Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Transmission interruptus

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Gentle readers: As of February 24 my Internet Service Provider will go out of business. I am planning to switch to a pay-as-you-go wireless arrangement. However, I must first close out the present account, along with a sizable heating bill, then find the money for a new start-up. I'm enough of a realist to know it could take several weeks. Don't be alarmed. I will return as quickly as I can. HH

Monday, February 22, 2010

Oj, oj...

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Apparently it's riskier to live in Sweden than I realized! (Translation: "Warning! Risk of Jamming. It is dangerous to transport goods in an elevator that lacks an inner-door or -gate.") Now there's even a Facebook group dedicated to "The guy who gets jammed in the elevator by his trash-can." Killen som kläms i hissen mot sin soptunna. It's really very sad.

C5E1B004-40A8-40D5-BE5B-86C299502CD9.jpg Thanks to Anna

Thursday, February 18, 2010

this bitter earth

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well, what fruit it bears

what good is love

that no-one shares



and if my life is like the dust

that hides the glow of a rose

what good am i

heaven only knows



this bitter earth

yes can be so cold



today you are young

too soon you are old

but while a voice within me cries

i'm sure someone may answer my call



and this bitter earth

may not be so bitter after all



A 1960 song made famous by rhythm and blues singer Dinah Washington. Produced by Clyde Otis, it topped the U.S. R&B charts for the week of 25 July 1960 (when I was in the Navy, age 18).


Thanks to Wikipedia and The Art of Memory

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Monday, February 15, 2010

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Apropos of the latter...

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(February 15, 2003 might well) have been the biggest protest in history. A French academic estimated that 35 million people marched on the day, but it may have been many more. The day's protests started in New Zealand and swept round the globe, taking in more than 1000 cities and towns. Australia had its biggest demonstrations in living memory. 200,000 took to the streets of Calcutta. A similar number came out in Damascus. In Mostar in Bosnia, Muslims and Croats united for an anti-war protest. Greek and Turks came together in Cyprus to surround a British base.



The biggest single demo was probably Rome's 3 million strong march, but at least that number marched across Spain, and later well over 1 million demonstrated in the US. Rejkayavik hosted the biggest march anyone could remember. Scientists protested on Ross Island, Antarctica, and there were 15 demos in Brazil.



Days after the demo the New York Times dubbed world public opinion "the second global superpower". The great gatherings of the global justice movement laid the basis for this new kind of international protest. In July 2001, 300,000 people from across Europe marched against the G8 in Genoa, Italy. Earlier in the year the World Social Forum in Brazil had pioneered the idea of the mass international counter-conference, and in January 2002 the decision was made to organise a European Social Forum in Florence, Italy.



Read the whole article at Luna17, and remember the day tomorrow!

Ah, Capitalism...

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This amazing juxtaposition of images found at We Had Faces Then just about sums it up. And we wonder why we have wars!

Friday, February 12, 2010

Farewell

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Lee Alexander McQueen (1969-2010) and his mother, Joyce (-2010).

We cling together, needing

For all the good it does.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Tumblr poem


A sketch a day...

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As part of a birthday present to myself, I got the upgrade to ArtRage 2.0, which makes painting on the computer at last possible (in a price range I can afford). But it's still a question of mimicking the subtlety of hand/pencil gestures with an aged Apple (wired) optical mouse. Pressure-sensative tablets have gotten cheaper and smaller, but only after I've run out of funds, and they're damned hard to find in the middle of the Baltic. So I'll struggle along with what I've got to learn the basic skills - there are surprising levels of complexity in the software now. I'm not displeased with the above, although it seems to be my one and only standard subject these days (la recherche des temps perdu).