the pointillistic
Jewish Cemetery in Hainsfarth, Bavaria. The plot has approximately 291 graves dating from 1850 to 1938.
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photo via flickr/herb_st85 und Der jüdische Friedhof von Hainsfarth.
George Orwell tries to understand what was behind Tolstoy’s relentless hate of Shakespeare. This rare essay was published in Polemic No. 7 (March 1947). I post it here in the entirety. Tremendous! ►click to continue
This blog operates in a vacuum. I traveled a million miles in the past years so I completely lost track of people who read this blog. I no longer know who they are, what they are and especially what they think. The strangers.
Nassim Taleb: “There is this illusion that humans have evolved to fit what we call cultural, social, economic, and technological progress, when in fact the only elements that survive are those that evolve to fit humans.”
I responded: “It’s hard to make this statement when we live in a society where most food is unfit for consumption, most work is unfit for human dignity and the political process is unfit for the 99%.” Evolution is not synonymous with progress, the majority of the evolutionary branches are dead ends. Specifically humans have the unique intelligence to rig the system. They have the special capacity for deception. For example they can flood the market with sugar (religions, etc.) because humans buy (the ultimate argument) sweets.
When a Maasai warrior kills a lion he gets a new name and considered a different person. Everyone should merit a new name, a rebirth and a new perspective while still alive.
We know that people construct elaborate arguments to advance a certain point of view which inevitability has more to do with convincing themselves than the others. Often this “reasoning” is delivered with the impatient emotional intensity. This is a telltale sign that obscures some early wound or a persistent blockage. Here a person departs even from trying to believe his own reasoning, it’s an all-out attempt to hide honest meaning not just from the others but from themselves.
This would the the second appreance of Nigel Farage on this blog. Very entertaining. ►click to continue
June 4, 1942. Dining in the train wagon: Adolf Hitler (left), Finnish Prime Minister Jukka Rangell, President Risto Ryti (back toward the camera), Finnish military commander, Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim (right).
The only known 11 min of unscripted recoding of Hitler occurred at that table. The background:
“On June 4, 1942, Hitler made a surprise visit to Finland in honour of Mannerheim’s 75th birthday. It was less pleasing to Mannerheim and caused some embarrassment. Mannerheim did not want to meet him in his HQ in Mikkeli or in Helsinki, as it would have seemed like an official state visit. The meeting took place near Imatra, in south-eastern Finland, and was arranged in secrecy.
During the visit, an engineer of the Finnish broadcasting company YLE succeeded in recording secretly the first 11 minutes of Hitler’s and Mannerheim’s conversation in the train wagon, before being interrupted by SS bodyguards. It’s the only known recording of Hitler speaking unofficially.” (via ww2incolor)
This recording is simply sensational, available on YouTube with English translation.
Vladimir Rezun writes under the name Viktor Suvorov, he published a book about the history of the WWII called ‘Icebreaker’. Some people consider that book the most important history book about the last century, conversely the book is dismissed by many in the academia (figures…). This recording should add credence to Viktor Suvorov’s thesis. In short Viktor Suvorov writes that Hitler never intended to attack Russia. He was only interested in the “German lands” up to the Baltics. Conversely Stalin only viewed the Nazi invasion in Europe as an “Iceberaker” that opens the way for the Soviet expansion.
This recording seems to confirm Viktor Suvorov’s thesis. Hitler tells Mannerheim that he gathered from talking to Molotov that the Soviet attack was imminent, especially the conquest of the oil fields in Romania and only then Hitler attacked CCCP to preempt the superior, more winter worthy army.
Hitler, Mannerheim and Risto Ryti (President of the Republic of Finland) in Finland 4th June 1942.
I took these photos today in the morning. It’s been unusually warm and the young swans returned to the lake. Normally they are gone by this time of the year. A mysterious bird. ►click to continue
“The protesters realise our post-cold-war settlement is at stake – unlike a political class in thrall to a defunct market utopia” – Guardian:
“Anyone with a smattering of history could see that the hubristic capitalism of the past 20 years was programmed to self-destruct. The notion that the world’s disparate societies could be corralled into a worldwide free market was always a dangerous fantasy. Opening up economies throughout the world meant ordinary people were more directly exposed to the gyrations of market forces than they had been for generations. As it overthrew existing patterns of life and robbed large numbers of people of any security they might have achieved, global capitalism was bound to trigger a powerful blowback.
For as long as it was able to engineer an illusion of increasing prosperity, free-market globalisation was politically invulnerable. When the bubble burst, the actual condition of the majority was laid bare. In the US a plantation-style economy has come into being, with debt-servitude for the many coexisting with extremes of volatile wealth for the few. In Europe the muddled dream of a single currency has resulted in social devastation in Greece, mass unemployment in Spain and other countries, and even, for some, reversion to a life based on barter: sucking society into a vortex of debt deflation, austerity policies are driving a kind of reverse economic development. In many countries a settled bourgeois existence – supposedly the basis of popular capitalism – has become an impossible aspiration. Large numbers are edging closer to poverty and a life without hope.”
P.S. I didn’t realize there was a “post-cold-war settlement”?
The same robot that made appearance on this blog sorting diapers, is in the news again. Here: Robot army helps run warehouses. That bastard actually said about the few workers in that horrible prison that “they are constantly working for us”. I guess interviewing the workers themselves would be superfluous (way to go f.ing CNN). Retched.
The gap between our expectations and the reality
by Ben Atlas on 11.27.2011.11:35am · 0 comments
It would be a cliche to say that misery and pain arise from the gap between our expectations and the reality. A little under the radar is the identity complex, when humans ingest a set of ideas or symbols and demand that the world toe the line of the abstract vision, further inflaming the expectation gap. It’s a struggle and finally a relief to confront the world on world’s terms. It’s harder than most think, because we only recognize(see) what we know already. Still approaching the world as the great master and teacher is supremely rewarding. Some lucky fast-learners are better at this than the others.