The Spinning Head

I Was Once In Arkansas And Saw These Amazing Photographs Or Finding Treasures In Backwaters

Disfarmer was the name adopted by the man originally named Mike Meyers. As explained on a website that now acts as a link to his archives:

…Mike expressed his discontent with his family and farming by changing his name to Disfarmer. In modern German “meier” means dairy farmer, and since he thought of himself as neither a “Meyer” nor a “farmer,” Mike Meyer became “dis”- farmer. Details »

Published on November 21, 2010 2:55 pm.
Filed under: Photography Tags: On Photography, Photo Technique

Ask Not What The Country Can Do To You But What You Can Do To Yourself

I’ve decided that if the government wants to monitor me that’s fine. But I could do a much better job monitoring myself than anyone else.

Hasan Elahi

Trackingtranscience is a brilliant response by Professor Hasan Elahi, a Bangladeshi-born American citizen, to his detention and interrogation at the hands of Home Land Security and FBI personnel. Professor Elahi was accused by his neighbors for being a 9/11 terrorist (description; dark, Muslim) and later taken off a flight returning from Europe for questioning. The FBI accused him of hoarding explosives in a Florida warehouse. He was subjected to months of interrogations, nine polygraph tests, and left on the ‘watch list’.

So he decided that he will just watch himself and effectively erase all pretence at ‘privacy’. Details »

Published on November 19, 2010 4:21 pm.
Filed under: American And Her Wars Tags: Barack Obama, Islam, Muslims, Terrorism

The European Twist To An American Dance Or European Collaboration In American Crimes

So, my brothers, how is it that we do not understand that we have better things to do than to follow that same Europe? That same Europe where they were never done talking of Man, and where they never stopped proclaiming that they were only anxious for the welfare of Man: today we know with what sufferings humanity has paid for every one of their triumphs of the mind…When I search for Man in the technique and the style of Europe, I see only a succession of negations of man, and an avalanche of murders.

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched Of The Earth Chapter Six Details »

Published on November 16, 2010 1:23 am.
Filed under: American And Her Wars Tags: Crimes Against Humanity, Democracy, Imperialism, Occupation, Terrorism, War Against Terror, War Crimes, Water Boarding

Saying Dangerous Things In Dangerous Times: Roy, Just To Jog Our Memory

I went back to this talk by Arundhati Roy, as I have done many times since it was first given back in 2002. Arundhati Roy is once again in the cross-hairs of the cheerleaders of our modernity, accused of being a narcissist and a seditious traitor. What she has retained is her consistency of principals, her clear sighted commitment to the idea of humanity and arguing for an equal humanity. This talk is from 2002, but listening to it again I am reminded of her intellectual trajectory and the consistency with which she has applied it to the many issues and causes she has spoken out against.

In these dark and dangerous times, a welcome reminder of what it is that we are arguing for in the first place.