22 April 2009

A rare surfendental trip this evening, towed to sea by youtube's ebbing current. There's just too much stuff out there now, at least 10 remixes of every original piece, interviews about the mixes, it's sometimes impossible to even find the original. Question of the day: Is there a contradiction between not being able to cope with so many choices and being an anti-statist?

In the maze of threads surrounding Busta Rhymes' track Arab Money - if you dare the video then don't leave without checking out the comments - came across this clip from Red Leb Studios in Beirut. If you like, here's something a bit more rockin'.

20 April 2009

The big black boot

Here's the latest update on Laura Ling and Euna Lee's situation in North Korea. Does not look good even with the US State Department on the case, although i've little doubt this was exactly what Kim Jong-Il craves: Down on your knees, imperialist dogs! When Orwell described the ultimate totalitarian state as a black boot stepping on a human face, i doubt he had the image of a cartoon dictator in mind.

And in Sweden, the fab four of Pirate Bay have been found guilty and sentenced to both an enormous fine as well as one year prison terms. They are going to appeal - of course - but as Wired pointed out at the start of their trial, the premises put forth for innocence are weak at best and shameful at an anarchistic worst. Back in the pre-electronic age, non-violent subversives of the system used to throw their defiance into the face of the courts and wear their gags and prison sentences as badges of honor. Nowadays, it seems like subversive movements are all about wacking the system and then trying to escape. My own sympathies have shifted towards this latter approach as the state apparati for contain and control have increased in both scope and offensiveness. Still, if young IT rebels are looking to the pirate bay founders as scions of radicalism, it seems that on that note, the trial's been a major disappointment.

Fully aware i've been avoiding blogging for longer than usual, it's no small irony to be returning here on the same day Adbusters are calling for a week of digital detox. They've even supplied a twitter message: @adbusters I’m celebrating Digital Detox Week! Offline for 7 brain-restoring days. #digitaldetox. At first this struck me as a paradox, but i guess it's no different from putting a message on one's voice mail or email autoreply to inform people not to expect an answer anytime soon. i don't use twitter; my facebook attention span is undergoing a major endurance slump, ergo the option of switching to a condensed facebook experience which would infect not only my computer but also my telephone is simply out of the question.

After watching Ashton Kuchner beat CNN in the rush to reach a million twitterers (tweeters?), it's obvious that Adbusters use of 'detox' is totally on the mark. Receiving constant bite-sized tidbits about celebrities' activities is like hanging out in elevators because you can't live without the monoregisters of muzak: both have the power to make us feel surficially at ease while simultaneously melting our brain capacity. i know that 'aplusk' is using twitter to raise money for a good cause, and i appreciate his analysis of what the new media means for the society blahblahblah but that doesn't change the addiction paradigm.

So here's to detox for a few days, during which i will probably end up spending a fair amount of time writing for this blog - the imprisoned don't get a break, how dare i take an even longer one? Besides, if i've never twittered and continue to not twitter for the coming week, that should work out in my favor in terms of maintaining an nontoxified balance, right? i'd do the math, but that would require using a calculator, which in pure Einsteinian terms would be comparable to twittering the gods and therefore make a pure calculation impossible to pull off since every number keyed in would immediately alter the equation. This is exactly the problem that Fox News has everytime they describe themselves as 'fair and balanced,' which actually speaks in favor of total detoxification so long as one does so with an open mind towards those less almighty than ourselves.

08 April 2009

Nanology of Virology

“We’re using a biological template that’s already on the nanoscale,” Belcher says. i guess this goes to show that while small may or may not be beautiful, it is definitely important enough to have earned its own self-contained metering system. (We can only hope that the anti-obesity squad doesn't start using nanograms as the basis for fining people: 'Sir, your body weight is off the nanoscale - that'll be 1000 Yen!) Dr. Belcher of MIT has just reported a breakthrough in the development of viral batteries. If they can do this with viruses, i can't wait to see where stem cell research is going to lead.

02 April 2009

Amazing work from a young Chinese photographer, Yang Yi, who went below the surface to document the village he lived in before the Three Gorges Dam submerged it.

i totally called it

This evening's update from The Independent:
Police were forced to use dogs, horses and truncheons to control a crowd of up to 5,000 people who marched on the Bank of England, in Threadneedle Street, on the eve of the London summit...

The rioters then went on the rampage within the bank, which was at the centre of a row over the £700,000-per-year pension of Sir Fred Goodwin, its former chief executive. Telephone lines were ripped out, office furniture wrecked, windows smashed and graffiti daubed on both the inside and outside. A blue office chair was used to smash up one of the blacked-out branch windows, while another chair was thrown out of the window...

A Met Police spokesman said: "There have been a number of missiles thrown at officers and a number of surges at the police cordons, and increasing levels of violence towards police.
Elsewhere in the city, papparazzi were chasing the Obamas and succeeded in catching a sleeveless Michelle Obama on her way into dinner. The savior of the free world gave the Queen an iPod, a subtle way of encouraging her to tune out even more than she probably already does. i read recently that the royals are forbidden by a 350+ year old law of marrying catholics. Interesting. No wonder the IRA refuses to completely disband. But we take note that they were not leading any of the marches in London.

