FINGERS

the wiggly and the rectangular

2011-05-08T10:24:00.000+01:00

Alan Watts: A Conversation with Myself - Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aufuwMiKmE

VALUE and WORTH

2011-05-04T10:20:00.000+01:00

Generally I am an optimistic and confident person, but one thing that has really got me down lately is when I am faced with bureaucracy and filling in forms. Because EVERYTHING that I consider to be of value and worth in my life - EVERYTHING I consider to be an achievement and a success - NONE OF IT seems to have any value at all in the eyes of bureaucracy and filling in forms. There is literally no place for any of it on the forms or in the phone conversations etc. It really makes me despair.

Of course my principle Achilles heel in all this is the concept of money. It seems to me to be one of the least interesting things in the world. My mind literally goes blank whenever I attempt to think about it. There are so many many more interesting things to focus on in life. How does anybody find the motivation to sacrifice so much of their life pursuing anything as dull as money? It is a genuine mystery to me.

SPRING EQUINOX 2011

2011-03-20T19:01:00.000Z

http://www.flickr.com/photos/russell-higgs/5543193338/

http://russellhiggs.shutterchance.com/photoblog/SPRING_EQUINOX_2011%3A_359_Amhurst_Road_Hackney_/

http://www.blipfoto.com/view.php?id=1038926

http://www.flickr.com/photos/russell-higgs/5543571652/

THE GREAT OUTDOORS

2011-03-06T03:33:00.005Z

RE this video DOCUMENTED incident of mine from THURSDAY 3rd MAR 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tscA6LIjqw

some knobhead over on a discussion thread I started

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1444721

says....

QUOTE digitalspy forum member skp20040;48534586 ....

"Exactly, what does it mean, are you really interested in old speakers or was it to see the reaction ?

Speakers are located usually up high , it would look odd to see a lone person filiming fixtures at height in a station for no reason and without prior consent.

Also if old speakers were a passion of yours I would have expected to see mention in at least one of your posts on the forum, having checked there isnt one ?" ...... end his QUOTE

TO WHICH I REPLIED, as BIOMORPH04 ....

..... as I've already stated. I was photographing public speakers for a new creative idea that came to me just the night before and that I'm very excited about.

Up till then I'd had a lovely day walking and photographing other speakers systems in the steet all the way from Hackney to Kings Cross.

I'd already taken very overt pics INSIDE ANGEL TUBE, of their flush ceiling mounted speakers WITH ZERO INTERFERENCE.

I was having a lovely and productive and fulfilling day.

I had NO preconceived idea to get into confrontation. I also did not want my enjoyable day taking photos unnecessarily interrupted.

There is simply NO excuse for the CSO's absurd pettiness.

Initially I even ignored them. I heard them behind me saying "hello" "excuse me" and I smiled and carried on photographing the old public street located loudspeakers.

Then I heard them ask something like: do I work for National Rail or whatever it's called? I replied "No" and I carried on photographing. Why wouldn't why? I wasn't do anything wrong?

And THEN they insisted on stopping me, and it was at that moment I had the foresight to turn the video on and document most of the ongoing situation.

Immediately afterwards I walked directly in ST Pancras international station just over the road and continued with my photography uninterrupted. I also then walked to Warren st tube and was not interrupted while overtly photographing ALL their street located speakers.

THEN i walked around inside a big shop, PC world, and overtly took loads more fab pics for my project, with nobody disruputing me. AND DO YOU KNOW WHY NOBODY STOPPED ME? BECAUSE IT"S THE SODDING 21ST CENTURY plus I'M NOT DOING ANYTHING WRONG.

It's also kind of ironic. As people go on and on about getting away from our screens and going outdoors.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I ENJOY DOING BOTH. LOTS. So just let me get on with it please. No petty nonsense thank you very much.

plus as I've also already stated: MY PARENTS BROUGHT ME UP TO QUESTION EVERYTHING :)

Meanwhile, on the general topic of privatised public space and our COMMONS etc .... you might be interested in my opinion piece from last Sunday, 27 Feb, in free local the Hackney Citizen. I'm dead pleased with it.

http://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2011/02/27/hackney-downs-our-common-wealth/

OUR COMMON WEALTH

2011-02-27T21:34:00.000Z

... an opinion piece by me in the Hackney Citizen ...

http://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2011/02/27/hackney-downs-our-common-wealth/

Why I generally don't trust VIOLENT PROTESTS

2011-02-26T16:12:00.003Z

I am not entirely opposed to violent protesting. I recognise it is sometimes necessary or useful. But I don't trust violent protest.

Firstly I don't trust it, simply because violence can be fun. It's fun to smash and burn stuff and throw things at the police etc. It's also romantic. It's very instantly gratifying.

Violent protest is also a bio-chemical rush. A high. And similarly to when we're high on drugs it can all too often delude us into thinking and feeling that we are actually achieving something, when in truth we are not. We're just full to the brim with a chemically induced good feeling.

