JOLLY MORTALS Paintscraper (Extended Play) 7 inch 1994
9 minutes ago
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
Live tweets
Rt Iran Clashes in 7Tir square now, tear gas in Vali Asr. Smaller groups,lots of chanting. #iran #gr88 #iranelection
UPDATE: EVERYONE IS GOING TOWARDS KARIMKHAN ST. Vali Asr and 7-TIR is TAKEN by the Basij. #iranelection
protests reported in tabriz, isfahan, and shiraz as well, "Khmnei is murderer, his rule is void", clashes reported, #iranelection
IMPORTANT: PLEASE RT: **Green Blackout** Tonight at 9 all appliances ON, at 9:05 all appliances OFF #iranelection
Freedom Messenger - Confrmed;People moved to Karim khan Zand from 7 TIR Square. Heavy SF Presnt attack w/teargas right now #iranelection RT
Iran updates
Iran's hardline leaders failing to stem discontent
Iran's post-election power struggle is shaking the Islamic Republic to its roots, with no sign that its supreme leader can assuage popular anger or regain the trust of alienated politicians and clerics any time soon. The turmoil since hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in a June 12 vote his opponents said was rigged has rendered moot U.S. President Barack Obama's offer of engagement with Iran, which the West suspects of seeking nuclear weapons. It is hard to see how Iran could forge consensus on nuclear negotiations or dialogue with the United States while Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is facing unprecedented challenges to his authority and deep fissures within the ruling elite. Tehran, which says its nuclear programme is purely peaceful, faces a September deadline to agree to substantive negotiations with the West or risk tougher international sanctions. "Whether or not you can find an interlocutor in Iran at this moment is questionable because the whole regime is in crisis," said Rasool Nafisi, a U.S.-based Iran expert. "Whatever move it made would be perceived as either arrogance or weakness." The nuclear issue may have to await the outcome of Iran's gravest internal upheaval since the 1979 Islamic revolution. A hard-hitting Friday sermon by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a disaffected regime heavyweight, has re-energised the opposition after security forces quelled last month's huge street protests and jailed hundreds of prominent reformists and intellectuals. "The main problem the opposition faces is that their brains trust is either in prison, under house arrest, or unable to communicate freely," said Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There remains tremendous popular outrage, but at the moment there is no leadership to channel that outrage politically." Sadjadpour saw no sign of an early compromise because hardliners feared any concession would only encourage their foes, and for now they still control the levers of power. "While there are pronounced cleavages among Iran's clerical elite, Khamenei's power base is not the clergy but the Revolutionary Guards. When and if we start to see rifts among the Guards it could be fatal for both Khamenei and Ahmadinejad." Khamenei, apparently stung by Rafsanjani's sermon in which he said Iran was in crisis because of doubts over the election result and demanded an end to detentions and press curbs, warned senior figures on Monday not to help Tehran's enemies. "Elites should know that any talk, action or analysis that helps (the enemy) is a move against the nation," he said. But Rafsanjani appears too powerfully entrenched to ignore. "He is not just anybody. He is one of the leading figures of the revolution and well-anchored among large groups of clerics," said a Western diplomat in Tehran. "He has a fantastic network." CLERICS IN A QUANDARY Defeated candidates Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi have defied Khamenei's efforts to silence their protests. Former President Mohammad Khatami, a mild reformist, on Monday boldly proposed a referendum on the legitimacy of the government. Ideologically, the backing of Iran's clerical establishment is crucial for the leadership's standing, but few ayatollahs have endorsed Ahmadinejad and some, like dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, have even attacked Khamenei. "The clerics don't know what to do," said Baqer Moin, a London-based Iran analyst. "They are stuck between Khamenei's uncompromising position and an emboldened opposition which is demanding more than Khamenei is willing to give." Khamenei, who succeeded revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as supreme leader in 1989, has endorsed Ahmadinejad and the election result, risking his own credibility as a mediator in disputes