.S. flattening out in the coming decades. “Are people going to use energy differently in the next [growth] phase?” asks Goran Trapp, head of global oil trading at Morgan Stanley in London. “If so, the people forecasting [strong] demand increases are going to be surprised.”
// Contrast this with a report by Terry Macalister, from 9 November 2009:
The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. […] But as far back as 2004 there have been people making similar warnings. Colin Campbell, a former executive with Total of France told a conference: “If the real [oil reserve] figures were to come out there would be panic on the stock markets … in the end that would suit no one.”
I mean, I read the dust-jacket blurb today and understood it instantly, which is kind of bad for a 688 page book. Nevertheless, I feel like it's probably a must-read, and it would be nice if this was what everyone was talking about at the beginning of this decade, rather than all that world-is-flat and we're-all-going-to-die-for-xx-reason shit we've subjected to for the past ten years.
To quote myself, from December 2008, during the first prorogation, with added emphasis today. With The Economist weighing in, (ici et ici) it's clear that our international reputation has begun to be damaged.
There's also a joke which seems apt, considering the circumstances. "Did you hear about the Canadians who won gold medals at the Olympics? They had them bronzed."
The reason the Conservatives are currently dominant despite the weakness of their official numbers is because they don’t give a fuck about anyone’s feelings, and one can hope that this works out to our collective advantage when they draw the knives for Harper’s back. If not, as Adam Radwanski pointed out, we’re in even bigger trouble than we thought, writing: “If Conservatives are not at least seriously discussing the replacement of Stephen Harper before Parliament returns on Jan 26, he truly has succeeded in creating a cult of personality’. The last thing we need is a Maurice Duplessis holding this country back from the wonder of the 21st Century, as that dictator of Quebec did in the 1950s. However once he died the resulting Quiet Revolution rushed the province from the 19th into the 20th Century within a decade, and tried to follow-through by upgrading itself into a nation-state.
If Harper manages to enforce a nightmare of feel-good 20C Reagan-Thatcher bullshit on us while the US resurrects itself from its social catastrophe, and Europe continues to set an example for what a mostly enlightened society could be, the end result will probably be a dramatic national révolution tranquille in twenty years, by which time the rest of the world will be used to thinking of us as just another one of those third world countries of squandered potential ruled by an idiot. The talent of this country will continue to apply for US-work visas to escape the ignorance of this place. Eventually, Canada could come to resemble the southern United States, too ignorant and stupid to understand the hell we exemplify to others.
I'm guessing that johnnyblog is a Conservative operative. A series of comments on Rick Mercer's piece reprinted in the Globe & Mail, which appeared originally on his blog.
This is how the Conservatives operate … try to dominate and set the agenda of the conversation by belittling the opposing view through being the loudest assholes in the room. Out of politeness we keep our mouth shut and let them bluster like fools when we should be telling them to fuck right off, or openly mocking them.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper will prorogue Parliament Wednesday for a two-month break.
The House of Commons and the Senate will come back in March, after the Vancouver Olympics, for a Speech from the Throne and a budget. The move will have the effect of stalling all bills currently in Parliament, including crime bills that the government had said were being delayed by the opposition.
A post-Olympic return would also shut down government committees, which would stop MPs from pursuing the Afghan detainee controversy until Parliament returned.
Question: In what other democracy is it permissible for the government of the day to hide from the legislature for months at a time? To ignore explicit parliamentary votes demanding the production of documents? To stonewall independent inquiries? Perhaps the rules allow it elsewhere, but is it the practice? Does convention not still forbid it? Is it not viewed in other countries as dictatorial behaviour, and therefore, you know … not done?
So, rather than submit himself to the inquiries of elected parliamentarians, the King will dismiss Parliament, in the grand tradition of kings past. The question is: what will Parliament do now? If historical precedent is any guide, it should meet anyway. Let those MPs who wish to do the people’s business convene on the usual timetable, and let those with other loyalties disport themselves as they may.
If MPs are barred at the doors to Parliament — and wouldn’t that be an interesting scene — let them meet somewhere else. A tennis court would do nicely.
"Gambetta and Hertog write about a particular mindset among engineers that disdains ambiguity and compromise. They might be more passionate about bringing order to their society, and see the rigid, religious law put forward in radical Islam as the best way of achieving those goals. In online postings, Abdulmutallab expressed concern over the conflict between his secular lifestyle and more extreme religious views. "How should one put the balance right?" he wrote."
"Expect to hear a lot about the fact that America's Transportation Security Administration is currently leaderless. Talking Points Memo says that's because Sen. Jim DeMint, a conservative Republican from South Carolina, has blocked the confirmation of a prospective head for the agency. Mr DeMint says he's blocking the confirmation because the nominee won't say whether or not he will support TSA screeners' attempts to form a union. In any case, Democrats plan to force a vote on the issue when members of Congress return to Washington next month."
"For the last thirty years, in much of the English-speaking world (though less so in continental Europe and elsewhere), when asking ourselves whether we support a proposal or initiative, we have not asked, is it good or bad? Instead we inquire: Is it efficient? Is it productive? Would it benefit gross domestic product? Will it contribute to growth? This propensity to avoid moral considerations, to restrict ourselves to issues of profit and loss—economic questions in the narrowest sense—is not an instinctive human condition. It is an acquired taste. Consider the 1996 'Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act' (a more Orwellian title would be hard to conceive), the Clinton-era legislation that sought to gut welfare provision here in the US. The terms of this act should put us in mind of another act, passed in England nearly two centuries ago: the New Poor Law of 1834. The provisions of the New Poor Law are familiar to us, thanks to Charles Dickens's depiction of its workings in Oliver Twist. When Noah Claypole famously sneers at little Oliver, calling him 'Work'us' ('Workhouse'), he is implying, for 1838, precisely what we convey today when we speak disparagingly of 'welfare queens.' The New Poor Law was an outrage, forcing the indigent and the unemployed to choose between work at any wage, however low, and the humiliation of the workhouse. Here and in most other forms of nineteenth-century public assistance (still thought of and described as "charity"), the level of aid and support was calibrated so as to be less appealing than the worst available alternative. This system drew on classical economic theories that denied the very possibility of unemployment in an efficient market: if wages fell low enough and there was no attractive alternative to work, everyone would find a job. For the next 150 years, reformers strove to replace such demeaning practices. In due course, the New Poor Law and its foreign analogues were succeeded by the public provision of assistance as a matter of right. Workless citizens were no longer deemed any the less deserving for that; they were not penalized for their condition nor were implicit aspersions cast upon their good standing as members of society. More than anything else, the welfare states of the mid-twentieth century established the profound impropriety of defining civic status as a function of economic participation. In the contemporary United States, at a time of growing unemployment, a jobless man or woman is not a full member of the community. In order to receive even the exiguous welfare payments available, they must first have sought and, where applicable, accepted employment at whatever wage is on offer, however low the pay and distasteful the work. Only then are they entitled to the consideration and assistance of their fellow citizens. […] Conversely, it is not humiliating to be on the receiving end of a right. If you are entitled to unemployment payments, pension, disability, municipal housing, or any other publicly furnished assistance as of right—without anyone investigating to determine whether you have sunk low enough to 'deserve' help—then you will not be embarrassed to accept it. However, such universal rights and entitlements are expensive. But what if we treated humiliation itself as a cost, a charge to society? What if we decided to 'quantify' the harm done when people are shamed by their fellow citizens before receiving the mere necessities of life? In other words, what if we factored into our estimates of productivity, efficiency, or well-being the difference between a humiliating handout and a benefit as of right? We might conclude that the provision of universal social services, public health insurance, or subsidized public transportation was actually a cost-effective way to achieve our common objectives. Such an exercise is inherently contentious: How do we quantify 'humiliation'? What is the measurable cost of depriving isolated citizens of access to metropolitan resources? How much are we willing to pay for a good society? Unclear. But unless we ask such questions, how can we hope to devise answers? […] The left, to be quite blunt about it, has something to conserve. It is the right that has inherited the ambitious modernist urge to destroy and innovate in the name of a universal project. Social democrats, characteristically modest in style and ambition, need to speak more assertively of past gains. The rise of the social service state, the century-long construction of a public sector whose goods and services illustrate and promote our collective identity and common purposes, the institution of welfare as a matter of right and its provision as a social duty: these were no mean accomplishments."
