Happy Birthday Sasha ...
Not Just another Birthday,
But quite a grand event,
And here, to greet you, Twenty-One,
These wishes are now sent..
May happiness go with you,
May all your hopes come true,
And in the most delightful ways
May life be good to you!
Happy 21st!!
21st birthday celebrations
When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
- Mark Twain, the New Shelton wet/dry
Let’s speak frankly, says Slavoj Žižek. The left hates me even though I am supposed to be one of the leading communist intellectuals A life in writing: Slavoj Žižek
The Spirit Is Willing, and So Is the Flesh The politics of self-immolation
Mohamed Bouazizi, Thích Quảng Đức, Jan Palach: Their willingness to die offers a repulsive and fascinating lesson in how to live
ORDINARILY, POLITICS is very much about living bodies—bodies assembled or scattered, hungry or well-fed, bodies migrating or accommodated. In a world without bodies, there would be no politics, and no need for them. Under extraordinary circumstances, however, a dying body comes to perform political functions that a living one cannot even dream of. In such cases, the sheer act of dying can generate among those who witness it an uncanny mix of awe, repulsion, and fascination, which could be best described as a form of power. A naked readiness to die—that’s something that defies human understanding, as well as our basic instincts. Thanks to the voluntary nature of their death, to their commitment to doing something that only very few of us would do, the performers of such acts somehow envelope themselves in an aura of election and transcendence. These people gladly trample on whatever makes human life possible: survival instincts, self-protection impulses, and fear of death. In so doing, the performers of voluntary death come to inhabit a territory where other rules apply and a different logic operates. And it is from there that some of them, like the Tunisian self-immolator Mohamed Bouazizi, come to dominate our imagination, win over our hearts, and, sometimes, even shape our lives.
• A Light for the Future: On the Political Uses of a Dying Body; [Inside the vision for the largest library in history A bookshelf the size of the world ; He lives every moment of his life to the fullest, so overusing the word ‘literally’ seemed like a Good character fit ]
• · arlier this month a blog post called 'Why I quit my job' written by CTV reporter Kai Nagata went viral. That blog was much more gracious than the one written by the Whole Foods employee, but it still touched some sore spots. In it, Mr. Nagata criticizes the state of Canadian TV journalism, including Sun TV and Conservative politics. He expresses his frustration with the fact that he wasn't allowed to express personal opinions as a reporter and said he now wants his opinions back. He ends it with writing: I'm broke, and yet I know I'm rich in love. I'm unemployed and homeless, but I've never been more free. Everything is possible. To quit your job with maximum drama, blog about it How the age of Google has accelerated the assault on the public sphere - It's rare that anything of substance comes out of the Aspen Ideas Festival, that annual orgy of techno-triumphalism and political self-seriousness, the bastard child of Davos and TED. But something odd happened when Eric Schmidt, until recently the CEO of Google, appeared at the high-powered mogul gathering in 2009 to speak about Google and the future of the American economy Search and Destroy The Googlization of Everything (and Why We Should Worry) ; White collar crime will be on the rise thanks to M Thru F and legal loopholes
• · · Drugs, sex, exercise – all tickle the brain’s pleasure circuits What doesn’t? ; What do their books reveal about feminism today What is feminism? "Simply the belief that women should be as free as men . . . Are you a feminist? Hahaha. Of course you are
• · · · Adventures in fandom. Opera is too often dismissed as out of touch, an elitist obsession of the wealthy. It’s that, of course, and so much more.. The Sopranos ; The old cliché is true: One person’s trash may be another person’s treasure. But let’s be serious: Thomas Kinkade’s cloying, dew-kissed paintings are, quite unambiguously, trash Thomas Kinkade: The Artist in the Mall ; Blog for the RepRap project at www.reprap.org - a project to create an open-source self- copying 3D printer
• · · · ·Dan Savage is out to save marriage. His pitch: Monogamy destroys families; infidelity can save them ; Married, With Infidelities ; What happens in the brain when we experience a panic attack?; In both "Friends With Benefits" (currently playing) and the previously released "No Strings Attached," casual sex is anything but casual Casual Sex: Is It Worth It? ; Ski resorts around the globe are a seething pit of sex, love and lies, and that's just the seasonal staff at ski school. Seasonal workers are a sure-fire way to get your heart broken, as the snow melts they're on their way with a "I love you but the season's over" line that's worn around the edges Sex, lies and love at the snow
• · · · · · Looking for love? There is powerful software for that ; After this memory I thought, “I don't want to be loved because I'm rich and famous. I just want to be loved.” I realized that if people only loved me ... Almost Famous: Re-thinking Being a Famous ADHDer, Part I