and ultimate arbiter of state policy. "The supreme leader has lost his power to pronounce the final word," said Moin, a biographer of Khomeini. "He is just another politician ... reflecting the interest of various groups surrounding him, not the system as a whole." Rafsanjani, 75, a veteran insider who heads a body that can in theory dismiss the supreme leader, was accused of corruption by Ahmadinejad during a mud-slinging election campaign. But he took a lofty line at Friday prayers, saying unity and people's trust in the voting process must be restored after a "bitter day" -- trenchant indirect criticism of Khamenei. "Rafsanjani has played it quite cleverly and in fact gave the speech the leader should have," Ali Ansari, an Iran scholar at Britain's Durham University said of Friday's sermon. At stake now, he said, was the political survival not just of Ahmadinejad, but of Khamenei, who was "weakening by the day". Some analysts see an outside chance that Iran's hardline leaders, feeling isolated at home, might seek an accommodation with the West to gain legitimacy and shore up their position. So far, however, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad have repeatedly accused Western powers of inciting post-election unrest and have ruled out any concessions on Iran's nuclear projects. Conversely, Obama may be in no haste to embark on any negotiation that might bolster Iranian leaders caught up in such a fluid, unpredictable political drama in Tehran. "I fear Ahmadinejad's presence serves as an insurmountable obstacle to confidence-building with the United States," Carnegie's Sadjadpour said of the prospects for engagement. "It's going to be impossible for Tehran to reassure us that its nuclear ambitions are purely peaceful as long as Ahmadinejad remains so outspokenly belligerent towards Israel." (Editing by Jon Hemming)@Reuters
Is compulsion to amputate healthy limbs mind or matter?
One day, after years of agony, an Australian man took a large quantity of dry ice and intentionally damaged his left leg, so that a surgeon would have to amputate it.The action was intentional and the man, Robert Vickers, described the feeling of waking up in the hospital without his leg as “absolute ecstasy.” He’s one of a small number of people who have what psychiatrists have come to call body integrity identity disorder in which patients report the desire to have one or more of their limbs amputated because the extremities don’t feel like they “belong” to their bodies.Full story by Alexis Madrigal @ 'Wired' via 'Renegade Futurist'
Smoking # 26
No credit @ the moment as I liberated this picture from a site that constantly steals other people's pics without credit.If you ARE the original uploader then please get in touch and I shall be happy to credit YOU!
What is the world coming to...?
A boy pretending to be a girl on the internet. Tsk! Tsk!
Who would have thought of such a thing...?
Who would have thought of such a thing...?
Sextortion at Eisenhower High
Last year, an awkward high school senior in Wisconsin went online, passed himself off as a flirtatious female student, and conned dozens of his male classmates into e-mailing him sexually explicit images of themselves. What he did next will likely send him to jail for a very long time.
By Michael Joseph Gross; Photograph by Glen Erler.
stop being a wuss, x told himself. x was only 15, and he didn't know a lot about girls, but he did know this:
If you wanted to get with a girl like Kayla, you couldn't be a wuss. She IM'd him again.will u send it? she asked. Yes. He would. X pulled down his pants. When he was ready, he pointed the camera, snapped a picture, and sent it. omg, Kayla wrote. u r so hot. now its yr turn, he wrote. A minute later, Kayla sent a picture: shirt up, no bra, with the head cropped out. Fuck, X thought. That's hot. Even her screen name was sexy. Kayla's Facebook page said she was a junior, and though he'd never actually met her, you couldn't know every girl in a school with 1,200 kids. The night before, Kayla friended him with a message saying she always saw him in the hall and wanted to say hi, but she was too shy. Now she was asking for another picture.he typed. 1 minute. X looked in the mirror and flexed. He pointed the camera, snapped, then checked the shot. Nah. He could do better. He turned, flexed again, and snapped a few more. He picked the best one, cropped it, and sent it. She loved it. Totally loved it. Okay, now it was her turn. He wanted to see her face and body together, too. sorry, she wrote, too embarrassed. :-\ She'd make it up to him, though. That was a promise.*
