aporia

prisons, again, again, again.....

2008-04-25T02:36:00.000-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7366258.stm

so in response to this "news" we hear the typical knee-jerk responses : "they're living in luxury: 3 meals a day, they watch TV, they are housed for free!!!"

Oh yes, what a luxury, 3 meals a day, a roof over your head : BUUUUTTT how troubled, turbulent and awful must your life have been in order to feel this way about prison!

what we dont realise is that these prisoners' lives, before going to prison, must have been so lacking in what we take for granted everyday (like 3 meals a day, certain shelter) that they are a luxury for them!!! IT ISNT THE PRISONS WE SHOULD BE FOCUSING ON, IT IS THE LIFE OF POVERTY AND LAST RESORTS THAT THOSE WHO END UP IN PRISONS HAD TO DEAL WITH, WHICH LED THEM THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! IT'S JUST.......SO........ OBVIOUS! it is humbling, and devastating to think that prisoners are the few ppl who really appreciate that yes, food, electricity, shelter IS a luxury and something that is the default position for the rest of us.
of course there are many contributing factors as to why people commit crimes, and there is a huge arrogance that i hear everyday when ppl say "well if i were in that position i wouldnt....." = ingorance and hyporcrisy.

and yes there are those in poverty who dont commit crimes, BUT EVERY SITIUTATION IS DIFFERENT ANNNNDDD what are we even talking about when we use the word "crime".
i think we should question who IS really committing the crimes against who? YET STILL IT IS NOT AS SIMPLE AS THAT, i think we should turn to foucault at this point :)

hmm

2008-04-20T01:06:00.000-07:00

you know the latest about how our brain "knows" what it will do 10 secs before it actually performs it? (was previously thought that it only "knew" a couple of seconds before). now i know it is problematic, and rather silly even, to read anything at all into this, especially as sartre is a phenomonologist, but:

i wonder how, if, this relates to sartre's fundamental project and pre=reflective consciouness (well i dont mean's sartre's pre-ref consciousness, but his concept ;p)?

ideas/?

pfft

2008-04-20T00:45:00.000-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7356970.stm

a not too well informed response, but nevermind:

hitler youth :"he said his teenage years had been "marred by a sinister regime". "
yeh IN HINDSIGHT! WELL DUH! "Its influence grew, infiltrating schools and civic bodies, as well as politics and even religion, before it was fully recognised for the monster it was," !!!!

the hitler youth WAS SPECIFICALLY designed to give these mini-nazis the most rewarding, strengthening, communitarian, idealistic time of their lives!!!
and i bet he had a bloody awesome time too!! OBVIOUSLY later, AS WOULD BE EXPECT, he;d realise it was rather shitty, well, for some ppl.
so he is moaning about being part of the hitler youth, ah diddums, HOW ABOUT TRY BEING A JEW UNDER THE NAZI REGIME!

also, i love it! I LOVE IT! FOUCAULT AT WORK!
"The sexual abuse scandal has been a recurring theme in the Pope's visit.
Addressing 40,000 people at a Washington stadium earlier in the week, he spoke of the issue before talking privately to a group of people who had been abused by priests. "
yeh he has talked about it FOUR TIMES NOW in public, must also be the regular chit-chat over breakfast, lunch and dinner too!

HE GETS PLEASURE, THE LISTENERS GET PLEASURE! PLEASURE ALL ROUND! apart from the abused kids who are suddenly the centre of attention and are having their past shoved in their faces but the very people who did it. what hypocrisy. pfft.

needs

2008-03-08T04:37:00.000-08:00

in marcuse;s "1 dimensional man", he discusses the creation of "false needs" by capitalist society. makes sense right? we dont need i pods, we have discmans....but for the sake of free market capitalism, and consumer society, it is now something we feel we need.

i have often asked my parents, and asked of myself sometimes, how i managed without a mobile phone, without a laptop? i do really need my laptop now that i have it! i really rely on it for all sorts of important things!
should i feel bad when millions of ppl around the world lack such things, and historically also?

according to hegel, need......in a word.....is relative.
part of what makes us human is the fact that we actually do really need such things associated with our cultural situation.
it is incorrect to say that just because ppl didnt need laptops 100 years ago, that i dont really need one now. "need" is not an objective criteria....for hegel.

why?

