Category: Control
-
Any excuse to use excessive force
Because any infraction of the law deserves complete, over the top violent response from a paramilitary police force. Ladies and gentleman, the panopticon and your tax dollars at work in the Society of Control… Police have justified this sort of heavy-handedness by claiming that people who run illegal gambling operations…
-
The library, the cloud, and the digital scholar
Originally posted on jbrittholbrook: Mark Carrigan and I have continued our discussion begun here about the difference between various media (in this case, blogs and Moleskine notebooks). We haven’t discussed aesthetics, yet — but, to be clear, I’m not into technophilia. Dalek, you look maaaavelous! Makes me want to exterminate…
-
Lookout: Extreme Profiling
It should be clear to folks by now this was not a vendetta against Tea Baggers and those who rant & rave against Obama and/or Obamacare. This is just another form of surveillance by profiling. Obviously we should think of how the IRS was going after some non-profit groups as…
-
Millions of Egyptians Demand Morsi’s Downfall
Originally posted on Paper to Use: CAIRO, Egypt — June 30 proved to be very different from January 2011, which was made to look like a minor protest in comparison. Tens of thousands of protesters spent the night in the epicenter of Egypt’s uprising, Tahrir Square, which by noon couldn’t…
-
111 Years of the US Surveillance State
Harvard historian Murray Levin argued that this mood of fear and near-panic that possessed the popular imagination throughout the early Cold War years was not so much a spontaneous reaction as the result of an orchestrated campaign on the part of the power elite. In Levin’s words, “The proponent of…
-
A Discussion With Cryptome
Fascinating interview over at Gawker… Gawker: Snowden told the Guardian that in leaking these documents he wanted to reveal the “architecture of oppression.” You’re both architects—what does that term mean to you? Young: People take it metaphorically, but we think he means the actual, physical infrastructure. That’s how I took…
-
Centered and Whole
Finding new metrics of success is not just for women. It is for women and men who want to be whole, centered, and happy human beings. That means being whole in mind and body, reason and emotion, work and family. It’s time to change the game, for everyone. Anne-Marie Slaughter:…
-
Controlling for Cosmopolis
Jose Ortega y Gasset points out that the term “emperor’ means “the one who goes to where the border begins”. The Latin word is related to the Spanish verb empezar (to begin). An Imperator was a general who kept whole the edges and maybe even expanded them outward. In the Society…
-
Vernor Vinge on Technological Unemployment
What does the future hold, not only for the great hoard of folk who may not keep ahead of the ever-widening techno-chasm, but also the banks of thinkers/creators who have until now been busy at encoding the Book of Life? So you can imagine a civilization in which there are…
-
It’s the actor in the interaction not the internet in the actor
Nice experiment by a gent who left the internet behind for twelve months after being connected in some fashion for thirteen years. I am reminded of how often in a town like Denton or even New York, someone will begin talking about how he or she needs to get the…
-
Iterations: A Youthful Rebellion Against The Permanence Of Facebook’s Walled Garden
Iterations: A Youthful Rebellion Against The Permanence Of Facebook’s Walled Garden These ascendent generations may have a Facebook account for the web and to use Messenger, but they seem to be disinterested in a network where everyone hangs out, where their parents or schoolteachers may be lurking. (To be fair…
-
Rolling Stone on how the Illuminati is maybe not so impossible
Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this…
-
The Unsurprising Rarity of Homo Economicus
“SOVEREIGN in tastes, steely-eyed and point-on in perception of risk, and relentless in maximisation of happiness.” This was Daniel McFadden’s memorable summation, in 2006, of the idea of Everyman held by economists. That this description is unlike any real person was Mr McFadden’s point. The Nobel prizewinning economist at the…
-
How Big Business Robs Us With “Externalities”
A lot of folks go around talking about the efficiency of corporations and businesses based on the size of their profit margins. They often cite this as evidence that these busyness people really know how to do things the right way. If only government could learn how to do the…
-
Before MOOCs, ‘Colleges of the Air’ – The Conversation – The Chronicle of Higher Education
See on Scoop.it – Pahndeepah Perceptions Keith Wayne Brown‘s insight: Karl Jaspers and a number of other professors gave radio lectures and then television lectures. I recall my great friend, Richard Owsley, telling me that while he studied at the University of Chicago in the 1950’s, he used to see…
-
Can We Rethink the World?
I know that we can rethink the world; moreover, I believe that we should. Henry Giroux and Brad Evans are both public intellectuals very well worth engaging. Please let me know what you think. I also recommend learning about the Public Intellectual Project and the Histories of Violence Project. Related articles…
-
Oppression and the Lie of Ommission
The celebrity trolls who currently reign on commercial television, who bill themselves as liberal or conservative, read from the same corporate script. They spin the same court gossip. They ignore what the corporate state wants ignored. They champion what the corporate state wants championed…. The cable shows, whose hyperbolic hosts…
CALL ME MAGGIE 