Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts

Friday, August 19, 2011

Saturn Devouring His Son

"Saturno devorando a su hijo."


Saturn Devouring His Son is the name given to a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It depicts the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus (in the title Romanised to Saturn), who, fearing that he would be overthrown by his children, ate each one upon their birth. The work is one of the 14 so called Black Paintings that Goya painted directly onto the walls of his house sometime between 1819 and 1823. It was transferred to canvas after Goya's death and has since been held in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. (read more)

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Sunday, May 15, 2011

freedom riders


Freedom riders were civil rights activists that rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decision Boynton v. Virginia (of 1960). The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.

Boynton v. Virginia had outlawed racial segregation in the restaurants and waiting rooms in terminals serving buses that crossed state lines. Five years prior to the Boynton ruling, the Interstate Commerce Commission had issued a ruling in Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company that had explicitly denounced the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of separate but equal in interstate bus travel, but the ICC had failed to enforce its own ruling, and thus Jim Crow travel laws remained in force throughout the South.

The Freedom Riders set out to challenge this status quo by riding various forms of public transportation in the South to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation. The Freedom Rides, and the violent reactions they provoked, bolstered the credibility of the American Civil Rights Movement and called national attention to the violent disregard for the law that was used to enforce segregation in the southern United States. Riders were arrested for trespassing, unlawful assembly, and violating state and local Jim Crow laws, along with other alleged offenses.

Most of the subsequent rides were sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), while others belonged to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced "Snick"). The Freedom Rides followed on the heels of dramatic sit-ins against segregated lunch counters conducted by students and youth throughout the South and boycotts beginning in 1960.

The United States Supreme Court's decision in Boynton v. Virginia granted interstate travelers the legal right to disregard local segregation ordinances regarding interstate transportation facilities. But the Freedom Riders' rights were not enforced, and their actions were considered criminal acts throughout most of the South. For example, upon the Riders' arrival in Mississippi, their journey ended with imprisonment for exercising their legal rights in interstate travel. Similar arrests took place in other Southern cities.
(read more) (american experience)

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Eric Arthur Blair - 1984


Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense, revolutionary opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism.

Considered perhaps the twentieth century's best chronicler of English culture, Orwell wrote fiction, polemical journalism, literary criticism and poetry. He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945). They have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author. His Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, together with his numerous essays on politics, literature, language and culture, are widely acclaimed.

Orwell's influence on contemporary culture, popular and political, continues. Several of his neologisms, along with the term Orwellian, now a byword for any draconian or manipulative social phenomenon or concept inimical to a free society, have entered the vernacular. (read more)

"Nineteen Eighty-Four"


Monday, April 11, 2011

Human Rights Watch


The Chinese government should immediately release the artist and outspoken critic Ai Weiwei and end its arbitrary crackdown on dissent, Human Rights Watch said today.

Ai was arrested at Beijing airport on the morning of April 2, 2011, as he was about to board a flight for Hong Kong. Despite considerable domestic and international attention, the Chinese government has refused to disclose where he is detained or the reasons for his arrest.

Update (April 7): A government spokesperson admitted on April 7 that Ai was under investigation for suspected economic crimes but no legal notification has yet been issued. Incommunicado arrests are often the prelude to criminal prosecutions, Human Rights Watch said.

"The arrest of Ai Weiwei reflects a new escalation in the current and already severe crackdown," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "Only sustained international pressure can help Ai Weiwei now."

On April 6, in what can be read as the first official acknowledgment of Ai's arrest, a newspaper article in the state-run Global Times announced that Ai would "pay a price" for being an activist and that "the law would not concede" to his criticisms of the government.

The government's detention of Ai Weiwei appears to have been carefully planned. On the day he was arrested, Beijing public security officers raided his art studio in the suburbs of Beijing and took eight members of his staff, his wife Lu Qing, and a lawyer friend of Ai's, Liu Xiaoyuan, in for questioning; they were all released later that day. The police seized computers, hard-drives, and other items. State media were instructed not to report on the case, and all references to Ai Weiwei's arrest were censored on internet and popular micro-blogging services such as Weibo, a Twitter clone.

Under Chinese law, the police can hold an individual for up to three days before deciding whether to release him or apply to the prosecutors for an arrest warrant. But invariably the police manipulate exception clauses that allow for up to seven days' and, in limited circumstances, up to 30 days' detention. Police also routinely prevent lawyers from meeting their clients in detention despite legal provisions guaranteeing such access.

Ai's lawyer, the prominent Beijing lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, has so far been unable to see his client, or even to get formal notification of his arrest. Approval of arrest by the prosecutors, a matter of routine in most cases, usually guarantees later indictment, conviction, and punishment, which typically includes a prison sentence. The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Liu Xiaobo, was detained for a year before he was sentenced in December 2009 to an 11-year term of imprisonment for a series of articles published overseas.

