anarchy's ball: March 2010

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

who's white?

"The History of White People"

Who’s White?

Nell Irvin Painter’s title, “The History of White People,” is a provocation in several ways: it’s monumental in sweep, and its absurd grandiosity should call to mind the fact that writing a “History of Black People” might seem perfectly reasonable to white people. But the title is literally accurate, because the book traces characterizations of the lighter-skinned people we call white today, starting with the ancient Scythians. For those who have not yet registered how much these characterizations have changed, let me assure you that sensory observation was not the basis of racial nomenclature.

Monday, March 29, 2010

The Rage Is Not About Health Care

clipped from www.nytimes.com

If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.

FASCINATING READING

clipped from us.mg1.mail.yahoo.com

Global Guerrillas JOURNAL: Resilient Communities and Darknets Featured in Time Magazine

Thursday, March 25, 2010

QUESTION: CAPITALISM, THE GAME?

posted by John Robb, 23 march 2010.

clipped from globalguerrillas.typepad.com

If you built a massively multiplayer game called Capitalism (you could even throw in Democracy), based on the way it runs today, would anyone play it?
__________
NOTE: here's a quick response to those that maintain that the system we have today is a perversion of Capitalism and not Capitalism itself. The implication is that the term is being misused in the question above. Some thoughts:

What makes Capitalism so weak, as a system, that it is so easily and horribly misused and/or perverted?

Any theory that relies on a tightly bound set of theoretical assumptions and lofty preconditions in order to perform effectively sounds very similar to an ideology.

It's unlikely that any existing economic system, including Capitalism, is the best of all possible systems (we aren't Panglossian here). So, if the technology is available to compete with it (it is), why don't we? May the best system win.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

'Drunk Pedestrian' Warning Signs in Romania

..could do with some of those in Ireland - esp. today! (17/03)

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk

Romanian 'drunk pedestrian' warning signs scrapped after 'excessive media coverage'

Road safety chiefs in the town of Pecica,
worried about the “despairing” levels of accidents, had erected the
bright red signs, complete with the phrase “Attention - Drunks” throughout
the town.

The
council last week announced that the 10 red road signs, which also
showed a person crawling on their knees while clutching a glass in one hand,
had been erected in popular nightspot areas close to the city's bars and
restaurants

He said it was not motorists’ fault but blamed the town’s pedestrians, many of
whom were not able to look out for themselves as they walked around the
town, which is more than 300 miles west of the Romanian capital Bucharest,
of “other dangers” in the road.

He had said most of the accidents in the town, which has a population of about
13,000, were mainly caused by drunken revellers, with some even resulting in
fatalities.

Residents said they found the signs amusing.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

AMERICAN CEMETERY NORTH OF VERDUN, MEUSE, FRANCE

100 acreas were dedicated in 1935 at Romagne-sous-Montfaucon where today 14,246 rest. More than half of the original 25,000 were repatriated.

Death and geometry....terrible symmetry.

clipped from www.hyd-masti.com

In the desert near AL JAHRAH, KUWAIT

In 1991 during the first Gulf War, one million "depleted uranium" shells (that's nuclear weaponry) was fired at Iraqi forces, spreading toxic radioactive dust for miles, resulting in long-term damage to both environment and human lives.

Yet the U.S. of A. had the arrogance to claim possession and potential utilization of "weapons of mass destruction" by the Iraqis. Of course, we would deny that we made use of any such kinds of weapons.

War makes me sick, governments that rationalize insane brutality and massive destruction make me sicker.