Friday, May 29, 2009
Go vote on the 7th of June
It is really important - start paying atention to the ones who administer our resources.
Ask questions, be involved.
Nostalgia
Go on sing along :
Winters cityside
Crystal bits of snowflakes all around my head and in the wind
I had no illusions
That Id ever find a glimps of summers heatwaves in your eyes
You did what you did to me, now its history I see
Heres my comeback on the road again
Things will happen while they can
I will wait here for my man tonight, its easy when your big in japan
When your big in japan, tonight
Big in japan, be tight, big in japan where the eastern seas so blue
Big in japan, alright, pay, then Ill sleep by your side
Things are easy when youre big in japan, when youre big in japan
Neon on my naked skin
Passing silhouettes of strange illuminated mannequins
Shall I stay here at the zoo
Or shall I go and change my point of view for other ugly scenes
You did what you did to me, now its history I see...
Things will happen while they can
I will wait here for my man tonight, its easy when youre big in japan
North Korea
<
Inside North Korea : watch this video
"North Korea has more than a million troops and is believed to have huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. Defense Department experts have estimated that an actual war on the Korean peninsula would cause hundreds of thousands of casualties."
"A Coreia do Norte testou outro míssil de curto-alcance, a partir da base de Musudan-ri, ao largo da costa leste, anunciou uma fonte do governo da Coreia do Sul.
"Aquilo que foi lançado pelo Norte, desta vez, parece ser diferente do que foi lançado anteriormente", diz a mesma fonte.
O míssil teria um alcance de 160 quilómetros e terá sido lançado cerca das 18h12.
Este foi o sexto lançamento desde o teste nuclear realizado pela Coreia do Norte na segunda-feira."
<
"Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it is described as being "the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year". Orwell included an essay about it in the form of an appendix[1] in which the basic principles of the language are explained. Newspeak is closely based on English but has a greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar. This suits the totalitarian regime of the Party, whose aim is to make any alternative thinking — "thoughtcrime", or "crimethink" in the newest edition of Newspeak — impossible by removing any words or possible constructs which describe the ideas of freedom, rebellion and so on. One character says admiringly of the shrinking volume of the new dictionary: "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.""
“ I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words or constructions. ”
How can we reach this people ?
Inside North Korea : watch this video
"North Korea has more than a million troops and is believed to have huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. Defense Department experts have estimated that an actual war on the Korean peninsula would cause hundreds of thousands of casualties."
"A Coreia do Norte testou outro míssil de curto-alcance, a partir da base de Musudan-ri, ao largo da costa leste, anunciou uma fonte do governo da Coreia do Sul.
"Aquilo que foi lançado pelo Norte, desta vez, parece ser diferente do que foi lançado anteriormente", diz a mesma fonte.
O míssil teria um alcance de 160 quilómetros e terá sido lançado cerca das 18h12.
Este foi o sexto lançamento desde o teste nuclear realizado pela Coreia do Norte na segunda-feira."
<
"Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it is described as being "the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year". Orwell included an essay about it in the form of an appendix[1] in which the basic principles of the language are explained. Newspeak is closely based on English but has a greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar. This suits the totalitarian regime of the Party, whose aim is to make any alternative thinking — "thoughtcrime", or "crimethink" in the newest edition of Newspeak — impossible by removing any words or possible constructs which describe the ideas of freedom, rebellion and so on. One character says admiringly of the shrinking volume of the new dictionary: "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.""
“ I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words or constructions. ”
How can we reach this people ?
DIGNITY
DEMANDDIGNITY.AMNESTY.ORG
IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED
To protect the rights of those who live in slums, to end the needless deaths of women from complications in
pregnancy, to ensure corporate actors pay due attention to the rights of those in poverty, world leaders must
move from acknowledgement to action. Different projects will focus on different targets and levers for change
– all with the knowledge that people in poverty can indeed realize their rights, under the right conditions.
To do so, and to ensure long-term, systemic change, three underlying areas that have traditionally blocked
progress, as well as good intentions, must be addressed.
Read all about it here
I confess I'm more a person’s man myself, these are the causes that motivate me more, because people are really the agents of change and with motivated well informed people, everything is possible.
IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED
To protect the rights of those who live in slums, to end the needless deaths of women from complications in
pregnancy, to ensure corporate actors pay due attention to the rights of those in poverty, world leaders must
move from acknowledgement to action. Different projects will focus on different targets and levers for change
– all with the knowledge that people in poverty can indeed realize their rights, under the right conditions.
To do so, and to ensure long-term, systemic change, three underlying areas that have traditionally blocked
progress, as well as good intentions, must be addressed.
Read all about it here
I confess I'm more a person’s man myself, these are the causes that motivate me more, because people are really the agents of change and with motivated well informed people, everything is possible.
Earth Condominium
Earth Condominium
A good idea, that needs to be well cared for...need to study all legal and political implications, to study the existing international status quo in order to be able to adapt it.
We have to take notice that there's already an International Penal Court, that we have already global responses to problems, like in the case of the flu pandemic with WHO, the economic crisis with G20...and there's the Global Conference in Environmental issues coming in Copenhagen later this year.
Also, the idea's author speaks freely about law and economics, he has to start talk politics, that's what will make this idea really global and empower it to grow and change reality.
After all making the world a better place is a common goal for humanity.
A good idea, that needs to be well cared for...need to study all legal and political implications, to study the existing international status quo in order to be able to adapt it.
We have to take notice that there's already an International Penal Court, that we have already global responses to problems, like in the case of the flu pandemic with WHO, the economic crisis with G20...and there's the Global Conference in Environmental issues coming in Copenhagen later this year.
Also, the idea's author speaks freely about law and economics, he has to start talk politics, that's what will make this idea really global and empower it to grow and change reality.
After all making the world a better place is a common goal for humanity.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Pakistan car design
Pakistanis do spend several times their monthly paycheques, to decorate their vehicles...nothing is all bad in Pakistan (if there's fantasy there's hope...).
"The most striking thing in Pakistan is the vision of trucks and buses completely covered in a riot of color and design. They might spew diesel fumes, they may take up all of the winding, narrow, under-maintained road one is trying to negotiate, but they are certainly noticeable, like so many mechanical dinosaurs adorned in full courtship colors.
The decoration of vehicles is a common practice in a number of countries in addition to Pakistan. Similar techniques and materials are employed in truck and (more frequently) bus decoration in the Philippines, Indonesia, and several countries in Central and South America; in South Asia itself, Indian trucks are painted, as are the scooter rickshaws, called "Baby Taxis", of Bangladesh. What makes the case of Pakistan unique, however, is the pervasiveness of vehicle decoration, since decoration is heavily utilized on virtually all privately and fleet-owned commercial vehicles, from the well known trucks and buses, to vans, share taxis, animal carts and even juice vendors' push carts.
The motifs on the trucks can be categorized in five groups:
1. Idealized elements of life, such as the romanticized village, landscapes or beautiful women.
2. Elements from modern life, such as pictures of political figures or patriotic symbols.
3. Talismanic and fetish objects, such as horns, yak tails and items of clothing.
4. Talismanically or religiously loaded symbols, such as eyes and fish.
5. .Obvious religious symbols and images such as Buraq (a celestial horse that is believed to have carried the Prophet Muhammad on a spiritual journey to heaven).
However, by far the commonest religious symbols appearing on a truck are the Ka'ba and Prophets mosque, appearing on the left and right of the front of the truck somewhere towards the top."
See for yourselves
I was wrong
W. H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
Technicians
"A technician is someone who might service your car. They fix machinery and appliances. There are chief, expert, assistant and bad technicians. Some deal with maintenance, testing, forensic, x-ray, optical, nuclear, food, brakes, shark, toe nail, nose, lice, cat and dog matters. They make the World tolerable. They are licensed, bonded, illegal or shy, loaded or pretty much like all the rest of us. Some say a technician is generally someone active in a technological field (Gee!).
