Un mendigo había estado sentado más de treinta años a la orilla de un camino. Un día pasó por ahí un desconocido. "Una monedita", murmuró mecánicamente el mendigo, alargando su vieja gorra de béisbol. "No tengo nada que darle", dijo el desconocido. Después preguntó: "¿Qué es eso en lo que está sentado?" "Nada", contestó el mendigo. "Sólo una caja vacía. Me he sentado en ella desde que tengo memoria". "¿Alguna vez ha mirado lo que hay dentro?", preguntó el desconocido. "No" dijo el mendigo. "¿Para qué? No hay nada dentro". "Échele una ojeada", insistió el desconocido. El mendigo se las arregló para abrir la caja. Con asombro, incredulidad y alborozo, vio que la caja estaba llena de oro.
viernes, 18 de enero de 2013
miércoles, 16 de enero de 2013
WATER ON MARS
--brought to you by mental_floss!
Carrot Soup with Tahini and Crisped Chickpeas
Much more at smittenkitchen.com
Serves 4, generously or 6, petitely
Soup
2 tablespoons (30 ml) olive oil
2 pounds (905 grams) carrots, peeled, diced or thinly sliced
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 regular or 6 small garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon table salt, plus more if needed
Pinch of Aleppo pepper or red pepper flakes
4 cups (945 ml) vegetable broth
Crisped chickpeas
1 3/4 cups cooked chickpeas, or 1 15-ounce (425-gram) can, drained, patted dry on paper towels
1 generous tablespoon (15 ml or so) olive oil
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
Lemon-tahini dollop
3 tablespoons (25 grams) tahini paste
2 tablespoons (30 ml) lemon juice
Pinch or two of salt
2 tablespoons (30 ml) water
Pita wedges, garnish
A few large pitas, cut into 8 wedges
Olive oil, to brush pitas
Za’atar (a Middle Eastern spice-herb blend) or sesame seeds and sea salt to sprinkle
2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
Heat two tablespoons olive oil in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add carrots, onion, garlic, coriander, cumin, salt and pepper flakes and sauté until they begin to brown, about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat your oven to 425 degrees F. Toss chickpeas with one tablespoon olive oil, salt and cumin until they’re all coated. Spread them on a baking sheet or pan and roast them in the oven until they’re browned and crisp. This can take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the size and firmness of your chickpeas. Toss them occasionally to make sure they’re toasting evenly.
Once vegetables have begun to brown, add broth, using it to scrape up any bits stuck to the bottom of the pot. Cover pot with lid and simmer until carrots are tender, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a small dish, whisk together tahini, lemon juice, salt and water until smooth with a yogurt-like consistency. If more liquid is needed to thin it, you can add more lemon juice or water, a spoonful at a time, until you get your desired consistency.
Spread pita wedges on a second baking sheet and brush lightly with olive oil. Sprinkle with za’atar or a combination of sea salt and sesame seeds and toast in oven with chickpeas until brown at edges, about 5 minutes.
Puree soup in a blender or with an immersion blender until smooth. Ladle into bowls. Dollop each with lemon-tahini, sprinkle with crisped chickpeas and garnish with chopped parsley. Serve with pita wedges. Forget January, you’d eat this anytime. Right?
Carrot Soup with Tahini and Crisped Chickpeas
Much more at smittenkitchen.com
Serves 4, generously or 6, petitely
Soup
2 tablespoons (30 ml) olive oil
2 pounds (905 grams) carrots, peeled, diced or thinly sliced
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 regular or 6 small garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon table salt, plus more if needed
Pinch of Aleppo pepper or red pepper flakes
4 cups (945 ml) vegetable broth
Crisped chickpeas
1 3/4 cups cooked chickpeas, or 1 15-ounce (425-gram) can, drained, patted dry on paper towels
1 generous tablespoon (15 ml or so) olive oil
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
Lemon-tahini dollop
3 tablespoons (25 grams) tahini paste
2 tablespoons (30 ml) lemon juice
Pinch or two of salt
2 tablespoons (30 ml) water
Pita wedges, garnish
A few large pitas, cut into 8 wedges
Olive oil, to brush pitas
Za’atar (a Middle Eastern spice-herb blend) or sesame seeds and sea salt to sprinkle
2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
Heat two tablespoons olive oil in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add carrots, onion, garlic, coriander, cumin, salt and pepper flakes and sauté until they begin to brown, about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat your oven to 425 degrees F. Toss chickpeas with one tablespoon olive oil, salt and cumin until they’re all coated. Spread them on a baking sheet or pan and roast them in the oven until they’re browned and crisp. This can take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the size and firmness of your chickpeas. Toss them occasionally to make sure they’re toasting evenly.
