métoikos

robertogreco {tumblr}: School for Poetic Computation

Mon, 20 May 2013 06:11:12 -0400

robertogreco {tumblr}: School for Poetic Computation:

My friend Jen Lowe recently announced the School for Poetic Computation.

Our motto is: more poems less demos.

While theirs is a specific craft, the mission statement of SfPC has wide applicability to all places of learning. For example, in the following paragraph, substitute writer with…

"To reach puberty and find oneself falling in love with members of one’s own sex is to experience a..."

Fri, 10 May 2013 22:33:51 -0400

“

To reach puberty and find oneself falling in love with members of one’s own sex is to experience a mixture of self-discovery and self-disgust that never leaves a human consciousness. If the stigma is attached not simply to an obviously random characteristic, such as skin pigmentation, but to the deepest desires of the human heart, then it can eat away at a person’s sense of his own dignity with peculiar ferocity. When a young person confronts her sexuality, she is also completely alone. A young heterosexual black or Latino girl invariably has an existing network of people like her to interpret, support, and explain the emotions she feels when confronting racial prejudice for the first time. But a gay child generally has no one. The very people she would most naturally turn to — the family — may be the very people she is most ashamed in front of.

The stigma attached to sexuality is also different that that attached to race because it attacks the very heart of what makes a human being human: her ability to love and be loved. Even the most vicious persecution of racial minorities allowed, in many cases, for the integrity of the marital bond or the emotional core of a human being. When it did not, when Nazism split husbands from wives, children from parents, when apartheid or slavery broke up familial bonds, it was clear that a particularly noxious form of repression was taking place. But the stigma attached to homosexuality begins with such a repression. It forbids, at a child’s earliest stage of development, the possibility of the highest form of human happiness. It starts with emotional terror and ends with mild social disapproval. It’s no accident that later in life, when many gay people learn to reconnect the bonds of love and sex, they seek to do so in private, even protected from the knowledge of their family.

”

- In his seminal seminal essay published on May 10, 1993, Andrew Sullivan poignantly observes the difference between oppression based on sexual orientation and oppression based on skin color. (via explore-blog)

"It was not until Mr. Lucas was 24 — long after he knew the trust could finance his Ivy League..."

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 09:16:25 -0400

“

It was not until Mr. Lucas was 24 — long after he knew the trust could finance his Ivy League education — that he understood its full monetary value; that was when the Carnation shares were converted into cash after Nestlé bought the company in 1985. It was a shock, suddenly “having a pile of cash that you have no experience in investing,” he said. “That’s a very scary and risk-fraught transition.”

For many American families with wealth, the moment when their children learn how much money they have at their disposal causes profound anxiety. They fear that their children will not know what to do with the money and either squander it or not work as hard as they might otherwise.

”

- What an awful, terrible problem….

These people must be really suffering….

(via bookofdoomed)

bookofdoomed: fuckyesoldhollywood: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:32:41 -0400

bookofdoomed:

fuckyesoldhollywood:

Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and their son Stephen

OMG HOW PRECIOUS IS THIS I CANNOT EVEN

Beats Lindsay Lohan at the defendant’s table….

explore-blog: The great Nina Simone would’ve been 80 today....

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 22:29:22 -0500

explore-blog:

The great Nina Simone would’ve been 80 today. This quietly breathtaking photograph was taken at NYC’s Town Hall in 1959 and is part of William Gottlieb’s photos of jazz icons.

Celebrate Simone’s legacy with Francine Prose’s poignant meditation on the powerful political message in the singer’s “Strange Fruit.”

thepeoplesrecord: Walmart protests gains momentum as hundreds...

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 12:32:22 -0500

thepeoplesrecord:

Walmart protests gains momentum as hundreds of thousands demand action on the retail giant profiting from death
January 19, 2013

This week, thousands across the United States put pressure on retail giant Walmart to stop selling assault weapons and ammunition.

According to an earlier report by The Huffington Post, Walmart is facing “increased criticism for continuing to sell assault weapons” in the wake of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last month.

On Jan. 15, dozens of activists and gun violence survivors gathered for a rally at a Walmart store in Danbury, Conn., and delivered four petitions. With a total of more than 300,000 signatures, the petitions called for the world’s largest retailer to stop selling and advertising assault weapons in stores.