If you wanted to get with a girl like Kayla, you couldn't be a wuss. She IM'd him again.will u send it? she asked. Yes. He would. X pulled down his pants. When he was ready, he pointed the camera, snapped a picture, and sent it. omg, Kayla wrote. u r so hot. now its yr turn, he wrote. A minute later, Kayla sent a picture: shirt up, no bra, with the head cropped out. Fuck, X thought. That's hot. Even her screen name was sexy. Kayla's Facebook page said she was a junior, and though he'd never actually met her, you couldn't know every girl in a school with 1,200 kids. The night before, Kayla friended him with a message saying she always saw him in the hall and wanted to say hi, but she was too shy. Now she was asking for another picture.he typed. 1 minute. X looked in the mirror and flexed. He pointed the camera, snapped, then checked the shot. Nah. He could do better. He turned, flexed again, and snapped a few more. He picked the best one, cropped it, and sent it. She loved it. Totally loved it. Okay, now it was her turn. He wanted to see her face and body together, too. sorry, she wrote, too embarrassed. :-\ She'd make it up to him, though. That was a promise.*
Full story @ 'GQ'
via 'Who's afraid of the world wide web' by Conor Friedersdorf
@ 'Daily Dish'
"A long piece at GQ tells the disturbing story of Tony Stancl, an 18 year old high school senior who created a fake female identity on Facebook, flirted with male classmates by Internet chat, and successfully encouraged hundreds of them to send along naked photographs. These he kept on his computer. The unluckiest victims were subsequently blackmailed. The made up female would threaten to release the photographs unless the boys performed oral or anal sex on "my friend Tony." Some boys agreed, and allowed that to be photographed too.
It is difficult to imagine a more striking cautionary tale for teenagers who inhabit the Internet age.
One can only hope that the victims of "sextortion" in this case aren't permanently traumatized -- and that the perpetrator is appropriately punished, hopefully discouraging other would be predators from preying on classmates in the same way.
Having laid out the story, the GQ writer reaches the following conclusion:
What happened here is shocking because it was not all that shocking. In the beginning, when Kayla and Emily asked these boys for naked pictures, the majority of them thought little of saying yes. This exchange was within the range of what kids—lots of kids—consider normal. Online, a boy chats with a girl he's never met. Pants go down. Pictures are sent. And a chain of unpredictable, unknowable consequences is set in motion. Whatever else he may be, Tony Stancl is an opportunist. He rode the big wave that more and more kids ride, out to a place where every flesh-and-blood kid is also a phantom, where adolescence isn't so lonely, where you don't have to wonder, Isn't there anybody who wants what I want? In this world, no IM goes unanswered—and for every teenager who types the question will u send it?, there is another typing, Yes.
Am I alone in thinking that the casual attitude taken by many teenagers toward naked pictures generally -- as opposed to the horrific deception specific to the case above -- isn't surprising at all? In the annals of American history, how many high school boys have exposed themselves to high school girls they met only recently? I am certain that very few stopped beforehand to ponder whether being seen naked would traumatize them, and that very few were ever traumatized by the experience. (I'll avoid speculating one way or another about the experience of women.) I hasten to add that exposing yourself to high school classmates is a bad idea! It would seem to inculcate unhealthy attitudes toward sexuality, and risks prosecution under overly broad child pornography laws. Would my high school senior self nevertheless have complied if a beautiful classmate cornered me at a party, intimated that she had a huge crush on me, and hinted that maybe we could be a thing if only I'd undress? He probably would have!
This issue is so thorny. If I ran for office and confessed that as a 21-year-old I went skinny dipping in mixed company one drunken night in Nice, France, I'd be unembarrassed about the experience, which was innocent enough, pretty damn fun if you want to know the truth, and an exploit with which I imagine most people can identify. What if a classmate from those days, having taken photographs (or even worse, video) without my knowledge, subsequently released them online? I'd be embarrassed. Some folks would regard it as a minor scandal. Can you see the Drudge headline? "Senate candidate exposed in naked romp!"