Once vegetables have begun to brown, add broth, using it to scrape up any bits stuck to the bottom of the pot. Cover pot with lid and simmer until carrots are tender, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a small dish, whisk together tahini, lemon juice, salt and water until smooth with a yogurt-like consistency. If more liquid is needed to thin it, you can add more lemon juice or water, a spoonful at a time, until you get your desired consistency.
Spread pita wedges on a second baking sheet and brush lightly with olive oil. Sprinkle with za’atar or a combination of sea salt and sesame seeds and toast in oven with chickpeas until brown at edges, about 5 minutes.
Puree soup in a blender or with an immersion blender until smooth. Ladle into bowls. Dollop each with lemon-tahini, sprinkle with crisped chickpeas and garnish with chopped parsley. Serve with pita wedges. Forget January, you’d eat this anytime. Right?
Hunter S. Thompson’s Daily Routine
In her book HUNTER: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson, biographer E. Jean Carroll starts the first chapter with a detailed account of the excess of her subject. It’s completely insane. Here’s what Carroll reports as a sample daily routine for the gonzo journalist (note that it begins at 3pm):
3:00 p.m. rise
3:05 Chivas Regal with the morning papers, Dunhills
3:45 cocaine
3:50 another glass of Chivas, Dunhill
4:05 first cup of coffee, Dunhill
4:15 cocaine
4:16 orange juice, Dunhill
4:30 cocaine
4:54 cocaine
5:05 cocaine
5:11 coffee, Dunhills
5:30 more ice in the Chivas
5:45 cocaine, etc., etc.
6:00 grass to take the edge off the day
7:05 Woody Creek Tavern for lunch-Heineken, two margatoes, coleslaw, a taco salad, a double order of fried onion rings, carrot cake, ice cream, a bean fritter, Dunhills, another Heineken, cocaine, and for the ride home, a snow cone (a glass of shredded ice over which is poured three or four jiggers of Chivas)
9:00 starts snorting cocaine seriously
10:00 drops acid
11:00 Chartreuse, cocaine, grass
11:30 cocaine, etc, etc.
12:00 midnight, Hunter S. Thompson is ready to write
12:05-6:00 a.m. Chartreuse, cocaine, grass, Chivas, coffee, Heineken, clove cigarettes, grapefruit, Dunhills, orange juice, gin, continuous pornographic movies.
6:00 the hot tub-champagne, Dove Bars, fettuccine Alfredo
8:00 Halcyon
8:20 sleepSource: Carroll, E. Jean (2011-10-04). HUNTER: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson (Kindle Locations 196-221).
In an appropriately weird twist, this biography is actually only partially available to purchase on the Kindle (where I grabbed the text above). You download the book for two bucks, start reading, and then, I kid you not, the book ends after the first chapter, saying: “The author is too lazy to go on converting HUNTER into an e-book. To read the rest of the book FREE—yes, free—go to www.HunterBio.com.” And indeed, going there does yield both PDF and RTF versions of the book, both of which are riddled with formatting errors. As Thompson said, “Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.”
Hunter S. Thompson’s Daily Routine
In her book HUNTER: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson, biographer E. Jean Carroll starts the first chapter with a detailed account of the excess of her subject. It’s completely insane. Here’s what Carroll reports as a sample daily routine for the gonzo journalist (note that it begins at 3pm):
3:00 p.m. rise
3:05 Chivas Regal with the morning papers, Dunhills
3:45 cocaine
3:50 another glass of Chivas, Dunhill
4:05 first cup of coffee, Dunhill
4:15 cocaine
4:16 orange juice, Dunhill
4:30 cocaine
4:54 cocaine
5:05 cocaine
5:11 coffee, Dunhills
5:30 more ice in the Chivas
5:45 cocaine, etc., etc.