2008-03-05T09:14:00.000-08:00

why is it that:

on tv programmes, films or other forms of entertaintment one never comes across people who are gay, lesbian, disabled, blind or have mental health issues without being the centre, or subject of the film/ tv show showing them.

we never just regulary have a woman in a wheelchair in a tv show as just one of the characters, there must always be a justification for her being there.

and why do we rarely see old, ugly people kissing, let alone having sex!!!!!! maybe old and ugly ppl just dont have sex.

a counter example i have found is that of the lesbian scene in mulholland drive (david lynch). the scene happens,it just happens....it is not discussed, it is not a central feature .although in the story it is important, neverless the "lesbianism" of it is not what is at issue.

this is what we need more of.

empathy

2008-03-02T01:56:00.000-08:00

is it a real possibility?

Translated from the Greek meaning of empatheia: physical affection. (Thanks wikipedia).

How can we conceive of truly EMPATHISING with an-other. This other's feeling, in its alterity....understood or appreciated with the same strength of emotion felt by the one it to who it exists. Transcending oneself's own feelings, histories, and facticity.....then having the ability to emphasizes with someone else’s????????? This makes little sense to me.

You cannot know…..this lies in the beauty of otherness. We can have a relation of expression, and acknowledgment that this person feels this way yet I can never understand fully or empathises…….my attempt to do so would be to accommodate such a feeling into my “self” knowledge, and this it is no longer the feeling, in it’s original state of the other’s and thus to focus on this altered feeling is shear inaccuracy, and trivialises the original thought.

This may lead to a vacuous feeling with, and through the other, and the existing dialogue. However, it is this that draws out, and draws together, the precise relations of difference by which the other’s difference can be of aid. You cannot understand, and it is from this position that you can BE with me….and that I can ask OF you….

noumenal animal

2007-05-22T04:52:00.000-07:00

It struck me, yesterday, as I revelled in my delights about Kant’s critique of pure reason finally clicking for me (well, as much as it is going to for now), that I had actually been putting forward, what I think is, a Kantian argument for some years now.
It revolves around the question of pain in animals. My argument being that we cannot even being to use the word “pain” when talking about animals. Pain is a purely subjective, a priori condition of the human mind which it makes no sense for us to associate with animals. I guess, metaphorically, I could say that Kant would have included animals as part of the noumenal realm. Apart from seeing their reactions (scientifically measuring them) we can never comprehend anything more. The only way we can say anything about them, is via the use of human terminology, comparisons with human reactions, and by the use of human understanding. I regard as a pretty anthropocentric take on the world.
When we try to define pain we don’t define it as “ouch, that hurts”; because this could apply to an infinite number of things, and then there is also the whole pain/pleasure aspect. However, what we can define it as “I don’t like this experience, and I want it to stop happening to me”. Can we conceive of an animal going through the same thought processes? Can we conceive of animals being able to think of “me”, themselves, think about their identity, and how pain is related themselves?
No we cannot possibly conceive of this, as we don’t have access to what is like to think in such a way. However, this is in no way a denial that animals can feel pain, but rather a critique of the way humans impose their phenomological view onto the rest of the world.
For humans, we have self-consciousness, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the individual, yet we have no way of assessing this in animals. Yet we claim that an animal feels pain in the same sense that we feel pain, and this seems problematic.
The is along the lines as saying that a dog is happy when it wags its tail, we can measure certain chemicals in that dog, but I think this is a question of self-consciousness rather than a science lab.

watchmaker

2007-05-10T08:11:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I cannot believe that I am stillllll hearing these trendy psuedo-intellectuals and scientists use the “argument from design” as a last resort so as to not completely be seen as utter nihilists………there are other ways out you know!
Science is perfectly compatible with religion anyway!
So according to this argument, the very fact that the universe has been so perfectly coordinated to allow for our existence, and the fact that a zillion specific details had to be in place, at just the right moment in time and space (if we are to ignore Kant here), then this must be more than just chance or luck; there must have been some kind of intentionality, a designer which organised this.
BUT, what we forget, is that we have no idea of what we could have been, if something else tiny may have been in place. There is nothing essential about humans, or life on this planet, who knows, if it the temperature had been different at the time of the big bang we may have had an immunity to cancer, yet we would know no difference. Basically, things could have been otherwise, yet we would still apply this argument, and that defeats its point!

also, at what point do dirty drawings of children, or as is more relevant, virtual children as in 2nd Life, become subsumed under the title "child abuse"?

