Tuesday, 21 July 2009

There is no reason...

...no reason in the world.

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...?

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.*
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."


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'

3 public service announcements of the future

"...breast milk, Kahluha, love it!"

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.

Beat bongo babe

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.

Adam Yauch's announcement re: his cancer (I wish you a healthy recovery mate!)

Robots invading vintage postcards



Basij shoot to kill (undated video)

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:


WTF?

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

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!

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."

Rolling Stones - Australian Tour Documentary 1973 (ABC)



Monday, 20 July 2009

Method of Defiance - Nihon (DVD)






Laswell Licata Kondo Worrell Dr. Israel

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.

Smoking # 25

Girlz With Gunz # 68

(Thanx to the 'Lochster')

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.

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?!

ME NEED!!!

ME NEED!!!

Lego Darth Vader Canteen Incident

(Via 'Coisas do Arco da Velha')
Sketch by Eddie Izzard - fugn hilarious!

"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?"

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/AP

The 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'

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')

Frank McCourt RIP

Francis "Frank" McCourt
(19 August 1930 - 19 July 2009)

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!'

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.

Kidz party mix # 1 - The Muppet Mashups

The other day the Spacebubs accompanied me on an outing around his local op-shops...and well instead of looking around the CD's and books like I usually do, we just ended up dancing in front of the radio instead.
Of course the music (commercial radio station whatever) was crap so...
Here is the answer:

The editorial team here at 'Exile' are off to a party...

'J. SPACEBUB'S 2ND ANNUAL BIFFDAY BASH!'

To get you in the mood, I leave you with this:


Saturday, 18 July 2009

Banksy in Africa


“Although believed to have been painted at the start of the year, images of Banksy’s street pieces in Africa are only now beginning to circulate. These great pieces are thought to be in Mali.”

Brilliant!!!

YES!
THEY HAVE DONE IT AGAIN!
THE BEST IDEA (ALMOST) EVER
(AT LEAST UNTIL THE NEXT ONE)
WHO? WHAT? WHERE?

HERE!

(Hi guys...)

Dead Weather play a small dark room for the privileged few



Report @ 'The Fader'

Skratch Bastid - I Got You (I Feel Good) James Brown


Free 110% mix here.

Shaolin Grand Master Tai Djin

Tai Djin was born in Fukien, China in 1849. His parents, not knowing what caused their baby’s hairiness, abandoned him in a forest. Tai was found by a monk who took him to the Shaolin Temple where he was cared for by the Shaolin Masters. Tai grew up to be highly educated, knowing he wouldn’t have much of a life outside the temple. He threw himself into learning martial arts -not just one discipline, but all of them! Tai achieved the title of Grand Master and is known from that point on as Su Kong Tai Djin. He was revered by his many students until (and even after) his death in 1928.
(At 'Mental Floss' via 'Daily Dish')

On the streets of Tehran yesterday...

Using Legos to repair building cracks

@ Urban Prankster
Love it! But then one of the highlights of my life was going to 'Lego Land' in Denmark when I was a kid!

Walter Cronkite RIP

(November 4, 1916 - July 17, 2009)
'NYTimes' obituary
Here.

پرتاب گاز اشک آور بین صفوف نماز جمعه

" In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." (George Orwell)




Iranian updates (keep refreshing page#49)

Cleric Says ‘Crisis’ Has Caused Loss of Public Trust@NYTimes



Tear gas being shot in front of Karroubi



Photo of the attack on Karroubi earlier today causing his turban to come off!

Watchdog accuses Iran of arresting photographers

PARIS (Reuters) - Iran has arrested at least seven photographers since its disputed presidential election, with the most recent arrests occurring less than a week ago, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said on Friday.

Images of blood-smeared protesters have captured the drama of the unrest provoked by last month's election result and footage of the death of a young Iranian woman, Neda Agha-Soltan, has become an icon of opposition protests.

"The Tehran regime is scared of images. The authorities have launched a real hunt on visual reporters so that no professional photo or video of sensitive subjects will leave the country," the Paris-based organization said in a statement.

Iran crushed the protests and in early July said most of the people arrested during the events had since been released.

Reporters Without Borders, an organization campaigning for press freedom, said five photographers were arrested less than a week ago.

It said the photographer Mehdi Zabouli was arrested on June 20, and his Franco-Iranian colleague Said Movahedi, on July 9.

Photographers Tohid Bighi, Majid Saidi, Satyar Emami, Marjan Abdolahian and Koroush Javan were arrested on July 11, it said, and at least five others have been injured by police or militias.

Four days after the election, Iran banned foreign media journalists from filming or taking photos of the protests, or even leaving their offices to cover the events.

(Reporting by Sophie Hardach; Editing by Angus MacSwan)@Reuters



Iran Arrests Prominent Women's Rights Lawyer - Husband
TEHRAN (AFP)--A leading Iranian lawyer and women's rights campaigner, Shadi Sadr, was arrested on her way to Friday prayers in the capital that were attended by scores of vote protesters, her husband said.
"Shadi called me from an unknown location and said she was arrested by plain clothes officials who forcefully got her into a car," Hossein Nilchian told AFP.
He said Sadr was accompanied by her friends and she was the only one taken away.
Sadr, 34, is a well-known women's rights activist and has campaigned against one of Iran's internationally condemned practices of death by stoning for adulterers. She has defended several such convicts as a lawyer.
Thousands of supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi demonstrated in Tehran streets after the weekly Muslim prayers led by influential cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Iran has jailed dozens of journalists, political activists and reformist leader in the wake of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in a June 12 poll.
At least 20 people have died in clashes with security forces and hundreds of opposition protesters have also been detained.
Rafsanjani Friday called for the release of the detainees.
@Bourse

Love the official blue filter so you can't see the 'Sea of Green'!

Even the leaves on the trees are blue!