6:00 grass to take the edge off the day
7:05 Woody Creek Tavern for lunch-Heineken, two margatoes, coleslaw, a taco salad, a double order of fried onion rings, carrot cake, ice cream, a bean fritter, Dunhills, another Heineken, cocaine, and for the ride home, a snow cone (a glass of shredded ice over which is poured three or four jiggers of Chivas)
9:00 starts snorting cocaine seriously
10:00 drops acid
11:00 Chartreuse, cocaine, grass
11:30 cocaine, etc, etc.
12:00 midnight, Hunter S. Thompson is ready to write
12:05-6:00 a.m. Chartreuse, cocaine, grass, Chivas, coffee, Heineken, clove cigarettes, grapefruit, Dunhills, orange juice, gin, continuous pornographic movies.
6:00 the hot tub-champagne, Dove Bars, fettuccine Alfredo
8:00 Halcyon
8:20 sleepSource: Carroll, E. Jean (2011-10-04). HUNTER: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson (Kindle Locations 196-221).
In an appropriately weird twist, this biography is actually only partially available to purchase on the Kindle (where I grabbed the text above). You download the book for two bucks, start reading, and then, I kid you not, the book ends after the first chapter, saying: “The author is too lazy to go on converting HUNTER into an e-book. To read the rest of the book FREE—yes, free—go to www.HunterBio.com.” And indeed, going there does yield both PDF and RTF versions of the book, both of which are riddled with formatting errors. As Thompson said, “Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.”
Nobuyoshi Araki
Text by Daisy Woodward at AnOther
From his wife in a state of sexual climax to his explicitly masochistic nude portraiture, photographer Nobuyoshi Araki has long divided opinion with his notoriously erotic choices of subject matter. His critics have fought for censorship of his work, particularly in his native Japan, and dubbed him nothing more than a misogynistic pornographer, but this has never deterred Araki, who remains one of the country’s most prolific artists. One of the most recent publications of his work is a set of three limited art edition books by Taschen, Nobuyoshi Araki. Bondage, which focus on one of his long-time fascinations and most important subjects: Kinbaku-bi, literally “the beauty of tight binding”.
"There is no conclusion," Araki once said. "It's completely open. It doesn't go anywhere"
Bondage, in a sexual context, first emerged in Japan in the late Edo period (the mid-1800s), but wasn’t popularised until the 1950s, when magazines like Kitan Club and Yomikiri Romance began printing the first naked bondage photographs, and the 1960s, when Nawashi (rope masters) began to appear in live S&M shows. Kinbaku is generally practiced with ropes that are six to eight metres in length and is based on specific rope patterns for binding and suspension.
The images in the, aptly Japanese bound, box set vary in mood and subtlety – from a barely visible wrist-binding on a girl in traditional dress, who leans serenely against a mirror, to a woman suspended from the ceiling, face-on, with a pointedly positioned flower between her legs (spread akimbo). There is certainly something mesmerising about the subject matter, whether the intriguing, tantalising nature of the binding tradition, or simply the graphic shamelessness of some of the poses; but, regardless of whether the content is to everyone's taste, there is no denying the photographs' demonstration of Araki's much-applauded mastery of composition, colour and tone: at times washed-out and delicate, at others bold and striking. The contrasting use of photographic effects and varying explicitness of subject matter are typical of Araki's open-ended approach and his attempt to avoid moralistic classification: "There is no conclusion," he once said. "It's completely open. It doesn't go anywhere."
Nobuyoshi Araki
Text by Daisy Woodward at AnOther
From his wife in a state of sexual climax to his explicitly masochistic nude portraiture, photographer Nobuyoshi Araki has long divided opinion with his notoriously erotic choices of subject matter. His critics have fought for censorship of his work, particularly in his native Japan, and dubbed him nothing more than a misogynistic pornographer, but this has never deterred Araki, who remains one of the country’s most prolific artists. One of the most recent publications of his work is a set of three limited art edition books by Taschen, Nobuyoshi Araki. Bondage, which focus on one of his long-time fascinations and most important subjects: Kinbaku-bi, literally “the beauty of tight binding”.