13.04.07

2007-04-13T00:38:00.000-07:00

- How did she die?
She died from the Horror.
-Can you die from the Horror?
She died from the Horror.

-How did she feel you?
She felt me with grace, with the grace of an illuminated explosion, pitch black……sublime.
-Did you feel her Horror? What was it like, her Horror?
I did not feel her Horror, I cannot feel her Horror, her Horror is…her. It is her now, and that I cannot be.

in praise of the pete

2007-03-04T13:33:00.000-08:00

Revelation, I have reached the maturity demanded by Kant!!!!!! (I wouldn’t quite call it enlightenment however)

It all happened at the most banal of moments. Whilst typing my Deleuze essay (interspersed with a skype conversation with my mum), a meagre tapping on my bedroom door was calling my attention.

For an inexplicable reason, perhaps that was the beauty of, my o’ so wise and honourable housemate, Pete, was in want of…….well I have no idea. I presumed that it was something such as needing to pay a gas bill, or some other trivial reason. I pondered, what were the conditions of possibility for which I was to incur the privilege for this rare visitation (as if from another world)……..

what resulted during a few minutes of dialogue was a greatly appreciate tutorial on Foucault, freedom and the notion of the self. The subject of Foucault, being the man in my life at the moment, arose out of Pete’s preceding to tell me about the Chomsky Foucault conversation that he had just been reading.

It was only through our conversation, that led on to Foucault (sorry chomksy old boy), and to my questioning Pete on how Foucault manages to bring in freedom, that I came to understand what everybody had been going on about. My wrongly placed position, of which there was patently no solution, had previously been pointed out me via a previous housemate, mr Dogmat innit. He had struggled and toiled for many an hour to make clear to me the error of ways, and at times it appeared that he had succeeded. However, a few weeks later it would be apparent that my entrenched views on my freedom determinism dilemma were convictions so strong and entrenched that I couldn’t quite see past, despite the yearning to do so. Poor guy.

However, and I’m sure the dogmat episodes were a necessary condition of my present revelation, of which Pete was the sufficient contributing factor.
I think I am ready to grow-up………

turrets

2007-03-04T13:30:00.000-08:00

the precariousness of our subjectivity, with all the paraphonalia that comes with it (freedom, responibilty ect), becomes apprant if we take the case of “victims” of brain damage or head injury (I use the word “victim” without the connotations of being partonising. I used the word lightly.) in these cases, the “victim”( im going to use the word “subject”actaully, despite that being the very fragile “thing” we are trying to analyis and possibily deconstrunt) may become “subject to” (not in control of, in the grips of something other) the tendancies usually supressed/repressed by those who have not be in their circumstances. It is often noted that people with severe brain trauma may have drasctically augmented behaviour to that of their “previous” selves (so much so that I can use the word previous self in the sense that “are they the same person?”, but I shant get into the problem of the self right now, I wouldn’t even know how!).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1009486.stm
now obviously if it is serious the chances are that you cant speak, let along be able to yell out sexual explivatives.
But my concern here is with the not so severe cases, but where the changes in personality are generally not appreciated, and perhaps not authentically recongined for what they are.
There is much too much to go into with regard to the actions, responsibilty and reaction by society to the novell and “inappropriae” actions or words that are the result of the brain damage, however I would like to pose the question that brain injusry has the possibility to allow for such thoughts to be expressed that otherwise would be repressed and so actualised through more destructuve means (perhaps in non-brain damaged people. But arent we all brain damaged, shell shocked, traumatised in one way or another?). It is interesting to consider a society of brain damaged mutants, yet with such “freedom” and lack of predictability!

