January 2010
37 posts
“the middle east is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.”
– president george w. bush barack obama, taken aback by a question from a young arab-american (who volunteered on his campaign!) about the hypocrisy of the human rights portion of his state of the union speech vis-à-vis israel and egypt’s violations of occupied palestinians. obama was not...
Watchmeet alfred “the magistrate” baloyi, south africa’s most hardcore footy fan and the original makarapa don-dada.
Alfred “Magistrate” Baloyi - from an informal settlement near Edenvale, east of Johannesburg - made the first makarapa in 1970 to protect spectators from being hit by bottles.
Gradually, while still keeping its original protective purpose, the helmet has...
“i’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”
– j.d. salinger, franny and zooey
actually, i thought obama’s speech was pretty good. some of the policy stuff was bullshit, but it largely succeeded in tone and persuasiveness. calling people out, including himself and his spineless party, worked for me. interesting that in a 80 minute speech less than 10 minutes was devoted to foreign policy. also, remember that other guy* we are used to giving state of the union speeches?...
howard zinn, rip
Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and a leading faculty critic of BU president John Silber, died of a heart attack today in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling, his family said. He was 87.
wow. i’m absolutely speechless. i just posted, yesterday, what may have been his last interview. i was...
heavy rotation...
nneka - concrete jungle
poetic. sexy. sorrow tears and blood. crush-inducing.
beach house - teen dream
lush. majestic. stuck-in-my-head-for-a-week.
mobb deep - hell on earth
brutal. dark. ninety-six strike back with more hot shit. queens.
yeasayer - odd blood
180. bizarre. synth-y. psychotropic. left-field.
bibio - ambivalence avenue
boards of canada x elliott smith...
howard zinn on haiti
Haiti is one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. foreign policy because Haiti is a neighbor (as is Cuba, where a similar relationship has persisted) and we have treated Haiti with cruelty all through our history. When it became the first independent black Republic in this hemisphere, defeating the Napoleonic army, the administration of Thomas Jefferson (ironically, author of our Declaration of...
“when the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be...”
– eric cantona
مطر (rain)
“if water is for the plants to grow, why does it rain over cities?’
from lebanese artist jana traboulsi’s great blog, published in as-safir newspaper and based on the rachid el daif poem.
notaqueensphotoblog:
beach house - lover of...
kerouac in the D
Though Kerouac lived only a few months in Grosse Pointe, he made trips back to Detroit in search of Edie, of lost love and a friend’s company with whom he could recall days past — events that give us insight into the foibles and vulnerability of the young artist before he found fame as the “King of the Beats.”
fascinating story in this week’s metro times about...
Israel has without question been in dire need of an image makeover. They got it: for better or worse, Israel has received its public relations knight in shining armor in the form of an earthquake in Haiti. … But while praising Israel’s response, critics say Israeli attempts to accent their aid to Haiti have been over-the-top, and accuse Israeli public relations officials of...
obama surge...
The military is increasingly relying on private security contractors as President Obama ramps up the war in Afghanistan, with contractors now making up as much as 30% of the armed force in the country, a just-released congressional report shows.
In the period roughly tracking with President Obama’s first nine months in office, the number of Defense Department armed security contractors...
“because life is a show, the system promises those who behave themselves a...”
– eduardo galeano, the book of embraces
We saw this type of Iraq-style disaster profiteering in New Orleans and you can expect to see a lot more of this in Haiti over the coming days, weeks and months. Private security companies are seeing big dollar signs in Haiti thanks in no small part to the media hype about “looters.” After Katrina, the number of private security companies registered (and unregistered) multiplied overnight....
mlk marching down woodward ave. in detroit, 1963.
Now in order to do this, we must answer and deal with one or two myths that are still disseminated and often block powerful social action in order to grapple with the evils of society. One argument is the myth of time. This myth says in substance that only time can solve problems that we face in the area of human relations. So there are those...
stephen marley - iron bars (feat. julian marley,...
“as time goes by, as time goes by, the whip-crack of the years, the precipice of...”
– roberto bolaño, by night in chile
أهلا وسهلا
i’m very proud to announce that an amazing piece my mom recently submitted to the arab-american national museum was selected this week to be part of their permanent (!) collection.
it will be one of the 9 works of art in the ‘living in america’ exhibit.
it’s my great-grandmother from south lebanon outside of her house on detroit’s east side, and says ‘welcome.’ i...
real estate - beach comber (live on the radio...
Peruvian women, in ‘fulbito Andino,’ find light in...
Football, womanhood, earth. These concerns merged at the six-team finals of Il Campeonato Nacional de Fulbito Femenino de Mujeres Campesinas Conservacionistas-Mamachas 2009, held outside the north concourse of Estadio Nacional “José Díaz.” Arranged by the Agrorural public-works program, which has enlisted more than 4,000 women’s peasant collectives in implementing land reforms, the indigenous...
“it did not take me long to discover that it was my own voice, the voice of my...”
– roberto bolaño, by night in chile
haiti
all peoples are entangled in the net of the world market.
-clr james
im very sad. this is an absolutely terrible situation. first major earthquake in 50 years in the region, climate change anyone?
the un headquarters in port-au-prince is apparently not standing any longer, severely weakening the first response capabilities in mobilizing humanitarian aid and providing security.
quickness is...
missing carlitos, cursing dimitar and men from tampa.
really un soccer?
starting indoor un league soccer tomorrow, forgot how crazy the organization’s legal waivers are. like a team of international legal experts slaved over the intricacies of the language for days on end during some faceless acronym-littered tribunal funded by donor country money as blue helmets fiercely guarded the area from insurgent attacks while said jurists (pictured above) pumped out...
“I don’t think the world has ever asked one country to take responsibility for what happens in another country. Fortunately the majority of the world is not influenced by a warped understanding of the African continent. If there is a war in Kosovo and a World Cup in Germany, no one asks if the World Cup can go on in Germany, everyone understands the war in Kosovo is a war in Kosovo....
tundra in retrograde: 2010 hip-hop mix
hand-picked heaters for freezing urban commutes while idling on above-ground train platforms in the new year.
1. NaS - Queens Get The Money 2. Blue Scholars - Bayani 3. Jay Electronica - Exhibit C 4. Dela & CL Smooth - Multi Barz Of Fury (Remix) 5. J Dilla - The Money 6. J.Period & Nneka - Gypsy/Infamous 7. Main Source - Fakin’ The Funk (Green Lantern Remix) 8....
stylin' and profilin'
the directives are applicable to any travelers, including US CITIZENS, who have passed through one of these 14 countries, or who have taken flights that have originated from these 14 countries.
sweet.
i look forward to a lot of this and full body pat downs/grill sessions in the “arab room” moving forward.
coming back from argentina last year, even with a new passport free from...
Literature can stop my heart and execute me for a moment, allow me to become someone else. It is another chance at history.
(thanks elizabeth!)
“If you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.” —James Pendergraph, former executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Office of State and Local Coordination. From a Nation article on America’s immigration prisons.
via. (via).
i walk past one of these disgusting...
“the underground, my friend, is a world of its own. other humans gaze at the sky,...”
– rawi hage, cockroach