Similarly, and probably my main reason for not trusting violent protest, it is too easy to be led by violence. The rush of the crowd, the thrill of it all. It's too easy to get caught up in the wave. And therefore it's too easy to be manipulated, especially by agent provocateurs.

And the final reason that comes to mind is that, in my experience, far too many people automatically get their buttons pushed by authority figures or institutions that represent authority. Far too many people have unresolved issues from their pasts, usually with their parents (or whoever the principle adults were in their childhood) and therefore they all too quickly turn into irrational zombies who are no longer really reacting to the present situation at all.

Ultimately I guess I believe that violence is the easy option.

I believe that Non-violent protest requires more conscious and deliberate effort from everyone involved. Non-violence requires more originality and innovation, more strength and more determination.

Time and time again it is the state that shows itself to be addicted to violence and brutality. I believe we have to be better than that.

Transarmament

2011-02-22T00:03:00.000Z

... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transarmament ...

Transarmament (closely related to civilian-based defense) is the partial or total replacement of armed forces with the physical and social infrastructure to support nonviolent resistance.

Self Organised Learning

2011-02-22T00:01:00.000Z

... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk60sYrU2RU ...

Insurrectionary imagination

2011-02-01T01:49:00.000Z

http://www.flickr.com/photos/russell-higgs/5406239172/

THE NON-JOINERS

2011-01-16T11:12:00.000Z

... AUDIO ... Alan Watts on conforming to society

... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjSwsww5SfQ ...

... THERE'S SOMETHING MORE THAN GOVERNMENT...

CRE8

2010-12-24T23:27:00.000Z

http://www.flickr.com/photos/russell-higgs/4290223373/

Bus Stop 23

2010-11-21T17:50:00.000Z

http://www.flickr.com/photos/russell-higgs/5195073023/

COMMONPLACE

2010-11-20T20:25:00.003Z

... from the pages of the print edition of the Hackney Citizen

... Commonplace ... online episode archive ...

... http://www.flickr.com/photos/folkushackney/sets/72157625566703442/

a SPACE ODYSSEY

2010-10-31T21:34:00.000Z

Stik meets Krishnamurti, the Great Outdoors, Samhain 2010

NEWS

2010-10-27T04:14:00.000+01:00

.. A secondary school in Stoke Newington, Hackney, London, claims to have almost eradicated homophobic bullying after it started teaching lessons on gay history.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23891416-anti-gay-bullies-are-taught-a-lesson-or-two.do

"Anti-gay bullies are taught a lesson or two"

"caring" is all too often an excuse for being controlling

2010-09-24T09:45:00.001+01:00

"My son is in his late 30s and drifts aimlessly through life. How do I motivate him?"

To which I replied ... What does it matter if he is "drifting aimlessly". I suppose if he was some kind of career drone you'd be happy. There most probably is no point to existence other than to explore the experience. And there is an infinite number of ways for each of us to choose how we are going to do that. Get on with your own autonomous adult life choices and let him get on with his.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/23/my-son-drifts-through-life

What is revolutionary activity?

2010-09-16T11:51:00.001+01:00

3 brief general priorities of mine:

... I believe in trying ideas out, living ideas, putting them into practice, making commitments and experimenting, rather than just collecting ideas in books on shelves or just discussing them endlessly. Doing and Being. Do Be Do Be Do.

... I also believe in being consciously fallible, imperfect. Being too right-on can just end up making people feel defensive, guilty, apologetic, cornered etc without them actually evolving. I prefer to live life in the shades of grey.

... I strongly believe in making a conscious effort not to collude in any "them and us" divides. Judging people by their appearances or their background or their job, for instance, is the same irrational nonsense as racism and should be rigorously guarded against. I'm especially wary of activists who refer to others as "scum". This doesn't mean we have to be po-faced and humourless. It just means our humour has to be a little more creative and less knee-jerk.

superorganism

2010-09-15T21:00:00.002+01:00

we are finally reaching the stage at which we must think of ourselves and the networks that connect us as an entity in its own right

http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2010/05/autopoiesis_and.html

Bus Stop 2005-2010

2010-09-10T03:15:00.000+01:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/russell-higgs/sets/72157624785469663/

PETITION: Petrol-free Parks For London

2010-09-08T00:53:00.000+01:00

Target: Boris Johnson and the London Assembly

Can wheelbarrows, rakes, brushes and smaller, electric chainsaws make a comeback?

Can vehicles, if needed, be replaced with electric equivalents too?

Many of the capital's parks and green spaces no longer give respite from pollution.

Petrol-powered tools are used constantly, causing excessive noise, dust and fumes. Worst of all are leaf-blowers.