%%%%%%%%

2007-02-25T11:16:00.000-08:00

just because "if 50% of people with x have y", then it doesn't implied that if you are one of the 50% with x, then you are 50% more likely to have y..........just seems too much of a superficial understanding of statistics.

Thinker's/s' blog

2007-02-11T08:42:00.000-08:00

im desperate for inspiration, yet everywhere i search i end up in a helpless struggle in the forces fighting against me.

My months of lethargy and stunted creativity are finally reaching the point whereby my mind seems empty…. empty to comment, to think. My inability for critical thought and discerning interpretation of texts has waned to the point of “brain deadedness”, almost as though it has lead to an undeviating apathy, or to be more analytical, a lack of confidence due to use of mental energies in other corners of life. With the lack of confidence, there comes an unconscious denial to be interested in anything, for fear of there being some kind of interest but still lacking thought.

So to attempt to regain an enthusiasm, a need to start writing, I search for the something that can provoke that oh so needed reaction.

I realise, that this something cannot be found in the library, nor on the internet.
The common link between the two being that they are both such a mass of potentially provoking possibilities, which are practically pre-ordained to implicate us with creativity, and this is where it’s downfall lies.

It is the universal, or the general, and in order to get to a particular idea that you need, you to have more than just some idea of what that particular is which you are searching for.

You need to have a “searching for”! Yet any attempt to find this “searching for” in the library, or on the internet, is pretty much a path to no where.

So where is it that we search, or seek to find the conditions for the possibility of this particular?
It must be something directed, self selecting yet something spontaneously fallen upon. It cant be “looked for”, you cannot do a search in google for “my interest”. An example, I have discovered Something quite interesting and unexpected in relation to what has provoked me to write, and think, and to get unreasonably angry about (so much so that I am obliged, for my own sanity, to write it down). One of the many activities that I took part in, and yes “taking part in” is the most appropriate word, when at home (not at uni), was watching tv.
Im talking about documentaries, factual programmes, the news, and this is part of being involved in society. With a critical eye, you can pick up awkward terms or phrase used, you asses how the hierarchy in society is embedded in certain programmes, and you can reflect on how other programmes lead to learning, along with all their propaganda.
This is why I used the words “taking part” above. It is about participating in the reality that is inevitable. No matter how much Freud or Marx I read, I am just not in a position to critique such texts. They are historical, I am out of their context, and despite that, what am I going to do? Prove them wrong!!??
My need for writing, MOSTLY not necessarily, comes from that single reality that if I try to escape from, then my position in it will be that of the passive, academic student with my face in books only in order to get to the last page in time for the lecture. This is a solemn state of affairs, and one which seems to pertain to myself at this moment and is causing me this anxiety. Just by Watching a group of peoples’ body language in a café I am more likely have a creative idea which I would own. It is not an analysis on whether Nietzsche was an ant-semite, or if levinas was a misogynist, it is pure, subjective, fleeting moments of reflection.
To be embedded in the culture, actively embedded, not passively consuming it, is how I manage to ward off the lack of stimulation that comes from remaining in the monotonous and isolated world that is academia.

Of course this is not necessarily the case, but the pressure of having to read a certain amount of text, and to have write as many notes as possible in a lecture, leaves no space for reflection. It seems that implied in the word academia which has come to be thought of as “cultural accumulation of knowledge”, is just that, an accumluation, an over accumlation stunting the channals of creativite thought by its mass of facts and emphasise on memoriesing.

adorno

2007-02-05T13:49:00.000-08:00

in a passage from Adorno's Minima Morlia, he carefully scrutinises an apsect of life, which he associates with that of "Fascist maltreatment". the aspect he is concerned with is about how our interaction with our environment is dealt with.
technology, according to adorno, has warped our previous physical actions, such as quietly closing a door, into a maniacal slam.
our relation with the objects and tools around us seem to have lost their aesthetic quality, and are now functional objects whereby the way we have contact with them is only on the perogotive that a desired operation shall place. adorno's view is that the priviliged role played by such consumer items, is that of performance.