"Today, U.S. colleges and universities have increasingly become places where young people are merely acquiring degree credentials — badges of compliance for corporate employers — in exchange for learning to accept bureaucratic domination and enslaving debt. […] Today, increasing numbers of people in the U.S. who do not comply with authority are being diagnosed with mental illnesses and medicated with psychiatric drugs that make them less pained about their boredom, resentments, and other negative emotions, thus rendering them more compliant and manageable. Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is an increasingly popular diagnosis for children and teenagers. The official symptoms of ODD include, 'often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules," and "often argues with adults.' An even more common reaction to oppressive authorities than the overt defiance of ODD is some type of passive defiance — for example, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Studies show that virtually all children diagnosed with ADHD will pay attention to activities that they actually enjoy or that they have chosen. In other words, when ADHD-labeled kids are having a good time and in control, the 'disease' goes away. When human beings feel too terrified and broken to actively protest, they may stage a 'passive-aggressive revolution' by simply getting depressed, staying drunk, and not doing anything — this is one reason why the Soviet empire crumbled. However, the diseasing/medicalizing of rebellion and drug "treatments" have weakened the power of even this passive-aggressive revolution. Television: In his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), Jerry Mander (after reviewing totalitarian critics such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Jacques Ellul, and Ivan Illich) compiled a list of the 'Eight Ideal Conditions for the Flowering of Autocracy'. Mander claimed that television helps create all eight conditions for breaking a population. Television, he explained, (1) occupies people so that they don't know themselves — and what a human being is; (2) separates people from one another; (3) creates sensory deprivation; (4) occupies the mind and fills the brain with prearranged experience and thought; (5) encourages drug use to dampen dissatisfaction (while TV itself produces a drug-like effect, this was compounded in 1997 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration relaxing the rules of prescription-drug advertising); (6) centralizes knowledge and information; (7) eliminates or "museumize" other cultures to eliminate comparisons; and (8) redefines happiness and the meaning of life.
“In a world filled with overwhelming selfishness, schadenfreude and cruelty, why is there still empathy, sympathy and kindness? There must be some evolutionary advantage, otherwise those traits would have long since vanished. And yet we are so often squeamish when faced with acts of kindness, as if they were soft-headed embarrassments and signs of weakness. Or worse: mere narcissism and self-interest masquerading as something else.”
WTF? What has been written here is psychopathic. The implication being that it is advantageous to be ‘selfish & cruel’, especially ‘genetically speaking’ – which is another way of saying the best way to reproduce is through rape. The author (Kenneth Kidd) seems oblivious to the fact that humans are social creatures, and that we appreciate those who show us kindness. I mean, reproduction does mostly occur between people who like each other at the time, does it not? I’ll grant his position is merely one of argument, and that he’s not actually as psychopathic as all this is. However ….
He uses the cat (quoted below), and the quoted above, as a build up to stating that humans are social creatures. But he doesn’t take that as a given, rather, he quotes sources. In other words, ‘research suggests’ that humans are social creatures, but not movie nights, dating, pub rounds with friends, etc.
There’s no reason at all for the traits of kindness and empathy to have vanished, and every reason for them to have coexisted. What should make us squeamish is that such thoughts could be expressed at all in such a manner. It takes for granted that our society is cruel, as if this is a norm, rather than the aberration. A society of ‘overwhelming selfishness, schadenfreude and cruelty’ is a failed society, and it used to be termed barbaric.
Nowadays we tend to look more kindly on barbarism, obviously.
Further on in the article, he states:
“Are we naturally kind or selfish egoists at heart?
Much flows from how you answer that question, how, on balance, you view human nature.
Consider, for instance, the Christian tale of the Good Samaritan who helps out an injured Israelite, someone he doesn’t know, even though Samaritans and Israelites are long-standing enemies.
This is arguably the pre-eminent tale of Christian kindness. It seems to imply that empathy, compassion and caritas, or brotherly love, are natural human dispositions. But then, as Phillips and Taylor note, St. Augustine happened along with a profoundly different view. Rather than being native to humans, caritas was deemed to be divine, bestowed by God.
Without God, there could be no kindness or other virtue, because we’d lost the possibility of being naturally good with the expulsion from Eden.”
This to me seems entirely idiotic. (An aside dear reader: I hope you and I see eye to eye, and that you are as dumbfounded as I am. If not, I am left to explain, as I am, why this is shite. But I also feel the need to explain regardless, so that there’s some documentation in future databases that not all hearts had been so eclipsed in our time).
It is true that the Romans were cruel; and that there was much cruelty in the past. This suggests the so called ‘genetic’ line of thought which equates optimal reproduction with rape. It was an accomplishment of Christianity (which may have its roots in Buddhism) and a legacy which we used to take for granted (before we once again became blasé about torture) that Western society became more self-consciously gentle, in its abandonment of slavery, torture, and tyrannical government.
Christian civilization, remembering the torture of the forums, wrote their history to make the Romans cruel and inhumane. However, Christ’s story of a stranger helping anoher did not need academic analysis to be made clear to its first hearers; it was in a challenge to hardened hearts, one that Palestinian supporters aim toward Israelis today – treat everyone as you would like to be treated and expand your notion of family to include all, as we are all children of God. Though the Samaritan and Israeli were traditionally enemies, they transcended their tribalism to be brothers of a species. This was clear two thousand years ago and was written down for that reason: It was a call for early Christians to recognize one another as members of a family of God.
The soul hungers to be treated with respect and kindness, and as such this is quenching a thirst that has gotten used to the dryness of stone hearts. Augustine, a repentant sinner, found his source of kindness in the Church, and he did not know what we know about the history of humanity: that it did not begin 4000 years ago in a garden. Augustine layered that story with a lot of metaphoric meaning, but he also was incredulous to the idea that salvation could happen without God because he himself had been a great sinner and could not understand his transformation into an asexual hermit without projecting that into this myth. Which is to say that Augustine universalized his biography and considered his early years of sinfulness to be an example of normal human life without God.
With that clear, let’s leave Augustine out of 21st Century discussions shall we?
Kidd’s rhetorical question appropriately answered would tell us that humans are complicated, not simple, and that we have the capacity to be both kind and cruel. That we are naturally both kind and egotists, but that we are taught to exagerate our egotism. O
ur education system – our society – encourages the later; it rewards us when we are cruel. This talk of ‘squeamishness’ is an example of how it discourages kindness. We could have a society of beautiful gentle people, but we’d have to treat our children better and forgo all this bullshit with regard to grades, sports and celebrity, and really come down hard on them when they mock fat & ugly people. An example of the season: we might stop purposefully decieving them about Santa Claus, only to chalk up their later disapointment in learning the truth as a rite of passage.
Instead we have a society that values ignorance and hatred, that glorifies militaristic discipline as honourable, assigns undue virtue to the symmetrical, and that sorts its citizens into “winners” and “losers”.
The examples Kidd uses to argue for kindness as an achievement of civilization (rather than a repression) come from the rise of the militaristic nation state: after Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan (the need to police the encouraged cruelty of a cruel society) he writes “Francis Hutcheson, David Hume and Adam Smith — were all fighting to restore kindness and compassion as something natural to the species.” Notice that he used the word fighting to describe their work.
To summarize my point here: people are both kind and cruel: crueler with strangers than they are with family. Throughout the West’s recorded history, there was a tendency toward authoritarian governance which encouraged a dog-eat-dog model. Christianity was revolutionary in that it encouraged the kinder side of human nature (until it too became authoritarian). The Western model of the nation-state is militaristic, further encouraging the unkind, and now we’ve had four hundred years of that nonsense, so that it seems “natural” that the unkind is the norm, whereas the empathic is the un-evolutionary aberration. In a “world filled with overwhelming selfishness, schadenfreude and cruelty” there’s not enough discouragement of this behaviour in favor of more gentle minds.
“[Oscar the cat] makes regular rounds, entering each room to smell and look over the patients. If all is more or less well, the white-breasted tabby moves on to the next room. If he instead snuggles up to a patient, purring and nuzzling, the nurses immediately start calling relatives. Oscar won’t leave until the patient has breathed his or her last.
Now, the intriguing question is not so much how Oscar can make such accurate prognoses, but why he lingers, holds this vigil. Is Oscar comforting himself or the patient? If he were upset, sensing a bad situation, wouldn’t Oscar be better off elsewhere, getting petted? And if he’s not upset, why is Oscar so generous, receiving nothing in return? Oscar not only appears to feel empathy, but to act on it, to show kindness.”
It doesn’t surprise me at all that a cat would behave in the way described. What I find surprising is that one feels the need to explain it at all, and to seek a selfish explanation for it at that.
Apple's concept video projecting how computers might be in twenty years: our time. To illustrate a professor at work, they imagined he was studying the greenhouse effect.
I also love this video for the way it documents the late '80s idea of academics: old dark wood and smarmy arrogance.