Like the (apocryphal?) tribes who feared that being photographed would rob them of their souls, we've reached a strange point in society where lots of behavior, whether desirable or undesirable, is considered far worse if it is documented on the Internet. This is at times perfectly rational, or else understandably irrational, but it sure is vexing, and I am quite thankful that my own teenage years were blissfully free of having everything I did documented in the cloud."
via 'Who's afraid of the world wide web' by Conor Friedersdorf
@ 'Daily Dish'
"A long piece at GQ tells the disturbing story of Tony Stancl, an 18 year old high school senior who created a fake female identity on Facebook, flirted with male classmates by Internet chat, and successfully encouraged hundreds of them to send along naked photographs. These he kept on his computer. The unluckiest victims were subsequently blackmailed. The made up female would threaten to release the photographs unless the boys performed oral or anal sex on "my friend Tony." Some boys agreed, and allowed that to be photographed too.
It is difficult to imagine a more striking cautionary tale for teenagers who inhabit the Internet age.
One can only hope that the victims of "sextortion" in this case aren't permanently traumatized -- and that the perpetrator is appropriately punished, hopefully discouraging other would be predators from preying on classmates in the same way.
Having laid out the story, the GQ writer reaches the following conclusion:
What happened here is shocking because it was not all that shocking. In the beginning, when Kayla and Emily asked these boys for naked pictures, the majority of them thought little of saying yes. This exchange was within the range of what kids—lots of kids—consider normal. Online, a boy chats with a girl he's never met. Pants go down. Pictures are sent. And a chain of unpredictable, unknowable consequences is set in motion. Whatever else he may be, Tony Stancl is an opportunist. He rode the big wave that more and more kids ride, out to a place where every flesh-and-blood kid is also a phantom, where adolescence isn't so lonely, where you don't have to wonder, Isn't there anybody who wants what I want? In this world, no IM goes unanswered—and for every teenager who types the question will u send it?, there is another typing, Yes.
Am I alone in thinking that the casual attitude taken by many teenagers toward naked pictures generally -- as opposed to the horrific deception specific to the case above -- isn't surprising at all? In the annals of American history, how many high school boys have exposed themselves to high school girls they met only recently? I am certain that very few stopped beforehand to ponder whether being seen naked would traumatize them, and that very few were ever traumatized by the experience. (I'll avoid speculating one way or another about the experience of women.) I hasten to add that exposing yourself to high school classmates is a bad idea! It would seem to inculcate unhealthy attitudes toward sexuality, and risks prosecution under overly broad child pornography laws. Would my high school senior self nevertheless have complied if a beautiful classmate cornered me at a party, intimated that she had a huge crush on me, and hinted that maybe we could be a thing if only I'd undress? He probably would have!
This issue is so thorny. If I ran for office and confessed that as a 21-year-old I went skinny dipping in mixed company one drunken night in Nice, France, I'd be unembarrassed about the experience, which was innocent enough, pretty damn fun if you want to know the truth, and an exploit with which I imagine most people can identify. What if a classmate from those days, having taken photographs (or even worse, video) without my knowledge, subsequently released them online? I'd be embarrassed. Some folks would regard it as a minor scandal. Can you see the Drudge headline? "Senate candidate exposed in naked romp!"
Like the (apocryphal?) tribes who feared that being photographed would rob them of their souls, we've reached a strange point in society where lots of behavior, whether desirable or undesirable, is considered far worse if it is documented on the Internet. This is at times perfectly rational, or else understandably irrational, but it sure is vexing, and I am quite thankful that my own teenage years were blissfully free of having everything I did documented in the cloud."
Aung San Suu Kyi by Shepard Fairey
Most heard opinion why Obama won the presidential election last year is because of the effective use of social media. True. But also very important was the Hope-poster made by Shepard Fairey. How a piece of design went viral. Now Shepard Fairey made new stunning work portraiting imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi from Burma. “This Human Rights cause is something I believe in strongly,” said Fairey. “I created this portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi to raise awareness of her on-going house arrest and the oppressive nature of the military regime ruling Burma.”Full story @ 'osocio'
A killer blog...
A really great blog that I have just discovered:'Killed In Cars'
A treasure trove of music, some that I have never even heard of!
