Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson
Personal message:
The UK needs to wake up to the truths and the spirit of what these two guys are telling America.
Saturday, 31 March 2012
The UK needs to wake up to these truths
Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson
Personal message:
The UK needs to wake up to the truths and the spirit of what these two guys are telling America.
Friday, 30 March 2012
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Is Photography Over? - wonderful resources from San Francisco MOMA
Is Photography Over?
Overview
Is Photography Over?: Introduction
Neal Benezra, Sandra S. Phillips, and Dominic Willsdon
Running time: 6 min. 4 sec.SFMOMA has been collecting and exhibiting photographs since the museum's founding in 1935 and is dedicated to the examination of the medium in all its forms. A major symposium on the current state of the field, held at SFMOMA in April 2010, was the first in a series of public programs on photography.
This page archives the conversation begun in the Is Photography Over? symposium. It includes video of the entire program, complete, unedited transcripts of the proceedings, and the original position statements submitted by the participants in advance of the symposium. Additional responses and reports on the two days of the symposium can be found on our blog, Open Space.
via sfmoma.org
Click on link to find the whole symposium - videos and talks
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Smartphones | Art and design | guardian.co.uk
One of the many tributes to Steve Job set up at Apple stores around the world as news of his death spread. This one, at the Beijing Apple store, was photographed on an iPhone 4 with the Hipstamatic app. Photograph: Dan Chung for the GuardianSmartphones are becoming ubiquitous. Most Guardian journalists are now expected to be able to take a picture with their phone which is good enough to be used in print or online. The use of apps has even crept in with a New York Times photographer using hipstamatic on an assignment.
via guardian.co.uk
Good article - CLICK o link to read it
David Hockney's Stephen Hawking portraits draw greats together | Art and design | guardian.co.uk
Meeting of minds … David Hockney at work on an iPad portrait of Stephen Hawking, which is now showing at the Science Museum. Photograph: Judith CroasdellI wrote a while ago about Jake and Dinos Chapman's horrendous and crass portrayal of the physicist Stephen Hawking in their sculpture Ubermensch. I vaguely wondered at the time what a David Hockney portrait of the same great man of our time might look like ... but had no idea he'd actually created one. Visiting London's Science Museum recently I was transfixed by a sensitive, affectionate and acute drawing of Hawking in its 70th birthday display about his life and work.
The portrait was done in the linear style of Picasso's 1920s drawings and that meant it must be by ... yes, Hockney.
via guardian.co.uk
Click on link to read article
Monday, 26 March 2012
Sunday, 25 March 2012
Thursday, 22 March 2012
EXTRACT Speech Transcription - Dr. Martin Luther King's 1963
May I reiterate the problem will not work itself out. May I reiterate that it is not a sectional problem. No area of our country can boast of clean hands in the realm of brotherhood. It is one thing for a white person of good will in the north to rise up with righteous indignation when a bus is burning in Anniston, Alabama with freedom riders or when a church is burned or bombed in Birmingham, Alabama killing four, unoffending, innocent beautiful girls. When in Jackson, Mississippi a Medgar Evers is shot down or when in Oxford, Mississippi, some fifteen or sixteen thousand troops are necessary for our courageous James Meredith to go to a university of that state. A white person of good will in the north must rise up with as much righteous indignation when a Negro cannot live in his neighborhood, when a Negro cannot get a job in his firm, when a Negro cannot join his professional society, when a Negro cannot join his fraternity or her sorority. In other words, if this problem is to be solved there must be a sort of divine discontent all over this nation.
There are certain technical words within every academic discipline that soon become stereotypes and cliches. Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word in modern psychology. It is the word "maladjusted." This word is the ringing cry to modern child psychology. Certainly, we all want to avoid the maladjusted life. In order to have real adjustment within our personalities, we all want the well-adjusted life in order to avoid neurosis, schizophrenic personalities.