Having done temp work for three years, I can tell you that jobs are usually only about learning a set of actions. That is, they teach you the role and the routine, and if you stay long enough, eventually you might become conscious of what exactly it is you’re doing. Permanent staff with positions of authority have that consciousness – they understand what they are doing, but for many others it’s very much about following the routine.
In this manner, work is separated from achievement, and form is separated from content. The form is what you’re taught in your first day or week. The content is optional. In fact you may actually be discouraged from asking why you are doing such-and-such, that is, seeking out the content of your actions.
John Ralston Saul, writing in his 2008 book A Fair Country states
Increasingly our elites attempt to slip into the vacuum behind other people’s actions. Worse still, they attempt to imitate the surface appearance, not the reality, or other people’s actions. (p226)
This echoes his dissection of the separation of form from content in 1994’s Doubters Companion (‘White Bread’):
White Bread Post-modern urban individuals, who spend their days in offices, have taken to insisting that she or he is primarily a physical being equipped with the muscles of a work-horse and the clothes of a cowboy. The rejection of white bread in favor of loaves compacted with the sort of coarse, scarcely ground grains once consumed solely by the poor follows quite naturally.
White bread is the sophisticated product of a civilization taken to its ideological conclusion: essential goods originally limited by their use in daily life have been continually refined until all utility has been removed. Utility is vulgar. In this particular case, nutrition and fibre were the principal enemies of progress. With the disappearance of utility what remains is form, the highest quality of high civilizations.
And whenever form presides, it replaces ordinary content with logic and artifice. The North American loaf may be tasteless but remains eternally fresh thanks to the efficient use of chemicals. The French baguette turns into solidified sawdust within two hours of being baked, which creates the social excitement of having to eat it the moment it comes out of the oven. The Italians have introduced an intriguing mixture of tastes – hands towels on the inside and cardboard in the crust. The Spanish managed to give the impression of having replaced natural fibre with baked sand. There are dozens of other variations. The Greek. The Dutch. Even the world of international hotels has developed its own white roll.
In each case, to refine flour beyond utility is to become refined. This phenomenon is by no means limited to bread or even food. Our society is filled with success stories of high culture, from men’s ties to women’s shoes.
In his entry on Property Development, the last two definitions contain the same theme:
6. The managers who run the large deposit banks have a taste for big buildings. They have wasted large amounts of capital by constructing remarkable headquarter buildings and imitative towers in every financial centre around the world. The only function of these palaces is to warehouse a non-productive managerial class.
7.Every society needs housing and work space. A civilization mindful of its future makes sure that everyone has a bit of property. An evolved civilization attempt to ensure that both private and public buildings are of the highest possible quality. Architecture at this level is an ethical expression of the society at large. The sign today we are merely involved in speculation is that our buildings relate less and less to any primary use or need.
Inasmuch that postmodernism began as an architectural concept, I find Fredric Jameson’s suggestion (in his 1992 Postmodernism architecture chapter) that the architecture of the period seemed to be designed to be photographed relevant. Along with film, this enabled the conceptualization of form away from content. In short, we all began to perceive ourselves as actors within the movie of our lives. So Shakespeare’s ‘all the world’s a stage’ became for us an article of secular faith.
And from this follows the idea that we enact roles, and thus only need to be taught how to act the role. How to act the role of consumer, office worker, smoker, drinker, seducer … all lessons learned from the role-modeling provided by actors enacting roles with fashionable haircuts and fashionable clothes in movies and television. So, after almost sixty years of television, we all know how to embody stereotypes if we so chose. This is most remarkable in terms of music – the folksy crooner who dresses according to what Bob Dylan wore in the 1960s, the punk dressing according to late 1970s photographs, and of course the vast plaid marketing campaign that was Grunge.
Science-fiction has been the avant garde of industrial design since the 1939 World’s Fair, if not earlier. It has been a medium to market strange ideas (aliens from outer space, our minds being computer generated delusions), to forewarn of us of potential dangers (the computers take over, the robots nuke us), but through the pragmatics of using experimental design ideas to build unfamiliar worlds, it serves as both a promotional vehicle and fertilizer of new markets. Science fiction envisioned how computers might be used, which in turn taught us how we might be able to use them, which in turn inspired engineers to make them that way, which led to us using them the way we do. A video-phone in late 20th Century science-fiction television and movies becomes early 21st Century Skype.
While the idea of a ‘videophone’ is both old-fashioned and going nowhere as a device, ‘Skyping’ is alive and well. We are living with ‘videophone’ technology but it is just is not being mediated by landline telephones that sit on our desks; instead it is being mediated by our computers. Further, the ubiquity of cellphones means that there’s currently no market for ‘video phone booths’ as depicted in 1968’s 2001:A Space Odyssey when Dr. Haywood calls his daughter from the space station.
Or the scene in Blade Runner, when Deckard called Rachel at the bar. This scene defines the concept of the ‘videophone’ that I grew up with. In the context of 1982, this is a video-phone call.
In 1989’s Back to the Future II, Marty gets an AT&T mediated video-call from his colleague Needles (played by Red Hot Chilli Pepper’s bassist Flea) on his flat-screen television. Interestingly, the flat screen tv seems the only thing that came true from that projection twenty years ago. (Since 1989, we have not developed flying cars nor a highway system for them, nor are we using fusion reactors for our vehicles, and hoverboards still aren’t happening. Nor do we have holographic cinema billboards.)
Back to the Future II was set in 2015, and imagined the fax machine would have much more prominence that it attained, replaced by computers and heldhelds with their killer-app, email. Blade Runner was set it a post-ecocidal (if not post-apocalyptic) Los Angeles of 2019, where no one had cellphones and CRT televisions printed out Polaroids of their screen-capture.
One thing of note is that all video-phone scenes filmed in the 20th Century included ‘end credits’:
2001
Blade Runner
Back to the Future
(AT&T of course is the network that runs the (20th Century futuristic) iPhone in the United States.)
With regard to video-phones, it is not inconceivable to me now that by 2019, (that is, within ten years) you could have novelty Skype booths set up in bar, and for a few coins (“$1.25”) or a credit card swipe, make video-calls to girls you just met and invite them out for a drink. Deckard’s phone call may not being as unrealistic as it still seems.
In the meantime, we are already carrying video-phones in our pocket, allowing us such activities as described in this song by Beyonce:
"The teens are destined to be the decade in which we'll finally stop wearing jeans. It'll be a slow sputtering process, but why wait? Ban the jean from your wardrobe starting January 1st by this simple rule: each time you find yourself reaching for jeans, reach for hose instead". – Momus
This resonated for me since it's been a couple of years now that I've seen girls forgoing pants in favor of tights only. And given how tight skinny-jeans are, they could be replaced by leggings without being that noticeable.
From the 20-26 November issue of The Guardian Weekly:
UN meets homeless victims of American property dream | Chris McGreal "Deanne Weakly was among the first to the microphone. The 51-year-old estate agent told how a couple of years ago she was pulling in $80,000 (£48,000) a year from commissions selling homes in LA's booming property market. When the bottom fell out of the business with the foreclosure crisis, she lost her own house and ended up living on the streets in a city with more homeless than any other in America. She was sexually assaulted, harassed by the police and in despair. She turned to the city and California state governments for help. "No one wanted to listen. They blame you for being homeless in the first place," she said. […] Rolnik had waited more than a year to tour cities across the US to prepare a report for the UN's human rights council on America's deepening housing crisis following the subprime mortgage debacle. UN special rapporteurs are more often found investigating human rights in Sudan and Burundi or abuses of the Israeli occupation than exposing the underbelly of the American dream. George Bush's administration blocked her visit, finding itself in the company of Cuba, Burma and North Korea in blocking a special rapporteur. [emp. mine] "I was asking for almost a year before I as allowed in," Rolnik said. When Barack Obama came to power she was welcomed to range across America talking to those who have lived on the streets for years and the newly homeless forced out by the foreclosure crisis. Rolnik, a Brazilian urban planner and architect, said administration officials were genuinely interested in what she might find, if not embracing of her raison d'etre that everyone is entitled to a decent home. […] A Spanish-speaking veteran of the Korean war steps up. He is the angriest of the lot. He is not a communist, he says, but in Cuba nobody goes homeless. He fought for America and now he is left to live on the streets.