“Walmart is making it easy and appealing to purchase an assault weapon. Assault weapons cause mass murder and should be left for law enforcement and military. Civilians do not need to have any assault weapons in their homes,” writes one Change.org petition. “Advertising is something that creates wants and needs. To create a want for such a weapon only promotes violence.”

More than 113,000 people have signed the Change.org petition so far.

According to a Friday news release, thousands more have stepped forward in the past few days to demand that Walmart pull assault weapons and ammunition from its shelves.

“Since the petition delivery on Tuesday, more then [sic] 10,000 people have taken to Walmart’s Facebook page to register their voices and urge Walmart executives to honor their 2004 pledge and stop selling assault weapons and ammunition,” the release said. “Additionally, organizers from SumofUs.org, MomsRising and Courage Campaign report that more than 2,500 Walmart customers have placed calls to Walmart corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas urging the company to stop selling assault weapons in all of their stores. More calls are expected today and throughout the weekend.”

In an earlier statement printed by Reuters, a Walmart spokesman said that the company has been “very purposeful about striking the right balance between serving… customers that are hunters and sportsmen and ensuring that [the retailer sells] firearms in the most responsible manner possible.” He added that assault weapons are sold only at “locations with a high concentration of hunters and sportsmen.”

After the Sandy Hook tragedy, Walmart reportedly pulled the Bushmaster Patrolman’s Carbine M4A3 Rifle from its website. The Bushmaster rifle, a military-style assault weapon, was one of the guns used by the Newtown school shooter.

But Walmart is said to sell “more firearms and ammunition than any national competitor,” and the retailer has continued to stock its shelves with other assault weapons.

A representative for Walmart declined to comment to HuffPost.

The National Rifle Association (NRA), the country’s largest gun rights group, has long been a vocal opponent of most gun control measures, including a ban on assault weapons. In December, the NRA responded to the Sandy Hook tragedy by suggesting that all schools in the U.S. should have armed guards. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” said NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre during the group’s post-Sandy Hook press conference.

Reactions to the NRA’s position have been mixed. Though many were critical of the gun lobby’s response, the group has reportedly welcomed more than 250,000 new members since the Newtown shooting.

“[Walmart should] stand up to the NRA and listen to their customers and stop selling these guns,” Kaytee Riek, campaign manager at SumofUs, which organized one of the four petitions delivered to Walmart, told The Huffington Post earlier this week.

Source

| Survivalism, Apocalyptic Aggression, and Violence

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 22:46:37 -0500

| Survivalism, Apocalyptic Aggression, and Violence

Photo

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 21:11:24 -0500

Photo

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 17:19:32 -0500

kohenari: Leaders of the National Rifle Association said...

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 16:26:44 -0500

kohenari:

Leaders of the National Rifle Association said Sunday that they would fight any new gun restrictions introduced in Congress, and they made clear that they were not interested in working with President Obama to help develop a broad response to the Connecticut school massacre.

During an appearance on the NBC News program “Meet the Press,” Wayne LaPierre, the vice president of the powerful gun lobby, was openly dismissive of a task force established by Mr. Obama and led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. that is examining ways to reduce gun violence.

One reason that LaPierre is so dismissive of the task force is likely that its stated goal is to reduce gun violence, while his entire career is built on expanding gun violence [Yeah, yeah, go ahead and write nasty messages to me about this]. Of course, that’s not what he’ll say; instead, he casts the task force as an assault on the 2nd Amendment:

“If it’s a panel that’s just going to be made up of a bunch of people that, for the last 20 years, have been trying to destroy the Second Amendment, I’m not interested in sitting on that panel,” Mr. LaPierre said, adding that the “N.R.A. is not going to let people lose the Second Amendment in this country, which is supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people.”

