Controversial stand: That technology can be green. The book I just finished, “Whole Earth Discipline,” has chapters on why nuclear is green, cities are green, genetic engineering is green. The romantic nature-is-perfect approach is just horse exhaust.
What he drives: A Land Rover LR2. As soon as there’s a good hybrid S.U.V., we’ll get one. We need a mountain vehicle.
(via Stephen Walling)
My work is the product of the convergence of the instantaneous practice of invention and the slow craft of art
I have always believed that my period of most complete expression and appreciation would be my late future and beyond, in Time Phase X, the final phase of Modernism in the Western world. Time Phase X began on September 11, 2001, and will continue for the next one hundred years. My term for this period is “The Bauharoque.” It combines the heroic Modernism of the German Bauhaus, with its aspiration toward a technological Utopia, and the exalted theatricality of the Italian Baroque, in which an exuberance of form and illusion serve to express the mystical union of art and life.
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation: Paul Laffoley
(via Richard Metzger)
The novelist JG Ballard, who conjured up a bleak vision of modern life in a series of powerful novels and short stories published over more than 50 years, died today after a long battle with cancer.
His agent, Margaret Hanbury, said tonight that it was “with great sadness” that the 78-year-old author passed away yesterday morning after years of ill health.
Hanbury, who worked with Ballard for more than 25 years, said he was a “brilliant, powerful” novelist. “JG Ballard has been a giant on the world literary scene for more than 50 years. Following his early novels of the 60s and 70s, his work then reached a wider audience with the publication of Empire of the Sun in 1984 which won several prizes and was made in to a film by Steven Spielberg.
Guardian: Crash author JG Ballard, ‘a giant on the world literary scene’, dies aged 78
The actor told a forum on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, whose attendees included Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, he was not sure “freedom” was necessary.
Chan, 55, whose latest movie, Shinjuku incident, was banned in China, was asked about censorship and restriction on the mainland. He expanded his comments to discuss Chinese society in general.
“I’m not sure if it is good to have freedom or not,” he said. “I’m really confused now. If you are too free, you are like the way Hong Kong is now. It’s very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic.”
He added: “I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we are not being controlled, we’ll just do what we want.”
His comments were applauded by the Chinese audience, but triggered fury in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Telegraph: Jackie Chan says Chinese people need to be ‘controlled’
Update: Chan’s comments may have been intentionally or unintentionally mistranslated.
Can anyone point me to a decent libertarian/laissez faire/Austrian-style/whatever critique of the work of Fernand Braudel and the Annales School and/or Immanuel Wallerstein‘s work and the World System Approach?
I’ve searched the usual suspects: Reason, Cato, and Mises. All I’ve found were a few citations, and some blog comments that mention them. The blog comments were… insubstantial.
Over 1,500 farmers in an Indian state committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure, it was reported today.
The agricultural state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels.
“The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago,” Shatrughan Sahu, a villager in one of the districts, told Down To Earth magazine
“Most of the farmers here are indebted and only God can save the ones who do not have a bore well.”
Mr Sahu lives in a district that recorded 206 farmer suicides last year. Police records for the district add that many deaths occur due to debt and economic distress.
In another village nearby, Beturam Sahu, who owned two acres of land was among those who committed suicide. His crop is yet to be harvested, but his son Lakhnu left to take up a job as a manual labourer.
The Independent: 1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India
(via Cryptogon)
Text messaging graphic pictures of yourself could soon be legal for teens in Vermont.
Lawmakers there are considering a bill that would make it legal for teenagers 18 and under to exchange explicit photos and videos of themselves – an act that’s come to be known by teens as “sexting.”
Under the current law, teenagers could be prosecuted as sex offenders if they get caught sending graphic sexual images of themselves, even if it was consensual.
WCBSTV: Vermont Lawmakers Look To Legalize Teen ‘Sexting’
Link via The Agitator, pic thanks to Bill Whitcomb.
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