Quote
May 13, 2013
29 notes
"As Hegel puts it, what dies on the cross is not son but father himself. I think it’s correct speculative reading. Otherwise we are in some pagan stupidity where you have God up there, God sends a messenger, “oh, sorry, crucified this time, it failed, come back my son, we’ll try it later two thousand years,” or whatever. This is obscenity. The whole point is that it’s not that if we do this we are back at this boring pagan topic of phoenix—you know, you die, but out of the ashes you, like that stupid bird, whatever, you come back. No no no, what comes after crucifixion is not Christ back to Daddy. It’s Holy Ghost. What is Holy Ghost? Read it literally. When Christ is asked by his followers, “How will we know that you come?” You know this famous passage, “Whenever there is love between two of you I will be there.” I take this absolutely literally. Holy Ghost is what remains of God, and it’s our freedom. There is no higher guarantee and so on"

— Zizek (via jujutsu-with-zizek)

Tags: zizek god

Photoset
April 25, 2013
251 notes

thepeoplesrecord:

Bangladesh factory building collapse kills nearly 100, injures hundreds more
April 24, 2013

An eight-storey block housing garment factories and a shopping center collapsed on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital on Wednesday, killing nearly 100 people and injuring hundreds more, officials said.

Fire fighters and army personnel worked frantically through the day at the Rana Plaza building in Savar, 30 km (19 miles) outside Dhaka, to rescue people trapped in the rubble. Television showed young women workers, some apparently semi-conscious, being pulled from the debris.

One fireman told Reuters that about 2,000 people were in the building when the upper floors jolted down on top of each other.

Bangladesh’s booming garment industry has been plagued by fires and other accidents for years, despite a drive to improve safety standards. In November last year, 112 workers were killed in a blaze at the Tazreen factory in a nearby industrial suburb.

“It looks like an earthquake has struck here,” said one resident as he looked on at the chaotic scene of smashed concrete and ambulances making their way through the crowds of workers and wailing relatives.

“I was at work on the third floor, and then suddenly I heard a deafening sound, but couldn’t understand what was happening. I ran and was hit by something on my head,” said Zohra Begum a worker at one of the factories.

An official at a control room set up to provide information about the missing and injured said that 96 people were confirmed dead and more than 700 were injured.

CRACKS IN THE BUILDING

Mohammad Asaduzzaman, in charge of the area’s police station, said factory owners appeared to have ignored a warning not to allow their workers into the building after a crack was detected in the block on Tuesday.

Five garment factories - employing mostly women - were housed in the building, including Ether Tex Ltd., whose chairman told Reuters he was unaware of any warnings not to open the workshops.

“There were some crack at the second floor, but my factory was on the fifth floor,” said Muhammad Anisur Rahman. “The owner of the building told our floor manager that it is not a problem and so you can open the factory.”

He said that his firm had been sub-contracted to supply Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world’s largest retailer, and Europe’s C&A.

Last November’s factory fire put a spotlight on global retailers that source clothes from Bangladesh, where low wages - as little as $37 a month for some workers - have helped propel the country to no. 2 in the ranks of apparel exporters.

It emerged later that a Wal-Mart supplier had subcontracted work to the Tazreen factory without authorization.

Buildings in the crowded city of Dhaka are sometimes erected without permission and many do not comply with construction regulations. Dozens died when a garment factory collapsed in the same area eight years ago.

Source

(via revolutionaryriots)