And a quick report on the climate action folks' encampment at the Carbon Exchange:
15:20 - Climate Camp: Still going Strong, over 2000 people and 150 tents, described as a hugely impressive infrastructure. There are theatre performances, compost toilets, a medical tent, a couple of working kitchens, with many people picnicing there. The camp has been attracting passers by and city workers. There are police lines on either side of the camp but people are allowed in and out. Plenty of dancing and banners across the street.

19:15 - Climate Camp: Police have attacked on the South Side of the camp, indiscriminately beating people who are holding their hands up. Police cliam it is to contain the camp as many parts of the city are out of control.

20:42 - Climate Camp: There is now a sit down protest in front of the police vans and lines blocking traffic on Wormwood St being held in solidarity with the climate campers currently trapped by police. Still a party atmosphere with lots of music within the climate camp kettle

22:20 - Climate Camp: Up to a thousand people remain inside the besiged camp. The police have said that they will allow people to leave, but will take names and addresses of everyone who does so. There's been a camp meeting but no consensus has been reached on what to do. Generally there is still a positive atmosphere amonst the peaceful demonstrators.
It seems the only disappointment in my fantasy day was that Starbucks didn't amp up their drinks list. Complete satisfaction derailed yet again.

01 April 2009

Happy Fossil Fools Day

It's a big day for Londoners. Some of them will be attempting to catch a few Obama rays when the new prez makes his way over to the Excel Center, or is en route to drink tea with the queen, or do the 10 Downing Street elite dinner party later this evening with his hosts from the Central Bank. (Indeed, a busy day for Barak, although the main question on the tongue of every 'banking economics have melted my brain' journalist is undoubtedly whether Michelle will dare to bare her arms in the presence of royalty.) Yet another group, mixing the francophiles with the francophobes, will be waiting to see Mr. Sarkozeee storm out of the meeting when he doesn't get his way with Chorus Liquidity. However, the most enthralling events are sure to take place on the streets, in the vicinities of the Bank of England and the European Carbon Exchange. UK Climate Action has dubbed their ECE campout 'Fossil Fools Day' (must give credit where credit is due) and the G20 Meltown organizers are rallying people under the banner 'Storm the Bank!' i've clipped the more provocative part of their propoganda here, but you can check out the whole poster set and entire list of rhetorical anti-capitalist questions on their website.

Unable to participate personally in any of these stress-reduction programs, i've allowed myself to speculate telepathically on how the overall experience will pan out. The climate action folks tend to provide the most creative theatrics and would be the place to go for sensible discourse on how to rearrange the Titanic's deck chairs. What i love about hardcore climate activists is that for every criticism of the status quo, they always have an alternative model; even if i personally can't live their ecotopian lifestyle by completely eliminating plastic and other petroleum products from my life, at least i leave them feeling more guilty - er, empowered - carrying away a kilo of craftily designed directives printed on acid-free paper that explain how to live independent of fossil fuels and thereby save our gasping planet, which in turn would make me a hero rather than a disgraceful part of the problem.

The bank stormers are sure to be an altogether different experience. The Bank of England will be the place to go to see London's crowd control officers lose their cool, as i'm expecting strategically placed grecian anarchist types to act out their rage on Britain's equivalant to the Parthenon. Or maybe there won't be any Greeks; the British working class is more than capable of lashing out at their adversaries without foreign intervention, thank you very much. i see molotovs flying over the heads of peace-loving percussionists, leftist intellectuals yacking to the press outside dissipating clouds of tear gas, locked-down 20-somethings chanting 'Eat the Rich!' Indeed, the Bank of England is the place to be if one needs to vent anger of any sort, since even failed relationships can be rationalized as fallout from the unfettered commodification of human beings in the interests of capital: how am i supposed to get a lover to value me when my employer doesn't even want to cough up minimum wage?

When i've had my fill of all this fun or need a recharge to stay up long enough to upload my photos in the hope that HuffPost might publish at least one of 350, then it's off for a jolt of joe at the nearest Starbucks. You may or may not be surprised to hear this, but Starbucks has 307 Free Trade-stickered retail locations in London. Today is bound to be a busy day for them, especially if they tweak the drink list a bit: Bust a Bank Super Chai (spiced tea topped off with a shot of Red Bull), Espresso Economico (light on the coffee, heavy on the whipped cream), or Capituccino (white-washed arabica sprinkled with shredded treasury bills). i've noticed over the years that Starbucks has often made a concerted effort to cultivate business from the radical demo crowds, probably hoping to protect themselves from being attacked with newspaper boxes, et al. Whatever works, right? i've seen their shops get totally trashed by balaclavists and i've seen them deal with out-the-door lines of people sporting 'This is what democracy looks like' t-shirts. So that's definitely where i'd have to go for a glimpse at how business is capitalizing on anti-capitalism, and if i run into Tariq Ali or Tony Benn at the counter, all the more radical chic to blog about.

So, that's what i'm not doing but wish i were this April 1st. Instead - and you just gotta laugh at the irony here - i'm going to design an 8-week english course for two classes i'll start teaching next week at Citibank. Hungarian employees of the bank need to know how to converse effectively with Citibank's Dept. for Undeserved Bonuses, Division of Deceptive Assets Reporting and so forth, and i'm more than happy to be paid to provide them with the proper syntax and synthetic acronyms required for doing so. While my comrades in London may experience frustration at being stuck on the outside of the banks, looking in, i at least get some satisfaction about being on the inside, looking directly into the system's abyss. Actually, that's a lie. i'd much rather be on the streets of London, where getting no satisfaction has long been the noblest theme song of my generation.