Year-round leaf-blowers, pole chainsaws and road vehicles have become commonplace. Air pollution, road risks, noise and dust are often worse than in the outside world.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/petrol-free-parks-for-london.html

screw the law, lets get naked

2010-09-07T23:47:00.000+01:00

At one extreme, there is the proposal that Islamic full-face veils be prohibited. And at the other extreme, Steve Gough, "the Naked Rambler", is currently serving a 21 month sentence for "contempt of court"...

http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/2010/08/screw-law-lets-get-naked.html

A culture's power structure depends largely on how we look and how we are looked at.

Marilyn Monroe said

2010-09-04T21:10:00.002+01:00

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."

Henry Miller said

2010-09-02T10:16:00.000+01:00

One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.

We are gods with anuses

2010-08-31T00:11:00.001+01:00

Some thoughts on Art + Inspiration, Love, Apotheosis and Engineering Divinity from jason silva on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/14496644

PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY

2010-08-30T22:51:00.002+01:00

"We define ourselves by our surroundings and our situations. If you are brought up in a neighborhood that resembles a rat trap, pretty soon you are going to come to the conclusion that you are probably a rat. If on the other hand you have got to the tool of psychogeography — or poetry, to give it a less trendy and more accessible name — then you can look at the ordinary world around you with the eye of a poet. Finding events which rhyme with other events, what little coincidences or connections can be drawn to these places and people. You can put them into an arrangement that says something new about them."

http://m.wired.com/underwire/2010/08/alan-moore/all/1

"If you have that kind of insight into the tawdry and debased streets in which most of us spend our lives, then instead of walking down a rat trap you are walking through cataclysmic history, from your personal memories to the local legends. Then the rat trap becomes a fable, a mythological landscape."

"just as living in rat trap will give you the impression you live in a rat trap, then l suspect that living in a mythological landscape might after a while give you the subliminal impression that you are at least a mythological figure. A heroic character in your own narrative."

"I think it would be better if we felt like that rather than victims of our environment. That would empower us, and put some genuine energy back into the streets in which we live."

Dérive ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9rive

Flânerie ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fl%C3%A2neur

Psychogeography ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography

Left Right Left Right

2010-08-30T15:16:00.000+01:00

"Conservatives, generally, are far more adept at politically reframing concepts by giving them snappy-but-misleading nicknames than liberals. 'Loony left'. 'Boom-and-bust'. 'Flip-flop'. 'Ground Zero mosque'. All simplifications or outright lies – but they worked. Like advertisers, the right seems breezily unconcerned about the truth of the slogan, provided it rings up a sale."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/30/charlie-brooker-buzzwords-blowhards

"The left, meanwhile, tends to respond by flinging back tired old insults. Bastards! Fascists! Racists! This is wrong on several counts. For one thing, it's counter-productive. Nothing riles an anti-mosque demonstrator more than being called a bigot. It's a grotesque, misleading smear on a diverse group of individuals – a bit like claiming all Muslims are terrorists"

"But worse than being insulting, it's just plain unimaginative. At least the right bothers to invent a new buzzword each time it wants to fart some monstrous new lie into the ecosystem. And they're often infuriatingly well-crafted buzzwords"

"...today's audience is too distracted to digest big lies. Now the trick is to cram as much misleading information as possible into a succession of tiny verbal snacks, inaccurate but memorable."

incivility makes it harder to teach people

2010-08-29T21:42:00.000+01:00

"Many movement-oriented skeptics and organizations have things they hope to accomplish; with goals, there comes discussion of best practices."

The Moral Argument for Not Being a Dick

"Skeptics should passionately argue the merits of their case, and we should leave the ad hominems and snarling and hyperbole to the bad guys."

http://skepticblog.org/2010/08/27/war-over-nice/

"it may sometimes be necessary to say things people don’t want to hear, but, in itself, cruelty is morally bad."

"the distinction the scientific literature makes on this topic, between argumentativeness (presenting the actual case) and aggressiveness (personal attack in addition to — or instead of — valid argument)."

BEING

2010-08-29T14:14:00.000+01:00

"Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is." ... said William James

TIME TRAVELLERS

2010-08-12T14:04:00.001+01:00

"Give thanks for what you are now, and keep fighting for what you want to be tomorrow." ... [ Fernanda Miramontes-Landeros ]

Ecocities: Graphic interventions for a greener future

2010-08-08T12:59:00.000+01:00

http://www.archdaily.com/71810/ecocities-graphic-interventions-for-a-greener-future/

an architectural photographer based in London.

"My main motivation is to produce a positive outlook."

The catalogue of UK Entrances to Hell

2010-08-03T20:20:00.000+01:00

http://www.entrances2hell.co.uk/

Photographs of entrances to Hell from around the UK with historical info and analysis

More than 70 countries make being gay a crime

2010-08-01T20:42:00.000+01:00

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/more-than-70-countries-make-being-gay-a-crime-2040850.html

There's no place...