Tonight I downloaded four or five albums purely on the recommendation of this blog after I found it while I was looking for some 'Basic Channel' tunes...
What can I say apart from check it out and take a chance on something you don't know about and maybe you will get blown away like I did by this album.
Ahmahdinejad's pick for VP bows out after three days
Mashaie’s appointment came under harsh criticism by the conservatives, normally allies of Ahmadinejad. They objected to a remark he had made last year saying the Israeli people were friends of the Iranians. The appearance of nepotism (Mashaie’s daughter is married to Ahmadinejad’s son) also did not help his case. [...] The last thing he needed was being attacked by Shaiatmadari and the conservatives on the very first appointment to his new cabinet. He should have expected the reaction from the right to this nomination, but it seems that he may be loosing touch with the realities on the ground.Natalia Estemirova: UPDATE
I just received this email from Rosa @ Newsy.com
Hi Mona,
I read your memorial post about human rights activist Natalya Estemirova where you report about her kidnapping and brutal murder. I think you will find the following video relevant to your post.
http://www.newsy.com/videos/fighting_for_human_rights_with_life
It describes Estemirova’s life’s work and uses news coverage from different media outlets to make the case that the human rights worker was murdered by the state.
I think it is relevant to your post and I hope you will consider embedding the video in Exile on Moan Street. This story has been buried in the press and blogs like yours honor her memory by publicizing her cause.
Newsy.com videos analyze and synthesize news coverage of important global issues from multiple sources. Its unique method of presenting how different media outlets around the world are covering a story provides context to help viewers understand complex global issues.
Thanx Rosa for sending me the link and if some more people get to know of Natalia's story then I am glad to have been of help.
Here is the video:
Hi Mona,
I read your memorial post about human rights activist Natalya Estemirova where you report about her kidnapping and brutal murder. I think you will find the following video relevant to your post.
http://www.newsy.com/videos/
It describes Estemirova’s life’s work and uses news coverage from different media outlets to make the case that the human rights worker was murdered by the state.
I think it is relevant to your post and I hope you will consider embedding the video in Exile on Moan Street. This story has been buried in the press and blogs like yours honor her memory by publicizing her cause.
Newsy.com videos analyze and synthesize news coverage of important global issues from multiple sources. Its unique method of presenting how different media outlets around the world are covering a story provides context to help viewers understand complex global issues.
Thanx Rosa for sending me the link and if some more people get to know of Natalia's story then I am glad to have been of help.
Here is the video:
Is this the man who killed Neda?
Arash Hejazi (the Doctor and eyewitness of Neda dying, the guy who was trying to help her in video) a few days after had an interview with BBC. People in the street went to the guy who shot Neda and took his ID cards, he said. He added “it is possible to recognize the killer if someone publishes that ID cards.”A few weeks later, the above pictures have surfaced on the net tho'nobody could confirm if those belonged to the killer.
Now Dr. Arash Hejazi says at his blog that we have the right man and that this IS is the killer.
Watch the video here.
Green Brief 32
Green Brief 32
Doug Wimbish - Doug Jam (1990)
Doug Wimbish, solo bass in Southern Studios 1990.
From the forthcoming On-U Sound documentary.
Brendan - this is what I was talking about!
From the forthcoming On-U Sound documentary.
Brendan - this is what I was talking about!
The Last of Heath
"When Heath Ledger died a year and a half ago from an accidental mix of prescription drugs, he was deep into filming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus with his friend and mentor, director Terry Gilliam. From Gilliam, the crew, and other insiders, the author gets an exclusive account of Ledger’s final months—a pressure cooker of arduous filmmaking, personal turmoil, and chronic insomnia—and of how the 28-year-old star’s last movie was rescued by a trio of friends: Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell."Monday, 20 July 2009
Lee Scratch Perry with Dubblestandart and Ari Up | NYC @ BRKLYN YARD 18 Jul 2009
One day before his huge Summerstage appearance at New York City's Central Park, Lee Scratch Perry played a secret show in Brooklyn at the BRKLYN YARD. Billed as Dubblestandart plus very special guest the Austria/Jamaica connection was joined by Ari Up of The Slits for the final encore, Equal Rights & Justice.