Furore over Prix Goncourt winner shows French could use more egalite | Lizzy Davies [Marie Ndiaye moved to Berlin in 2007 "largely because of Sarkozy"…] "…she said that France under the current president was languishing in a 'hateful' atmosphere of tough security and 'vulgarity'. 'I find this France monstrous,' she told culture magazine Les Inrockuptibles. […] Is the president, who was elected after a campaign in which he urged people to 'love or leave' the country, guilty of pursuing an agenda that is “monstrous” to perceived “outsiders”? Or is Ndiaye merely, as Sarkozy’s supporters claim, conforming to a “Pavlovian” form of opposition that has become the norm among leftwing French intellectuals? Ever since his days as interior minister, Sarkozy has made his name through an uncompromising stance on immigration and integration. He provoked uproar in 2005 by referring to youths in the neglected, multiracial suburbs as “scum”, and has zealously imposed a strategy of expulsion quotas. It is this side of present day France – its sans papiers, or undocumented workers, its forced returns to war-torn Afghanistan, its reluctance to tackle the discrimination endemic in society – that is the basis of many people’s dislike of Sarkozy.
Can Niner generation do the right thing now? | Matthew Ryder "Those impressionable twentysomethings are today's influential fortysomethings and they carry the legacy with them. No Logo author Naomi Klein credits those years as the period that turned her student interests towards global issues. Current UK politicians, such as David Miliband and David Cameron, fresh out of university, opted not for the yuppie jobs that the 80s had offered, preferring to enter the loftier world of political research. Across the Atlantic, Sergey Brin claims that it was a trip to the dissolving Soviet Union that "awakened his childhood fear of authority" and influenced the culture of the famously informal company he started eight years later – Google. And it was at this time that a half-Kenyan African-American made history by becoming an editor of Harvard Law Reviewand decided to write a book. That summer, he took Michelle Robinson on their first date to see a quintessentially Niner movie – Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. Last year, Jeff Gordinier published X Saves the World. According to him, the great achievement of the post baby-boomer generation was that it "stopped the world from sucking". Maybe so. But if Niners are really going to make the difference that they believed they would, they will have to do more. And they will be challenged on the very things that once made them different. This is already happening with regard to violence and conflict. At the key moment of their development, Niners witnessed dramatic political change occurring without bloodshed. Television pictures had become a more effective revolutionary tool than an AK-47. That influenced the Niner outlook in a way that was a genuine break from the past. Previously, baby-boomers from George Bush to Osama bin Laden seemed to believe that you had to fight for what you wanted – and kill or be killed if necessary. But Niners questioned the need to pay that price."
Yesterday at the bookstore I browsed through Avatar: An activist survival guide, and saw some screencaps depicting the future Earth. The idea is that by that time, Earth had become used up and was decaying. There's a pic of an overflowing dumpster to convey this.
So, when I go see Avatar next month, I'l be there not only for the 3-D & hovering mountains, but to glimpse the mid-22nd Century.
Let’s address your famous “Blood in the streets” comment to The Globe and Mail last February. Still feel that way?
I wasn’t saying there would be blood in the streets of Toronto, remember. My first point was that the crisis would likely destabilize about a dozen relatively weak states and that this ‘axis of upheaval’ would become more violent. That’s happening already – just look at the escalation of violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the signs of a deterioration of security in Iraq, not to mention Somalia.
The other point I had in mind was that, after previous big financial crises, insecure governments have been tempted to rattle sabres for the sake of promoting their own domestic legitimacy. My prime suspect here is Russia, which of all the big powers stands to gain the most from geopolitical instability, since [for example] a major attack on Iranian nuclear installations would double the price of oil and greatly enrich the denizens of the Kremlin. The probability of such a war is currently being underestimated by many people.
Context: By the late 22nd Century (2170s) the 21st Century is of course a well understood historical epoch. Cassia Mujamadar, in an interview with the Thinker Alice, is required to narrate this history.
I cautiously threaded my way through a brief history, conscious of Alice’s immense memory, and my necessarily simple-appraisal of a complex subject.
By the end of the 20th Century, international corporations had as much influence in Earth’s affairs as governments. Earth was undergoing its first dataflow revolution; information had become as important as raw materials and manufacturing potential. By mid-21, nanotechnology factories were inexpensive; nano recyclers could provide raw materials from garbage; data and design reigned supreme.
The fiction of separate nations and government control was maintained, but increasingly, political decisions were made on the basis of economic benefit, not national pride. Wars declined, the labour market fluctuated widely as developing countries joined in – exacerbated by nano and other forms of automation – and through most of the dataflow world a class of therapied, superfit workers arose, highly skilled and self-confident professionals who demanded an equal say with corporate boards.
In the early teens of twenty-one, new
techniques of effective psychological therapy began to transform Earth culture and politics. Therapied individuals, as a new mental rather than economic class, behaved differently. Beyond the expected reduction in extreme and destructive behaviors, the therapied proved more facile and adaptable, effectively more intelligent and therefore more skeptical. They evaluated political, philosophical, and religious claims according to their own standards of evidence. They were not “true believers.” Nevertheless, they worked with others – even the untherapied – easily and efficiently. The slogan of those who advocated therapy was, “A sane society is a polite society”.
With the economic unification of most nations by 2070, pressure on the untherapied to remove the kinks and dysfunctions of nature and nurture became almost unbearable. Those with inadequate psychological profiles found full employment more and more elusive.
By the end of twenty-one, the underclass of untherapied made up about half of he human race, yet created less than a tenth of the world economic product.
Nations, cultures, political groups, had to accommodate the therapied to survive. The changes were drastic, even cruel for some, but far less cruel than previous tides in history. As Alice reminded me, the result was not the death of political or religious organization, as some had anticipated – it was a rebirth of sorts. New, higher standards, philosophies, and religions developed.
As individuals changed, so did group behaviour change. At the same time, in a feedback relationship, the character of world commerce changed. At first, nations and major corporations tried to keep their old, separate privileges and independence. But by the last decades of twenty-one, international corporations, owned and directed by therapied labour and closely allied managers, controlled the world economy beneath a veneer of national democratic governments. Out of tradition – the accumulated mass of cultural wishful thinking – certain masques were maintained; but clear-seeing individuals and groups had no difficulty recognizing the obvious.
The worker-owned corporations recognized common economic spheres. Trade and taxation were regulated across borders, currencies standardized, credit nets extended worldwide. Economics became politics. The new reality was formalized in the supra-national alliances.
GEWA – the Greater East-West Alliance – encompassed North America, most of Asia and Southeast Asia, India, and Pakistan. The Greater Southern Hemisphere Alliance, or GSHA – pronounced Jee-shah -absorbed Australia, South America, New Zealand, and most of Africa. Eurocon grew out of the European Economic Community, with the addition of the Baltic and Balkan States, Russia, and the Turkic Union.
Non-aligned countries were found mostly in the Middle East and North Africa, in nations that had slipped past both the industrial and dataflow revolutions.
By the beginning of the 22nd Century, many Earth governments forbade the untherapied to work in sensitive jobs, unless they qualified as high naturals – people who did not require therapy to meet the new standards. And the definition of a sensitive job became more and more inclusive.
There were only rudimentary Lunar and Martian settlements then, with stringent requirements for settlers; no places for misfits to hide. The romance of settling Mars proved so attractive that organizers could be extremely selective, rejecting even the therapied in favour of high naturals. They made up the bulk of settlers.
All settlements in the young Triple accepted therapy; most rejected mandatory therapy, the new tyranny of Earth. […]
I wondered what it had been like to live in a world of kinks and mental dust. I asked Alice how she visualized such a world.
“Very interesting, and far more dangerous,” she answered. “In a way there was a greater variety in human nature. Unfortunately, much of the variety was ineffective or destructive”.
“Have you been therapied?” I asked.
She laughed. “Many times. It is a routine function of a thinker to undergo analysis and therapy. Have you?” […] [p.121-124]
***
Alice described in words and graphic projection an Earth rapidly approaching 90% agreement in spot plebiscites – the integration of most individual goals. Dataflow would give individuals equal access to key information. Humans would be redefined as units within a greater thinking organism, the individuals being at once integrated -reaching agreement rapidly on solutions to common problems – but autonomous, accepting diversity of opinion and outlook.
I wanted to ask, What diversity? Everybody agrees! but Alice clearly had higher, mathematical definitions for which these words were mere approximations. The freedom to disagree would be strongly defended, on the grounds that even an integrated and informed society could make mistakes. However, rational people were more likely to choose direct and unclut
tered pathways to solutions. My Martian outlook cried out in protest. “Sounds like beehive political oppression,” I said.
“Perhaps, but remember, we are modeling a dataflow culture. Diversity and autonomy within political unity”.
“Smaller governments respond to individuals more efficiently. If everybody is unified, and you disagree with the status quo, but can’t escape to another system of government – is that really freedom?”
“In the world-wide culture of Earth, dataflow allows even large governments to respond quickly to the wishes of individuals. Communication between tiers of the organization is nearly instantaneous, and constant”.
I said that seemed a bit optimistic.