"There is no conclusion," Araki once said. "It's completely open. It doesn't go anywhere"
Bondage, in a sexual context, first emerged in Japan in the late Edo period (the mid-1800s), but wasn’t popularised until the 1950s, when magazines like Kitan Club and Yomikiri Romance began printing the first naked bondage photographs, and the 1960s, when Nawashi (rope masters) began to appear in live S&M shows. Kinbaku is generally practiced with ropes that are six to eight metres in length and is based on specific rope patterns for binding and suspension.
The images in the, aptly Japanese bound, box set vary in mood and subtlety – from a barely visible wrist-binding on a girl in traditional dress, who leans serenely against a mirror, to a woman suspended from the ceiling, face-on, with a pointedly positioned flower between her legs (spread akimbo). There is certainly something mesmerising about the subject matter, whether the intriguing, tantalising nature of the binding tradition, or simply the graphic shamelessness of some of the poses; but, regardless of whether the content is to everyone's taste, there is no denying the photographs' demonstration of Araki's much-applauded mastery of composition, colour and tone: at times washed-out and delicate, at others bold and striking. The contrasting use of photographic effects and varying explicitness of subject matter are typical of Araki's open-ended approach and his attempt to avoid moralistic classification: "There is no conclusion," he once said. "It's completely open. It doesn't go anywhere."
Love in Cubes - Amor en Cubos
COKE WISDOM O'NEAL
C42_M69_Y95_K50 & C42_M70_Y95_K50, 2011
c-print32 x 25 1/2 inches Artwork Number: CO'N.0443
Mounted on Dibond under non-glare Plexiglas.
Love in Cubes - Amor en Cubos
COKE WISDOM O'NEAL
C42_M69_Y95_K50 & C42_M70_Y95_K50, 2011
c-print32 x 25 1/2 inches Artwork Number: CO'N.0443
Mounted on Dibond under non-glare Plexiglas.
lunes, 14 de enero de 2013
Derrick Jensen´s Endgame
 |
Premises of Endgame
Premise One: Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization.
Premise Two: Traditional communities do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed. They also do not willingly allow their landbases to be damaged so that other resources—gold, oil, and so on—can be extracted. It follows that those who want the resources will do what they can to destroy traditional communities. Premise Three: Our way of living—industrial civilization—is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence.Premise Four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.Premise Five: The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control—in everyday language, to make money—by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.
Premise Six: Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses. The effects of this degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time. Premise Seven: The longer we wait for civilization to crash—or the longer we wait before we ourselves bring it down—the messier will be the crash, and the worse things will be for those humans and nonhumans who live during it, and for those who come after. Premise Eight: The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system.Another way to put premise Eight: Any economic or social system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, immoral, and stupid. Sustainability, morality, and intelligence (as well as justice) requires the dismantling of any such economic or social system, or at the very least disallowing it from damaging your landbase. Premise Nine: Although there will clearly some day be far fewer humans than there are at present, there are many ways this reduction in population could occur (or be achieved, depending on the passivity or activity with which we choose to approach this transformation). Some of these ways would be characterized by extreme violence and privation: nuclear armageddon, for example, would reduce both population and consumption, yet do so horrifically; the same would be true for a continuation of overshoot, followed by crash. Other ways could be characterized by less violence. Given the current levels of violence by this culture against both humans and the natural world, however, it’s not possible to speak of reductions in population and consumption that do not involve violence and privation, not because the reductions themselves would necessarily involve violence, but because violence and privation have become the default. Yet some ways of reducing population and consumption, while still violent, would consist of decreasing the current levels of violence required, and caused by, the (often forced) movement of resources from the poor to the rich, and would of course be marked by a reduction in current violence against the natural world. Personally and collectively we may be able to both reduce the amount and soften the character of violence that occurs during this ongoing and perhaps longterm shift. Or we may not. But this much is certain: if we do not approach it actively—if we do not talk about our predicament and what we are going to do about it—the violence will almost undoubtedly be far more severe, the privation more extreme. Premise Ten: The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life. Premise Eleven: From the beginning, this culture—civilization—has been a culture of occupation. Premise Twelve: There are no rich people in the world, and there are no poor people. There are just people. The rich may have lots of pieces of green paper that many pretend are worth something—or their presumed riches may be even more abstract: numbers on hard drives at banks—and the poor may not. These “rich” claim they own land, and the “poor” are often denied the right to make that same claim. A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of pieces of green paper. Those without the