this seems problematic, i would agree that there is perhaps a mechanical nature (oxymoron???)to our actions in relation certain functional objects, eg a microwave, but maybe this is because it is a funtional tool and thus we act towards it in that way, limiting the possibility of reification.

it is the fact of reification, so imbued in society and culture, that people to treat objects as though they were the most precious of humans. yet our reification of objects seems to be directed to those which do not necessarily serve most useful, and those that do, are taken for granted.

could reification be a useful component of society, for example, in relation to the natural environment. reification in a non-metaphysical sense, or not?
if we lived with a reified, dare I say, polythiestic weltanshuuang, then our need for care and preservation would indeed be greater, well perhaps!
yet of course, it is indeed a riduculous and fruitless effort speculating about what might have been, we shall focus on what has been, and what possibilties are in front of us.....

the fun is starting..........

2006-11-05T04:35:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6117880.stm

burn it, just burn it

2006-10-22T04:53:00.000-07:00

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/woman/story/0,,1887237,00.html

why would this article be in Observer Woman specifically?????????????? men do to have sex too, dontyaknow.............

oh, there is also an article about getting rich, this season's "must-have footwear" and Kate Mosses cool new jeans which "make legs longer, waists slimmer and wearers braver."

oh thank you guardian for making my life complete.........

photos

2006-10-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

you know what makes me feel completely uneasy and gives me an awkard feeling in my stomach? it is when you see photos with people in it who are holding their drink up to the camera, as it to say "cheers", to who? to the camera? when i see a camera i cant really view it as a subsitution for a person. so are you "saying" "cheers" to whoever the unknown viewer of the photo will be? surely this kind of contemplating doesnt go through our heads when posing for a photo. it seems that there is an implicit language trasmission going on, such that the poser and viewer would, i guess, experience the signified thought, implied by the raising the glass (being the signifier) which has the meaning of "cheers".
maybe it is the unnaturalness that actually makes me feel really sick when seeing these photos, or the formality?

but if ever there were to be an empty gesture, i think this would be a prime example, purely because the "cheers" would be so specific to the moment, unless the photo was for someone, aimed at someone, the "cheers" feels indeterminate and leads to an uncertainty.
is the person trying to tell me something, is it merely a pose? my third person perspective of them holding the glass up to camera is deeply unsettleing.
i would like to elaborate further on this topic at some point............

The Atrocity Exhibition - JG Ballard

2006-09-25T07:33:00.000-07:00

" The Sex Kit. 'In a sense', Dr Nathan explained to Koester, 'one may regard this as a kit, which Talbert has devised, entitled "Karen Novotny" - it might even be feasable to market it commercially. It contains the following items: 1) Pad of pubic hair, 2) a latex face mask, 3) six detachable mouths, 4) a set of smiles, 5) a pair of breasts, left nipple marked by a small ulcer, 6) a set of non-chafe orificices, 7) photo cut-outs of a number of narrative situations - the girl doing this and that, 8) a list of dialogue samples, of inane chatter, 9) a set of noise levels, 10) descriptive techniques for a variety of sex acts, 11) a torn anal detrusor, 12) a glossary of idioms and catch phrases, 13) an analysis of odour traces (from various vents), mostly purines, etc., 14) a chart of body tempertures (auxillary, buccal, rectal), 15) slide of vaginal smears, chiefly Ortho-Gyno jelly, 16) a set of blood pressures, systolic 120, diastolic 70 rising to 200/150 at onset of orgasm...' Deferring to Koester, Dr Nathan put down the typescript. 'There are one or two other bits and pieces, but together the inventory is an adequate picture of a woman, who could easily be reconstituted from it. In fact, such a list may well be more stimulating than the real thing. Now that sex is becoming more and more a conceptual act, an intellectualization divored from affect and physiology alike, one has to bear in mind the positive merits of the sexual perversions. Talbert's library of cheap photo-photography is in fact a vital literature, a kindling of the few taste buds left in the jaded palates of our so-called sexuality.' JG Ballard

Insecure Nation

2006-09-17T04:58:00.000-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/5348424.stm

thank god, we now never have to be alone again! Getting on msn via our mobile phones makes us permanently accessible…….and totally insecure! Total reliance on acknowledgement by others, acknowledgment of ourself in order to attain certainty of the self, and self worth. Dependence on the reinforcing sign that we are not left alone – is this a perfect example, taken to extremes, of the most human of needs?
that is to be wanted, loved, needed? Or is the disappearance of the conception of the independent individual who is certain of his/her worth without recall to reassurance to others?

russia

2006-09-15T07:29:00.000-07:00

nice to see we can be USED for a good caused.............