“Still, plebiscites are rapid. Dataflow encourages humans to be informed and to discuss problems. Augmented by their own enhancements, which will soon be as powerful as thinkers, every tier of the human organization acts as a massive processor for evaluating and determining world policy. Dataflow links individuals in parallel, so to speak. Eventually, human groups and thinkers could be so integrated as to be indistinguishable.
“At that point, such a society exceeds my modeling ability,” Alice concluded.
“Group mind,” I said sardonically. “I don’t want to be there when that happens.”
“It would be intriguing,” Alice said. “There would always remain the choice to simulate isolation as an individual.” [p.125-126]
***
2173-76 As we climbed through the cylinder, from the observation deck to the forward boom control walkway, Orianna told me about Earth fashions in clothes. “I’ve been out of it fro two years of course, ” she said, “But I like to think I’m still tuned. And I keep up with the vids”.
“So what are they wearing?” I asked.
“Formal and frilly. Greens and lace. Masks are out this year, except for floaters – projected masks with personal icons. Everybody’s off pattern projection, though. I liked pattern projection. You could wear almost nothing and still be discreet.”
“I can redo my wardrobe. I’ve brought enough raw cloth”.
Orianna made a face. “This year, expect fixed outfits, not nano-shaped. Old fabric is best. Tattered is wonderful. We’ll dig through the recycle shops. The shredbare look is very pos. Nano fake is beyond deviance.”
“Do I have to be in fashion?”
“Abso not! It’s drive to ignore. I switch from loner to slave every few months when I’m at home”.
“Terries will expect a red rabbit to be trop retro, no?”
Orianna smiled in friendly pity. “With that speech, you’re fulfilled already. Just listen to me, and you’ll slim the current.”
[…] “You still say ‘trop shink’ on Mars. That’s asbo neg, mid twenty-one. Sounds like Chaucer to Terries. If you don’t drive multilingual, and you’d better not try unless you wear an enhancement, best to speak straight-up early twenty-two. Everyone understands early twenty-two, unless you’re glued to French or German, or Dutch. They ridge on anything about twenty years old fro drive standard. Chinese love about eight kinds of Europidgin, but hit them in patrie, and they revert to twentyPutonghua. Russian – ”
“I’ll stick with English.”
“Still safe,” she said. [p. 155-156]
***
My Earth studies and conversations with Alice had left me with the impression of a flawless society, cool and efficient. But what I head in conversation with Orianna seemed to contradict this. There were great disagreements between Terries; nations within GEWA and its southern equivalent, GSHA, arguing endlessly, clashing morality systems as populations from one country traded places with others – a popular activity in late [21]70s. Some populations – Islam Fatimites, Green Idaho Christians, Mormons, Wahabi Saudis, and others – maintained stances that would be conservative even on Mars, clinging stubbornly to their cultural identities in the face of Earth-wide criticism.
Paleo-Christians in Green Idaho, practically a nation unto itself within the United States, had declared the rights of women to be less than those of men. Women fought to have their legal powers and rights reduced, despite opposition from all other states. On the reverse, in Fatamite Morocco and Egypt, men sought to glorify the image of women, whom they regarded as Chalices of Mohammad. In Greater Albion, formerly the United Kingdom, adult transforms who had regressed in apparent age to children were forbidden to hold political office, creating a furor I could hardly begin to untangle. And in Florida, defying regulations, some humans transformed themselves into shapes similar to marin mammals … And to pay for it, organized Sex in the Sea exhibits for tourists.
In language, the greatest craze of the [21]60s and [21]70s was invented language. Mixing old tongues, inventing new, mixing music and words electronically so that one could not tell where tones left off and phonemes began, creating visual languages that wrapped speakers in projected, complex symbols, all seemed designed to separate and not bring together. Yet enhancements were available that were tuned to the New Lingua Nets or NLN. Installing the NLN enhancements through nano surgery, one could understand virtually any language, natural or invented, and even think in their vernacular.
The visual languages seemed especially drive in the [21]70s. In GEWA alone, seventy visual languages had been created. The most popular was used by more than four and a half billion people.
I saw the picture on the cover of this morning’s National Post and recognized it as the so-called Leonardo drawing, since this was first reported last year.
The ‘news’ today is that the fingerprint ‘proves’ it is by Leonardo. I’ve studied and copied Leonardo drawings for half of my life, and I’m inclined to agree.
For that matter, I once saw a sculpted terra-cotta angel-head at the ROM and I thought that was probably by Leonardo too.
Hank Paulson (written by Craig Warner): “The West is fucked. We fucked it up. Oh, not just you and me [addressing John Mack, CEO of Morgan Stanley]. All of us. The West. It’s done, it’s over. You wanna call it a game? This is the game. You want your great-grandchildren speaking Chinese? The dollar is going to go. We had Rome, than Europe, than this. Us. This thing with cars and stereos and hoola hoops, and we screwed it all up. We ran through it all, this stuff. And we’ve come out on the other side where it’s …? I don’t know. Where is this place? Oh yeah. We have this one weekend, where maybe we can come up with something to hold it all together a little while longer.”
Ken Lewis, speaking with John Thain (wrtn by Craig Warner): “You see those pictures? They’re what I call real art. They would form the kind of exhibitions Bank of America might once have bankrolled. But now we find ourselves funding modern art as well. Art that can insult everything you and I have worked our whole lives to make sacred. Some of it to me looks like a road accident or a human being turned inside out. But those that matter, culturally I mean, like to stand back, arms folded, brows furrowed in just the right way, assessing the disturbed minds of psychopaths and getting from this a grim kind of satisfaction I freely admit remains unavailable to my own sensibilities. [Referring to the painting] The Judas Kiss. Exquisite isn’t it? But time has moved on Mr. Thain. The brand has to move on. The world is different now. We are currently financing an exhibition of paintings by Francis Bacon at the Tate Museum in London. Starts today. Do you know what his paintings look like?”
Thain: “I leave that sort of thing to my wife.”
Lewis: “Our name, Bank of America, is on that exhibition. History is happening Mr. Thain. Right here, this weekend. No one is going to blame you for keeping up with it.”
James Cromwell (l) plays Hank Paulson (r)
John Thain (l) played by Ben Daniels (r)
John Thain (l) and Ken Lewis (James Bolam) share a drink in fake life
John Thain (l) and Ken Lewis (r) shake hands in real life
Found in the notebook of ten years ago, dated 21 September 1999. Very much a draft, it was nonetheless written with potential publication in mind. I’ve reproduced some the draft-editing with the cross outs.
I recently watched an NFB film during the Atlantic Film Festival held in Halifax last September. And because it was the NFB, they had a two minute long (five minutes?) montage/ad showing various clips from their archives, to pat themselves on the back with the motto, ‘the images of our lives: NFB/ONF 1939-1999. Sixty years … etc. It reminded me of that the NFB is one of the few cultural products that Canada produces which is more obviously cultural. We are the country that claims to have a culture around shopping merchandise outlets (Eatons, The Bay) and a bunch of grown men chasing a rubber disk around on an artificially frozen slab of ice. (are Canadian examples of Can culture. This is not something to be proud of. It is just pathetic). My point is that what Canada claims to call its culture is really the experience of games and corporations. Anthropologically, there is a case for this, but it’s convoluted.
Now the Americans have a culture, there is no denying that. They have important painters and writers and musicians. And they have their Hollywood which claims to produce a cultural product (but in reality seem to produces 2 hour long for commercials they are commercials for the actors and the directors and the toy companies and in the at the turn of the century, the digital effects magicians).
Of course, the technically minded will remind us that the century doesn’t start until 2001, which illustrates why the technically minded’s reason and logic have never been too popular, because they ignore psychological realities. You have to reason it out, it’s not obvious, that the century starts in 2001. And the really stupid will say the same about the millennium, but it’s obvious that millennium are periods of a thousand years. I learned that three zeroes males a thousand. We didn’t call 999 two years before the millennium. Nineteen will change to twenty, ninety-nine will change to a thousand. One thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine will become two thousand. Roman numerals will be succinctly MM. And that doesn’t stand for Much Music – mille mille, a thousand thousand.
The NFB montage reminded me that film has been the dominant art form of this century. I would rather watch a movie based on a book than read the book, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Purists might think I’m lazy, that I’m some aesthetic chump, but why should I be embarrassed or ashamed to prefer a succint version of literature that I can enjoy visually?
Film images are so important to our turn of the century culture the NFB, Canada that they belong to everybody. Sure it says the NFB, it says Canada but it belongs to the world.
[This written as a callout]: Canada is an important source of important films that contribute to the world’s culture.