2010-07-31T21:31:00.001+01:00

WINDOW 24th July 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIDzJQlIMMI

Hackney, London

The thinker is not separate from the thought

2010-07-15T22:28:00.000+01:00

"Is it possible not to name a feeling? Because, by calling a particular feeling `anger', `fear', `jealousy', we have given it strength, have we not? We have fixed it. The very naming is a process of confirming that feeling, giving it strength, and therefore enclosing it in memory.

"Observe it and you will see. It is possible to be free fundamentally only when the process of naming is understood - naming being terming, symbolizing, which is the action of memory; because memory is the `you'. Without your memory, without your experiences, the `you' is not; and the mind clings to those experiences as essential in order to be secure. So, we cultivate memory, which is experience, knowledge, and through that process we hope to control the reactions and feelings which we call distortions."

"If we would be free of any particular quality, we must understand the whole process of the thinker and the thought, we must see the truth that the thinker is not separate from thought, but that they are a single, unitary process. If you actually realize that, you will see what an extraordinary revolution takes place in your life."

"By revolution I do not mean economic revolution, which is no revolution at all, but merely a modified continuity of what is. But when the thinker realizes that he is not different from thought, then you will see that radically, deeply, there is an extraordinary transformation; because, then there is only the fact of thought, and not the translation of that fact to suit the thinker."

Krishnamurti - New York 1st Public Talk 4th June 1950 Collected Works, Volume 6

AUDIO: http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/audio.php

I am an information activist.

2010-07-14T18:36:00.001+01:00

"You get the information out to the people."

"We believe a richer intellectual and historical record that is fuller and more accurate is in itself intrinsically good, and gives people the tools to make intelligent decisions."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/14/julian-assange-whistleblower-wikileaks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks

http://wikileaks.org/

Window Farms

2010-07-05T23:02:00.000+01:00

"Windowfarms are vertical, hydroponic, modular, low-energy, high-yield edible window gardens built using low-impact or recycled local materials."

http://www.windowfarms.org/

it REALLY REALLY is TIME for SCOTLAND to RELEASE STEPHEN GOUGH

2010-07-04T00:25:00.004+01:00

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Gough

Naked Walk

http://nakedwalk.org/

World Naked Bike Ride

http://www.worldnakedbikeride.org

World Naked Bike Ride... Facebook Group

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2232758830

Naked Protest

http://conformandobey.co.uk/pages/naked_protest.html

Free the Naked Rambler Stephen Gough ... Facebook group

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=247410229402

a Facebook CONVERSATION.....

2010-06-25T18:50:00.002+01:00

MT wrote:
What happens to us when we die? Nothing happens. We're simply gone, we've expired, we no longer exist. Religious believers are in deep denial of this existential reality, while agnostics are halfway in and halfway out of denial.

RH wrote:
I haven't read the other 89 comments yet, but when we die it thrills me to think that our cells become dispersed and we become a part of the whole great everything. We become part of the worms, the soil, the trees etc. :)

JM wrote:
The loss of my individual identity doesn't thrill me, and it's quite surprising to hear someone say that who is not suicidal in their eagerness to be recycled by the universe.

RH wrote:
...at JM... I already fully accept that there is no finite division between myself and everything else. That humans are identifiable but not definable. Therefore I have no eagerness TO BE recycled. However, a post death version of interconnectedness is also fascinating to contemplate. :)

JM wrote:
Sorry, but being worm food is not fascinating. I'm not sure what you mean by no finite division. Since humans are physically limited in extent, by the Beckenstein Bounds derived from quantum mechanics ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckenstein_limit ), there are only a finite number of possible humans. Frank Tipler(a theoretical physics heavyweight... See More) has done some interesting calculations matching up that number against the rapid growth in our computing power to try to get an estimate of the point at which every human who has ever lived(plus every possible human who could ever have lived!) could be "resurrected" via computer simulations. Great book, "Physics and Immortality".

RH wrote:
....it thrills me that we are STAR LIGHT; Thanks to photosynthesis and the veg we eat, and the other animals we eat too that have themselves consumed the solar powered green stuff .

JM wrote:
Yes, that is thrilling. Death, not so much.

RH wrote:
... and it is thrilling to think that as much as 90% of every human being's entire 100 trillion cells ..... is actually BACTERIA. We are walking communities, much of it unmapped, un-named as of yet :)

BIOCHAUVINISM

2010-06-04T19:05:00.000+01:00

BIOCHAUVINISM: The prejudice that biological systems have an intrinsic superiority that will always give them a monopoly on self-reproduction and intelligence.
[...K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, 1986]

I’m a little lamb who’s lost in the wood, I know I could, always be good, To one who’ll watch over me

2010-05-28T19:01:00.000+01:00

EQUIVEILLANCE

2010-05-28T18:40:00.003+01:00

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

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

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

Sousveillance can be understood by the following simple experiment:

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

The Land

2010-05-22T10:20:00.002+01:00

...The Land is written by and for people who believe that the roots of justice, freedom, social security & democracy lie not so much in access to money, or to the ballot box, as in access to land and its resources....

http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/

FREE RANGE CHILDREN

2010-05-21T10:08:00.002+01:00

Take your kids to the park, and leave them there

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

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

Up Wing

2010-05-13T21:32:00.002+01:00

http://twitter.com/UPwingadingdong

Shakespeare

2010-05-13T21:03:00.000+01:00

"Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none."