Photo
April 25, 2013
315 notes
moniquill: alexandraerin: autie-turtle-cat: pizzavanguard: punkrockparranda: This picture really bothers me. It’s a severely shallow analysis of the world’s problems. Yes, the statement is correct that stealing is illegal (and immoral) while keeping massive amounts of food in a warehouse is legal. If food were not a commodity to be bought and sold, do you honestly believe there would be enough to feed billions of people? Without profit incentive, there would be insanely little food on the planet. The fact that food is an industry in which there is potential to capitalize and make a lot of money is not the reason why people are starving, it’s the reason why even more people aren’t starving. Businesses want to make money, and as such they will sell you the best food at the cheapest price that they can possibly afford while continuing to make a sufficient profit. The more that they can profit, the more food they will produce. If stealing food were legal or if food were free, you wouldn’t have powerful businesses with a wealth of resources producing food. There would be no point. They wouldn’t even have the ability to! The only reason that the world has so much food is because of capitalism. World hunger is absolutely a problem, no one is contesting that. But instead of pointing fingers at capitalism and saying “food should just be free” (which would starve almost everyone…) why don’t people just invest their time in thinking of serious solutions? free food would literally starve people pass it on …lol, OP doesn’t actually know how capitalism works. Or history. Or what causes people to starve. Hint: free food is not it. So okay, there’s a surplus of food and yet people are still starving. How… does capitalism benefit those who are starving despite the surplus of food? Capitalism is what prevents them from having food to eat. Logic 101. I mean, surely you don’t think those who are poor deserve to starve… right? That would be unbelievably cruel and yet that’s capitalism, making a profit for some at the expense of many. Thinking of solutions other than abolishing the problem (capitalism) won’t help anyone who’s starving, but it’ll save those who make a profit despite the surplus. Also the idea that wanting to make a profit drives businesses to sell food “at the cheapest price they can afford”… that’s a gross oversimplification. The profit motive drives businesses to sell food at the most expensive price they can get away with… or rather, at the exact point where the intersection of supply and demand creates the maximum profit. If doubling the price would only result in a third fewer people buying, then the profit motive demands you double your price, because you’ll still then be making more money even with fewer customers. What drives prices downwards is competition. But free market/laissez-faire capitalism, while it depends on competition to work the way we ideally want it to work, destroys competition. Because competition creates winners, and the “prize” for winning in the free market is the power to reshape the playing field to your advantage. After a few rounds of unrestricted play, a field that started with a thousand competitors will be made up of half a dozen winners, who will proceed to run out every subsequent round as a victory lap. Anyway, all the food that’s wasted? It doesn’t generate profit. For anyone. It’s overhead. It’s because of the ideology that goes along with capitalism, not for any practical reason, that we see this waste as acceptable. If the invisible hand of the free market worked the way it’s supposed to, there would never be a situation where banks bulldoze empty houses while people sit in the cold, because at the point where the bank is willing to pay to destroy the house, market economics would dictate that they should accept any offer on that house, including someone who said “Pay me half what you’d pay the guy with the bulldozer and I’ll take it off your hands.” If this were about free market capitalism, grocery stores wouldn’t be pouring bleach over their out-of-date food (bleach costs money), they’d be putting “OR BEST OFFER” on food that’s about to go. Reblogging for AE’s commentary, but wanted to address these two gems from OP: “Without profit incentive, there would be insanely little food on the planet.” CITATION NEEDED. I’m pretty sure that human history has shown that societies are pretty good at at least attempting to produce food, regardless of capital profit, for reasons of humans needing to eat. Do you honestly believe that if capitalism folded tomorrow, EVERYONE would stop farming? “Businesses want to make money, and as such they will sell you the best food at the cheapest price that they can possibly afford while continuing to make a sufficient profit” AHAHAAHAHAHA srsly this is how you think it works? No. Businesses have no interest in selling customers the best food at the cheapest price. Thy have an interest in selling customers the cheapest thing that they can produce that is of sufficient quality for us to buy it, at the highest price that they can extract from us. Consumer price - cost of production = profit. They want to keep the former high and the latter low. McDonald’s isn’t ‘the best’ anything. It’s excellent distribution of very cheap ingredients sold at cheap-but-still-profitable prices. People buy it because it’s cheap and readily available and filling and palatable, not because it’s -good-. Companies have shown again and again that they will charge the most they possibly can for products without losing their entire customer base.

moniquill:

alexandraerin:

autie-turtle-cat:

pizzavanguard:

punkrockparranda:

This picture really bothers me. It’s a severely shallow analysis of the world’s problems. Yes, the statement is correct that stealing is illegal (and immoral) while keeping massive amounts of food in a warehouse is legal.