[Then this gets personal/reflective]: It occurred to me and then slipped from my grasp. What art was all about. It’s endlessly annoying to hear how art has been categorized, fit into a conceptual framework so that when an educated, supposedly sophisticated art person can give an answer when challenged by the question of certain exhibitions or curious crowd/patrons.
To me, the ability to give an answer to the question of what is art is means you in some ways missed the mark. I don’t think art is about questions and answers. I don’t think art is about meanings. I’ve come to appreciate that is which is [sic] dumbfounding, that which is wordless. An experience that is felt and not explained. It is a zen like think for me.
So, it is the information age / the space age / the computer age / etc etc. The multitude of names for a period in which we are living, exemplifies one of the stupidities of our post modern age times. “Agh, its too much! Too much …” etc etc. I suppose that type of condition, much cliched now, is the appeal of a dumbfounding art. Perhaps there are many of you that wish to understand, to grasp, who have believed that to know s the goal. But why? A painting is just another picture, a sculpture is just another lump to navigate around. I doubt that there have been such a large number of talentless hacks, that we, as audience members, and the witless appreciative hacks.
To make something that is different, to put something which engages the mind and the senses.
The importance of artistic things in our lives is numerous – the importance of being dressed, the TV shows we must watch, the song we must dance too.
The broad view is the existential one, that we will all die, and so who cares about anything. But death is not a reality for the majority of us. Most of us will not die tomorrow. And while we are young we are infused with the impossibility of death. We can afford to be bored. Art for us can be meaningless. Our young women can afford to listen to Celine Dion and Mariah Carey.
Art appears to be the biggest side show of all. Here in colonial North America, haunted by a past that as Canadians we are ignorant of, and haunted by the American history and the American culture, culture is a terrible thing, something to avoid by going shopping at Eaton’s, or by watching a hockey game. Psychological Realities
If art has value it is in teaching the dominance of psychological reality over the land of logic and reason. I certainly am not advocating stupidity, but to be conscious and balanced historically what has been called “a well rounded person”. We must balance the basic stupidity of reason with the knowledge of experience. Art is one of the best, if not the best and the if not the only appropriate medium/vehicle for the communication of experience.
I like my art to be fantastic and fanciful. Full of make believe. Fairy tales. I don’t like my art to be political and the pretentious. I don’t like people who judge and make enemies based on style. [The following is dated 22 September. Here I anticipate some of what I’ve encountered studying Christopher Alexander’s ideas about ‘centres’ and ‘wholeness’]
? Art is a manifestation of being. Art objects exist, but they are object or concepts that are dependent on other objects and concepts. They are structured from pre-existing structures. Art are a posteriori objects/concepts.
? Art objects contain souls. That is, there is within them an element that excites the subtleties sense of the subtle. Art objects, because they are fabricated from pre-existing structures, like life forms, carry within them elements of the auras of meaning from their ancestors. A collage is just not a coll glue and fragments, it’s a little bit of this magazine and this it’s sources.
[More personal/reflective]
What is the need to vocalize, to write this down? If I want an art that is free from conceptual frameworks and labels, why do I find myself penning an essay on art? Won’t the readers use this to formulate new soundbites on art?
An attempt to understand using the tools of understanding: that is an effect on language. The constructed object is a creature of being more eloquent and noble than a drop of sweat of a pile of excrement.
The sufferings today caused by a lack of dignity. To create if to dignify o
bjects and surfaces.
Human dreams in concrete form Wonders of the imagination Achievements of the imagination The Image nation
2001 – "That's the whole idea, you know. 150 years from today is not very far. [Yesterday on the set,] we were talking about what companies are going to be around. We were on location, and LeVar Burton's directing this week. He had on this Eddie Bauer get-up from head to toe, and we were talking, 'You know what? Eddie Bauer will be around in 150 years.' You can get your mind around 150 years from today. And there's some things you can say: 'Oh, no! Definitely will not be here in 150 years.'" – Scott Bakula, August 2001
The Holy Grail of the Unconscious By SARA CORBETT This is a story about a nearly 100-year-old book, bound in red leather, which has spent the last quarter century secreted away in a bank vault in Switzerland. The book is big and heavy and its spine is etched with gold letters that say “Liber Novus,” which is Latin for “New Book.” Its pages are made from thick cream-colored parchment and filled with paintings of otherworldly creatures and handwritten dialogues with gods and devils. If you didn’t know the book’s vintage, you might confuse it for a lost medieval tome.
Mad Men debuted in 2007, and corresponds to a fin-de-decade zeitgeist which may in turn provoke the next decade (2010-2020) to look more Modernist. Will Mad Men inspire people to begin dressing in similar ways? Already in the summer of 2009, Banana Republic had partnered with the show to sell similar fashion.
Correspondingly, when the Drake Hotel opened in Toronto in 2003, they adopted a Modernist design format (to reflect the owner’s idea that the Hotel should be a bohemian place that would inspire present day Beatniks), but by 2008, the Hotel was being depicted as if it existed on a lonely New York St during the 1950s and 60s.
Battlestar Galactica ran from 2003-2009, and depicted an essentially contemporary society (albeit one without spaceships and jump-drives). A spin-off series, Caprica, has been developed (it’s pilot premiered on DVD in 2009, the series itself in 2010), but set fifty years prior to the ‘contemporary’ Galactica series, uses costume design and other aspects to depict a retro-society; thus in effect matching the actual zeitgeist of the 2010s: a neomodernist highly technological society: Mad Men with Blackberries.
(A interesting note: one of the first reviews of the Caprica DVD pilot stated, “I love the possibilities of retro/futuristic style and wish it had been more consistently applied across costumes and set dec. What they achieved is pretty generic, mid-twenty first century Canadian.” )
Generic mid-21st Century Canadian
Subsequently, in twenty years, when both Caprica and Mad Men are downloadable retro shows from the 2010s, will people understand the contrivance of Caprica‘s Modernism, or see it only as reflection of the times in which it was created? In other words, by 2019, will our fashion and everything-design make it seem like we’re living in Caprican society? Does the popularity of Mad Men reflect a yearning for an elegance and style lost during the Postmodern period? Will we see a return to that, and in so doing become Mad Men with Blackberries & iPhones?
I started this Posterous account over the summer, in abandonment of both my Goodreads project and the blog on my website. I was trying something new. I also understand that Posterous has the ability to multi-post, so eventually I’ll set it up to sync with my /blog. However, over the summer I was working on a new site design, and while that’s pending I’m in no rush to set up that functionality yet.
As for Goodreads, that project is pretty much over. I plan on leaving it alone, and maintaining its archive. I just need to do some digital reorganizing. In the meantime, I’ve been trying to think of a new domain name, because I want to move on from GR into something else. I anticipate moving a lot of the GR content to this new thing, whenever that comes together.
“Paying for things is our way of compensating all the people who have been inconvenienced by our consumption. (Next time you buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks, imagine yourself saying to the barista, ‘I’m sorry that you had to serve me coffee when you could have been doing other things. And please communicate my apologies to the others as well: the owner, the landlord, the shipping company, the Columbian peasants. Here’s $1.75 for all the trouble. Please divide it among yourselves.’)” – Joseph Heath, Filthy Lucre (2009) p. 160
Madonna regrets breaking up with Guy Ritchie, supposedly. Also, the novelty of dating her A-Rod proxy, Jesus Luz, has worn off, sources say, which is besides all of her Kabbalah friends being like, OY, A GOYIM NAMED JESUS?! Madge, babbeleh, step off it. Anyway, now that Madonna’s learning the whole Big Yellow Taxi Theory firsthand, maybe she will stop tearing down trees/divorcing husbands who are probably good for her in the long run and shtupping men who’re half her age. Also, getting to write about Madonna and Kabbalah reminds me of this 1998 MTV VMA performance where she did this ridiculous Shanti chant that segued into “Ray of Light.” Two things: (1) in retrospect, this moment makes so much sense on the Timeline of Madonna Being Ridiculous as it was clearly kind of an important one and (2) the VMAs, man: they just don’t make them like they used to. Watch Lenny Kravtiz get on stage with Madge for “Ray of Light” and come to terms with the fact that you just don’t have it in you to be as ridiculous as Madonna. [Showbiz Spy]
My latest post includes the thought, “The game is rigged so that the stupid win everytime”. This is referencing how my feed-listing today is full of shit. And these are the trending topics.
Town Hall: Demystifying the Creative City: Tired of all the creativity blah blah blah?