Few descriptions of today’s technicians mention art although historically, artists were viewed as technicians or craftsmen. Society today is complex indeed, requiring an army of experts to run it. The true technicians are very visible. We need the doctors, plumbers, mobile phone gurus, Redmond enablers (”Your potential. Our passion” which currently translates to xBoxes) and hairdressers. Torturers, lawyers, snipers, SWAT teams and concentration camp guards are desperately needed."
interesting blog
...just pick up this from the Net, I usually refer to myself as an IT technician, so this means I'm an enabler : my job is to enable other people potential( just don't want to be desperately needed like concentration camp guards - just hope there won't be anymore concentration camp guards needed, no, not anymore.).
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The kiss
"When the quadrille began, young Von Rabbek came up to those who were not dancing and invited two officers to have a game at billiards. The officers accepted and went with him out of the drawing-room. Ryabovitch, having nothing to do and wishing to take part in the general movement, slouched after them. From the big drawing-room they went into the little drawing-room, then into a narrow corridor with a glass roof, and thence into a room in which on their entrance three sleepy-looking footmen jumped up quickly from the sofa. At last, after passing through a long succession of rooms, young Von Rabbek and the officers came into a small room where there was a billiard-table. They began to play.
Ryabovitch, who had never played any game but cards, stood near the billiard-table and looked indifferently at the players, while they in unbuttoned coats, with cues in their hands, stepped about, made puns, and kept shouting out unintelligible words.
The players took no notice of him, and only now and then one of them, shoving him with his elbow or accidentally touching him with the end of his cue, would turn round and say "Pardon!" Before the first game was over he was weary of it, and began to feel he was not wanted and in the way. . . . He felt disposed to return to the drawing-room, and he went out.
On his way back he met with a little adventure. When he had gone half-way he noticed he had taken a wrong turning. He distinctly remembered that he ought to meet three sleepy footmen on his way, but he had passed five or six rooms, and those sleepy figures seemed to have vanished into the earth. Noticing his mistake, he walked back a little way and turned to the right; he found himself in a little dark room which he had not seen on his way to the billiard-room. After standing there a little while, he resolutely opened the first door that met his eyes and walked into an absolutely dark room. Straight in front could be seen the crack in the doorway through which there was a gleam of vivid light; from the other side of the door came the muffled sound of a melancholy mazurka. Here, too, as in the drawing-room, the windows were wide open and there was a smell of poplars, lilac and roses. . . .
Ryabovitch stood still in hesitation. . . . At that moment, to his surprise, he heard hurried footsteps and the rustling of a dress, a breathless feminine voice whispered "At last!" And two soft, fragrant, unmistakably feminine arms were clasped about his neck; a warm cheek was pressed to his cheek, and simultaneously there was the sound of a kiss. But at once the bestower of the kiss uttered a faint shriek and skipped back from him, as it seemed to Ryabovitch, with aversion. He, too, almost shrieked and rushed towards the gleam of light at the door. . . .
When he went back into the drawing-room his heart was beating and his hands were trembling so noticeably that he made haste to hide them behind his back. At first he was tormented by shame and dread that the whole drawing-room knew that he had just been kissed and embraced by a woman. He shrank into himself and looked uneasily about him, but as he became convinced that people were dancing and talking as calmly as ever, he gave himself up entirely to the new sensation which he had never experienced before in his life. Something strange was happening to him. . . . His neck, round which soft, fragrant arms had so lately been clasped, seemed to him to be anointed with oil; on his left cheek near his moustache where the unknown had kissed him there was a faint chilly tingling sensation as from peppermint drops, and the more he rubbed the place the more distinct was the chilly sensation; all over, from head to foot, he was full of a strange new feeling which grew stronger and stronger. . . . He wanted to dance, to talk, to run into the garden, to laugh aloud. . . . He quite forgot that he was round-shouldered and uninteresting, that he had lynx-like whiskers and an "undistinguished appearance" (that was how his appearance had been described by some ladies whose conversation he had accidentally overheard). When Von Rabbek's wife happened to pass by him, he gave her such a broad and friendly smile that she stood still and looked at him inquiringly.
"I like your house immensely!" he said, setting his spectacles straight."
Read it all here
Ryabovitch, who had never played any game but cards, stood near the billiard-table and looked indifferently at the players, while they in unbuttoned coats, with cues in their hands, stepped about, made puns, and kept shouting out unintelligible words.