CYBORG MANIFESTO

2010-04-30T09:48:00.001+01:00

"The dichotomies between mind and body, animal and human, organism and machine, public and private, nature and culture, men and women, primitive and civilized are all in question ideologically."

Donna Haraway : Cyborg Manifesto

A prescription for meditation

2010-04-20T22:01:00.000+01:00

There is no guide,

no teacher,

no authority.

There is only you,

your relationship with others and with the world,

there is nothing else.

When you realize this, it either brings great despair, from which comes cynicism and bitterness, or, in facing the fact that you and nobody else is responsible for the world and for yourself, for what you think, what you feel, how you act, all self-pity goes.

Normally we thrive on blaming others, which is a form of self-pity."

...... said Jiddu Krishnamurti

Moonday

2010-04-20T00:03:00.001+01:00

....please VOTE for my 2nd policy HERE....

http://thepeoplepolicies.co.uk/policies/name-day-after-sunday-moonday/

THE MENTAL ENVIRONMENT and the tyranny of THE NATURAL

2010-04-19T15:59:00.000+01:00

Frequently, when people mention authenticity it comes hand in hand with an underlying and all too often unchallenged (romanticist) assumption that only face-to-face experience can truly be authentic.

But why should we be required to have to share the same temporal and spatial co-ordinates as another person in order to experience or share something authentic with them?

To be human is to be neurodiverse; I believe passionately in the importance of cognitive liberty.

What best suits some people doesn't best suit everybody. And different experiences (including different mediated experiences) will give varying degrees of nourishment depending on each individual. And equally what might seem authentic or of value to one person may be entirely meaningless and empty to another also.

Variety and diversity is what's important, I reckon. And the more options we have to communicate and share with one another and learn about one another, the better.

FREEDOM FROM THE KNOWN

2010-04-17T21:22:00.002+01:00

...Please VOTE for my policy HERE...

http://thepeoplepolicies.co.uk/policies/freedom-from-the-known/

...and create your own...

Creativity is as important as Literacy

2010-04-17T09:11:00.005+01:00

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.

Nature Boy

2010-03-31T15:43:00.000+01:00

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return"

Nat King Cole - Nature Boy
written by eden ahbez
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMjGRHcWrrQ

Plato said

2010-03-29T13:42:00.004+01:00

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

BEYOND GAY MARRIAGE

2010-03-29T02:07:00.003+01:00

"We must overcome the tyranny of the natural and build human institutions that serve human needs."

Living

2010-03-10T10:27:00.001Z

“I like living, breathing better than working,” Marcel Duchamp famously declared. “My art is that of living. Each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral; it’s a sort of constant euphoria.”

________________

2010-02-14T22:05:00.001Z

________________
Originally uploaded by Dario Φ ipofisi

Apice Vecchio

2010-02-14T21:08:00.001Z

Apice Vecchio
Originally uploaded by vinnieblue

Beelitz Heilstätten

2010-02-14T20:18:00.001Z

Beelitz Heilstätten
Originally uploaded by vinnieblue

earth

2010-02-14T18:48:00.001Z

earth
Originally uploaded by pioforsky

Darwin Day

2010-02-12T21:11:00.000Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Day

Darwin Day is a recently instituted celebration intended to commemorate the anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin on February 12, 1809. The day is used to highlight Darwin's contribution to science and to promote science in general.

Center for Troubled Youth 18

2010-02-12T16:42:00.001Z

Center for Troubled Youth 18
Originally uploaded by Avius Quovis

over the meadows, far away...

2010-02-02T21:04:00.001Z

over the meadows, far away...
Originally uploaded by CowGummy

Brean Beach - tree

2010-02-02T20:56:00.001Z

Brean Beach - tree
Originally uploaded by CowGummy

To Be

2010-01-20T11:16:00.002Z

Germaine Greer said

"Human beings have the inalienable right to invent themselves."

SURVEILLANCE CAMERA THEATRE

2010-01-19T19:41:00.001Z

Playing to the cameras.

Entertaining the watchers.

Real reality TV.

Re-engaging with our imaginations and going outside to play in the streets again.

Non-violent re-appropriation of our public spaces. etc

The Surveillance Camera Players have some suggestions:

http://www.notbored.org/the-scp.html

Leopard Slug Mating Ritual

2010-01-06T16:57:00.003Z

Žižek

2010-01-05T20:18:00.001Z

When you love a person you do not idealise them. You learn to love them with all of their faults. And that is how we should learn to love the world.