green papers generally buy into these delusions almost as quickly and completely as those with. These delusions carry with them extreme consequences in the real world. Premise Thirteen: Those in power rule by force, and the sooner we break ourselves of illusions to the contrary, the sooner we can at least begin to make reasonable decisions about whether, when, and how we are going to resist. Premise Fourteen: From birth on—and probably from conception, but I’m not sure how I’d make the case—we are individually and collectively enculturated to hate life, hate the natural world, hate the wild, hate wild animals, hate women, hate children, hate our bodies, hate and fear our emotions, hate ourselves. If we did not hate the world, we could not allow it to be destroyed before our eyes. If we did not hate ourselves, we could not allow our homes—and our bodies—to be poisoned. Premise Fifteen: Love does not imply pacifism.Premise Sixteen: The material world is primary. This does not mean that the spirit does not exist, nor that the material world is all there is. It means that spirit mixes with flesh. It means also that real world actions have real world consequences. It means we cannot rely on Jesus, Santa Claus, the Great Mother, or even the Easter Bunny to get us out of this mess. It means this mess really is a mess, and not just the movement of God’s eyebrows. It means we have to face this mess ourselves. It means that for the time we are here on Earth—whether or not we end up somewhere else after we die, and whether we are condemned or privileged to live here—the Earth is the point. It is primary. It is our home. It is everything. It is silly to think or act or be as though this world is not real and primary. It is silly and pathetic to not live our lives as though our lives are real. Premise Seventeen: It is a mistake (or more likely, denial) to base our decisions on whether actions arising from these will or won’t frighten fence-sitters, or the mass of Americans.Premise Eighteen: Our current sense of self is no more sustainable than our current use of energy or technology. Premise Nineteen: The culture’s problem lies above all in the belief that controlling and abusing the natural world is justifiable.Premise Twenty: Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions. Modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the monetary fortunes of the decision-makers and those they serve.
Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the power of the decision-makers and those they serve. Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are founded primarily (and often exclusively) on the almost entirely unexamined belief that the decision-makers and those they serve are entitled to magnify their power and/or financial fortunes at the expense of those below. Re-modification of Premise Twenty: If you dig to the heart of it—if there were any heart left—you would find that social decisions are determined primarily on the basis of how well these decisions serve the ends of controlling or destroying wild nature.
Derrick Jensen´s Endgame
|
Premises of Endgame
Premise One: Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization.
Premise Two: Traditional communities do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed. They also do not willingly allow their landbases to be damaged so that other resources—gold, oil, and so on—can be extracted. It follows that those who want the resources will do what they can to destroy traditional communities. Premise Three: Our way of living—industrial civilization—is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence.Premise Four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.Premise Five: The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control—in everyday language, to make money—by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.
Premise Six: Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses. The effects of this degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time. Premise Seven: The longer we wait for civilization to crash—or the longer we wait before we ourselves bring it down—the messier will be the crash, and the worse things will be for those humans and nonhumans who live during it, and for those who come after. Premise Eight: The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system.Another way to put premise Eight: Any economic or social system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, immoral, and stupid. Sustainability, morality, and intelligence (as well as justice) requires the dismantling of any such economic or social system, or at the very least disallowing it from damaging your landbase. Premise Nine: Although there will clearly some day be far fewer humans than there are at present, there are many ways this reduction in population could occur (or be achieved, depending on the passivity or activity with which we choose to approach this transformation). Some of these ways would be characterized by extreme violence and privation: nuclear armageddon, for example, would reduce both population and consumption, yet do so horrifically; the same would be true for a continuation of overshoot, followed by crash. Other ways could be characterized by less violence. Given the current levels of violence by this culture against both humans and the natural world, however, it’s not possible to speak of reductions in population and consumption that do not involve violence and privation, not because the reductions themselves would necessarily involve violence, but because violence and privation have become the default. Yet some ways of reducing population and consumption, while still violent, would consist of decreasing the current levels of violence required, and caused by, the (often forced) movement of resources from the poor to the rich, and would of course be marked by a reduction in current