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1993840.html?menu=news.quirkies

jesofukcingchristo

The Daughters

2006-09-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

http://womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2883/context/cover/

this article is really quite illuminating, and, it floods me with an internal conflict. one part of me has massive sympathy for the cause against superficial and sexualised views of women. And also the view that the top-dog would let her husband marry a widowed women, for the sake of the widow. In ancient times, the whole point of this law was so that the widower would be taken care of, since the women back then were fully dependant on their husbands. isnt this the most perfect example of sisterhood and sororal solidarity?

The fact that they want women to be seen as more than cosmeticized dolls and whose love cant be expressed with valentine's cards is deceivingly progressive. The mass protest over a sex scandal shows more radical activity by women, for women, than seen in this country (going on their countries' very much more limited freedoms)!
Our view of women in islamic countries is of silent, submissive, non-entities. However here we see a possibility for a voice. Yet, it does seem to reek of Gertrud Scholtz-Klink's little project, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrud_Scholtz-Klink.

islam

2006-09-11T12:50:00.000-07:00

My project in life is generally to try to make sense of the world as best as possible (which of course is inherently doomed to failure), and to maybe, someday, escape this Aporia and find the Logos.

So with this whole Islamic violence thing, how can we account for it? one response is to say that “Islam just is a violent religion”.

Well, no more violent than any other of the two other monotheistic faiths.
A response to this would be “but then how come the other two aren’t so violent?”.

My theory is this:

Actually the other two religions were as “barbaric” as Islam, in some of it’s forms, appears to be today.

When the Jews first appeared on the scene, all such violence was going on. A response would then be: “but that was talmudic times where such behaviour was the norm and accepted throughout the middle east. Today we are living in different times, there are a multitude of other competing ideologies and fundamentalists attitudes are not accepted.”

I would say, that actually, the world is no more barbaric today than in those ancient times. Of course it is different in how it manifests it. I see it not only in Hiroshima, the holocaust, darfur………..but also poverty, exploitation and multinationals exerting violence on the most vulnerable.
So yes, we are definitely still living in violent times. I really cant bare the way people talk about the world today as more progressive than other times in history (is it a Hegelian view?).

So Judaism, as it matured from it’s infantile stage, had it’s more violent teachings removed and it evolved into the religion it is today where there is no more stoning of women or such like.

Then along come the Christians, and yeah they were dam barbaric too! The Crusades for instance. And then they started to reform!

Then, along comes Islam, and hey, what do you know, they ALSO have a barbaric stage! Funny isn’t it, seeing as all these religions derive from the same book!!!!!!!!!

Now all of a sudden, we conceive of Islam as having some innate violent streak! But why should we expect Islam to be the exception to the rule. And the notion that we are living in more progressive times just doesn’t make sense, since violence surrounds those living in war torn places, and living in poverty (happens to be quite a few Muslims experience these things, strangely enough.)
Expecting Islam to suddenly reform in line the west (even though it definitely has in vast areas) is ridiculous a concept as trying to, by force, set up a democracy in Iraq by waging war on it! religions, like anything, take type settle, and seeing as anyone who isn’t Islamic doesn’t have much respect (not surprisingly from a modern secular standpoint) for Islamic fundamentalist beliefs, then I think it’s going to take some time and we should view it from an objective and historical perspective.

open democracy

2006-09-11T07:18:00.000-07:00

lets look at history.........

http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization/left_jihad_3886.jsp

body language baby

2006-09-03T03:13:00.000-07:00

Continuing from my post http://aporia86.spaces.live.com/?_c11_blogpart_blogpart=blogview&_c=blogpart&partqs=amonth%3d11%26ayear%3d2005 from way back in deepest darkest 2005, here is a little variation on the theme of internet-ness and internetal criticism.

