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Happy Anti-Valentines Day!
02.12.2010
07:52 pm
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Creepy in a good way.
 
(via I Heart Pluto)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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02.12.2010
07:52 pm
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Lazy Dog
02.12.2010
07:06 pm
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Posted by Tara McGinley
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02.12.2010
07:06 pm
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Frank Herbert & David Lynch Discuss Dune
02.12.2010
05:31 pm
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There’s not a lot of actual Frank Herbert footage floating around online.  The below publicity interview, audio with pictures, hardly remedies that.  It does, though, offer an opportunity to hear Herbert discussing Dune with David Lynch, director of the film version that nowadays seems equally loathed and loved.  I tend to fall into the later camp.  Script-wise, Dune the movie certainly plods, but there’s no denying Lynch’s visual achievement was as fantastic as it was faithful.

 
Herbert & Lynch on Dune, Part: II, III, IV, V, VI

 

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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02.12.2010
05:31 pm
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Detroit Schools To Offer Walmart 101
02.12.2010
03:46 pm
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It’s hard to read this RawStory article and not think we’ve reached some kind of consumerist event horizon, or that we’re now witnessing some final, absurdist connecting of the dots between education and capitalism.  Back in ‘08, President Obama condemned Hillary Clinton for serving on the board of Walmart, a company notorious for its low-paying, dead-end jobs.

Those same jobs, though, are becoming increasingly welcome in a cities like Detroit where unemployment rate have rocketed up to an alarming 50%.  Well, the Detroit solution seems as sad as it is inevitable:

Four inner-city high schools have decided that employment with Walmart is an opportunity worth training their students to pursue.  The schools have teamed up with the giant merchandiser to offer a for-credit class in job-readiness training that also includes entry-level after-school jobs.  According to the Detroit Free Press, the principal at one of the schools optimistically suggested that “the program will allow students an opportunity to earn money and to be exposed to people from different cultures—since all of the stores are in the suburbs.”

The announcement of the program outraged Donna Stern, the Midwest coordinator for the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN).  “They’re going to train students to be subservient workers” she told the Free Press.  “This is not why parents send them to school.”

Ah, yes, exposing inner-city kids to the “wild diversity” common to all suburban areas, that’s the Walmart goal!

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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02.12.2010
03:46 pm
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Ghanaian Dance Line (1989)
02.12.2010
12:46 pm
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This reminds me of Detroit’s local dance show The Scene. Watch The Scene rock out to Sharevari here.
 
(via HYST)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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02.12.2010
12:46 pm
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Kraftwerk Dolls
02.12.2010
12:47 am
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Kraftwerk dolls by sculptor Dirk Roessler.

Posted by Tara McGinley
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02.12.2010
12:47 am
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John Michael Greer: Becoming a Third World Country
02.11.2010
05:19 pm
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Archdruid John Michael Greer on the slow descent of America to Third World status by the end of the decade.

In the course of writing last week’s Archdruid Report post, I belatedly realized that there’s a very simple way to talk about the scope of the brutal economic contraction now sweeping through American society – a way, furthermore, that might just be able to sidestep both the obsessive belief in progress and the equally obsessive fascination with apocalyptic fantasy that, between them, make up much of what passes for thinking about the future these days. It’s to point out that, over the next decade or so, the United States is going to finish the process of becoming a Third World country.

I say “finish the process,” because we are already most of the way there. What distinguishes the Third World from the privileged industrial minority of the world’s nations? Third World nations import most of their manufactured goods from abroad, while exporting mostly raw materials; that’s been true of the United States for decades now. Third World economies have inadequate domestic capital, and are dependent on loans from abroad; that’s been true of the United States for just about as long. Third World societies are economically burdened by severe problems with public health; the United States ranks dead last for life expectancy among industrial nations, and its rates of infant mortality are on a par with those in Indonesia, so that’s covered. Third World nation are very often governed by kleptocracies – well, let’s not even go there, shall we?

There are, in fact, precisely two things left that differentiate the United States from any other large, overpopulated, impoverished Third World nation. The first is that the average standard of living here, measured either in money or in terms of energy and resource consumption, stands well above Third World levels – in fact, it’s well above the levels of most industrial nations. The second is that the United States has the world’s most expensive and technologically complex military. Those two factors are closely related, and understanding their relationship is crucial in making sense of the end of the “American century” and the decline of the United States to Third World status.

(Archdruid Report: Becoming a Third World Country)

(The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age)

Posted by Jason Louv
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02.11.2010
05:19 pm
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Howard Bloom: Giving America a Vision Implant
02.11.2010
05:10 pm
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Author Howard Bloom on giving America a vision transplant now that our old one has crashed.

The Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 could be a turning point in history. It could be the event that shocks us into a new vision of ourselves, our past, our future, our mission, and our destiny. Or it could be the prelude to a long decline. Will that turning point be for better or for worse? Will it be a new beginning, a new opportunity to see what we’ve achieve with brand new eyes and to build on our foundations brilliantly? Or will it be the end? The beginning of the Chinese Century?

The answer depends on something that may sound totally irrelevant. Our perceptions. Our view of things. Without a vision a people will perish, says Proverbs. Why? Because a vision of a goal, a destination, a promised land, a view of a destiny that can uplift all of human kind, opens a vast reserve of energies. Not the energies that come from solar panels, wind farms, nuclear plants, coal, or oil. The energies of the human spirit. The energies of your spirit and mine.

Energies? Surely that’s just an idle metaphor, sloppy motivational rhetoric, fluffy feel-good poetry. Right? Wrong. The energies I’m talking about are a matter of biology.

(Howard Bloom: Giving America a Vision Implant)

(The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism)

Posted by Jason Louv
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02.11.2010
05:10 pm
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Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe May Be Declared a Disaster
02.11.2010
05:02 pm
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Sad news—the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota are about to be declared a failed reservation. A recent storm disaster flooded much of the reservation, but went completely unnoticed by the media during the mayhem about Haiti.

The first Native Tribe to officially support Barack Obama for president is now waiting for him to declare the reservation a disaster.

According to a Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe (CRST) press release, 3,000 utility poles were downed during recent severe storms. CRST Chairman, Joseph Brings Plenty, has declared a state of emergency.

Thousands of CRST residents have been without water, heat, and electricity for six days as of this morning. Experts relate it may be as long as one month to restore power across the reservation.

Wind-chill factors in central South Dakota have been subzero.

Instructions on helping here.

Posted by Jason Louv
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02.11.2010
05:02 pm
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A Juggalo’s Guide To Parenting
02.11.2010
03:16 pm
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Who’s a wicked baby, right now?!  Who’s a wicked baby?!
 
(via Videogum)

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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02.11.2010
03:16 pm
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