But, as for me, I don’t have any problem with people owning guns or with the 2nd Amendment. In fact, I’d like to see the 2nd Amendment taken far more seriously than LaPierre does. All he cares about is that people go out and buy lots of guns; he doesn’t care one iota about the 2nd Amendment beyond his perception that it keeps him in a job. Personally I think it’s well past time that we worked on regulating the militia demanded by the 2nd Amendment: If you want to own a gun, then you also need to be a member of a well regulated militia. You need to be out there on the weekends, drilling with your compatriots. Every weekend. For hours and hours. Not the occasional trip to the gun club for fun. Not taking apart and cleaning your rifle when you feel like it. All the time. With someone watching over you and giving you directions. And it all needs to be regulated. Not just a little either. Well regulated.

That’s the only way to secure a free state, after all.

laughingsquid: Norman Joseph Woodland (1921-2012), Inventor of...

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:48:59 -0500

laughingsquid:

Norman Joseph Woodland (1921-2012), Inventor of the Barcode

Photo

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:14:54 -0500

Obsessive Composing Disorder: Today at the store, I started a conversation with this couple, basic...

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 21:02:11 -0400

Obsessive Composing Disorder: Today at the store, I started a conversation with this couple, basic...:

obsessivecomposingdisorder:

Today at the store, I started a conversation with this couple, basic questions I ask any customer, but tied it around the large Christmas display we have. After going over a bunch of talking points, we ended up just chatting about the weirdness of our large Christmas display….and then their older…

Mitt Romney’s Fair Share by Joseph E. Stiglitz

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 21:07:03 -0400

Mitt Romney’s Fair Share by Joseph E. Stiglitz :

Conservative politicians in the US underestimate the importance of publicly provided education, technology, and infrastructure. Economies in which government provides these public goods perform far better than those in which it does not.

But public goods must be paid for, and it is imperative that everyone pays their fair share. While there may be disagreement about what that entails, those at the top of the income distribution who pay 15% of their reported income (money accruing in tax shelters in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens may not be reported to US authorities) clearly are not paying their fair share.

There is an old adage that a fish rots from the head. If presidents and those around them do not pay their fair share of taxes, how can we expect that anyone else will? And if no one does, how can we expect to finance the public goods that we need?

"When i was asked to speak with Mitt Romney it seemed like a very important thing to me, and I wanted..."

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 20:40:13 -0400

“

When i was asked to speak with Mitt Romney it seemed like a very important thing to me, and I wanted to put a lot of careful thought into what I would say. So, I went to the round table discussion very optimistic and interested in hearing what he had to say.
When he sat down, one of the first questions he asked was, he said “I understand there is a teacher here today, which one of you is a teacher?”

So, I raised my hand, thinking that’s a good thing, he’s interested in education, but it wasn’t a good thing. I felt like his view was a little old-fashioned and I was surprised by it. He went on to kind of lecture me about schools and how bad they are. He talked bad about the teacher’s union. He was talking about the importance of private schools and voucher systems.

At one point, I said to him, “I have an answer for that.” And he said, “I didn’t ask you a question.”

”

- Cheryl (via bringtheruckuss)

recall-all-republicans-2012: truth-has-a-liberal-bias: republic...

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 07:38:25 -0400

recall-all-republicans-2012:

truth-has-a-liberal-bias:

republicanidiots:

one-angry-liberal:

Things like this make me want to either kill myself or kill someone else. Not really. But you get how mad it makes me.

Allen West is obviously handicapped by stupidity.

This clown got elected in 2010 because too many people stayed home & didn’t vote. The person who had this Congressional seat before Allen West was Ron Klein, a Democrat. Awful people like this are a reminder to us about the importance of voting.

Just a handful of votes could make the difference on Election Day.

Check out a new site loaded with all the information you need to vote

auntada: “New Car” South Richmond, Virginia 1938 Robert...

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 21:32:01 -0400

auntada:

“New Car”

South Richmond, Virginia

1938

Robert McNeill, photographer

from the project The Negro in Virginia

Photo

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 20:48:29 -0400

explore-blog: America’s National Parks as a subway map, adding...

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 21:30:09 -0400

explore-blog:

America’s National Parks as a subway map, adding to these clever uses of subway maps as visual metaphors. Also see Alice in Wonderland as a subway map.

adventures-of-the-blackgang: 1938 Fortune magazine cover (1606...

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:45:43 -0400

adventures-of-the-blackgang:

1938 Fortune magazine cover

(1606 x 2100)