Msn really is a shambles. I admit, I use it all the time and feel pangs of angst and despair when I am without it, like a long distance lover. However a particularly disturbing aspect of msn is when you have those conversations with people you barely know and who you are not yet familiar with their body language.
99.9% of people who I “chat” with (we really need a new word for msn chit-chat), on msn, I know well enough to people able to conceive of their voices with it’s timbre, pitch etc. of course there is still a huge lacuna which makes the whole process either more exhilarating (terms of the speculation and game-theory type moves which are made), or, extreme misunderstandings, unintentional facades, etc.

These problems are at their most extreme when your understanding and familiarity of the other is minimal. (im not talking about 13 year old girls chatting to 45 year old scenario). Isn’t it something like 60-90% of our communication comes down to body language? Well, emoticons just don’t seem to replace it really. I guess there are web cams, yet that is just making another excuse to allow for the dismembering of real stimulation.
I think this is a perfect subject for baudrillard’s next paper……….(maybe he’s reading this right now……..swoon).

prison.........again

2006-08-31T02:37:00.000-07:00

woman

2006-08-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

There comes a point when, no matter how hard we may try to put on a front, perhaps not even fully-conscientiously, it will break down and our weaknesses (or what we unjustly feel to be weaknesses) which we were trying to shun somehow manage to manifest themselves in the most contorted ways. In this in these midsts of anxiety, and moments of revelation, if you will, that certain truths just have to be admitted to ourselves.

These moments will also profoundly affect our sense of self and identity, our dignity and also the feeling of certainty or confidence which we formed with the former o-so-faithful protecting self.

In my case, it has been the realisation that I cant escape every single one of the stereotypes about being a woman, never mind how hard I try.
At some unexpected moment, this surge of doom and weakness, which I must accept, throws me back into a world of such “female generalisations”, and these make feel ashamed.

“Rise above it” I tell myself, but the more I repress it the more the violent the impact when my strength defeats me. If only these generalisations weren’t so commodifed to the exploitative extent that they are, then maybe they would be easier to deal with and less tainted.

If we would just realise that a chocolate bar doesn’t deal with pms, and we cannot be satisfied with “a romantic comedy with a glass of wine “, and, that a man cleaning the toilet doesn’t solve all our problems.

These matters can’t be trivialised anymore.

jeff buckley ( and leonard cohen). you will cry.......

2006-08-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLQUdHMFpBQ

Turkey

2006-08-24T04:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/assignment.shtml

Honour killings or stoning for “bringing shame” to a family, hanging as punishment due to rape, genital mutilation as part of tradition, subservience and cruelty as a norm.

If this were to be happening to men AS WELL AS WOMEN in certain countries, for example to a particular race or class, if men were to be affected too by this persecution, then foreign intervention would be more or less expected. So why not when it is happening to women only?

An Absurd Reasoning - Camus

2006-08-24T04:06:00.000-07:00

"Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences which are my revolt, my freedom and my passion. By the mere activity of consciousness I transform into a rule of life what was an invitation to death - and I refused suicide."

how can we ingore this?

2006-08-20T04:04:00.000-07:00

A Shit*er Darkly

2006-08-20T03:36:00.000-07:00

I saw the film A Scanner Darkly last night, and am again kicking myself for even granting it the possibility that it may have been good (I had succeeded in boycotting any of these shit American movies for a while, but well, I thought this would be different, woe is me and my naiveté).

Basically, what it amounted to was a US Government propaganda film against drugs where Keanu Reaves actually comes out with the line (with tears in hi eyes) “I’ll never take Substance D again, for the rest the of my life”. Substance D being the drug which 20% of population is on, 5 years from now, which will DESTROY OUR SOCIETY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BE WARNED, “drugs are bad, mmmkay”.

MAN IT WAS SO APPALLING, then my friend and I broke out into to mild hysterics at that “keanu’s moment” (snifflesniffile) and ended up getting “shhh”ed at. We contemplated walking out, however it would have been a precarious feat jumping over the laps of largish couple sitting next to us.