The players took no notice of him, and only now and then one of them, shoving him with his elbow or accidentally touching him with the end of his cue, would turn round and say "Pardon!" Before the first game was over he was weary of it, and began to feel he was not wanted and in the way. . . . He felt disposed to return to the drawing-room, and he went out.
On his way back he met with a little adventure. When he had gone half-way he noticed he had taken a wrong turning. He distinctly remembered that he ought to meet three sleepy footmen on his way, but he had passed five or six rooms, and those sleepy figures seemed to have vanished into the earth. Noticing his mistake, he walked back a little way and turned to the right; he found himself in a little dark room which he had not seen on his way to the billiard-room. After standing there a little while, he resolutely opened the first door that met his eyes and walked into an absolutely dark room. Straight in front could be seen the crack in the doorway through which there was a gleam of vivid light; from the other side of the door came the muffled sound of a melancholy mazurka. Here, too, as in the drawing-room, the windows were wide open and there was a smell of poplars, lilac and roses. . . .
Ryabovitch stood still in hesitation. . . . At that moment, to his surprise, he heard hurried footsteps and the rustling of a dress, a breathless feminine voice whispered "At last!" And two soft, fragrant, unmistakably feminine arms were clasped about his neck; a warm cheek was pressed to his cheek, and simultaneously there was the sound of a kiss. But at once the bestower of the kiss uttered a faint shriek and skipped back from him, as it seemed to Ryabovitch, with aversion. He, too, almost shrieked and rushed towards the gleam of light at the door. . . .
When he went back into the drawing-room his heart was beating and his hands were trembling so noticeably that he made haste to hide them behind his back. At first he was tormented by shame and dread that the whole drawing-room knew that he had just been kissed and embraced by a woman. He shrank into himself and looked uneasily about him, but as he became convinced that people were dancing and talking as calmly as ever, he gave himself up entirely to the new sensation which he had never experienced before in his life. Something strange was happening to him. . . . His neck, round which soft, fragrant arms had so lately been clasped, seemed to him to be anointed with oil; on his left cheek near his moustache where the unknown had kissed him there was a faint chilly tingling sensation as from peppermint drops, and the more he rubbed the place the more distinct was the chilly sensation; all over, from head to foot, he was full of a strange new feeling which grew stronger and stronger. . . . He wanted to dance, to talk, to run into the garden, to laugh aloud. . . . He quite forgot that he was round-shouldered and uninteresting, that he had lynx-like whiskers and an "undistinguished appearance" (that was how his appearance had been described by some ladies whose conversation he had accidentally overheard). When Von Rabbek's wife happened to pass by him, he gave her such a broad and friendly smile that she stood still and looked at him inquiringly.
"I like your house immensely!" he said, setting his spectacles straight."
Read it all here
Bill Traylor
This drawing and the one before of the man walking the dog are by american artist, Bill traylor, his story here
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Silence only
Where did we go wrong ?
It's the end of another day and I'm feeling lost
traced your steps, followed you in, inside our home
did the usual gestures, started what we had to start
silence around us, even inanimate objects follow the silence script
we're all in a silent movie, we're fish in a bowl
somewhere must be a way out, as there was a way in...
Silence only, no more facing each other, no more regards.
Where did we go wrong ?
Monday, May 25, 2009
Blue dancer
Fell in love with this yesterday.
"I have spent the four most wonderful days of my life with my pretty friends. The little Javanese girls who were here at the exhibition had already pleased me, and now the delightful Cambodian princesses have reawakened my old impressions and increased them a hundred times. They have brought antiquity to life again for me. They have shown me, in reality, the beautiful gestures, the beautiful movements of the human body which the ancients knew how to capture in art. They suddenly immersed me in nature, revealed a completely new aspect and taught me that artists here below have no other task than to observe nature and find sustenance at its source. I am a man who had devoted his entire life to the study of nature and who infinitely admires the works of antiquity; so you can imagine how such a superb spectacle must have affected me, a spectacle that opened my eyes to antiquity again. These monotonous, slow dances to the rhythms of strange music have an extraordinary, a perfect beauty, like the beauty of Greece but with its own special quality."
The rest here
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