For a longer edit in higher resolution please go here.
For a longer edit in higher resolution please go here.
Sleater - Kinney
'Jumpers' Live on Letterman.
'You're No Rock'n'Roll Fun'
One of the best live bands I have ever seen...sadly missed.
'You're No Rock'n'Roll Fun'
One of the best live bands I have ever seen...sadly missed.
Too true
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE
1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we
rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter real ice cream and drank Coca Cola with sugar in it, but
we weren't overweight because
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on (if there were streetlights)
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down
the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays,
made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!
Team sports were compulsory and not everyone made the first team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned
HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!
"Sense and Sensibility...and Sea Monsters"
Following on from 'Pride & Prejudice and Zombies' comes the new classic. Available September 15th.
Details here.
For A - who just doesn't get it..."Why?"
Details here.
For A - who just doesn't get it..."Why?"Thirty-six army officers arrested in Iran over protest plan
Hashemi Rafsanjani at Friday prayers under the pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini, left, and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Photograph: Meisam Hosseini/APThe Iranian army has arrested 36 officers who planned to attend last week's Friday prayer sermon by former president Hashemi Rafsanjani in their military uniforms as an act of political defiance, according to Farsi-language websites.
The officers intended the gesture to show solidarity with the demonstrations against last month's presidential election result, which was won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but which has been clouded by allegations of mass fraud.
Rafsanjani used the sermon at Tehran university to challenge the authority of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by questioning the result in the presence of the defeated reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and tens of thousands of his supporters.
Security forces used teargas and arrested dozens of those in attendance in a sign of the authorities' nervousness over the event.
The officers were rounded up on Friday morning by army intelligence agents who had caught wind of the plan. They are said to have been arrested at their homes and taken to an unknown location.
Peiknet, a Farsi website, said the officers had agreed the action at a weekly prayer meeting the night before at the Shah Abdolazim religious shrine in Shahr-e Rey, on Tehran's southern outskirts. "They decided to attend the Friday prayer in their military clothes as a sign of protest against the cruel massacre of people by the basij and revolutionary guards and to show their objection against this process and support for the people," the site said. It named 24 of the officers, who included two majors, four captains, eight lieutenants, six sergeants and four warrant officers.
The arrests expose the authorities' sensitivity to signs of mutiny among the various branches of the security forces.
Reports last month suggested that a senior revolutionary guard commander, General Ali Fazli, had been arrested for refusing to obey orders to suppress protests against election result. The reports were later denied but some sources say Fazli remains under pressure to toe the line.
While the army is considered to be secondary in importance to the revolutionary guards in the regime's military hierarchy, it is still under the command of Khamenei, who yesterday appointed a cleric, Hojatoleslam Mohammad Ali Al-e Hashem, as the new head of its political ideology section.
Khamenei has declared the election result fair and overseen a fierce crackdown that has led to at least 2,000 arrests and a death toll the government puts at 20 but which some human rights groups say could be in the hundreds.
@ 'The Guardian'
The officers intended the gesture to show solidarity with the demonstrations against last month's presidential election result, which was won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but which has been clouded by allegations of mass fraud.
Rafsanjani used the sermon at Tehran university to challenge the authority of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by questioning the result in the presence of the defeated reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and tens of thousands of his supporters.
Security forces used teargas and arrested dozens of those in attendance in a sign of the authorities' nervousness over the event.
The officers were rounded up on Friday morning by army intelligence agents who had caught wind of the plan. They are said to have been arrested at their homes and taken to an unknown location.
Peiknet, a Farsi website, said the officers had agreed the action at a weekly prayer meeting the night before at the Shah Abdolazim religious shrine in Shahr-e Rey, on Tehran's southern outskirts. "They decided to attend the Friday prayer in their military clothes as a sign of protest against the cruel massacre of people by the basij and revolutionary guards and to show their objection against this process and support for the people," the site said. It named 24 of the officers, who included two majors, four captains, eight lieutenants, six sergeants and four warrant officers.