If food were not a commodity to be bought and sold, do you honestly believe there would be enough to feed billions of people? Without profit incentive, there would be insanely little food on the planet. The fact that food is an industry in which there is potential to capitalize and make a lot of money is not the reason why people are starving, it’s the reason why even more people aren’t starving. Businesses want to make money, and as such they will sell you the best food at the cheapest price that they can possibly afford while continuing to make a sufficient profit. The more that they can profit, the more food they will produce. If stealing food were legal or if food were free, you wouldn’t have powerful businesses with a wealth of resources producing food. There would be no point. They wouldn’t even have the ability to! The only reason that the world has so much food is because of capitalism.

World hunger is absolutely a problem, no one is contesting that. But instead of pointing fingers at capitalism and saying “food should just be free” (which would starve almost everyone…) why don’t people just invest their time in thinking of serious solutions?

free food would literally starve people pass it on

…lol, OP doesn’t actually know how capitalism works. Or history. Or what causes people to starve. Hint: free food is not it.

So okay, there’s a surplus of food and yet people are still starving. How… does capitalism benefit those who are starving despite the surplus of food? Capitalism is what prevents them from having food to eat. Logic 101.

I mean, surely you don’t think those who are poor deserve to starve… right? That would be unbelievably cruel and yet that’s capitalism, making a profit for some at the expense of many. Thinking of solutions other than abolishing the problem (capitalism) won’t help anyone who’s starving, but it’ll save those who make a profit despite the surplus.

Also the idea that wanting to make a profit drives businesses to sell food “at the cheapest price they can afford”… that’s a gross oversimplification. The profit motive drives businesses to sell food at the most expensive price they can get away with… or rather, at the exact point where the intersection of supply and demand creates the maximum profit.

If doubling the price would only result in a third fewer people buying, then the profit motive demands you double your price, because you’ll still then be making more money even with fewer customers.

What drives prices downwards is competition. But free market/laissez-faire capitalism, while it depends on competition to work the way we ideally want it to work, destroys competition. Because competition creates winners, and the “prize” for winning in the free market is the power to reshape the playing field to your advantage. After a few rounds of unrestricted play, a field that started with a thousand competitors will be made up of half a dozen winners, who will proceed to run out every subsequent round as a victory lap.

Anyway, all the food that’s wasted? It doesn’t generate profit. For anyone. It’s overhead. It’s because of the ideology that goes along with capitalism, not for any practical reason, that we see this waste as acceptable. If the invisible hand of the free market worked the way it’s supposed to, there would never be a situation where banks bulldoze empty houses while people sit in the cold, because at the point where the bank is willing to pay to destroy the house, market economics would dictate that they should accept any offer on that house, including someone who said “Pay me half what you’d pay the guy with the bulldozer and I’ll take it off your hands.”

If this were about free market capitalism, grocery stores wouldn’t be pouring bleach over their out-of-date food (bleach costs money), they’d be putting “OR BEST OFFER” on food that’s about to go.

Reblogging for AE’s commentary, but wanted to address these two gems from OP:

“Without profit incentive, there would be insanely little food on the planet.”

CITATION NEEDED.

I’m pretty sure that human history has shown that societies are pretty good at at least attempting to produce food, regardless of capital profit, for reasons of humans needing to eat. Do you honestly believe that if capitalism folded tomorrow, EVERYONE would stop farming?

“Businesses want to make money, and as such they will sell you the best food at the cheapest price that they can possibly afford while continuing to make a sufficient profit”

AHAHAAHAHAHA srsly this is how you think it works?

No. Businesses have no interest in selling customers the best food at the cheapest price. Thy have an interest in selling customers the cheapest thing that they can produce that is of sufficient quality for us to buy it, at the highest price that they can extract from us. Consumer price - cost of production = profit. They want to keep the former high and the latter low. McDonald’s isn’t ‘the best’ anything. It’s excellent distribution of very cheap ingredients sold at cheap-but-still-profitable prices. People buy it because it’s cheap and readily available and filling and palatable, not because it’s -good-.

Companies have shown again and again that they will charge the most they possibly can for products without losing their entire customer base.

Tags: sanity

Quote
April 23, 2013
106 notes
"You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you’re satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you’ve got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you."

