deconstructing pop

China and Human Rights

2012-02-14T19:16:00.000-08:00

China's leader-in-waiting, Xi Jinping, has defended his country's human rights record, during a visit to Washington.

Amnesty International has documented widespread human rights violations in China. An estimated 500,000 people are currently enduring punitive detention without charge or trial, and millions are unable to access the legal system to seek redress for their grievances. Harassment, surveillance, house arrest, and imprisonment of human rights defenders are on the rise, and censorship of the Internet and other media has grown. Repression of minority groups, including Tibetans, Uighurs and Mongolians, and of Falun Gong practitioners and Christians who practice their religion outside state-sanctioned churches continues. While the recent reinstatement of Supreme People's Court review of death penalty cases may result in lower numbers of executions, China remains the leading executioner in the world.

Dylan Masters of War

2012-02-14T08:00:00.000-08:00

Down to the Masters of War.

A letter from to Jackson Pollock from his Dad

2012-02-05T07:47:00.000-08:00

Dear Son Jack,
Well it has been some time since I received your fine letter. It makes me a bit proud and swelled up to get letters from five young fellows by the names of Charles, Mart, Frank, Sande, and Jack. The letters are so full of life, interest, ambition, and good fellowship. It fills my old heart with gladness and makes me feel ‘Bully.’ Well Jack I was glad to learn how you felt about your summer’s work & your coming school year. The secret of success is concentrating interest in life, interest in sports and good times, interest in your studies, interest in your fellow students, interest in the small things of nature, insects, birds, flowers, leaves, etc. In other words to be fully awake to everything about you & the more you learn the more you can appreciate & get a full measure of joy & happiness out of life. I do not think a young fellow should be too serious, he should be full of the Dickens some times to create a balance.
I think your philosophy on religion is okay. I think every person should think, act & believe according to the dictates of his own conscience without too much pressure from the outside. I too think there is a higher power, a supreme force, a governor, a something that controls the universe. What it is & in what form I do not know. It may be that our intellect or spirit exists in space in some other form after it parts from this body. Nothing is impossible and we know that nothing is destroyed, it only changes chemically. We burn up a house and its contents, we change the form but the same elements exist; gas, vapor, ashes. They are all there just the same.
I had a couple of letters from mother the other day, one written the twelfth and one the fifteenth. Am always glad to get letters from your mother, she is a Dear isn’t she? Your mother and I have been a complete failure financially but if the boys turn out to be good and useful citizens nothing else matters and we know this is happening so why not be jubilant?
The weather up here couldn’t be beat, but I suppose it won’t last always, in fact we are looking forward to some snowstorms and an excuse to come back to the orange belt. I do not know anything about what I will do or if I will have a job when I leave here, but I am not worrying about it because it is no use to worry about what you can’t help, or what you can help, moral ‘don’t worry.’
Write and tell me all about your schoolwork and yourself in general. I will appreciate your confidence.
You no doubt had some hard days on your job at Crestline this summer. I can imagine the steep climbing, the hot weather, etc. But those hard things are what builds character and physic. Well Jack I presume by the time you have read all this you will be mentally fatigued and will need to relax. So goodnight, pleasant dreams and God bless you.
Your affectionate Dad

courtesy of Lapham's Quarterly

The Rolling Stones- Paint it Black

2012-02-02T16:55:00.000-08:00

Jefferson Airplane Somebody To Love/White Rabbit Jefferson Airplane

2012-01-27T15:47:00.000-08:00

2012-01-26T21:01:00.000-08:00

Girl from Ipanema—Moraes & Jobim ♫ Katelijne Van Otterloo

2012-01-25T17:26:00.000-08:00

Janelle Monae - Sincerely Jane (Live)

2012-01-19T12:03:00.001-08:00

Supporting anti-SOPA Blackout day

2012-01-18T07:33:00.000-08:00

The Wreck of the Southern Old 97 (1924)

2012-01-17T15:30:00.000-08:00

Dr. Michio Kaku: "The World in 2030"

2012-01-15T09:19:00.000-08:00

Physics is becoming Popular

2012-01-14T21:03:00.000-08:00

Stop War

2012-01-13T16:47:00.000-08:00

Freedom From War

Mitt Romney a quote from the man who wants to be the next U.S President

2012-01-10T18:25:00.000-08:00

‘I Like Being Able to Fire People’

This is politics.

Henry Cowell

2012-01-05T11:25:00.000-08:00

Dirty Pretty Things - 9 Lives (Love Music Hate Racism album)

2011-12-27T21:05:00.000-08:00

Freedom from Racism

Whos Afriad of Sexual Climax?

2011-12-27T09:11:00.000-08:00

I can remember when this song was causing an uproar, Radio 1 in 1984 pulled the "Relax" single by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Radio 1 had concluded that the lyric "when you're gonna come" referred to sexual climax.

Aphrodite.

Concepts of Freedom

2011-12-26T23:41:00.000-08:00

http://plato.stanford.edu/search/searcher.py?query=freedom

What Is Freedom?

2011-12-26T23:13:00.000-08:00

For the new year I will be posting thought provoking and interesting art works, philosophical texts, music etc. on the concept on freedom.

1984/2012

2011-12-26T22:58:00.000-08:00

Gil Scott Heron

2011-12-26T22:40:00.000-08:00

A good website to keep an eye on the nutters.

2011-12-26T13:19:00.000-08:00

Right Wing Watch

www.rightwingwatch.org

Sounds From Enugu

2011-12-25T18:17:00.000-08:00

My request for an image of Jupiter from a telescope

2011-12-16T18:41:00.000-08:00

William Burroughs thanksgiving prayer

2011-11-24T19:42:00.000-08:00