So, there was no constructive or, for that matter, noticeable story line. Somehow the majority of the narrative of the film managed to be squeezed into the last 15mins or so. And it was that typical trying to be profound but failing miserably kind of natter.

And, well, nothing of much significance ever happened, apart from Robert Downey Junior (what a f***ing stupid name, who I am embarrassed to admit to seeing a film with that inept, mono-personality, too fast speaking to make out whether he is actually coming out with real words actor) managing to, to much amusement, achieve the “camp” look very successfully yet unintentionally, and woody harrelleson acting more like a teenage American guy from shitty teenage American films, more than ever!!!! Also unintentional.

Well, at least winona ryder looked hot………

CONjugal rights!

2006-08-19T04:03:00.000-07:00

“A conjugal visit is a scheduled visit during which an inmate of a penal institution is permitted to have sexual intercourse with a visitor in a closely controlled setting. It is generally stipulated that this visitor be a spouse. The generally recognized basis for permitting such a visit is that, even though the inmate has lost their rights with incarceration, their spouse still has the right to enjoy sexual intimacy, and cannot be required to divorce or commit adultery in order to enjoy conjugal rights.”

.
Isnt this going against our prevalent attitude to marriage and relationships at the moment. I guess it is expected that prisoners don’t deserve the freedom of alternative relationships which those of us who are, ahem, “innocent” (bah, wake up). I mean, how come, all of a sudden, when marriage really doesn’t play nearly as much of a role in society as it has in past, plenty of people co-habitaed or just don’t commit at all, which is fine, is suddendly does for those prisoners who also have non-conjual relationships. Haha, I can just imagine certain “legal” people discussing, over their afternoon tea, the plight of these corrupted people with such accepted phrases as “well they’re only in this position because of a lack of father figure to create some disicipline in those brutes”.

But maybe now we shold all get married as quickly possible, so just that just in case we may find ourselves in prison (easily done), at least there will be a cerfitate giving us a legal right to have sex (because that’s what it all really amounts to right?) . If it were not for this sacred piece of paper, we are denied the most basic and fundamental of acts for us as humans (and other animals too of course), which I guess makes perfect sense since the prison system is the most elaborate institiution for de-humanization.

At what time do we ever hear about “conjugal rights” as something actually demanding to be fullfilled anyway, and as a right! Perhaps in fundamental religious areanas, or medieval times.
Some hypocrisy going on here perhaps? I wish they would stop hiding behind meaningless semantic and legal jargon and just make it obvious that we will all be better married, a in stable nuclear family………just look at all the benefits!!!!

just because they're far away.........

2006-08-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

I was quite sickened the other day when I listening to the news on the radio, about the language use, and, the prioritise given to different issues on-going at present.
Now I know I shouldn’t expect much better, but despite that, it does not repel my frustration.

In a description of the current “terrorist plot” to blow-up up to 3 planes, or something, it described the event as “a plan by terrorists to cause untold death and destruction and commit mass murder. This was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” And John Reid, the Home Secretary, said that “loss of life would have been on an unprecedented scale”.

Ok, well in our context maybe, yet we seem to be forgetting to be Blitz, and of course, the yet to be dangers of global warming. But what really outraged me, of which I must learn to accept I guess, was that just a few minutes after the excitement of the news report about the plot came another bulletin lasting a couple of seconds about sixty or seventy Iraqis blown up in a suicide bomb. Since these suicide bombs are continuous, they have little impact and have the deaths just become another part of our mundane news coverage.

sign and sight

2006-08-14T03:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.signandsight.com/features/894.html

une autre perspective intéressante ?

spiked

2006-08-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1321/

a refreshing approach to "that" subject?

soon they will be dominating us......

2006-08-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

beautiful huh?! these are the trendiest accessories at the moment, coming to a goth club near you.

bursting with vitality, encrusted with swarovski crystals, and, I kid you not, the necessary leash to keep the beasts under control. wouldnt like to find one of these in my bloody mary.........

moving on.....

2006-08-07T11:23:00.000-07:00

........time to move on to a serious blog site.

from msn spaces (the adolescent period)................ to the realm of maturity.

adieu http://spaces.msn.com/members/aporia86/, you have served me well