September 2, 2012
Still maintaining the rage
Thirty-seven years after the dramatic events of the Dismissal, in which the Governer-General sacked the Prime Minister of Australia, replacing him with opposition leader Malcolm Fraser, new revelations have come to light showing that Sir John Kerr made inquiries into the potential dismissal of the Whitlam Government months before it happened on November 11, 1970. Kerr's papers also unmask High Court justice Anthony Mason's role in the saga.
Mason extensively and secretly counselled Kerr during the crisis, canvassed the use of the reserve powers to dismiss Whitlam and drafted a letter of dismissal for Kerr to use.
The revelations are made in a new book on the life of dumped PM Gough Whitlam.
"resistance and fighting for life is meaningful"
Chris Hedges interviewed by Bill Moyers is profound, insightful and inspiring. In one of the most pointed, sweeping and personal public conversations about Chris Hedges' life and work yet, Bill Moyers speaks with the journalist after the release of "Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt," the book Hedges co-authored with fellow reporter and artist Joe Sacco. The 50-minute conversation is followed by a segment on Sacco, who talks about the thinking and experiences that moved him to become a "comics journalist." Previously and previously.
The Complicated Realities of Reproductive Choice
Knocked Over: On Biology, Magical Thinking and Choice “Spare me the self-help bullshit,” I snarled at my sister while I sat, snot-nosed and gasping, behind a gas station off I-88 on my way home from Iowa. “Life isn’t Eat, Pray, Love. If you try to turn this into a teachable moment I will fucking scream.”
"There's nothing more aggravating in the world than the midnight sniffling of the person you've decided to hate." ― Shannon Hale, Book of a Thousand Days
The DoJ drops all remaining investigation and prosecution of US War on Terror deaths/murders through harsh tactics/torture: "No Charges Filed on Harsh Tactics Used by the C.I.A." [NYT] Glenn Greenwald reacts and describes the cases that just got dropped. [Guardian] Second link is arguably a violence trigger, but is better and bothers to do things like talk to the ALCU.
Minor Threat
Minor Threat, Winnepeg 1983
Minor Threat, Los Angeles 1983 (Hotter audio mix)
Minor Threat, Washington DC 1980 (very briefly) & 1983
Ian MacKaye, Artist's House Music Interview:
Minor Threat, Los Angeles 1983 (Hotter audio mix)
Minor Threat, Washington DC 1980 (very briefly) & 1983
Ian MacKaye, Artist's House Music Interview:
[The song "Straight Edge" was] "a song about my life, about the way that I look at things, and my decisions. And, it was essentially inspired by a song by Jimi Hendrix, of all people, and a song called 'If Six Were Nine' [sic], and in that song, he's singing about being a freak. And he says, "I'm the one who has to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to." And those words, when I was a kid hearing those words, it just blew my mind. So, essentially, 'Straight Edge' was the same message: "It's my life, so don't give me a hard time for my decisions to not engage in, like, what everybody seems to do all the time."
DFW Word Notes
Apparently, David Foster Wallace's "Word Notes" from the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus show up in Mac OS X's native Dictionary app. Well, they do if you still use Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6). If you have Lion or Mountain Lion, you can browse through them here: (PDF). You can find more uncollected/unpublished DFW stuff (including pieces that will show up in the upcoming Flesh and Not Flesh essay collection) here.
Korean War Photos
The Korean War is sometimes referred to as the "Forgotten War", overshadowed by the massive effort of WWII and the political contretemps of the Vietnam War. For a lot of Americans, our only frame of reference for the war is the TV series M*A*S*H, which itself lasted more than three times as long as the war itself. This set of over 60 color photographs taken by an American soldier who served in Korea during the war offer some compelling first-hand images of the daily activities of the troops (no combat photos) and of Koreans of that time. (via Reddit)
Syfy's fine new tv show, Alphas
Zebra Fucking Katz
Animal Copyright Infringement World
Animal Soccer World is a release by the late no-budget European publisher Phoenix Games. The primary feature of the "game" is a 30 minute animated feature (Youtube playlist here) full of blatantly copied Disney characters, dozens of characters voiced by the same person, some of the worst animation you will ever see, and a throbbing jungle beat that literally never stops.
Fast Women
Speedqueens — Women in motorsport from 1898 to the present day. Fasten your seatbelts, gentlemen.
Grape Apes: The Origins of Morality
Chimp Fights and Trolley Rides from Radiolab's morality episode: "try to answer tough moral quandaries. The questions--which force you to decide between homicidal scenarios--are the same ones being asked by Dr. Joshua Greene. He'll tell us about using modern brain scanning techniques to take snapshots of the brain as it struggles to resolve these moral conflicts. And he'll describe what he sees in these images: quite literally, a battle taking place in the brain. It's 'inner chimp' versus a calculator-wielding rationale."
It's a bitter acknowledgment of unrealized dreams
"Superman Returns is far from perfect, yet its flaws don't diminish the film's impact. Its greatness originates in its respect for Superman's decency; in Routh's graceful, almost balletic incarnation of the character; and in Bryan Singer's decision to express the hero's goodness in a cascade of iconic images as beautiful as superman himself--challenging us, daring us not to fall in love with him." A video essay from Matt Zoller Seitz and Kan Cancelosi about Superman Returns.
Wow, that’s quite a scenario!
Marathon Man: A Michigan dentist’s improbable transformation.
Common Ground
The Learning Bit
Recent developments in online learning have increasingly democratized the exchange of information in higher education: the launch of University of the People, a tuition-free online university; Khan Academy's acquisition of SmartHistory and its growing emphasis on humanities and liberal arts; the University of Reddit's crowd-sourced lessons being taught in real-world classrooms; Skillshare creating a community marketplace for teachers and students; Lore opening its doors to learners from all walks of life; major institutes in India putting every class lecture on YouTube in English; LectureFox collating together free university lectures from across the web. Of course not everyone is happy with the way things are going.
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