Organized by Fuse Magazine and Creative Class Struggle
The Town Hall will be followed with DJ Triple-X, Dancing and the Launch Party for Fuse Magazine’s summer issue, Goliath vs Goliath
Toronto Free Gallery
1277 Bloor Street West
Thursday June 18, 2009
Doors Open at 6:30 pm
Panel Begins at 7pm to 8:30
Party from 9pm to 1am
For press inquiries contact: Heather McLean hmclean@yorku.ca or Izida Zorde Izida@fusemagazine.org
Fuse Magazine and activists collective Creative Class Struggle are holding a Town Hall to talk about the real effects of the Creative City model currently produced in planning trends in communities across the city and globally. This conversation is intended to demystify this celebration and use of ‘creativity’ in economic development, land use planning, arts programming and community development. We are responding to these recent trends, popularized by urban researchers like Richard Florida.
The Creative City logic, advertises places of innovation, style and interactivity as places that will attract both business and the ‘creative class’ urban professionals and culture workers. This perspective, critiqued by some academics and policy makers for its vagueness and others for privileging certain types of jobs, neighborhoods and lifestyles at the expense of others is increasingly controversial. In this Town Hall, artists, activist, community workers, teachers and professors will be brought together to examine the realities of living under this policy paradigm. We will ask: what are the effects of these policies on the livelihoods of ordinary people? Who benefits from creative city planning that is meant to build money making cities in a time of cuts to vital services such as schools and important social spaces for ‘ordinary’ people such as community centres, and pools. What happens to the ‘non-creative’ workers in this script?
The panel’s goal is to address topics of race, class and gender, within the framework of the ‘creative class’, exploring how these policies celebrate a select group of glorified yet precarious professions and how cities are being re-structured and re-branded as money-makers, rather than places that offer secure livelihoods for their residents.
After the panel, we will bring together activists, academics, artists and workers for a Town Hall to discuss the increasing dominance of creative city ideas and policies. Through discussion we aim to demystify the politics concealed in the Creative Class ideology.
We have invited groups from across the city to contribute critiques and concerns based on their political organizing and/or personal experience. We plan to record this discussion and create a document that is intended to provide a thoughtful critique of the creative class script.
The panel includes the following speakers: Liette Gilbert – associate Professor, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University. Her work focuses on policies, practices and ideologies of immigration, multiculturalism and citizenship.
Uzma Shakir – community-based researcher, advocate, activist and
the past Executive Director of Council of Agencies Serving South Asians
(CASSA) and the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario (SALCO). Her work focuses on issues of race, erosion of civil liberties and critical multiculturalism.
Pamila Matharu – a Toronto-based artist, activist, educator and cultural organizer/ producer. An activist for over 15 years, currently focusing on youth, contemporary art, pedagogy and the “inner-city experience” in Parkdale.
Moderated by Heather McLean: Heather McLean is a PhD student in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. Her research explores the relationships between relational aesthetics and performance and neo-liberal, competitive urban planning policies.
Fuse Magazine is proud to acknowledge the support of Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council and Heritage Canada.
FORUM – OPENING WEEKEND / THE LAWFUL UNIVERSE?
Sunday, 14 June / 3 PM / $4 Members, $6 Non-Members
Studio Theatre, Harbourfront Centre
Historically physics was based on the idea that all the beauty and complexity of the universe can ultimately be reduced to laws. But recently that foundation has started to crumble as theoretical physicists question whether a single ‘theory of everything’ can really determine the cosmos and our place within it. In this engaging discussion, physicists and artists consider contemporary thinking about the nature of time. Sean Gryb, a PhD candidate at the Perimeter Institute for theoretical Physics in Waterloo, lays the groundwork for the panel. A discussion follows between Lee Smolin, a founding member of the Perimeter Institute whose pioneering work in quantum gravity applies Darwinian methods to cosmology, and Katie Paterson, a British artist included in ‘Universal Code’ whose projects include mapping all the dead stars in the universe and bouncing ‘Moonlight Sonata’ off the moon. Moderated by Misha Glouberman, an artist, performer and facilitator who hosts many things including the Trampoline Hall lecture series.
Pages Books & Magazines presents This Is Not A Reading Series
Visit: www.pagesbooks.ca
Was the recent collapse of the multinational banking system in the cards? Will the current economic downturn ultimately be seen as a positive turn of events? To celebrate the launch of his latest book, Filthy Lucre: Economics For People Who Hate Capitalism (HarperCollins Canada), acclaimed author and academic Joseph Heath will discuss such hot button topics with noted business columnist David Olive.
A This Is Not A Reading Series event presented by Pages Books & Magazines, HarperCollins Canada, Gladstone Hotel, NOW Magazine, and Take Five On CIUT. Gladstone Hotel Ballroom, 1214 Queen St West, Toronto Tues May 5; 7:30pm (Doors 7pm) $5 (Free with Book Purchase)
FILTHY LUCRE A dozen times every day, individuals and organizations use economic claims to support social and political points of view. Those on the left tend to distrust economists, seeing them as friends of the right. There is something to this skepticism, since professional economists are almost all keen supporters of the free market. Yet while factions on the right naturally embrace economists, they also tend to overestimate the effect of their support on free-market policies. The result is widespread confusion. In fact, virtually all commonly held beliefs about economics–whether espoused by political activists, politicians, journalists or taxpayers–are just plain wrong.
Joseph Heath, co-author of the international bestseller The Rebel Sell, wants to improve our economic literacy and empower us with new ideas. In Filthy Lucre, he draws on everyday examples to skewer the six favourite economic fallacies of the right, before impaling the six favourite fallacies of the left. Heath leaves no sacred cows untipped as he breaks down complex arguments and shows how the monetary world really works. The popularity of such books as Freakonomics and Predictably Irrational demonstrates that people want a better understanding of the financial forces that affect them. Highly readable, flawlessly argued and certain to raise ire along all points of the socio-political spectrum, Filthy Lucre is a must-read for anyone wanting to engage in clear debate on social and political issues.
JOSEPH HEATH is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is the author of two books: The Efficient Society–a national bestseller and a Globe and Mail Best Book of 2001–and Communicative Action and Rational Choice. Heath co-authored the widely acclaimed worldwide bestseller, Rebel Sell: Why The Culture Can’t Be Jammed, with Andrew Potter. He lives in Toronto.
DAVID OLIVE is a business and current affairs columnist at the Toronto Star, where he also writes a blog called The Great Recession. He has been a staff writer at the Globe and Mail, the Financial Post and the National Post. He is a former editor-in-chief of the Globe’s Report on Business Magazine. He has written eleven books, the most recent of which is An American Story: The Speeches of Barack Obama, A Primer.
MEDIA CONTACTS
Joseph Heath: Emma Ingram, Emma.Ingram@HarperCollins.com, (416) 975-9334
This Is Not A Reading Series: Chris Reed, tinars@pagesbooks.ca, (416) 598-1447, ext 221
Actually, there’s a funny story behind this. Allow me to tell you about it some time.
JIM RILEY: COMMUTE
January 10 – February 15, 2009
Reception and artist talk: Sunday, January 11, 2009 2 p.m.
Burlington Arts Centre
In our age, the idea of commuting raises certain societal issues. How a person commutes to work is now being questioned more and more for a variety of environmental, psychological and economical reasons.
This installation consists of a looping video projection and four video paintings examining the daily routine life of the commuter. Jim Riley documented the view seen through the train window by a commuter travelling between Burlington and Union Station, Toronto over a three year time period. He used these images to illustrate the commuter’s dilemma. Riley’s aesthetic investigation examines the connection between time and perceptual memory. With this installation, he continues his exploration of the relationship between painting and video. Riley uses both media as perceptual, philosophical instruments for questioning reality and the way we relate with the world.
“The effect of Riley’s stated emotive rather than linear narrative is that at some point the trans-like monotonous routine of the commuter overtakes the viewer. In the vicious loop of getting to the train and getting off the train, going to work and home again, on again, off again, home again, day after day, season after season, we have removed the final particle of mystery. In compensation for the perpetual neurosis of post-industrial commodification, we sympathize with the anonymous and generic commuter who is both a victim and a perpetrator of the surburban distopia.” — Ingrid Mayrhofer-exhibition publication essay
Jim Riley is a video artist and curator based in Burlington, ON. He has exhibited in Canada and the United States. The artist wishes to acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council and Paul Rak & Rhona Tai of Veriform Inc., Cambridge.
Contact: George Wale, Director of Programs at 905-632-7796 or info@jimriley.ca
Burlington Arts Centre, 1333 Lakeshore Rd (at Brock Rd.) Burlington, ON, L7S 1A9
Hours: Monday – Thursday 9:00am – 10:00pm, Friday – Saturday 9:00am- 5:00pm, Sunday 12noon – 5:00pm
Linda Heffernan Ordinary People January 10 – February 1, 2009 Reception: Saturday, January 10th, 2009, 2 – 5 pm Loop Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition by Loop Gallery member Linda Heffernan entitled Ordinary People.