—

Chuck Palahniuk | Fight Club

(via blogut)

(via susannathinks)

Video
April 19, 2013
5 notes

icklebeckle:

Right wish I’d gone

Tags: Thatcher

Text
April 19, 2013

Sugata Mitra: “Knowing is obsolete.”

Mitra:

“Could it be that we won’t need to go to school at all? Could it be that, at the point in time when you need to know something, you can find it out in two minutes? Could it be – a devastating question, a question that was framed for me by Nicholas Negroponte – could it be that we are heading towards a future where knowing is obsolete? But that’s terrible. We are homo sapiens. Knowing, that’s what distinguishes us from the apes. But look at it this way. It took nature 100 million years to make the ape stand up and become homo sapiens. It took us only 10,000 to make knowing obsolete. What an achievement that is.”

We can’t imagine anything more reactionary coming from the lips of a supposed radical, and we wonder what a professor of education is doing tossing nonsensical tidbits to his audience without helping them to develop a deeper understanding of what is going on.

More in our post on Sugata Mitra’s myth that knowing is obsolete.

Tags: sugata mitra edtech pedagogy education elearning

Photo
April 18, 2013
105 notes
kittycat5261: Words Cannot describe how much I love this cartoon.

kittycat5261:

Words Cannot describe how much I love this cartoon.

Tags: Rehtaeh Parsons

Photoset
April 18, 2013
12 notes

alittlecoconuttart:

Group Supporting Rehtaeh Parsons’ Alleged Rapists Accidentally Exposed Their Identities On Facebook

By Andrea Peterson on Apr 16, 2013 at 11:50 am

Hacktivist collective Anonymous isn’t outing the identities of the boys who allegedly gang-raped a Canadian teen who later committed suicide after photos of her assault went viral — their own friends and family are. An open Facebook group supporting the boys involved in the Rehtaeh Parsons case, calling itself “Speak the Truth,” was closed down apparently due to a request from the authorities because the context of posts could be used to identify some of the alleged rapists according to screen caps. Canadian blog Dance of Red has images of the more incriminating posts.

The Parsons’ story gained international media attention after her death last week. Parsons’ mother claimed on Facebook her daughter struggled with depression following being sexually assaulted at a party, having photos of the night spread throughout her community, being subject to harassment about the photos, and having the local police mishandle the investigation of the assault and the distribution of the photos. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) closed their original investigation after a year citing lack of evidence. Previous reports suggest the high school Parsons attended all but ignored the assault, despite being made aware of the investigation and having photos of the assault “spread like wildfire” around the school. The RCMP announced Friday they will be reopening their investigation into the case due to new and credible information about the assault, and Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Drexter announced Monday there would be a review of the handling of the case after the current criminal investigation is concluded.

Anonymous claimed to have identified all four of the assailants in press releases last week, but were waiting to release the information “until it is apparent” no legal action would be taken against them. Press release comments on their investigation suggest that Parsons was doubly made a victim by a systematic indifference to her plight by the adults in authority in her community. Around one hundred Anonymous and Parsons supporters including her mother held a rally outside of the Halifax police station on Sunday asking for justice.

But a small group of counter-protesters, possibly affiliated with the Facebook group, also came out to support Parsons’ assailants. The counter-protesters waved signs proclaiming support for the boys — presumably the same boys who took photos of themselves sexually assaulting a teenage girl without the capacity to consent, then spread them around like a joke. Photos of the counter-protest posted by Dance of Red.

The initial reaction of the community to the alleged assault, and backlash to the possibility of the assailants being held accountable for their crimes, highlights the pervasiveness of victim-blaming that is a hallmark of rape culture. And sympathy for the alleged perpetrators of sexual assault is not unique to this community. Media coverage of the Steubenville defendants focused on their “promising futures” — as though their criminal conviction, not their act of violating an unconscious girl, was what caused that future to be compromised.

Tags: Rehteah Parsons

Photo
April 13, 2013
120 notes
arthistorianmindswirls: Frank Cadogan Cowper, La Belle Dame Sans Merci

arthistorianmindswirls:

Frank Cadogan Cowper, La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Tags: Keats

Quote
April 01, 2013
59 notes
"Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry."

— J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (via momnaaaa)

Tags: Catcher in the Rye