But I say to you, my friends, as I move to my conclusion, there are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good-will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize. I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, to self-defeating effects of physical violence. But in a day when sputniks and explorers are dashing through outer space and guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can win a war. It is no longer the choice between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence, and the alternative to disarmament. The alternative to absolute suspension of nuclear tests. The alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation. This is why I welcome the recent test-ban treaty.
In other words, I'm about convinced now that there is need for a new organization in our world. The International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment--men and women who will be as maladjusted as the prophet Amos. Who in the midst of the injustices of his day could cry out in words that echo across the centuries, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." As maladjusted as Abraham Lincoln who had the vision to see that this nation would not survive half-slave and half-free. As maladjusted as Thomas Jefferson who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery would scratch across the pages of history words lifted to cosmic proportions, "We know these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator certain unalienable rights" that among these are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." As maladjusted as Jesus of Nazareth who could say to the men and women of his day, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you. Pray for them that despitefully use you." Through such maladjustment, I believe that we will be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man's inhumanity to man into the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice. My faith is that somehow this problem will be solved.
In spite of the difficulties of this hour, I am convinced that we have the resources to make the American Dream a reality. I am convinced of this because I believe Carlyle is right. "No lie can live forever." I am convinced of this because I believe William Cullen Bryant is right. "Truth pressed to earth will rise again." I am convinced of this because I think James Russell Lowell is right. "Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne; Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above His own." Somehow with this faith, we will be able to adjourn the councils of despair and bring new life into the dark chambers of pessimism. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation to a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. This will be a great day. This will be the day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God, Almighty, we are free at last!" Thank you. [APPLAUSE]
via wmich.edu
Click on link to read whole speech by MLK
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
Gandhi and the Dalit controversy: The limits of the moral force of an individual / Waging Nonviolence - People-Powered News and Analysis
A protest sign at an anti-Gandhi rally in San Diego last year reveals the tensions that still exist between India's independence leader and minority groups.
When I first heard that Gandhi was viewed as “the enemy” by many Dalits in India (formerly called “untouchables”), I was dumbfounded. How and why could Gandhi be seen as having betrayed the Dalits when he opposed untouchability even in the face of active discomfort on the part of close associates?
Last month, while I was in India teaching Nonviolent Communication to 120 people, including a significant number of Dalits, I had the opportunity to explore this question further. During a session called “Gandhian Principles for Everyday Living,” a topic about which I have written at length, one of the 60 people present expressed anguish, pain and anger towards Gandhi. He was a Buddhist, like many other Dalits who had chosen to follow the Dalit leader Dr. B. R. Ambedkar in leaving behind centuries of mistreatment under Hinduism.
Click on link to read article
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Twitter buys Posterous!
Well, well, well - all Posterous users have recently received this letter;
Hi
I’m thrilled to announce that Posterous has been acquired by Twitter!
The opportunities in front of Twitter are exciting, and we couldn’t be happier to bring our technology and expertise to hundreds of millions of users around the globe. Plus, the people at Twitter are genuinely nice folks who share our vision for making sharing simpler.
Posterous Spaces will remain up and running without disruption. We’ll give users ample notice if we make any changes to the service. For users who would like to back up their content or move to another service, we’ll share clear instructions for doing so in the coming weeks.
You can find more information answers to other questions you may have here.
Finally, I’d like to offer thanks to everyone, especially those who have been with Posterous since day one. The last four years have been an amazing journey. Your encouragement, praise and criticism have made Posterous better, and I really appreciate everything you’ve done.
Thanks again and I look forward to building great things for you at Twitter.
- Sachin
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Good luck - hope we get new goodies and don't lose any of the existing ones!
Good luck and hope we don't lose all the good things about Posterous!
Saturday, 17 March 2012
Sunday, 11 March 2012
'The greatest feat of controlled strength ever?' - from Cirque du Soleil's - 'Quidam'
via youtube.com
Still can't believe what these two do - or the beauty of it!
Saturday, 10 March 2012
Thursday, 8 March 2012
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