In The Examined Life, Žižek argues that we need to embrace the whole world including our artificial, technological, created self and products.

Pastoral romanticism and New Age mysticism are a form of ideological mystification and alienation.

Ecology as it currently stands is in danger of becoming the new opium of the masses. Ecology is taking over from the role of religion as a new conservative, reactionary ideology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGCfiv1xtoU

MIRROR NEURONS

2010-01-05T00:34:00.000Z

http://www.ted.com/talks/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization.html

Einstein said

2010-01-02T13:40:00.002Z

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. [We] experience [our]self, [our] thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of [our] consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

archive....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc4pP96suIE

Michael Hardt: "One has to expand the concept of love beyond the limits of the couple."

High Rise Urban Forest

2010-01-02T12:16:00.000Z

http://design.fr/news/urban-forest-uplifts-both-environment-and-economy/

a high-rise building, the Urban Forest, situated in Chongqing, China, the commercial structure features curved, abstracted shaped floors connected by a core cylindrical structure. Almost all the floors incorporate green spaces to create a natural environment throughout the structure. The floors enveloped in full length glass windows with a see-through, wrap around balcony have been layered off-center (to some extent) from one another, giving it an appearance of a floating structure.

archive: http://www.verticalfarm.com/

EVOLUTIONARY POLICYMAKING

2009-12-28T14:12:00.001Z

We need to shed our prehistoric policymaking practices and turn to evolution for guidance, argues David Sloan Wilson.

For almost everyone, evolution is about fossils, dinosaurs and human origins. But it should also be about governance, education, health, peace and virtually every other public policy issue relevant to human welfare.

Why is evolutionary theory missing from the toolkit of politicians and their expert advisers?

plus

The Evolution Institute

This Cyborg Life

2009-12-27T00:15:00.001Z

Aimee Mullins asks: Racing on Carbon Fiber Legs, How Abled Should We Be?

Advantage is just something that is part of sports. No athletes are created equal. They simply aren't, due to a multitude of factors including geography, access to training, facilities, health care, injury prevention, and sure, technology.

"It makes me twitch when we talk about 'a level playing field.' No two athletes are the same genetically and environmentally, and the mental and emotional factors they've endured in their life are relevant in their performance, too. The only reason athletes today are better than those of decades ago is because of science and technology: We know exactly what and when to feed our bodies for maximum energy, we have lighter shoes and better bikes and new rubberized track surfaces and (legal) supplements and altitude training. We are upping the ante each Olympic year with 'smarter' design of an athlete's tools, both inside and outside the body."

"Let's think about Tiger Woods having not one, but two LASIK surgeries to achieve 20/15 vision, when what we consider the best of natural vision to be is a mere 20/20. Before his first LASIK surgery, Woods had lost 16 straight tournaments. Immediately following the surgery, he won 7 of his next 10. Advantage through technology, or not?"

Maybe our acceptance of Tiger's LASIK super vision is really answered in the question, "Can everyone have access to it?" In other words, perhaps because the average citizen out there on the street can get laser surgery, it's okay for Tiger to get it, too, whereas the nature of a bionic prosthetic is still viewed as exclusive

The Human SuperOrganism

2009-12-27T00:05:00.002Z

Bugs Inside: What Happens When the Microbes That Keep Us Healthy Disappear?

The human body has some 10 trillion human cells, but 10 times that number of microbial cells. Some researchers think of our bodies as superorganisms.

With rapid changes in sanitation, medicine and lifestyle in the past century, some of these indigenous species are facing decline, displacement and possibly even extinction. In many of the world's larger ecosystems, scientists can predict what might happen when one of the central species is lost, but in the human microbial environment - which is still largely uncharacterized - most of these rapid changes are not yet understood.

To Be or Not To Be

2009-12-21T19:29:00.002Z

Buckminster Fuller said:

I know that I am not a category.

I am not a thing — a noun.

I seem to be a verb...

Authenticity

2009-12-16T09:33:00.001Z

Alan Alda is credited as saying....

"Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you are doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself."

ART

2009-12-07T22:16:00.003Z

"Amidst the attention given to the sciences and how they can lead to the cure of all diseases and daily problems of mankind, I believe that the biggest breakthrough will be the realization that the arts, which are conventionally considered 'useless,' will be recognized as the whole reason why we ever tried to live longer or live more prosperously."

John Maeda, via Jason Silva's essay
"Why Science Needs To Bring Sexy Back"

"...the scientific community was failing to elicit a sense of awe and wonder out of people. You can't win the hearts and minds of the masses unless you inspire them -- you must lift their spirits and enliven their hearts. We have to give people emotional experiences. Science can always use better art direction: scientific progress and discovery must be presented to the world in a way that excites and titillates people's sense of what is possible."

plus: from the archives

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kcohen/3384240690/

Stigmergy

2009-11-30T22:24:00.001Z

Stigmergy is a form of self-organization. It produces complex, apparently intelligent structures, without need for any planning, control, or even communication between the agents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmergic

Stigmergic Collaboration: The Evolution of Group Work

An “invisible hand” effect results from the several efforts of individuals and small groups working independently.