Linda Heffernan’s current body of work is a tongue in cheek response to politics, the media and ordinary people. It speaks to the manner in which corporate America, government officials and ordinary people interact with the media during coverage of both global and local events in a constant play of bait and banter.
Painted photos of ordinary people combine with titles inspired by a Toronto Star meme of the week, or a quote from Saturday Night Live or Canada A.M., to demonstrate the disconnect between the politically astute and those who simply want off the current economic roller coaster to put their head between their knees and take a deep breath.
The semi abstract backgrounds stand in for the snow and ice of backyard rinks, melting glaciers and the extended political snow day invoked by our prorogued parliament. The surreal nature of these paintings is both a comment on the current state of Canadian political affairs and a portal for momentary escape.
Linda Heffernan is a Whitby-based artist exploring themes of consumer capitalism and bureaucracy in an ever more interconnected global economy. She recently obtained her BFA from Ontario College of Art and Design where she was named to the Dean’s Honour List in the Faculty of Art. She has exhibited her work in a number of galleries in Toronto’s Queen West district as well as Whitby’s Station Gallery.
Please join the artist in celebrating the opening on Saturday, January 10th from 2-5 pm.
Hans Gindlesberger and Nicholas Knight January 9 – February 14 @ Gallery 44, Toronto
Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography
401 Richmond St West, Suite 120
Toronto, Ontario
Right Frame, Wrong Film
Hans Gindlesberger and Nicholas Knight
January 9 – February 14, 2009 Opening: Friday January 9, 6-9pm
Artist talk: Friday January 9, 6-7pm
Gallery 44’s first exhibition of 2009, Right Frame, Wrong Film, challenges the viewer’s expectations about photography and seeing. Premiering in Canada, Hans Gindlesberger’s I’m in the Wrong Film explores the story of a character lost in suburbia, through cinematic photographs. Nicholas Knight, a New York based photographer, has created site-specific trompe-l’oeil installations that question the ways that photography frames its subjects. James D. Campbell, the exhibition brochure writer, states: “Gindlesberger and Knight are seasoned archaeologists of the seeing and the seen. Knight excavates the conventions of photographic practice in pursuit of a fully decoded aesthetic; Gindlesberger unearths potent psychological artifacts and tropes that imply much about place, non-place, belonging and alienation.” The full text is available on our website and exhibition brochure.
Exhibition programming
Artist talk: Friday January 9, 6-7pm
Join the artists for a walk-through of the exhibition and a discussion of the artist’s practices. A reception will follow.
Biographies
Hans Gindlesberger, originally from Toledo, Ohio, is interested in exploring issues of locality and displacement in theatre, silent film, and photography. His work has been exhibited and published in North America and abroad. He is currently based in Buffalo, New York, and Huntington, West Virginia, where he is Visiting Assistant Professor of Photography at Marshall University.
Nicholas Knight lives and works in New York City. He attended Indiana University, where he studied painting and the history and philosophy of science. He has exhibited his work throughout North America, including solo exhibitions in Chicago, San Francisco, and Marfa, Texas. He was artist-in-residence in 2007 at the Domaine de Kerguéhennec in Bignan, France.
Image Credit: Hans Gindlesberger, Untitled, from the series I’m in the Wrong Film, archival inkjet print, 55.88 x 101.60 cm, 2006
Media contact:
Melissa Bennett, Exhibition Coordinator
Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography melissa@gallery44.org
(416) 979-3941
Gallery 44 is open Tuesday to Saturday 11am to 5pm
Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 120
Toronto, Ontario M5V 3A8 www.gallery44.org
At a grocery store the other day, my friend decided to get some cake mix. I told him it was a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake. Someone with a big stupid grin walked by us and said “But you gotta do the cooking by the book.” An employee nearby shouted (and this was just coincidence) WHAT?! I died laughing. My friend had no idea what was going on.
For some reason this damn video intrigues me. That little squeak in her voice, the cheery tone to it all and the syllabic wordplay is a perfect storm of stuck in my head.
I’ve done a little research on this in the past few minutes. Her name is Julianna Rose Mauriello. I believe I’ve narrowed down which episode the cake spoof is from: “Swiped Sweets”. It’s the only one that mentions anything about cake. This episode aired on August 20, 2004, which would make Julianna, in fact, 13 at the time the episode aired.
Wednesday, December 3 2008
Hart House (Great Hall), 7 Hart House Circle
7:30pm
Tickets $12. Limited seating.
For tickets call: (416) 640-5836, buy online or visit the Refund’s desk at 214 College St.
A lecture.
In this startlingly original vision of Canada, thinker John Ralston Saul unveils 3 founding myths. Saul argues that the famous “peace, order, and good government” that supposedly defines Canada is a distortion of the country’s true nature. Every single document before the BNA Act, he points out, used the phrase “peace, welfare, and good government,” demonstrating that the well-being of its citizenry was paramount. He also argues that Canada is a Métis nation, heavily influenced and shaped by aboriginal ideas: egalitarianism, a proper balance between individual and group, and a penchant for negotiation over violence are all aboriginal values that Canada absorbed. Another obstacle to progress, Saul argues, is that Canada has an increasingly ineffective elite, a colonial non-intellectual business elite that doesn’t believe in Canada. It is critical that we recognize these aspects of the country in order to rethink its future.
John Ralston Saul’s philosophical trilogy— Voltaire’s Bastards, The Doubter’s Companion andThe Unconscious Civilization—has had a growing impact on political thought in many countries. The conclusion to this trilogy, On Equilibrium—an exploration of the six qualities of the new humanism—is a persuasive and groundbreaking exploration of the human struggle for personal and social balance.
Mr. Saul has written five novels, including The Birds of Prey and The Field Trilogy. These works deal with the crisis of modern power and its clash with the individual. Like his non-fiction, his novels have been translated into many languages.
He has received many national and international awards for his work. The Unconscious Civilization won the 1996 Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction, as well as the Gordon Montador Award for Best Canadian Book on Social Issues. His reinterpretation of the nature of Canada, Reflections of a Siamese Twin, also won a Montador Award and was chosen by Maclean’s magazine as one of the ten best non-fiction books of the twentieth century. His novel The Paradise Eater won the Premio Lettarario Internazionale in Italy. Most recently he received the Pablo Neruda Medal in celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Neruda’s birth.
Mr. Saul was born in Ottawa and studied at McGill University and the University of London, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1972.
In our own age, as the theatre of war intrudes into our living rooms, as war increasingly becomes a spectacular media event, has the role of art vis à vis war undergone a radical change? Neil Murray, Executive Producer of the National Theatre of Scotland and Laurie Anderson, creator of the “concert-poem” Homeland (next page) are among the panelists in this discussion. Also participating are philosopher and essayist Mark Kingwell, and Jeffrey Dvorkin, professor of journalistic ethics at Georgetown University. Moderated by John Ralston Saul.
Monday, May 26, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Munk Debates
Be it Resolved that the world is a SAFER place with a REPUBLICAN in
the White House
Discussant: Charles Krauthammer
Discussant: Niall Ferguson
Discussant: Samantha Power
Discussant: Richard Holbrooke
Co-Sponsored by The Globe and Mail, Royal Ontario Museum, Salon
Speakers Series, Aurea Foundation, Munk Centre for
International Studies
Registration: Tickets available only at: http://www.munkdebates.com
The Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queen’s Park Crescent
Toronto, Ontario
Re: Real men don’t attack straw men
[Posted December 19, 2007 by corbet]
From: Richard Stallman
To: “Edd Barrett”
Subject: Re: Real men don’t attack straw men
Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 16:37:06 -0500
Message-ID:
Cc: misc-AT-openbsd.org
Archive-link: Article, Thread
For personal reasons, I do not browse the web from my computer. (I
also have not net connection much of the time.) To look at page I
send mail to a demon which runs wget and mails the page back to me.
It is very efficient use of my time, but it is slow in real time.
John Ralston Saul’s philosophical trilogy— Voltaire’s Bastards, The Doubter’s Companion andThe Unconscious Civilization—has had a growing impact on political thought in many countries. The conclusion to this trilogy, On Equilibrium—an exploration of the six qualities of the new humanism—is a persuasive and groundbreaking exploration of the human struggle for personal and social balance.
At a grocery store the other day, my friend decided to get some cake mix. I told him it was a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake. Someone with a big stupid grin walked by us and said “But you gotta do the cooking by the book.” An employee nearby shouted (and this was just coincidence) WHAT?! I died laughing. My friend had no idea what was going on.