"The Chinese authorities appear to be laying the ground for Ai Weiwei's formal arrest," said Richardson. "This is an ominous sign because there are no fair trials of government critics in China."

Since mid-February, the Chinese government has arrested, detained, disappeared, put under house arrest, summoned for interrogation, or threatened with arrest over two hundred people for dissent or peaceful social activism. Six of the country's most prominent human rights lawyers - Teng Biao, Tang Jitian, Jiang Tianyong, Liu Shihui, Tang Jingling, and Li Tiantian - have been "disappeared" by the police and remain at serious risk of torture and ill-treatment.

Four prominent activists, Ran Yunfei, Cheng Wei, Ding Mao, and Li Shuangde, have been formally arrested on state security charges. On March 25, the veteran dissident Liu Xianbin was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment for "incitement to subvert state power." The government has also significantly increased its censorship of internet, forced several liberal newspaper editors to step down, and imposed new restrictions on foreign media reporting in Beijing.

The arrest of Ai, one of the most celebrated Chinese artists, who is currently exhibiting at Tate Modern in London, has prompted a reaction from several foreign governments, with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle calling on China for an "urgent explanation" of his fate. British Foreign Secretary William Hague has called on the government to "urgently clarify Ai's situation and well being." The European Union delegation in Beijing, members of the European Parliament, and the Australian government have also expressed concern. US State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said on April 4 that the government was "deeply concerned."

"Ai Weiwei is a test case for the international community," said Richardson. "The past few years have shown that appeasement and ‘quiet diplomacy' do nothing to dissuade Beijing from cracking down even harder on dissent." (Human Rights Watch)

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei (born 1957) is a Chinese artist, activist, and philosopher, who is also active in architecture, curating, photography, film, and social and cultural criticism.

Ai collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics. Besides showing his art he has been investigating in the corruption and cover-ups under the power of the government.

He was particularly focused at exposing an alleged corruption scandal in the construction of Sichuan schools that collapsed during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. He intensively uses the internet to communicate with people all over China, especially the young generation. (read more)

Friday, March 25, 2011

Stanley Kubrick


Stanley Kubrick (July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career. Kubrick was noted for the scrupulous care with which he chose his subjects, his slow method of working, the variety of genres he worked in, his technical perfectionism, and his reclusiveness about his films and personal life. He maintained almost complete artistic control, making movies according to his own whims and time constraints, but with the rare advantage of big-studio financial support for all his endeavors.

Kubrick's films are characterized by a formal visual style and meticulous attention to detail—his later films often have elements of surrealism and expressionism that eschews structured linear narrative. His films are repeatedly described as slow and methodical, and are often perceived as a reflection of his obsessive and perfectionist nature. A recurring theme in his films is man's inhumanity to man. While often viewed as expressing an ironic pessimism, a few critics feel his films contain a cautious optimism when viewed more carefully.

The film that first brought him attention to many critics was Paths of Glory, the first of three films of his about the dehumanizing effects of war. Many of his films at first got a lukewarm reception, only to be years later acclaimed as masterpieces that had a seminal influence on many later generations of film-makers. Considered especially groundbreaking was 2001: A Space Odyssey noted for being both one of the most scientifically realistic and visually innovative science-fiction films ever made while maintaining an enigmatic non-linear storyline. He voluntarily withdrew his film A Clockwork Orange from England, after it was accused of inspiring copycat crimes which in turn resulted in threats against Kubrick's family. His films were largely successful at the box-office, although Barry Lyndon performed poorly in the United States. Living authors Anthony Burgess and Stephen King were both unhappy with Kubrick's adaptations of their novels A Clockwork Orange and The Shining respectively, and both authors were engaged with subsequent adaptations. All of Kubrick's films from the mid-1950s to his death except for The Shining were nominated for Oscars, Golden Globes, or BAFTAs. Although he was nominated for an Academy Award as a screenwriter and director on several occasions, his only personal win was for the special effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Even though all of his films, apart from the first two, were adapted from novels or short stories, his works have been described by Jason Ankeny and others as "original and visionary". Although some critics, notably Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael, frequently disparaged Kubrick's work, Ankeny describes Kubrick as one of the most "universally acclaimed and influential directors of the postwar era" with a "standing unique among the filmmakers of his day."

A Clockwork Orange

Thursday, February 3, 2011

insane


"You're insane !...

no...

insanity is wasting your life with the nothing...

when you have the blood of a killer in your veins...

insanity is being shit on, beat down, coasting through life...

in a miserable existence when you have a caged lion locked inside...

and the key to release it..."

(wanted)

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Egypt...remember Mahatma Gandhi


"Civil disobedience


becomes a sacred duty


when the state has become


lawless and corrupt"



...Mahatma Gandhi...

Friday, January 14, 2011

crazy

"You have to be crazy...

to live in an insane world.