Thought
Paul Root Wolpe – Ethical Boundaries For Bio-Tech
by Nick Glossop on March 29, 2013
Paul Root Wolpe, of Emory University, does not spend much time making an argument for clear ethical boundaries for the conduct of bio-technology, rather he just lists off some of the more startling greatest hits of the field, and the argument more or less makes itself: bio-luminescent monkeys, bug-bots, robo-rats, animals as donor part farms (mouse ears), computer chips comprised of self-aggregated rat neurons, creatures with neural implants that …
Read the rest
Leave a comment
Cyprus Should Split (With Greece In Tow)
by Nick Glossop on March 27, 2013
…just take a look at what the Eurocrats have done: They say they will loan Cyprus €10 billion provided that the Cypriot government seizes billions in deposits from two private banks. Set aside the ethics of seizing deposits. How can Cyprus repay the loan? According to the CIA factbook Cyprus’ estimated 2012 GDP, at the official Euro exchange rate, is 22.45 billion dollars. At 1.28 dollars to the
Leave a comment
Irish Physics And The Miracle Of Guinness
by Nick Glossop on March 17, 2013
The universe, so say the bloody physicists, is foam, and the most perfect foam known to man, and made by man, sits atop a pint of Guinness stout. Go and have one, stare into it and contemplate its Hegelian proof; Man apprehends the universe, man creates the universe, man drinks it up (and falls down).
Via Open Culture…
Read the rest
Leave a comment
Going Underground
by Malcolm Parker on March 14, 2013
I was reading John Jeremiah Sullivan’s essay, Unnamed Caves, about Native American cave art in Tennessee, from his fantastic collection, Pulphead. He describes a plateau riddled with caverns and tunnels. It is karst topography, soluble bedrock that has been eroded by water worming through. I was familiar with the famous karst landscapes of Halong Bay in Vietnam and the chimneys around Yangshuo, a tourist and climber’s town in nearby province, …
Read the rest
Leave a comment
Folding And Cutting The Space-Time Continuum (with things you probably have around the house)
by Nick Glossop on February 11, 2013
With paper, felt pens, scissors and some unspecified power tools, the charming mathemusician, Vihart, plays Grinderman with the fabric of reality. Dance, critters!
via Open Culture…
Read the rest
Leave a comment
1000 Words, 1000 Days: Day 374 – Your Bizarrely Specific Horoscope – January 8
by Marty Schwartz on January 20, 2013
Good morning, children of the star-spooged cosmos. How are you? It’s okay, it’s okay. Madame Chakra-Lubowitz knows how you are. It’s her job to know how you are. It’s also her job to tell you how you shall be. And you shall be well. Most of you, anyway. Some of you are screwed. But let’s not dwell on that. Let’s unlock the stars, plug into the planets and Facetime the …
Read the rest
Leave a comment
The True Meaning Of Zappadan
by Craig Elliott on December 3, 2012
It’s December 4! Blessed be your Zappadan!
For the uninitiated, Frank Zappa’s birthday is December 21, but he shuffled off this mortal coil on December 4, leaving a seventeen day period of transition between the two for his disciples to bridge in any way that they could. Zealots to the last, they opted to use this period to celebrate Frank Zappa’s life, work and persnickety genius. This is sort …
Read the rest
7 comments
Pussy Riot And Dostoevskian Protest
by Nick Glossop on October 28, 2012
What is Pussy Riot’s ‘Idea’?
Sitting recently in a café in the company of various activists and artists after a cultural event in Moscow, a young and impassioned activist, who had impressed the oppositional milieu with her speeches in recent protest rallies, introduced her friend to me as a ‘Voina group activist and author of Pussy Riot projects’. The unknown author just nodded and continued tapping his iPad. I wondered
2 comments
From Social Democracy to Oblivion
by Andrew Loewen on October 21, 2012
This is part numéro deux of a three-part series using Québec’s mighty student strike as the pivot point between the social-democratic and neoliberal eras of the past and the new historical sequence of Epic Unrest inaugurated by the Global Financial Crisis and the Arab Spring (etc). This second piece builds off the first, which is here.
au Québec
An eastern exodus began years ago as one by one friends …
Read the rest
Leave a comment
1000 Words, 1000 Days: Day 293 – Marking Music Matriculation
by Marty Schwartz on October 21, 2012
When the crosshairs of impending budget cuts find their way to a school board, one of the first programs to catch a bullet is inevitably the arts. Drama classrooms get re-tiled for use as math rooms, easels get boxed up and shipped to more affluent schools, and band instruments get hocked for extra spending cash and/or textbooks that don’t describe the Korean War as “our nation’s next big challenge.” Music …
Read the rest
Leave a comment
A Suite Of Films Poses The Question ~ Why Poverty?
by Nick Glossop on October 19, 2012
Why Poverty? uses film to get people talking about poverty.
We’ve commissioned award-winning film makers to make eight documentaries about poverty, and new and emerging talents to make around 30 short films. The films tackle big issues and pose difficult questions, but they’re also moving, subtle and thought-provoking stories.
They transmit around the world in November 2012, on 62 national broadcasters reaching 500 million people. They’ll be accompanied by events
Leave a comment