LOVE

2009-11-30T00:04:00.002Z

"One has to expand the concept of love beyond the limits of the couple."

Michael Hardt at European Graduate School EGS 2005

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hardt

The Pansy Project

2009-11-23T19:20:00.000Z

http://thepansyproject.blogspot.com/

Artist Paul Harfleet revisits city streets planting pansies at the site of homophobic abuse. Each location is photographed and named after the abuse received.

http://www.thepansyproject.com/

Bus Stop 21-11-09

2009-11-22T00:33:00.001Z

plus

Bus Stop 18

Bus Stop 20

The DAWN CHORUS

2009-11-21T17:22:00.000Z

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said: "...people are communicating publicly. It is untrue that we are becoming more isolated because of these tools, I think we are connecting more and we are finding new ways to do good."

"A friend of mine asked me, 'what do you hope people will say about Twitter in five or 10 years?' and my answer to him, which I was surprised to hear myself say, was that I hope people will not consider Twitter a triumph of technology, instead that they will consider it a triumph of humanity."

"The idea that the open exchange of information can have a positive global impact. If people are more informed then they become more engaged and if they are more engaged then they can become more empathetic."

The People Will Give Strength Unto Their Poet

2009-11-20T13:39:00.007Z

engraved on the Gdansk monument is the defiant penultimate stanza of Czesław Milosz's poem,

"You Who Wronged"

"Do not feel safe.

The poet remembers.

You can kill one, but another is born.

The words are written down, the deed, the date."

Czesław Miłosz in the Guardian 2001

Czesław Miłosz in Wikipedia

enslavement through consciousness

The Captive Mind via Wikipedia

The heart of his book, The Captive Mind, is a portrayal of four gifted Polish men who all capitulated, in some fashion, to the demands of a totalitarian state.

He highlights the processes which force, cajole and woo thinking men and women to believe self-evident lies.

The Captive Mind via Amazon.co.uk

While banned in Poland, The Captive Mind circulated underground there, Czesław Miłosz being among those authors whose name could not be mentioned even in order to denounce."

Modular Intelligence

2009-11-19T21:39:00.005Z

......the early precursors to living, thinking, reprogrammable architecture.

http://seedmagazine.com/slideshow/interactive_architecture/

KETMAN

2009-11-19T19:29:00.002Z

Ketman (Arabic kitmān كتمان "secrecy, concealment") is the act of paying lip service to authority while holding personal opposition.

It is a sort of political or religious camouflage, for the purpose of survival, in circumstances where open opposition would result in persecution.

Ketman can be practised through many generations, and eventually erupt in the form of revolutions, uprisings, etc.

Though the term was originally used exclusively in regard to Islamic authority, the term is most frequently encountered in reference to Communist authoritarianism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketman

LIFE

2009-11-17T20:47:00.000Z

Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass.

It's about learning how to dance in the rain.

Mario Savio: Sproul Hall Steps, December 2, 1964

2009-11-16T17:53:00.000Z

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"

Comfortable Slavery and Society as a Work of Art

2009-11-16T16:33:00.002Z

"We must each of us generate in ourselves, and try to generate in others, the instinctual need for a life without fear, without brutality, and without stupidity."

"The fact that today we cannot identify any specific class or any specific group as a revolutionary force, this fact is no excuse for not using any and every possibility and method to arrest the engines of repression in the individual."

"By virtue of the way it has organized its technological base, contemporary industrial society tends to be totalitarian. For "totalitarian" is not only a terroristic political coordination of society, but also a non-terroristic economic-technical coordination which operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests."

"The question is no longer: how can the individual satisfy his own needs without hurting others, but rather: how can he satisfy his needs without hurting himself, without reproducing, through his aspirations and satisfactions, his dependence on an exploitative apparatus which, in satisfying his needs, perpetuates his servitude?"

http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/index.html

http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/soundvideo.htm

Charter for Compassion

2009-11-13T01:11:00.002Z

via http://www.ted.com/

http://charterforcompassion.org/

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others — even our enemies — is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings, even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

Creative Talent and the Mental Environment

2009-11-05T15:05:00.003Z

Should the best creative minds of our generation be so focused on high-gloss dishonesty?

"We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it."

Artists "who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse."

"We propose a reversal of priorities in favor of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication - a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning. The scope of debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design."

http://www.spack.org/words/firstthings.html.moved

https://www.adbusters.org/category/tags/first_things_first

THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS

2009-11-02T15:23:00.009Z

ABSURDITY and REVOLUTION

"From a lucid appreciation of the absurdity of our life three consequences flow, which Camus calls Revolt, Freedom and Passion."