The arrests expose the authorities' sensitivity to signs of mutiny among the various branches of the security forces.
Reports last month suggested that a senior revolutionary guard commander, General Ali Fazli, had been arrested for refusing to obey orders to suppress protests against election result. The reports were later denied but some sources say Fazli remains under pressure to toe the line.
While the army is considered to be secondary in importance to the revolutionary guards in the regime's military hierarchy, it is still under the command of Khamenei, who yesterday appointed a cleric, Hojatoleslam Mohammad Ali Al-e Hashem, as the new head of its political ideology section.
Khamenei has declared the election result fair and overseen a fierce crackdown that has led to at least 2,000 arrests and a death toll the government puts at 20 but which some human rights groups say could be in the hundreds.
@ 'The Guardian'
Oh dear! Part 4 (but it really should be so much more...)
Pat Buchanan's infamous appearance on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show discussing the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor.
"Buchanan is right. This white man is full of resentment."
(@ 'Daily Kos' via 'The New Disease')
(@ 'Daily Kos' via 'The New Disease')
Jeez, I am getting old. Was it really 40 years ago today?
Lots of audio and video files relating to the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, can be found
here.
I was a wee 9 year old kid down from Glasgow staying with some friends of my Mum's in Crystal Palace, London and I am sure that the film that they showed on TV before the landing was 'Tora! Tora! Tora!'
here.
I was a wee 9 year old kid down from Glasgow staying with some friends of my Mum's in Crystal Palace, London and I am sure that the film that they showed on TV before the landing was 'Tora! Tora! Tora!'
Sunday, 19 July 2009
Black Vinyl: Putting Healthcare on the Map
... [Poets] appeal to the reader to catch the writer's spirit, to think with him, if one can or will, an expression no longer of fact but of his sense of it, his peculiar intuition of a world - prospective or discerned below the faulty conditions of the present... - Walter Pater
We excel in creating arbitrary lines on maps; delineating countless villages, towns, cities, counties, states, and nations from one another. These arbitrary lines exert influences on our lives subtle or great. For many they are the difference between life and death.
An unseen ruler
Defines with geometry
An unrulable
Expanse of geography
An aerial photographer
Over-exposed
To the cartologist's 2D
Images knows
The areas where the water flowed
So petrified the landscape grows
Children die everyday in America, the richest nation on earth, for lack of healthcare. Some of these kids live just a few dozens of miles from Canada - a place with national healthcare. The difference is even greater comparing Mexico to the United States. San Diego is just twenty miles from Tijuana, but the arbitrary line that divides the lives of their respective citizens is of unimaginable consequence. Even within nations arbitrary lines determine our lives - from the schools we attend to the doctors we see to the politicians that represent us.
Straining eyes try to understand
The works
Incessantly in hand
The carving and the paring of the land
The quarter-square the graph divides
Beneath the rule a country hides
Wire, a British art-punk band from the 1970's, wrote a song that doesn't directly address this issue, but that I've always associated with it, Map Ref. 41°N 93°W, from their album 154 released in 1979.
Chorus, interrupting my train of thought
Lines
Of longitude and latitude
Define, refine
My altitude
Perhaps the reason is because poetry is not dead, but is visible most prominently today in song lyrics. And, as postulated by Walter Pater, the poet creates a sense of an idea and doesn't have to spell it out exactly. Ambiguity, metaphor, interpretation: I choose to interpret this as a song about arbitrary lines on the map.
The curtain's undrawn
Harness fitted, no escape
Common and peaceful, duck, flat, lowland
Landscape, canal, canard, water-coloured
Crystal palaces
For floral kings
A well-known waving
Span of wings
Witness, the sinking of the sun
A deep breath of submission has begun
Of course I’ll never understand why the song’s title has map coordinates that point suspiciously close to Des Moines, Iowa.
Interrupting my train of thought
Lines
Of longitude and latitude
Define, refine
My altitude
Songwriting credits go to Colin Newman, Bruce Gilbert, and Graham Lewis of Wire. As always, lyrics are as I hear them after repeated listenings.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