violence against the natural world. Personally and collectively we may be able to both reduce the amount and soften the character of violence that occurs during this ongoing and perhaps longterm shift. Or we may not. But this much is certain: if we do not approach it actively—if we do not talk about our predicament and what we are going to do about it—the violence will almost undoubtedly be far more severe, the privation more extreme. Premise Ten: The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life. Premise Eleven: From the beginning, this culture—civilization—has been a culture of occupation. Premise Twelve: There are no rich people in the world, and there are no poor people. There are just people. The rich may have lots of pieces of green paper that many pretend are worth something—or their presumed riches may be even more abstract: numbers on hard drives at banks—and the poor may not. These “rich” claim they own land, and the “poor” are often denied the right to make that same claim. A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of pieces of green paper. Those without the green papers generally buy into these delusions almost as quickly and completely as those with. These delusions carry with them extreme consequences in the real world. Premise Thirteen: Those in power rule by force, and the sooner we break ourselves of illusions to the contrary, the sooner we can at least begin to make reasonable decisions about whether, when, and how we are going to resist. Premise Fourteen: From birth on—and probably from conception, but I’m not sure how I’d make the case—we are individually and collectively enculturated to hate life, hate the natural world, hate the wild, hate wild animals, hate women, hate children, hate our bodies, hate and fear our emotions, hate ourselves. If we did not hate the world, we could not allow it to be destroyed before our eyes. If we did not hate ourselves, we could not allow our homes—and our bodies—to be poisoned. Premise Fifteen: Love does not imply pacifism.Premise Sixteen: The material world is primary. This does not mean that the spirit does not exist, nor that the material world is all there is. It means that spirit mixes with flesh. It means also that real world actions have real world consequences. It means we cannot rely on Jesus, Santa Claus, the Great Mother, or even the Easter Bunny to get us out of this mess. It means this mess really is a mess, and not just the movement of God’s eyebrows. It means we have to face this mess ourselves. It means that for the time we are here on Earth—whether or not we end up somewhere else after we die, and whether we are condemned or privileged to live here—the Earth is the point. It is primary. It is our home. It is everything. It is silly to think or act or be as though this world is not real and primary. It is silly and pathetic to not live our lives as though our lives are real. Premise Seventeen: It is a mistake (or more likely, denial) to base our decisions on whether actions arising from these will or won’t frighten fence-sitters, or the mass of Americans.Premise Eighteen: Our current sense of self is no more sustainable than our current use of energy or technology. Premise Nineteen: The culture’s problem lies above all in the belief that controlling and abusing the natural world is justifiable.Premise Twenty: Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions. Modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the monetary fortunes of the decision-makers and those they serve.
Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the power of the decision-makers and those they serve. Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are founded primarily (and often exclusively) on the almost entirely unexamined belief that the decision-makers and those they serve are entitled to magnify their power and/or financial fortunes at the expense of those below. Re-modification of Premise Twenty: If you dig to the heart of it—if there were any heart left—you would find that social decisions are determined primarily on the basis of how well these decisions serve the ends of controlling or destroying wild nature.
domingo, 13 de enero de 2013
A Spectacular Double-Shot: NASA
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A Spectacular Double-Shot
A wide field meteor camera at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center recorded this spectacular meteor breaking up in Earth's atmosphere on Sept. 30, 2011, 8:37 p.m. EDT. Also visible is a star-like object moving slowly toward the upper middle of the field of view -- the upper stage of the Zenit booster that launched the Russian Cosmos 2219 intelligence satellite back in 1992. Orbiting 500 miles above Earth, this empty rocket body can get bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye.
A Spectacular Double-Shot: NASA
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A Spectacular Double-Shot
A wide field meteor camera at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center recorded this spectacular meteor breaking up in Earth's atmosphere on Sept. 30, 2011, 8:37 p.m. EDT. Also visible is a star-like object moving slowly toward the upper middle of the field of view -- the upper stage of the Zenit booster that launched the Russian Cosmos 2219 intelligence satellite back in 1992. Orbiting 500 miles above Earth, this empty rocket body can get bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye.
miércoles, 9 de enero de 2013
lunes, 7 de enero de 2013
"For beauty is nothing..."
"For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure,
and we are are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying."
but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure,
and we are are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying."
— Rainer Maria Rilke
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