By 'Revolt' Camus means defiance in the face of the bleak truth about the human condition, hopeless but not resigned, lending to life a certain grandeur.

"We must imagine Sisyphus happy."

"Recognition of the absurdity frees us from habit and convention: we see all things anew, and are inwardly liberated."

"By 'passion' Camus means the resolve to live as intensely as possible, not so as to escape the sense of absurdity but so as to face it with absolute lucidity."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus

In "The Myth of Sisyphus" Albert Camus elevates Sisyphus to the status of The Absurd Hero.

"Absurdity is a feeling which arises from the confrontation of the world, which is irrational, with the hopeless but profound human desire to make sense of our condition. The appropriate response to this situation is to live in full consciousness of it."

you won't fool the Children of the Revolution

2009-10-31T18:23:00.002Z

"Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit."

(...said Abbie Hoffman)

Vaclav Havel : Summer Meditations

2009-10-24T19:14:00.001+01:00

"So anyone who claims that I am a dreamer who expects to transform hell into heaven is wrong.

I have few illusions.

But I feel a responsibility to work towards the things I consider good and right.

I don't know whether I'll be able to change certain things for the better, or not at all.

Both outcomes are possible.

There is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause."

Pessimism of the Intellect: Optimism of the Will

2009-10-24T19:01:00.000+01:00

....said Antonio Gramsci.

Roll Up Your Sleeves

2009-10-24T17:25:00.003+01:00

The Perception Gap

"A dangerous gap exists between our personal experience, which is mainly happy, and our view of a society in decline."

"Progressives want the world to be a better place. We bemoan its current inequities and oppression - yet if we fail to celebrate the progress that human beings have made, and if we sound as though the future is a fearful place, we belie our own philosophy. Instead, we need to address a deficit in social optimism that threatens the credibility of our core narrative."

"My starting point is the need to forge a new collectivism. It is in working with others on a shared project of social advance that we can be reconnected to the sense of collective agency so missing from modern political discourse."

It is the attitude of the spectator that induces pessimism, the experience of the participant that brings hope.

"The old collectivism is dead or dying. Its characteristics - hierarchical, bureaucratic, paternalistic - are no longer suited to the challenges or the mood of the times. The institutions of the new collectivism must be devolved, pluralistic, egalitarian and, most of all, self-actualising."

Everything we do is music

2009-10-16T10:23:00.004+01:00

"We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools ape us"

(The Medium is the Massage, 1967. side A side B)

APE PERSONHOOD : ape protection

2009-10-16T05:07:00.005+01:00

http://www.personhood.org/personhood/lawreview/

The core mission of Great Ape Standing & Personhood (GRASP) is to secure legal recognition of the rights of apes and all nonhuman primates to live in their own ways.

- The condition of “humanness” is not essential to becoming a “person” under the law. -

- We now know that Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Bonobos, and Human Beings are all species of African Great Apes. -

- Together with Orang-utans, we are members of a slightly larger taxonomic group known as the Great Apes, or "Hominoidea." -

- We humans understand the other great apes much more than was possible even a few years ago. -

http://www.greatapeproject.org/

It is morally unjustifiable to treat sentient animals as items of chattel property.

Great Ape Project (GAP) is an international movement that aims to defend the rights of the non-human great primates - chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and bonobos, our closest relatives in the animal kingdom.

The main rights are: the right to life, the protection of individual liberty and the prohibition of torture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape_personhood

NEURODIVERSITY: how soon is now

2009-10-16T02:25:00.004+01:00

"I am the son and heir,
Of nothing in particular,
You shut your mouth
how can you say,
I go about things the wrong way,
I am human and I need to be loved,
just like everybody else does..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurodiversity

"Neurodiversity is an idea which asserts that atypical (neurodivergent) neurological development is a normal human difference that is to be recognized and respected as any other human variation."

DOGS IN SPACE

2009-10-11T10:38:00.004+01:00

The first acknowledged earth born creature to leave the planet was Laika, in Sputnik 2, 1957.

More dogs followed, between 1959 and 1961.

Before the launch, one of the scientists took Laika home to play with his children. In a book chronicling the story of Soviet space medicine, Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky wrote, "I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_space_dogs

Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain

2009-10-11T09:22:00.001+01:00

The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.

attributed to Li Bai, 8th century Chinese poet:
(zazen is a form of meditation where one just sits silently.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai

Time Travel And ‘Energy Umbrellas’: Chicago Gets A Makeover For The 22nd Century

2009-10-11T04:44:00.002+01:00

“Big. Bold. Visionary. Chicago Considers the Next Century,”

among the several “Towers” proposals, there is “Eco-Casino”... Its true innovation, if brought to fruition, is the marriage of sustainability and gambling... The roulette skyline bar, powered by wind turbines, sits beneath a bay of solar-powered slot machines by the rooftop pool, and patrons can bet on the weather.